I'm watching Juventus-Lazio right now, and the English announcer discussed how Alvaro Morata had a "terrible virus" over the week, which was "really messing with his systems". He then had to clarify: "I should say, it wasn't that virus."
So let me get this straight: in relatively rare cases, the WuFlu might give you flu-like symptoms, from which you will definitely-- unless you're an obese eighty years old-- recover. The solution? Close the stadiums! Close the businesses! Stay at home! Everyone needs to dress like Michael Jackson in public! No access to travel unless you've been shot up with an experimental cocktail!
Alvaro Morata picks up a different virus, which gave him flu-like symptoms, which he-- not being an obese eighty year old from-- recovered. The solution? A casual mention from a match announcer. No lockdown; no mask mandates; no quarantines: a perfectly sensible non-reaction, to what's no big deal.
What's the difference? One is called "Covid-19", the other is "Smovid-19". It just shows how nonsensical this WuFlu madness is: it's just another illness, like any other.
Propaganda - 14:45 CST, 3/06/21 (Sniper)
Intrinsically Limited - 12:01 CST, 3/06/21 (Sniper)
Thomas Sowell was really on to something with his "constrained" and "unconstrained" vision model: Tom discusses the model in this superb talk.
One of the first pejoratives people throw at me when I discuss Anarcho Capitalism is that I'm some kind of "utopian"-- but it's completely the opposite! Anarcho Capitalism was borne from an acknowledgement that if you charter the world's largest corporation and give it a monopoly on force, the very first thing which will happen is that institution will get co-opted by the most evil, sociopathic people on the planet.
In other words, you did all of the hard work for them! You literally handed them the keys to the kingdom-- total control over your life!
Among their many other thinking mistakes, Statists believe in the "unconstrained" vision: that somehow this institution will be populated with omniscient, wise, benevolent rulers-- that it won't run amok. The Ancap, by contrast, knows better.
One of the first pejoratives people throw at me when I discuss Anarcho Capitalism is that I'm some kind of "utopian"-- but it's completely the opposite! Anarcho Capitalism was borne from an acknowledgement that if you charter the world's largest corporation and give it a monopoly on force, the very first thing which will happen is that institution will get co-opted by the most evil, sociopathic people on the planet.
In other words, you did all of the hard work for them! You literally handed them the keys to the kingdom-- total control over your life!
Among their many other thinking mistakes, Statists believe in the "unconstrained" vision: that somehow this institution will be populated with omniscient, wise, benevolent rulers-- that it won't run amok. The Ancap, by contrast, knows better.
Fuze Wireframe Competition - 08:37 CST, 3/06/21 (Sniper)
Wireframe magazine is running a "Fuze" competition, which I am definitely entering: I already have the basic game concept in mind. The only dilemma is that I need to teach myself "matrix math" in order to write the renderer-- we'll see how that goes, or whether I'll need to compromise my idea in some way.
I bought a second copy of "Fuze" for my daughter's Switch Lite, so she can work on the art in parallel with my programming. If any of my readers want to join the competition, it sounds like they are giving away some gratis "Fuze" codes. Evidently Eugene Jarvis is going to be one of the judges-- who knows which other celebrity names may become involved!
I bought a second copy of "Fuze" for my daughter's Switch Lite, so she can work on the art in parallel with my programming. If any of my readers want to join the competition, it sounds like they are giving away some gratis "Fuze" codes. Evidently Eugene Jarvis is going to be one of the judges-- who knows which other celebrity names may become involved!
Organization - 08:01 CST, 3/05/21 (Sniper)
I was contemplating just such a notion as this on my daily Murderapolis walk just a short while ago: while stepping over discarded, muddy WuFlu Burqas and used condoms, I thought to myself: "The only good thing about these Leftists is that they aren't breeding; I wonder if it's nature's way of correcting itself."
Another idea which has been bouncing around my head the past few days is how corporations are nominally like little Marxist communes, with "shareholder"-owned property, voting, groups within are referred to as "teams", and so forth-- and yet in reality, they operate like private entities: top-down, strictly hierarchical, and "do as I say or else".
No one minds "despotism" when the company is private, and people are clearly just temporary working hands hired by the owner-- because the owner is the one who takes the losses. But with corporations, the losses are socialized among the "shareholders", and it's the CEO and other executives who primarily benefit from the gains. Simultaneously, the employees have no real rights beyond anything they would have as a working hand, hired into a private firm.
Corporations are having their cake and eating it too. I'm no fan of labor unions generally, they themselves being creepy, violent, collectivistic entities-- but within the above perspective, they make sense in that they inject "democratic" patterns into corporations, like a plug-in for a piece of software.
Of course, as with everything there are two sides: the going rate for a good CEO or other major executive who can lead a multi-billion dollar organization with tens of thousands of employees is quite high-- it's supply and demand, the same reason professional athletes command huge wages. Then again and that said, from what I've seen from executives in my own career, they essentially sit in meetings all day dropping quasi-random anecdotes regarding things about which they know nothing especially: how much value do they really add?
I used to defend businesses, both "public" and private: but corporations have revealed themselves to be disgusting state-sanctioned abominations, not just going along with but encouraging all of the madness in the world today-- to the point where anti-corporate themes in video games no longer even bother me.
Even private businesses, like the "mom and pops" places in my local Murderarpolis community, are leaning full-tilt into having "BLM" signs, rainbow flags, sixty signs on their doors saying a WuFlu Burqa is required, and so forth-- the SJW retards who own them deserve everything which is happening to them now: they are indefensible.
In other news, I don't know much about this "Lord Sumption" beyond having heard his name before-- and yet he might be one of those Leftists whom I like, even if I disagree with him on many things. He at least seems very thoughtful and learned.
For example, among other useful things he points out the same notion I've articulated many times on this blog: people aren't obligated to follow immoral laws, and in fact are acting immorally by following them. Of course, then he goes on to claim that Aristotle's predictions regarding democracies has been proven wrong: I disagree; isn't Aristotle being proven correct right now?
This Sumption fellow even admits that current-form liberal democracies have only been around for a century-and-a-half or so-- I'd hardly call such a short period a repudiation of Aristotle's perspective on the matter.
Another idea which has been bouncing around my head the past few days is how corporations are nominally like little Marxist communes, with "shareholder"-owned property, voting, groups within are referred to as "teams", and so forth-- and yet in reality, they operate like private entities: top-down, strictly hierarchical, and "do as I say or else".
No one minds "despotism" when the company is private, and people are clearly just temporary working hands hired by the owner-- because the owner is the one who takes the losses. But with corporations, the losses are socialized among the "shareholders", and it's the CEO and other executives who primarily benefit from the gains. Simultaneously, the employees have no real rights beyond anything they would have as a working hand, hired into a private firm.
Corporations are having their cake and eating it too. I'm no fan of labor unions generally, they themselves being creepy, violent, collectivistic entities-- but within the above perspective, they make sense in that they inject "democratic" patterns into corporations, like a plug-in for a piece of software.
Of course, as with everything there are two sides: the going rate for a good CEO or other major executive who can lead a multi-billion dollar organization with tens of thousands of employees is quite high-- it's supply and demand, the same reason professional athletes command huge wages. Then again and that said, from what I've seen from executives in my own career, they essentially sit in meetings all day dropping quasi-random anecdotes regarding things about which they know nothing especially: how much value do they really add?
I used to defend businesses, both "public" and private: but corporations have revealed themselves to be disgusting state-sanctioned abominations, not just going along with but encouraging all of the madness in the world today-- to the point where anti-corporate themes in video games no longer even bother me.
Even private businesses, like the "mom and pops" places in my local Murderarpolis community, are leaning full-tilt into having "BLM" signs, rainbow flags, sixty signs on their doors saying a WuFlu Burqa is required, and so forth-- the SJW retards who own them deserve everything which is happening to them now: they are indefensible.
In other news, I don't know much about this "Lord Sumption" beyond having heard his name before-- and yet he might be one of those Leftists whom I like, even if I disagree with him on many things. He at least seems very thoughtful and learned.
For example, among other useful things he points out the same notion I've articulated many times on this blog: people aren't obligated to follow immoral laws, and in fact are acting immorally by following them. Of course, then he goes on to claim that Aristotle's predictions regarding democracies has been proven wrong: I disagree; isn't Aristotle being proven correct right now?
This Sumption fellow even admits that current-form liberal democracies have only been around for a century-and-a-half or so-- I'd hardly call such a short period a repudiation of Aristotle's perspective on the matter.
Coordination and Self-Interest Intersect - 16:09 CST, 3/02/21 (Sniper)
I was recently discussing politics with a friend, and he commented that my "a small cabal of billionaires rule the world" story was too simple-- a point with which I totally agreed. I started to type up a reply via email, but decided to just turn it into the below exposition:
My Reply
It's not just that simple, there are many elements: but when you distill the current reality down to its purest form, it's more or less true.
The more complex version would be:
Regarding step 3: I don't know if you listened to any of the Project Veritas recordings, but Jeff Zucker would spend an hour every morning telling his employees exactly what to report, what not to report, how to phrase things, and so forth.
This is obviously happening at all major news organizations-- not just CNN-- and even across them: I've seen dozens of times where the media and their guests all start saying literally, word-for-word, the exact same sentence, all on the same day-- then the following day, they have a new sentence, which replaces the old one. You can find entire montages of these online, they're both funny and unsettling.
Just so you get the flavor, listen to them all talk about "the norms" here: there is a zero percent chance this is a coincidence, and it happens all of the time.
I also think there is an aspect of "the emperor has no clothes" to this, and this is how George Soros fits in: lots of people each have a vested personal interest in pushing these agendas-- and so they all start pulling in the same direction, in a purely self-interested way.
The young people want an easy explanation for why they feel the way they do, plus a transcendental goal; the academics gain prestige and grant money; the media corporations get ratings and direct access to the emperor and his inner circle; the billionaires earn yet more billions; and the politicians gain immense power via "divide and conquer". So, they all continue to insist that the obviously naked emperor still has clothes.
In other words, even when these people aren't communicating directly, self-interest causes them to all exploit the situation on their own. As for Soros, or Bill Gates, or Klaus Schwab, they stand to make billions and quite literally rule the world in the process!
The only people who forcefully call out the emperor's nakedness tend to be the individualistic types-- almost always Conservatives, but not always as in the cases of people like Glenn Greenwald-- who value the truth more than social connection or power.
My Reply
It's not just that simple, there are many elements: but when you distill the current reality down to its purest form, it's more or less true.
The more complex version would be:
- Gen-Z'ers and Millennials were in daycare all day then had spastic helicoptering parents in the evenings. They suffer from so much anxiety and confusion that they don't even know if they are boys or girls. Like children, they hunger for some kind of model or world view which provides them with comfort, structure, and a transcendental goal, with black-and-white-- pun intended-- heroes and villains.
- Nutjob Left-wing academics-- think Herbert Marcuse-- come up with crazy "theories" about how they think the world works.
- These "theories" get taught as truth in universities to the youths described in the first step.
- When the small handful of billionaires who own all of the media institutions, banks, and financial institutions need to change the subject, they pick one of the crackpot "theories", which the young have already been taught, and reinforce that selection-du-jour endlessly.
- This in turn triggers a reactionary movement among people who point out the obvious fact that the theory-du-jour is crackpot.
- The plebe proponents and plebe reactionaries waste their energy bickering, and don't notice that the billionaire class eliminate Glass-Steagall, start another enriching war, or "print" another couple of trillion dollars for their friends.
- When the plebes start to catch on and complain, the billionaire class restarts the cycle at the fourth step with a new narrative. We've been living this cycle non-stop for at least the past ten years.
Regarding step 3: I don't know if you listened to any of the Project Veritas recordings, but Jeff Zucker would spend an hour every morning telling his employees exactly what to report, what not to report, how to phrase things, and so forth.
This is obviously happening at all major news organizations-- not just CNN-- and even across them: I've seen dozens of times where the media and their guests all start saying literally, word-for-word, the exact same sentence, all on the same day-- then the following day, they have a new sentence, which replaces the old one. You can find entire montages of these online, they're both funny and unsettling.
Just so you get the flavor, listen to them all talk about "the norms" here: there is a zero percent chance this is a coincidence, and it happens all of the time.
I also think there is an aspect of "the emperor has no clothes" to this, and this is how George Soros fits in: lots of people each have a vested personal interest in pushing these agendas-- and so they all start pulling in the same direction, in a purely self-interested way.
The young people want an easy explanation for why they feel the way they do, plus a transcendental goal; the academics gain prestige and grant money; the media corporations get ratings and direct access to the emperor and his inner circle; the billionaires earn yet more billions; and the politicians gain immense power via "divide and conquer". So, they all continue to insist that the obviously naked emperor still has clothes.
In other words, even when these people aren't communicating directly, self-interest causes them to all exploit the situation on their own. As for Soros, or Bill Gates, or Klaus Schwab, they stand to make billions and quite literally rule the world in the process!
The only people who forcefully call out the emperor's nakedness tend to be the individualistic types-- almost always Conservatives, but not always as in the cases of people like Glenn Greenwald-- who value the truth more than social connection or power.
Analog Future? - 14:52 CST, 2/28/21 (Sniper)
Reading this article has got me wondering whether it's possible to have some other form of fully-analog display, without using cathode-ray tubes.
Regular readers will know that I'm a CRT purist, especially for old games which were drawn with luminescent scanlines in mind and which don't look correct without, so I won't continue to beat that dead horse. At the same time, large CRTs are almost prohibitively large and heavy-- I own several of them, the largest of which is permanently trapped in my Murderapolis basement, because it weighs two hundred pounds!
That said, digital displays are positively terrible in pretty much every way, and have numerous complicated bandaids, like HDR and BFI, simply to have acceptable contrast and motion blur levels.
Heck, for that matter digital anything is pretty terrible: cabling has constant handshake issues and when it degrades the bits become corrupt resulting in an effective and total signal loss; audio and video are space consuming when at a "can't tell the difference" level versus the "real" analog deal; digital lighting in video games is a poor imitation even today; and so forth. We live in an analog world, not a digital one, so digital is just a cheap imitation which can only try to mitigate its intrinsic shortcomings.
Maybe in a post-silicon one hundred years, all computers and "electronics" will be fully analog, using some kind of space-compact new technology breakthrough?
Regular readers will know that I'm a CRT purist, especially for old games which were drawn with luminescent scanlines in mind and which don't look correct without, so I won't continue to beat that dead horse. At the same time, large CRTs are almost prohibitively large and heavy-- I own several of them, the largest of which is permanently trapped in my Murderapolis basement, because it weighs two hundred pounds!
That said, digital displays are positively terrible in pretty much every way, and have numerous complicated bandaids, like HDR and BFI, simply to have acceptable contrast and motion blur levels.
Heck, for that matter digital anything is pretty terrible: cabling has constant handshake issues and when it degrades the bits become corrupt resulting in an effective and total signal loss; audio and video are space consuming when at a "can't tell the difference" level versus the "real" analog deal; digital lighting in video games is a poor imitation even today; and so forth. We live in an analog world, not a digital one, so digital is just a cheap imitation which can only try to mitigate its intrinsic shortcomings.
Maybe in a post-silicon one hundred years, all computers and "electronics" will be fully analog, using some kind of space-compact new technology breakthrough?
Gotta' Bomb 'Em All! - 07:12 CST, 2/27/21 (Sniper)
Once upon a time there was "Let's Go!", followed by "Sword & Shield"-- now there's "Diamond and Pearl" remakes, quickly succeeded by-- finally-- an open world entry in the form of "Legends: Arceus". As conservative as the former pair was, so far as I'm concerned Nintendo can keep these new Pokemon games coming: my daughter and I enjoy playing them side-by-side.
If only Nintendo had the hardware to deliver 4K HDR releases! I wouldn't even need a "Series X" or "PlayStation 5" to get my high-tech fix!
In other news, the State apparatus has been doing slow motion, back-door "UBI"-- or reparations-- for decades now: just take a look at this terrifying chart. Cross reference that visual with the myriad "income inequality ones": Fed creates trillions of dollars out of thin air, gives that to its globalist Wall Street buddies who ship the jobs overseas, replacing the lost plebe income with table scraps.
And does anyone take this stuff seriously anymore? Give me a break! Take about "false flag" territory, could it be any more transparent? You could count the days on one hand into creepy hair sniffer Beijing Biden's so-called "presidency" before the State-run media dusted off the old Iran scaremongering reels; then Creepy Joe-- more likely Cameltoe, Joe has no clue where he's even living these days-- restart the good ole Syria bombing routine... c'mon man!
Remember: Israel and guys like Paul Wolfowitz were fingering Iran back during the first gulf war in the early 90s as the country they ultimately wanted to destroy.
But that's ok, I'll just keep listening to some "Turrican 2" music while buying crypto. Speaking of Chris Huelsbeck, this surely ranks up there with the "Green Hill Zone" theme as one of the best opening stage songs in any video game, ever.
If only Nintendo had the hardware to deliver 4K HDR releases! I wouldn't even need a "Series X" or "PlayStation 5" to get my high-tech fix!
In other news, the State apparatus has been doing slow motion, back-door "UBI"-- or reparations-- for decades now: just take a look at this terrifying chart. Cross reference that visual with the myriad "income inequality ones": Fed creates trillions of dollars out of thin air, gives that to its globalist Wall Street buddies who ship the jobs overseas, replacing the lost plebe income with table scraps.
And does anyone take this stuff seriously anymore? Give me a break! Take about "false flag" territory, could it be any more transparent? You could count the days on one hand into creepy hair sniffer Beijing Biden's so-called "presidency" before the State-run media dusted off the old Iran scaremongering reels; then Creepy Joe-- more likely Cameltoe, Joe has no clue where he's even living these days-- restart the good ole Syria bombing routine... c'mon man!
Remember: Israel and guys like Paul Wolfowitz were fingering Iran back during the first gulf war in the early 90s as the country they ultimately wanted to destroy.
But that's ok, I'll just keep listening to some "Turrican 2" music while buying crypto. Speaking of Chris Huelsbeck, this surely ranks up there with the "Green Hill Zone" theme as one of the best opening stage songs in any video game, ever.
The Markets - 06:41 CST, 2/26/21 (Sniper)
I saw this on "Wall Street Bets" moments ago, made my morning:
"Statement from the White House regarding 26Feb market conditions:
Now you listen here. No, no, listen, umm, ok, no? Back in '63, we had a market. But it wasn't the market you think, it was a market for everyone. This was during Vietnam, you see, they called it the Joe Biden market because it smelled like cinnamon. I like cinnamon. And peppermint. But you know? How many of ya know what peppermint is? Its like candy canes, but the other guy, cmon man, he don't like Christmas. Its never candy canes with that guy, he doesn't trust the scientists. We are gonna trust the scientists. Now Barack Obama, god rest his soul, he knew a thing or two about markets. He learned em from me. I said 'Barack, you are black, you are from the jungle, you can handle this', and he did. So don't ask me about the markets, maybe you should ask yourself."
Now you listen here. No, no, listen, umm, ok, no? Back in '63, we had a market. But it wasn't the market you think, it was a market for everyone. This was during Vietnam, you see, they called it the Joe Biden market because it smelled like cinnamon. I like cinnamon. And peppermint. But you know? How many of ya know what peppermint is? Its like candy canes, but the other guy, cmon man, he don't like Christmas. Its never candy canes with that guy, he doesn't trust the scientists. We are gonna trust the scientists. Now Barack Obama, god rest his soul, he knew a thing or two about markets. He learned em from me. I said 'Barack, you are black, you are from the jungle, you can handle this', and he did. So don't ask me about the markets, maybe you should ask yourself."
Expansion - 07:38 CST, 2/25/21 (Sniper)
Making significant progress on the addition project for the bug out house: we've settled on a single-story family plus bedroom add-on with a vaulted ceiling, to go along with a massive basement expansion which will add two egress bedrooms and a full bathroom on that level.
All of this will convert the bug out house from a small farm home to a six bedroom structure, almost doubling the finished square footage in the process.
None of this comes cheap, so I've decided to sell the Murderapolis house. I've become quite the personal finance guru over the past several years, so calculations in my twenty-plus tab spreadsheet are easy: selling that house saves me nearly a quarter of a million dollars over the one hundred and thirty months remaining on the mortgage.
Pouring the sale cash into the addition, I will be running multi-thousand dollar monthly cash flow surpluses, which I can channel into investments letting me full-time retire in my early-to-mid 50s.
The only downside to this plan is where to stay during the occasional city visits: but, I've delegated those logistics to wifey. I'm discovering that I'm not very good at delegating: all of these details limited me to only a few hours of sleep last night-- but I'll survive.
I'll leave this post off with Tucker Carlson at his best: the whole thing is worth a listen, he even calls out the Fed! Finally, I think every elevator in the world should play this song.
All of this will convert the bug out house from a small farm home to a six bedroom structure, almost doubling the finished square footage in the process.
None of this comes cheap, so I've decided to sell the Murderapolis house. I've become quite the personal finance guru over the past several years, so calculations in my twenty-plus tab spreadsheet are easy: selling that house saves me nearly a quarter of a million dollars over the one hundred and thirty months remaining on the mortgage.
Pouring the sale cash into the addition, I will be running multi-thousand dollar monthly cash flow surpluses, which I can channel into investments letting me full-time retire in my early-to-mid 50s.
The only downside to this plan is where to stay during the occasional city visits: but, I've delegated those logistics to wifey. I'm discovering that I'm not very good at delegating: all of these details limited me to only a few hours of sleep last night-- but I'll survive.
I'll leave this post off with Tucker Carlson at his best: the whole thing is worth a listen, he even calls out the Fed! Finally, I think every elevator in the world should play this song.
Beta Billy and His Vaccine Factory - 15:29 CST, 2/22/21 (Sniper)
See if the you can spot the problem with this sentence:
It's like what I wrote about just a few days ago: you have a choice, as long as you make the "right" one.
He then went on to emphasize no fewer than four times that he "highly recommended" getting the vaccine. This guy is not a doctor:
The above was spoken by a little Beta Billy with no jawline, soft hair, and translucent skin, in an internal video memo sent to the plebes at my employer. I looked the guy up on "LinkedIn", and he's been in so-called "government relations" for twenty five years. At my employer, he is a director, with that same title.
This WuFlu "vaccine" issue is even more transparent than the other aspects of the Scamdemic, since these "vaccines" don't stop you from getting it, or spreading it: you're just as likely to kill grandma whether you've had it or not. Rather, all they do is prevent you from showing symptoms: in other words, they transform you into a silent grandma killer, which is even worse.
In other words, they aren't "vaccines": a vaccine is a dead or weakened version of a disease, which causes your immune system to immediately kill that disease in the event of a contraction, so that you don't spread it. I'm not just being pedantic: people are, really and truly, being fooled by the use of the term "vaccine", as evidenced by their celebrations when they get it: "yay, it's over!"
Vaccine pushing is nonsense in the first place: if you got yours, why do you care if I've had one? But as is the case with everything WuFlu-related, the pushiness is very transparent, since even the people who do opt to inject these highly experimental cocktails directly into their bloodstreams will still be spreading it.
"Our strategy is really easy: it's educate, advocate, and facilitate. We're taking a lead in educating our employees about vaccines, and, um, helping people make that choice for themselves about choosing the vaccine."
It's like what I wrote about just a few days ago: you have a choice, as long as you make the "right" one.
He then went on to emphasize no fewer than four times that he "highly recommended" getting the vaccine. This guy is not a doctor:
The above was spoken by a little Beta Billy with no jawline, soft hair, and translucent skin, in an internal video memo sent to the plebes at my employer. I looked the guy up on "LinkedIn", and he's been in so-called "government relations" for twenty five years. At my employer, he is a director, with that same title.
This WuFlu "vaccine" issue is even more transparent than the other aspects of the Scamdemic, since these "vaccines" don't stop you from getting it, or spreading it: you're just as likely to kill grandma whether you've had it or not. Rather, all they do is prevent you from showing symptoms: in other words, they transform you into a silent grandma killer, which is even worse.
In other words, they aren't "vaccines": a vaccine is a dead or weakened version of a disease, which causes your immune system to immediately kill that disease in the event of a contraction, so that you don't spread it. I'm not just being pedantic: people are, really and truly, being fooled by the use of the term "vaccine", as evidenced by their celebrations when they get it: "yay, it's over!"
Vaccine pushing is nonsense in the first place: if you got yours, why do you care if I've had one? But as is the case with everything WuFlu-related, the pushiness is very transparent, since even the people who do opt to inject these highly experimental cocktails directly into their bloodstreams will still be spreading it.
Authoritarian Personalities - 18:15 CST, 2/19/21 (Sniper)
In my refusal to comply with Minnesota governor Kim Jong Walz's WuFlu Burqa "mandate", which he wrote on a piece of toilet paper along with his signature, I've been avoiding stores, and in fact hadn't been inside a single establishment since July, when the "mandate" went into place.
Until today.
I wanted a birthday cake for my daughter, and having no other way to obtain one, I went into the local grocery store, sans burqa-- I don't even own one, and would never, ever compromise my principles in that way: "my body, my choice" as the Lefties like to say.
The thing I quickly discovered is that while absolutely everyone was staring at me-- how sad is that, in and of itself-- the absolute cowardice which has gripped the population cuts both ways: the same psychology stopping them from standing up for their freedom prevented them from actually confronting me, even though I'm certain from the glances that several of them desired to do so.
Which leads me to the topic of this post: in the 1950s, a fellow named Theodor Adorno headlined the creation of a book called "The Authoritarian Personality". As a partial aside and preface, I have strong suspicions, based on Adorno's connection to the formation of the insane "Cultural Marxist" ideology, that he's rather a crackpot: do not take any further praise as an endorsement of his views, as I have not read any of his works-- only isolated excerpts.
But just as was the case with Marx himself, there are still nuggets of truth buried beneath the intellectual rubble.
In this case, those nuggets take the form of his observations regarding-- as the book title suggests-- "authoritarian personalities". Understandably, his examples suffer from recency bias as they are almost all rooted in the Nazi disaster, which had just come fully unraveled a mere five years before the publication of this aforementioned work. I would also wager to guess that, like all intellectuals of his ilk, examples were cherry-picked for political purposes, although I have no direct proof having not read the book: it's just an intuition based on experience.
Sort of like how Wikipedia has an extensive article covering "right-wing authoritarianism"-- but no article at all involving "left-wing authoritarianism". Part of that is because the use of "right-wing" in that sense means authoritarian, and the article even admits that the "right-wing" authoritarians in Russia, working by that definition, were the Soviet Communists.
Riffing on that theme, I've observed over the past few years especially how the terms "left / liberal" and "right / conservative" are no longer descriptive in America-- or rather, they are descriptive in the reverse: today's "liberals" are actually right-wing, authoritarian theocrats who want a strict social hierarchy imposed at gun-point-- whereas today's "conservatives" are, using Adorno's language from the 1950's, "left-wing liberals": in other words, non-authoritarian.
For example: Adorno described authoritarians as people who are concerned with authority and obedience, and who tend to be ethnocentric-- as in, only members of their own nationality or religious group are accepted. Sounds an awful lot like the DNC convention to me: it's black-versus-white, gay-versus-straight, women-versus-men, and anyone who questions the victim status of those former groups-- who questions the religion-- deserves to be fired from their jobs, have their houses set on fire, chased out of restaurants, have their bank account retracted, and so on.
But here is the most interesting part-- he recognized that authoritarians were inherently insecure: that because of a hatred of their parents-- and I routinely encounter millennials who think their by-most-standards good parents were the root of all evil-- they displace that hate and anger onto those around them. Their insecurity leads them to reinforce the existing structures, in order to provide stability. Think about how "the Left" today are the establishment, pro-war and all, much to the bemusement of commentators.
Any criticism, observed Adorno, of these norms-- in modern times think fifty seven genders, men can be women and vice-versa, Donald Trump is evil, Christians are oppressive, and so forth-- was a personal attack on the believer's security: that's why today's Lefties react so violently when their religion is questioned!
Interestingly, he also concluded that children who develop a fear of their parents become excessively respectful to authority figures. I see this with individuals such as my father-in-law, whose childhood memories primarily involve avoiding his father, and his father's belt: as a result, he's one of the most micro-managing, controlling people I've ever met, and I inadvertently but nonetheless frequently annoy him with my relaxed views regarding rules and authority.
Theodor Adorno thus joins other misguided luminaries such as Marx or Keynes on the list of "people who had the big things wrong, but many of the little things correct"-- illustrating how you need to be open to inspiration from anywhere, even if the teacher is unaware of the lesson.
Until today.
I wanted a birthday cake for my daughter, and having no other way to obtain one, I went into the local grocery store, sans burqa-- I don't even own one, and would never, ever compromise my principles in that way: "my body, my choice" as the Lefties like to say.
The thing I quickly discovered is that while absolutely everyone was staring at me-- how sad is that, in and of itself-- the absolute cowardice which has gripped the population cuts both ways: the same psychology stopping them from standing up for their freedom prevented them from actually confronting me, even though I'm certain from the glances that several of them desired to do so.
Which leads me to the topic of this post: in the 1950s, a fellow named Theodor Adorno headlined the creation of a book called "The Authoritarian Personality". As a partial aside and preface, I have strong suspicions, based on Adorno's connection to the formation of the insane "Cultural Marxist" ideology, that he's rather a crackpot: do not take any further praise as an endorsement of his views, as I have not read any of his works-- only isolated excerpts.
But just as was the case with Marx himself, there are still nuggets of truth buried beneath the intellectual rubble.
In this case, those nuggets take the form of his observations regarding-- as the book title suggests-- "authoritarian personalities". Understandably, his examples suffer from recency bias as they are almost all rooted in the Nazi disaster, which had just come fully unraveled a mere five years before the publication of this aforementioned work. I would also wager to guess that, like all intellectuals of his ilk, examples were cherry-picked for political purposes, although I have no direct proof having not read the book: it's just an intuition based on experience.
Sort of like how Wikipedia has an extensive article covering "right-wing authoritarianism"-- but no article at all involving "left-wing authoritarianism". Part of that is because the use of "right-wing" in that sense means authoritarian, and the article even admits that the "right-wing" authoritarians in Russia, working by that definition, were the Soviet Communists.
Riffing on that theme, I've observed over the past few years especially how the terms "left / liberal" and "right / conservative" are no longer descriptive in America-- or rather, they are descriptive in the reverse: today's "liberals" are actually right-wing, authoritarian theocrats who want a strict social hierarchy imposed at gun-point-- whereas today's "conservatives" are, using Adorno's language from the 1950's, "left-wing liberals": in other words, non-authoritarian.
For example: Adorno described authoritarians as people who are concerned with authority and obedience, and who tend to be ethnocentric-- as in, only members of their own nationality or religious group are accepted. Sounds an awful lot like the DNC convention to me: it's black-versus-white, gay-versus-straight, women-versus-men, and anyone who questions the victim status of those former groups-- who questions the religion-- deserves to be fired from their jobs, have their houses set on fire, chased out of restaurants, have their bank account retracted, and so on.
But here is the most interesting part-- he recognized that authoritarians were inherently insecure: that because of a hatred of their parents-- and I routinely encounter millennials who think their by-most-standards good parents were the root of all evil-- they displace that hate and anger onto those around them. Their insecurity leads them to reinforce the existing structures, in order to provide stability. Think about how "the Left" today are the establishment, pro-war and all, much to the bemusement of commentators.
Any criticism, observed Adorno, of these norms-- in modern times think fifty seven genders, men can be women and vice-versa, Donald Trump is evil, Christians are oppressive, and so forth-- was a personal attack on the believer's security: that's why today's Lefties react so violently when their religion is questioned!
Interestingly, he also concluded that children who develop a fear of their parents become excessively respectful to authority figures. I see this with individuals such as my father-in-law, whose childhood memories primarily involve avoiding his father, and his father's belt: as a result, he's one of the most micro-managing, controlling people I've ever met, and I inadvertently but nonetheless frequently annoy him with my relaxed views regarding rules and authority.
Theodor Adorno thus joins other misguided luminaries such as Marx or Keynes on the list of "people who had the big things wrong, but many of the little things correct"-- illustrating how you need to be open to inspiration from anywhere, even if the teacher is unaware of the lesson.
Cold Shoulder - 08:08 CST, 2/18/21 (Sniper)
Most people in the world seemed to agree that the involuntary and cruel experiments done by World War II powers like Nazi Germany were wrong, hence the Nuremberg Trials and the formation of "informed consent" as a principle-- so why then is it that the Jews run the first country foisting these experimental and veritably untested "vaccines" on their populace?
"More Nazi than the Nazis", as one article commenter puts it.
On another crazy note: my mother runs her own house cleaning business, and her clientelle are what conservative Minnesotans refer to as "Wayzata Liberals"-- sort of the coloquialized version of "Limousine Liberals": same meaning. They are neurosurgeon imports from India, or Wall Street brokers who work remotely, and they drive eighty thousand dollar cars, out of their six thousand square foot mansions.
And they never hesitate to lecture other people about carbon dioxide "emissions" or so-called "racial equity", despite having three "carbon"-based furnaces and not having a single black person living within a ten mile radius of their house.
One of my mother's clients happens to be a senior executive at a multi-billion dollar international comglomerate, making probably a seven-figure income if one includes stock options. This particular client found out that my mother voted for Donald Trump, and as is characteristic of these Leftists, can not let it go, to the point where they quite literally won't reply to my mother, even when spoken to. During the "impeachment" farce, they were following my mother around the house, turning every TV-- yes, they own a zillion of them, "carbon dioxide emissions" be damned-- on to CNN, blaring the volume.
Beyond the obvious, this reminded me of the video "Vee" did recently regarding Davos: it's well worth a listen. Leftists like the aforedescribed client of my mother's go on and on about how much they "love Democracy"-- until their house cleaner votes the "wrong way", then it's "our Democracy is under attack!"
And now, for the punch line: this individual is an executive at my employer.
Long-time readers will remember that my employer goes on and on about "diversity" and "inclusivity" and "unity" and "we're all in this together", yet in the very next breath says that one is only allowed to speak in praise of so-called "Black Lives Matter", in support of so-called "climate change" policies, and to wear clothes supporting these and other initiatives, like gay marriage, or pro-"abortion" stances-- while criticizing those "policies" will result in chastisement and very possibly a firing.
So much for unity! Hilariously and over time, I've been flagging "block sender" on all of the company's execs, starting with the Left-of-Bernie CEO, so all of their internal memos get sent straight to my Outlook "junk" folder.
All of this brings me to the key point: freedom isn't for people who comply-- those people are complying anyway! Rather, freedom is a measure of how people who politely say "thanks, but no thanks" are treated in society.
In this country formerly known as "America", dissidents-- conscientious objectors-- are one inch away from being treated as terrorists.
"More Nazi than the Nazis", as one article commenter puts it.
On another crazy note: my mother runs her own house cleaning business, and her clientelle are what conservative Minnesotans refer to as "Wayzata Liberals"-- sort of the coloquialized version of "Limousine Liberals": same meaning. They are neurosurgeon imports from India, or Wall Street brokers who work remotely, and they drive eighty thousand dollar cars, out of their six thousand square foot mansions.
And they never hesitate to lecture other people about carbon dioxide "emissions" or so-called "racial equity", despite having three "carbon"-based furnaces and not having a single black person living within a ten mile radius of their house.
One of my mother's clients happens to be a senior executive at a multi-billion dollar international comglomerate, making probably a seven-figure income if one includes stock options. This particular client found out that my mother voted for Donald Trump, and as is characteristic of these Leftists, can not let it go, to the point where they quite literally won't reply to my mother, even when spoken to. During the "impeachment" farce, they were following my mother around the house, turning every TV-- yes, they own a zillion of them, "carbon dioxide emissions" be damned-- on to CNN, blaring the volume.
Beyond the obvious, this reminded me of the video "Vee" did recently regarding Davos: it's well worth a listen. Leftists like the aforedescribed client of my mother's go on and on about how much they "love Democracy"-- until their house cleaner votes the "wrong way", then it's "our Democracy is under attack!"
And now, for the punch line: this individual is an executive at my employer.
Long-time readers will remember that my employer goes on and on about "diversity" and "inclusivity" and "unity" and "we're all in this together", yet in the very next breath says that one is only allowed to speak in praise of so-called "Black Lives Matter", in support of so-called "climate change" policies, and to wear clothes supporting these and other initiatives, like gay marriage, or pro-"abortion" stances-- while criticizing those "policies" will result in chastisement and very possibly a firing.
So much for unity! Hilariously and over time, I've been flagging "block sender" on all of the company's execs, starting with the Left-of-Bernie CEO, so all of their internal memos get sent straight to my Outlook "junk" folder.
All of this brings me to the key point: freedom isn't for people who comply-- those people are complying anyway! Rather, freedom is a measure of how people who politely say "thanks, but no thanks" are treated in society.
In this country formerly known as "America", dissidents-- conscientious objectors-- are one inch away from being treated as terrorists.
Shellfie - 19:19 CST, 2/17/21 (Sniper)
I saw that a third "Splatoon" was announced today. I wrote about the first game the day it was announced on June 14, 2014-- almost seven years ago now-- and it's remarkable to note how little the industry has improved since then; no-wheres-land since 2002 at the latest, if one is honest.
But back to "Splatoon": I bought the game via reservation the day it came out, becoming quite good at and adoring it, as my period review indicated. Every so often I still listen to my favorite song from the game.
Then came the sequel, which I never actually bought-- I merely borrowed it from a friend, played it enough to review it, and gave it back: something about its deviation in style just didn't grab me in the same way as the original title-- although I do dig some of the music.
Nonetheless, I've often regretted not spending more time with the sequel-- so this third game will be a day-one purchase for me, and I'll try to commit to it more.
On a Nintendo note, I saw that their president indirectly poured cold water on a "Switch Pro", while saying the current hardware has four more years of life left in it. Holy smokes: Xbox 360 graphics in 2025? That caliber of visuals started feeling stale two or three years ago!
But back to "Splatoon": I bought the game via reservation the day it came out, becoming quite good at and adoring it, as my period review indicated. Every so often I still listen to my favorite song from the game.
Then came the sequel, which I never actually bought-- I merely borrowed it from a friend, played it enough to review it, and gave it back: something about its deviation in style just didn't grab me in the same way as the original title-- although I do dig some of the music.
Nonetheless, I've often regretted not spending more time with the sequel-- so this third game will be a day-one purchase for me, and I'll try to commit to it more.
On a Nintendo note, I saw that their president indirectly poured cold water on a "Switch Pro", while saying the current hardware has four more years of life left in it. Holy smokes: Xbox 360 graphics in 2025? That caliber of visuals started feeling stale two or three years ago!
Mumblings - 07:50 CST, 2/17/21 (Sniper)
Here is discussed an essay from a Lefty saying that the blue states should secede. His justification seems to be that there isn't enough "democracy", and that those nasty white people are denying "free" abortions, food, genital mutilation surgeries-- you know, those Communist Manifesto-esque "positive rights" the Left like so much, but which actually can't exist and don't make any sense absent a totalitarian slave state apparatus to force people to serve others for "free", at gun point.
But that's fine! I don't care what illogical case the author makes for secession, only that he makes it. Bye! I've written a ton about "democracy" very lately, just search this page-- I have the diametric viewpoint to this guy.
I haven't been posting here much, because I've essentially been burying my head in the sand regarding politics, in this post-politics "America": things are so far-gone now that there's no purpose in getting stressed out about it: "things you can control, and things you can't". On a related psychology note, I was reading a summary of Theodore Adorno's work on "authoritarian personalities"-- fascinating stuff. One of these days I'll get the motivation to do an entire post on that topic.
On a totally unrelated subject, I picked up a copy of "Ion Fury" for Switch: it's the best first-person shooter I've played since something like 1999: unbelievable! It has everything I look for in a game: a "Hi-Bit" art style, real music, gamey-and-pure action, and so forth. Expect reviews of both it and "Turrican Flashback" in the coming couple of weeks. Recently, I haven't been very "into" my PlayStation 5, whereas my Switch has seen a resurgence of use: the game library much more closely fits my taste.
Finally, I stuck to my guns regarding not wearing a WuFlu Burqa-- and the very next notary who picked up my refinance case was willing to meet the terms I require for entry into my property: refinance complete.
But that's fine! I don't care what illogical case the author makes for secession, only that he makes it. Bye! I've written a ton about "democracy" very lately, just search this page-- I have the diametric viewpoint to this guy.
I haven't been posting here much, because I've essentially been burying my head in the sand regarding politics, in this post-politics "America": things are so far-gone now that there's no purpose in getting stressed out about it: "things you can control, and things you can't". On a related psychology note, I was reading a summary of Theodore Adorno's work on "authoritarian personalities"-- fascinating stuff. One of these days I'll get the motivation to do an entire post on that topic.
On a totally unrelated subject, I picked up a copy of "Ion Fury" for Switch: it's the best first-person shooter I've played since something like 1999: unbelievable! It has everything I look for in a game: a "Hi-Bit" art style, real music, gamey-and-pure action, and so forth. Expect reviews of both it and "Turrican Flashback" in the coming couple of weeks. Recently, I haven't been very "into" my PlayStation 5, whereas my Switch has seen a resurgence of use: the game library much more closely fits my taste.
Finally, I stuck to my guns regarding not wearing a WuFlu Burqa-- and the very next notary who picked up my refinance case was willing to meet the terms I require for entry into my property: refinance complete.
Interview with Trip - 18:53 CST, 2/12/21 (Sniper)
This interview with Trip is absolute gold: so many memorable moments, so many little anecdotes with which I wasn't yet familiar-- incredible. His ending it a hilarious a "ice breaker" analogy and tying it in to "Lawrence of Arabia" was the icing on top.
The only question I wish Neil would have asked is, who put Trip in touch with Dave and RJ? I've been dying to know that for decades, and I would love to hear the back story there.
The only question I wish Neil would have asked is, who put Trip in touch with Dave and RJ? I've been dying to know that for decades, and I would love to hear the back story there.
Class Conflict and China - 06:43 CST, 2/11/21 (Sniper)
My Murderapolis mortgage carrier told me I could refinance, with the exact same terms, and save fifteen bucks per month via a reduction in insurance, with them covering all of the closing costs. "Sure, why not." Fast forward past all of the time spent reading and "virtually" signing dozens of PDF files, and the notary tells me he won't enter my house unless I'm wearing a WuFlu Burqa, in my own home! "Thanks, but no thanks to that refinance", I told the mortgage company.
In any event, that rant isn't the reason I'm writing this morning. Rather, I came across this article the other day, and rarely do I think someone has found a closer historical analog to what we're experiencing at the moment in the country formerly known as "America". But first, the backdrop thanks to this rare, aberrantly untainted Wikipedia article; bold emphasis is mine:
In the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta capitalized on the long-growing sentiment among the Athenian elite that the plebes had obtained too much power, installing a ideologically-pure puppet government.
Let's move forward now to excerpts from the aforelinked opinion piece, and you'll see the connection to present-day America, if you haven't already:
As anyone who has listened to Tucker Carlson or read any of my blog posts lately, it's extremely obvious that the elites are punishing the population-at-large out of contempt, as revenge for Trump. More:
Beyond the fact that the guy can't speak a single sentence of English without committing major grammatical errors, I hear this pattern a lot these days, following this formulation: "Yes, of course you have right XYZ! Of course! But... just be aware that there are consequences to what you do."
Obviously, a right isn't a right if it can't be exercised! According to the "LeBron" logic, even North Koreans "have free speech": they can say whatever they want! Of course, they'll be tossed into prison camps or executed by anti-aircraft fire if they say the wrong things-- but who ever said they couldn't speak freely?
But I digress:
The author explains his proof momentarily that the "lockdowns" are political instruments rather than "public health" measures-- but for anyone with two brain cells to rub together and any sense of what power does when it interacts with human nature, all of this WuFlu nonsense has been painfully transparent from day one.
Let's resume:
Multi-billion dollar corporations actively using what amounts to slave labor manufacturing of their own products today, lecturing me about how I'm "systemically racist" for not handing over my paycheck to black people, whose ancestors from ten generations ago were once slaves, in the distant past. Got it.
And now, the history of "lockdowns": you see, pre-WuFlu China had been "locking down" dissidents in Wuhan and elsewhere, who were politically dissatisfied with The Party. When the virus hit, The Party used it as an excuse to further quell dissent.
In other words, the "lockdown" concept in Wuhan preceded the virus: it was merely put on steroids after the virus. Behold:
Tom Cotton, one of the few members of the American Congress who seemed interested in getting to the bottom of what was going on, was given this treatment-- all so familiar-- when he suggested that more inquiry was needed to figure out if the virus came out of the Wuhan virology lab:
Debooonked! Debooonked! And by "experts", no less-- like Nancy Pelosi, or Eric "I slept with a Chinese spy" Swallowswell, no doubt. More from the article:
So now we have the "divine right of kings". Great. So how does Trump fit into all of this?
Just a few days ago, I wrote about how the real battle is class warfare: everything else is merely an extraneous distraction. But now I understand that this specific class-based dish has an egg roll flavor: it's rooted in the American elites having sold their soul to the Chinese, in exchange for vast riches.
The above is just a tiny sampling of what is in the article: the full monty most definitely warrants a complete read.
In any event, that rant isn't the reason I'm writing this morning. Rather, I came across this article the other day, and rarely do I think someone has found a closer historical analog to what we're experiencing at the moment in the country formerly known as "America". But first, the backdrop thanks to this rare, aberrantly untainted Wikipedia article; bold emphasis is mine:
"With Spartan support, the Thirty established an interim government in Athens. The Thirty were concerned with the revision if not erase of democratic laws inscribed on the wall next to the Stoa Basileios. Consequently, the Thirty reduced the rights of Athenian citizens in order to institute an oligarchical regime. The Thirty appointed a council of 500 to serve the judicial functions formerly belonging to all the citizens. However, not all Athenian men had their rights removed. In fact, the Thirty chose 3,000 Athenian men 'to share in the government.'"
In the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta capitalized on the long-growing sentiment among the Athenian elite that the plebes had obtained too much power, installing a ideologically-pure puppet government.
"Led by Critias, the Thirty Tyrants presided over a reign of terror in which they executed, murdered, and exiled hundreds of Athenians, seizing their possessions afterward.
The Thirty removed criminals as well as many ordinary citizens whom they considered 'unfriendly' to the new regime for expressing support for the democracy. One of their targets was one of their own, Theramenes, whom Xenophon depicts as revolted by Critias' excessive violence and injustice and trying to oppose him. Critias accused Theramenes of conspiracy and treason, and then forced him to drink hemlock. Many wealthy citizens were executed simply so the oligarchs could confiscate their assets, which were then distributed among the Thirty and their supporters. They also hired 300 'lash-bearers' or whip-bearing men to intimidate Athenian citizens.
Those who did not approve of the new laws could either fight - risking exile or execution - or accept the Thirty's rule.
The Thirty Tyrants' brief reign was marred by violence and corruption. Historians have argued that the violence and brutality the Thirty carried out in Athens was necessary to transition Athens from a democracy to an oligarchy. However, the more violent the Thirty's regime became, the more opposition they faced.
After the revolution that overthrew the Thirty Tyrants, Athens and its citizens struggled to reconcile and rebuild."
The Thirty removed criminals as well as many ordinary citizens whom they considered 'unfriendly' to the new regime for expressing support for the democracy. One of their targets was one of their own, Theramenes, whom Xenophon depicts as revolted by Critias' excessive violence and injustice and trying to oppose him. Critias accused Theramenes of conspiracy and treason, and then forced him to drink hemlock. Many wealthy citizens were executed simply so the oligarchs could confiscate their assets, which were then distributed among the Thirty and their supporters. They also hired 300 'lash-bearers' or whip-bearing men to intimidate Athenian citizens.
Those who did not approve of the new laws could either fight - risking exile or execution - or accept the Thirty's rule.
The Thirty Tyrants' brief reign was marred by violence and corruption. Historians have argued that the violence and brutality the Thirty carried out in Athens was necessary to transition Athens from a democracy to an oligarchy. However, the more violent the Thirty's regime became, the more opposition they faced.
After the revolution that overthrew the Thirty Tyrants, Athens and its citizens struggled to reconcile and rebuild."
Let's move forward now to excerpts from the aforelinked opinion piece, and you'll see the connection to present-day America, if you haven't already:
"Undergirding the globalist enterprise was China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. For decades, American policymakers and the corporate class said they saw China as a rival, but the elite that Friedman described saw enlightened Chinese autocracy as a friend and even as a model—which was not surprising, given that the Chinese Communist Party became their source of power, wealth, and prestige. Why did they trade with an authoritarian regime and by sending millions of American manufacturing jobs off to China thereby impoverish working Americans? Because it made them rich. They salved their consciences by telling themselves they had no choice but to deal with China: It was big, productive, and efficient and its rise was inevitable. And besides, the American workers hurt by the deal deserved to be punished—who could defend a class of reactionary and racist ideological naysayers standing in the way of what was best for progress?"
As anyone who has listened to Tucker Carlson or read any of my blog posts lately, it's extremely obvious that the elites are punishing the population-at-large out of contempt, as revenge for Trump. More:
"After an an NBA executive tweeted in defense of Hong Kong dissidents, social justice activist King LeBron told Americans to watch their tongues. 'Even though yes, we do have freedom of speech,' said James, 'it can be a lot of negative that comes with it.'"
Beyond the fact that the guy can't speak a single sentence of English without committing major grammatical errors, I hear this pattern a lot these days, following this formulation: "Yes, of course you have right XYZ! Of course! But... just be aware that there are consequences to what you do."
Obviously, a right isn't a right if it can't be exercised! According to the "LeBron" logic, even North Koreans "have free speech": they can say whatever they want! Of course, they'll be tossed into prison camps or executed by anti-aircraft fire if they say the wrong things-- but who ever said they couldn't speak freely?
But I digress:
"And because it was true that China was the source of the China Class' power, the novel coronavirus coming out of Wuhan became the platform for its coup de grace. So Americans became prey to an anti-democratic elite that used the coronavirus to demoralize them; lay waste to small businesses; leave them vulnerable to rioters who are free to steal, burn, and kill; keep their children from school and the dying from the last embrace of their loved ones; and desecrate American history, culture, and society; and defame the country as systemically racist in order to furnish the predicate for why ordinary Americans in fact deserved the hell that the elite's private and public sector proxies had already prepared for them.
For nearly a year, American officials have purposefully laid waste to our economy and society for the sole purpose of arrogating more power to themselves while the Chinese economy has gained on America's. China's lockdowns had nothing to do with the difference in outcomes. Lockdowns are not public health measures to reduce the spread of a virus. They are political instruments, which is why Democratic Party officials who put their constituents under repeated lengthy lockdowns, like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, are signaling publicly that it is imperative they be allowed to reopen immediately now that Trump is safely gone.
That Democratic officials intentionally destroyed lives and ended thousands of them by sending the ill to infect the elderly in nursing homes is irrelevant to America's version of the Thirty Tyrants. The job was to boost coronavirus casualties in order to defeat Trump and they succeeded. As with Athens' anti-democratic faction, America's best and brightest long ago lost its way. At the head of the Thirty Tyrants was Critias, one of Socrates' best students, a poet and dramatist. He may have helped save Socrates from the regime's wrath, and yet the philosopher appears to have regretted that his method, to question everything, fed Critias' sweeping disdain for tradition. Once in power, Critias turned his nihilism on Athens and destroyed the city."
For nearly a year, American officials have purposefully laid waste to our economy and society for the sole purpose of arrogating more power to themselves while the Chinese economy has gained on America's. China's lockdowns had nothing to do with the difference in outcomes. Lockdowns are not public health measures to reduce the spread of a virus. They are political instruments, which is why Democratic Party officials who put their constituents under repeated lengthy lockdowns, like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, are signaling publicly that it is imperative they be allowed to reopen immediately now that Trump is safely gone.
That Democratic officials intentionally destroyed lives and ended thousands of them by sending the ill to infect the elderly in nursing homes is irrelevant to America's version of the Thirty Tyrants. The job was to boost coronavirus casualties in order to defeat Trump and they succeeded. As with Athens' anti-democratic faction, America's best and brightest long ago lost its way. At the head of the Thirty Tyrants was Critias, one of Socrates' best students, a poet and dramatist. He may have helped save Socrates from the regime's wrath, and yet the philosopher appears to have regretted that his method, to question everything, fed Critias' sweeping disdain for tradition. Once in power, Critias turned his nihilism on Athens and destroyed the city."
The author explains his proof momentarily that the "lockdowns" are political instruments rather than "public health" measures-- but for anyone with two brain cells to rub together and any sense of what power does when it interacts with human nature, all of this WuFlu nonsense has been painfully transparent from day one.
Let's resume:
"Apple, Nike, and Coca Cola even lobbied against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. On Trump's penultimate day in office, his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States has 'determined that the People's Republic of China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China, targeting Uyghur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups.' That makes a number of major American brands that use forced Uyghur labor—including, according to a 2020 Australian study, Nike, Adidas, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and General Motors—complicit in genocide.
That's not to say establishment Republicans are cut out of the pro-China oligarchy-- Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell's shipbuilder billionaire father-in-law James Chao has benefited greatly from his relationship with the CCP, including college classmate Jiang Zemin. Gifts from the Chao family have catapulted McConnell to only a few slots below Feinstein in the list of wealthiest senators.
The Central Intelligence Agency openly protected Chinese efforts to undermine American institutions. CIA management bullied intelligence analysts to alter their assessment of Chinese influence and interference in our political process so it wouldn't be used to support policies they disagreed with—Trump's policies. It's no wonder that protecting America is not CIA management's most urgent equity—the technology that stores the agency's information is run by Amazon Web Services, owned by China's No. 1 American distributor, Jeff Bezos.
That's not to say establishment Republicans are cut out of the pro-China oligarchy-- Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell's shipbuilder billionaire father-in-law James Chao has benefited greatly from his relationship with the CCP, including college classmate Jiang Zemin. Gifts from the Chao family have catapulted McConnell to only a few slots below Feinstein in the list of wealthiest senators.
The Central Intelligence Agency openly protected Chinese efforts to undermine American institutions. CIA management bullied intelligence analysts to alter their assessment of Chinese influence and interference in our political process so it wouldn't be used to support policies they disagreed with—Trump's policies. It's no wonder that protecting America is not CIA management's most urgent equity—the technology that stores the agency's information is run by Amazon Web Services, owned by China's No. 1 American distributor, Jeff Bezos.
Multi-billion dollar corporations actively using what amounts to slave labor manufacturing of their own products today, lecturing me about how I'm "systemically racist" for not handing over my paycheck to black people, whose ancestors from ten generations ago were once slaves, in the distant past. Got it.
And now, the history of "lockdowns": you see, pre-WuFlu China had been "locking down" dissidents in Wuhan and elsewhere, who were politically dissatisfied with The Party. When the virus hit, The Party used it as an excuse to further quell dissent.
In other words, the "lockdown" concept in Wuhan preceded the virus: it was merely put on steroids after the virus. Behold:
"When a real virus hit in the fall of 2019, Chinese authorities followed the same protocol, quarantining not just prospective troublemakers but everyone in Wuhan in the hope of avoiding an even larger public outcry than the one they'd quelled in the same city just months before.
There is a good reason why lockdowns-- quarantining those who are not sick-- had never been previously employed as a public health measure. The leading members of a city, state, or nation do not imprison its own unless they mean to signal that they are imposing collective punishment on the population at large. It had never been used before as a public health measure because it is a widely recognized instrument of political repression.
At the end of December 2019, Chinese authorities began locking down social media accounts mentioning the new virus, doctors who warned of it or spoke about it with their colleagues were reprimanded and another, allegedly infected by COVID-19, died. All domestic travel in and out of Wuhan was stopped. If the purpose of the lockdowns was really to prevent spread of the contagion, it's worth noting that international flights continued. Rather, it appears that the domestic travel ban, like the social media censorship, was to keep news of the government's blunder from spreading throughout China and leading to massive, perhaps uncontrollable, unrest."
There is a good reason why lockdowns-- quarantining those who are not sick-- had never been previously employed as a public health measure. The leading members of a city, state, or nation do not imprison its own unless they mean to signal that they are imposing collective punishment on the population at large. It had never been used before as a public health measure because it is a widely recognized instrument of political repression.
At the end of December 2019, Chinese authorities began locking down social media accounts mentioning the new virus, doctors who warned of it or spoke about it with their colleagues were reprimanded and another, allegedly infected by COVID-19, died. All domestic travel in and out of Wuhan was stopped. If the purpose of the lockdowns was really to prevent spread of the contagion, it's worth noting that international flights continued. Rather, it appears that the domestic travel ban, like the social media censorship, was to keep news of the government's blunder from spreading throughout China and leading to massive, perhaps uncontrollable, unrest."
Tom Cotton, one of the few members of the American Congress who seemed interested in getting to the bottom of what was going on, was given this treatment-- all so familiar-- when he suggested that more inquiry was needed to figure out if the virus came out of the Wuhan virology lab:
"The corporate American press disparaged Cotton's search for answers. Jeff Bezos' Washington Post claimed that Cotton was 'fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts.'"
Debooonked! Debooonked! And by "experts", no less-- like Nancy Pelosi, or Eric "I slept with a Chinese spy" Swallowswell, no doubt. More from the article:
"The new American oligarchy believes that democracy's failures are proof of their own exclusive right to power."
So now we have the "divine right of kings". Great. So how does Trump fit into all of this?
"In November a video circulated on social media purporting to document a public speech given by the head of a Chinese think tank close to the Beijing government. 'Trump waged a trade war against us,' he told a Chinese audience. 'Why couldn't we handle him? Why is that between 1992 and 2016, we always resolved issues with the U.S.? Because we had people up there. In America's core circle of power, we have some old friends.' The appreciative crowd laughed along with him. 'During the last three to four decades,' he continued, 'we took advantage of America's core circle. As I said, Wall Street has a very profound influence... we used to rely heavily on them. Problem is they have been declining since 2008. Most importantly after 2016 Wall Street couldn't control Trump... In the U.S.-China trade war they tried to help. My friends in the U.S. told me that they tried to help, but they couldn't. Now with Biden winning the election, the traditional elites, political elites, the establishment, they have a very close relationship with Wall Street."
Just a few days ago, I wrote about how the real battle is class warfare: everything else is merely an extraneous distraction. But now I understand that this specific class-based dish has an egg roll flavor: it's rooted in the American elites having sold their soul to the Chinese, in exchange for vast riches.
The above is just a tiny sampling of what is in the article: the full monty most definitely warrants a complete read.
Inability - 16:05 CST, 2/08/21 (Sniper)
Yesterday, I described the herd-like actions of not-so-bright human beings. When I read about this "poverty reduction" scheme, it brought to mind another beast reference, this time in the form of an old quote:
"Throw some food into an alley with ten starving cats; come back to that same alley some months later, and you'll find one hundred starving cats."
Moment of Clarity - 08:24 CST, 2/08/21 (Sniper)
This is an excellent article, pointing out the inconsistent application of the so-called "stakeholder theory" of "capitalism": specifically, "society" is a stakeholder if it would mean an increase in power for the billionaire class, while "society" is not in the inverse. In fact-- and I'm planning to write a full post exploring this idea in greater detail-- the entire rift in the former-United States is class-based.
In other words, this Frankfurt School nonsense, the so-called "gender theories" and "rainbow people" push, the "safe spaces" and coloring books, so-called "Black Lives Matter", and all the rest are distractions intended to set the peasants against each other. Put another way: the "Occupy Wall Street" diagnosis was absolutely correct, even if their Commmunistic prescriptions would exacerbate the problem one hundred fold.
I was somewhat blind to this until I saw the entire establishment circle the wagons to protect the hedge funds during the "Wall Street Bets" incident.
Another topic worthy of its own post is how the establishment-- via "Time Magazine"-- has just admitted everything I said about "the selection" the day after it happened: they confessed to all aspects of it, even describing it in similar terms to my own-- but then spun it as a "fortification" of the process, and a true "Democratic" moment, versus the fraud, scandal, and "social contract"-terminating event it was.
In other words, this Frankfurt School nonsense, the so-called "gender theories" and "rainbow people" push, the "safe spaces" and coloring books, so-called "Black Lives Matter", and all the rest are distractions intended to set the peasants against each other. Put another way: the "Occupy Wall Street" diagnosis was absolutely correct, even if their Commmunistic prescriptions would exacerbate the problem one hundred fold.
I was somewhat blind to this until I saw the entire establishment circle the wagons to protect the hedge funds during the "Wall Street Bets" incident.
Another topic worthy of its own post is how the establishment-- via "Time Magazine"-- has just admitted everything I said about "the selection" the day after it happened: they confessed to all aspects of it, even describing it in similar terms to my own-- but then spun it as a "fortification" of the process, and a true "Democratic" moment, versus the fraud, scandal, and "social contract"-terminating event it was.
Like Beasts - 07:28 CST, 2/07/21 (Sniper)
This article reminds me of a story a family member recently recounted to me, where they were out-and-about picking up take-out from a fast food joint.
They told me that people were frantically hopping around trying to stay whatever random distance the government tells them they need to stand-- while spilling their drinks all over themselves, while simultaneously and literally running into people who were standing behind them. This in turn then triggered those bumped into, into rapidly shuffling in the opposite direction, like a chain reaction.
It sounds a little like watching my daughter's guinea pigs run in circles when they get startled.
Meanwhile, this family member-- who was wearing a WuFlu Burqa, but only for the very brief time required to grab the food and exit the premises, whereafter the chain link fence-to-a-mosquito Kabuki garment was immediately discarded-- could only watch in total astonishment at how stupid people are: not much smarter than guinea pigs.
The strangest part about this "Salem witch trial" mass psychosis, this mental illness, is that if people really, truly, actually thought the WuFlu was legitimately a life-terminating threat, there is no way they would leave their homes to gorge themselves with French fries: rather, they would stay home at all costs, and if they did need to go out, they would adorn themselves-- and rightfully so-- in fully sealed hazmat suits.
Everyone knows this is a scamdemic: everyone! Yet just like the drink-spilling, recursive, guinea pig-like flea circus shuffle described above, people play along with it to virtue signal how much they "care"-- about an essentially non-existent threat-- or just merely to be polite: or, even scarier, out of a blind obeisance to people who claim they have "authority", like Dr. Fausti or Kim Jong Walz.
Meanwhile, they either ignore how absolutely ridiculous they look, or aren't even aware of that fact-- while yelling at the people who aren't mentally ill!
They told me that people were frantically hopping around trying to stay whatever random distance the government tells them they need to stand-- while spilling their drinks all over themselves, while simultaneously and literally running into people who were standing behind them. This in turn then triggered those bumped into, into rapidly shuffling in the opposite direction, like a chain reaction.
It sounds a little like watching my daughter's guinea pigs run in circles when they get startled.
Meanwhile, this family member-- who was wearing a WuFlu Burqa, but only for the very brief time required to grab the food and exit the premises, whereafter the chain link fence-to-a-mosquito Kabuki garment was immediately discarded-- could only watch in total astonishment at how stupid people are: not much smarter than guinea pigs.
The strangest part about this "Salem witch trial" mass psychosis, this mental illness, is that if people really, truly, actually thought the WuFlu was legitimately a life-terminating threat, there is no way they would leave their homes to gorge themselves with French fries: rather, they would stay home at all costs, and if they did need to go out, they would adorn themselves-- and rightfully so-- in fully sealed hazmat suits.
Everyone knows this is a scamdemic: everyone! Yet just like the drink-spilling, recursive, guinea pig-like flea circus shuffle described above, people play along with it to virtue signal how much they "care"-- about an essentially non-existent threat-- or just merely to be polite: or, even scarier, out of a blind obeisance to people who claim they have "authority", like Dr. Fausti or Kim Jong Walz.
Meanwhile, they either ignore how absolutely ridiculous they look, or aren't even aware of that fact-- while yelling at the people who aren't mentally ill!
Numbers in Space - 09:48 CST, 2/06/21 (Sniper)
A few nights ago, my son was asking me what he should draw, and I suggested that maybe he create a few cool views from around the solar system. Five minutes later he walked into my room with this pencil sketch, along with explanations of each panel:
My son has been studying outer space and our solar system for at least three years now; he's seven years old at present: so he can visualize roughly where everything is off the top of his head, right down to the myriad dwarf planets and other more obscure objects, like the largest asteroids.
One of his other visualization expertises relates to numbers: following scientific notation, he's memorized the exact named order of all the numbers up to a millillion, also called millinillion-- which is 10^3003. He's explained to me that it just follows conventions, like the lower numbers we all know.
The one challenging part is that it's difficult for him to check his work. For instance, I asked him a random one: "what's the name for 10^205?", and after a few minutes of deliberation, he came up with "quattorquinagintillion"-- although it's much easier to count in sequence than to fly right to ones in the middle.
I told him he should write a Python program to convert numbers of zeroes to their named equivalents. If he makes one, I'll post the code here.
- Top-left: This is what the view of Saturn would look like from Pan. The small object on the right-hand side of the frame is Aegaeon.
- Top-right: This is approximately what Saturn would look like from the surface of Titan. The sun can be seen on the right-hand side.
- Bottom-left: This is a view from Io. Europa can be seen very close to Jupiter, while the sun can be seen on the left-hand side.
- Bottom-right: Here is an approximate view from Callisto. Ganymede can be seen on the left, the sun in the center, and Europa on the right.
My son has been studying outer space and our solar system for at least three years now; he's seven years old at present: so he can visualize roughly where everything is off the top of his head, right down to the myriad dwarf planets and other more obscure objects, like the largest asteroids.
One of his other visualization expertises relates to numbers: following scientific notation, he's memorized the exact named order of all the numbers up to a millillion, also called millinillion-- which is 10^3003. He's explained to me that it just follows conventions, like the lower numbers we all know.
The one challenging part is that it's difficult for him to check his work. For instance, I asked him a random one: "what's the name for 10^205?", and after a few minutes of deliberation, he came up with "quattorquinagintillion"-- although it's much easier to count in sequence than to fly right to ones in the middle.
I told him he should write a Python program to convert numbers of zeroes to their named equivalents. If he makes one, I'll post the code here.
Strange Times - 07:47 CST, 2/05/21 (Sniper)
As I've written several times, the Democrats are trying to model the United States after China-- and in many ways, it's already a done deal: I oftentimes can't tell the difference!
Another assertion I once made was, if the media hadn't wildly exaggerated the WuFlu in order to get Trump out of office, life would have just gone on as normal, and hardly anyone would have even known it was "a thing". It would have just been the occasional office water cooler talk, "More people than usual calling in sick, very interesting, oh well!" Turns out, there is a pretty strong basis to my thinking.
But as Don and Chris say, threats don't even need to be real for them to be believed.
The other notable thing going on is the gas lighting. Through Mark Dice and others, I have been following the absolutely incredible censorship of Conservatives for year now-- but pointing out the censorship is now considered "misinformation", and will get you censored! You know, censored, which isn't actually happening, and if you say so we'll censor you, which isn't actually happening, so you'd better not say it or we'll censor you, which isn't actually happening...
Ditto for the "selection": hundreds and hundreds of signed affidavits, voting machines getting hacked in real-time proof-of-concept demonstrations, professional statistical analysis proving that the result counts were manipulated, undercover sting operations catching ballot harvesters red-handed... but nope, all "misinformation!"
Interestingly, this could all backfire on the Left: it took Creepy Beijing Biden like forty eight hours in office before his approval rating torpedoed, and none of the Left's ideas are even remotely workable without magically conjuring hundreds of trillions of dollars out of nowhere. The Left are so incompetent, maybe handing the two year old the box of matches and say "go for it" is the best thing which could happen, in terms of long-term outcomes.
Another assertion I once made was, if the media hadn't wildly exaggerated the WuFlu in order to get Trump out of office, life would have just gone on as normal, and hardly anyone would have even known it was "a thing". It would have just been the occasional office water cooler talk, "More people than usual calling in sick, very interesting, oh well!" Turns out, there is a pretty strong basis to my thinking.
But as Don and Chris say, threats don't even need to be real for them to be believed.
The other notable thing going on is the gas lighting. Through Mark Dice and others, I have been following the absolutely incredible censorship of Conservatives for year now-- but pointing out the censorship is now considered "misinformation", and will get you censored! You know, censored, which isn't actually happening, and if you say so we'll censor you, which isn't actually happening, so you'd better not say it or we'll censor you, which isn't actually happening...
Ditto for the "selection": hundreds and hundreds of signed affidavits, voting machines getting hacked in real-time proof-of-concept demonstrations, professional statistical analysis proving that the result counts were manipulated, undercover sting operations catching ballot harvesters red-handed... but nope, all "misinformation!"
Interestingly, this could all backfire on the Left: it took Creepy Beijing Biden like forty eight hours in office before his approval rating torpedoed, and none of the Left's ideas are even remotely workable without magically conjuring hundreds of trillions of dollars out of nowhere. The Left are so incompetent, maybe handing the two year old the box of matches and say "go for it" is the best thing which could happen, in terms of long-term outcomes.
Bang On - 20:39 CST, 2/04/21 (Sniper)
I know I've been writing a lot about "Turrican" lately due to the Switch collection having just come out, but I haven't been this excited by a series of games in ages: these would have been "Wolfenstein 3D -> Doom -> Quake"-caliber for me, had I owned an Amiga at that time.
I just finished beating the first game a second time, then started in on its sequel-- holy toledo! I've heard it described as one of the best action platformers of all time, and I am absolutely understanding that praise.
And just listen to the music! The video game industry had a lot of "Mozarts" in its golden age-- Yuzo Koshiro, Nobuo Uematsu, Rob Hubbard, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, and many more-- but this Huelsbeck fellow might be the most sophisticated of them all, particularly in the area of key changes, where he is king without a doubt.
It would be incredible if more Amiga-related software could be re-released. How about a "The Bitmap Brothers" collection next, with the "Xenon" and "Speedball" titles?
I just finished beating the first game a second time, then started in on its sequel-- holy toledo! I've heard it described as one of the best action platformers of all time, and I am absolutely understanding that praise.
And just listen to the music! The video game industry had a lot of "Mozarts" in its golden age-- Yuzo Koshiro, Nobuo Uematsu, Rob Hubbard, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, and many more-- but this Huelsbeck fellow might be the most sophisticated of them all, particularly in the area of key changes, where he is king without a doubt.
It would be incredible if more Amiga-related software could be re-released. How about a "The Bitmap Brothers" collection next, with the "Xenon" and "Speedball" titles?
Finality - 18:20 CST, 2/03/21 (Sniper)
If I knew more about music theory, I could probably explain in terms of keys and chords exactly how this is done-- but I know it when I hear it: final stage music. It's melodic, but has this climactic sound to it-- sort of eager and foreboding at the same time, like the feeling you get as a footballer waiting for the referee to blow for kickoff, for those who have played that sport.
Incidentally, I think not having owned an Amiga as a kid is the biggest missed opportunity of my life: I remember being dazzled by it at the local "Software Etc." in 1987 or so, and asking my dad if we could get one: "We already have the Atari [7800]", was his response.
I asked him about this as an adult, maybe five years ago, and he said "Oh, I didn't realize you really wanted one! If you would have kept asking me about it, I actually probably would have gotten one, it could have been a computer for me too." Lesson: don't be a good child-- be a really annoying, pestering one!
Then again, if we'd gotten an Amiga I probably wouldn't have gotten the Genesis in 1990. I regularly read Amiga owners who say, "I wish I could have had a Mega Drive as a kid!" The grass is always greener. We also put together our first IBM PC-- a 368SX kit-- in 1989: hopping on the DOS train set me up all the way through present day as PC building is still a passion of mine-- so longer-term that was a better route anyway.
All the same, if I'd had an Amiga, I just know I'd be one of those "Amiga Nuts" to this day, probably with a modernized custom setup, ala "Retro Man Cave" Neil. My equivalent is the 3DO-- but that's not nearly as much fun: it just doesn't have the following to have much of a contemporary community-- although that's just starting to change, maybe.
Oh, and "Turrican" is a great game: on playthrough number two, before I leap to the sequel.
Incidentally, I think not having owned an Amiga as a kid is the biggest missed opportunity of my life: I remember being dazzled by it at the local "Software Etc." in 1987 or so, and asking my dad if we could get one: "We already have the Atari [7800]", was his response.
I asked him about this as an adult, maybe five years ago, and he said "Oh, I didn't realize you really wanted one! If you would have kept asking me about it, I actually probably would have gotten one, it could have been a computer for me too." Lesson: don't be a good child-- be a really annoying, pestering one!
Then again, if we'd gotten an Amiga I probably wouldn't have gotten the Genesis in 1990. I regularly read Amiga owners who say, "I wish I could have had a Mega Drive as a kid!" The grass is always greener. We also put together our first IBM PC-- a 368SX kit-- in 1989: hopping on the DOS train set me up all the way through present day as PC building is still a passion of mine-- so longer-term that was a better route anyway.
All the same, if I'd had an Amiga, I just know I'd be one of those "Amiga Nuts" to this day, probably with a modernized custom setup, ala "Retro Man Cave" Neil. My equivalent is the 3DO-- but that's not nearly as much fun: it just doesn't have the following to have much of a contemporary community-- although that's just starting to change, maybe.
Oh, and "Turrican" is a great game: on playthrough number two, before I leap to the sequel.
Mr. Dodgers - 07:46 CST, 2/03/21 (Sniper)
Given that "America" doesn't exist anymore since it no longer has a functional election system or even a vestige of the "consent of the governed" mythos remaining, I haven't been following politics much: this North American landmass is "post-political".
But, I did take a bit of a dip this morning just to see what trends I've been ignoring. First, there is Creepy Beijing Biden saying that the government's "whole job" is to institute Cultural Marxism. The article is well worth a read, since it's an actual news outlet explaining what the ideology even is.
Second, here is the New York Times-- you know, the newspaper that was knowingly supporting Castro and Che Guevara as those latter two gunned down dissidents in Cuba-- saying that all of the silly, totally transparent propaganda, like those little blue boxes on YouTube, should be deemed and enforced by the State as being "reality".
On a more humorous note, this is one of the funniest videos I've seen in a long time.
In any event, back to "Turrican"...
But, I did take a bit of a dip this morning just to see what trends I've been ignoring. First, there is Creepy Beijing Biden saying that the government's "whole job" is to institute Cultural Marxism. The article is well worth a read, since it's an actual news outlet explaining what the ideology even is.
Second, here is the New York Times-- you know, the newspaper that was knowingly supporting Castro and Che Guevara as those latter two gunned down dissidents in Cuba-- saying that all of the silly, totally transparent propaganda, like those little blue boxes on YouTube, should be deemed and enforced by the State as being "reality".
On a more humorous note, this is one of the funniest videos I've seen in a long time.
In any event, back to "Turrican"...
Squeeze - 14:29 CST, 1/31/21 (Sniper)
Dropped a couple of grand on some more physical silver last night, looks like I got my order in just in the nick of time: dealers are suspending silver purchases until the market opens tonight, and the price adjusts.
I'd been meaning to buy more precious metals anyway, but this seemed like the perfect moment. I had that cash set aside this month for more crytpo, but I just shuffled things around.
I'd been meaning to buy more precious metals anyway, but this seemed like the perfect moment. I had that cash set aside this month for more crytpo, but I just shuffled things around.
Favorite Games Analysis - 15:48 CST, 1/30/21 (Sniper)
Earlier today I refreshed my "favorite games of all time" list, something I'm apt to do every few years. For fun, I counted up the genres and came up with a "favorite genres of all time" meta-list:
Sixty percent of the games were made by Japanese developers. Today, Japanese developers are essentially cloning Western games-- thinking about it now, the decline of game development from the "Rising Sun" over the past twenty years definitely patterns my perception of the medium going downhill, especially in the music category.
Average year was 1995.76, median year was 1994. In fact, a whopping thirty percent of my favorite games came out during 1994: what a year!
People often use "nostalgia" as a blanket explanation for people like myself who prefer older games-- "you like whatever you grew up playing". Uh, except that doesn't apply to me: I grew up playing 70s and very early 80s arcade games-- I was a teenager in 1994. Besides that, a significant portion of the games on this list, I didn't play until perhaps 2009 or even later-- so I had no nostalgic point of reference.
In fact, here's maybe the most interesting fact of all: not one game from my actual childhood systems-- the Atari 2600 and 7800-- made the list! When you boil it down, I don't really care for arcade games much, even though I have "nostalgia" for them.
Really, 1994 was when games hit this magical sweet spot between gameplay-first sensibilities-- "narrative" games outside of adventure titles were basically non-existent-- and greater-than-arcade depth, but without being over-complicated either. Starting just a few years later, "Half-Life", "Metal Gear Solid", and "Halo" ushered in the Hollywood era, and it was game over from there. I lightly explore some of these themes in this post.
As for a "favorite platforms of all time" meta-list:
- 2D Fighter - 5
- 2D Platformer - 4
- Japanese RPG - 4
- 3D Platformer - 2
- First-Person Shooter - 2
- Game Creation System - 2
- Racing - 2
- Strategy RPG - 2
- Action Platformer - 1
- Action RPG - 1
- Adventure - 1
- Brawler - 1
- Roguelike - 1
- Sandbox - 1
- Simulation - 1
Sixty percent of the games were made by Japanese developers. Today, Japanese developers are essentially cloning Western games-- thinking about it now, the decline of game development from the "Rising Sun" over the past twenty years definitely patterns my perception of the medium going downhill, especially in the music category.
Average year was 1995.76, median year was 1994. In fact, a whopping thirty percent of my favorite games came out during 1994: what a year!
People often use "nostalgia" as a blanket explanation for people like myself who prefer older games-- "you like whatever you grew up playing". Uh, except that doesn't apply to me: I grew up playing 70s and very early 80s arcade games-- I was a teenager in 1994. Besides that, a significant portion of the games on this list, I didn't play until perhaps 2009 or even later-- so I had no nostalgic point of reference.
In fact, here's maybe the most interesting fact of all: not one game from my actual childhood systems-- the Atari 2600 and 7800-- made the list! When you boil it down, I don't really care for arcade games much, even though I have "nostalgia" for them.
Really, 1994 was when games hit this magical sweet spot between gameplay-first sensibilities-- "narrative" games outside of adventure titles were basically non-existent-- and greater-than-arcade depth, but without being over-complicated either. Starting just a few years later, "Half-Life", "Metal Gear Solid", and "Halo" ushered in the Hollywood era, and it was game over from there. I lightly explore some of these themes in this post.
As for a "favorite platforms of all time" meta-list:
- 3DO - 8
- Sega Genesis - 7
- IBM PC - 6
- NEC PC Engine - 3
- Sega Saturn - 3
- Nintendo Switch - 1
- Sega Dreamcast - 1
- Sony PlayStation - 1
Follow the Shiny Dot! - 10:20 CST, 1/30/21 (Sniper)
Even though I've been denied access to healthcare and the ability to buy food-- the latter, absent drive-throughs and "curbside delivery"-- much of my time during this scamdemic has been spent in amusement at just how idiotic and group thinkey people are.
Now the State actors are saying that people should be wearing two WuFlu Burqas-- or maybe even three, or four! They are also now saying that anal WuFlu tests are more accurate! Bending over figuratively wasn't enough to satisfy the power lust: now the bending must be literal!
This stuff is hilarious!
And it gets even better: all of the morons who have gotten themselves injected with "warp sped"-- meaning, dangerously experimental-- "vaccinations" which reprogram their DNA are finding that they are still being required to wear WuFlu Burqas, and that it is unknown whether the "vaccines" even prevent the spread of the WuFlu anyway!
It's like watching one of my cats continually rolling off the bed chasing a laser pointer: how many times can one be fooled-- over and over and over again-- before one catches on? It's astonishing!
I saw through the WuFlu Burqas on day one and have quite literally never worn one, not even once. This is because I'd already known by February or very early March what a nothingburger this virus was, as the data started to roll in.
The fact that we're at the one year-plus mark of this stupid "disease" coming to America and others still don't "get it" is the most mind boggling thing I've ever witnessed.
On an unrelated note, I've often employed car analogies for why I use GNU/Linux: Winbloze is fine when it "just works"-- but the instant something goes wrong, it's a massive disassembly or even total reinstall job, versus just a simple "turn of the screw." Heck, even diagnosis in Winbloze is often impossible, much less solving the issue.
I've often wondered why I'm not more "handy". My father was, and often tried to pull me in to home projects when I was a child-- but they just didn't capture my interest like computers did. Even today, the prospect of even simple "hands-on" things like sanding or painting sounds about as fun as having bamboo shoots stuck under my finger nails.
It's not "laziness", as I'm working my ass off on career and side projects every waking minute of every day: even my hobbies are constructive. I suspect it's just a case of "whatever floats your boat": I couldn't get the house addition contractors I work with at the bug out house to touch a computer, to save their lives!
Now the State actors are saying that people should be wearing two WuFlu Burqas-- or maybe even three, or four! They are also now saying that anal WuFlu tests are more accurate! Bending over figuratively wasn't enough to satisfy the power lust: now the bending must be literal!
This stuff is hilarious!
And it gets even better: all of the morons who have gotten themselves injected with "warp sped"-- meaning, dangerously experimental-- "vaccinations" which reprogram their DNA are finding that they are still being required to wear WuFlu Burqas, and that it is unknown whether the "vaccines" even prevent the spread of the WuFlu anyway!
It's like watching one of my cats continually rolling off the bed chasing a laser pointer: how many times can one be fooled-- over and over and over again-- before one catches on? It's astonishing!
I saw through the WuFlu Burqas on day one and have quite literally never worn one, not even once. This is because I'd already known by February or very early March what a nothingburger this virus was, as the data started to roll in.
The fact that we're at the one year-plus mark of this stupid "disease" coming to America and others still don't "get it" is the most mind boggling thing I've ever witnessed.
On an unrelated note, I've often employed car analogies for why I use GNU/Linux: Winbloze is fine when it "just works"-- but the instant something goes wrong, it's a massive disassembly or even total reinstall job, versus just a simple "turn of the screw." Heck, even diagnosis in Winbloze is often impossible, much less solving the issue.
I've often wondered why I'm not more "handy". My father was, and often tried to pull me in to home projects when I was a child-- but they just didn't capture my interest like computers did. Even today, the prospect of even simple "hands-on" things like sanding or painting sounds about as fun as having bamboo shoots stuck under my finger nails.
It's not "laziness", as I'm working my ass off on career and side projects every waking minute of every day: even my hobbies are constructive. I suspect it's just a case of "whatever floats your boat": I couldn't get the house addition contractors I work with at the bug out house to touch a computer, to save their lives!
Think This - 06:34 CST, 1/30/21 (Sniper)
I was doing some basic financial management stuff this morning, and the web site dutifully directed me here. Aspects of it reminded me of the "the election was safe and secure" and "Joe Biden is President" messages plastered all over YouTube-- except in this case, it's "this has been harmful because the S&P 500 went down by two percent".
It's a one hundred billion dollar corporation-- Chase-- telling you what to think: namely, to support other multi-billion dollar corporations. "Styx" said it best: "The Gamestop thing is the free market solving the 'hedge fund' problem."
In other news, it's funny seeing a President's "executive orders" being laid out like this: look at the volume of them! In this case given Creepy Beijing Biden's pudding-for-brains faculties, where he doesn't know what he's signing and can't even get his pen into his pocket, and where he's constantly being told what to do via earpiece ("salute the marines"), it reminds me a little of "island governor" Sancho Panza.
Tom Woods had an episode some months ago where he tracked back to when the State model shifted from "laws made by Congress", to "laws made via edict by Presidents, as Kings"-- and Teddy Roosevelt was the culprit who broke that door down, after more mild precedents set by a few earlier "El Presidentes", such as Grover Cleveland.
Finally, I've been pretty hard on Tucker Carlson lately, and for good reason. At the same time, he deserves credit for the valuable service he's providing in terms of spreading awareness to conservatives who still don't know what's going on, or who only follow politics loosely because they have more productive ways to spend their time: and in the interest of clarity, good for them-- there are scarcely less productive endeavors than politics.
It's a one hundred billion dollar corporation-- Chase-- telling you what to think: namely, to support other multi-billion dollar corporations. "Styx" said it best: "The Gamestop thing is the free market solving the 'hedge fund' problem."
In other news, it's funny seeing a President's "executive orders" being laid out like this: look at the volume of them! In this case given Creepy Beijing Biden's pudding-for-brains faculties, where he doesn't know what he's signing and can't even get his pen into his pocket, and where he's constantly being told what to do via earpiece ("salute the marines"), it reminds me a little of "island governor" Sancho Panza.
Tom Woods had an episode some months ago where he tracked back to when the State model shifted from "laws made by Congress", to "laws made via edict by Presidents, as Kings"-- and Teddy Roosevelt was the culprit who broke that door down, after more mild precedents set by a few earlier "El Presidentes", such as Grover Cleveland.
Finally, I've been pretty hard on Tucker Carlson lately, and for good reason. At the same time, he deserves credit for the valuable service he's providing in terms of spreading awareness to conservatives who still don't know what's going on, or who only follow politics loosely because they have more productive ways to spend their time: and in the interest of clarity, good for them-- there are scarcely less productive endeavors than politics.
Turrican Flashback - 15:23 CST, 1/29/21 (Sniper)
My preferences are ordinarily a contrarian indicator for where products are headed, but in this case it's like they read my mind: if you would have asked, "Sniper, name one old game series for which you'd want a collection", I would have replied "Turrican".
"Ask and ye shall receive."
I've always wanted to play this series, and have on several occasions come close to braving the odyssey of trying to get one or both games running on my Atari ST-- but now, no longer necessary.
This gives me an excuse to turn on the Switch for the first time in like three weeks. Incidentally, I haven't turned my PlayStation 5 on in almost as long: been hooked on Sega CD's "Lunar: The Silver Star", and my Retroarch CRT setup in general.
"Ask and ye shall receive."
I've always wanted to play this series, and have on several occasions come close to braving the odyssey of trying to get one or both games running on my Atari ST-- but now, no longer necessary.
This gives me an excuse to turn on the Switch for the first time in like three weeks. Incidentally, I haven't turned my PlayStation 5 on in almost as long: been hooked on Sega CD's "Lunar: The Silver Star", and my Retroarch CRT setup in general.
Life Is Like a Box... - 15:09 CST, 1/27/21 (Sniper)
Following are some assorted musings from today.
Continued Work Nonsense
The "Cultural Marxist" garbage is being relentlessly pushed in my workplace under the guise of being what the literature calls "anti-racism" and being an "ally", to the point where I literally can't go a single day without it being thrust into my face somehow.
The problem is that whenever I'm confronted with something that's morally wrong, I have to sit down and re-process the topic, which kills my productivity. It's extremely difficult to focus on my actual job, especially when combined with so much of my mental energy being forced not into career development or technology, but into contingency planning and risk mitigation: learning about homesteading; cryptocurrencies; asylum processes; and so forth.
Thankfully, lots of other people have already put in the leg work for me regarding this topic. Click on the chart for a larger version if you're having a difficult time reading it:
Think of all the assumptions-stacked-on-assumptions my workplace is making: that there is a huge racism problem at the company, with zero evidence; that the racism is happening one way (towards blacks); that the best approach to handle the problem is not with liberalism, but with more racism; etc.
But HR and the company's leadership don't ever discuss these assumptions, or how their conclusions were arrived at: they shove the assumptions, the conclusions, the "resolution" methodology, and the directives at you all at once as a pre-packaged deal, and literally tell you that you will be punished by HR if you criticize any of it.
Cringeworthy
It's always hilarious to watch mis-usage of words become common place in the public discourse. Some of my personal favorites:
Most recently, a new breed of re-defining words altogether has caught my eyes and ears. For instance, for hundreds or thousands of years "performant" referred to an actor or some kind of performer-- it's a noun, not an adjective! Yet people commonly use it today as the latter, instead of simply saying something "runs fast" or "runs well", to the point where dictionaries have given up and added this new ridiculous mis-usage.
Another one is the term "quality of life", or "QoL", which has always referred to nutrition, fitness, yoga, and so forth. In 2014, Nintendo said that they were working on some kind of gamified "QoL" medical device-- but for some bizarre reason, people started using "QoL" to refer to things inside a video game, like a HUD getting larger fonts, or having configurable button commands!
See Something, Say Something
When I was riding the school bus as kindergartner, the bus driver loved handing out candy to the kids, so they'd stand up by the front of the bus near him. I certainly didn't understand "sex" or "molestation" at that age, nor to this day do I have any proof that he was doing anything untoward-- but the whole thing smelled fishy to me, and I was the only kid on the bus who declined his overtures, even after his repeatedly hounding me.
In junior high, I had a crush on a girl named "Emily". There was a janitor at my school who went by the bizarre and comically adolescent nickname "Scooby"-- a full-grown adult!-- who used his personality to ingratiate himself to the kids. One day I noticed him hovering around "Emily" inappropriately, a process which repeated over days and weeks. This culminated in him being the only adult sitting in the student bleachers-- next to her!-- during a "pep fest", followed by him sitting behind her giving her a back rub in the hallway, right out in the open.
To be clear: this was a grown man in his twenties or thirties, giving a back rub to a thirteen year old girl. And in his place of employment, to boot!
None of the school leadership did anything about it; all of my fellow students continued to kiss the "cool" janitor's ass-- except me. The janitor would routinely mock me, or make sideways comments towards me, in front of my peers: but I never relented.
To my powers of observation, I was the only person in the entire institution who not only saw that it was wrong, but actively went out of my way to both ignore the predatory janitor, and to speak out about it, raising the issue to both my parents, and to one of my most-trusted teachers. A thirteen year old was the "adult" in the room: the only one with a moral compass, and a pair of balls.
In my private Catholic high school-- "Totino Grace", named after a family which gave them cash in the 1970s (foreshadowing)-- the teachers would very obviously gossip behind the students' backs in the lounge, as "teacher A" would magically know something which happened in "teacher B's" class. In that same school, the classrooms were not named after Saints or religious figures, but after the rich donor surnames. The richest family bought the two closest parking spaces to the front doors, for their kids' "his and her's" custom painted (black and pink, respectively), brand new "Dodge Ram" pickup trucks.
The school spent a fortune getting stained glass windows installed in the chapel-- not of the Virgin Mary or Jesus, but of Jim and Rose Totino: the donors! In a place of worship!
There were two teachers who were having a very public extramarrital affair with each other. The school refused to fire them. One day, the woman held me after in math class, and started dumping her personal life on me-- one of her underage students!-- because my father had disclosed to her during conferences that I was uncomfortable: "Well, she was no saint either! You have no right to judge!"
None of this bothered the other kids: they just happily went on their way. Me? I went from a 4.0 GPA kid K-8, to a 3.7 GPA in 9th grade, to a 3.2 GPA in 10th grade, to a 2.7 GPA in 11th grade, to a 2.5 GPA in 12th grade-- this from someone who tests at a nearly 130 IQ level. I grew a huge beard, ended my eleven year football "career", and essentially stopped bathing.
I'm not someone who can just sit by, and ignore when bad things are happening: I never have been, and I never will be. I don't know why I'm wired this way, and I'm not sure whether it's even a good thing, considering my expressed concern has never had any positive outcomes, and only negative personal ones.
But I can't ditch the habit. And now the pattern is repeating in my career. Except this time I'm trapped: I can't speak out because my kids depend on the salary, and because getting a new job would require me to wear a WuFlu Burqa-- which is another moral concern, where I'm one of the very few people who is willing to stand up for principle.
On Burqas
Minnesota's governor, Kim Jong Walz, wrote an edict on a piece of toilet paper, and with a swift stroke of his pen has denied me access to healthcare and the ability to go grocery shopping. So, I've been making use of "curbside" grocery delivery, where you place your order online, and an attendant brings the goods to your car.
Problem solved.
Until today, when I had the attendant repeatedly push me for my "opinion about 'face masks'", even after I told him three times that I didn't want to discuss politics with him. I finally relented, this is verbatim what I said:
He then went on a sort of meandering reply: "Well you know, people have different opinions about this...", and "I think we should trust the doctors who do this for a living", and "you know we're always going to be controlled...".
Translated in order: a lecture about how I should "be respectful"; a blind "appeal to experts", even though half of them think masks are worthless, including Fausti himself in March when he was still being honest; and "there are two constants in life"-style defeatism.
He then went on a monologue about how he recently got into a "debate" with someone, and they started "shouting" at him: I'm not sure if he was projecting his own urges in that moment, if he was thanking me for not having done that, or what.
Minnesota is the ultimate "passive aggressive" culture: everything needs to be "translated", and it's very tiring.
In any event, now I can't even stand in an open air parking lot without being questioned as to why I'm not adorned with a WuFlu Burqa.
The burden of proof should be on the people who are wearing one: what part of their psychology or mental illness makes them feel compelled to dress like Michael Jackson in public, terrified of germs, while blindly following edicts from politicians-- edicts which change and even contradict from moment-to-moment ("no really, we've always been at war with Eurasia!").
Pour me a drink.
Continued Work Nonsense
The "Cultural Marxist" garbage is being relentlessly pushed in my workplace under the guise of being what the literature calls "anti-racism" and being an "ally", to the point where I literally can't go a single day without it being thrust into my face somehow.
The problem is that whenever I'm confronted with something that's morally wrong, I have to sit down and re-process the topic, which kills my productivity. It's extremely difficult to focus on my actual job, especially when combined with so much of my mental energy being forced not into career development or technology, but into contingency planning and risk mitigation: learning about homesteading; cryptocurrencies; asylum processes; and so forth.
Thankfully, lots of other people have already put in the leg work for me regarding this topic. Click on the chart for a larger version if you're having a difficult time reading it:
Think of all the assumptions-stacked-on-assumptions my workplace is making: that there is a huge racism problem at the company, with zero evidence; that the racism is happening one way (towards blacks); that the best approach to handle the problem is not with liberalism, but with more racism; etc.
But HR and the company's leadership don't ever discuss these assumptions, or how their conclusions were arrived at: they shove the assumptions, the conclusions, the "resolution" methodology, and the directives at you all at once as a pre-packaged deal, and literally tell you that you will be punished by HR if you criticize any of it.
Cringeworthy
It's always hilarious to watch mis-usage of words become common place in the public discourse. Some of my personal favorites:
- Redundancies such as "NIC card", or "LCD display".
- Prefixing web sites or systems with "my": "my internet is working fine", or "I can't log in to my Facebook."
- Confusing systems with their usages or component parts, like "I sent you an email".
Most recently, a new breed of re-defining words altogether has caught my eyes and ears. For instance, for hundreds or thousands of years "performant" referred to an actor or some kind of performer-- it's a noun, not an adjective! Yet people commonly use it today as the latter, instead of simply saying something "runs fast" or "runs well", to the point where dictionaries have given up and added this new ridiculous mis-usage.
Another one is the term "quality of life", or "QoL", which has always referred to nutrition, fitness, yoga, and so forth. In 2014, Nintendo said that they were working on some kind of gamified "QoL" medical device-- but for some bizarre reason, people started using "QoL" to refer to things inside a video game, like a HUD getting larger fonts, or having configurable button commands!
See Something, Say Something
When I was riding the school bus as kindergartner, the bus driver loved handing out candy to the kids, so they'd stand up by the front of the bus near him. I certainly didn't understand "sex" or "molestation" at that age, nor to this day do I have any proof that he was doing anything untoward-- but the whole thing smelled fishy to me, and I was the only kid on the bus who declined his overtures, even after his repeatedly hounding me.
In junior high, I had a crush on a girl named "Emily". There was a janitor at my school who went by the bizarre and comically adolescent nickname "Scooby"-- a full-grown adult!-- who used his personality to ingratiate himself to the kids. One day I noticed him hovering around "Emily" inappropriately, a process which repeated over days and weeks. This culminated in him being the only adult sitting in the student bleachers-- next to her!-- during a "pep fest", followed by him sitting behind her giving her a back rub in the hallway, right out in the open.
To be clear: this was a grown man in his twenties or thirties, giving a back rub to a thirteen year old girl. And in his place of employment, to boot!
None of the school leadership did anything about it; all of my fellow students continued to kiss the "cool" janitor's ass-- except me. The janitor would routinely mock me, or make sideways comments towards me, in front of my peers: but I never relented.
To my powers of observation, I was the only person in the entire institution who not only saw that it was wrong, but actively went out of my way to both ignore the predatory janitor, and to speak out about it, raising the issue to both my parents, and to one of my most-trusted teachers. A thirteen year old was the "adult" in the room: the only one with a moral compass, and a pair of balls.
In my private Catholic high school-- "Totino Grace", named after a family which gave them cash in the 1970s (foreshadowing)-- the teachers would very obviously gossip behind the students' backs in the lounge, as "teacher A" would magically know something which happened in "teacher B's" class. In that same school, the classrooms were not named after Saints or religious figures, but after the rich donor surnames. The richest family bought the two closest parking spaces to the front doors, for their kids' "his and her's" custom painted (black and pink, respectively), brand new "Dodge Ram" pickup trucks.
The school spent a fortune getting stained glass windows installed in the chapel-- not of the Virgin Mary or Jesus, but of Jim and Rose Totino: the donors! In a place of worship!
There were two teachers who were having a very public extramarrital affair with each other. The school refused to fire them. One day, the woman held me after in math class, and started dumping her personal life on me-- one of her underage students!-- because my father had disclosed to her during conferences that I was uncomfortable: "Well, she was no saint either! You have no right to judge!"
None of this bothered the other kids: they just happily went on their way. Me? I went from a 4.0 GPA kid K-8, to a 3.7 GPA in 9th grade, to a 3.2 GPA in 10th grade, to a 2.7 GPA in 11th grade, to a 2.5 GPA in 12th grade-- this from someone who tests at a nearly 130 IQ level. I grew a huge beard, ended my eleven year football "career", and essentially stopped bathing.
I'm not someone who can just sit by, and ignore when bad things are happening: I never have been, and I never will be. I don't know why I'm wired this way, and I'm not sure whether it's even a good thing, considering my expressed concern has never had any positive outcomes, and only negative personal ones.
But I can't ditch the habit. And now the pattern is repeating in my career. Except this time I'm trapped: I can't speak out because my kids depend on the salary, and because getting a new job would require me to wear a WuFlu Burqa-- which is another moral concern, where I'm one of the very few people who is willing to stand up for principle.
On Burqas
Minnesota's governor, Kim Jong Walz, wrote an edict on a piece of toilet paper, and with a swift stroke of his pen has denied me access to healthcare and the ability to go grocery shopping. So, I've been making use of "curbside" grocery delivery, where you place your order online, and an attendant brings the goods to your car.
Problem solved.
Until today, when I had the attendant repeatedly push me for my "opinion about 'face masks'", even after I told him three times that I didn't want to discuss politics with him. I finally relented, this is verbatim what I said:
"My opinion is that the 'coronavirus' threat has been wildly exaggerated for political purposes, and the CDC's own statistics back me on that point.
Regarding the masks specifically, they are an example of Rahm Emmanuel's philosophy, 'Never let a good crisis go to waste.' They are being used as a litmus test by politicians to see what people will go along with-- they will then use their findings to further increase their political power.
The only reason I'm using this 'curbside' service is because the governor and your company have worked together to ban me from entering the store."
Regarding the masks specifically, they are an example of Rahm Emmanuel's philosophy, 'Never let a good crisis go to waste.' They are being used as a litmus test by politicians to see what people will go along with-- they will then use their findings to further increase their political power.
The only reason I'm using this 'curbside' service is because the governor and your company have worked together to ban me from entering the store."
He then went on a sort of meandering reply: "Well you know, people have different opinions about this...", and "I think we should trust the doctors who do this for a living", and "you know we're always going to be controlled...".
Translated in order: a lecture about how I should "be respectful"; a blind "appeal to experts", even though half of them think masks are worthless, including Fausti himself in March when he was still being honest; and "there are two constants in life"-style defeatism.
He then went on a monologue about how he recently got into a "debate" with someone, and they started "shouting" at him: I'm not sure if he was projecting his own urges in that moment, if he was thanking me for not having done that, or what.
Minnesota is the ultimate "passive aggressive" culture: everything needs to be "translated", and it's very tiring.
In any event, now I can't even stand in an open air parking lot without being questioned as to why I'm not adorned with a WuFlu Burqa.
The burden of proof should be on the people who are wearing one: what part of their psychology or mental illness makes them feel compelled to dress like Michael Jackson in public, terrified of germs, while blindly following edicts from politicians-- edicts which change and even contradict from moment-to-moment ("no really, we've always been at war with Eurasia!").
Pour me a drink.
Alternative Models - 18:30 CST, 1/26/21 (Sniper)
Every so often I'll encounter a niche Conservative who advocates for the a quasi "Nazi Germany" model, as the solution to preventing a Leftist take-over of any future civilizations. For example, here is a fellow named "Brett Stevens", who proposes a Statist idea based on these four pillars:
He goes on to remark:
To me, this is quite literally the definition of State Fascism: a strong national identity, a ruling elite class, and State-directed capitalism which is guided towards the nation's mission.
And I don't say "State Fascism" as a dismissive pejorative: I'm not employing an ad hominem-- I'm merely using it as a descriptive term. After all, there are pros and cons to any system. Further, Stevens has very reasonable commentary regarding competing models which you can read here-- including a valid critique of my own beloved liberalism.
That aforementioned criticism, incidentally, reminds me of the old book "A Critique of Pure Tolerance", which made the rational argument that pure tolerance, including of those who are intolerant, will simply result in the intolerant taking over the society, and destroying the tolerant.
Stevens gives a hypothetical example involving the Amish: if the Left wanted to destroy them, the Left would simply send a gay black orphan into the society, followed by a single New York Times article: "Meet Lars, the boy the Amish hated just because he was gay." The Amish would be gone within a month.
The problem I have with these "State Fascism" kinds of solutions is that they-- by definition-- are totally repressive towards anyone who deviates from the narrative. Heck, the Left is instituting Stevens' own model right now:
They have their transcendental goal-- the enforcement of the "victimhood olympics" religion-- and are using State political power plus directed capitalism ("it's no longer enough for corporations to just make money-- they need to be 'a force for good'"), while violently putting down people with values contrary to "SJW Nation"-- such as Brett Stevens himself.
If my reading of him is correct-- and I think it is-- Stevens should be endorsing what the Left are doing at the moment, not lamenting it: they are instituting his own model!
That's not to say that pure liberalism-- "cuckservatism"-- is a great model either. I suppose what would be best, would be a modification of Libertarianism, which would consider anti-liberal espousings to be some kind of threat of force, in and of themselves: this would keep the society "purely liberal", which would prevent a takeover by illiberal collectivists such as Leftists (or Brett Stevens!).
At the same time, it itself wouldn't be a "cure worse than the disease", with soul-crushing police state apparati and gulags-- because those aspects would also be illiberal.
In other words, it'd be a society with one inviolable Mega Law: "Everyone is an individual." Espousing any kind of collectivism would be the one thing which the society would immediately squash.
Naturally, all of these musings are moot: every society, no matter the model, tends to collapse in two or three hundred years at the longest; and, societies and political systems arise from the bottom up, not the top-down-- whereas the above discourse is all prescriptive: purely academic.
- Nationalism
- Aristocracy
- Capitalism
- A Transcendental Goal
He goes on to remark:
"...which is why I talk about how 'invisible hand' systems are a bad idea, and state four pillars: nationalism, aristocracy, capitalism and a transcendental goal.
Every alternative to capitalism is worse, but clearly it needs guidance from above (aristocracy) and from below (nationalism/culture, transcendental goals)."
Every alternative to capitalism is worse, but clearly it needs guidance from above (aristocracy) and from below (nationalism/culture, transcendental goals)."
To me, this is quite literally the definition of State Fascism: a strong national identity, a ruling elite class, and State-directed capitalism which is guided towards the nation's mission.
And I don't say "State Fascism" as a dismissive pejorative: I'm not employing an ad hominem-- I'm merely using it as a descriptive term. After all, there are pros and cons to any system. Further, Stevens has very reasonable commentary regarding competing models which you can read here-- including a valid critique of my own beloved liberalism.
That aforementioned criticism, incidentally, reminds me of the old book "A Critique of Pure Tolerance", which made the rational argument that pure tolerance, including of those who are intolerant, will simply result in the intolerant taking over the society, and destroying the tolerant.
Stevens gives a hypothetical example involving the Amish: if the Left wanted to destroy them, the Left would simply send a gay black orphan into the society, followed by a single New York Times article: "Meet Lars, the boy the Amish hated just because he was gay." The Amish would be gone within a month.
The problem I have with these "State Fascism" kinds of solutions is that they-- by definition-- are totally repressive towards anyone who deviates from the narrative. Heck, the Left is instituting Stevens' own model right now:
They have their transcendental goal-- the enforcement of the "victimhood olympics" religion-- and are using State political power plus directed capitalism ("it's no longer enough for corporations to just make money-- they need to be 'a force for good'"), while violently putting down people with values contrary to "SJW Nation"-- such as Brett Stevens himself.
If my reading of him is correct-- and I think it is-- Stevens should be endorsing what the Left are doing at the moment, not lamenting it: they are instituting his own model!
That's not to say that pure liberalism-- "cuckservatism"-- is a great model either. I suppose what would be best, would be a modification of Libertarianism, which would consider anti-liberal espousings to be some kind of threat of force, in and of themselves: this would keep the society "purely liberal", which would prevent a takeover by illiberal collectivists such as Leftists (or Brett Stevens!).
At the same time, it itself wouldn't be a "cure worse than the disease", with soul-crushing police state apparati and gulags-- because those aspects would also be illiberal.
In other words, it'd be a society with one inviolable Mega Law: "Everyone is an individual." Espousing any kind of collectivism would be the one thing which the society would immediately squash.
Naturally, all of these musings are moot: every society, no matter the model, tends to collapse in two or three hundred years at the longest; and, societies and political systems arise from the bottom up, not the top-down-- whereas the above discourse is all prescriptive: purely academic.
Useless Websites - 15:37 CST, 1/26/21 (Sniper)
Every time I read an article on a video game or tech web site-- which is becoming increasingly infrequent, by the way-- I look up the author to see what their political affiliation is. So far, I have ten people in my notes: nine of them are complete, absolute, and extremely vocal libtards. The tenth-- some guy named "Fraser Gilbert"-- didn't mention politics anywhere I could find on his Twitter feed, which tells me he may be a Conservative.
And that's the closest you'll find to a Conservative in game or tech journalism today: someone who doesn't say anything one way or the other-- a sort of "theoretical Conservative". Either these people are apolitical, or are afraid to speak their minds for fear of inevitable reprisal.
This is happening across all of journalism, incidentally. In 1971, Republicans made up 25.7% of journalists, whereas 35.5% of them identified as Democrat. By 2018, it was found that in financial journalism at least, only 4.4% of them identified as Right-of-center. With tech and game "journalism", I'd be surprised if the number was even that high.
I gave up reading "professional" game reviews many, many years ago. Someone told me recently that out of all the issues which "Cyberpunk 2077" has-- and believe me, the problems are myriad-- all the "journalist" class could talk about is how poorly the game allegedly "represented" trannies. That, of all things, was the key talking point for them!
I should make a flow chart of what a Leftist sees when they look at someone, it would be quite hilarious-- that exercise can be for another day. But when it comes to video game and tech web sites, they ceased being useful to me long ago, because rather than talk about the actual topic, they discuss how the subject matter filters through their political lens instead.
And that's the closest you'll find to a Conservative in game or tech journalism today: someone who doesn't say anything one way or the other-- a sort of "theoretical Conservative". Either these people are apolitical, or are afraid to speak their minds for fear of inevitable reprisal.
This is happening across all of journalism, incidentally. In 1971, Republicans made up 25.7% of journalists, whereas 35.5% of them identified as Democrat. By 2018, it was found that in financial journalism at least, only 4.4% of them identified as Right-of-center. With tech and game "journalism", I'd be surprised if the number was even that high.
I gave up reading "professional" game reviews many, many years ago. Someone told me recently that out of all the issues which "Cyberpunk 2077" has-- and believe me, the problems are myriad-- all the "journalist" class could talk about is how poorly the game allegedly "represented" trannies. That, of all things, was the key talking point for them!
I should make a flow chart of what a Leftist sees when they look at someone, it would be quite hilarious-- that exercise can be for another day. But when it comes to video game and tech web sites, they ceased being useful to me long ago, because rather than talk about the actual topic, they discuss how the subject matter filters through their political lens instead.
Conservative Political Theory - 12:32 CST, 1/26/21 (Sniper)
In my previous post, I wrote that wifey and I "police what comes into the house" for our kids' consumption. Today, I found out that a co-worker of mine started a not-for-profit which distributes man-hating, Afrocentric, Black Supremacist "woke" children's propaganda.
That's how little I share in common with my coworkers!
But I digress: the real purpose of this blog post is to comment on a very recent Tucker Carlson monologue. I've already written about him, a couple of weeks ago in fact-- but now he's explicitly spelled out his world view. Behold:
Holy smokes.
I had a better grasp of Lockean civic and political theory by second grade!
If you would have shown me this text and posed to me, "Sniper, pop quiz: which cable TV news host said that?", I would have guessed "Wolf Blitzer", or maybe "Joe Scarborough". It's so silly, and so nonintellectual, and so nonsensical, that I can scarcely believe it wasn't on CNN or MSNBC.
Where to even begin?
For starters I suppose, Tucker places laws against murder, and laws against jaywalking, in the same moral category. That should set the alarm bells ringing right away. But then he goes on to "clarify": "the dividing line is your conscience, don't you see?"
"Muh feelz!"
So, the Left's "conscience" is telling them that Fox News should be forced off the air. What the heck are you complaining about Tucker?
He then declares that the role of government is to "control citizen's behaviors". You see, you're not negatively delegating your God-given right to self-defense-- you're being positively prevented from taking actions, like murdering!
Makes my head spin.
And this, my friends, is why Conservatives have done nothing but lose over the past several decades: they are "Democrat-Lite".
That's how little I share in common with my coworkers!
But I digress: the real purpose of this blog post is to comment on a very recent Tucker Carlson monologue. I've already written about him, a couple of weeks ago in fact-- but now he's explicitly spelled out his world view. Behold:
"There is a clear line between Democracy and tyrrany, between self-government, and dictatorship-- and here is what that line is: that line is your conscience. They can not cross that.
Government has every right to tell you what to do: controlling the behavior of citizens is the prerogative of any organized society; it's why we have it.
That's why government can prevent you from committing murder, or rape, or from speeding or jaywalking; that's all allowed, it's legitimate. But no Democratic government can ever tell you what to think: your mind belongs to you-- it is yours, and yours alone."
Government has every right to tell you what to do: controlling the behavior of citizens is the prerogative of any organized society; it's why we have it.
That's why government can prevent you from committing murder, or rape, or from speeding or jaywalking; that's all allowed, it's legitimate. But no Democratic government can ever tell you what to think: your mind belongs to you-- it is yours, and yours alone."
Holy smokes.
I had a better grasp of Lockean civic and political theory by second grade!
If you would have shown me this text and posed to me, "Sniper, pop quiz: which cable TV news host said that?", I would have guessed "Wolf Blitzer", or maybe "Joe Scarborough". It's so silly, and so nonintellectual, and so nonsensical, that I can scarcely believe it wasn't on CNN or MSNBC.
Where to even begin?
For starters I suppose, Tucker places laws against murder, and laws against jaywalking, in the same moral category. That should set the alarm bells ringing right away. But then he goes on to "clarify": "the dividing line is your conscience, don't you see?"
"Muh feelz!"
So, the Left's "conscience" is telling them that Fox News should be forced off the air. What the heck are you complaining about Tucker?
He then declares that the role of government is to "control citizen's behaviors". You see, you're not negatively delegating your God-given right to self-defense-- you're being positively prevented from taking actions, like murdering!
Makes my head spin.
And this, my friends, is why Conservatives have done nothing but lose over the past several decades: they are "Democrat-Lite".
Lack of Fulfillment - 12:51 CST, 1/25/21 (Sniper)
I listened to this talk last night, which judging by the political references therein took place somewhere around thirteen years ago: my does time fly. The premise of the talk can be summarized like this: "Culture Wars? What Culture?"
He interweaves plays and dialog from eons past to explain how "culture" is the ability to have leisure, which is different from "free time", and how this leisure is playful, like a feast, where people enjoy each other on the basis of their shared stories, heritages, and points of reference.
He argues that America quite literally doesn't have a culture: holidays like "Armistice Day" were moved and renamed for commercial purposes, if he were to give a talk about an American figure like John C. Calhoun half the country wouldn't even know who that was, religious values have been supplanted entirely, and so forth.
For anyone who has been reading this blog for any amount of time, these are all familiar themes.
Like so many software development groups today, at work we employ daily "stand up" meetings as part of the abomination known as "agile", and at the tail end of them one woman in particular always asks, "Did anyone do anything interesting over the weekend, or have anything fun to share?" This is universally met by crickets: silence so thick you would carve it with a cleaver.
The reasons for this is because no one on the "team" has anything in common, and they know that no matter what they say, someone else on the "team" will hold the opposite value. Inevitably then, the awkward silence is eventually salvaged by someone mentioning some vacuous modern television show, which will be forgotten in five minutes, followed by a "lowest common denominator", vapid exchange regarding the supposed merits of the show, followed in turn by the meeting ending.
It's sort of like this:
If that doesn't sound like video games or music or video games these days-- "bland and not effective"-- then I don't know what does. Today, it's impossible to even make a television commercial which appeals to "Americans", because there is no such thing as an "American" anymore. Interestingly, "get woke, go broke" is even taking hold: right now, you'd think we live in Nigeria, the ads have so many black people and so few white people in them, something which will probably begin to revert soon.
Of course, this societal implosion is all the fault of the Left, which has been deliberately subverting its own nation's culture for decades now-- 2:05 mark of this video:
I wonder if there has ever been a culture before now which was intentionally subverting itself? "The greatest threats are often from within", as the saying goes.
My particular household is completely atomized: my wife and I constantly police what comes into the house, and our children are only allowed to watch shows or YouTube content which wifey and I have explicitly reviewed and whitelisted. It's also why we home school, as we violently disagree with much of what is taught in schools today. It's like we're foreigners in our own land, with our home being its own little country!
Even for introverts such as ourselves, this never-ending social isolation is distressing.
Of course, radical Leftists will read this and celebrate: "Ha ha, look at the poor little snowflake white supremacist Nazi, he should feel isolated!" Except that the Leftists are even more atomized than are Conservatives: cultural demolition is a blade which cuts both ways; the most miserable people I know are on the Left, and this huge vacuum they've created in their own souls is why they are so susceptible to so many idiotic ideas and ideologies.
This also explains why the Left have gone full-on authoritarian:
Contemporary Leftism is the administration of faux "shared" values, enforced by a bayonet for lack of any other option.
Let's end with a personal anecdote: as a child growing up in the 1980s, my very favorite people were those who were in their sixties and seventies at the time-- so, those born in the 1910s and 1920s. "Old people" back then had this sort of quiet wisdom about them, a sort of rational calmness. For example, my first grade school bus driver and I used to talk about "Star Trek", and all sorts of other things, as he shuttled me and the other kids to and from school.
At one point as I aged-- I was probably in my twenties when it really struck me-- I remember wondering to myself, "What ever happened to all of the old people? The ones today aren't like the ones I remember as a child." Now at just shy of age forty, it's only gotten worse: today when I have conversations with people presently in their sixties or seventies, they're just as dopey and inane as the "Millennials"!
It's like instead of living sixty years, they've lived one year sixty times over: they have no wisdom to share, no richness of experience, no interesting stories to tell...
Maybe those now long-dead elders from my childhood were the last of their kind, the final carriers of culture...
In any event, time to wrap up this post so I can return to my sedentary day job of increasing the share price of a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate by one thousandth of one cent.
He interweaves plays and dialog from eons past to explain how "culture" is the ability to have leisure, which is different from "free time", and how this leisure is playful, like a feast, where people enjoy each other on the basis of their shared stories, heritages, and points of reference.
He argues that America quite literally doesn't have a culture: holidays like "Armistice Day" were moved and renamed for commercial purposes, if he were to give a talk about an American figure like John C. Calhoun half the country wouldn't even know who that was, religious values have been supplanted entirely, and so forth.
For anyone who has been reading this blog for any amount of time, these are all familiar themes.
Like so many software development groups today, at work we employ daily "stand up" meetings as part of the abomination known as "agile", and at the tail end of them one woman in particular always asks, "Did anyone do anything interesting over the weekend, or have anything fun to share?" This is universally met by crickets: silence so thick you would carve it with a cleaver.
The reasons for this is because no one on the "team" has anything in common, and they know that no matter what they say, someone else on the "team" will hold the opposite value. Inevitably then, the awkward silence is eventually salvaged by someone mentioning some vacuous modern television show, which will be forgotten in five minutes, followed by a "lowest common denominator", vapid exchange regarding the supposed merits of the show, followed in turn by the meeting ending.
It's sort of like this:
"'Every client conversation I’ve had these days is about who is going to be offended by this ad,' Rob Schwartz, chief executive officer of ad agency TBWA Chiat Day, told the Post. 'There’s a lot of discussion about risk mitigation. What that tends to do is that it makes things very bland and not effective, or it forces you to look at universal topics like hope or humor.'"
If that doesn't sound like video games or music or video games these days-- "bland and not effective"-- then I don't know what does. Today, it's impossible to even make a television commercial which appeals to "Americans", because there is no such thing as an "American" anymore. Interestingly, "get woke, go broke" is even taking hold: right now, you'd think we live in Nigeria, the ads have so many black people and so few white people in them, something which will probably begin to revert soon.
Of course, this societal implosion is all the fault of the Left, which has been deliberately subverting its own nation's culture for decades now-- 2:05 mark of this video:
"'...comedy has often been used as a subversive way of challenging predominant social structures,' she adds, arguing that because comedy has a history of challenging taboo social issues, abortion 'is even intuitive new ground for comedy to address.'"
I wonder if there has ever been a culture before now which was intentionally subverting itself? "The greatest threats are often from within", as the saying goes.
My particular household is completely atomized: my wife and I constantly police what comes into the house, and our children are only allowed to watch shows or YouTube content which wifey and I have explicitly reviewed and whitelisted. It's also why we home school, as we violently disagree with much of what is taught in schools today. It's like we're foreigners in our own land, with our home being its own little country!
Even for introverts such as ourselves, this never-ending social isolation is distressing.
Of course, radical Leftists will read this and celebrate: "Ha ha, look at the poor little snowflake white supremacist Nazi, he should feel isolated!" Except that the Leftists are even more atomized than are Conservatives: cultural demolition is a blade which cuts both ways; the most miserable people I know are on the Left, and this huge vacuum they've created in their own souls is why they are so susceptible to so many idiotic ideas and ideologies.
This also explains why the Left have gone full-on authoritarian:
"These aren't the only divisions. Since we declared our society to be pluralistic, there is no culture or right way. There is only many cultures and values systems attempting to co-exist, which leads to a lowest common denominator.
That LCD is the basics of modern life: we all want jobs, products to buy, friends to make and sexual partners and/or life companions. Beyond that, compatibility in values vanishes. Not everyone believes in family, or conventional morality, or even the idea of there being more to life than material consumption.
Naturally, this idea doesn't work, because for a group to work together it will have either a clear sense of shared purpose, or lots of rules and nanny-Stasi to administer them. We've gone the route of the latter."
That LCD is the basics of modern life: we all want jobs, products to buy, friends to make and sexual partners and/or life companions. Beyond that, compatibility in values vanishes. Not everyone believes in family, or conventional morality, or even the idea of there being more to life than material consumption.
Naturally, this idea doesn't work, because for a group to work together it will have either a clear sense of shared purpose, or lots of rules and nanny-Stasi to administer them. We've gone the route of the latter."
Contemporary Leftism is the administration of faux "shared" values, enforced by a bayonet for lack of any other option.
Let's end with a personal anecdote: as a child growing up in the 1980s, my very favorite people were those who were in their sixties and seventies at the time-- so, those born in the 1910s and 1920s. "Old people" back then had this sort of quiet wisdom about them, a sort of rational calmness. For example, my first grade school bus driver and I used to talk about "Star Trek", and all sorts of other things, as he shuttled me and the other kids to and from school.
At one point as I aged-- I was probably in my twenties when it really struck me-- I remember wondering to myself, "What ever happened to all of the old people? The ones today aren't like the ones I remember as a child." Now at just shy of age forty, it's only gotten worse: today when I have conversations with people presently in their sixties or seventies, they're just as dopey and inane as the "Millennials"!
It's like instead of living sixty years, they've lived one year sixty times over: they have no wisdom to share, no richness of experience, no interesting stories to tell...
Maybe those now long-dead elders from my childhood were the last of their kind, the final carriers of culture...
In any event, time to wrap up this post so I can return to my sedentary day job of increasing the share price of a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate by one thousandth of one cent.
Best of Both Worlds - 19:21 CST, 1/23/21 (Sniper)
Metal Jesus guy sees the light: there is absolutely no substitute for a CRT; it's tough to even describe how much better games look on one to people who haven't used one in a while. Hopefully some day a niche company will start manufacturing them again.
And I never thought I'd say this, but I'm one hundred percent switched over to emulation these days. There were four developments which drove me that way:
In short, with my Retroarch-CRT tandem, using authentic controllers across-the-board, it feels absolutely genuine, while also bringing with it the incredible array of benefits which running from a PC brings-- including having the entire library of games ever made, gratis.
And I never thought I'd say this, but I'm one hundred percent switched over to emulation these days. There were four developments which drove me that way:
- Cost. Old games are a fortune: even crappy games for systems like the Genesis are ramping up to the fifty dollar-plus range-- it's absurd. Good games will run you at least eighty bucks, all the way to a thousand-plus!
- 8bitdo. Their controllers are so insanely authentic, yet have nice modern touches like menu buttons. And for systems they don't mimic, such as the 3DO, there are USB adapters.
- Retroarch via S-video. Hipster name, great product-- and running 480i out of my video card to my CRT gives every system that 3DO or DVD-esque crispness. I love the way they look. And with Retroarch, you get unified screenshots, recording, the ability to create custom cheat codes, and even streaming to Twitch, right from the menus.
- Reliability. My old systems are breaking one-by-one, and it's tough to find dependable people online who can fix them without charging an arm and a leg. With emulation, everything is running off my Manjaro Linux setup, on my PC, which is one hundred percent reliable.
In short, with my Retroarch-CRT tandem, using authentic controllers across-the-board, it feels absolutely genuine, while also bringing with it the incredible array of benefits which running from a PC brings-- including having the entire library of games ever made, gratis.
Clown World of Clown People - 18:11 CST, 1/20/21 (Sniper)
Below are truly bizarre things which huge swathes of the people around me believe, and who never hesitate to remind me at every opportunity: at work, in video games, in movies, in music, in my neighborhood, and everywhere else.
When I very politely point out the myriad flaws in their arguments, they call me a crack pot, a white supremacist, a conspiracy theorist, or try to get me fired from my job and get my web site cancelled. If I drank, I could make that joke about people wondering why I do:
Someone let me know when this ride is over.
When I very politely point out the myriad flaws in their arguments, they call me a crack pot, a white supremacist, a conspiracy theorist, or try to get me fired from my job and get my web site cancelled. If I drank, I could make that joke about people wondering why I do:
- Theft is wrong. Taxation is ok.
- A mob of people committing violence outside of the government is a mob. A mob of people committing violence inside the government is "democracy".
- Because 50.000001% of people vote for something, the State has the "consent of the governed" to put a gun to the heads of the other 49.999999% and force them into compliance.
- People do not have a right to make their own choices. But I have the right to make my own choices-- like forcing you to do what I want!
- Reality is subjective. Everything you say is objectively wrong.
- Everyone should dress like Michael Jackson in public, in fear of a virus which causes zero symptoms in most people, and has a 99.9% survival rate.
- Mentally ill mysophobic people are the sane ones, and can force the mentally healthy to play pretend sick in public, at the cost of being denied access to health care and groceries.
- Debt has no meaning, because it's just money we owe to ourselves.
- A governor can sign a decree onto a piece of paper, and it is magically authoritative. Politicians have authority because they had a big enough mob behind them during "election" season.
- Someone who loots a Walmart and burns down a Wendy's should be bailed out immediately. A blind elderly man like Irwin Schiff who won't pay taxes should die chained to a bed in prison.
- Celebrities and multi-billion dollar corporations are good sources of moral guidance.
- Borders are racist-- all are welcome! This is why I fenced in my front yard, keep my door locked, and have a security system which instantly calls the police if it goes off.
- The police are bad. And if you argue with me, I'll call 911.
- Prices are set by how much labor went into something.
- I hate inequality, so I'm going to institutionalize an infinitely powerful ruling class.
- A man can literally become a woman, and vice-versa.
- Animals are just "people who can't talk". So I cut off their genitals and imprison them in my home.
- White people are oppressive because of their skin color, regardless of their personal life's experiences.
- Men are oppressive because they have a cock and balls. But "men" are also just a social construct, and there are actually seven hundred "genders".
- Women and minorities should be hired because they have vaginas or are black. Proponents call critics of their policies "sexist and racist". They put Martin Luther King Jr. signs in their front lawns.
- The Earth is about to hit life-of-the-planet unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, causing it to become the solar system's second Venus.
- Fossil fuel-burning internal combustion cars are bad for the environment. Fossil fuel-burning external combustion cars are good for the environment.
- Words are violence. Silence is violence. Burning down entire neighborhoods is a peaceful protest. Taking a selfie in Nancy Pelosi's chair is "insurrection."
Someone let me know when this ride is over.
Death March - 08:15 CST, 1/20/21 (Sniper)
I've seen several pieces of disparate evidence, including this article most recently, that the Left are preparing the military to directly take violent action against Conservatives: they are pruning the ranks of people politically opposed to the establishment, while also training that the "enemy" are "extremists at home."
Cities will be militarized ala DC, and the Demoncrats will be sending storm troopers door-to-door to ensure everyone is "in compliance" with the WuFlu vaccinations, and who knows what else. It's clearly inevitable at this point.
Presently, I'm waiting for some kind of a sign, an indication of where to flee. Lots of my friends are choosing Florida, but I'm leaning Texas so that I would have the option of seeking asylum in Mexico. I've also been stocking up on crypto.
Remember when Ron Paul warned about a border wall? "Some day it might be used to keep you in!" Prescient.
Cities will be militarized ala DC, and the Demoncrats will be sending storm troopers door-to-door to ensure everyone is "in compliance" with the WuFlu vaccinations, and who knows what else. It's clearly inevitable at this point.
Presently, I'm waiting for some kind of a sign, an indication of where to flee. Lots of my friends are choosing Florida, but I'm leaning Texas so that I would have the option of seeking asylum in Mexico. I've also been stocking up on crypto.
Remember when Ron Paul warned about a border wall? "Some day it might be used to keep you in!" Prescient.
Nice Idea, Poor Execution - 15:56 CST, 1/19/21 (Sniper)
Under the "Technologists... Please" header in this post, I implored the makers of technology to think about the societal ramifications of the things they create. Turns out, there is a whole software license dedicated to that notion!
The only problem with it is that its ethics are based on this document, which is filled with insoluble contradictions: it tries to shoe-horn together United States "Bill of Rights"-esque liberalism-- negative rights-- with "Communist Manifesto" positive rights.
Saying that "no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property" and "no one may be compelled to belong to an association" in one breath, followed in the next breath by "elementary education shall be compulsory", "everyone has the right to a standard of living" including "medical care" plus "social services", and also that people have a right to "protection against unemployment", is a lesson in hilarity. It's the "Pontiac Aztec" of charters!
Good luck trying to legally resolve this contract in a dispute!
Welfare states are authoritarian by nature: they require slaves-in-all-but-name against their will to service other people's needs, according to terms that a pseudo-arbitary middleman enforces at gunpoint. By contrast, a liberal society is one based on negative rights, which precludes "welfare" and even taxation, unless the taxation services only delegation of natural rights-- and even then it's a gray area.
You can't mix the two models: you have to pick one.
There are some articles I do like however, such as: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." The Left won't touch this charter with a ten foot barge pole due to this clause!
The only problem with it is that its ethics are based on this document, which is filled with insoluble contradictions: it tries to shoe-horn together United States "Bill of Rights"-esque liberalism-- negative rights-- with "Communist Manifesto" positive rights.
Saying that "no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property" and "no one may be compelled to belong to an association" in one breath, followed in the next breath by "elementary education shall be compulsory", "everyone has the right to a standard of living" including "medical care" plus "social services", and also that people have a right to "protection against unemployment", is a lesson in hilarity. It's the "Pontiac Aztec" of charters!
Good luck trying to legally resolve this contract in a dispute!
Welfare states are authoritarian by nature: they require slaves-in-all-but-name against their will to service other people's needs, according to terms that a pseudo-arbitary middleman enforces at gunpoint. By contrast, a liberal society is one based on negative rights, which precludes "welfare" and even taxation, unless the taxation services only delegation of natural rights-- and even then it's a gray area.
You can't mix the two models: you have to pick one.
There are some articles I do like however, such as: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." The Left won't touch this charter with a ten foot barge pole due to this clause!
A Joke? - 13:07 CST, 1/17/21 (Sniper)
It's difficult to believe how terrible the quality control is in modern software: every time I try to do basically anything-- especially but not limited to Microsoft products-- basic functionality just doesn't work right.
My latest one involves trying to get screenshots and video clips off of the Xbox Series X. You can't just plug a USB thumb drive in and copy files to it, like you can Sony's systems-- so your only option is to use their "upload to OneDrive" menu option.
"Ok, fine". Cue dial-up quality upload speeds...
It takes about half an hour just to upload a screenshot. It was doing this a few weeks ago, then suddenly worked fast two weeks ago, now it's slow again. The Series X's "test network speed" option shows 354 Mbps up, so it's not my internet connection, or the router, or anything like that.
I tried going on to the "Microsoft Store" to look for a file manager, and the application authors can't even bother to spell text correctly in their app titles or descriptions. Reviews are all one star for pretty much every program on offer: it's that "race to the bottom 'app store'" model, yet another great gift to the world from Apple.
My latest one involves trying to get screenshots and video clips off of the Xbox Series X. You can't just plug a USB thumb drive in and copy files to it, like you can Sony's systems-- so your only option is to use their "upload to OneDrive" menu option.
"Ok, fine". Cue dial-up quality upload speeds...
It takes about half an hour just to upload a screenshot. It was doing this a few weeks ago, then suddenly worked fast two weeks ago, now it's slow again. The Series X's "test network speed" option shows 354 Mbps up, so it's not my internet connection, or the router, or anything like that.
I tried going on to the "Microsoft Store" to look for a file manager, and the application authors can't even bother to spell text correctly in their app titles or descriptions. Reviews are all one star for pretty much every program on offer: it's that "race to the bottom 'app store'" model, yet another great gift to the world from Apple.
Lazio-Milan in 1999 - 09:30 CST, 1/17/21 (Sniper)
It was a lot of fun watching this 1999 match between Lazio and Milan. Lazio really deserved to win this one: Abbiati kept them in it. Seeing young looking versions of Mihajlovic, Nesta, Ambrosini, Salas, Inzaghi, Maldini, and especially Abbiati, whom I only ever knew as a grumpy looking bald old man... surreal.
The most striking thing about football from this period was how direct it was: not just as a percentage but period, very few backwards passes were played, in entire matches: almost every ball went towards the opponent's goal, often times by just thumping it forward.
The players also looked so loose and casual, and I think it reflects how society is different: everything today is so obsessed with safety, today they don't even let people into football stadiums because they might get the sniffles, and if they do the fans have to wear hazmat suits. And today's football is obsessed with having seventy, eighty percent pass completion, which means three quarters of the passes go backwards or sideways.
The same is true if you look at NFL statistics; take people like Troy Aikman or Dan Marino: physically two of the best hall-of-fame athletes to ever play the quarterback position-- yet if you look at their career numbers, they threw almost as many interceptions as touchdowns, and had completion rates in the mid-fifties. The style in that sport as well was much more direct, risk-oriented, and aggressive.
On that same "safety" note, this match illustrates how much I hate "VAR": when Shevchenko went down, or when it looked like Maldini's arm stopped a cross, players complained for like ten seconds, and then just got on with the game.
One player I could see being almost unplayable in this era of football is Sergej Milinkovic-Savic: his height, physique, and obsession with little flicks and tricks, while being less accurate with today's style of passing game, shows me he's really a man out of time.
The "dark horse" player who surprised me the most from this match was Sergio Conceição-- he was like an even better version of Massimo Oddo: super solid defensive stature, phenomenal crossing ability, great on the dribble, highly technical, and with good pace too. He must have been considered a world class fullback in his day.
Part of what makes football such a fun game is how much continuity it has had: unlike the NFL, which hyper-knee jerk changes the rules every five minutes, outside of the abomination that is "VAR" FIFA, the confederations, and the league governing bodies have done a phenomenal job of resisting temptations to mess with the formula: from a rules and flow standpoint, this 1999 match looked just like one from the past couple of years.
To end, a real shame: when I finally got the chance in America to start watching Italian Football in the 2005 season, huge parts of this Milan side-- Shevchenko, Ambrosini, Gattuso, Costacurta, Serginho, Maldini-- were still in place. Milan finished third. Whereas, other than Ballotta and Inzaghi I think this entire 1999 Lazio side had been liquidated due to the debt by 2005, with Nesta even switching sides-- Lazio finished three points from relegation.
The most striking thing about football from this period was how direct it was: not just as a percentage but period, very few backwards passes were played, in entire matches: almost every ball went towards the opponent's goal, often times by just thumping it forward.
The players also looked so loose and casual, and I think it reflects how society is different: everything today is so obsessed with safety, today they don't even let people into football stadiums because they might get the sniffles, and if they do the fans have to wear hazmat suits. And today's football is obsessed with having seventy, eighty percent pass completion, which means three quarters of the passes go backwards or sideways.
The same is true if you look at NFL statistics; take people like Troy Aikman or Dan Marino: physically two of the best hall-of-fame athletes to ever play the quarterback position-- yet if you look at their career numbers, they threw almost as many interceptions as touchdowns, and had completion rates in the mid-fifties. The style in that sport as well was much more direct, risk-oriented, and aggressive.
On that same "safety" note, this match illustrates how much I hate "VAR": when Shevchenko went down, or when it looked like Maldini's arm stopped a cross, players complained for like ten seconds, and then just got on with the game.
One player I could see being almost unplayable in this era of football is Sergej Milinkovic-Savic: his height, physique, and obsession with little flicks and tricks, while being less accurate with today's style of passing game, shows me he's really a man out of time.
The "dark horse" player who surprised me the most from this match was Sergio Conceição-- he was like an even better version of Massimo Oddo: super solid defensive stature, phenomenal crossing ability, great on the dribble, highly technical, and with good pace too. He must have been considered a world class fullback in his day.
Part of what makes football such a fun game is how much continuity it has had: unlike the NFL, which hyper-knee jerk changes the rules every five minutes, outside of the abomination that is "VAR" FIFA, the confederations, and the league governing bodies have done a phenomenal job of resisting temptations to mess with the formula: from a rules and flow standpoint, this 1999 match looked just like one from the past couple of years.
To end, a real shame: when I finally got the chance in America to start watching Italian Football in the 2005 season, huge parts of this Milan side-- Shevchenko, Ambrosini, Gattuso, Costacurta, Serginho, Maldini-- were still in place. Milan finished third. Whereas, other than Ballotta and Inzaghi I think this entire 1999 Lazio side had been liquidated due to the debt by 2005, with Nesta even switching sides-- Lazio finished three points from relegation.
Ideologues - 14:33 CST, 1/16/21 (Sniper)
Before the vaccine, to people who proposed taking a "net human life" approach, which includes counting deaths by suicide, drug overdose, and so forth: "The lockdowns are worth it if they save even one life."
Now there are reports of individuals dying from the vaccines, and those same "if it saves one life" people are now proclaiming: "Everyone should get the vaccine, because we should look at it as net human lives."
Which is it?
Of course, the WuFlu is less of a risk to my being comfortable than catching a cold-- instantly making any risk from a vaccine not worth it. I like my cell DNA the way it is, thank you very much.
Now there are reports of individuals dying from the vaccines, and those same "if it saves one life" people are now proclaiming: "Everyone should get the vaccine, because we should look at it as net human lives."
Which is it?
Of course, the WuFlu is less of a risk to my being comfortable than catching a cold-- instantly making any risk from a vaccine not worth it. I like my cell DNA the way it is, thank you very much.
Assorted Musings - 10:22 CST, 1/16/21 (Sniper)
Here are some disjointed thoughts which occurred to me on my morning walk:
Proper and Constructive Attitudes
"Racism" is judging an individual unfairly based purely on their membership to a given racial group, as opposed to getting to know them personally. "Racism" is not citing statistics about how black people are a tiny percent of the population, but commit a huge percentage of the violent crimes.
"Anti-Semitism" is judging an individual unfairly based on the fact that they are a Jew, without getting to know them personally. "Anti-Semitism" is not observing that and wondering why the minds behind the radical ideologies and the institutions destroying the world today-- feminism, Cultural Marxism, giant banks, hedge funds, and so forth-- are overrepresented by Jews to a mind-boggling degree.
The "is" items above are manifestations of closed-mindedness, cowardice, lack of curiosity, and intellectual dishonesty. The "is not" items above are manifestations of open-mindedness, bravery, curiosity, and intellectual honesty.
Therefore it follows that adopting the "is" attitudes above will lead to a rigid, authoritarian, theocratic society hell bent on destroying intellectualism-- while the "is not" attitudes will lead to a flexible, anti-authoritarian, liberal society curiously seeking truth and understanding.
Technologists... Please
"Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should." Any time you have some zany idea, especially but not limited to Machine Learning and AI, or any time you are asked by your employer about a zany idea, think very carefully about what society would look like if your idea gained mainstream acceptance from the "powers that be."
Car technology that makes it trivial for "authorities"-- who may on your side today, but not tomorrow-- to track and remotely shut down automobiles for wrong-think? How about "digital passports" which could prohibit political "dissidents"-- you, if not today then when the next regime is in charge-- from traveling, having access to health care, or holding a job? Or how about facial recognition technology which will profile people for political affiliations or "potential for 'terrorism'", without even asking them as individuals?
Roughly five percent of the society are sociopaths. As much as people rightfully point fingers at that group, it's huge swathes of the other ninety five percent who are doing the bidding. As it was with the "election", the problems come from the bottom-up, not the top-down. As non-sociopathic technologists, you have a choice to say no, or to not pursue your zany pet project-- or at least you keep the outcome of the hobby to yourself.
Video Game Music Over the Years
Video game music from 1993, versus video game music from 2020. From a music theory standpoint the former is like Mozart, the latter is like banging two rocks together.
People might accuse me of cherrypicking: you're wrong. I've reviewed over six hundred games and counting-- releases from the late 1970s all the way to present day triple-A ray-traced and indie titles, and everything in between. The links above are highly representative of the video game music from their respective eras, and if anyone is qualified to make that judgement, it's me.
Changing Assumptions
In March of 2018, I wrote about what I thought were the gravest threats to the world. I should make a revised version: China is still the greatest threat, but with "Bejing Biden" in charge, the risk has morphed from war into the institution of a "CCP"-like model, right here in America.
Additionally, the "Cultural Marxism" risk should be shifted one slot higher: these people are in the process of installing a theocratic, totalitarian monoculture police state.
Several years ago I bought the "bug out house", thinking that a move to a fairly remote rural area would insulate me to some degree from social unrest and give me a fighting chance against the nightmare scenario of nuclear fallout. But now, it's looking increasingly like I may need to minimally flee Minnesota to a "pro-secession" "Red" state, or perhaps even seek political asylum from a South or Central American country.
In other words, the "bug out house" is better than nothing-- but doesn't feel quite like the correct hedge in 2021's reality. I've been stocking up on crypto lately: a crypto wallet can be backed up onto dozens of USB thumb drives and smuggled over a border-- where upon arrival, the crypto can be converted into regional fiat.
The Derby
This is not to take anything away from our own players: Lazzari for example was quite literally unplayable: but what in the world was Paulo Fonseca thinking with his tactics?
Every other Serie A coach has more or less figured this Lazio out: play a deep line, man mark Luis Alberto at all times, don't give the ball away cheaply in midfield, and force Lazio's counters out wide. Fonseca by contrast had the exact opposite setup, and it made his team look like a Serie B side.
It was the most lop-sided derby I think I've ever seen. There was zero chance Roma were going to take anything with the tactical approach they employed.
Site Growth
Over the past twelve months I have grown unique site viewership by one hundred and seven percent. That's growth from a relatively small starting point naturally, but it's trending in the right direction nonetheless.
Proper and Constructive Attitudes
"Racism" is judging an individual unfairly based purely on their membership to a given racial group, as opposed to getting to know them personally. "Racism" is not citing statistics about how black people are a tiny percent of the population, but commit a huge percentage of the violent crimes.
"Anti-Semitism" is judging an individual unfairly based on the fact that they are a Jew, without getting to know them personally. "Anti-Semitism" is not observing that and wondering why the minds behind the radical ideologies and the institutions destroying the world today-- feminism, Cultural Marxism, giant banks, hedge funds, and so forth-- are overrepresented by Jews to a mind-boggling degree.
The "is" items above are manifestations of closed-mindedness, cowardice, lack of curiosity, and intellectual dishonesty. The "is not" items above are manifestations of open-mindedness, bravery, curiosity, and intellectual honesty.
Therefore it follows that adopting the "is" attitudes above will lead to a rigid, authoritarian, theocratic society hell bent on destroying intellectualism-- while the "is not" attitudes will lead to a flexible, anti-authoritarian, liberal society curiously seeking truth and understanding.
Technologists... Please
"Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should." Any time you have some zany idea, especially but not limited to Machine Learning and AI, or any time you are asked by your employer about a zany idea, think very carefully about what society would look like if your idea gained mainstream acceptance from the "powers that be."
Car technology that makes it trivial for "authorities"-- who may on your side today, but not tomorrow-- to track and remotely shut down automobiles for wrong-think? How about "digital passports" which could prohibit political "dissidents"-- you, if not today then when the next regime is in charge-- from traveling, having access to health care, or holding a job? Or how about facial recognition technology which will profile people for political affiliations or "potential for 'terrorism'", without even asking them as individuals?
Roughly five percent of the society are sociopaths. As much as people rightfully point fingers at that group, it's huge swathes of the other ninety five percent who are doing the bidding. As it was with the "election", the problems come from the bottom-up, not the top-down. As non-sociopathic technologists, you have a choice to say no, or to not pursue your zany pet project-- or at least you keep the outcome of the hobby to yourself.
Video Game Music Over the Years
Video game music from 1993, versus video game music from 2020. From a music theory standpoint the former is like Mozart, the latter is like banging two rocks together.
People might accuse me of cherrypicking: you're wrong. I've reviewed over six hundred games and counting-- releases from the late 1970s all the way to present day triple-A ray-traced and indie titles, and everything in between. The links above are highly representative of the video game music from their respective eras, and if anyone is qualified to make that judgement, it's me.
Changing Assumptions
In March of 2018, I wrote about what I thought were the gravest threats to the world. I should make a revised version: China is still the greatest threat, but with "Bejing Biden" in charge, the risk has morphed from war into the institution of a "CCP"-like model, right here in America.
Additionally, the "Cultural Marxism" risk should be shifted one slot higher: these people are in the process of installing a theocratic, totalitarian monoculture police state.
Several years ago I bought the "bug out house", thinking that a move to a fairly remote rural area would insulate me to some degree from social unrest and give me a fighting chance against the nightmare scenario of nuclear fallout. But now, it's looking increasingly like I may need to minimally flee Minnesota to a "pro-secession" "Red" state, or perhaps even seek political asylum from a South or Central American country.
In other words, the "bug out house" is better than nothing-- but doesn't feel quite like the correct hedge in 2021's reality. I've been stocking up on crypto lately: a crypto wallet can be backed up onto dozens of USB thumb drives and smuggled over a border-- where upon arrival, the crypto can be converted into regional fiat.
The Derby
This is not to take anything away from our own players: Lazzari for example was quite literally unplayable: but what in the world was Paulo Fonseca thinking with his tactics?
Every other Serie A coach has more or less figured this Lazio out: play a deep line, man mark Luis Alberto at all times, don't give the ball away cheaply in midfield, and force Lazio's counters out wide. Fonseca by contrast had the exact opposite setup, and it made his team look like a Serie B side.
It was the most lop-sided derby I think I've ever seen. There was zero chance Roma were going to take anything with the tactical approach they employed.
Site Growth
Over the past twelve months I have grown unique site viewership by one hundred and seven percent. That's growth from a relatively small starting point naturally, but it's trending in the right direction nonetheless.
Looks - 07:38 CST, 1/16/21 (Sniper)
People have been saying for the better part of one hundred and fifty years, if not even longer, that one can deduce someone's personality simply by looking at their face. I've always thought the notion was maybe twenty five percent true-- but it turns out it's more like seventy two percent accurate.
Their use of the "Big 5" personality traits might be causing some of the twenty eight percent inaccuracy: one thing I've noticed over the past several years is that the Left and Right have become muddied on some of those.
For example, the Left used to be known for their openness to new experiences-- but today, they are intensely terrified of new experiences, opting for crayon books, nostalgia, and "safe spaces." Whereas, people on the Right today are the ones "peeling back the onion", challenging their own perceptions of-- to borrow a book title from Murray Rothbard-- "Man, Economy, and State".
As for anecdotes, I've noticed on the male side that the more square jawed someone is, the more likely they are to be on the Right: in the cities it's effeminate hipster types, and they are almost on the Left; up North while meeting with contractors, it was striking to me how masculine they looked, and I could tell from their demeanors and little off-hand remarks that they were on the Right.
On the female end, Leftist women often have that unmistakable look of taught skin and thin lips-- whereas women on the Right often have more robust facial features and expressions.
None of this is fool proof, and everyone should be treated and understood as an individual-- but it's a good starting point.
Their use of the "Big 5" personality traits might be causing some of the twenty eight percent inaccuracy: one thing I've noticed over the past several years is that the Left and Right have become muddied on some of those.
For example, the Left used to be known for their openness to new experiences-- but today, they are intensely terrified of new experiences, opting for crayon books, nostalgia, and "safe spaces." Whereas, people on the Right today are the ones "peeling back the onion", challenging their own perceptions of-- to borrow a book title from Murray Rothbard-- "Man, Economy, and State".
As for anecdotes, I've noticed on the male side that the more square jawed someone is, the more likely they are to be on the Right: in the cities it's effeminate hipster types, and they are almost on the Left; up North while meeting with contractors, it was striking to me how masculine they looked, and I could tell from their demeanors and little off-hand remarks that they were on the Right.
On the female end, Leftist women often have that unmistakable look of taught skin and thin lips-- whereas women on the Right often have more robust facial features and expressions.
None of this is fool proof, and everyone should be treated and understood as an individual-- but it's a good starting point.
Forced Luddite - 18:55 CST, 1/15/21 (Sniper)
From the first time I sat in front of my father's "Osborne 1" in 1983 to about four or five years ago, I was really passionate about computers and technology. I knew as young as ten years old what I "wanted to be when I grew up"-- and I made it happen.
But since then my interest has been rapidly flagging, to the point where more recently I wished and wish I could nuke the whole concept of computers off the planet: the ratio of technology being used for good versus evil is probably 1:1000, at best.
Just in one day I've encountered both this and this.
These types of findings are on a daily basis rate for me. Meanwhile, the apotheosis of computers being "peak helpful" seemed to be around 1996: you could materially do all of the same useful things on them then as now, but they weren't so powerful that they could be abused.
Technology is setting the stage for such unprecedented evil that one of the options wifey and I are exploring is buying a totally remote piece of land somewhere, maybe even without a listed address if possible, and living in an assembled log home kit, totally off the grid.
To be clear, I don't blame the technology, just as I don't blame the gun when someone commits murder with one: I still love technology in isolation: but the world is being run, from the top of the totem pole down to my peon neighbors, by wacko authoritarian nutjobs.
They can't be trusted with technology any more than a two year old can be trusted with a box of matches. Wishing the technology gone seems more kind than wishing the people dead.
But since then my interest has been rapidly flagging, to the point where more recently I wished and wish I could nuke the whole concept of computers off the planet: the ratio of technology being used for good versus evil is probably 1:1000, at best.
Just in one day I've encountered both this and this.
These types of findings are on a daily basis rate for me. Meanwhile, the apotheosis of computers being "peak helpful" seemed to be around 1996: you could materially do all of the same useful things on them then as now, but they weren't so powerful that they could be abused.
Technology is setting the stage for such unprecedented evil that one of the options wifey and I are exploring is buying a totally remote piece of land somewhere, maybe even without a listed address if possible, and living in an assembled log home kit, totally off the grid.
To be clear, I don't blame the technology, just as I don't blame the gun when someone commits murder with one: I still love technology in isolation: but the world is being run, from the top of the totem pole down to my peon neighbors, by wacko authoritarian nutjobs.
They can't be trusted with technology any more than a two year old can be trusted with a box of matches. Wishing the technology gone seems more kind than wishing the people dead.
Capitol Take - 18:20 CST, 1/14/21 (Sniper)
A friend and coworker asked me a bunch of questions related to the capitol event, and I decided to post my replies here for everyone to read:
For the majority of those who attended, what do think the purpose was for the march in DC?
For the majority of people who were there, I got the sense via both on-the-spot interviews compliments of "The Epoch Times" coverage and via my own feelings and the sense of like-minded others around me in my own life, that it was an exhibition of pure frustration.
The Left are constantly putting out their yards signs, their bumper stickers, standing around en masse with signs, while Conservatives by contrast sit in their houses and stew. A critical mass of people on the Right have had enough of this sensation that they're not being heard: that's why they showed up in the tens of thousands to Trump's rallies over the past few years, and that's why they made their way to DC.
I've seen the mainstream media describe the events as an "insurrection", which is absolutely hilarious: an "insurrection" is an attempt to completely take over an institution and install an interim government-- not spend five minutes taking selfies with your foot on Pelosi's desk, and then leaving.
What do you think the expected outcomes were for this? Any attempt to influence voting?
I don't get the sense that the average person there had a specific expectation at all: they just wanted to show up and be seen. Most Conservatives I talk to, and I share this attitude myself, are pretty "black pilled" regarding the prospect of future elections being any less fixed than this one appeared to be.
Mostly, I think people just wanted to do something, and to be heard. A couple of people I heard interviewed on location thought that election reform might be possible, but that it would be uphill sledding given the current Republican leadership.
What do you think Trump's expectation was for the march in DC?
Certainly not violence of any kind: for four years the mainstream media has tried to paint Trump as some kind of dangerous, coup-prone revolutionary, but in reality he was a Democrat most of his life, and his policy positions aren't that different from Bill Clinton's in the 90's, or even Bernie Sanders's populism from just a handful of years ago. There was never any chance that Trump was going to park tanks on the lawn of the White House.
Today our CEO said it was essentially about failed leadership that caused the 'rioting' in the Capitol. In your eyes, does Trump have anything to do with the breaching the Capitol building?
No, I don't think so, on two counts.
First, Trump never explicitly called for violence, and in fact told people to go home and stay peaceful. In fact, I wish he would have been more forceful in his language, like that astonishing "truth-to-power" speech he gave in 2016. If Trump proved anything it's that people value honesty, and "go home and peacefully wait for the next election" is a dishonest message: in the word choices of Martin Luther King Jr., we're at a juncture where "direct action" is needed, as the election system is provably broken.
Second, Trump never even implicitly invited violence: he'd been having peaceful rallies and other events across the country for the past four years, and since all of the violence in the country recently has been perpetrated by people on the Left, specifically "Black Lives Matter" and "Antifa" who have been burning down entire swathes of cities with the active support of governors, mayors, and multi-billion dollar corporations and their CEOs, it's unclear to me how anyone, including Donald Trump, could have anticipated his supporters getting into the capitol building.
And on that note specifically, video evidence strongly suggests that the "breaching" was executed by a combination of "Antifa" plants, and complicit security forces who combined were trying to put Trump supporters into tempting and compromising situations, where the optics for the movement would look bad.
For all of their pearl clutching, Democrat leadership and CNN anchors would have been privately beside themselves with joy had Trump supporters set the building on fire: it would have meant the political death of Right-wing populism. Instead, those corrupt power brokers got selfies, which is why they've sounded so absurd in their overplaying and exaggeration of the events.
Do you believe that there were any 'bad actors' that caused this riot to happen?
Absolutely. I've watched dozens of Trump events over these past four years, and my mother and brother even went to a rally here in Minneapolis. I have never seen a Trump supporter break windows, or push police officers, or scale walls like a real-life Sam Fisher, or scatter papers all across office floors.
Once the doors were opened, many actual Trump supporters made their way inside: most of them walked neatly on the carpet between the velvet posted areas, while some did engage in totally harmless and actually quite humorous antics, like taking selfies carrying the lectern around, or propping Trump flags on the statues.
After the harmless fun, they walked out of the building and went home.
Do you think there was a setup to allow this to happen?
I've watched lots of video footage of that day, and it appears that not only did security open a gate allowing people to approach the building, but that people were more broadly allowed inside. On this, there is agreement from both the Left and the Right-- but the explanations are different.
Because the Left blames everything on "racism", they explain the obviously lax security on racially-oriented "pro-white" sentiments, even though the primary guard who seemed to be quasi-leading people throughout the building was a black guy. A more plausible hypothesis is that the people were let in, so they could compromise their own optics. That is a very common tactic, dating all the way back from antiquity, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was employed here.
A third and more innocent option is that the complete lack of past violence from Trump supporters led to the weak security in this instance. But I find that difficult to believe, considering Congress was actually in session, and we're discussing the captitol building of the United States, for Pete's sake.
If you were writing the headlines for last week, how would you write them?
"Capitol Building Breached" would be a sufficient headline, since it more or less objectively describes what did happen. As part of the news story's contents, I would have interviewed as many protestors, counter-protestors, people who obviously appeared to be plants, security guards, and police officers as possible, and then try to paint as clear and as objective of a picture as I could.
My Friend's Thoughts
Here are the thoughts my friend shared:
"All I know is that the core Republicans did not want and did not support Trump from the beginning and now through the end. He certainly wasn't perfect but how can you be when you are the only one fighting. After last week, I can't really blame the guy for wanting to essentially walk away from this mess.
It's funny that the Republicans seem to think things will go back to 'normal' after Trump is gone. That piling on or distancing themselves from the fight will somehow make things better. In my opinion, I think the Republican Party is finished. Many voters saw them as the path to fight against Obamacare, illegal aliens, high tax rates, uncontrolled spending/borrowing, etc. What everyone has seen is that, there are virtually no elected Republicans that showed up to fight for the most important fight of all - fair & honest elections.
As you pointed out, if that contract between the elected and represented in broken, what use is a paper document called the Constitution. For the majority of Republicans, they look at the election losses just like any other losses (i.e you win some, you lose some).
As imperfect as Trump was, he has been really the only Republican who actually fought for the American people and against the Democrats & their propaganda media. That's why I don't see Trump supporters voting for any Republican again. It's like watching Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football!
There really is a swamp and it's likely not possible to drain. By the time people realize how bad things are, it will be too late to do anything about it (look how quickly Venezuela went down)."
For the majority of those who attended, what do think the purpose was for the march in DC?
For the majority of people who were there, I got the sense via both on-the-spot interviews compliments of "The Epoch Times" coverage and via my own feelings and the sense of like-minded others around me in my own life, that it was an exhibition of pure frustration.
The Left are constantly putting out their yards signs, their bumper stickers, standing around en masse with signs, while Conservatives by contrast sit in their houses and stew. A critical mass of people on the Right have had enough of this sensation that they're not being heard: that's why they showed up in the tens of thousands to Trump's rallies over the past few years, and that's why they made their way to DC.
I've seen the mainstream media describe the events as an "insurrection", which is absolutely hilarious: an "insurrection" is an attempt to completely take over an institution and install an interim government-- not spend five minutes taking selfies with your foot on Pelosi's desk, and then leaving.
What do you think the expected outcomes were for this? Any attempt to influence voting?
I don't get the sense that the average person there had a specific expectation at all: they just wanted to show up and be seen. Most Conservatives I talk to, and I share this attitude myself, are pretty "black pilled" regarding the prospect of future elections being any less fixed than this one appeared to be.
Mostly, I think people just wanted to do something, and to be heard. A couple of people I heard interviewed on location thought that election reform might be possible, but that it would be uphill sledding given the current Republican leadership.
What do you think Trump's expectation was for the march in DC?
Certainly not violence of any kind: for four years the mainstream media has tried to paint Trump as some kind of dangerous, coup-prone revolutionary, but in reality he was a Democrat most of his life, and his policy positions aren't that different from Bill Clinton's in the 90's, or even Bernie Sanders's populism from just a handful of years ago. There was never any chance that Trump was going to park tanks on the lawn of the White House.
Today our CEO said it was essentially about failed leadership that caused the 'rioting' in the Capitol. In your eyes, does Trump have anything to do with the breaching the Capitol building?
No, I don't think so, on two counts.
First, Trump never explicitly called for violence, and in fact told people to go home and stay peaceful. In fact, I wish he would have been more forceful in his language, like that astonishing "truth-to-power" speech he gave in 2016. If Trump proved anything it's that people value honesty, and "go home and peacefully wait for the next election" is a dishonest message: in the word choices of Martin Luther King Jr., we're at a juncture where "direct action" is needed, as the election system is provably broken.
Second, Trump never even implicitly invited violence: he'd been having peaceful rallies and other events across the country for the past four years, and since all of the violence in the country recently has been perpetrated by people on the Left, specifically "Black Lives Matter" and "Antifa" who have been burning down entire swathes of cities with the active support of governors, mayors, and multi-billion dollar corporations and their CEOs, it's unclear to me how anyone, including Donald Trump, could have anticipated his supporters getting into the capitol building.
And on that note specifically, video evidence strongly suggests that the "breaching" was executed by a combination of "Antifa" plants, and complicit security forces who combined were trying to put Trump supporters into tempting and compromising situations, where the optics for the movement would look bad.
For all of their pearl clutching, Democrat leadership and CNN anchors would have been privately beside themselves with joy had Trump supporters set the building on fire: it would have meant the political death of Right-wing populism. Instead, those corrupt power brokers got selfies, which is why they've sounded so absurd in their overplaying and exaggeration of the events.
Do you believe that there were any 'bad actors' that caused this riot to happen?
Absolutely. I've watched dozens of Trump events over these past four years, and my mother and brother even went to a rally here in Minneapolis. I have never seen a Trump supporter break windows, or push police officers, or scale walls like a real-life Sam Fisher, or scatter papers all across office floors.
Once the doors were opened, many actual Trump supporters made their way inside: most of them walked neatly on the carpet between the velvet posted areas, while some did engage in totally harmless and actually quite humorous antics, like taking selfies carrying the lectern around, or propping Trump flags on the statues.
After the harmless fun, they walked out of the building and went home.
Do you think there was a setup to allow this to happen?
I've watched lots of video footage of that day, and it appears that not only did security open a gate allowing people to approach the building, but that people were more broadly allowed inside. On this, there is agreement from both the Left and the Right-- but the explanations are different.
Because the Left blames everything on "racism", they explain the obviously lax security on racially-oriented "pro-white" sentiments, even though the primary guard who seemed to be quasi-leading people throughout the building was a black guy. A more plausible hypothesis is that the people were let in, so they could compromise their own optics. That is a very common tactic, dating all the way back from antiquity, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was employed here.
A third and more innocent option is that the complete lack of past violence from Trump supporters led to the weak security in this instance. But I find that difficult to believe, considering Congress was actually in session, and we're discussing the captitol building of the United States, for Pete's sake.
If you were writing the headlines for last week, how would you write them?
"Capitol Building Breached" would be a sufficient headline, since it more or less objectively describes what did happen. As part of the news story's contents, I would have interviewed as many protestors, counter-protestors, people who obviously appeared to be plants, security guards, and police officers as possible, and then try to paint as clear and as objective of a picture as I could.
My Friend's Thoughts
Here are the thoughts my friend shared:
"All I know is that the core Republicans did not want and did not support Trump from the beginning and now through the end. He certainly wasn't perfect but how can you be when you are the only one fighting. After last week, I can't really blame the guy for wanting to essentially walk away from this mess.
It's funny that the Republicans seem to think things will go back to 'normal' after Trump is gone. That piling on or distancing themselves from the fight will somehow make things better. In my opinion, I think the Republican Party is finished. Many voters saw them as the path to fight against Obamacare, illegal aliens, high tax rates, uncontrolled spending/borrowing, etc. What everyone has seen is that, there are virtually no elected Republicans that showed up to fight for the most important fight of all - fair & honest elections.
As you pointed out, if that contract between the elected and represented in broken, what use is a paper document called the Constitution. For the majority of Republicans, they look at the election losses just like any other losses (i.e you win some, you lose some).
As imperfect as Trump was, he has been really the only Republican who actually fought for the American people and against the Democrats & their propaganda media. That's why I don't see Trump supporters voting for any Republican again. It's like watching Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football!
There really is a swamp and it's likely not possible to drain. By the time people realize how bad things are, it will be too late to do anything about it (look how quickly Venezuela went down)."
Foreign State on North American Soil - 16:52 CST, 1/14/21 (Sniper)
Far-reaching interview here regarding China, from a subject matter expert. Incidentally, if you are not a paying member of "The Epoch Times", you absolutely should be.
I wish I could be as optimistic as the guest about countries, including the United States, pushing back against the CCP: in fact, I see it going exactly the opposite direction-- in America, they call him "Bejing Biden" for a reason. I think the guest is also missing or underestimating the pressure corporations will put on governments to "open the doors": think of Disney, the NBA, Blizzard, and so forth.
There is no limit to how far corporations will bend over for the CCP, censoring their products, censoring their consumers, directly implementing civilian censorship systems for the CCP in the case of Google, and so forth.
He also has commentary beginning around the 17:03 mark, ostensibly regarding the Trump Administration's relationship with China-- which I will take in another direction. More after the quote:
Conservatives in America need to come to grips with the fact that what they've conventionally thought of as "their government", is most certainly not: rather, they should frame it in their minds as a foreign State, like France, or Zimbabwe, or China. They should view it as an absolutely repressive regime, which just so happens to be operating on North American soil: they should abandon naive notions that this regime can be negotiated with using words; rather, they should be deciding on which hard-line measures to take, both on a small scale to protect their families, and also on a larger-scale mobilization to action.
All of this makes me think of this self-described "paleocon" guy I used to talk politics with: at first he seemed pretty bright, but after a bit he started to strike me as extremely naive. After a bit more, I was able to put my finger on it: it's like every time he had a conversation, or observed some phenomenon, it was like the first time: in other words, he was unable to either remember or apply the lessons he and others had learned, sometimes even the very previous day.
He was very frustrating to communicate with: "didn't we just go over this yesterday?" After a while, I essentially stopped replying to his messages, and he sort of disappeared into the ether. But he's by far not the only one I've encountered like this: so many people are so emotionally blinded by prior loyalties that they are unable to process when those loyalties have been betrayed, so they never adjust their perceptions.
I wish I could be as optimistic as the guest about countries, including the United States, pushing back against the CCP: in fact, I see it going exactly the opposite direction-- in America, they call him "Bejing Biden" for a reason. I think the guest is also missing or underestimating the pressure corporations will put on governments to "open the doors": think of Disney, the NBA, Blizzard, and so forth.
There is no limit to how far corporations will bend over for the CCP, censoring their products, censoring their consumers, directly implementing civilian censorship systems for the CCP in the case of Google, and so forth.
He also has commentary beginning around the 17:03 mark, ostensibly regarding the Trump Administration's relationship with China-- which I will take in another direction. More after the quote:
"Having the courage to see the danger of the Chinese regime, the repressiveness of that regime, and not just the courage to see that and to say so, but to change policy as a result. I really applaud many of the things the administration has done to move away from this naive idea that you can just engage with such a repressive regime, behind closed doors, only with words-- that actually what you need to get the message across is punitive measures: the kind of sanctions the US has introduced."
Conservatives in America need to come to grips with the fact that what they've conventionally thought of as "their government", is most certainly not: rather, they should frame it in their minds as a foreign State, like France, or Zimbabwe, or China. They should view it as an absolutely repressive regime, which just so happens to be operating on North American soil: they should abandon naive notions that this regime can be negotiated with using words; rather, they should be deciding on which hard-line measures to take, both on a small scale to protect their families, and also on a larger-scale mobilization to action.
All of this makes me think of this self-described "paleocon" guy I used to talk politics with: at first he seemed pretty bright, but after a bit he started to strike me as extremely naive. After a bit more, I was able to put my finger on it: it's like every time he had a conversation, or observed some phenomenon, it was like the first time: in other words, he was unable to either remember or apply the lessons he and others had learned, sometimes even the very previous day.
He was very frustrating to communicate with: "didn't we just go over this yesterday?" After a while, I essentially stopped replying to his messages, and he sort of disappeared into the ether. But he's by far not the only one I've encountered like this: so many people are so emotionally blinded by prior loyalties that they are unable to process when those loyalties have been betrayed, so they never adjust their perceptions.
No Prescience From the Left - 07:50 CST, 1/14/21 (Sniper)
I got a huge laugh out of this; it's like on time when my mom was in a local Target store, and they played an announcement something to the effect of "Target would like to help you overcome your implicit bias and racism." Nothing like getting lectured about morality from multi-billion dollar corporations!
In other news, I had to re-upload the video related to my previous post: it ran overnight and was still stuck in "processing": BitChute must have some background daemon or service which gets hung up occasionally, I've had this issue before. In any event, I updated the link in the post to the new video's id.
I also owe replies to several people via encrypted chat, email, and elsewhere: I will respond to everyone! It just seems like there is never enough time in the day. I think that's part of why I've only been sleeping four to five hours per night, for seven or eight nights in a row now: so much to do, and sleep feels like such a colossal waste of time.
In other news, I had to re-upload the video related to my previous post: it ran overnight and was still stuck in "processing": BitChute must have some background daemon or service which gets hung up occasionally, I've had this issue before. In any event, I updated the link in the post to the new video's id.
I also owe replies to several people via encrypted chat, email, and elsewhere: I will respond to everyone! It just seems like there is never enough time in the day. I think that's part of why I've only been sleeping four to five hours per night, for seven or eight nights in a row now: so much to do, and sleep feels like such a colossal waste of time.
Black Lives Matter Rally Coverage - 20:27 CST, 1/13/21 (Sniper)
For the sake of trying something different and novel, I attended what I suppose one would frame as a "Black Lives Matter", or "Anti-Police" rally, in a small suburb of Minneapolis, in my home state. Very recently, a man was shot there after he twice ran at police trying to stab them with a knife-- you can see a citizen recording of the incident here.
In the spite of the fact that it appears the police not only did nothing wrong, but were probably too lenient-- personally, I would have shot the guy the first time he tried to stab me-- it brought out organized protestors. I missed the very first portion of the protests, but managed to record the rest.
You can watch my entire coverage here.
The video is broken into three segments: the first section took place at an intersection a few blocks from the police station; the second short segment was me asking a question of a guy who was directing traffic-- and not particularly well, at that; the third part took place at the police station itself.
Some observations of my own:
In the spite of the fact that it appears the police not only did nothing wrong, but were probably too lenient-- personally, I would have shot the guy the first time he tried to stab me-- it brought out organized protestors. I missed the very first portion of the protests, but managed to record the rest.
You can watch my entire coverage here.
The video is broken into three segments: the first section took place at an intersection a few blocks from the police station; the second short segment was me asking a question of a guy who was directing traffic-- and not particularly well, at that; the third part took place at the police station itself.
Some observations of my own:
- The megaphone lady was very careful to reiterate numerous times that all lives matter: the skin color of the victim is irrelevant.
- In the very next breath though, she condemned any and all criticism of her positions as people speaking from a position of "privilege" based on their skin color, even though she has no clue what personal experiences the people there have had.
- That contrast set the tone for the entire event: a mix of liberalism-- "[individual] cops who commit unnecessary violence need to be held accountable" with collectivistic rhetoric, like "it's white people in the suburbs who are the problem!"
- The "guest" speakers followed the same pattern: one speaker represented people with disabilities, where the police wind up beating people who don't understand and can't respond to the directions. That's a good thing about which to raise awareness.
- But then the next "guest" speaker told the audience that somehow blacks were owed "reparations" for the War on Drugs-- even though I personally know many white people who have been hauled away for minor drug possession.
- The excerpt read from the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" sounds an awful lot like my criticism of Republicans, and I found it extraordinarily relatable: in my case, sitting around "waiting for the next election" is a ridiculous notion, when it's obvious more "direct action" needs to be taken; the Left are certainly not going to sit idle.
- Lots of "victim" names were enumerated. I'm not familiar with them, but I've seen so many B.S. high profile cases-- Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and George Floyd-- that I'm suspicious. I'd guess the list is a mix of valid and invalid examples of police brutality.
- I conducted a quasi-interview of a so-called "counter protestor", which you can hear at the 31:15 mark. The man with her-- husband?-- was the biggest cuck I've ever encountered.
- The snide language and rhetoric directed towards the "counter protestors" from megaphone lady were interesting to observe, considering-- as I found out-- the "counter protestor's" position was essentially inches away from megaphone lady's: they hardly disagreed!
- There was an Antifa-looking guy who told the "counter protestor" that he was going to "fuck her mother", to which she made a retort. As soon as I turned my camera on the guy, he backed down from the counter-retort he was about to make-- seemingly out of embarrassment at being filmed in the act!
- In the spirit of trying a journalistic approach, I adopted a conversational, neutral tone with everyone, and just tried to capture the facts and essence of the event. I found it to be phenomenally enjoyable: maybe a career change is in order.
Calling all Conservatives! - 20:10 CST, 1/12/21 (Sniper)
We can't have this! We're the party of law and order! None of this violating the law crap: who does this bar owner think she is, some kind of domestic terrorist? Are we on the side of "Black Lives Matter" or "Antifa" now? Where is the rule of law? Shut her down! Hear that Tucker? Shut her down!
On an unrelated note, I was playing "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" a little bit ago, this is how woke the side quest writing is: there is a part where you help kids in your little village rescue a tame wolf. One of the kids says, "She didn't even say thank you, she just ran off! Maybe she ran off to her husband?" Then another kid replies: "Or maybe she ran off to her wife? We don't really know, do we?"
So yes, in Woketopia, there are now lesbian wolves.
There was another part where this super ugly lesbian in your group-- yes, every character in every video game has to now have a declared sexual orientation, apparently-- helps you slaughter a bunch of male guards, then says "the only shame is the smell: nothing like a bunch of men shitting themselves!"
Can you imagine if they'd written that in reverse-- slaughter a village full of women, then have actual dialog in the game: "At least this is the last month their blood will flow!" I'm tempted to make a game like that: put some token black people in it just so my dialog can call them "negroes", have all the women be helpless damsels baking cakes in kitchens, and so forth.
Blowback is a bitch.
On an unrelated note, I was playing "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" a little bit ago, this is how woke the side quest writing is: there is a part where you help kids in your little village rescue a tame wolf. One of the kids says, "She didn't even say thank you, she just ran off! Maybe she ran off to her husband?" Then another kid replies: "Or maybe she ran off to her wife? We don't really know, do we?"
So yes, in Woketopia, there are now lesbian wolves.
There was another part where this super ugly lesbian in your group-- yes, every character in every video game has to now have a declared sexual orientation, apparently-- helps you slaughter a bunch of male guards, then says "the only shame is the smell: nothing like a bunch of men shitting themselves!"
Can you imagine if they'd written that in reverse-- slaughter a village full of women, then have actual dialog in the game: "At least this is the last month their blood will flow!" I'm tempted to make a game like that: put some token black people in it just so my dialog can call them "negroes", have all the women be helpless damsels baking cakes in kitchens, and so forth.
Blowback is a bitch.
Two Sides of the Same Coin - 16:16 CST, 1/12/21 (Sniper)
I started discussing this idea in my previous post where I talked about the Right's love of "democracy", but I've just encountered the problem again. Tucker: "we're in favor of law and order: break the law, go to jail." In other words, "refuse to return an escaped slave, go to jail."
This is why I've always had such a hard time with Conservatives: we agree on so many things, but I always get this vibe from them that they are, at heart, as despotic as the Left-- they want different man-made laws than the Left sure, but are just as ready to enforce those pseudo-arbitrary mandates at gun-point as their Commie second cousins are.
In other words, we sometimes agree coincidentally.
I hate to quibble or sound pedantic with people who should be my allies, but I'm finding that in this moment in time, this "quibble" is becoming such a serious problem that I fundamentally can't trust these people, when push comes to shove, any more than I could an Antifa member: fundamentally, intellectually, morally, many-- most-- Conservatives don't "get it".
It's Allen West kicking his deputy out because the latter cited the "Declaration of Independence."
I've been harping on Libertarian principle for years-- just check out the editorials page-- in preparation for just a moment as this. Those principles are everything: cargo cultism won't cut the muster, because then you're combating "Authoritarianism Major" with "Authoritarianism Lite", and at the end of that day you've still no discernible rubric for determining right from wrong.
Man-made laws are just that: man made. Men aren't gods! No amount of voting can magically give someone the authority to boss someone else around, unless a contract has been voluntarily entered into by both parties. Authority has to be derived from somewhere: it doesn't arrive from thin air, just because you and ten of your buddies say so! As soon as you say "law and order", you're tossing the same magical unicorn fairy dust into the air that Communists do.
In fact, even in his own segment, he quotes the Left throwing his own words right back at him! "We support 'rule of law'." Fundamentally, what's the difference between his view, and theirs? They just have different subjective sensibilities which are getting offended, not any fundamental moral view disagreement of how the world should work.
I appreciate Tucker bringing this censorship stuff to the masses. But if push really came to shove, I know he'd throw me and others like me off the cliff as soon as possible. "Can't have any pseudo-arbitrary, man-made rule breaking! Gotta' have 'rule of law'! Better to go to the gulag than have perfectly ethical civil disobedience, if it means committing a crime!"
This is why I've always had such a hard time with Conservatives: we agree on so many things, but I always get this vibe from them that they are, at heart, as despotic as the Left-- they want different man-made laws than the Left sure, but are just as ready to enforce those pseudo-arbitrary mandates at gun-point as their Commie second cousins are.
In other words, we sometimes agree coincidentally.
I hate to quibble or sound pedantic with people who should be my allies, but I'm finding that in this moment in time, this "quibble" is becoming such a serious problem that I fundamentally can't trust these people, when push comes to shove, any more than I could an Antifa member: fundamentally, intellectually, morally, many-- most-- Conservatives don't "get it".
It's Allen West kicking his deputy out because the latter cited the "Declaration of Independence."
I've been harping on Libertarian principle for years-- just check out the editorials page-- in preparation for just a moment as this. Those principles are everything: cargo cultism won't cut the muster, because then you're combating "Authoritarianism Major" with "Authoritarianism Lite", and at the end of that day you've still no discernible rubric for determining right from wrong.
Man-made laws are just that: man made. Men aren't gods! No amount of voting can magically give someone the authority to boss someone else around, unless a contract has been voluntarily entered into by both parties. Authority has to be derived from somewhere: it doesn't arrive from thin air, just because you and ten of your buddies say so! As soon as you say "law and order", you're tossing the same magical unicorn fairy dust into the air that Communists do.
In fact, even in his own segment, he quotes the Left throwing his own words right back at him! "We support 'rule of law'." Fundamentally, what's the difference between his view, and theirs? They just have different subjective sensibilities which are getting offended, not any fundamental moral view disagreement of how the world should work.
I appreciate Tucker bringing this censorship stuff to the masses. But if push really came to shove, I know he'd throw me and others like me off the cliff as soon as possible. "Can't have any pseudo-arbitrary, man-made rule breaking! Gotta' have 'rule of law'! Better to go to the gulag than have perfectly ethical civil disobedience, if it means committing a crime!"