JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
5hr ago
In no leftist circle I'm present in are Jews every mentioned negatively qua Jews.
In some circles they use the z-word. In some, they don't bother anymore. Both sides though know it means "the Jews", and both sides are ok with it. Now defining precisely may be a bit complicated, but I'd say AWFUL crowd would mostly be like "oh of course I don't have Jews, it's just about Israel policies!" while the Muslim and other "historically oppressed" parts would be much more open about what it is about.
Should a leftist go "Jews amirite" there, I have no doubt that they would be promptly expelled
Just as university students who literally denied Jews from entering the campus and physically attacked them were expelled, and so did the organizations supporting them?
of their disproportionate presence among Israeli
lolwut? "Disproportionate" to what? Did you expect Israelis to be Chinese instead?
JarJarJedi
5hr ago
She maintains that instead of doing bad things, companies should just say they are going to do good things, and then actually do them! And does not comprehend that she is part of the problem.
And she never does the work to explain what "good things" actually are. Either she assumes it's obvious to everybody, or she doesn't bother to explain it. For a person in charge of doing the very same good things, essentially hiring herself for the position, it's quite disappointing.
JarJarJedi
5hr ago
When Israel lies about civilian casualties in Gaza, and antisemites tell the truth
But that's not what is happening. Nobody has a reliable count of civilian casualties, and Hamas - which is the only people who have anybody on the ground - are notorious grotesque liars. It could be Israel's figures aren't accurate either, but that doesn't mean Hamas' Arabian Nights type tales are true. As for the rest of antisemites, they don't have any other independent sources, so they either use Hamas numbers or pull them right out of their asses.
That's, like, really bad and stuff, for Israel.
If by "that's" you mean antisemites lying about Israel (and as we already established, they can not but lie) then it may be bad, but it's inevitable - they will always lie about Israel, that's their nature as antisemites. It's just a fact of life, you can't avoid it.
JarJarJedi
20hr ago
When Israel makes the antisemites correct about one thing, they risk making people look at the rest of their thoughts. It's a very bad dynamic for the Jewish People.
I am not sure what "one thing" do you mean, but it does not matter - I am rather set back by the argument itself. Are you saying if the State of Israel, over all its, admittedly short, but still multi-decade history, commits a mistake, that validates the views of antisemites that all the Jews are evil, secretly want to (or already do) rule the world and it would be better for everyone if they were exterminated? Because that's what the "rest of their thoughts" are. I mean, yes, that's horrible for the Jewish people, but this does not look good for any other people either. And, may I ask, is this the criteria that applies to everyone, or specifically for Israel alone - that if they ever wrong then everything their enemies ever said about them is true?
JarJarJedi
23hr ago
If the Democrats go too far with supporting rioting/insurrection/terrorism, they might get rolled up in a big way by the FBI.
Might they though? So far I am not seeing much evidence of that. Antifa had been destroying Portland for several years now, and periodically flaring up in Seattle, LA and other places. No noticeable FBI action. Sure, they grab a couple of worst offenders here and there but no systemic effort of "rounding up" anybody, and of course not even talk of going higher and investigating the vast feeding NGO network that enabled them. Of course, I don't have any visibility into the FBI internals, but past experience does not give much reason to suspect anything is happening. Especially as FBI rank and file know that if they slow-walk it, Republicans would do nothing to them - worst thing, they may force them to early retirement, with full benefits - but if they cross the Democrats, the next time the Dems come to power the retribution would be ruinous. Unless one is a determined ideologue with nothing to lose, it's clear which strategy is the smarter one.
If nuclear war happens
I don't think it makes any sense to discuss that.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
I literally watched a clip of Fuentes yesterday explaining how The Order is everything, and if some stupid assholes worry about their rights and freedoms, its nothing, and The Authority of the Powerful State must reign supreme, maintained by the overwhelming power of violence, and if your little individual freedoms get trampled, screw you. I'm not sure what would be a disagreement between him and Joseph Stalin by now. The color of the flags?
JarJarJedi
1d ago
In fact the models do not seem to be capable of differentiating on their own between success and pretend-success.
Of course! If there were a way to evaluate the quality of the result, the hyper-smart people earning billions of dollars would think about a thing as trivial as inserting "if the result is of low quality, try doing better" at the end of the AI pipeline. If we, as the end users, see low quality results, it is a hard evidence that their best effort at evaluating the quality of the results are failing. Otherwise they'd build a perfect AI chat and move from billions to trillions.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
dabbled in some antisemitism in addition to trans-furry whatever leftism.
Antisemitism is now completely fine with the left, and has been for a while. If one is skittish about it, they may use the z-word, but many don't even bother anymore. Not that it ever had been entirely out - Marx had been a rabid antisemite, for example - but there were times when it wasn't much talked about. Those times are completely past us. Now any leftist can embrace hating the Joos, and the peers would only cheer.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
I doubt it. I think the main reason is "we need to find something that avoids the conclusion that the Left does political violence, because the Left are the good guys". And fortunately, the Message Machine produced exactly the message they needed - it was actually a right-wing extremist (who are all extremely violent and dangerous, as everybody knows) who done it. So they grab it and hold on it for their dear life, and everything is correct in the world again.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Well, I didn't read the GR tops but I am pretty sure it's not porn - at least not the thing I'd call porn - at least in the SciFi and YA SciFi categories.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Provides a fantasy wherein merely being actually intelligent (as opposed to being iron man or sherlock holmes intelligent) is enough to gain social status, wealth, and power.
Yes, but not exactly. HPMOR's premise is that being intelligent makes you super-powerful. And it's not like Tolkien characters are not intelligent (please, no "why didn't they just order Eagle Uber to Mordor", it had been done to death) - it's just, as in the real world, intelligence is not enough. Otherwise we'd all be ruled by God Emperor Yud The First, The Only And The Eternal by now. But in HPMOR, intelligence makes you a god among mortals, pretty much literally. Unfortunately, this means all other characters (except maybe one or two) must be dumbasses for that to work out. That's disappointing.
Actually manages to teach general principles by which its audience (high schoolers) can become more intelligent.
Might be, not being a high-schooler I can't make much use of that, so here might be a part of it that I am unable to appreciate.
Captures the essential fantasy of harry potter in general.
I must disagree here. The essence of how Potter wins has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with feelings, especially love. The whole premise of the original HP universe is that Voldie is smarter, more powerful, more capable, more ruthless, more everything, than any other character in the universe (including Dumbledore, which is close to his level but ultimately is also done in by him). And he still loses, because he doesn't know what it means to be human, and that's, evidently, how the magic works in that universe. HPMOR universe runs on pure intelligence, the concepts above aren't even featured there. Many people - especially rationalist, autist, introverted, hyper-intelligent geeks - may feel much more at home at the latter universe than at the former, but those are very, very different universes, and claiming HPMOR captures the "essence" of the original work is very far from the truth. If anything, it captures the external trappings while hollowing out the essence and substituting another - maybe more palatable to the geeks, but completely different.
Doesn't make any of the invisible-to-normies but backbreaking-to-autists mistakes found in most ordinary literature.
I've noticed a number of literary mistakes (like, dangling plots, unmotivated actions, etc.) when reading it but of course I already forgot the specifics. But I am willing to believe HPMOR does not have a kind of mistakes that trigger the autists so much, like claiming in one part that certain staircase in Hogwarts had 12 steps, and in another chapter saying it's 11 steps. Of course, no normie reader had ever cared or will ever care about this. Avoiding such mistakes indeed may make it an easier read to certain category of readers - but that doesn't make it a work of literary genius. At least my threshold for it is much higher - and in a different place too.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
it's far from certain that the current incarnation of the Democratic Party will ever get another President
Why not? They got Biden in. Average Democrat always beats average Republican, because Democrat ground game (including control over voting in virtually all population centers, with all possible shenanigans, which we all know is a long debunked conspiracy theory and never happens) is much stronger. Extraordinary Republican (like Trump) will beat average (like Clinton) or weak Democrat (like Harris) - but how many extraordinary candidates Republicans have on the bench? What if Democrats get a good candidate (good at being elected, I mean)?
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Russian prison culture has its own hierarchy, with the honor and authority of the senior ranking members dependent among other things on their resolution of disputes
The actual prison culture does, but street thug culture influenced by echoes of the prison culture doesn't respect any of that. If such thug gets into prison, he'd be either forced to adapt and learn respect, or will be killed. But while they are out there - and many of them are low-level enough to never get to prison - they don't have any such hierarchy.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
I am very surprised by a continued stream of praise (including such words as "genius") piled on HPMOR. I read it, and it was fun, and I admit the premise is pretty clever. But both as a fantasy book and as a literature it seemed to be very mid. Tons of plot lines lead to nowhere. Main reveal is obvious very early. The main protagonist is very Mary Sue. Other characters are severely under-developed. And coming back to the premise, what actually comes out of it? I mean yes, the protagonist wins (I don't think it's much of a spoiler that the titular character in a fantasy book wins at the end, and especially if he's named Harry Potter, right?) but isn't that where the interesting part starts? I mean, by that point HP is basically a god. And he intends to make everybody else into gods (without even asking them, of course - I mean why would he, they are all NPCs anyway). Or only wizards (what happens to muggles btw?) Isn't it something we may want to address somehow? Nah, we're done here, buh-bye.
I mean it's fun, I do not deny it. But genius? Life-changing? "one-shotted a substantial percent of the world’s smartest STEM undergrads"? I mean I knew undergrads now are not what they used to be, but really?
JarJarJedi
1d ago
A lot of cultures have this pattern of behavior. Especially low-trust cultures. Not every one has a scary foreign word to attribute it to, but I saw it many times. In Russian culture, especially with its lower rungs which are thoroughly imbued with prison culture, this is a pretty common pattern. In Israeli culture, again especially among lower rungs (keyword: ars), this approach to every interaction being zero sum win/lose exists and getting one over somebody is highly valued. I am sure there are a lot of other cultures where the same pattern exists, because it's a common human pattern. Not sure why the Urdu term would be any better to use than any other meaning "honor culture" and describing common failure mode of honor cultures. But pattern existing in a culture and the whole culture (or set of cultures) being subjugate to one and single dominating pattern are very different things.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
I didn't mean any people in this discussion, sorry if it isn't clear. I meant people in the US that pretended this was just a theoretical lecture on existence of illegal orders and not a threat (which of course they knew it isn't theoretical and it is very much a threat).
JarJarJedi
1d ago
That's a good point, looking at my reading list, probably the newest books I read in 2025 are Murderbot series, which, ironically, are written by Martha Wells, and Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. I've read about 25 books this year, but the rest of them aren't new.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
I mainly use goodreads for cataloguing my reads (since it has a list of books and UI to manage reading lists, and I am lazy enough to use whatever is there instead of building my own) and seeing what my friends (people I actually know, not facebook kind of "friends") are reading. I sometimes also review, but definitely not all books I read.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Since publishing and readership overwhelmingly lean female
Why? Males stopped reading? I certainly didn't, and I know many people who are male nerds like me and who read. Is it the millennial/gen Z thing? Are males only doing tiktok or games now?
so I'm not super bothered by it.
I'm not bothered at all - my concern is not having time to read what I already want to read, not to find more reading based on somebody's opinion - I am just curious as to what is going on.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Yes.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
Well, I know about all the Puppies saga and that stuff. I have some idea how that mechanics works. I wonder if it's the same in this case.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
Finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was an interesting ride (pun intended) but the end was kinda disappointing. After all that buildup, suddenly they just cried together and that was all? I mean I get it that real life has no "endings", but that's what I expect from fiction, however old-fashioned it is. Maybe it's too much to expect. But, I think I get what Pirsig was going for, and likely will read the sequel at some point next year.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
I was on goodreads, and out of curiosity, I took a look on final 10 Readers' Favorite nominees in SciFi category. I generally never use contests like that as a guide, but I saw an ad and I was curious about what I'd find there and if I recognize any names (spoiler: I recognized one). What I saw made me ask some questions. Out of 10 top candidates, 8 are female authors. I read the descriptions - I have never read the books themselves and likely never will, so that's all I have to go on - and in 7, the main protagonist(s) are women, in one they are bots, one had a mixed crew and in one I couldn't determine it. In young adult SciFi category, all 10 nominees are female. So my question is - why? I also checked last year winners - 11:4 female authors.
Since we're living in a clown world in clown times, I must post a disclaimer that I have no problem with either female SciFi authors or female sci-fi protagonists, and enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) books with either. Yet, somehow I didn't expect this situation. Why is it so - is it the case that 80+% of SciFi writers are now female? 80+% of good ones? Goodreads sample is skewed? Vote is rigged or meddled with somehow? Note I am not seeking a value judgement on this situation (as ultimately I personally don't care at all who is nominated or wins), but would like to understand its genesis.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
Of course, it does not cost a lot for the military to give access to their facilities and conduct tours and so on on any particular case - maybe some personnel/organization costs but compared to trillion-wide budget, it's not even a rounding error. However, the military is not providing those services to every comer, and can not do so - because then the cost will eventually become noticeable, and again, it's not the military's business. They are and have to be selective in this. And once they are selective in this, it only makes sense for them to select to cooperate with groups that share their values and goals. There's no reason why the Army can't give free use of their facilities to the local ukulele club, it indeed would cost them nothing. But it's not their business to do so, so if they choose not to do so, it's completely appropriate choice.
Egoism? If I'll be dead, I am not very concerned what the policies would be then.
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