Yes, yes, no one is going to read this, too long, etc. Just vote in the poll please, I'm really curious about rDrama opinions on this.

Fallout TV show (Spoilers).

While I had no interest in watching it, fate had other plans. My parents liked it, invited me for a family rewatch, and me being a Familyman I couldn't say no.

I also was curious why so many people like it.

While I expected it to be bad and heard the cries of old Fallout fans about the lore r*pe, it looked like everyone else liked it. So, going in I expected the show divorced from the games and viewed as a standalone, to be good. Pretty much all criticism was about THE LORE after all.

But it isn't. It's bad on its own.

I guess it's one of those turn your brain off things. But that's not how I heard people describe this show as, and thus watching it was so very disappoining.

I won't be providing a synapsis, if you haven't seen this show, sorry but you will not be given context.

I'll start with:

The Good:

As is with most bad thing reviews I will Begin with positives, as this show couldn't be as well received without having any.

Walton Goggins is great:

That's a summary of most Fallout reviews, and for a reason (he is good). My favourite moment of his is the opening. Just a brief scene, but he almost instantly made my sympathize with and like his character. That opening is also fairly decent at building up tension before the inevitable happens. I'm willing to ignore the ridiculous coincidence of everyone missing the blast, it being very much non-face melting and very slow compared to follow-up explosions because I really like the rest of the scene (mostly Goggins though).

He is good as both the Pre-War actor and the Ghoul. Both characters being distinct and radically different. I wonder what lead to one becoming the other. I guess I need to wait for season 2 for that, how exciting.

Ella Purnell is good:

Both her acting and character are good. Lucy was well written and really likeable. Becoming a more hardened person was done in an appropriate gradual manner. She remained the same person at the core contrasting well with Ghoul being completely different person before and after the war.

Visuals:

Visuals are good (for the most part). While I find the art direction borrowed from FO4 unappealing, that is just my preference. Both the sets and the CGI are well done making the show far more watchable. Power armour looks great, guns look exactly like they do in game, gore looks excellent.

Fight scenes look decent, but sadly in a very superficial way. The choreography is kinda butt most of the time, and the final one where people run around with flags for symbolism felt like a bad Zack Snyder fight. Which in a post Rebel Moon 2 world is probably the most scolding criticism I will give in this review.

Also, a very big + for using real dogs instead of putting a man in green suit on four legs.

Minor good stuff:

I liked the scene of Ghoul confronting scrapper guy and his son. Everyone was quickly characterized to the extent they need to be, the escalation was natural, and unlike other scenes in this show it all was logical (although Ghoul knowing them felt convenient). It is all quite well done. Especially the conclusion of the scene, delivering on the brutality of the wastes and the less than moral character of the Ghoul. All in all, it actually may be my favourite scene in the show.

The Jewish looking gnome, Lucy's brother. I expected him to be played as a joke, but he is an active and likeable character. I like him even though his arc is just going around collecting exposition for the audience and then getting trapped in a fridge. He doesn't feel like a moron unlike many others in the same vault (and show).

Enclave's scientists backstory with the dog was alright, not super original but the sequence is executed well. Although in the same sequence the Enclave is established to be evil by the subtle narrative clue of bring puppies, and culminates in one of the worst action scenes in recent memory with a cannon painting an outline of the scientist and his dog with bullets.

Some jokes landed for me, like identifying the headless corpse by a mugshot and the roomba attacking with a needle.

Maximus and the other guy bonding over time was nice, but where it leads is a completely different story…

The enby pooner being referred in gender neutral terms was hilarious since in Polish it sounds like someone speaking in silesian accent. I cracked jokes with my mother whenever „it” appeared.

Seeing live action vault doors open may be entirely superficial, but it was cool…

Well, that's all the good I could remember. Time to get to…

The Bad:

I'll to start negatives with more of personal gripes, than the „objective” criticism that (hopefully) comes after.

So…

Maximus & the Steel Hood:

I find the Brotherhoods portrayal rather absurd with how internally hostile and broken it is, how little it cares for its people in a depopulated world, and how it allows people like Titus to attain rank. There is never a moment of competence shown from them. They have impressive technology, but that's just raw power they wield like a hammer.

The portrayal is a bit too much, and it would be proper to show them being at least a bit less self-destructive if not somewhat competent. The show acknowledges later that Brotherhood has lost its way, but I don't think it shows it in a believable manner, and with how the rest of this show is I can't help to think some Brotherhood's characterization is unintentional. I doubt the knights forgot flash lights on their helmets in their fight with the Ghoul and it was just some of the shoddy writing that plagues this show evrywhere else.

Anyway, what I really don't like is Maximus.

Maximus (reminding me of Finn from Star Wars for some reason), I would say is the most pathetic character in the show. Emotional immature, looses temper like a toddler when his Pooner friend gets promotion over him, breaks down like a b-word during interrogation (good acting though), cries for help to a person he just tried to brutally murder. And best of all constantly falls upwards despite his incompetence. Looking back at his deeds it's hilarious that the old Scribe guy entrusts him as one of the people to build the Brotherhood anew, when Maximus is so r-slurred and unreliable. Credit where credit is due, he, by some miracle, handles the situation with Fiends on the bridge very well. It's kinda out of character…

While it's fairly obvious that Maximus has no idea who he wants to be, it's like the show runners don't know either.

In episode two they really, really want us to be OK with Maximus killing knight Titus by making Titus a parody of an actual character, all just for the same Maximus to later try (with minimal hesitation mind you) to kill „his squire” with whom he actually bonded with, and while still having room for negotiations.

Unrelated, but it's kinda weird that removing the Fusion core traps user in the armour, you would think there is an emergency release in case the battery runs out or malfunctions. But well…

Speaking of Fusion cores, him trying to steal one from the vault's reactor doesn't endear him to me either. All in all. I doubt we are expected to root for one of the main characters to die and to see less of him, but that's all I'm getting from Maximus.

Also, he has annoying plot armour, with someone as capable as the ghoul failing to kill him on both their encounters. In one of them opting not to use his power armour killing move. He forgot apparently. Maximus's (tf do you write this?) final gambit with the head working was also destined to fail with how r-slurred it was, but somehow despite being a proven double liar and a suspect of sabotage that left someone maimed, the supposedly ruthless Brotherhood gives him another Chance. A reward for all his failures I guess…

It certainly does seem inconsistent, which brings me to…

Logical inconsistencies and coincidences, the bread and butter of neurodivergent criticism:

People love to point out things that are illogical and convenient in stories they don't like, as if it's a surfire way to determine if it's bad or not, but It's important to remember that even the best film can have these problems and remain great, it's the amount and magnitude of those that makes the difference. In Fallout, it is quite staggering how many of both happens.

Things go just the way they should have (for the script to work). People run into each other like the Wasteland is some small enclosed playground, they stumble upon what they need when they need it, everything comes together with no effort from both the characters, and the writers.

Trailing a ghoul by his radiation? Surely no other mutants trails or radiation zones are present to interfere. Lost a finger? You get a new one before the same doctor tries to kill you for your organs. Trapped in an armor in some tunnel? Here comes random rescue. On the verge of passing out from radiation in dangerous area? There is some random guy sealed in Power armor, that happens to have radaway with him. Posioned? There is a safe Vault nearby to heal yourself in. It all just works… out, somehow.

It's like a first draft. There are things that writers want to happen and you can see it all being connected with finesse of a drunken cow. It's either caused by them being lazy, or stupid. Personally I lean towards the latter, but I have to admit I'm biased against Jonathan Nolan ever since he shat out that second season of Westworld.

The story at times is coherent in the moment only to turn into complete nonsense in hindsight. Why was Maldover raiding the vault with raiders? I guess she is OK with murder and potential r*pe of innocent people, but why go there personally? Why send raiders when she has her own people? Why set up the bomb for the extra cruelty points? What was that „choose your daughter or the people” thing?

It feels like they wanted a shocking reveal, raiders (G*mers, we know who those are!), early villain establishment, and early brutality to set the tone. All that is delivered with minimal planning, and put together with narrative depth of a bunch of cliff notes laid together on a table. It all doesn't need to make sense in the end apparently. This particular example gets even worse when you know the vaults are monitored from Vault 31, yet apparently overseer of vault 32 was dead for two years, as was everyone else, and no one noticed. Not to mention, no one from vault 33 knew anyone from Vault 32 beforehand, even though they made exchange marriages before.

It appears that for the writers effects matters far more than how they are achieved, to the point that any implications or consequences of choices made by the story are simply ignored in the long run. It is lazy and amateurish. Many such cases here, but attack on vault 33 one was the worst for me.

By the way, unrelated, but do you remember the broken water chip subplot?

No?

…Well…

Moldmother and the Guffin:

Mauldover is a central character for the story despite her small amount of screen time. But who she is really?

She gets introduced as an evil murderer leading raiders to commit atrocities on innocent people to get what she wants, then she is a revered mythical figure the Flame Mother (why she is called that we know not), she is also revealed to have been a brilliant scientist fighting the corpos in the past, then finally she is leader of some NCR remnants and a good friend of Lucy's mother (the same Lucy she almost kills). Do these things contradict themselves? Not necessarily. Do they connect into a coherent whole in this story? Absolutely not.

When she gets the macguffin power source at the end, it's not a satisfying end to a character that wants to do good like the show frames it, it's more of an end of a horrible person that I was told wants to do good. Not sure what good really. Also, she got that cold Fusion working 200 years too late, the bombs already fell. A bit late.

Talking about our macguffin (I know it's a misnomer, but I will use it here anyway), an Infinite power source. Quite lame, I'm not gonna lie. But the bigger problem is that it kinda doesn't lead anywhere other than somehow lighting up a bunch of empty (and destroyed) skyscrapers. On its own it doesn't matter that much, but this thing was made such a big deal, with Brotherhoods elder scribe guy saying that whoever controls it controls the wasteland (which is r-slurred, the whole planet is wasteland, what Wasteland are you talking about you old fart?). Well, I guess Brotherhood controls the wasteland now. What are they going to do with it? Use it to charge Liberty Prime again? This is obviously setup for season 2, but for how much importance that power source has, it has extremely disappointing and lame conclusion in this season. If I were to guess Enclave will come for it in season 2 and will want to use it to charge some super weapon. Exciting.

The setting and show's relation to the games when it comes to that setting:

And so, we get to the Setting. Something that matters for me more than most people I assume. When judging media I put it just after story and characters. Here the story is let down by extremely weak writing, characters are a mixed bag with a few rising far above the rest and others being nonsensical and even worse annoying.

The setting is bland. But that's true only until we get to talk games, then it hits a nerve in me.

I praised visuals and I mention them here again, it all looks good. That being said, it also feels dead and empty. And not in the it's an empty desert kind of way, but in there should be something here but it's missing kinda way. This is a world that was nuked 1/5 of a millennium ago. There are no meaningful factions or bigger groups, there is only Brotherhood and Muldovar's group. The one singular very unimpressive „city” we see is crowded by seemingly dozens of visitors, but outside it there is no one, just a house. It all feels very artificial, like I'm looking at a theatre stage where I can see actors enter on cue from backstage, and the story goes between points of interests placed there by the almighty hand of the scriptwriter, connected by wast nothingness that this show fails to hide. With all this, when people talk about controlling wasteland I wonder what they are talking about. The sand? The radroaches? There are plenty of those roaming around, but not much else of anything.

I'll admit that this is somewhat a subjective complaint and one that is exaggerated by my knowledge of the games. Still, I will say it sucks even if you don't know the games.

And, talking about games, we get to the point where I think it's time to mention them properly. I intentionally avoided this as long as I could to not go into The Lore complaints that oversaturated the discourse. But this is an adaptation after all.

Fallouts 3 & 4 are set in a wasteland not too different from the one in the show. Devoid of civilization for the most part, and more of a collection of points of interest than a believable world. Very much like the show (but still somehow less empty). Now, with games it felt quite uninspired and driven by intentions of mass appeal with a classic postapocalyptic world. With the show however, it is the embodiment of un-creativity.

Why?

Well, for those not aware non-bethesda fallouts are actually not set in a generic wasteland despite being inspired by works that use such a setting. While Fallout one is the closes to being set in one but has its very own grim character that makes it stand out more than the show ever does. Fallout 2 and NV on the other hand are more of a post post apocalypse. They may be cynical when it comes to many aspects of humanity, but never deny its drive to survive and improve. New world rises on the ashes of the old one and by the time of New Vegas major factions like NCR and Legion are like small countries. Much of the wasteland is connected by trade and settled. It is still mostly wild, but very far from being a desert devoid human civilization we see in the show.

Fallouts 3 & 4 had a convenient excuse for generic wasteland that never changed in it's 200 years of history by setting it on the east coast, and claiming that people there are more stupid. That claim was easily proven by Bethesda themselves being from the East coast.

The show on the other hand is set not only on the west coast, it's set in the location of Fallouts 1 & 2. And instead of building on what came before, it erases it for an easy Cart Blanche. Apparently a bomb blew one city and the hole that took its place sucked in all traces of civilization in the region turning it back into a wilderness with a handful of backward humans living in a bunch of shacks.

My problem here is not that it's not lore accurate (I mean it is a problem but a lesser one), it is that they had an interesting and decently complex setting that they replaced with an empty, boring and generic postapo wasteland. I don't think it's possible for me to properly express my contempt for that decision. So let me just say: f u c k these uncreative hacks.

And speaking of which:

Generall creativity and CAPITALISM:

Lack of creativity is more of a meta complain, than a concrete problem. So I hope I'll manage to express it properly here. I'm no talking about using tropes, fish out of water and a macguffin chase are popular story elements but done right can be good for the millionth time. (Only one of those is good in this show btw.)

I'm talking about the plethora of specific choices done while creating this show. The world being streamlined and stripped of identity being the most egregious example of this.

Most of those decisions appear to be driven by the desire for mass appeal, but I belive some of thme are done because people making this show are stupid, and yes I'm reiterating what I've said before but I feel it needs to emphasized. Anyway, some of the choices:

• Ghouls that were mutants looking like zombies, are now actual zombies. They need to take some Zombex© not to turn, a human can become one by simply snorting ghoul juice (whatever it is). Ghouls regenerate, but also Decay so they look like actual zombies (and they always lose their noses because ghouls in games don't have noses). They can be shot in the body and not die like zombies, (until they get shot in the body and die in a different scene because it's convenient).

• The music. The show plays hard into the retro (futuristic) setting with period music yet it hardly, or pretty much never, uses the (great) ambiance from games. It relies on the contrast between upbeat music and drab setting almost screaming „look how weird and goofy this world is”, instead of allowing itself to be earnest for a moment and use a soundtrack that will accentuate the soberness of the dead world. Also, the songs are often just slapped on the scene and don't mesh well, even in the intended contrast. The constant yodelling whenever ghoul appears reminded me of Wonder Woman chants from Zack Snyder's Justice league, which brings us up to 2/5 Zack's in this review. I hope this sinks in for anyone claiming this is a good show.

• Enclave is back (back again x2). It's the big bad US government. It's the Star Wars Empire, it has to come back because anything else is not marketable enough. nI this case it's not even necessarily marketability, but inability to come up with something new.

I get that the show uses pre-war factions as villains, in form of Vault-Tec and other big corpos. Having the Enclave would make sense if not the fact that they have been destroyed three fricking Times already, and both New Vegas and 4 (until the recent patch apparently) say it's dead. Get new material.

The aforementioned corporations and problem of low creativity actually come together in the show, in form of the not so rare in today's world critique of KKKapitalism (sponsored by Amazon). While it is very much present in the games, which are anything but kind to the big corpos or the pre-war government, the show goes further than they ever did by making the corporations into a council of evil, scheming to destroy the world for profit. Its Outer Worlds r-slurred satire of capitalism that pretty much boils down to: capitalists are greedy and stupid, they will destroy everything. The not so serious setting cannot save this plot point from being completely r-slurred, when the plan to end war and factionalism entails creating a set of competing social experiments designed to create new world order after the war, without consideration for what happens if more than one of them succeeds. If it was only Vault-Tec I would be more forgiving, but all the big corporations scheming together as a council of evil is just going too far into the ridiculous territory, especially with them almost instantly starting to pitch in ideas for vault experiments. It's one of stupidest moments in a stupid show.

Also, my personal gripe with this is that the bombs are dropped for something this idiotic, the ambiguity that was present in the games was so much better at reinforcing the point of war never changing. No matter who dropped them, in the end it was human nature. Now it's just a bunch of rich buttholes realizing their r-slurred master plans. Capitalism dropped the bombs.

But you know… that's just my opinion.

I don't think the writers are commies like some accuse them of being. Champagne socialist at worst. Political mainstream enjoyers most likely.

Kinda weird they never namedrop China as the enemy in the show though...

And so we arrive at the last bigger point, and one that's probably least important to tackle…

THE LORE CHANGES and Shills™:

Before I dive into this let me say that I don't for general audience liking this show. If you are enjoying it, it's whatever. Someone may make an argument that allowing bad media to be uncontested for their badness erodes the general media landscape, but with shows like this being actually above average compared to everything else releasing right now, I think the damage is too severe to be mended anyway.

So, after this show released Godd Howard said it's cannon. Obvious marketing thing to try to merge the audience of both the TV show and the games. Thing is, it's seemingly cannon only to the Bethesda Fallout's, and event then not completly.

Some things I mentioned like the Enclave being back, or Ghouls working differently are mildly contradictory.

Vaults are apparently for rich and privileged now, even though in the games they have people chosen for the experiments. It's obviously done to hammer home the wealth inequality message.

And looping to my biggest complaint that is the wiping slate clean for the region.

Shady Sands explodes, and NCR is gone from LA even though it's just one city in a rather civilized region. With the HUB and Boneyard.

But there is more to that:

Shady Sands in the games is not in the ruins of LA, the aforementioned Boneyard is.

Boneyard that contains things like NCR reserve and Followers University, but it's not in the show at all.

What's more, is that before NCR, the same Boneyard was where Master had his headquarters from which he raided vaults to obtain people for his experiments. And now it appears he somehow missed the totally exposed vault 33…

Nothing aligns at all with the games, and thing is, the show actually doesn't get that many chances to contradict the lore anyway, having wiped the area clean.

I honestly don't care that much, I care that the show is bad. If it was good, breaking the lore would be a minor issue, worth mentioning but not one that makes it bad. It's not like the games are perfect in that regard, Shady Sands moved onece already, just not in such major way.

What annoys me is people claiming it doesn't contradict the games or, is somehow faithful to them.

I called this section Shills just to insult them, not because it's a true descriptor of what thye are. I don't believe most people soying over this show got any benefits from Amazon, and they genuinely like it.

If someone only played the sloppy slop of Fallout 4, this is a perfect adaptation. But, if someone played previous games and actually cares, I would love them to explain what they mean by saying it gets Fallout.

It is much more goofy and less erious than most games, Fallout 3 included. It ignores Fallout 1 & 2 pretty much completly, and sideshits on New Vegas on few occasions.

What it has:

• Power armor!

• Enclave!

• Ghouls!

• Familiar sound effects!

• Dogmeat! Sorry… CX404!

• Vault experiments name-dropped!

All the superficial bullshit. And not even treated with any reverence, or respect (not that they necessarily need to be treated as such).

Ranger armour is worn by some dirty scrappers, shady sands is nuked by some guy throwing a tantrum that his wife left him, power armour is easily dealt with in pretty much all fights when it's not worn by Maximus.

And the iconic(TM) War, war never changes.

I always read the lines as pertaining to human nature driving us towards conflict, but when used here it feels more geared towards war specifically, the character saying it believes they can end human conflict through societal control. It doesn't fit right.

Also, the theatrics during that line's delivery were absurd, obviously geared towards people soying out in the audience.

Best of all Ghoul drops that line later in more appropriate situation, with people killing each other for power (literally in this case), like they used before the Great War. That one was not only more thematically fitting, but better delivered. It almost felt like they thought the first time was not good enough and did a do-over.

Anyway, I just wonder if people in Fallout community like this show because they like Fallout as superficially as it is referenced by the show, or they just go with the flow.

Minor issues:

Vault 33 fat soy face guy, he ruined every scene he was in by his presence alone. I wished death upon him and was left disappointed.

The humour is hit or miss, but gets more cringe in the later episodes. Aforementioned vault 4 and that Radio guy were astoundingly unfunny and cringe.

Also, Maximus doesn't know what masturbation is. Lol.

Conclusion:

It's bad, mostly due to the plot being riddled by nonsense. While it certainly flies somewhat above the absolute sewage that big studios unleashed upon us in recent years, good actors and visuals feel absolutely wasted within a shoddy script and a sea of wasted opportunities.

I would say it's on the level of fallout 4, writing wise, and that had bad writing for a video game. This being a TV show, well… make of that what you will.

And season 2 is already confirmed. No surprise at all, the show was a success. No matter how much Obsidian fanboys complain, most people liked it.

Where will it go? Well, the ending teases us with a barren and dead New Vegas, seemingly to tease fans of New Vegas with personalized r*pe. The city may be teeming with life come season two though, after all, this show doesn't know the meaning of the word consistent.

Will season two be better?

Mr. Nolan's last major work was Westworld. That show followed first season (which apparently was good, personally I liked only the first episode), with some of the worst television ever created. So... no, it won't be.

I may or may not watch it, not that it really should matter for anyone. That being said, I do await it with excitement because I don't expect nothing but vindication when it finally comes out.

Final Verdict:

The Good:

• Some Characters (mostly Ghoul and Lucy)

• Visuals, both scenography and shots

• A few scenes are good overall

The Bad:

• Contrived, inconsistent and generally just stupid

• Lame and uninspired when it comes to setting and plot

• Some characters (especially Maximus and Maldeveer)

• That fat guy in vault 33

• That fat guy again, because he couldn't fit in one bullet point

• Poor use of music and soundtrack

• A lot of the jokes fell flat or were straight up trash

Final rating:

5/10. - 3/10 if viewed in context of the games.

Honestly I'm not entirely happy with how this review ended up, not much of a funny bone in it and some points could be more ironed out, but I can't be bothered to redraft this whole thing again so I'm posting as is, sunk cost fallacy and all that...

@Aevann I hope this has enough words to count as an effort post. While I like writing, I like arbitrary internet points even more.

That's all. Byyyye.

Previously, I had declared my feelings of affection to a female friend of mine (let's just call her Sarah because her name is Sarah). The feelings were not reciprocated, but she let me down in a weird way, she spoke about how she doesn't know how she feels, but she's not looking for a relationship at the moment. She embraces the asexuality meme which is partially how we ended up being friends.

More recently, I decided to give it another shot but to be more tactful this time. I told her I don't think I'm asexual anymore, and that I want to be in a relationship. Once again, she reiterated that she doesn't know how she feels and that a relationship isn't what she wants. Nevertheless, as always, she was nice about it and continues to actively pursue my friendship and constantly tells me she loves me.

At first, this confused me. However, I think I have some of it figured out. I have learned a bit about women and human relationships in general from this experience, and I'd like to share some of the reasons why it's almost certainly a bad idea to pursue your female friends. Now, of course there will be exceptions. Sometimes your female friend genuinely does like you and you'll have a romcom moment. My point is that that's probably not the case, and while you may view the friendship with rose-tinted glasses, she sees things totally differently.

1. They're used to it

Since they started developing breasts, women have been the center of sexual attention. It comes from all angles including older men, teachers, family members, and even other women. At some point, they get used to it and it becomes background noise. "Yes, he's ogling my breasts but I need to finish scanning my groceries".

The sexual attention also comes from male friends. You're NOT the first male friend to express romantic emotions, and you won't be the last. She's turned all of them down, what makes you think things will be different with you? She's used to it, she probably saw it coming, and she doesn't want it. If she did, you wouldn't have to ask because she'd make it obvious to you that she's romantically interested.

Now, there is the possibility of misreading signals, which brings us to the next point.

2. Women genuinely have platonic feelings

This is not to say that men are incapable of having platonic relationships. Nay, that is not my point. My argument is that it is much harder for men to do so. People shit on Steve Harvey but he was 100% correct when he said the following:

Things aren't the same with women. They can genuinely love you deeply without any sexual or romantic feelings. Why is this? Women don't have to deal with the famine mentality. For many men, s*x and love are scarce resources, so when it even vaguely seems like there's an opportunity for it, the feelings come on strong. Hence the cliche of "the cashier smiled at me now I want to marry her". (Most) women aren't leading you on intentionally when they allow intimacy into a friendship. That's the way friendships should be. But it doesn't mean she wants anything sexual or romantic.

3. You're in love because you're lonely

This is probably the crux of the issue. When you're starving, even a mud pie looks delicious. As men, you will face long stretches of loneliness and never being told you're beautiful, attractive, or worthy of anything. Inasmuch as catcalling and sexual objectification should be chastised, it at least serves as some kind of validation of one's attractiveness.

A friendship with a woman can bring about those feelings of validation within men and if you're not ready for it, it's going to develop into obsessive love. If you had higher self-esteem, more experience with women, or a source of love, your friendships with women would be completely normal and platonic. It's when these elements are missing that any smile, hug, or eye-gaze turns into fantasies of marriage.

When she inevitably turns you down, what are you left with? Nothing yet again. Nobody to say they love you or assure you that you are wanted in this world.

Things get more complicated if you're an introvert. Most relationships seem useless unless you're benefitting considerably. In your mind the thinking is "I'd only put this much effort into a relationship if I had romantic feelings". Whereas if the woman is an extrovert, it isn't costing her much mental energy to maintain the relationship. I hope that make sense.

4. She knows already

Don't bother. She already knows you like her. She accepts that as part of the cost of the friendship. That's not a bad thing. It means there's something good about you that she wants in her life even if its not of the romantic nature. You should be flattered by this even if it is heartbreaking at times.

Some women are a bit mean with this. They essentially get everything they would get from a boyfriend (someone to talk to, someone to take care of them) without the need to commit. But that's not always the case. In my case, Sarah goes out her way to be nice to me and to spend time with me. She's not using me for anything - a genuine, platonic friendship is all she wants. It's hard for my brain to wrap my head around it. I thought it was obvious that she felt something. Maybe I had to take the lead and break the ice? Nah, I'm convinced she knew ages ago I liked her but loved me enough to still be my friend despite not sharing romantic feelings.

5. You may lose everything

Life is about taking risks so I don't want to stress this point too much. However, if she doesn't already know and you spring it up on her, she may never trust you again and you will lose all the intimacy of your friendship. She will remain guarded around you, and perhaps even think of you as a slimy coomer who tried to use friendship to get into her pants. Shit can get brutal.

I've been lucky to have an understanding friends who has continued to be nice to me. I know that this isn't the case for everyone, and it also depends on how you respond to the rejection.

CONCLUSION

Heartbreak is one of the worst feelings to experience. It's like a knife constantly twisting in your chest. But it's part of life for most of us. A lucky few will find high-school sweethearts and never have to play the dating game, but for most of us, we're going to get rekt a couple times before we find the right one (if we ever do). Please, for the love of god, don't go looking for a girlfriend from your female friends. There's a difference between a girl friend and a girlfriend.

I'm probably preaching to the choir, and this may be obvious to most people here. But I know there are some neurodivergents who may need to read this to spare themselves the heartache I went through. The funny part is that if you're in love, nothing I write is going to change anything. You'll think your case is different. You'll try your luck. And you'll get rekt. But don't let me stop you. Some mistakes are meant to be made.

I know the asexuality meme isn't true. One day, she'll find a guy she likes (not me) and all that asexuality shit will disappear. And when it happens it will hurt like heck. However, I'm prepared, and I'll still be her friend. I'm wiser now thanks to the mistakes I've made. Thanks for reading.

Cameron, 20, Houston TX

At least two Red Bulls

Segment like a really sus video where Cameron explains he consents to the show timestamp

Career:

• "Kinda complicated I guess"

• Part time real estate, part time construction with my Dad

• "From Sunday to Wednesday I do real estate, I guess full time"

  • He lays out his schedule timestamp

    • 5am wakeup

    • 6am gym

• Real Estate agent, lots of calling people

  • Done it for a year

  • Wants to do this full time

  • This month is "most money he's ever made"

  • $14'000 this month but he "spent most of it"

    • Sold a single listing and got them a new place - he knocked their door

  • He tries to explain how timestamp

  • When he started he "spent the money before it was in [his] pocket"

  • Was a server at resturaunt, quit it to be agent

  • Hems and haws then admits it's 2'500 "over 6 to 8 months" so much less than other guests

  • "I try to prospect but like I've started playing Minecraft and stuff you know what I mean?" timestamp

    • This is what he was doing last year instead of working?

  • Works 4 hours a day 4 days a week timestamp

    • Actually it's 1 hour a day of calling people?

    • Actually he's showing houses as well?

    • Maybe 3 a day?

  • A day in the life of a real estate agent timestamp

    • Later clarified to 1 hour a day with a lot of staring at the screen doing literally nothing, sometimes watching Financial Audit videos MARSEY LFMAOOOOOO

    • HE ALLUDES TO HAVING THE ZOOMER PHONE PHOBIA

    • 3 hour lunch break lmfao

  • Saved $2000 of that $14000 check

• Construction timestamp

  • Dad's company, Dad cuts him a check

  • About $125 a day, 3 days a week (around 10 hour days for this)

  • Doesn't know if he's W2 or not

    • "Uhhhhmmm my dad has his company and I just kind of go in and he gives me a check"

    • "I don't know I just get the check and I just picture deposit it into Wells Fargo, it goes into my account"

  • Just started this, started around last month

• Living with his parents

• "I used to make a lot of money as a server"

Personal Life;

• Girlfriend of 2 years is in the room timestamp

Financials:

• Parents helped him out 7'000 on a car downpayment

  • He paid them back 4'000

• He did not set money aside for taxes

• Credit Card 1 (Discover) (1'015) timestamp

  • 1326 previous - 994 payments + 664 new transactions

  • "Why are you putting more money on a card that is accumulating interest?" timestamp

    • He is extremely confident things will just work themselves out

  • "If you look at my spending I try to be really conservative with it"

  • Lots and lots of eating out, some paint he got reimbursed for

  • "Everyone's net worth is negative at 20 years old"

• Credit Card 2 (some bank name) (2404) timestamp

  • $2391 - $200 payment + 157 new purchases + $55 interest accrued

  • He paid another $200 payment on this

  • Credit limit is $2500

  • Ate $29 in fees this year

• His stonks timestamp

• 2016 Jeep Wrangler timestamp

  • $31355 balance

  • 10.something interest rate

  • There's an unpaid balance of $680

  • He tries to explain, his parents took the car out for him, in their name, he's paying for it

  • Caleb seethes because he keeps looking at the camera

  • 6 year term

  • Jeeps in the shop, $300 - lots of other spending on parts for the jeep

  • Suspension is messed up

  • Lots of other issues with it

  • Pays for car insurance under his parents name - $400 a month

  • Went to college for a year, took a year off, couldn't afford to both go to college and pay the jeep

  • He didn't really know what he was doing at college

  • "My way of justifying it was I didn't know what I was doing in college and I had the Jeep anyways"

• Credit Card 3 ($472) (Spark Business) timestamp

  • 536 - $71 payments + $12 interest accrued

  • Not the real estate card

  • "This card was a really dumb decision... probably the worst one"

  • "Every year we get a fee as realtors, we have to pay like 400, 500, I didn't have the money so I opened a credit card and paid it with that."

  • Minimum payment 17, 30% interest

• Credit Card 4 (CapitalOne) ($352) timestamp

  • Minimum $25

  • $8 interest accrued

  • $727 - $700 + $323.85

  • "This month I spoiled myself"

    • He tries to explain why he thinks this is a good idea

• How much he owes to his family timestamp

  • $11'000 total?

  • Informal, gets brought up when the dad's mad

  • He paid 4000, it's down from 15'000

  • Pays $400 for rent

• Checking Account timestamp

  • $150 in there

  • fair bit of going out to eat, eBay headphones, smoking "trying to quit," $1000 into his RobinHood

  • THIS R-SLUR INVESTED 15% of the portfolio INTO TAKETWO HOLY SHIT

    • waiting for GTA 6 thinking it will moon shot

Spending piechart timestamp

• He gave his parents 4000 which might be upfront rent payments might be debt payment? to help pay off the house???

Caleb makes him cry bigly timestamp

• "To be honest, it might just be a reaction to the Red Bull"

Oracle seems to be a long-term sponsor, every video now

porn starts after the * * *

We all hear the familiar security chime and the door swing open. I perk up, quickly set down the ladle and briskly walk—no, almost run—to the door. I throw my arms around William and bury my face in his chest.

“Hi, honey,” he says. I can feel and hear the vibrations of his voice in his chest.

“Hi baby,” I say. He brings his hand around my head and runs his fingers through a thin lock of my hair that managed to escape my bun. “I made chicken marsala, your favorite!” I tell him.

He lets out a soft chuckle, and we come to the table with the two kids.

“Mom, I'm hungry,” Johnny says.

“Now that Dad's home, we can eat. Boys, go serve yourselves. And Johnny, help your little brother out.”

“Okay,” Johnny says to me. He gets up out of his seat and walks over to Kelvin, who's reading a picture book about cars and trucks. “Kelvin, put that away now, we're going to eat dinner now.”

“Okay,” Kelvin says in his cute little voice. William and I have a beat of shared happiness watching our little Johnny helping out his brother.

Johnny goes to the stovetop and serves himself. Kelvin obediently stands behind his older brother, watching his every move. Johnny turns to him and serves him, though probably a little too much for his smaller stomach. My husband and I follow behind, serve ourselves food, and when we're all sitting down, we say grace and dig in.

I finish wiping down the countertop. The boys are in bed and William is showering after a long day's work. After putting away the leftovers and closing the fridge door, my eye is drawn to a family picture held under a magnet. I take the picture off of the fridge door and smile. It's a picture with me, my husband, and our two kids, taken a year or two ago by my sister while our family was playing at the local park. I love it so much because of the genuine joy on all of our faces, and because of my pride in the family that I have built. My hand feels the growing bump in my stomach, and I know that the picture will be outdated soon.

William steps out of the bathroom, hair dripping wet with steam billowing out of the open door. Almost instinctually, I perk up out of bed and bite my upper lip seeing his body like that, only obscured by a small towel. He smirks and starts running his hands through my hair, and I let out some kind of instinctual sound that I can't quite describe. William presses my face against his towel, his peepee throbbing underneath. I can smell his pheromones through it.

He lets go of the towel and it falls to the floor. His peepee flops onto my face, and I instinctually start sucking. He palms the top of my head with his hand, pushing my head towards and back, towards and back again. From so much experience, my gag reflex has been completely disintegrated. His peepee moves back and forth in my mouth, inching farther and farther back in my throat every time. It feel so good to feel and taste every square inch of his peepee filling my mouth and throat. His imposing figure—as seen from down where my eyes are—only makes me hornier.

Eventually I need to take a breath. I push back, and William's hand seems reluctant, but it lets go. I gasp. I grab his peepee, ready to keep sucking but William has other plans. He scoops me up and throws me on the bed, turns me around so that I'm laying on my back and my kitty is facing him. He grabs the waistband of my leggings and my panties and tries to take them off, but the leggings end up inside out, still snugly attached around my ankles.

“Stupid woman,” he says to me. “Why wouldn't you be ready for me?”

I giggle, say sorry, and kick my legs up to finish taking them off. As soon as they're off, he grabs me by my waist and brings me closer to them so my kitty is flush with the edge of the bed, and he goes inside. His hands on my waist, he pulls me into him and thrusts into me. My heart absolutely pounding, butterflies swarming about from pure love, I let out an involuntary moan, trying to keep quiet for the kids.

He thrusts into me more and more. He's so horny that I can feel his rapid heartrate beating through his peepee. Every bit of warmth he transfers to me, every inch he thrusts—it fuels my absolute desire for him, for him alone and no one else. I let out another sound, this one a deliberate release of my pent-up joy.

His right hand grows curious and moves its way up my chest under my shirt. He rolls my shirt up and grabs my breast as he fricks me. I make eye contact with him and smile, and then in pleasure I bite my upper lip. His breathing is heavy and labored.

He goes harder, his hip bones smashing harder and harder into mine. “Mmmmmmm~!” I say, my upper lip still bit. I wrap my legs around him, feeling what I can of his musculature with my thighs and the sides of my legs. He puts his hand on around my throat, and presses his thumb against my trachea. He lets out a soft grunt under his increasingly labored breaths.

I can feel in the rhythm of his thrusts and redness of his face that he's about to c*m. I wrap my legs around him and pull him close into me. As he exhales an exhilarated “Frick” under his breath, I feel the c*m squirt out of his peepee and into me. I moan now and c*m too.

He breathes heavily, exhausted. He kisses me and the baby in my stomach and then flops down to me. I lay my head on his chest, and he runs his fingers through my hair a few times. We fall asleep like this.

i wrote this myself. it is an extremely personal fantasy that feels almost strange to share online.

the most painful part about all of this is that this (or something close to it) is a reality for many women. it's just that God decided to curse me for some reason and now i am forced to be an onlooker to the life which i so desperately want to live. i believe that people are wired to want to live a certain way, so some women want to start families with their husbands in the suburbs, and others don't and would rather live in a lesbian relationship in the city. i dont have anything against the latter, its just that i have been cursed to be wired for the former. and it is thus that the life that i was made for only exists in my head.

i seriously think about killing myself everyday, maybe then i'll have a chance to be reborn as a woman, or at least be dead and not have to live through this.

Stupidpol thread https://old.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/duplicates/1cguez3/sex_is_biological_fact_nhs_declares_in_landmark/

JP Thread https://old.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/1cgx2mg/sex_is_biological_fact_nhs_declares_in_landmark/

BnR thread https://old.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/1cgmok2/sex_is_biological_fact_nhs_declares_in_landmark/

S*x is biological fact, NHS declares in landmark shift against gender ideology

Campaigners welcome change to constitution, which will ban trans women from female-only wards, as ‘return to common sense'

Changes to the health service's written constitution proposed by ministers will for the first time ban trans women from women-only wards, and give women the right to request a female doctor for intimate care.

The NHS constitution, a document that aims to set out the principles and values of the health service and legal rights for patients and staff, was last updated in 2015. It has to be updated at least every 10 years by the Secretary of State.

Campaigners for women's rights welcomed the significant shift, which comes after years of wrangling and follows accusations that the health service had been captured by “gender ideology”.

In 2021, NHS guidance said trans patients could be placed in single-s*x wards based on the gender with which they identified.

The new constitution will state: “We are defining s*x as biological s*x.”

The clarification means that the right to a single-s*x ward means patients would “not have to share sleeping accommodation with patients of the opposite biological s*x”.

Until now, no commitment was made to biological s*x, meaning some female patients complained that they were forced to share sleeping space with trans women – those who are born male but identify as female.

Health Secretary Victoria Atkins

Women's rights campaigners said the move was a “return to common sense and an overdue recognition that women's wellbeing and safety matter.”

However, NHS leaders raised concerns that the health service was being “dragged into a pre-election culture wars debate”.

The changes to the constitution are a further indication of a change in attitudes after the Cass review into the NHS's gender identity services found evidence that allowing children to change gender was built on weak foundations.

Dr Hilary Cass, a paediatrician, said allowing “social transitioning” for young people – when they are treated as the opposite gender – could “change their trajectory” and lead to them pursuing a potentially damaging medical pathway in later life.

The updates to the constitution will also include the introduction of a duty to help patients get back to work and embed “Martha's Rule” into the framework of the health service.

This follows pledges by Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, to give families the right to access a rapid review from an outside team if a patient is deteriorating. It is named after 13-year-old Martha Mills, who died in 2021 after medics missed signs of sepsis and failed to heed warnings from her parents that their daughter's condition was getting worse.

Women will also be given the right to request that intimate care is provided, where reasonably possible, by someone of the same biological s*x.

It follows warnings that some female patients have been pressured into accepting such care from trans-identifying staff who were born male.

The proposed changes will also see discrimination requirements updated, with the word gender replaced with s*x.

Gender reassignment remains a protected characteristic, meaning that a transgender patient could be given their own room in a hospital to protect their right to a single-s*x service.

The document also places a duty on health providers to use “clear terms” to communicate and take account of biological differences. It follows pledges from ministers to stop NHS trusts using terms like “chestfeeding” and “people who give birth”.

In February, Ms Atkins highlighted her concerns, telling The Telegraph: “We need to be making this robust case to refuse to wipe women out of the conversation.”

On Tuesday, she said: “We want to make it abundantly clear that if a patient wants same-s*x care they should have access to it wherever reasonably possible.

“We have always been clear that s*x matters and our services should respect that.

“By putting this in the NHS constitution we're highlighting the importance of balancing the rights and needs of all patients to make a healthcare system that is faster, simpler and fairer for all.”

Maya Forstater, chief executive of gender critical group S*x Matters, said: “It is excellent news that the NHS constitution is being revised to put ‘s*x' in its rightful place – at the heart of principle 1, which sets out that the NHS must treat everyone with equality and respect for their human rights.

“The confusion between ‘s*x' and ‘gender' in official policies like the NHS constitution is what has enabled women's rights to be trampled over in the name of transgender identities.

“S*x, of course, is a matter of biology, not identity, and it is welcome that the NHS is now spelling this out in relation to single-s*x accommodation and intimate care.”

Ms Forstater said too many female patients seeking that intimate care be given by a woman had been pressured into accepting a trans-identifying male instead.

“Healthcare providers have become confused and frightened by the idea that a gender recognition certificate, or even just a personal identity claim, overrides other people's rights when it comes to same-s*x care from healthcare professionals.”

She said the shift was “simply a return to common sense and an overdue recognition that women's wellbeing and safety matter.”

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents healthcare leaders, said its members would review the proposals in detail.

However, he added: “What is absolutely clear at this stage is that a focus on high-quality care for all is maintained and that the NHS is not dragged into a pre-election culture wars debate. This is not where energies should be focused.”

Mr Taylor said staff worked hard to show fairness and compassion towards all patients.

“In particular, groups of people, including trans and non-binary patients, continue to receive some of the worst health outcomes of any group in our society and NHS leaders and staff will want to do all they can to support these patients, as well as their trans and non-binary staff to reduce inequalities.

“Whatever changes are eventually introduced following the consultation need to be clear and workable for NHS staff, who should not expect to have to interpret ambiguous guidance at a local level.”

The eight-week consultation will be the first stage of a review of the constitution.

The Government will consider responses from everyone, including the public, clinicians and medical professionals, patients, carers and organisations representing patients and staff and health stakeholders, before publishing the consultation response and the new NHS constitution.

Louise Ansari, chief executive of Healthwatch England said: “The NHS constitution plays a crucial role in shaping the culture of our NHS and helping the public to know their rights.

“Since the NHS constitution launched, it has helped to shift the balance of power from services towards patients and their families. But, with only a third of people knowing their rights, there is still a long way to go.

“Given the challenges our NHS faces, a conversation to reaffirm and raise awareness of the most important rights to the public has never been more timely.

“We urge everyone to take part in the consultation and have their say. This is your opportunity to send a clear message about the rights you hold most dear.”

!transphobes !chuds

After the Artesian build drama, bring LTT to its knees, my boi Steve did some journ*lism again.

G*mersNexus = A small but very reliable hardware review channel on youtube - The presenter is Steve also called Tech Jesus because of apperance

LTT = Linus Tech Tips, biggest tech youtuber who got exposed as useless by G*mersNexus

Artesian Builds - Custom PC assembler company which was embroiled in a huge controversy last year Read about it here https://g*mersnexus.net/features/inside-collapse-artesian-builds-20000000-bankrupt

EKWB = EK Water Blocks - Custom PC water cooling parts company, makes pumps, blocks etc https://www.ekwb.com/

!g*mers !effortposters

TLDR

• GN does expose of EKWB with information from whistleblower employees

• GN Contacts as many people as they can, suppliers, ex-empl/contractors and gets info

• Its all real, and vetted like a good journ*list

• Hardware youtubers stop dropping EKWB while also airing their greviances (JayzTwoCents, derbauer)

• EKWB CEO Does the BP Oil spill "We're Sorry" spiel

• GN Digs deeper, more people come forward and spill the beans

• Konig was the CEO until the took over as CEO in 2019

• Foid CEO replace by Konig again, and thus the FOID is absolved of all Reponsibilities

• GN Exposes a LITTANY of shady finances and other violations, law breaking activities and most importantly Racism (check screenshots below )

• ALL accusations are backed up by evidence

This all started 10 days ago when Tech Jesus (g*mersnexus a PC hardware review channel) did an investigative report on EK waterblocks the company. EKWB is a super expensive liquid cooling parts company, they make a lot of custom water blocks

Part 1: EK is Imploding: Not Paying Employees, Partners, & Suppliers | Investigative Report

Summary

EK is facing financial difficulties, resulting in non-payment to employees, contractors, and suppliers. There are allegations of mismanagement and a lack of communication. The company's actions suggest insolvency or potential fraud.

Highlights

• 01:15 💸 EK has a liquidity problem and is unable to pay employees, contractors, and suppliers.

• 03:35 📜 There are allegations of financial mismanagement and a lack of communication from EK.

• 08:45 🔍 EK's inventory management and purchasing practices contribute to its financial problems.

• 12:10 🌍 EK's US and Slovenian branches have a hostile relationship, hindering the company's progress.

• 17:30 🚫 EK has taken legal actions to silence critics and prevent the exposure of its financial issues.

• 21:50 🏢 EK is considering selling one of its buildings to alleviate its debts.

• 26:00 ⚖️ EK's actions may be considered fraudulent or indicative of insolvency.

Key Insights

• 💸 The non-payment of employees and suppliers indicates severe financial problems within EK. This situation is unacceptable and may have legal consequences.

• 📜 EK's lack of communication and attempts to silence critics suggest a disregard for the well-being of its employees and partners. This behavior is unethical and damaging to its reputation.

• 🔍 EK's inventory management and purchasing practices have led to excessive inventory and a lack of liquidity. This mismanagement has further exacerbated the company's financial difficulties.

• 🌍 The hostile relationship between EK's US and Slovenian branches highlights a deeper issue within the company's culture. This internal conflict hinders the company's ability to address its financial problems effectively.

• 🚫 EK's legal actions to silence critics and prevent the exposure of its financial issues demonstrate a lack of transparency and accountability. This further damages its reputation and raises concerns about the company's integrity.

• 🏢 EK's consideration of selling one of its buildings indicates a desperate attempt to generate cash and address its debts. This action may provide temporary relief, but it does not solve the underlying financial problems.

• ⚖️ EK's actions may be indicative of fraudulent practices or insolvency. The company's future depends on its ability to rectify its financial issues, prioritize its employees and partners, and demonstrate genuine efforts to improve its operations.

Reactions to Part 1

Jayz2Cents #DropEkwb (He had a 6 Figure contract with EKWB Which they have not paid out yet )

• 💰 EKWB is facing a financial crisis and has been unable to pay its employees, contractors, vendors, and partners. This has resulted in a lack of trust and frustration among those who have worked with the brand.

• 📉 The author has experienced slow communication, lack of coordination, and quality issues with EKWB products. This has further contributed to their disappointment and dissatisfaction with the brand.

• 🤝 The author emphasizes the importance of fulfilling agreements and treating partners with respect. EKWB's failure to do so has damaged their reputation and strained relationships with content creators and influencers.

• 🔄 EKWB needs to reassess its product strategy and address the issues that have led to the company's financial crisis. This may involve making changes to their product catalog, improving quality control, and focusing on transparency and communication.

• 💼 The author suggests that EKWB may need to consider selling the company in order to regain trust and stability. This would require a change in leadership and a fresh start for the brand.

• 🕑 The author highlights the urgency of paying employees and prioritizing their financial well-being. This should be the first step in resolving the current crisis and rebuilding trust within the company.

• 🚀 The author believes that EKWB can recover from this situation if they take appropriate actions and demonstrate a commitment to their employees, partners, and customers. However, it will require significant effort and a change in approach.

derbauer #DropEkwb (Key takeaway : EKWB has 11% failure/return rate )

• 1️⃣ EK's direct die cooler had manufacturing tolerance issues, leading to compatibility problems for customers.

• 2️⃣ The narrator values their employees and has high moral standards, which influenced their decision to end cooperation with EK.

• 3️⃣ The narrator differentiated between company and staff issues, only commenting on the latter.

• 4️⃣ No money was owed to the narrator from EK, as their cooperation did not involve financial compensation.

• 5️⃣ Allowing EK to sell remaining products with the narrator's logo avoids additional costs and potential delays.

• 6️⃣ The narrator's decision to end cooperation is based on the evidence presented by G*mers Nexus, which is just the tip of the iceberg.

• 7️⃣ The narrator remains open to future discussions with EK depending on their actions and industry developments.

Official Statement by EK Founder and CEO Edvard König (Key take away Is this guy a gay twink?? and also the standard "we're sorry"

Key Insights

• 💰 Apologizing for delayed payments and lack of communication shows accountability and acknowledges the impact on external contractors and partners.

• 📝 Implementation of key actions, such as improved communication and transparency, demonstrates a proactive approach to addressing issues within the company.

• 📧 Introducing a dedicated email address for claims indicates a commitment to resolving outstanding overtime work issues and ensuring fairness for employees.

• ⌛️ Appreciating the community's patience and commitment helps to maintain trust and foster a positive relationship with customers and partners.

• 🌍 Emphasizing the mission to elevate computers for a better world highlights the company's long-term vision and dedication to their core values.

• 🤝 Commitment to making things right and fostering a responsible company culture reassures stakeholders that steps are being taken to rectify the situation and prevent similar issues in the future.

Part 2 : Exposing Corruption: EK's Prison Threats, Lawsuits, Dangerous Workplace, & Leaked Documents

Talks about the all the scummy shit they have done.. so far.... which includes RAYCISM

Its one HOUR LONG you better WATCH IT ALL IF YOU VALUE JOURN*LISM!

Summary

EK Water Blocks is embroiled in controversy surrounding its finances, treatment of partners and staff, and leaked documents. The company is accused of sending intimidating letters, facing lawsuits, and engaging in dangerous workplace practices. Concerns have been raised about the personal liability of EK's CEOs, officers, managers, and directors. Unsafe working conditions, OSHA violations, and racist internal communications have also been reported.

Key Highlights

• [1] 💣 The intimidating demand letter sent by EK's CEO raises concerns about the company's tactics to silence and intimidate former employees, highlighting a potential abuse of power.

• [2] 💥 The lawsuits filed by former EK staff shed light on the company's breach of contract and non-payment issues, indicating a pattern of mistreatment and disregard for employees' rights.

• [3] 🌍 The extensive investigation involving experts from various fields and the substantial cost of producing the video underscores the seriousness of the allegations against EK and the need for transparency and accountability.

• [4] 🏢 The potential personal liability of EK's CEOs and officers, as well as the complex web of international entities, raises questions about the company's corporate structure and the extent of control and responsibility of its top executives.

• [5] 🌐 EK's tax forfeiture status in Texas and the potential personal liability of CEOs and officers in such situations highlight the importance of complying with legal obligations and maintaining good standing to protect the interests of both the company and its stakeholders.

• [6] 📜 The involvement of EK's CEO and officers in questionable practices, as well as the potential co-mingling of assets, suggest a lack of ethical business conduct and the need for comprehensive legal scrutiny to ensure accountability and fair treatment of employees and partners.

• [7] 🤝 The offer of assistance to former EK employees by Star Forge Systems CEO Nick Dankner demonstrates the importance of supporting and helping individuals impacted by the company's actions, fostering a sense of solidarity within the industry.

No reactions from any notable figures as they all already dropped EKWB

Now lets get on Reddit

Part 2 Thread: The chuds at PC gaming are obviously shocked https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1cfekfn/g*mers_nexus_exposing_corruption_eks_prison/

Sane threads on /r/hardware

Part 1 : https://old.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1c8psy1/ek_is_imploding_not_paying_employees_partners/

Part 2 : https://old.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1cfef4s/exposing_corruption_eks_prison_threats_lawsuits/

Part 1 thread: Watercooling Jannie https://old.reddit.com/r/watercooling/comments/1c8q0im/g*mers_nexus_ek_is_imploding_not_paying_employees/

I left this open because there's simply no way of not looking suspicious otherwise.

However, as usual, the comments and general lack of knowledge astound me. Heck, I'm surprised at the shear quantity of scathing comments regarding the pricing. Competition exists, just buy a cheaper brand? Watercool is always cheaper and the quality is solid, why just hate on a brand for no reason if you have no intention of buying their product anyway? Either way, regardless of the outcome of all this, very disappointing news, and very disappointing seeing what this sub can be like.

Part 2 Thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/watercooling/comments/1cfeoyg/exposing_corruption_eks_prison_threats_lawsuits/

Now the falls in line

This kind of scandal NEVER ends well in communities as small as these. Larger companies can get away with this kind of shit because most people don't know/care. Spaces as small as watercooling? Word gets around fast because almost everyone is keeping an eye/ear out. A different scandal happened in the home theater space where Lexicon got caught taking cheap products from other companies and slapping their own label on them without changing anything (except the price by a factor of 10x), ruined their reputation permanently and now the brand is essentially dead weight in Harman's lineup. Didn't matter that they had made some of the finest home theater equipment in the past, the brand's reputation was effectively ruined. With the half-assed apology and the fact that EK has already been slipping in terms of quality over the years, I can't see them coming back from this. Will they still be around? Perhaps, but I don't think they'll be nearly as big as they once were in the industry after this and there's no way that whatever crawls out of the ashes is going to be able to offer anything even remotely close to their current catalog. They'll have their loyalists I'm sure but there's no way they'll be able to maintain the brand as it stands.

Now do ya'll remember the LTT Expose he did? yeah the LTTcels haven't stopped coping seething and dilating about it

Parth 1 Thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1c95hpq/ek_is_imploding_not_paying_employees_partners/

Part 2 Thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1cfet1l/exposing_corruption_eks_prison_threats_lawsuits/

Kinda disappointing that Linus downplayed this whole situation a bit on the latest WAN Show saying that he likes the product and the company should just do better.

I mean what's wrong with that? Their management being shitty doesn't change the fact that they do have good products and they should do better

There is so much seethe on the LTT forums but I think the jannies are active there and it up

Now lets come to the CEO who MAYBE responsible

Click here for the timestamped vid

Listen just to this segment if you want to see how she was involved

• Joined 2019, thats when it started going downhill

• visits office once a month

• take lavish trips on private jets using company money to visit hardware expos (all pictures on her Instagram)

• has 20 years of experience

• Has caused legal issues, employee issues

• IS REPLACED BY OLD CEO (That STRAGGY GUY Above)

ESCAPES RESPONSIBILITY AS USUAL

Maya, 24, San Antonio

Personal Stuff:

• Full time student timestamp

  • Gets a "Chapter 35" from the VA, her mother is a "totally disabled" veteran so she gets a stipend for all the months she's in school?

  • Gets $1488 a month

    • Will last 36 months

  • Taking 12 credit hours this semester

  • Doing her first sophomore semester right now - took a 5 year break from college

• Dropped out of HS at 17 years old

• Started working at 19 - "partied" for two years

  • Got a job at Taco Bell, promoted to manager at 21

• Bought an RV to move out from her mother timestamp

  • She'd moved back in with her after a long-term boyfriend didn't work out

  • "I talked the RV down to 4000"

  • "1993 Fleetwood Flare"

  • Sold it for 6'000, all that's gone now though

• Why don't you have a part time job? timestamp

• Owns a pet, there's a Petco transaction on CC 1

• Got her eyebrows waxed before coming on the show timestamp

  • "Like you can't tell because - [words words words]"

• Studying "Neuroscience premed" timestamp

  • "I never plan for the future for anything"

  • "There were a lot of times where I was genuinely unable to get a job" - "I just wasn't allowed, physically wasn't allowed"

  • Confusing story idk what this means?

• Over the summer worked at Six Flags, "passed out multiple times" because they would not let her drink water timestamp

• Family Deets timestamp

  • Mother in San Antonio

  • Father in San Diego

  • Divorced when she was little, father raised her and sister alone - mother left to San Antonio in 2011 - first reached out to mother during the RV arc - father is very poor, won't be able to help with much

  • Has had to help father with money a couple times

Financials:

• No Savings

• Both cards' balances have gone up, gone up more since the papers shown

• Self-scored financials 3/10 - timestamp

• Credit Card 1 (quicksilver) ($7'494) timestamp

  • Paid $247 off on this

  • $141 in new purchases

  • Accrued $182 in interest

  • "I kinda girl math myself a little bit"

  • Can't cancel a $60 a month subscription because it's "complicated" timestamp

  • Tiktok shop timestamp

    • "I see stuff on Tiktok and I'm like that looks like a good thing to purchase"

    • "I put a 30 minute timer on it because I'm on there so much"

    • "Just Delete it"

      • "But then how am I supposed to send my friends memes"

  • 30% interest, she thought it was 25%

• Some vet stuff, two cats, kitten got neutering botched and cost another $400

Marseypicker ate the last half of this somehow and I'm not retyping

High points without timestamps-

• 1000 shortfall in her budget

• Tried to kill herself with vodka and ibuprofen wandered over to the police station and called the suicide hotline

• Yugioh deck worth of medical bills from doctor shopping about her a "pain in her right side"

  • Female doctor gave her more tests for no result which she thinks is somehow better than the male doctors telling her to go home because nothing's wrong

• She's got a simp paying for her groceries and her car

  • She goes grocery shopping with this simp and he buys her stuff

• Had sugar daddies a year or two ago while living out of an RV

• Roaches are living in the microwave at the apartment she shares with 3 roommates

Nichalas cruz shot up Parkland high school because he was a crazy man, and could have easily been stopped at any time, but how did he get so crazy? Let's find out!

4chan…does not have the answers. Let's not go to pol. It's a silly place

https://archive.is/6MGjL

Nicholas Cruz was born to a drug-addicted alcoholic and suffered brain damage in the womb.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/22/us/nikolas-cruz-trial-defense

His mother was a violent prostitute and crack whore and

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/crime/2018/09/05/cruz-biological-mother-s-past/10839405007/

he eventually got dumped in an orphanage

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna44366

Her name was Brenda Woodward and she was the ugliest prostitute you've ever seen

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/nikolas-cruz-birth-mother-brenda-woodard-parkland-shooting-b2155215.html

His parents helped take care of her. Also he showed classic crack baby symptoms

https://cbs12.com/news/local/nikolas-cruz-defense-enters-its-2nd-week-of-testimony

She smoked crack while pregnant according to another whore who worked the same strip of road in kentucky

https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/08/22/parkland-school-shooters-defense-recovering-addict-says-mother-used-drugs-during-pregnancy/

Although there's debate over whether he has fetal alcohol syndrome

https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/expert-questions-whether-school-shooters-mom-drank-heavily/

His adoptive mother was in the room when he was born

https://digitaledition.orlandosentinel.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=7717e57a-41ed-4e03-8802-c4a5223ca456

He reconnected with his crack whore mother months before her death

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10132459/Nikolas-Cruz-reconnected-biological-mom-lose-cancer.html

He phoned her from jail and she wanted nothing to do with him so that didn't last

https://old.reddit.com/r/NikolasCruzTrial/comments/wy8mlt/brenda_woodard_the_biological_mother_of_nikolas/

Nicholas Cruz watched his step-father die of a heart attack at the age of five

https://apnews.com/article/shootings-education-florida-fort-lauderdale-parkland-school-shooting-c12905008c4d247cb696d1c17ae657b6

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/nikolas-cruz-father-death-parkland-b2155218.html

He was an excitable boy

https://www.wptv.com/news/parkland-shooting/testimony-nikolas-cruzs-home-ruled-by-chaos

At age 9 he was chucking rocks at other children

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/25/us/nikolas-cruz-warning-signs

Police were called to his house 45 times

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/13/book-review-why-meadow-died/

The FBI got a tip on him having guns, talking about wanting to shoot up a school, having a long history of violence and self-harm, and being a local menace to society but didn't follow protocol or act on it

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/ncna848681

They even admit it

https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-statement-on-the-shooting-in-parkland-florida

Here's the official report

https://vault.fbi.gov/public-access-line-probe/public-access-line-probe-part-01/view

Basically they were more worried about dissidents than crimes because the FBI is a terrible organization run by terrible people.

They weren't the only ones ignoring the obvious threat

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/28/589502906/a-clearer-picture-of-parkland-shooting-suspect-comes-into-focus

https://nypost.com/2019/09/09/why-the-system-failed-to-stop-nikolas-cruz-and-could-do-it-again/

The local sheriff departments got constant warnings

https://miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article201684874.html

The middle school placed him in a special school for especially dangerous people, but that wasn't good enough for Broward county who moved him back to a regular school

They also classified his suicide attempt as “a minor disruption”

He got sent to a school for crazy people, started doing better, so naturally that meant it was alright to send him to a regular high school instead of keeping him in the controlled environment where he was doing well. I think dyslexia can be cured with beatings and even I see the problem here.

https://nypost.com/2019/09/08/parkland-dad-massacre-was-avoidable-if-district-hadnt-enabled-deranged-student/

He was assigned to a controversial Broward county program

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/8hnyov/stoneman_douglas_shooter_was_assigned_to/

And transferred from schools like a hot potatoe

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article201216104.html

His mother considered signing her parental rights away to the local zoo in the months leading up to her death

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nikolas-cruzs-mom-tormented-by-his-behavior-weighed-signing-over-parental-rights-family-source

And then tried to get sent back to the school for crazy people

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-parkland-shooting-report-20180803-story.html#:~:text=After%20rejecting%20special%20education%2C%20Cruz,14%20students%20and%20three%20adults.

The school resource officer wanted to baker act him because he was drinking gasoline and torturing animals.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/19/us/florida-school-shooting-cruz-psychiatric-records

The system failed him repeatedly. But redditors disagree because the system is perfect

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/951k3o/parkland_shooter_nikolas_cruz_needed_help/

According to the official report the school system and law enforcement failed at every step at every level

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/01/03/scathing-parkland-shooting-report-citing-widespread-failures-goes-to-governor/?outputType=amp

Political correctness interfered

https://old.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/d8z9lf/parkland_victims_father_explains_how_political/

He was a p-dophile!

https://old.reddit.com/r/parklandshooting/comments/ywc049/was_nikolas_cruz_a_p-dophile/

Broward county school district had a policy of not calling the cops even when they really should have

https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/march-2020-book-review

Here's a shot by shot recounting of the shooting

https://old.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/agg730/unprepared_and_overwhelmed_a_minutebyminute/

Cruz's brother is dissapoint

https://www.dailycommercial.com/story/news/state/2019/02/04/brother-confessed-school-shooter-im-stuck-between-loving-him-and-hating-him-because-of-what-he-did/6117177007

He also got arrested for hanging around the school

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/28/us/zachary-cruz-bond-nikolas-brother-parkland

And then got robbed

https://news.yahoo.com/two-men-charged-exploiting-brother-162055449.html

Broward county school district tried to cover it up

https://www.heraldnet.com/nation-world/school-district-tried-to-mask-failures-that-led-to-parkland-shooting/

The sheriff of Broward county got removed by the governor for his massive incompetence

https://old.reddit.com/r/florida/comments/dm8qtm/mission_acomplished_florida_senate_agrees_with/

And the senate agrees

https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/dm7yuz/florida_state_senate_votes_to_remove_broward/

As did multiple school board members

https://old.reddit.com/r/neutralnews/comments/wzvhx8/desantis_suspends_4_broward_school_board_members/

But the sheriff is still crying about it

https://old.reddit.com/r/florida/comments/aodx7j/suspended_sheriff_scott_israel_slams_governor_for/

And lost a lawsuit

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/c8gm4r/broward_county_sheriffs_office_loses/

Andrew Pollack, father of Meadow Pollack, seeks justice for letting Cruz get this bad and get this far

https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/local/florida/2018/05/12/meadow-pollack-dad-andrew-finds-purpose-after-she-killed-marjory-stoneman-douglas/595693002/

And then got arrested in a property dispute with his neighbors

https://old.reddit.com/r/parklandshooting/comments/13cxit1/looks_like_andrew_pollack_got_arrested/

G*merghazi is insufferable and should be shot

https://old.reddit.com/r/G*merGhazi/comments/cj6i63/family_member_of_victims_in_massshooting_who_are/

Escape From Tarkov is an extraction shooter developed by Russian studio BattleState Games (BSG). It's somehow been in "beta" for 8 years. Players enter a game, find loot or kill players/AI and take their loot, then if they can exit the map they keep the loot.

The game has a weird monetisation model. The developers promised no microtransactions, no pay 2 win, the usual stuff that makes gaymers smile. Instead the base edition is $50, going all the way up to the Edge of Darkness edition at something like $150. What do you get for that? Basically extra space to store items between games and a season pass for all future DLC.

A few months ago BSG stopped selling Edge of Darkness and suggested they'd offer the features to other players as microtransactions instead. G*mers were less than pleased, but it all blew over in a few weeks.

Arena

Meanwhile, BSG released a seperate standalone game called Arena, which is basically a Team Deathmatch mode for Tarkov aimed at being an esport. Like most "esports ready" slop it flopped, probably because Tarkov doesn't do balance. There are good guns and shit guns, it's ultra realistic. Guy with the better gun and better bullets always wins.

So, 8 years after initial release BSG dump their money into a new, failed game. It's given out for free to Edge of Darkness owners as a "DLC" but still fails. People suspect that this might mean that BSG is running out of money.

PvE

Perhaps the biggest thing the players want is a non-PVP mode. A big part of this is because the game is hard and most players suck, but to be fair Tarkov also has a massive cheater problem.

I mean massive btw, cheaters can see every item in each game. If you enter a raid carrying good gear, the 3-5 cheaters in each map will immediately charge you down for it without fail. BSG supposedly bans these players but does little to stop it, probably because most cheaters sell rare items for real world cash and use the profits to buy a new copy every week. That said, it's been worse in the past. There were times when cheaters could just teleport all the loot in the game straight to them. Fun.

So naturally, players really want to get away from the cheating and play offline. BSG insists it's not possible, although somehow modders were able to reverse-engineer things and create their own Single Player Tarkov (SPT) mod. Someone is lying there, I can't tell who.

Unheard Edition

This week BSG announced a new edition of Escape from Tarkov - Unheard Edition. In this you get all the Edge of Darkness features plus a special knife, woo.

Just kidding, alongside the knife you also get a character with bigger pockets to carry more stuff in game, extra gear and a bunch of other utilities. Naturally gaymers are mad about these more blatant Pay 2 Win features. It's not too bad though, right?

To sweeten the deal these paypigs also get access to a new coop pve mode. Yay! The devs insist that this isn't DLC, but a unique game mode. Edge of Darkness players don't get it.

Oh, and they get a special item which makes the AI not shoot at them.

The best part? The new edition costs

$250

Cue rage.

Drama

The Reddit jannies open the flood gates and promise to be less neurodivergent than usual. Just don't use naughty words.

The devs have been caught repeatedly editing the website to remove promises they just broke. At this point you can just look at /r/escapefromtarkov and see a dozen threads full of seethe.

Highlights:

Big seethe thread

Lawsuits incoming

The devs give in and offer Edge of Darkness owners a 6 month trial of PvE mode. Redditors even madder.

The lead developer gives an interview where he shits on all the complainers, apparently "True Believers" will buy the new version.

Oh, and you know how Edge of Darkness players got a "season pass" for DLC?

"No dlc planned"

This is ongoing. Will BSG give in or let it all blow over? Only time will tell.

Update

BSG studio head doubles down again. PvE for Edge of Darkness will come later, for now you're paying for a preview before full release. They're also going to offer a 50% discount on upgrades for top tier paypigs. Oh, and if you already paid full price you can have a second game key for the shit-tier edition, but you're not allowed to sell that.

Redditors are still mad

Archaeopteryxes are about the size of a blackbird and are flying creatures that are considered the evolutionary ancestor of modern birds. They have two wide wings they use to fly and glide. However, unlike modern birds, archaeopteryxes have bony tails. They have beaks with sharp teeth which they use to tear flesh, for they are carnivorous. Prey is killed using their hyperextended second toes that hold a large claw.

We're not going to be talking about this extinct species. Instead, I'll be talking about three public freakouts. Your job is to decide if it is justified or not.

Who will clean your pottys?

This is a favorite of mine. It takes place om The View during a fierce debate surrounding Trump's anti-immigrant stance. In a bid to prove Trump's racism, kelly osborne makes a racist statement herself. She asks "if you kick every latinx out of this country, then who will be cleaning your potty Donald Trump?!" Her comment immediately elicits gasps and the camera hilariously pans to one of the latinx hosts who admonishes her.

Do you think she was being racist, or was she making a good point?

father spanks children for stealing

In this video we see a father whip the shit out of his kids for stealing. This is an ineffective form of parenting. As wikipedia tells us:

>Numerous studies have found increased risk of impaired child development from the use of corporal punishment. Corporal punishment by parents has been linked to increased aggression, mental health problems, impaired cognitive development, and drug and alcohol abuse.

It looks really sore and I'm sure those kids will never forget it. Imagine the damage that's been done between parent and child when violence is introduced.

Do you think the father did the right thing?

Look who's leaving

There's some sort of awards ceremony going on at a high school. It's clearly been going on for too long and some parents are leaving. The principle says "look who's leaving, all the black people!". This causes an uproar which then does cause all the black people to leave. In a subsequent interview, the principle blamed the ordeal on Satan.

Do you think she was making a fair observation, or was she being racist?

Conclusion

I think I got rejected by the same person twice. I'll write a long-winded post about it soon. Oh well, I think I need to learn to get over it. She doesn't have feelings for me, and that's the deal. Tune in next time when we discuss the DC Snipers.

Ted, 62, Austin TX

Career/Personal

• Retail Manager

  • $21 an hour, at least 40 hours a week

  • time and a half overtime

  • Around $3000 a month

  • No benefits, he's on his wife's

• Wife makes around $3500 a month

• "retail management is not my endgame"

• Spent 14 years working for Texas "Commission on State Emergency Communications"

  • Got a Master's degree because of this?

• Went to Art school at some point

• Went through a bankruptcy 6 years ago

  • All of this debt has accrued since bankrupcy

• Wife has probably the same number of credit cards timestamp

• He has $17'000 saved for retirement

Financials

• "Why is there so little invested?" timestamp

  • Boomer ramblings and deflection

• Self-scored - 5/10 timestamp

• 150k or so left on his mortgage

• Credit Card 1 (CreditOne) ($811) timestamp

  • $20 in new purchases, $20 in interest

  • Paid $75 on this

  • Minimum payment 30

  • Why Spend on his card?

    • "Our expenses are higher than our income"

• Credit Card 2 (Apple) (2115) timestamp

  • Minimum payment 67

  • $41 in interest accrued

  • Puts his life insurance payments on his card?

• Credit Card 3 (Discover) ($4196) timestamp

  • $69.50 in new purchases

  • Made a $100 payment, also made $100 purchase?

  • Minimum payment $84

  • $57 in interest

  • Lots of mobile games micro-transactions on this card (company called "Zynga")

    • "I was able to quit smoking, and drinking, but I can't quit this"

• Credit Card 4 (eBay) ($1'487) timestamp

  • Made a $75 payment

  • Minimum payment of $30

• Credit Card 5 (Lowes) ($535) timestamp

  • Made $50 in payments

  • $12 in interest accrued

  • $30 minimum

• Credit Card 6 (JC Penny) ($1'591) timestamp

  • Made 75 in payments

  • $40 in interest charged

  • $57 minimum payment

• Credit Card 7 (Venmo) ($753) timestamp

  • $30 minimum payment

  • $102 in new purchases, made $30 in payments

  • $15 in interest

  • Eating out and microtransactions on this card

• Credit Card 8 (Walgreens) ($441) timestamp

  • "I think that's the one that started it all, they had this display when you walk into the store"

  • $29 minimum payment

  • $12 in interest

• Credit Card 9 (Verizon) ($1'290) timestamp

  • He wanted to take advantage of the discount on the phone bill using the card to pay for it

  • $48 Minimum payment

  • $34 interest accrued

  • Made a $100 payment

• Credit Card 10 (Upgrade) ($1'272) timestamp

  • $72 minimum monthly payment

• Credit Card 11 (Upgrade) ($9'260) timestamp

  • Thinks he has two Upgrades because traveling?

  • $126 interest accrued

  • $474 minimum monthly payment

  • "Uhhh I I uh I run a non-profit"

  • "Some of these now that I think about it might have been expenses"

  • "Performing Arts Venue" - He's the president (doesn't get paid)

• Credit Card 12 (Sitco) ($378) timestamp

  • $29 minimum payment

  • $10 in interest

• Credit Card 13 (Chevron) ($128) timestamp

  • $29 minimum payment

  • $71 in purchases

  • 50 in payments

  • $2 in interest accrued

  • More mobile payments on this one

  • Playing "Empires and Puzzles" and a couple others

• Credit Card 14 (Ally) ($228) timestamp

  • $28 balance

• Credit Card 15 (Amazon) ($580) timestamp

  • $29 minimum payment

  • $14 interest

  • $50 payment made

• Credit Card 16 (At Home) ($45) timestamp

  • "Why wouldn't you just pay off $45?!"

• Credit Card 17 (Alta) ($0) timestamp

• Synchrony ($656) timestamp

  • $30 minimum payment

  • Made a $50 payment

  • Made $12 in purchases

    • It was Starbucks

  • $14 in interest accrued

• Credit Card 18 (didn't catch name) ($28) timestamp

  • 28 minimum payment

  • 70 cents in interest

• Credit Card 19 (NFL) ($1'474) timestamp

  • $39 in interest charged

  • Made $43 in purchases

  • $54 minimum payment

  • More in-app purchases

• Credit Card 20 (MGM) ($242) timestamp

  • "We went to Vegas"

  • $5 interest accrued

• Student Loans ($229'000) timestamp

  • he's in forbearance, doesn't know why, Caleb can't figure out why

  • 7.6% interest, 17'000 a year in interest if they ever start back up

  • "Yeah, I'll never pay that off"

    • "You're right"

  • "That servicing company is under investigation or something, it's in the news"

  • "Well it doesn't matter much I'll be dead before that's paid off... so I don't even consider that a debt"

• Mortgage ($122'205)

  • 3.8%

  • $1'268 monthly payment

• Synchrony Bank is where most of his cards are from timestamp

  • 

• Car

  • Doesn't have one, wife has a car, not paid for, newish because of a car accident that wrecked their old one

  • Used to have two

  • Both worked at home but he got laid off then when to retail

• Checking Account timestamp

  • 3'240 + 8'111 - 10'094 -> 1'259

  • Lots of eating out

  • A $100 Verizon payment here, not using the Verizon card since it's maxed out ]

  • More microtransactions

  • "That's how I pay my daughter, we give her money to help her live" timestamp

    • She's finishing up her undergrad

    • Boomer gets testy when question about this

• Wife debts itemized timestamp

  • Not even going to try writing these out, 28 different ones

$906 in interest is accruing a month (not counting Student Loans)

Should he consider bankruptcy? timestamp

• Total $379'000 ($122k of that is the mortgage), includes the student loans

Income/Spending Pie Chart timestamp

Evening all.

I don't know how I feel about inhabiting this place. But I do know I can use it to draft.

Shiri's Slippers

Long time readers will know of my grudge with Scott Alexander, high priest of the SFBA Rationalist Cult. Previously it was suggested that we begin a bombing run of their spaces but I called a 'hold.' Honestly there's no time like the present.

Ultimately my problem with these people is that the demand the status of seriousness without being willing to do the work to be serious. In forums like /r/theschism or themotte, the topics of the day have been, bizarrely, subtracted out of the conversation.

The most important political conversation happening today is about the Supreme Court ruling on the immunity which a President enjoys.

You won't see this talked about.

See I used to think that Scott Alexander's "You Are Still Calling Wolf" was the most damaging piece Scott ever wrote. For his own reputation. For the political damage it did to the brains of his followers.

Scott Alexander doesn't think of himself as a cult leader of course, even though his followers do, and have regular struggle sessions about this fact. See this hilarious exchange in which a twitter thread praises Scott Alexander for not being a prophet.

Now I can't assume everyone has familiarity with the spiritual mechanisms Scott Alexander has engaged with. To recap: Scott Alexander self-consciously wrote Unsong to imitate schizophrenic individuals attempting to write a holy text. Scott Alexander copied the prophet motion without, apparently, understanding what it meant that he did this for his followers.

Then his followers didn't do this either.

The other very very funny recurrence at work here is the SFBA Rationalist Cult's founder, whose work included a number of overtly spiritual calls, led to an early incident in the cult history where they linked hands and sang "We are not a cult." To this day SFBA Rationalist Cultists, when they gather, engage in praise of the founder under an ambiguous amount of irony. And as you all know at this point: in a post-ironic world, all expression is genuine. (I'm referring here to the Valentine's Day musical that some postrats put on as a dating show.)

So these people all have this habitual denial of their spiritual connection. They Think They're Atheists, and atheists can't be in a cult. And if it is a cult, they think it's a benign one, a harmless one, if they're pressed. But secretly, they believe they are an elevated specimen of human thinker, and this was accomplished with Shiri's Slippers.

I thought they were a harmless cult when I first encountered them. The most devastating review of the founder's work was always: what's novel in it isn't good, and what's good in it isn't novel. The SFBA Rationalist Cult literally bricked a bunch of minds in the 2010s and we're only still figuring this out.

Because the consequences of Scott Alexander's foray into politics were that he was one of the foremost beacons of fascism denialism. These people all had a grudge against the academy. They think they're better than schooling. But then they create their own forms and fall down dead wrong.

It turns out that the fools at the academy are better equipped.

There's this crackpot tinge of resentment against the fools at the academy for rejecting their founder's bad writing as bad writing. This is one of the things that make them less a harmless cult and more a destructive torment nexus of incompetence. It's not a coincidence that these people developed idiot confidence and SBF is now under arrest for Big Fraud. They're all frauds. They can't even function as a cult because of their bizarre denial complex around their cultishness.

The consequentialist argument against the utility of the SFBA Rationalist Cult goes something like:

The consequences of Scott Alexander's writing is an island of people separated from mainstream intellectual politics. They're really alone out there.

Fascism

At this point I think it's more important than ever to drag Scott Alexander's flock kicking and screaming into accepting that they were wrong about the fascism. That doesn't mean that I need them to immediately endorse the use of the term 'fascism.'

If there's one thing that I wish they understood, it's that whatever it is that Trumpism represented, the people who were warning of the danger Trump faced were not overreacting. The wolf was real. This incompetence and waste of energy in our politics is an authoritarian bound now by legal processes. They seemed to think that Trump could never succeed at instituting a fascistic purge, and that therefore the people who were warning of Trump's desire to implement a fascist purge were overreacting.

Whether or not the wolf can succeed is somewhat independent of whether or not the wolf exists.

But the real bad wrong turn that Scott Alexander took was writing "Shiri's Scissors."

Shiri's Scissors

Scott postulated a class of controversial statement that caused irrational behavior in people, dividing them from one another. And I was confused by this at first because I was at this point understanding that these people coin phrases as if by instinct. What Scott Alexander was pointing to with "Shiri's Scissors" was the mere word

CONTROVERSIAL.

This is what made Shiri's Scissors an unnecessary concept and bad writing. Controversial topics have always existed.

And I tried to take this up with someone in Scott Alexander's circle and they resisted my notion that it was a pointless concept.

Only now do I understand that there's an alchemical process at work in Shiri's Scissors: it allows people to view controversy as enabling irrational behavior and therefore discarding them.

Instead of controversy being an invitation to dispute, a marker around discourse's present topics of conversation, Shiri's Scissor allowed these cultists to subtract themselves from discourse.

Controversial topics have always existed. Concepts which justified disregarding people who reacted to controversial topics have not.

With Shiri's Scissors

Scott Alexander Cut The Cord

TETHERING

His Cult

To Political Reality

Whether or not you want to use the term fascist, the gathering of physical forces armed with actual weapons to assault the Capitol on 1/6 was an act of war which is exactly the kind of thing the leftists have been warning about. But Scott Alexander and his flock aren't tuned into the Supreme Court hearing today on the most important subject of most thinking minds.

They put Shiri's Slippers on and just walked away. Right off of the map (IN POLITICS THE TERRITORY IS THE MAP IS THE TERRITORY) into a domain of their own making, still bitter at the fact that other people dared find their intellectual contribution bad.

See Shiri's Scissors/Slippers, as a concept, create a reality in which there's just these bizarre artifacts in discourse which are incomprehensible. It makes discourse not just unnecessary but impossible because it contains within it the assumption of the unreasonable (AND THEREFORE, TO THESE BRICKED CULTISTS, INCOMPREHENSIBLE) nature of those with which they interacted with politically.

Postscripts

Cult Takes on Christian Nationalism

An interesting sampling of the topics du jour of these spaces. Both TheMotte and TheSchism platformed this curious bit of "rationality" around the decrease in Christian Nationalism by raw percent. I don't think it's a stretch to say that this is motivated reasoning: these people want to believe that fears of a Christian theocracy are overstated. TheMotte, and TheSchism.

It's not within their capacity to understand that a threatened minority might resort to fascism, the fascism might drive people away from the church, and that Christian Nationalism can still be a very real threat. These are the people who have said nothing about the Trump Supreme Court case.

Cult Takes on Lab Leak Origins for Coronavirus

Now I will admit that I'm more willing to believe that COVID came from zoonosis than I was before engaging this material. But I want to share some reading I've done in Blood Money, a book about Chinese mindsets and tactics in dealing with the US as an adversary.

Roughly, the Wuhan lab was built with the help of French scientists. Then the Chinese government kicked the French scientists out.

It was always a possible black site.

Scott Alexander's coverage of his cult's perfect thinking about perfect thinking about viruses is one of the worst things Scott Alexander wrote, but not the most damaging.

As mentioned earlier, the DEFUSE grant was rejected. Further, the grant said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was responsible for finding the viruses, and the University of North Carolina would do all the gain-of-function research. This was a reasonable division of labor, since UNC was actually good at gain-of-function research, and WIV mostly wasn't. They had done a few very simple gain-of-function projects before, but weren't really set up for this particular proposal and were happy to leave it for their American colleagues.

Even if WIV did try to create COVID, they couldn't have. As Yuri said, COVID looks like BANAL-52 plus a furin cleavage site. But WIV didn't have BANAL-52. It wasn't discovered until after the COVID pandemic started, when scientists scoured the area for potential COVID relatives. WIV had a more distant COVID relative, RATG-13. But you can't create COVID from RATG-13; they're too different. You would need BANAL-52, or some as-yet-undiscovered extremely close relative. WIV had neither.

Are we sure they had neither? Yes. Remember, WIV's whole job was looking for new coronaviruses. They published lists of which ones they had found pretty regularly. They published their last list in mid-2019, just a few months before the pandemic. Although lab leak proponents claimed these lists showed weird discrepancies, this was just their inability to keep names consistent, and all the lists showed basically the same viruses (plus a few extra on the later ones, as they kept discovering more). The lists didn't include BANAL-52 or any other suitable COVID relatives - only RATG-13, which isn't close enough to work.

Could they have been keeping their discovery of BANAL-52 secret? No. Pre-pandemic, there was nothing interesting about it; our understanding of virology wasn't good enough to point this out as a potential pandemic candidate. WIV did its gain-of-function research openly and proudly (before the pandemic, gain-of-function wasn't as unpopular as it is now) so it's not like they wanted to keep it secret because they might gain-of-function it later. Their lists very clearly showed they had no virus they could create COVID from, and they had no reason to hide it if they did.

If there's one thing I want you to understand, it's this:

These people have almost no ability to understand deception.

The notion that China lies about the purposes of the lab just doesn't enter the picture.

Are you sure the Chinese would not use US science to create a virus that then escaped?

And then lie about it?

We're not going to know the truth. China may never reveal what it knows. But these people are not very good at finding the truth because they're not very good at understanding lies.

And these are the people who believe that AI can be 'aligned.'

They fundamentally don't understand humans. They don't understand deception.

They refuse to see the wolf of the present political era. They have deliberately chosen to walk away from mainstream politics with their Magic Stupid Slippers.

This is what a truly dangerous cult looks like. Most dangerous cults self-destruct. The bad ones are those that get big enough to confuse a large enough number of people.

POV: You're Scott Alexander and you're tired at people yelling at you about the fascism your side missed.

There's also a pattern I want to discourage, where one side will come up with some new trivial finding, or re-dredge up and re-package something that everyone already everyone else had already considered, then release it as THE SMOKING GUN! Then they release another SMOKING GUN!, and another, and after five or six SMOKING GUNS, they say their opponents are stubborn and refuse to yield to evidence, since they've obstinately ignored every single SMOKING GUN! without changing their probability even a little bit.

I've saved the chaser. This is how Scott chose to close his coverage.

But fifth, if the coronavirus' story is a comedy, all of this - Rootclaim, the debate, the $100K - is a tragedy. Saar got $100 million, decided to devote a big part of his life to improving human reasoning, and came up with a really elegant system. He was so confident in his system, and in the power of open discussion, that he risked his money and reputation on an accept-all-comers debate offer . Then some rando who nobody had ever heard of accepted the challenge, turned out to be some kind of weird debate savant, and won, turning what should have been Rootclaim's moment of triumph into a bitter defeat. Totally new kind of human suffering, worthy of Shakespeare.

I look forward to the movie, especially seeing who plays the dashing young blogger who helped the participants meet.

POV: You're the high priest of a cult of reason, worshiping a false god of perfect information, perfectly understood. These people don't just believe that salvation is possible through brainthinking alone, they believe that they have achieved salvation and are enlightened by their own intelligence.

Even as they stand in proud ignorance of contemporary politics.

1. How to stoically forgive myself after a hanging attempt? 🥺🥺🥺

How to Stoically forgive myself for attempted suicide?

My health problems felt so hopeless that I believed I had no other option but to end my life.

So, I spent four nights trying to hang myself. (Partial suspension with foot/bum/knees always on the ground.)

It didn't work, and now I'm only in greater shame, self-hate, and health anxiety for what I did.

I'm paranoid that I have neck/brain damage. I went to the hospital (they did no scans) and then later got a carotid artery ultrasound from my GP - which came back perfect, yet I'm still in deep fear that the neck pain will never go away and will be a constant reminder of this shameful decision. What makes it worse is that I did this to myself. Suddenly, my other health problems don't feel so bad.

I'd love some help forgiving myself and believing the doctors that I will be okay and the pain will go away.

Since doing this four weeks ago, I'm terrified that this will define the rest of my life. Especially if the pain never goes away.

2. Is my neck okay after hanging attempts? 😰😰😰

Is my neck okay after hanging attempts?

I am deeply ashamed and won't try this again, but I tried to hang myself for several nights. I tried partial suspension hanging - meaning my feet, bum, or knees were always on the ground.

I went to the hospital, and they did no scans and said I was okay.

I also went to my GP who ordered a carotid artery ultrasound and that came back perfect.

Does this mean I escaped any long term neck or brain damage?

Or do I need to get an MRI or other tests?

As all I can think about is that I'll have to suffer the pain of this terrible mistake for life. Which is making life heck.

I'm terrified my neck will never be the same again.

3. Would a neck MRI clear me from hanging injuries? 😱🤔🤔

Male. 42. 85kg. 183cm.

Anxiety and depression.

Valium.

I'm in deep shame and paranoid that I've ruined my neck for life after attempting partial suspension hanging (I always had my feet, bum, or knees on the ground) over several nights. I never passed out.

I went to the hospital, and they did no scans or tests. But my GP did a carotid artery ultrasound, which came back clear.

But since then I still have neck pain (along with other symptoms like ear and swallowing pain) and extreme anxiety, so I'm wondering if a neck MRI is the best test to clear me of everything I'm worried about completely - so I can finally get back to living.

Thank you for your time. I've been living in pure fear and regret since. I'm very sorry.

4. How do you still enjoy life with Peyronie's Disease? 😞😞🍆❌

Since getting this disease I have not been able to enjoy a second of life. Having this disease with all the shame that goes with it has destroyed me. And now that I also have pain, I have no idea if having a life worth living is possible. I know I ask a lot of everybody on here, but I'd love to know how those who manage to still have a life worth living with Peyronie's Disease manage to do so. What are your secrets? As I keep seeing suicide being my best choice to be done with this cruel curse.

5. Psychologist said Peyronie's Disease is so bad that no therapy could help 🤒😮😮‍💨

I'm very much hoping she is wrong.

But as said in the title, my new psychologist said that she thought Peyronie's Disease was simply too devastating of a disease for any type of therapy to help men cope.

It made me feel ever more doomed - and basically confirmed it's all over, with suicide being the only medicine.

6. Best easy-to-understand Stoicism books on Audible? ☺️☺️🎧

I have a lot of Audible credits, so I'm looking to spend them on some great and easy-to-understand Stoicism books. Likely suited to a beginner.

I'm after guided books like How to Think Like a Roman Emperor rather than the straight texts.

As I need all the help I can get trying to understand all this!

7. Why has no cure been found for Peyronie's Disease? 😤😤😡

What makes this curse so darn impossible for medical science to treat? Also, are people currently working on new treatments? Or has the medical community given up all hope?

8. Need help coping with an extremely embarrassing disease 😭😭🏳️‍⚧️✅

Sorry to reach out like this, but my own reading and journaling doesn't seem to be working - so I'd love some advice from you lot on how to use Stoicism to cope with a disease that I feel has completely ruined my life.

It's called Peyronie's Disease, which has left my peepee bent and unusable. It's notoriously difficult to treat. And it's not something you can talk with anybody about.

My thinking problems are that I no longer feel like I'm a man, I feel like my life is completely ruined and is not worth living anymore, I feel that I'll be forever alone, and I worry that this will never be healed - and that I'm cursed for life and broken.

I also keep having thoughts that no man would carry on living with a disease like this.

Again, sorry for the rant, but I'm desperate to find some Stoic relief if that's possible.

9. Does caffeine tablets cause diarrhoea like coffee? 💩💩💩

Struggling with long-term carnivore diarrhoea so cut coffee. Wondering if I can take caffeine tablets, or they cause diarrhoea too?

10. Basic one I'm stuck on. How can I possibly be happy with horrible illnesses? 😞😞😞

I'm new here and have been reading “how to think like a Roman Emperor” as well as watching Einzelgänger on YouTube.

For a bit I thought I was making mild progress.

Perhaps I'm just tired, but today I was bombed by the thought that my chronic illnesses 100% prevent me from being happy, so I'm excluded from the benefits of Stoicism. I was stuck and couldn't seem to find anything that I've read so far to help me out.

However, I'm sure I'm missing something very basic here and I would love some help finding relief and getting back on track.

Thank you!

11. Sticky, dark poops. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 (I'm sorry but this is just too many emotions to put in 3 emojis)

I'm 34 days in.

I only pass scowtools every three days or so, but they are now dark and incredibly sticky/impossible to wipe, requiring a shower.

They are also soft, small little nuggets. Which I guess is better than the diarrhoea it's been since day one?

Wondering if this is okay/normal and I'm fine to keep up this WOE and things will right themselves eventually?

Thanks all.

12. Anyone treat Peyronie's disease with carnivore? 💪💪💪

I know this is a long shot, but I'm wondering if anybody had or has heard of people have any success treating Peyronie's disease with carnivore? As it does sound like the disease is from inflammation.

12 (Extended) Here's a short explanation of the disease:

What is going on? - If you have Peyronies, you have a condition that caused your body to replace normal elastic tissue in your peepee with non-elastic scar tissue called plaque. It has no association with plaque in your arteries or elsewhere in your body. You have Peyronies when your body forms scar tissue in the peepee in places where it is not needed to heal a wound. It replaces normal elastic tissue, often far from any injury, and it can cause deformity, much like putting a piece of Scotch tape on a balloon and then blowing it up. The resulting deformity can be a bend, narrowing or dent, or shortening of the peepee. If you have scar tissue at the site of real damage on the peepee that is NOT Peyronies Disease. That is a normal healing process as long as the scar tissue does not spread over healthy tissue. Be aware that most bends are just natural variations from one peepee to another and are not Peyronies Disease. A peepee is seldom perfectly round and straight any more than noses are all the same shape.

14. Can carnivore help fibrosis conditions? 😞😮☺️

I'm trying to treat Peyronie's Disease, and unfortunately there's VERY little treatment options.

So, I'm hoping going carnivore could be the silver bullet to treat fibrotic conditions like this.

15. Starter stack for treating peyronie's disease 🤣😂😆😄😃😊☺️🙂🤭🤨😒🤔🧐😐😑😕🫤🙁☹️😧😦😮😯😲🫨😵‍💫😵😰😨

I'm going to be proactive and get started on treatment while I wait to see a urologist.

Is there anything I'm missing? I would love your thoughts on my battle plan.

SUPPLEMENTS

CoQ10 – 400mg daily

L-Arginine – 3 grams daily

Acetyl L-Carnitine – 3 grams daily

Taurine – 1.5 grams a day?

K2 and D3 – once a day capsule.

DRUGS

(Also, I'll ask my GP for:)

5mg Cialis.

Pentox.

LIFESTYLE

Carnivore diet (zero carbs)

Daily walks.

No smoking.

No alcohol.

CONSIDERING

I'm now thinking of adding:

Ginkgo Biloba

Silymarin

Bilberry

Propolis

OTHER

I'll wait until I see the urologist before starting any traction/stretching/vacuum therapy.

!r-slurs our god has arrived

Since the advent of modern financial markets, bonds have always had the reputation of being conservative. The saying has been “Bonds would never make you rich.”

However, they would provide you with a moderate, steady, and dependable income.

This reputation was challenged in the 1970s and 1980s by treasuries yielding more than 10% in the wake of high inflation and the explosive growth in the high-yield market. In the decades that followed, yields drifted down in parallel with inflation, but investor excitement was maintained by a steady stream of capital gains (with the proliferation of ABS and MBS) as well as income.

However, once monetary easing hit its peak in the days following the Great Financial Crisis, high-quality bond yields fell to levels that promised very little income and at best modest capital gains, and it took a long time for yields to eventually recover to their historical averages. However, in the aftermath of the pandemic, massive government borrowing, inflation, and Fed tightening have all contributed to rising bond yields. But since over the past year, despite a winding down of pandemic effects, very steady economic growth, declining inflation, and a pulse in Fed tightening, bond volatility has persisted, with yields seeing sharp swings in both directions.

Indeed, since the Fed last raised rates on July 26th of last year, the 10-year Treasury yield has ranged from a low of 3.79% to a high of 4.98%. Statistically, this represents well above average volatility, and it raises some important questions for portfolio optimization (how to practically hedge). So it raises the question why bond volatility has risen, where it might go from here, and how investors should adapt to a world of more volatile bonds.

First, take a look at some key economic data and events for the week ahead. The most important economic numbers will be contained in Thursday's GDP report (keep an eye out for that). Business fixed investment, inventories and trade are all likely to detract from growth. However, the broad story appears to be one very modest deceleration from the 3.1% GDP growth seen over the course of last year to a 2.2-2.4%, while still running a little above the Federal Reserve's 1.8% longer-run estimate of the potential growth of the US economy.

Overall, it is expected these numbers to point to continued moderate economic expansion. Turning to the earnings season, with 14% of S&P 500 market cap reporting so far, the profit picture appears mixed, showing 70% of firms beating analysts' expectations in EPS, but only 46% beating on revenues. However, first quarter of corporate performance should be much clearer by the end of this week, since 158 of the S&P 500 companies are set to report over the next five days. Meta, ThermoFischer, IBM, AT&T and Boeing are set to release theirs today. Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Merck, Intel and Comcast set for tomorrow and Exxon, Chevron and Abbvie due on Friday. (Find your portfolio holdings date here https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/earnings , can't list them all 😴😴😴)

Investors will also be very interested in the translation of earlier CPI data for March into the Fed's preferred consumption deflation measures due out on Friday. Markets in general are pricing in that both the headline and core consumption deflation measures rose by 0.3% month to month in March, with year-over-year gains rising by 0.1% to 2.6% at the headline level and falling by 0.1% to 2.7% at the core level, that core inflation pressures are still easing, but at a glacially slow pace.

Just as financial commentators routinely say that we live in uncertain times, Michael Burry routinely says another recession is coming and Disney often claims the next Marvel movie is the best one yet, markets often claim that market volatility is unusually high. However, when it comes to the US bond market today, this is actually true. Looking at the Bloomberg aggregate bond index from January 2002 to June 2022, the average monthly return was 0.3%, with the standard deviation measured over a 24-month lag of 0.9%. That is to say, roughly two-thirds of the time, the monthly return was within a range of 0.6% to plus 1.2%. However, from July 2022 to March 2024, the standard deviation of monthly returns has actually fricking been 2.0%. A crazy amount for a piece of paper which basically does nothing but guarantee a coupon and a maturity payout.

In examining the causes of this volatility, it's easiest to start with what isn't causing it.

First, it's not due to increased volatility in economic growth. Over the past two years, the macroeconomic outlook has, if anything, become steadier. The unemployment rate has now been in a narrow band between 3.4% and 4.0% (literally all of rdrama.net) for 28 straight months, while real GDP growth appears to have settled into a steady, if somewhat strong, path.

Nor is it due to increased volatility in financial markets in general. This can be seen by the fact that equity market volatility has not risen nearly as much. Between January 2002 and June 2022, the standard deviation of bond market returns measured over a 24-month lag was just 27% of that of the equity market, as measured by the S&P 500 total return index. From July 2022 to March 2024, that ratio has been 37%.

Finally, and most interestingly, it's not due to greater volatility in inflation expectations.”

Measured on a monthly frequency, this expectation has stayed in a narrow band between 2.18% and 2.41% since September 2022. In fact, the standard deviation of inflation expectations measured in this manner has been almost 20% lower since July 2022 than in the prior 17.5 years. Think about it, not since the Invasion of Iraq and the global oil supply shitshow, has inflation expectations been so low.

When you look at more recently at data, CPI's are not doing much anymore. They have kind of bottomed. You being r-slurred, can argue that goods disinflation, which had been very powerful was the main driver of this disinflation trend. Well, no. That is over. Goods disinflation is arguably behind us now. And in some segments, you are seeing goods prices starting to rise again. The monthly core CPI was boosted by rents. Motor vehicle insurance was another driver, surging 2.6%. That was the largest rise since July 2020 and followed a 0.9% gain in February. There were also increases in the prices of apparel and personal care. But prices for used cars and trucks, recreation and new vehicles fell. Make of that data what you will. If you can match that to your portfolio company's earnings and cash out on expiring options, congratulations, you have just made your money like the big boy bucks in The Street.

But obviously, energy is still a question mark. And with what's going on in the Middle East and the most recent moves in rice, cocoa, oil, one can wonder to what extent there might be some pickup in energy inflation and consequently commodity inflation. And finally, and most importantly, obviously, services inflation is very resilient.

This is especially problematic in the US. US isn't China where you can just manufacture bullshit. Everyone knows that services inflation is very sensitive to the job market, to the resilience of the economy, to wages. And on this front, obviously, the job market across both sides of the Atlantic is very strong.

So, you know that the economists at the BLS and Fed think we have reached kind of a plateau.

But then, what is causing higher volatility in bonds, you ask incredulously?

First, Occam's Gillette. That this may be due in part to the huge volume of government debt that needs to be financed today. 20 years ago, treasury debt in the hands of the public was $4.2 trillion or 36% of GDP. Ten years ago, it was $12.6 trillion or 74% of GDP. By the end of last month, it was $27.5 trillion or 99% of GDP. It's quite possible that this extraordinary level of debt is straining global capital markets in a way that just wasn't the case 10 or 20 years ago, leading to more volatility.

This effect may be further amplified by quantitative tightening, which is having the effect of transferring treasury ownership from price insensitive buyers such as the Federal Reserve to much more price sensitive private sector actors. Moreover, this effect could be further increased by the general decline in dealer balance sheets in response to regulation, even as the overall size of the global bond market has increased. Second, higher short-term rates may be contributing to higher bond volatility.

With a normal upward-sloping yield curve, it's easy to assign investors to one of two well-defined camps. Those willing to accept some risk and return for better yields and potential capital gains would invest in long-term bonds, while those willing to sacrifice return for safety would stay at the short end of the curve. However, with overnight rates well above 5% and long rates significantly lower, many long-term investors may be tempted to tactically switch in and out of the short end of the market, adding volatility to bonds. Basically instead of hedging equities with bonds and credit with rates, they are speculating with your pension funds and having fun. (Let them have fun, bigot 🤬🤬!!).

Finally, and most hilariously, today's volatile bond market may reflect hypersensitivity of the Fed. Prior to the most recent inflation surge, Fed officials appeared to be relatively unfazed by small overshoots and undershoots on inflation. However, today we appear to be in an era of zero inflation tolerance on the part of the Fed. Consequently, a very slight overshoot in the March CPI numbers induced an immediate and violent reaction to the bond market, as futures markets almost overnight went from pricing in three full rate cuts in 2024 to barely pricing in two. Even if the inflation environment is relatively steady, any sharp change in expected Fed policy could add to bond market volatility.

Think about it for a second. We have reached metamarkets now. The market's expectations of inflation are tempered but since the Fed's inflation expectations haven't, so the markets are literally pricing in a quasi inflation derivative, ie the expectation of the fed's expectation of the inflation. This is your portfolio manager, Chris Nolan, and he's here to give you a lesson on markets called Inception. 😴😴😴

Then that brings us to the next question, that if, let's say, the Fed waits, is there a risk that given how strong the US economy has been, that there is a chance that inflation might actually slowly creep up instead of going down as it has done, let's say, last year? This is really the key risk here. And when you look back to, for instance, the 1970s, this is really what happened. (Already covered in previous effortpost).

But maybe the truth is, most likely, we have a very different situation. Most likely, the cyclical part of inflation is probably gone now. It has all but disappeared. And in many ways, the western countries are now left with the structural part of this inflation. Structural part, which is clearly the consequence of very long term factors on the economy, demographics, deglobalization, international wars etc. I am not a Political Economist, so I'll just say vote for Biden. Or for Trump. Or just have fun.❤️❤️❤️

Clearly, there's no evidence that Washington is going to reign in fiscal deficits or the regulators will act aggressively to deepen liquidity in treasury markets. While many still expect the Federal Reserve to cut rates later this year (pipe dreams), yield curve inversion could persist for a further year or more.

Nor is there any sign that an inflation-scarred Federal Reserve is going to moderate their reaction to inflation news going forward.

In this supermeta scenario, bond market volatility is here to stay at least for a while, and as a pesky investor you may want to consider if your bond allocations are appropriate for the overall balance of their portfolios. In other words, fricking sell your current bonds and load up on the next offerings because I don't see rate cuts soon.

Sauce:

https://www.bea.gov

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_bill_rates&field_tdr_date_value=2024

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/BeigeBook_20240417.pdf

And finally,

Your mum's shrieks when I was doing her

!r-slurs !math

@Proud_Mossad_Asset please effortpost sir before it's too old

Frick all the Uvalde cops

They're all peepees

They don't peepee guns

They just run

When the shots rung

Chief Arredondo

The head honcho

Couldn't let the shots blow

For a whole classload

of kids

Talking about a barricaded subject

Nothing but a sick injustice

He's a man who can't be trusted

No disembowlment, but he's gutless

Sheeeit

The moral of the story be

No more weapons of war in the store

Because they used so morbidly.

Today we won't be discussing Uvalde, although that was my initial intention. Instead, I want to speak about Joseph Campbell and the world of archetypes and the hero's journey. Why? Because I don't always control what topic my mind wants to focus on. I took a singular xanax and I'm feeling mellow so let's begin so I get back to playing Alan Wake 2. I've been working on this one for a while so I hope you enjoy it!

The Early Days

Born in 1904 in New York, Joseph Campbell's interest in mythology was sparked at a young age when his father took him and his younger brother to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Madison Square Garden, and to the National Museum of History, and he soon recognised similarities between the stories and symbols of Native Americans and those from his Roman Catholic upbringing. Later in life, he would study Hinduism and find the same symbols once again. He would also study Arthurian medieval material, and he would recognise the same symbols. Upon entering Dartmouth College in 1921, he studied biology and mathematics. However, he would eventually transition to the Humanities, earning his master's degree in medieval literature in 1926.

In 1928, he discovered the works of Freud and Jung which would influence him greatly. Comparing the two, Campbell argues that the Freudian unconscious is “biographical, not biological”, while the Jungian unconscious is “based on a biological point of view”. Unlike Freud, Campbell points out, Jung recognised the collective unconscious which is universally shared and from which mythic symbols emerge. During his lifetime, Campbell would expand on Jung's ideas of archetypes in the realm of mythology, theorising how these images manifest in the myths, stories, and traditions of disparate cultures around the world.

Campbell on Myths

In The Power of Myth (1988), Campbell outlines much of his beliefs and theories regarding myths and their purpose. The text takes the form of an interview between him and Bill Moyers, an American journ*list and political commentator. The simplest definition Campbell gives for myths is that they are “stories about gods”. Of course, this causes one to question what gods are. Campbell argues that a god is a “personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe”. Furthermore, “the god idea is always culturally conditioned”. To illustrate how culture might affect a society's idea of God, Campbell compares societies that live in different geographies. According to Campbell, societies that live in the desert will lean towards monotheistic ideas of God because “when you're out in the desert with one sky and one world, then you might have one deity”. If a society dwells in a rainforest, however, they are more likely to practice polytheism because, as Campbell argues, the jungle is a place where “there's no horizon and you never see anything more than ten or twelve yards away from you”. Hence, we are more likely to speak of “the gods, plural, of the rainforest”.

In Campbell's view, myths are stories that are concerned with higher values and grand life aims relating to self-actualisation. This is clear when Campbell outlines what he believes are the four purposes of myths. Firstly, myths serve a mystical purpose. They assist to show humans “what a wonder the universe is, and what a wonder you are”, as well as to evoke “awe before this mystery”. The second purpose of myths is to reveal a cosmological dimension. As Campbell explains, myths do this by showing “what the shape of the universe is, but showing it in such a way that the mystery again comes through”. The third purpose of myths is a sociological one. Myths, according to Campbell, assist in “supporting and validating a certain social order”. Although “the main motifs of the myths are the same, and they have always been the same”, the sociological function of myths differs from society to society, and it can also change over time. The fourth purpose, the pedagogical function, is the one that pertains most to ‘gods'. Campbell elaborates by explaining that myths serve to teach us “how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances”. Important life lessons are transmitted from generation to generation through myths, and virtues are personified as gods that serve as guiding forces for the individuals and societies who follow the myths.

Campbell identifies a close relationship between myths and dreams and claims that “myths and dreams come from the same place”. Expanding further, he explains that they both “come from realisations of some kind that have then to find expression in symbolic form”. The difference between myths and dreams is that a dream is a “personal experience” whereas a myth “is the society's dream”. The contents of dreams typically concern themselves with matters that are personal to our lives. Hence, drawing from Freud, Campbell argues that a dream “is an inexhaustible source of spiritual information about yourself”. Myths, however, are more universal and although their sociological functions may differ, the mythic images remain similar across time and cultures, such that it appears as though “the same play were taken from one place to another, and at each place the local players put on local costumes and enact the same old plays”. Summarising the differences, Campbell states that “the myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth”, and that one can tell that they are in accordance with the public when their dreams coincide with the myths of society.

Campbell offers two explanations for the similarities between myths around the world. The first theory involves archetypes. In the same way that human bodies are relatively similar the world over, so too are psyches similar. Hence, “out of this common ground have come what Jung has called the archetypes”. The second explanation Campbell gives is that myths spread through diffusion. To illustrate this explanation, Campbell gives an example of an agricultural society that develops myths around agriculture. As agriculture spreads, the accompanying myths will also spread. Consequently, aspects of agricultural myths such as the killing of “a deity, cutting it up, burying its members, and having the food plants grow” will “accompany an agricultural or planting tradition” but will not appear in a hunting culture. Rather than choose one explanation over another, Campbell states that “there are historical as well as psychological aspects of this problem of the similarity of myths”.

Death, Rebirth, and Myths

Campbell notes the particular importance of metaphorical death and rebirth, stating that “all children need to be twice born, to learn to function rationally in the present world, leaving childhood behind”. He claims that this wisdom is captured in the Biblical verse 1 Corinthians 13: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things”. This death and rebirth, Campbell argues, is achieved through puberty rites. As Campbell explains, “in primal societies, there are teeth knocked out, there are scarifications, there are circumcisions, there are all kinds of things done. So you don't have your little baby body anymore, you're something else entirely”. Campbell even cites his own experiences of wearing short pants as a boy and wearing long trousers when he was older as a kind of puberty rite.

What must be noted is that rebirth is unattainable without the preceding death. In several religions, as Campbell points out, “the god of death is at the same time the lord of s*x”. In this way, death and birth become intertwined concepts, and one cannot exist without the other. Giving examples, Campbell lists the death god Ghede of the Haitian Voodoo tradition who is also a s*x god, as well as the Egyptian god Osiris who is “the judge and lord of the dead, and the lord of the regeneration of life”. From this, Campbell concludes that the central lesson to be drawn is that “you have to have death in order to have life”.

To be clear, the death and rebirth metaphorized in myth is not a clinical death that involves the cessation of all life processes. This is also the case with Freud's concept of Eros and Thanatos, and with Jung's death and rebirth archetypes. According to Campbell, within myths, death is a psychic process that we must all undergo if we are to achieve self-actualisation. He stresses this when he states that we are all born dependent on others and are required to be obedient to our caretakers. To “evolve out of this position of psychological immaturity to the courage of self-responsibility and assurance requires a death and a resurrection”. Hence, the death and rebirth motif is a metaphor for “leaving one condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or mature condition”. The use of death and rebirth in this manner will be found in the selected psychedelic texts that will be analysed in the subsequent chapters.

According to Campbell, psychedelic experiences can be incorporated into a ritual that induces a rebirth experienced as self-transformation within the participant. Rituals are closely related to myths because rituals are, as Campbell defines them, “an enactment of a myth” (182), and “by participating in a ritual, you are actually experiencing a mythological life”. Giving an example of how psychedelics can be used in ritual, Campbell analyses the North American natives of north-western Mexico. This group associates the peyote cacti with deer and prepares very special missions to collect the peyote and return with it. According to Campbell, these “missions are mystical journeys with all of the details of the typical mystical journey”. The mission begins with disengagement from secular life. This requires the participant to confess all their faults before beginning their journey. As they approach the area that contains the natural growth of peyote, they pass special shrines that “represent stages of mental transformation”. Once they find the peyote, they approach the cacti as though they were deer. As Campbell explains, “they sneak up on it, shoot a little arrow at it, and then perform the ritual of collecting the peyote”. All these steps are not necessary from a practical perspective. However, they are necessary in a mythical context, as the ritual is a “complete duplication of the kind of experience that is associated with the inward journey”. Replying to Moyers who asks why the process must be so intricate, Campbell elaborates by saying that “if you undergo a spiritual transformation and have not had preparation for it, you do not know how to evaluate what has happened to you, and you get the terrible experience of a bad trip, as they used to call it with LSD”. What is suggested by Campbell is that the process of self-transformation – or the psychic/spiritual death and rebirth – is not arbitrary, and some guidelines must be adhered to, lest one suffer a bad trip. Campbell looks to religion and mythology to discover what these guidelines are.

Campbell argues that Christians also experience death and rebirth through the rituals and narratives of their religion. This is done by achieving a rebirth that represents a transcendence of one's current self. To do this, however, requires one to relinquish attachments to one's self and, in this way, experience a kind of metaphorical death. As Campbell explains, “you die to your flesh and are born into your spirit”. Campbell characterises this as a metaphorical return to the garden of Eden described in the Bible which is guarded by cherubim, and which humans have been banished from. He claims that to pass the cherubim and return to the garden requires an Ego death. Hence, “if you are no longer attached to your Ego existence, but see the Ego existence as a function of a larger, eternal totality, and you favour the larger against the smaller, then you won't be afraid of those two figures, and you will go through”. To find harmony, which is represented by the garden, therefore requires not a fear of death nor an unfettered attachment to life. This view of death is at odds with modern conceptions of death. From this perspective, death is not an end that is to be avoided, nor is it seen as the antithesis of life. Rather, it is conceived of as something that must be balanced with life to achieve harmony. Without death, there is no self-actualisation and only stagnancy is possible. As Campbell writes, “you have to balance between death and life – they are two aspects of the same thing, which is being, becoming”.

The motif of death and rebirth being a process of self-transformation is not limited to shamanic cultures and Abrahamic religions. It also makes an appearance in many Eastern religions and myths in the form of reincarnation. Campbell suggests reincarnation must be understood metaphorically because a literal interpretation fails to capture what is being conveyed by the myths. The idea of reincarnation, according to Campbell, suggests “that you are more than you think you are. There are dimensions of your being and a potential for realisation and consciousness that are not included in your concept of yourself”.

The Hero's Journey

The idea of death and rebirth as part of a psychological transformative process embedded in mythology is best expressed in Campbell's theory of the monomyth, which claims that in stories around the world, a recurring pattern of the Hero's Journey is present. In short, the Hero's Journey centres on an everyman who is thrust out of his ordinary world into an adventure that variously tests them, and ultimately has them facing death. By overcoming death, the hero is reborn, and they bring the treasures they gain back to their home. This story, although it may take a different archetypal form, retains the same structure, as it describes a universal psychological process. Hence, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), Campbell claims that:

whether we listen with aloof amusement to the dreamlike mumbo jumbo of some red-eyed witch doctor of the Congo, or read with cultivated thin translations from the sonnets of the mystic Lao-tse; now and again crack the hard nutshell of an argument of Aquinas, or catch suddenly the shining meaning of a bizarre Eskimo fairy tale: it will always be the one, shape-shifting yet marvellously constant story that we find.

In this work, Campbell explores his theory of the universal monomyth. The central figure, the hero, represents the idealised self as well as the highest ideals and values of a culture, and “is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms”. It is through the hero that myths illustrate that “there must be, if we are to experience long survival – a continuous ‘recurrence of birth' (palingenesia) to nullify the unremitting recurrences of death”. There is a similarity between the Hero's Journey and psychedelics' effect on the psyche, as they both concern shifting one from familiar states of mind to unfamiliar, often novel mental states that can result in tumultuous experiences. As Campbell explains, “the first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside”.

Conclusion

Nobody is going to read to this point so I can admit I'm going to try again with the girl who rejected me. I'm going to tell her I still have feelings for her and I can't get over them. Last time she rejected me, she also said she doesn't know how she feels so there's a chance if you ask me. I'm going to tell her I love her and I want to give a relationship a chance. If I fail, then it's truly over beyond belief.

Tune in next time when we discuss Richard Huckle, Peter Scully, and Daisy's Destruction.

Yesterday

Today

Another article from The daily beast

Homeless, Zip-Tied, Hungry: Ilhan Omar's Daughter Recounts Protest Arrest

Stolen from destiny (a woman's name) sub https://old.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1cb3dvo/from_homeless_left_without_food_to_teen_vogue/

Some info on this foid ( instagram links)

I would recommend everyone to browse her instagram to get a glimpse of what her life is like:

https://instagram.com/israhirsi/

Typical activism as an aestetic, privileged oppression role-player. Her entire instagram is a carefully curated advertisement to set her up as a future politician or professional activist/shit stirrer.

Some highlights:

• Before this, she was featured 3 times in vogue, starting when she was only 15 in 2018.

• She has been a speaker at many events and even had her own ted talk.

• She had a collab with adidas ... and that at least two times- Don't forget to check out her collection (of course in colab with adidas) but she really hates capitalism

• She is a certified coke-drinking zionist

• Just a couple weeks ago she was featured in interviewmag

Some hamasabi fans are trying to fight the ultra jew supporting ddg

You just know this woman hasn't had to struggle for shit a single day in her life. These people are so cringeworthy.

Only poor people are allowed to struggle

.. to struggle financially? Well yeah dumbass thats how it works.

it's not LMAO

He literally says "financially" ... what part of that don't you understand? "hurr durr no u hurr no it's not durr" - moron.

Not trying to defend her at all (the encampment was dumb and this article seems dumb), but before getting elected to the House, was the Omar family well off?

SOCIALISM IS WHEN NO BRAND DEALS

Yeah I don't get what we're supposed to be outraged over either. Like wow she got interviewed and had a bottle of coke in one picture. Am I supposed to get mad over that? OP also is a brand new account less than a month old, less than 5 posts/comments too.

This thread is sitting at the bottom

Hang on, why are those mutually exclusive? Are you saying that having an article made about not being able to enter your home negates being unable to enter your home, like publicity somehow cancels it out?

No, that's not what OP is saying. The framing of the stories' headlines suggesting a harrowing experience whose severity might be exaggerated is the problem. Her story was immediately publicized and her "struggle" turned into a photoshoot. She is a well-off child of a US government official. Any hardship that her protest resulted in can be mitigated. She isn't wandering the streets bumming cigarettes and searching for her next meal.

THEN ITS ALL READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!

THE SOMALIS ARE NOT IMPRESSED OR ARE THEY?

https://old.reddit.com/r/Somalia/comments/1camitt/ilhan_omars_daughter_isra_hirsi_is_worried_about/

Keep in mind that both her mother, father and step-father have multiple properties, Rep Omar has a $174K salary (and fringe benefits) and her step-father has made millions in political consulting and her father Ahmed Hirsi appears to be doing well financially.

Any of them can pay for her hotel, pay for train/plane tickets to get them to their multiple properties, pay for a hotel in NYC and I bet she has enough money in her checking account/credit card to take an Uber from NYC to Washington DC.

In short...she is lucky to be privileged (not her fault, and happy for her). But look what she says and the write-up about her (To her credit, she's standing up for Gaza, but she has very little to lose as a Teen Vogue, Nike and other companies' active/brand darling):

Despite the legal trouble, she said she was chiefly concerned about where she would spend the night.

“When I got to 1 Police Plaza, my roommates had brought me a bag of clothes because they knew that I was likely evicted,” she said. “We were reading our email and it said we had 15 minutes to go get our shit if we wanted it, and we'd have to go with a public safety escort.”

“I was like, ‘I'm not going to do that.' But I was a little bit frantic, like, ‘Where am I going to sleep? Where am I gonna go?'” she continued. “And also all of my shit is thrown in a random lot. It's pretty horrible.”

Hirsi is effectively barred from entering campus during her suspension, a punishment only levied against Barnard students, she claimed.

“I don't know when I can go home, and I don't know if I ever will be able to,” she said. “I haven't formally been evicted. I haven't been sent a ‘move out' email, but they've just said that I can't get in, whatever that means.”

“I have like four shirts, two pairs of pants. Only Barnard students are evicted, and I think it's pretty crazy,” she continued.

Days after the suspension, food was also a concern.

“I cannot go to the dining hall. I sent them an email like, ‘Hey, I rely on campus for my meals, I rely on my dining plan,' and they were like, ‘Oh, you can come pick up a prepackaged bag of food,' a full 48 hours after I was suspended,” Hirsi said. “There was no food support, no nothing.”

But this feller was d to heck

On the other hand #RealSomalis are happy

Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, is among several Barnard students who have been suspended for participating in a pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University

proud to know a somali is standing up against the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the people of Palestine

The power #those ppl have is actually scary.

Real, more power to her 💯

She has a good head on her shoulders. Risking losing what she has for standing up for what's right. Great to see people like that. She's been very vocal as well. They're saying she's a ham*s supporter. 😂😂😂 these ppl are crazy. Wonder how far they'll go with this

A RANDOM NO GOODER POSTS WRONG THINK (WARNING GOOGLE DOCS, XITTER LINKS)

And I'm just going to copy/paste my comment from a little while ago before people start saying "being anti-war is not being antisemitic"

For posterity, here's some of the examples of extremism within the activist movement at Columbia. This goes beyond "pro-Palestinian advocacy" into calls for, and actual, violence.

Note, there are varying degrees of it being individuals vs. the group, but these are the type of people in the crowd there and many of them are indeed group chants. I have also set aside some widespread ones (from the river to the sea) that are disputed in character. That said, many many many of these are coming from large groups of students within the main quad (which has been locked down to only students/professors)

Candidly some sources are not great in terms of me agreeing with the viewpoint of the tweeter, but they contain relevant and real video:

Physically assaulting an Arab Israeli https://x.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781080951902109774

"From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab!" / "Resistance is justified" https://x.com/ShelleyGldschmt/status/1781785252886913358

"Let it be known that it was the Al-Aqsa Flood that put the Global Intifada back on the table again. And it is the sacrificial spirit of the Palestinian Freedom Fighters that will guide every struggle on every corner of the earth to victory." https://x.com/thestustustudio/status/1781904507611287981

"We are all Hamas!" https://x.com/nypost/status/1781031465179914677

"Yehudim yehudim [(Jews, jews)] go back to poland" https://x.com/Davidlederer6/status/1781948249214996901

Includes people / groups that invited an actual, no hyperbole terrorist to speak (member of PFLP) https://www.jns.org/columbia-suspends-four-students-for-holding-event-featuring-pflp-member/

Light things on fire / "intifada revolution there is only one solution" https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1781019445399556338

"On Oct 7th, Palestinian resistance in Gaza broke free (crowd cheers) [.....] we intend to do the same" https://x.com/ShabbosK/status/1782085741431922909

""We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!" / "Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!" / "Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas' fight!" https://x.com/IsraelWarRoom/status/1781933305501212872

"Long live the intifada! Intifada intifada" https://x.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781084853653365025

"Go back to Europe!" / "You have no culture, all you do is colonize" https://x.com/ShaiDavidai/status/1781927148439109958

Have posters with the faces of PFLP and PIJ spokesmen (designated terrorist groups) https://x.com/HagarChemali/status/1782219589352350000

"From Yemen to Gaza, globalize the intifada" https://x.com/KassyDillon/status/1781312033922625797/photo/2

"Never forget the 7th of October. That will happen not 1 more time, not 5 more times, not 10, not 100, not 1,000, but 10,000 times! The 7th of October is going to be every day for you" https://x.com/EFischberger/status/1781287784897991134

"Al Qassam [(Hamas)] you make us proud, kill another soldier now" / "from the river to the sea, palestine will be arab" https://x.com/EFischberger/status/1780915336063177006

Student proudly rocking Hamas logos https://x.com/CampusJewHate/status/1781054901755215954

"Resistance is justified" (again...) https://x.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1782085643990073673

"protesters on the sidewalk chanted “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada,” next to a cardboard sign that read, “Inspired by Palestinian resistance.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/over-100-arrested-in-columbia-u-unrest-as-nypd-clears-gaza-solidarity-encampment/

And as a reminder, the student groups organizing these protests (CUAD and SJP, among others) released a letter on October 9th in support of the 10/7 attacks. ("We stand in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance", "Despite the odds against them, Palestinians launched a counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor", "We wholeheartedly condemn the email sent [...] on October 8th that [...] obfuscated Palestinian resistance as “terrorism”)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RcXX5DEO3yfJ9R4ksURnzpIPCyVxo575-Y-SoC_vZFk/edit

Finally Real brothers of !ummah with a real opinions

Where is her hijab?

honestly couldn't care about this family. an average hijabi god fearing somali girl is better than her

This is the same girl that was supporting gay marriage on tiktok and questioning Allah. (OP)

!chuds !thotpatrol !anticommunists

First of all I'm going off on information about Krayon (sister toucher) that was already divulged by Carp and FroCho

This from the post here: https://rdrama.net/post/257327/apparently-the-user-who-dropped-users (Archive)

And this from the comment here: https://rdrama.net/post/257327/apparently-the-user-who-dropped-users/6185775#context (Archive)

So what we know know is that Krayon (sister toucher)'s allegedly named "Grant Simmons" and 952-378-7642 is his phone number

So we do a little reverse phone look up using https://www.numlookup.com/ for his number and we get "Patrick Simmons" who has the same last name. Probably a father or uncle or brother?

Area code for 952 is Minneapolis/St-Paul

When you do a search for "Patrick Simmons Minnesota"...

You get articles about some dude in St Paul who has a history of abusive behaviour towards his girlfriend stabbing her and setting her on fire killing her

Article: https://www.twincities.com/2022/03/16/woman-killed-in-st-paul-had-incredible-spirit-friend-says-in-fundraiser-for-3-daughters/ (Archive)

Simmons returned to his Bloomington home, set it on fire and drove away, the complaint said.

Co-workers went to Simmons' residence and discovered him parked nearby, and they flagged down police who were responding to the area. Officers arrested Simmons.

He had blood on his clothing, his face was covered in soot, and his facial hair and eyebrows were singed.

Simmons told investigators that Goodermont “was a witch and he did this to stand up for the babies being killed and sacrificed with witchcraft,” the complaint said.

He said he threw gasoline on Goodermont and lit it with his lighter. Police asked where he got the gas and he replied, “I got the gasoline at my house. So, yeah, it's premeditated.” He said he burned his house “because there was paranormal activity going on there.”

Last summer, Simmons was the subject of a petition for civil commitment and a court document said he was hospitalized for psychosis and receiving treatment at the time.

No attorney for Simmons, who is being held in the Ramsey County jail, was listed in the court record as of Wednesday. He is charged with second-degree intentional murder.

And if you really noootice they have the same hair colour, curly hair, facial structure and features:

We know from the articles that Patrick Simmons did a murder around March 2022

And Krayon (sister toucher) was texting FroCho using that number around September 2021 (Source: https://rdrama.net/post/14661/the-neurodivergents-last-sperg-krayon (sister toucher)-sister - Archive) when she was forced to post his "manifesto"

And based on his DMs to the jannies he seems hyperfocused on his daddy

So in a nutshell:

• phone number he texted users on this site from is registered to a Patrick Simmons

• area code shows Minneapolis/St Paul in the state of Minnesota

• googling "Patrick Simmons Minnesota" gives you articles of some guy murdering his girlfriend by stabbing and setting her on fire

• same hair colour, curly hair, facial structure, features

• same brand of lunacy

• Krayon (sister toucher) having daddy issues based on his DMs to the jannies

• timeline fits

!metashit

Please disprove me because

deep breath

Spoilers for a 20 year old TV series & TW for special interest 'tism...

The creator/showrunner/lead writer of Gilmore Girls was Amy Sherman-Palladino (ASP), and she's the main person responsible for the unique cozy vibe and fast-paced, reference-heavy dialogue of the original series. She's also something of a crazy control freak who had a very particular predefined arc in mind for the show, one that would highlight the parallels between Rory and her mother and grandmother, Emily (the 3rd Gilmore Girl). For years fans heard about the mysterious "final 4 words" that she already knew would end the series. She's like the opposite of the GoT showrunners who had no idea how the frick they were going to wrap up the ending.

ASP may be a stubborn b-word but she's a good writer with strong hat game

Except... ASP was forced out after the penultimate sixth season of the original run in a contract dispute with the network, the details of which have always been hazy. Toward the end of the sixth season, ASP added a bunch of zany plots (e.g. Lorelai throwing herself at Rory's deadbeat dad, Christopher) that almost seemed like a vindictive attempt to sabotage the show on her way out the door. The new show runners dumped into the thick of it for the seventh season did their best to tie up all the bizarre loose ends, and in doing so they moved away from the predestined fatalism of ASP's original arc - the theme of which could be loosely summed up as "no matter how you try to run away from it, you always grow up to be your mother."

Spoiled douchbag boyfriend, meet spoiled douchebag dad

For example, ASP always had in mind that Rory's rich, spoiled boyfriend, Logan, would be "her Christopher," a dissolute playboy who toys with her heart, knocks her up, and ultimately abandons her - but during the final season without ASP, the writers moved away from that storyline: Logan becomes estranged from his wealthy family, he has to stand on his own two feet, he exhibits personal growth. By the end of the series, he's ready to commit; he doesn't abandon Rory, he wants to marry her, but she decides she's not ready to settle down so young. The original series ends with Rory Gilmore, a promising young journ*list heading off to Iowa to cover the long-shot presidential campaign of a promising young Senator named Barack Obama.

The seventh season is divisive among fans for a few reasons (the hasty resolution of many of ASP's S6 landmine plots, the dialogue feels kind of off, some new characters are sloppily introduced late in the game) but I think most people enjoyed seeing Logan grow up a bit and the way his relationship with Rory matured. Most people liked the ending, and thought it was fitting to have Rory choose herself and her career over a man. There's a little bit of added millennial nostalgia/wish-fulfillment and serendipity to see Rory climbing onto the Obama campaign bus when we know he's going to win that race. As viewers, we figure Rory is off to a great start with a bright future ahead of her covering a landmark campaign up close.

Go get 'em, Ace!

Then, eight years later, Netflix gave ASP an assload of money to make A Year in the Life and she used it to take a giant shit all over Season Seven. She basically returned to Stars Hollow with the intent to settle old scores and give Gilmore Girls the ending that she knew it had to have: even if it didn't make a darn lick of sense almost a decade later. She has claimed that she has never watched S7, that she doesn't even really consider it canon. She said she had an assistant watch it and take notes for her. In AYITL, she kept one baby born in S7, and threw out almost everything else, determined to tell her version of what season 7 should have been.

Netflix: Buying your childhood to wear as a four-piece skinsuit

Lorelai and Luke (her main love interest/will-they-won't-they) act like newlyweds wrestling with the decision about whether to have kids, even though they've been married for the better part of a decade and Lorelai is pushing 50. Rory is broke, directionless and struggling like a new college grad, not like a woman in her 30s with access to a multimillion dollar trust fund. Logan is instantly back to being a useless frickboi: engaged to a beautiful woman we never see, but carrying on an affair with Rory.

The only good storyline in AYITL centers on Emily coming to terms with the loss of her husband, Richard (Rory's grandfather) and that story was forced on ASP by the real-life death of the actor Edward Herrmann. She had to actually write a new, age-appropriate story for Emily instead of dusting off whatever she wanted to do for S7, and it's so much better for it.

Poor Ed's brain cancer is the real MVP of AYITL

There's a bunch of other minor shit that sucks in AYITL: fat-shaming that feels very early-2000s and out of step with modern culture, lazily retconning certain characters to be gay for added diversity, an unfunny retread of the "Ann? Her?" gag from Arrested Development. But the main reason A Year In The Life is terrible is that ASP was too stubborn to incorporate any of the stories that other writers had given to her characters, so instead of a thoughtful extrapolation of how these characters might have lived and grown or changed over almost ten years, she did S7: ASP's Version. It's 2016, not 2007, but no one has changed at all or learned anything in the meantime.

A Year in the Life ends with the famous "final four words" that ASP had always preordained, even if they no longer make any goddarn sense from a narrative perspective:

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm pregnant."

Barely 32 years old and having a bastard with this dude!

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, as a reward for your patience, enjoy this spot-on Mad TV parody:

Isaac, Houston, TX

Career:

• 2022 - working as Sales Rep at a Tile store, making 3-4k a month while going to school full time

  • Left job to focus on classes because he was having issues

• Doing UberEats/Doordash, also getting money from his father

  • "If I need some I'll ask and he might send it"

  • He stopped doing the gig stuff because he injured his knee timestamp

    • Can't do regular Uber because his car does not qualify

    • Has a 2012 Corolla - later clarifies that it's above the miles limit

    • "My knee hurts when I drive"

      • He drove 3 hours over to Caleb, driving 3 hours back later.

      • Something to his meniscus

• Costco opening nextdoor - planning on getting a job there

• Was a Solar Salesman at the beginning of this semester but the company closed down?

Education:

• Studying Biotech (undergrad)

• 4th year but with credits he is a junior, will be finishing in 5 years

  • Had some issues during COVID, didn't pass a lot of classes - trying to make up for that now

• 2.0 GPA overall

  • "Yeah I just got to 2.0 last semester" timestamp

• "Yeah I passed one class... in COVID" timestamp

• Failed Intro to Biotechnology class timestamp

  • "I was passing that class up until the final"

  • Failed "Fundamentals of Chemistry"

• "Why'd you pick this major" timestamp

  • He thought it sounded interesting

  • "So what's your career path"

    • "What do you mean my career path?"

• "A 2.0 is good though" timestamp

• He's taking 26 credits this semester

  • "You can't do that"

    • "Can't do that at one college"

  • "I've learned a few new techniques this semester so I'm dialed in" timestamp

    • 'Like what?"

      • "ummmmm"

    • He's just taking adderall l timestamp

• Payments to "StudyPool" timestamp

  • Website where you "get help" on your assignments

  • "I would never cheat" - this site is definitely cheating

  • Looks like it's a per assignment basis - lots of these

  • $360 last month (allegedly splits with his friend)

• NBS Facts timestamp

  • $30 payment, he says he doesn't know what that is

Finances

• Put his all tuition on his credit cards timestamp

  • An Apple card specifically

  • "I haven't missed a payment"

• Spending a lot on eating out/misc bullshit

• Self-rated a 5/10 in finances timestamp

• Credit Card 1 ($14'715) timestamp

  • $548 minimum payment

• Should he consolidate his debt timestamp

  • If he could actually control himself yes

• Missed payment timestamp

  • He says he doesn't have any but there's $40 in late fees - he paid it a day late but confused this with the concept of a missed payment

• Reasoning for putting tuition on the CC timestamp

  • thought his dad would help pay it off

  • Dad had purchased a house but needed help with the down-payment - $15'000

    • Father is letting him live there rent free and considers this repayment? Not sure if I followed this right

• Coinbase and Robinhood timestamp

  • Invested in crypto?

  • Coinbase - $3'666 in 2021, down to $60 today

  • Robinhood - $6'006, down to $6?

Miscellaneous

• Oracle ad placement

• There's some sort of on-boarding video now timestamp

  • He didn't bother watching it

• Girlfriend gets time to talk timestamp

  • Didn't know how much debt he's in

  • "I think he's nervous he's not usually like this"

  • "He gets defensive when we argue so I think that's what he was doing with you"

  • Thinking about marrying him, wouldn't until he's out of debt

  • Guy's dad doesn't actually give him that much money

• Guy applied to show through Insta

Power is a toxic vapor devouring the hearts of all who inhale it. Those who are smart revel in the rush. Those who are intelligent hoard it away from the commoners. Those who are wise avoid it altogether. One's circumstances of one's birth seldom paint the picture of one's future. There have been remarkable stories of people who have reached unimaginable heights starting from unfathomable lows. Likewise, those born in heaven have found themselves hurtling to heck like Lucifer.

Today I want to discuss gaming's most famous auteur - Hideo Kojima - and his fued with Konami.

Blighted Beginnings

Born 24 August 1963, Hideo Kojima describes his childhood as a very lonely one. Without many friends, he would find himself walking home alone to an empty house after school. Here, he remembers turning the TV to help him feel like he wasn't alone. It was through this ritual that his obsession with movies began, with his first favorite movie being Driver.

He admits that it wasn't until high school that he knew the difference between cats and dogs.

He had dreams of being a filmographer, and created short films on 8mm as a hobby. He was particularly interested in zombie movies. Those familiar with his movies will know that this love hasn't been squelched and his games can feel like a clash between film and gaming with their long cutscenes.

He went to univresity to study economics and decided to venture into gaming which was far from glamorous at the time. Hence, he would often lie when asked what is profession is. In 1986 he joined Konami, a move that would change his life.

Turning the Metal Gears

His first project with Konami was Lost Warld, and already we see where his conflicts with Konami would begin. He was limited to developing for the MSX system instead of the more powerful NES at the time. Unfortunately, Kojima scope for the game was too vast for the MSX so the idea was ultimately scrapped. This didn't kill his dream, however. He became more convinced of the idea of video games as "electronic arts" (EA was named for that same reason, if you're curious).

In 1987, Kojima released Metal Gear which could be considered the first example of a stealth game. It stars Solid Snake, who could crawl on the ground like a serpent to sneak past foes. He was an operative who is part of the special forces unit named FOXHOUND, and his objective was to infiltrate a base to destroy a nuclear weapon called the Metal Gear. This theme of nuclear warfare would continue throughout the franchise. It stood out from other action games at the time. Instead of shooting at your foes, you were using tactical thinking to bypass them altogether. Philosophically, this ties in with the game's anti-war themes and commentary on violence and cyclic retribution.

Following Metal Gear, Kojima would butt heads with Konami again for similar reasons as before. He wanted to create a graphic novel called Snatcher. However, the idea was for it to be six chapters long. Konami wasn't having that, and it forced the auteur to bring it down to two chapters. Hideo begrudgingly agreed.

The birth of the Metal Gear Solid series came with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Like its predecessor, it focused on warfare and the threat of nuclear weapons. The sequel to Metal Gear 2, simply titled, Metal Gear Solid, was released in 1998 and it brought Hideo Kojima's franchise to the 3D world. Several more Metal Gear Solid series would be released, with many declaring Metal Gear Solid 3 one of the greatest games of all time.

Konami vs Kojima

For Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, Kojima had big plans. This was to be the first open-world title in the franchise and it was going to be excessive in almost every aspect. It's a long game as it stands, with a sharply rising difficulty level. Players are given a plethora of toys to play with and though the missions are similar, the fun comes using different tactics to infiltrate bases. Will you use a water gun to destroy communications, or a can of sleeping gas to subdue foes?

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain stars Big Boss, also known as “Venom Snake”. His paramilitary group, the MSF, is ambushed by Cipher's strike force XOF. The result is the death of many of Big Boss's soldiers and the amputation of his right arm which is replaced by a mechanical one. Nine years later, Big Boss wakes up from a coma, clearly traumatised by the events that previously ensued. With the help of Ocelot, he rebuilds his paramilitary in secret under the name Diamond Dogs and embarks on a mission to seek revenge on Cipher.

Set in the 1980s with the Cold War as the backdrop, Big Boss's missions have him travelling to Afghanistan where Soviet Soldiers are positioned, and Central Africa where South African mercenaries are found (and speak terrible Afrikaans). The game encourages using stealth and non-violent methods to accomplish goals. For example, players may deploy decoys to trick opponents or hide in cardboard boxes to lure them. Less kills during a mission equals a higher rank at the end of it. In this way, the battle becomes one of psychological warfare and figuring out how to outsmart your opponents. However, violence is always an option, and players who do not want to engage with the more strategic elements of the game can always resort to gunplay to murder foes.

Metal Gear Solid V illustrates how events of the past can etch themselves into your mind permanently and slowly drive you crazy. In that state of mind, it is not hard to eventually believe that revenge is the only way to bring about justice and find resolution.

Hideo was obsessed with long, expensive cutscenes which Konami disagreed with. They weren't interested in Kojima's cinematic ambitions. They were more concerned with the mobile and gacha market. The public got a whiff of the storm occuring within the studio when the "a Hideo Kojima Production" subheading was removed from the cover of the game. Before Kojima could complete the game, development time was cut short, causing the game to feel somewhat incomplete toward the end. Furthermore, Kojima Productions Los Angeles was renamed to Konami Los Angeles Studio.

The biggest and most painful moment in the fued came when Metal Gear Solid V won the awards for Best Action Game and Best Score/Soundtrack at the 2015 Game Awards, yet Hideo did not receive the award because he had been barred by Konami from attending the event. It was around this time that the relationship between Konami and Kojima came to an end.

Kojima post-Konami

Kojima started his own studio, Kojima Productions, and signed a deal with Sony for a video game. Death Stranding features protagonist is Sam Porter Bridges, a delivery man who is tasked with reuniting a post-apocalyptic America which has been ravaged by the ‘Death Stranding' which has caused beings from the purgatory between life and death to roam and destroy the country. This rebuilding of America must be done by establishing a ‘chiral network' that will connect people and forge the United Cities of America. To do this, Sam must travel across large swaths of desolate land, facing rebirths both literal and metaphorical. Literal rebirths take place when he is defeated by BTs (Beached Things) that can kill him. However, because Sam Bridges is a Repatriate, he is taken to the Seam, an underwater realm where he is able to swim back to his body and revive himself. Sam also experiences a metaphorical rebirth through the fact that he is afflicted with aphenphosmphobia, a condition which causes one to be averse to physical touch, emotional bonds and intimacy. Through his journey to reconnect America, he comes to see the value of human bonds, leading to his own psychic transformation.

The main gameplay loop involves players strategically loading Sam with cargo (paying attention to weight and how cargo arrangement affects his centre of gravity). The player must then have Sam trek a harsh, uneven terrain that features natural elements wind, rain and snow that can have Sam toppling over and damaging his cargo. Because of this, players must pay attention to factors such as momentum, inertia, stamina and weight distribution that may cause Sam to fall. These attempts at realism serve to turn the game into a hiking simulator, allowing players to role-play as pilgrims. Players also have control of Sam during his moments of rebirth and guide him towards his body when he is sent to the Seam.

Hideo Kojima has stated that he intended for Death Stranding to elicit a transformation within players. In an interview with Time magazine, Kojima-san spoke about his own struggles with loneliness and stated that “there are so many people who play games feeling like that, like they don't belong in this society”. However, the game shows players that they are not truly alone and that connections with others are possible. This is due to the collaborative nature of the game enabled by online features. Although players cannot see other players, they share the game world with one another and interact with structures others have built. For example, when multiple players have walked the same route, footpaths will eventually appear which both guide other players and demonstrate that they are not alone. Larger structures such as bridges and roads are collectively built with players from around the world contributing by donating raw materials. By seeing the contributions other players make, as Kojima-san states, “you won't feel alone anymore”. This shift from feeling isolated to feeling connected represents a transformation within players. As the interviewee writes, Kojima-san is “hopeful that players come away from Death Stranding feeling renewed. ‘I want players to think about these things and have the energy to live on the next day,' he says”.

Conclusion

Is he a genius or a goof? It's hard to tell with most eccentrics. At the end of the day, Kojima has a legendary career and some can say he outgrew Konami, a business that lost more than it gained through parting with Kojima. Let this be inspiration to you.

Bye!

1. What is fueling this bull market

As far as for influence in the S&P 500, the stock markets and risky assets in the US there's no international factors that exist but for war. If war kicks in, as we've seen with Ukraine in terms of its impact on oil, oil price and various other things, if China gets scary in terms of Taiwan, yeah, it might have an impact (negligible).

But that's more of a function of the fiscal changes that the US has to put on its books in response to the national defense. But as far as any sort of monetary change, they just don't exist. You could actually say that if you identify that there's such a thing as a global liquidity, that's a spurious correlation.

If you search hard enough, you can find indexes after the fact, even after the fact might be five minutes. But after the fact, you can get all sorts of neat indexes, like what's the coffee price influence on steelmaking in the United States? Everything comes in and out.

But the thing is, is what's the Federal Reserve up to in terms of its actual cash flow? There's no such a thing as a fed induced liquidity (no matter what wingcucks on either end of the political spectrum neolibs vs AnCaps tell you). The Fed and if you just deal with just the United States, the Fed, not since World War II (and they didn't even do it during this COVID period), has actually put money into the country.”

Regarding what they have put in, they're mostly a very small trim tab, which because of the law that divides mandatory discretionary spend from Congress does have influence. They can tighten, they can ease, but it's a small fraction of what the actual innate US economy is doing

Now, if Congress, like the Soviet Politburo, is tied up in a five-year forward plan of what they can spend and not spend, you can have some forward look in terms of what that's going to be, then yeah, the Fed matters.”

They can have an influence. Volcker proved it with what he did, but by the way, that's the only time the Fed's ever proven that they can handle inflation More on that below). They thereafter acted like a trim tab, where they just did a very small amount of tightening or easing, which influenced the market that gave the forward expectations thesis, that's the New Keynesian thesis, which has actually just gotten out of hand totally, which is that the forward expectations of what the Fed's going to do is all that counts.

It's the federal government's bank is what the Fed is. It was never a policy maker. What's happened is that given what happened with the GFC and the Fed moved to a completely, radically new way of operating, which is called Neo-Wixel-Woodford, or whatever you might want to call it, and there's a lot of material that started with Woodford's 2012 presentation at Jackson Hole, where the Fed just shifted to forward markets. (Attached - Michael Woodford's paper on Forward Guidance, presented at the Kansas City Fed Meet, 2012 in Jackson Hole. Read it if you want; I glossed over and rolled my eyes so many times within the first 10 pages I have no interest in going through the whole thing: https://www.kansascityfed.org/Jackson%20Hole/documents/6930/Woodford_JH2012.pdf ).

They can just set down the framing of what they can do. And that's supposed to be monetary policy. Well, that, from any rational point of view, means that the Fed has just given up and left the play field.

That, especially when there's an exogenous shock like COVID looming over and the Fed's not evolved, signals what their power truly is. They're always just a small trip tap, so if they actually expect that forward expectation management is all they have to do, well, sooner or later, people start to poke at it. And then more and more poke at it, and they say, okay, things are great two years from now or a year from now.

Yet sentiment matters, and the Fed is the principal definer of sentiment right now. And last week (after the markets held steady even after rates were not cut and there was an indication that it might even go up) was the start of the end of that grip on the market. It was almost like a near panic among Fixed Income hustle and bustle cels.

Yet everything the Fed did was clearly orchestrated. Everyone had like six talking points in front of them before they go out. There is no independence with all the FOMC and the regional Fed governors.

Unless there's like a two to three trillion dollar tightening that comes from, and at this point, only Congress can deliver that, the stock market has only one way to go. Now, it might be that the nominal growth might be inflationary, it might not, but the stock market is going to continue to go up.

2. But what is the Fed then?

What happened in the 70s, this is the fundamental object lesson of monetary policy is every time there was the slightest hint that the economy could be turning down, the Fed lowered rates and then inflation came back up and then they increased rates. And the issue is when the Fed doesn't look like it's resolute on inflation, inflation doesn't come back to where it was before, it comes to higher than it was before, which means that every time to fight it, you've got to take rates even higher, which means that the damage you do to the economy is even more. And so letting it, expectations spiral out of control, I think is just a very risky thing for the economy.

And that's not some theoretical model. People actually lived through in the 70s. Volcker buck broke the economy under Carter and Ford but neither of the trio get the recognition they deserve. 😞

The overall story that inflation is moderating is still the right story. But the not dumb people have long been of the view that inflation has been, and will be more stubborn to come back to 2% than everyone would like. And in particular, in the last half of last year, part of the reason the numbers came back so nicely was that goods turned deflationary and that offset still higher than normal levels of inflation on services and shelter.

Now, in the 2000s, there was healthcare inflation that was quite significant and much more than it was in the 90s. But goods price deflation came down. So the basket does shift and it's fine if it shifts, it just needs to get to 2% overall. Frick it, we ballin on averages, cuz.

And so that makes policy pretty straightforward with today's world, which is, you have restrictive rates and you want to be restrictive and bring inflation down.

Thus there would also seem to be a disconnect between a certain number of Fed officials who will say policy is restrictive versus looking at something like that financial conditions index, or even the amount of refinancing being undertaken by like the corporate bond market or the loan market recently. So there are many financial conditions indices. Some of them show looser than others. As it should. It's miscalculation and hand waving from them, it's almost a schizophrenia inducing cognitive dissonance among ABS/MBS and bond traders. They have no clue wtf is going on and how to interpret yield curves anymore.

3. WTF is a housing market bubble (Section only for zoomers and below 60 IQ) !r-slurs

But how much a restrictive policy today restrain the housing supply of tomorrow; whether it's like a multifamily house, where there has been recent data that new multifamily development has really fallen off quite a bit. And in theory, that means housing becoming more scarce in 2026

And when fed started raising rates, the country was in the middle of as frothy a period in the housing market as it could have gotten. On an average, 12 bids per house. Houses going for $40,000 over listed price.

As of late, single family starts are quite strong and much stronger than normal in this cycle, in part because I think availability of existing homes has been so low. And multifamily starts have come down a bunch, but that was from a very, very high peak.

And so they're not that far off today where they were before the pandemic.

If the economy continues to be as robust it is with rates where they are, that'll tell you something. (Spoiler - Housing will not come down)

A. Productivity would be a very simple way to explain the change. A higher productivity economy is a higher trend growth economy, which would do it. Something something solow model or sumthn.

But coming back to inflation. Why is it set around 2% by the Fed?

First: IDK.

Second: It has worked for 30 years

Third: It's a good number to measure deflation

A good example would be encyclopedias. I used to buy encyclopedias, so did you. (Pre 2000s born). No one buys an encyclopedia today. It's on your phone. And so it's out of the index. And so it's gone from being whatever it's price was, say $399 to zero. That's deflation, but it's out of the index. And so speaking more about tech, actually, you're not buying a camera anymore or film. It's taken a set of things out of the index, deflationary.”

If you set a target at zero and you don't hit it exactly, you're in deflationary territory. And deflation is where everything tomorrow costs less than it does today. So the incentive to buy today goes down, which means an economy tends to stagnate.

Really the major tool the Fed has is credibility.

Tl;dr - DUMBFRICKS STOP LOOKING AT THE FED NEWS AND RATES TO REBALANCE YOUR PORTFOLIO

!metashit !math

Battlefield Earth (2000) is the infamous Scientology propaganda film commissioned by John Travolta. It is considered one of the worst moves ever made, but I'd never seen it before yesterday.

It is now one of my favourite films.

Literally everthing about this movie is hillariously bad. The sheer incompetence is awe-inspiring and I didn't want it to end.

Story & Writing

In Battlefield Earth, a species of 10-foot tall aliens called Psychlos (seriously) run a mining colony on Earth after conquering the planet a thousand years ago after a war lasting just nine minutes. Humans are now reduced to stone-age tribes in irradiated wastelands, or slaves of alien masters.

I can't really say much more except it makes no sense. The Psychlos believe "man-animals" are too stupid to mine for gold, but they already employ humans as a labour force in their city.

Also, how the heck did illiterate tribesmen learn to fly Harrier attack jets in seven days without electricity or fuel?

The film is filled with the most ham-fisted exposition I've ever heard. As an audience-member, can you understand what blackmail is? Yes? Too bad! We're going to tell you anyway in 90 additional seconds of dialogue!

The Acting

John Travolta stars the scheming Psychlo security chief named Terl (seriously), trying to earn a transfer off the planet. His nemesis is the human Johnny Goodboy (seriously), played by a wooden Barry Pepper, who must lead humans to freedom.

Travolta's (and everyone else's) performance is so far over the top, he can't see all the way down. He isn't chewing the scenery, he is engorging himself upon it. Hense my favourite line in any movie anywhere:

If you ever wanted to see John Travolta in dreadlocks and a codpiece shooting the legs off a cow, this is the film for you.

Even Forest Whitacker, who's acting talent is undeniable, is wasted with nothing to do except deliver terrible dialogue.

Cinematography

A "Dutch angle" is a filming technique where the camera is tilted off the horizon to portray a scene of uneasiness or tension.

Literally the entire film is shot in this way. It looks like the DP had a stroke.

Also, there are loads of corny slo-mo shots, an over-use of wipe transitions, and most scenes are shot with an ugly, sickly purple filter.

Pacing

Battlefield Earth is all over the place. Fast-paced action set pieces are inter-cut with corny slo-mo. Thematically important scenes are not allowed to breathe, but are immediately followed by more exposition or John Travolta overacting.

Special Effects

Honestly, for 2000, the special effects aren't half bad. It all looks ugly as sin, of course. But I think this was a deliberate choice rather than technical negligence.

Summary

This film is worse than I ever thought possible and lives up to its reputation. But it's so bad, it became a joy to watch. I found myself laughing many times at the sheer absurd awfulness of this movie.

If you haven't seen Battlefield Earth, I thoroughly recommend it. I love this movie.

Avery, 26, Austin, TX

Career:

• 44k at some car company "building cars"

  • paid hourly, thinks it's fairly stable 40 hours a week - 10 hours a day 4 days a week, sometimes 11 or 12

Personal Life:

• Wasn't her first choice to move to Austin, she moved here because her friend already works at the car company

• 800ish rent

• Most of this section got lumped into financials

Financials:

• Checking Account

  • Overdrafts

• "I live above my means"

• Credit Card 1 ($369) timestamp

  • Paid $45 on it

  • Made $116 in purchases

  • $10 in interest added

  • She tries to explain why she hasn't paid if off - she divides her payments between her paychecks???

    • Mentions at least 5 other credit cards

• Credit Card 2 ($450) timestamp

  • Disney Rewards Card

  • Minimum payment $40

  • because she used to go to Disney but hasn't for a very long time

  • Sally Beauty $50 purchase "on a whim"

  • Also some eating out

• Credit Card 3 (2051) timestamp

  • $73 minimum payment

  • $53 interest charged

  • $30 in new purchases

    • "I needed an outfit for a concert"

    • Actually she went to Taco Bell and a Boba Tea place

  • "I'm still making my payments, that's all that matters"

  • Mentions that she will be going to see a couple more concerts. 21 Pilots and a band whose name I can't make out

  • Claims the food purchases are justified

  • Some weird explanation about how she couldn't use her card to get a protein bar and water so she went to get taco bell instead? (I assume she means the vendor didn't have a card reader?)

• Credit Card 4 ($492) (Walmart) timestamp

  • 28 minimum monthly payment

  • No new purchases on this one?

  • She usually uses it but didn't this time?

• Credit Card 5 ($5'004) (Discover) timestamp

  • She bought a computer on there?

  • Minimum payment $125

  • Interest $104

  • She doesn't really understand how interest works and has been trying to pay slightly more than minimum on all her debts? timestamp

• Credit Card 6 ($136) (Hot Topic) timestamp

  • There's a $3 fee on it? "What do you mean fee"

  • $30 minimum monthly payment

• Student Loans timestamp

  • Something about her mother taking out student loans too on her behalf and she's paying for those as well? I didn't really understand this one

    • her mom's loan is on deferment but she's still paying it while on deferment (she really doesn't understand how interest rates work)

    • Later clarified that her mother used her brother's credit to take these loans out? He knew and approved it

  • Some talk about family situation, nothing super interesting she mentions that she likes to give expensive gifts, sees that as a need not a want

  • Didn't catch how much she's paying off for the mother but she herself has $5'162

    • Was paying it off while in school - went to school for theater, got degree

  • Going to go back to school for "advanced manufacturing" - her job is covering it? Community college (ACC)

• Caleb stimming timestamp

• "So what do you do when you are low on money on your checking account but only have your credit card to survive?" timestamp

• Car (Toyota Camry) (31'972 balance) timestamp

  • $650 monthly payment

  • Storytime - weird ex-boyfriend story

  • Purchased March 2023

  • 6 year agreement

  • She thinks a 9% interest

  • Scratched on the side, damage to the windshield

    • Heat damage on the windshield? Apparently you want to roll windows down when it's very hot?

  • valued at maybe 21'000

• Income 3617 timestamp

  • "I've never really checked my finances to be honest with you"

• Checking Account timestamp

  • Highlights a nintendo charge, some eating out, google play, playstation network

  • 5 overdraft charges in a row

  • She Klarna'd some tickets and a $100 Back to The Future Lego set

• Other people borrow money from her??? timestamp

  • Her mother borrows money from her sometimes about $100? Not every month? Just rarely???

  • She overdrafts

  • "That's only once"

    • "No"

• Funny drama confrontation about her future in society timestamp

• Confrontation over phone finances timestamp

Finances Pie Chart timestamp

“You'll be alright. Just stop squirming honey, lay still,” Orpah said.

Samson lay on his back on the hot rocks beside the rugged rock path of Sonder Mountain. The sun was flaming intensely, laying a blanket of heavy heat over them. His leg was bent awkwardly, unnaturally, so much so that a lick of the white of his bone could be seen through his shin.

“Calm down honey,” Orpah soothed him, leaning the water flask into his mouth.

The yelling had stopped. Samson had screamed and yelled in pain until his vocal cords were bloody. It was obvious that there was no one else on the path, and with nighttime fast approaching, unlikely it was that the situation would flip. Orpah took off her top, leaving her in just her skimpy white vest, before soaking it in water and laying it over Samson's forehead. The sky was a deep shade of orange. It would have been quite beautiful to look at if the situation was different, less dire perhaps. Orpah knew she would be able to find help at the bottom of Sonder Mountain. But that was easily a three-hour hike, and with night looming over them, she couldn't risk leaving Samson at the mercy of the coyotes. Not while his leg dripped blood and he dipped in out of consciousness, driven hysterical from pain. So she remained at his side, lovingly combing her fingers through his long hair as she tended to his needs.

“They'll notice we aren't there at dinner and come out looking for us. I'll start a small fire to make us a tad more visible,” Orpah said.

Samson gritted some form of acknowledgment through his gritted teeth. His face was almost as pale as his knuckles. Pain like this, it was nothing he ever felt before. It had him contemplating death, wondering whether a life with this amount of agony was one worth cherishing, worth fighting for. Was death not void of all such suffering? But he held on to life, if only for Orpah and her beautiful face, the love she evoked within him, and the tenderness of her touch.

“Go… find… help,” Samson managed to utter without opening his jaw.

Orpah looked up at him.

“Light the fire… and go find help… it'll keep the… coyotes away,” Samson explained.

“Are you sure?” Orpah asked.

Samson nodded. His leg had gone numb from the pain. The feeling of being stabbed over and over again was so consistent it had become a non-factor, like when noise is so ceaseless it becomes soothing or when you wear your glasses for so long you forget they're on. The first few stars twinkled in the sky which was slowly turning from orange to black. Orpah reached into her backpack and pulled out a box of long matchsticks. The trail was mostly stones and sand, but Orpah managed to gather enough sticks to start a sizeable flame. She cordoned it off with a few rocks, kissed Samson on the forehead, and headed down the trail.

“I'll be back as fast as I can,” Orpah said.

The smoke from the flame was serpent-like, the wisps slithering sinisterly. Every moment remaining in consciousness was a conscientious effort. He was glad for the flame. The air had suddenly gone from sweltering to chilly which only made the pain worse. Suddenly he felt the ground shake. He wasn't sure at first; it was as subtle as can be. But it grew and grew until it was an undeniable tremor, as if a giant was walking in the vicinity. Samson didn't have to wonder too much before the source made itself known. A kangaroo hopped out from behind a rock. It was purple and had a flame on the tip of its tail.

“What the everloving frick are you?” Samson said aloud in fear, “what in the frick is that?”

The kangaroo looked at him, tilted its head, and smiled. About twenty crabs crawled out its pouch and scattered all over. The kangaroo stretched in relief. Samson tried to crawl away but failed. The kangaroo was still towering over him.

“I done carried them from Jupiter. Nasty lil buggers, those claws are nothing to be ignorin',” the kangaroo said in a raspy voice.

“What the actual frick is going on?” was all Samson could manage.

“S'pose now is a good a time as any for an explanation. My name is, well I aint got a name. No need for those on the dimensional plane I'm from. I've taken this form because your puny mind would never understand my true form,” it continued raspily.

Samson blinked hard twice. He was convinced this was some kind of hallucination, his mind playing tricks on him, insanity brought on by dehydration and deliria.

“I am the bringer of the gift of death. You can do nothing to earn it, nothing to lose it but like any other gift, you may decline it,” the kangaroo continued, but this time in a different voice like a lady.

“How do I know you're real?” Samson managed to ask.

The kangaroo paused for a while, thought, and then answered.

“On the sixteenth of December your wife Orpah was asleep and you wanted a sandwich. You were too lazy to make it yourself so you opened a jar of Nutella and ate directly from it, you ate it all Samson, all. You got sick the next day and denied eating it. You told Orpah that from the bottom of your heart you didn't do it. But you did,” the kangaroo said in a different voice yet again.

It was as though the kangaroo was having great fun altering its voice each time. Perhaps more out of embarrassment than anything else Samson admitted to himself that indeed the kangaroo was not a figment of his imagination. The entire situation fell into the category of ‘too strange to be fiction'.

“So… am I dead?” Samson asked tentatively.

“Only if you want to be,” the kangaroo replied casually.

Samson lowered his eyebrow, his forehead creased. He was flummoxed.

“Death is a gift, as I have said. You can accept it or reject it,” the kangaroo explained.

He held his long tail in his hand, swinging it around casually.

“And, uhm, if I choose death? What would happen, I'm not saying that's what I want, but if I did choose death, what would happen next?” Samson asked, making very sure to emphasise that he wasn't asking for death.

“I don't know. I've never died. I'm only the collector of souls. I can tell what will happen if you choose life though,” the kangaroo said.

Samson shrugged.

“Oh c'mon, the same old,” said the kangaroo, “pain, misery, discontent, disappointment. Amidst it all a few moments of love and happiness. I've seen a lot of lives in my job. No matter where you are, how you live, it's always the same. Just a different variety of it.”

Samson paused for a while. He had forgotten about his broken leg, something that tends to happen when you have a kangaroo from the realm of death before you. A sly thought crept in his mind.

“You said that death is a gift, right?” Samson queried.

“Indeed.”

“Then, like any other gift, I could pass it on, couldn't I?”

“I s'pose.”

“Then I give my gift to Orpah,” Samson said resolutely.

The kangaroo looked at him, vexed.

“Your own wife? Well that's certainly a new one,” the kangaroo said.

“If death truly is a gift, I would not want my last action to be something as selfish as running away from the strife of the world. If my wife takes it, I will know she loved death more than I. If she rejects the gift, then this will be a life worth living. I don't know, it makes sense in my head,” explained Samson.

“Very well then.”

And the kangaroo stuck its purple hands out, waved them and uttered a magical spell. The sky lit up in a million colours. And then the kangaroo was gone. Samson lay there in the darkness of the night with only the flickering of the flames as his company. No one came until morning when the mountain ranger came around for his morning route. In a state of semi-consciousness, all Samson remembered was being lifted up and put into the back of a pickup truck. He swung in and out of consciousness and found himself on a soft bed, his leg raised in a cast in some sort of log cabin. The ranger and Orpah stood over him.

“He almost died,” he heard the ranger say.

“Oh my poor honey,” Orpah said, “I'm so grateful you saved him. How can I ever show my gratitude?”

“Well there is one way,” he heard the ranger say smugly.

A bit of whispering and a bit of giggling and Samson heard the sound of something oddly similar to the clank of a metal belt buckle hitting the ground. They left the room.

Samson wanted his gift back.

Admittedly, she is one my favourite feminists and scholars so I do have a soft spot for her even I don't agree with all her arguments. Catharine is a feminist law professor whose work has focused on civil rights. Her most influential work has been in the field of sexual harassment and has had a considerable impact on laws regarding sexual harassment in the workplace and in education. Consequently, her book titled Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of S*x Discrimination, published in 1978, is one of the most academically cited American legal texts.

Before we begin, I should provide a few definitions beforehand. Erotica is a broad term that covers a host of erotic art including nude photography, erotic literature and many other mediums each with their own conventions and degrees of explicitness. MacKinnon defines pornography as a subcategory of erotica which serves to subordinate women. To explain it more clearly, here is MacKinnon speaking for herself.

For her, pornography is an enactment of male sexual dominance over women. What should be noted about her definition, as Encyclopaedia Britannica points out, is that “The distinction between pornography (illicit and condemned material) and erotica (which is broadly tolerated) is largely subjective and reflects changing community standards”

Typically, anti-pornography stances are based on religious objections and moral disgust at sexual behaviour individuals find personally offensive. However, MacKinnon takes a much different route, one I consider worthy of consideration even if I don't entirely agree with it. One of the biggest influences of MacKinnon's views has to do with her experiences she's had legally representing women who have been harmed while working in the porn industry. One of the most famous examples of this is Susan Boreman who in 1972, starred in the pornographic film Deep Throat under the pseudonym Linda Lovelace. The film became one of the highest grossing x-rated films at the time. However, years later Susan Boreman came forward with allegations that the director, Chuck Traynor, has abused her during filming. Furthermore, she claimed that she was forced to do several scenes against her will, with Chuck standing with an M16 rifle pointed at her just off camera. Furthermore, she claims that in the film, bruises from her abuse could be seen. Such cases have caused MacKinnon to state that pornography differs from other sources of media in that what is depicted may be fantasy, but it requires actual women to be subjected to the acts being seen. In other words, porn is done to women. As MacKinnon writes: “with pornography, men masturbate to women being exposed, humiliated, violated, degraded, mutilated, dismembered, bound, gagged, tortured, and killed. In the visual materials, they experience this being done by watching it being done.” She continues by writing “As an initial matter, it should be observed that it is the pornography industry, not the ideas in the materials, that forces, threatens, blackmails, pressures, tricks, and cajoles women into s*x for pictures. In pornography, women are gang r*ped so they can be filmed. They are not gang r*ped by the idea of a gang r*pe. It is for pornography, and not by the ideas in it, that women are hurt and penetrated, tied and gagged, undressed and genitally spread and sprayed with lacquer and water so s*x pictures can be made.” MacKinnon also makes that claim, without providing a source, that “all pornography is made under conditions of inequality based on s*x, overwhelmingly by poor, desperate, homeless, pimped women who were sexually abused as children”.

Although pornography is a subcategory of prostitution, the kind of widespread research Farley provides from prostitution isn't available for pornography. Thus, we cannot be sure that MacKinnon is talking about token cases, or whether she is describing what the majority of what the industry does. Consequently, one can find numerous cases of women within the industry speaking both positively and negatively about pornography. For the sake of fair representation, I shall display two camps from within the industry talking about their industry.

On the negative side, a porn actress has recently accused a popular porn production company of sexual assault and abuse during one of her shoots. She claims she was choked, slapped and thrown against a wall until she bled. In 2015, several porn actresses came forth with numerous claims that James Deen had r*ped and sexually assaulted them during filming. There are also testimonials from ex pornstars who document several cases of humiliation and abuse on porn sets. However, for every negative story, there are several positive cases of women who claim they feel empowered by porn and find it to be a fun occupation. It is for these reasons that I hesitate to agree with MacKinnon summaries of the entire industry. There simply needs to be more research. If one is interested in the topic, I would strongly suggest the documentary ‘Hot Girls Wanted' produced by Rashida Jones which offers a relatively objective and neutral look into the porn industry.

So, what I do wish to focus on with regards to her anti-porn arguments lie with her discussions of pornography as free-speech. According to MacKinnon, pornography, at least in the United States is protected as free speech. Because of this, there is a belief that all free speech should be protected lest we fall victim to tyranny. She sums up the argument as such:

“The evil to be avoided is government restricting ideas because it disagrees with the content of their political point of view. The terrain of struggle is the mind; the dynamic at work is intellectual persuasion; the risk is that marginal, powerless, and relatively voiceless dissenters, with ideas we will never hear, will be crushed by governmental power. This has become the "speech you hate" test: the more you disagree with content, the more important it becomes to protect it. You can tell you are being principled by the degree to which you abhor what you allow. The worse the speech protected, the more principled the result. There is a faith that truth will prevail if left alone, often expressed in an openly competitive laissez-faire model taken from bourgeois economics and applied to the expressive marketplace: the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor. The marketplace becomes the battlefield when we are assured that truth will prevail”

MacKinnon problematizes this by arguing that although free speech exists, not everyone has equal amounts of free speech. Furthermore, the privileged have louder free speech or ‘more' free speech. Thus, in the case of pornography, subordinated women's bodies become the free-speech of porn producers (almost always male of course). Secondly, she questions why some forms of speech are banned when they target marginalized groups yet pornography does the same thing. In other words, hanging a noose in front of black person's lawn or burning a cross are all forms of free speech which conveys ideas. So is sticking a ‘whites only' sign in front of a store. However, these are regarded as prohibited forms of speech using a kind of rationale that isn't extended to pornography. MacKinnon argues that the free speech of pornography sends the message that women are to be subordinated. She writes “at stake in constructing pornography as "speech" is gaining constitutional protection for doing what pornography does: subordinating women through s*x.” MacKinnon argues that pornography, if it is speech, is a kind of speech (much like racism) that is harmful to society. She writes “Social inequality is substantially created and enforced-that is, done-through words and images.” Thus, by displaying women in subordinated positions, pornography conveys the message in society that women are second-class citizens that exist for the sexual pleasure of men. Now, for this claim, MacKinnon may in fact have evidence on her side. A study by Maree Crabbe which looked at the most popular porn found that 88% of it depicted physical aggression. Of this 88%, 94% of physical aggression was directed towards women. So what message does such ‘free speech' convey? According to MacKinnon, “the message of these materials, and there is one, as there is to all conscious activity, is ‘get her,'”.

The second aspect of MacKinnon's arguments which I wish to discuss concern the effects of pornography on society. MacKinnon claims “Pornography makes the world a pornographic place through its making and use, establishing what women are said to exist as, are seen as, are treated as, constructing the social reality of what a woman is and can be in terms of what can be done to her, and what a man is in terms of doing it.”

Now, there is an interesting phenomenon I want to discuss. When the influences of media on society are brought up, there is often a pushback. The argument is typically as such: ‘I know how to separate fantasy from reality, thus it is ridiculous to claim that media makes people do things'. On the surface, the argument is true. In most cases, adults can distinguish fiction from real life and it is also true that one cannot hold media accountable for the actions that they commit. However, within this there is an often overlooked fact that media doesn't outright control so much as it surreptitiously influences and, furthermore, individuals who believe that they are immune to this are often most at risk. It is often claimed that video games, movies etc don't contribute to violence. However, when one does even the most cursory research, we find that the complete opposite is true. There is in fact an almost unanimous agreement among experts that what we consume affects our beliefs and actions. If this were not the case, a multi-billion dollar advertising industry would not exist and propaganda would not be the dangerous weapon it is. In an article by Craig Anderson et al we learn that:

“Research on violent television and films, video games, and music reveals unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behaviour in both immediate and long-term contexts

This isn't limited to violence. Another study by Todd Heatherton et al found that:

• Compared to adolescents with low exposure to smoking in movies, those with high exposure are about three times as likely to try smoking or become smokers.

Yet many laymen still believe that media doesn't influence people. To explain this phenomenon in the face of an unquestionable scientific consensus, Brad Bushman et al posits that

• One reason is people think the media have a much stronger effect on others than on themselves—called the third person effect (Davison, 1983)

In other words, everyone thinks that they are the exception. More than just media having an impact on society, there is evidence that pornography itself has permeated society. According to Maree Crabbe, among “13–16 year olds in Australian schools, 93 per cent of males and 62 per cent of females had seen pornography online”. For many of these young children, porn will serve as one of the only sources of s*x-ed, which is a frightening thought. Maree writes, “porn has become a central mediator of young people's sexual understandings and experiences. Young people are exposed to porn at unprecedented rates. Many young people discover porn before they've encountered s*x. They are seeing it more frequently, through more media, and what they are seeing is harder and more aggressive. Young people are living in an era of new sexual expectations, acceptance and practices […] There is evidence that many young people are enacting porn scripts.”. Part of the issue is that porn catalogues women according to their race and body parts – in other words, this is peak objectification where women are merely the sum of their parts. This is problematic because, as MacKinnon points out “Sexual objectification is the primary process of the subjection of women”. She also adds that this objectification is far from different to the worker alienation described within Marxist theory.

Now if porn does create a misogynistic society, an opposition to pornography becomes a little more of a reasonable idea. For instance, oppositions to confederate statues in USA are often based on the grounds that the existence of these statues contribute to creating a society where African Americans are degraded every time they are forced to walk past them. In fact, similar arguments are made in South Africa regarding colonial statues. In other words, what these statues say is conducive to a white supremacist society. Could those same arguments be transferred to pornography? Does the proliferation of pornography create a male supremacist society? This is a very difficult question and, of the four horsewomen, I'd argue that MacKinnon poses some of the most troublesome ideas to wrap our heads around.

One criticism of MacKinnon and her theory is that it falsely categorizes r*pe as s*x. In other words, porn depicts s*x and thus could have nothing to do with r*pe. This is a rehashing of the “r*pe is about power” mantra. MacKinnon outlines these criticisms by writing that “some feminists have encouraged and participated in this type of analysis by conceiving r*pe as violence not s*x”. The problem with this, as MacKinnon points out, is that it fails to account for the fact that for some men, the force and violence in r*pe is arousing and sexually satisfying. Sexual sadists do exist. A huge deal of criticism towards MacKinnon has also come from Judith Butler. Summing up MacKinnon's views, in Excitable Speech, Butler writes: “In Only Words (1993) pornography ought to be construed as a kind of ‘wound' according to MacKinnon, because it proclaims and effects the subordinated status of women.” Butler's problem with this is that by insisting that pornography is subordinating, it limits the ability to rearticulate the hate speech as something that isn't subordinating. As Moya Lloyd summarises, “Dworkin, MacKinnon and Helms are, for Butler, actively and somewhat ironically engaged in rearticulating and reinvigorating the very discourses they seek to repudiate” (114-5). Thus, Butler argues that “keeping such terms unsaid and unsayable can also work to lock them in place, preserving their power to injure”. If one is familiar with Butler's work, it becomes clear that Butler very much favours rearticulation, that is, disrupting the relationship between signifiers and signifieds. Now, broadly speaking, I agree with Butler's theory. However, I feel as though examples of successful rearticulation of hate speech are few and far between. Language and symbols change over time, but hate speech seems to be very resistant to change. Hate speech such as BIPOC and queer are said to be rearticulated and have been used in different contexts, yet it's plainly obvious that after all these years they still carry their injurious power. In terms of pornography, there have been attempts to rearticulate it. Some feminists have championed feminist pornography which features female directors, sets to depict genuine female sexual pleasure and seeks to subverts the harmful tropes of traditional pornography. Furthermore, with the proliferation of webcams, amateur pornography which is not dependent on large corporations has been allowed to flourish, enabling a variety of pornography which strays from heteronormative and subordinating depictions of women.

So, in closing, I'd like to ask the rest of you: In light of everything I've said, considering the fact that 84% of pornography depicts physical aggression (the vast majority of it directed towards women) does pornography create a pornified society? Is pornography, as it exists today, the proliferation of hate speech? Can pornography be rehabilitated to promote a healthier kind of sexuality?

For further reading, I would suggest MacKinnon's text Only Words as well as her excellent article titled “Feminism, Marxism, Method and the State” which, for me at least, has offered one of the most definitive outlinings of the purpose of feminism and what its methodology for action should be. It also brings up my discomfort regarding the relationship between capitalism and feminism.