domain:kvetch.substack.com
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2m ago
But he married Robert Maxwell's daughter? That's a pretty big connection. It's not hard to imagine that Mossad reaches out to an influential American billionaire closely connected to one of their top people. Influencing American elites is one of their priorities. Epstein has all these connections and he's Jewish, Mossad relies on local Jews a lot in its intelligence work just like how Chinese espionage relies on Chinese people overseas. They're called sayanim, helpers, and usually do passive information gathering, safehouses, logistics, access, bureaucratic processes, introducing contacts - the boring but necessary stuff. But that's when they're low-ranking, low-profile people, rather than billionaires.
And Epstein seems like the kind of guy who'd love to be working with them, make himself more of an exciting international man of mystery, make more friends in high places who could give him stock tips or useful information.
I suggest that Mossad wasn't giving him huge amounts of money, they were exchanging information and providing some level of protection from the law, perhaps passively. The FBI investigated him once and he got off easy, somebody got him a get out of jail free card. Maybe that was Mossad, maybe it was somebody Mossad knew or introduced him to, maybe there was just a certain vibe floating around. Connections can enable the acquisition of wealth like you say, being connected with a billionaire is a lucrative opportunity if you have the skill to grasp it. Connections with intelligence can surely be just as lucrative and advantageous, if you don't bite off more than you can chew. Mossad or being connected to Mossad helped enable his weird sex parties with other elites.
But it seems he only got one get out of jail free card, there's a certain level of media attention that can't be squelched and a critical point where one's friends in high places turn their backs.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
7m ago
A strawberry picker that's slow, isn't actually available and apparently works only on hydroponic berries? I think Juan Enrique still has his job. Maybe another 5-10 years it'll make a dent, assuming the product isn't entirely fake.
Tomatoes are indeed largely automatically harvested. The catch is... well, do you think a tomato you buy in the grocery store could stand up to what that robot is doing? Nope... those are tomatoes for processing, not for eating fresh.
TitaniumButterfly
13m ago
This feels close to the crux of my complaint. It seems that the truth has been overplayed for political purposes and the people who are supposed to be managing it show every sign of operating in bad faith.
TitaniumButterfly
16m ago
Yeah that's probably the best description I've heard of the tattoo fiasco. Trump's take on it was outright embarrassing.
I still think the guy's probably up to no good, though.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
16m ago
I didn't mean that in terms of being poor, though I can see it now that you point it out lol. I just meant that what ingredients are commonly stocked varies from country to country - for example I have a recipe for cupcakes that involves clotted cream, which (to my understanding) is commonly available at UK stores but you have to go to a specialty store to get it here.
I wouldn't worry too much about being a noob at baking, especially because quick breads (the type of bread banana bread is) are made to be easy to make. Literally just put all ingredients in a bowl, mix them together until the wet and dry ingredients are decently combined, then pour it into a pan and bake. Even if you make a mistake somehow, the worst case scenario is that it'll still taste good but maybe it'll be denser or drier than normal. So worst case scenario, you still have tasty bread!
Mantergeistmann
21m ago
When you say "Final Dungeon", I assume you mean Skybound Avatar? Yeah, that one was a bit tough, with no good enemies to mage-MP grind on, but it's also slightly shorter than I expected. ...And I just now remembered those teleporting liches. Man, fuck those guys, but I guess it wouldn't be a proper Atlus game without them and the legged fish.
TitaniumButterfly
21m ago
Likewise. You'll note that I was happy to volunteer those links.
TitaniumButterfly
25m ago
Thanks for a great reply. Regrettably I think it was caught in the spam filter or something because I didn't see it until like two days after you posted it, and also if others saw it I'm sure you'd have a lot more upvotes.
I'm about to move from the prep phase of dinner to the cooking phase, and you have so much here, so in short I'd just like to say
- Thanks again, sincerely
- You've substantially shifted my views in your direction
- Plenty of food for thought moving forward
- Basically I consider you to have fulfilled the request I was making for more perspective and info
I think modern right-wing converts are very different from people who actually grew up in socially conservative communities because they’re fundamentally not conservatives at all. They’re people who grew up in a liberal environment who want to rebel against it (often for valid reasons), by adopting the values the liberals themselves previously fought against. Paradoxically, to be a socially conservative convert, you need to be a non-conformist who’s not afraid of questioning the worldview they were brought up in.
If you were a conformist who respected and followed societal expectations, the behaviour that from your description is encouraged in conservative communities, you wouldn’t have converted at all.
By being a right-wing convert in a liberal environment, you’re joining a counterculture, you’re adopting certain views because they’re cool, edgy, based, provocative, you want to tear down the system… you’re obviously going to have a very different attitude to life than people born in a socially conservative bubble.
faceh
28m ago
I think the only way to make it 'clearer' was to not make the whole fanfic explicitly about disrupting the canon set up by Rowling in every way possible.
That is, its still pretty possible that there was an incompetent Lord Voldemort who got destroyed by the combined might of the good wizards...
AND there's a vastly more competent dark wizard who isn't blatantly evil but is definitely running machinations in the background that are far and beyond what Voldemort could achieve, whilst having nothing to do with voldemort.
I guess the one factor I didn't see right away is the why, as to why a supergenius wizard with demigod-level powers would want to adopt that persona for long periods of time. That came out later.
But yeah, he practically bashed people over the head with clues.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
28m ago
That was me, and as we discussed at the time that's a horrendously inaccurate and uncharitable take on what I was saying.
Anyone can click through and see what you said.
I have to eat my words on this one, though my opinion is unchanged.
The last time I seriously looked into this was circa 2005. When I go looking now the results are incredibly one-sided. As such, my tone and attitude were inappropriate and I apologize.
Yet I clearly remember many, many accounts of Jews getting decent healthcare -- self-reported, mind, not according to the nazis. My expectation is that the truth has shifted outside of the overton window and sources which might paint nazis in a more nuanced light have been deprecated. Certainly this would be in keeping with google's general ethos re: filtering search results.
This will understandably not be very convincing to you, but integrity dictates that I owe you a response.
If you're feeling up to it, I'd still like a response too:
Are you disputing that inflating the numbers suits the Zionist agenda, or are you disputing that the institutions which would do so had many incentives to do so and few if any incentives not to?
And, if neither, what makes you think the numbers are sound?
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
30m ago
· Edited 25m ago
7.77 million tons of rice production annually isn’t trivial
It's about 15% more than US rice production, and Japan's biggest crop by far. Meanwhile, the US with only roughly 3 times the population also produces 8.5 million tons of sorghum, 48 million tons of wheat, 117 million tons of soybeans (which Japan imports a good deal of), and 370 million tons of corn. Of course, these are all cereal grains and all subject to harvesting and processing with automation; Japan no longer has to rely on peasants with sickles and hand flails. That's why nobody talks about rice pickers but rather fruit pickers. Automated fruit harvesting, at least for first quality fruits, is something that hasn't been solved for many fruits.
Green tea is a little more like fruit, in that the top quality stuff is hand picked, but harvesting of lower quality stuff is automated. But 77,000 tons really is trivial.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
31m ago
They are written for a US audience, so you might need to make substitutions from time to time if things aren't available in UK stores.
The UK might be poor and shabby, but not quite that poor!
If the two of you are so keen on it, I'll keep my eye out for ingredients. I'm more concerned about the fact that I can't identify the make of my oven or what the settings do, and I'm entirely a noob at baking.
You probably mean minima.
No.
this is a.. novel definition
I suppose Jacques Ellul only died 30 years ago. But I would have expected everyone here to be long familiar with this ancient history given we discuss the philosophical implications of AI on the daily.
Care to reproduce such arguments in full instead of waving at them?
The section on medicine as a human technique is of course most relevant to this conversation, but I don't recommend skipping around if you are unfamiliar with philosophy of technology and the associated jargon.
Are you typing this on a "simple" device?
No. Semiconductors are arguably the most complex things mankind has ever made. Especially using this definition.
They could, in an ideal world, live short but tortured lives! Is that a tautology?
No, it's a non sequitur.
You seem to conveniently enjoy that particular fruit of modernity, while crying about this one.
I'm not sure what part of my writing evoked any kind of detectable emotion. I assure you it is purely analytic. I'm critical of modernity whilst living in it. What else could be reasonable?
Call me an ungrateful atheist for living in creation if you must. I can't help but look at what I'm doing.
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder
So I was indeed right to believe you take the DSM-V to have the power to decide the meaning of a word that has existed since the 1500s.
I think the fact that you'd take Wikipedia's word over that of Oxford reflects poorly on your conception of the world, frankly. But this is a silly semantics exercise anyways. I have clarified what I meant beyond doubt. If my vocabulary irks you, so be it.
by that definition, one could be addicted to collecting stamps, to morning walks, or to breathing. You have diluted the word to uselessness.
No, I've used in in a way you don't like, which is common and in accord with its historical usage. There is a difference.
I have no "authority" over you
You misunderstand. It is the expert authority on your own language and thinking I recommend you remedy, not your authority on me.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
32m ago
You've got your cognac, I've got a bottle of cheap rosé from the nearest supermarket. Life, if not good, is doing okay today.
My romantic meal that I strategically prepared for mt then gf my now wife consisted of cold beer and some homemade kebabs with basmati rice on the side. I marinated them, had the skewers all ready. The one food my wife doesn't like on planet earth? Lamb. My kebabs were made of lamb, which is itself hard to come by here. Plus never serve anything but regular Japonica rice to a Japanese person, unless you are calling it something besides rice (eg risotto). But we did get married.
Alas, I can't get much in the way of goat-mutton in Scotland. That's what I was used to back home, but to be fair, well-prepared lamb comes close. Evidently your culinary skills came in handy! If Mrs. Hale doesn't like lamb, you can't go wrong with making chicken kebabs. It's too late at night for me to order some, but the idea itself has got me hankering.
But yeah I take your points. I think I just hate semaglutide. I feel like if we were in a 70s movie semaglutide would be Soylent Green. Or similar. Something out of one of the darker Ray Bradbury stories. Just a hunch. Probably I'm wrong. Do let me know.
Your innate suspicion is far too common. Modern culture has primed everyone to be suspicious, to look for things that are "too good to be true". That might work for narratives or literary fiction, but reality isn't quite the same. Sometimes, the uncaring universe is kind enough to give us things that are unalloyed goods, and also good. So it was for antibiotics and vaccines, and so it goes for Ozempic.
While not literally perfectly safe (what is? No drug I've ever heard of, and I've heard of most), it is a paradigm shift when it comes to one of the most pressing issues of our time. It is a solution to the obesity epidemic, even if that is somehow dissatisfying to some. I can only stress that the universe is uncarinv, not actively malevolent. Good things happen, or are even discovered, every now and then!
If you need to lose a few pounds, or many, you can't do much better. You can always stop once you hit your target, and seek other ways to keep yourself there. I would hope that getting my own mother, as well as myself, on it would be a sufficient signal of confidence.
It's here. Do not have high expectations.
Followed, which costs me nothing at all. Hopefully you'll get around to writing more!
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
35m ago
Yeah unfortunately the dragon temple is... real bad, imo. Though to be fair I got through it, whereas the final dungeon was so hard that I can't actually make any forward progress and kinda stopped playing the game as a result.
Overall I felt that Metaphor was a pretty uneven game. There are some real high points, but also some real low points (like the aforementioned dragon temple). I enjoyed it well enough, but I don't think I would ever play it again (and haven't even managed to finish my first playthrough due to the difficulty issue I ran into).
faceh
36m ago
Man I don't think there's much moral judgment going on.
Aesthetic, yes. Maybe a bit of psychological, but unless you're Jewish I doubt there's much inherent moral judgment towards people making minor changes to their own bodies.
I kinda just wish it wasn't as popular among otherwise attractive single women as it apparently is.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
37m ago
I was confusing tomatoes with other fruit-picking where there is a machine to scoop them up:
For example: https://x.com/TechInsider/status/1271322529362132994
I think that farmers (and businesses generally) are lazy and don't behave economically efficiently. It's creative destruction that raises efficiency, slowly and painfully. The British were notorious for not upgrading their machinery in the steel industry, you had steel chambers for early nuclear plants being forged in blast chambers designed for producing dreadnought armour, 40 years old. Or using gear they got from germany as war reparations from WW1 even in the 1960s and early 1970s! So the British steel industry got razed. It's basically gone. The German steel industry is going too but they did reap some counterintuitive gains from the wartime destruction meaning they had to rebuild and get leaner and smarter.
Capital investment and R&D is always good in my book.
Jiro
40m ago
But the thing is, it didn't look like an MS-13 tattoo. It was made of symbols and in a fit of pareidolia people made the symbols match MS-13.
If it actually was a MS-13 tattoo I'd expect we'd have heard of other gang members using it.
There was a commenter here who said women lacked "accountability" because they want to be able to f*** without risking being pregnant for nine months.
That was me, and as we discussed at the time that's a horrendously inaccurate and uncharitable take on what I was saying.
This is entirely typical of you. In my opinion you don't belong here and I for one will be much happier when you inevitably wear out the mods' welcome.
(And no; I won't be litigating this or anything else with you again, nor should others.)
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
46m ago
Second banana bread, though I put way more than one banana in. About three bananas per loaf, if memory serves. Also have some butter on hand for when it comes out of the oven; you'll be glad you did @self_made_human.
For this and for all other things baking related, I will forever shill the King Arthur Flour website. They have a ton of recipes, as well as detailed blog posts explaining the reasoning behind why some things work. They are written for a US audience, so you might need to make substitutions from time to time if things aren't available in UK stores. But the ingredients in banana bread are so basic I'd be surprised if they didn't have them.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
47m ago
My point is that life isn't to be found on exoplanets (certainly not for long), that 40 years or 40,000 years is nothing to an immortal being, that Dyson Spheres make about as much sense as burning dung for fuel.
Huge expenses from our perspective are trivial for a powerful civilization working on astronomical timescales, not biological timescales. Maybe it takes 150 years to build their gigantic planetary scale accelerator complex for highspeed travel (it probably wouldn't if they just spin up more workers or use advanced construction methods). Maybe it takes 1000 years to build a dark matter refinery. Why would they care? They have billions of years to work with.
Our knowledge of physics is overrated. Still no fusion power! What could we achieve if we had a particle accelerator that ran all the way around the world? What could AI discover if given hundreds of years, billions of terawatts, giant computer complexes the size of countries? This is mindboggling sci-fi stuff for us, it's boring and primitive for a powerful civilization.
We know what to look for as far as technology
No, all we know is what we can see. And we can't see 95% of what's out there!
Mantergeistmann
51m ago
33 hours, roughly halfway through? Dragon Temple, I'd guess? That one can be a bit of a slog - probably my least favorite portion of the game - but hoo boy do you have some plot and characters coming up! As well as some solid challenges, but aside from one specific fight, the game is good about giving you the tools to overcome its bullshit, which I rather enjoy.
But even outside the main plot, a lot of the Rank 8 bonds are just fantastic, and I really do enjoy the gameplay. Enough thinking, enough action mixed in with the turn-based, and I actually find the grinding reasonably enjoyable. I really like every single party member, which is fantastic, and while you can customize them, you're also incentivized lategame to keep them in their original roles somewhat.
A good portion of the reason behind my replay is admittedly that I'm very close to 100% achievements, but I wouldn't bother if I didn't love the game. I find myself re-looking forward to scenes, dialogue, and even some boss fights.
TL;DR: Louis is a top tier villain, Fantasy is real, Esperanto-esque chanting is a bop, and Peerless Stonecleaver (or Wanton Destruction, I don’t judge) goes brrrrrr.
Also, the manga is being released and translated. It changes a few things around, and can be a bit odd in the pacing, but it's pretty fantastic. Worth reading, and it won't spoil anything for where you are (the manga is just reaching Martira, the first town along the way to Brilehaven after you get the gauntlet runner -- I say because I myself always forget Martira's name).
[https://www.themotte.org/post/2208/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/339829?context=8](Here he is with a different take) though still not a coherent or appropriate one.
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