domain:npr.org
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
23hr ago
Everyone claiming that "feminists want to castrate all men" cite the same small handful of mentally ill fringe figures, e.g., Valerie Solano, Andrea Dworkin, etc.
The number of women who actually, unironically want to "cull men and castrate them" is probably considerably less than the number of men who actually, unironically take KulakRevolt's or Dread Jim's ideas about lobotomizing/turning women into sex slaves seriously.
BahRamYou
23hr ago
opportunity cost is a thing. also, was hoping for some more specific tips or advice instead of bland platitudes of encouragement. thanks though.
OliveTapenade
23hr ago
What's more American than inventing a bizarre new identity for yourself, especially a sexual identity, and proclaiming that to the world? I would have thought America's at the forefront of that.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
23hr ago
I used to play amateur poker. I was good enough that I could see myself becoming a winning player if I really wanted to grind at it, but I was playing for fun and didn't want to turn into a grinder (any pro player will tell you that playing the 1/2 tables at a casino is worse than a minimum wage job, and moving up to the higher tables requires serious study).
For learning poker math (which is crucial to being a decent player), I recommend David Slanksy. Dan Harrington is pretty good at covering theory and strategy. If you plan to play for money at a casino, just playing basic mathematically sound ABC poker will make you a winner at most lower tables, but there are a ton of books and apps for trying to improve your marginal win rate. Personally, if you just want to play for fun, I'd recommend a bar poker league.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
23hr ago
This is one of the best write-ups about a topic I have ever seen on the motte and I can’t believe it’s just a reply to my 2 upvotes comment in a 14 day old thread. Reported as a quality contribution of course and hopefully it gets picked up.
Also I am still in Singapore actually but I’m not single and here with my girlfriend. She would definitely be okay to check out interesting establishments if it won’t get too seedy or awkward. We take a walk around Amsterdam red light district every once in a while when bored and it’s a fun couples activity somehow. But things are a lot more public and windows shopping friendly there
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
No, not more than football, but definitely more than basketball or soccer.
I legitimately know very little about the habits of Ellis island Americans; I live in the south and see northerners with hyphenated ethnicities as essentially foreigners.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
22hr ago
Or to be able to say to the right people, "The Motte? Yes, I used to visit it, but they banned me."
hydroacetylene
22hr ago
We’re not that notable.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
22hr ago
I'm skeptical... But then again I've never really understood why more politicians don't get assassinated. Lethal chemicals are not that hard to procure and blow darts are not that hard to mount to drones.
What gives?
I can only assume that something I don't understand is locking down most would be assassins.
Folamh3
22hr ago
I've no problem with the gays and Eurovision is camp as Christmas and all the better for it. "Non-binary" is lame and cringe, and "Bambie Thug" seems to take herself awfully seriously for someone with such a silly stage name.
CloudHeadedTranshumanist
22hr ago
There can be different scales of repression though. A regime that can securely survive a larger range of human behaviors will restrict its populous to a wider range of behaviors than a less secure regime.
Its true that all regimes have boundary conditions of what they will accept, and that outside of those conditions they will suppress to whatever degree is required to be effective.
But different regimes have different ranges they permit and different means for being flexible and changing those domains.
You're just flattening everything to one question- "does a boundary exist" without considering the relevance of the properties of that boundary.
mildly_benis
22hr ago
I want the sense of massive armies movies, and not just fighting battles, but fighting wars.
It's nothing close to that, but Distant Worlds 2 is a interesting Stellaris alternative.
Economy/trade involves large numbers of ships going places, see any screenshot from the game. Target rich environment for pirates/raiders. Empires feel a significantly more 'alive' than your typical Paradox game. You have a lot of options as to how much of economy and other aspects of the game are automated, but some automation enabled is the expected way to play.
It is not quite polished and balanced enough, doesn't live up to its potential, but the one campaign I played was worth it.
theincompetencetheorist
22hr ago
That is the point. It wasn't the queer theme or the politics that matter it is if people enjoy the show or act, my comment is in response that the "usual suspects" are "organizing a ballot stuffing". Well the usual suspects should have also been stuffing with UK votes. Ukraine winning because they are being invaded is an exception.
It's worth noting that the people's favourites were, in order:
- Croatia (an energetic, rock-adjacent anthem written in broken English)
- Israel (a standard Euro-ballad that was originally called 'October Rain', forced to change by the producers)
- Ukraine (a vaguely ethnic, vaguely religious ballad with light effects very reminiscent of bombs)
- France (a minimalist love song by an established French singer with an impressive voice)
- Switzerland (the jury winner)
The juries came with a similar list, but put Switzerland much higher, and gave very few points to Israel. So either Israel's song was great, and the juries were biased against them, or it was meh and the public were biased in favour of them. Also the juries love a man in a skirt.
Other highlights include:
- Finland - A comedy song by 'Windows95Guy' which involved him running around on stage wearing nothing from the waist down, his skin-tone pouch strategically blocked by scenery a la Austin powers.
- Ireland - Another non-binary (a woman this time) seemingly trying to summon a literal demon.
- UK - A gay guy sings while buff male backing dancers gyrate on eachother. Somehow not the gayest entry this year.
- Audible booing every time the head of the European Broadcasting Union appeared on screen (for letting Israel compete).
- Several coded anti-Israel statements from national representatives (ostensibly talking about peace and love).
- Plus lots of 90s throwbacks, obscure ethnic instruments and young women in Beyonce-esque bodysuits.
Altogether a fairly standard year for Eurovision.
theincompetencetheorist
21hr ago
The whole point I'm trying to make is that the given that it is very public protest against the Israeli-Palestinian situation and Israel getting the second place in the popular vote. So if that vote is political then calls on cracking pro-Palestine protests would have been bigger than it is now. People are sitting at home and basically "fuck your virtue signaling" to the protestors and voting Israel. I see that as an apolitical act. One of the reasons we have a culture war is that we allow people to make everything political.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
21hr ago
Israel's song was pretty good, all things considered, but the juries probably smelled an opportunity for shitshow of epic proportions to happen (riots in Malmö, riots in the hall itself, all the issues related to organizing the contest next year in Israel etc.) if it won and thus purposefully blocked it.
Lazuli
21hr ago
people do it from time to time if they need to spend more time away from the community for whatever reason (like real life work).
The Motte: Not even once.
hydroacetylene
21hr ago
she is acting in accordance with her values
Considering I have a strong prior that the values of someone choosing to go by 'Bambie Thug' are to garner as much attention as possible at all times...
Crowstep
21hr ago
For television the sound engineers did amplify applause and mute the boos which also gives a nice discussion about truth and Orwell etc. It will be very interesting what sound from the audience will be broadcast at the final show today.
From what I recall there was no notable booing during Israel's performance, but lots while the head of the EBU was on screen. I'm guessing they assumed there would be booing for the Israeli entry and planned accordingly, but didn't think that the audience would boo the inoffensive bureaucrat who's technically in charge.
hydroacetylene
20hr ago
Watching all that has convinced me 'Windows95Guy' is the ruritanian version of Bowling for Soup making fun of the superfluous gayness in everything else.
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
20hr ago
I recommend against the trilogy as from what I recall the “art direction” for the renderings is rather bizarre but the worst thing is that they didn’t relicense the music they used so the in-game radio, one of the best parts, will be missing a ton of content.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
20hr ago
Could American social progressivism be (in part) an intelligence operation to create “defense-in-depth” against America’s weak points, akin to the cybersecurity or military strategy?
In cybersecurity, valuable assets are hyper-protected with multiple layers of security, so that if any layer fails the others may still hold. The idea being that the assets are so important to defend and attacks could come at any time (and with novel stratagem), so it is reasonable to over-defend it in many different ways. In the military usage, layers of physical defense are established so that one may retreat into another defense upon an assault, ensuring reduced losses and longer periods of defending. Another somewhat ancillary idea is “fencing the Torah” in Judaism. It is so important not to violate a Torah prohibition that “fences” are established to make even the chance violation impossible. Eg, the the rule to not even pick up a tool lest you accidentally use it which would violate the sabbath prohibition.
America’s weak point is clearly potential civic disunity which could result in balkanization along racial, religious, or cultural lines. In order to hyper-defend from that risk, you implement a social operation involving defense-in-depth where the majority constituents must necessarily deny their own identity and engage in ritual ”sacrifices” upon the altar of plurality (from Trayvon to George Floyd). This explains even the whitification of Asians: once they become significant enough to possibly lead to Balkan problems, you enforce the same depotentiation. Notably, it is not enough of a social defense to merely pledge allegiance to plurality, as that hardly changes someone’s psychology. You must actually make it a social ideal so that it is promoted and normalized especially among the young potential rebels, and that is in fact what we see — those most at risk for any potential rebellion are coerced into a Kaczynskian “system’s neatest trick” procedure where their very rebellion helps to solidify state security. Why allow “Antifa” their own zone in Portland? Because when they are doing that they are doing nothing serious. Along the same lines, see how valuable transgenders have been as a layer of defense: millions of conservatives hours are spent arguing against something that has a surprising level of state support, and millions of progressive hours are spent defending something that is historically and intuitively off-putting. Those are hours that are not spent on something actually valuable; transgender stuff is simply the most outer layer of defense against a possible Balkan threat, and if conservatives win there’s nothing valuable lost from a state security perspective.
As outlandish as it seems, I think this is possible. It would be par for the course for how intel agencies behaved historically — well before they had enormous databases of information and AI to help them decide state hyper-protection. We could imagine the team of hundreds of some thousands employed toward this objective at some intel agency: “how do we protect against the most cataclysmic threat for America?” They look at the cost and benefit with history in mind, with WWII’s staggering death toll and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in mind.
You should make one if you want people to read it. They might not, but they certainly can't if it doesn’t exist. You probably shouldn’t go into it with the expectation that it will be popular, but if you’re going to write things anyway, why not?
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