firmamenti
1yr ago
I live in a 15 minute hellhole. There are probably a dozen coffee shops within a 15 minute walk, almost as many churches, a bunch of drug stores, some clothing stores, infinite amounts of restaurants
It’s early morning here and I can hear the light rail’s grating, electronic simulation of a bell dinging and angrily bleating at cars as it rumbles past my house. It’s morning, but dark in my house because of the blackout shades I had to install after my city switched to dystopian white LED flood lights to “prevent crime”. All night long people literally drag raced up and down my street reaching speeds of >100mph directly in front of my house.
I used to sit on my front porch every night and chat with neighbors as they walked by, but these days the neighbors mostly sit in their own houses, rightfully fearful of the homeless drug addicted schizophrenics who have laid claim to the sidewalks here.
No I do not love my 15 minute city. Tear out this god awful light rail, it does nothing but bring crime to the neighborhood, tear down ALL of the streetlights, start enforcing the laws against open drug use, and speeding, and maybe then this city would be enjoyable.
But the same people who advocate 15 minute cities seem to think these horrifying hell demons are virtues, not things to be overcome, so no I do not want to give them any power. If they want to build their childish utopia, they can do so out in the desert from scratch. Stop ruining cities.
Simply: lots of work by libs is a sort of gay conversion therapy for straight people. Pride parades, public school education, pride month, trans day of visibility etc. all exist to glorify homosexuality and, explicitly to help straight people easily “come out of the closet” as gay.
I don’t expect ideological consistency here, but it should be obvious that this implies the reverse should be true. Could you be a closeted…normie? I feel like many people go through this transition in their 30s anyway. They have children, regret not doing it earlier, move to the suburbs, and take the grill pill.
I think if we are going to have actual IRL trans/sterilization clinics for children, then at the very least straight people should be allowed to have therapy sessions where they talk about how they wish they werent gay.
Edit: it’s annoying to say this so forgive me but I just feel the need to say it: I have 0 problem with gay people. Many of my closest, and most loved friends are happily married gay people who just want to be left alone to have their families. They’re loving fathers, and seriously cherished members of my community. It routinely brings me to tears thinking about people being mean to them, and I end up feel a sort of parental desire to protect them from the world. I understand why they hear gay conversion therapy and instinctively recoil, but this is approximately how I think most people feel when they hear about trans conversion clinics, or children at pride events.
firmamenti
7mo ago
The fact that Gavin Newsome is even considering a presidential run and that there are people who think this is a good idea is a massive black pill for me.
California has got a practically divine set of advantages:
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Some of the best geography in the world. Temperate climate, massive mountains which create plenty of fresh water for both the coastal cities as well as the extremely fertile central valley.
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A massive coastline
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The 20th century saw Entertainment and tech, some of the most lucrative industries in our country, base themselves in California.
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Not much in the way of natural disasters. Some earthquakes and wildfires, but the wildfires are arguably California's fault, and the earthquakes dont' seem to be much of a problem for a 21st century city.
Despite having the money for it, the desire for it, and near total control of the government meaning free rein with the funding to pursue basically any policy they want, California feels like a failing civilization. Californians and the politicians they elect have squandered the biggest head start of anybody ever, and still instead of reflecting on their obvious failures of their ridiculous policies, they just keep doubling down.
firmamenti
11mo ago
First of all, I absolutely love that movie. I think it works because the schtick of “Famous story but told differently” is acknowledged and core to the work.
If somebody made Lord of the Rings, but did it in a modern setting, with a diverse cast, and it took place in New York City, I think people would accept it (mostly). Similarly if you did lord of the rings, but it took place in the Congo, I think people would like that (I would).
Sorry for the doomer take, but I don't see a solution to this. NAFTA, unchecked immigration, the sexual revolution and its consequences, and constant race baiting is collapsing our society.
The problem isn't guns, the problem is that there are millions of disaffected people living in a country founded on the idea of individual human rights. That works when the people are hyper-invested in their families and the future that they'll be living in; that doesn't work when everybody is depressed and hates each other. No amount of restrictions or "doing something" is going to change that.
How do you solve the problem? I don't know, man. Maybe it's something [not so] simple like: Make everybody go back to church, bring the jobs back, undo the social problems created due to the sexual revolution, and encourage people to create families (but like I said, get people back in church, preferably a Catholic church).
How many of these mass shooters have been men living with a wife and kids? 0?
I think that a program to make angry young man with no sense of hope about the future and an intense hatred of the present care more about the future and have some investment in the present might work better than constant kvetching and trampling on human rights. In fact, I suspect that more trampling on human rights will probably make the problem worse.
But hey: it's only the future. Not that big of a deal, right? Let's let some dorky lawyers and political grifters figure it out, they've been doing a really good job on everything else! Hey maybe we can get a McKinsey consultant on the job!
Well, hold on a second: I obviously disagree with this person, their methodology, and even the conclusion from what are in my opinion poorly constructed polling.
But: is it in an insult to call her a whore? Isn't that...her job?
Instead, try just not reading threads that are of no interest to you.
This thread, as well as the phenomenon of people it rat-spaces developing this much of a blindspot is incredibly interesting to me, whic is probably why I've responded to both things with similar criticism.
Ymeshukeut or however you spell his username is obviously very critical of any criticism of the 2020 election and has been since when we were still on /r/ssc. Do you make mod posts telling him to just avoid the topic? If not why not?
I was previously "dinged" for being overly concise, so I expanded my point substantially. I understand that you disagree with the conclusion, but I don't think it's fair to imply that it is unacceptable to be critical of this person and her polls.
Aging whore asks her simps if they are happily married, finds out that they would rather pay her for secks than pursue meaningful relationships with their wives.
This is what you appear to object to. I can restate it as: "a person who sells a product is losing access to the product and has switched to writing about why fans of her product are anti-fans of other products", but that seems...unnecessarily vague.
firmamenti
1yr ago
There was a hearing today in the house about the origins of covid19: https://youtube.com/watch?v=aXXWRaM-sWQ
I highly recommend watching this. The level of gaslighting being done by the "bat soup" conspiracy theorists here is absolutely a spectacle. I feel like we are watching a narrative being generated in real time here.
Jamie Raskin's seething is particularly incredible. He is now claiming that Covid was Trump's fault because Trump was being too nice to China, and was too nice to Xi. They are continuing on now that The Republicans, and their "conspiracy theories" about covid origins have caused people to lose trust in institutions.
I'm almost at a loss for words at watching this. Absolutely incredible.
They're now saying that this entire hearing is invalid because one of the witnesses wrote this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Troublesome_Inheritance?useskin=vector&useskin=vector
firmamenti
1yr ago
Your "simple point" basically boils down to:
"I can change reality by personally redefining the definition of words and then insisting that is what people mean when they use them"
My simple response is:
"No you can't."
Your point is a bad point. You're doing the exact same thing that sovereign citizens do, which I think is an interesting observation. You cannot change reality by changing the definition of a word which was created to describe that reality.
Here's another example of somebody doing the same thing: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mt6Hfiyj3Tg&t=256s
In this case, he is redefining words like "credit" to mean something other than the thing they are meant to describe. You don't get to personally redefine "woman" or "gender" or "sex" or anything else and then insist that reality reflect that and that people not sharing in your redefinition rotate their reality to match yours.
firmamenti
3mo ago
This entire discussion is just painfully terminally online.
My experience is that nobody who spends the majority of their time in meatspace is thinking about this stuff. The weirdo conservatives you see online are just as rare in real life as the weirdo antiwork type communists you see online. Yeah there are weirdo conservatives...but the guy wearing a MAGA hat at this point is considered a weirdo even by his conservative friends, unless he lives in an extremely rural area. Most cons just want the economy to go back to the way it was, and wand their kids left alone.
firmamenti
5mo ago
Charitably: the pope is trying to engage with sinners and help them return to the light.
Christ didn’t hang out with prostitutes because he thought being a prostitute was a good thing.
This should be an incredibly interesting discussion for anybody following this topic: https://twitter.com/lexfridman/status/1712170815637061914
This is Lex Fridman interviewing Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner is interesting on his own, and as an advisor to President Trump, but what makes him really interesting given the topic at hand today is the role that he had in negotiating The Abraham Accords: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords?useskin=vector
The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements on Arab–Israeli normalization signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on September 15, 2020.[1][2] Mediated by the United States, the initial announcement of August 13, 2020, concerned only Israel and the United Arab Emirates before the announcement of a follow-up agreement between Israel and Bahrain on September 11, 2020. On September 15, 2020, the official signing ceremony for the first iteration of the Abraham Accords was hosted by the Trump administration at the White House.[3] As part of the dual agreements, both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain recognized Israel's sovereignty, enabling the establishment of full diplomatic relations.
The Trump administration had normalization between Israel and Palestine as one of its primary policy goals, and they actually (via the Abraham Accords) made real progress towards it. It's a tragedy that they weren't able to keep working on this. I strongly suspect that this, (as well as [not to get too far off topic here], Biden's multiple absolute foreign policy embarrassments) will be a major issue in the coming 2024 elections. I think that the reality is that the world really was a much safer, much more peaceful, much more prosperous place under the Trump administration (although not domestically, given the Floyd riots). The guy being interviewed here, like him or not, seems to have had a role in making that happen.
And as a complete aside: my absolute dream podcast guest on Lex Fridman would be Steve Bannon. I strongly suspect that Trump is largely a creation of Bannon, and hearing a long form interview with him would be absolutely fascinating. If you need an introduction to Bannon, here's a talk, as well as substantial Q&A that he did at the Oxford Student Union 4 years ago: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8AtOw-xyMo8
Anyway, this is all related. Kushner definitely has some interesting things to say about the current crisis.
edit: not to sneer, but god damn this is depressing: https://old.reddit.com/r/lexfridman/comments/175kl5e/jared_kushner_israel_palestine_hamas_gaza_iran/
This is the /r/lexfridman discussion about this podcast. Nearly every one of these top comments are some version of "what the hell does Jared Kushner have to say about anything?" - Lex Fridman's audience I suspect thinks of themselves as above average intelligence and doesn't even have basic knowledge of this topic they're all talking so confidently about. Insane.
firmamenti
1yr ago
Rachel Vindman: https://twitter.com/natsechobbyist/status/1641585602146496518
I was wondering if you’re still an antisemite. Thanks for letting us know you are and have no intention to back down.
Seriously what the fuck is it with this stuff? In what conceivable way is him saying he won't extradite Trump "anti semitic"?
firmamenti
1yr ago
I think that the internet has really, really broken this man's mind.
So the charge is that he, an adult man, tried to convince adult women to engage in consensual sex with him?
I’m getting sick of this thing where every shot a guy takes which doesn’t land is somehow seen as a sexual assault. Do people realize that women have agency as well, and also engage in these sorts of fantasy? “Oh no I guess I have to sleep in this bed with this big strong man who is out here saving the children for the sake of the mission” is the plot of like 90% of female targeted erotica. “We had to shower together to convince the cartel that we were married” sounds like it was literally written by a female erotica writer.
Human adults have sex with each other. Sometimes there is a period of courtship. Sometimes, and in fact just due to pure statistical reality, most times that courtship fails.
That is not a scandal.
The scandal is that these people just cannot understand that the scandal is the fact that adults want to engage in sexual activity with CHILDREN.
Go to a drag show? No problem. You do you.
Go to a drag show, with children? Problem.
Engage in a gender fetish? No problem. You do you.
Engage in a gender fetish with children? Problem.
Make erotic literature? No problem. You do you.
Make erotic literature for children? Problem.
The scandal is that these maybe actual pedophiles don’t understand the demarcation between “sexual activity among consenting adults” and “sexual activity with children.”
firmamenti
1yr ago
This is profoundly depressing.
36 years old. You’re not having 3 kids unless start today, with no courtship, and absolutely turn and burn on the pregnancies (likely against the recommendation of your doctor).
This really highlights the asymmetry in dating. The type of guy she is wanting to “settle down” with is extremely high value.
I only say these things as a warning: if you want to avoid this you have to start NOW. Don’t plan on “settling down” later. You need to be “settling down” in your early 20s.
firmamenti
1yr ago
Find a cheap golfcourse near you, and go to the driving range (which is where golfers go to practice).
When you get there, you are going to look for the "pro shop" (this is a place that will have stuff for sale like clubs, shirts, etc. You can buy stuff from here, but...I wouldn't, unless you are buying stuff that has the course's branding on it and you want it as a sort of souvenir).
Tell them you want a bucket of balls. There is usually going to be two sizes, either small or large. Get a small one.
They will either hand you a bucket of balls, or a receipt that has a number on it. If they give you a receipt you take this to a machine near the driving range which will dispense the balls into a bucket for you.
In the driving range area, you'll see some sort of markers that show you where each individual person should stand while they hit their balls. Stand between the markers.
There are also tons of videos on youtube that will instruct you on things like how to grip the club (which is pretty important!).
Start with a club like a 9 iron[1]. Hit the ball much, MUCH more gently than you think you should. I'd highly recommend just swinging the club pretty slowly and concentrating on making contact with the ball. Seriously, how hard you hit the ball has way less of an effect than it would seem (this is counterintuitive).
When you're done with this, go back to the club house and sit at the crappy little restaurant they have a drink a beer. Congratulations, now you're a golfer!
Here's an intro golf lesson video you could watch that covers how to grip the club, etc: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1iOa2ZwGhbU
[1]: There are essentially two types of clubs. "Irons" and "Woods", so named because of the materials they used to be made from. Irons are smaller and wedge shaped. They are also shorter. "Woods" (which are no longer made of wood), have a more bulbous appearance, and much longer shafts. The numbers on the club indicate the angle at which they will strike the ball. Irons typically go from 3-9. 3 is the flattest angle while it contacts the ball, and 9 is the sharpest angle. 3 hits the ball the farthest, and 9 hits the ball the highest (and least far). When I say to get a "9 iron", this means the wedge shaped club with a 9 on it, and I'm telling you to hit with this club because it is the most forgiving.
firmamenti
3mo ago
Do you have that same energy for the US congressman Brian Mast who wore his IDF uniform to Congress and said
I'll say this: if you are a dual citizen, you should not be able to serve in congress, and probably shouldn't be able to serve in any role whatsoever in government including police. I'll even go so far as to say that only natural born US citizens should be able to serve in congress.
firmamenti
4mo ago
Has there ever been an example of a professional sports organization being held liable for the riot after a team won or lost a game, and the fans damaged parts of the city?
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Go to church
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Have kids
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Buy land
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Acquire chickens
Simple as.
I truly think people are almost embarrassingly overstating the importance of the AI apocalypse. Maybe an apocalypse for twitter and other online spaces, maybe an apocalypse “just a barely intelligent warm body” call center jobs, maybe an apocalypse for bootcampers making $300k/yr gluing JavaScript frameworks with cute names together.
Not an apocalypse for anybody with a skill set that can exist completely independent of the internet, not an apocalypse for the people who understand computer programming from first principles.
In the sense the AI will bankrupt the people who have been mining the good out of society while contributing absolutely nothing of value to it, it is a massive net good. I absolutely welcome our AI overlords. Show me who is posting the MOST human-passing-but-totally-useless-garbage on twitter, or trapping the MOST ethical non-monogamist coombrained Reddit atheism posters into pointless time wasting arguments and I will either go work for them for free, or donate compute time to them.
Let’s fucking go.
firmamenti
1yr ago
It’s a good distinction. For instance: Al Jazeera has generally been considered good, except for when talking about Saudi Arabia.
The BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, RT, SCMP, etc are state sponsored. This may harm the idea that the employees there have about “speaking truth to power”, but it’s not untrue.
This topic perhaps more than others is impossible to find good analysis of. Could some of you help me understand the arguments around something?
I routinely see people call Gaza "an open air prison". But...isnt' Egypt participating in this open air imprisonment? Egypt has a border with Gaza. If the Israelis are imprisoning the Gazans, then aren't the Egyptians doing the same thing?
And why would these two groups coordinate on this? Same question goes for: shutting of water/electricity. Why would Egypt help Israel with this? Why doesn't Egypt simply give the Gazans the water they need?
edit: I think my question was unclear here. I understand the obvious answers which are basically: Hamas/Gaza are terrorists. Of course Egypt doesn't want them. What I'm asking for is for somebody to steelman the liberal position that Gaza is an "open air prison" and that this is Israel's fault.
Not to be outdone by Bud Lite, Miller Lite has apparently been running their own "woke" beer advertisements: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_NtBQWZqaHo
IMO the campaign here is actually clever, take this "bad" thing, use money to buy it, and turn it into a "good" thing. Whoever came up with this idea: cool idea.
But here's my question: is any of this old "bad" stuff actually bad? Let's look at contemporary things like onlyfans, instagram, tiktok, the hundreds of reddit 'gonewild' type porn forums, etc. It seems to me that many women, given the chance, enjoy wearing bikinis, being sexualized, being lusted after etc. Not all women, obviously, since some women don't like this, but...isn't this trying to strip the pro-sexualization women of their agency?
Aside from that, isn't Miller saying that women belong...in the kitchen? Don't go out to the beach and get drunk and have fun. Wear modest clothing (like the person in the ad), stay inside in the dark, and make things for people to eat.
Also: the claim that women were the primary brewers historically, is not only dumb, it's also wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weihenstephan_Abbey?useskin=vector
firmamenti
1yr ago
Have you guys watched "The Bear"? A couple of notes on this show:
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This show is absolutely excellent. If you've worked in a kitchen, or if you've ever worked in any sort of extreme-stress environment, this show captures the feeling perfectly.
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Just to stress again, I absolutely loved this show. 10/10 acting, cinematography, story, music. It's a perfect show.
-------BEGIN SPOILERS--------
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There is a heavily implied theme here, which is that the main character, Carmy, has a toxic personality, and that he needs to overcome this in order to succeed. Some of the other characters, the young female chef, as well as the older "gentler" male cake making chef have conflicts with the Carmy over how mean he is being to them. Eventually these two quit, then "forgive" him, then they eventually return.
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Many bits have been spilled about how the theme of this show is "toxic masculinity".
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The problem I have with this is: Carmy is presented at the beginning of the show as an absolute savant level of chef. He is young, has already been declared as the most promising up and coming chef by some prestigious magazine, and has worked at both The French Laundry, and Noma, two of the top restaurants in the world. In one scene the younger female chef is explaining to the cake maker chef how when she finished culinary school (she also went to a very prestigious school, CIA, but hasn't done anything yet) she went out on a tour of top restaurants, and that Carmy (the man she now works for) cooked the best meal she has ever had in her life.
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The people who work with Carmy, who complain about how mean he is, are morons. Young chef girl screws up multiple times in ways that could be disastrous for the restaurant. Cake maker man has been essentially trying to teach himself how to bake while on the clock, and the "blowup moment" where he quits is during a high stress situation (that young female chef created and Carmy is in the process of trying to solve). Cake maker wants Carmy to taste/give feedback on some donuts he has been trying to learn to make. Carmy yells at him that he doesn't have time for this right now, and cake maker quits.
In the setting of the show, where Carmy is one of the top chefs in the entire world, the reality is that he would have an endless list of people willing to work for him for free, who would be willing to follow every command he gave to a t. Additionally, if this top chef was known to be working at some crappy beef sandwich restaurant in Chicago, they'd have a line around the block of people wanting to taste his food.
Again, this show is amazing, and the CW elements are easily ignorable. I'm curious if anybody else watched this show and had similar frustrations about it.
(Also: I'm not sure why I like writing posts like this as numbered lists.)
firmamenti
1yr ago
It is still absolutely unbelievable to me that this infographic got published.
It's hilarious (and by that I of course mean: pathetic) that revealing things like blatantly cheating at a presidential debate means that Hilary Clinton (the cheater) is somehow the victim.
"Oh no, you've revealed what a corrupt person I am. I am the victim here!"
It's actually sortof incredible how well they framed that one to their advantage.
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