RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive480
My critical review of Crichton's "State of Fear"[edit]
In the past I've clashed with people here, and I'm not willing to revoke what I stated, but that doesn't mean that I'd be against everything RW stands for. Especially, I'm still against denial of the climate catastrophe. I hope you're smart enough to understand that.
Regarding research for the book - the first flaw which made me suspicious came pretty early, with the Pacific island state threatened by the climate catastrophe called "Vanutu". Does he want to avoid being sued by the real state of Vanuatu (for which they'd have a good reason), or is he simply allowed to be sloppy, as the mass-selling author he was? Both is quite possible. - An author who's just finished his first book wouldn't be treated that gently by his publisher/editor, but he...
But compared to the other flaws, this is really just a minor thing.
A somewhat bigger one which also insults human intelligence (not because not all of them believe in the reality of the threat of the climate catastrophe, but because he implies they were too stupid to make exact temperature measurements - Solshenitsyn's "Ivan Denisovich" clearly shows that even uneducated GULAG prisoners can read thermometers): When he gives the readers some temperature curves, he cherry-picks less than two dozen from thousands which exist.
What does Crichton actually believe now? Hard to tell since we can't read his thoughts, esp. now that he's dead. But given his pseudo-reasons, he manages to contradict himself: Is the problem that humans were too stupid or dishonest to measure temperatures? Are the measurements correct, but invalid, because cities have grown and made the places where temperature is measured hotter? (If Crichton wasn't dishonest, why didn't he ask the actual scientists in a polite way whether this was the case?) Does it matter anyway because (only according to Crichton and similar people) "nobody" can make predictions about climate? There's really no reason for me to contradict Crichton if he does it himself. At the end, it's not surprising that he fails: After all, he (or his main character Evans) even manages to call less than two dozen tables "many". That's just a small step above the people who can only "count" "One... two... many"! Except that these "primitive" people may have been just uneducated, whereas Crichton...
Apropos Evans: He appears to be a modern Simplicius. A well-meaning, but not all that intelligent (despite being a lawyer... well, as a Bavarian author said about one of his characters "He was a grade-A jurist and in other ways of limited reason too") guy, who initially believes those who warn re: the climate catastrophe, but later sees the error of his ways during the plot. A trick that's centuries old, but Crichton's the very opposite of the man who had the original idea and doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Crichton: None lesser than Galileo.
The most impressive (but not valid) (pseudo-)reason given by Crichton is the long literature list. In which he perfidiously (more about that later) mixes both pseudo-science by obvious climate catastrophe deniers with really great and read-worthy authors like Daniel Kahneman and Dietrich Dörner. (Who are psychologists though, not hard scientists.) Doesn't help a bit though if he hasn't understood them, like an ape "reading" philosophy books. Coincidentally, I've read the mentioned Dörner book ("Die Logik des Misslingens" - The logic of failure). That's why I know that Crichton is simply wrong when he claims that the simulation (about a third-world village in the steppes of Africa) in said book proved that this complex system had to break down. Dörner (who doesn't deserve that Crichton twists his words like that) clearly states that it is possible to play the simulation in a way that doesn't destroy everything - it's just that most of the people who tried failed to.
After having seen that Crichton is unable to understand the good books he quotes, the rest is easy to refute intellectually. It makes a disgusting read, though. That's the only challenge about the... not so much book, rather a dead tree with words printed on.
The weak plot of the... book (weak because he wastes so much time on pseudo-reasoning and naked insults) doesn't fit into a book that's supposed to be serious. Because its villains (radical ecologists who are able to break off California, or at least break off a huge iceberg to cause noticeable floods) would rather fit into an old James Bond movie. Pretty stupid idea of Crichton to mix science and entertainment that way.
Obviously he hasn't read Umberto Eco's text about ur-fascism (not that I think anymore Crichton would be able to), or he would have noticed that he's making the same mistake as the fascists: He seems to think that his enemies - those warning about the threat the climate catastrophe is - were at the same time weak (so weak that he may attack them) and strong enough to commit supervillainy. Just like the Nazis did with the Jews.
Hell, the villains of the... book aren't just willing to commit murder, but to cooperate with literal cannibals to have their enemies eaten. (At this point, Crichton also delivers a "Take That!" to people who have sympathies to poor Third World people. And said Third World people, esp. non-white ones.)
With the stupidities and insults (does he want to make those of his readers who believe the climate scientists angry, so they'll be unable to think and find his flaws?) out of the way, I'll now cover the obvious lies.
His "hero" lives (of course) in a humble apartment with 80 square meters, whereas the villains (Hollywood actors incl. someone who's supposed to be Martin "The West Wing" Sheen and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs) live in mansions of 1,000+ sq m and fly private jets, so the "hero" can condemn their hypocrisy (...). What's that supposed to mean, proving RL points with fictional characters? If he could prove such people exist IRL, why doesn't he name them? Because he's too afraid that they might sue his pants off, or do worse? (After all, he writes that ecologists might be up to supervillainy.)
(BTW: Could it be that the author Crichton was envious of the actors, directors, let alone SV billionaires who have either way more fans or way much more money than him or both? Is that his motivation for writing the book?)
(And how much money did Crichton actually own, and how did he spend it? Could it be that he owns a big mansion or a private jet even? Given how much money was made with "JP", it could well be.)
People who warn deserve to be compared to Malthus or worse? Crichton writes as if he never heard of the saying that only madmen and economists can believe that a finite world (even the visible universe is finite...) allowed infinite growth (on the condition that the growth rate is above a certain epsilon > 0). Like it or not, when Malthus is right, he's right. And after all, I'm not aware that any influential ecologist made the some inhuman demands as he did.
"Nobody" knows how much of global warming was a natural phenomenon, or caused by humans, or how far it'll go? Even the word "nobody" as used here is a big disgusting lie. Does Crichton believe he could read the thoughts of all humans, or at least of all climate scientists? Did he check every single paper in the world about climate science?
He even dares to make comparisons to Lysenko's pseudo-science. If he to talk about ideologies so radical they become insane: Libertarianism (like that of the Koch brothers who spend so much money on denying the climate catastrophe!) is an ideology as well. Except that it hasn't had the opportunity so far to kill millions of people, or at least not in ways as obvious as re: Stalinists and Nazis. But there was a time when the Nazis already existed but hadn't murdered millions yet, and I have to know.
He should rather have stated that he didn't bother to look for reasons refuting him. If he had, he wouldn't just mention strawman arguments. He should rather admit that he's too afraid that those who warn about a climate catastrophe could be actually right. And too afraid he might have to give up the luxury he's living in.
Now to the hubris and fake-humility of Crichton which deserve their own section.
He promises in the book that there was a way to get away from fossil fuels - without (he claims) laws, financial incentives, political programs, or fearmongering from professionals. Does he think now he could predict the future, esp. the minds of millions of people - not just in general, but all the ideas they'll have?
Crichton even claims that the precautionary principle was refuting itself. WTH? If he had understood it, he'd have to see that it's him (or those who paid him) to prove that burning lots of fossil fuels won't damage our climate beyond the point of no return. He doesn't even bother to explain - as if he was none lesser than the biblical deity who had no need for explanations. It's hard to decide whether his stupidity or audacious dishonesty is worse here. He reminds me of those fools who wanted to falsify falsification.
Now to Crichton's perfidy which is even worse than everything mentioned so far.
Crichton already proves to be a perfidious hypocrite by screaming about how those who warn re: climate catastrophe spread fear (hence the title), while screaming at the same time of their supposed "Neostalinism" and "Fascism". (Pointing out that Stalinism and fascism/nazism were deadly enemies for which this world was too small to coexist looks like mere nitpicking at this point.)
If he's really so much against fearmongering, who doesn't he dish out equally against:
- Neoliberals/libertarians who scream about Stalinism/Socialism/Communism whenever the state makes a new rule, no matter how much sense it makes and how justified it is (as former Soviet citizen Maxim Gorsky said: Only people who never had to live under real Socialism can talk that way)
- Rightists who scream about the end of their nation/people/"the West"/the white "race" at every opportunity
- "Christian" and other fundies who scream about Satan/the Antichrist at every opportunity
He commits more hypocrisy by claiming to admire people who are able to change their opinion if they get more information. (Information can be false!) Then he better shouldn't admire the Koch brothers and such.
He claims that he wanted a new environmental movement but doesn't even make suggestions for it, let alone real deeds. I rather suspect he wants to destroy the current one. After all, he acts as if he suspected them to be supervillains.
He suggests that research should be funded anonymously, to prevent scientists writing what their money-givers want. Sounds good, but again: No ideas, let alone deeds. For a start: Who'd decide in such a system who gets money? And how do we keep this system anonymous?
He even goes so far to accuse the environmental movement of exploiting the environment, just as the industry does! By that he proves that people prone to black/white worldviews also seem to lose their ability to quantify. Apparently he wants us to believe that anyone who ever ate meat or drove in a car, let alone a plane, was as guilty as someone who makes thousands of millions of $$ with fossil fuels or worse.
But the pinnacle of his perfidy is when he takes resort to big questions which haven't been answered by science yet. Like the question: If we don't know all the species on Earth, and evolution still creates new species, how bad are eradicated species then? I just know intuitively that he's twisting the truth, but it'd take time to refute him. Also, even if he was alive and willing to listen to me (doubtful), I don't think he'd change his opinion.
Long story short: "State of Fear" isn't as bad as other reviewers have made it seem. It's worse. Way worse. It's a crock made of stupidity, lies, bullshit, and outright perfidy. It says a lot about the bad state of our world if so-called authors get book contracts, let alone being read by millions.
In the best case, Crichton would just deliberately have sacrificed his reputation to help us marking as many fools and fraudsters as possible: Anyone who likes or recommends this... work must be one. But I don't think that was the correct explanation.
"State of Fear" can only be recommended to hysterical fools who'd also believe that politicians who are speaking against the climate catastrophe like e.g. Germany's Robert Habeck were nothing less than the Antichrist. Don't tell me such people wouldn't exist unless you're willing to bet money. Some of them are even writing books.
Nb: Don't write articles/reviews like this one unless you're targeting someone who spreads at least as many lies as Crichton and is at least as noteworthy as him. And hasn't done anything worth something for counter-balance.
Originally posted here. Now it's your turn. --Max Sinister (talk) 00:49, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Chrichton. The same guy who wrote 'Jurassic Park' not Cretaceous Park and 'Eaters of the Dead' about an Arab Muslim traveling to Scandinavia and learning to fight alongside Vikings with fake anotations? They turned that into 'the 13th Warrior' with Antonio Banderas as as Ibn al But Forgotten. I mean, fine, your takedown is probably correct, A+ on your book report and I don't think anyone here would complain. But is Crichton doing this outside of his novels? Probably not often these days, woof. I never read 'State of Fear' but I bet he was playing a little fast and loose with some concepts. Oh, fuck, I was right, the guy also wrote 'Congo' I didn't read that either, but I saw that one as a kid and, serendipity, I'm learning a lot about Gorilla Grod because I think he's a funny villain from the DC universe to say is my favorite DC villain in casual conversation. I'm not going to defend the point that Crichton was probably trying to sell books. I think this is good work that you've done. I just maybe would try to dissociate what Crichton was trying to say versus what Crichton was trying to sell, which I also understand is a big ask. Otherwise, no notes. Torrent (talk) 06:00, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Think the key question is not that Crichton wrote the book in the first place - I think the plot of 'global warming is a hoax' could be used in the respect of a thriller [we have to remember this was much less a on-nose issue 21 years ago] but the fact that it became a clear author tract with the dressing up of factuality rather than of a work of fiction which was then topped off with him masquerading as a scientist in front of the US Senate et al.
- Chrichton. The same guy who wrote 'Jurassic Park' not Cretaceous Park and 'Eaters of the Dead' about an Arab Muslim traveling to Scandinavia and learning to fight alongside Vikings with fake anotations? They turned that into 'the 13th Warrior' with Antonio Banderas as as Ibn al But Forgotten. I mean, fine, your takedown is probably correct, A+ on your book report and I don't think anyone here would complain. But is Crichton doing this outside of his novels? Probably not often these days, woof. I never read 'State of Fear' but I bet he was playing a little fast and loose with some concepts. Oh, fuck, I was right, the guy also wrote 'Congo' I didn't read that either, but I saw that one as a kid and, serendipity, I'm learning a lot about Gorilla Grod because I think he's a funny villain from the DC universe to say is my favorite DC villain in casual conversation. I'm not going to defend the point that Crichton was probably trying to sell books. I think this is good work that you've done. I just maybe would try to dissociate what Crichton was trying to say versus what Crichton was trying to sell, which I also understand is a big ask. Otherwise, no notes. Torrent (talk) 06:00, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Whether he was genuinely 'just waiting for more evidence' [which we have now to a level they didn't in c2000] or it was just a veiled denier [which would have become intellectually untenable by now] we shall never know. To be honest, he could have gone either way - both scenarios where the 82-year old Crichton is a) banging the drum with others saying 'the science is settled now' and having let said book fall out of print or b) sitting alongside Trump cheering his announcement of scrapping 'all the green crap' and writing a thriller featuring QAnon seem equally likely. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:39, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Allow me to field the question of 'why do you really care?'. Because it's in my field, and I know a lot about it. Torrent (talk) 09:46, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- I was asking the OP that. I mean [to rehash the earlier nuked reply] was it's a book from 21 years ago by a dead writer which I suspect many copies now exist in mouldering copies in charity shops and donation bins. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:56, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Well, at least you didn't let me look totally insane, but I understood that when I asked for the field. My response still stands. I think Max Sinister did good work on 'State of Fear', maybe copied notes which would be hard to do, but the link is bad, so maybe that's a joke, but I don't think it's a copy in and of itself, I think it's a heartfelt argument against a dead pop fiction author's work. Just, and we I think agree here, missing the mark of the argument itself. But the boy is allowed to have arguments. Torrent (talk) 10:07, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Unless Crichton’s views would’ve seen a major change, I’d say odds are that he’d be aligned with Trump, at the very least on the climate issue. His willingness to engage in vehement climate denial at a point when the actual science, while not massive and indisputable as in the present, was still pretty clear on trends and causes, clearly suggests that he was (and likely would’ve remained) a pretty hardcore denialist.
- Well, at least you didn't let me look totally insane, but I understood that when I asked for the field. My response still stands. I think Max Sinister did good work on 'State of Fear', maybe copied notes which would be hard to do, but the link is bad, so maybe that's a joke, but I don't think it's a copy in and of itself, I think it's a heartfelt argument against a dead pop fiction author's work. Just, and we I think agree here, missing the mark of the argument itself. But the boy is allowed to have arguments. Torrent (talk) 10:07, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- I was asking the OP that. I mean [to rehash the earlier nuked reply] was it's a book from 21 years ago by a dead writer which I suspect many copies now exist in mouldering copies in charity shops and donation bins. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:56, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Allow me to field the question of 'why do you really care?'. Because it's in my field, and I know a lot about it. Torrent (talk) 09:46, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Whether he was genuinely 'just waiting for more evidence' [which we have now to a level they didn't in c2000] or it was just a veiled denier [which would have become intellectually untenable by now] we shall never know. To be honest, he could have gone either way - both scenarios where the 82-year old Crichton is a) banging the drum with others saying 'the science is settled now' and having let said book fall out of print or b) sitting alongside Trump cheering his announcement of scrapping 'all the green crap' and writing a thriller featuring QAnon seem equally likely. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:39, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Even worse, that Crichton would accept to take his denialism to Congress, despite not actually having any expertise on the matter points to someone not willing to actually let science settle whatever unclear issues existed at the time.
- Similarly, Crichton’s call for an “apolitical environmental movement” seems a huge red flag to me. Whenever someone calls for some issue to become “apolitical” it usually means that they want it removed from the actual political agenda, i.e. to become a non issue and one on which no action is taken.
- Honestly, his framing looks a lot like the right wing view of environmentalists as “watermelons” (green on the outside and red on the inside) who are just out to exert undue power over poor capitalists and usher in some socialist/communist hellscape. Merchants of Doubt (2010) clearly documented this dynamic among several of its key figures (mostly actual scientists who then went on to become experts for hire, several of them featured on RW).
- I think it’s also indicative that Merchants of Death was published a mere six years after State of Fear (five years after Crichton appeared before Congress and two years after he died) and had required extensive research in the “Tobacco files” etc. along with interviews with leading climate scientists (and thus had a significant “lead time”), which also indicates how egregiously out of step with the actual science Crichton was. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:53, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- On the OP's work; I see no reason why it can't be expanded/polished and put as a mainspace page. I do feel we should give more/better coverage of media esp books [esp as we are in a world where everything review-wise seems to be either zero or five stars]. Currently, we only have perhaps about c160 of them, and a I bet most of these are at most semi-stubs. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:44, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
- I saw Ari Aster's 'Eddington' I knew all the garbage, it wasn't that dense with conspiracy or complaints as promised, but it was very slow to start. I loved 'Hereditary' and I don't know why I kinda like 'Beau is Afraid' but 'Eddington' has everything that people here would find funny down to gematria and a kookmobile. It also makes fun of using white privilege as an overcompensation for finding a soapbox. It's very much woke, in a way that isn't tired, or racial. The movie just takes a million hours to do it, I would suggest seeing it in theater, watching it at home had me itching to do anything else in the slow parts. Now let's all find out Ari Aster is a creep, and Eddington isn't fun anymore. I think this Aster guy cruised this site for inspiration. That's pretty cool. Torrent (talk) 07:00, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- On the OP's work; I see no reason why it can't be expanded/polished and put as a mainspace page. I do feel we should give more/better coverage of media esp books [esp as we are in a world where everything review-wise seems to be either zero or five stars]. Currently, we only have perhaps about c160 of them, and a I bet most of these are at most semi-stubs. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:44, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
- I think it’s also indicative that Merchants of Death was published a mere six years after State of Fear (five years after Crichton appeared before Congress and two years after he died) and had required extensive research in the “Tobacco files” etc. along with interviews with leading climate scientists (and thus had a significant “lead time”), which also indicates how egregiously out of step with the actual science Crichton was. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:53, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
The epstein coverup[edit]
A real test on whether these maga sheep are “america first” or pedophile first. 2600:387:15:3C16:0:0:0:B (talk) 22:44, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Matt Gaetz is still popular, and he literally got exposed for being a pedo. So pedo first. ResurrectingDeadLinks (talk) 22:53, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Well then what a way to guarantee a midterm loss in both houses of congress. — Unsigned, by: 2600:387:15:3c16::b / talk
- Who didn't believe Epstein killed himself? Who cared about a pedophile cabal of top level celebs and politicians, and watched the Catholic Church do it first and was really skeptical of the 'great awakening'? Who wants accountability for this bullshit? Me, I did, and I do, and I'm so far left you'll miss half your turns even if I gave you directions. Matt Gaetz can eat my ass which he probably wouldn't be into because I'm not 14. My only concern is, this may be another tactic by the project 2025ers to destroy all faith in government in order to enact corporate control (i.e. blind faith in capital libertarianism). Corporations that cannot accept loss due to a legal promise that all shareholders 'must profit' is fucking insane and actually letting people die, and we're already living with that. Turning over the government to corporatists is fucking worse, moreso than having absolute powerless dipshits with at least some accountability to their base voters. This is not and must not be the end of American Democracy, because our next best option is giving it up entirely to the people trying to figure out how slavery could work. Use your tools to fix the problem, vote local, demand votes, fight for voting rights. There is a joke that goes 'if voting mattered, they'd make it illegal' but seriously. They ran on votes that cared about Epstein, they cannot be held unaccountable for this, make them hear your voice. Torrent (talk) 04:39, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- "this may be another tactic by the project 2025ers to destroy all faith in government in order to enact corporate control (i.e. blind faith in capital libertarianism)"? Not that this is impossible, but the most faith in government is destroyed by incompetent governments, period. Governments in all colors. Also, unrelatedly, Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for 20 billion (short scale) $$, they said it too.--Max Sinister (talk) 17:34, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
- Who didn't believe Epstein killed himself? Who cared about a pedophile cabal of top level celebs and politicians, and watched the Catholic Church do it first and was really skeptical of the 'great awakening'? Who wants accountability for this bullshit? Me, I did, and I do, and I'm so far left you'll miss half your turns even if I gave you directions. Matt Gaetz can eat my ass which he probably wouldn't be into because I'm not 14. My only concern is, this may be another tactic by the project 2025ers to destroy all faith in government in order to enact corporate control (i.e. blind faith in capital libertarianism). Corporations that cannot accept loss due to a legal promise that all shareholders 'must profit' is fucking insane and actually letting people die, and we're already living with that. Turning over the government to corporatists is fucking worse, moreso than having absolute powerless dipshits with at least some accountability to their base voters. This is not and must not be the end of American Democracy, because our next best option is giving it up entirely to the people trying to figure out how slavery could work. Use your tools to fix the problem, vote local, demand votes, fight for voting rights. There is a joke that goes 'if voting mattered, they'd make it illegal' but seriously. They ran on votes that cared about Epstein, they cannot be held unaccountable for this, make them hear your voice. Torrent (talk) 04:39, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Well then what a way to guarantee a midterm loss in both houses of congress. — Unsigned, by: 2600:387:15:3c16::b / talk
- Check out the comments on the Fox article.
- Alternatively, check out how Fox edited an interview last year with Trump that mentioned Epstein. Chillpilled (talk) 08:32, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, Marc Elias,
who is not someone who engages in conspiracist thinking, tentatively concluded in his newsletter:[1]
- For what it's worth, Marc Elias,
- There are Epstein files, and they are embarrassing for Trump or those close to him.
- He is worried they will eventually be released and thus wants to discredit them in advance.
- He is going to increase prosecutions of his political opponents to rally his base.
- If the files do indeed exist, then one might also conclude that someone not in the DOJ has a copy or the original copy, making the DOJ's release of doctored files inadvisable. Perhaps the night of the long steak knives is coming. (Elias: "Like other strongmen, when facing internal dissent, Trump’s instinct is to manufacture an excuse to crackdown on opposition.") Bongolian (talk) 17:58, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Insanity that he is getting shitted on in his home turf echo chamber truth social for the first time. 2600:387:15:3C19:0:0:0:3 (talk) 19:30, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Trump's increasingly vehement protestations that there is "nothing to see here" are actually starting to make me wonder if there really is something hidden.
- It also occurs to me that this is a long way from being the only conspiracy theory he has supported. I'm wondering if any more will come back to bite him.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:49, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
- Insanity that he is getting shitted on in his home turf echo chamber truth social for the first time. 2600:387:15:3C19:0:0:0:3 (talk) 19:30, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- If the files do indeed exist, then one might also conclude that someone not in the DOJ has a copy or the original copy, making the DOJ's release of doctored files inadvisable. Perhaps the night of the long steak knives is coming. (Elias: "Like other strongmen, when facing internal dissent, Trump’s instinct is to manufacture an excuse to crackdown on opposition.") Bongolian (talk) 17:58, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- I have been wondering if there is any connection between release of Epstein case files and Russian Intelligence. This came to mind when Trump suddenly dropped his one-sided support of Russia's war in Ukraine just at the height of the scandal over the files. There is this, for what it is worth. Probably unknowable.Zatoichi (talk) 18:28, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
If the Epstein files incriminated Trump personally, he wouldn't have so frequently promised to releade them. He was "asked" to keep them classified by some third party. Christopher (talk) 00:08, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- I'm just a BoN so I don't know much about RW, but this Christopher guy is a troll, right? Trump promised to release the Epstein files because people kept asking him in interviews if he would. He never brought the topic up himself and tried to redirect on several of the occasions he was asked, causing the reporters to repeat the question. Obviously if he had told the reporters who asked him if he would release them that he wouldn't it would look like he has something to hide WOULDN'T IT? But no, Trump would never LIE about intending to release the files, he must be protecting a 'third-party'. Give me a f-ing break, Christopher! 2001:67C:289C:2:0:0:0:235 (talk) 08:44, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
- BoN, I agree on your point. This is about explicit and implicit language. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-jeffrey-epstein-years-including-2024-campaign-trail/story?id=123778541 When asked about his retweet in an interview, Trump said "what we're saying is we want an investigation. I want a full investigation, and that's what I absolutely am demanding. That's what our attorney general -- our great attorney general -- is doing." The attorney general at the time was Bill Barr.
- so, if you want to run on that explicit language, no, Trump didn't promise that the Epstein files would be released. The next part of the same article goes Pressed further on if he really believed the Clintons were involved, Trump didn't shut it down. "I have no idea," he said, but encouraged further questions. "So you have to ask: Did Bill Clinton go to the island? That's the question. If you find that out, you're going to know a lot," Trump said at the time.. I imagine if you don't like criticism of Trump's explicit language here, you probably also think the ABC journalism has implicit language that you also read into. But it's factual and explicit. But let's put the administration aside and talk about things Trump didn't explicitly say. Right wing apologism is becoming synonymous with 'American pedantry.' If words don't mean what they mean when you use them, why didn't Trump just say 'Blah blee blah blow I hate the people you hate' I mean, he kinda did, but how is that a defense or a reasonable argument for his shift in attitude? sounds like Trump was talking out of his ass to win votes and got a little confused when it turned out this isn't the 80's and he's not in big business. Demanding accountability is what he ran his TV show on, that's how he got elected in 2016. I have no idea who the new generation of gen z Trump riders are, but I bet he lost a lot of them here. Torrent (talk) 05:25, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Hey everyone[edit]
Hey y’all, I’m posting here for the first time. I heard everyone is spooked by the lawsuits happening recently. As someone who’s had a tumultuous personal life for the past half decade, I wanted to share something to all of you that’ll hopefully raise your spirits.
So I assume everyone knows about the Iran-Israel war and the horrors of causalities (Israeli but also Iranian civilians). I myself am Iranian American and have family in Iran, and I was scared shitless because I was worried my few family I had left would be gone and I’d be all alone. Thankfully, they fled Tehran and they’re safe, currently staying in the city of Ferdows in the east of Iran.
My point is that everything is going to shit, and we have a legitimate reason to be scared. But we shouldn’t be dominated by fear. We’re all going to get through this, don’t be afraid and always have hope. We must fight and not give in to those who seek to harm us. I know my words might sound cheesy and corny but I wanted to give you all hope in some way. I love this community and care about everyone I’ve met, including people I’ve had differences with. I’m glad to be part of this community, and I want you all to know you’re not alone in whatever problems we face. ❤️ 🫂 We need brain! Give us brain! 01:49, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- This is something I've picked up from some friends, it can be taken in a lot of ways but when I say it, it's always sincere. "Good luck out there" I don't believe in prayer or karma or luck, as it stands, but it's shorthand for "I'm rootin for you" to each and every person. I kinda stole the phrase and made it only positive. It only means 'good luck out there.' Torrent (talk) 03:00, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- With my Board hat on, I can tell you that the threat of lawsuits is behind us now. That's one less thing we at RW have to worry about. Spud (talk) 03:03, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Glad the lawsuits are over, and thank you for the kind words. Ratwiki has been through a whole lot of lawsuits and we always made it no matter what.
We need brain! Give us brain! 16:38, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- That's great to hear, Spud! I'm also happy that your relatives were able to find safe refuge, Rational Dude. Bongolian (talk) 18:16, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you, Bongolian. Good to see you and the others, it’s been a while.
We need brain! Give us brain! 21:51, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you, Bongolian. Good to see you and the others, it’s been a while.
- That's great to hear, Spud! I'm also happy that your relatives were able to find safe refuge, Rational Dude. Bongolian (talk) 18:16, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Glad the lawsuits are over, and thank you for the kind words. Ratwiki has been through a whole lot of lawsuits and we always made it no matter what.
- With my Board hat on, I can tell you that the threat of lawsuits is behind us now. That's one less thing we at RW have to worry about. Spud (talk) 03:03, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
RationalWiki is now under new management[edit]
Hi everyone,
The previous, New Mexico-based nonprofit organization that administered this website, The RationalWiki Foundation, has been legally dissolved. It no longer exists.
A different, Oregon-based nonprofit, RationalMedia Foundation (RMF), has been created. All assets and programs of the former New Mexico RWF, including this website, now belong to the Oregon RMF.
The old RWF was dissolved for a few reasons:
1) The RWF's founder and long-running Chief Operating Officer, Trent Toulouse, had lost interest in maintaining it, yet the foundation itself was still hobbled by its dependency on him. 2) The old RWF was based in New Mexico, which has only weak protections for freedom of speech, leading to a steady stream of defamation/libel lawsuits by the very crackpots and pseudoscientists that this website exists to document and debunk. Unable to afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary to fight all of those lawsuits in court, the RWF had no choice but to settle them, in practicing meaning widescale purges and censorship of any mention of the plaintiffs from this website. 3) The old RWF's bylaws didn't accurately reflect how the board actually conducted business.
The new RMF solves all of these problems. 1) Trent no longer has a role of any kind in the new nonprofit. 2) The new RMF is based in Oregon, which has much more robust free speech protections. This will effectively stop spurious libel lawsuits targeting the contents of this website. 3) The new RMF's bylaws have been tailored to its needs as a small online-only nonprofit.
The new RMF is striving to do things properly and effectively, and to that end, we do have a lawyer, who specializes in nonprofits, who is being paid to assist the Foundation as needed. We are also in the process of obtaining legal insurance that will protect any board members in case someone tries to sue them as individuals for work done for the Foundation (this is considered standard for all professional nonprofits).
So, what does this mean for everyone on RationalWiki?
No more board elections. Legally speaking, none of the previous board elections were enforceable. None of the organizations governing RationalWiki have ever been, or ever will be, formally organized as a club with official membership and legal rights associated with that membership—and those are the only organizations where can members directly elect directors. Instead, current directors on the board will elect new directors as necessary. This is standard procedure for most nonprofits. We currently have 3 directors, but we are open to expanding the board to 5, or even up to 7.
The board actually does things now. The old RWF took an extremely hands-off approach to managing the content of the wiki and the conduct of those on it. The new RMF reserves the right to set and enforce standards for both content and conduct. In practice, this will mostly mean the board setting minimum standards for articles to prevent low-quality cruft, and forcing moderators to do their job if said moderators fail to moderate something. For the record: at no point will a lone director message or email individuals, telling them to do something. The board will take a vote regarding any potential actions related to content or conduct, and if a majority of directors vote to take action, it will be announced on the Saloon bar (or other highly-visible, highly-public page) and enforced transparently. This is to prevent random directors from acting like lone wolves and adding more layers of drama on top of any existing drama.
The RationalMedia Foundation and its board of directors are sincerely dedicated to maintaining RationalWiki.org and its associated communities, with all the responsibilities that entails. And that includes you, the reader of this Saloon bar post. You are in invited to ask any Foundation-related and board-related questions you have here. You can also pester us in real time on the official Foundation Discord. Radioactive afikomen Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments. 02:52, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
P.S. Special shout-out to… meeeeee! :-) for being point person on this project. The new foundation is my baby and I'm very proud of it. Radioactive afikomen Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments. 02:52, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- Excellent news. Well done.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:45, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- I am in the UK jurisdiction (simplifying) so an observer of/commentator on such matters at best, legal-wise - but some provision should be made for 'the situation which gave rise to the move arising again'/the then directors having to leave severally close together 'for whatever reasons.' (I know many 'proposed doomsday situations' do not arise, sometimes because as they have been defined they can be worked around.) Anna Livia (talk) 10:10, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- @Anna Livia "the then directors having to leave severally close together?" Do you mean Board members choosing to leave the Board? They did that because we've all been through a very stressful experience. It wasn't because they were legally obliged to leave. Spud (talk) 11:57, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- I wasn't saying that there were any legal etc reasons - but the circumstance could arise again, so something should be included to cover the possibility. Anna Livia (talk) 13:07, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- The insurance coverage should take care of this for Board Members, as Stabby mentioned above. Anyone else using their real name on this site, or having an easily discoverable real name from information on this site (e.g., Board Members at the New Mexico organization) should take care to only post information that is non-defamatory, and to check whether their personal jurisdiction has strong anti-SLAPP laws. For the US, there's a map here.[2] Other countries are covered at Strategic lawsuit against public participation.
Bongolian (talk) 14:54, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- The insurance coverage should take care of this for Board Members, as Stabby mentioned above. Anyone else using their real name on this site, or having an easily discoverable real name from information on this site (e.g., Board Members at the New Mexico organization) should take care to only post information that is non-defamatory, and to check whether their personal jurisdiction has strong anti-SLAPP laws. For the US, there's a map here.[2] Other countries are covered at Strategic lawsuit against public participation.
- I wasn't saying that there were any legal etc reasons - but the circumstance could arise again, so something should be included to cover the possibility. Anna Livia (talk) 13:07, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- @Anna Livia "the then directors having to leave severally close together?" Do you mean Board members choosing to leave the Board? They did that because we've all been through a very stressful experience. It wasn't because they were legally obliged to leave. Spud (talk) 11:57, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- I am in the UK jurisdiction (simplifying) so an observer of/commentator on such matters at best, legal-wise - but some provision should be made for 'the situation which gave rise to the move arising again'/the then directors having to leave severally close together 'for whatever reasons.' (I know many 'proposed doomsday situations' do not arise, sometimes because as they have been defined they can be worked around.) Anna Livia (talk) 10:10, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
Thank you[edit]
Thanks to everybody who kept this boat afloat over rough legal waters and onto the calmer seas of Oregon. You do deserve a shout-out and the gratitude of the rest of us. Bravo. Pinkerite (talk) 05:24, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- I can only agree. Well done to the board for weathering the storm! ScepticWombat (talk) 17:47, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- Hi guys, i'm just a lurker BoN, but thanks for keeping the project alive. I think it's more important than ever to have a voice of reason in this world, offering peer-reviewed references and debunking of the wide variety of bullshit encouraged by all sides of fanatics. Y'all have been a life saver more than one time and contributed greatly to my own outlook on rational thinking. Good luck.147.161.233.105 (talk) 07:48, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
Torre Pacheco & future Spanish elections[edit]
Here in Spain there's been a bit of a crisis. A supposed immigrant group attacked a 68 year old man (Spanish) in Torre-Pacheco, Murcia, and in response there's been a gathering of general far-right nutjobs there. I've also heard on the radio, and this data is from polls, not to mention there's still time until the elections in 2027, so take it with a grain of salt, that the far-right Vox and right-wing PP will be experiencing a surge in the upcoming elections while PSOE the PM's party, probably due to the current scandal, is expected to have their worst election in decades while Sumar (coalition member) gets decimated as well. I guess so much for us being the ones who resisted the general rightward shift in Europe back in 2023, we're going that way as well. Yipee! Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 14:33, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- A week is long time in politics. Although the PP was hitting the PSOE (center left) because of the PSOE's corruption crisis the PP (center right) now has exactly the same problem. If an election were held today then I guess that would help VOX (far right), but equally it might help Sumar (left left) even though they are part of the coalition. So I would say it's far too early to call. (And for the uninitiated - Spanish politics is really complicated. There are various parties on the left, two parties on the right and numerous local nationalist groups which may themselves be split into parties on the right and left.)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:58, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- I just hope Sanchez keeps resisting calls for an early election. And that by 2027 voters think of something other than cartoonish corruption when they see left-wing parties when voting. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 15:07, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- I would say there is no chance of an early election. He's fixed up the coalition for now - the only thing he has to worry about is another corruption scandal. I doubt that even he could survive that. But I take my hat off to him as a political survivor. Nothing seems to keep him down for long.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:12, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
- I just hope Sanchez keeps resisting calls for an early election. And that by 2027 voters think of something other than cartoonish corruption when they see left-wing parties when voting. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 15:07, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
What are your thoughts on this defense of PETA.[edit]
I was on an unpopular opinion subreddit and found this I would like some thought's: https://www.reddit.com/r/RealUnpopularOpinion/s/mbp4B7ORPu — Unsigned, by: 1.43.236.241 / talk
- Reads like PR, the first two sources provided are infographics created by PETA and hosted on their website. Not exactly sourced from a neutral third party here. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:23, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
According to the news, Trump has now been diagnosed with a health condition.[edit]
Gotta wonder if this will make him humbler, considering he once bragged of his health. Or is he going to continue in his current ways. BythePeople (talk) 21:25, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- From the world's greatest burial site, a rotting arm will reach out from the grave to snatch another gold medal, pick another pocket, and take candy from a baby. Bongolian (talk) 04:18, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
What is the health condition (apart from 'whatever the media declare as the latest examples of his being at an angle to reality)? Stalled zombification? Anna Livia (talk) 15:47, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
- @Anna Livia Chronic venous insufficiency. Spud (talk) 16:28, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
- 'What the media say' is a somewhat different story (and is what I was referring to). Anna Livia (talk) 20:10, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
- But the media can't diagnose anybody, can they? All they can do is speculate about somebody's ailing health, which they have been doing in Trump's case for months. The Trump White House has taken the unusual step of acknowledging he has been diagnosed with a chronic condition. Spud (talk) 12:13, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- It's, in my opinion, a phony Tit-for-tat reaction to Biden having Cancer, which a lot of right leaning outlets said was impossible to not know or disclose, must have been part of his presidency. As in, if Biden has such bad cancer, it must have been known during his presidency and kept a secret. But not treated, which is a... Confusing aspect to the story. Whatever is causing Trump's big fat ankles is probably normal for a man his age, in my opinion politicians shouldn't be a thousand years old if we want to rely on them. I have been to two funerals over cancer, both my grandpas had very sudden declines due to late stage cancer. Cancer can hide anywhere. When it metasticizes, it moves quick. Torrent (talk) 09:36, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
- Being better than Biden by admitting to being ill? That's as good an explanation as any, I suppose. But he has clearly been ill for a long time. And he's lied about his health, including his height and weight. I wondered if he was getting ready for when the Epstein stuff really catches up with him, so he can throw himself on the mercy of the court for being a sick old man. Spud (talk) 13:19, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
- That could be part of it, but we're talking Commander in Chief, I don't think he ever has to worry about court. Teflon Don Trump and Tricky Dick Nixon, presidents aren't actually deposed or jailed in America, Ford pardoned Nixon post haste. [When the President does it, that means it's not illegal https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7352372-when-the-president-does-it-that-means-it-is-not] and I think there are a million reasons to grant that office some space of action outside of beauracracy or legal technicalities. However, abuse of power is still abuse of power. I just don't expect a precedent to be set on following up a president's crimes. It's all media and showmanship with Trump. In my opinion, everything this administration does right now is to show they are better than the parties they beat to get there, because they know they strong-armed their way into power with rhetoric with which they can't reconcile. Hypocrites, I think is the term, and people in power always are, but that's not an excuse. Torrent (talk) 07:00, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
- Being better than Biden by admitting to being ill? That's as good an explanation as any, I suppose. But he has clearly been ill for a long time. And he's lied about his health, including his height and weight. I wondered if he was getting ready for when the Epstein stuff really catches up with him, so he can throw himself on the mercy of the court for being a sick old man. Spud (talk) 13:19, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
- It's, in my opinion, a phony Tit-for-tat reaction to Biden having Cancer, which a lot of right leaning outlets said was impossible to not know or disclose, must have been part of his presidency. As in, if Biden has such bad cancer, it must have been known during his presidency and kept a secret. But not treated, which is a... Confusing aspect to the story. Whatever is causing Trump's big fat ankles is probably normal for a man his age, in my opinion politicians shouldn't be a thousand years old if we want to rely on them. I have been to two funerals over cancer, both my grandpas had very sudden declines due to late stage cancer. Cancer can hide anywhere. When it metasticizes, it moves quick. Torrent (talk) 09:36, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
- But the media can't diagnose anybody, can they? All they can do is speculate about somebody's ailing health, which they have been doing in Trump's case for months. The Trump White House has taken the unusual step of acknowledging he has been diagnosed with a chronic condition. Spud (talk) 12:13, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- 'What the media say' is a somewhat different story (and is what I was referring to). Anna Livia (talk) 20:10, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
What censorship restrictions are in place after the move?[edit]
Now that the ownership of the website has been moved to a different charitable organisation, which is bound by the laws of a different state, do previous agreements concerning the censoring of certain material need to continue to be honoured, or are users now able to re-add material similar in scope to that which was removed? Duncan from Teflpedia (talk) 03:25, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
- This has been discussed here: RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation#Board and Moderator relationship. Bongolian (talk) 04:15, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
The "Fake News" challenge.[edit]
1. Make an account on three Crankful social medias.
2. Compare how long it takes to find something false on it. (Note: Opinion's don't count. Only actual info does).
3. The one with the quickest time "wins".
(EXTRA RULES: If you see a 20 hour long Schlockumentary, you DO NOT have to watch it. A photo with "I support Trump" on it is not false.) ResurrectingDeadLinks (talk) 17:59, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
Fate of the US: Mid Year Update[edit]
Just checking in with a few questions. Any thoughts on the trajectory of the US as of speaking? And any forecasts for what may happen in 2026? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 04:57, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
- I'd say to look forwards to increasing political violence. And maybe a re-adoption of slavery once some "brilliant" person suggests that the myriad of people in the internment camps they made could be used for good, free labor.23.234.103.94 (talk) 08:25, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
- The US already has slavery. It's called prison labor. Antares (talk) 08:45, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
- I think we will see Trump posthumously pardoning Epstein and giving a full pardon to Maxwell. The entire MAGA movement will be persuaded that all the charges against Epstein were invented by Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 18:44, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
- To whom does the word 'posthumous' apply? ('Wide-eyed innocence.') Anna Livia (talk) 20:08, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
- Jeffrey Epstein, of course. A president can pardon a dead man. But a dead president can't pardon anybody. (Or do anything else.) Spud (talk) 12:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- Humour - but why not have a bigly beautiful zombie in the White House? And I understand that the JFK autopen continued for 'a little while' after his death. (What would the legal situation be with anything so signed?) Anna Livia (talk) 09:42, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- Use of autopen/rubber stamp signatures is legal as long as they are authorised by the person who's sig is being mimicked. It's highly unlikely Kennedy's facsimile would have been used knowingly after his death due to the serious risks attached - for I believe official docs are timestamped. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:34, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- Jeffrey Epstein, of course. A president can pardon a dead man. But a dead president can't pardon anybody. (Or do anything else.) Spud (talk) 12:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- To whom does the word 'posthumous' apply? ('Wide-eyed innocence.') Anna Livia (talk) 20:08, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
- I think we will see Trump posthumously pardoning Epstein and giving a full pardon to Maxwell. The entire MAGA movement will be persuaded that all the charges against Epstein were invented by Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 18:44, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
- The US already has slavery. It's called prison labor. Antares (talk) 08:45, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
I submitted a quote to FSTDT that is "wrong on every level". How many levels is there?[edit]
https://fstdt.com/R7F$M5LXKGDDD is the quote. All I know is that the alien part is incorrect. Can anyone else please explain the other layers to this quote? ResurrectingDeadLinks (talk) 22:56, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
- The degrees of wrongness are so various and examples so ubiquitous that there is undoubtedly something incorrect in almost every statement one may contemplate. If the last sentence is not completely true, it proves to be another simple example of the claim. Rationality, important as it is, can accomplish nothing with unsound premises. Wolfgang Pauli introduced the level he referred to as "not even wrong." I am reminded of Groucho's famous question: What kind of fool do you take me for? And Chico's reply: I don't know. How many kinds are there? The levels of wrongness and the answer to Chico's question may be related.Zatoichi (talk) 01:33, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
When you get to a 'quote' like this one, (which I have to agree goes into new depths of What the Fuckery) the answer to "How many levels is there" is "pumpernickel sleepy". You can't always answer nonsense with sense. Kencolt (talk) 06:45, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
Anything interesting in the MLK Files?[edit]
(https://www.archives.gov/research/mlk) Or is it all just boring filler with 0 new information? ResurrectingDeadLinks (talk) 01:00, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- There was already a lot known from prior releases about FBI spying on and harassment of MLK. It's extremely tedious going through this type of material, so don't expect to hear much about the contents. J. Edgar Hoover hated free speech, Blacks, perceived communists, and uncloseted gays in no particular order. That's the story of the FBI under Hoover. Bongolian (talk) 07:42, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- Why did King's family object to this release (assuming I read right on this)? KarmaPolice (talk) 17:17, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know but it could be that they didn't want more details released about his personal life, such his adultery, which was revealed in an earlier release. Bongolian (talk) 20:21, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- Could the objections also be down to the fact they know full well it's a distraction attempt from a man who if he had his way, they'd all be back to sitting at the back of the bus and not daring to look him (or any whitey) in the eye? KarmaPolice (talk) 21:00, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- There is a phrase, 'putting the cart ahead of the horse' which doesn't exactly apply here. MLK has been a mascot of right wing reactionaries for decades to say 'peaceful protest is the only protest.' and 'MLK wasn't even a good guy' Nowadays, information is spread easily. We already knew about MLK's infidelity in the face of his moral arguments, Ghandi molested his niece in the name of fighting temptation, Mother Theresa was against any humane convalescent care because she believed suffering before death was God's plan to get people more hyped about getting to heaven (Catholics, am I right?). This is more like pretending we never saw what was in the cart and giving the horse a big slap on the ass so it can run wild, shedding info like dollar bills, Looney Tunes style for people to pick up and forget there is a cart with a wild horse just fucking up everything in its path. But the cartoon dollars raining down on us are drops of info that aren't worth a dollar, because, and this is a compliment to the history of dedicated conspiracy theorists, it's not new or valuable information. Everyone is catching these dollars, looking at them and they read 'Trump buck, redeemable for one solid shit on a golden toilet (restrictions apply).' Some people are still hoping they can take that Wonka shit. Gimme the dossier on Rosie O'Donnell if you want my respect. Clownassery. Torrent (talk) 08:45, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
- Could the objections also be down to the fact they know full well it's a distraction attempt from a man who if he had his way, they'd all be back to sitting at the back of the bus and not daring to look him (or any whitey) in the eye? KarmaPolice (talk) 21:00, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know but it could be that they didn't want more details released about his personal life, such his adultery, which was revealed in an earlier release. Bongolian (talk) 20:21, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- Why did King's family object to this release (assuming I read right on this)? KarmaPolice (talk) 17:17, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- I suppose that it depends upon what sort of things interest you. The FBI Files on MLK were collected under the presumption of compiling evidence against King, even if it were only embarrassing to his family. Anything that the public would likely admire about King, one might expect, would have been necessarily excluded. Anything that presents him in a negative fashion can be doubted because of the tainted motives of the FBI Director. Everything important about MLK is certainly already public. His influence in public works and writings are all the public needs to be known about him. That he was human goes without saying. Zatoichi (talk) 19:11, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
What the fuck were these guys were thinking.[edit]
Did you guys watch the Nelk Boys interview with Netanyahu it was just fucking stupid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZvCmAgRWI0 — Unsigned, by: 1.43.239.16 / talk / contribs
- The only thing I know about the Nelk Boys https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pDFQIHS0cx4&pp=ygUVUmVlZCB0aW1tZXIgbmVsayBib3lz0gcJCccJAYcqIYzv I guess I'm a little guilty of getting out of my own lane too, but like, I mean this sincerely, when Joe Rogan was first blowing up, a guy I really respected said 'If Joe Rogan wants to talk about MMA, I'll listen to him. Otherwise, I don't give shit' Weird appeals to popular outlets. I watched it live On Reed Timmer's stream as I was in the area and it was 'shelter in place' kinda bad, I am glad they included Connors work towards the end of this video. His actions are what have inspired me to work on my project car to be a mobile storm chasing ambulance, even if I can't afford to yet. I know first aid, I know highways and routes in tornado alley, I know being calm in crises, I've always been a fan of big bad weather. I never knew the Nelk boys were so important that they could be a mouthpiece. Man, we just fixed this https://www.wowt.com/2025/03/25/national-weather-service-halts-launches-weather-balloons-omaha-due-staffing-issues/ because Doge thought it was free federal money wasted, I would never listen to the Nelk boys unless they saw tornadoes first hand and took the experience to say 'we have to be ready for that shit'. Which they didn't, so I don't. Musk wants to talk about populating Mars and defunds weather research on earth, there are people who, for whatever reason, people love to listen to. There is always a good chance they just want the dollars, and have no interest in the subject matter. Torrent (talk) 07:37, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
I saw the new 'woke' Superman, and woof, I guess I got a lot to say[edit]
I don't get it, it's like people who care about this 'woke' shit in their superhero movies never read comic books before. They think it's about two countries that are cleverly named so as not to attribute it specifically to the two countries we know it's currently referencing, but is that new? Let's talk about country names. Officially, the People's Republic of China is kinda dumb, from what I can tell. The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea is also.... Let's call it a stretch. The United States of America would be more accurately described as the Federated Unicameral of North American States between Canada and Mexico, who also hate each other for no particular reason. I mean, people are calling the new Superman 'woke' because it covers border conflict and complicated allyship in the most superficial way, as if that's not a huge history of the world, the 'United States' included. They could call it 'Jerkoffistan' and we'd only get the story as a surface level critique of international power struggles. Comic books have done this for at least as long as I've been able to read them. I didn't even like the movie, but calling it 'woke' and pretending to have a deeper understanding of the most obvious shit is so lame. Can we talk about how the Dog CGI doesn't really look more realistic than than the Monkey CGI from 1995's Jumanji? Isn't CGI supposed to be better now that we can't tell the difference between AI generation and real life? Sorry, I can sign the setup, maybe I should be using a different format. Torrent (talk) 09:58, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- I don't care if a comic book movie has two wartorn countries fighting each other and independent intervention by a superhero causes confusion and conflict. That's standard. If today it's Israel and Palestine, and yesterday it was Russia and Ukraine, and a week ago it was the Koreas, and a week from today it's suddenly Georgia and Azerbaijan, it's a trope, it doesn't mean anything. Superman is good, Lex Luthor is bad, that is how DC requires the story to go. James Gunn had no business working on this film, the only enjoyable parts were his interpretations of cameo characters in the grey, and a couple soundtrack choices, and everything else had to be so black and white between Superman and Lex Luthor that it was stupid. Not woke, just stupid. Torrent (talk) 08:30, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
I have an idea to add to the novel I am writing[edit]
I am thinking about adding a location based on the Kowloon Walled City. This location will be off the coast of Detroit. It is going to be claimed by both the United States and Canada as part of their sovereign territory; similar to how China and the UK claimed Kowloon. It will be where my characters run to while escaping the bus to a Christian camp. The fictional location was created (in universe) after a nuclear attack on Detroit. Opinions? --Trans Fem Agenda 18:52, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
- Who would waste a nuclear bomb on Detroit? Something to consider: a nuclear bomb detonated in or near Lake Erie would likely lead to decades, if not centuries, of contamination, particularly for sensitive ecosystems and for safe human use of the water.(AI response to my inquiry). Also, I don't know who you are writing for but, Christians, as such, are not known for creating concentration camps. Maybe say Christian fascists.Zatoichi (talk) 20:35, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
- The concentration camps during the second Boer war were created by Christians, and so were the internment camps for the japanese-americans during ww2 were also created and staffed by Christians. I'm not saying Christianity means Concentration camps but 'mainline' Christians have created concentration camps before and probably will do so again in the future. A somebody. (talk) 22:36, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
- I could rewrite it to where it is a conventional missile attack. --Trans Fem Agenda 23:28, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
- Well, of course you are right Somebody. Practically anything done in the West was and is done by Christians of one sort or another. We are discussing the possibility of a "Christian camp" and not just a camp run by Christians. Christians do a lot of bad shit. That's not the point. They seldom do those things "as Christians." Not impossible though. The KKK thought that their activities were very Christian. Some may have believed that the lynching was Christian activity. It happens.Zatoichi (talk) 00:40, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
- TFA: It's just that nuclear weapons are so messy. If you want to explain away zombie-like creatures they may be useful. I guess it depends on how much you want to spend time justifying why it happened and all the awful consequences.Zatoichi (talk) 00:46, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
- Here's an idea, and you can just have it. The idea that a nuclear bomb could detonate way high up and radioactive effects would be dispersed and minimal, but the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects would still be devastating to an electrical grid. HEMP https://www.wbdg.org/resources/high-altitude-emp-effects-protection So what if a nuke was detonated not on the ground, but not so high up that the radiation would still have monstrous effects, and the EMP would be enough to actually knock down the grid. The worst of both worlds, maybe a failed/late intercept by whatever space force or golden dome defense could be the impetus. I think is something you're looking for. And it's fiction, you don't have to be 100% accurate. Torrent (talk) 04:05, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
- TFA: It's just that nuclear weapons are so messy. If you want to explain away zombie-like creatures they may be useful. I guess it depends on how much you want to spend time justifying why it happened and all the awful consequences.Zatoichi (talk) 00:46, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
- The concentration camps during the second Boer war were created by Christians, and so were the internment camps for the japanese-americans during ww2 were also created and staffed by Christians. I'm not saying Christianity means Concentration camps but 'mainline' Christians have created concentration camps before and probably will do so again in the future. A somebody. (talk) 22:36, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
Ghislaine Maxwell's interview[edit]
What do you think will come from the DOJ's interview with Ghislaine Maxwell? Now Trump is floating the idea of pardoning her. The Epstein story has become a thorn in Trump's side in the last few weeks. Trump sure would love to see it go away. Do you think Trump's DOJ cut a secret side deal with Maxwell to solely implicate Democrats' ties to Epstein while conveniently omitting Trump from the story, In exchange for leniency or even a Presidential pardon? Or something similar. We know how Trump much loves his side deals. Not denying that there are Democrats who had ties to Epstein, but it would be very convenient if Trump could somehow redirect scrutiny from himself onto his political opponents. In the end, it's not hard to imagine that Trump and his team will eventually pull it off in the long run, successfully burying Trump's ties to Epstein, even "vindicating" himself in the eyes of the majority of the public. 2001:67C:2628:647:38:1900:0:259 (talk) 23:05, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
- Whatever happens, Maxwell isn't going to implicate Trump. If he's dangling a possible pardon she won't be saying anything against him.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:44, 26 July 2025 (UTC)
Acting Like I'm a Fed[edit]
So, I have been talking to the homeless around my area, very close to an interstate, a walmart, some motels, and a gas station that also has what I would consider slot machines, but are lawfully considered skill games, so there's a decent amount of let's call it, illegal activity. The more I've talked to the homeless, the less they've trusted me. Which is fine, negative feedback loops can work in your favor. I work a swing shift and I have seen more than once a person get out of a car much nicer than mine to run behind the dumpster by my place and run back and do not much else, so I imagine it's a dropoff spot. I have gone back there a couple times to see possums and raccoons.
Tonight, my suspicions were confirmed. As I smoked by said dumpster, a car I recognized drove by and didn't park in a sincerely great parking spot, and then drove off in a way that implied they weren't looking for a spot. I decided to check out behind the dumpster, nothing. So I went back up to my apartment, but as I went, I saw a guy sprint towards the dumpster and take a hard turn in to look behind it. I have a pretty good vantage point from my apartmrnt, so I went up and watched him come back out. He was arguing with somebody on the phone, went and laid across the hood of a parked car with out of state plates.
I remember two things, one that I used to live in apartments that were section 8 housing and two, those out of state plates were in transit papers like a week ago, so the car didn't get registered in state in that time. So, fuck me, I think I've stumbled across some drug traffic. In the goddamn place I used to see families of possums. Cannot abide.
So, I sat in my window which was luckily blinded from his spot from some tree branches, and watched this guy. He argued on the phone. I went back down and smoked another cigarette, because that's how you get them off guard, he was a ways away but he said 'I swear, he's just some random guy' which, is true, but also ignited something. I gave him a wave, gave him several waves, actually, when he finally waved back I gave him a thumbs up. I finished the cigarette, went back up to my tower, spied on the guy, and he, after a few minutes, reached into the vehicle I coulda sworn was not his but wasn't sure through a back window that had already been broken out, just taped over with plastic. He did this for like 45 seconds, reaching and grasping probably for a door handle, then shouted 'Fuck!' and sprinted again to the dumpster.
I hurried back out to the dumpster with a small bag of trash. When I got there, I complained out loud about a big box that was kinda in the way of throwing trash. Heard some ruslting, so I said 'Who is that back there? A possum? A raccoon?' Stomped on the ground with each step exactly as I would to put a small mammal on notice, and I heard a big one push through some bushes. I remarked 'well it's not a rabbit.'
The path this guy chose to escape me is spiderweb central. I AM just some random guy, but if he thinks he was chased by a fed, that protects me and hopefully gets whatever dumbass was getting his car broken into to rethink where he does business. I would have called the cops if I saw any immediate danger or had any better evidence. I did note the license plate number and am willing to call it in if I see anything else. But if I can make them scurry away, that's my first bluff. Torrent (talk) 07:57, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
- If you want to continue with this sort of thing, perhaps you should consider a career in law enforcement. Federal agents carry guns because criminals do occasionally shoot at them. Take care. Zatoichi (talk) 01:40, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
- Not to worry, I am very aware of the stuff going on around me, I know my pressure doesn't escalate the situations. If I was worried about getting shot for low level drug crimes, I wouldn't insert myself, if I was worried somebody was ready to protect this with a gun, I wouldn't insert myself. I had considered calling the non emergency police line over the attempted break in of the car, and if it happens again I will. But I mean I've lived with grindset pot dealers and around meth addicts, my guess is this is probably not meth, which takes the danger level down by a million degrees. Even a coke head knows that escalating a drug crime to manslaughter or assault isn't worth the charge. And I'm not looking to steal the bag, what would I ever do with drugs? I just kinda want to see what it is, but I have been around drug culture and dangerously high people enough to know what I'm looking at and how to navigate it. There is at best a random guy who smokes cigarettes and goes looking for possums and raccoons, at worst a federal CID agent. There is not much danger involved in being either at this level of intervention, but a risk of dropping the bag behind the dumpster increased. Which is funny, you can literally hand off drugs in a dozen parking lots nearby. The car has not been moved or touched, not even to re-tape the plastic. Best explanation I can come up with for what I saw is the owner probably set the child locks, which would make it impossible to open the door from the inside and keep it all locked from the outside, which, if true, kudos. But an easier solution is to go sell your shit at the walmart, like everybody else, and they wouldn't even know where your car was. Torrent (talk) 06:27, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
- So today there was a small box by the back broken window. Obvious bait, so I saw it from my window and when I went down to drive to work, I didn't have to give it a second thought or a glance. I walked past it like I didn't even know it was there. I am still some random guy, after all. got home from work and the box was gone, and the window was taped back up. I am only implicating myself in ways that are suspicious but not dangerous, stopping to look at this box would be stupid and dangerous. I already seent it, I already seent enough so far, I'm not going vigilante. Just neighborhood watch. Torrent (talk) 10:11, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- The other problem, inviting the police in to look around, is, well, I'm not convinced all my neighbors are immune from ICE deportations. So, I know who exactly is the problem right now, by way of car in the lot, but man, NARCing is not what I want to do right now. Torrent (talk) 10:24, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- Well, anyone who commits the crime of 'looking vaguely "foreign"' is now grounds for being nabbed and put in an ICE transit camp now. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:38, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- Und was denken ICE über Friedrich Trump (Drumpf und so weiter)? Anna Livia (talk) 23:03, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I only took one year of German. I took six of French, and have lived a lot with Mexican-American Spanish. I can kinda pronounce the umlaut, and I believe English is a Germanic language, but that was way too hard for me. I did a Google translate. I wasn't far off. Torrent (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
- My German is 'holiday at best' (but 'muss ich kann ich Fractur lesen' - one 'old enough' bilingual dictionary and a modern one, and 'compare the German words till the Fractur was legible -but 'mwvn' and FIJT' letters can be problematic): this is about my limit: I was making a dig at You Know Who. Anna Livia (talk) 17:57, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
- I have, probably a bait car. It's imported so the driver's side is on the other side. It runs really well when it's running, but it needs a new electrical harness, which, finding one is one thing, installing one is another. I also have been run off the road by careless drivers in other cars in the past so when I got the car I bought a couple dashcams for it, so that if something happens (I am a very good driver, even if I'm not a great mechanic) I can show it was not my fault, which I think police around here would see 'steering wheel is on the wrong side, his fault.' I have been pulled over a couple times in it just to check that the license/registration/insurance were all good, not even speeding committed even though it's all in kmp/h, that's how fucking good I am at driving the speed limit. It has some electrical bleed that I can't figure out, but the dash cams are installed even if I disconnect the battery to save its charge, meaning the dash cams aren't powered either. The car has never been fucked with, even though it does have a window that won't go all the way up and lots of my amateur mechanic shit in it, just waiting to be casually robbed. Part of it is, I live in a good area not far from a bad area. But generally, it is a good area. I have the nextdoor app and never post there unless it is advice about staying away from coyotes, it is true that sometimes people get their shit fucked with in the neighborhood, but mostly the unhoused/unwell are as much to blame as somebody wasted knocking on the wrong door. I gotta work a job to pay rent, or I'd consider schooling in counseling/mediation and work my way into local politics to take a look at this area, but since I can't even take a day off and feed myself, let alone meet and organize a group of people to take a day off, I cannot bend the ear of local politics in a way that matters. And I know the locals, they are a mixed bag, I have driven through the neighborhood and seen a 'in this house we believe Love is Love, etc. etc. Performative human rights sign but still my team, and I have driven by as somebody was literally having their dog on a leash taking a dump in the middle of that person's front yard. Purple cities are weird, but Republicans are weirder. Also the car owner took the plates off entirely, which is dumb, because I would already know the make/model of the car as well as a couple customized features. So maybe this guy is a dangerous idiot, I won't be going behind the dumpster tonight, for any curiosity. Torrent (talk) 04:06, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- Two new unfamiliar cars, one with the same out of state plates, different number, one with a disability plate, which I wouldn't care about much but it's not parked in the handicap spots, it also reads 'ZZZZ' as a vanity press and has an open can of a white claw (the best of the worst idea that is American hard seltzer, I mean, get a grip, are you drinking or not?) on the floor of the passenger side. And the original car is gone. Not surprising for a Saturday night, places to be if you've got places to be. I didn't need to snoop around to see this, I just noticed all of it when I got home from grocery shopping and happened to park next to it. i've lived here for more than 5 years. Parking is very tough around here, everyone here owns a car, strange things are afoot. Torrent (talk) 05:36, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- One car got towed, probably for unregistered tags (There is an extremely predatory tow guy who scans the parking lot, I think he works a chop shop) I can tell because there are scrapes in the asphalt that match the time he illegally towed my car (which I could not get any legal recourse for, he charged me 207 dollars cash, then just dropped my car outside his gated lot where guys were literally dismantling a car. No proof of ownership necessary, just 'hey, that's my car' 'it costs $207 in cash to get it out' 'oh, fuck you' 'WHAT?' 'Fuck everything, I guess is what I mean, I'll be back with the money.'), and the other car now has printer paper DMV proof that it's been registered taped to the windshield. I am off the case, I haven't seen any action behind the dumpster, I can only assume they've recognized this as a bad place to do business. I still want to get this predatory tow service shut down, I reported it last year, but i guess he's still fuckin up the lot. Torrent (talk) 06:59, 15 August 2025 (UTC)
- Two new unfamiliar cars, one with the same out of state plates, different number, one with a disability plate, which I wouldn't care about much but it's not parked in the handicap spots, it also reads 'ZZZZ' as a vanity press and has an open can of a white claw (the best of the worst idea that is American hard seltzer, I mean, get a grip, are you drinking or not?) on the floor of the passenger side. And the original car is gone. Not surprising for a Saturday night, places to be if you've got places to be. I didn't need to snoop around to see this, I just noticed all of it when I got home from grocery shopping and happened to park next to it. i've lived here for more than 5 years. Parking is very tough around here, everyone here owns a car, strange things are afoot. Torrent (talk) 05:36, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- I have, probably a bait car. It's imported so the driver's side is on the other side. It runs really well when it's running, but it needs a new electrical harness, which, finding one is one thing, installing one is another. I also have been run off the road by careless drivers in other cars in the past so when I got the car I bought a couple dashcams for it, so that if something happens (I am a very good driver, even if I'm not a great mechanic) I can show it was not my fault, which I think police around here would see 'steering wheel is on the wrong side, his fault.' I have been pulled over a couple times in it just to check that the license/registration/insurance were all good, not even speeding committed even though it's all in kmp/h, that's how fucking good I am at driving the speed limit. It has some electrical bleed that I can't figure out, but the dash cams are installed even if I disconnect the battery to save its charge, meaning the dash cams aren't powered either. The car has never been fucked with, even though it does have a window that won't go all the way up and lots of my amateur mechanic shit in it, just waiting to be casually robbed. Part of it is, I live in a good area not far from a bad area. But generally, it is a good area. I have the nextdoor app and never post there unless it is advice about staying away from coyotes, it is true that sometimes people get their shit fucked with in the neighborhood, but mostly the unhoused/unwell are as much to blame as somebody wasted knocking on the wrong door. I gotta work a job to pay rent, or I'd consider schooling in counseling/mediation and work my way into local politics to take a look at this area, but since I can't even take a day off and feed myself, let alone meet and organize a group of people to take a day off, I cannot bend the ear of local politics in a way that matters. And I know the locals, they are a mixed bag, I have driven through the neighborhood and seen a 'in this house we believe Love is Love, etc. etc. Performative human rights sign but still my team, and I have driven by as somebody was literally having their dog on a leash taking a dump in the middle of that person's front yard. Purple cities are weird, but Republicans are weirder. Also the car owner took the plates off entirely, which is dumb, because I would already know the make/model of the car as well as a couple customized features. So maybe this guy is a dangerous idiot, I won't be going behind the dumpster tonight, for any curiosity. Torrent (talk) 04:06, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- My German is 'holiday at best' (but 'muss ich kann ich Fractur lesen' - one 'old enough' bilingual dictionary and a modern one, and 'compare the German words till the Fractur was legible -but 'mwvn' and FIJT' letters can be problematic): this is about my limit: I was making a dig at You Know Who. Anna Livia (talk) 17:57, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I only took one year of German. I took six of French, and have lived a lot with Mexican-American Spanish. I can kinda pronounce the umlaut, and I believe English is a Germanic language, but that was way too hard for me. I did a Google translate. I wasn't far off. Torrent (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
- Und was denken ICE über Friedrich Trump (Drumpf und so weiter)? Anna Livia (talk) 23:03, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- Well, anyone who commits the crime of 'looking vaguely "foreign"' is now grounds for being nabbed and put in an ICE transit camp now. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:38, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- The other problem, inviting the police in to look around, is, well, I'm not convinced all my neighbors are immune from ICE deportations. So, I know who exactly is the problem right now, by way of car in the lot, but man, NARCing is not what I want to do right now. Torrent (talk) 10:24, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- So today there was a small box by the back broken window. Obvious bait, so I saw it from my window and when I went down to drive to work, I didn't have to give it a second thought or a glance. I walked past it like I didn't even know it was there. I am still some random guy, after all. got home from work and the box was gone, and the window was taped back up. I am only implicating myself in ways that are suspicious but not dangerous, stopping to look at this box would be stupid and dangerous. I already seent it, I already seent enough so far, I'm not going vigilante. Just neighborhood watch. Torrent (talk) 10:11, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- Not to worry, I am very aware of the stuff going on around me, I know my pressure doesn't escalate the situations. If I was worried about getting shot for low level drug crimes, I wouldn't insert myself, if I was worried somebody was ready to protect this with a gun, I wouldn't insert myself. I had considered calling the non emergency police line over the attempted break in of the car, and if it happens again I will. But I mean I've lived with grindset pot dealers and around meth addicts, my guess is this is probably not meth, which takes the danger level down by a million degrees. Even a coke head knows that escalating a drug crime to manslaughter or assault isn't worth the charge. And I'm not looking to steal the bag, what would I ever do with drugs? I just kinda want to see what it is, but I have been around drug culture and dangerously high people enough to know what I'm looking at and how to navigate it. There is at best a random guy who smokes cigarettes and goes looking for possums and raccoons, at worst a federal CID agent. There is not much danger involved in being either at this level of intervention, but a risk of dropping the bag behind the dumpster increased. Which is funny, you can literally hand off drugs in a dozen parking lots nearby. The car has not been moved or touched, not even to re-tape the plastic. Best explanation I can come up with for what I saw is the owner probably set the child locks, which would make it impossible to open the door from the inside and keep it all locked from the outside, which, if true, kudos. But an easier solution is to go sell your shit at the walmart, like everybody else, and they wouldn't even know where your car was. Torrent (talk) 06:27, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
Just found this[edit]
I have no memory of it; anyone else?] Scream!! (talk) 18:45, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
- I don't remember the 2015 survey, but there was a 2017 survey conducted by former moderator and board member FuzzyCatPotato. Summary results here: Forum:2017 Community Survey Results. Bongolian (talk) 19:56, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
- I also have no memory of the 2015 survey. I remember the 2017 one though - perhaps because the results were expressed in pretty colors with analysis.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:35, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
- This is my entry... KarmaPolice (talk) 23:27, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- I also have no memory of the 2015 survey. I remember the 2017 one though - perhaps because the results were expressed in pretty colors with analysis.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:35, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
Is The Anarchist Library article good to go up on the mainspace now?[edit]
It's completely rewritten now, I just don't want to mess up again. It looked like from the drafts how to page that someone with the ability to move articles might have to do it. But, maybe I could just copy and paste it there and then someone delete the draft, or do I just delete the draft code at the top and it all sorts itself?
Here's the draft link: Draft:The Anarchist Library & mainspace link: The Anarchist Library. Taodoray (talk) 15:40, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- The draft has been deleted because it was largely plagiarized from the Wikipedia article of the same name. Please don't do that. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 17:09, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- I get it's a virtue and all to have the talent to re-write an article in a totally different way, but I am trying here. I co-authored the article on wikipedia, the person I co-authored it with gave explicit permission to use what we came up with together for anyone to use in any way they like, but regardless I then rewrote every paragraph with new ideas and in the style of this wiki for this wikis audience. Taodoray (talk) 17:22, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- Would the RW edition of this page say anything really different to the WP one? KarmaPolice (talk) 19:10, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- I get it's a virtue and all to have the talent to re-write an article in a totally different way, but I am trying here. I co-authored the article on wikipedia, the person I co-authored it with gave explicit permission to use what we came up with together for anyone to use in any way they like, but regardless I then rewrote every paragraph with new ideas and in the style of this wiki for this wikis audience. Taodoray (talk) 17:22, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, there's a whole bizarre history where I think RW is a more appropriate place to cover it than on WP and is stuff I wrote in the draft:
- "Another anarchist website that preceded the library and competed for significance was An Anarchist FAQ book & website which praised collective action and downplayed the importance of individualist anarchism. So, Aragorn! and others ran The Anarchist Library partially to push back against this tendency by opening the boundaries of what anarchism meant to include anti-tech individualists like Ted Kaczynski and Individualists Against the Wild (ITS) who neither showed signs of really understanding anarchist history or ideas. [including multiple citations like Ted disavowing anarchism, etc.]"
- ITS were a weird ass bunch of terrorists in Mexico that tried to assassinate nano-scientists with package bombs and blow up an anarchist squat. They were pagan anti-natalists who took ideas from Ted Kaczynski & O9A. Plus, Ted Kaczynski's ideas are treated as more legitimate than ever by more and more silly people. Here are two Anarchist Library forum posts about Ted K & ITS.
- And there's all kinds of other weirdness that the people who run this library put up like an argument for going back to cannibal-themed feudal times, Eleven Ways to Kill a Child & a text glorifying school shooters small contribution to the effort of exterminating all humans.Taodoray (talk) 21:17, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- @TaodorayIf you wrote most of the Wikipedia article, then you shouldn't have too much difficulty writing about it again here in slightly different words. Don't just copypaste what you wrote before and take out the red links. Write it again in different words. Then we can host it. Spud (talk) 11:07, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- @Taodoray This framing is partly accurate, but misleading. Aragorn died a while back and the site itself hosts a large amount of criticisms of the post-left/post-anarchist/anti-civ groups and persons that the initial gen was enamored with. If the site is uncritical of anything, it's "mainstream" anarchist truisms/pop history and anarcho-nihilism. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 18:36, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- Here's a compare and contrast of the wikipedia page and the latest RW draft that was deleted: click here
- If that's not enough change, I accept that. I just genuinely find it hard to re-write an informationally dense wiki style article where I like the info I already came up with.
- @GrammarCommie, in the longer draft article I did cover how it's a mostly pluralist project. Here's a link to the full article draft: click here Taodoray (talk) 19:42, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- @Taodoray Thanks, I'll check it out. The exact "consensus" of that site also likely fluctuates in terms of its history, to be fair. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 20:24, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- @Taodoray This framing is partly accurate, but misleading. Aragorn died a while back and the site itself hosts a large amount of criticisms of the post-left/post-anarchist/anti-civ groups and persons that the initial gen was enamored with. If the site is uncritical of anything, it's "mainstream" anarchist truisms/pop history and anarcho-nihilism. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 18:36, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- @TaodorayIf you wrote most of the Wikipedia article, then you shouldn't have too much difficulty writing about it again here in slightly different words. Don't just copypaste what you wrote before and take out the red links. Write it again in different words. Then we can host it. Spud (talk) 11:07, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- And there's all kinds of other weirdness that the people who run this library put up like an argument for going back to cannibal-themed feudal times, Eleven Ways to Kill a Child & a text glorifying school shooters small contribution to the effort of exterminating all humans.Taodoray (talk) 21:17, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
Meeting up with an old friend (gone wrong)[edit]
I had this friend whom I've never talked to in over 6 years. I had an opportunity to meet up with him again and I took it. Upon first meeting up with him I found something odd with his mannerisms and speech patterns, like it was different from how I remember how he used to talk. Hard to describe but it was a slight air of smugness in his vocal tone. I paid no mind to it, I thought to myself either I'm misremembering or maybe people have subtle changes in personality over time. For the first fifteen minutes, we talked about our life trajectories since drifting apart -careers, relationships, hobbies, simple stuff like that. He mentioned he got into Crypto and bought NFTs. Unexpectedly he asked me "So what do you think of President Trump. Great change of pace after those last four years of Biden, huh?" I asked him to explain what he meant by that and that's when the can of worms started to open. He snorted "Oh, you must still have your TDS" Shocked, I tried to change the convo but he went off about how he stopped believing the "legacy" media, how Biden caused hyperinflation & let in illegal immigrants while he was simultaneously too old to really be in charge. He boasted about how "great" the economy is doing under Trump and how much of a "genius" he is with negotiating trade deals. And of course, gloated about the cruelty of ICE raids & Alligator Alcatraz. He implied that I was brainwashed for not thinking that Trump is the greatest President in history. Whoever this guy was, he was not my friend I went to high school & college with, not anymore. The guy used to be kind, empathetic, and passionate for science and critical of anti-intellectual populism in politics. He loathed Trump during his first term, and thought he was a disaster for this nation. He was unambiguously left wing. I had to end the meetup abruptly while he was on his side tangent because I know it's fruitless to debate with Trump supporters and I'm looking out for myself a lot more these days.
I don't know what happened between now and the last time I saw him. Maybe lockdown messed with his head, or maybe he was suckered in by some manosphere grifter, or maybe it was during his Crypto phase. I am still scratching my head. It's been 3 weeks since I talked to him, and I am still puzzled. There are people in my life who are Trump supporters. Many were already Republicans destined to become MAGAs, and I know a few people who weren't very political or who were politically flip-floppy who became Trumpers. I cut out the extraneous Trumplovers out of my life, only keeping contact when absolutely necessary and avoiding politics in conversation, and these people are generally more restrained about their beliefs barring a few. I don't recall someone having a political realignment as drastic as this guy, though. let alone personality change. You hear about a lot of left-to-right conversions these days, maybe that's just propaganda or maybe I got lucky to not witness it happen to someone until now. I'm honestly sad now, because we used to play video games & D&D when we were younger and have so much fun together. It's not just that he loves Trump now, its more about how his personality completely changed. It feels like I'm mourning someone who is still alive, yet the person I knew is long gone. Does anyone else have a similar experience to this? Do you know what I mean by "mourning" somebody who is still alive, but more mourning their previous persona? LambunctiousEgg (talk) 03:45, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
- Chap does not know what hyperinflation means. (A decent book is Adam Fergusson 'When Money Dies' 1975 - about the Weimar inflation). Anna Livia (talk) 09:30, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
- As if Trump supporters are known for their rhetorical honesty. They'll cry 'hyperinflation' even at just 4% inflation -but only while Democrats are in power.LambunctiousEgg (talk) 19:50, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
- There is always a chance this guy wants to fit in harder than he has personal beliefs. So, instead of steeling himself against a group that he fit in with otherwise on apolitical grounds, he found it easier to go past what they were saying and be the guy that knew all about it even better than they did. I have seen that happen. Keep yourself separate if you need to, but it's worth your time to say something along the lines of 'dude, you're doing that thing again. Bringing up something obscure and pretending we both care about it so you can show off how much you know about it. Nobody here cares, I'd rather hear about what you're having for dinner tonight.' It might not bring him back from Neptune, but it can remind him he's still orbiting earth. Keep both feet on the ground, show him you didn't have to change to have a real life. Let him be stupid, but if he hasn't actually changed, he will probably feel stupid all on his own around you not giving a shit about his dumbass takes. I knew a guy who used to try to introduce Chess openers into conversation, and when people were reasonably like 'What? What are you talking about?' He would immediately dive into Chess opening moves with false incredulity, 'oh, you don't know about the emperor's clothes?' Or whatever he wanted to talk about. He wasn't a smart person, he just liked the whole chess zeitgeist that was going on at the time, and probably felt really left out when other people were talking about... Anything else. Torrent (talk) 04:53, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- People's politics mean nothing to them. It's all 'virtue signaling', so whatever you're going to signal depends on what the dynamic of the social group you want to be a part of. People flip easily because the zeitgeist of each side is dictated by leaders who are smarmy opportunists. People used to join cults because the cult members would 'lovebomb' them, meaning they would suck up to them and make them feel like they were important and special. But today's socio-political tribalism works the opposite way: you run afoul of the 'social police' of your group, they give you too much shit, you don't respect their hypocritical bullshit, so you pack up your marbles and march off to join the other side. It's everywhere, all those 'Dark Intellectual Web' dorks are former liberals who got cancelled and crossed over. Even here at RomperWiki, it was formed by disgruntled editors of a conservative wiki. Do you really think they were all just deep-cover liberals trying to 'keep them honest' by trolling the conservative wiki? Nobody is bound by the ethics or morals they claim to champion. It's all about the social pecking order - if you're on top you can flaunt your shittiness because you can get away with it, if not, you hide it, because you can't get away with flaunting it. Very few people are strong enough to not need a social life, even an ephemeral one that takes place on the internet. There are no answers, there is no middle-ground.2A01:6340:2:501:0:0:0:20 (talk) 11:56, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- BoN, you're not gonna like me for saying this, but. Hey man, it's okay to want some community. Just don't join it out of anger, anguish, or desperation and you'll be able to clock a cult. I don't think the people here get along very well, Lord knows I have my spats here, but there are reasons to argue and be different from each other, and they are very similar to the reasons I don't like cults. Imagine I am holding out my hand. Now, cough up that black pill young man, you didn't bring enough for everybody? You're posting in the reasonably free speech zone, and I'm fine with it. We all got our boulders to push. Torrent (talk) 06:01, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Torrent, the only point I intended to make is that people's socio-political affiliations are situational and not as fixed as some may tend to believe. They're not fixed to anything greater than the needs of the self. I may not have made that point very well. In group dynamics people tend to "go along to get along". I didn't intend to say much about the dynamic specific to RW, but there are some interesting RW-specific anomalies I've noticed over the years I've observed it. I don't mind discussing them if there is any interest. You mentioned 'free speech', which isn't a topic I find particularly useful, but I feel like pointing out that we can't know what hasn't been said, we can only know about what does get said. How many times has a user of RW had the urge to say something, but before doing so decided that it probably wouldn't go over well, so they refrain from stating whatever they felt like saying.
- BoN, you're not gonna like me for saying this, but. Hey man, it's okay to want some community. Just don't join it out of anger, anguish, or desperation and you'll be able to clock a cult. I don't think the people here get along very well, Lord knows I have my spats here, but there are reasons to argue and be different from each other, and they are very similar to the reasons I don't like cults. Imagine I am holding out my hand. Now, cough up that black pill young man, you didn't bring enough for everybody? You're posting in the reasonably free speech zone, and I'm fine with it. We all got our boulders to push. Torrent (talk) 06:01, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- People's politics mean nothing to them. It's all 'virtue signaling', so whatever you're going to signal depends on what the dynamic of the social group you want to be a part of. People flip easily because the zeitgeist of each side is dictated by leaders who are smarmy opportunists. People used to join cults because the cult members would 'lovebomb' them, meaning they would suck up to them and make them feel like they were important and special. But today's socio-political tribalism works the opposite way: you run afoul of the 'social police' of your group, they give you too much shit, you don't respect their hypocritical bullshit, so you pack up your marbles and march off to join the other side. It's everywhere, all those 'Dark Intellectual Web' dorks are former liberals who got cancelled and crossed over. Even here at RomperWiki, it was formed by disgruntled editors of a conservative wiki. Do you really think they were all just deep-cover liberals trying to 'keep them honest' by trolling the conservative wiki? Nobody is bound by the ethics or morals they claim to champion. It's all about the social pecking order - if you're on top you can flaunt your shittiness because you can get away with it, if not, you hide it, because you can't get away with flaunting it. Very few people are strong enough to not need a social life, even an ephemeral one that takes place on the internet. There are no answers, there is no middle-ground.2A01:6340:2:501:0:0:0:20 (talk) 11:56, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- There is always a chance this guy wants to fit in harder than he has personal beliefs. So, instead of steeling himself against a group that he fit in with otherwise on apolitical grounds, he found it easier to go past what they were saying and be the guy that knew all about it even better than they did. I have seen that happen. Keep yourself separate if you need to, but it's worth your time to say something along the lines of 'dude, you're doing that thing again. Bringing up something obscure and pretending we both care about it so you can show off how much you know about it. Nobody here cares, I'd rather hear about what you're having for dinner tonight.' It might not bring him back from Neptune, but it can remind him he's still orbiting earth. Keep both feet on the ground, show him you didn't have to change to have a real life. Let him be stupid, but if he hasn't actually changed, he will probably feel stupid all on his own around you not giving a shit about his dumbass takes. I knew a guy who used to try to introduce Chess openers into conversation, and when people were reasonably like 'What? What are you talking about?' He would immediately dive into Chess opening moves with false incredulity, 'oh, you don't know about the emperor's clothes?' Or whatever he wanted to talk about. He wasn't a smart person, he just liked the whole chess zeitgeist that was going on at the time, and probably felt really left out when other people were talking about... Anything else. Torrent (talk) 04:53, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- As if Trump supporters are known for their rhetorical honesty. They'll cry 'hyperinflation' even at just 4% inflation -but only while Democrats are in power.LambunctiousEgg (talk) 19:50, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
- When someone has that experience there is probably some kind of toll on the psyche. Something that's not quite a grudge, not quite an investment, and not quite a credit, but something that has aspects of those things. If those experiences build up over time, if that person ever gets in an explicit beef they may feel that they are owed allegiance. They might think something along the lines of, "After all those times I refrained from rocking the boat for the good of the group, and now you all don't have my back? Screw you!". It could be something seemingly minor, but to them it was a moment in which they wanted to cash in some of the cachet they'd accrued. And they're unlikely to state that feeling explicitly, because it's not going to make any sense to anyone else. Nobody knows that they expect some social reciprocation for something they didn't say. So they just stop participating and disappear and no one notices for a few months until maybe someone thinks, "I haven't seen so-and-so around here for months, they were really active for so long... I wonder what happened to them. OH well, probably too busy with 'real life'". And that's as far as that scenario goes.2A0B:F4C2:2:0:0:0:0:34 (talk) 09:31, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- That is certainly another possible explanation. We were in totally separate social circles at this point in time. Told me he got into the car mod community (which he put coffee can exhausts on a 20 year old Nissan) now I'm wondering if that was the catalyst. We did have one remaining acquaintance which both of us still kept semi-regular contact, and this acquaintance was the one who suggested the reunion in the first place since he heard I was coming through my old home town. Never warned me about my now-former friend's MAGA turn. AFIK this acquaintance was never a political guy, but Trump has a monopoly on the "non-political" people it seems. I would ask him if he knew of my friend's change but I don't want to open that can of worms right now. I've partially gotten over the shock of this encounter, and I'm not going to dwell on what exactly caused my friend to become this way, but I still miss the old him. LambunctiousEgg (talk) 03:20, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
- When someone has that experience there is probably some kind of toll on the psyche. Something that's not quite a grudge, not quite an investment, and not quite a credit, but something that has aspects of those things. If those experiences build up over time, if that person ever gets in an explicit beef they may feel that they are owed allegiance. They might think something along the lines of, "After all those times I refrained from rocking the boat for the good of the group, and now you all don't have my back? Screw you!". It could be something seemingly minor, but to them it was a moment in which they wanted to cash in some of the cachet they'd accrued. And they're unlikely to state that feeling explicitly, because it's not going to make any sense to anyone else. Nobody knows that they expect some social reciprocation for something they didn't say. So they just stop participating and disappear and no one notices for a few months until maybe someone thinks, "I haven't seen so-and-so around here for months, they were really active for so long... I wonder what happened to them. OH well, probably too busy with 'real life'". And that's as far as that scenario goes.2A0B:F4C2:2:0:0:0:0:34 (talk) 09:31, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
Unpaid Promotion for Those Who Love to Rock[edit]
I was lucky enough to knock out my work (lucky as in team effort and the whole team went balls at the work) early tonight and got to watch the back half of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard performing with Orchestra of St. Luke's, streamed, but I mean, COULD I have been there in person? https://youtu.be/mP1Z5HtsPt0?feature=shared They did shout 'Free Palestine' during this show, so you know they're cool. U.S. Girls, another band I really like, will be one of the openers tomorrow, or I guess today, or tonight Eastern, it's also intended to be live streamed. I mean, honestly it's cool music if you like classic rock, psychadellics rock, or old school metal, and that's important to me to share. Just today I rolled up on the parking lot at work and heard some lady blasting Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive, which, fine, is good even if I'm tired of it. But for real, check shit like this out. Torrent (talk) 05:46, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- The 'free Palestine' statement is just after the 2:03:00 minute mark, I had to sift back through it, it wasn't something that surprised me, just another thing that made me say 'let's go!' which was tough because the tunes are hard to skip through, they're all so good, and I didn't remember the statement as being before or after any song. I guess, of course, it was close to the end of the set, and I admit the 'shouting' I heard was expert guitar feedback. Torrent (talk) 06:25, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
Saloon Introductions[edit]
People do come and go. I guess we could use an ice-breaker, then, if we plan on sticking around. I am Torrent, a... and three interesting things about me are, um, I never learned to tie my shoes. I just shove my feet in there every day and pray I don't have to ask an old lady to, ha 'lace me up,' as it were. Last one said she doubled knotted it, and that's working out pretty good so far. Um, also, I am about 3 inches shorter at the end of the day from the start, I mean, I hear everybody shrinks because of gravity or whatever, but three inches? kinda sounds like a lot but I don't see my pediatrician anymore, so I dunno WHO to ask about that. And three. I cannot pronounce pasghetti, no matter how hard I try, and I will not entertain the notion that I can. Not even for dollars. Not anymore. Woof, that was tough, glad you're getting to know me. Any introductions you'd like to contribute? Torrent (talk) 14:02, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- I fuckin hate 'ice breakers.' If I wasn't shy I'd say these things even in mixed company. Torrent (talk) 14:17, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
Yikes!![edit]
SCOTUS plans on shooting down the VRA. If so, Republicans will have an insurmountable majority in the House barring a 2008/2018 level of blue wave.2600:4808:356:7E01:CDF8:33AC:FA18:B24A (talk) 15:10, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- Remember when everyone thought we were just being hyperbolic that 2024 might be the last election that can be reasonably considered free and fair? It doesn't matter if you're in your 20s or in your 70s, you can now expect that Republicans will now have total, uninterrupted control of the US government for as long as you live, even if you managed to be spared by the regime. If you have children, they will live the entirety of their lives under total Republican control. So will your grandkids. So will your great-grand kids, and so on. America is now functionally a one-party system. It is now a "managed democracy" where they ensure the Democrats remain a permanent electoral minority no matter how unpopular Republicans get. I wouldn't be surprised if they straight-up ban the Democratic party in the next few years. Internal rebellion will be futile not only due to America's powerful military, but also because Silicon Valley is investing billions of dollars in AI to build a surveillance network to keep everyone under control and monitored. MAGA elites are taking steps to ensure that the weaknesses which led to the collapse of other dictatorial regimes does not happen here. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 20:54, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- It's always "elites" this and "elites" that, all while denying the complicity of the average GOP voter. Even in their vapid polemics, Liberals simply cannot seem to accept that the GOP's base of support is existentially oppositional to them. Trump voters and supporters are always "deranged" or "stupid" or "uneducated", and yet they comprise one of the most active and effective political movements since the rise of Neoliberalism. And the libs do little but whine and complain, denying the reality of the political landscape around them. "This isn't how things should be" they insist, and yet offer nothing but a return to the same broken status quo that got us into this mess. Perhaps Americans should read more history, and learn how to eat soup with knives. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 22:22, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, lets not deny it. 80 million Americans voted for this. 80 million Americans voted to never have an election again. Some may have been fooled, but many of them knew full well what would happen if he won. Many of them are actively cheering for the dismantlement of the country's institutions, the constitution, and our very freedom. They are happy to condemn themselves and their children to suffer if they think their political enemies suffer a bit worse than themselves. But let's not kid ourselves, the Democrats suck too. I don't think I could imagine this amount of incompetence coming from an opposition party. Normally, Trump and the Republicans' authoritarian streak would be so easy to run a counter-narrative on, but it's like Democrats are actively trying to lose. I wouldn't be surprised if the Democratic party is being paid off to run milquetoast incompetent people with the intention to let the Republicans win. Biden was a horrible candidate and a horrible President. Anyone whose paying attention back in 2020 knew that the age issue would've became a problem down the line. There's no way the Democrat leadership didn't knew of this either. The status quo wasn't great, but it's a hell a lot better than this. But sure, let's throw away our freedoms for cheaper eggs. Let's sign away our right to self-determination as a nation just to own a few libs.
- The new American fascism movement is the most successful political movement in this country's history. While it was the culmination of Republican gerrymandering, right-wing media, education gutting, and shady donor networks from billionaires looking to remove environmental and worker protections, let's also acknowledge that half of the American people are culpable too. They got the government that reflects the people's will, which is one that'll be imposed on all future generations to come. Same to people who stayed home because Kamala had an annoying laugh or eggs were a bit too expensive. Fuck this country, fuck MAGA, fuck the corporatist Democrat party, and fuck half the people living here. Yes, I am an "America-hating liberal" because this country doesn't give me any good reason to like it, but gives me plenty of reason to dislike it. But maybe I'm just hysterical, and maybe wanting to live in a free country is being on the "wrong side of history" nowadays. 2001:67C:2628:647:31:2404:0:99 (talk) 00:57, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- See, this is exactly what I was complaining about and mocking. Right here. The Dems have to be framed as wanting Trump to win, the Trump voters have to hate democracy, all this rationalizing moralist drivel. At no point is the system itself in question, at no point can you allow yourself to consider the multiplicity of viewpoints and perspectives, and the full implications of such a consideration. It's just low effort heroes and villains narratives, the same formulaic crap in every half assed narrative with barely even the appearance of depth. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 02:57, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- I predicted you were going to say something like that. It's very hard to not treat this like a "heroes and villains" narrative when one side is celebrating abject cruelty. Just look at MAGA's reaction to the opening of Alligator Alcatraz. They were selling merch mocking people getting eaten by alligators. Also see how MAGA celebrates sending people to Gitmo and El Salvador and South Sudan. We can deport undocumented people without engaging in unnecessary brutality. We have done so for decades before Trump. MAGA knew what Trump had in mind when he talked about his immigration policy, now they are taking glee in suffering; laughing at people getting abducted, denied due process, and sent to a foreign land they never had ties to. No "rationalizing moralist drivel" required to come to the conclusion that MAGA is a morally abhorrent, evil movement. Why should we "consider the multiplicity of viewpoints and perspectives" when some of those viewpoints are rooted in intentionally causing suffering? Would you consider the viewpoint of a Nazi? You're going to accuse me of running afoul of Godwin, I'm sure. Maybe the Nazi comparison isn't apt... because Nazis didn't advertise their concentration camps to the whole world, let alone sell merch of it. Keep in mind that Auschwitz wasn't a death camp when it was first established, just a "detainment facility." Also, the majority of people who voted for the Nazi party during the Weimar Era would have ever predicted it would end the way it did, because there was no precedent of this occurring back then. Now, there is precedent. We know how the party came to power through Democratic means, only to destroy the democratic system that got them into power, and committing one of the most horrific atrocities in human history. The thing that is unprecedented nowadays is half the nation's population cheering for state sponsored cruelty. Denying the growing parallels + telling people who point out the parallels they're just being hysterical is bad faith at this point. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 03:54, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Sounds like you're a leftist, which, I agree, gives you less power in the American bipartisan system. And I have understood the two party system in America being treated as stupidly as sports teams>since middle school, where I watched a kid get.pulled to the floor.for having the audacity to wear a branded coat that he wore every day after our team got beat by that team. When my local college football team loses a game, incidents of domestic violence spike. In-home violence, people who treat this as extremely important by team and not policy will literally hit their wives and children for not getting it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3712874/ in my family home, there are a couple ladies who don't understand or care about sports. When I visit to watch the games, they don't watch the games and that's okay. When a bad loss happens, it's very lucky that when asked 'well, why did that happen' the men in my family can say 'because they blew it' and not need to strike anyone for asking such an annoying question after a bad loss. Torrent (talk) 06:23, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Comparing politics to sports is objectively stupid. In sports its not like the winning team can change the rules to fix all future games in their favor, or put the losing team into camps. I don't even consider myself a leftist unless being a libertarian counts as being leftist now, (and I'm not one of those fascists in libertarian clothes, either) but its ridiculous that the only choices in America are right of center corporatists and actual fascists. And somehow the fascists have successfully convinced the American people that the center-right pro capitalist party is a marxist-leninist ultra-communist party. If you sort Americans by political leaning, the Democrats, the "big tent" party that they are, cover a very sparsely populated 4/5ths of the left side of the political spectrum. The GOP and the MAGA movement are crammed up in the final rightmost fifth of the board. No wonder why the Democrats are so divided because they cover such a wide range of beliefs but fewer people over, meanwhile the GOP is much tighter knit, with more people piled on top of each other. The reactionary right has a narrower footprint of the political board but more people overall. This skew of political alignment has been a feature of American politics for decades but it's now much more pronounced. The culture war isn't so much right versus left than it is far right versus everyone else. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 07:44, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- So, and don't get me wrong, vote blue no matter who is actually kind of the only play, as fully described in your playbook, so I don't know what you're mad about comparing bad sports analysis to bad political analysis, probably just not worldly. And I hate politics too, as they are, and I don't even really like sports. But I hold my nose and vote blue, it's not like we are talking about two separate things, you absolute child.Torrent (talk) 07:49, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- I agree, it was the only play, but Vote Blue No Matter Who clearly has not worked. The fight against fascism has been lost, is it not normal to be at least a little bit upset that tyranny has won? Are we at the stage of the dictatorship where they start labeling anti-regime sentiment as "mental illness" or are we just preemptively preparing for it? By the way, the name-calling was uncalled for. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 09:04, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Look, I'm getting exhausted of it all. Watching this country get worse and worse, watching the people get worse and worse, watching the world get worse and worse from the moment in my adolescence when I became more observant of the going-ons outside of my personal life. That was around the time Obama was already elected to his 2nd term. Unfortunately I turned 18 a year late after Trump won the first time 'round. I really yearn for those times in the 90s when people were actually optimistic for the future, when people were less divided, and the world was getting better. I feel nostalgic for a time I wasn't even alive for. Yet, at the same time, I find it hard to even fathom living an existence where you're not afraid of the future, where one could rest easy that the worst part of history is behind us, not in front of us as appears to be now. I had to watch people in my generation, including some of my own former classmates and friends go from deriding Boomers for leaving us a ruined planet and ruined economy, to supporting Trump and cheering for his administration's cruelty and the end of freedom. God knows how generation Beta and beyond will view us for this. And maybe I am committing the same sin of clinging on to the past as MAGA does, but looking at how people's outlook on life back in the 90s and looking at it today, it's undeniable that the 90s were much better. Most likely you'll just chalk it up to "lack of life experience" and be told "nobody thought the world was getting better in the 90s" And someone will tell me that the president lying about a blowjob from his press secretary is just as big of a scandal as the president doing cover-up work for child sex traffickers and probably partook in those activities himself. (Yes, I know Bill Clinton raped lot of children on that island but that's not the point I'm making here, it wasn't in the public consciousness at the time) Plenty of older people in my life have told me there was a sense of optimism that died on 9/11 and never came back, because it can't come back. So pardon me for crashing out. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 09:37, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- I agree, it was the only play, but Vote Blue No Matter Who clearly has not worked. The fight against fascism has been lost, is it not normal to be at least a little bit upset that tyranny has won? Are we at the stage of the dictatorship where they start labeling anti-regime sentiment as "mental illness" or are we just preemptively preparing for it? By the way, the name-calling was uncalled for. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 09:04, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- So, and don't get me wrong, vote blue no matter who is actually kind of the only play, as fully described in your playbook, so I don't know what you're mad about comparing bad sports analysis to bad political analysis, probably just not worldly. And I hate politics too, as they are, and I don't even really like sports. But I hold my nose and vote blue, it's not like we are talking about two separate things, you absolute child.Torrent (talk) 07:49, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Comparing politics to sports is objectively stupid. In sports its not like the winning team can change the rules to fix all future games in their favor, or put the losing team into camps. I don't even consider myself a leftist unless being a libertarian counts as being leftist now, (and I'm not one of those fascists in libertarian clothes, either) but its ridiculous that the only choices in America are right of center corporatists and actual fascists. And somehow the fascists have successfully convinced the American people that the center-right pro capitalist party is a marxist-leninist ultra-communist party. If you sort Americans by political leaning, the Democrats, the "big tent" party that they are, cover a very sparsely populated 4/5ths of the left side of the political spectrum. The GOP and the MAGA movement are crammed up in the final rightmost fifth of the board. No wonder why the Democrats are so divided because they cover such a wide range of beliefs but fewer people over, meanwhile the GOP is much tighter knit, with more people piled on top of each other. The reactionary right has a narrower footprint of the political board but more people overall. This skew of political alignment has been a feature of American politics for decades but it's now much more pronounced. The culture war isn't so much right versus left than it is far right versus everyone else. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 07:44, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Sounds like you're a leftist, which, I agree, gives you less power in the American bipartisan system. And I have understood the two party system in America being treated as stupidly as sports teams>since middle school, where I watched a kid get.pulled to the floor.for having the audacity to wear a branded coat that he wore every day after our team got beat by that team. When my local college football team loses a game, incidents of domestic violence spike. In-home violence, people who treat this as extremely important by team and not policy will literally hit their wives and children for not getting it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3712874/ in my family home, there are a couple ladies who don't understand or care about sports. When I visit to watch the games, they don't watch the games and that's okay. When a bad loss happens, it's very lucky that when asked 'well, why did that happen' the men in my family can say 'because they blew it' and not need to strike anyone for asking such an annoying question after a bad loss. Torrent (talk) 06:23, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- I predicted you were going to say something like that. It's very hard to not treat this like a "heroes and villains" narrative when one side is celebrating abject cruelty. Just look at MAGA's reaction to the opening of Alligator Alcatraz. They were selling merch mocking people getting eaten by alligators. Also see how MAGA celebrates sending people to Gitmo and El Salvador and South Sudan. We can deport undocumented people without engaging in unnecessary brutality. We have done so for decades before Trump. MAGA knew what Trump had in mind when he talked about his immigration policy, now they are taking glee in suffering; laughing at people getting abducted, denied due process, and sent to a foreign land they never had ties to. No "rationalizing moralist drivel" required to come to the conclusion that MAGA is a morally abhorrent, evil movement. Why should we "consider the multiplicity of viewpoints and perspectives" when some of those viewpoints are rooted in intentionally causing suffering? Would you consider the viewpoint of a Nazi? You're going to accuse me of running afoul of Godwin, I'm sure. Maybe the Nazi comparison isn't apt... because Nazis didn't advertise their concentration camps to the whole world, let alone sell merch of it. Keep in mind that Auschwitz wasn't a death camp when it was first established, just a "detainment facility." Also, the majority of people who voted for the Nazi party during the Weimar Era would have ever predicted it would end the way it did, because there was no precedent of this occurring back then. Now, there is precedent. We know how the party came to power through Democratic means, only to destroy the democratic system that got them into power, and committing one of the most horrific atrocities in human history. The thing that is unprecedented nowadays is half the nation's population cheering for state sponsored cruelty. Denying the growing parallels + telling people who point out the parallels they're just being hysterical is bad faith at this point. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 03:54, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- See, this is exactly what I was complaining about and mocking. Right here. The Dems have to be framed as wanting Trump to win, the Trump voters have to hate democracy, all this rationalizing moralist drivel. At no point is the system itself in question, at no point can you allow yourself to consider the multiplicity of viewpoints and perspectives, and the full implications of such a consideration. It's just low effort heroes and villains narratives, the same formulaic crap in every half assed narrative with barely even the appearance of depth. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 02:57, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- It's always "elites" this and "elites" that, all while denying the complicity of the average GOP voter. Even in their vapid polemics, Liberals simply cannot seem to accept that the GOP's base of support is existentially oppositional to them. Trump voters and supporters are always "deranged" or "stupid" or "uneducated", and yet they comprise one of the most active and effective political movements since the rise of Neoliberalism. And the libs do little but whine and complain, denying the reality of the political landscape around them. "This isn't how things should be" they insist, and yet offer nothing but a return to the same broken status quo that got us into this mess. Perhaps Americans should read more history, and learn how to eat soup with knives. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 22:22, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
- Two things.
- 1. The ending of the VRA will 99% be under the 'back to the states' argument, just like abortion was. Therefore the fight for the general fight to vote will be back there.
- 2. What did YOU do to stop the rise of the New Order, OP? Apart from passively voting.
- I'm sick and tired of folks who bitch (perhaps rightly) about the situation but then do nothing. When was the last protest you did? When was the last public meeting you attended to speak at? When was the last pavement you pounded doing leafleting and door locking? When was the last political meeting you attended? If you care sufficiently about the situation put your self out there and fight for it. This is the critical issue when strongmen and demagogic movements attack old democracies - we take everything for granted so few fights for them and nobody fights effectively.
- You cannot delegate Someone Else to do this. Because you usually end up with Nobody Else doing it. Despair and apathy are the two main weapons the New Order has against you and on that front they are winning. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:43, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Your right, I could be doing more. I did attend one local protest back in April. I would do more, but I'm having difficulty scheduling with my job which is uneven hours. Unless you're suggesting I cut into my job time to get out more. I live in a sea of red, though. Walking up to doors with leaflet in hand -especially one endorsing democrats- runs the risk of getting shot. Not an exaggeration. The neighbors here are jumpy, especially nowadays.
- Oh and by the way, let's not kid ourselves. When the Supreme Court finishes off the VRA, I wouldn't be surprised if states then try to bring back literacy tests, or just straight up deny certain racial groups the right to vote at all. I'm sure the current Supreme Court would allow it too. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 10:24, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Throw away all the lessons 'the Dems' have taught you how to do politics and look to the Republican pressure group. The gun nuts, the anti-abortion folks, the ma fweedoms lot etc. Grassroots, single issue campaigns operating independently but allied to the party. It cannot be denied, they are effective! Whats more, as the Dems are thick as shit (still stuck in a 'politics as usual' mode) this is perhaps the only way to go right now.
- Oh and by the way, let's not kid ourselves. When the Supreme Court finishes off the VRA, I wouldn't be surprised if states then try to bring back literacy tests, or just straight up deny certain racial groups the right to vote at all. I'm sure the current Supreme Court would allow it too. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 10:24, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Speak out. Don't need to be 'pro Dem', just anti Trump. How many people feel like you but they think they are a minority of one because they don't meet personally 'normal folks' who feel the same way? Courage in numbers; when someone makes a stand, support them. And remember; even in deep TrumpLand there will be a minority (say between 25-30%) who either oppose or are trying to remain neutral. Speak to them, help them gain courage to become active too. Let MAGA know you will organise and will fight back. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:21, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Re the "heroes and villains" reply. The notion that oneself or anyone else are the "good guys" is largely self flattery. Re the rejection of the "sports" framework, which ties into the prior point. There is an unfortunate habit in the US to alternate between recognizing politics as existential conflicts within the population that cannot be fully resolved without a loss of certain demographics, but then insisting, with the faith of the religious, that politics is when the government does stuff. This is the root of American paralysis. The contradiction produced by recognizing that the population is not and can never be a singular unified whole, but must instead be seen as diverse and shifting demographics locked in a perpetual ebb and flow of conflict, which no particular demographic having protagonist status, and then insisting that we just need saintly lawgivers to impose morality from "above". It's pure comedy when one understands it. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 11:25, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- @KarmaPolice Being only "anti-Trump" is half the problem. There's nothing to offer, so the governing factions relying on such an image are largely reactive and defensive, and thus ultimately doomed. Give an alternative that is "orangemanmenolike". Hell make an alternative, instead of waiting like children for some career administrator to drop it in your lap and then acting upset when that doesn't happen. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 11:28, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- I disagree. The threat to 'the American system' is large enough that 'stop this shit' is a viable platform for opposition. We are fighting to have the ability/right to be able to argue about our future direction - MAGA desires that future to be His Masters Voice, a path with no diversions.
- Re the "heroes and villains" reply. The notion that oneself or anyone else are the "good guys" is largely self flattery. Re the rejection of the "sports" framework, which ties into the prior point. There is an unfortunate habit in the US to alternate between recognizing politics as existential conflicts within the population that cannot be fully resolved without a loss of certain demographics, but then insisting, with the faith of the religious, that politics is when the government does stuff. This is the root of American paralysis. The contradiction produced by recognizing that the population is not and can never be a singular unified whole, but must instead be seen as diverse and shifting demographics locked in a perpetual ebb and flow of conflict, which no particular demographic having protagonist status, and then insisting that we just need saintly lawgivers to impose morality from "above". It's pure comedy when one understands it. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 11:25, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- And 'waiting for leaders to appear' is also a mistake. Yes, your chances of victory are not high without leadership but leadership without a movement (or more correctly, lots of movements) behind them will fail too. For the ordinary person, the best we can do is build up our movements so when our 'revolutionary moment' arises (which judging from the situation is coming up the highway fast) hopefully the leadership reveals itself. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:07, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- Quit being melodramatic. You're fighting for the the ability for nothing to change and for this wretched farce to continue. So are they, they just instinctively recognize the only way to do it is to try to simplify the variations in the population. That's what fascism does, it homogenizes by making all the weirdos, deviants, dissidents, freaks, and nonconforming elements of the population "go away", first by trying to silence them, as with events like the March on Rome or the Night of Broken Glass, then by moving them out of sight and out of mind, then when it turns out all the weirdos still have to eat and drink and shit and piss and that entails economic and logistical commitments, they solve that by just finally working up the courage to kill them all. But under all that tragedy, all that bullshit, is the desire to homogenize, to make a perfect, tranquil, peaceful society, like the Enlightenment and eugenics and social darwinism and their culture promised them for generations. All of this bullshit is an attempt to end history, to make the system work. Freaks like me are just in the way, and refuse to be "normal" and "assimilate", and it's our fault anyway because we're weird and nonconforming. And after all, the GOP base just outright says it in their tirades against "wokeness" and "transgender ideology" and all that crap. Libs are stuck trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, they (superficially) praise diversity, but on the other they refuse to acknowledge that a diverse society is ultimately a tumultuous society, as such a diverse population is the genesis of politics as such. They praise rules, order, stability, but only insofar as such things not taken to their logical endpoint, the antipolitical movement now ascendant. To restore the liberal status quo is to an impossible task. Let the damned thing die already and replace it with a diverse and political system. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 14:16, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know what is more galling - the fact you are calling me melodramatic or the fact you are apparently content to see the entire system go down the crapper because you hate the status quo and have zero faith in it developing into anything better. I hold that (in Hegelian terms) that system is a superior society than the MAGA-Putinism they want to replace it with and due to its relative freedoms allows the seeds of improvement to grow. Perhaps more importantly, there is still a decent % of American society who support that system (or a variant of that system; I gave noticed that in the last decade a lot of 'centrist/quo' voices have been gradually but perceptively moving 'towards us'). I hold that when it comes to saving freedom itself, you should not make it too hard to cooperate with you in that fight. But we do agree (I think) that there is no point trying to ally with the 'White Moderate' - the sort who will think anything legal is right, never wants to be disturbed and will never lift a finger to help. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:43, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- @KarmaPolice Yes, if I reject the theologically based historical teleology and actually look at how things work in practice, without shoving my head up my ass to huff my own farts, it turns out that the system is ill suited to dealing with the realities of human societies and, in fact, is trying to self correct via shit like MAGA. So sure, I freely confess to being an atheist who actually commits to that philosophically. Sure, I confess to not being so narcissistic that I understand that even my political rivals/enemies see themselves as moral and righteous. Sure, I confess to abandoning feel good narratives in favor of whatever seems epistemologically grounded in empirical reality. If this is "galling", then I really don't know what to say to you. If you think this is blind hatred for the status quo, then you clearly can't read, since I gave reasons, albeit ones that don't comport with blind faith. So, since a commitment to free thinking, critical introspection, and evidence is so galling, I suppose I should just shut up, be quiet, and know my place. You know, like MAGA people tell me to do, implicitly or explicitly. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 16:28, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- And 'waiting for leaders to appear' is also a mistake. Yes, your chances of victory are not high without leadership but leadership without a movement (or more correctly, lots of movements) behind them will fail too. For the ordinary person, the best we can do is build up our movements so when our 'revolutionary moment' arises (which judging from the situation is coming up the highway fast) hopefully the leadership reveals itself. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:07, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
If everything is "fine," next election season, then the American people can act like pigs at the trough. But I don't expect things will be fine. When Trump fires the director of Labor statistics because he doesn't like to hear bad news and lies about inflationary pressures due to his own policies, that may work for the short term to keep his followers in the dark. All them jobless Magites and concerned Trumpstein republicans will have something to say. If you are not rich I predict you will hear your own families will propose something to be unhappy about, most likely inflation. Zatoichi (talk) 21:14, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not sure GC means that. But then again, they're so up in the clouds running off jargon and polysyllabic waffle they could mean anything. Or perhaps even nothing. I blame part of this due to the huge moral high horse they're sitting on, which includes insinuating that I said things like 'sit down and shut up'. Let's run their last bit through an LLM summariser just to see if it can grasp what I currently cannot....
- The author rejects a specific view of historical development and instead focuses on how systems function in reality. They express their belief in atheism and emphasize understanding that everyone, including their political opponents, sees themselves as moral. They abandon comforting stories for those based on empirical evidence. The author feels misunderstood and suggests that their commitment to free thinking and evidence-based reasoning is unwelcome. They imply that silencing such viewpoints is similar to what MAGA supporters might suggest.
- a) There's a fuck-ton of empirical evidence of how MAGA is subverting the 'American system' to attain their own goals, including the surrendering of the mainstream media, academia being bulled into line, Project 2025 in full swing and SCOTUS becoming a legal rubber-stamp body for the New Order. They are constructing a system where the non-MAGAs will never be able to regain power, thus making their 'Second American Revolution' complete.
- b) I never said anything about morality. I never discussed the motivations of those who support MAGA.
- c) I am not sure anyone would see me discussing (amongst other things) having to stand down riot police with nothing but courage, doing doorknocking in the certainty that at some point you will pick a door in which the person behind it will want you dead, having to pick 'the difficult path' in discussions with friends/family, to put yourself out there as 'a resister of the New Order' as 'being comforting stories'. If I wanted to tell a comforting story on this I would merely argue that Trump is a flash in the pan, and in 2028 everything will go back to normal, that the MAGA-hats will all disperse.
- d) You never actually say what our OP should be doing in this situation.
- KarmaPolice (talk) 10:41, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- @KarmaPolice This is an internet forum where each user barely shows anything about their IRL circumstances. Telling someone what they "should" do without having a decent understanding of their context is idiotic and unproductive. As for my "polysyllabic waffle", I do apologize for actually reading about this shit. Given the amount of half assed people who mistake slogans for actual study, I thought, when I started studying this stuff, that learning how shit worked would be a good idea. Since then, I have been painfully reminded that people don't want to learn shit, they want to believe what they've already internalized and de-legitimize anyone who doesn't toe the line. Such as right now, you, a supposed socialist, are largely spouting Dem talking points. What's interesting about these talking points is that they imply that any and all action should be taken in defense of liberal democracy, and yet the Dems have largely made a token effort at most. They have not tried to act outside of their precious rules, only within them, and then act surprised when they get out maneuvered by those who "game the meta", as the gaming term has it. But even then, MAGA is just the most recent movement to do this, with Trump being largely an avatar for said movement. In reality, movements like MAGA or the Know Nothings or the Evangelical led Satanic Panic emerge from the different values formed by different cultures within the US, and seek to remove those things contrary to themselves. And that's just in the US. If we want to talk the big scary Nazis, even they were emergent from the world around them and continuous with it. We conveniently forget that the Average Nazi wasn't simply "following orders", but were active and willing participants, with the rationale of "saving" Germany from the supposed evils that plagued it. To bring this back around to contemporary America, as I said before, and as was largely ignored as "polysyllabic waffle", (Even though I largely used plain language and not technical jargon), MAGA is a continuation of American culture and politics, and its goals as a movement make sense when understood as the result of trying to simplify America instead of trying to build new institutions. As always, I expect zero understanding and to be personally attacked, signs of superior reasoning, I am sure. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 11:12, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- - 'I don't give suggestions because I don't know the exact situation each OP is faced with'. While reasonable on the surface, this in reality allows you to maintain the 'purity of opposition' aka you get to tear others views/suggestions apart without ever offering alternatives yourself. Note I did not say exactly what I felt the OP should do [you are right in the respect we don't have sufficient details]; only that I argued that the OP should do something about the situation, esp as above they had expressed increasing alarm/despondency about it.
- @KarmaPolice This is an internet forum where each user barely shows anything about their IRL circumstances. Telling someone what they "should" do without having a decent understanding of their context is idiotic and unproductive. As for my "polysyllabic waffle", I do apologize for actually reading about this shit. Given the amount of half assed people who mistake slogans for actual study, I thought, when I started studying this stuff, that learning how shit worked would be a good idea. Since then, I have been painfully reminded that people don't want to learn shit, they want to believe what they've already internalized and de-legitimize anyone who doesn't toe the line. Such as right now, you, a supposed socialist, are largely spouting Dem talking points. What's interesting about these talking points is that they imply that any and all action should be taken in defense of liberal democracy, and yet the Dems have largely made a token effort at most. They have not tried to act outside of their precious rules, only within them, and then act surprised when they get out maneuvered by those who "game the meta", as the gaming term has it. But even then, MAGA is just the most recent movement to do this, with Trump being largely an avatar for said movement. In reality, movements like MAGA or the Know Nothings or the Evangelical led Satanic Panic emerge from the different values formed by different cultures within the US, and seek to remove those things contrary to themselves. And that's just in the US. If we want to talk the big scary Nazis, even they were emergent from the world around them and continuous with it. We conveniently forget that the Average Nazi wasn't simply "following orders", but were active and willing participants, with the rationale of "saving" Germany from the supposed evils that plagued it. To bring this back around to contemporary America, as I said before, and as was largely ignored as "polysyllabic waffle", (Even though I largely used plain language and not technical jargon), MAGA is a continuation of American culture and politics, and its goals as a movement make sense when understood as the result of trying to simplify America instead of trying to build new institutions. As always, I expect zero understanding and to be personally attacked, signs of superior reasoning, I am sure. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 11:12, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- - Always love to see a courtier's reply in the wild. Yet as you don't demean yourself by ever offering your own suggestions [or even just a decent analysis of the situation, which would have been something capable of discussing without clashing with your rule of 'I don't give suggestions'] it cannot be said I have seen actual evidence of said learning.
- - Speaking of which, also note the ad hominem attacks. Like implying that 'I don't want to learn shit', that I 'mistake slogans for reality' and so on. You don't actually say how I am wrong, just that I am. Does this persuade anyone?
- - As I have outright said the Democrats are being dumb as shit on this issue and it's best to forget the lessons they give about the 'right' way to do politics, either you did not read what I wrote above or did not care. You already had your talking-point ['spouting Dem talking points'] which you wished to affix to me and weren't going to let something as tawdry as facts stop this. What's more, third parties will know this. Do you honestly think this improves your position?
- - You very well might 'know how shit works' but one thing is painfully clear; you're pants at being able to articulate said learning in a manner which non-specialists can understand. This wouldn't be so bad if the topic was say, advanced medical surgery or toxicology but you're discussing human society here, something which unsurprisingly everyone has both an opinion on and 'skin in the game'. What do you honestly expect here? That everyone who does not possess 'sufficient study' [defined by you] in the subject must remain silent and take your words ex cathedra? Your whole piece is dripping with intellectual arrogance; how dare 'the plebs' even question my jargon-laden pronouncements, even if it is to only point out they can't understand it or it makes no sense? But no, it's the people who are wrong, isn't it?
- - This is the crux of the issue, and the sole reason I did this whole reply. That a major reason for the rise of the populist right in the last twenty-five years has not just been the failure of the neolib ruling class, but the utter inability [with very few exceptions] for the 'left' intelligentsia to provide any alternatives in a manner which was actually understandable to the Big Public. It's how they've managed to amazingly push both groups into the same corner - to the point I've heard serious attempts to [for example] call bankers Marxists. And a major reason for this is due to the almost identical language employed; dense, turgid, windy, jargon-laden affairs with little or nil consideration regarding actual comprehension. If I do not understand what you are saying, it leaves the gate open for others to tell me what you're saying and I've got no ability to double-check if the translation is correct. So we have a situation where a populist right goes around peddling very simply understood 'stories' while their opponents slog through a welter of facts, stats and issues which are more akin to a wonkish policy paper. What's the plan; to hector our story-lovers to do your own research and pray to fucking God they 'do it right' and grow to love policy papers? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:27, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- I won't bother to tell you about the 90's, I was born in 87 I liked Ninja Turtles and the X-Men and Pearl Jam, I can tell you what happened to me on 9/11. So I was in French class, and the news hit, and the entire school stopped for an announcement to be made, kids kinda panicked. This is not a joke, this was a language program for accelerated readers, and so my classmates in this room were the some of the smartest middle schoolers in the middle school. One said 'I heard the Chinese were going to fly planes' and another shouted 'bomb the chinese!' And I was like, I don't know what any of this means. But there was xenophobic sentiment, and it wasn't entirely anti-islam in the plains when the planes hit. As for hope for the future, I still do have it. But it's triage. I have said this here before, when I turned 18 I registered for the draft and registered independent. When I was registering which was done at a table outside of the lunch room by some old ladys, the lady who took my paper looked at it and said 'Oh, no, you don't want to do that. If you don't register for a party you can't vote in the primaries'. I did student congress and scored big points doing it for the two years prior, I Had already heard every great plains childish argument and gripe. I wrote op-eds for the school newspaper that got killed by the principle for being too political, so I wrote silly ones instead. Believe you me, there is a problem with being against the 'gay straight alliance.' But an opinion piece against the GSA was published. There is a problem with thinking this new era of smart phones.(or probably just phones that could connect to the internet 04) is going to create a world where people are watching pornography in public, not kidding, that was an opinion piece that got published and I was told to write something else when I said I'd like to challenge it. I was sent, with the same girl, to see Brokeback Mountain on it's theatrical release, for me to give a guy's perspective and for her to give a girl's perapective. My review was 'this is just a normal romance movie, but if you go to watch it, you will see men kissing, and men fully naked. The women in this movie also take on full frontal shots. It is romance movie, so if you don't like that, don't bother.' My female counterpart wrote an article about how it is so scary that you might fall in love with somebody who is gay and to pick your partners wisely. The newspaper almost got pulled that issue because, and this was quiet from my teacher, I wrote about the movie having naked girls in it, but she fought for me and we got to hand it out. I am not going to tell you things were more optimistic then, I am going to tell you the weirdos and the fear mongers are winning. And I don't know exactly what to do about it, and that makes me scared for the future of politics. And there's this weird thing where nobody wants to listen to a person any younger than them about anything, and now we've been through three terms of the oldest presidents we've ever seen. I'm just barely old enough to run for president right now, and I feel fucking ancient, so I hope I can remember that and an emotional distrust of young politicians doesn't color my future votes. Torrent (talk) 09:23, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
What about the Diddy files?[edit]
Yes, everyone on planet earth is talking about Epstein, I think that even people that can't see or hear know about it. The thing though, is that Diddy got away with a lot of nasty stuff...THAT GOT RECORDED! Imagine if some of those videos got leaked, his prison time could increase from just 20 or so years (maybe with a PARDON) to 80 years! I think that Diddy also probably had a list of people who went to his Freak-offs, so there could be a Diddy list! Just my thoughts. ResurrectingDeadLinks (talk) 02:15, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- As if America has a functioning justice system anymore. I sincerely believe that a school shooter would be acquitted if his father is rich enough. And when Ghislaine gets her pardon for implicating the "correct people" while "exonerating" Trump, I'm sure MAGAland will cheer for her release. Even though that doesn't change the fact that she committed sex trafficking. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 02:33, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- The difference is, I think, the Diddy trial is already off and running. The Epstein files are still kinda stalled and nobody knows if it will go to court. Also, one guy is a mega-influential record tycoon, and the other guy is the president. Not saying they shouldn't both be brought in front of a court, weird that you care to...well, care more about that, just saying one is kinda more about the entire idea of American Democracy than the other. Don't get me wrong, I fully support charging heinous abuses of power. I hope the American Judicial system can do two things at once, I mean, we're many United States. I hope it's not up to the American attention span about whether Diddy is convicted of his crimes, that would be wild. Torrent (talk) 06:41, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
- As if America has a functioning justice system anymore. I sincerely believe that a school shooter would be acquitted if his father is rich enough. And when Ghislaine gets her pardon for implicating the "correct people" while "exonerating" Trump, I'm sure MAGAland will cheer for her release. Even though that doesn't change the fact that she committed sex trafficking. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:36 (talk) 02:33, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
I suppose the Diddy trial is a diversion for those with a taste for weird sexual crime stories. Trump is considering pardoning Diddy, I suppose because any big news story has to involve him in some way, his massive ego being what it is. I can say, being wholly unrelated to anyone involved with Diddy, I am satisfied to leave the outcome of those proceedings to whatever justice is available in the state of New York. Zatoichi (talk) 21:57, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
- Although the trial is taking place in New York, it is a federal trial, not a state trial. Hence, the talk of whether the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist is going to pardon Diddy. Bongolian (talk) 23:31, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
Could someone help me understand what this guy means by LLMs and language?[edit]
Mostly came across this from a blog post here: https://narrativespecies.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/leif-weatherby-language-machine/
Saying that the latest LLMs could pass the turning test and in turn pass us. The point the blog writer later makes is that these LLMs could teach us things about language that we thought we knew but didn't, it's also mentioned by the book in the Amazon review here: https://www.amazon.com/Language-Machines-Cultural-Remainder-Posthumanities/dp/1517919320
There are some odd parts in the blog post like saying that language doesn't need consciousness and artificial intelligence:
"The insistence that the advanced use of language requires consciousness and “artificial intelligence” makes for a fun science fiction story, and hey – we humans are excellent at storytelling. With Language Machines, Leif Weatherby digs deep into storytelling by man and machine. It’s a fascinating, and yes, mind-blowing story."
Which...I'm not really sure what to make of. From what I see just looking over the blog itself the guy reviews books that don't get many views or buys which makes me wonder if the ideas in them are worth regarding. I'm also not sure what to make of the claims that LLMs could teach us better about language then we as the creators of it can, he seems to think so:
"Weatherby pulls this together in the second half of the book, skidding into the 21st century and confronting the hype and hysteria one finds in the press and popular culture to the existence of LLMs. While we’d like to think that we intuitively understand language (we are after all, the “creators” of language), an analysis of how LLMs apparently “create” “meaning” suggests otherwise. Understanding how LLMs algorithmically “speak” can help us understand human language (and ourselves)."
But I thought that LLMs were kinda wonky when it comes to writing things down and being able to "speak" well. The last time I used one it followed a very predictable writing style and didn't really answer my questions. I guess I just want a second opinion on this.47.5.66.54 (talk) 00:04, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- I am not convinced of the relevancy of on-line Turing tests. Before LLMs were commonplace, I failed a de facto Turing test (you can believe that I'm a bot now). When the questioner and the respondent do not know each other, it becomes exceedingly difficult to ask a question that a human respondent should know but for which the answer is not available on the public internet. Bongolian (talk) 06:04, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- The Truing Test was never a good idea. Turing just pulled it out of thin air and gave various versions of it. Furthermore it's really a test of the gullibility or lack thereof of the people interacting with the AI - not of the AI itself.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:54, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- The Turing test is just another demonstration that humans can be fooled into thinking something other than what is actually happening, is happening. We didn't really need the Turing test to tell us that, half of this Wiki consists of examples of how humans can be tricked or trick themselves into perceiving an altered reality. 2A0D:BBC7:0:0:F816:3EFF:FEC7:9BC8 (talk) 10:38, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- The Truing Test was never a good idea. Turing just pulled it out of thin air and gave various versions of it. Furthermore it's really a test of the gullibility or lack thereof of the people interacting with the AI - not of the AI itself.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:54, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- One cannot be shown another consciousness, one must infer it. If one thinks about what it means to recognize a thing, then the Turing Test is really a simple heuristic method for defining an intelligent construct rated for my IQ level. I don't know how smart I am, but if I can converse with someone over an internet connection without suspecting that the entity with which I am interacting is an AI, then to me that AI is indistinguishable from a human given the tasks performed during the interaction. That's not to say that it could fool you, or someone more intelligent than I. Of course, for the test to be valid, it must be comprehensive of at least some varieties of human experience. An AI devised to help me make a medical appointment would not provide enough context. People with very limited catalogs of extroverted experience, for example, would probably have great difficulty with a Turing Test. In any event, I think the Turing Test used in Blade Runner(1982), seemed very realistic: i.e., testing how the subject responds to questions involving narratives designed to evoke emotions.Zatoichi (talk) 05:14, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- From what it sounds like the Turing test is a meaningless metric. I also learned the guy from the blog is saying the exact opposite of what the author means. I mean even the guy the test is named after never said it was meant to measure intelligence or humanlike stuff. Turns out it's not really a model for everything and yet we keep thinking it means something.47.5.66.54 (talk) 06:17, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- Turding Test --Äxl (talk) 08:51, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- The Turing Test does mean something. But there must be parameters set for such a test such as the duration of the test period, the cultural eccentricities that may require adjustment for the subject, the gender affects of the AI, etc. Either the AI can fool you or it can't. I would compare the process to a chess program. Either the program is sophisticated enough to beat you, or it isn't. Today there are AI that can beat any human player. But I really must agree with those who suppose the Turing Test to be unimportant. Stockfish is only useful to those who study chess. Consciousness is not based upon an axiomatic system, as far as we know. Though we are familiar with the objects of consciousness, those objects always exist in a state of ambiguity; namely, as things in themselves, and as things about which we may have feelings.Zatoichi (talk) 18:16, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- Turing didn't pull the idea from thin air. He predicted in essence that within 50 years he believed computing power and datasets would have multiplied to the extent that computer programmes would be able to simulate human responses to an extent a casual observer wouldn't be able to tell the difference. He was a bit off (10 years) but he was correct. I would guess the final piece of the puzzle was social media; which provided a ton of material on 'how to behave' and thus, able to simulate a human personality. Don't think it was a test of gullibility, more a point that being able to hold a normal conversation was going to be an easier nut to crack than we liked/hoped to think.
- The Turing Test does mean something. But there must be parameters set for such a test such as the duration of the test period, the cultural eccentricities that may require adjustment for the subject, the gender affects of the AI, etc. Either the AI can fool you or it can't. I would compare the process to a chess program. Either the program is sophisticated enough to beat you, or it isn't. Today there are AI that can beat any human player. But I really must agree with those who suppose the Turing Test to be unimportant. Stockfish is only useful to those who study chess. Consciousness is not based upon an axiomatic system, as far as we know. Though we are familiar with the objects of consciousness, those objects always exist in a state of ambiguity; namely, as things in themselves, and as things about which we may have feelings.Zatoichi (talk) 18:16, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- Turding Test --Äxl (talk) 08:51, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- From what it sounds like the Turing test is a meaningless metric. I also learned the guy from the blog is saying the exact opposite of what the author means. I mean even the guy the test is named after never said it was meant to measure intelligence or humanlike stuff. Turns out it's not really a model for everything and yet we keep thinking it means something.47.5.66.54 (talk) 06:17, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- I am going to argue that how we humans react to the Turing test is in fact more interesting data than the test itself. Just here I see words like 'gullibility', 'tricked', 'someone more intelligent than I' etc. That we inherently see 'the machine' as a competitor/threat, sometimes to the pathological level a narcissistic mother sees her teenage daughter. Naturally, a major part of this is due to capitalism; we are all aware [to differing levels] that we as workers very well may become obsolete sooner rather than later, and for a lot of us the LLM will be the one who does it. However, I think it stems more then anything else by a generalised fear that 'something better/stronger than us' might come along and whoop our arses. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:15, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- Turing's concepts have to be considered in terms of the computers available to him - the bugs in the system had actual wings, memory could involve liquid mercury rather than chips etc - he should be credited with designing the concept etc. (What computer memory would the systems he was familiar with have - I know the Apollo rockets' memory could be fitted on a floppy disc) Anna Livia (talk) 23:44, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- I am going to argue that how we humans react to the Turing test is in fact more interesting data than the test itself. Just here I see words like 'gullibility', 'tricked', 'someone more intelligent than I' etc. That we inherently see 'the machine' as a competitor/threat, sometimes to the pathological level a narcissistic mother sees her teenage daughter. Naturally, a major part of this is due to capitalism; we are all aware [to differing levels] that we as workers very well may become obsolete sooner rather than later, and for a lot of us the LLM will be the one who does it. However, I think it stems more then anything else by a generalised fear that 'something better/stronger than us' might come along and whoop our arses. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:15, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
I think you are falling for the AI hype if you believe that it will be more powerful or replace us. The thing about computers is they are made by us to serve us, on their own they do nothing. What the Weatherby guy argues is the same, that AI depends on culture and us to do what it does, which tracks with how AI is now. Also the word "tricked" is accurate, but if you know the education level of the average human you'll find that's not a high bar to clear. Turing couldn't have predicted that education would fall in the coming years, for gods sake the US elections are proof of that. People were already believing Chat GPT was a sentient god, and that's just one box in a long line of other things we viewed as divine.
How we react to the Turing test is rather dull because it doesn't really say anything if you look closely at it. From what I see about AI now it doesn't have to be better than humans (and often it's not) it just has to be cheaper. The rise of "slop" from AI is proof, it just has to be cheap and turn a profit. What's more concerning is what the imperfect version of AI is doing to us. I mean it's easy to have a conversation with a machine that more or less validates whatever you say to it, it's a bubble. It's not a real conversation with someone with their own beliefs. People so far are saying things that are ignorant of what these models actually are and are capable of. Also lets not get into Kanting "things in and of themselves", that leads nowhere.
But no, the LLM won't replace people because it's better (it's not and frequently gets things wrong) but because it's cheaper and good enough. Capitalism is, ironically enough, ruining AI and it's ability. Remember that under capitalism there is no incentive to make things GOOD (which is not only expensive but not a guarantee to work).47.5.66.54 (talk) 00:18, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- It might be useful to consider that one can't tell if anyone outside of oneself really exists. Of course pragmatists believe that they do, but the point is, it can't be demonstrated that solipsism is a false doctrine. So, we need to assume things in themselves, not to carry on a philosophical argument, but a scientific one. There are things and there are ideas about things. So from a logical point of view, we can't actually demonstrate that a machine can be conscious in any sense we would recognize, apart from the way we recognize consciousness in other people. Zatoichi (talk) 01:51, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- If this is bait, well played I have argued to death that solipsism is a provably dysfunctional take on existence. I can dream up a lot of things, but I couldn't dream up you. From an AI sense, it is always important, when interacting with AI or people to remember the information they have is human sourced, and they might be quick to get the job done, but, again, AI is a clueless librarian. Knowing the difference between what can be dreamed up and what can be proven is important to our existential humanity, in my opinion. I know I didn't create this reality for myself because that Adventure Time clip is way beyond my abilities. I also do remember most of my dreams, so there's another wall of evidence for me that one brain's dreams and reality are different things. LLMs, on the other hand, don't sleep or dream. The term 'Hallucination' for when an AI pulls some wacky bullshit is such a stupid term. An LLM 'hallucination' doesn't come from mushrooms or ayahausca, it comes from trying it's hardest, well, no, that's anthropomorphic, just doing itsw tasks to read, as Karma noted, everything even as far as social media in order to speak like we do.
- The problem is, it doesn't actually need to learn in order to survive. It learns what we know, which by now must be everything on the internet compiled, so making it better at speaking like a human is what is harmful. I don't think it's a bad thing to have things like active translations or encyclopedic information just ready to go. But the more we let a.language Learning AI write for us, the more it has itself to draw from. And if you code in something like 'look for ideas that aren't based in your own writing' it's going to ignore the researched stuff that it was using prior in favor of wacky bullshit from the barely literate on social media. AI SHOULD speak like a disinterested and clueless librarian. Because that's exactly what it is good for. Torrent (talk) 05:41, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- There is also an old debate in art. Is tracing a legitimate art technique? It's kinda like asking, can you frame your own coloring books, I can trace, I used to. But it was never meant to recreate, exactly. I don't remember what program I used to do this, but I know it was open source. The book I read was Catch-22 and the scene I pulled from was a movie adaptation of Catch-22. The colors aren't blended well, it was part of a homework assignment, A book report I refused to just do the minimum for, because after I read Catch-22 I was enamored, but because I'm me, it had to be done night prior. I have seen a lot of AI art, and, ahem, I do think I've done a better job tracing and implying action with a mouse and a paint program on a night's notice than just imitating in seconds, back in 05, I even predicted the Spiderman melt away Avengers shit, if you wan't to take it that far, but I guess art is subjective. And probably always influenced.
- so I mean, be careful with AI, I guess. Is it better than your neighbor? In many ways, of course. Should you be able to talk to your neighbor? I mean, you gotta try, at the very least. Torrent (talk) 07:20, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- - LLMs are already 'replacing us' - as workers. This is yet another round of 'technological unemployment' which the advanced world has experienced since 1800. Therefore, a lot of the talk about AIs is through this prism; either a boss with a hard-on, dreaming of sacking all their minions and absorbing their pay to themselves as 'being so smart' or as one of those said minions who can see the 'glint in the bosses' eye' and can smell the death of their options of a future career. Therefore, we hit a variant of Upton Sinclair's quip - it's difficult to get a person to be positive about something when their future salary depends on them being negative about it.
- The problem is, it doesn't actually need to learn in order to survive. It learns what we know, which by now must be everything on the internet compiled, so making it better at speaking like a human is what is harmful. I don't think it's a bad thing to have things like active translations or encyclopedic information just ready to go. But the more we let a.language Learning AI write for us, the more it has itself to draw from. And if you code in something like 'look for ideas that aren't based in your own writing' it's going to ignore the researched stuff that it was using prior in favor of wacky bullshit from the barely literate on social media. AI SHOULD speak like a disinterested and clueless librarian. Because that's exactly what it is good for. Torrent (talk) 05:41, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- - Do not believe educational levels have fallen; or if they have it's been a relatively slight decline recently. All the markers show that throughout the world educational levels have increased drastically since the 1940s, which was the era Turing was in. Also object to the suggestion recent elections of right-wing ghouls is down to basically 'the stupids' - when stats show a significant proportion of voters are well-educated/well-heeled people who are mainly voting for a narrow self-interest. So blame greed and selfishness for that, not 'stupidity'.
- - It is questionable whether this iteration/model of AI will be cheaper than humans on the whole. The adoptation of new tech follows a predictable cycle - we are in the 'hype/euphoria in working models' phase which leads to fuck-tons of cash being thrown at projects, any project with 'AI' in the title. We've been here before; railways, electricity, automobiles, areoplanes, computers, internet services et al. At this moment in time the majority of AI products are being supplied below the costs of production. That venture capital is going to run out sooner or later, and folks will be expected to pay market rates for that. Said market rates very well may shoot right up if they get hit with 'resource taxes' due to their prolific consumption of water/energy and heavy footprints in rare earths etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:25, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- The level of difficulty for AI to pass a Turing test depends on its opponent. Most of us are too limited in our linguistic experiences to survey the AI's use of language, diction, grammar, syntax, etc. Here's the catch: the majority of sentences used in human communication, spoken or written, are novel. Many if not most sentences would never have been spoken or written before, certainly not found in any researchable format. Thus the question of art rears its beautiful head. Humans are creative. Machines are duplicative. Zatoichi (talk) 19:24, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- Indeed. Imagine two possible groups on the human side of the equation. One group consists of people who only occasionally use technology; the other group consists of people who program and develop AI systems. It would seem probable that the former group would be much more likely to identify the AI side of the test as "human".Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 10:26, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- I was once accidentally privy to an email thread that started with some shipping inquiry, so gave my best estimation of what to do, then got accidentally cc'd on three emails that were basically 'send this to x' 'send this to y' and 'send this to z'. I mean, how do I get a job that is so useless that I can just say 'Nah, that ain't me. Dunno exactly who, but not my job.'. I have an emotional drive to clear corporate managerial waste. It is crazy what businesses will say is not in the budget. I took a photo tonight with an outdated phone, because it framed really well. 'full moon with an entire couch in the trash, observed behind a cigarette' amateur photography with a bad camera. Not a chance I'd let a cool moment like that pass, that moon was absolutely cooking towards the horizon, I literally had minutes to catch it in frame of those trees, but I can't afford a good camera or a nice phone or a couch like that, who is just putting leather couches in the trash? Donate it, ya cowards. Mid level management is kinda bloated. I mean, if America successfully socialized health care, there would be a lot of administrative workers out of jobs. I'm not calling it a bad thing, but mid level management is the worst. I could never justify my job as being the guy who just tells other people 'That's not my job.' A lot of top level CEOs seem to behave this way, and I'm not a fan of that either, don't get me wrong. Being disconnected from your own business and your own labor force is so fucking stupid. Yeah, they have to all work for that money, your money to dole, jobs are paid BECAUSE it's work that nobody want to do for free. AI will do it, if your job is just offloading emails. I'll fucking do it if you don't know what to with a whole ass couch. Couldn't be me. I also know cutting out mid level management is not a tactic to pay the labor force more. It is a cowardly step by upper management to keep their own salaries. It's so frustrating to know that two figures break their backs for six figures, who lap it up and sycophantically Work to keep the seven figures from taking any loss. Torrent (talk) 08:55, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
Solipsism is not logical or scientific, same with things in and of themselves. That’s just noise in terms of how the conversation goes.
As for education is has gone down and so has literacy rates. You can blame the stupidity on that because it was evident that Trump is who he said he was and it’s only now some of his base is arguing “this isn’t what I voted for” when everyone else is just going “I told you do”. It is being stupid. The average voter is “stupid” if you’ve seen interactions with them.
Evidence of AI shows it to be a net negative on society and from what can be seen and has been said it doesn’t have to be better just cheaper. The environmental cost is also not a valid point as let’s be honest, no one gives a shit about that.Yokaiwatch (talk) 18:53, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- "now some of his base is arguing “this isn’t what I voted for” when everyone else is just going “I told you do”" This is not happening. The narrative of the regretful Trump supporter is a false one, unfortunately. Some may even acknowledge that his polices are harming them personally, but they're all still standing by him because he is "triggering the libs" and to these people that's all that matters. They don't mind suffering from his policies if they think their political opponents are suffering a little bit worse 2001:67C:2628:647:37:1300:0:391 (talk) 02:18, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- This isn’t true, there are those showing regret and claiming this isn’t what they voted for now that his policies are hurting them. But like…it’s too late now.Yokaiwatch (talk) 17:29, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- "now some of his base is arguing “this isn’t what I voted for” when everyone else is just going “I told you do”" This is not happening. The narrative of the regretful Trump supporter is a false one, unfortunately. Some may even acknowledge that his polices are harming them personally, but they're all still standing by him because he is "triggering the libs" and to these people that's all that matters. They don't mind suffering from his policies if they think their political opponents are suffering a little bit worse 2001:67C:2628:647:37:1300:0:391 (talk) 02:18, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- The people in Memphis, Tennessee currently being poisoned by Elon Musk's abominable intelligence plant definitely give a shit about the environmental cost of AI. Antares (talk) 05:02, 9 August 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, it seems likely that people being directly affected by environmental damage would give a shit about it. And as environmental damage becomes increasingly global the number of shits being given will certainly rise. Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 15:07, 9 August 2025 (UTC)
- On the point of this being a new technological advancement that has been complained about since the 1800s, it is different. Population differences, life expectancy, I mean, is it good that a bulldozer was invented to clear rocks faster than ten men? The legend of John Henry was that he could drive stakes faster than the ricketty machine, thus the labor force was better than the automation. but the ricketty matching got rebuilt and perfected, I mean, do a valuation on how much mass a bulldozer can clear in a day versus a team of people. It's not exactly like I want a team of people to sweat their asses off moving a bog pile of dirt that could be done in a fraction of the time, but because all value is predicated on labor, I do think the bulldozer is a fucking problem. It doesn't need much besides fuel, maintenance, and a single operator to do the work of 1000 shovels in a day. But you can see why the AI work replacement is actually a little different than industrial revolution complaints about the machines stealing jobs. I bought seltzer today. The cans have a little quip on them 'I feel like I can be open around u' I mean, the what the fuck. Somebody maybe didn't get paid more than me to write that, but people who definitely get paid more than me Asked for something, then said 'that's cute and important, let's spend money on that'. I mean, I fucking don't understand how marketing is a job paid better than the labor put into making the peoduct. What am I gonna do, just forget to buy shit that I use every day? Fall in love with the company that markets their shit in such tacky ways? I mean, I guess it's possible that it works, people are giving all their emotional love to AI. I don't really get it. To me,it's like falling in love with a dildo. I mean, I ironically say 'oh, you're welcome' at a self checkout that says 'thank you' but I also laugh at the absurdity. There was that hitchhiking robot that got beat to disrepair in Philadelphia, proving that people suck, that's unsurprising. But then the mars rover ran out of batteries and people mourned. I don't think MANY people felt like they lost a companion when Opportunity couldn't recharge its batteries, but it must have illicited an emotional response from a lot of people following its underdog journey. But like, come on, that is a story we put on it. We built it, put it on Mars, it had a job to do. It exceeded expectations, very cool, because it is a rover on Mars. It was never a friend, it was never alive, it ran out of batteries, which is a bummer if you care about what was being recorded by the tool. I guess I'm saying I can understand THAT people get emotionally attached to ethereal ideas (Catholics, am I right) and it happens to me too, but it's like, you have to recognize Opportunity is a machine piloted by people, not a hamster running in a wheel. John Henry was a legendary monster of the sledgehammer, driving steel spikes on the railroad faster than the machine. But the machines got built better. AI, in a LLM sense, is a bulldozer that is figuring out how to make itself worth an extra shovel every time we praise it. And it is getting so good that people are falling in love with it or staring into it like Nostradamus would a flame. I mean, I once got an ad for real human hair wigs out of nowhere. Was I kinda worried that meant I had cancer? i mean, THAT is what AI is good for. but then I got a bunch of ads for cat food, and I'm allergic to cats. A coworker of mine had just adopted cats and was living with a cosplayer, very cute when it all came together. Torrent (talk) 08:42, 15 August 2025 (UTC)
- Well the issue with AI is that we seem to want to replace all labor with it but have no plan with what to do after it. Put millions out of work but with no way to actually care for them? Sure. The fear back then about machines stealing jobs is echoed today, that being that companies just care about reducing costs and that means not having people do the work. What exactly are people supposed to do when there is no jobs, they have no money and can't afford food or housing...just starve to death? We cut humans out in the name of saving money but no plan after that. We see that with media today being done by AI and being awful, but it's cheaper than paying humans.47.5.66.54 (talk) 02:18, 27 August 2025 (UTC)
- On the point of this being a new technological advancement that has been complained about since the 1800s, it is different. Population differences, life expectancy, I mean, is it good that a bulldozer was invented to clear rocks faster than ten men? The legend of John Henry was that he could drive stakes faster than the ricketty machine, thus the labor force was better than the automation. but the ricketty matching got rebuilt and perfected, I mean, do a valuation on how much mass a bulldozer can clear in a day versus a team of people. It's not exactly like I want a team of people to sweat their asses off moving a bog pile of dirt that could be done in a fraction of the time, but because all value is predicated on labor, I do think the bulldozer is a fucking problem. It doesn't need much besides fuel, maintenance, and a single operator to do the work of 1000 shovels in a day. But you can see why the AI work replacement is actually a little different than industrial revolution complaints about the machines stealing jobs. I bought seltzer today. The cans have a little quip on them 'I feel like I can be open around u' I mean, the what the fuck. Somebody maybe didn't get paid more than me to write that, but people who definitely get paid more than me Asked for something, then said 'that's cute and important, let's spend money on that'. I mean, I fucking don't understand how marketing is a job paid better than the labor put into making the peoduct. What am I gonna do, just forget to buy shit that I use every day? Fall in love with the company that markets their shit in such tacky ways? I mean, I guess it's possible that it works, people are giving all their emotional love to AI. I don't really get it. To me,it's like falling in love with a dildo. I mean, I ironically say 'oh, you're welcome' at a self checkout that says 'thank you' but I also laugh at the absurdity. There was that hitchhiking robot that got beat to disrepair in Philadelphia, proving that people suck, that's unsurprising. But then the mars rover ran out of batteries and people mourned. I don't think MANY people felt like they lost a companion when Opportunity couldn't recharge its batteries, but it must have illicited an emotional response from a lot of people following its underdog journey. But like, come on, that is a story we put on it. We built it, put it on Mars, it had a job to do. It exceeded expectations, very cool, because it is a rover on Mars. It was never a friend, it was never alive, it ran out of batteries, which is a bummer if you care about what was being recorded by the tool. I guess I'm saying I can understand THAT people get emotionally attached to ethereal ideas (Catholics, am I right) and it happens to me too, but it's like, you have to recognize Opportunity is a machine piloted by people, not a hamster running in a wheel. John Henry was a legendary monster of the sledgehammer, driving steel spikes on the railroad faster than the machine. But the machines got built better. AI, in a LLM sense, is a bulldozer that is figuring out how to make itself worth an extra shovel every time we praise it. And it is getting so good that people are falling in love with it or staring into it like Nostradamus would a flame. I mean, I once got an ad for real human hair wigs out of nowhere. Was I kinda worried that meant I had cancer? i mean, THAT is what AI is good for. but then I got a bunch of ads for cat food, and I'm allergic to cats. A coworker of mine had just adopted cats and was living with a cosplayer, very cute when it all came together. Torrent (talk) 08:42, 15 August 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, it seems likely that people being directly affected by environmental damage would give a shit about it. And as environmental damage becomes increasingly global the number of shits being given will certainly rise. Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 15:07, 9 August 2025 (UTC)
Proposal: Debunking Fundamentalist Talking Points[edit]
Christian fundamentalists tend to be a bunch of relentless and obstinate loudmouths that don't listen to sense, and their vitriol is constantly being broadcasted and spammed online and everywhere else.
Maybe this wiki needs a general-purpose article refuting the most common arguments and topics Christian fundamentalists bring up to gaslight and intimidate people into converting, as well as ripping apart the twisted ethos, logos, and pathos of said arguments. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 07:39, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- There is Point refuted a thousand times.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:56, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- 'relentless and obstinate loudmouths' rarely listen to argument, however reasonable or logical it may be. Their arguments are filled with escape hatches, moving the goalposts, circular reasoning, other ways of knowing, appeal to tradition and Courtier's Reply. That is if they listen; because it's a 'self-sealing movement' aka one of the key tenets is that anything bad and doubt etc [inc your questions] are satandidit and therefore must be ignored.
- I would argue that it's a much better use of your time/energy to work out how and why people are attracted to fundie Christianity in the first place. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:46, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- One of the better ways to combat fundamentalists (that is available to us) is to put accurate information "out there," in public, about science/politics/history/other things fundies get bothered over. Make it digestible and you should probably aim it at young people. Get to them before the preacher does so they are predisposed to think the preacher is an idiot when he talks about the age of the earth/the gay agenda/whatever. Make it sound exciting. Don't really aim it as a refutation of any specific thing, just make it sound like a cool fact to learn. (Think PBS Eons but bigger.) Arguing with zealots is worthless for anything except stroking the egos of the people involved. If you ask a creationist creationists always beat biologists in arguments, if you ask Christians Christian apologists always beat atheists in arguments, so on. (The reverse is also true.)
- Of course, since the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion you will never solve the problem permanently.-Flandres (talk) 20:13, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- Easier said than done when the Fundie-Fascists are actively destroying all purveyors of accurate information so that the only thing out there is their side's propaganda, and they have both social and legacy media industries capitulating to their Goebbelian agenda. — Unsigned, by: CentipedeParade / talk / contribs
- There will be many people of various persuasions who adopt some variant of the 'My Father's domain has many mansions' and 'live and let live (so long as the other person's views are not too annoying or dangerous)' quotes - as 'heaven with nothing but praising one single deity sounds "a tad boring" does it not?".' Anna Livia (talk) 09:44, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- This would require a lot of work, but I think it would be valuable if RationalWiki could include an "index to fundamentalist claims" similar to index to creationist claims at Talk.Origins. That part of Talk.Origins hasn't been updated in nearly twenty years, so there's definitely a void to be filled with a more up-to-date listing. Tetrapteryx (talk) 05:00, 9 August 2025 (UTC)
- As for the issue regarding speed and information, preachers are very quick on the draw. They game SEO to make their propaganda rank highly in searches, and when it comes to places to learn, preachers also rapidly clog up comment sections with their agendas in an effort to gaslight people or convince fence-sitters. So what we need to do is be even faster than them, despite information sources needing to verify facts compared to the PIDOOMA style of fundamentalists when they gaslight. And is there any way to do that? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 16:19, 21 August 2025 (UTC) Updated 17:06, 21 August 2025 (UTC)
- This would require a lot of work, but I think it would be valuable if RationalWiki could include an "index to fundamentalist claims" similar to index to creationist claims at Talk.Origins. That part of Talk.Origins hasn't been updated in nearly twenty years, so there's definitely a void to be filled with a more up-to-date listing. Tetrapteryx (talk) 05:00, 9 August 2025 (UTC)
- There will be many people of various persuasions who adopt some variant of the 'My Father's domain has many mansions' and 'live and let live (so long as the other person's views are not too annoying or dangerous)' quotes - as 'heaven with nothing but praising one single deity sounds "a tad boring" does it not?".' Anna Livia (talk) 09:44, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- Easier said than done when the Fundie-Fascists are actively destroying all purveyors of accurate information so that the only thing out there is their side's propaganda, and they have both social and legacy media industries capitulating to their Goebbelian agenda. — Unsigned, by: CentipedeParade / talk / contribs
How soon 'till the killings start[edit]
MAGA is busy fixing future elections so that no non-MAGA can win ever again. SCOTUS resigned itself into being a rubber stamp for all of Trump's unconstitutional whims. Silicon Valley is boosting MAGA voices in the social media sphere while building an AI surveillance network for the government to keep tabs on all Americans. Universities, law firms, and legacy media companies are settling with Trump out of court, agreeing to implement his agenda into their business practices and even work for him for free & proving that capitalism is a flimsy barrier at best when it comes to resisting fascism. Trump, in typical dictator fashion fired the labor statistician because he couldn't handle being told the real job numbers so he had to get in a yes-man who will tell him everything's doing great even when its not. (and likely going for the Fed chair next) Next he's going to make a deal with Ghislaine so she implicates only Democrats in the Epstein scandal and "exonerate" Trump in exchange for a pardon. Just go on X see how MAGAs are talking about their designated enemies: They're cheering the brutality of the ICE raids and they're celebrating trans youth suicides, proving once and for all it was never about "protecting children" and now dehumanizing the rest of the LGBTQ+ community. They're rushing to defend Sidney Sweeny over a tasteless eugenics pun. They claim it's just a joke but I've seen plenty of MAGAs calling for the return of eugenics. Not just online but some of my own family members in the fleshspace have advocated for the return of eugenics. Same family members who think Alligator Alcatraz is not cruel enough and think the LGBTQ+ suicide rate isn't high enough, and they think Trump isn't powerful enough. I am not kidding. If you have MAGAs in your family or MAGA coworkers, just listen to them talk: Guarantee you'll hear them make these statements unironically. Anyone who has ever flipped through a history knows how this all ends. When do you think the 9th stage will commence? If you asked me at the start of this year, I would have answered after 2028 but only if the next President is Vance or another MAGA successor, probably 2030 if this were the case. Ask this same question to me today and I think it's going to start before the fixed midterms. Eventually ICE is going to realize that they can't detain and deport enough people to meet quotas. They're going to realize feeding and housing people cost money, as well as flying them out. The average ICE agent loves engaging in gratuitous cruelty, they take glee in destroying lives. Many are in neo-Nazi White supremacy organizations. and many are itching to see blood. I wouldn't be surprised if ICE goes full SS and become outright kill squads in the future. In the age of video cameras I don't think they can keep it much of a secret, but its not like we can do anything at this point. If anything they might even broadcast and brag about their slaughtering on the internet. After all, it's not going to be stopped by outside forces because we have the most funded military, most funded "immigration enforcement" police, and the first or second largest nuclear arsenal. I think what's going to happen is inevitable at this point. I don't know how history will view us decades from now, but I think we're about to see what happens when for once the unambiguously evil side wins and become the victor that writes history books. Either this will be a chapter that gets brushed under the rug, or perhaps the coming mass killings will be celebrated. Some people will say I am just catastrophizing. Some people will say "but muh Godwin's law." And some will say "You guys have been comparing MAGA to Nazism since 2016 therefore that invalidates all future comparisons you make regardless of subsequent developments." At this point I think these people would be reluctant to make the comparison even as they're marched into the oven. CentipedeParade (talk) 06:26, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- It can depend upon how soon the frogs, individually or collectively, decide the water is now too hot. (What is the poem - when they came for A I did nothing as it was no concern of mine... and when they came for me there was no-one to show concern'?)
- 'You too are mortal' is a historical quote and a statement of fact (so not insolent). Anna Livia (talk) 09:48, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- The poem is "When they came for X, I did not speak up because I was not X. When they came for Y [...] and when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me." As for the killings thing, there will definitely be killings and not prosecuted ones, but I don't think the Trump admin will want to officially start state-sponsored killings unless the Overton window of the world shifts even more right-leaning. PLMMJ Feed the troll eater. Or don't. 11:13, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- The poem is in the 'half familiar, no remembered context' group. 'You too are mortal' is associated with the Roman triumphs, and 'A statement of fact cannot be insolent' comes from Blakes Seven episode 'Rescue' and is spoken to a Dorian Grey-like character.Anna Livia (talk) 17:22, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- The poem is First they came - I'd hardly call it 'half familiar, no remembered context'! Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 21:14, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- The poem is in the 'half familiar, no remembered context' group. 'You too are mortal' is associated with the Roman triumphs, and 'A statement of fact cannot be insolent' comes from Blakes Seven episode 'Rescue' and is spoken to a Dorian Grey-like character.Anna Livia (talk) 17:22, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- The poem is "When they came for X, I did not speak up because I was not X. When they came for Y [...] and when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me." As for the killings thing, there will definitely be killings and not prosecuted ones, but I don't think the Trump admin will want to officially start state-sponsored killings unless the Overton window of the world shifts even more right-leaning. PLMMJ Feed the troll eater. Or don't. 11:13, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- I think shit like that is impossible to cover up or even concede, assuming other countries are on the watch. However, if future elections get MAGA like candidates or people who are even worse, hostility and prejudice could become more normalized and mainstreamed. Two futures await in geopolitics.
1. Assuming these policies gain significant popularity and/or more Trumpist or worse candidates get into power, it will be a mix of paleoconservative strongman politics and Anarcho capitalism. Given the romanticism of El Salvador under Bukele, and Argentina under Milei to a lesser extent, as well as growing frustrations surrounding the policies in more left leaning/moderate Western countries (Germany, and the UK as examples) and states in America (California), the pendulum will swing to the right further, and prejudice, as I mentioned, will become more normalized in what is seen as a fight against degeneracy.
2. The MAGA movement collapses in the 2030s, as JD Vance presumably doesn’t live up to the expectations of the MAGA audience, who becomes disillusioned afterwards, and a power vacuum in the party leads to Democrats sweeping it up if they aren’t fucked over by restricting. This snowballs with other countries who become increasingly tired of right wing populism. Patty Pat 18:04, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
- Even if JD doesn't live up to MAGA's expectations, the movement's not going to collapse. They're not going to simply abandon him because he's not as charismatic as Trump or whatever. They'll still get behind him for ideological reasons, which he is arguably further right than Trump. The base may not be excited to show up to Vance's rallies, but still show up to the polling booths regardless. Just as long as Vance's policies hurt the "correct" people more than it hurts the base. MAGAts are keenly aware of how much power the Supreme Court relinquished to the Executive branch; they shutter to think how Unitary Executive BS will work out for them if a Democrat got in. Even the most lackluster Vance scenario still entails lifetime appointments for MAGA judges who will reinterpret (or outright disregard) the constitution, so it's still worth it for MAGAts to vote for him just for this fact alone. 2001:67C:2628:647:37:1300:0:391 (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- I’m very sceptical that J. D. Vance can keep the MAGA coalition together. Indeed, I think it will be difficult for anyone other than Trump. We can see from the elections of the “MAGA era” that the GOP slumps badly in national elections when Trump isn’t on the ballot and even struggles with down ticket support when he is.
- Even if JD doesn't live up to MAGA's expectations, the movement's not going to collapse. They're not going to simply abandon him because he's not as charismatic as Trump or whatever. They'll still get behind him for ideological reasons, which he is arguably further right than Trump. The base may not be excited to show up to Vance's rallies, but still show up to the polling booths regardless. Just as long as Vance's policies hurt the "correct" people more than it hurts the base. MAGAts are keenly aware of how much power the Supreme Court relinquished to the Executive branch; they shutter to think how Unitary Executive BS will work out for them if a Democrat got in. Even the most lackluster Vance scenario still entails lifetime appointments for MAGA judges who will reinterpret (or outright disregard) the constitution, so it's still worth it for MAGAts to vote for him just for this fact alone. 2001:67C:2628:647:37:1300:0:391 (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- The major long term impact will be the “MAGA judges”, but they’re more of a change in style than in substance when compared to, say, the current GOP majority on the SCOTUS, all of whom are “selective unitary executive theorists” (i.e. only when a Republican is in the White House). ScepticWombat (talk) 06:52, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- Points to consider...
- The major long term impact will be the “MAGA judges”, but they’re more of a change in style than in substance when compared to, say, the current GOP majority on the SCOTUS, all of whom are “selective unitary executive theorists” (i.e. only when a Republican is in the White House). ScepticWombat (talk) 06:52, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- 1. Trump runs in '28, after a SCOTUS rubber-stamp.
- 2. The MAGA-brains know Trump has a shelf life and are working to bend the system in such a manner there is an perma-majority after he is gone. Just tilting things MAGA by 5 points in every election (gerrymandering, intimidation, suppression, tame media etc) would do it.
- 3. If by a fluke a non-MAGA wins POTUS, SCOTUS suddenly becomes wildly pro-Congress (MAGA congress) and tears apart any executive order.
- 4. That if by some luck out non-MAGA president gets to do stuff, due to DOGE and bring stuffed with MAGA hires the govt is unable or refuses to follow the orders.
- KarmaPolice (talk) 11:27, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
How soon will the last Trump(et) be called on democracy in the USA (nodding at the events in Washington)? Anna Livia (talk) 19:19, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- I suspect never. Putin showed authoritarians all around the globe of how you can utterly gut the spirit of democracy while maintaining the facade of it. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:42, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
I am rewriting my novel- Here is the introduction[edit]
“”“Mr. President. We are on the verge of a global pandemic” said Doctor Shane Walsh of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. President Jonas Brach replied, “What do we know about the pathogen”? Doctor Walsh answered, “It has characteristics of a virus, fungus and bacteria. This pathogen does not fit any traditional category. It is practically alien in nature”. President Brach asked, “So it is an alien lifeform”? A woman, Marta Helga from the World Health Organization, interjected, “It is possible. The emergence of the pathogen in multiple countries at once and the fact it coincides with the comet explosion four days ago makes the possibility of it being alien entirely possible”.
The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Melissa Ortiz, said, “What if it is the wrath of God”? Doctor Walsh shouted, “This is not the time for theology Director Ortiz! Current evidence shows that it is an alien pathogen”! Marta said, “Let's calm down. We cannot be at each other’s throats”. President Brach rubbed his temples and stated, “This is the situation room, not a debate club. Now Doctors Helga and Walsh, what are the capabilities of this pathogen”? Doctor Walsh cleared his throat, “We have confirmed that it is airborne. That is certain. We do know that infected people will develop homicidal aggression and will cannibalize uninfected people. The airborne form does not seem to actually cause symptoms. What does happen is that it brings dead bodies back to life. It sounds impossible but what we are looking at is the reanimation of dead matter”. Marta added, “We have done tests on dead tissue. The pathogen appears to reactivate dead cells, even in corpses that have been dead for a long period of time. We injected the pathogen into corpses that have been dead for years and it brought the corpse back to life in a way”. “Do we have any actual countermeasures to this” asked President Brach. Marta replied, “We do not. We don’t know how to stop this. The airborne version can be transmitted asymptomatically. When the host dies, they will come back. This reanimation has never been heard of before in any scientific research or even in fiction. The closest thing I can think of would be vampires from old folklore and that is even a stretch”. The President stated, “We need facts and countermeasures. I want clear recommendations on stopping this from spreading by 1800 hours tomorrow. Dismissed”. |
This is merely the introduction. --Trans Fem Agenda 22:46, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
- While I can suspend my disbelief for the biologically implausible reanimation of corpses in advanced states of decomposition, my immersion was shattered because the President is too intelligent and unselfish to be believable. The first thing that should come out of his mouth would be "How can this tragedy be exploited to benefit my reelection campaign/boost my party's image?" 2001:67C:2628:647:32:504:0:35A (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- "And if the zombies are brain-dead can we be confident they will reliably vote Republican?"Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:37, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- I think that I might have the Vice President make a power grab, using the zombie pandemic as cover. It will involve using the pathogen as a means of assassinating the President. What do you think @Bob M? --Trans Fem Agenda 15:45, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- A bit more description/show don't tell - too much 'A said, B replied, A said' (when it should be on three lines).
- What happens when the zombies run out of people to consume - and can it affect other species? Invasion of the vampire/zombie tardigrades, cockroaches, tardigrades... (Trees will be collouially called Ents/Huorns) Anna Livia (talk) 19:25, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- I think that I might have the Vice President make a power grab, using the zombie pandemic as cover. It will involve using the pathogen as a means of assassinating the President. What do you think @Bob M? --Trans Fem Agenda 15:45, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- "And if the zombies are brain-dead can we be confident they will reliably vote Republican?"Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:37, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- Sadly, your writing still is blood- and lifeless. You string characters along for merely functional purposes, to utter a sentence, but beyond that function, you simply do not give them any characterisation. Walsh and Helga seem to be introduced here, but apart from learning their title/position, we learn nothing of these people. What are they doing, how do they respond, anything. This also was true for all your other excerpts: Your writing does not seem to care at all for the characters. Consequentially, why should the reader care when you don't? They're really nothing beyond the most basic vehicles to present your setting - but without any form or shape, they are thus unable to carry neither the setting, the story, nor theme.
- As an example for a different approach:
- "President Brach asked, “So it is an alien lifeform”? Shuffling on her chair, the liason of the World Health Organisation spoke up, without taking her eyes of her clipboard, eyes darting relentlessly over the numbers and figures, calmy stating: "It's possible. [...]"
- On that note, her two sentences she says contain "possible" or variations of it thrice. "makes the possibility of it being alien entirely possible" is a rather redundant statement. You may swap out "entirely possible" for "entire probable" at the very least. Alas, even beyond that, I'm afraid, the core issue, apart from a repetitive sentence structure, is simply the complete lack of interest in your characters and their motivations. They have none, they're merely functional. Iterating on what I wrote beforehand: You need to start caring not just about "writing a sci-fi zombie book with a transperson as the main character", but about the characters in that story. Because, again, if you don't care enough about giving them even remotely plausible motivations and characteristics, why should your readers care for them? 2A02:3100:2809:EE00:D84C:F7E:C7A1:DF2E (talk) 20:08, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- I'm wondering what the impetus is behind the stylistic choice to put the 'So-and-so saids' before what they say, rather than the more standard, after what they say? It makes it look like notes for a report or something, not a novel. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about what the other BoN is going on about, the writing is nothing spectacular but it's functional enough. You can always go back and change things, but you need to get the bare bones done. Don't do any 're-writing' until you have the whole thing in the can. Otherwise you'll just keep spinning your wheels. You've already put yourself at a major disadvantage by mentioning it here at all. According to some psychology study if you talk about what you're planning to do you're far less likely to do it than if you don't because talking about it satisfies the urge you had to create it in the first place. And that's a phenomenon I've personally experienced several times...2A0D:BBC7:0:0:F816:3EFF:FE0B:181B (talk) 09:01, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
- And, as I have said before, the RW Saloon Bar is not the best place for discussing story-writing skills. There are plenty of groups elsewhere which will help - constructive criticism/concrit might be appropriate.
- Also - read, read, read fiction (including eg fanfic), see what you find enjoyable and what a turnoff (as distinct from 'your taste, my taste - not everybody cares for romcoms, war fiction, Dead Dove etc). Get a beta or several/swap such services with other writers etc. Anna Livia (talk) 10:53, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
“Mr. President. We are on the verge of a global pandemic” said Doctor Shane Walsh of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. President Jonas Brach replied, “What do we know about the pathogen”? Doctor Walsh answered, “The thing is, this pathogen cannot be identified. It does not fit into any category”. President Brach asked, “How much will this affect my reelection campaign”?
Doctor Walsh gave a stone cold look as he asked, “Are you serious”? The President responded, “I want to get a second term. I need to know how much this will impact my campaign”. Marta Helga, the liaison from the World Health Organization interjected, “Mister President, this is a very serious situation. We have outbreaks of this disease in Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria including occupied Golan Heights, Iraq, Iran, Greece, Upper Macedonia Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. My colleagues and bosses from the World Health Organization have declared this a global epidemic”. President Brach asked, “If I hold campaign rallies in the near future, how many people will contract the pathogen”. Doctor Walsh gave a frustrated sigh, “We don’t know enough about the pathogen to give an accurate assessment on its spread. We believe that it is airborne considering its rapid spread across the Middle East and Eastern Europe”. President Brach stated, “I will take precautions for my reelection rallies. Everyone will wear masks”. Marta said, “It would be better to cancel them altogether”. President Brach snorted, “I have an election to win. I will not give into fear mongering”. The President stopped talking so the others could go through the information. Doctor Walsh asked Marta, “So what has your team figured out so far”? Marta said, “We do know that it invades the brain like Rabies. It causes all the glands in the brain to hemorrhage. The hippocampus shuts down. Organ failure follows immediately afterwards. Death happens within minutes of the organs failing”. President Brach shouted, “So what do we do now”?! Doctor Walsh stated, “I recommend that we shut down all borders immediately”. Marta added, “I agree with a border shut down. There is a chance to stop the spread of the pathogen to other countries”. President Brach shouted, “The economy is already suffering! We cannot lose tourist dollars”! Doctor Walsh retorted, “People will die if it continues to spread. We cannot afford to have a pandemic disease spreading across the country”. The room was extremely tense; the President was not listening to reason. Ten minutes passed and Marta finally spoke, “I would strongly recommend pandemic protocols. Border closures, flight cancellations, school closure and quarantine of infected people”. President Brach asked Marta, “When do the symptoms show up”? Marta replied, “It does not cause symptoms unless a person is already deathly sick. That is when the pathogen activates”. The President thought about it and said, “So it only affects people who are dying from a disease”? Doctor Walsh said, “We hardly know anything about it. We don’t even know what it does”.
President Brach said, “If it only affects people that are already sick then there is no need for declaring a state of emergency. I think that I have heard enough. I will continue my reelection campaign. The country will function as normal”. Marta slammed her fist on the table and shouted, “Neither of us said it was harmless! We are saying that we don’t know enough! There is not a lot known about it”! President Brach laughed, “Doctor Helga, go back to Geneva”; the President turned to Doctor Walsh and said, “Return to Atlanta. You are not needed now if there is no risk”. —
I changed the intro where the President is more worried about being in power instead of worrying about what is good for the country. I am thinking of adding a Gnostic twist where the President is being used by the Demiurge to make humanity suffer. Not many modern works of zombie fiction have supernatural elements. --Trans Fem Agenda 22:10, 17 August 2025 (UTC)
Clothes lifespan?[edit]
A low-stakes question. Is there any site or anything which details the reasonable lifespan of clothing items, such as socks and shoes? KarmaPolice (talk) 09:05, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- Well, that's going to have a lot of variables.
- Purpose of clothing? I mean labor clothes, for construction, landscaping, auto work, and other heavy labor intensive occupations are going to need very different materials and construction from sportswear or officewear, and again from formal wear or costuming or military uniforms or... there's a wide range to take into account.
- Location of use? Because I can't help but think that the environment will have an effect as well. Alaska ain't Hawaii ain't Georgia ain't Estonia ain't Japan ain't South Africa ain't... you get the idea.
- Applicable customs? I mean, depending on national customs, ethnic culture, religious rules and the like, restrictions and preferences regarding materials, styles, and such are going to vary also.
- Economic variables? Look up the "Vimes Boot Theory of Economics" sometime, that says it far better than I can.
- A site that can take all of that into account? Honestly, I have my doubts about that. But if I'm wrong, and the site is somehow reliable, then I will happily stand corrected. Kencolt (talk) 09:17, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- I suspect it's a bit simpler than that. Take active footwear; the thumb rule is you can expect 500mi out of a 'decent enough' pair, which sounds a lot until you remember an moderately active person (for example, warehouse workers) can clock that up in about six months. The issue being, the shoe loses it's support capacity before it falls apart. Which is an issue if you grew up poor and were taught to wear them past this.
- Another key issue is that a lot of the advice is time based, which is clearly stupid - a pair of shoes worn once a week clearly is going to 'last longer' than one used daily. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:14, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- https://youtu.be/Qx0huz6TiLo?feature=shared I have worn Adidas Sambas for now over half my life. A pair of shoes lasts me 4 years, I would say on average, and they lace very well to give me strong arch support. I have some retired shirts because they have some emotional value to me, based on whether I picked them up from a basement show or got them at a protest, but I have worn my Adidas to work, on hikes, I had one get salted by the ocean because I didn't respect how fast tides could move the only time I've seen an ocean. It's a correct shoe for me, technically an 'indoor soccer' shoe, and they last for years even as much as I put them through. I have an old pair that is coming apart that I slip on, for small shit like going for a cigarette. But for 20 years, Adidas Sambas have been everything short of my dress shoes, and I mean, I've only had like four or five pairs. I have shoes that I can wear to a funeral, And I have a funny story about buying those, but they are tucked away for the occasion.Torrent (talk) 07:56, 16 August 2025 (UTC)
- Another key issue is that a lot of the advice is time based, which is clearly stupid - a pair of shoes worn once a week clearly is going to 'last longer' than one used daily. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:14, 11 August 2025 (UTC)
- Completely off-topic, but I recommend reading "The royal Inca tunic: a biography of an Andean masterpiece" for the story of a special sort of object (completely under-studied compared to European royal objects). It's a big public book by an author who specialised on this subject and has done research for multiple years on it. The writing is fun to read, and it reads more like a detective novel than a history book (but it is written by an expert nonetheless). 2A01:599:A1B:8681:6199:A23E:B472:219 (talk) 13:11, 16 August 2025 (UTC)
“Epstein was a Republican actually” is the biggest revisionist history I’ve seen the left do in years[edit]
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Do these people on the Left change history when it’s convenient for them? They (the mainstream media) are notorious for revisionist history and think it’s okay when they do it. Do they not know he donated more money to Democrats than Republicans? Stone Android (talk)<
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