wemptronics
No bio...
User ID: 95
wemptronics
1d ago
Oh no, that's covered big time.
penetrative sexual activity between people who a reasonable person would think are related, or pretending to be related, in a certain way. This includes depictions of close familial relatives such as father and daughter or brother and sister, and certain step and foster relationships where one person is, or is pretending to be, under 18
This is from the government's guidance page. From the statute:
It is an offence for a person (P) to be in possession of an image if—
(a)the image is pornographic, within the meaning of section 63, (b)the image portrays, in an explicit and realistic way, a person
(A) sexually penetrating— >(i)the vagina or anus of another person (B) with a part of A’s body or anything else, or (ii)B’s mouth with A’s penis, (c)a reasonable person looking at the image would think that A and B were real, and (d)a reasonable person— (i)looking at the image, and >(ii)taking into account any sound or information associated with the image, would think what is set out in subsection (2) or (3).
(2)That A and B were related, or pretending to be related, such that A was related to B as parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece.
(3)That— (a)A and B were related or had been related, or were pretending to be related or to have been related, such that A was or had been related to B as step-parent, step-child, stepbrother, stepsister, foster parent or foster child, and (b)at least one of A and B was, or was pretending to be, under 18.
Last week, in its dogged commitment to a free and open internet, the UK has instituted a criminal prohibition on certain pornography in England and Wales. It is now a criminal offense to view or possess pornography that depicts "strangulation" including choking or "face sitting", incest including depictions of step siblings, and any depictions of underage roleplay. The penalty for viewing or possessing any of these categories is a prison sentence that ranges from 2-3 years. Publication of these materials has a punishment of up to 5 years in prison.
Before a conservative cheered the prohibition of pornographic materials as a buttress against the immorality of modernity I'd remind him it is worth keeping in mind the context. The UK has been on a tear the past couple decades when it comes to regulating the internet. These efforts did not go without results, culminating most recently in the Online Safety Act of 2023 which pushed an age-verification regime. The OSA is not limited to porn sites to ban minors, but also potentially hits app stores, vendors, payment intermediaries, and more that extends the tendrils of the state into the internet.
Feminists and Labour politicians who hate violence against women, think-of-the-children conservatives, Christian organizations, and Ofcom the regulatory agency which, surprisingly, tends to voice support for more regulations-- what do these constituencies all have in common? It's not the weirdest coalition to lock arms in solidarity, but it's strange bedfellows. Public choice theory stays winning. Many are saying.
I can't claim abstinence, but I am not a big fan of porn. I don't think productions involving toasters are a social good and children should not watch porn. However, what I suspect laws like this to be in practice is to function as a carve out for a censorious state with neurotic apparatchiks to punch up criminal charges whenever they feel like. The next time Tommy Robinson gets picked up for violence they can hit him with the lude pornography laws. There will be no reduction of Violence Against Women when so many report sexual choking as consensual and pleasurable.
If you peruse internet commentary on the Crime and Policing Act 2026 you will find a lot of people who agree with me. From reddit to X, everyone has criticisms that this is selective or ineffective. If you stopped there you wouldn't know that some surveys indicate the majority of Brits support the ban, if not the criminalization. To properly do this experiment Brits must go full bore with social taboos, reverse the sexual revolution, and enforce criminal statutes to that effect. Reinstitute sodomy laws. The cowards will never.
wemptronics
12d ago
Comment sections under your local sports team podcast are where you find vital discussions about sports team happenings. Reddit is where the latest narrative is propagated so they're still useful for casual fans.
Since I was banned I went through my subscriptions for the first time in forever. I realized there are only a few subs I still weakly rated. /r/slatestarcodex as a link aggregator since discussion is now pretty bad. /r/supremecourt where mods have made a real effort, as good as it gets which is not great or even reliably worthwhile.
Part of this is aging out in interest. We are an aging breed after all, us highfalutin types who can remember, and a man can only see so many flamewars. I accept that. It is hard not to notice the rest of my former subscriptions look like a boneyard for old, used up machines. Subreddit after subreddit sitting out in a desert victimized by growth and entropy.
wemptronics
13d ago
Still, I do hope that if activity on this forum declines too much we give Reddit another go.
This forum cannot exist on reddit. Maybe a couple years ago when admin actions chilled out, but reddit has implemented their own AI censorship/safety tools to police comments since then. In 2026 these are turbocharged, clearly designed to be dumb keyword enforcers, and it will go around deleting comments or banning users who merely mention bad ideas, i.e. suicide, capital punishment, and anything deemed sensitive. I suspect they still keep badlists of naughty subreddits for extra attention which The Motte would qualify for ten times over.
I had my very old account banned by reddit robots this year allegedly for spam. I post on reddit once every few months and am a more mild commentor by The Motte's standards. Most regulars here would need to use some kind of coded 1337 speak to go back to posting on reddit.
wemptronics
13d ago
This piece suspiciously confirmed my preconceptions of this genre, but I also haven't read any of it for myself and I do not know this writer. Are we all doomed to read 1000 pages worth of stories for a particular ethnic identity crisis before we can call ourselves responsible thinkers? Epistimic humility has forsaken us.
Did it violate taboos?
A more charitable leftist could interpret it as pro-trans since, you know, it’s literally a male turned into a woman. But the left seems to believe charitability will destroy them, ironically in cases like these: the idea that embracing a “dog whistle” leads people down the slippery slope of hyper-reactionary ultrafascism, when I’m confident their rejection of a wholesome concept shifts the average person far more to the right than co-opting it themselves. What other commenters have described as “taking the bait”.
You're doing more work than everyone else and in some measure doing the work for them. As I understand, sex swaps between characters is not uncommon among fanfic communities which seemingly host an overrepresentation of trans individuals.
The reasoning behind 'Malfoid as a right-wing monster', if any was necessary, was constructed post-hoc. What happened was not reasoning, but a group of people impressing their beliefs. That intersected with and was accelerated by negative polarization once the meme jumped platforms. Harry Potter boycott stories break containment only sometimes. These types boycotted a Harry Potter video game a couple years ago as I recall, but there doesn't appear to be a strong general taboo against enjoying Harry Potter. If you're the kind of person who thinks there should be a strong taboo then you take the chance to enforce your beliefs when the opportunity presents itself. Normally, the Bluesky Post->Mad Children->Artist Apology cycle of outrage or taboo enforcement ends at the apology stage and remains contained. In this case, the meme was embraced by X which allowed its development. The conflict expanded from intra-community policing to inter-tribal conflict.
I even doubt the fanfiction community on Bluesky, specifically, polices the production of Harry Potter fanart with any consistency. The reason I say so is because I know one very progressive lesbian (i.e. not a "TERF" sort) who will enthusiastically and unabashedly tell you about her interest in Harry Potter fanfic including the "degenerate" sort. She does so with self-awareness and good humor. She's of a tumblr age, before JK Rowling was persona non grata, and apparently doesn't care much about the associations above.
“Degenerate” (to me) art is not such because of its sex, no matter how weird and extreme; it’s when the sex is out of place and it doesn’t have much else
I don't consider myself equipped to significantly contribute to the eternal Pornography or Art? debate. As a personal judgment, sexy cartoon fanart often appears more functionally pornographic than artistic, especially in cases where the artist is catering to a fetish. That is art with impact and intent, it says something about the nature of ourselves, but if I were to take it seriously as art it feels cheap. The depictions I saw here looked like fairly wholesome Chinese Cartoons whereas Harry Potter fanfiction people can be absolute freaks.
I am confused but how is this RW?
I did the unthinkable. I googled it and visited the first SEO pumped article from the slopfotainment sector of journalism. This article from Cybernews (other recent publications include an incisive story under the headline "Female AI agents paid less than male agents for the same work") suggests everyone is interpreting the situation correctly according to their assigned roles.
An anime artist has removed a piece of Harry Potter fanart from the social media site Bluesky following backlash to their reimagining of Draco Malfoy as a female character.
After fans kicked back, Japanese artist Yunayu apologized and subsequently deleted the drawing.
But then the artist reposted the Malfoy adaptation a day later to a more sympathetic reaction on X.
And the strong reaction on social media, comes in the wake of the author JK Rowling's strong opposition to certain transgender issues.
The artist's apology on Bluesky read “I only learned about the situation after I drew the fanart,” adding “I never intended to hurt or offend anyone with my drawings.”
Explains enough for me. Artist makes fanart, posts it to Bluesky, and the progressive community demands recompense, because JK Rowling and her "wizard books"-- we don't say their actual names. Artist apologizes there, but also posts or had already posted the character to X dot com, the site for bad people, and eventually deleted their Bluesky account after it took off there.
If the character wasn't a dark, right-wing incantation she would have the support of Bluesky, which I imagine as containing a high density of people who enjoy, produce, and/or masturbate to fan art/fiction. It is a very progressive space as I understand.
Or is this all just me becoming jaded and bored with the culture war?
Probably, yes. You can ignore much of it. I know I do.
What you describe are (at least) two different things. I understand your suggestion as the topical discourse which has condensed into a few topics and because of that the Culture War is receding. On the first point, I believe you are wrong. Discourse is narrative, the stories we choose to tell and feed and build and listen to. Sustaining a discourse is cheap these days, but an individual can only be interested in and sustain so many extra important things in their head. Three, maybe four big narratives at a time can be managed-- of those, a couple are short-term and tend to flame out, while longer lasting or more impactful ideas can stoke the flame of commentary for years.
Whose discourse do you share? Discourse was democratized and decentralized. You choose AI and Trump, but now there is curated discourse each for Anorexia TikTok, Turkish nationalists on X, and lynching-in-21st-century-America enjoyers on Threads. You might argue they are all moot against AI and I'd probably agree, although for any individual Important Things have multiplied.
The Culture War is how the average American perceives conflict in the world and their position according to the tribes therein. America exported the Culture War so now many other hundreds of millions share certain aspects of it in their own cultural contexts. Perhaps in a village in Slovakia cultural conflict is experienced differently, but over here in the center of the universe even the sections of society with strong cultural cohesion and homogeneity are not immune. In our culture, it has been proven the absence of conflict is an invitation to the Culture War. Something must be wrong if my ideas or my people are not represented in an area of our democratic society. There can be no escape from the ideas monster or the values monster.
The result is the most well documented history of human cultural conflict ever created. We can view it granularly, down to every nook and cranny. We understand cultural conflict as something much more grand, possibly due to exposure to discourse, and thus we find the Culture War in knitting clubs, lesbian bars, workplaces, and church.
The Culture War had its Cambrian explosion. I don't think there's anything to derail it except the kind of catastrophic hardship that radically reshapes the world. Gay Space UBI Millionaire Communism might just help better resourced, funny looking creatures grow legs to where they can bicker on land instead of underwater. If the robots put 100 million well armed people out of work and it goes poorly... a radical change in the Culture War understanding or an alignment of values for a time seems plausible.
wemptronics
1mo ago
The spreadsheet was only a tool to ensure that both parties participated more or less equally
Throughout my life I have answered "Who has done more?" arguments in personal relationships -- my own and others -- with what I have thought was sage advice: if you're going to count, you need to count. Sometimes it makes sense to count, though even household chores runs into tricky division of labor problems that require agreed upon values. So normally the point of this quip is to impress upon a person the futility of trying to balance the ledger, sometimes after years of transactions not previously understood as such, or to demonstrate that negotiating the values is so tedious as to be absurd. It has worked for me, as it is almost always more constructive to find a mutually acceptable arrangement for the future and attempt to address cause for perceived unfairness in other ways.
You, sir, sound quite willing to count. I kneel.
How?
If we defer or heavily account for punishment by polling the will of living relatives, then all he needs is people who love him to back his insanity plea -- or kill them if not -- regardless of whether he was in a state of psychosis or not.
Punishment taking into account familial sensibilities is a sensitive consideration in a homicide. The state is willing to listen to the will of living family of a victim while some overworked prosecutor (also the state) attempts to represent the harms imposed on those in the ground. I don't think it's wrong to consider the will of living family to a victim, although in the case of filicide or familicide this is complicated. Decent people can and mostly do continue to love indecent family members -- to say nothing of decent family who have done an indecent thing -- and tend to defend their well being.
The will of living (injured as you say) family is a more meaningful consideration when the victim is not related to the accused. Deferral like this is, frankly, unfair otherwise. Yes, the ex-husband thinks his ex-wife isn't a cold-blooded murderer. Maybe that's fine, true, or just in this case, but this feels (admittedly a feeling) like an incomplete or biased representation of the injured. We can't ask a dead child whether or to what degree they might want their parent-murderer punished, but if we could and they could answer, would we consider that too?
Lock'em up and toss away the key! But, in the US we don't even do that for murderers who juries consider guilty. Our courts don't lock away people forever in an asylum; they place people in treatment until they no longer require it.
That said, I think in general that filicide (of young children) is probably a form of murder we should have more nuanced opinions about as a society
Clancy, insanity, or mitigating circumstances notwithstanding, why not hang women who kill their young children? At least the egregious cases. There can't be too many egregious cases and distinguishing them from whatever mitigating circumstances bar Clancy clears might be a good distinction. If these women are going to rot in a mental institution or prison forever, then no great loss to hang them. As a punishment for a crime it seems fair. Taking a child's life away from them is pretty high up on the unforgivable crime pole.
He is the only surviving injured party
In Clancy's case, if you want to weight the ex-husband and family to punish her that seems fine, but as a principle this is perverse. So long as he had the consent of the injured parties, or silenced them, Chris Benoit could have saved himself the trouble, stopped early in his familicide-suicide, and been well underway enjoying a born again journey by now.
psychiatric institutions may be much nicer than high security prisons, but I’m not even sure this is the case for women.
In America, for someone only mildly crazy or formerly crazy, I suspect mental institutions are preferable in both cases.
Did anyone watch the case? Was this a reasonable outcome?
Massachusetts places the burden on the state to prove a person claiming insanity as a defense was actually of sound mind during the crime. If I assume a jury makes an honest attempt to abide by these standards it seems like a really high bar to prosecute. Anti-depressants come with disclaimers of side effects, several include chance of psychosis, and that alone sounds like a reasonable enough reason to doubt a person is guilty of a crime according to the law. It's on the label. There's documented cases. Why is the state so sure someone didn't experience a side effect when the state wasn't there? Postpartum conditions, as I understand they argued, also have a chance of degrading into psychosis something witnesses testified(?) she had. Given that, were I in the position of a jury honestly attempting to apply the law, the state would have to demonstrate a lot for me to no longer consider these as plausible alternatives to the explanation that, no, her actions can only be considered as guilty of murder or manslaughter. Clancy had a lot more than a single prescription to rely upon for her defense. The state might need something that nears a confession to get a jury following the rules to convict her given all these reasonable reasons to doubt her sanity at the time.
Also, is there a good reason to allow cameras in the courtroom to live broadcast criminal trials? I think you should be able show up, bring a pen and paper, and confer with any associated press outside the courthouse to cover live proceedings, but no live feed from inside the courtroom. All I can think of is that the exposure to the attention economy could raise public accountability to proceedings-- since nobody wants to read to follow a story anymore perhaps we should broadcast all proceedings in that case. I think a judge should choose whether to sequester a jury and have cameras inside the courtroom, or choose not to not sequester a jury and disallow any live film coverage.
He writes like someone who is probably interesting and worth taking seriously.
I don't think he is reliably interesting or worth taking seriously. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can see shapes of Tracey that look like a pundit willing to tell you the hard truths, but as a sort of contrarian liberal with a dash of edgy dirtbag-lite. I crammed him into the ignore bin a long time ago and thanks to your excellent post I now have a recent refresher that illustrates why. Much like Richard Hanania, Tracey has done a good job building an audience for this schtick, but to take what ideas either of them choose to put on paper as serious ones -- as genuine positions that they hold rather than hope to mine -- ruins the schtick, as well as any fun along with it.
Not a steelman and my reply time is limited so this may be more disjointed than usual, but I consider this more of a social phenomena than any mindfulness.
- True Crime as entertainment is as popular as ever. It is female coded entertainment. Women being interested in people is not new but we should still #bantruecrime.
- Thanks to the popularity of therapy, mental illness as an acceptable explanation for bad behaviors has become more popular than ever. Trauma, neurodivergent, mental health, etc. Not bad ideas, per se. But all complex concepts become bastardized by the public to some extent. This phenomena may be a cost to the spread of these ideas.
- Female perps are extraordinary and draw attention.
I did not think much of Clancy mentions in proximity until I connected it to a response to another horror story from this Summer. At Electric Forest, an EDM music festival, a newborn was found dead in one of the portopotties. Last I heard, they are still looking for the mother. Anyway, the response to that story has some similarities to Clancy. Here is a reddit thread where by far the most popular comments are to rationalize or sympathize with the mother who had just days before left her baby to drown in filth.
It is a motivated explanation.
- How/why could a mother do such a thing?
- Maybe it was a crypto pregnancy. Maybe she was on drugs and didn't notice. Maybe she thought the baby was dead. Maybe the husband abused her, maybe he did it. Poor thing.
Uncertainty is replaced by a moral position that pushes away any uncomfortable possibility that a woman might just be fucked up, irresponsible, and decided to not deal with an inconvenient "problem." The Clancy case and this festival case are very different, but the social dynamics pushing a generous consensus towards the accused are not. Might also be worth stating that attitudes towards neonaticide vary between cultures and across time.
Don't know if I can keep this going without succumbing to mass gainers.
There's infinity protein formulas and of course simple instantized whey. You don't have to slam 1000 kcal of mass gainer if you don't want to. Is there a reason you want to avoid this?
2.5k was already tough...ice cream daily
~200 calories in 2 tablespoons (32g) of peanut butter in a bowl of cereal. It's nothing. With whole milk that's a "light" 500 calorie breakfast. Protein fortified yogurt slop or skyr a couple hours later? Bam, another 150. Eating perfectly lean is too hard. I say don't go crazy, but CICO. Work it out later.
3 meals a day, 2 snacks could come out to 500 breakfast/150 yogurt/700 lunch/350 shake pre-gym/1000 dinner rice chicken avocado extravaganza. 7am/10am/12pm/4pm/7pm.
A single IQ point determines whether you are responsible enough for a death sentence, because we have laws. Laws should be legible, consistent, and standardized tests provide both. If it is more cruel to execute a person who scores a 69 IQ person than one who scores a 70 it is because we or [this code] say(s) so. The spectrum of culpability or responsibility is typically done via sentencing, as you note, but if someone clears the bar for insanity we also say it has to be a threshold. It must be, because the judgment is binary. As for your questions on psychosis specifically, as I understand a psychosis diagnosis is not a get out of jail free card. One must suffer the kind of trial going on now where either the state or a defendant proves why a specific instance of psychosis means one should or should not be held accountable for a crime.
What does it mean to be “crazy?”
My hot take: it means shrinks observed something enough times to give it a name and stuck it in the DSM. These observations, decisions, and writing are all indeed mediated by language.
Allow me to be a punk and consider something really crazy. There is and has been an ongoing epidemic of an unnamed affliction which primarily effects young men. It is an old affliction, possibly as old as time. There are differences in observable rates of this condition demographically speaking, but it's definitely higher in the general population of young men.
The generalized case sees a young man taken in the blink of an eye with blind rage. A man with this condition is overcome and engages in swift, brutal, disproportionate violence against another -- most often another man. Without proper studies early researchers of the condition have informally dubbed it Insulted Shoe Disorder, or ISD. The name stems from one case discovered by researchers in the field which involved a man who upon hearing an insult (made against the shoes he was wearing) flew into a blind rage, beat another man to death, and took the victim's shoes. The police arrived to the scene shortly afterward and immediately arrested the man. In custody, the man repeatedly stated he couldn't say what came over him, he could not say why he flew into a blind rage, and he could not say why he took off the man's shoes. "I don't know," is all the man could say, face in hands. While awaiting trial, the man's lawyer arranged for several psychiatrists to come and see him. Each time he told the same story, "The man insulted my shoes, I saw red. I don't remember much after that. The next thing I know my fists are covered in blood and I'm looking at two cops pointing guns at me, a shoe in each hand."
Sociologists, always ahead of medicine, have visited areas with suspected cases of ISD to draw comparisons between them. They found that even while adjusting for things like culture and race that young men separated by thousands of miles were generally at risk of suffering the affliction. They regarded this as a natural kind of illness, though the sociologists admitted they were unqualified to definitively say. Sometimes they found the young men had a history of violence prior to their first documented ISD episode. In other cases, the sociologists found that the young men had no history of violence at all. Seemingly, they found something just inexplicably snapped within these men at one moment in time which evoked a reaction that could not be undone or considered sane.
What could be more crazy than to kill someone simply because they insulted your shoes, truck, hat, or mother-- is it not a mental illness because it is more common relative to cases of filicidal mothers? But of cognizance and choice, what sane thinking person would choose throw their life away over that? Certainly there are some who exhibit signs of ISD while still being responsible for their irresponsible actions, but there must be those afflicted who had little choice in the matter. The sociologists even tell us this responsibility may be diffuse, perhaps medicine could confirm this. Medicine could recognize few young men want to experience an episode of ISD. Identifying which ISD cases might suggest a temporary insanity and separating them from the hardened thugs is a moral imperative. We are talking a massive scale here. Potentially tens of thousands of young men a year unfairly prosecuted as if they had control of their actions to an extent they should be held criminally liable.
Are we interested in justice or just blood?
These can be and often are the same thing.
If Lindsay Clancy receives her preferred verdict she will be acquitted of the crimes for which she was tried. The involuntary commitment that follows this verdict is not, legally speaking, a punishment. A commitment to a mental health facility is not for the protection of society, but an acknowledgment that the verdict logically allows the state to confirm a mentally ill person is no longer mentally ill. That commitment is not to be used to lock away people who the state or an institution may consider dangerous beyond any danger that is tied to ongoing mental illness which requires treatment.
People want to believe the system will not treat her as acquitted of these crimes. I am sure this belief is validated in some cases. Medical professionals are probably skeptical of releasing the infamous from the looney bin even if they have no need for treatment. That is an injustice according to our legal fiction, but it's probably true that it happens.
A person who was somewhat crazy for a couple months, but very crazy (due to failed treatments) only for a 60 minute window where they strangled their own babies might only require treatment for a little craziness and depression now. For this reason I think we should rework the legal fiction and allow the state the option to pass down real sentences with this type of verdict. An individual can opt to transfer from the looney bin to prison to complete their sentence once they are deemed mentally fit if they so desire.
wemptronics
3mo ago
My oldest daughter has the most annoying preference where she doesn't like different kinds of food items touching each other on her plate.
Is she picky otherwise? I've wondered about this preference and how it relates to a desire for order versus a meme picked up. Because the meme is out there, it is not uncommon.
Also, come on. Gumbo is clearly one ingredient with rice as the other. Be reasonable!
Unsure of the provenance but here's an angle that shows control of the kitchen knife at the time of or right after the taser. The officer who had partial control of the suspect's hand with the knife is the one who shoots him. Plausibly, the taser rips zapzapzap, and officer loses his hold on the knife as suspect falls. Only one officer has hands on the suspect as he hits the ground and previous knife restrainer now-shooter cop draws and fires in, seemingly, one motion. Could be he couldn't go back in on the knife hand safely at that point-- the remaining officer on the camera side looks like he's about to try as shots are fired in your video. Could be he had the best intention to prepare for escalation to lethal force since he lost control of the weapon and it just so happened that knife looked stabbier as he decided to draw. Could be he was frustrated, tired, and made a bad decision.
wemptronics
3mo ago
I kept some of the bean water and I am debating seeing if I can turn it into meringue like you can with garbanzo bean water. How weird would that be?
Aquafaba. Vegans can be so creative I had no idea this was a thing.
Mediocre gravy is still gravy. Way I see it, there's only two real ways to mess up gravy: flour and heat. Clumped, burned, or undercooked in the roux. Afterwards, the world is your oyster. Worcestershire, rich drippings, or try hardcore po'dunk mode with diced chicken gizzard.
I am done with The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. My main advice for those who find themselves shipwrecked while in the 18thc. Royal Navy:
Do not sink off of Western Patagonia. It's cold, rocky, the weather sucks, and you'll be praying for random birds to kill in order to stay alive. Shackleton and his crew shipwrecked in Antarctica, admittedly with smaller crew and more modern supplies, but they basically could live indefinitely off of seals while floating on big blocks of ice. Sail South, crash there. What are you doing? Immediately salvage anything useful on the ship as soon as possible. Salvage the ship. Take every board and every canvas. Do not scare or aggravate any natives who show up no matter how savage they appear. Do keep meticulous logs of your voyage and any subsequent shipwreck no matter rank or position. This will help legitimize unforeseen but necessary actions in the future up to and including marooning your former captain. Do not surrender yourself to the Spanish if you are free black man. They will enslave you.
Also, I find it very odd how many smart people I know don’t reread good books or rewatch good films or tv shows.
There are lots of books I want to reread because it has been long enough to justify it and there are all the books I haven't read yet. I try to balance it.
wemptronics
3mo ago
Don't get me wrong I have an even junkier doohickey crank radio around somewhere. Although the fact I can't immediately go and look at it should tell you my level of preparedness versus a legend such as Paul Harrell. I haven't regretted forgetting about the doohickey.
OLight Mini 2 bright enough flashlight
I am no flashlight autist, but this flashlight is like little babby. Clearly not up to the task of making the rounds outside. My current general purpose house flashlight-at-hand is a COAST XP11R (cheaper on Amazon.) I forget if I got it as a gift or if I purchased it, but I've had it for a couple years and have been pleased. Great flood of light for seeing where you're going while walking down a dark road or checking the back yard, with an adjustable beam that reaches a more than acceptable distance. Handy enough to stick inside a man's pocket, though obviously not as handy as little babby light. It comes with a USB-C rechargeable lithium ion battery and the option to slot in alkaline AAA's if you prefer.
Yes on working holster if you have a common light there's probably a ready-made option for your CZ. Yes on hand cranked radio all-in-one doohickey. It's probably junk but it only needs to work for one serious outage to be useful, so why not? Yes on having generator but precluding its use except for A Real Emergency. Is it worth having a generator you rarely if ever use? I don't know, I'm not a philosopher. The power is out and you aren't supposed to have wifi with the power is out. The freezer meat can't be allowed to go bad, but you are supposed to play cards in dimly lit rooms.
I am not obsessed with the minutiae of Liberal Jews, their political sentiments, or Israel's fate. I think my picture was more general than elaborate and I didn't disparage any of the groups mentioned to be seen as worthy of your stalker analogy. "Global South aficionados" could be considered pejorative, but no it is a real descriptor with real political force in the US and on the international level. As an American, I think your implied position is a perfectly fine one. A new configuration of US-Israeli relations which includes certain measures of decoupling to act more like relations with Saudi Arabia or the Philippines is a fine, defensible position to have. I don't find it offensive at all I just don't have any mistaken belief on the consequences somehow stopping conflict in your or anyone else's head. What does your country do for Israel that is so offensive? Are Liberal Jews a political force in your nation as they are in the US?
I really think that most people would be quite happy to forget that the place even exists.
Nonsense. People that want apathy can reach up today and grab it. Most people do. There has been and will be a genocide, bombing, intifada, or a new settlement to look forward to. There are entities and systems around the world that work to ensure you can't simply forget, including the Israeli government, and none of them are beholden to the constraints of your perfectly fine, defensible position. If your moral standards are met once once the US announces Israel must pay for all its bombs like anyone else and US-Israeli military cooperation is shoved into the dark, I predict you're going to be disappointed the noise doesn't end. If your standards dictate something more, then we're talking about something more than a normalized relationship between the US (or your nation) and Israel, aren't we? What might that be?
The only way you're not going to hear about Israel is if you decide to stop reading the news or a genocide is actually completed.
As someone with an anthropological interest in niche subcultures and oddities I do appreciate this. The fact there are grown men who are into soiling themselves in diapers is like that of a humorous freakshow. The concern I have is not for the bearded lady who found her people in a community of carnies. This must have been better for her than life as a complete outcast. My concern is that I doubt the bearded lady would have recommended the average person follow her path, and today I think there are far more average people who, without exposure, would otherwise find paths to live within the bounds of normal interests. They would find average communities for average people with an average chance of happiness and fulfillment if they didn't get stuck on the idea of toasterfucking.
Subcultures are great as refuges or islands, but normalizing them defeats their purpose (which destroys them) and they are by design not load bearing for something larger. For the outcast, the true freak, there is no other option but to live with themselves and find their people. I don't think it should be illegal to choose to indulge odd fetishes or attend the odd fetish convention, it is a freedom that probably carries a cost for individuals, our society, and culture.
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