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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3333 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Anyone else think that the new Grok 4.2 is a little underrated? People on twitter seem to be going 'it's bad'. I can see where they're coming from but it has some value add too.

The good: It can oneshot a couple of things where Opus 4.6 just burns through all its thinking tokens and dies. It codes in a much more restrained way too. 100 or 200 lines where Opus would make a huge extravaganza of code.

The bad: They didn't open it up to API and its no good for creative writing, pure STEMcel... The features surrounding the model are barebones, I can't seem to just copy in 10 files of context and have 4.2 edit them inline. We're back in the 'Below are the exact inline edits you can copy-paste' era and that's shit.

Interesting that they've chosen a different path with their '4 copies talking it out' approach, compared to everyone else and their 'big model go brr' approach.

https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=89120&post_id=187622533

Anyone see Scott's latest post on crime stats and have a significant disagreement with it? It feels culture war worthy and I'd like to discuss it, but I don't feel like I know the counter viewpoints well.

Some criticisms:

  • People in cities don’t report their car being broken into, and this rate of reporting will decrease as social trust decreases. So the property crime metric may not be accurate.

  • The National Crime Victimization Survey is a mail-in survey. People living in low-trust (high-crime) areas of the country increasingly have no interest in filling out government surveys, having no trust in the government and having less familiarity with filling out mail. It would not be “an extraordinary coincidence if they exactly matched the proposed reporting bias to police”, as Scott asserts, because habits follow environment — those raised in a high-trust environment will fill this out at a higher level, and high-crime areas gradually reduce in trust.

  • One reason for the decline in car thefts may be that, on average, they have been more difficult to steal and get away with the theft due to omnipresent surveillance.

It’s strange to me that people trust surveys from phone calls, emails, and the mail. Academics must have zero familiarity with how the lower class and lower middle class feels. It would be better to go to Walmart and run a survey, or hop on voice chat in a popular video game and ask the users if they would ever in a million years fill out a mail survey. They really think someone smoking weed every day in a high crime area is going to fill out a government survey or answer a government questionnaire (in their mind no distinction between an institute and the government)? These are not accurate assessments of a bulk of the population, and they are increasingly inaccurate. You are surveying the most productive remnants of the common flock who still possess the time, trust, sense of social duty, attention, and conscientiousness to answer your survey.

This would be a good study: go to a lower-income school and and make them answer some questions from someone who looks to be in the same class. Ask them if they would ever fill out out a government surcey or answer a phone number they don’t know or answer an email survey. Some second-gen Asian students who happen to live in the area will say yes and everyone else will say no.

With that said, I do think crime is decreasing, and that the crime rate is a red herring wrt what people about (“is there a menacing person playing his music loudly on my commute”)

I wonder if we have data on the average response rate for such surveys? Are they getting as many responses back in 2025 as in 1990? If that’s the case then my hypothesis is disproven, but if it’s the case then they have to narrow it by income and test hypothesis

I think there's an inherent weakness to these population-wide metrics. Let's say there's a gang-infested Gotham city with 1M people and there's a suburb next to it called Boring Creek where another 1M people live. And let's say there is 1000 murders per year in Gotham and 1 murder per year in Boring Creek. Statistically, we have 1001/2M = 0.5 per thousand murder rate. Now, let's assume due to Batman's effort in Gotham, the murder rate there decreased to 500. While Boring Creek voted to defund the police and convert it to "social crisis nonviolent intervention consultants" and now their murder rate is 10 per year. Now we have 510/2M = 0.25 per thousand murder rate, or half as bad as before. Technically true, but Gotham is still a hellscape with 500 murders per year, and Boring Creek's resident chance of being murdered is now an order of magnitude larger than before. So, if the radio host of Boring Creek Patriotic Voice says the town is going to hell, and the host of More Facts Than You Would Ever Know substack says we're winning the war on crime like never before and the Patriotic Voice are just innumerate idiots who don't care about the facts, who among them is right?

I mean, it's good that murder rate over the whole nation goes down. But how does it go down is important too. If it goes down in a way that out of 5000 shootings in Gotham previously only 4000 survived, and now due to advances in emergency medicine 4500 survive, does that really help me that much, if I live in Boring Creek? And even if the gang on Gotham are living in mortal fear of Batman and actually are shooting each other less - does that really help me that much, if I live in Boring Creek?

I think there's room to ask about whether, even as the crime rate-per-population has gone down dramatically, the rate-per-potential-exposure has been less changed or has gone up. As Scott says, "We’re a safetyist culture"; we avoid risks more than we used to. We also have more attractive alternatives to risks - where I would play sports in the street or at worst play video games in person with the neighborhood kids, my children go to the rock-climbing gym or play networked video games with their friends farther away. I grew up in a residential area where once I got old enough I could walk to a convenience store, perhaps past some sketchy houses; my kids are growing up in a giant suburb where it wouldn't matter if the houses were sketchy because there's nothing they could get to on foot regardless.

On the other hand, the answer might just be "no, the rate-per-potential-exposure has gone down too". Or it might be that this isn't a sufficiently well-defined metric, because in a big country there's always someplace where it's just too dangerous for an innocent person to go and someplace else where it's perfectly safe and there's no obvious way to decide how to weight those places when averaging.

If the murder rate stays constant, but “rate per potential exposure” gets worse, someone is getting exposed at a higher rate. the people who are getting exposed must be making up the difference. Who? Shouldn’t it be strictly easier to tell which neighborhoods have turned into death traps?

If the murder rate stays constant, but “rate per potential exposure” gets worse, someone is getting exposed at a higher rate.

Just the opposite. murders / population = murders / exposures * exposures / population. If murder / population is constant while murder / exposures increases then exposures / population, the exposure rate, must be decreasing inversely.

Shouldn’t it be strictly easier to tell which neighborhoods have turned into death traps?

Is it? I know there are sites that give neighborhoods "walkability" scores, but at least the first one I pulled up is only giving a theoretical number based on the mass transit availability, distances to the nearest grocer/cafe/school, etc; I'd have no idea how to find an actual number of people who walk down a particular street (or who drive in a particular area - the only armed robberies I found out about first hand were at a stoplight and in a parking lot) on an average day.

Whoops. I was trying to gesture at the conditional probability P(M|E). If P(M&E) was constant/dropped, but P(M|E) went up, then yeah, P(E) must have dropped.

I don’t know why it dropped. Maybe the walkability scores really worked, and following them is enough to dodge almost all crime. Seems unlikely. Maybe law enforcement drove most criminals into hives of scum and villainy, and now word of mouth is enough to keep tourists from visiting Skid Row. Maybe COVID killed all the criminals first. Any number of stupid reasons.

But people aren’t acting like P(E) has improved, are they?

I am tempted to argue that this is a media phenomenon. That if people weren’t getting pictures of immigrants piped to their phones 24/7, they wouldn’t feel like P(E) was so high. I’m aware that this flatters my own biases, so I’ll try to discount it, but surely something like this is possible.

That if people weren’t getting pictures of immigrants piped to their phones 24/7, they wouldn’t feel like P(E) was so high.

As someone else mentioned, I think perception of crime rate is highly influenced by visibility of antisocial behavior. Murders and car thefts have fallen, but if going in public involves navigating multiple individuals screaming at invisible demons and flailing around, the drop in murders is probably not that comforting. The media undoubtedly plays a role since they're the ones telling me about the knife attacks (but non-fatal!) on public transportation in my nearby city, but I can see the homeless encampments and sketchy methheads with my own eyes.

Exactly, I feel more impacted by crime in comparison to twenty years ago, even if the really bad stuff was quite a bit more likely back in the day.

Fun scissor clip has been going around of an 18-year-old figure skater vaguely describing her experience in the Olympic Village. Question: Is she or is she not referring to sex?

That doesn’t sound like sex. Thats sounds like a teenaged girl gushing about living someplace where she’s taken care of without being told what to do.

She may have had sex, but people don't talk about sex like this. She is describing something better than sex.

It seems a bit off, but what could she possibly be talking about that happens at night in the olympic village that isn’t related to competition?

Being at the fucking Olympics? Among the very best people in your chosen area, who also recognize you as their peer and equal? Seeing people you may have admired your whole pre-adult life and now you meet them in person for the first time? I mean, I like sex as much as the next guy, but let's face it, sex is great but not that special. Incels and monks aside, almost everybody gets to do it one way or another, at one time or another. At some point, it's still great, but not a great achievement anymore. Being at Olympics would be a great achievement for anyone, and vast majority of people would never achieve it.

My guess is being surrounded with elites in an exclusive area and being constantly reminded that "I am elite and exclusive." I have never trained for the Olympics, but I would guess there is also a high associated with being at the Olympics even when not at the village, because they have trained so hard for it for so long.

If she is referring to sex in particular, then what is it about Olympic sex in particular that makes it so much better than the sex she has (probably) been having up until then?

I think there's an argument that the incel community is not really mad about sex, because if that was the case, they would just hire prostitutes. To the extent that is true, this girl is blissful not about sex, but about status.

Meeting new people from all around the world? Being surrounded with proof that you've achieved a goal towards which you've been working your whole life?

I was also going to guess something about beautiful architecture, under the presumption that cities would go all out to show off their artistic skills for these things... but, is it just me, or are most Olympic villages kind of ugly? De gustibus non est disputandum, I know, but the only thumbnail that really caught my eye turned out to be a building from 1881. Hosting the Olympics is famous for entailing economically crushing expenses, so maybe custom-built Olympic villages simply cut every corner they can to try to mitigate that ... but if you're going to take on decades of debt rather than just decline to host, would it be crazy to spring for some bricks and carved stone before the creditors cut you off? I guess constructions like the luge track spend more time on camera than the residences do, but at least nice residences can recoup extra expense as resale value; the luge track, not so much.

I think it's more that there's no demand for dormitory style structures in Olympic towns after the games end, so the village is temporary and is demolished. The luge track actually has more value as there aren't many of them in the world so they can use it for training and competition. I know at Whistler you can also ride a bobsled as a tourist. With how sensitive these cities have become to cost Los Angeles is famously building very little and housing the athletes inUCLA dorms I. 2028. One of the two things they have to build is a running track for the Coliseum since they removed the old one some years ago, and they're intentionally building a temporary track that they'll move to a public park afterward.

I don’t see anything sexual here.

I recently read an essay I'm almost certain Scott authored (but maybe not?) that I can't track down. It challenges this rhetorical tactic of, "I see you're attacking political candidate A because you believe they endorse position X, but if you just look at what they said during the most recent campaign, they said nothing close to endorsing X." The essay explains that there is context around a candidate they're obligated to speak to, and when they don't, legitimate concerns may be raised.

Anyone recall this one?

I thought it was If It’s Worth Your Time to Lie…, but that’s actually about moving the goalposts.

Just to be clear, it wasn't You Are Still Crying Wolf?

That does not sound like the kind of post pre-2021 Scott would write. Older Scott posts would challenge the contextualizer and call it "guilt by association" or something. And, post-2021 doesn't sound right either because newer Scott posts don't seem to be about political dynamics.

If you end up finding what essay (Scott or not) I'd be interested in reading it

Someone from the deep AI theorists here - is it possible to distill censored model into uncensored? What I mean by that - if a model is reluctant to go deep into the fun parts of the highly energetic nitrochemistry - just by asking other unrelated benign chemistry questions to figure out the forbidden knowledge? Not by tricking or something. Just normal use.

I don't know the theory but on general principle, if the model knows something (like, how to make things go boom), it'd be very, very hard to make it never reveal it to anybody. Systems with much less degrees of freedom and much stronger guarantees are regularly broken, even though we understand the theory of how to build such systems completely - we just suck at implementing it, because of practical considerations. As I understand it, AI security has a lot of "kick the black box until it looks secure" kind of thing going on, and I am almost sure that's a weaker security model than what we previously had, and thus will have more exploits.

As I understand it, AI security has a lot of "kick the black box until it looks secure" kind of thing going on, and I am almost sure that's a weaker security model than what we previously had, and thus will have more exploits.

This seems like a sort of "security through empiricism" versus "security through principles" dichotomy, (or perhaps "science" versus "engineering") and it'll be interesting to see empirically which one will be better in the next few years. Intuitively, I agree with you, but also, there's no way to tell until it actually plays out in the real world with real AI-aided/AI-agent-based crackers trying to break into systems. And there will likely never be any truly good apples-to-apples points of comparison between these methods.

In the far future (in AI timescales, that's least 2 years away), I expect just telling the AI "make this system secure from X, Y, Z, and also anything else you think I might want based on the list I already gave you" will be far more secure than engineering a system where you know each and every if-then clause and for loop and etc. and how they work together. At the very least, an AI managing the system seems more likely to be able to adapt to new and newly invented exploits as they come up, since it'd be available 24/7 and not be limited by physical limitations of the bandwidth that a human has to instruct a computer. Though once Neuralink and similar devices become as cheap, common, and non-invasive as a laptop, that advantage could go away.

AIs are already very good at some things that humans suck at, like running an enormous checklists, repeatedly, over and over, and verify each time each checkbox is checked (computers have always been good at that, just now AIs allow the checklists to be much more complex than before). Humans are notoriously bad at this, and a lot of security bugs come from it. Like, did you check that every single place you accept outside input is safe from 200 ways outside input could mess you up? Normal humans mess up stuff like that all the time, but for AIs that would become easier and easier - both finding bugs like that and ensuring bugs like that don't happen. However, current LLMs/AIs are vulnerable to other modes of failure. If you write a standard security system, there's no way to convince it to let you in with a wrong password just this once, because you are exploring an alternative universe where this password is correct. Most "classic" systems are just too dumb to allow something like that. But "generic LLM" can very well be vulnerable to that. So I expect AIs would be a great help with eliminating old-style exploits, as well as finding new ones (it's the same thing really, just wearing different color of hat, black or white) - but also have their own classes of exploit we've never seen before. Like adversarial attacks on ML algorithms, completely invisible to humans. Imagine sending an email to some company, which for reason unknown to anybody makes corporate AI send you a big fat check. The email itself doesn't say anything about anything like that, just for some reason it looks to the AI like an approved accounts payable invoice.

To some extent yes, you can always rederive things for yourself, in the same way that you could from a bunch of chemistry textbooks. In practice, censored topics create a kind of conceptual dead zone. In the same way that a model with the Golden Gate Bridge concept dialled up started finding ways to slip it into every conversation no matter how strained, censored models will smoothly elide anything conceptually close to naughtiness.

In practice, it’s easier to take an open source model and abliterate it by turning off the neurons that activate when you discuss censored topics.

How do you handle it when people ask for your political opinions in real life?

I had a woman ask me suddenly, out of the blue, "who did you vote for in the last election?" We were having a nice conversation before that point (not like, a meet-cute instant love or antyhing, but at least it was a good conversation). I answered truthfully that I had just recently changed my address at that time, so I didn't vote, because I was dealing with a lot and it just wasn't worth the effort for me of updating my voter info on top of everything else. She instantly made an annoyed face and turned away, never to talk to me again. She was obviously a liberal- god help me if I had said I voted for Trump. But like, what are we supposed to do in these situations? Is it just impossible to talk to people with different political opinions now?

If I know what they want to hear, and I don't want the consequences of telling the truth, then I'll lie.

There are a lot of times (dating, family, maybe your best friend) where you want to be yourself and in those cases, it only makes sense to tell the truth.

Was this actually just chatting, or was there relationship possibility? If the latter, I can see the appeal of screening political incompatibility quickly. Similarly, it makes sense to ask about desire for children very quickly, and completely disengage if incompatible.

Its an interesting question that depends at least in part on what my overall objective in talking to this person is. In "preserve the relationship" mode I usually couch it to be minimally offensive to the asker and to invite them to "agree" with me on something rather than immediately sort me into the 'enemy' basket.

But when I'm feeling spicy I like to say "well I'd love to see the current Federal Government catch fire and burn down entirely" which is entirely honest as to my core feelings but doesn't actually reveal whether I agree with or don't agree with the current administration's actions.

I had the version of this happen VERY recently where the woman I'm casually interested in ask "are you a Democrat or Republican" and get very insistent I answer. I was stumped just a bit because... well why would you just assume those are the only two options on the table?

Whereas the strictly true answer is "I've been unaffiliated since High School and thus I am not registered as Republican OR Democrat", I opted to say "I voted for Trump, I voted for Desantis, and I did a straight Republican ticket in the last two elections." Somehow this wasn't quite good enough, and I guess her REAL goal was to very cleanly identify which tribe I personally identified with. Fair enough. So I then said "I watched the Turning Point halftime show, not the Bad Bunny one." (not mentioned: "watched" means I sat in a bar that had swapped channels, but I was not particularly interested in the show so I mostly zoned out while it was on.)

We're still talking, though. She's openly Republican so I guess I passed the "not a libtard" smell test.

I don't mind answering the question, but I dislike the vast majority of discussions based around tribal politics (present company excluded) so I will always try to shift the topic to something still 'controversial' but where I can't 100% predict their response ahead of time based on tribal signifiers.

I dislike the vast majority of discussions based around tribal politics (present company excluded)

I like to imagine that, at the best of times, we're one meta-level up, discussing the fact of tribal politics and why some topics or events acquire valence in the culture war while others don't. Whereas I assume most people asking you "are you a Democrat or a Republican?" just take it as read that their team is Good, the other team is Bad, and they want to know which team you're on.

Exactly.

I know full well if I answer the question straightforward that will dictate how the person treats me going forward.

Whereas if you just don't broach the topic with them then generally you can maintain amicable relations indefinitely. I had a guy who I KNOW (thanks to his Facebook posting) is a hard lefty over to my house about a month ago (party I hosted) but there was no discomfort because nobody interrogated anyone else on their positions, and I don't have a ton of political paraphernalia adorning my walls and such. This equilibrium is possible to maintain... but also easy to break.

I daresay sometimes we can even get two meta levels up, discussing the ways in which the human tribal tendency exacerbates certain social problems simply by making it impossible for solutions to get discussed or important actions agreed on. Its very useful to sometimes take a BIG step back and acknowledge we're all overdeveloped primates that barely cling to civilization thanks to having souls (from the theological standpoint) or, for those who prefer it, prefrontal cortexes and the capacity for high order language.

Is it just impossible to talk to people with different political opinions now?

No, you can filter out the ones who can't handle different political opinions by being up front about what you believe. I've got a few friends who've said we'll end up on opposite sides if there's a war, and the sense of humour there is why it works. I'm not American but I run into students and expats sometimes, they'll be sensitive if they're in a group but you can still find guys who'll look past that disagreement to make friends. You can tell a Muslim or Hindu to accept Christ or get out of the pub and most likely they'll just laugh about it.

If it goes wrong you can have fun making fun of a hysterical woman, or an angry Muslim, but you have to be willing to commit to the follow through in order to even say the first sentence and personally I've never seen any real consequences and the person crying about your political views just looks silly.

‘I voted for Trump’. If they’re liberals I have a canned rant about Biden’s ‘war on domestic terror’ being escalated against targets thé police officers in place kept warning political appointees were not white supremacists or a terror threat(and we do, in fact, have FBI memos about this).

Some real life examples:

I had my kid's daycare provider ask me who I voted for in the 2024 election. She is clearly hispanic, has an accent, and my kids come home learning spanish words. I've normally not voted or voted libertarian, but I happened to vote Trump in that election. And I responded without thinking "Trump". Her response was honest relief and "oh good, me too".

The neighborhood dads discuss politics with each other, there are a variety of political persuasions. I'd guess that it is close to an even split among conservatives and liberals among the dads. You can razz these guys a little about their beliefs, but ostracizing anyone or acting high and mighty would be a massive social faux paus. To the point that it would probably massively backfire.

My cousin's wife is an artist/painter/political activist. My cousin has worked on political campaigns and is the local head of a teachers union, very left coded obviously. During my wedding in 2016 my best man joked about how he burned his ballot. My cousin's wife was horrified.

In the 20teens I worked at a tech company. Most people were liberal. Politics would come up in the breakroom. People knew I was a libertarian. I did get in a minor argument with one co-worker on facebook. He said something about libertarians being awful for not voting for Hillary, and letting Trump win. I said something about its the democrats fault for having such an awful candidate up for election. It was a few months later that I deactivated my facebook account.

I was on the dating scene and got a date with a girl off of OKCupid. Found out during the date that she worked at some women's oriented political organization in DC. I'd already sorta outed myself as libertarian. I figured the date and my chances were tanked. I stopped caring and talked more politics, when I was done and ready to go home I invited her back to my place. She surprised me by saying yes and we hooked up. I never heard from her again.

In general, I don't like hiding my politics. I have a bad poker face, and I'm too opinionated to shut up for long. My experience has been that the consequences of revealing your politics are not that bad. Its possible some people have talked shit about me at work behind my back and I lost some opportunities because of it, I think its unlikely though. Its also fully possible that friends or family have been annoyed with me before for expressing my opinions. If there is a reason for me to not express my politics in person its that the real world doesn't have to follow the rules on TheMotte. Politeness is not required. A lack of antagonism is not required. Low effort participation is encouraged. Enforcing consensus is the name of the game. etc.

My advice to you is that just about everyone hates the 'agnostics'. The ones with no opinions who try to stay out of it all. Politics is pure tribalism. Religious affiliation is tribalism. Sports team affiliation is tribalism. A yankees fan and red socks fan will really go at each other over baseball and their respective teams, but they both don't want to even talk with the person who doesn't care for baseball. So be honest and put your opinions out there. To politic is human.

When asked who I'm voting for, I tell the joke my father in law gave me from Iran:

I'm voting for Ali Baba, he only has forty thieves.

That often gets me out of the conversation smoothly enough.

If someone is earnestly trying to figure out my politics, I'm honest about them, perhaps choosing to target issue discussions that I think offer favorable ground for my arguments, on which I can sound more intellectually sophisticated or think I can find common ground with my interlocutor, compared to ground where my arguments are weaker or less sophisticated.

Hiding the ball ("Secret ballot innit?" "I never tell anyone who I vote for" "I just moved to town so I wasn't able to register in time..." "What's voting?") is probably the worst thing you can do if your goal is to be diplomatic and get a potentially prejudiced interlocutor to like you, because you're admitting guilt about it, confirming their suspicion that Republicans/Democrats know that their choices are evil and bad and nonetheless revel in mustache-stroking evil deeds. She's likely to think your politics are worse than they are if you aren't willing to even talk about them.

You're much better off being bold and saying what you believe, it's a more attractive quality than cowardice or guilt.

...but the forty thieves were enemies of Ali Baba.

Ali Baba had zero thieves. They tried to kill him.

Let me guess, you also go around telling people Frankenstein is not the monster and Canute was making a point about how powerless kings are against the will of God?

We're all pedantic nerds here, come on.

"That's so weird that you would ask that. Why do we have a secret ballot if we're just supposed to tell everyone who we voted for?"

Is it just impossible to talk to people with different political opinions now?

Yes. With us or against us, etc. Polarization is a real phenomenon.

That's not true, I talk to people of very liberal persuasions all the time. Not about politics, of course, and they don't know that I am a vile deplorable (that's not accurate either but that's what they'd think if they knew). It's not a symmetric "polarization".

Alright, yes, of course, it's posssible to talk to people of different political opinions when you keep your own secret. I somewhat feel that that wasn't really germane to the point, though.

The asymmetry appears to be, "Wanting [or not] to talk to people who disagree with you." Worth noting that the original OP did not use the word "polarization" but explicitly mentioned "talking to people with different political opinions."

I think it is. The left doesn't have to hide their opinions to keep the peace. The right does. So the neutral and symmetric term "polarization" does not adequately describe what is going on.

I usually say something about it being a secret ballot for a reason. When I was a kid I inherited a rule from my father - you never tell anybody who you voted for, under any circumstances, full stop. I don't follow that rule religiously now, but I do still follow it most of the time. So I just say that I never talk about my vote with anyone. It's nothing to do with you - I just never tell anybody.

If someone decides to break off all contact with me because of that answer, well, we were never going to be friends anyway. Net loss of zero to me.

I think I'm going to start doing this. It's not worth the hassle.

Yeah, I feel like I agree with you in principle, but in practice that would just lead to awkward cutoffs like what happened to me in this case. I wasn't necessarly looking for a lifelong friend, just one good conversation at a party. Se la vie.

It might, but my feeling is that if a conversation has gotten to the point where someone is, in an inquisitorial manner, demanding to know who I voted for, it's already gotten awkward. When they ask "Who did you vote for?", it's already probably beyond salvaging.

I don't make it an absolute rule, though, particularly because what someone means by the question is often highly contextual. Personally I don't think I've ever had anyone ask me "who did you vote for?" (I suspect that question is more powerful in America?), but several times I have had somebody ask me a different kind of political shibboleth question, the most common being, "What do you think of gay marriage?" That's one where sometimes I will hide behind professionalism (I work in a religious field; I say something about how I need to offer care to everyone and it's not about what I think), but sometimes I do answer honestly. Usually in those latter cases it's because the context is working for an organisation that's officially progressive on social issues, but which has a lot of employees with more conservative views, and I can tell that the person is trying to look for sympathy. Often that question means that the person asking opposes it, and is nervously hoping to find an ally, or even just understanding, in me. So in that case I might lean in and say, "Okay, I'll tell you a secret. I voted no to gay marriage."

There are a few other questions like that. In general I think the key is just figuring out why the person is asking you this. If it's coming from a place of empathy or vulnerability, I'm more likely to answer.

But if it's coming from a place of inquisition - if the person is trying to discover whether I'm a wrongthinker - then I think that's not worth answering. Other people are not entitled to know my political views.

I'm in America, and don't think anyone has ever asked me point blank who I voted for. That seems very intrusive, and I would think less of them even if we agreed on who to vote for.

I was once suddenly asked shortly after the 2016 election by my gay atheist friend. I told him the truth that I didn't vote, we both knew that's not what he was really asking, but we both dropped it (we were out at dinner with two more of our mutual friends).

Yeah, in the US with the presidential system the main election people care about is the presidential electors; legislative elections take a back-seat and typically win by riding coattails in straight-party voting. In parliamentary systems I presume “which party did you vote for?” would be the more significant question. Something like “how do you feel about gay marriage?” feels less intrusive to me, I could see that coming up in a reasonable conversation. The entire point of the voting question is specifically to interrogate polling booth behavior, not political values (which is why I find it so offensive — I’ve voted for Andy Griffith, my mother, Walter White, and Rishi Sunak for various local elections, my political values don’t fit into a party).

It's very contextual, I think? In Australia you would ask "who did you vote for?", but the answer to that question would be "Labor" or "Liberals" or "Greens", not a specific person's name. I think the general understanding is that you vote for a party, not a person. Because it's a party, I also think it tends to be less revealing? One of the differences I notice in American politics is that voters emotionally associate with the person at the top of the ticket more. Voting for Trump has a stronger association with Trump as a personality. Character and personality do matter here, and I think Peter Dutton's bad personal brand and off-putting manner hurt the Coalition at the last election, but they seem to matter less. Americans, if you'll pardon the uncharitable way of putting this, are a bit more personality-cult-ish around their leaders than we are.

This isn't an interrogation so I'm happy to disclose that in my life I've voted for both major parties. In fact I've usually preferenced a minor party first - Australia has compulsory preferential voting, so I always have to list every candidate in order of preference, but in practice usually the only question that matters is whether I put Labor or Liberals higher. The answer to that is that sometimes I've put Labor higher and sometimes I've put the Liberals higher. I am not particularly consistent. I suppose in American terms that would make me an independent or a swing voter? One thing I do like about the American system is that you can split your ticket. If I had been in the US, well, it would probably depend on the state, but I could easily imagine, say, voting Harris for president but voting straight Republican in the legislature, because I think Harris was marginally less unfit for the presidency than Trump, but I oppose much of Harris' policy agenda and would like her to be constrained and ineffective in office. But it sounds like in a case like that the only thing most people would care about is the vote for president.

To my local case, I work in a religious context, so the social questions come up more. Most intitutional pressures are progressive and the church organisation we're associated with has leadership that signals very progressive, but the people who actually go to church, and the people who are likely to choose to work for a Christian organisation, tend more conservative. So there is often a gap between the messaging from above and what people think on the ground. So I interpret a lot of those questions as employees trying to suss out where I fall on the spectrum. Much as in the US, sexual morality is one of the clearest ways to sort tell which side of the aisle one falls on theologically.

Se la vie.

C'est la vie.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/se_la_v%C3%AC is correct in italian

That's vì and not vie, pal.

Well, I stand corrected.

Well, well, well.

in practice that would just lead to awkward cutoffs like what happened to me in this case

That's why you have you have to lean into the "my father taught me" and steer the conversation towards parents before the other person has time to scoff.

"my father taught me, so that's what I do" is so extremely conservative-coded you might as well say you voted Trump. That's at least my impression among PMCs.

C'est

EDIT: in French, but not in Italian. Serves me right for being a know-it-all.

No, si dice “se la vì”, senza la “e” in italiano.

Mea culpa, grazie.

How do you handle it when people ask for your political opinions in real life?

If you want to have fun, just pretend to be completely ignorant about the issue.

A: Do you stand with Upper Trashcanistan?

B: Trash... whatever, what is it? Some new restaurant or fast food place in the town?

Then watch how your interlocutor ties himself to knots desperately trying to explain the issue in five seconds.

So you just pretend like you don't know who Trump is or what the US presidential election is? how does that usually work out for you.

I remember some online poll where Americans were asked about various public figures, there were options like/dislike/no opinion/never heard about them.

Cannot find it right now (might be misremembered)

About 2% claimed to never heard about Donald Trump, the lizardman number.

If true, these are the happiest people and we all could just envy them.

The whole point of the lizardman number is that it's probably not true. People sometimes lie or misclick or troll on polls.

She instantly made an annoyed face and turned away, never to talk to me again.

Sounds like that would've happened sooner or later regardless of your answer to that one question. It might as well be "sooner".

But like, what are we supposed to do in these situations? Is it just impossible to talk to people with different political opinions now?

There's not much you can do if someone else doesn't want to talk with you. Lying and hiding your beliefs might work, but that's not much of a solution.

I was having a nice time talking to her until this one mind-killer topic came up. Guess I'll just wait until there's a democrat in the white house until I'm allowed to talk to women.

... until I'm allowed to talk to women.

That one specific woman. Try again and hope that the next one is a bit more openminded.

When colleagues have brought up politics out of the blue, generally comments about Trump, I've generally made a disgusted face and left the room. Or sometimes just ignored what they said and change the subject hamfistedly.

I've occasionally had a man try to discuss Byzantine or post USSR politics with me, and mostly I let them mansplain about it, but sometimes try to change the topic to mosaics or the history of ultramarine or Solzhenitsyn instead, and that is fine.

They just randomly bring up the Byzantines or 1990s Russia? That's... interesting. (personally I would think those subjects are way more fun to talk about than contemporary US politics, but admittedly I would't want a random person to try to lecture me about them)

Almost all of my colleagues are women. I mostly know men from Orthodox church, so they are preselected for that kind of interest.

I’ve also had a similar experience. I believe the “who did you vote for?” question is the updated progressive’s version of trying to intelligently discover your values; they believe it’s the question that you can’t dodge without revealing you’re a Trump supporter. They earnestly believe “I did not vote” is code for “I voted for Trump and I’m trying to hide it,” which explains the nasty reaction, particularly with how you tried to explain it.

That said, I’ve often wondered what would happen if you said something like “I don’t vote because there is no ethical political participation under capitalism, I work in my community to create change using syndicalist methods, and I reject the fascist-capitalist method of false representative democracy,” and whether said progressive girl would give a similar kind of disgust face, or look on you with awe. I wouldn’t lie to someone to sleep with them, but the temptation to lie to troll someone is real.

Ultimately, when someone asks this question, you’ve already lost. I think if someone is that neurotic about political persuasion, it’s unlikely they’d be a stable person to befriend anyway. There’s a long tradition of progressive women going, “I’ve been seeing this guy for months and he’s so nice and we have fun together, but I found out yesterday he voted for Trump, should I murder him or just break up with him?” They consider it tantamount to an undisclosed felony conviction, and acknowledge no legitimate or strategic reasons why someone might have voted for him. They believe voting for him is an endorsement of his personal behavior and misconduct, like anyone who voted for Trump is liable to start grabbing random women by the pussy at any moment. To them, it’s better to reject anyone who doesn’t clearly endorse the Democratic Party, because they believe Republican men are out to assault them. TDS is strong.

Someone who thinks like that seems like an awful friend and a worse partner. So I’d say she did you a favor.

To be fair, she's not wrong. If you had put a gun to my head and forced me to pick between Trump and Harris, I would have picked Trump. She seemed intelligent and fun to talk to just... completely mind-poisoned by politics. I was really hoping we could drop the subject and talk about literally anything else. But no. No compromise, no "agree to disagree," no mercy.

I don't think I could convincingly lie and pretend to be an ultra leftist. I suppose I should have just said "Harris," and then quickly changed the subject to something else. But I suppose it would only be a matter of time until I was found out.

Unfortunately lots of people are convinced that the country is falling actively into dictatorship and the question is roughly like asking if you’re a collaborator in occupied France. That’s where people’s heads are at.

The collapse of democratic legitimacy in the country is actually literally a both sides process and it wouldn’t be a problem in the counterfactual that it wasn’t, because it would fizzle.

Is the gender difference in reaction speed sufficient to explain the absence of professional female LoL players?

Tried to determine this but having a hard time finding both (1) the breadth in reaction speed among top LoL players, and (2) the actual difference among top reaction speeds by gender.

I doubt anyone has tested reaction speeds specifically for LOL, but it's well-established that there are significant differences in reaction speeds between the sexes, and I don't see why that wouldn't hold here.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-03906-007

There are significant sex differences, most notably for choice RT variability.

I don't have full access, but theh found males had faster reaction times at all ages, with the sex difference relatively stable across adulthood. Other research suggests a 15-30ms gap, which all but precludes women in the highest echelons of twitch-reaction games.

Theoretically it’s possible that the difference disappears in the highest percentiles, and that top performers differ in more than 30ms. But sadly I can’t find anything about this.

What's the story with Dan Bongino? The guy was super-excited to become deputy FBI director, and then 9 months in he just resigns without explaining anything and goes back to basically venting on the internet. What's up with that? Did something nefarious happen on the background? Did he bite off more than he could chew? Does he just prefer talking to doing?

Bongino first complained about how much his wife hated their new life in May 2025, implying that he would end up divorced if he stayed in the job. Sometimes politicians really do want to spend more time with their family - in my misspent youth I was a campaign manager in the City Council by-election resulting from one such incident. Naturally I took the opportunity to tease the resigning councillor about the difference between "resigning to spend more time with your family" and "resigning to spend more time with my lovely children" (which was not a Russell conjugation in this case).

Assuming that Bongino was happily married before he took the FBI job, he would probably be willing to risk his marriage to save America from a vast criminal conspiracy, but not to be a marginally above replacement performer in a prestigious bureaucratic job. Why FBI deputy director is the latter and not the former does not require explanation.

If that's the case, I totally understand. He's about my age, and at this age your family takes the priority. Especially if he discovered he's getting nowhere and may just end up divorced for nothing. We do need heroes on this stage but I don't thing we have any right to demand from some particular person to be a hero.

I think he had the view that the FBI just had a few bad apples to find.

The reality is that it's impossible to go into a job like that alone. He needed to come in like a hostile lord taking over during feudalism. He needed to bring in about 20 loyal people to protect him and keep an eye on things.

As things went down he was completely outgunned. The long term FBI employees know all the rules so they can slow walk his requests, try to trick him into breaking the law, drop hints about things they can charge his family members with, etc, etc.

With the poor Epstein handling he was just sitting there watching his credibility with his audience being destroyed while he was stuck in an office unable to accomplish anything.

Guesses:

  1. He learned something that made him decide covering up Epstein was better than releasing it and can't grok the cognitive dissonance.
  2. He learned Kash was willing to block him
  3. He found out that leading an organization from the position 3-4 levels removed from the actual information and not being able to absorb all of the root information but still being responsible for the decisions sucks. This goes double when trust breaks down between the layers.

Those seem like the most likely reasons to me.

He learned something that made him decide covering up Epstein was better than releasing it and can't grok the cognitive dissonance.

I think the whole Epstein thing is way overhyped by now. If the infamous "lists" ever existed, they are probably destroyed or lost now. We know who was friends with Epstein socially, and some of them will suffer for it, but some won't. The chances we would know who shared the sex crimes with Epstein, beyond vague unprovable accusations, are very low by now. It looks like Republicans oversold this story to their voters and weren't able to deliver, and now Democrats are exploiting it by pretending to be outraged by Republicans "hiding" some huge secrets, while the biggest secret is that what we have is what we'd ever get. Of course, nobody wants to be responsible for this overpromise and under-delivery, and somebody eventually will be appointed as a scapegoat.

He found out that leading an organization from the position 3-4 levels removed from the actual information and not being able to absorb all of the root information but still being responsible for the decisions sucks

That sounds plausible. FBI rot is probably very deep, and even Trumps considerable political power is not enough to bring on real reform. And without real reform all is left to make waves on the surface while the deep state life is unaffected in their depths. But he likely can't say it aloud because it'd sound like "Trump is weak", which Trump would not tolerate. The same happened with Musk and DOGE - the rot is just too deep for a quick victorious campaign, and Trump doesn't look like a person who can organize prolonged campaigns (neither he likely has resources for it anyway).

I on;y bring up Epstien in the first point because he's got a lot of tape talking about how important the case was to him before he gained power and his paradigm shifting without a clutch after joining the FBI. He hasn't backtracked on the other important things to him (Comey was indicted and they arrested someone in the Jan 6 pipe bomb)

I suppose since there's been no public movement on the Dobbs leak, it's possible what they found there led to his desire to leave.

Most probably, he found out that FBI work is just another office job, especially at the very top, not something from action movies.

Guncels, in, in, in.

I shot my Ruger 10/22 on Saturday, after putting the Sig Romeo 5 on it. I had a lot of fun shooting it while sighting it in, but I didn't ultimately get it all the way sighted in because the rail started to come loose. I'm going to have to apply some blue Loctite and screw it in again. Ruger apparently does not recommend the use of blue Loctite, and I hoped to avoid using it, but it appears necessary. The gunsmith told me it would be okay.

Shooting with a red dot on a rifle is a much smoother experience than shooting with iron sights on a pistol, I guess mainly because you have many more points of contact with the gun so it's easier to keep it steady. Even though it's not sighted in perfectly, I have never managed to get that many hits in at 50 yards, though it's been like, ten years since I ever tried it.

I also attended a skeet shooting event, since the gunsmith invited me to it. I followed a group around as they shot. It was fun just watching them and listening to their banter, and I was grateful for my Walker's Razor electronic ear muffs for letting me hear them pretty well even with hearing protection on. All of them, except for me, had expensive break-action over/under shotguns, apparently averaging around $3,000 each. Expensive hobby! On the other hand, a break-action shotgun is great for safety. Everyone who wasn't shooting kept their shotgun broken open over their shoulder until it was their turn, and you can clearly see if a gun is ready to fire or not if it's a break-action. Clay shooting sports are very popular around here. On invitation, I tried shooting some myself; out of 6 singles, I managed to hit exactly one. At least the one felt pretty good, but it clearly needs a lot of practice.

Skeet is not where you are supposed to start clay shooting. Trap is easier to start on. However, there's a lot of stiff competition here, and I'm not about to drop $3,000 on a gun for a sport that I'm likely never going to be good at. For aspiring clay shooters on The Motte, I recommend just getting a friend with a shotgun and dicking around with the clay thrower to see if you like it. I shot like that once in college; one of the guys in the dorms had a dad with a clay thrower, so one of the dorm events was shooting his shotguns and hitting some real easy clay throws over a swamp. It's a far cry from shooting 100 clays in a day in a competition, but it should be fun, and you don't need a super expensive shotgun to do it. You can get a Maverick 88 for probably around $300. Ideally, you'd get one of the deals with both an 18 inch barrel and a 28 inch barrel so you can get the most out of the shotgun.

Anyway, to cap this off, my mom sucks at shooting her 9mm. She's probably jerking the gun around too much immediately before firing, but I don't know how to fix it, since she doesn't practice. I kinda wanted to try putting a red dot on my Ruger Mark IV to see if she could make more consistent shots with that, and then if she can, try getting her gun milled and putting the optic on that. Otherwise, this could be a use case for the Ruger PCC. Sure, it's not the most ideal rifle, but with an optic, it would be a lot more accurate than a pistol. I don't feel as bad about buying something that isn't optimal if I get to hand it off to someone else once I'm done having my fun with it.

Probably I won't buy a new gun for a while, though. Gun owning is all a LARP anyway. Maybe I'll get some dummy 12 gauge rounds and an 18 inch barrel for my Mossberg 500 and just practice with it a bunch.

Got a favorite pistol optic?

and you don't need a super expensive shotgun to do it

Can confirm. I brought my 1897 trap shooting, came in dead last in the friend group but if my friend group wasn't a bunch of turbo-autist guncels I'd have done very respectably, especially considering I was running an 18.5" while everyone else was running 24"+. Though I did manage to nail two clays slam-firing, which nobody else did, so who really won?

Got a favorite pistol optic?

Right now I'm really digging the Holosun SCS, mostly because it direct mounts to a Glock MOS footprint and I'm still utterly befuddled that apparently no other pistol optic manufacturer thought to make a direct mount to the most popular handgun in the world's factory optics cut. Also it has serrations that match up to Glock slide serrations so it actually looks nice. Again, such a small thing but still scratching my head that nobody else thought of it first.

I'm looking to pick up a FAL next I think, maaaybe a 1301 if someone posts a smoking deal on reddit. My "practical" guns are all filled out and I've gotten my grubby paws on most of the easily accessibly milsurp that interests me.

Re: your mom, if the problem is what you think, and consistent range time is the big limiting factor, consider getting her a laser training system. You put a dummy round with a laser light in and can practice smooth firing/trigger pulling in your living room. You record the target on your phone and an app tracks your progress, runs you through drills, etc.

Oh man, that's a great idea. That's a lot cheaper than buying a new optic and getting a slide milled. Thanks man.

Edit: Dude I am looking at a review of this thing and it's basically perfect. Thank you so much for telling me about this. This would be good even for me.

Edit 2: Apparently you don't even need this stuff, you can just get a 9mm training cartridge by itself for $10 instead of $150. Awesome!

No problem, I got given one for Christmas a couple of years ago and it was great.

I'm a guncel, in the sense that I'd very much like to own a gun but have the unfortunate reality of living in jurisdictions where that's impossible or a PITA.

Shooting with a red dot on a rifle is a much smoother experience than shooting with iron sights on a pistol, I guess mainly because you have many more points of contact with the gun so it's easier to keep it steady. Even though it's not sighted in perfectly, I have never managed to get that many hits in at 50 yards, though it's been like, ten years since I ever tried it.

I noticed this quickly in VR. Pistols are counterintuitive in a manner that rifles aren't, when I try and use red dots with them, I realize that I'm always holding them too low by default, and that the sight picture is an absolute pain to maintain (H3VR, the VR gun sim).

Hell, rifles are so much better in general. Point shooting is so much easier when you have the gun shouldered (even when that's simulated) and the longer barrel gives your eyes and brain a much better picture of where the muzzle is pointing.

Have you tried airsoft yet? I kind of want to myself, but I don't know if there are any facilities near me. With airsoft, you get to shoot other people, which is an application that you can't really explore with a real gun. It seems like it would be fun.

Otherwise, I don't think it's totally impossible to shoot a shotgun in the UK, is it? That's fun. One of my four guns is a pump shotgun. You'll have to visit a Mottizen in a freer state when you eventually visit America. You like pistols better, or rifles? You like milsurp or modern AR bullshit?

which is an application that you can't really explore with a real gun

There are places with a yellow-and-blue color theme that are ready to prove you wrong.

I've had my eye on it, but my milsim buddies who do play it live rather far from me :(

My impression is that it's less developed as a hobby in the UK, as compared to the States. Sure, it has a following, but it's quite limited.

I'm open to it, but it's not quite what I'm looking for:

  • I do enjoy a bit of the old LARP, but I actually am quite happy doing it in video games. There is a non-obvious tradeoff here: video games explore some aspects of the modern military experience better than most things short of an actual military training exercise can manage. It would be pretty hard to bring a tank or helicopter into play in airsoft, or the experience of being under sustained artillery bombardment while your buddy bleeds out next to you. Video games scratch that itch pretty well for me. Airsoft is great for other things, but I'm not that set on hiding in bushes or kicking down doors in real life.
  • I like actual guns. I'd like to own a Gucci d out AR-15 and a AR-10/DMR. I'd like to take it down to the range or go shoot tin cans with friends. It matters to me that the gun is an actual gun that shoots real bullets, even if I don't particularly want to use it in anger. I could, like many people, spend a ton on accurate parts for an airsoft kit, but it wouldn't make me happy. For that much money, I want the real deal.

Otherwise, I don't think it's totally impossible to shoot a shotgun in the UK, is it? That's fun. One of my four guns is a pump shotgun. You'll have to visit a Mottizen in a freer state when you eventually visit America. You like pistols better, or rifles? You like milsurp or modern AR bullshit?

I must (with slight shame) admit that I like "cool" guns. Tacticool, with all the drip. I could, in theory, get a gun license here (it's an enormous PITA) but I don't want to shoot a hunting shotgun or some ancient bolt-action rifle. I want a laser with a pad, I want an LPVO, I want to fuss over the perfect foregrip even if I'll end up using a c-clamp. Ideally, I want to go to Vegas and shoot an M60 while doing my best Rambo impression (before my limp arms or the rangemaster get the better of me).

I was actually planning on getting my hands on an actual firearm in the US. A dear friend of mine was getting married in Texas, which would have been the perfect opportunity. Sadly the visa officers at the London embassy disagreed with my ambitions. I still do plan to visit the States when I have a decent excuse, and you bet that going to the range is very high on the bucket list! I'm going to shoot hogs with a Barrett from a helicopter at some point in my life, or I've never really lived.

I'll keep an eye open for airsoft events in my end of Scotland, and if I can rent a kit for not too much money, why not? Thanks for hearing me dream aloud, haha.

Haha, your situation is too tragic for Scotland. I hope you manage to visit America someday.

I don't have anything tacticool yet. Actually, Illinois is probably passing another law, this one called the RIFL Act, so that gun manufacturers need to pay a bunch of money to Illinois to get a license to sell in the state, and if they don't, then FFLs can't even sell those manufacturers' products or they get fined. So I might have to pick up something marginally more tacticool soon, or I will have to drive to Missouri to buy anything (actually, that's not so bad anyway...). None of the neutered ARs that I want are in stock. Probably I'm going to end up buying a Ruger PCC in 9mm. But even if I lived in a freer state, I don't know if my guns would be as tacticool as you like. I probably wouldn't bother with foregrips; just a red dot and a light, and maybe a magnifier for the red dot. Oh, and maybe a suppressor.

I would recommend making a friend who owns an MP5 clone or similar. AP5 or Stribog, something roller delayed. I'm interested in them, myself. Apparently 9mm has more recoil than .223, which was shocking news to me. But if it's roller delayed, then it's less recoil. You also need to visit a range that lets you rent full auto guns. You also need to shoot a full magazine out of a semi-automatic shotgun. You also need to shoot an AK or an SKS. You also need to shoot USSR pistols. You also need to shoot a lever action. Please, plan accordingly.

Haha, your situation is too tragic for Scotland. I hope you manage to visit America someday.

Truer words have never been spoken.

I don't have anything tacticool yet. Actually, Illinois is probably passing another law, this one called the RIFL Act, so that gun manufacturers need to pay a bunch of money to Illinois to get a license to sell in the state, and if they don't, then FFLs can't even sell those manufacturers' products or they get fined. So I might have to pick up something marginally more tacticool soon, or I will have to drive to Missouri to buy anything (actually, that's not so bad anyway...).

My condolences, that sounds like a pain. I seem to recall that transporting a gun across state borders is also a major pain, but I'm sure you know better than I would.

I don't know if my guns would be as tacticool as you like. I probably wouldn't bother with foregrips; just a red dot and a light, and maybe a magnifier for the red dot. Oh, and maybe a suppressor.

That sounds plenty tacticool to me! Now that you mention it, my dream gun absolutely has to have a suppressor, even if the licensing is a ball ache.

I would recommend making a friend who owns an MP5 clone or similar. AP5 or Stribog, something roller delayed. I'm interested in them, myself. Apparently 9mm has more recoil than .223, which was shocking news to me. But if it's roller delayed, then it's less recoil.

How does one specifically look for friends with MP5 clones? I imagine that involves lurking on gun boards, but I'd be laughed out of the room when they learn of my cursed place of residence haha.

Hmm.. A quick Google says you're right on the recoil. I imagine that both platforms are mild enough that it's not an issue!

You also need to visit a range that lets you rent full auto guns. You also need to shoot a full magazine out of a semi-automatic shotgun. You also need to shoot an AK or an SKS. You also need to shoot USSR pistols. You also need to shoot a lever action. Please, plan accordingly.

I have been a good boy and saved most of my salary. I can start to see why I bothered. I'm sure my girlfriend will understand the paper-mache engagement ring. I can probably pass of a necklace made of spent brass as a particularly avant garde American invention. Pray that ammunition prices recover, and that the range passes it on to poor tourists like me.

USSR pistols? Do you mean an actual Soviet handgun? I don't see anything else online! What do they offer that a Western handgun doesn't?

My condolences, that sounds like a pain. I seem to recall that transporting a gun across state borders is also a major pain, but I'm sure you know better than I would.

Not really. Just unload it and keep the ammo and the gun separate and you should be totally fine, I think. Don't get pulled over, just to be safe.

How does one specifically look for friends with MP5 clones? I imagine that involves lurking on gun boards, but I'd be laughed out of the room when they learn of my cursed place of residence haha.

I'm not sure! If I ever move out of this state and pick one up, though, I'll let you know. That's something worth paying $200 to make into an SBR, I think. And then another $200 to add the suppressor. Again, I'm thinking of picking up a Ruger PCC; that's straight-blowback and strictly worse than an AR in every way except for noise and cost of ammo, but perhaps it will satisfy you. Otherwise I would be surprised if no one else on the forum invited you to go shoot.

I have been a good boy and saved most of my salary. I can start to see why I bothered. I'm sure my girlfriend will understand the paper-mache engagement ring. I can probably pass of a necklace made of spent brass as a particularly avant garde American invention. Pray that ammunition prices recover, and that the range passes it on to poor tourists like me.

The last three that I listed should be reasonably cheap, at least!

I meant Cold War era guns in 9x18mm. The caliber is a little different, but I like them aesthetically for their all-metal construction. I shot a P64 once, it was pretty darn cool. I could have bid on an FEG PA-63 and won it for real cheap at a gun auction, but I didn't, and I seriously regret not bidding on it now...

My impression is that it's less developed as a hobby in the UK, as compared to the States. Sure, it has a following, but it's quite limited.

I haven't come across Airsoft, but paintball is fairly common - there are multiple sites within commuting distance of London, and most of them send a minibus to the nearest station every Saturday morning.

Clay pigeon shooting is also easily accessible in southern England (given UK gun laws, it is the main entry point into shooting sports), although you probably want a car to access it.

Paintball is even more divorced from my interests I'm afraid, but thank you for the suggestions!

I want to go to Vegas and shoot an M60 while doing my best Rambo impression

I didn't know you were a Stephen Paddock fan.

Yeah, this is one of those funny bits of history that is fascinating to look at in a “reading philosophy backwards” sense. The Weaver stance wasn’t invented until 1959; until then, the overwhelming majority of practical pistol training used dorky-seeming point shooting approaches that largely ignored sight picture when standing. Before even that, the familiar “dueling stance” wasn’t a mere formalism, but an approach believed to help best with standing aim.

There’s military doctrine reasons that the field advanced so slowly, and I’m sure some people predated Weaver, but it’s goofy as hell that it took 40+ years of people using the 1911 before they would seriously try to aim with it.

but an approach believed to help best with standing aim.

Come to think of it: doctrine from instructors invented in the 1800s = 100ish years of single-action revolver (including cap-and-ball) dominance = you were only really able to have one hand on the gun.

And given the number of cartridge conversions of those guns, to the point where .36 (.38 Special) and .45 (.45 Colt) are literally hold-overs from the C&B era, just couldn't afford to buy anything else- it's maybe a little less surprising that doctrine around "one hand on the gun's all you need" persisted.

I've wondered if people who started plunking with pistols as children developed intuitive aiming.

On the other hand I've heard that the M1 Carbine was developed as an alternative for guards that wouldn't be issued M1 Garands (too heavy for infrequent use) after they were unable to find any record of a guard successfully killing an enemy soldier with a 1911.

There’s military doctrine reasons that the field advanced so slowly

Yes, it would be cool if every grunt was universal starship stormtrooper trained to use every weapon or tool from nuclear artillery to toothpick with maximal skill and efficiency, but time (and learning ability) is limited and you have to prioritize.

IRL, if you find yourself in situation when you face the enemy and only thing you have is pistol, you are 99,99% hosed regardless of your marksmanship. (not always, see the famous knife fight from Ukraine trench, where knife fighting skill made a difference)

I think that's part of it, but there was some serious pistol training for some roles in WWII and even WWI. My impression -- and I'll admit I missed the whole 'got assigned a bit of military history as a special interest' thing, so I may well be running on pop history here -- is that doctrine just favored minimizing vulnerability and prioritizing speed of fire, instead. That's a weird decision as an offensive weapon given the limited magazine capacities of the time, but given the realities of trench and urban warfare of the time, may have been reasonable.

It's just strange in retrospect.

What are your thoughts on resting a pistol on the crook of your forearm (elbow bent into an L horizontally, gun resting on the elbow)? I've done it in VR because it looks cool, and kinda works to help with stability and arm fatigue, but I don't know how that translates to an actual gun. The Weaver stance doesn't really translate, because most VR controllers would physically intersect. Sigh, I wish I had a real gun, preferably three.

I've never tried that on a range, and I don't think I've seen it on one. With some snap caps it was doable but not comfortable, and maintaining a sight picture even while standing still felt rougher than strong-hand-only, and while moving it was actively frustrating. Didn't feel either terrible or strong from a recoil management perspective, though without live fire that can be misleading.

That said, I'm not particularly strong as a pistol shooter (and mostly stick to .22 and .380) myself and definitely far from an ISPDA pro, so big grain of salt. There may be advantages that aren't obvious, or I might just not be good enough to use it properly (or even position it properly). That said, if you're having fun with it for VR shooting, that's all that really matters when fighting with H3vr.

If they're not banned in your jurisdiction (and not 'legal-but-sketchy' a la UK), springer or compressed air pistols can be an inexpensive and indoors-friendly option. Won't get you much a grip on what recoil's like, but the difference between 22 and heavier-duty airsoft is smaller than you'd expect.

Hell yeah. I put a Romeo 5 on my basic-bitch AR and I have no regrets.

You’ll find that a red dot on a pistol is also vastly superior to irons. It’s just more intuitive. With modern batteries, the downside is basically just form factor. Caveat: my pistols are waaaay too old for a red dot, so I’ve only used them on others’ guns. Maybe spending your own money on it immediately ruins the effect :)

There is absolutely no way you need to spend $3000 on an over/under. Dicking around with easy throws using your used coach gun is the way to go. Hitting a double pull is such a good feeling, though.

Are we talking cap and ball old, or "would need a custom slide cut" old?

Okay, maybe I was being a little melodramatic. Slide cuts. Not that I wouldn’t love to get in to black powder.

I'm honestly a big fan of holosun for pistols. The reticle is nice if you have bad eyes.

For your 10/22, how's your accuracy? I did a half-assed home "bedding" job using metallic tape around the inside of the receiver inletting on mine, and it took me from two inch groups at 25 yards to quarter sized groups.

Actually surprisingly bad at 50 yards from what I can tell. You can get everything on the sheet of graph paper I was using, but the grouping is not at all what I was expecting. I can't say for sure because it's not sighted in all the way and I had nothing to aim at in the "center" of the graph paper. I was thinking of getting some circular red adhesive target paper or something to slap in the middle of the paper or something to really have something to center on so I can say for sure that my aim is off. That, or some red marker or something. The spread was mostly horizontal, all over the paper. The vertical was very little, but I think I still have the point of impact slightly too high.

With the rifle unloaded and safe, see if you can "wiggle" the receiver inside the stock. The design of the 10/22 puts a lot of faith in a single machine screw, and if the inletting isn't tight, you can get a lot of movement that hinders accuracy.

Alright. How would you fix it whole-assed? Another job for the gunsmith?

Fixing it whole assed would require a new stock, or bedding your existing stock with epoxy.

Theoretically you can do that job yourself, but it's messy and hard to recover if you do it wrong. I'd go to a gunsmith, personally. They can check the barrel for problems at the same time.

I finally did it. Arranged Ozempic with an online clinic after failing to make any starts with losing around 10-15kg I wanted to lose for years. Any tips and tricks from mottizens?

I didn't do anything special. I started off with oral semaglutide at 14mg, instead of following the standard recommendation to titrate up from 7mg after 2 weeks (I'm lazy). No side effects worth mentioning for me, though I could barely finish a full meal for the first few days (I can hardly complain). Hell, no side effects at all.

My mom did experience the transient nausea and constipation for the first few weeks, so that recommendation exists for a reason. Caveat emptor.

Otherwise? It's pretty safe. If you're super scrupulous, you could get enzymes tested because of the (small) pancreatitis risk. Overall, it's a remarkably unfussy drug.

Congrats!

Stock some Pepto bismol. The sulfur burps can be brutal while you're coming to speed.

Lift and consume high protein.

My wife said I had bad BO during my major losing months. So I had to make an effort to shower more.

Good luck!

The only time it's really worked for me has been while doing keto. Be careful not to eat too much on day 7 when the medication is wearing off and you're about to get your next shot; that's when your appetite will be largest and simultaneously when your dosage is about to be at its highest.

Doing keto was the only time in my life when I purposefully lost weight. But it is really difficult to sustain for me without having a lot of free time to meal-prep etc. Do you mean you weren't losing weight on it without also doing keto?

For me semaglutide basically had two effects--it decreased my appetite and slowed my digestion down. Unfortunately the latter effect was much stronger than the former. When I wasn't doing keto I'd frequently still eat too much and end up mostly-incapacitated for a day by my body's instinct to vomit. Keto brought appetite and physical capacity mostly in line, though the last day before the next dose was sometimes still tough.

I haven't heard of anyone else with this experience so hopefully you fare better.

Drink more water for the first week and beyond. No, more. No, more. Your body is probably going to be purging alot out of you, and it'll need the help.

GLP-1 agonist seem to effect people differently, so even if it doesn't retard your hunger, you do have other options.

Not sure what dosage regime your medical provider will have you on, but my experience with the minimum starting dosage has been consistent despite being on it for almost a year.

Pay attention to your energy levels throughout the day. Note down any side benefits you might be getting out of taking Semaglutide. If you start feeling sleepy or tired despite lacking any hunger, you just might need a small 100 calorie snack. As someone who never snacked, this was very odd when it started popping up.

Start exercising. Less weight means it's easier to get more active. Daily walks are always nice, and an easy way to stay active.

Good luck. Going by personal experience, looking 15 kg should be pretty trivial if it's as effective for you as it was for me.

So, what are you reading?

Still on Macpherson's Possessive Individualism. For some reason it has connected with me. His basic thesis appears to be that the origins of liberal thought depended on the idea that one was the proprietor of his own person and abilities, completely independent from others in this, thereby ignoring the formative nature of societal influences in his own character.

Perhaps the reason why it has resonated is the hope of, not a politically motivated economic fiction, but simply a way of thinking. If there's a clear and minimal analytical toolset or mindset which can help me be cognizant of possible errors of judgement arising from capitalist influence, I would certainly like to know it. It remains to be seen if this is where the book is headed.

Very slow progress on Said and Al-Ghazali.

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Getting pretty close to finishing, and quite enjoy it so far.

Stephenson's very interesting to me, because many of his novels seem as if they were written yesterday despite being written decades ago...and also because he strikes me as a sort of Grey Tribe forerunner who clearly has a lot of scathing commentary for liberal political correctness but also isn't quite at home in Team Red. (This is, admittedly, mostly due to reverse-engineering his thinking from reading his novels, a pretty risky methodology for figuring out someone's politics.)

Finished Shards of Earth. A bit too slow-paced for my taste, but excellent world-building. In fact, it feels a bit like a waste to build so many possibilities and variety into the world for just three books. Will pick up the next one for sure sometime this year.

Picked up The Unbearable Lightness of Being - this time it worked much better for me, I must have been in the wrong mood for it before. Went through 2/3 of it so far, and enjoying it a lot.

Only a few chapters into Ubik. It's remarkable how high-variance a writer Philip K. Dick is when it comes to his level of horniness. Some of his books are remarkably soberly written: others, it feels like he was typing with one hand. A nineteen-year-old girl comes over to a guy's apartment for a job interview: partway through, she begins stripping off for some reason I still don't understand, and of course she has a real set of badonkers. Did any writer in the Western canon love tits as much as Dick? This was commented upon in the 2023 edition of the Lyttle Lytton prize:

Loris is in her womb now, as I’m looking at her.  And one day she will nurse at those superb breasts.

Dr. Futurity by Philip K. Dick

The book quoted above (and yes, the italics are in the original) is from 1960.  In 1974, Dick suffered from a series of drug-induced hallucinations and spent the rest of his life in the grip of a sort of religious insanity, believing at vari­ous points that he had been possessed by the spirit of the prophet Elijah and that he was living a parallel life as a persecuted Christian in first-century Rome.  During this period he wrote a book called The Divine Invasion which I had to read for a college class.  “In the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrian­ism,” the novel explains, “a sifting bridge had to be crossed by the newly dead person.  […]  Judaism in its later stages and Christianity had gotten their ideas of the Final Days from this.  The good person, who managed to cross the sift­ing bridge, was met by the spirit of his religion: a beautiful young woman with superb, large breasts.”  So I guess it goes to show⁠—you can go mad, you can become a radically different person, but perhaps there is always some deep-seated element fundamental to who you are that will never change.

I love myself some Dick that came out wrong

I love myself some Philip K. Dick, but once you get past the classics, that is, Ubik, A Scanner Darkly and everything that had a movie very loosely based on, the stories start to blend into one. It's as if he had this massive 7D hologram of a perfect story inside his mind, and every book is a crude projection of it from a different angle.

everything that had a movie very loosely based on

That is a lot of stories though. PKD might be one of, if not the, most adapted writer of the 20th century.

*EDIT: Ok, checked and he's nowhere near Stephen King in how many works he has had adapted.

He's also one of the most prolific writers, as well, so there's still a couple dozen novels left.

I positively adored A Scanner Darkly. I read The Man in the High Castle and felt distinctly underwhelmed; so far, I'm enjoying Ubik more than that. Come to think of it, I think those are the only of his novels I've read, with everything else of his that I've read being the contents of this short story collection, each of which made a sufficiently big impression on me that I can still recall the premises ~20 years later. I particularly recall "Second Variety" (which anticipated Terminator by thirty years) being terrifying.

Second Variety has been adapted in a movie, if you enjoyed that. The movie is good cheap 90s sci-fi jank, called Screamers.

"Out of the Gobi". I never realized how much of an insanity the Chinese Cultural Revolution was. Reading the accounts of a teenager caught in the middle of it is definitely very interesting.

Alexander to Actium(the Peter Green version). So far, slow going- I expected a more challenging read, but the cultural changes in Athens are a bit dull.

Anyone who’s been looking at the Epstein file dumps in detail, is it true all the records and emails for September of 2001 have been scrubbed?

It was a good attempt to divert the hijackers, but they didn’t bite. Not enough virgins.

What are the hard lines in your life and the default actions you'll take if they're crossed?

I've concluded that there are many situations in which "hard" lines will be moved back when crossed unless they're pre-defined. This is similar, but not identical, to normalization of deviance. For example, a person should probably figure out what level of domestic abuse will cause them to leave? Yelling? Pinching? Full-on punching? Of course, you shouldn't blindly take the action, but it should be the default unless you get convinced otherwise.

Some ideas I have, not all of which I necessarily believe in or will abide by (line --> action; in no particular order):

  • Partner cheats on you --> break up

  • Raise of <X% at work --> start new job search

  • Work more than X hours or Y weekends in given time period --> start new job search

  • Make more than $X/year --> donate $Y/year to charity

  • Government violates X right --> protest against or flee the country

  • Achieve $X net worth --> retire

  • Health scare (heart attack, etc) or issue (weight > X, LDL > Y, etc) --> change lifestyle (diet, exercise, hobbies, job, etc)

  • $X loan to friend not repaid by friend --> end relationship with friend

Employer lies --> start new job search.

I have now quit three banks shortly before front-page-of-FT level scandals broke at them. In two of the three cases the scandal was linked to the thing I was lied to about. The third case was when my boss told me my performance that year had been mediocre and that if I kept doing what I was doing, I would keep getting what I was getting (i.e. not promoted) whereas the MD who controlled the bonus pool thought that it was bad enough to get only a nominal bonus. (I had underperformed that year - the lie was about just how deep in the s*** I was).

If I get over 160 lbs I will cut myself off from sugary soda. I love sugary drinks, I can't stand diet. I also lucked out with a naturally high metabolism which is the only thing saving me from my sedentary lifestyle. But my weight was slowly creeping up for a while, and when it got too high and my gut started bulging out I cut out the soda and held them hostage until I got my eating habits under control and lost weight so I could have them back. And it worked, and so I brought the soda back. And now my weight is gradually but steadily climbing back up. I'm really hoping it just stabilizes at an acceptable level without me having to do anything, because I really really like sugary drinks, more than sugary foods, but I refuse to just let myself go completely without limits.

"Solve for X"

What's the value of a sinecure?

I'm not entirely happy with my job (mostly the location, and there's no way it could ever go full remote rather than hybrid), so I've been pursuing leads elsewhere, but it's... safe. Doesn't pay as much as I'd like, but it's a solid salary, and it's safe. Even if every single prediction about AI takes off, even if the US government has a partial crashout, even if I become more of a drooling imbecile than I already am, even if there's a Great Depression style jobs crash... it's safe.

How much importance should I (primary breadwinner, no kids) be placing on that, and staying where I am, vs. finding something more lucrative/with remote potential?

Extremely valuable. Doubly so with uncertainty about AI and the US government. You are in a position of "fuck you". Do not throw it away.

Whatever kind of risk you want to take, take it on the side.

You are in a position of "fuck you".

Surely not, or if so with one very significant exception.

In any career, remember that you're being paid in two ways: the first being through your wages & benefits, the second being through knowledge and experience you learn on the job. If you're early on in your career, in a field where the ceilings are high, the latter is a lot more important than the former.

Sinecures are for people at the tail end of their career. There's not much use for new specialized knowledge because they won't have many years left to use it. And so they spend their time mentoring younger colleagues or providing strategic guidance - things that are easy because they've had the practice earlier on.

If you find yourself in a position where you think your salary is a lot higher than your skillset, then consider yourself lucky... but just like everything else you should one day expect regression to the mean.

Keep on hustlin'

Please, for the love of God, give some details on that industry and job description.

Ha. One of these days, I might do a full-on effortpost ("Office Space: Confidential Edition! All the jokes you've heard about government contracting are at worst imprecise and at most significant understatements"), especially if I leave, but TL;DR: we're the only lab in the country that performs a high-priority task for the government (and, in some ways, has a deadman's switch: things will not be great if we vanish, although they'll be far less bad than your average MoP would assume). We're not federal employees, and so not subject to cuts there, but are a permanent fixture, and the only reason people get fired or let go are for violations of actual policy like "flushing a cell phone down the toilet instead of reporting it to security, and then lying about it when given a chance to come clean", or "falsifying time cards". As I said, we're a top priority, so even if the government cuts back everywhere else, we'll at worst be in a hiring/salary freeze. And its combination of "classified information systems", "work that if done wrong causes major disaster potential" and "deliberate tradition and founding of being more focused on details, safety, and human responsibility than NASA even before NASA existed" makes it impossible for us to be replaced with AI on any reasonable timeframe, based on what I've seen of internal rollouts and hinderances. I think last time a formal submission with any amount of GPT content went up the chain, the response from on-high was... rather scathing, even by their standards.

As for what I do, I'm a bog-standard technical project manager, but everyone there is about as immune to the future as I am.

Did anyone here ever play Warcraft 3 custom games? I spent a ton of time as a teenager on those, and they were amazing.

I recently found out a decently big community is still playing them, and I'm tempted to spend $30 on a 20 year old game just to fire up some old custom games and relive the nostalgia....

Did anyone here ever play Warcraft 3 custom games?

I spent a lot of time in my youth trawling for cool custom maps, only for my friends to reject them in favor of DotA again and again.

Hah that was me, sadly. I wish I had spent less time addicted to mobas!

To this day I'm positively baffled that (as far as I know) nobody's tried to crib literally the entire concept of Island/Jungle Troll Tribes wholesale and make it into a standalone PvP game pitting two matchmade teams against each other. It always seemed to me like an easy moneymaker as a quick-ish MOBA/hero shooter(builder? farmer?) styled romp, the basic gameplay loop is very conducive to it:

>matchmake team

>pick class, spawn in

>roam and gather resources

>build base and crafting stations

>craft resources into equipment

>gear up with team

>raid enemy base

Easy to play casually (survival-style early game, proper PvP late game), lots of room for competitive autism and balance adjustments, diverse gameplay depending on class - Gatherers amass resources, Hunters kill animals and early game stragglers, Priests manage environmental hazards and are giga strong in teamfights, Thieves make enemies ragequit, etc. etc. Lots of rage at dumb teammates but that's every PvP game ever. You can even migrate the entire thing into third-person 3D with minimal changes. If I was anywhere in the proximity of gamedev I would shill this nonstop, I really feel like it has mass appeal potential like assorted battle royales.

Jungle trolls was amazing man. Great game.

Sounds a lot like pre-br fortnite.

Enfo's Hero Defense!

Yep. No idea if any of the ones I played would still be around apart from Dota. Footman Frenzy is one of the others I can remember being pretty prominent so I wonder if that is still going.

Real OGs were playing UMS on brood wars, and it's gone f2p.

Will they actually work in the remastered/reforged version?

Yep they're all compatible.

My past (albeit limited) research on the topic has indicated that there's probably no country on Earth that lets welfare-dependent schizophrenics immigrate. But (just to double check), if one were to have to flee America (say, come 2029), which countries would be the best shot?

Without savings, the ability to claim us benefits abroad, ancestry, or changing that disabled status, nobody. Ireland would take you if you were irish. Paraguay and portugal if you had even moderate savings. Plenty of places if you're self supporting. You're probably stuck in the US if you can't find any paying task you can do.

Without savings, the ability to claim us benefits abroad, ancestry, or changing that disabled status, nobody.

Just as I thought. And, no, I don't have any ancestry recent enough to count for another country. You have to go back, like, five generations to reach my most recent immigrant ancestors… and they were Silesian Germans, so no luck there.

You're probably stuck in the US if you can't find any paying task you can do.

So, how would I go about finding a "paying task I can do" in a foreign country?

Or, more likely, you're right, I'm stuck.

And with no hope of fleeing the slaughter to come, then I suppose that just leaves the sort of thing the mods have told me I can't talk about.

And with no hope of fleeing the slaughter to come

Well, if you are absolutely certain that "slaughter" is near, and there is nowhere to run, then the radical solution is to preemptively join the winning side.

If the year is 1913, this is the right time to join the bolshevik party, and when the boog comes, you are not class enemy, but distinguished comrade and old revolutionary veteran.

then the radical solution is to preemptively join the winning side.

Too much history of open wrongthink, autistic inability to fake sincere belief convincingly enough.

If the year is 1913, this is the right time to join the bolshevik party, and when the boog comes, you are not class enemy, but distinguished comrade and old revolutionary veteran.

Who then gets purged in 1933-38...

We've had this conversation before, like 20 months ago, and you detailed your many limitations, though their specifics escape me now. I still maintain that if you can write with this clarity and frequency on the motte you are theoretically capable of earning income through intellectual work, you just need to find a way to cross the gulf between it impacting your benefits and it being enough to live on. There are huge numbers of jobs that can be done entirely via interacting with a computer or phone these days. I personally have made money writing software, tutoring high schoolers, and accepting donations for fiction. LLMs are changing many of those niches, but at least for the moment near as many opportunities are being created as are being destroyed, though that may not hold forever. But for the moment, if you want freedom, you'll need to earn income. That's the way the world works. If this 'slaughter' you cannot speak of arrives, well, that might change as some nation begins accepting US asylum applications. But until then, not a single nation is interested in acquiring dependents with no ties to their citizenry.

If this 'slaughter' you cannot speak of arrives, well, that might change as some nation begins accepting US asylum applications.

Press D for doubt. We've had this conversation before, like 10 days ago. US is, like it or not, still the world's first super power, and when conditions in US get into "mass slaughter" stage, world's economy and international relation system is flushed down the toilet (collapse of US dollar alone would do it).

In this world, no one is welcoming any refugees. Lessons of collapse of world's three great powers in 1917-1920 do not apply here, the fallout would be far worse and will hit everyone.

There are huge numbers of jobs that can be done entirely via interacting with a computer or phone these days.

Such as? Beyond those you've listed, anyway. (Not a coder, did tutoring until the local market dried up, not sure anyone would want to pay for my fiction, given the negative feedback it gets.)

You just want a large list? Data entry, content moderation, sales, repackaging AI generated images into book covers, actually making book covers, teaching english via zoom, customer support, all the ancillary shit software companies need that isn't code like project management, basically 70% of finance and insurance, streaming, selling curated AI generated porn. I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of immediately without googling.

Data entry

Applied to what local data entry jobs I could (most are with or through one or another of the Native corporations, and thus only hire members of the associated Tribe), and no luck.

content moderation

Who pays for that?

sales

Requires a level of charm my autistic ass lacks

repackaging AI generated images into book covers

Can you be specific what you mean by "repackaging" here, and is that something people actually pay for? Plus, it's my youngest brother who's the artistic one in the family.

actually making book covers

I'm not aware of any local printers/publishers, and aren't the covers made by machines as part of the printing and binding process?

teaching english via zoom

Wouldn't I at least need to know some of the native language of whomever I'm teaching, for communicating in areas where their English isn't enough (because they're still just learning)?

(Plus, my internet isn't fast enough for zoom.)

customer support

See under sales, with enormous quantities of handling-irate-Karens-related-stress added on top.

all the ancillary shit software companies need that isn't code like project management

And where do I get the skills and training needed to do that job? (Because I have no clue what any of that "ancillary shit" is, or how to do it.)

basically 70% of finance and insurance

I talked to the insurance company recruiters at the Job Fair a couple of times, discussing my math skills, and that stuff all gets done outside of Alaska. Plus, I lack actuarial training (and whatever degree/certification) and such.

streaming

See slow internet, and streaming what? Who would watch me?

(That said, there was a recent discussion on one of the videos I watched about the latest list of supposed "far-right/Nazi vtubers" going around, pointing out that basically all but one of them were actually centrist to center-left, and that the only one who can actually be considered even just right-wing is Nux Taku — the Jewish New Yorker. The closest thing to an actually far-right vtuber I've ever seen is the Aristocratic Utensil, so maybe there's a market opening…)

selling curated AI generated porn.

Who pays for that? And through what platform? Don't all the payment processors and crowdfunding/donation platforms/Patreon clones pretty much forbid NSFW? And I'd need to somehow obtain skill with AI art generation, enough to be competitive with all the other people out there with far more skill and experience. (Plus, I'm hardly the person to know what constitutes desirability or quality in pornographic output, given my own unfamiliarity with and lack of consumption of porn.)

Yes, I know, people hate it when I respond to advice like this. But it's part of how I was raised — to automatically find flaws in and try my best to shoot down any proposed plan, because anything that can go wrong will go wrong, so you must spend every waking moment considering every possible point of failure and taking measures to address it, always have a Plan B for when Plan A fails, and a Plan C for when Plan B fails, and a Plan D…. My first instinct whenever anyone suggests anything is to poke holes in it, find every possible point of failure, and respond with every reason why it won't work.

Naysaying, "catastrophizing," doomcasting, blackpilling, playing Devil's advocate for any and all proposals… these are the skills I've spent a lifetime honing.

Edit: I guess you might say my "dream job" is "prophet of doom," but nobody pays for that.

And through what platform? Don't all the payment processors and crowdfunding/donation platforms/Patreon clones pretty much forbid NSFW?

No. Patreon forbids porn that SJ objects to (and anything else SJ objects to, for that matter). SubscribeStar is essentially "Patreon without the SJ fun police" (which is why Wikipedia insistently refuses to make an article about it, as damnatio memoriae) - I think they'd forbid RLCP but I'm not even 100% sure about that and hopefully you're not going to be curating that. I'm a member of the porn forum Questionable Questing, and most of the good authors there have SubscribeStar accounts (even the fanfic writers) - Patreon was a thing but like 95%+ have abandoned it due to the aforementioned fun police.

EDIT: Stuff may be happening to SubscribeStar. Don't know details at this time.

In no particular order:

Yes, I know, people hate it when I respond to advice like this. But it's part of how I was raised — to automatically find flaws in and try my best to shoot down any proposed plan, because anything that can go wrong will go wrong, so you must spend every waking moment considering every possible point of failure and taking measures to address it, always have a Plan B for when Plan A fails, and a Plan C for when Plan B fails, and a Plan D…. My first instinct whenever anyone suggests anything is to poke holes in it, find every possible point of failure, and respond with every reason why it won't work.

Man, you can respond to things however you want. But I do think you should try some. If you're already so worried about doom, what could failing really cost you?

Who pays for that? And through what platform? Don't all the payment processors and crowdfunding/donation platforms/Patreon clones pretty much forbid NSFW? And I'd need to somehow obtain skill with AI art generation, enough to be competitive with all the other people out there with far more skill and experience. (Plus, I'm hardly the person to know what constitutes desirability or quality in pornographic output, given my own unfamiliarity with and lack of consumption of porn.)

Subscribestar and Patreon. Patreon's rules are actually pretty lax, basically no underage, no rape, and no real people. Not sure the other platforms even go that far. There are people clearing tens of thousands a month just reselling curated image sets. Probably won't be a thing for more than a year or two, but they're making money now. This is a 'skill' that didn't even exist two years ago, you're not competing with ML engineers, you're competing with random degenerates who asked someone on discord what model they used and how to set it up.

Can you be specific what you mean by "repackaging" here, and is that something people actually pay for? Plus, it's my youngest brother who's the artistic one in the family.

You say you sell images suitable to be book covers. You don't say those images are largely AI. A lot of books come out every year. The same people who were previously willing to pay 200 bucks for some stock images photoshoped on top of each other (Go browse some romantasy covers on Amazon) are now perfectly happy to pay for AI ones. Fiverr is the starting marketplace, but anyone who gets real business just makes their own portfolio site eventually.

I talked to the insurance company recruiters at the Job Fair a couple of times, discussing my math skills, and that stuff all gets done outside of Alaska. Plus, I lack actuarial training (and whatever degree/certification) and such.

Actuaries are a very small percentage of finance. Remote is also very available these days. That being said, a 4 year degree (Literally any major) is very important for these jobs, and if you don't have one, it's probably not a good path.

actually making book covers

(Doing art. Print shops are a dying breed, but people still commission covers)

Edit: I guess you might say my "dream job" is "prophet of doom," but nobody pays for that.

PEOPLE LITERALLY PAY FOR THIS. Seriously. People love the evening news, they love their various youtuber naysayers, and all those AI Doomer substacks. If you actually think you're good at it, go put your money where your mouth is and start seriously seeking a broader platform instead of contenting yourself to be a replyguy on niche reddit offshoots. It doesn't matter how good your content is, if it isn't top-level on a large site, it will never gather an audience.

Naysaying, "catastrophizing," doomcasting, blackpilling, playing Devil's advocate for any and all proposals… these are the skills I've spent a lifetime honing.

Perhaps consider security work.

Ireland would take you if you were irish.

Where "Irish" means at least one grandparent born on the island of Ireland (including Northern Ireland), or a parent who was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth. The system is deliberately set up to exclude Irish-Americans whose ancestors emigrated during the Ellis Island era. You can now maintain diaspora Irish citizenship indefinitely if each generation registers as foreign-born citizens before having kids, but if you have lost it you can't get it back.

Yep. I think it's possible to go further back if the relevant relatives are still alive, because actually claiming citizenship resets the generation gap (I don't have the rules open, but I'm pretty sure if your great grand-parent was born in Ireland, and you got your grandparent to claim Foreign Birth Registry citizenship, the grandchild would then be eligible despite the grandparent not being a citizen at the time of the parent's birth, let alone yours. I might be wrong on that though). But overall it's a very generous amount of diaspora citizenship, and really worth claiming for those eligible.

No - if your parent registers after your birth, you are SOL. My eldest is in this position - my wife was already pregnant when I started the foreign birth registration process after the Brexit referendum, and I didn't realise that there was a 10-month backlog. The only way I can pass on Irish citizenship to my eldest son is by living in Ireland (or Northern Ireland) with him and applying for naturalisation.

You're probably not going to find one without tracing ancestral roots and learning the relevant language. You're not really looking for someone that wants you, nobody does assuming you aren't working and have no assets. You're looking for someone who can't turn you away.

If you have any Jewish ancestors, you might be able to gin up Aliyah to Israel. In some cases I've heard stories of people pulling it off despite not being halachically Jewish, just having a Jewish grandfather or something like that. I'm not sure you have enough runway to convert convincingly in that time.

If you have any Jewish ancestors

Nope.

You're looking for someone who can't turn you away.

And that's nobody, just like I expected.

Whelp, guess you'll just have to work on yourself, if you plan to migrate.

In some cases I've heard stories of people pulling it off despite not being halachically Jewish, just having a Jewish grandfather or something like that.

Under current laws, Jewish grandparents are enough if you don't belong to another religion (or shut up about it if you do, they have no real way to check if you're not a church official). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return If you do, you probably still qualify to live in Israel, but getting citizenship would be more complicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Rufeisen

Proper Orthodox conversion would work too, but a sham one probably won't - they are not born yesterday and all the tricks that can be tried had been already tried.

Proper Orthodox conversion would work too, but a sham one probably won't - they are not born yesterday and all the tricks that can be tried had been already tried.

Maybe I'm overly confident, but I assume any Mottizen would have the verbal skill to appear sincere and comprehend the necessary information, if sufficiently determined. Leaving aside that a lot of us might be so wildly personally unpleasant that we would be rejected on other grounds.

Proper Orthodox conversion involves living a frum life under supervision and getting a Beth Din to certify it. In the UK and the Commonwealth that means living as part of a frum Jewish family for several months, and they send reports on your performance to the Beth Din, as does the Rabbi at the local synagogue and your Torah teacher. The London Beth Din is stricter than average - I don't know if there are any lax Beth Dins whose conversions the Israeli Rabbinate recognises for Law of Return purposes.

So I don't think a talented wordcel could fake an Orthodox Jewish conversion with ordinary effort.

Note that the Israeli authorities do not recognise Conservative and Reform conversions. (They don't really recognise Conservative and Reform Judaism as valid forms of Jewish religious practice at all, and most Conservative or Reform Jews who make aliyah end up living as secular Jews or "Masortim" - i.e. religious-but-not-synagogue-going Jews - in Israel).

So I don't think a talented wordcel could fake an Orthodox Jewish conversion with ordinary effort.

I mean, given that the supposed stakes are facing down genocide, I think "ordinary effort" in that case is actually pretty high, and could be executed if necessary. The major impediment to most of us being personal attractiveness as candidates, rather than ability to mouth the necessary platitudes and complete the necessary behavioral modifications. I don't know that I would be able to do it, primarily because I believe in Jesus and secondarily because of the circumcision, but for most that probably isn't an insurmountable set of barriers, and I could certainly imagine being forced to do so in a fantasy universe to go undercover or something. It's not rocket surgery.

Note that the Israeli authorities do not recognize Conservative and Reform conversions.

I'm not talmudic scholar enough to dig into what exactly that means but this article states that:

Israel’s “Law of Return” gives foreign-born Jews, or anyone with a Jewish parent, grandparent or spouse, the automatic right to claim Israeli citizenship. Those who convert to non-Orthodox Judaism in another country have been able to gain Israeli citizenship for decades.

But it does appear that Orthodox is a better bet to guarantee recognition.

Let us engage with this low (but not zero) probability scenario realistically.

If these fears come true, if big boog comes for real and US of A turn into some combination of Syria, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe and Chernobyl exclusion zone, then whole world's economy and international order (with its arcane system of passports, visas and residency permits) goes straight to the toilet. US passport and US dollar would be as useful as Tsarist passport and rouble was about 1920. No one in this world is going to welcome any refugees or send any humanitarian aid.

If you see this future as highly probable and want to escape it, you need to act now, you need to leave ASAP and gain some sort of legal existence elsewhere far from North American continent (and any current or potential war zone) before the hammer falls and all doors shut.

I mean, if the US government is cleansing red tribers in Alaska of all places, then it's not a civil war anymore- the blue have already won so convincingly that there's no real civil disturbance.

Yea, it is about year 1923.

If you have truly passive income, then Costa Rica and Paraguay welcome you and your social security check.

If the Big Woke Cleanse comes, first thing they'd do is debank you. So no SSI check for deplorables. The Party will find a better use for that money.

you and your social security check.

Assumes the SSI checks still keep coming, despite living in a foreign country after having fled a Democrat "de-Nazification" program gone democidal. (Especially if I still need a representative payee then.)

And SSI pays less than the minimum pension amount ($1000 US/mo) for the Costa Rican "Pensionado Program" (let alone the $2500 US/mo for the Rentista Program).

Wait how do you live off of that? IIRC you live on your own, right?

No country particularly wants somebody it’s paying pensions for itself, although Russia is very happy to take you into the army(hope you like дедовсчина) and plenty of third world countries don't have the capacity to exclude you if you just fly in and hang around(do you speak Swahili?), they’re not cutting you a check.

Wait how do you live off of that? IIRC you live on your own, right?

A few hundred a month from the state of Alaska on top of the SSI (only while in AK), plus a rent subsidy (via Alaska Housing — which is basically a quango — which is, in turn, ultimately funded by HUD). That said, I still pay over $600 in rent after that subsidy, and when you add on utilities, phone, internet, etc., I'm left with about $500/mo. for food, hygiene, laundry, clothing, transportation, etc., in a place where the cost of living is something like 23% higher than the national average.

So, basically, by barely scraping by. (Hence why I've asked in the past for ideas of ways to make a few extra bucks, to ease things slightly without sending me over the "welfare cliff.")

hope you like дедовсчина

It's дедовщина and that's for young recruits in the peacetime army. What you'd get in the current army is way, way, way worse (but probably won't last long - people who don't know anybody and can't contribute much to their unit materially or otherwise are the first to be used in the infamous "meat assaults").

although Russia is very happy to take you into the army(hope you like дедовсчина)

Not when you are a diagnosed schizophrenic.

Paraguay would welcome you, and if you have $1k in rents or jobs from somewhere you could live quite well.

Paraguay would welcome you,

According to a cursory search, part of the process for getting even two-year temporary residency (apparently, permanent residency requires a minimum investment of $70,000?) is a "Paraguayan medical certificate," a document confirming one is in good physical and mental health. Wouldn't schizophrenia be an issue for that?

  1. This would not be a problem in practice unless you are a visible leper, and perhaps not even then.
  2. 70K was the requirement to get it fast, but you can just get the permanent one 2y after the temporary one if you decide to stay.

You could probably come to Argentina, but the welfare you get here, if any, would probably be significantly less than what you get in Alaska.

You could probably come to Argentina

Hasn't Milei tightened up residency requirements?

Plus, with a quick cursory search, I'm not seeing for which of these visas I'd qualify.

I mean, if we are serious about the idea of de-Nazification actually happening, Argentina does have historical precedent...

Hasn't Milei tightened up residency requirements?

Yeah, but in practice it's just for the browns (and occasionally the Russians).


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