TheFooder
1d ago
Did they ever do Toussaint Louverture? He seems like an obvious pick. I'd take Frederick Douglass over Nat Turner--just a personal preference. Imagine John Brown, though. He'd be like, "Year 1: where are the nukes?" Tubman is a goofy choice; fake, lame and gay.
TheFooder
3d ago
I'm posting this on behalf of a person in one of my Signal groups. I think it's a cool project and completely Motte worthy. I might post it a few times in case no one sees it...
From the About page:
The basic idea is that we are investigating specific topics (called 'claims') together. Each claim is a declarative statement, but don't assume the statement is true! Click on any claim on the homepage to see the page where the claim is being investigated.
Each investigation page will have a title and a brief explanation of what is being investigated or why. There may already be evidence in the "For" or "Against" columns, or it may be blank. You can use the form at the bottom of each claim investigation page to add evidence "For" or "Against" each claim, and click on the "plus" sign to leave comments under evidence that other people have added.
Comments should be directly related to the evidence you're commenting on. For example, if you have reason to believe the source is not credible or is missing some context, you can explain why.
Please stick to submitting evidence that is relevant to the claim, and please be respectful in your comments. For now, I will be moderating manually.
It's a bit like a debate where evidence is gathered and commented on and each user gets to use a slider to determine their confidence in the claim. A bit like Metaculus but for sensemaking instead of predictions. I've helped by providing some evidence, but what the site really needs now are users. If you have a few minutes, maybe take a look find a topic you know something about and put some links up. I think Stacia has something pretty cool and interesting and I'd love to see it grow.
Cheers!
TheFooder
4d ago
I have the mini 2! Love it, best camera I own. But I can't fly it very high where I live due to FAA regulations. I've taken it to other places, like a beach in Florida--or even England-- and it soars. The "military" drones I saw in MD were easily 4-6X in size, painted drab colors and flying formation. They were also only about 3-4 stories up so very easy to see. Not sure this is what people are seeing in NJ though. As I said in a different comment, I live around all kinds of National military crap, so you just sort of get used to seeing weird stuff. (This is also where Mothman, Snallygaster, Jersey Devil and the Blair Witch originate, so maybe just a crazy place).
TheFooder
4d ago
Oddly and anecdotally, I've seen large, heavy-duty drones flying around my area (Western Maryland) and between Baltimore and Annapolis. This was in the last year. It was shocking and gross, but I also just assumed it was our overlords testing out their latest toys, which isn't such a surprise considering I live on the flight path from DC to Camp David. I don't think it's just peoples' imaginations--these things are out there flying around.
Now, why are they flying around NJ/NY or are those people seeing what I saw? Don't know, don't really care. I consider it another media distraction that I don't have bandwidth for. It's certainly curious? Certainly. Is it important? Maybe, but probably not as important as--say--the escalating war in Ukraine.
FWIW, Walter Kirn, in reference to his government sources, says it's 99% psy-op. His claim is that it's another churn of the news-cycle meant to gin up anxiety and present Trump with another problem his enemies can try to cudgel him with. Not sure I'm on-board with all that, but since I agree with the assessment it's a distraction, it's as good of an explanation as I care to present.
Kirn and Taibbi livestream (Drones are near the middle): https://youtube.com/watch?v=VvYPaEO_4gQ Here's Michael Tracey saying he saw them: https://substack.com/home/post/p-153179566?source=queue
TheFooder
5d ago
Greenwald came immediately to my mind too. It's hard to dismiss him though when he's been pointing at the same phenomena and people for 20 years. You kind of get why he's so sassy.
TheFooder
5d ago
totally agree. I have been like this since the 90's so I basically can't listen or read anyone anymore. Everyone feels compelled to inject their snappy wordplay, Russel Conjugations and pejoratives into whatever crass culture war topic they choose to wade in on. It /feels/ like this has gotten intolerably bad on the left recently, but it may also be that no one cares to try and articulate things honestly and fairly and jsut want to "score points." It's bad out there, folks.
TheFooder
10d ago
Tyrannies are problematic because the quality of them depends massively on the quality of the individual person ruling them.
Tyrannies are problematic because there's rarely a good plan for what comes next. Once a tyranny ends (i.e. tyrant dies) there is chaos or more tyranny. The purpose of the liberal order is to try and preserve some semblance of continuity through time culturally and politically, too smooth the road, so to speak.
The weirdness we have now is because people want all of the power and none of the responsibility. If anything, there might be a valid argument to bring back landed gentry and give people a free pass to move to whichever fief suits them best.
Agree. Another belief that is simply accepted by most people is that universal suffrage is 100% right and good. Try arguing the opposite! I agree that landed families probably ought to have more of a say than renters or welfare people, but of course I think that...I own property. How we would manage giving some people more than others based on some type of meritocratic system is kind of the base level problem. The simple solution is 'might makes right,' but 2k+ years of human society have brought us to a point where most people globally think there's something wrong with that formulation, largely that the mighty (not the same a noble, merely those with power) shit all over the weak. So we have an ideal--a liberal ideal-- that we give everyone the same amount of liberty, or whatever, and here we are...the mighty shitting all over the weak, again.
The Yarvin solution, as I understand it, is to stop pretending that liberalism exists and embrace the power of the strong and attempt to wield it...somehow. My main disagreement is that it just gets right back to the starting point where it's a coin flip if the monarchs will curb-stomp you or not and there's no exit, just monarchs/tyrants/oligarchs all the way down.
TheFooder
11d ago
For the same reason some people are disgusted by sushi. They register disgust because of a fear of eating raw things, even though they understand it might be delicious and millions of people eat it without issue. The disgust is a conditioned reaction, not a rational point of view. Rationally, I'm mostly on board with Yarvin and his essays are fun to read. As a conditioned American, classical liberal, democratic patriot type, the thought that we should just give ourselves over to our most wild monarchic instincts makes me feel queasy.
TheFooder
12d ago
I've been uncomfortable with the "Authoritarianism is always bad" line for a while. I don't love or seek authoritarianism, but clearly it's something people want because we keep bumping up against two of it's many flavors: top-down bureaucratic oligarchy or Strongman monarchism. I've been in discussions with very smart quasi-famous idea generating people who simply refuse to accept that Authoritarianism can be useful and desirable.
I think the reason is that an authoritarian state has no exit, once you're in it, there's no way out except violent revolution. So it's to be avoided because you'll get crushed...even though you're going to get crushed regardless. If the POTUS had meaningful executive powers, I could see how every 50 years or so, we'd want a person to come in, clean house and then depart once their time was up.
That is effectively what the Trump election was all about. But the reality is he's stuck muddling around with the same bench-warmers and institutions every other president has to muddle about with. Sure, he might find some loopholes and it's always possible that some appointee will be surprisingly capable, but the course for humanity's destruction (nuclear war, AI safety, energy and environmental limits, etc.) is set and on-track barring some miraculously gifted leadership.
Bureaucratic oligarchy's are simply too beholden to self-interest and bad incentives. They can manage but not lead. Monarchies are too easily converted to tyrannies, they can lead but not manage. Liberal democracies are racing to the bottom pandering to every whim, they can't lead nor manage long-term. It absolutely disgusts me to find myself agreeing with Yarvin on so much, but as the threats increase and we near the great filter, it seems impossible that Democracy can solve the problem.
Someone turn my black pill white...please!
TheFooder
22d ago
No, I was a metal head...hardcore was not my thing (to put it lightly) so I didn't listen to it. I had heard of Fugazi (13 songs is ok) and I liked Bad Brains, but I didn't like the hardcore scene and avoided it. When I heard the term 'Emo' (in 1996?) for the first time it just seemed pretentious.
TheFooder
24d ago
Is this just Spotify pandering?
I think t his is Spotify sprinting full-out to stay in one place. People really, actually have been driven insane by Intersectionality/DEI/etc.
When 'Emo' first emerged in the early 90's, I recall being gobsmacked that some pretentious a-holes decided their music was 'emotional' as opposed to all of the other music that wasn't. Since then it's been one stupid made-up genre after another to the point that I hardly care. I only care because when I release a track myself, I want/need to tag it so that is ends up anywhere within the possible blast radius of people who might want to listen to it.
I once got a promo record, this was 2015, and the record said something like "file under trans-core." What? Trans is a type of art form? It's a genre? I suppose I believe it, but probably not in the way I was supposed to. Of course it was the same old bland techno music everyone else is making--nothing made it more trans than anything else except maybe the song titles and vibe? It was just a way for the artist to try and carve out some new category they could sit atop of.
And that's the game. There's no art here, no deeper meaning. It's all pandering it's all cynical attention grabbing. It's all a fad and always has been. It's all fake in the most blatantly Holden Caulfield kind of way. Spotify is merely trying to keep up with it, they decide nothing.
As for the overall terribleness that is DEI, there was a pretty good substack about how the NYT and Bloomberg buried a report that directly points at how these types of initiative boost racism, bigotry, Balkanization and authoritarianism. I enjoyed it and it should probably be a top-level post: https://substack.com/inbox/post/152110346
TheFooder
29d ago
Illinois gonna Illinois.
Ain't that the truth. I didn't realize how bad it was until I moved to another state.
TheFooder
30d ago
Here's some culture war red-meat: Jussie Smolett conviction overturned
On one hand, I want to see this smug a-hole who disparaged my once beautiful city get his comeuppance.
On the other hand, I dunno...I can't think of anything.
Smollett had challenged nearly every aspect of his case, arguing that his legal woes should have been over after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office struck a controversial deal to drop charges just a month after Smollett was indicted in February 2019.
The agreement should have prevented Smollett from being charged for the same crime by a court-appointed special prosecutor a year later, according to the state’s highest court.
In a 5-0 opinion, with two justices abstaining, Justice Elizabeth M. Rocheford wrote the second case violated Smollett’s due process rights because he had fulfilled the requirements of his earlier plea deal by turning over his $10,000 bond and doing community service.
“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” Rocheford wrote in the 32-page ruling. “Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.” The court ruled that a controversial decision by prosecutors to drop all charges against Smollett amounted to a plea deal, and that the case brought by a special prosecutor a year later was invalid.
I suppose I can see the logic of "you can't charge a guy who's already agreed to a plea deal." So, whatever, I guess. As a former Chicagoan, the real villain always seemed to be Kim Foxx, who kind of just did whatever she wanted, including letting this fool off the hook.
With only nine days before she leaves office, Foxx claimed Thursday’s ruling offered her office a measure of vindication.
“We have spent five years and millions of dollars on the re-prosecution of someone for a low-level felony,” Foxx told the Chicago Sun-Times, noting that her office’s handling of the case was used as a cudgel by critics of her broader reform agenda.
“This case was bigger than what Jussie Smollett did,” she added.
You can say that again.
I'm sure most people, at this point, are simply sick and tired of all these people and figured the whole ordeal was over. It's clearly a slap in the face of the prosecutor Dan Webb (what's with all these double consonants? amiright??) but I doubt it's going to rehabilitate Smolett's career. Actors are infinitely replaceable, so without divine intervention his career is effectively over. Of course, I might also be wrong as I rarely watch TV or pay attention to celebrities.
Oh, wait...
In an interview last month to promote a new film Smollett co-wrote and directed, he remained defiant and claimed to have spent about $3 million on his defense — even though it might have made more sense to have served out his time.
So...was he a victim of a vindictive prosecution, or just an innocent dude trying to get a better contract? Ok, it's really hard for me to be unbiased her. I'll admit it.
TheFooder
1mo ago
I always liked (perhaps a bit sardonically) Michael Chabon's solution in the The Yiddish Policemen's Union. They turned the southern bit of Alaska, the area around Juneau, into Israel. The US didn't miss it. I always think about that whenever the discussion of what to do with the Palestinians comes up. If everyone is so concerned...give them the cold wilderness no one else wants to deal with. (This is just a silly thought experiment, not meant as a serious solution)
TheFooder
1mo ago
https://glog.glennf.com/hcwm-store/how-comics-were-made
Deep dive into how printing works/evolved
TheFooder
1mo ago
What's the mechanism for useful therapy? Is it hearing good advice from an actual human, or is it hearing advice that unlocks subconscious truth? I'd suspect the latter in which case LLM's may be perfectly suitable, particularly for people who don't want to reveal their inner darkness to another person. However, maybe revealing one's innermost thoughts to a living judge is what gives the therapy depth and meaning.
TheFooder
1mo ago
Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left towards safetyism
"I swear officer I didn't mean to send those poor people gibbering and screaming for the insane asylum!" "Tell it to the Deep Old Ones, Chtulhu. We've finally got your number this time!"
TheFooder
1mo ago
As a relatively long-term user of Substack and Substack's Notes platform, it seems like the better X refugee camp from what's available, at least as far as vibrant public square goes. There has certainly been an uptick in doofuses and bad takes but, in my experience, it's easy to ignore them (Mute) or blast them out of your feed (Block). It serves my needs and I like it in conjunction with The Motte for general information and sense-making.
My knowledge of Bluesky is that's where all the anti-comicsgate (I think that's the side of the lefties/femenists) people ended up after everyone kept bashing their rotten takes, doxing and general whisper-network activity. They are definitely hidden behind a firewall now, but I can't tell if that made them more or less powerful. Whatever they did to Ed Piskor seems to have been coordinated there and it was enough to drive the man to suicide. Anyway, take a look at Heather Antos, Gail Simone, Mark Waid and Alex Di Campi and let me know what you see. If it's not true and these folks are monsters organizing industry hits on people, that would be good information to know.
TheFooder
1mo ago
That back-and-forth is exactly what I would expect from Bluesky. I've know about Bluesky for a bit because it's where the comic-book whisper network went after they were infiltrated on Facebook. As I understand it, the reason people like Bluesky is they can protect their groups and conversations from the public and it's a hard-left space.
As for the death of X, yes and it couldn't have happened to a nicer social-media platform. I've been using Substack for years now and the Notes app fully satisfies all of my social media needs. I have an impression it's pretty mixed as many of the biggest accounts are leftists (Robert Reich, Michael Moore, Heather Cox Richardson) but the majority of what I see seems to be centrist/right-leaning. It's full to the brim of renegade journalists, for instance everyone from the Intercept is there (though Glenn Greenwald already broke for Locals), Taibbi, Scott, FdB, etc. My experience is the debate is much more robust and diverse than anything I saw on X, Reddit, Facebook, etc. and the radicals simply get filtered out because they don't offer any insight.
It's possible it is just as easy to fall into an ideological well as anywhere else but even the crap (ahem, Michael Moore) is better written and more thoughtful than most places. I think it must be better than I imagine Bluesky to be, but I wouldn't even consider Bluesky unless I was specifically trying to own libs with their bad takes.
TheFooder
1mo ago
Interesting...I agree with your assessment of all the people you mention with the possible exception of Jesse Singal, who seems like he may actually have some journalist chops. Just today Yglesias was had a post "something something media loves Trump" and I knew exactly what it was going to say before I read it. I read a third of it and shrugged. At least he's not offensive and rude? Hannananinana seems to delight in being a scoundrel to some extent and that turns me off. I watched some live video with him and Michael Tracy and jsut got too bored to keep watching. (I think Tracy is interesting FWIW).
Anyway, it's nice to test my perceptions against others, so thanks!
I've never played above King, mostly because I value my time, but also because I'm not the best player and would be cheating and reloading every other turn. What do you mean by "solve" at Deity? what's the trick?
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