"Nobody has reminded them of what happened last time someone tried to separate from the United States"
"Also, nobody has reminded them of how much debt they've racked up"
"Also, nobody has reminded them of how much debt they've racked up"
[Admin mode] Power failure during a thunder storm knocked out the servers and more importantly broke dns. All back up now.
It's been 10 years of "if you didn't like this movie it's because you're actually evil" -- but is it really culture war stuff, or is that just the argument they're using? Filmmakers have never liked critics, but now they've got an argument that their critics are fundamentally evil and every reason in the world to use that argument.
I think you kind of have to look past the specific form of what these people say, because they're from Hollywood, they don't believe a word they say about anything unless it's how great they are, and lashing out at people they don't like or who criticize their work.
Healthy ecosystems such as Hollywood of yesteryear or Japan's anime ecosystem today had different rungs, you'd get lower cost lower impact media to start, and as you succeeded you'd get to work on higher impact higher cost (potentially higher profit) works until eventually you earn the big tentpole blockbuster through proven success.
There used to be multiple rungs in Hollywood, but now you go from niche movies at Sundance (not even a market) to producing mega budget blockbusters, and that's not healthy. Hollywood would blame streaming for this, but other markets have rungs still, it's more that Hollywood got addicted to blockbusters and ate their seed corn.
Some of the best movies of all time were created at those lower rungs. Star Wars: A New Hope was actually a fairly low budget movie. E.T. was a lower budget movie. Cult classics Half Baked and Office Space were lower budget, and Fight Club and The Matrix were mid-budget, not massive tentpoles with budgets that would bankrupt the studio. They couldn't make any of these today because those rungs of the ladder don't exist. They can only hand the empire to a child emperor and watch them have a hissy fit when the treasury starts to dry up and barbarians at the gate start taking territory.
I think a lot of these storytellers are trying to do what Joker did -- hop into an established franchise and tell the story they want to tell regardless of the franchise. That's a big problem with an established brand because something that could have been a modestly successful lower tier film ends up pissing off customers who came in with an expectation based on the brand. The problem was never politics, but not following the laws of physics when it comes to pleasing customers and making money. Then the child emperors lash out because it turns out the emperor must follow certain laws of physics or their empire collapses. Then the audiences are alienated because the movies wasn't FOR them, and you get the current MCU. Even if they make some decent movies, it'll take a lot of time in the penalty box.
I think you kind of have to look past the specific form of what these people say, because they're from Hollywood, they don't believe a word they say about anything unless it's how great they are, and lashing out at people they don't like or who criticize their work.
Healthy ecosystems such as Hollywood of yesteryear or Japan's anime ecosystem today had different rungs, you'd get lower cost lower impact media to start, and as you succeeded you'd get to work on higher impact higher cost (potentially higher profit) works until eventually you earn the big tentpole blockbuster through proven success.
There used to be multiple rungs in Hollywood, but now you go from niche movies at Sundance (not even a market) to producing mega budget blockbusters, and that's not healthy. Hollywood would blame streaming for this, but other markets have rungs still, it's more that Hollywood got addicted to blockbusters and ate their seed corn.
Some of the best movies of all time were created at those lower rungs. Star Wars: A New Hope was actually a fairly low budget movie. E.T. was a lower budget movie. Cult classics Half Baked and Office Space were lower budget, and Fight Club and The Matrix were mid-budget, not massive tentpoles with budgets that would bankrupt the studio. They couldn't make any of these today because those rungs of the ladder don't exist. They can only hand the empire to a child emperor and watch them have a hissy fit when the treasury starts to dry up and barbarians at the gate start taking territory.
I think a lot of these storytellers are trying to do what Joker did -- hop into an established franchise and tell the story they want to tell regardless of the franchise. That's a big problem with an established brand because something that could have been a modestly successful lower tier film ends up pissing off customers who came in with an expectation based on the brand. The problem was never politics, but not following the laws of physics when it comes to pleasing customers and making money. Then the child emperors lash out because it turns out the emperor must follow certain laws of physics or their empire collapses. Then the audiences are alienated because the movies wasn't FOR them, and you get the current MCU. Even if they make some decent movies, it'll take a lot of time in the penalty box.
It's a truism that your last movie sells your next movie, and the film industry has spent a decade flagellating fans and telling them it's comfort.
If they do manage to turn things around, it isn't going to be easy. A lot of commentators have been really happy with Andor, but I'm sure a lot of star wars fans assume it isn't FOR them.
If they do manage to turn things around, it isn't going to be easy. A lot of commentators have been really happy with Andor, but I'm sure a lot of star wars fans assume it isn't FOR them.
Tbf, the billionaire is totally want you thinking about it all the time so that they can sell you "environmentalism in a box"
How's it work? Well, the billionaires promise that if you provide them with enough billions of dollars of funding, then they will give you a little environmentalism box that you can hang on your wall or off of your roof that will save the planet.
Don't ask too many questions about that, just consume product and get excited to consume more product.
So the billionaires do want you to be talking about global warming, they just don't want you to be talking about ideas like making the stuff that you buy from them less destructible and more repairable so you don't need to constantly be buying replacement whatever. After all, for a lot of automobiles for example, they could basically last forever if they just used more corrosion resistant materials, but instead they're going to rush to pieces over a certain number of years so that you have to go by brand new one or at least a new used one. As well, major industries have directly opposed right to repair anywhere it has gained traction.
How's it work? Well, the billionaires promise that if you provide them with enough billions of dollars of funding, then they will give you a little environmentalism box that you can hang on your wall or off of your roof that will save the planet.
Don't ask too many questions about that, just consume product and get excited to consume more product.
So the billionaires do want you to be talking about global warming, they just don't want you to be talking about ideas like making the stuff that you buy from them less destructible and more repairable so you don't need to constantly be buying replacement whatever. After all, for a lot of automobiles for example, they could basically last forever if they just used more corrosion resistant materials, but instead they're going to rush to pieces over a certain number of years so that you have to go by brand new one or at least a new used one. As well, major industries have directly opposed right to repair anywhere it has gained traction.
I like my instances 3 rules:
1. I'm not your dad
2. You're not mine
3. This site runs off of parts scavenged from a roadside sign
Though since the site runs off of thin clients these days I guess I'm technically violating rule 3, probably.
1. I'm not your dad
2. You're not mine
3. This site runs off of parts scavenged from a roadside sign
Though since the site runs off of thin clients these days I guess I'm technically violating rule 3, probably.
Protecting the people of his caste, for he doesn't want to touch people of a lower caste, and isn't allowed to touch people of a higher caste.
You can draw a direct line from the French Revolution to Karl Marx. They're both effectively part of the same modernist utopian revolutionary project, and the same progressive project. Marx had a hypothesis about why the French Revolution failed, and his Marxist ideology was designed to try to prevent a repeat performance. Unfortunately for humanity, his hypothesis about what the French Revolution got wrong was incorrect, and so instead of getting the revolution right, it just resulted in the exact same failure modes.
If you think about it, Marx's focus on the bourgeoisie is facially absurd. "Oh, the aristocrats failed, the middle class failed, but definitely the lower classes won't fail!" -- ironically, it's trained centuries of Marxists to ignore that aristocracy even exists, such that they think we just need more aristocrats to protect against the bourgeoisie, as if that's actually superior.
In an interesting point showing LaPlace domain history (Note that while the two are named for the same man, LaPlace domain is a real tool used in the real world, LaPlace's demon is a thought experiment about the predictability of the universe), when China met the west and vice versa, China gained modernism, but Europe gained the bureaucracy. Imperial China has waveforms that echo into Europe, across America, and ends up reinforced by later Modernist China.
Part of the problem is the modernist tendency to want to just knock out parts of the equation to try to change things, but math doesn't work that way -- if you knock out an equation on one side, it just moves that to the other side. Kill all the rich, kill all the powerful, kill all the oppressors, and you get equal rich, powerful, and oppressors on the other side of the equation.
Thing is, this description might provoke modernists into thinking you just need to modify the equation in different ways and you can find utopia, but that's wrong -- like Heisenberg's uncertainty theorem proves you can't know the location and velocity of a particle at the same time, you can't know everything required to create utopia. Laplace thought you could predict the future if you could know the initial velocity and position of every particle and had a good enough model, but the universe literally refuses that concept as a law of physics.
Even Liberalism is in essence proto-modernist, coming from the enlightenment period immediately prior to the modernist period. Is liberty the highest good? Only in plurality with other factors which are erased once you put it on a pedestal. Once you treat liberty as the sold totalizing good, then everything else falls apart -- and it has.
If you think about it, Marx's focus on the bourgeoisie is facially absurd. "Oh, the aristocrats failed, the middle class failed, but definitely the lower classes won't fail!" -- ironically, it's trained centuries of Marxists to ignore that aristocracy even exists, such that they think we just need more aristocrats to protect against the bourgeoisie, as if that's actually superior.
In an interesting point showing LaPlace domain history (Note that while the two are named for the same man, LaPlace domain is a real tool used in the real world, LaPlace's demon is a thought experiment about the predictability of the universe), when China met the west and vice versa, China gained modernism, but Europe gained the bureaucracy. Imperial China has waveforms that echo into Europe, across America, and ends up reinforced by later Modernist China.
Part of the problem is the modernist tendency to want to just knock out parts of the equation to try to change things, but math doesn't work that way -- if you knock out an equation on one side, it just moves that to the other side. Kill all the rich, kill all the powerful, kill all the oppressors, and you get equal rich, powerful, and oppressors on the other side of the equation.
Thing is, this description might provoke modernists into thinking you just need to modify the equation in different ways and you can find utopia, but that's wrong -- like Heisenberg's uncertainty theorem proves you can't know the location and velocity of a particle at the same time, you can't know everything required to create utopia. Laplace thought you could predict the future if you could know the initial velocity and position of every particle and had a good enough model, but the universe literally refuses that concept as a law of physics.
Even Liberalism is in essence proto-modernist, coming from the enlightenment period immediately prior to the modernist period. Is liberty the highest good? Only in plurality with other factors which are erased once you put it on a pedestal. Once you treat liberty as the sold totalizing good, then everything else falls apart -- and it has.
Remember "darwin awards"?
Turns out they're more popular than you'd think. Half the people in my generation aren't reproducing. It's sad. Make the world too safe, and eventually nobody takes the risks you need to make life worth living and continuing.
Turns out they're more popular than you'd think. Half the people in my generation aren't reproducing. It's sad. Make the world too safe, and eventually nobody takes the risks you need to make life worth living and continuing.
I never really think about it until I see a stat, then I'm narrating my life like a film noir for an hour afterwards.
Openttd is a transportation planning game, free and open source.
Mindustry is a realtime strategy game focused on building factories that make stuff for you. Free and open source.
Unciv is a global turn based strategy game based on civilization V. Free and open source.
Luanti is a Minecraft clone. Free and open source.
Super retro mega wars. Play classic games against each other. Free and open source.
Cards with cats let's you play a bunch of cars games against cartoon cars. Free and open source.
Frozen bubble. Bubble bobble clone free and open source.
Shattered pixel dungeon. Roguelike. Free and open source.
I think a couple of them might have ads, but even that's just on the play store. I know some of them aren't going to be games that most women would like to play, at least based on the woman that I know, but unlike most games on the Play store which I don't really play games on, these ones are games designed around a game and not around a monetization loop.
For what it's worth, you might not feel fulfilled but at least playing a game that's free and open source you are in a tiny way contributing to an ecosystem that's healthier for humanity. Besides, as someone who enjoys playing a video game myself now and again, I feel no shame in taking you down with me. :p
Mindustry is a realtime strategy game focused on building factories that make stuff for you. Free and open source.
Unciv is a global turn based strategy game based on civilization V. Free and open source.
Luanti is a Minecraft clone. Free and open source.
Super retro mega wars. Play classic games against each other. Free and open source.
Cards with cats let's you play a bunch of cars games against cartoon cars. Free and open source.
Frozen bubble. Bubble bobble clone free and open source.
Shattered pixel dungeon. Roguelike. Free and open source.
I think a couple of them might have ads, but even that's just on the play store. I know some of them aren't going to be games that most women would like to play, at least based on the woman that I know, but unlike most games on the Play store which I don't really play games on, these ones are games designed around a game and not around a monetization loop.
For what it's worth, you might not feel fulfilled but at least playing a game that's free and open source you are in a tiny way contributing to an ecosystem that's healthier for humanity. Besides, as someone who enjoys playing a video game myself now and again, I feel no shame in taking you down with me. :p
Apparently Sargon got shit on for his recent take that support for communism is individualist. Honestly, I agree with him.
The most sincere "we need communism" speech I ever heard in my life came from the most selfish lazy person I'd ever met in my life. Her entire life was laying in the couch watching TV and complaining that the people she was mooching off of hadn't given her literally everything they owned yet.
The thing is, for a lot of people, a lot of bad actors, "we need community ownership" actually means "I get a piece of everything that exists without having to work for it".
If you've got 5 people, 4 are skinny and one is 900lbs and the 900lb guy goes "we should split the bill equally", yeah he would want that because he's going to eat more than everyone else combined.
You can say "definitionally communism is collectivist", and you'd be right in terms of doctrine, but where rubber meets road reality wins, and reality is that you can't change human nature -- we are social creatures that exist individually and so individual incentives matter when seeing what ideology someone is calling for.
To get something closer to doctrinal communism, you need something that aligns people's incentives to be positive contributors to the community. Successful ideologies do this, and ironically sometimes that's through individualist doctrine; although everyone is in it for themselves on paper, they work together because it's in their best individual interest.
The most sincere "we need communism" speech I ever heard in my life came from the most selfish lazy person I'd ever met in my life. Her entire life was laying in the couch watching TV and complaining that the people she was mooching off of hadn't given her literally everything they owned yet.
The thing is, for a lot of people, a lot of bad actors, "we need community ownership" actually means "I get a piece of everything that exists without having to work for it".
If you've got 5 people, 4 are skinny and one is 900lbs and the 900lb guy goes "we should split the bill equally", yeah he would want that because he's going to eat more than everyone else combined.
You can say "definitionally communism is collectivist", and you'd be right in terms of doctrine, but where rubber meets road reality wins, and reality is that you can't change human nature -- we are social creatures that exist individually and so individual incentives matter when seeing what ideology someone is calling for.
To get something closer to doctrinal communism, you need something that aligns people's incentives to be positive contributors to the community. Successful ideologies do this, and ironically sometimes that's through individualist doctrine; although everyone is in it for themselves on paper, they work together because it's in their best individual interest.
[admin mode] after an update yesterday things are a bit sketch, but not due to the updates. Some of our previous maintenance tasks didn't get moved to the new server, and I think we're paying the price for that. Started the tasks, and so it sucked for hours and now should work better again. I've restored the maintenance scripts so it'll automatically do it from now on.
After a decade of neomarxists running companies like Disney and using them to attack and alienate the majority...
It just occurred to me as ironic that neomarxists specifically and intentionally used capitalism to alienate a chunk of the working class.
If it was a 5d chess move to end capitalism that could be brilliant, but these are not smart people so they're doing it with their own stickers all over it. They aren't doing it to prove that capitalism is bad because it causes alienation, they are claiming that their alienation is good because they're neomarxist.
Since their stickers are all over it, it doesn't discredit capitalism and instead discredits neomarxism. Meanwhile, the capitalist companies like Disney are taking hit after hit because alienating your audience is a dumb idea if you want their money.
It just occurred to me as ironic that neomarxists specifically and intentionally used capitalism to alienate a chunk of the working class.
If it was a 5d chess move to end capitalism that could be brilliant, but these are not smart people so they're doing it with their own stickers all over it. They aren't doing it to prove that capitalism is bad because it causes alienation, they are claiming that their alienation is good because they're neomarxist.
Since their stickers are all over it, it doesn't discredit capitalism and instead discredits neomarxism. Meanwhile, the capitalist companies like Disney are taking hit after hit because alienating your audience is a dumb idea if you want their money.
I've started having a major issue with the term NGO or "non government organization". If most of your funding comes from government, then you're a government organization.
After seeing what usaid was paying for, I now believe a lot of government organizations exist outside of any kind of oversight.
When NGOs use their money to lobby for certain political outcomes, government is paying government to convince government to do what government wants to do.
After seeing what usaid was paying for, I now believe a lot of government organizations exist outside of any kind of oversight.
When NGOs use their money to lobby for certain political outcomes, government is paying government to convince government to do what government wants to do.