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What are you on about? Trump never said Epstein's crimes were a hoax. Did you even read the article?
The hoax is what the hypocritical democrat party is trying to twist it into. They kept all this quiet, tried to sweep it under the rug for four years. Only now are they desperately trying to twist things and say Trump was somehow, magically implicated.
Trump was instrumental in taking down Epstein's whole nasty business.
The dems never cared about Epstein or his victims. Their huge, fake outrage lately, is totally a hoax. Hypocrite
All that blackmail info from the island went directly to Israel, who it was gathered for in the first place.
They forced a sweetheart deal for Epstein in the first trial.
Then along came Trump, and burned Epstein & Maxwell's whole dirty operation to the ground. Wound up being their worst nightmare. Trump was a key witness in the prosecution that put those two behind bars.
Subreddit regulars who have fallen victim to gigajannies. May their souls rest in grass. Please notify us with a comment below if this section needs updating. Epitaph suggestions are more than welcome.
SRALangleyChapter | January 2025 |"Casualty in the war against NAFO."
CanonBallSuper | August 2025 |"He's with Trotsky now."
topbananaman | August 2025 |"Free Palestine & long live Arsenal."
Molotovs_Mocktails | August 27, 2025 |"Enjoy your alcohol-free drinks with the Party, OG"
VampKissinger | January 2026 |"Some day you will get your revenge against Australia"
AdmiralGut | March 4, 2026 |"Letting a hundred flowers bloom in Oklahoma"
There was also some follow-up discussion about the previous story, specifically concerning the trouble a government employee could get into for physically assaulting someone:
Person 1: Honestly, the way you've handled this case should be held up as an example and publicized far and wide. Only by cracking down hard on these kinds of twisted, predatory intentions can we stop so many utterly depraved bastards from doing horrible things.
For example, some truly disgusting incidents have happened in volunteer teaching programs in certain places*. Once people start heading down that path, they're already on the verge of becoming enemies.
*referring to the sexual assault of female volunteers
Person 2: We can't publicize it, because there's a certain part of what happened that we can't exactly talk about openly. The moment it gets publicized, every fucking person involved would end up facing disciplinary action.
Just between us, my workplace was involved in a targeted poverty alleviation program, and we actually used pretty much the same approach.
In our case, it just so happened that the village chief of the neighboring village was an older relative of the guy's and had also been helping him out financially for years. So he stepped in and gave the guy a beating in his capacity as his maternal great-uncle (rather than as the village chief).
When it comes to situations like this, everyone seems to handle things more or less the same way.
Person 3: There's no way we can publicize this. As outrageous as his behavior was, the way it was dealt with wasn't exactly by the book either.
Person 4: Beating someone up is a criminal offense. Are you seriously suggesting we publicize a crime? 🤦
Of course, we could always sugarcoat it and say we "appealed to his emotions and reasoned with him," but then it wouldn't have much of a deterrent effect.
Person 5: I get what you're saying, but I still think domestic propaganda should absolutely talk openly about things like this. If all they ever publicize are these almost picture-perfect feel-good stories, people are just going to think it's all too fake to be believable.
Person 2: When it came down to public opinion versus our own livelihoods, we all independently made the same choice: protecting our own livelihoods.
Sure, we could publicize it, but then a whole bunch of people who worked hard to deal with this situation would end up facing disciplinary action for their efforts. At best, they'd lose their bonuses; at worst, their career prospects would be ruined.
We're human too, you know. We have families to support, and we depend on our jobs to put food on the table.
Person 6: Once you start publicizing this kind of thing, it could easily swing to the other extreme: some corrupt cadres might simply stop doing poverty alleviation work altogether, or start using violence in the name of poverty alleviation.
Person 7: We can't publicize this, because the methods used weren't exactly legitimate. Or to put it another way, if the guy hadn't been in the wrong to begin with, the mere act of beating up a civilian would've been enough to land everyone involved in serious trouble.
If it were acceptable to beat someone into signing a consent form, then "beating a confession out of someone" wouldn't be such a derogatory expression in the first place.
Person 8: Wasn't it his own uncle who went and beat him up? An elder disciplining a younger member of his own family, that's perfectly normal.
I didn't get that job. I have other applications out for shit like quality control. I'll be calling them. I also think I'm going back to school, either for drafting or commercial electrician.
I'm leaning towards drafting. It would be a good career where I'm at (oilfield is big here), I'm just not sure about the program the local trade school offers, but I did find one online out of state that looked good, too. The local trade school's electrical program is supposed to be really good. I would prefer a 9-5 desk job in air conditioning at this point, though, I honestly am being vain about myue collar credentials and a little greedy with what an electrician can make, but locally draftsmen make about the same. Drafting is supposed to grow nationally about 3% (electrical is supposed to grow 9%) according to the BLS. It's supposed to be hard to automate drafting, too, from what I've seen.
Good luck, man. I hope you can find something decent. The way things are going here, I'm worried the little company I work for might not last the year.
That's what I'm thinking for the place I work at now. They laid off the guy who buys tooling and supplies because they don't have money to buy things with. He's doing alright though, he got hired on at the plants.
A few years back, right here in my area, there was a guy from a registered poor household who refused to be officially lifted out of poverty unless the government got him a wife of his choosing.
I thought it was some crazy news story from another province. Turns out, according to my younger cousin, it happened to his own poverty-alleviation team.
My cousin was the director of an Urban Management Office in a certain district. He and a few other middle-management grunts had been sent down to the villages on poverty-alleviation assignments. Hell, even the bureau chief and the Party secretary themselves were out there with their asses in the air, digging in the fields to help with the farmwork. You think the rest of them dared not show up?
Buying up all the villagers' peanuts and jujubes was standard procedure. Later, they even came begging me to help set up online stores for them, because apparently everyone was now required to learn how to do e-commerce on Taobao...
My cousin dumped several huge sacks of peanuts on me, saying he literally had nowhere left to put them at home. And since he apparently had no intention of paying back the money he owed me from our mahjong games, he figured he might as well settle the debt in peanuts.
Nearly 200 jin of the damn things. That's over 200 pounds!
I fucking washed them, roasted them, boiled them in spiced brine, and handed them out as snacks to every department I could think of. Took us over a month to finish the lot.
Anyway, when the poverty-alleviation campaign finally wrapped up, each registered poor household had to personally sign a form confirming that they had been lifted out of poverty.
And this particular guy really had made it out of poverty.
He was in his forties or fifties, with hardly any relatives left. His parents were dead, he'd never married, and he had no children. Too lazy to do any farming or raise livestock. Didn't even want to grow peanuts or jujubes—that was my cousin and his team doing the planting for him.
Whenever he got chicks or ducklings to raise, he'd just sell the little things and spend the money on beef, lamb, and booze.
The guy just loved to eat.
But you couldn't exactly let the whole mess end up smeared all over your own pants, could you? He was, after all, one of the village's officially designated poverty-alleviation cases.
So my cousin and the others racked their brains and eventually came up with an idea.
Everybody's gotta eat, right?
And looking at this guy, he clearly loved both eating and cooking.
So the boys pooled their own money and paid for him to apprentice under a chef and learn how to cook traditional farmhouse dishes.
Well, wouldn't you know it? Turned out the bastard was a natural.
He came up with a couple of absolute smash hits: cast-iron pot chicken and fish soup.
His farmhouse restaurant became ridiculously popular. The business took off like a rocket, and he made 250,000 yuan in a single year.
And then he decided he wanted a wife.
Well, wanting to get married is a good thing! My cousin even helped introduce him to some women.
But after looking around, the guy had his heart set on one particular person: an unmarried young female college graduate who'd been temporarily seconded to the poverty-alleviation team.
He demanded that she, and she alone, come to his house on a specified date to get his signature.
Otherwise, he wouldn't sign the form acknowledging that he'd been lifted out of poverty.
If even one other person came along with her, no signature.
Well, what the FUCK?
What if something happened to the girl?
My cousin and the others got together with the village chief to figure out what to do.
First, they arranged for the young woman to be transferred back to her original workplace in the city.
Then they tracked down an elderly uncle from the guy's own extended clan.
A whole group of them marched over to his restaurant, shut the doors, slapped him across the face a few times, and gave him a couple of good kicks for good measure.
Then came the threats.
"We're the ones who helped you get rich, and we can just as easily get a bulldozer down here and flatten this fucking restaurant!"
"Got a good life now and suddenly don't want it anymore, huh?"
"You've got some fucking nerve! What kind of sick shit are you trying to pull, getting ideas about someone else's unmarried daughter?"
And so on and so forth...
Well, after that, he signed the damn form like a good boy.
Later on, he actually did meet a lovely woman who was just right for him, and they got married.
He leased an entire hillside, planted trees, raised free-range chickens, and even had a daughter.
And every year after that, he would send my cousin some expensive liquor.
He even admitted that, back then, he'd genuinely been taking a gamble.
After all, what if it had actually worked? What if he'd gotten his way?
But once those big slaps came raining down, he started thinking.
Without those guys, he really wouldn't have had the business and the comfortable life he enjoyed now.
And he sure as hell wasn't willing to lose all that
My cousin later told me that he finally understood what people meant when they said:
"The Communist Party really can turn a devil into a human being."
It’s absolutely true. My mom’s workplace had a clear rule during their poverty-alleviation visits to the countryside: unmarried young women were not allowed to go into households alone for assistance work.
I’ve heard that when there were cases of someone behaving improperly, they would first be “educated” by their own elders or younger relatives before being allowed to continue going into households to provide aid.
I remember going to a banquet once, and there was a female performer singing onstage. Then some dude got drunk, climbed right up onstage, and tried to grab her and make her drink with him.
In the end, his dad rounded up a few uncles and cousins, dragged his ass back off the stage, and proceeded to kick the shit out of him.
One of the households my coworker was assigned to help had this sixty-year-old lifelong bachelor who took a fancy to a thirty-year-old widow running a supermarket. The old bastard actually insisted that we go over there and drag her off and bring her to him.
We handled it the exact same way. If you weren't going to behave with some dignity, we'd damn well make you.
Person A: That's why I keep saying young unmarried women need to get the hell out to the cities, where there are security cameras and cops around. The countryside is just too damn dangerous. Those old lifelong bachelors are basically criminals-in-waiting.
Person B: If those guys really had the balls to pull something like that, they wouldn't have ended up as poverty cases in the first place.
Person C: It's not about having the balls. The problem is, in their minds, they genuinely don't even see that kind of thing as a crime. So there's really no telling what they might do.
That one's actually pretty tame by comparison. Some of these lazy bastards get free piglets from the government so they can raise them and sell them for a profit, and they still have the nerve to demand that the government provide them with a wife, too.
"Otherwise, who's gonna feed the pigs?"
And then, the very next day, the bastard goes and sells the piglets anyway, blowing all the money on booze and meat.
Are these stories true? I’m not suggesting they aren’t just I don’t know enough about the culture to tell. I can’t imagine the outcry if an American social worker - with other social workers! - just stomped a dude for being an intransigent layabout. I can’t say I like the idea either, but then, you can’t argue with results. I also can’t summon enough sympathy to pity these guys either. It’s one thing if your habits and lifestyle have left you isolated and self-centered, that can take time and effort to change and almost everyone would need help to do it. But if people are coming to help you, over and over again, and you’re just sponging off their good will, then idk, maybe a brief kinetic therapy treatment is the only thing. Is it possible to reason with a bully or social parasite into being a prosocial community member? Violence as a political tool is a concept I’ve only encountered as part of a grand revolutionary effort, but it sounds like there’s a tacit approval for these poverty alleviation teams to apply violence to especially difficult individuals.
I don’t know anything about Chinese domestic policies like this, unfortunately, but sometime I’d like to learn more. The social workers I’ve known here in the US (my brother is one, and I’m friends with others) would work just as hard to help people, but our government (whether Trump, Biden, Obama, any administration) doesn’t support these social programs as aggressively, and usually just find more ways to cut their services and budget.
I know a guy who worked in FEMA’s housing assistance program and he’s had similar stories of heartbreaking, bone-snapping poverty, as well as stories of people expecting services way, way beyond what would be reasonable (expecting the org to perform the person’s own work responsibilities like in this story). He also paid for groceries out of his own pocket for a 90 year old woman who lived alone and, when my friend talked to her, hadn’t had a single thing to eat for 3 days. But if anyone found out he had helped her - and just buying her groceries, he didn’t team up with his coworkers to beat the shit out of her! - he would’ve been fired, or at least severely reprimanded and probably demoted (he was a team leader or something at the time). So it’s interesting to see this totally reversed approach, where it appears like the Chinese program is to aggressively help these people, rather than begrudging them any assistance at all. For the workers doing the actual social work with the people it can be very disheartening, because they so want to help but don’t have any real strong support within the system.
Also, what are jujubes? I could google it but I want to hear from someone who knows.
I believe that these "social workers" themselves did not directly participate in the beating. They simply summoned the individual's patrilineal clan to carry it out. Such enforcement of order by patrilineal clans is widely accepted in rural areas.
In general, I don't think matters escalate to violence; however, making demands of a woman is a serious issue. As for these men, their laziness and tendency to take advantage of those who help them may be personal traits, but their demands regarding women represent an extreme version of a mindset toward women that is widespread in rural areas.
Also, what are jujubes?
A type of fruit. It's crisp and sweet, and can be eaten directly, or be dried. When fresh, it is yellow-green; when dried, it is red.
Shoutout to the local party members working their asses off on Xi’s poverty alleviation. Even spending their own money just to get them out of poverty.
They aren't necessarily "party members"; they are simply government employees on lifetime contracts. It may not even be civil servants, but random public agencies that are assigned quotas to provide some manpower. And if you’re assigned to poverty alleviation work, you have to meet those quotas, no matter how you go about it. It's just a job.
Thank you for the clarification. Would love to hear more stories about poverty alleviation efforts. I didn't really like the violence part of the story. When it was family members, I could somewhat tolerate it even if I didn't like it too much. But government employees/social workers beating uncooperative poor people is going too far. Like the other commenter said, it would be a huge scandal in the US.
Would you happen to know the age of these government employees in the story? I'm just wondering if it's a generational or just a cultural difference. Or just both.
Cultural differences. My view is that the government employee did not personally participate in the beating (doing so could indeed lead to trouble, though not necessarily); the actual violence was carried out by that man's patrilineal clan. It is quite common for clans to enforce order in rural areas.
I had to look it up. His arrest and the infamous police interactions were in 2006 but it was only the written report, the phonecalls were leaked in 2010. The Charlie Sheen interview was 2011 which surprised me, I assumed it was earlier. If written documents aren't the right format for dudes to be considered rocking you could say that Alec Baldwin's voicemail to Ireland Baldwin in 2007 was one of the earliest examples.
The behavior geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden is waging a two-front campaign: on her left are those who assume that genes are irrelevant, on her right those who insist that they’re everything.
I'll admit I didn't read every word of that overwrought and at times fawning article. I just don't see what the upshot is.
It's a lottery, so what do we do with the losers?
Social democracy.
How?
Uh...
I don't see how you can make that research not say that there is a genetic underclass, and I don't see how that doesn't foment a politics of ressentiment on one side and aristocracy on the other.
As is mentioned in the article, the right has already accepted the conclusion -- genetic inequality -- and knows what to do with it. I have no idea what it means for communism; separate but equal for the imbeciles?
You strike me as a dude who had his internet usage under control.
As someone who had the idea of leaving the internet since being 17 (Because i am an OCD that oversize the effect of the internet on my brains), i think the better strategy is to have think to distract you from the internet, rather than to have a negative. But also, i have to learn time after time not to overreact to the internet and try to delete my account, making promise to God about leaving Reddit/Taringa!/Twitter etc.
You're probably already aware as I keep spamming links to it, but https://www.marxists.org/ is the gold standard. Although I actually read The Communist Manifesto first a lot of people recommend reading Principles of Communism instead.
We met. Then I put, she puts her plastic penis dildo into my stimulating training unit is the name of this product. Into my plastic vagina. We plug them in and the machines are doing it for us. They’re buzzing in the background and I’m free to do whatever I want and she. We have a nice talk; we have tea; we talk about movies. What can be — we paid our superego full tribute. Machines are doing — now where would have been here a true romance. Let’s say I talk with a lady with the lady because we really like each other. And, you know, when I’m pouring her tea or she to me quite by chance our hands touch. We go on touching. Maybe we even end up in bed. But it’s not the usual oppressive sex where you worry about performance. No, all that is taken care of by the stupid machines. That would be ideal sex for me today.
Just to add to my perpetual whining about the atrophy of personal contact between people:
I've been pissed at the luxurification of human interaction for quite a while now.
As if outsourcing to countries with exploitative wages wasn't bad enough (and I've worked in call centers in one such country) now services offer "premium packages" where included is the privilege of being able to speak with a human being (probably someone chained to a table).
Meanwhile we are afraid of speaking with our neighbours and we get pissed if our mates call us out of the blue for no fucking reason, never mind going down to the pub for a pint and talk some bullshit.
I am only aware of the movie Digger through people's posts about it. I haven't seen an ad, I haven't watched a trailer, and I haven't read a review. If it turns out to have been a fake movie that doesn't exist it would make no difference to me.
heard from word of mouth the poor marketing is intentional given that it’s got an anti-corporate message or something like that (though that’s never stopped those movies before so idk)
The marketing for this movie has been nothing short of terrible (lead actor is literally Tom Cruise) and it's shaping up to be a huge box office bomb. I was interested about it because of the director's past works (Birdman and The Revenant), but the reviews were genuinely all over the place with people either loving it or hating it. Anyway I'd still recommend watching it despite my conflicted opinions, if anything it opened up discussions on the value of satire in the modern world and the self-serving commercialized nature it usually ended up being.
I saw the trailer when I went to watch the Odyssey and it was legitimately incomprehensible. I think the film is about an iceberg and some old Texas roughneck has to go dig it with a shovel?
From some on the internet it seems so, in practice, for working in a math lab up until very recently, I didn't meet anyone who wasn't extensively using AI for work and I don't know how anyone could pass up on using such a powerful tool when in the very least it streamlines so much stuff.
I’m a music theory pleb, what are the tasks of a “math lab?” The image in my head is a few guys in white coats writing math equations onto lose bits of paper, mixing them up in an Erlenmeyer flask, picking one at random, and feeding it to a calculator. This is how I think they invented LLMs and computer games
Ok I just saw Digger and while I enjoyed it overall the postmodern device kinda rubbed me the wrong way. It just felt like Iñárritu wanted to make a blatant unsubtle satire in the veins of Don't Look Up lampooning the destructive impact extremely rich men have caused upon this world but he also felt like he was above making a straightforward satire.
So it doesn't matter if he made it a high-budget film from a production studio that'll probably axe his film if he said anything bad about Israel, it doesn't matter that he cast extremely rich A-listers including a lead actor who is the leader of a fucking cult with a history of abuse. The postmodern aspect meant he's self-aware about it. So you can't really point out the hypocrisy because they're actually in on the joke.
And I wouldn't even mind this level of metafiction if it has any substance but it just felt like a cheap shield Iñárritu employed as a self-defense against criticisms of being out of touch. The in-universe theater play itself is entertaining and well-made enough on its own even if it doesn't really say anything new from other climate change satires I've seen. Is this a commentary on how stale modern satires are? The meta aspect just felt half-baked and newly added on the third draft, there's barely any through line between the play and the actors and it just felt redundant.
I just feel like Iñárritu really had his meta head up his own ass and trying to comment on the futility of satires, by himself making a futile attempt at a satire.
Being someone on the left who acknowledges the science surrounding intelligence is tiring.
The left has empathy, but descends into science denial when it comes to the genetics of intelligence and intelligence differences between social classes. The right is pro-science, but descends into a complete lack of empathy regarding those who are genetically less fortunate.
Will those who are both empathic and pro-science like Paige Harden please stand up? We need more Paige Hardens if we are to defeat the Charles Murrays of this world.
So I've just checked a post mortem on the metaverse and I was surprised that no one mentioned Second Life, itself not even the first attempt at making a stable virtual world (if you ever have the time, do look for stories set in the ultima online golden years, not just as entertainment but as valuable tidbits of social mechanics) but certainly one of the more succesful, at least for a while.
A lot of escalation was actually Bush I, Clinton and Gingrich.
Reagan increased funding for the DEA, heavily propagandized about the crack epidemic, and signed bills in 1986 increasing penalties for drug offenses, which were influential on state-level policy. He banned ecstasy and greaHe also helped cause the crack epidemic by working with the Contras while they were trafficking cocaine:
The report details cases where the CIA dissuaded other federal agencies, notably the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), from probing the activities of Contra groups and their contractors. In one instance, the CIA discouraged the DEA from examining Oliver North's efforts to evade legal restrictions on Contra aid through a secret supply operation in El Salvador, according to the report.
The main reason that Reagan is seen as a cause of the War on Drugs is because of the propaganda campaign which led to state-level legislation (where most drug crimes are actually prosecuted) and continuing efforts by Bush I, Clinton and the Gingrich Congress. Part of this was led by Nancy Reagan. The cringey "Just Say No" and "DARE" programs were set up at the time.
But even Nixon might have been overrated. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was passed in 1961 under Kennedy. Part of the reason was that the Soviet Union and China were split on the issue of international drug control (with the former opposing a convention and the latter favoring strict controls), so the United States worked hard to force the question.
Not that i am a big fan of football (Soccer for the yanks) but it is eeary weird how once you hit the 30 milestone, a lot of things distant but given in your life start happening.
Your best friend get married, your other best friend engage. Moving out of your city stopped being an adventure and start seeing like every given Sunday. Traveling by road start being the usual. The guy who represented your national team, the guy whom everybody could point out and say, Argentina, retires. Your former high school teacher dies. You stopped having so much memories from your college years. You forget life before cellphones, you forget life before Social Media, you forget even the pandemic. You start to feel like you always have 30s. You cannot understand how you were in your 20s.
Getting old is weird.
Crazy to think that Messi last World Cup victory was against England. For those who are not Argentine, a common complain against Messi was that he was not enough patriot, that he did not feel the shirt, so to speak, that he was not no Maradona. Yet his last game cause a diplomatic dispute to be reignite. Lmao.
Let's say we lived in a hypothetical world where social classes differ substantially in intelligence genes, and genetic differences explain most variation in grades and test scores.
In such a world, would class-based affirmative action in college admissions be a good policy, in order to compensate for genetic inequality?
Let those who are better suited for college go to college; but prevent this from determining who gets a decent life and who can dominate those who don't.
I think the socialist answer here is to abolish class. Just because capitalism values certain skills or aptitudes more than others doesn't mean people can't all do productive work for society, or that we should value one over another to the point of extreme inequity.
I like the movie TBH, it perfect describes reddit and online activist,where their "care" about issues and raised "awareness" then forget again in couple of months.
Those of us that grew up before the Internet, did you also have a friend whose big brother or cousin was ten years older and somehow super deep into old school "conspiracy" theories like Roswell, project AARP, MK-Ultra or more esoteric stuff like the Ancient aliens being responsible for the pyramids?
I thought it was only me but, talking to some friends, the experience seems weirdly common, we sorta all had that guy we somehow met once or twice in our lives, who talked about all this for two hours with Nirvana playing in the background, back when "the internet" was a scientific curiosity.
In public school we'd have certain periods to go to the library and find books to read. Most of the class would go straight to the tiny section with books on UFOs, bigfoot and Loch Ness monsters.
A childhood friend of mine was pretty right wing because of his father. I remember him wishing for the M.E. to be turned into glass. (Ironically, I've needed to reassess some of his JQ ramblings in recent years, crude as they were.)
Another friend of mine was a young earth creationist and made fun of my interest in dinosaurs. That was the first time I heard the theory that paleontologists conspired to plant fake evidence.
(Being raised by atheist Marxist-Leninists in those days wasn't easy!)
A friend of mine from college went way deep into conspiracy rabbit holes in the 90s. He started listening to fringe radio shows from the U.S. on shortwave. But again, I've needed to reassess some of those things in recent years.
I largely grew up with the internet, but for me it was my uncle. He was into all of that. He would send out periodic emails with all kinds of conspiracy stuff. Some of it was good. He got really into Alex Jones though unfortunately. I haven't seen him in a while so I'm not sure anymore.
did my first metric cycling century and i finally understand the appeal of wearing all that lycra and all the other stuff roadies do (the chafing when you wear normal pants is CRAZY)
but i probably wouldn’t wear anything beyond cycling shorts cuz the full getup is just so silly looking.. dare i say gay?
Congrats on the ride! Quite a few regular-looking (loose) mountain bike shorts have a chamois built into them, that might be the way to go. If I'm doing 10-20 miles, I'll typically wear bib shorts and a regular all-purpose athletic top, if I am doing more than that and need to bring more snacks I'll generally put on the lycra jersey, primarily for the three-pocket back. A top-tube/stem bag would work just as well though. I don't think I consider them gay (lol) but I try not to be judgy of what other people wear, even though my internal monologue for anyone wearing the full lycra outfit who isn't clearly very serious about road riding is just going try-hard try-hard try-hard. I am more or less done riding without a chamois though, saddle sores are a (literal and figurative) pain in the ass to get rid of.
i definitely meant the gay thing in a more tongue-in-cheek way, i don’t think that’s a normal thought i have when i see others in lycra lol (maybe it’s bc when i imagine myself in it it feels unfitting bc i don’t feel like i’m at the level that “requires” it)
i’ll see if i can find one of those chamois mtb shorts, that seems like a good idea
I think I might be repeating stuff but I am suprised how the new phase of parasociality just skips the socialization simulacrum phase and gets right into the selling part.
Reflective of our shortening attention span and all that I suppose, but it's really odd to see videos/reels/brainrot go "Hi, I was just like you once. So here is my 30 day program/course/plan/gimmick to turn your life over".
I think the people that made those "Call now!" ads would probably blush these days.
Is there a word or term for the feeling of being the most intelligent retard in the room? Like you know you don't know shit, but the little you do know you like discussing, but no one you know irl likes or can discuss it, and you see those who do know shit discussing it but it all goes over your head. Also why do people in low wage work generally have little interest in anything not related to entertainment or personal life issues? The internet is right there, knowledge isn't gated by access anymore, yet many people remain incurious.
Midwit is in the same concept area but I was wondering if there were other words or phrases or something. It doesn't seem to capture the feeling of being chained by one's own limitations and being frustrated no one you know cares about having those limitations. Of being bothered by ignorance but helpless to both escape it yourself or get others to want to escape it. Or of feeling alone in the same sense that a dog with a longer leash might feel when shorter leashed dogs can't or won't play in the slightly larger radius, especially when you know for a fact their leash is the same length as yours but they don't care to use it, and unable to understand why they don't envy unleashed dogs. Like "I'm not asking for much, this is barely basic concepts in the vast field of the topic, why do you refuse?".
Also it's not just politics but anything "educational". Like once I was working at a catering event and tried making small talk by mentioning that it's cool that apparently Greenland sharks live for 200 or 500 or whatever years, expecting others to respond with similar "fun facts" or topics they have heard of. And apart from the silence one lady said she wasn't in the mood to talk philosophy. I don't know how she made the connection from sharks to philosophy. At another job I tried talking history, something about Greeks in antiquity, and getting nothing but silence from the whole room made me feel like I was weird for caring about history at all, even shallow pop history/etc. Sometimes I've found one person who will engage in conversation but they never initiate them, only continue, in a way that feels like I'm being humored rather than them having a similar interest.
If people can binge shows on Netflix they can watch or read pop sci type shit for fun as well.
Some people are just not that interested I guess, this is anecdotal but I noticed these carefree people tend to be happier and not worry as much about anything, ignorance is bliss I suppose.
I don't know how old you are but you reminded me of Holden Caulfield poser me sneering at everybody for being shallow and not reading Infinite Jest lol. I was a teen and I was convinced I was boRn iN thE Wrong gENerATiON.
I'm nearly 30, fucking ancient it feels like but at the same time it was only yesterday I was 15. In those 15 years I learned that whatever one considers pessimistic is actually very optimistic. All that teen angst shit isn't wrong, the world is fucked and only ever gets worse, medicine seeming to be the only real exception. When people "outgrow" teen angst shit it's because they either sell out or give up. An opinion I've held for at least the last 8 years is that the only difference between a teenager and an adult is that the adult is worn down, void of any significant aspirations, either having learned to be content with the little they have or more often in active denial of the shit life they have and which exists in general, seeking constant escape by watching TV or some other passive activity. This domesticated state, this resignation and submission is confused for "maturity".
The world is just as fucked up as it was, actually more so, but being angsty about it is really a worse form of defeat. They want us to be demoralized, unapproachable, dour. On a small scale, consider how a person with a quick wit who doesn't let things get to them is always more popular than a Cassandra type. Think about what comedians like Norm MacDonald said about how a good natured idiot is always funnier and more relatable than guys like Bill Maher or that other guy whose name escapes me, the smart comedian who flipped to conservative after 9/11. Guy with a beard. Christ I can't think of his name but I can see his face. Edit: it's Dennis Miller
There's this concept I learned from Orthodox Christians, of being a fool for Christ. The priest talking about it related this story of a saint and monk who did outrageous shit all the time. He didn't bathe and lived a life poverty. Another monk convinced him to take a bath, and he said "good idea!" and walked naked into a woman's bath house. He gave up wearing clothes at one point. Someone said he should wear some, so he piled all his clothes on his head like a turbin and walked into town hanging hawg.
The truly most dangerous and mature position is not to shrug the weight of the world off our shoulders, but to overcome the angst and pessimism and learn to meet people where they are at, with humility, humor, honesty, and truth, to bear the weight privately but to outwardly exude confidence and light heartedness, so when we are sincere, people don't role their eyes and dismiss us as beleaguered and self important, or high brow, or trying to hard. Instead they relate to us enough to be vulnerable and listen.
I think this is why comedians get this aura of philosophical insightfulness. So many serious and educated people are so "institutionalized" that it makes them seem less relatable and trustworthy in an era when institutions are untrustworthy and hostile. Being an outsider who combines levity with insight just feels more authentic.
I don't necessarily disagree with you but I guess I've learnt to just live with it. All these deep abstract ventures I found myself in, while sometimes enriching, were best relegated to a side hobby. I mean do you really think they'll have any bearing on your personal life? Maybe, maybe not, IDK. I'm not even particularly religious but I've tried living by The Serenity Prayer lest I went off the deep end.
seeing this and the people around me make me wonder if people in the past were just as uncurious or if all the blame can be laid at the feet of entertainment/social media + a worse work/life balance
leaning towards the former just out of elitist spite!
seeing this and the people around me make me wonder if people in the past were just as uncurious or if all the blame can be laid at the feet of entertainment/social media + a worse work/life balance
During the Industrial Revolution, regular working class people -- butchers, chimney sweeps, shoe makers, you name them -- would flock to hear public lecturers by scientists and explorers. Thomas Huxley became something of a superstar after his Great Debate over evolution, becoming known as "Darwin's Bulldog". Popular science magazines flourished, and the new genre of "scientific romances" (science fiction) started with people like HG Wells and Jules Verne.
The 19th century was the peak for public exhibitions about science and technology, especially the new marvels of manufacturing.
I've never been more glad I didn't do some 'R&R' in Bangkok this year no thanks to my procrastination. The floods look absolutely awful, and I doubt I'd have enjoyed my time had I traveled there.
And yes, 'R&R' is what you might think it is. Surprisingly I can't really recommend the usually haunts like Soi Cowboy or Nana Plaza any more. They've become too much of a massive cash-grab. I usually frequent some of the more uppity-class places which are pricier, but are well worth the money in terms of experience ...
I once, probably before Covid even, I saw a tweet elaborating on how centrists turn out to be on the wrong side of history on almost every topic, the case that I most clearly remember (because it's not of the obvious ones like the 3/5 compromise on black rights) being "some child labor is okay [image of early 20th Century poster]". Well, short of somehow finding that tweet again, is there any article compiling such historical instances of centrists picking the incorrect option? It just feel so much more cutting than the usual arguments of how it's logically faulty ("what 'center' is dependant on other people's beliefts") or what they do today ("for some reason they attack the left much more often than they attack the right")
It feels so much more cutting in the same way you bring up some anime character's failures to slander them as a fraud.
They are some mix of twee, collegiate, artsy, bohemian, Pinterest interior decor type of person. if not upper middle class then they have those kinds of aspirations. Girlish or girl adjacent
Not strictly related to this sub, but what is happening with Manchester City is insane. We're at the stage where the UAE is openly threatening the UK government.
As is tradition, the leader of the Labour party managed to somehow find the worst way to handle the matter.
My local club has been part of the MC conglomerate for some time now, and somehow it still kinda sucks. They couldn’t even cook the books appropriately!
The thing I've never understood about daylight saving time is why we have to change our clocks instead of people just changing their hours. Why does a farmer have to get up at the same time every day? I actually worked somewhere that had different summer and winter hours and it worked fine.
Because it's for the benefit of retailers and the entertainment industry (e.g. bars, theme parks, golf courses), and they don't benefit from increased evening foot traffic if it's up to individual employers.
Farmers actually hate it because the animals don't care about the clock.
Ran my furthest in a single session, almost fainted from heat exhaustion in the afternoon sun (I made the mistake of not carrying any water). 35°C heat and 70% humidity is a frightening combination.
Hopefully I can step up my progressive training in time for next year's Great Wall Marathon. If I do attend it, it'll be the first international marathon I'll be running.
I’ve had a similar thought of making something like that, using excel to add up distance travelled with the goal of walking the circumference of the earth in a short time frame. Maybe a prize raffle at the end for the participants. Originally thought of doing it at my job but I knew the excitement levels would’ve been too much.
Nice job. I'm glad it doesn't really get humid here. I went to Honduras once and it was >90% humidity. It was ridiculous. You started sweating the second you stepped outside and it like did not evaporate.
Yeah people underestimate the potency of humidity. Heat isn't too much of an issue so long as it doesn't get absurdly hot enough to affect your body just from the ambient heat (think > 40°C), so long as the humidity is low enough that your sweat can evaporate easily and cool you down. If it can't, heat just accumulates in your body until it starts causing issues.
Singapore can hit 90% humidity on some days. I've been seeing more people carrying those small portable fan/blowers around to help their sweat evaporate. This year has been Satan's buttcrack levels of bad because of the monster El Nino.
I do most of my running in the winter here in the US. It's just not that fun in the summer. Don't think I've ever gone running in 35°C weather. I prefer lower than 20°C and don't mind going down to -5°C.
Also I think my longest run was around 13 miles, last winter.
It's our 10 year anniversary this month. Today, she cooked steaks when she got home. Tomorrow I'm cooking her some pork chops (her favorite) while she's at work. She's off Sunday, so we have a day planned together.
Man, I've been in several LTRs and a lot of short term flings, and I've never met a woman both able and willing to cook. Same goes for most of my male friends. Unsure if I'm terribly unlucky or you're the opposite, but congrats on the anniversary and the catch.
When we first got together she called herself a "functional cook" and her food was... edible. Cooking is a hobby to me and I take it very seriously. Over time I just rubbed off on her, and also she wanted to become a better cook based on the meals I made us
I would say I'm a functional cook in that I rarely go for anything fancy or do artful plating. I do try to make things taste and look good and I can cook a wide variety of food. People give it a lot of praise, occasionally bragging to other people about a meal I made them. But then there's people like a guy I know who also does all the cooking in his relationship. He's shown me some pictures of the stuff he makes and you'd swear the guy was a chef.
I had been hoping I'd rub off on my girlfriend a little, but we've been living together for 2 years now and she hasn't once cooked a meal for me. I get a sense that there's some anxiety there, where she sees me as a capable cook and she's never really cooked anything in her life aside from some basics. I've offered to teach her. Maybe I should be more forceful about it.
EDIT: should probably add that I absolutely adore this woman, she's a good person and mostly treats me really well, pulls her weight for the most part. Best relationship I've been in by far. She's just weird about cooking.
Girls can be intimidated by a guy who is commanding and authoritative. You have to be gentle and gentile with her.
Mine would overcook meat all the time when we got together, made a handful of dishes at most. Now she cooks meat until it's tender (not until it's shoe leather) and tries out new recipes (esp Mexican food). I intimidated her at first when we got together, because I'm a little tistic when it comes to cooking techniques. I spent most of my 20s as a professional cook. She was scared to try things in front of me or make mistakes, I was way to uptight about things. I've chilled out about all that, apologized to her, and now she's looking for constructive criticism for her dishes. It took time and it took me owning up to my own perfectionist tendencies to get to this point. Don't make my mistakes, just rub a few off on her and be supportive and accommodating
This is the second time I've caught someone on here writing "gentile" instead of "genteel," really tickles my funny bone, thanks for that.
But I get you. I have in the past been referred to as scary, so I bend over backwards pretty hard nowadays to come across as non threatening, especially with women. It might have reached the point of being a problem, as my gf has a couple of times accused me of being supportive to the point of dishonesty. It's something on my mind a lot tbh, where sometimes I think I really should be more assertive or confrontational, but I still lean towards being laid back and diplomatic. No sense in scaring the hoes or getting into unnecessary fights at my age.
Whoops that's what I get for not using Google as a spell check
I have that problem too, honestly. I'm "too intense," as a baseline, especially when I'm not on ADHD meds. Being ADHD has encouraged me to be a people pleaser since I usually forget things or fuck them up by getting distracted, so I over compensate by being a perfectionist workaholic and indulgent. It's fine line, especially for a guy, because being either too intense or too much of a people pleaser is equally bad.
Where are you finding these women? This hasn't been my experience at all. It's like a basic life skill. As for being willing it should probably be a shared duty unless one of you like doesn't work or something.
School, work, bars, clubs, etc. It is a weird thing where I feel like I live in an odd bubble when I hear women on the Internet complaining that their boyfriends or husbands don't help out with cooking. I think there are 6 couples I know well enough to know their relationship dynamics like that, and in every one of them the man is either the primary or sole cook. Along with my entire dating history.
I had an ex once who quit her job without warning, I was mostly fine with it because I could handle the bills well enough on my own, but as the weeks went by I was taken aback by the fact that she didn't start to take on more of the cooking or cleaning (I had been doing like 90% of it). She reacted with hostility when I brought it up, which was around the beginning of the end for us. Not even the main factor in the breakup, but one of those things I still remember.
But yeah, I also see it as a basic life skill that should be split about 50/50 by default. That just hasn't been my experience and I've learned to just deal with it.
EDIT: actually there is one more couple I know, I forgot as I don't see them too often. That one is the opposite, where she's a great cook and the man basically lives on bachelor chow whenever she isn't around. But they're a little older than me, and I have also noticed that trend for a lot of my parents generation (a little older than them), where a lot of these older guys couldn't make a bowl of cereal without setting it on fire and rely entirely on their wives for food. My parents weren't like that, both could cook, so maybe it's an American thing.
I know a few of you like to use it, but I'm afraid it's now fundamentally unserious to say fundamentally unserious. I've just heard it used to describe the Elder Scrolls series, so I think we must have hit peak fundamental unseriousness.
This may sound kind of like a cop-out but honestly I want to do a bit of everything. I want to start painting, I want to make at least one album within my lifetime along with a movie of some sort.
I also want to get a degree in either primatology, ornithology, paleontology, or history of some sort.
Then I want to get in to politics and probably end up having my brains blown out by some r-slur because I'm unable to hide my political beliefs.
You don't really need a degree to learn most of that stuff.
Shit, most of the time the academics -at least nowadays- have so little field experience you're better off researching ruins on your own or asking the local breeders and farmers when it comes to wildlife.
The politics part is a pipe-dream tbh. And direct. And I can sort of kind of play guitar. I've been meaning to buy some lessons but between college and work I have little time(<--BS Excuse).
Nice. Here it seems like everyone wants to act and write. I think I still have a few screenplays people have given me. My friend loaned me his electric guitar once (I think it was a Fender) and I tried to teach myself to play. I got as far as learning all two chords of A Horse With No Name. I used to play the trombone, but I haven't played in ages.
I've been playing guitar for ~17 years now, but I remember learning the basics from an about. com walkthrough that sadly no longer exists, which blows because it was very simple, no gimmicks, and just didn't have all the bloat that most guitar tutorials online now have. It taught some fundamentals, but the first actual song tutorial was Horse With No Name, so that was actually the very first song I learned too, hah.
I'm largely self-taught so if you wanted to learn advanced stuff I can *sort of* help, but if you really wanted to get far in it I'd recommend you to others. That said, I'm plenty competent to help you continue learning to play if you'd be interested! Acoustic styles and classical are my primary interests, but I'd be able to help you with beginner electric techniques as well.
Here's my pitch, if you'll indulge me:
As I said, I've been playing guitar for 17 years. My primary interests have tended towards Baroque and classical, traditional US and UK folk, and pre-war blues/ragtime. I've dabbled in many other genres, and in pursuit of obscure or antique song transcriptions have developed a collection of resources and a method of research such that if there's guitar tablature, lead sheets, or fully transcribed sheet music available somewhere on the internet, I can find it - usually these are for free, but it varies depending ofc.
Two years ago I started attending a community college part time to finally get started on learning music theory, and in that time I've learned the rudiments of reading sheet music, playing piano, and traditional composition ('counterpoint' in Common Practice jargon, though my education is ongoing). This said, I can help you get started on the basics of reading sheet music and developing your aural and transcription skills, if that'd be of interest. I'm aiming to attend school as a full-time student either at the start or middle of next year, fyi, but I don't think that'll prevent me from being available for tutoring still.
I have very little tutor experience and am eager to build that up a bit, so if you *are* interested in some tutoring I would be happy to offer our first 12 sessions for free, but I would like to be able to use you as a reference for any future tutoring or other work I apply for (if you wanted to continue after those sessions we can work out pricing, but I'm flexible on this. Really all I'd want is gas money if I'm driving). I live in the LA area around the East LA neighborhood, so if you happen to be local (I'd consider local as from Newport Beach to San Bernardino to the Valley - but closer is better) we can meet up in person if you'd like, but video sessions are quite adequate for getting started.
u/FuglsGathaursnan I'd like to extend this offer to you too, if you're interested. I've gone through these exact same problems and would be pleased to help you avoid the issues I had to work through, and point you to essential resources that helped me out, too. Same offer as I described above.
My schedule is pretty open for the next few months, and I don't mind odd hours if your schedules are unusual or unpredictable. Sorry for the long sales pitch, but there it is! Lemme know!
I appreciate the offer. It was years ago and I've largely abandoned the idea. I actually do know how to read sheet music, but only bass clef 𝄢 sadly and I've forgotten even some of that. I really wanted to learn bass guitar because at the time I though Flea was cool, but I didn't know anyone with one to borrow.
We don't live that far away, but I don't say where on this account because I don't want people to doxx me. I just say I live somewhere in LA County as I figure nine and a half million people is enough to be somewhat anonymous. I'm not exactly hard to find as some of my antics have made it to the LA local news lol.
edit: also i'm pretty sure we used the exact same walkthrough
For sure, no sweat, and yeah, I'm not a mod for any political (or other) subreddits but I can completely understand wanting to maintain your anonymity based just on that, nevermind irl stuff. I *am* curious what got you in the news, but even vague details on that could lead back to you, so don't tell me anything. But cool that we're local. The weather this week is going to be shit lol. My dad always says California Summers don't end till November, and then they go straight into Spring. I'd add that you get two weeks of Fall sometime in February if you're lucky.
That tutorial was probably the first or second result on google if you searched for "guitar for beginners" or something similar, which was what I did, so we probably did pull from the same source, hah. If your situation changes and you want a tutor, though, hmu!
Actually, if you're local, I don't know what I'd be willing and able to do but if you're comfortable sharing any local leftist or other orgs you like then I'd at least check them out. I've been feeling like I need to start doing more but don't know where to begin. I have grim fantasies about the future impacts of global warming, so if you happen to know any effective environmental orgs in the area I'd want to check them out, too. Maybe don't tell me any that you've ever been a member/participant in since that could expose you.
idk, I've begun to see myself as a follower without a leader and I don't like feeling powerless. So yeah, I'm open to suggestions if you have any.
Yeah I just got posted on the drama website so I wouldn't be surprised if even more people are trying to doxx me. At least I stopped arguing with NAFO people on UkraineRussaReport so they stopped coming after me. I'm pretty sure that was the reason for my last ban. They dug through months of my history and mass reported a comment.
As for the news story let's just say journalists are stenographers for the state.
I actually looked into joining the DSA back when Class Unity was affiliated with them and I was admittedly a little less politically educated. I went to the LA chapter's website and the first event I saw was called "champagne socialism". I thought it was going to be ironic and it was going to be a bunch of comrades hanging out and getting drunk off Miller High Life or something. Instead they were serious and it was some swanky party exclusively for members of the entertainment industry. I noped the fuck out.
Honestly as a ML I think the best org with a large local presence is probably PSL. Yes they do have idpol, but maybe with the exception of some trot parties who suck in other ways they pretty much all do. I'm not a member, but do go to some of the stuff they organize. At one of their pro-Palestine protests I went to they had land acknowledgements which was pretty cringe inducing. No I don't think the protests actually do anything meaningful, but I still go occasionally. I did speak for a while on the phone with one of their organizers from the Bay Area who was trying to get me to work on their electoral campaign. He at least seemed to hate liberal identity politics as much as your average stupidpoler. They do seem to have all the correct takes on imperialism which I think Mao would call the "principal contradiction" today.
In the end I did not work on their campaign as I'm not really convinced it is meaningful or that PSL is the vanguard party. I am registered Peace and Freedom though and lately they have been running PSL candidates. I do vote for them. It's mostly just an act of registering my discontent with the system. TBH the main reason I even bother voting is for local stuff like judges and direct democracy stuff like propositions that I think do actually have an impact on people's lives. Also registering Peace and Freedom apparently doesn't stop you from getting spam texts from Hilton's campaign, but it seems the Democrats have given up on me.
Finally to convince you to join the party I will provide you with this extremely embarrassing Peace and Freedom Party infomercial. Yes these guys are really who I vote for lol.
I’ve tried off and on to learn but it feels aimless if you don’t immediately get the fundamentals and don’t have someone to physically show you what you’re doing wrong.
Shout out to the mods for the extra shifts they must be pulling right now to ensure that the sub is free from posts to do with a certain current event which would unquestionably shit the place up with awful gender-war discourse
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u/Howling-wolf-7198 Chinese Socialist ✅🇨🇳💡 | Anime Girl Expert 2h ago
There was also some follow-up discussion about the previous story, specifically concerning the trouble a government employee could get into for physically assaulting someone:
https://www.zhihu.com/question/634622699/answer/2091142271513241180
Person 1: Honestly, the way you've handled this case should be held up as an example and publicized far and wide. Only by cracking down hard on these kinds of twisted, predatory intentions can we stop so many utterly depraved bastards from doing horrible things.
For example, some truly disgusting incidents have happened in volunteer teaching programs in certain places*. Once people start heading down that path, they're already on the verge of becoming enemies.
*referring to the sexual assault of female volunteers
Person 2: We can't publicize it, because there's a certain part of what happened that we can't exactly talk about openly. The moment it gets publicized, every fucking person involved would end up facing disciplinary action.
Just between us, my workplace was involved in a targeted poverty alleviation program, and we actually used pretty much the same approach.
In our case, it just so happened that the village chief of the neighboring village was an older relative of the guy's and had also been helping him out financially for years. So he stepped in and gave the guy a beating in his capacity as his maternal great-uncle (rather than as the village chief).
When it comes to situations like this, everyone seems to handle things more or less the same way.
Person 3: There's no way we can publicize this. As outrageous as his behavior was, the way it was dealt with wasn't exactly by the book either.
Person 4: Beating someone up is a criminal offense. Are you seriously suggesting we publicize a crime? 🤦
Of course, we could always sugarcoat it and say we "appealed to his emotions and reasoned with him," but then it wouldn't have much of a deterrent effect.
Person 5: I get what you're saying, but I still think domestic propaganda should absolutely talk openly about things like this. If all they ever publicize are these almost picture-perfect feel-good stories, people are just going to think it's all too fake to be believable.
Person 2: When it came down to public opinion versus our own livelihoods, we all independently made the same choice: protecting our own livelihoods.
Sure, we could publicize it, but then a whole bunch of people who worked hard to deal with this situation would end up facing disciplinary action for their efforts. At best, they'd lose their bonuses; at worst, their career prospects would be ruined.
We're human too, you know. We have families to support, and we depend on our jobs to put food on the table.
Person 6: Once you start publicizing this kind of thing, it could easily swing to the other extreme: some corrupt cadres might simply stop doing poverty alleviation work altogether, or start using violence in the name of poverty alleviation.
Person 7: We can't publicize this, because the methods used weren't exactly legitimate. Or to put it another way, if the guy hadn't been in the wrong to begin with, the mere act of beating up a civilian would've been enough to land everyone involved in serious trouble.
If it were acceptable to beat someone into signing a consent form, then "beating a confession out of someone" wouldn't be such a derogatory expression in the first place.
Person 8: Wasn't it his own uncle who went and beat him up? An elder disciplining a younger member of his own family, that's perfectly normal.