FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
And every gimmick hungry yob
Digging gold from rock n roll
Grabs the mic to tell us
he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this
And it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns
Will later join the church
User ID: 195
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
1hr ago
Saddest part of all of this in my imo. Every single other country in the world has been begging trump to surrender so that they can pay tolls. Really shows that "freedom of navigation" is just some made up word that actually just means the US running the seas.
I mean, can you possibly justify joining up with Trump after seeing how he's treated the gulf countries in this war? It's extremely obvious that joining a naval coalition with Trump at the lead signs you up for whatever Trump wants to get you into, with no notice or consultation. Countries aren't going to give up sovereignty in that way short of an existential threat.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
1hr ago
I mean sometimes ten to fifteen years on you can say that electorally it would have been better to lose a certain election than win. Romney '12, for example, would have been better for the center-left Democratic party of 2012 than Obama's win.
But doing things is typically better than not doing things, and losing in 2026 means doing fewer things than they would have done had they won in 2026. It will cost them some policy accomplishments, and a lot of policies that you think will be reversed tend to get digested into the mainstream.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
19hr ago
I don't believe that unilaterally forcing a healthier and more appropriate relationship between you, the supplier and the product is necessarily wrong, and I think flat out saying that, "there is no meaningful difference between downloading a cracked game that's not otherwise available on your device, and smashing the window of a store to take a TV" is overly reductive.
I think that the looter who smashes the window of a store to take a TV believes that is what he is doing: unilaterally forcing a healthier and more appropriate relationship between himself, the supplier, and the product. It's the same philosophical leap. The individual is deciding that the owner of the property is not allowed to control the property, because the owner has transgressed some ad-hoc ethical line that the individual has drawn. Online piracy tends to point to, variously, exploitative monopolistic practices, advertising, wokeness, the size of the corporation, lack of alternatives. BLM-adjacent looters point to, variously, racism, capitalism, exploitative monopolistic practices, and lack of alternatives to justify their behavior.
Honestly, I don't think this works. There are too many whales in the world, the industry can stay unethical pretty much permanently as far as I can see. I'm not necessarily willing to accept a choice between jumping through every bullshit and expensive hoop placed before me, or just flat out boycotting massive chunks of the industry.
Of course they can if consumers are never willing to pursue alternatives. I'm consistently amazed by the contrast between the tremendous stated desire of consumers to regulate what companies are allowed to do, and their complete unwillingness to choose goods made ethically at a slight cost/convenience premium.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
21hr ago
the one annual issue of that magazine that was worth "reading".
While I agree that nothing compared to the thrill of getting the baseball season preview issue and knowing that spring was right around the corner, their college basketball coverage was always really good, and it was a must read around every trade deadline.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
21hr ago
I didn't know that Trump mandated SI instead of AI for federal agencies actually.
Exactly. It's the definition of "politically correct."
To be clear, I understand companies using the term in official communications to suck up to Trump, but much like when somebody drops a "BIPOC" in ordinary conversation, using politically correct terminology in normal speech tells me that you're either insane and committed to the bit, or you're a commissar trying to catch me out.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
21hr ago
This seems fairly obvious to me. The line is the contract offered by the developer/seller. They allow 2 hour refunds, then you're fine to do 2 hour refunds. If they know you can finish the game and then get a refund, then that's on them for offering that option. If it becomes a problem for them, then they will stop offering the option. If the platform is the problem, another platform will develop. Capitalism.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
21hr ago
It's as though you bought a Hermes bag but were only allowed to wear it if you had your entire outfit from the same store.
See, what I'd do is not buy the bag or wear it. I wouldn't steal it, or have a Chinese copy made of it. Not least because I would consider such a product/company so wildly unethical that I wouldn't want to support them, even spiritually by honoring their product.
What's the justification for using the product without paying for it? I guess I could see the logic for jailbreaking a game you already own, or downloading a copy of it for more convenient use, or pirating a new server for an online game that's dead.
But the logic of "the big corporation are greedy and unfair and just want to take advantage of me, maaaaaaaaan, so I'm justified to take what I want without paying" is the ethics of a shoplifter. It's the way people that loot stores justify their actions, on the basis that the owners and corporations are all against them, or that the insurance covers it anyway so there's no real loss, or other vague marxist noises.
I'm not saying I'm perfect: I use anna's archive and dodge paywalls and run adblockers and play ROMs and I'm not by any means meticulous about the IP ownership when I watch something online.
But we should admit that we do it out of greed, convenience, venality etc. If a seller offers their product in an unfair manner, the ethical thing to do is to simply refuse to purchase it, one is not justified in stealing it.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
23hr ago
Bravo. It surprises and disappoints me endlessly to see shoplifter ethics espoused by supposed right wingers.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
1d ago
I believe that Netanyahu had referred to this failsafe in the past as "the Samson doctrine" (which is very poetic, I have to admit).
Nonsense post, but I wanted to take this opportinity to share this slop:
The Iranian version of the Samson Option is the implicit threat that if the regime ever falls, millions of Persian women will be released to do to Western men what grain liquor did to the Red Man (except me. I can handle them. If any Persian woman wants to prove me wrong my DMs are open)
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
1d ago
This is why I'm hesitant to say Trump just needed to sell the war better: Trump did give speeches justifying the war,
After the war had already started, not before. He had to build the plane while flying it. In retrospect, even a supporter/admirer of the war should be able to admit that there would have been little lost had Trump spent six months carefully building a case for attacking Iran. We might have a different Ayatollah Khamenei, but there doesn't seem to have been much else achieved by surprise that couldn't have been achieved by brute force anyway.
nobody watched them.
Skill issue. Seriously. I hate this argument that a leader gets to, in matters of international war and peace, fall back on lame excuse making bullshit about the media or lobbyists or domestic opposition. As Harry Truman's sign said, the buck stops here. It's the job of a leader to make good decisions based on the public support he has or can rally, and to shape public opinion and support for those things. A war that fails because of lack of public support is still a failure of the leadership.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
1d ago
Biden and Trump represent the two distinct strategies for dealing with aging and not really totally understanding what's going on around you. Walk into any nursing home and you'll see the same things:
One group mumbles pleasant platitudes and general cliches, and just nods and pretends they know what's going on. They never really say anything specific, so if you aren't asking them direct questions you figure they're following along on the group's conversation and enjoying the company. You think "Oh isn't Grandma enjoying our visit so much!" And she is enjoying you being there, so she fakes it to keep you happy. Then something slips and you realize, oh grandma had no idea what was going on this whole time.
Another group of old people reacts to not really being able to hear or understand the conversation by loudly and angrily insisting on what they think the conversation is about. Get angry, get loud. Insist that you know what was going on, they're the ones who don't know what's going on! This is grandpa screaming at you that he knows the damn hot dog stand in 1963 was on 16th and Linden, not on 20th and Turner, he damn well knows it and you need to stop lying to him about it! You typically see this in older patriarchs, often those with money or other resources, because people will humor them to suck up to them for fear of being cut out of the will. Otherwise, they're so unpleasant to be around that people stop visiting any more than they need to.
Trump has been so charismatic and so powerful that the world really will bend itself around what are obviously dementia-addled statements like "Lake America" or reflecting pool vandalism. There are enough sycophants around him that any insane incorrect pronouncement he makes will be catered to by someone who wants something.
I mean it works for me. I actually am convinced when people bring up that argument.
Can you give me some examples of times that it worked on you?
My impression is that in general comparison is a poor argument, because it typically ignores some outside context that makes the situations incomparable.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
2d ago
G.2. "Pick another protein? I'd rather pick another senator" is the best political ad of the year.
It's insane that this is the broad consensus, because to me what she said was obviously good advice and they're punishing her for telling them the truth.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
2d ago
Sure, but if you're a local business, you sometimes need things from the state government in a way that you don't from Washington. You need a relationship with your local state rep and your governor/AG/commissioner of such and so, you need a functioning state government to pass laws and do things for you.
Texas business interests can't just sit out the next however many years and wait for Republicans to come back. They're going to have to form relationships with Democrats.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
2d ago
Texas Dems flipped the state house.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
2d ago
OpenAI? Anthropic, which on its website says of itself "AI research and products that put safety at the frontier. AI will have a vast impact on the world. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation dedicated to securing its benefits and mitigating its risks."? Deepseek: "DeepSeek is an AI research company focused on building world-leading general artificial intelligence."
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
2d ago
Good on you, brother. I broadly agree with a lot of your points here.
Obviously, Iran is very unpopular. I still accept Trump's judgment that it was the right thing to do and I still believe that the war is (plainly) a military success. (Call me crazy!)
Accepting that you aren't crazy and that it was the right thing to do and is a military success, how do you feel about the procedural aspects of how the war was started? The war effort lacked a congressional declaration or any kind of approval, but even writing that off because we don't declare anything anymore, it lacked a significant public effort to sell the war to the public in advance. Maybe I'm an optimist about the voting public's sophistication, but I think that some of the disapproval of the war stems from the failure to seek even a fig leaf of any kind of democratic legitimacy and approval. Which raises my question to you, as an intelligent pro-war interlocutor: if a successful morally correct war is launched in a way that is illegitimate, what is the correct punishment to inflict on those who started it? If it's "Nothing, it worked out" then the idea of democratic legitimacy is a dead letter and the president has plenary power to declare war, that seems untenable.
I don't think people think through those procedural questions, but I do think the way the war was started and executed ("We won!" "we're about to make a deal" "We're about to end Iranian civilization forever") left a lot of people confused and maybe a little miffed, and dragged down the approval rating. You appear to be correct at this point that the strait of Hormuz is mostly useable for commercial traffic, with a mildly increased risk tolerance. But the repeated announcements have ruined presidential credibility.
A lot of my friends who were loyal Trump guys are crashing out now. I do think it's still too soon to call this the death of MAGA, and there is no going back to the old establishment Republican consensus.
A good guide here is the trajectory of GWOT-PATRIOT Act-Neocon consensus between 2006-2008. Everyone said that the voters rejected Dubya and the wars, but Obama kept most of it in place, and it became part of core American governance. Elections have consequences. A lot of MAGA is going to absorbed into the core American synthesis, for both parties. MAGA might die, the same way "Hipsters" aren't around anymore. But MAGA stuff is everywhere, like how I can go to a local microbrewery on my way home and pick up beer.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
2d ago
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
2d ago
I understand the domain names are a fun way to extract rent for nothing, but are they really that important in any structural sense? Especially in an internet that is dominated by social media, and then even more when it is dominated by AI itself, domain names feel more and more secondary to one's experience of the internet.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
2d ago
SI is nice as a tell you're dealing with a cultist, a moron, or someone arguing in bad faith. Like neopronouns or land acknowledgements.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
4d ago
By 2030 we won't believe this ever happened.
Wins this big are always multi-causal. In the same way that huge businesses involve multiple points of luck and skill lining up, or that every championship sports team involves a couple of players having career years.
But this will have major impacts on the future of the country. Will Texas be purple in 2028? Certainly both sides will have to consider it in play, and Dems will have two years in the Governor's mansion to engineer it further. If Texas goes Blue, the Republican path to the presidency changes completely.
This won't necessarily happen, but preventing it from happening will require effort by Republicans, and trying to make it happen will lead to efforts from Democrats. Policies are going to change in order to accommodate these goals.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
4d ago
Is your theory that Paxton is actually a principled public servant and not a wildly corrupt whoremonger forced to trot out his own betrayed ex-wife for advertisements?
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
4d ago
I mean sure, but he's got around 35 others so he should only be 3% upset about it.
FiveHourMarathon
a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
4d ago
Someone on twitter described the Michigan Democratic ratfucking as like "defecting to Germany during the fall of Berlin."
That's pretty much accurate.
I have trouble even feeling bad for Elon when he gets targeted with Lawfare at this point.
I mean, for a secular Seinfeld-type Jew in America, do the Jew-Lovers of the American right actually love Jews? The Evangelical premillenial dispensationalists love Jews in the sense that they want Jews to fight a specific battle after which most Jews will go to hell. I'm not sure I'd consider, say, a Saudi who loved me as an American because he wanted me to fight Yemen for him to love me, really.
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