JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
1d ago
The world that has no recognizable rules would be incomprehensible for us. You can't have "magic" - at least fantasy type magic, with wizards, magic books, spells etc. - in such a world. Why would doing a gesture and saying "imperio!" produce any consistent result in such a world? Maybe once it would put a person under your control, another time it would turn them into a frog, and another time it would turn your own head into vanilla ice cream. How would you "teach" magic in such a setting? How would you explain this world to anybody and make them involved in it? Basically the only thing you can tell the reader is "any shit can happen shrug". People would be unable to emphasize with such a world and imagine themselves being part of it. The beings living in such a setting would certainly have very little in common with humans as we know them. Maybe H.P. Lovecraft would be able to work with it, but even his nightmare worlds have some rules.... We need rules because our own world has rules, so our brains would be unable to comprehend a world which doesn't work this way. And Rowling is certainly going with the standard here, her magic system is not chaotic, it is set up as having very definite rules - in fact, the whole plot of the series relies on the fact that the rules of magic work in certain way and even the most powerful wizard of all times, who worships power and does not have any moral limitations, is not able to overcome these rules and is ultimately undone by them. In that aspect, I think Rowling's world is more rule-based than ours - in our world, the laws of nature are morally neutral, but in Rowling's world the magic is not. The only problem is that her system was not consistently designed and has many logic flaws. Which is also common for fantasy worlds, so I don't really hold a grudge agains her for that, one just needs to understand we have an imperfect rule system here and deal with it.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
But it's not even explained why you can't do it, not even addressed. There are a lot of limitations which are spelled out, even if inconsistently - like Avada Kedavra being unblockable (which turns out not to be exactly true but ok) or you can't use Imperius to reveal certain secrets, or other stuff you can't do. But this point is never addressed - given that there are ways to remove Imperius (e.g. Thief's Downfall) why everybody, e.g., entering Ministry of Magic is not automatically un-imperiused? Worst thing it does nothing. There's also finite incantatem, there are also veritaserum (ok this one may be too expensive to use on each suspect consistently), and if MoM can detect magic done by underage wizards, up to knowing which spell what used by whom, why can't it detect Imperius usage by others? It looks like tracing works on adult magic (if it is performed in the vicinity of underage, at least) so again, it's inconsistent.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
The text implied there was a ton of low-level DEs who escaped any punishment basically just by going "don't know anything, was imperiused, leave me alone" and ministry of magic doing nothing about it. If anything, the prominent DEs were the ones who got Azkaban or forced to recant and snitch in public on others, and low-level goons largely got away with it - to flock back to Voldie once he came back.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
DEs had a lot of people and AFAIR accepted anyone who was pureblood and was willing to worship the big V. I don't think it required any special position in the society, at least for mere membership - it seems to be modeled after the Nazi party, which explicitly welcomed low class people that felt the society has left them behind and wanted to do something about it, no matter who gets hurt. It seems the true numbers of DEs weren't even known as many who were eager to join when the things were going well for them, later claimed there weren't true DEs as they were imperiused or coerced (weird that they didn't have means to detect somebody had been imperiused, but let's not dwell of that, HPs magic system is so full of plot holes).
JarJarJedi
3d ago
Well, they weren't forharrising hard enough, so they get no prize. Yet again, meritocracy raises its ugly (at least as far as the left's theory is concerned) head.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
Who's "we"? Is she supposed to know such things? I don't see in her assignments much that would require her being briefed on the latest propulsion tech, for example. So, she not knowing what it is may just not mean much. I don't think she even knows what stuff is on the shelf (not to be critical of her, most people that do not specialize on studying this probably wouldn't know, a lay person would know nothing about it) and I'm pretty sure there's a lot of stuff off the shelf being tested of which only select people are aware and know the details. She is on Armed Services committee but the military does a ton of stuff, and I doubt they brief every person on that committee about every single project - nobody would have time to follow on that, especially given it's not even their main or only job.
If somebody who really specializes on military R&D and propulsion systems and is fully knowledgeable on all current projects and technologies said something like that, it'd be interesting. But I am not sure Sen. Gillibrand, with all due respect, is that person.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
I saw no warhawk ever saying Trump would attack South Korea and Taiwan on behalf of China and North Korea. This is literally something nobody believes in. That's what makes it such a bad meme - instead of being based in reality, it just goes "what's the worst thing I can say about person I hate"? That's not how good meme is done, you can't just say maximum vile shit, it should be based on something recognisable and draw from the truth even in exaggeration.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
Well obviously Trump is hitler because it's on the left. But what is that crap with balancing and nuking South Korea? Trump never not only wanted to do anything like that but was accused about anything like that. Same for Taiwan. Worst that was said about him that he may cut off aid to Ukraine, but that is far from what is being displayed, as if Trump is going to do worse that Russia, China and North Korea taken together, by far. This is just stupid.
JarJarJedi
5d ago
Yeah, they still can't. It makes zero sense.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
Because "public" does not exist - it's just an imaginary entity to make our conversations easier, but there's no actual thing as "public" that owns anything. What actually happens is that the government functionaries are controlling the speech over the airwaves, and as we have found out multiple times, they can not be trusted not to abuse this function, even if they have best intentions at the start. And being human, they rarely even have the best intentions. That's why the best method to prevent the abuse is to deny them the power of control.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
JarJarJedi
10d ago
Nate did nothing wrong.
I disagree. If he were a modest statistician that would just work his models the best way he can and produce the results, and let people interpret them as they will, without pretense, then he'd done nothing wrong. But as my link above suggests, he thinks his models reveal the deeper truth about the actual structure of the world, and his way of revealing it is superior to any other possible way - so much superior, that he is justified treating anyone who suggests the world may be different from what his models suggest with condescension and disdain similar to how a physicist would treat somebody who denies existence of Newton's laws. And the problem with it, of course, that this pretense of superiority is revealed, again and again, as false, and then complicated explanations are concocted why he technically has been correct all along and only by some weird fluke his opponents have been appearing to be correct. I think this is wrong. If you are in prediction business, and you predict wrong, you should at least eat the crow and be humbled. Otherwise you are in a scamming the gullible business.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
But for a lot of Democrats, the money is in winning the elections, not losing them. And yet, they are doing everything to avoid understanding why their popularity declines and people turn against them. Even if they are paid by Soros or any other deep pocketed entity - I doubt this entity would pay them for long if it sees they can not produce more power and more wins, and most of the power in the US, luckily, is still gatewayed through voter consent, so pissing off voters is an uniquely bad strategy. Yet, the left insists on it again and again.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
Is this the same Nate Silver, the mighty predictor? Or somebody impersonating him? https://x.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1855215191102750879/photo/1
More seriously, though, I just can't understand any meaningful way in which you can accurately predict Trump winning 312 electoral votes and then accurately predict his chances of winning the electoral college is a coin toss. These don't seem to be compatible in any sensible way. Maybe you can invent some statistical trick to make it sound good but on the plain common sense meaning it just makes zero sense.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
There's actually a precedent to that - Ukrainian SSR and Belorussian SSR used to have its own seat at UN, along the USSR seat. So USSR essentially held three seats, despite the SSRs being much less independent than US states. USSR wanted all 15 SSRs in but the US said if they do that, then they get 48 US states as members. So they bargained and since USSR had pretty strong position they agreed on every nominally independent state being in, despite being de-facto dependent (e.g. Philippines at the time) and even British India being in, but USSR gets three seats.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
I'm sure they'd try that but I hope somebody there is still sane enough to realize a violent coordinated movement of this size which is controlled by somebody other than the government is kinda problem for them. Before it's too late.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
She was likeable, i.e. she didn't have the Hilary Clinton problem of coming off as a bitch. She didn't have any major skeletons in her closet. She had a good resume.
Wow do we watch two different movies. This is a woman who literally started her career through bedding a prominent powerful politician, and performed horribly - by the standards of her own party, which thoroughly criticized her for it when it were still allowed - once she was gifted a position. Who famously jailed parent of sick kids and proudly bragged about it. Who was explicitly and knowingly hired for her demographics and confirmed her ineptness by being unable to achieve literally anything for 4 years. Seriously, I haven't seen any proper answer to the question what she achieved that does not reduce either to demographics or to "she was around when a thing happened". Maybe the skeletons thing is true in a meaning that everybody knew how bad she was, but calling it "good resume" - my goodness. She is on record as the most extremist person in the Senate - and that's not for the lack of competition. And you personally may think about her as charming but it doesn't look like many people who vote agree with you on that...
JarJarJedi
12d ago
People weren't writing articles about Harris's likeability problems.
First of all, they didn't have time. She has been a candidate for about 100 days, and all of those were campaign days where serious objective scrutiny is not welcome at all. Second, writing an article like "experts suspect the ocean is wet" is also not going to make big waves. Read what people spoke of her before she was elevated, and you'll see plenty critique of her likeability.
JarJarJedi
12d ago
Do they even have any nationally well-known politicians with a positive net approval rating?
Now they do :) I mean, he won the popular vote, isn't it the ultimate approval rating?
JarJarJedi
13d ago
The other difference is before it could be - and usually were - dismissed as random one-off event, that just happened to be against Jews, but does not represent any systemic problem. This event is much bigger and very hard to dismiss as an "action of a lone-wolf crazed individual" - it's clear there is a strong, massive, violent anti-Semitic movement in Europe, and it's ready to roll out Kristallnachts on demand. They will try to dismiss it anyway, but I think they are starting to realize how big of a problem they have got, and that's it is not a Jewish problem but their problem.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
I know totally normal women who are saying nobody should have sex with men anymore
The definitions of "totally normal" are getting stretched really wide nowadays.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
I'm sorry and it must hurt, but I don't see how it is possible to maintain a long-term relationship and hide who you are. You can disagree, and have different opinions on certain matters, and I've heard about couples with different political views making it work (though it's probably not easy) but if you have to hide and live in mortal fear it comes out one day - it's not sustainable, and it's not the way to live your life.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
Kamala Harris was a good candidate who ran a good campaign.
No she was not. She was a horrible candidate. She was universally unlikeable - which has been demonstrated many times before when she tried to get elected. She had no consistent message and vacillated between "All Biden did is also mine" and "I'm going to fix everything" - which looked completely fake. In fact, almost everything about her looked completely fake - from her demeanor to her positions to her personal history. She was unable to coherently speak on policy like politician, and she was unable to speak like a human being to other human beings. She did not attract any audience except one that would vote for an open can of surströmming if it had "D" written on it, and turned away many audiences who traditionally were Dem's strongholds. She pandered hard but it didn't work. She played "I was born in a middle class family" but nobody bought it. She made both workers and billionaires hate her. She got both Jews and Muslims endorsing the other candidate. She went all in on the Hitler thing when it should be obvious it doesn't work anymore. She was a crappy candidate who ran a weak campaign. The Party Machine is powerful, and it held what it could, and provided the money, the resources and the bodies, but turns out the Machine alone can not win, at least not yet. Our Democracy (TM) is not in a self-driving autonomous mode yet. It still needs a popular person at the helm to drive it. And Democrats chose very poorly.
I would argue they chose very poorly when they didn't oust Biden in 2023, but instead waited to the very last days and then were doomed to nominate Harris. If they did the smart thing, they could field a convincing candidate, and a convincing candidate plus the Party Machine could trounce Trump. I am so glad they did what they did instead. I am also so glad they do not seem to understand what happened to them. I wish them many happy returns.
JarJarJedi
13d ago
Admittedly, the subway surfing in question looks pretty lit.
Of course, the media, having gotten the whiff of somebody doing something incredibly stupid and dangerous, does the obvious thing - tries to make it look cool to as many people as possible so that they would be inspired to do the same, while pretending to moralize about it. It's impossible to hate them enough.
It''s a service to me, the reader. And I am thankful for it. Twitter link requires me to click through to see what's going on and then guess why the author thinks it's interesting. Minimal effort post to describe what it's about and why it's interesting does this work for me, and I am grateful for it.
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