domain:arjunpanickssery.substack.com
It all comes down to the expectations of both parties.
If there's a street promoter outside of a club trying to convince me to pay a cover fee and go inside he might tell me things like it's the best club, that they have the biggest crowd inside of any bar in the city, everyone's having a great time, probably ever. Yuge night! Maybe they even say that they've heard rumors that there's a movie star who was planning on coming tonight. If I go inside and find it to be not all that, was I decieved? I wouldn't say so, because I was talking to a club promoter; I know what they're like, they know I know what they're like, the expectation was that they would exaggerate everything to try to get me to go inside.
There is a distinction though if they say something like "after you pay the cover fee your first two drinks are free" and it turns out not to be true. Because I don't expect them to be allowed by the bar (to say nothing of the law) to say something like that if it isn't true.
Also, I would consider myself decieved if I (before marriage of course) got in touch with a girl on a dating app and she insisted on meeting me at a club, and I found out after getting there that she was a promoter using the app to bring in clients to the club, even if she never said anything technically untrue. This is the kind of lying I associate in politics with the activists that masquerade as unbiased subject experts.
ThisIsSin
The boob tube emits harmful XXX-rays
2hr ago
the combined rage and innovation of the new “guncels” will come up with a ranged weapon which is deadlier or safer, or both
Air rifles are very under-developed. US federal law has never considered them to be firearms.
Creating a fully-automatic helium-powered submachine gun that can push at least one 30-round magazine of 9mm-equivalent-or-better projectiles at lethal speeds is trivial with current materials science. The last time anyone seriously tried to make a military firearm of this nature was the late 1700s, though there are a few current manufacturers that make manually-repeating hunting rifles based on this concept.
Combining that with electronic controls (and a lack of NFA- so for this application computer-based fire control, full-auto, and integrated suppressors will obviously be standard) provides even more interesting options. Want to fire a non-lethal burst at a target before the next trigger pull fires a burst that's going fast enough to penetrate? That's impossible with a traditional firearm simply due to its nature but eminently practical with an air rifle (liability issues aside).
The only problem here is how you're going to turn that into a handgun, but cartridge-and-captive-piston storage technology might be sufficiently promising in that regard to obviate that concern as well.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2hr ago
I like the Zeugma. Some of the pronouns were a bit confusing:
a mohawk on long walks with amish girls, scrawny white boy at an all-black dance with a borderline little person, suicidal lesbians, a leather jacket with a married chick at an Ani DiFranco concert
Here I am imagining a Mohawk Indian in flagrante delicto with an Amish girl (girls!), and you having gay sex with a thin Caucasian male whose date is a black midget. Also doing it with an article of clothing. This isn't right, I am sure.
The rest, once cleared of ambiguity, is a compelling introduction--though in a way it might better serve as a blurb or an "About the Author" section. Part of the draw of your other similar posts is the What's this guy's story question that isn't immediately or clearly answered. My suggestion would be, if you do write a book, to start in the middle, maybe in "the ruins of what was once Babylon" (a great line) but really anywhere. Don't be bound by a linear structure.
Have you ever read Paul Theroux's My Secret History? It's got its share of critics and most of them are right, but that doesn't mean it isn't an imminently readable book. I don't mean that you should copy it, as such (It could be titled "Me and all the various women I've had sex with"), and it's very different from this, but I feel as if I'm supposed to recommend it here.
As a writer certainly you know to ignore most of the feedback I'm giving you and go your own way anyway. And I am all for that. I encourage you to keep getting it out.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
2hr ago
I want to hear about how you broke up a guild by banging the main healer. But perhaps that's my ex-WoW addict self talking.
haroldbkny
2hr ago
There a very big gap between an existence without manatees that a few people ever see on a recreational voyage, and living in a pod devoid of sunlight and subsisting on nutrient paste, or whatever other dystopia you might want to bring up.
There is nobody who can pull off bragging about their interesting life on the internet (arguably even in print) without coming across as a little annoying. That never (or maybe only rarely) detracts from the interesting parts.
Her: Ooo which church I would love to go if that’s okay?
Me: Sure, I was looking at [nearby church] — it's a bit nontraditional (rather, they say they follow a non-mainstream tradition, Theosophy) of course, as I said, I haven't actually been there yet so don't judge me if they turn out to be 100% crazy 🙈
Saturday morning
Her: I’ll look into! It might be interesting
To be specific, this is probably where you lost her. It went from her inviting herself to, looking into it as a soft exit. You tricked her with the church thing.
Looking up Theosophy, is that it looks odd, and makes you look out there. Likely - She's a Christian and thought you were going to Christian church, then pointed her to an odd pagan church with Nazi-esque logos, and she got spooked out by that. Culturally Christian people don't mind going to a nondenomination christian church to meet a stranger. It would code as a safe place. Rightly or wrongly, going to a non-christian esoteric religious meeting would code as dangerous and weird.
The wikipedia page has a logo at the top with a snake and a swastika thing.
"any of a number of philosophies maintaining that a knowledge of God may be achieved through spiritual ecstasy, direct intuition, or special individual relations, especially the movement founded in 1875 as the Theosophical Society by Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907)."
jkf
2hr ago
The pagers take normal AAA batteries -- terrorists can go to the drugstore and get them like anyone else.
TIRM
2hr ago
The security guards at my work all carry walkie talkies. I can't badge past a door without someone with a walkie talkie strapped to their belt watching me. I see walkie talkies a hundred times a day.
Supah_Schmendrick
2hr ago
Yo I forgot Lou and he did that!!! Thank you for reminding me; one more reason the Hoovers are among my personal heroes.
TIRM
2hr ago
That just moves the supply chain attack from the OEM to the second battery supplier. Now you get to carefully inspect those batteries for hidden modifications.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
2hr ago
As another poster pointed out, the language you use to the describe them, and apparently the way you talk to them, convinces me that you still see women in a negative light, even if it's unconscious.
I would recommend praying to a motherly goddess and asking for revelation, but I'm a weirdo. Can also try to get female friends that you swear to never date, and be vulnerable in asking them for advice.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
3hr ago
Okay, now I want a zombie movie where uninfected dogs help human zombies find living humans, and while the zombie eats the brains, the dog eats the rest.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
3hr ago
Agreed it is a bad example. You’re in the edge case for dog culture: a well-paved city, the concrete jungle, where woofers wouldn’t tread were they human-less.
In the country, working dogs are worth their weight in silver. In the suburbs, they’re indeed a superstimulus for friendship/childrearing, but also induce friendliness betwixt dog people, and function as alarm systems.
PokerPirate
3hr ago
My intuition is that the opposite happens because there's more people in the middle, and so pandering to the middle is more useful. At least in swing states where pandering actually matters.
Is there any actual evidence of moderates voting less than extremists?
PokerPirate
3hr ago
Your previous stories/posts were full of fascinating small details about life as an infantry grunt and made great connections to larger themes in both politics and life. The stories had a bend of humility and grandiosity that was riveting.
This post, in contrast, is super boring. You sound like a Kvothe-wannabe (which I know you're not). I don't care what you write about, just get back to writing actual autobiographical stories, and we will all gladly read them.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
3hr ago
Yeah we have free travel of goods and people in the USA, banning a guns in chicago etc...was never ever going to work.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
3hr ago
I think those are way more long-range than walkie-talkies.
SteveKirk
3hr ago
It looks like they finally disabled old.reddit, which was the only thing keeping it usable (sidebar features, the comments feed, etc.)
TequilaMockingbird
3hr ago
...anyone who drives commercially.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
3hr ago
Agreed it would take at least a decade of permanent citizen firearm disarmament for American politicians to turn full tyrant.
But I bet in that time, the combined rage and innovation of the new “guncels” will come up with a ranged weapon which is deadlier or safer, or both. I’m guessing phasers with stun and kill.
I’m betting on Elon’s STEM minions finding the end-run around the gun ban.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
3hr ago
Ah, the old “vape that’s actually a lightsaber” trick.
Lying about “prospects” seems pretty hard to prove because they’re predictions.
So's estimating the value of an asset. Until you put the asset on the market and find out how much someone is willing to pay, you are only trying to predict what someone is going to be willing to pay for it.
There are certainly tools one can use to have a basis for estimating the value of their assets, but that is also the case for valuing a startup.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
3hr ago
As a stupid counterpoint, we had a chicken chain try to move in recently. Super Chix. Good sandwiches at high prices. I think they lost out hard to the existing (and ever-expanding) force of Chik-fil-a.
This isn’t an argument against the general principle, but it is a reminder that there’s more than one way to lose money. Whether or not we eradicate a species has less to do with our stated preferences and more to do with its particular habits.
Unions, get captured just like any other org. The people interested in work will work. The people interested in advocacy and slacking off will get involved in the union.
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