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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   26583 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023

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Time for some links about breaking and not so breaking culture war news.

1/Effective altruism

It is happening, Sam Bankman-Fried finally arrived in prison.

Here is exclusive dead bird thread about his first days in the big house.

2/Catholic church

The Pope gets more based and redpilled every day. On his latest visit in Mongolia, he celebrates achievements of Mongol Empire and praises unifying legacy of Genghis Khan.

No response so far, even after 800 years no one dares to disrespect memory of the greatest conqueror ever.

In contrast, when the Pope recently praised Russian tsars Peter and Catherine and called Russians do not forget their heritage, the feedback was massive.

Many people vigorously protested and pointed that Russian tsars were never friends of Catholic faith, and Ukraine put the Pope on official list of enemies.

Backlash was so big that Pope was cancelled and forced to apologize for his "faulty comments".

3/ Alt-right movement

New wild white warriors just appeared, one Christopher Pohlhaus with his Blood Tribe and became front page news overnight.

No surprise, their fashion sense is superb, their salutes are brisk, their flags are well ironed and their tattoos of Nazi and Satanic symbols are just perfect. Everone loves Nazis who look properly Nazi, and these guys cannot get any Nazier.

Why nobody heard about these people before?

Why they walk away scot free, no matter how many crimes they do?

Where they get money for their stunts?

Do not ask, just watch the show, be very, very afraid and support whatever measures are necessary to combat the Nazi menace.

4/Ayys

UFO enthusiasts can celebrate, long awaited secret document is now there in the wild, available for download.

It is really big thing if you are part of UFO community.

This book was written about 1960 by Albert Vernon Bowen, copywriter, journalist and children book author.

The manuscript was mysteriously seized by USAF, kept classified for 39 years, and then, it was even more mysteriously declassified and sent unsolicited by mail to UFO researcher Timothy Cooper.

It was the original manusript, but with notes added by unknown hand with ballpoint pen.

Timothy Cooper gave the book to another UFO researcher Robert Wood who published it - without the ballpoint notes. Since then, Woods kept the manuscript for himself and never allowed anyone to see it.

No surprise that all these sheeningans agitated UFO community and the book achieved near mythical status.

Now, it is finally out there. Was it worth the hype?

Let us see what is Bowen's argument for alien origin of flying saucers.

Such reasoning might lead to the asking of another question: Are Major Keyhoe, Ray Palmer, Kenneth Arnold, George Adamski, Harold T. Wilkinson, Donald E. Menzel, Frank Scully — and all other writers on the subject of saucers — counter espionage agents for the U.S. Government? Are all of them, by official directive, muddying-up the greatest cover- up job of modern times?

Such a question is equally absurd in the light of the record, in the light of the fact that saucers — or of things with the same attributes of saucers have been sighted for centuries, if not for millennia.

Furthermore, it is equally inconceivable, in trying to explore the possibility of hoax, that FATE Magazine, LIFE Magazine and TRUE Magazine, with their circulations and their reputations at stake, would deliberately involve themselves in a hoax. It is inconceivable that the Readers Digest, with its millions in circulation, would reprint the LIFE article claiming that saucers are extraterrestrial, or publish J.R. Aswell's article on saucer sightings for 150 years, if its editors thought saucers were a _ hoax. It is equally inconceivable that LOOK Magazine, with its millions in circulation, would first cling to the side of scientific explanation, then follow-up with an article on the seriousness of the Air Force's search, and later on, in October 1953, publish excerpts from Major Keyhoe's book, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, even though the editors said they did not commit themselves one way or the other. It is inconceivable that LIFE would publish an article Flying Saucers Bounces Off Design Board, a completely factual report on Canada's flying saucer and how it could work, and then follow, in its November 1, 1954 issue, with an equally factual report on what various Frenchmen claimed they had seen in the way of “little men” climbing out of flying saucers in the fall of 1954. It is inconceivable that The New York World Telegram & Sun should claim, early in 1955, that the U.S. Air Force knows what flying saucers are — if WT&S had any belief that they could be a hoax.

It is likewise equally inconceivable that men of the stature of Professor Herman Oberth, international rocket authority, Air Chief Marshall Lord Dowding, Commander in Chief of the British Air Force, Dr. Maurice A. Biot, leading American aerodynamicist, Dr. Walther Riedel, once chief designer and research director of the German rocket station on Peenemunde, and now doing work for the U.S., should have expressed the belief that saucers are real — and extraterrestrial — unless they had real reason for doing so.

Yes, it is rather underwhelming - but illustrating how people in the 1950's really felt, how trust in government, media and authorities in general was real thing, even among self professed skeptics.

This ship really sailed, there is no coming back.

Here is exclusive dead bird thread about his first days in the big house.

  • When Sam arrived at MDC his bunkmate wouldn't let him into the cell because he thought he was a "Chomo" or C*d Mester. They tried to move him to multiple cells but he was having disputes with his bunkmates. They finally moved him to the 4th floor with the Asians. He is hooked up with a gang from Downtown Manhattan. They are either protecting or extorting him, there is a thin line in prison. He has been sitting on the floor with newspapers, likely doing Sudokus.

...

  • Being Jewish might be a problem for Sam because of the high amounts of anti-semitism in Prison, especially if he lands in a Penitentiary after trial. When Prison riots happen the prisons split into White, Brown, and Black. Sam needs to decide which group to align himself with. Martin suggests that Sam may unironically have luck converting to Islam for protection.

I feel like I've seen a bunch of variations on these kinds of stories on TV and from actual ex-cons (it's a mini-industry on Youtube) and I still find it hard to believe these sorts of dynamics are just taken for granted. It almost feels like ludicrous cliches repeated until they're just assumed to be true...

And the idea that SBF willingly fucked himself into one of these places...Can Michael Lewis just release the book? Because I need to know how his mind ticks.

.Can Michael Lewis just release the book? Because I need to know how his mind ticks

hasn't considerable ink been spilled on this matter? he's a basically a high IQ sociopath and some narcissism too, similar to many white collar criminals and cult leaders. he had the boy genius thing going on, but same sort of thing.

I don't know if he's a sociopath; I think he's that particular kind of smart idiot who was very mathy and his indulgent parents and all around him told him he was a genius and he believed it. Given that his parents are both law profs, how the hell he ended up in jail can't be explained by anything other than that they indulged and enabled him to try and get around the restrictions on the phone and online time, etc.

Except then that having the freakin' NYT publish a story you gave them, involving private documents of a third party, is not keeping your head down and at least pretending to be compliant. Actions have consequences, and this is them.

I don’t know about sociopath. I feel like behaviors become beliefs. He may have crossed a few smaller lines and gotten away with it. Then bigger lines. Then all of a sudden he’s running a full fledged Ponzi scheme and has lost any about to see where the line of societal rules exists. Alcoholics don’t drink a bottle of vodka a night on their first sip.

Not to kick EA movement when it's down because hoo boy did SBF give them a black eye, but it's that general attitude: "we are so so Smart and we are working hard to make things go better with our Smart and we have all these lovely theories that the normies, bless their little Not Smart hearts, could never understand" at work, combined with "everyone I know has been on legal speed since they were in primary school, plus we are So Smart we call our drug taking 'nootropics' and 'hacking our brains to be more efficient'" and thus you end up with the guy taking so many pills he rattles when he walks and he's so wired to the moon he can't sleep above four hours a night, as per coffee_enjoyer below.

That gushing, fawning interview/article about how he was going to be the saviour of the world via crypto and EA probably didn't help, when you've got people propping up your view of yourself with "Sam, some say you are the most wonderful person in the history of humanity ever. I'm not one of them. I think you are merely superhuman and the greatest living genius right now".

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