domain:epistle.us
My father was a career NCO in the USMC, retired in the early 90s. Apparently the military is, or at least was, ripe with various theories and conjectures. His take on UFOs/UAP was that someone(s), somewhere made a decision to deliberately trick a small number of the most gormless, credulous service members in all the branches into having sort of staged experiences to leave them with the impression that there actually was knowledge of UFOs in the USG somewhere, its generally well covered up, but somehow a steady trickle of corporals and specialists were leaving the service absolutely convinced that they saw something they weren't supposed to see or otherwise experienced direct evidence of aliens. I've met a few of these intrepid veterans myself over the years and they really did seem absolutely convinced, though they were quite poor at actually communicating their experiences of describing the 'evidence' they witnessed. As to why the DoD/USG decided to plant misinformation in a subset of the troops and release them in to the general population to spread their stories, this was never clear.
The most common story I heard was usually about them witnessing some technology or phenomena that obviously could only have been reverse engineered from, or made out of, salvaged alien technology. A few attributed nuclear power/weapons generally to this.
No_one
12m ago
Bureaucrats used to be a lot better in the 40s, accumulation of bloat and it all went to the shitter after Carter on purpose lost that lawsuit over competence exams.
FtSoA
18m ago
God, if only big-business-influenced technical-bureaucratic elites really ran things, instead of the ideologically captured bureaucratic and political and academic progressive elites we actually have (on average, of course). It's so weird to conflate Big Business and Big Government in a world where Lina Khan Thought is popular on Left and Right.
Independent central banks are wonderful inventions it must also be said.
In other words, FDR-loving progressives are responsible for the administrative state's regulatory growth and misadventures, not our kindly corporate overlords, who fundamentally wanna make a buck by increasing consumer welfare.
We have not had "an ostensibly apolitical technocracy" in many government agencies in a long time. The DoD and DoJ were some of the best ones here, but public administration theory gave up on neutrality/objectivity as "impossible" a long time ago as a field.
Sadly, the consistent attempt of political neutrality, or even the pretense, was a load-bearing effort, even if imperfect. Hard to get it back now.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
26m ago
worse the under-ripe, mealy fleshed green bananas with skin that squeaks when you touch it.
This is my favorite type of Banana, I also stagger my Banana purchases, so I can have more of these. They ripen so fast though :(
FtttG
30m ago
I've now finished 18 books this year out of a goal of 26.
I'm one behind you, out of the same target.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
30m ago
Goshdarn whippersnappers… they used to have RESPECT for proper punctuation⋮ back in my day the teacher would hit the back of your hand with a ruler if you put spaces inside your ellipses⋱
Supah_Schmendrick
36m ago
No, it's a Jewish billionaire being blackmailed by a Jewish fixer for the fixer's own personal benefit. There's no evidence whatsoever that you've supplied or that I've been able to find that the motive for the blackmail was to "support jewish causes" or ideological in any way shape or form. I don't know how you're overcoming the Occam's Razor presumption that this was bog-standard personal corruption and greed, rather than anything ideological.
I always use all of the various hyphen forms. It got drilled into me in legal writing. Since some poorly written legislative codes include hyphens (e.g., "section 1-a" instead of "1(a)"), it's important for readability of citations to always distinguish between hyphens and en-dashes. And I was always taught separating a clause with em-dashes was for important elaborations, while parentheses were for asides that weren't necessarily vital to the meaning of the sentence. This seems a useful enough distinction to keep the em-dash in my repertoire, despite the AI connotations.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
1hr ago
but to spread the benefits to others who are less fortunate.
The most straightforward reading of your word choice would be colonialism, which would not make you the most progressive person here.
Contrarian countersignaling that you'll make the world a worse place because bad things are good, actually.
A statement that nobody believes about their own position, of course.
It is just as easy to smear restorative justice advocates as believing "bad things are good, actually" as it is the right-winger calling for, say, England to sink the small boats.
Are the people that care more about murderers than their victims just doing contrarian countersignaling? How should one decide they're sincere but the other side isn't?
Electoral reform along the lines of single transferable vote is literally my single issue, because I think it's actually a credible path to a more functional government.
Any thoughts on if it's possible/reasonable to fix the gerrymandering issue or is the catch-22 deliberate and useful for some reason?
No_one
1hr ago
In case anyone is unclear on what the 'managerial state' is, here's a handy explainer:
The managerial state is the system in which technical–bureaucratic elites, rather than elected politicians or private owners, exercise effective control over economy and society. James Burnham argued that the separation of ownership from control in large corporations produced a new “managerial class” whose power rests not on property but on its command of administrative expertise; the state becomes the ultimate lever, so that “the institutions which comprise the state will … be the ‘property’ of the managers” . Critics such as Samuel Francis add that this regime replaces law with administrative decree, federalism with executive autocracy, and limited government with an unlimited apparatus that pursues open-ended social goals in the name of abstract ideals like equality or positive rights .
World War II was the catalytic moment for America’s managerial turn. Wartime mobilization created vast federal agencies that coordinated production, prices, and labor; the organizational techniques forged in battle were carried into the post-war civilian economy as Washington converted military supply chains to consumer manufacturing, subsidized higher education for millions of veterans (GI Bill), and normalized Keynesian macro-management . The Cold War then locked this arrangement in place: a permanent defense–industrial complex, rising federal share of GDP, and an alphabet soup of regulators (EPA, OSHA, EEOC) extended managerial oversight into labor relations, environmental quality, and social equity, while the new social-science “policy expert” displaced the traditional politician as the central figure in legislation and adjudication .
By the 1970s the managerial state had become bipartisan and self-sustaining. Regardless of which party won elections, power continued to migrate toward executive agencies, independent central banks, and transnational regulatory networks; large corporations operated as quasi-public utilities under federal charter, and citizens were recast as clients whose behavior is continuously shaped by tax incentives, administrative rules, and court orders . The cumulative effect has been a shift from constitutional self-government to what critics call “soft totalitarianism”: an ostensibly apolitical technocracy that expands its jurisdiction by discovering ever-new social problems requiring expert management, while insulating its own authority from democratic reversal .
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1hr ago
Obama is frustrated over not having EVEN MORE POWER (as is Trump), but neither consider power a curse. Nor Clinton, nor Trump.
I can think of two rulers throughout history who were actually reluctant -- and the second (Washington) is probably just American lore.
Do you truly believe classical liberalism is at all viable in a society that's not heavy on small businesses, small companies and independent farmers ?
Look how it ended up the first time - it stopped being viable due to increased scale of businesses. In the US it started getting replaced by the managerial state in late 1930s and this was mostly finished by 1980s.
shoeonfoot
1hr ago
My girlfriend, whom I love and trust more than anyone
Marry her.
HereAndGone
1hr ago
Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore?
From "That Hideous Strength":
“It all began,” he said, “when we discovered that the Arthurian story is mostly true history. There was a moment in the Sixth Century when something that is always trying to break through into this country nearly succeeded. Logres was our name for it — it will do as well as another. And then gradually we began to see all English history in a new way. We discovered the haunting.”
“What haunting?” asked Camilla.
“How something we may call Britain is always haunted by something we may call Logres. Haven’t you noticed that we are two countries? After every Arthur, a Mordred; behind every Milton, a Cromwell: a nation of poets, a nation of shopkeepers: the home of Sidney — and of Cecil Rhodes. Is it any wonder they call us hypocrites?
But what they mistake for hypocrisy is really the struggle between Logres and Britain.”
…“So that, meanwhile, is England,” said Mother Dimble. “Just this swaying to and fro between Logres and Britain?”
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
1hr ago
Light is pretty unambiguously the villain and, spoilers,
This week I finished Anthony Doerr's All The Light We Cannot See, which a friend had suggested we read together, I hated it, spoilers ahead.
For most of the book, Doerr adopts a tone that felt very Scholastic Book Fair. The two kids existing in parallel, the Marie-Laure blind French girl, and Werner the German radio nerd who ends up in the wehrmacht despite not being all that enthusiastic about Naziism, bumble along through WWII running into mild oppression along the way. No concentration camps, just trains running through. We get wartime privation, but not starvation, and it impacts Germans as much as the French. Werner does go around killing partisans by tracking their radios, but they were partisans. Marie-Laure's father is taken prisoner, but he was concealing a priceless diamond. It's constantly hinted that the German soldiers will do bad things, but they mostly don't. Then we get to the end of the book and there's a fairly explicit gang rape scene when the Red Army gets to Germany.
And it was a real tone shift, and I'm left kind of stumped as to why the author made that choice. The book as a whole is too anti-German to be trying to smuggle in that Stalin was the real villain here and Hitler did nothing wrong, and it's not anti-German enough to be cheering on the vengeful rape of German shiksas like the Hebrew edition of Night. It just felt gratuitous.
Though I disliked the book as a whole, it was well written so I see why it got a Pullitzer, but there was nothing much going on for too much of the book, just not my thing. He does a decent shift at creating a blind protagonist without making her completely useless, but at some level I was still like "Ok, she's blind, the bombs are falling, there's no way out of this that isn't Deus Ex Machina." But the ending fell flat for me.
I also read the novella Fat City by Leonard Gardner after seeing it recommended as a classic boxing book. It's a picaresque of mid-century Stockton, through two struggling bums vaguely trying to make it as professional boxers. It did a good job of capturing the feeling of training and competing in fight sports, and a general sort of struggle of masculinity in the main characters, who have big dreams and minimal capability to reach them. Also a lot of long scenes of farmwork for those of you thinking about illegal immigrant labor jobs. Highly recommend this one, it's very short and tightly written, no extraneous pages.
I've now finished 18 books this year out of a goal of 26. My wife getting me a kindle, combined with LibGen, has been a huge improvement in reading for me. I still love physical books, but I also love the infinite access to a huge number of books. On a trip I'm not limited to what I brought with me if it turns out it sucked, if I finish a book at 9pm I can start the next one without even getting up. I'm ahead of my targets, so maybe I can afford to get stuck in on Infinite Jest soon, though I'm now onto On the Marble Cliffs by Junger which is another short one, I'm curious to get more into his mature work after how amazing Storm of Steel felt.
HereAndGone
1hr ago
iprayiam3
1hr ago
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
I'm going to agree with @MonkeyWithAMachinegun, on pushback here but for a different reason; not for the sake of preserving known untruths, but for avoiding type 1 errors. Overzelous knocking down of 'perceived untruths' can produce a lot of collateral damage;
There's a Chesterton's fence argument here imo, more than a 'value of the myth' argument.
I think the axiom as stated tautologically, creates zelousness without clear reasoning;
If you see something that you beleive can be destroyed by truth, but cannot discern any benefit to destroying it, or harm by leaving it, maybe consider leaving it be.
oats_son
1hr ago
For me personally, Akira was like Fallout 1 in a lot of ways due to its ultra brutal ultra sci-fi setting. The real problem with Akira for me is that it is a little directionless, and gets a lot worse once the final part of it begins. I preferred the scenes before Tetsuo started duking it out with the entire city. Also I really liked the colonel character. Overall, it felt like a lot was happening and the animation was amazing, you could tell that a lot of effort was put into each shot and that nothing before or after Akira will ever look like it.
GitS, on the other hand, had a ton of still shots where people were monologuing, and I hated those. Nothing they were saying felt interesting in any way, and even if it was interesting, how is that the correct format to say it in, shot after shot of people talking long-windedly like it's a Dostoyevsky novel? That goes for when the protagonist is getting briefed for the mission, for when the android thing is talking to the scientists, and for when the minimally augmented guy is talking to the rest of the crew. I can't say I felt any real tension during any part of the film, either. And everyone praised the animation, but I can't really say I ever felt like it was particularly exceptional.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore? Where there is no common understanding that they are English, and that they have a common mythos that binds them together more firmly than something as pedestrian as the right to vote for some wanker in Parliament? Is Spain a better place when there is no longer that same pride in the Reconquest, that same understanding that their ancestors were chosen by God and Saint James to bring the light of Christendom to the Iberian Peninsula, and drive out the infidel who conquered the home of their fathers?
These are not counterfactuals. Perhaps it is better to phrase it as ‘would Spain be better if the Spaniards believed, to this day, that God and St James chose them to militarily reconquer thé land for Christendom? Would England be a better place if the inhabitants believed they had a special place in the world?’. America still has a founding myth; and this is a major culture war flashpoint.
Well, this can still be corrected without resorting to biological birthrights. That is, the community can encourage and educate (or pressure and threaten, if we're not mincing words) people who seem to be slacking off and not contributing in good faith. You're supposed to, of your own volition, do the best you can. But if you aren't doing that people can notice and call you out for it. And this can be done in a nice way "hey, I notice you are really good at cooking and whenever you make soup everyone loves it, why don't you do that more?" or in a mean way "You don't seem to respect others or want to contribute, because you keep ignoring the previous ten conversations we've had about this. This is not Godly behavior and you need to re-evaluate your priorities if you want to remain a member in good standing."
And sometimes this leads to conflict and drama and politics. Our one pastor ended up getting kicked out by the Elders for reasons that aren't quite clear to me because they didn't publicize all the drama, and I don't think was anything particularly scandalous in non-church terms, I think it was some combination of them not liking his preaching style and him getting worked up and yelling at people when he got angry or something (This was told to me second hand by my parents, so it's not like he was going off on people in public, but apparently it was bad enough to contribute to his removal). But my point is that there are still all the normal corrective measures of a community. When someone does wrong other people can push back. Everyone should fulfill a role to the best of their ability, and should be pressured if they're not fulfilling a useful role, and none of that requires the role be based on their gender, race, or perceived social class except indirectly as those influence their abilities and preferences. Your role is a combination of your abilities, desires, AND the needs of the community. The problem was not that it was a women or someone else's role to read poems in a corner instead of bringing chili and your father falsely slotted himself into that role in place of them, the problem was that this was not a useful role that anybody needed to fulfill.
aardvark2
2hr ago
There are organizations helping them with food, shelter. maps etc., some of these organizations partially or fully funded by tax money.
MonkeyWithAMachinegun
Dancing to Tom Paine's Bones
2hr ago
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
I like the ideal of this, but in practice, sometimes the myth is more important than the truth. Humans are story-tellers by nature. It's in our blood. Telling stories is the great cultural commonality that links every society throughout human history. The Aztecs were telling stories about Cihuatecayotl God of the West Wind at the same time that Spaniards were telling stories about Clavijo at the same time the English were telling stories about King Arthur at the same time the Byzantines were telling stories about being Rhōmaîoi at the same time the Russians were telling stories about Koschei the Deathless at the same time the Chinese were telling stories about the Yellow Emperor. These stories, some of which were pure myth some of which were myth based on fact, provided a common basis of understanding for their culture. England is not England without the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Spain is not Spain without the myth of the Battle of Clavijo or Santiago Matamoros (Saint James Moorslayer). The Byzantine Empire only existed, only had legitimacy, because of their claim of being the Heirs of Rome, being Rhōmaîoi, Roman citizens.
When you shine the light of truth on King Arthur, you find a squalid little Welshman who may or may not have been a Roman Centurion, who probably fought a few battles and died in a meaningless cattle raid more likely than not. When you shine the light of truth on the Battle of Clavijo, you find nothing to support it. When you shine the light of truth on the Byzantine claims, you find something there, but come on, they're all Greeks, speaking Greek, worshiping the Christian god, with an Emperor-in-name as opposed to the Roman Emperor-in-all-but-name. Truth eviscerates these foundational, common myths. It destroys them utterly. But should it? Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore? Where there is no common understanding that they are English, and that they have a common mythos that binds them together more firmly than something as pedestrian as the right to vote for some wanker in Parliament? Is Spain a better place when there is no longer that same pride in the Reconquest, that same understanding that their ancestors were chosen by God and Saint James to bring the light of Christendom to the Iberian Peninsula, and drive out the infidel who conquered the home of their fathers?
Myth and legend serve a purpose. Seeking truth is a noble goal, but it must be tempered with the understanding that sometimes there are things more important than the truth.
Now let’s not be hasty. Surely you have some less evil alternatives such as a high ranking Scientology cult operative, North Korean prison camp guard or perhaps a mass murderer?
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