beep
1yr ago
You should absolutely read Infinite Jest. It's not that long, once you get immersed in it. But this takes time. And because of the "fractal" way in which the book is written, you'll be somewhat confused and out of it for the first 300 or so pages. You just have to push on, and the book will open up to you.
The comment was poorly written and nonsensical. It added even less to the discussion than I usually add. I decided to delete it.
Kamala Harris' campaign, when it started, had a certain freshness to it. I was hopeful. But soon the vibes were off and the coconuts soured.
"kamala IS brat" tried to keep the momentum, but it wasn't enough.
From How Harris won at TikTok but lost the election:
"It's possible this election was decided on TikTok," said Eric Wilson, a Republican strategist who led digital campaigns including Marco Rubio's presidential bid in 2016. "It's just surprising that it wasn't decided for Kamala Harris."
"Pro-Harris videos may have pushed the right cultural buttons and reached the right voters, Wilson said, but if her campaign promises weren't clear and compelling, it's a miss."
"It's clear from election results that the electorate was very concerned about the economy, inflation and immigration," Wilson said. "They wanted substance on those issues. And that just wasn't on offer during brat summer."
Edit: The memes were all semi-ironic. No one was coconut-pilled with a straight face. Is this what's tripping boomer Arjin up?
beep
1yr ago
The Male Feminist as a man seeking absolution: If all or most men behave poorly, then the male feminist's past behaviour is not particularly noteworthy. By subscribing to the most deranged feminist assumptions, the male feminist can morph from a "bad man" to just "a man", or even a "good man", because at least they're willing to fight their deplorable male instincts.
As someone who would call himself a feminist, what's described here is precisely the thinking process of a sex pest. He's receptive to the feminist argument insofar as it absolves him of his sins. He rejects toxic masculinity, and he would call himself reformed, an ally. He is one of the good guys now.
But to say this is to miss the feminists' point entirely. There is no reformation. You are a man, and you, as a man, are inherently a danger to women.
Radical feminism is women's self-defense against biology. It's ultimately a futile effort. But in its radicalness, it horseshoes back into being the only current day social discipline that correctly engages with the biological reality of the sexes.
beep
1yr ago
This is a PSA?
Three months ago I responded to @TowardsPanna's post about data removal services.
In that post I linked to a video by Dan Saltman, the owner of Redact.dev, discussing shady practices in the industry.
It has recently come to light that Dan Saltman is, allegedly, using the Redact.dev database to doxx individuals' private information. Apparently, this is an intimidation tactic to help cover up the accusations made against the political streamer Destiny, who allegedly filmed and distributed non-consensual intimate recordings of multiple women.
No data removal service can be trusted.
Do not use Redact.dev.
Every time I see that blog post, I get irrationally angry.
The author has bad taste and a myopic, illiterate understanding of art and aesthetics, especially in relation to female beauty. There is a fundamental lack of knowledge about mythology, anthropology, psychology, symbolism, female archetypes.
The section on love/fertility goddesses should be a massive red flag. There is no engagement with the mythology surrounding the goddess figures he writes about. And any extrapolation of beauty standards from these mythological figures, without first a correct understanding of the mythos of said figures, is wholly meaningless, surface-level. And you cannot write about sexual archetypes and not mention Camille Paglia. The section on male gaze is laughable. No feminist theory was consulted in writing the piece. No Freud either, nothing. I am asking for the very basics here.
I hate the picture spam. It is dishonest
beep
1yr ago
Putin will sell oil in U.S. dollars
Putin has not explicitly stated whether he will or will not sell oil in U.S. dollars. Due to the sanctions, Russia is actually unable to sell oil in U.S. dollars.
Russia has not sought after and does not seek after rejecting the dollar use, President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club.
"We - Russia in any case - do not reject the dollar and do not intend to do this. We were merely denied of using the dollar as the payment instrument," Putin said. "In my opinion, this is very foolish from the side of US financial authorities because the entire power of the US to date rests on that, on the dollar," he noted.
Russia is not struggling with the US currency but is thinking of creating new instruments in response to new trends of global economic development, he added.
beep
1yr ago
Most results I see are from the last 24 hours. Could be Google running A/B tests, or maybe the constant election updates are affecting search rankings. Doubt it's anything malicious though.
beep
1yr ago
Yes, that’s it. Thank you.
The article refused to show up in my Google search results, even though I literally searched for 'shadow,' 'Trump,' 'election.' Those same keywords worked last week. Yandex finds it, though.
beep
1yr ago
Does anyone have the article about how the deep state saved America by resisting during the Trump presidency in 2016? It was written from a pro-establishment, liberal point of view and was published by The Atlantic or a similar publication. I can’t seem to find it on Google anymore
"Bayesian" has been the hot new word in my (non-rat) part of the internet for the last few years! And now I'm starting to hear rationalist argot in real life, which feels surreal.
The core of any FPS game is mouse control. You need to react quickly, flick your crosshair onto the enemy's head, and shoot before they shoot you. All else being equal, the player with better aim will always win.
With the rise of games that demand this kind of precise aiming (eg., Overwatch and competitive Fortnite), a demand for synthetic aim trainers also emerged. The goal of these trainers is to improve your "raw" aiming abilities, that is, hand-eye coordination and fine muscle control, skills that can transfer from one FPS game to another.
In aim trainers like KovaaK's or Aimlabs (the two most popular), you choose from a variety of scenarios, each designed to target a specific aspect of your aim. In one scenario, you stand in a greybox room and shoot static balls that appear on those grey walls. In another, you shoot moving balls, still in that same grey room. Three, four, five balls. Or you track those balls instead.
The choice of scenario depends on the aim mechanic you're trying to improve. Training routines for Dynamic vs. Static clicking or Precise vs. Reactive tracking, for instance, will vary greatly.
It's like targeting a muscle group in the gym.
The idea is to use an aim trainer as a tool to help you get better in the actual game that you're playing. But a subset of people will just never leave the aim trainer. They enjoy grinding these benchmarks for hours on end, trying to beat their own high scores. It's addicting.
It is somewhat comparable to those who get very good at solving Leetcode problems, but struggle with applying these skills practically.
Artisan mousepads are very popular in the aim community. They're pricey, but the quality is good. And in terms of mice, the current trend is for ever lighter, smaller models. The zerømouse is an extreme example, but it's indicative of the general trend. Mouse preference depends entirely on your needs. Unless you're playing aim-intensive movement shooters, there's absolutely no reason to get a 26-gram gaming mouse. That said, the Logitech G Pro X Superlight is regarded as a good all-around mouse. At 63 grams, it's still lighter than most mice out there, and I think it will work great for most people and most use cases.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=AXfZ8remiDE
This video is exactly about this. The guy is promoting his (future) business, but what he’s saying still holds true.
I wouldn’t trust data broker removal services.
For these services to remove your information from the internet, you first have to give them all your details.
Then, they either spam companies with emails requesting that the pages be removed or outsource the form filling to Indians or Pakistanis.
They also usually take down your info from completely irrelevant websites that Google doesn’t even index. To actually get the results you want, you’d have to pay for their more expensive tiers or whatever.
People are throwing every kind of insult at Kamala to see what sticks. Many are very sexist and very racist, which I imagine would push any non-misogynistic, non-racist moderate away from voting Republican. It's all pretty vile, but workshopping takes time. I'm sure Trump will eventually come up with something.
With Kamala as the Democratic nominee, Trump will have to pivot in his rhetoric. He was already pretty mellow in his debate with Biden, at least compared to his usual self. The assassination attempt reportedly mellowed him out even further. His RNC speech had to be scrapped and re-written with unity as the central theme.
But Trump's platform of unity lasted only a week. I believe that unity is no longer a working, winning strategy now that Biden is gone.
beep
1yr ago
So going by the Home Depot lady’s logic (or rather, your logic): she is part of the problem responsible for the current state of political affairs. She fucked around and found out. Her losing her job is only fair.
No, OP said that expressing political opinions should not get you fired. This is the assumption we're operating from.
The only discussion we can have here is whether or not wishing the death of a political figure is tantamount to violence. (It's not)
This one includes an implied threat of violence. I don’t think it’s that hard to follow.
If it’s not that hard to follow, please explain it to me, because I don’t see any implied threat of violence here.
beep
1yr ago
businesses are perfectly free to have policies that forbid violence or threats of violence
There was no actual violence or even incitement of violence in what the Home Depot lady said. You implicitly acknowledged this by making your hypothetical non-political since wishing a politician's death is just another political opinion.
If the person she posted about wasn’t famous in any way, would you still see it as “just an opinion?”
Trump is not just any person. This comparison doesn't make sense because Trump is literally the presidential nominee. The opinion expressed about Trump's shooting is a political one.
You specifically stated that political expression should be tolerated. If you were to adhere to monarchist, communist, or Nazi beliefs, you would be advocating for even more violence. And this would be actual violence, not just wishing someone be dead.
To make the equivocation you want to make, this "drunk uncle" would have to be himself at fault for getting robbed. The uncle, after getting drunk at the local pub, looking for a fight, approached some guy on the street. But he messed with the wrong guy and got himself robbed at gunpoint.
What your hypothetical person would say is, "fuck around and find out." Because this is what many liberals believe.
The Home Depot lady, like many liberals, likely believes that Trump is a threat to democracy and that he is responsible for the current state of political affairs. Trump is at fault for destabilizing politics and, consequently, almost getting himself assassinated.
From this point of view then, it makes sense to wish that the sniper had not missed. Trump fucked around and found out (almost). It would have only been fair.
beep
1yr ago
Being a communist will upset some customers too; however, it shouldn't get you fired. OP stated that employees' political expression should be protected as long as it doesn't "affect your ability to do your actual job":
I think not only should it not get you fired, but it should be protected with the same sort of rules that religion gets — you shouldn’t be able to fire liberals or conservatives for simply stating something you disagree with...
I do not think that the Home Depot lady's opinions affected her job performance. If, instead of saying that the shooter shouldn't have missed, she had expressed literally any other political opinion, I assume OP would have defended her.
But OP's standards for who to fire suddenly change here. This political expression is out of bounds. But why?
Politics will inevitably make some customers uncomfortable. If you decide that employees have the right to express their political opinions, then you, as an employer and business owner, will have to just suck it up and deal with the uncomfortable customers.
Yeah. Saying, "too bad the shooter missed" isn't incitement, so the employee shouldn't be fired.
beep
1yr ago
Having said all that “too bad the shooter missed” isn’t political, it’s condoning violence.
I disagree. Wanting Trump dead is political. But a line has to be drawn somewhere, and you draw it here. I feel it's arbitrary.
If political expressions of employees should be defended, then even the wackiest of nutjobs should be safe from getting fired.
What is uniquely bad about violence? Would you say that violence is an assault on the system that protects freedom of expression and freedom of political affiliation? That because the employee rejects this system, he no longer deserves its protection?
But what if the employee is a rabid monarchist, a communist, or Nazi? The explicit aim of these ideologies is to dismantle the current democratic system, to overthrow the government, and to impose authoritarian rule. Fired?
Europe is divided along ethnic lines. Germany is where Germans live, France is where French people live, Poland is for the Poles.
And then there is civic nationalism and unnatural borders. Civic nationalism is the hellish melting pot of the US&A. Its borders do not matter because they're arbitrary. They happen to be what they are. But there are no Americans, really, to draw the borders around. And there are no Canadians either.
Unnatural borders are what we see in Africa and much of the third world. They are marks of colonialism. Straight lines on maps, drawn with a disregard for the people. Then, ethnic conflict is present, always.
There are only a few exceptions where unnaturally drawn borders hold despite differences in ethnicity. Singapore, Switzerland, UAE, etc. But these exceptions are of mutual economic and political benefit. They exist only in prosperity. Money holds them together.
But even here, why does Denmark have a say over Greenland? Ukraine over Donbass? Or Canada over Quebec? Outside the current legalistic status quo, I don't think they have a claim over those ethnically distinct regions.
Borders should be drawn around an ethnos. But there is no Canadian ethnicity. It's only a matter of time before that particular politico-economical assemblage dissolves or is subsumed by some other larger entity.
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