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MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
I see little problem with censoring content creators to not use fighting words (which due to mass media propaganda, terms like Nazi and Fascism and similar are) that basically dehumanize those you oppose. There’s a shift in context simply because of the March of technology that enables people to marinate in content like that, and creates vortexes that people fall into and come out ready to commit violence against their “enemies”. This isn’t 1980 where exposure to political content was time and space limited by technology and people had to in the famous words of William Shatner “get a life”. The content is ever present and available every time you open your phone. And if the person on that end sees “X is a [fighting word]” especially heavily upvoted, liked, and shared, with the filterbubble hiding contrary opinions, it’s seen as social proof that this person or group of people are profoundly wrong and evil, and deserve to be destroyed. That’s how you get people to be okay with killing, and a nonzero number of people actually willing to kill.
This is how propaganda works. OG Nazis wanted radios in homes so they could send audio of speeches and the sound of wild applause at the threats against political enemies or in that case Jews could be heard by every German who would see this as social proof that most Germans are on board with those ideas. The reason to have video of thousands of ordinary people cheering to show before every movie is again to create the illusion of social proof so that Germans seeing those newsreels believe that this is what Germans want. We have much tge same thing in our media especially social media, where lots of people are being given tge impression that most Americans think that they live under a fascist dictatorship with ICE as the Gestapo rounding up Jews immigrants. And that’s breeding violence.
quiet_NaN
1d ago
I guess that it depends a lot on their country of origin. If they come from Mexico, then sure. If they come from South America, it might be a significant setback. Presumably, they will not be able to just book a flight to Juárez for lack of money, id and visa.
My priors would be that they will pass through a lot of transit countries in which they are also illegal, which likely means shakedowns and abuse.
Mildly interesting court opinion:
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In year 1988, a married couple purchases a shopping center and an adjacent vacant lot. The shopping center's "anchor tenant" is a grocery store whose below-market lease of 0.77 $/ft2 was signed in 1962 and can be extended all the way to 2012, but the other tenants pay rent at the market rate.
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In year 1994 the municipal government declares the two properties blighted. In year 1999 the grocery store terminates its lease. And in year 2018 the municipal government starts condemnation proceedings for the two properties. The couple does not object to the condemnation, but engages in extensive litigation regarding how much money constitutes just compensation for the taking. The couple argues that the proper valuation date is year 1994, and the judge agrees. The parties submit the question of valuation to an arbitrator.
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The municipal government argues that the grocery store's below-market rent of 0.77 $/ft2 results in valuation of 2.3 M$ for the two properties at issue. The couple argues that the market rent for the grocery store was 8.5 $/ft2 and on that basis the proper valuation of the two properties is 4.8 M$. The arbitrator finds that the grocery store was so "old", "in below average condition", and "grossly substandard in size" that the market rent for the grocery store was 4.0 $/ft2
<ins>—but, when its existing below-market rent is taken into account, the rent for valuation purposes is 2.0 $/ft2</ins>, and the valuation for the two properties is 2.9 M$. -
The couple appeals, arguing that the grocery store's below-market lease was irrelevant and should not have been admitted as evidence. But the appeals panel rejects that argument. The existing lease was "a fact relevant to the determination of what a willing buyer would have paid for the property in 1994".
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The municipal government also appeals, arguing that the proper valuation date is 2018 rather than 1994. But the appeals panel rejects that argument as well. The law specifically states that the proper valuation date of a condemned property is the earliest of (a) when the condemning government takes possession, (b) when the condemnation proceedings begin, (c) when the condemning government takes action to "substantially affect" the condemnee's use of the property, and (d) when the property is declared blighted. Obviously, item d, which occurred in year 1994, was the earliest of these four events. The municipal government has no one but itself to blame for failing to start the condemnation proceedings until a whopping 24 years after declaring the properties blighted.
Funny excerpt from an otherwise boring court opinion:
Frank and Roseann Carone passed away in August and June 2022, respectively. Jeanie Mayer and Anton Mayer Sr. are their daughter and son-in-law. Plaintiffs Anton Jr. and Francisco are Jeanie's and Anton Sr.'s sons and decedents' grandsons.
On January 31, 2006, decedents executed reciprocal wills in which plaintiffs were named as beneficiaries. With the help of a new attorney, Michael Zimmerman, they drafted several more wills in 2007, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017. Plaintiffs were named as beneficiaries in the 2007 and 2011 wills.
In 2015, Anton Jr. became estranged from the family, including his sister, his parents, and the decedents, over a scheduling dispute regarding his wedding and his sister's wedding. As a result, neither his parents nor decedents, were invited to his wedding. Decedents were greatly upset by Anton Jr.'s conduct and Roseann asked Zimmerman whether she and Frank could rescind stocks they had gifted Anton Jr. [Anton Jr. was disinherited in the 2015 and 2017 wills.]
In 2019, Francisco's relationship with his parents and sister deteriorated because of his efforts to reconnect with Anton Jr. Francisco was residing in an apartment owned by Frank, which he vacated without providing notice. Decedents expressed their displeasure regarding Francisco's move and his poor relationship with them on several occasions to a few family friends. On June 10, 2019, they asked Zimmerman to draft new wills disinheriting Francisco [in addition to Anton Jr.]. These wills were not signed by decedents until 2021.
Zimmerman testified about his more than four decades of experience as a tax, wills, trusts, and estates attorney. He first met with decedents to plan their estate in 2007. Zimmerman recounted his longstanding relationship with decedents and the counseling he provided in drafting their various wills between 2007 and 2022. His work included drafting eight wills, living trusts, and health care proxies for Frank and performing tax work for him over the years. Zimmerman testified the number of wills decedents asked him to draft was highly unusual. He explained decedents "would have issues with the family and would change percentages. They would continually just change their minds as to who they wanted to give to."
Crosspost from >>>/k/64289538:
beam "rifle"
fired with one hand
This has really annoyed me ever since I noticed it.
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The GM's beam spray gun kind of looks like a pistol, so I'm okay with seeing it fired with one hand.
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The RX-78-2 Gundam's beam rifle looks more like a rifle, and probably should be fired with two hands, but it's not quite big enough to damage my suspension of disbelief.
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The Zeta Gundam's beam rifle is as tall as the fucking mobile suit! For it to be fired with one hand just looks ridiculous.
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And then we reach the Ex-S Gundam's beam smart gun, which isn't any longer than the Zeta Gundam's rifle, but has enough extra heft that it finally needs to be fired with two hands even in-universe.
[Yes, I am aware that a pistol can have a rifled barrel and a long arm can be smoothbore.]
Mildly funny excerpt from a lawsuit:
Since Plaintiff’s promotion in January 2018, the [Division] and/or [the Department's Deputy Director] has never provided him with a written description of his job duties and responsibilities. In contrast, Plaintiff’s predecessor, and all of Plaintiff’s subordinates, have written job descriptions as reflected in their annual Performance Assessment Reviews.
Since Plaintiff’s promotion in January 2018, the [Division] and/or [the Deputy Director] has never provided Plaintiff with a Performance Assessment Review (“PAR”).
[The Department] is required by Civil Service Commission regulations in the New Jersey Administrative Code and the [union] contract to provide employees with PARs on an annual basis. Plaintiff performs PARs for all of his subordinate staff on an annual basis, as required by [Department] policies. On occasions when Plaintiff has been late with any part of the PAR process, [the Department]’s Human Resources staff members have been quick to e-mail him reminders.
Not receiving annual PARs has caused Plaintiff to receive a disadvantageous numerical ranking in the Civil Service Commission computer system. According to the Civil Service Commission website, staff with no PAR on file receive a numerical ranking of “1”, while staff members with good or very good PAR ratings receive a numerical ranking of “4”.
This ranking can prevent Plaintiff from receiving automatic step increases in pay, and puts Plaintiff at a disadvantage when competing for other Civil Service titles, thus further suppressing his earning potential and preventing him from advancing in his career. In fact, Plaintiff has applied unsuccessfully for at least 10 civil service positions within the state government since 2018, and believes that not having PARs on file for his current position negatively affected his chances of obtaining any of those positions.
Only recently, on or about January 10, 2023, did [Supervisor] finally begin the PAR process for Plaintiff by sending Plaintiff a PAR form listing his supposed “job expectations” for Plaintiff to review. Upon review of this document, Plaintiff determined that it contained a completely incorrect and inaccurate list of job duties and responsibilities that are not reflective of the actual job functions he performs as Supervisor of the [Unit].
Plaintiff suspects that [Supervisor] mischaracterized his job duties and responsibilities in the PAR purposefully, as retaliation for pursuing his discrimination claims through the Division on Civil Rights, and as part of a calculated attempt by the [Division] to force him to request a Civil Service “desk audit” alleging that he is working “out-of-title”, rather than pursue his equal pay claims.
If Plaintiff were to file a desk audit request, then any resulting directive from the Civil Service Commission to adjust his title and/or compensation would date back only to the date he filed the desk audit request. By filing a desk audit request, Plaintiff would be giving up his right to pursue equal pay claims and seek backpay for the ongoing pay differential dating back to January 2018.
No PDF is provided because the plaintiff is my father. The complaint was filed in May 2023, but discovery has been repeatedly extended from November 2024 to December 2024, September 2025, and January 2026, so no end is in sight. I am not particularly close to my father (I stumbled across this lawsuit purely on accident by looking up my last name in my state's database of cases), so I have no personal knowledge of the merits of the case. But, as the kids say nowadays, big if true.
To clarify the importance of these missing PARs: The union contract specifies (p. 38) that every employee must be rated on a three-point scale (unsatisfactory, commendable, or exceptional) on an annual basis. Generally, if your rating is at least two, then you get an automatic "step" pay increase of around 4 percent within the "range" assigned to your job (p. 170), on top of any other "across-the-board" increase that may apply (3.5 percent per year in this contract—p. 28). The meaning of a blank PAR is not mentioned in the contract, but apparently it counts as a score of one (or maybe zero, since the complaint describes it as a four-point scale rather than a three-point scale). The plaintiff in this case alleges that his bosses were intentionally depriving him of these regular raises by failing to fill out his annual PARs.
FistfullOfCrows
1d ago
You know i'd be fine with no mask laws for ice, if wearing a mask during a protest meant the police can just snipe you legally.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
Probably for average people. But political leaders tend to know where the public is. If there were a large offline contingent of democratic voters who are shocked, angered, and horrified by political violence, you would have seen democratic leaders in Congress, in state and local politics, or who are political influencers taking a rather large step back, issuing actual condemnations of the acts (now plural btw) of violence against political opponents. So where is that? Where are people for whom politics and political science are their profession, whose job depends on getting it right with the public, or whose rating depend on not alienating the public who get the message of “normal people absolutely do not want political violence.?”
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
That would also tend to mean that not many on the left are liking and sharing such content, which is to me a signal as well.
I don’t see many unequivocal comments that say the targeting of ICE or Charlie Kirk are wrong, I don’t see a ratcheting down of rhetoric, or even calls for such. That’s pretty darn bad. The only rhetorical blowback was the two-day cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel and a couple of stations still not wanting to air the show. Most of the left including mainstream professional broadcasters on the left seem to view any calls to tone it down, or to maybe just maybe not publish things that call Kirk evil White Christian Nationalist before he even gets a funeral (thus justifying the homicide) are widely seen as “censorship” and any company that does so is to expect liberals canceling their subscription (which is why Disney folded). That’s not “we don’t want anything like this to happen again.” That’s not even “we feel bad for our part of creating this environment.” It’s basically “we at best don’t care if people get shot.”
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
You mean they’re generally sedentary and eat ultra processed junk food? It’s not much of a mystery that the generation of my parents in 1960 were healthier and lacked man-boobs — they went outside and played sports in real life using their real muscles. Mom cooked at home using such exotic ingredients as chicken, beef, pork, flour, milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables. Amazing how eating real food and playing sports outside with real people made them healthy.
Definitely the spooks.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
A lame offer, indistinguishable from what we have right now.
Celestial-body-NOS
Supra tumulum tuum, astra nobis.
1d ago
Counter-offer: You concede that most Communists were, even at their worst, less evil than the Nazis, and I will acknowledge that some Communists were as evil as the Nazis (e. g. the Khmer Rouge).
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
I don't recall which subproject he was a part of, but regarding the one I brought up, I disagree with "not controllable". They may have unacceptable side effects, the results may be too generic for practical use by intelleigence agencies, the procedures themselves may be impossible to apply without detection, and again too convoluted to be practical compared to more standard methods, but I'm not sure where the "they don't work" idea is coming from.
Celestial-body-NOS
Supra tumulum tuum, astra nobis.
1d ago
I got him to kill six kids and then off himself! Top that!
Crowley: replaces customer support with dodgy LLM chatbots
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1d ago
True, the MKUltra brainwashing experiments did change Kaczynski's beliefs but not in a controllable or desirable way, from the point of view of the manipulators.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
...regardless, it is my observation that American politicians are big on the performative aspects of politics
For structural and cultural reasons, there is no distinction between a King and a CEO in the American system, so mayors, governors and presidential hopefuls need to demonstrate their ability to do both. A British Prime Minister needs to do a lot less performing because the royals take on most of the performance burden of making the country look and feel like a country. And we have similar institutions at local levels - the traditional British (Lord) Mayor has largely ceremonial and representative functions while the leader of the majority group on the council is making policy, setting budgets etc.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
If? Tomorrow?
FistfullOfCrows
1d ago
Also, anonymity is not a privilege we grant most state officials. There are no anonymous judges, or AGs.
You're correct, perhaps we should. I want anonymous courts stamping classified orders going after self identified antifa groups and other domestic-terrorism-lite groups. Hell the anonymous courts should rubber stamp drone strikes against coyotes and drug cartels. Can't retaliate when you don't know who gives out the orders.
FistfullOfCrows
1d ago
In a healthy democracy random "organized" antifa groups would be allowed to exist funded by darkpool liberal money. In a healthy democracy one part of the political body wouldn't be trying to pull a fast one and import as many immigrants as possible in an attempt to "stack the vote" in their favor.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
One compelling Trump thesis is he thinks he's found a cheat code where he doesn't even have to finish doing things. He can just start things, talk about what it's intended to do as if it's already done, and expects to reap the same benefits even if nothing actually happens at all like he describes as the policy takes place - or more likely, collapses under its own weight quickly.
One of the main criticisms Dominic Cummings makes of the British political class is that this was the main way Blair thought about governing, and the only way Cameron and Johnson did. People were talking about the "permanent campaign" as something that started in the Clinton administration, although in Clinton's White House the key political operator was a pollster (Dick Morris) and not a PR/comms person like Alastair Campbell or Malcolm Tucker - something that Cummings calls out as significantly less harmful. Conventional wisdom is that this development was partly driven by the need to generate content for cable news.
In so far as Trump's style is different from earlier versions of the permanent campaign, it is that David Cameron would announce Project Shoebox with grand promises and then both Cameron and the press would ignore what the project actually did, whereas Donald Trump will announce Project Shoebox and then post a fish tale on social media about how Project Shoebox has already made the national foot four sizes larger in only a month.
I am centrist when it comes to the topic of abortion. On one hand I am thrilled with the idea of killing unborn babies, but on the other hand I am not willing to let women decide anything.
If MKUltra worked practically, there'd be more signs of its use. The CIA and associated goons wouldn't need to torture people at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, they could just brainwash them!
But more seriously, I never said they could go as far as programming people like computers, just that they could change some of people's beliefs and/or personality, beyond what mass media and the education system allows.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1d ago
Their remote viewing was pretty promising too, per various documents. Nobody can fault the Cold War CIA with closedmindedness.
But if remote viewing is so great, why did they spend so much on the U2, satellites, SIGINT? If the US has unconventional propulsion, flying saucers, why would they need the F-35?
If MKUltra worked practically, there'd be more signs of its use. The CIA and associated goons wouldn't need to torture people at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, they could just brainwash them!
Western citizens aren't volunteering to die in Ukraine because the CIA did some trickery, they're doing this because their attitudes and beliefs have been shaped by the media and those around them, they think it's the right thing to do. Some people are easily suggestible and follower-type personalities. I think this website is full of contrarians and individualists who are highly resistant to consensus and passive manipulation, we naturally struggle to model the mindsets of the other end of the spectrum.
(One exception might be the chemicals and hormones we encounter all around in the modern world, which might act as epigenetic triggers making people more cowardly and less rebellious, though it's not clear that this is anyone's plan, per se. You can see the physiognomy of our fathers and grandfathers was totally different to today, some young men are growing breasts because of some chemical, presumably.)
Imaginary_Knowledge
1d ago
Thanks, I think.
Corvos
1d ago
Lol. Okay, sometimes it’s a fig leaf.
But from a purely descriptive perspective I would bet that, say, 99% of Madoka Magica slash writers are not paedophiles.
What makes you think they will not just run away and not show up to their deportation? Saw off their monitor bracelets and go into hiding?
As I mentioned in another reply further down the chain, my ideal regime of policing would also be such that this just wouldn't be possible. There would always be a cop close enough that they can get notified as soon as a bracelet detects funny business, and zoom to its last recorded location before the alert.
In any event, you know, the ankle bracelets are only a shot in the dark. I don't claim they're the miracle cure-all. I only bring them up as an example of a middle-of-the-road policy that's neither maximally repressive nor maximally permissive with regards to what to do with illegals once detected. I just don't think "reliably expel illegal immigrants, without ruining their lives more than is necessary to do so" is an impossible ask for a well-run machinery of state in the modern world. There's gotta be a way, we just haven't found it yet, mostly for lack of looking (because the Left doesn't want the illegals expelled, and the Right wants to be cruel about it).
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
1d ago
I'd suggest that all of the groups you listed (barring Japanese, who never existed in large enough numbers to matter) are at least of Christian denomination, and while cultural differences between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant are large, they're nowhere near as large as the differences between any Christian denomination and Hindu or Islam.
Further, the culture in the U.S. in the 18th century was vastly different from even modern day U.S. culture. Integration and assimilation was both expected and enforced. Nowadays, not only is it not expected, but to suggest that some immigrant group should integrate is treated as racist. You say that nativist backlash against immigration was an integration problem, but I'd suggest that it's the exact opposite. Nativist backlash happens when immigrants do not integrate. Without any pressure from natives, why should immigrants integrate? You see this exact problem in Canada and Europe. Do Indians in Canada behave like Canadians? I don't even mean that they need to stop being Hindu, but do they stop throwing their religious idols into public waterways or stop shitting on public beaches? Do Muslims in Great Britain act British? I don't even mean that they need to convert to Christianity, but do they not stab you for burning the Quran or not harass women for not wearing a covering?
It's entirely possible that my views will change later, but I was asked to specify, so I did. There is nothing "digging in" here, and I also think that these values were not particularly rare until recently, and I also think that values cannot be changed so easily, and if they were changed easily, then there's not much weight to your principles in the first place. I understand you've had a lot of casual sex, so the viewpoint is probably alien to you. But yes, sex is different to me. It would be convenient if it was not, and it would be convenient if I liked tattoos or fat women, too.
Edited to add: The softening of my young Earth creationist views took literal years of seeing with my own eyes that the Bible is not literally true, that bad things happen to good people for little reason, years of seeing other Christians mention that the "Inspired Word" meant that the Bible could be fallible in a multitude of places, and finally punctuated with taking some geology classes that laid out the evidence for an old Earth irrefutably. The equivalent for sex would probably be to try to get into a bunch of relationships. That is probably ultimately what I need, and it fits with other commenters' advice to just stop thinking so much and go out and do things.
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