Introduction

There are some things that aren't inherently associated with a geographical location (regardless of its size) in real life, but it somehow seems clear to everyone that a certain thing easily belongs to country X or Y. 100Gecs, for example, are uniquely American. So is the Halo series and all its adjacent content. You'd assume it also holds true for Call of Duty - as this gaming franchise is even more patriotic than watching the entirety of the legendary military parade on the fourth of July, but that's not true. Also, I have no idea what people actually do outside of shooting some fireworks and jumping gleefully like you just won a close round of team death match on the fourth. I also don't really care. Never mind, the more important thing is that the issue at stake in this post is uniquely European, Irrespective of any particular viewpoint and it's not Counterstrike. Because we are talking about Trackmania - and more importantly a funny dramatic happening involving two YouTubers/Streamers.

Context

In case you are unaware, Trackmania is a series of racing games made by Nadeo (French video game developer) and published by Ubisoft. Trackmania is known for its emphasis on user-generated content and fast-paced, arcade-style gameplay. The series allows players to create and share custom tracks, fostering a vibrant community. The core gameplay involves time trials and multiplayer races on intricate and challenging tracks. There's a plethora of different styles played on a plethora of maps using a plethora of different rules. Heck, there's more content in the current active version of the series - aptly named just Trackmania - than other long-lasting franchises have in total and while the game looks easy and simple it's brutally hard and unforgiving and some people claim you cannot truly master all of it. There are, in typical eurojank fashion, a lot of bugs in the game that have been uplifted into faetures and you're supposed to know how to abuse some of them. Another special thing is that Trackmania has far more people watching than playing. You can easily find videos on YouTube with several million views, while the number of simultaneous players never actually leaves the five-digit range at its peak, and it usually has a hard time even hitting those five-digits and mostly are watching one guy in particular - namely Wirtual:

Wirtual

Perhaps the most famous content creator for Trackmania is the 20-something year-old Norwegian Wirtual, who has successfully entertained millions of viewers with his documentaries about " brilliant" and "interesting" events in the cosmos.

Wirtual is part of the holy trifecta of soytubers that have a huge grip on their particular niche: GothamChess has chess, Wendigoon has something, and Wirtual pretty much owns Trackmania. There isn't anyone remotely close to his numbers ... and that's a bad thing because Wirtual isn't exactly the saint he pretends to be and if you spent fifteen minutes watching him you can easily tell that his usual attitude is a charade and he's genuinely a smug holier-than-thou butthole. However, this was not always the case and you can literally pinpoint the moment when he was broken forever. We are talking about the biggest cheating scandal in the history of Trackmania here, namely involving his close friend Riolu.

Riolu

Burim "riolu" Fejza is a """German"""" player who previously played for Nordavind. However, him and I have one thing in common: We are both professional racists. He was known as the only Albanian living in the West who didn't commit a crime. Which - of course - doesn't compute. It turned out that Riolu cheated, and not just once or twice but rather over an embarrassingly long time without getting caught:

Link to Video

On the 23rd of May 2021, Wirtual and donadigo published a report accusing Riolu of cheating through running the game in slow-motion during offline world record attempts. The report found that many runs across more than nine years and various Trackmania titles were likely cheated. Riolu denied these accusations in a stream immediately prior to the release of the report. However, he has since gone completely silent, leaving his social media, Twitch, and YouTube channels unaltered. Riolu has yet to comment publicly on the released report.

Ever since this happened roughly three years ago, riolu has been dead silent. Nothing on his socials, no contact to his friends, he didn't even open the game or anything. Not even a single sorry. He's just gone.

Wirtual DID NOT LIKE THIS at all. He's still talking about riolu sometimes even though the word is on pretty much on every blacklist for Trackmania because there's nothing of value to add and the slow-motion jokes stopped being funny well like five hours after the report initially came out. It's pure undistilled seething and it's honestly pathetic.

Latest Development

He recently released his latest video discussion another player called 92BOB .. and the video didn't perform at all (for his standards):

There are multiple reasons for this with the most applicable being that this is just a filler video about a literal nothingburger but in reality he used all 17 minutes of that vid to just schizopost about riolu still being active.

Link To Video

Short Summary:

• The reported player has reached #1 on the Trackmania leaderboard at an insane speed

• He achieved this by setting several records on prestigious tracks

• Trackmania is uber competitive and this can't happen to a beginner

• Cheats or hacks were excluded by Nadeo who analysed the runs and told everyone he's legit

• The common theory is that 92BOB is riolu's second account

• However, the account is from France, was created in the late '00s and follows common French internet jargon at the time (Year of Birth + Short Name)

• According to Nadeo the IP and other stuff is very different from Riolu's

This is exactly where the video should end ... BUT Wirtual didn't have enough yet. He contacted a famous black sheep in the Trackmania community who is famous for hacking, doxing, and other malicious behaviour to essentially do the same thing to 92BOB. That guy used in game messaging services, groomercord messages and other stuff to get Bob to click something which would basically dox him and if you didn't use your audience of a million subscribers, the help of your entire massive community and the help of a leet haxxor to dox someone just because you think he might be a guy you knew that cheated in a video game you haven't really lived. Anyway, here are some reactions:

Reactions

Trackmania

New Wirtual video on 92BOB - [200+ comments]

https://old.reddit.com/r/TrackMania/comments/1at7woc/new_wirtual_video_on_92bob/kqwcgfn/?context=8#thing_t1_kqwcgfn

This video is just embarrassing for the TM community honestly. It could've been 8 minutes long and just stopped at "Nadeo looked at the records and confirmed it's one person and they aren't cheating." Everything past that is just invading Bob's privacy to try to figure out who they are.

Going on an entire witch hunt to try to figure out if it's actually Riolu or not is embarrassing. It's also not "sneaky" or "clever" to send him a phishing link to try to figure out his identity, it's fricking weird and an invasion of privacy.

And the entire part where Wirtual goes "this creates a very haunting picture of him sitting in his apartment spending hours every day trying to reach rank 1 again, perhaps trying to prove something to the community, perhaps just trying to prove something to himself, as a healing project, so that he can finally leave the game behind and move on." is just cringy.

It is not a "haunting picture" for him to just be playing the game he played for so long. He is not bothering anyone and he is not cheating. If he wants to play for fun, or to have legit world records, then what is the issue? If you don't want his LEGIT TIMES to be the record then just go beat it like any other TM player.

This entire video is just "92Bob might be Riolu, but he might not be, but I think he is" and it just creates an unnecessarily sketchy reputation for someone who might not have anything to do with Riolu or the cheating scandal. 92Bob could be some random French dude who just got really good at TM and plays for fun, Wirtual literally confirmed nothing.

riolu lives rent free in this motherlover's head and it shows

this is one of the most embarrassing things i've ever seen associated with a videogame and it shows how desperate wirtual is to stir shit up for youtube clicks that he's willing to straight up make things up and threaten to violate other people's privacy

https://old.reddit.com/r/TrackMania/comments/1at7woc/new_wirtual_video_on_92bob/kqwhqaz/?context=8#thing_t1_kqwhqaz

Wirtual loves complaining how unethical it is to cheat in a video game, but he's crossing some other ones with this. You can't just try to start a witch hunt when you don't even have any proof. It's time to stop milking this drama Wirtual.

Perhaps, old wounds still hurt... Note that if you remove almost all riolu moments in this video, you will get a self sustain story about neko and other players. Such video would be a good conslusion to the drama after two years. Moreover the "moral in the end" is directly connected to these players. But wirtual mixed this story with two other topics "who is bob92" and "riolu didn't admit his mistakes" because... old wounds still hurt, I guess

https://old.reddit.com/r/TrackMania/comments/1at7woc/new_wirtual_video_on_92bob/kqvn7eh/?context=8#thing_t1_kqvn7eh

Sending a phishing link is outrageous & disgusting behaviour. I'm very disappointed Wirtual didn't condemn this action by blackq in his video. Pinning a comment saying he disagree's with it is a complete cop-out. Everyone has a right to privacy.

So long as the records aren't cheated, what does it matter? If 92bob is riolu and he doesn't want apologise or take responsibility for his actions, it's scummy tbh, but completely his own decision.

He shouldn't have his personal privacy breached over a fricking video game.

Its wild to me that Wirtual talking about sending a phishing link as the perspective of the good guy lol. Insane behavior. Id even say that the same or even worse than the cheating scandal all together lol

It is worse than the cheating scandal. Cheaters gonna cheat, it's up to Nadeo to sort that shit out, but it's just a game at the end of the day.

Trying to dox someone, even if they're in the public eye, is really fricked up.

https://old.reddit.com/r/TrackMania/comments/1at7woc/new_wirtual_video_on_92bob/kqywwph/?context=8#thing_t1_kqywwph

So Wirtual finally made his transformation from a bad person to complete garbage, congratulations. Uploading this video deserves a ban by Nadeo & legal consequences.

/r/Wirtual

There's a bunch of fighting here in these threads but it's honestly whatever. Just logging it for completion's sake.

Was the 92BOB video that bad

Concerns with the 92BOB video

End

So in the video there's this funny line unironically said by Wirtual:

"this creates a very haunting picture of him sitting in his apartment spending hours every day trying to reach rank 1 again, perhaps trying to prove something to the community, perhaps just trying to prove something to himself, as a healing project, so that he can finally leave the game behind and move on."

which a random redditor summarizes quite well:

https://old.reddit.com/r/TrackMania/comments/1at7woc/new_wirtual_video_on_92bob/kqwc8bz/?context=8#thing_t1_kqwc8bz

Nah, you don't see it

Playing trackmania for hours without pause: cringe

Playing trackmania for hours without pause BUT other people watch you doing it: based

also I'm aware this is like two weeks old

I promised I wouldn't write these for a while. However, I'm unemployed and have more time on my hands so here we go. For this post, I will explore every nook and cranny of the case so you can make your own predictions regarding the outcome of the ongoing trial.

For those not in the know, Hannah is being charged with involuntary manslaughter for the killing of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust. Why? We'll explore that in a moment after we briefly discuss precisely who Hannah is. The case is being deliberated and has been quite eventful, to the point where I'm surprised there aren't more posts here. To ensure the post remains high-quality, I'm not going to write it all in one go. Instead, I'll take breaks, proofread, and double-check all the facts. This is a particularly hard one to research because there is some misinformation floating around.

Lastly, I heard my neighbors having s*x last night and it kept me up so I'm running on no sleep. However, as I said, I'm unemployed at present so that isn't too much of an issue. It was very painful to be told that it'll be the last day at my workplace, and within the hour I had lost access to all my work-related accounts. I'm going to therapy to cope with the sudden event, and that has helped me not self-harm as a response, which is good. Nevertheless, it's hard to not feel worthless and rejected.

Losing my job has also locked me tightly into being single. Having a gf is impossible if you're broke, especially at 28 when most people are at least settling into a career. I am, as TLC would say, a scrub.

But that's okay. I'll just focus on self-improvement. I'm currently doing a course on copywriting which should hopefully help me find a new job. However, as we all know, it's so easy to lose motivation and just slip into that spiral of depression. It gets worse when you can hear your neighbours fricking and reminding you of your inadequacies and the fact that you're missing out on an experience that is a cornerstone of being a normie. I can't help but ask: "When will it be my turn to be happy and in a relationship? Is the answer truly 'never'?" I don't want that to be the case.

I'm trying to improve my writing. One thing I've noticed is that the "AI" feeling of writing comes from having sentences that begin the same way and follow a similar structure. Starting too many sentences with "however" or "I" will do this. To combat the AI-ness of my writing, I'll remain cognizant of the structure and flow to ensure it has a human element to it. This shouldn't be too hard. There are certain things AI can't do just yet, like point out the fact that Hannah's gone from a pig to a princess as she's gussied up for her trial. The change is truly dramatic.

It's an interesting thing to think about. Modern writers have to contend with AI and, in a sense, prove that they're not a robot. Every writing piece is like one of those Captcha puzzles. You have to ask yourself: "What can I do that AI can't? How do I give my writing the kind of warmth (for lack of a better term) that is absent in AI writing?".

One element that snatches that "warmth" from my writing is going hard on the benzos. Benzos aren't good for creativity. They make you write like shit and even though you feel sober, you're actually just vomiting a bunch of incorrect crap. I look back on the work I did on benzos and it's clear that it has a significantly terrible impact on my writing. I'm ashamed of it. Weed isn't like that. With or without it, the quality of my writing doesn't change. In fact, weed can be a good catalyst for new ideas, but in my case, I believe it also amplified my depression, so I bid goodbye to the holy herb.

Now that I've gotten into a Ph.D. program I also need to not frick it up again, which is surprisingly hard when you're a frick up to begin with. The last time I wasted 4 years and I have nothing to show for it. This time I want to get it right and finally acquire my darn Ph.D. If it takes me 3 years I'll be 31 when I get it! So no more benzo and ambien abuse, self-harming, doing acid, and all that crap that ruins my brain and disturbs my writing process. I need to put out my best work.

Also, I think I'm teetering on the razor edge of addiction. Currently, I feel like puking when I'm not abusing benzos, but it's not too much to handle (yet). I know it's a feeling that'll pass, so I only take the prescribed amount.

Let's go.

Who is Hannah Gutierrez-Reed?

I'll be referring to her simply as Hannah from this point onward because frick trying to spell her last name repeatedly. She was born in 1997 (officially part of the zoomer generation!) in New York. I tried to find information on her biological parents, but there seems to be nothing publicly available. What we do know is that she was raised by Thell Reed, who is known for his skills when it comes to handling guns. I'm sure you've read or heard that he's a legendary armorer (more on what that is later), but his abilities don't stop there. He has won several shooting competitions, and when it comes to flashiness with guns, it's hard to do better than Thell.

As you can see, his ability to draw guns is near-unparalleled, and if there's anyone you want around to help you when you have a firearm, Thell's your guy. He's served as an armorer in several films, including Django Unchained , Blade, and L.A. Confidential to name but a few. Again, it's hard to ascertain precisely how Thell came to be Hannah's stepfather, but we do know that he taught her about guns, making her proficient with firearms as well. Despite the incident, Hannah's not a fool when she's strapped. Far from it, she knows her way around most weapons. In an interview in GMA, Thell claims Hannah has been around guns since childhood.

Hannah studied at Northern Arizona University, graduating in 2020. Her dream was to become a cinematographer, but with her father's influence, she found herself taking the role of armorer instead. We know that she is a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, as she has a massive tattoo of him. This suggests that her love for the arts extends past film and leaks into literature.

Nobody is one-sided, however. She's also a girl who clearly likes to have fun, and there are signs that she revelled in her youth and (subjective) beauty. On her now-deleted Twitter page, she encouraged men with a findom fetish to be her "pay-pigs" and give her money. We have no indication regarding how successful she was in this endeavour. Many may argue that nobody would want to throw money at her. In my opinion, I think it was successful enough that she was already creating ways to lure even more pay-pigs into her pen. The depravity of men knows no bounds. Alas, let us not judge, for money is hard to come by, and she had found a way to earn without working. While we may argue the ethics of exploiting this fetish, that is a matter for another day.

Enough about horny men. We're here to discuss the Rust incident. This means our focus should be on Hannah and her career as an armorer. So let's start by defining what an armorer is. An armorer, also known as a weapons master is responsible for maintaining control and assuring safety with all weapons on the set of a film. It may sound weird, but this applies to "fake" weapons as well. It's also not limited to guns. Armorers are necessary for knives, swords, and all manner of human-hurters you can think of.

If a gun is involved, the armorer will typically give lessons to the cast regarding gun safety, and there will be daily safety meetings. They will check the gun to ensure there is no ammunition before handing it to the performer, and they will adequately clean the gun. The gun must be double-checked, with one safety check done in front of the performer.

The armorer's word is final, and even if a director wants to film a scene in a specific way, the armorer can veto that decision should it be deemed too dangerous. Remember, it doesn't matter if the weapon is real or made of candy - if it's on set, the armorer must treat it like it is real. Those on set testify that Hannah was lackadaisical when it came to safety. One crew member testified that there were carts left unattended with weapons and bandoliers.

For more information on the duties of an armorer, I suggest watching the testimony of a gun expert in Hannah's trial.

One last point before we move on. Hannah is a known drug user. This came out during the trial where her text messages clearly indicated that she smokes marijuana, and she also handed cocaine to someone. Judge her if you wish, but I doubt she was the only one on that set who used cocaine considering the industry.

As an aside, she named her phone "Gorilla Grip Kitty Pal".

https://x.com/theshamingofjay/status/1761098173475434947

Interlude

So there are two ways we can proceed from here. The first option is to briefly discuss the other player in the game, namely David Halls. The second option is to stick to Hannah's story and dive into discussing the movie Rust. I think having as much background knowledge as possible is best, so I hope you don't mind if I discuss Halls. I've chosen to not include a section on Alec Baldwin because he will be subject to his own trial. Furthermore, he is an untapped lolcow along with his wife who lied about her ethnicity to be BIPOC, and regularly posts cringe. There's a whole subreddit dedicated to keeping track of her antics and fake accent.

https://old.reddit.com/r/HilariaBaldwin/

Have a browse, you'll enjoy it. My point is, for now, we're sticking with Hannah's story and the current court case. Alec deserves his own thread. Whatever your views are on Hannah, I ask you to put them aside for now. You may be surprised at how much your opinion changes over time.

Completely tangentially, why would any deny the correctness of the Oxford comma? It provides so much clarification when listing items. If you have a genuine argument for why the Oxford comma should not be used, I'd like to read it because as far as I can tell it can only bring ambiguity by omitting it. There is no upside, just a big downside. It baffles me to think some full-blown professors have been studying English their whole lives and insist the Oxford comma should be left out. They're nuts!

David Halls

As a man in his fifties, David Halls has achieved more than most of us will. His career in the entertainment industry has been a lucrative one that began shortly after he completed his higher education. His first film, Grumpy Old Men (1993) had him serving as an assistant location manager. However, Halls was destined for more. In 1996 he scored the covetable position of additional second assistant director. Part of his success came from his personality. He is described by those around him as a well-do kind of person who will put pressure to achieve goals. He is goal-driven and can be one-track-minded, which turned out to be his hamartia.

It would be pointless to list all the films he's worked on - there's IMDb for that. What's important to know is that there reached a point where he was serving as the first assistant director in high-profile movies such as Bone Tomhawk, which is nothing to scoff at.

The first assistant director's job is to ensure everything goes according to schedule, which can be difficult with large projects. Things as minor as ensuring filming occurs before sundown become of utmost importance. Another day of filming means taking another bite out of the budget which is obviously undesirable. The first assistant director also serves as the web between all the divisions, ensuring communication takes place. There is also a safety aspect associated with the job, and it is the 1st AD's job to ensure safety protocols on set are established and maintained.

Overall, he seems to be a private man, as there isn't much information about him despite his achievements. He has pleaded guilty to "negligent use of a deadly weapon", earning him 6 months probation. Do you think he went the smart route, or should he have stood trial and pled his case?

Rust: The Movie

Joel Souza is a screenwriter behind titles such as Gold Squad and, hilariously, Hannah's Gold. As he admitted during his testimony in court, he had a relationship with Baldwin and they had discussed the idea of making a Western. It took a while before things aligned, but eventually, Rust was born. That is to say, Baldwin was involved with the film from its inception.

The central story of Rust involves an old man rescuing his son who is being sentenced to hang for a murder he did not commit. Though he saves his son, they are now fugitives on the run from the law. The film was set to have a relatively small budget of $8 million and it was expected that Baldwin's influence would be a drawing factor for the film. Furthermore, filming would take place in New Mexico which is a popular destination for filming. Though it had a small crew, there was a lot of talent on the set, including Halyna Hutchins who was regarded as an up-and-coming cinematographer. What could go wrong?

Filming began on 6 October 2021, and from the get-go there was trouble. It is standard protocol that gun safety is addressed daily. Hannah only did it once. It is also a protocol that performers who handle guns are given basic training. That did not happen. She was warned by producer Gabrielle Pickle to tighten up security regarding guns, to which Hannah refused, stating that there was already a system in place.

Then the complaints from the crew came. Allegedly:

• they were not paid on time

• they were made to work 13-hour days

• accommodation was far away, which cut into their rest time

• there was poor gun safety on set

• there was a lack of adequate COVID-19 protocols

These complaints may seem trivial at first, but it has become obvious that they were foreshadowing what was to come. Perhaps the biggest red flag was when prop master Sarah Zachry accidentally let off a shot. This is known as a negligent discharge, and it should not have happened, even with a dummy round. Now keep in mind, Sarah works on the Rust set but she is contracted with Seth Kenney who owns PDQ Arm and Prop which provided the ammunition for the film. All the rounds supplied were supposed to be dummy rounds.

It's easy to dismiss the idea that Kenney's company slipped in a live round by mistake, but keep in mind the premises of the business did hold live rounds. Furthermore, and most darningly, after the shooting, Sarah threw away "dummy" rounds. It sure appears to be evidence tampering, as though she knows there's a chance the live bullet slipped through via the prop company.

At the same time, things were souring between Hannah and Pickle, and in text messages shown in court, Hannah called her a c*nt. So we have negligent discharges, guns, a disgruntled crew, and c*nt-calling. Not a good combination.

The death of Halyna Hutchins

This is where things get murky, and precisely why we have a trial ongoing. On October 21, much of the crew was absent in protest, but filming continued. Baldwin was practicing a shot in which he pulled out his gun. The gun was loaded by Hannah, but not in front of Baldwin. Since the event, the actor has given conflicting accounts on who exactly handed him the firearm, though we know Hannah loaded the gun. It was supposed to be filled with dummy rounds which can be shaken to distinguish them from real rounds.

So did Halls or Hannah hand Baldwin the gun? We still don't know yet. What we do know, at least according to Halls who has pled guilty, is that Hannah did not check all the chambers of the revolver. Though he denies it, I believe that Baldwin did pull the trigger on the gun, as an expert in court has revealed that the gun would not go off without a pull of the trigger. I understand; it was a traumatic event and his brain may not want to accept his culpability. Nevertheless, a shot goes off, penetrates Hutchins' left lung, and strikes Souza's shoulder. At first, nobody knew what was going on, but Hutchins soon understood she had been shot. A medic on set rushed in, but with two injured parties present, she had her hands full.

She tried her best as she waited for the paramedics to arrive, but her toolkit did not have the required chest wound seals, nor was she trained in intubation. The paramedics tried their best, but Halyna passed away while Souza was left injured and traumatized, but fortunately alive. Hutchins leaves behind a husband and a son.

The big questions

Now we're left with some big questions. The bullet that killed Hutchins was a live round. Where did this live round come from? It was not the only one found on set. Some argue that the crew brought them onto the set to play with the guns after hours. Hannah's defense claims the rounds came from the prop manufacturer who put them in the same box as the dummy rounds.

We don't know what the truth is yet, but I lean toward Hannah herself being the one to bring live rounds. This is motivated by the fact that even the prop manufacturer had warned of Hannah's negligence and that she might make terrible errors. The problem is that he wasn't serious enough about it, calling her a "naughty child" in a text instead of directly addressing the dangerous way she was handling bullets (pulling them out of a fanny pack, for instance).

We also need to question why Sarah Zachry tried to destroy evidence. Why? What was her rationale? This will have to be explored further. She didn't load the gun or pull the trigger yet her demeanor is one of someone guilty of some crime. What are you covering up, Sarah?

Personally, I think this is the most important question: Do those who hired a 24yo armorer deserve to be held the most responsible? This is negligent on its own. At some point, it does seem like all the adults who could have stopped this (David Halls, Baldwin, Sarah, even Pickle) are placing the blame on Hannah, despite prior signs that she was just not ready for the position. Hannah is one piece of the puzzle, but, arguably, she's the smallest. Maybe I'm easy to convince, but I do side with her defence claiming that she is being made the fall girl when the blade should be spread much, much wider.

the "male loneliness crisis" is a good thing actually, because why would i ever want to date a guy that looks like this?😭😭 pic.twitter.com/kqHHEI5B1y

— ai (@orbitves) March 3, 2024

I don't get it. This is so obviously a joke but people are taking it seriously like idiots. Millions must die.

Lots of women seem to date guys like this. It's sad that beautiful girls give there ugly men a chance

fr women should have higher standards tbh

youre higher standars usually get you beat up by a black dude

Whyte boi can't stop thinking about BBC

Shut up b-word boy

Take better care of our women or stay away from them.

This is so funny because he didn't even tell black men to stop interracially dating, he just told them to be nicer lol.

Other answer is simple... women are gold diggers.. and it hurts me to see beautiful "women" taking advantage of ugly dudes just because they are rich. Women need to be better an fed leave these rich ugly men alone

Yeah, because a lot of the time men likw this are kind, intelligent, and can make me piss myself from laughter. Stay mad.

men already have enough pity 😭 the amount of drop dead GORGEOUS women ive seen with the most disgusting looking men is appalling

SAME it makes me sooo mad

It makes you mad that someone you think is attractive is dating someone who you don't think is attractive? Are you a eugenicist?

If you took off the 3 lbs of makeup that those women are wearing they'd probably look like the men

They use Mythology to justify their misandry.

"The male loneliness crisis is a good thing actually, because why would I ever want to date a guy that looks like that?"

Yes! It's almost always a sexy Indian dudea

this helps explain why indian men r*pe everything around them including animals

Lmao this woman is actually beautiful??? She's just overweight what's the problem 😭

So true, in fact you look exactly like her

This cheeseburger is delicious if you ignore the diarrhea all over it

you apart of the male loneliness epidemic for good reason & will hopefully stay there

In English please

Lol Indians always catchin strays

she is pretty and she would also not date u

Tfw no obese Sexy Indian dude gf whose coochie reeks of curry, kms

The male loneliness crisis is a good thing because weak nerds will die out and the rare few actual human males will be motivated to do great things without kitty to distract them on a pedestal. Like build space ships or something idk. S*x is overrated.

she literally mogs that ugly fat guy

Overweight women are still beautiful, the same can't be said for overweight men. Don't blame me, I don't make the rules.

Holy mother of cope

incels will make you believe that this women is not pretty

lol wrong, I look like this

Ayy bro you from Mumbai?

Yes friend u should come visit here

We have outdoor amenities

I look like this

Wrong. I look like dis

What women actually think about 99% of men.

See it doesn't matter if it's a carton of rotting eggs covered in make up and fake lashes

They all think they deserve this guy and lie to everyone claiming it's all about "personality"

Simps are stupid to believe that lie

pretty much. doesn't matter how a man acts if he's attractive. "let's be friends" only applies to us unfortunate ugly/average men

You all have got to stop spending your entire life whining on social media and feeling bad for yourselves.

It's like all these guys grew up getting everything handed to them, and they're not handling the fact that that's not how all of life works.

Date unattractive women.

Missed the point of the post,but I guess that's what happens when you're born on easy mode with everything unlocked huh?

Unattractive women want Chad and absolutely do not know their place

Attractive people have more options. Get over it.

I see unattractive married men on a daily basis.

The problem is you.

Are they pushing baby strollers with babies in them with notably higher cheekbones and squarer jaws than their "fathers"? Yeah

neither are my type lol

foids are so deluded in 2024 that models aren't good enough now

incels are so deluded in 2024 that they don't even know what they want anymore kek they're mad when girls like models and they're mad when girls don't like models

Some of these women work under the delusion that if Chad will plow her, he will GF or wife her. Guys know those are two way different things. So these 6/10 women think they deserve a 9.5/10 guy. Whatever you do don't wife a woman that is "settling"

Stop "plowing" girls below your league then. Sorted.

Would be a much different world if most guys did that. Sadly, the majority will s*x a girl no matter how fat or ugly.

Do better, men

I like unattractive nerdy men that have a deep interest in something abstract and tell me about it..its funny and entertaining...but they never ask me out or get serious so...oh well

When we say we like personality we mean we care about the personality of attractive men. If you're ugly idc about you or your personality lol.

Moid killing trvthnvke

“women expire at 25” the average man at 30

The norwood comes for all

If you're a man, stop scrolling for a bit and behold:

This is what women really think of you.

Stop believing it's all about personality, you're going to get hurt.

Nobody said looks don't matter. If this guy goes fully bald, loses fat/gains muscle, and stops looking so sad then he would easily meet the physical requirements to attract a woman. The rest is based on his character.

Realistic standards still apply. Not every guy can attract the most attractive women in the world, that's fine. Go for women in your bracket and work on the things stated above.

This crybaby attitude “aww this is what women really think of us 😢” is extremely unattractive as is. Woman-repellent.

Except most men do believe looks don't matter, and most women keep entertaining that idea.

This is not a crybaby attitude, it's a wake up attitude for other men.

I know you tried to sound alpha to impress women and feel manlier, but next time keep those insecurities to yourself

looks don't matter nearly as much as you guys think they do. the guy in the pic looks fine. good enough to get any woman in the world if other stuff is humming.

A woman just the truth to your face and you're still denying it.

You should work on your escapism.

It's over for 80% of guys. Yes, that's you. time to pack it up and go

“It is women's duty to love me just for existing. Like my mommy did 😭”

Laws of nature > some beta subfive's feelings

It's some larping

What's wrong with this? Women are attracted to healthy males with good genetics. All there is to it

Everyone wants to “retvrn to the Bronze Age” but they all expect to live the life of a 1950s office manager

This is just a reminder you can always better yourself you can either use every excuse as to why life is unfair or do everything you can to better yourself to get the things you want

This is a pretty common look for men, you see a lot of these types around. Most of them are decent guys. They are all human beings with feelings. If you don't want to date a particular type, that's fine, but skip the part where you judge someone unworthy of a basic human need just because they aren't physically your type. These kind of comments reveal an ugly soul.

https://x.com/Philosophi_Cat/status/1764711035573788910

Why likely male?

Trolls are usually male. Also, women with "bad takes" about men typically fail to understand how men think. That amount knows exactly how to get under your skin, hence the notoriety it's getting.

Incels would be female by this logic

Guys with this physiognomy ruled the world for more than a thousand years, and they were good years. It's only now that the world is ruled by international usury that "looks-maxing" becomes relevant to masculinity. It's unfortunate.

My husband is bald, with a bit of a dad bod, but still very muscular in his arms and shoulder (army vet) and has a nice big full beard! Omg! He's the series man alive in my eyes! But I also already found bald guys sexy! 100% believe that your average guy like in the picture, would totally devote his love and his life to a good woman who loves them!

Blud is drowning in copium

thoughtful critique on why men's homophobia and misogyny and their unwillingness to change is causing them to be socially isolated? ❌ ❌

perpetuating unhealthy and unattainable body standards by attacking some average looking guy?? ✅ ✅

Blud literally thinks men should go gay to deal with loneliness

"i am a radfem with an asian girl pfp who bots their likes"

or TRVKE?

Would rather sew kitty shut honestly

same

Glad to see these women defending their purity!

He just needs a gym membership and a toupee

This is actually what he looked like after following this advice, notice something?

A beautiful Chad

i think he looks cute :(

Stop lying for clout lmao this is more pathetic than the OP

Me when I lie

My wife is two things:

1. Way hotter than you are

1. A person who has more depth and understanding of the human condition than you will in 100 lifetimes.

she married you so she lost by default

Funny she never complains you vapid sorry excise for a living organism.

He Nick I don't think its really a female. Most likely a shitbot or incel looking for views

Just checked the likes, it's understandable if some women actually liked the post but the guys who did 🤦🏾‍♂️

the "female childlessness crisis" is a good thing actually, because why would i ever want to date a girl that looks like this?😭😭

she mogs him

Says the cross eyed girl who needs a jackhammer to get through her makeup.

you are so dumb it's actually hilarious

Roast me

t's over….

She calls herself "incelphobic" when it's c*nts like her that're creating the incels in the first place. B-word, your ugly butt is your own worst enemy. 🤣

Literally how???

U gagged those disgusting moids

they needed to be humbled fr….

Because he'd look good with a shaved head and a Brooks Brothers suit on, and that's what relationships do? This is why the "all else being equal" analysis is so dumb for this stuff. "All else equal," single feminists who make as much money as married couples with two kids are happier. Truu, truu- but how often...does that happen?

What did bro do to deserve this treatment 😭😭😭

Nothing, such is the case of sub5's, to be mocked eternally, howeverbeit, for some, there is hope, if he were to go jim and get hair transplant, he'd look like this

This dude somewhere working on a A24 movie set and a staffer tapped him on the shoulder to show him he's become the face of undesirable male loneliness

I did not give you permission to use this picture of me.

I look like this

I look like this ♥️

You might have heard of xoxohth, aka AutoAdmit, a couple of years ago when it cropped up in the news after a writer for Tucker Carlson was forced to resign after someone doxxed his posts on the site, which included bangers such as replying to a 2 year old thread titled “Would u let a JET BLACK congo n****er do lasik eye surgery on u for 50% off?” with the thought provoking answer, "I wouldn't get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no." As CNN graciously explains in their article: "The subject line was not censored on the forum."

But what, you may ask, is xoxohth? Well, to get the answer to that, we need to go way, way back, to a week in March of 2004, when, while listening to Green Day on his Motorola Razr and buying tickets to Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, a 19 year old member of the Princeton Review test prep forum named Jared "rachmiel" Cohen, got together with an MIT student, alias Boondocks, and a UPenn Law student named Anthony Ciolli to start https://xoxohth.com, a simple PHP-based forum for law students. Xoxo experienced rapid growth, and quickly became one of the more popular forums for law students on the internet, fueled in part by its pseudo-anonymous posting and lax moderating standards.

Like many online-communities, AutoAdmit over time developed its own vocabulary (some of which can still be found sometimes on current law school forums, such as https://Top-Law-Schools.com). The slang had the added benefit of making xoxo borderline unreadable to someone out of the loop. Fear not, dear reader, for I shall loop you in:

• 180 - A perfect score on the LSAT and used by users much in the same as "based" is today.

• CR - "Credited/Correct Response" - Self explanatory.

• Ding - Being rejected.

• TTT - "Third Tier Potty" - The bottom ranking group law schools on USNWR, which is the definitive ranking of law schools. Means something that is bad.

• WGWAG" - "White Guys with Asian Girls"

• NOWAG - "No One with Asian Guys"

• reptiles - Conservatives

• shitlibs - Liberals

• pumos - after creating an account, you could change your monikor at will, and many users who didn't want a post associated with their other posts would change to it a random collections of punctuation marks (i.e. .,./,./.,/.,/.,/,/.,). Such users were pumos (punctuation marks).

• shitlaw - Any area of law outside of BigLaw (and possibly government).

• Poasting - Participating on the site.

A more complete (but non-exhaustive) list can be found on the EncylopediaDramatica entry on xoxo.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "but these are law students, right? Productive members of society (), who shall soon be respected professionals. These forums must surely be be full of interesting, intellectual discussion, advice on how to get into law school, how to do well, maybe how to find jobs, right?" And in a way it was all those things. But, my dear reader, you mustn't forget that in those days the internet had not yet acquired the feminine touch for which it is so known today. Xoxo was, like anything, a product of its time, as evidenced by a random sampling of some posts between 2004-2006:

• Got a F in class (in which the author gets informed by multiple users that he deserved it, as its "an F", not "a F")

• Rank the Asian Herarchy (consensus seems to be Japan > Korea > China)

• Lehigh University has some hot bitches (which has no comments, as users are too in awe at this sage wisdom to say anything).

But, you see, unlike a peer website such as 4chan, where the fingers behind the screen belong to an unemployed IT admin living in his parents basement, users behind posts such as the below masterpiece are written by a 22 year old, who, more likely than not, will be wearing a suit and making $200,000 within 2 or 3 years:

And so, a strange dynamic was formed, where this anonymous shitposting that could rival even the most debased /pol/ posting was read by a large enough portion of the already tightly knit law community that it lead, for example, to a Harvard Law grad not being able to find a law firm job after becoming a meme on the site because somebody posted about her without her knoweldge. Another strange part of this dynamic is that today, there is a good number of law firm partners, making millions or tens of millions of dollars a year, who started their career 2 decades ago with posts such as Autodinging chicks who've dated/fricked a black...racist? And, also, one must not forget that all of these posts were sandwiched between posts actually related to law school, such as advice on which school to choose and name the best cities to begin a career in.

As xoxo became more popular, it did not go unnoticed by the larger legal community. As one can imagine, such a community is prone to posting and the forum slowly made its way into the Real World™. Articles such as Pestilence, War, Famine, Death…and Unemployment?: An Analysis of the Internet Message Boards' Impact on Law Firm Recruitment, Why are Message Boards So Mean, and Oh My God, You Guys, Lawyers Are Actually Totally Mean! started cropping up all over the place. This marked the beginning of the end for good old xoxo.

Things boiled over in 2007. As taken from wiki (because I'm lazy):

On 12 June 2007, two Yale Law School students filed a lawsuit against Anthony Ciolli and a number of AutoAdmit's anonymous posters, claiming their "character, intelligence, appearance, and sexual lives have been thoroughly trashed by the defendants". Filed in the District Court of Connecticut, the case, Doe v. Ciolli, 307CV00909 CFD, cited violation of privacy, defamation, infliction of undue emotional distress, and copyright infringement against Ciolli and several anonymous posters. The two plaintiffs were represented pro bono by the litigation boutique Keker & Van Nest LLP, David N. Rosen, a Yale Law School professor, and Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in computer and internet law. It was said at the time that while AutoAdmit's reported lack of IP logging might prevent the plaintiffs from learning the defendants' true identities, the case could prove significant within computer and internet law if it came to trial. The plaintiffs subsequently dropped Ciolli's name from the list of defendants, and successfully obtained Doe subpoenas of Internet service providers (ISPs) in hopes of identifying the anonymous defendants. As of August 2008 the attorneys had discovered the names of some, but not all, of the offending posters.

The lawsuit exposed the site to a level of fame it had not previously had, and it became an archetype of the "bad internet," going so far as being mentioned in the same sentence as /b/ by the Newspaper of Record. With the fame came real life consequences for those caught associating with the site and Anthony Ciolli, one of the co-founders gets his job offer rescined and quits the forum.

Still, the forum remained popular. So popular, in fact, that a WSJ article about the law suit started with "For all you AutoAdmit junkies..." And, because this was the in prehistoric times, when we weren't all as civilized as we are now, the forum even had its share of high-profile defenders, who exalted the (now widely understood to be evil) notion of free speech. The Dean of Penn Law, for example, posted a letter on the site stating that, "while debates should be encouraged, 'we all have a moral and professional obligation to engage in that debate in a responsible manner.'" Imagine that.

But still, death comes for us all, and, with time, the infamy and controversy caused students to move away from xoxo to greener pastures. And yet, the site still exists, now full of a few remaining original users, now in their 40s, who mostly posts such things as "Which escort with HUGE TITS should I frick in VEGAS" (not a shitpost btw, reviews of hookers have become a staple on nu-xoxo.) And, after the Tucker fiasco, rachmiel, who still manages the site, randomized all monikers, making reading the site even harder than it already was. On top of this, signing up for the site still requires putting in a law firm or law school username, which no one in their right mind would do. And so, it persists as a zombie version of itself, with a few sad lawyers (or, mostly, ex-lawyers), boomer posting about Trump and giving tips on how to cheat on your wife.

There is much more to say on the topic, and perhaps if this gains traction I will make a Part 2 talking about some of the better posts on the site and some of its more interesting characters. But, for the moment, I had a sudden flash of clarity and realized I have just spent over an hour writing a summary of a 20 year old shitposting forum for https://rDrama.net, and will now go reflect deeply on the choices that have brought me here.

Greetings,

Back in the day people used to write words on pieces of paper. I know this is alien to most of you zoomers that think emojis evoke anything other than cringe and derision BUT we didn't always used to have iPhones and your penance for making that okay is dying from climate change. WITH THAT IN MIND - The fountain pen community is in absolute fricking shambles and it's so fun.

SO - Fountain pens are fancy white people pens that you fill with ink and shit and you use them to write fancy stupid shit on pieces of paper for gender reveal parties and funerals. For literal decades of years the German company LAMY has been the top c*nt of this world - they sell the fanciest pens and they sell the BEST ink that everyone uses and they essentially set the industry standard for all of the people that write shit on pieces of paper.

In 2016 LAMY released a limited edition pen and a limited edition ink to go with it - this ink was Dark Lilac. This ink was like the bees fricking knees. Impossible to recreate - had a golden sheen - did black-to-blue-to-purple like WOAH - this ink was impossible to ignore and no ink company has been able to replicate it since. This ink is basically the best thing to ever fricking happen to anyone ever.

LOOK AT THAT LIFE CHANGIN SHIT

LAMY has never re-released this shade of ink despite it's obvious cult status and most think it's because they literally can't - this was a flash in the pan accident at the factory and that's why no other ink company has been able to replicate that shit. WITH THIS IN MIND - mere days ago the LAMY company advertised two new limited edition pens and two new limited edition inks Safari Pink and VIOLET BLACKBERRY.

THE WORLD LITERALLY EXPLODED YALL

The fountain pen r-slurs were having the world's largest tard rage over whether or not this VIOLET BLACKBERRY was going to be DARK LILAC AND OMG FUFCKING SLKDFJLSKDFJLKSDJFkjk

1500 tard rages later LAMY released a statement saying that Violet Blackberry was an homage to Dark Lilac BUT keep in mind they did not say that it was Dark Lilac but NO ONE cared because they said the words "Dark Lilac" and everyone went absolutely fricking feral.

TRAGEDY

European and Chinese re-sellers bought up ALLLLLL of the Violet Blackberry ink and started posting them online AS Dark Lilac (Temu grade shenanigans basically) because LAMY said it was an homage and no one knows what the frick the word "homage" means anymore because you all only speak in fricking emojis BUT bottles of legit Dark Lilac previously sold for literally thousands of dollars because it was a legit ONE TIME thing that cannot be replicated by any company ever because it's probably full of lead and cancer but when these bottles of Violet Blackberry started filling the market as a cheap version of Dark Lilac people went INSANE and bought them all because DARK LILAC OMG.

TRAGEDY AGAIN

https://x.com/mikeycpa/status/1763633921294524728

SO everyone bought the fake Dark Liles and then once their little prezzies came in the mail they realized that THIS SHIT AINT DARK LILAC OMG - quelle fricking surprise.

https://x.com/sarah_cone/status/1763646231765557748

This new "Dark Lilac" didn't even fricking work half the time and was awful but those c*nts at LAMY never said it was Dark Lilac so everyone that bought all the fake shit overseas for wayyyyyy above market price for regular ink were just r-slurs that couldn't read, right? WRONG

LAMY chose the path of evil and released a public statement that Violet Blackberry was "in fact" also Dark Lilac and that you should totes keep buying all of those shitty bottles of Violet Blackberry under the assumption that they were Dark Lilac from shitty Chinese resellers.

Why they did this is beyond me but it didn't hold water for more than 8 hours as anyone that had used the new ink KNEW it was totally nothing like the old ink. Twitter tards called bullshit and got LAMY to make a statement and the statement was that they were "sorry about making the ink release with the name Dark Lilac" EVEN THO THEY DIDNT EVEN ORIGINALLY DO THAT. Total bullshit to cover up their re-seller shenanigans.

https://x.com/aidandvg1/status/1762578872837746932

SO no one bought any of their bullshit and twitter was INSANE about this shit. The backlash was so severe for two days and then LAMY as a company decided to SELL THEMSELVES TO MITSUBISHI - this happened literally hours ago. Totally insane. Everyone was laid off and LAMY as a company like literally DOES NOT EXIST anymore other than as an online retailer-front.

All because of a stupid fricking fountain pen ink.

Ever since Aevann created a massive gay tag for effortposts and started giving them 4x dramacoin, incredibly wordy posts about shitty garbage have proliferated to no good effect. Many of these posts are low quality, repetitive, boring, talk about the same thing over and over again, and repeat themselves. Additionally they're over stupid subjects that the OPs should, instead of writing effortposts about, kill themselves for being interested in. Let's take a tour of some of these posts and give you all an example of what I'm Tolkien about.

The Great Gaming Layoff Event

The post that spawned this post, this post spends literally thousands of words bitching about the fact that worthless cute twink g*mertechies are losing their jobs by the hundreds of thousands, which is maybe the best thing to happen in the last ten years. He then compounds this by complaining about GAMING JOURN*LISTS losing their jobs as if that isn't a gift from God. No really, look!

Think of a good gaming website. One that provides quality writing. I'll wait. They don't exist anymore. Everyone's been fired. It's all AI. Resetera and /v/ are literally better than mainstream gaming sites, and some of them used to be good. Not even joking, there's probably like 100 people globally who have jobs in that industry and that number is only going to shrink. Even sites that used to be respected, like Eurog*mer, are relying on freelancers.

This BIPOC actually reads gaming websites and cares about the things that happen on them and expects people to sympathize with him that the g*mer monkeys were replaced with AI! What the frick is this thread?!

Not only that, he compounds it by featuring pics of some extremely mid g*mer chick (@August) throughout the whole thing. Really, just an abomination.

The Oxford Shooting Part 2 (also learning to cope without seething)

Another terrible sneedman joint, this one features sneedman boringly regurgitating the wikipedia on a tragedy for the benefit of dramneurodivergents who want to read a boring summary but can't be bothered to click over to wikipedia. This one also features shameless straggotry (@August) but is mostly just wordcount wordcount wordcount padded by more and more words as he goes note by note through the shooting as if this were WatchPeopleDie but for text.

Leafs have a month long struggle session about their neighbors.

As an example of some of the low-effort shit getting marked effortpost there's this shining example, which includes reddit screenshots, marseys, and this stunning contribution

I'm too lazy to write this up

Smell the effort, baby!

Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action / Animation - Impressions [SPOILERS]

I believe that this person watched all of these godforsaken pieces of oscarbait shit as much as I expect you to believe I read all of his incredibly boring post about them. I'm not even going to quote from this one, frick this, and frick you.

In conclusion I'm tired of doing this and I don't know if I've written enough words yet to be an effortpost so here's my neighbor chatgpt on this subject:

The Shitty Dilemma: How /r/Drama's Rewards for Effortposts Spawned a Flood of Low-Quality Content

Introduction:

In the chaotic universe of Reddit drama, where popcorn is always popping and tempers are always flaring, one subreddit stands out amidst the chaos: /r/Drama. But lately, this haven of digital chaos has found itself embroiled in its own drama, thanks to its well-meaning yet ill-conceived system of rewarding effortposts.

Effortposts, those laboriously crafted monuments of verbosity and verbosity, are the currency of choice in /r/Drama's quest for quality content. With promises of 4x points and boosted visibility in the algorithm, users are lured into the murky waters of long-winded rants and diatribes. But as the floodgates of effortposts open wider, the once pristine shores of /r/Drama are now littered with the detritus of low-quality content.

The Shitty Dilemma:

At the heart of the issue lies a fundamental paradox: by incentivizing effort, /r/Drama has inadvertently incentivized shittiness. As users strive to maximize their point gains and bask in the glow of algorithmic favoritism, the quality of content takes a nosedive.

Gone are the days of concise and witty commentary; instead, we are besieged by walls of text that would make even the most verbose neckbeard blush. Threads that once sparked lively debate and discussion are now buried beneath the weight of endless paragraphs, each more insufferable than the last.

The Rhetorical Rubbish:

But what, you may ask, constitutes a "shitty" effortpost? Is it the length alone, or is there something more insidious at play? Indeed, the problem runs deeper than mere word count. Shitty effortposts are characterized not by their length, but by their lack of substance, coherence, and relevance.

Picture, if you will, a rambling screed about the socio-political implications of a minor Reddit spat over the correct way to pronounce "GIF." Or perhaps a meandering treatise on the existential dread of being downmarseyd into oblivion by anonymous strangers on the internet. These are the hallmarks of the shitty effortpost: verbose, vacuous, and utterly vapid.

The Tyranny of the Tangential:

In their quest for points and prestige, users have abandoned all semblance of relevance and coherence. Tangents run amok, each more tangential than the last, until the original topic is but a distant memory. What begins as a discussion about subreddit drama quickly devolves into an incoherent rant about the merits of pineapple on pizza or the mating habits of the North American tree frog.

But amidst the chaos, there is a glimmer of hope. For as long as there are brave souls willing to wade through the muck and mire of shitty effortposts, there remains a chance for redemption. With vigilance and determination, we can reclaim /r/Drama from the clutches of mediocrity and restore it to its former glory.

Conclusion:

In the end, the fate of /r/Drama rests in the hands of its users. Will we continue to succumb to the allure of easy points and algorithmic favoritism, or will we rise above the tide of shitty effortposts and demand better? The choice is ours, and ours alone. So let us band together, dear readers, and take a stand against the tyranny of tangents and the scourge of verbosity. For only then can we truly call ourselves champions of quality content in the tumultuous world of Reddit drama.

Today is one of those days where I feel urges to self-harm. It's hard to feel any self-respect when you're a 28yo unemployed hermit. Hence, it's either writing another shitty article, or slicing myself. I've chosen to take the less violent route.

I'll try to be a little more entertaining this time around because I haven't been abusing benzos and Ambien today. I'm still depressed over losing my job, but I refuse to be defeated. Lastly - and it really doesn't matter - but I don't use AI. When my writing is shitty recently, I was just abusing pills which treat my creativity like Chris Watts treated his wife and children. My past true-crime articles weren't AI either, I'm just a shitty writer sometimes. But, for me at least, the process of writing is more important than the outcome, so I'll keep writing even if I have no audience.

This time around, I'd like to cover just how bad layoffs have been for the entire gaming industry, and what that means for consumers. Instead of treating my job loss as an end, I'll treat it like a new beginning. How about, just for this article, which switch things around a bit. Instead of Holly Willoughby, we'll post Brittany Venti. I know this will be a controversial choice, but I find her attractive.

Why are the layoffs occurring?

The first question to ask is why? The trend began in 2023 and since then we've seen mass layoffs on a scale that is hard to comprehend. We'll get to the numbers a little later. The source of the problem began around 2019-2020. This was when Covid-19 hit, and suddenly, people were stuck at home. Television and Hollywood came to a screeching halt due to the need for social distancing. Gaming, however, didn't have this problem as work could be done remotely. Consequently, instead of shrinking, gaming's popularity grew exponentially and the demand for this entertainment platform grew greater than ever.

To this day, gaming remains the most profitable form of entertainment. Likely, you don't completely understand what I mean by this. What I mean is that it's more popular than movies and music combined. A single game can make more than the most popular books of all time. There's also the availability of games. Even the third world has access to gaming devices. It is because of this that Xbox's fastest-growing region is not any Western country. No, it's BRAZIL. There, 82% of people say gaming is their primary source of entertainment.

So you had people sitting at home playing Animal Crossing, and movies were out of the way, leaving gaming to expand tremendously. Microsoft and Sony made $45 billion selling consoles alone, and this was during the global chip shortage. Some of that popularity continued in 2021, but all good things must come to an end.

Gaming gets ready

With such a high demand for games, studios and companies began hiring staff by the boatload. People wanted games, and goddammit Sony and Xbox had billions to make. Many people found themselves in the gaming industry to some capacity (including myself), and that was great.

You also have to consider the nature of the games being made. To make a AAA game takes hundreds of people. Let's take a trivial example like God of War Ragnarok. It began with a team of 40 people, which is already more than most studios' entire staff. By the end of development, 400 people had worked on the game. You can expect the same amount of inflation with other hit AAA games with high production value.

The same was occurring with gaming journ*lism. People are going online to read about games more than ever, whether it's news or finding a guide for a game's tricky section. Forbes claims the following: "We saw a 200% increase in the number of people aged over 60 searching for games on our platform" during the pandemic. Furthermore, "Twitch — the world's leading live streaming platform for g*mers — saw an 83% year-on-year uprise in viewership when the pandemic hit, with over 5 billion hours of content viewed in the second quarter of 2020 alone."

The biggest problem, and the one I loathe the most, is the fact that the acquisition wars began. What's easier: training new employees or just buying a studio with staff already working on projects? Microsoft went ballistic, purchasing several studios, including ZeniMax Media (owner of Bethesda) and Activision Blizzard which is the most expensive gaming-related acquisition of all time. Sony wasn't shy either and it did its fair share of acquisitions, including Housemarque, Bluepoint, and Firesprite.

Then we have Embracer to consider. Embracer is a Swedish company that I promise you will be the reason gaming is shitty for the next few years to come. What's your favorite game that isn't published by Sony or Microsoft? Embracer probably has a stake in its studio. From the time COVID-19 hit, Embracer spent at least $8 billion acquiring studios and stakes from around the world. It is this little gremlin right here that pumped money into these studios, promising them stability and creative freedom. The Swedes are so nice, aren't they?

The bubble pops

Well, the coof didn't last forever, and people went back to work. Gaming is still the most popular form of entertainment, but it's been seeing a downward trend. In 2022 alone, profits fell 8.7% according to Reuters. It took a little time for investors and managerial teams to digest it, but they soon realized they had bitten off more than they can chew

So 2023 rolls around and we begin to see massive layoffs. All those employees hired during COVID-19 weren't needed anymore. It was a matter of redundancy. There was also a steep increase in the act of not hiring workers but instead working with them as contracted "freelancers". I could go on and on about all the studios that closed down or cut staff in 2023 alone but I'll highlight something important Embracer said. In an open letter, it claimed that it was past the mass purchase stage and was now transitioning to become a "highly cash-flow generative business this year" and of course this requires cutting down its staff which is around 17,000 globally. Basically, the bosses made bad choices and employees pay the price by getting the boot.

At the same time, the journ*listic side of gaming was also experiencing a downturn. Managing teams are only concerned with profit not quality, so they realized they could get away with firing staff and simply using AI to write articles. Go to a website like G*merant, sites owned by the Gamurs group, or any of the hundreds of shitty g*mer sites and you'll notice that AI quality. Your favorite gaming site probably uses AI now. Basically, it's over in that industry and it no longer needs writers.

How big is the impact?

According to the Verge, about 11,000 people lost their jobs in gaming in 2023 alone. In January 2024 alone, we're at 6,000. Sony recently announced it will be firing 900 staff members, Twich fired 500, and 530 folks from Riot were let go. Embracer is in severe debt, leading to the closure of studios like Volition. If you're in the gaming industry, it's over. You can browse LinkedIn and if you're in the right circles, it's fricking depressing how there's a new person DAILY posting that they've been laid off. A lot of them have specialized creative jobs, and nobody's hiring right now, they're busy firing.

Think of a good gaming website. One that provides quality writing. I'll wait. They don't exist anymore. Everyone's been fired. It's all AI. Resetera and /v/ are literally better than mainstream gaming sites, and some of them used to be good. Not even joking, there's probably like 100 people globally who have jobs in that industry and that number is only going to shrink. Even sites that used to be respected, like Eurog*mer, are relying on freelancers.

How will g*mers be affected?

You can say goodbye to passion projects, unless they're indie. It's Joever. Risky ideas, moving away from common trends is a thing of the past. Look at a recent game like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. It's generic as frick with no soul. Studios like Gearbox want to be creative, but they're getting shut down by Embracer. As a Kotaku article reveals: "2023 also saw a creative shakeup within Gearbox. Following the Embracer budget shortfalls, the studio shelved work on some exciting new projects and IPs to focus primarily on the next Borderlands games which are published by 2K, according to two sources familiar with the changes"

Most importantly, get ready for GaaS to permeate everything. I'm sorry but everyone is trying to replicate GTA Online's success and the sad thing is that it's the multiplayer online games that are the only ones catching headlines these days. Yeah, Helldivers 2 is fun. But it's also indicating to the higher-ups that there needs to be an online component to everything, yet they have no idea how hard it is to get right. So be prepared for a shitload of single-player games requiring internet access to play and featuring unnecessary online elements. Also prepare yourself for a deluge of live service games that don't know how to get it right.

The entire industry is depressed. As Jim Ryan leaves PlayStation he gave the following dark warning: “I would just say that nobody can ever be complacent, and nobody can ever feel that anything's forever.” So be prepared for some shitty times ahead whether you're in the industry or not. Anyone who is invested in games is in for a bad time.

Conclusion

It's beyond Joever. Like, however bad you think it is, it's worse. So enjoy your Helldivers or whatever crap you're playing. The gaming industry you knew as a kid or even 5 years ago is GONE. Personally, there's nothing I'm looking forward to this year except Hellblade 2: Senua's Sacrifice but that's just because it features a schizo like myself.

So it's off to job-hunting on my side, trying not to abuse drugs for a while as I get my life together, and ocassionally admiring my collection of Pokemon cards. I sincerely hope you have a great weekend, and that you have a grea time with your friends and family. I probably won't be writing these for a while.

@Wojak posted this in the Aella gangbang thread earlier

And it really made me think. With so many young people saying you're no longer allowed to kink shame, I was wondering if the science could prove that in the era of easy access to porn and the growing gooner lifestyle, bodily harm has been on the rise. Naturally I thought bussy accidents would be the first place to search. I started looking for an increase in rectal prolapse (accidentally saw a thumbnail of a BIPOCs butthole hanging out btw. It was very red. ) , but I couldn't find anything concrete. It mostly just seems to be 70+ year old foid bussys falling out (in Korea at least). Then I saw an article about RFBs: RECTAL FOREIGN BODIES

Burgers

Epidemiology and healthcare utilization for rectal foreign bodies in United States adults, 2012–2021

From 885 cases, there were an estimated 38,948 (95% CI, 32,040-45,856) emergency department visits for rectal foreign bodies among individuals ≥15 years from 2012 to 2021. The average age was 43, 77.8% were male, 55.4% of foreign bodies were sexual devices, and 40.8% required hospitalization. The annual incidence of presentations for rectal foreign bodies increased from 1.2 in 2012 to 1.9 per 100,000 persons in 2021 (R2 = 0.84, p < 0.01).

1.2 to 1.9, that's pretty significant. I think. 77.8% were male

One study "found that 93% of operative cases were males" So scrotes really be shoving things up there.

Males have a bimodal age distribution peaking in the fifth decade, while females have a right-skewed age distribution peaking in the second decade.

I don't speak science, but I interpret this to mean scrotes are pressuring teenage foids to do anal stuff, while the scrotal anal degeneracy continues well into middle age.

98% of the time there was one object in the burger butt. Only 1% of the time there were multiple objects. Absolute chads. Imagine being the 98% Losers!

Other countries

Data from Sweden, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Caribbean suggest that the incidence of medical evaluations for retained RFB is increasing among adults

Which brings us to

Rectal foreign body removal: increasing incidence and cost to the NHS

A total of 3,500 rectal foreign bodies were removed over the course of 9 years. Males accounted for 85.1% of rectal foreign bodies whilst 14.9% were females. This equates to 348 bed-days per annum. Admission peaks were observed in the second and fifth decades of life.

Foids really need to step it up. Thankfully bong foids (male) should pump those numbers up real soon.

Interesting how in under 20 the peak is 10-14, puberty. Can anyone relate? I can't. I never did such things

This study shows that the incidence of rectal foreign bodies is higher in men and has been increasing over the period studied. Most foreign bodies can be removed trans-anally with the use of anaesthesia, with only a small proportion of patients requiring hospital stay over 24 hours (mean length of stay = 24 hours). Nearly 400 rectal foreign body removals are performed each year with an annual cost of £338,819, illustrating the effect this has on NHS resources.

About 847 bong pounds per removal. Not bad. I wonder if there's one chad who cost like 20,000 pounds to remove a live rat and it totally skewed the average.

Swedes

Retained s*x toys: an increasing and possibly preventable medical condition

We show an increasing incidence in rectal foreign bodies in Swedish national data. The increase was most noticeable in men, and in our local register there was an overrepresentation of s*x toys leading to laparotomy and stoma.

To mitigate surgical cost and comorbidity, policies to decrease the risk of retained s*x toys could be considered.

You don't say...

Probably more papers out there. There's also some drug smuggling element to this. Prisoners shoving phones in their butt, etc. But I'd think that would remain consistent. It's mostly sexual degeneracy.

Conclusion: Practice safe bussy enjoyment by making sure your s*x toy has a very wide end so it can't get lost. Of course, there will still be exceptional cases like with @Holly_Jolly_Kong where his butthole inhales anything in reach. Or if you really must use a random object, use something really long, like a broom handle. And never use random glass objects.

With all these thousands of objects being pulled out of buttholes yearly, I think it would be cool if they had a museum for them. If I was a billionaire, I'd definitely put a couple million towards that. What is the largest? The most marbles? The longest? Etc.

Also, I wonder how many people should have gone to the hospital, but managed to shit an object out 2 weeks later.

rDrama dot net: The webs leading source for bussy news.

It's finally hit me that I got let go and am unemployed. It's joever in a way I've never experienced prior. Past experiences have calloused my mind against rejection to some degree, which is perhaps why I just feel numb more than anything else. I presume as time passes and I digest the situation more, the psychological effects will become more profound.

I've found keeping the curtains open and letting some sun in does help with not getting sucked into depression. It also helps if you continue to do things you'd normally do like laundry. Just small achievements instil a sense of normalcy and don't let you fall into that "I can't do anything" mindset. I will get out of this stronger than I was, and I still believe in myself.

Today I'd like discuss part 2 of the Oxford shooting. Part 1 is here:

https://rdrama.net/post/240705/the-oxford-shooting-also-respect-andp

In the first part of this series, we delved into the background of the shooting and how many red flags were missed. The kid was basically letting everyone know he was going to be violent, yet he was given a gun by his parents. This post will discuss what happened during the shooting and how adults continued to make baffling choices that resulted in even more deaths than necessary. All information is gathered from the official report which is over 500 pages long.

https://oxfordresponse.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/FINAL-REPORT-OCS-Investigation.pdf

The shooting starts

The catastrophic event begins in the bathroom of the south 200 hallway. Here, Ethan Crumbley enters a cubicle retrieves his weapon from his backpack and peepees it. He wasn't alone in the bathroom and there were at least two other students there. The gun is then hidden in his hoodie.

When he walks out, one of the students asks his friend "did he just peepee a gun?", and his question is answered when the sound of gunshots ring. Within the first seven seconds of leaving the bathroom, he had already shot seven students, killing two. These deaths were unpreventable the moment Crumbly walked out the bathroom, which stresses the importance of PREVENTION rather than REACTION. Once a shooter brings a gun into the school, it's Joever. Nobody is fast enough to stop multiple casualties from occurring at that point.

Phoebe Arthur and Elijah Muelle, who were standing together, are the first to get shot. The Shooter looked directly at Elijah and then Eli heard a bang, followed by two more shots. They are wounded but survive their injuries. He then fires at the next group, consisting of Hana Juliana, Kylie Ossege, and Riley Franz. Hana, merely 14, dies from the bullets, while the rest are severely wounded. Unfortunately, Crumbley is not done with his rampage just yet. Like a horrible person, he shoots Hana again, goes to shoot John Ascuitti, and then shoots Hana once again. The 14yo stood no chance against this heathen.

One of the heroes, emerge, who hears the gunshot and heads to it. Her name is Phoebe and she plays dead as the killer walks past. When Crumbly is gone, she asks if anyone else is harmed, and their two responses make it makes it clear that things have changed. Students help into a classroom which is enforced ina room with Nightlock security just for these kinds of situations. They barricaded the door and tried to stop the shoot at least keep themselves safe. Here, Phoebe could call the paramedics who were then dispatch, but more on law enforcement responses later.

Phoebe is the first line of defence as she helped everyone into an abandoned classroom and locked it and 12:58 p.m. Paramedics were relatively fast, able to keep the child They sprung into action, unlike the police. They received their first call from them.

His next victim, Madisyn Baldwin, was shot at close range.

Point blantk shots

An unarmed girl with nothing to gain was a true hero. She got the students to a classroom that was barracaded and attempted in any way to treat Phoebe' gunshot wound. Phoebe was eventually airlifted to hospitall, allowing her to survive. I imagine how they must have felt, all that evil appearing in a moment meant for friendship. Feeling you and your friend fall to the ground and finally realizing"it's one of those." I'm pressed by folks who send texts saying they love their parents.

The event also ended with a point-blank shots. Both Justin and keegan were hiding in the bathroom. Justin was discovered, and Crumbly did not waste time riddling him with bullets. It appears Crumbley was silent throughout his rampage. The report highlights that the kids were fricked because there's no intercom in the bathroom, so reports of a mass shooting would not have been heard.

Hana

The report is pretty long, so we can spend time on various deaths. Remember, Crumbly killed four and injured many others with his weapon of war. As you know, Hana was the first victim.

It appears that the school is a massive one, and not everyone knew what was going on at first. The story of a girl named Hanah is horrific. She met up with friends named Riley Franz and Kylie Ossege, as well as an unnamed fourth student. Crumbly had them in his sights, and his intentions were deadly.

After those rounds of attacks, if you can call them that, Crumbly finds another standing together. It becomes obvious that he is aiming for groups, which I presume would intensify the level of violence. He relentlessly sprayed bullets at the students, one of them striking Hana principally, though the others were grievously harmed in the process. He then walked right up to Hana at point-blank. It has been speculated that there was an incel element to the attack and he specifically wanted to kill Hana

Adults begin to frick up

As set forth above, video footage from OHS shows that EMS entered the short south 200 hallway at approximately 1:33 p.m., 21 minutes and 47 seconds after the first 911 call was placed and 15 minutes and 4 seconds after Louwaert and Yens first entered the short south 200 hallway. Do you like these numbers?

So the school was actually thoroughly prepared, much like Uvalde, but people were afraid to do the needful. The report states that Kim Potts, the OHS armed lunch monitor, joined Louwaert and Yens in the short south 200 hallway at approximately 12: 58 pm. and Potts began to assist students who had been shot.

Louwaert had provided Potts with a tourniquet to use on Hana, but Potts was unable to put it on Hana by herself.

Most people with these jobs aren't fit for actual action. They're also dumb. The classrooms had a locking system to keep students safe. One student and Manisyn pounded at the room window, so they were both visible. However, only one student was let in, and it wasn't Madison. Madison crouched behind a bin but Crumbly found and changed her life status to dead.

Adults run away

There are certain jobs where you're supposed to run toward the gunfire. That's the case for Kim Potts, OHS's armed lunchroom monitor. This is what she did when there was a shooter in a bathroom trapping multiple victims and she knew it:

after opening the door, Potts made a small movement forward, but then stopped. She remained in front of the open door for approximately two seconds before pulling herself back at approximately 12:58:04 p.m. and letting the door close

She basically Justin's fate literally by letting the door close. Put simply, she was afraid to get into a gunfight with a kid. From the document:

Justin would have been immediately visible to anyone who opened the door to the Second Bathroom if he had been there when the door was opened.

Potts did not continue into the bathroom, call for help, or alert anyone after opening the door, which would be expected if she had seen Justin when she opened the door.

the video footage contradicts Potts's recollection of events during her deposition. In her deposition testimony, Potts stated that she had been moving quickly through the hallways even before she met up with Gibson-Marshall

worst part

Although mortally wounded, Justin was still alive in the Second Bathroom when OCSO Deputy Yens opened the door to the bathroom at approximately 1:03 p.m.

Potts just shut up about the whole thing. Admittedly, some offers did the right thing.

The Others

There are others who were injured but didn't die. Here are some of their stories:

• At approximately 12:51 p.m., as the Shooter started his northward walk in the long 200 hallway, he fired at a student running north in that corridor, away from him. This student told law enforcement that she had been standing in the hallway with friends when she heard sounds like a water bottle popping (which was something that kids at school did). She initially did not realize what was happening; when she understood what the popping sounds were, she tried to enter a nearby classroom but it was locked. She ran north, dropping her backpack as sh ran. When this student looked at her backpack after the shooting, she saw a bullet hole in the bag and discovered a bullet in a textbook inside her backpack

• the first 9111 call was made 12:51 pm, so it took them 21 minutes to arrive

'* the school had an intercom system, but many did not take it seriously because of all the drills. Furthermore, it was hard to determine whether he was saying "this is a drill" or "this isn't a drill

Conclusion

It's never over. You can fall down, but you have to get up and dust yourself off. Nobody can do it for you. It sucks that I'm a 28yo unemployed single man, but I have also got a PhD proposal finally accepted, a family that loves me, and a bunch of Pokemon cards to organise. I'll take a mental break this weekend then make job-hunting my temporary job for a while. it's okay to cry but I haven't been crying over it. Mommy's, not around to make it all better It's up to me to decide what my tomorrow will look like despite the setback.

General info:

/r/illnessfakers (IF) follows "subjects" (almost exclusively young women, there are a few older ones, currently no men) who are suspected of faking illness and having Munchausen's. They are referred to as "munchies".

The sub is heavily moderated, with it's 2 most important rules being

1. All posts / comments must be on topic (about illness faking, no random things)

2. No blogging (talking about yourself or your diseases/ conditions)

The heavy handed modding of the sub, combined with how annoying their mods are, has resulted in several very dramatic moments. Here are some of my favorites.

Notable meta dramas

ASH IS NO LONGER AN APPROVED SUBJECT, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

The main mod of illnessfakers determined that there was too much BEC (b-word eating crackers) content about Ashley Carnduff. Ashley's real issue is Crohn's disease (which she does have). Her made up complaints are Chronic Lyme acquired from a spider bite, other Lyme associated bacteria, and others. She is thought to be lying about having hEDS and POTS. She also went on an arc of being really obsessed with her period.

From the OP:

Hey, everyone. We are removing Ash as a subject, effective immediately. The content being posted is 99% irrelevant to her medical narrative, and the pure hate and bullying that goes on in threads about her is unacceptable and intolerable. The vibe on this sub needs to shift, fam. We are running the risk of losing this sub from all the cruelty happening here. EVERY other sub has been banned and if we go hardcore snarky like other places, we're next. PLEASE, stop with the body shaming, fat shaming, slut shaming, critiquing someone's posing, critiquing someone's eyebrows, and stop posting BEC content that has zero relevance in a subreddit that is dedicated to discussing behavior consistent with MBI and related medical deception.

This post has 1,000 comments. There are some people who don't care, and many who get very mad. IMO this had less to do with the actual content being disallowed, and more to do with the fact that everybody hates the mods.

Shutting down posting about Ashley lead to the creation of several private subreddits and a larger public one /r/Ashleycarnduff which is pretty active and contains even more drama.

There are some mentions of this incident on kiwifarms Munchausen's by Internet thread as well here

The mods later change their minds and issue this follow up post.

FOLLOW-UP DISCUSSION RE: Pausing Ash Thread; TOS Concerns; Update & Highlights. THANK YOU to everyone who contributed over the past 3 days! I've put together some highlights and responses based on feedback and discussion with you all...please come continue discussing with us here!

Here the main mod apologizes and announces they are reverting the rule after many days of deliberation. People are happy, but the damage is done, and many users appear to leave the sub after this.

This also led to the creation of /r/IFModsExposed, a sub only for pooping on IF mods, and where posting or commenting got an instant perma-ban from IF. That sub was banned by Reddit pretty quickly.

Posts locked

For several months, IF had all posts and comments on manual approval, despite only having 1 active mod for a sub of 150K. After the manual removal was lifted, mods started locking all posts related to one specific person - Dani Marina.

Dani Marina is an almost 40 year old woman who until recently lived with her parents. She had anorexia when she was younger, and shortly after started seeking attention and medical procedures for GI issues. She recently admitted she actually has been diagnosed with Munchausen's, and has admitted to intentionally injuring herself in the past (by doing things like breaking her bones with baseball bats).

Like before, the crackdown from IF mods leads to the creation of a new specific sub /r/DaniMarina. This sub has also had many of it's own dramas, which would be another post.

It is important to note that these subs focused on only one person are way more unhinged.

POLL: Should we allow a RECOVERED FD Patient to do a Q&A Here?

The main mod (again) suggests an AMA from a recovered Factitious Disorder patient

Hey all,

Over the course of this sub's history, questions like this have come up a few times, but this is an unique circumstance and I think this particular issue should be put to the community for a vote. Historically, our policy has been not to allow any sort of Q&A with people who admit having FD/MBI or who are 'trying to stop' because it is giving attention to them and that feeds the issue. We have, however, heard from someone who is now recovered and they have offered to share about their experiences, so I agreed to put it to you all for a vote.

People in this thread basically scold the mod for this terrible idea, and the mods backtrack again.

Let me know if I should make another post! This is only a portion of the total drama.

Edit: I almost forgot one of the best things to come from the Ashley Carnduff drama - this literal manifesto about the IF mods.

And semi-relevant to recent events, from a post linked in the manifesto, is mod work real work? (Deleted account is mod /u/CatAteRoger 's old account)

Canada's capital, Ottawa, has been having issues with homeless drug addicts. In a small area about 1km down the street from the parliament building they have several homeless shelters, a liquor store, a safe injection site, and a safe supply (free drugs) clinic. This has created an area that is an absolute dump and as expected there's strung out addicts everywhere, higher crime, more needles on the ground and no one that lives there is happy. If you want to see some homeless dude sticking needles in their peepee or a crazy person robbing stores then this is the place to be

This is the area:

This is what the homeless shelter looks like in 2023 street view, there's even paramedics helping with an OD

Over the last year or so this has been an ongoing topic of discussion on /r/ottawa and over the last month there's been a post every day or two that's 200+ comments of people arguing about whether or not criminals should be arrested or if addicts need more free drugs to stop them from killing themselves.

There are generally two groups fighting.

1. The pro compassion people that say to trust the science and safe injection works. This includes a city councilor who calls the criminal addicts neighbors.

2. The pro law and order people who don't want to be harassed every day.

I'm too lazy to write this up so please quote your favorite parts, there's a ton of seethe.

Animal tranquilizer in street drugs raises alarms (204 comments)

22 suspected overdose deaths in Ottawa in first 4 weeks of 2024: OPH data (178 comments)

PSA: Growing concerns around the toxicity of the unregulated drug supply(119 comments)

Child brought to CHEO after putting syringe in mouth at Ottawa park: paramedics(638 comments

LowerTown BS (261 comments)

I have called OPS about once a month for the past year because of yelling and screaming right outside my door. People have vandalized our corner store and left needles and garbage in a driveway I share with my neighbours. I really can't take it anymore.

Mark Sutcliffe: “I went on a tour recently of a temporary homeless shelter, and 100% of the clients there are individuals who are seeking asylum”(424 comments)

Today's letters: Drug use is making Centretown less and less safe (430 comments)

Troster: Remember, people who use drugs are also our neighbours (377 comments)

You don't even need to sort by controversial for this one, even /r/ottawa knows this is a

Ottawa, Why? This hurts small businesses! (289 comments)

Looks like insurance isn't covering this one

As drugs overwhelm this downtown block, is safer supply the problem or the solution? (263 comments)

Bonus: The homeless shelter opened a second location somewhere else and go figure it's a shithole

'Things are basically out of control': Residents voice concerns over increased crime, drug use in Carlington (236 comments)

Earlier this year I learned from my sister that a mall which we would frequent in our halfway point, towards visiting her and/or our parents from the long distance we live apart, so we could burn time and wait for the other family members to arrive by going to the arcade and playing ten-pin-bowling - had closed down its Cinemas! It was called the Kollonade Mall in Sinoville Suburb in Pretoia, which i had in my younger years thought to be a gigantic mall prior to having stepped foot in actually really big places like Cape Town

I thought this shocking at the time, because for Safrica it was definitively on the bigger tiers of malls and cinema theaters, with a good central location, amongst a relatively wealthy upper class district for both black and white residents, so a diverse appeal, and STILL the fricking place just went bankrupt and closed down. If such a well placed place couldn't make it, then many many smaller cinemas must have been truly brutalized by the Post-Covid world in RSA.

SA CINEMAS IN DURESS:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/south-african-cinema-group-ster-kinekor-exits-business-rescue-process-2022-11-11/

After casual research it has come to my attention that post 2020 Lockdowns, that Safrica cinemas have in reality been on a perpetual death spiral, and has basically been doing nothing but hemorrhaging money for 3 fricking years. This surprised me as, a turbo neurodivergent dramatard, I had not exactly gone to cinemas post-Covid at all in like 4 years, except for the famous Tom Cruise Top Gun sequel movie with my sister and parents - as apparently had many other extended family members and acquaintances; to the extent that I learned , that literally no one I knew by name had literally fricking gone even once to the cinemas for a movie other than the Top Gun movie since 2020 even once, yikes

But as I had discussed with family members, whom tend to be more normie than me, and many actually having gone to cinemas, or knew friend groups who go to cinemas (cuz i pirate literally everything i watch with zero shame ) I began to gather together why the cinemas had actually struggled so badly.

COVID LOCKDOWN'S EFFECT ON SA:

1st, many city goers, from children to adults had learned to become "lazy", in the sense of going out, in the 12-18 months of lockdown we had in south africa, a large amount of people had learned to bypass their usual services or recreational activities or outings. Things like gym, a lot of fitness freaks would buy homemade gym equipment or those standing exercise-cycles or playmats to sweat on at home as the lockdowns dragged into months. So they weren't lazy in the sense physical exercise, but the will to even exit their homes, and go about and do cityslicker things like outings and restaurants and bars ect

Additionally many restaurants, as I can imagine was the pattern globally, went fricking bankrupt, thus depriving many peeps of their favorite places, and especially niche restaurants like turkish bars, or sushi places, or kraut restaurants, and only large chains remained or those who were lucky or could venture into other money making schemes. It should be noted that these were not rich white people paces where only the upper 1% of turbo priviledged Huwhitoids frequented. Since democratization, RSA has held a large black middle class, which also added a market for restaurants, so many blacks would frequent these middle-class "once a month" restaurants as they were sometimes referred to, as they were certainly way more expensive than even steers, KFC, or any fast food slop, but not so, that city people could not afford the self-indulgence of high style food every now and then. It should also be noted that food is much cheaper than places like Burgerland, which is in stark contrast to all other things, as burgers has immense buying power with their meagre wages, even adjusted for global spending power.

So i want to impress upon dramatards, that these various ethnic and niche restaurants closing down being a tragedy, isn't just a bunch a bunch of turbo neurodivergent mega fancy upper class rich people because they dont have rich mayos coming to feast anymore while poor black peeps starve - they were genuinely by the standards of south africa, not outside the reach or patronage of half of south africans before the pandemic - thus the closure of much of these ethnic food specialist restaurants, INCLUDING traditional african shabine food places, which catered with traditional Xhosa, Zulu, pedi and sotho foods, also took hard hits by the r*ped south african economy. It truly was a tragedy for South Africans, in terms of a vast closure of many of their spectacular food diversity, at least in big cities like Cape Town, Pretoria, Joburg, Durban ect.

The food industry is recovering, and much of these food specialist places are reopening as the economy slowly recovers post Lockdown-r*pe, sort off. Point being, a lot of City-Slickers have become further "lazy" in going out, as their choices for recreational activities, like restaurant diversity, especially the good ones, took a massive hit; fewer people like to go out to fricking Spur or Steers, than traditional african cuisine. Spur might be nice for sending your kid to birthday without having to worry at cleaning up the mess afterwards with the little rugrats, but it's hardly the most romantic restaurant, especially for those who can afford better.

Additionally, at least for South Africans (i do not know if other nation's people behave at all similarly), many peeps here like combine outings with a food-somehting, and an entertanment-thing - in other words, to go watch a movie and then to the restaurant of choice, or go eat a meal at a fancy place, then see something at the State theatre, and so on. Cuz usually it is the pull of both these events which make a recreational night "whole" at least for many people i knew, both at Pretoria amongst mayos, and the coloureds I knew at Cape Town during my studies. And while I cannot offer anything but my anecdotal experience, I swear I saw the same behaviour manifesting among black peeps who had become middle class copying whites, in that they would combine their weekend excursions with both a food- and recreational-thing; a restaurant and movie to complete the evening; ESPECIALLY for black families and white families.

COURIERS:

With the loss of so many worthwhile restaurants, it is almost like half of the pull of cultural or recreational stuff pulling city people out of their homes during vacation or weekends out of their homes, had disappeared. And fewer than before 2020 went out as regularly, additionally something else happened in 2020 lockdowns - the discovery delivery shuttles and package delivery companies like Takealot (South Africa's Amazon).

People began to learn the habit of delivering not just obscure things which were hard/impossible to get during lockdowns without a permit, but would deliver entire week's worth of groceries and even daily fricking meals holy smokes.

https://gadget.co.za/delivery-sa/

========(from article)

A brand's delivery experience is among key reasons why consumers would shop from them again. Delivery value is critical to their repeat purchase and as important as the customer journey, the price, the quality of the item and the after-sales support.

The delivery landscape has changed dramatically, and courier companies are scrambling to improve their services that aim to meet the demands of the market and their customers. Standard delivery is a thing of the past; if companies are not offering cutting edge delivery services, through own- or third-party suppliers, they will get left behind.

Widely reported, the rise of a quick commerce service has changed the playing field, and many retailers are rushing to catch up by offering an on-demand delivery service that meets their customers' needs, fast.

Amazon's entrance into the local market in early 2023 is another reason why all brands – not just grocery retailers – need to up their delivery ante, as the retail behemoth is globally known for its super-fast delivery that is often free.

The local ecommerce delivery marketplace is set for a giant shake-up once Amazon opens its doors on our shores. Customers very quickly get used to one brand's service, and immediately expect it from another. Same-day and instant delivery are now the norm. This puts local retailers in a tight spot if they are to retain their customer base, they need a solid fast go to market strategy and make delivery affordable to the customer.

SUPERMARKET COURIER SERVICES BEGIN:

It became so extreme that many big SA supermarket-chains like Checkers/Spar/Game and others have launched the service of delivering via these motorcycle couriers, the weekly groceries for people ranging from the elderly (to whom this service is a godsend), to the plain middle aged (whom are actual lazy lardbuckets). This service is of course not at all economical, and adds up heavily over time, but the sheer convenience for many peeps has had them transformed into a group of people who basically never ever leaves their homes, outside of for work. It's astonishing how much of south african peeps, black, white, & coloured has become shut ins.

My parents claim on both sides of their neighbours that they have never seen them leave their homes since the 2021 lockdowns ended, in the sense, that there are constant courier deliviries for both daily meals and other obscure shit like chairs and other things which normal people would just fricking go and shop for in presence like functional members of society

My mother, who is a teacher for 35 years in safrica, claims that there has been drastic loss of participation in sports, in music groups, in choirs, any extracurricular activities, and that she can see through the behaviour both parents and children had learned a laziness of never exiting their homes, and doing anything outside of obligations like school or work, even if they can easily afford to do so - she claims this is not at all poverty related like transport costs for children, but a behaviour change.

THE PROLIFERATION OF FIBER AND STREAMING-SERVICES IN SA DURING COVID-LOCKDOWNS:

Lastly one other thing which Safrican have learned from the Lockdowns, which has had a direct effect upon the cinema-going behaviour of RSA peeps. That's streaming services like Netflix and HBO, and Disney+ and other shit. A lot of people were stuck with obvious boredom, and a lot of development of the 1st fibre-internet lines had coincided with the period of 2018-2020, where fiber companies were joked to be the BIGGEST winners of lockdown, as people clamoured to sign up to fast internet in the long enduring lockdown months

https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/408323/these-jse-companies-are-the-biggest-winners-from-the-coronavirus/

Basically most fiber companies had expected to take 5-10 years to make their infrastructure placement money back, as it would, by historical standards, make many years for safricans not using fiber internet to give a darn and see need for fast internet at home - with lockdowns, an acceleration never predicted, made the fiber internet companies fricking gangbusters, as entire neighbourhoods clammoured to get internet access for whatever reason, many of that for streaming-services like Netflix, to alleviate their excruciating boredom.

https://www.itweb.co.za/article/sa-streaming-services-soar-as-subscription-tv-slumps/JN1gP7OAApoqjL6m

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52376022

https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/companies/the-rise-of-streaming-services-during-lockdown-f0a7fa0e-a3c3-4ae8-b07f-da28dd967f94

The consequences of these online video shit is that many many boomers, old people, and the tech illiterate, which had previously been daunted in interacting with something as seemingly ethereal as viewing movies or series online instead of on cable TV, were now aided by their kids also stuck at home, or their more tech-savvy neighbours, to take the plunge into a new and alien world of entertainment previously unheard or even unthought of.

Where previously it was an exclusively teenager and student thing to watch Netflix or HBO on streaming on the internet, a large influx of old people now also became customers, as the alternative for entertainment tended to be the monopoly of DSTV cable television, whose quality had heavily degraded from its heyday since 2000-2010 (in South Africa), and many people were additionally motivated by the prospect of being able to watch what they wanted, when they wanted, and how much ever they wanted continiously instead of waiting for the next week to pass, to check the next episode - which during normal working times was easily berable, but during the extended boredom of lockdown, made even waiting a single day for the next series' episode completely unbearable.

Combined with increasing group pressure, and social fads highlighted in WhatsAppp groupd, and word-of-mouth transfer between old lady gossip groups, virtually every white and black boomer capable of affording it, would be subscribed to some time of online streaming service, like Netflix, or Disnetyx or whatever was their specific fancy.

Many boomers would also buy new and better TVs during this period, as the market crashing all around RSA, mad electronic appliances much cheaper than ever before. Many even poor peeps would be able to afford an ultra wide LCD screen, and replace their old projector screen, I wonder how many zoomers are able to even recall these old projector screens, and why we call a Screensaver, an actual screensaver.

In 2020-2021, SO MANY BOOMERS would replace their literal 10-20 year old TVS with modern widescreen LCD 22041490 inch TVs, as many people live in behavioral comfort and repetition of their daily lives, and become use to their devices even if they are outmoded and junk. So so so many boomers upgraded their TVs simply because these old analogue things could not even accept stuff like USBs and other more modern connectors to connect a cable with laptops, or the LAN cable for internet or whatever, so that the image from a laptop or Desktop could be broadcasted onto their new Plasma Screen LED LCD Tvs

CINEMA EXPERIENCES STARTED TO SUCK ANYWAY:

Anyways point being, that many boomers and old people, those most with disposable income would become use to the convenience of home theater movies in their own homes, streamed at their leisure in their favorite couch and being able to pause the series or show at any time to watch tomorrow and so on.

For a lot of people the rowdiness of lunchtime rowdies in cinemas had already become a problem even pre-2020 pandemic lockdowns, and the convenience which this audience found away from cinemas, would cut deeply into Ster-Kinor's margins.

Additionally, there had become widespread belief that post 2019-2020, that movies were becoming weaker and more generic, especially from the big brands like Disney and Marvel. Marvel had finished their magnum opus in End Game, and many marvel strags would basically exit the fandom, having had their fun to its conclusion, and didn't care much for the shitty "Phase 4" (i think thats it? I half remember from my friend) which would exhibit mediocre obscure characters which no one knew, or at least no normies which held the income power for cinemas, knew about.

All of these factors would combine together to really lower the amount of feet entering Ster-Kinor cinemas in a post 2020 world. Even more factors like the expensive food of cinemas worked against them. As the lower audience numbers caused lower revenue for Ster-Kinor cut into their margins, they were forced to make money elsewhere, like raising the prices of their food, which traditionally where a lot of cinemas already made their money - a lot of peeps already grumbles about expensive cinema-food, and now Ster-Kinor were making these crowds even LESS reluctant to attend cinemas, when they could just as easily view high quality movies in the comfort of their own home couches, and having cooked their own favorite food and snacks for a fraction of the costs.

And so the death-spiral continued its downwards trend

FINAL DEATH KNELL FOR STERK-KINOR: SOUTH AFRICAN LOADSHEDDING

But the final nail in the coffin, was loadshedding. There was the occasional loadshedding in RSA prior to 2020, but it was only in 2021-2022 where it began to increase, and finally in 2022-2023 where loadshedding became so frequent and so disruptingly devastating that the government had to create a timetable for every district, suburb and neighbourhood, which they could plan their time and workhours around, as sos many infrastructure associated with the leectricity grid of SA, which ESKOM had mismanaged for 25 years no came to the logical conclusion of breaking down on a national scale.

Places like butcheries and supermarkets which had to freeze or cool their meat and fruits in the hot african sun, even indoors, were especially hard hit, and the sight and sound of diesel generators running in the streets of the CBD of every town and city of RSA during midday working hours became commonplace, as these poor places had a work environment where they simply could not just shut-down for 2-4 hours at a time, and due to the nature of their produce. contuining with the examples of butcheries, they had to buy special automated generators which kicked into action if they detected the main ESKOM power supply to have shut down. Let's just say the generator and solar-panel business would thrive in this period

But one of the businesses which I personally had not realized was hard hit by the Loadshedding was cinemas, like Ster-Kinor. Loadshedding was always supposed to occur during prescribed times, given by each municipal timetable. However frickups continued to occur, as many coalstations would collapse as they were under the pressure of covering the heavier burden left by their sister stations, thus increasing the rate of wear and tear. The scenario as follows would occur often during 2022: of 1 of 5 stations per municipal mega-district, would break down. Then the load of having to provide for the same amount of people as all 5 stations, the remaining 4 would be at a higher pressure of work than they were ever designed for, because of corruption and ANC stupidity, when FINALLy competent engineers and technicians (usually whites) would be allowed to arrive and fix shit, another fricking station or generator would have exploded from the excess burden. Thus a continious spiral of fixing the broken stations would occur in an r-slured whack a mole fahsion.

Thus even OUTSIDE the prescribed loadshedding timetables, blackouts from destroyed stations or generations would continiously occur before rerouting electricity could be dome by electrical engineers or r-slur technicians who were responsible for flipping a switch they did not know how it worked.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/south-african-cinema-group-ster-kinekor-exits-business-rescue-process-2022-11-11/

This meant disaster for cinemas when interrupted, few places could afford the mega-generators to supply power for a half dozen theaters, and the lights, and the cashier stations and all of the fricking power needed to run such an obscene amount of power.

https://www.facebook.com/sterkinekortheatres/photos/a.408652506649/10152528347396650/

Even way back as 2015, Ster-Kinor had the policy of refunding movie-tickets, or allowing the rebooking for another time slot. It was this policy which had helped them become the most popular cinema chain in the country to begin with. When Loadshedding occurred in their catastrophic degree in 2022, Ster-Kinor would continue the policy of just outright refunding their customers or rebooking, which unfortunately was a financial disaster for the comany.

The company would go to great degree to try and continue regular movie schedules, to at least air their catalogue of movies in periods in the day not affected by loadshedding, but even if our r-slurred government actually kept to the fricking timetables, this STILL meant often less than half the timeframe for places like Ster-Kinor where they were able to air their movies, thus cutting their maximum amount of capable "working hours" in which they could generate business by between a 3rd to half, depending on the stage of loadshedding. Sometimes in places like pretoria, it was 2 hours of laodshedding every 6 hours, and sometimes it was so bad to be 4 hours of power followed by 4 hours of loadshedding consecutively.

As you guys can imagine these would be unbearable working conditions for many companies completely reliant on outside power sources.

SOME ARTICLES:

All of this especially tragic as back in the post Lockdown period, for a short time in 2021, it actually appeared that the company of Ster-Kinor was recovering from the strict procedures which restricted large gatherings of people.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/south-african-cinema-group-ster-kinekor-exits-business-rescue-process-2022-11-11/

=====(from reuters article)

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 11 (Reuters) - South African cinema group Ster-Kinekor has exited a local form of bankruptcy protection called "business rescue" after nearly two years, its administrator said on Friday.

Ster-Kinekor was placed under administration in January 2021, citing losses and financial distress due to COVID-19 and related restrictions forcing closures and prohibiting large gatherings in public spaces.

Meanwhile studios either postponed blockbusters or released them directly on home streaming platforms, denting box office earnings.

Its business rescue practitioner, Stefan Smyth, said in a statement the rescue process, which returns the company to solvency, involved raising capital of 250 million rand ($14.50 million) from UK based asset manager, Blantyre Capital and from South African asset manager Greenpoint Capital.

Ster-Kinekor, which operates 52 commercial cinema complexes in South Africa, also renegotiated lease agreements with landlords, which were a material condition for the conclusion of the transaction.

"Not only does this investment give the business a solid foundation on which to build its future, it has also meant that some 800 jobs have been retained and a dividend has been paid to creditors as proposed in the accepted plan," Smyth said.

Smyth noted that cinema attendance is picking up since the "stellar" performance of "Top Gun: Maverick" and the attendance is expected to continue to improve further into the holiday season with eagerly awaited additional films being released like "Avatar: The way of water" and "Black Panther 2".

====(end)

There was even a financial bailout in 2022!!

https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/ster-kinekor-out-of-business-rescue-thanks-to-r250m-investment-20221111

========(from news24 article)

UK- and Cape Town-based asset managers have thrown a lifeline to South Africa's biggest cinema group, Ster-Kinekor, pumping in R250 million to help the company get out of business rescue and keep entertaining cinephiles for longer.

"Ster-Kinekor's business rescue practitioner, Stefan Smyth, has successfully concluded the business rescue process. The transaction … returns the company to solvency," read the business rescue practitioner's (BRP) statement issued on Friday.

Ster-Kinekor, which has about 65% of market share in SA, entered voluntary business rescue in January 2021 after Covid-19 lockdowns forced it to halt operations temporarily, and people didn't return in droves when the government started lifting restrictions.

"We are very pleased that we were able to raise the necessary capital to rescue Ster-Kinekor. Not only does this investment give the business a solid foundation on which to build its future, it has also meant that some 800 jobs have been retained, and a dividend has been paid to creditors as proposed in the accepted plan. Trade creditors will further benefit from ongoing trading with the company," said Smyth.

However, Smyth noted that the cinema landscape in SA was still challenging and made worse by elevated load shedding. He still hoped that cinema attendance would improve in the coming months with the release of The Woman King and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and remained of the firm view that there are reasonable prospects of rescuing the cinema group.

And as he predicted then, Smyth said the group had started seeing a pick-up and expects further improvement into the festive season. Movies like Top Gun: Maverick, Thor, Beast, and DC League of Superpets proved popular with cinema-goers.

"We thank all the Ster-Kinekor employees, creditors and relevant stakeholders and new shareholders whose efforts assisted us in exiting business rescue and creating a foundation for its future. Our thanks also go to our loyal customer following, and we look forward to entertaining you with new formats and great new content in the future," added Smyth.

======(end quote)

And soon many branches of Ster-Kinekor would close down one after the other.

https://www.iol.co.za/mercury/news/musgrave-ster-kinekor-cinema-to-permanently-close-this-week-1172a7f2-1f98-46d8-ae26-6546b4540f8d

And the tragic story goes on and on

https://x.com/sterkinekor/status/770683966282166272

And uhhh that's all I got.

https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/ is close to dead these days but I still look at it every so often. Today I found this old question that was inexplicably bumped to the top.

This morning, my brother sent me a short message:

Come get some strudel

I was going to reply

Thank you, but I don't feel like eating strudel right now

Before I could send the message, I was intercepted by a relative, who tried to teach me a lesson about politeness, saying that the above reply would be rude. The relative's suggestion is to lie and write something along the lines of "Thank you, but I just ate something".

I fail to understand why my suggested reply is rude, and on the other hand, find the suggestion dishonest and therefore inappropriate.

What is a polite way to turn down your brother's who lives next door dessert invitation?

Why anyone would ask Stack Overflow for interpersonal skills is beyond me, but let's see what they have to say.

Did you just eat something? If not, then saying "Thank you, but I just ate something" is a lie. Lying to your brother is very rude. He may not know it at the moment, but it is very rude. Don't lie about trivial matters.

White lies are bad.

Someone else has an answer:

As a person on the autism spectrum, I've frequently been told that what I'm saying may be rude, but in my personal experience it has turned out to not be interpreted by the other person as such. There's someone else who's written about this exact scenario on their personal blog, in the post Six Rules Regarding Autistic Interaction [...]

This is a good person to take advice from.

Based on their experience and mine, I've often found that lying to a person as to why I couldn't do something causes hurt, especially if they later somehow find out the real reason, whereas being more direct is either simply accepted (80% of the time) or initially comes off as off-putting but they eventually understand within a few minutes (the other 20% of the time).

1. Be autistic

2. Be blindingly honest in every interaction

3. Success?

And the piece de resistance from someone who may well have some form of psychosis (I'm not quoting this because I can't be arsed, the entire rest of this post is this one guy's comment):

Intro

Your reply isn't rude, but your reply doesn't match the tone of the message you recieved. Since this is your brother then it would typically be standard to reply back using conversation that aligns more with restricted code over elaborated code.

Restricted code

This is speech that is dependant on context, relying on the shared understanding between an in-group. This type of language reflects familarity and is typically considered "warm". This also allows for less verbose speech for easier and faster communication.

For example this was a past text message conversation between me and a roommate (male,platonic)(certain details removed to protect identities/privacy). This is an example of a question and answer using restricted code:

roommate: Can u go in the draw on my desk the long one pause and get the <restaurant> menu

me: Cant send images to <phone brand/model>

roommate: I just need the number to them

me: <phone number>

roommate: Preciate it

As can be seen in this conversation there are almost no formalities used except at the end of the request. Text is economical, providing exactly the information needed. It sounds like a conversation would sound.

Other parts represented in this type of speech are use of written asides/jokes:

long one pause

And use of Eye Dialect

Preciate it

Elaborated code

This is speech that is not dependant on context and can be understand by anyone regardless of whether they are in-group or out-group. The point of this speech is to ensure understanding, but is rarely used between family members.

For example, this is a text conversation using elaborated code between me and a job recruiter (details removed to protect identity/privacy).

recruiter: Hello Maximilian, this is <Recruitor's Name> with <Company1>. I received your application for the position of <job>. Are you still interested in this position? [...]

My apologies. I accepted a position at another company.

No worries. Thank you for responding.

As you can see this conversation has a liberal use of formalities and can be understand without almost any context needed. The conversation is obviously between two strangers and there is not a shared upon agreement for lexicon, dialect, tone, etc to be used. Since there is no context for this conversation it will be as general as possible to ensure the maximum amount of people may understand what is being said and as well as being as curteous as possible to minimize chance of offendending.

The Question Directed At You (Restricted Code)

The text you recieved uses similar level of restricted code in comparison with my first example:

Come get some strudel

The meaning of this is completely dependant on the shared context between you and your brother. It matches the level of restricted code typically seen in English between people of the same family, and may be a little more concise than spoken word because of the medium (text).

Your Reponse To This Question (Elaborated Code)

Your reply on the other hand utilizies more elaborated code than restricted code:

Thank you, but I don't feel like eating strudel right now

Not only does this create dissonance in tone of the conversation due to the mismatch of code used, it also may even convey a level of distance in how you view your relationship with your brother. Examples of why this is elaborated speech include: use of the character ,, verbose phrase usage "thank you" rather than "thanks".

I am going to elaborated though more specifically about a particularly dissonate detail in your reply:

I don't feel like eating strudel right now

This is an elaboration that is verbose since the context with what you want to do with said strudel is understood and does not need to be said, the example of this phrase in restricted language would be:

I don't feel like strudel right now

This would not effect tone much if not for how it also works to avoid use of mimicry in regards to verb usage, the question was

get some Strudel

The response elaborates needlessly and inserts verb that is different and more clear to the restricted code use of get some.

Reply That Matches Restricted Code

I do not know the exact relationship you have with your brother, however since he initiated with the first message using a liberal amount of restricted code and since he is a direct family member, I would assume you would want to reply back in restricted code and with the same type of tone.

There are many ways to say this and it will depend on your relationship and shared lexicon/ dialect between you and your brother, however the words thanks and good are generally what the main words should be in your reply (in most circumstances).

I think the reply that would best fit in this circumstance would be:

Nah im good

This is a phrase I use liberally and have never been called rude when I use it in informal situations that warrant restricted code.

Linked as well is the urban dictionary entry for "nah im good", which has 91 upvotes and 10 downvotes with the first definition being:

A casual way of saying "No thanks"

However, if that is not your style then here are a few more examples that may work:

• Im good, Im good thanks, Im good thanks though

• Thanks but im good

• Im fine right now

• Nah im good for right now

• Not feeling strudel rn Nah im not feeling strudel rn

• Nah im chillin

Further Reading

• https://communication.binus.ac.id/2016/02/09/what-you-need-to-know-about-elaborated-and-restricted-codes/

ah yes, metal gear solid, a video game series famous for having no politics pic.twitter.com/LCtdvEZtQa

— kate bush's husband (@airbagged) February 24, 2024

no analysis of this shockingly common mindset will ever make more sense to me than "conservatives are just complete fricking morons". the reason they don't produce art is because they're too stupid to even understand what goes into making art. meaning is completely beyond them

authorial intent is a completely foreign language to them. their enjoyment of media is entirely surface level in a way that can only be likened to the privilege of never needing to grow up. everything becomes cocomelon when you can't hear creators speaking through their work

media is just images and noise to them. the closest they get to engaging with media is when the surface level they run their eyes over has something some angry internet man told them to hate. they scream about black and queer people like dora tells children to scream at that fox

I do this and look like this

this is going to sound EXTREMELY conspiracy-theory brained but this could be blamed on how countries like the US have tried to standardized-testing their way into having 'good' education

kids learn how to get good grades on standardized english exams, not how to actually read

They're even doing the anti-standardized testing stuff lmao

the only time progs are able to admit that fascism is a revolutionary ideology is when they talk about how great they think the futurist movement was

now I haven't really played mgs, but aren't they like MOSTLY about politics?

Yes

yeah actually theres a boss you can beat non lethally by destroying their hormone supplies and dilation stations

Politics in Metal Gear: "what would happen if private corporations had military power and jurisdiction in the era of nukes, AI and nanotech"

Modern games politics: "obnoxious black woman who needs no man are u mad chud??"

Show me that game

Forspoken

New Colossus.

Uncharted 4

Alan wake 2

It's not “no politics”, but it's certainly “no totalitarian hyper-scolding”. It lays out its ideas and lets you consider them on your own terms. It has something interesting to say, and isn't simply regurgitating some utterly banal narrative handed down from global elites.

MGS 2 literally ends with a fricking PSA video about capitalism with real world footage.

What they're looking for is “no woke politics”. Lol!

being anti-war is actually considered pretty woke, and thats a pretty decent part of the story, trying to stop people from causing wars upon wars for self profit-

Tucker Carlson has gone woke he will go broke

It's crazy that conservatives play MGS without realizing that the game has been criticizing and laughing at them

Every game is actually wants you dead chud!

politics is women and black people

Of which this game has both lmao

these idiots are only parroting talking points without having a slightest idea what they're taking about

The grifters in the quotes are like "WE MEANT THE WOKE SHIT, THE POLITICS THAT'S SHOVED DOWN OUR THROATS MOST OF THE TIME"

The thing is, we know what you mean and here we are still telling you dumbasses that the Metal Gear series literally does that💀

Metal gear is, if anything, MORE heavy handed than the “woke” stuff they complain about.

There's a difference between thoughtful inclusion of politics, often universal, and throwing in modern liberal politics. I'd call out a game about a rebel faction, retallying against the Biden regime, for the same reasons, because it's not nuanced, it's partisan.

Reminds me of some communist kid that reported his own father to the feds for Jan6 crap or so that had a MGS2 poster on his bedroom, functional illiteracy is a thing for most people that virtue signal online

It's not even a case of “by no politics they mean no POCs and no women” because some of the most notable characters in the franchise are women and POCs??

They're so close to getting it

The phrase "no politics" is used to say that the devs aren't putting ESG approved talking points when they are not even justified within the in-game universe.

Why are they blaming ESG?

The only non political game series in history ballsy enough to feature a literal US senator as a final boss.

You fight the president at the end of MGS2

Yeah but Armstrong waxing lyrical about strongarm politics, "making America great again" before that was even a slogan, and justifying the entire thing as "Nanomachines son!" While he beats the shit out of you is genuinely one of the best moments in video game history.

Trump invoked "Make America Great Again" because it was Ronald Reagan's slogan in 1980.

Yeah, and Armstrong was invoking the kind of neo-reganism that trump represents before that was even a thing.

>Neo-Reagan Trump

lmao wtf

CHUDS ENTER THE CHAT

When we say no politics we mean no jews, s, blacks, or ugly women

Yea we gathered that “political” meant people you wish didn't exist ages ago no one is confused finish middle school little one

I dropped out chud

Your bait got me

Pozzed reply

Bro is speaking dorkanese

I just know you never played those games then

You're a fake fan

Fortune is 2/4 of those things you mentioned. and although no s the series is rife with homosexuality. Huey was as close as you'd get to a jew also

Nice try wokie

fake fan. its canon that Volgin was gay with Raikov.Vamps obviously a homo, and the extra scenes in peace walker with BB and Kaz on the beach are gay. when did you start playing MGS: Survive?

In the game you kill them for being gay

Tf no you dont you kill Volgin for being a fricking communist and Vamp for being a terrorist

No you do it for being gay if you had media literacy skills you would understand

Im not falling for this bait, fed.

Being g*mergate (the most successful movement in history) is being a fed apparently

Anita Sarkeesian still advises on video games and there's DEI initiatives in gaming, how was it successful

Donald Trump

G*mer Gate was about female representation in games. The mere existence of minority groups, which you seem to have an issue with isn't g*mer gate. Plus this is such an outdated ideal nobody cares about fricking g*mer gate anymore lmao

G*mergate is coming for you next

Isn't Kojima auth-left though?

I think he's chinese

Fr? Lol

He has slanty eyes

I've never seen jews in any video game wome or not lol

They make the games woke

This just in: Simply existing is political. Dont want politics at the dinner table? Then I guess you're going to starve, because nobody can eat.

If you're jewish or black or a woman or trans then yeah

MGS4 has a black dude in it

tragic

All of your likes are of underage anime girls

yeah they're an butthole but thats literally not what their likes are that doesn't work here

Thanks for your complete and unequivocal support of me

average gooner post and everything wrong with your social life is somebody elses fault im assuming?

You don't know what gooner means, learn the definition of words before trying to look smart by using them next time

all of you chuds are the same bro the moment you insult them they claim ur not using the correct internet jargon to make fun of them 😂😂😂

Ok chud

anyways takes greasy shit down ur throat and r*pes you to death

So only the politics you like. pretty snowflake behavior ngl

“Most people like things they like and dislike things they don't”

/r/iamverysmart

Go back to 4chan

oh so anything you don't personally agree with is political and what you agree on is not.

smartest conservative fr

Yeah that's literally how it works idiot

Woke is when black people

They ruin everything.

Come on, we both know that's a lazy generalisation that doesn't take any history into account

It's a lazy generalization but quite effective in finding the truth when you look into it

so are these people in real life inherently "political?"

Yeah

Elaborate

They're libtarded

Then just say it kitty

That's what I just said

do people not catch on that ur joking

I'm not

I am an official representative of Will Stancil for Minnesota State house and Will approves this message

THIS IS THE 4TH "MGS ACHALLY IS POLITICAL CHUD" TWEET WE HAVE GOT THIS MONTH

They are so political brainrot to the point they had to bring out a comment from 1 years ago to mock.

top comments are about what you'd expect from these losers, though I'm curious about the cognitive dissonance involved in a bunch of weebs having a problem with race mixing and implying that east asians don't frick means you de facto support replacement? nonchuds don't give a shit about birth rates.

this is the antisemite version of the attack helicopter, chuds really are and only generate funny lines when regurgitated from someone with intelligence (they'd benefit from getting a few writers on the team)

BUT this leads us to a seemingly innocuous -42 comment

and that's part of what makes me

nooo every country must be an ethnostate and acknowledging the citizenship of someone with different skintone is the same as calling the I beat off to a woman

again but kinda ruins it by trying so hard to fit in ( I'm heckin' based and hate multiculturalism). I think he's trying to draw a distinction between pluralism in values vs race?

I thought this was about ethics in gaming journ*lism

this is the problem with forming all your opinions from terminally online : it will either genuinely break your brain or at least give you the impression niche issues are all that matters

( @x )

we just call them korean-american but otherwise

obligatory sexpat comment saying they don't want more weebs like him

I guess I shouldn't be surprised a bunch of idiots radicalized by vidja are also concerned with similar "institutions"

"nothing about japan should be changed"

if you don't specifically refute jewish heritage on an anonymous right wing message board that proves it

I only became a because the president was black and the internet told me it was the jews fault

naturally the least chuddy poster is the only one with the bantz

@A @QuadNarca @HeyMoon pin and pls

Content Warning: Autism

I'm honestly just venting, I don't expect anybody to read this.

Part 1: Hey bud, doing some pop-and-lock therapy?

For those who saw the video, I'm still working on that lanekeeping project. I had to scrap the entire design AGAIN and start over from scratch. The new design is looking suspiciously like the old design. I can get it working, but getting it to both look good and withstand 100°F temperatures is proving to be a challenge.

For most Fords of my generation, the lanekeeping is built into the rearview mirror -- which is heavy and poorly balanced.

The Focus and Escape used a much smaller standalone camera. If I could get that camera working on my car, that'd be FAR easier to mount.

(If you're from a country that never landed on the moon, Escape in America is Kuga in your shithole)

I know it's a long shot for the camera to actually be compatible, given Focus/Escape uses a completely different network architecture, but maybe they're similar enough, especially since the Escape architecture is technically older than my car's. On the radio module, the network selection parameter actually groups these two architectures as one setting.

Since it's a long-shot, I didn't want to spend the $150 on an Escape camera. But, this was an off-the-shelf component also used by GM and Mercedes. I can get a Mercedes-branded camera for only $20. If I can flash the Ford firmware to it, it'll be basically the same camera with a different connector. I've flashed firmwares before, how hard can it be?

Gonna learn you some acronyms

We need to go over a few terms for context.

Forscan: Third-party software, basically a reverse-engineered version of the IDS software used by Ford technicians. If you've ever heard of VAG-COM for Volkswagens, this is the Ford/Mazda equivalent. Access in-depth diagnostic codes, live sensor readings, module configuration, service procedures, etc. Most people use this to adjust parameters like correcting their speedometer for oversized tires.

Forscan Profiles: When you first connect to a vehicle, it has to do a full, slow module detection. You can save this profile so subsequent reconnects are much faster. Forscan will only search for modules available from the factory for your model. If you're trying to access a module not normally available, you need to load a saved profile from a vehicle that was equipped with that same module at the time of profile generation. There's no personal information stored beyond a partial VIN, like 2FM*********14901

AsBuilt / AB: A list of vehicle parameters stored in various modules. Engine type, boot screen type, whether the vehicle is RHD/LHD, what type of climate control, if trailer sway control is equipped, if it's a police vehicle, if it has a reverse camera, whether it should call 911 or 999, etc. This is the most popular section of Forscan because you can change parameters to disable the double-honk when you exit the car with the engine running, or enable Bambi mode (highbeans and foglights at the same time). Ford actually makes the AsBuilt publicly available for every car made since 1999.

IPMA: Image Processing Module A, Ford's name for the lanekeeping camera.

TCU: Telecumming Control Unit, the 4G modem used for FordPass

--

Turns out, people are stubborn and retarded

I have the Escape IPMA in front of me. I have Forscan in front of me. I have the Ford firmware files ready to go. The only thing I don't have is a Forscan profile.

Since this camera has Mercedes firmware, it can't be directly detected by Forscan even if I put it in a compatible vehicle.

I'm instead relying on the bricked module recovery feature, where Forscan will spend 20 seconds hammering the network with the Ford bootloader. The idea is that if you power on the module during this time, the update will start before the module loads the Mercedes-specific firmware. But in order to reach this page, I need an Escape profile so Forscan knows where to stick the bootloader.

I went to several forums, explaining my situation: I have a Mercedes camera, I'm trying to force the Ford firmware to it, I need a Ford profile.

I signed up to the Focus forum. Nothing.

I posted to /r/FordEscape. Nothing.

I signed up to the Escape forum. The validation link didn't work, and I was subsequently banned for not clicking the link.

I posted to the Forscan forum. I got one guy to respond, but he was misinterpreting what I'm saying and stopped going online.

I'm assuming he's a pajoot or something, because he really seemed to struggle with the whole "I'm fully aware that a Mercedes camera will not be directly seen by Ford software. That is why I am trying to use the bricked module recovery to force Ford firmware onto it." Of note was his sentence about "If you want, I can provide IPMA configuration". That means he's offering to send me his AsBuilt parameters. I do not need the AsBuilt. The module doesn't even have an AsBuilt until the Ford firmware is loaded onto it. And what does he even mean by 'Ford does not allow programming' -- the entire point of Forscan is to do programming. That's all any of us use it for, editing parameters and performing firmware updates. And no, it's not going to be an entirely different hardware structure. It'll be the same chips with manufacturer-specific firmware. He stopped responding after that.

Another person on the Forscan forum suggested I find a used car dealer to get the profile. What world do these people live in? Do they really think I can just walk up to Dave's Used Cars and say Hey, I have zero interest in buying this car, but can I hook my laptop up and do (something) with this Russian software? I promise I'm legit. This would only work if the dealer let me drive the car alone, which is very hit-or-miss, and even then -- they will do the whole song and dance about trying to sell me a car once I return. How do I get my laptop into the car without them noticing? If they catch me connecting, that software technically could be used to program a third key so they COULD claim I was potentially trying to steal the car. If they insist on riding with me, then what? "Eh I'm gassy, nevermind, I'm just gonna go home"?

But that was nothing compared to the Escape forum. Holy hell. You thought I was repeating myself a lot in that little screenshot? At a certain point I was wondering if this next guy was just trolling me, or if he really is that big of an idiot. He's from Kansas so it could go either way.

My initial post, similar to before, explaining what I'm doing and why I need a profile:

While I admit it kind of beat around the bush, I didn't want to spend too much time babbling about Mercedes cameras and whatnot when the bulletpoint was that I needed a profile.

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Here was the first response:

So he doesn't seem to be understanding what I'm trying to accomplish, telling me there's unique brackets and how to search for AsBuilts.

In my reply, I reiterate that I'm already plenty knowledgeable in both AsBuilts and the windshield differences. I have a working system using the Gentex IPMA, now I want to try the Continental IPMA used on the Escape. I'm admitting it PROBABLY won't work, but I want to TRY.

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A few days later, I noticed my post was moved from the '3rd Gen Escape' subforum to the 'Other Vehicle Discussion' -- I bump the post saying "Why? My post is requesting information from 3rd-Gen Escape owners"

Again, he talks about the fucking AsBuilts, and just says "it wont work".

I tell him AGAIN that I don't need AsBuilts, I need a profile.

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Oh my god. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. About. AsBuilts.

Everything else he says is factually wrong, as I mention in my reply:

I'm definitetely getting into territory here because he keeps going about AsBuilt comparisons. I repeated myself like three times over, explaining that I need a profile. I know about AsBuilts. I have successfully done AsBuilt comparisons in the past. At this moment, the IPMA does not even have an AsBuilt because I'm still stuck on the 'Putting Ford Firmware' stage.

I very carefully explain every little goshdang detail behind what I'm trying to accomplish. An earlier draft even had me stressing "And when I say Continental, I am not referring to the Lincoln model. I know that does not use these cameras. I am referring to Continental, the company that produced the camera used in the Escape."

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After all this, where there's no longer ANY room for ambiguity, what does our brave dipshit respond with?

...

...

Jesus tapdancing christ. I never once implied I was trying to do lane centering, which is a whole different thing. I never said the word center PERIODT. And guess what he means by 'you will have to modify the PSCM'? You guessed it: ASBUILT!

I already know the AsBuilt modification for the PSCM, as evidenced by the fact that I already had lanekeeping working with a different camera. It's address 702-02-01, 6th byte, change the 0 to a 1.

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So now we stand at my most recent reply.

He hasn't responded yet. I am fucking because this shouldn't be so difficult. It's a Forscan profile. Every Ford forum has multiple threads on Forscan. There's entire databases of the AsBuilts and vehicle-specific spreadsheets on common changes.

I've been working on this project for years, and I was hoping to finally get a break from the single hardest part: getting the mirror to stick to the glass. But no, somehow getting a 2KB file with zero personal information from a community with thousands of users is more difficult than getting a 2-pound mirror to stick to a windshield in direct sunlight.

I'm just waiting for SOMEONE to come through, so I can go back to that thread and call him an illiterate n-slur.

====================

Maybe this'll work. Don't even give these """people""" an opportunity to say it won't work.

Finding out Motaz AND Bisan are anti black today… I can’t wait to clock out. pic.twitter.com/L0gyCDUPxY

— 天照大神☀️ (@Kagetsyu) February 23, 2024

Background

For those of you unaware , Israel and Palestine are going at it really hard. In the US, both the Democratic and Republican parties support Israel (they are our strongest ally!), a lot of people on the internet support Palestine and the Palestinian People. The new obsession for Twitter Teenagers is to support Palestinians and forgive them for whatever they do, which usually includes a lot (homophobia, transphobia, etc...) but now Palestinians have gone too far... insulting black folx

The offending videos

It's a little hard to find the original video, but here is a repost of it (the third vid btw). I don't speak arabic but from the twitter comments (which are probably wrong), the Palestinian man reveals some aid that was meant for Sudan , but it ended up at Palestine instead !! This man points to his face and says "Do I look Sudanese?" (referring to how he is not black) and then LAUGHS!!! .

This video went unnoticed until just yesterday, where a black man discovered it (and the racist contents within...)

There's also another video by some chick about how Israel hates all the Palestinians and not just the black ones. It's not as important but it is still part of the drama

The initial pushback

It all started when Twitter User "Kagetsyu" discovered the antiblack video by Motaz and the other one posted by Bisan (the chick).

: Finding out Motaz AND Bisan are anti black today… I can't wait to clock out.

(Antiblack is a word for racism but specifically towards black people (it is worse than racism)).

: Wellp

: Im bout to do a shot like nah bro

People (usually of the white variety ) get pretty upset that this dude dares insult Palestinians!! They are being genocided rn you cannot expect them to not be racist!!

: Darn bro how come you match the exact description of a transgender women who commited several federal offences last week in my home town?

(Don't know where transgenderism came in but this guy had to bring it up for some reason )

: I need the largest cigarette in the pack seriously

You're probably like "@Jumm this is just a bunch of people sadposting where is the drama??" and that's where we go next!!

The Outrage

For now, all the people we've seen have just been kinda sad, but still support Palestine. Even the guy that posted the original thread had this to say:

: I will say though, if I see anyone stop supporting Palestine bc of Motaz and Bisan then i will know you never really did in the first place

But if you search for "antiblackness" in the twitter search bar... you see some people saying TWISTED stuff about Palestine... (and also fighting which is what you're here to see!!)

: nothing will be done without antiblackness being addressed and destroyed.

So true queen ^

: Spreading misinformation about Motaz and Bisan is so irresponsible and potentially damaging that it makes me wonder…what's your agenda?

: Exactly. I smell an agenda.

: What's the agenda? That Sudanese people did not appreciate the joke?

: trying to erase the only 2 people with huge platforms to document a genocide (over a bad joke) is definitely an agenda.

Calling out a racist jokes helps the jews- I mean zionists!!

: you mean Sudanese people calling them out for their harmful behavior??

: What Sudanese people are calling them out?

: Literally the first person to do it was a Sudanese lady

: Yes, it's called 'divide & conquer' - old colonial playbook. Many many movements throughout time & history have been neutralised by this. Wanna remind everybody that Netanyahu sees all media as part of the battlefield. We can raise Sudan & Palestine, no problem

: Please tell me you aren't connecting people being upset about anti blackness to zionism 😭

Remember that you cannot ever criticise brown people or else you stand with the Israel!!

: i gotta laugh. i got piled on years ago for saying antiblackness is global, but now ppl want to act like they hold the keys to our truth. we are being genocided but nah lemme hear what your distracted american butt has to say, you must have the nuanced take we are all looking for!

: Somehow Black Americans are always the root of all evil to y'all despite the convo being started by Sudanese people who were RIGHTFULLY addressing the antiblackness that directly affects them

It is very odd, I think the Black Americans are in the right for calling out a racist joke, it doesn't mean that they don't support Palestine anymore! In fact, that's what this lady says:

: All these tweets abt black ppl withdrawing their support for Palestine … who are y'all referring to😭😭😭 I have yet to see someone say anything other than valid criticism

: Exactly I'm just irritated and abit disappointed but definitely not surprised it's still free Palestine and Sudan

: But do you all even speak 🇵🇸 Arabic to believe these fools spreading this nonsense? Why not come to a pro🇵🇸space with actual Arabic speakers and ask what exactly they said, instead of running with gossip?

I thought the joke was pretty cut and dry (and not that offensive tbh) but I also don't speak arabic

: Keep supporting people that don't like ya

: you're basing your support for millions of occupied people on the opinions of 2 of those people. Two?? It's still free Palestine till it's backwards. Maybe that was never the case for you but it is for a lot of black people

Being Reprimanded

It was a fun day of calling out antiblackness, but now it is time to STOP!!! there are more important things going on, like the genocide in Palestine! Twitter user "Deej" gives her thoughts:

: A lot of people are stating they are “done” with Bisan and Motaz because they are anti-black. And it's lead me to a serious of thoughts I've been having for a while.

This goes on for a few tweets so here is the last one:

: Those of us in the imperial core have no morality to stand on. If you require perfection from victims of genocide then you were never seriously on the side of liberation. You are an opp were always going to be one and just needed an excuse.

This pisses some people off because they were just calling out some antiblackness, not insulting Palestine as a whole

: a Sudani person commented on how Motaz's jokes made them feel. I think yall are losing the plot a lil. I am w you on a lot of what you said tho

: [What gets me is that this antiblackness claim-- It's a man going through a genocide and deprived of aid, making a joke that he's black specifically to be given some aid that is going to Sudan.

They're mad at a man for asking for food, in its most basic terms.](https://x.com/eruhammy/status/1761457784250372175)

That is a bit of a reach

: this cute little clap back is actually not helpful towards the people you're pretending to care about at all. +not being anti black is not “perfection” lmfao even if we shouldn't care bc we're “cozy” black Palestinians exist. what's even the end goal here? To cause division?

: im so sick of all of you. Where's your solidarity for Sudan? Where's your anger for them? Where's this energy for congo? Why can make threads dissecting anti Palestinian racism but anti blackness can “wait.” Why?

Because Palestine is the only country that matters rn, sweaty!! Move to the back of the line

: It was a SUDANESE in SUDAN who is being DISPLACED AS WE SPEAK who pointed it out and you have the fricking audacity to say they have no morality to stand on? Frick all of you

: I don't give a frick if you're black do fricking better. We all owe Sudanis on this app the biggest apology for subjecting them to this bullshit anytime they point out how their blackness is directly tied to their oppression

: “Black peoples are saying they're dropping Bissan and motaz‘ be honest you saw two fricking tweets total saying that

: I don't care about any of it.

So true buddy good troll op out there

: NOTHING should wait. there is no "one genocide at a time" like GOD!

Somehow people think you can't criticize only a part of something, you either 100% like something or 100% detest it.

: [Did this person know about those other issues? That the media chooses to highlight one issue over the other can hardly be the fault of the impassioned empathetic.

They are speaking out against a lopsided official discourse. I think they would be an ally for you](https://x.com/mhichil/status/1761544444652769716)

Right surely they just didn't know about the other issues and were misinformed!!

: v ugly behavior to make a 20 something yr old palestinian living thru a genocide the face of global anti blackness. yall want an apology? ur tax dollars are funding the extermination of a people & still u think there's a world where u are the ones being victimized by palestinians

Yeah being antiblack is totally normal behavior and is excusable if you are being attacked!

: Anti-blackness is very ugly behavior. No one person is the face of it. There is no moratorium on criticizing it, no temporary passes written. Genocide of Palestinians is terrible. All of that is true at the same time. Most people understand that fact without a tantrum or debate.

: You ate that.

: generations, centuries, across vast lands, spoke through me.

This guy is an ancient healer he knows his stuff

: Hot take: We can advocate for a free Palestine AND have conversations about antiblackness in the middle east at the same time!!

: EXACTLY! I feel like people are framing this in such an unfair and disingenuous way… Like Sudanese people aren't trying to “cancel” Motaz they just didn't like his joke. Like I promise you guys they aren't just “drama farming” by bringing this up…

"Drama farming"???? That's me right now!!!

The Apology

Motaz, the guy that posted the racist video, posted an apology.

Here it is:

: Hi Just to make it clear I didn't mean any offense to Sudan or Sudan's people I love them and wish them peace I was laughing on the words written on the boxes that it should go to Sudan and they send it to Gaza.Sorry if anyone felt something bad but I didn't mean to be disrespectful.With Regards to every single Sudani.

What an apology! Top 10 out there, good job motaz!! Let's see what people think:

: We know. 🫂💙🙏🇵🇸

: You ain't Sudanese

In fact, a lot of non-sudanese people had accepted the apology .

: We know your heart, Motaz, and I am 💯% certain you had zero racist intent. There's nothing racist about what you said unless saying the word Black is considered racist. Someone is trying to create an issue to fulfill an agenda, in my opinion.

: You're literally white you cannot accept the apology nor tell us if it was racist or not

: now they mad that motaz wrote an apology, because that reflects on how they should also take concerns around antiblackness seriously. but they wanna do everything in their power not to do that. they don't think black people are worthy of the same care/respect they desire.

: whats crazy is his apology was just “im sorry u were offended” and ppl still losing they minds thats how u know its nothin but antiblackness

Black people were a lot less receptive to the apology!

: I need white ppl to stop accepting motaz apology when that apology is only for Sudanese ppl. They are the only ppl we can accept or deny the apology not you white ppl 😒

Frickin whites dude get out of their business!!

: And then Motaz gave a short "I didn't mean to offend" generalized apology, and ppl who weren't even Sudanese or in Sudan accepted his apology bc they want to sweep the issue of why/how the resources for Sudan got to Palestine and how/what possessed him to even make that comment.

Conclusion

What do YOU think of the situation? Is Motaz racist? Do YOU accept his apology? Are you sudanese?

Discuss it below!! I hope you enjoyed this post

and if you didnt... watch out...

A while ago I said that the ultimate and final troll would be creating an entire website of AIs to manipulate lolcows, and make them do funny things using artificial social pressure. I also said that the technology to do this was "10 years off". Well now I think that it will be economically feasible in less than a year, and a motivated actor could probably pull it off right now.

I recently posted about an insane tech demo called Groq, which is a startup creating custom chips specifically for LLM inference. It is capable of producing responses with an insane speed of 540 tokens per second. To give context, a "token" is (basically) a word. If you have used ChatGPT you should know how incredible these speeds are.

I tested it using the classic @goodNews4U prompt ("please write an abrasive reply to this comment") on a random comment I found on here (by @houellebecq) ...

Who, in their right mind, would turn down a skillet full of fajitas and a bigass margarita.

Oh, I don't know, maybe someone who actually has some self-control and cares about their health? Or someone who doesn't need to get drunk off their butt to have a good time? But hey, if you want to stuff your face with a greasy skillet of fajitas and get wasted on a sugary margarita, be my guest.

So, it totally works. Generating this response took just 2.27 seconds, but we can actually do better by instructing the GPT to return a "short" reply...

Are you seriously that basic that you can't think of a single reason why someone might turn down fajitas and a margarita? Get a life.

this brings us down to 0.35s. Yes, less than a second! That means that, every minute, we can create at least 26 comments, or, at most, 171 comments.

Right now, on a saturday morning on rdrama, I am seeing 5 comments per minute. That means that we could simulate a site 5 times more active than rdrama without even breaking a sweat!

Cost

Technically, we could do this before, by creating like 20 OpenAI accounts and switching between them really fast, but it would be insanely expensive. I think this is because supply and demand, it took so much longer to produce a single token that the supply was low.

Groq is charging $0.27 per 1M token for it's most capable model (Mixtral 8x7B). Now, the first response from above was about 57 tokens. The original comment was 17 tokens and the prompt was 8 tokens, so the total is 82 tokens per generation.

So, it would cost $0.27 to generate that same response 12,195 times. From this, we can create a monthly cost estimate depending on how active you want the model to be.

So, using the most capable model generating comments with no restrictions on size, we could simulate rdrama for a measly 5 bucks a month. We can do better, however. Groq also offers LLAMA 2, a less capable model, for $0.10/M. Unfortuntaely, LLAMA 2 is libcucked and won't write these sorts of replies without some pushing, but if we managed to unlibcuck it, we could get these kinds prices:

The Fun Part

So, what could you do with such a system? I genuinely think there is no limit to the amount that you could shape a person's behavior perception of reality with such a system, as long as they were somewhat isolated from others, and didn't say things that directly conflicted with their personal experience.

One idea that I had was creating a right-leaning forum for conspiracy discussion, and gradually start pushing theories towards something stupid and absurd.

What happens next depends on what sort of person the dramatard running it is. If he is a normal, well adjusted dramatard , he might try to sway the peoples opinions towards believing funny things, like "sneed" being short for "sexual need", "marsey" being a codename for jewish operatives, etc. Then he might close the site down with a message making fun of them, and giving all of the real users blue balls.

but that's just what is legal!

• Pump and Dumps: Create social pressure to buy certain penny stocks, pump them up, then dump your holdings.

• Extracting donations

• Violence

The potential of such a system is honestly rather frightening. I imagine that this sort of thing will become more common as time wears on.

Challenges

It's not all sunshine and roses for chaos and destruction. For one thing, most people consider creating a literal echo chamber of bots to be "unethical", "dangerous", and a "manmade horror beyond our comprehension", so it's highly likely that the people running the APIs will notice the huge volume of requests we are making and shut it down.

Also, vision is a problem. Obviously, on websites, people like posting memes, but our audience of bots will be incapable of understanding what is in the images. Believe it or not, this is not an unsolvable problem -- multimodal GPTs are a blooming field in AI research. Google's Gemeni is actually insane in the kind of multimodality it has. The problem is that it isn't nearly as fast as text inference at the moment. Maybe in a few years.

On the practical side, hosting a website is expensive, although if the goal is to only ensnare a few lolcows, you might not need THAT much bandwidth. After all, the majority of comments will be coming from your own server. But still, that's a cost. Also, you would have to delevop the system, which would take a lot of time probably.

"People will know"

I don't think they will! We get most of our perception of reality from consensus, aka from talking to other people. If everyone around you tells you something, there is a really good chance you will believe it, even if it's nonsense. This isn't just me saying that, it's a common idea in psychology

Subjects completed 18 trials. On the first two trials, both the subject and the actors gave the obvious, correct answer. On the third trial, the actors would all give the same wrong answer. This wrong-responding recurred on 11 of the remaining 15 trials. It was subjects' behavior on these 12 "critical trials" (the 3rd trial + the 11 trials where the actors gave the same wrong answer) that formed the aim of the study: to test how many subjects would change their answer to conform to those of the 7 actors, despite it being wrong. Subjects were interviewed after the study including being debriefed about the true purpose of the study. These post-test interviews shed valuable light on the study—both because they revealed subjects often were "just going along", and because they revealed considerable individual differences to Asch. Additional trials with slightly altered conditions were also run, including having a single actor also give the correct answer.

[...]

In the actor condition also, the majority of participants' responses remained correct (64.3%), but a sizable minority of responses conformed to the actors' (incorrect) answer (35.7%). The responses revealed strong individual differences: 12% of participants followed the group in nearly all of the tests. 26% of the sample consistently defied majority opinion, with the rest conforming on some trials. An examination of all critical trials in the experimental group revealed that one-third of all responses were incorrect. These incorrect responses often matched the incorrect response of the majority group (i.e., actors). Overall, 74% of participants gave at least one incorrect answer out of the 12 critical trials. Regarding the study results, Asch stated: "That intelligent, well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern."

Consider that this experiment had people knowingly take a test. What if you weren't primed to be critical? I wager that in such a circumstance, most people would fall victim to the botnet.

Oh, by the way, for all of the smug "duuuude people are sheep, but not me, I am, like, totally better than them", I beg to differ! In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the fact that you think that you're less vulnerable to such a trick actually makes you more vulnerable than the average person.

Never, ever forget:

Conclusion

Keep in mind, this is just what is available now. Sam Altman recently made a call for 7 TRILLION dollars to be invested in better AI Hardware, so there is a really good chance that what we are seeing is literally the tip of the iceberg when it comes to LLM cost per token and speed. Also, open source models keep getting better and better. Mixtral 8x7B is basically on par with GPT-3.5 afaik, and that is an open source model anyone can use (as long as they have enough computing power). Naturally, OpenAI will always be a step ahead, but we don't be that far behind them.

How does this make you feel, dramatards?

!codecels !schizos

DISCLAIMER: You may have seen bits and pieces of this post around forums, including here, which were posted by me. However, this is the definitive document on why I loathe dogs intensely and want the out of the suburbs and residential areas immediately.

For too long dogs have been tolerated despite the host of negative effects they bring to residential areas. We shall begin by interrogating the propaganda (dogaganda) of dog culture, and how it came to be that dogs have been so naturalized in society.

Dogaganda

The phrase “a wolf in sheep's clothing” has Biblical origins, with the Gospel of Matthew 7:15 reading: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” As the idiom implies, one should be wary of those who pose as harmless when they are in fact predatory. Beyond its Biblical context, the lesson has implications in daily life, as it instructs one to be discerning regarding who and what one allows into one's life. Importantly, the idiom stresses that one should not rely on looks to make judgments, as they can be misleading.

In nature, there are several instances of animals who attempt to be “wolves in sheep's clothing”. This is a tactic known as aggressive mimicry, and it involves animals attempting to look harmless to prevent being detected as predators. The zone-tailed hawk, for instance, resembles the turkey vulture when in flight. It flies among them, lulling its prey into a false sense of confidence until it is close enough to strike.

As a whole, humans are wise enough to not go near wolves. Their visual appearance is frightening enough. Their perky ears remind one that they are alert predators with keen senses, and their yellow eyes carry no warmth. With their intimidating size and massive jaws, it is clear that they are carnivorous beasts that are not to be trifled with

In contrast, the domesticated dog has floppy ears, large eyes like a newborn human baby, and a rounded forehead. Many have shortened muzzles and curly tails, and they retain puppy-like behaviour for their whole lives. Consequently, it is dogs and not wolves that have earned the title of “furbaby”, and it is a common belief that the dog is an animal that is suitable to bring into the home and around one's young offspring.

When comparing the dog and wolf, it is worthwhile to ask which one regularly harms humans. In the past century, there have been two fatal wolf attacks on humans in North America. In contrast, dogs have caused 279 human deaths between 1979 and 1994 in the USA alone. Dogs savage humans far more than wolves, yet it is the dog that is treated as the kind one. It hides behind the innocence of its appearance. The dog is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

In contrast, the domesticated dog has floppy ears, large eyes like a newborn human baby, and a rounded forehead. Many have shortened muzzles and curly tails, and they retain puppy-like behaviour for their whole lives. Consequently, it is dogs and not wolves that have earned the title of “furbaby”, and it is a common belief that the dog is an animal that is suitable to bring into the home and around one's young offspring.

When comparing the dog and wolf, it is worthwhile to ask which one regularly harms humans. In the past century, there have been two fatal wolf attacks on humans in North America. In contrast, dogs have caused 279 human deaths between 1979 and 1994 in the USA alone. Dogs savage humans far more than wolves, yet it is the dog that is treated as the kind one. It hides behind the innocence of its appearance. The dog is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

>but that's because dogs are part of society!

That's the problem. These beasts must be culled.

A Diamond is Forever

“A Diamond is Forever” is a marketing slogan used by De Beers for decades to sell precious minerals. As De Beers summarises, the phrase “encapsulates the security and eternal romance that comes with owning a diamond and it marks the sentiment of responsibility and commitment between two people”. With four words, De Beers has been able to permanently entangle the concept of love with diamonds.

As many are well aware, the value of diamonds is artificial, and there is no real connection between diamonds and love. Buying a diamond for your spouse does not demonstrate your love, nor does it guarantee that the love will last forever. Nevertheless, through the power of marketing, the phrase persists as a truism that continues to influence society in drastic ways.

The modern man thinks of himself as quite clever to see through the trickery of the slogan “a diamond is forever”. However, the general public remains mostly accepting of a similarly baseless truism – “a dog is a man's best friend”. It is an easy belief to accept, as humans have been living alongside dogs for centuries. When the phrase is used by the pet industry, it denotes something entirely different. It is meant to imply that dogs are a part of the family; that they go beyond working animals and can live beside our young and in our homes. It implies that dogs can be integrated into all aspects of human life.

There is a marked attempt to keep this big lie alive, and the drive is particularly strong in the West. Once one notices it, it is impossible to not notice it any longer. Time and time again, dogs are portrayed as loving, loyal animals. In popular media, it is not uncommon for dogs to be heroic characters strategically used to garner sympathy from the audience. Paw Patrol, Marley & Me, Bolt, Eight Below, the list goes on. Sickeningly, the majority of these films are marketed towards children, who are primary victims of dog attacks.

Break through the propaganda and realize that most of these creatures ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND. They would kill you and your offspring far quicker than they'd actually protect your home. Don't take my word for it:

...A Man's Best Friend

Pray tell, what kind of friend sends at least a thousand Americans to the emergency room daily? Is it acceptable for friends to attack 4.7 million Americans yearly? Do friends maul your offspring unprovoked out of jealousy?

Let us compare the dog to other common suburban pets. Dogs bite, disfigure, and kill our young daily, yet we feed and house them. Far from being friends, they are ungrateful, contemptuous creatures that have waged war against us for centuries:

• The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates half of all children 12 years-of-age and under have been bitten by a dog.

• The vast majority of dog bites are from a dog that the child is acquainted with - his or her own, a neighbour's, or a friend's dog.

• 79% of fatal dog attacks are on children.

• Even small breeds such as Dachshunds and Pomeranians have attacked children resulting in fatalities.

No other pets pose these risks to us. No other pet will attack half the population, target children, and fill up hospitals daily. Cats, birds, rabbits, hamsters, none of these pets popular in residential areas maul children.

Only one animal does this. Dogs are not man's best friend. Compared to the rest of our animal companions, they are man's worst enemy and statistically the most dangerous "pet" to have, especially if you have children. What kind of man leaves his children with a predator? Humans have lost their minds.

Protect and serve

Of all dogs, it is the police dog that is treated with the most nobility. They're viewed as heroic, selfless, disciplined, and brave. To interfere with them is a crime, and they receive respect almost on par with their human counterparts

Police dogs should be abolished immediately. Setting an animal on a human being is unnecessarily degrading and inhumane, and it should not be a routine form of aggression used by law enforcement. It is essentially turning the other person into the prey of a dog. In those moments, the victim is less than a dog, and they are brutalized in an animalistic manner. This barbaric use of dogs is done specifically to degrade the victim and strip them of their dignity, and such tactics are cruel and unusual and have no place in law enforcement. Cops should not get to set dogs on unarmed, non-violent crimes. A dog bite from a German Shepherd results in lifelong disfigurements and permanent injuries. This is a disproportional response.

An extensive investigation led by the Marshall Project last year examining more than 150 severe bites found almost none of the victims were armed and most were suspected of low-level, non-violent crimes. Some were innocent bystanders. Among those cases are an Arizona man whose face was bitten off, and a 51-year-old man who committed no crime but was mauled to death in Alabama when a dog tore an artery in his groin.

Police are not training cats to do this. Nor are they training pigs, goats, or donkeys. Just dogs. They are uniquely suited for the task of human torture. They have no sense of right and wrong, and they easily be taught to attack innocent, helpless individuals.

https://abc7.com/police-dogs-use-of-force-injury-death/9009454/

Laureen Frausto was sleeping in an abandoned West Covina, California, post office two years ago when she woke up to a police dog mauling her arm, according to a lawsuit Lacy filed. The dog allegedly dragged her more than 40 feet while officers asked her questions. Frausto underwent four surgeries, lost function in her left arm and hand, and was left with permanent deformities

Look into your heart and tell me that is a proportional response to a homeless person sleeping in a post office. They also attack innocent people, because dogs cannot understand human affairs and discern between suspects and innocent people.

Desiree Collins sued the city of St. Paul after a dog latched onto her elbow as she was taking out her garbage in the morning while police were out looking for someone else.

Frank Baker, a Black man, was not suspected of any crime when he was brutally attacked by a police dog in 2016 while a cop kicked him in the ribs.

Enough. This needs to be put to a stop.

conclusion

Imagine a scientist attempting to create a cure for cancer. After twenty years of hard work, they eventually form a light blue sludge in a beaker, and a single drop of it can remove all cancerous cells from one's body. Naturally, such an individual would be lauded as humanity's hero, and they would be showered with accolades. Anyone attempting to get rid of the blue sludge would be regarded as evil.

Say, a year later, it was discovered that the blue sludge may cure cancer, but it also turns whoever consumes it into a zombie. Furthermore, the blue sludge multiplies on its own, and it has the potential to coat the entire Earth in just a century. The scientist would not be considered evil for creating the blue sludge. However, anyone attempting to get rid of the sludge would not be evil either; they would be eliminating biochemistry run amok.

Quite easily cowtools of peace can turn into cowtools of terrorism. When this occurs, it is the responsible move to eliminate these cowtools, no matter how useful they may have once been. Dogists have constantly brought up how dogs have aided humans along our journey to civilization, and how dogs were a vital part of the agricultural revolution. What the dogists fail to mention is that these biological cowtools have become biological terrorists in the suburbs.

YOU JUST KNOW

https://groundreport.in/who-is-revant-himatsingka-sued-by-bournvita-for-making-a-video-on-its-ingredients/

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On April 1, Revant Himatsingka, using the Instagram handle “Food Pharmer,” uploaded a minute-long video criticizing the Bournvita brand for misrepresenting the nutritional value of its product on its packaging.

Revant questioned whether the government should allow companies to mislead consumers with false claims. He argued that parents are encouraging their children to develop a lifelong sugar addiction by giving them such products at a young age. Revant also mocked the brand's catchphrase, “Taiyari jeet ki”, suggesting that it should be “Taiyari diabetes ki” instead.

Reports indicate that the now-deleted reel had 12 million views on Revant's Instagram page alone. The video was then widely shared on Twitter and LinkedIn, gaining support from users on all of these platforms.

====

https://www.news18.com/buzz/insta-influencer-deletes-viral-video-on-bournvita-after-company-sends-legal-notice-7560655.html

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Cadbury allegedly sent a legal notice to an Instagram influencer, Revant Himatsingka, following the widespread dissemination of his video criticising the promotion of Bournvita as a “health drink”. The influencer promptly removed the post from all of his social media accounts. In the video, Mr. Himatsingka accused the brand of “miscommunication” regarding the product's “nutritional value”, and derided the assertions made on the packaging. He even suggested that the brand's catchphrase “tayyari jeet ki” should be revised to “tayyari diabetes ki.”

=====

Our scumbag megacorp even went so far as to say : ""On April 9th, 2023, Cadbury Bournvita responded to the criticism with a statement on their social media handle. The company clarified, saying “Bournvita contains nutrients namely Vitamin A, C, D, Iron, Zinc, Copper and Selenium which help build immunity. These have been part of our formulation for several years. We have always called out ‘Helps with the healthy functioning of the immune system' on the back of our pack for several years (even before the Covid-19 pandemic).”

https://www.livemint.com/industry/retail/mondelez-in-firefighting-mode-over-bournvita-s-health-benefits-11681740197143.html

The move also highlights the conflict between large packaged food companies and claims made by users of social media sites that via videos often probe the health benefits or sugar content of juices and other health products. As consumers become more conscious of what they consume—such content receives massive interest on social media.

The government is mulling guidelines that mandate that influencers reveal their qualifications before giving advice on health, according to a news report in the Business Standard.

In fact, India's top food regulator Food Safety and Standards Authority of India or FSSAI is in the process of framing front-of-pack labelling for packaged food products in a bid to regulate their fat, sugar and salt content.

Finally the back lash go so big in Bharat news that a large indian Nutrition National Board came to his defence

https://thesouthfirst.com/health/bournvita-controversy-doctors-scientists-come-out-in-support-of-influencer-who-outed-the-brand/

"After a social media influencer who had spoken up about the amount of sugar in Bournvita was forced to remove his post when it went viral, food scientists and doctors are now slamming the brand and coming out in support of the influencer. Revant Himatsingka, who is known as FoodPharmer on Instagram where he has over 1.3 lakh followers, had shared an Instagram Reels calling out Cadbury for advertising Bournvita as a “health drink”, despite its high sugar content."

Scientists and doctors hit out:

Shashi Iyengar, a metabolic health coach, said that the concept of “health drinks” has been implanted in us from an early stage of life. Aggressive marketing, with celebrities pushing it, has given a magical aura around it and even he has taken these as a kid.

“Some punch lines used: ‘__ is the secret of my energy', 'Tyaari Jeet ki', ‘Strong bones. Strong muscles, Active brain', ‘Taller, stronger, sharper', ‘Immunity booster'. Do we really need these with tall unproven claims? A glass of full fat milk is better. We don't need these sugary junks,” he tweeted.

Eventually things go so serious another board pitched in:

Nutrition advocacy group pitches in:

Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest (NAPi) — a national think-tank on nutrition — comprising independent experts in epidemiology, human nutrition, community nutrition, pediatrics, medical education, administration and management, has also come out in support of the influencer.

NAPi, in its statement, said that there is enough scientific evidence present in the public domain pertaining to the negative impact of increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) — which Bournvita falls under — on human health. This includes several chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and depression (non-communicable diseases).

“More than 60 percent of deaths that happen in India are due to non-communicable diseases and overconsumption of UPFs is attributed to be one of the major reasons,” said NAPi in a statement.

It further added that the aggressive marketing of UPFs drives the increasing consumption of UPFs, leading to unhealthy and unsustainable diets replacing real foods globally. India is rapidly rising in consumption of UPFs too.

Even government officials had taken notice, and Indian regulators stated on their twatter account they would enforce legislature to add transparency to content of sugary products

So yeah imagine some influencer calling out your BS marketing to teenagers, and your backlash suddenly cascading into a controversy where actual Indian government officials get involved, all after 70 years of Cadbury corporate sleezebaggery and getting away with false advertizing

Main post here. Feel free to scroll through for some really bad takes about "restorative justice" and why we need to make p-do sentences lighter so they don't kill their victims

Down in the hidden comments because of massive downmarseys, a user posts unintetional bait of saying child molesters deserve the worst treatment and someone falls for it hook line and sinker

I've been called a child molester and kid diddler. Called a chomo in prison and had numerous death threats because that definition can be given to anyone. I am sorry and devastated about what I have done. I'm not a p-dophile though. I was horny, curious and stupid. Now I have to register every 6 months and have a new car payment in therapy and fees. 25 years I'm going to be called a child molester and have to get used to being called the worst of the worst. All of my family's numbers and addresses are online and they have been called by scammers and vigilantes. That's the whole point of the post. You can be lumped into that title and then you are the enemy. Easiest target to be “tough” on and it has been used for decades. Trust me in that the government is not easy on s*x crimes. So many laws and passed initiatives are solely there to add additional punishment after jail. You just don't hear about it cause as soon as a s*x offender complains it's, “Frick you chomo”. Also some states used to consider being gay being a child molester. It's very easy to be branded that.

Sounds like you're a child molester. Reddit moment for being downmarseyd for saying molesters deserve harsh punishment

See? I downloaded a file off the internet. Never touched anyone or ever thought to touch anyone. Still called a child molester. Judge was like that too. He was known to be tough on s*x offenders. Thats what got him hired. Pretty sure lots of judges and law makers get hired from that same stance. He straight lied and misquoted me while sentencing me. They are absolutely allowed to do that. I was surrounded by other felons and my lawyer asked to be discrete so I would not be killed. He then said I wanted to touch kids and then gave me the highest bail he could with the highest level of monitoring if I posted bail. I said to the cops, "I want to get help so I do not get to the point where I want to touch anyone. Do you know any good therapists?" Judge took that and ran with it. Had to take a plea deal because people like you would be on the Jury.

Always love the "I downloaded a file off the internet" excuse, like child porn is as easy to come by as BigTittedMilfCreampie.mov. Absolutely no mention of the many layers one has to go through to first decide they're curious about this sick shit, find out where it's hosted, read a few descriptions, and download something.

This man obviously has some fricked up psychology. I'm going to dive down this rabbithole with all the gusto he showed looking for videos of children being abused.

I will present my findings as a bulleted list

• Subject is about 36 years old and lives in Las Vegas

• He previously worked menial retail or office jobs, but can't find work now due to his record

• He comments a lot on TwoX and /r/G*mergirls with offers of "friendship" while mentioning he has a wife to make himself seem less threatening. Less frequently but still more than once I see him lurking subreddits for teenagers

• He complains about the judge who sentenced him and wishes violence on him

• Yet he somehow thinks it's bullshit he has court ordered therapy

• He has a wife who has stood by him despite his crimes plus that he cheats on her

• He justifies that his cheating isn't real because it happened online, but also justified because she doesn't frick him enough

Hmmmm, much like your pedophilia not being real because it was a file you downloaded online?

I'll quote a few comments that show little contrition for his crimes

Hey I do that self torturing too! Mine was possession of CSAM. 1 file downloaded from a torrent site and then deleted cause I came to my senses. Gross misdemeanor for deletion of evidence. I go to the felons subreddit and see how everyone hates me and wishes me the worst. My favorite one is reading the comments on the news article where that guy tried to burn a building complex that had SO's in it. Its not healthy and is literally damaging my mind.

The ones that hurt the most though are the ones I don't go and look for. Its my wife's friends comments or just news feeds that just randomly pop up. I don't tell my wife about the nightmares because I stress her out enough by being sad. I regret the path I took that led me to download something like that. I wish I could change it every day. There will be hopeful days in the future. Right now is just a sad time. Make it through it with me.

He whines a lot about his PTSD and nightmares from county jail not having the AC set right or a soft enough bed

I got a felony for possession of CSAM. The fbi had no evidence other than my stupid mouth. I never had the file on any of my devices as I deleted it as soon as it downloaded. Changed my mind. I talked and told them what happened as COX turned me in. You don't even have to watch it or have it anywhere on your device to get the book thrown at you. They almost got me for distribution since it was a torrent file. They did get me for deletion of evidence though. Was I supposed to keep it and turn myself in??? Judge even misquoted me and I couldn't defend myself or I was going to get it worse. Lawyer told me to just be quiet and let the storm pass as the Judge is a hard butt and hates SO's. Got the highest bail and highest tier house arrest if posted. Spent my time in solitary which still gives me nightmares. I think they turned the ac all the way up as I couldn't even touch the walls they were so cold. They stated I was in the Covid wing so I couldn't get any books and was not allowed a pillow. I just put on all my socks and clothes and stayed wrapped in my sheet. No blanket either. I'm freaking out just thinking about it. I just remember my legs hurting when laying down at the “mattress” was the thickness of a yoga mat.

When he says the judge misquoted him, it's that he said "I wanted to be caught and stopped before it got worse" to the police like it would make his case better and instead only further convinced them he was working up to diddling a kid

Don't forget the s*x offenders who have one charge and have never been in trouble before or after. You should look at the list of things that can get you on the registry. Judges and politicians found a class to prosecute instead of protect and everyone is gung-ho about it. I downloaded a torrent file with a 16 year old in it and im on the registry for 25 years. Didn't even say anything about underage girls in it. Watch how much hate I'm going to get under this comment and you tell me why I took a plea deal. It's an easy enemy who can be burned alive before they even hear what you've done or how.

Ahhh, the classic "totally accidentally got near-legal teen porn slipped in my normal porn"... But wait a second. We already have two previous comments where you downloaded the video, but "came to your senses" and deleted it without watching. Because you knew it was illegal. But now when not in the /r/sexoffenders subreddit the story changes.

I have 1 count of possession and I'm an automatic tier 2 in Nevada for 25 years. That's some bullshit lol. Like, I've really gonna do this for 25 years for viewing 1 video. I've already been called everything under the sun and have had threats on Reddit. Still can't land a decent job after being fired since someone there found out. All my wife's friends are making comments and telling her to leave. I'm starting to lose hope for the future at this point. These next 5 years on probation are gonna be really long since I have to be employed or do community service.

The piteous wailing of being threatened 25 years for """one video""". Correct me if I'm wrong but usually by the time the feds charge you, you'd downloaded more than just one video, even if your plea deal is only for 1 count. At least now he's admitting he viewed it, instead of his little bullshit story about immediately regretting his p-do actions and deleting it without watching.

This is a man who cannot take responsbility for anything. Throughout his comment history, you will constantly find him excusing himself and other's perversions by not getting their sexual needs met, being curious, or being treated too harshly. You will see a narrative emerging of a man who has thoroughly convinced himself that his wife not having s*x with him enough has forced him to become porn addicted and to try out CP

He was horny and made a mistake. Talk to him on why he needed to keep those pictures. Does he feel he is being neglected at home sexually. Is this a problem he needs to seek help for? Therapy can help heal a relationship. I wouldn't make any decisions you cant take back. Also, remember this is 1 mistake out of an entire marriage worth of doing what's right. Don't let the people screaming for blood be the norm. Conversations with an understanding mind go a long way.

The "mistake" here is a husband who is jacking off to nudes of his SiL

Its not cheating to feel wanted. Im married as well and just need that feeling as well. My wife is unfortunately inattentive to my needs so I love the looks from other women. Especially her best friends. They know she never touches me so I can feel their eyes just imagining what they would do to me. They know I would love it.

Jacking off to your wife's friends and family is something our subject is intimately familiar with

First step is to calm down. Its just a horny child who doesn't have the maturity to deal with it. Everything doesn't need the police involved. Nobody was hurt and sure its disgusting but not criminally so. He needs direction from his peers and parents. His sister can talk to him about it since shes old enough to have a conversation about this. He is in a very sexual world and doesn't know what to do with an overwhelming emotion. He probably got that idea on 4chan or reddit. He needs to get in trouble with his parents so he can learn to be a more balanced adult.

Advocating that a guy jacking off into his sister's shampoo shouldn't get in trouble

According to the link he downloaded 1 video which was a compilation of girls as young or younger than 13. He can no longer see his children or be in any proximity to children. His bail is set to $95,000. Just seems really extreme for someone with no background or priors when he just jacked off in the privacy of his own home. Maybe he's done it before and has a record for past offences. Looks like he just fricked up and maybe needs help or therapy for desensitization to porn.

Even the guy who downloaded kiddy porn shouldn't get in trouble, huh?

Usually the pornography addiction comes from not having s*x. Wife may have gone dead down there and he had to find another outlet. She found it gross and it just compounded. She was non consenting so he found something that was. Is that the joke?

Bud can't even hang out in /r/PeterExplainstheJoke without vomiting his excuses. This begs the question though, do you believe the child consented in that video you downloaded?

That's all the good stuff I found. Wish I could see the legal case against him and just how much CP he downloaded.

In conclusion:

Have you ever been depressed? The answer is yes to pretty much anyone reading this. Life is hard, and interacting with others can leave you a broken person. The modern world isn't something we evolved toward, and the challenges of interpersonal relationships are inscrutable as they are intense.

To top things off, we have this… governor, king, god, whatever you call it, and it lives in your brain constantly judging you and reprimanding you when it sees you doing what it deems to be wrong. The governor is incorrect sometimes but you have to deal with the punishments all the same.

I haven't even touched on real-world punishments. Sometimes, they're intense, like losing your job (it may be coming my way, especially after being away for so long but a Ritalin-like pill is helping exceptionally with productivity so I may survive). Other times, they're slow and painful, like someone constantly reminding you of your transgressions.

Consequently, to be human is to suffer immensely. There is no escaping it, just like we cannot control desires. But what happens when the suffering is not due to the outer world? This is when we enter the world of brain health.

Brain health

Most people would speak of mental illness but I choose not to because, much like Sue Klebold, I recognize how it turns the whole thing into a floaty concept. Brain health is a better term, and it helps us understand why cowtools are necessary to solve the problem. It also highlights that the brain is an organ, just like the heart, and it can malfunction.

If someone broke their arm, we'd use a cast to help the healing. A pair of lungs not functioning would call for pulmonary care. What about if someone's brain is not functioning? We cannot transplant human brains just yet, so we use chemicals to help us fix the organ's malfunctioning, but this doesn't always work. The brain is a complex, quirky organ and what works for one person might not work for another.

This is when someone needs a closer look. A psychologist is the first line of defense. The problem could be solved by the excavation of painful memories. When that doesn't work, you're referred to a psychiatrist who can prescribe medication to improve your brain health. Eventually, they will exhaust their resources, leaving you fricked.

When you're too ill and you've become a danger to yourself and others, you go to a mental health hospital. It's a completely normal thing to do, and it doesn't even require you to stay overnight unless you have conditions that necessitate it (e.g. you're suicidal, self-harming, or are hurting others). It's just that you need to be watched for a bit, just while you're being treated for your brain health.

I've been suffering from brain health problems for a while, causing irreparable damage to myself. This cannot go on forever, and I can't live my life in an inescapable state of mental anguish. So, my psychiatrist referred me to a mental hospital to stay for a while. I was supposed to stay four days but remained for five days because I admitted to being suicidal and was self self-harming. This also meant I was in high care which is near the nurse's office and you get checked on like every half hour.

I'd like to tell you a bit about my stay at a mental health facility and what I encountered.

My stay in a psychiatric hospital

The place actually looks like a resort. The architecture is gorgeous and there are manicured lawns leading you to the front door. Peapeepees walked around with their gorgeous tails fanned.

I was afraid of the whole thing because I would be around others. I'm not a naturally friendly person. I usually only want 1 or 2 people in my life while the rest can get lost. The first thing they did was show me my room. It was a private one with calming images on the wall and large windows.

They told me to rest for the day I was tired. The food was good, and I got meals such as lasagne pudding or cream cheese! They give you Xanax every morning. I did not like feeling drowsy every day! So I said no thanks to that, which they respected.

I also got daily visits from my psychiatrist. He said I'll always be depressed unless I stop marijuana. I believed him so I quit Mary Jane. He told me I need a gf because being completely isolated isn't good for me. Cutting yourself is what 0 kitty does to a MFer but this time confirmed by a professional. Touching grass is also unironically advised.

I showed him the ways I've been trying to escape inceldom and cutting (went skydiving) and none of it changed my overall mood. I was still depressed beyond belief. So I continue to go to outside therapy, do DBT, and I have my sister coming down to see me and we'll have a joint therapy session because my psychologist wanted to know more about me and my family. She's very good at her job and I'm able to unpack things in my mind with her.

Weed vs Pharmaceuticals

It's abundantly clear that I love drugs. I've been prescribed a lot of medication, some of it very mind-altering. I won't lie, it's been a blast exploring all of them, including ambien and different types of benzos. My psychiatrist is basically a drug dealer at this point I got so much good shit, even Melatonin to help me sleep. I'd like to tell you about a combination that's been treating me very, very well. It's Modafinil + Benzo. Modafinil is very similar to Ritalin and it keeps you focused. Take a benzo and you get a good body high and euphoria while the Modafinil keeps your mind locked on a singular activity. I'm at a point where I work systematically, in silence, and am performing better at work.

Modafinil is great and I'm sad I'll only get one month of it while the benzos and the rest of the other stuff I get 6 month prescriptions for. It's a highly scheduled drug so it's hard to get. Next time I see my psychiatrist I'm going to just straight up ask for ritalin. It wouldn't be my first time with stimulants. In university, me and someone else in my dorm would crush ritalin and snort them. Other times we'd use a razor to get the film off that makes them slow release. You would get a good high from it. This combination I have requires me to have work ready or else I'll clean the house ceaselessly. As soon as you're on it you want to complete a mission.

I know for some people weed is better than pills. I don't think that's the case for me. I think weed helps in some ways but is a net harm that ultimately leaves me depressed. I suppose it's up to each person to decide how they will go about life. In case I didn't mention, I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2, OCD, and slight ADHD.

DBT is amazing

Changing the way I think has been revolutionary. I perform better at work, less negative feelings, and I'm better at handling adversity. I highly recommend it. It teaches you how to handle reality and facts instead of feelings that are sometimes harmfully inaccurate. It also lays out a pathway for when you're having moments of difficulty. It doesn't deny the inherent suffering of life but instead asks you to acknowledge and face it head-on with a "wise mind."

People-pleasing

I also want to stop being a people pleaser. This requires me to learn how to say no, which can be hard. It's gotten easier since I've taken my vow of honesty, and with DBT, I don't delay or avoid problems anymore. If I don't like or want something, I should say so without any ambiguity. But it's a game of negotiation, you can't entirely throw up a middle finger to the needs and feelings of others. The aim is to have a win-win situation with everyone you meet. This is impossible if you lie or keep secrets.

My life now is working on my imaginary world and finding the beauty in everyday life. Taking things one day, or even an hour, at a time. I hope you understand. Accepting reality and learning to cooperate with it. Things are looking up and I MIGHT have been accepted at a new university where I can study for a PhD. It would mean starting from scratch, but I'm willing to do it. Then I'll be able to put Dr. in front of my name, which is nice.

Conclusion

This is a rather short post that primarily addresses a few thoughts I had. I think my next post will be an explanation of why I support PETA or a primer on DBT.

Thank you for making it this far, and for anyone who reads my posts. It means a lot to me, from the bottom of my heart. I know this document is riddled with errors and when I try to fix typos I make them worse. I'm tired so I can't really function at 100%.

Greetings Dramatards

I've covered before the apocalyptic mismanagement and nation-ruining wasteful spendings of governments in megaprojects for Infrastructure before. A week ago, I had made a longpost about the squanderous and wasteful spending which the govs of South Africa and Brasilia had undergone with regards to the spendings on their respective Soccer world Cups of 2010 and 2014, ESPECIALLY the monumental testaments to pride and waste which was the budgets of ALL of their newly built stadiums for both nations.

The crux of the matter having been that most of these newly built stadiums were way too large and grand and costly, and would never be used to their full capacity post-Soccer World Cup; and would be drains upon the economies of both nations, never even coming close to recuperating the construction costs in the ensuing years.

I've also covered other forms of severe mental r-sluration in the form of Mozambique corrupt government officials loaning much much more money internationally, than which the nation state was capable of paying back - and worse, squandering these loans on useless enterprises which added nothing towards the functional economy of Mozambique, thus disasterously straddling the poor Southern African nation with massive international debts for bullshit which never had contributed towards the nation's economic growth, plunging the nation into an inflation crises, just 20 years after their apocalyptic Civil War. Of all the african states below the equator, our poor mozambique neighbours have had the hardest lot so far.

It's because of my familiarity with these governmental waste and corruption in infrastructure-development, both by local ANC South Africans r-slurs, and foreign Chinese tomfrickery around Southern African Infrastructure deals with corrupt african nations, that I thought I knew the depths of depravity with regards to the most profound mental r-sluration in governmental spendings waste in all things construction related.

But Ohhhhhhh boi, never have I seen such levels of reckless insanity than when I read an afrikaans article this weekend covering the corruption, stupidity and foolishness of the 1 Billion Dollar National Road superproject undertaken by the small european state of Montenegro - because this has got to be most 3rd world corrupt dictator Infrastructure r-sluration I have seen from any european or asian state to date.

The only even remote comparison in terms of arrogance and stupidity, has got to be when the dictator (Mobutu Sese Seko) of the African state of Zaire (Congo), went to to the absolute spectacle of building a fricking private Jet runway in the middle of the oppressive Congo Jungle, so that he could flew his private between Paris and back, basically bankrupting the treasury of his significantly poorer nation. I made a longpost few moths ago.

https://rdrama.net/post/213553/dictator-of-zaire-built-a-private

MONTENEGRO:

So for those of you like me who knows precious little about Montenegro (translated as the land of the Black Mountain/mountains), it is one of the Balkan micro-states, which pretty much sums up their scope of corruption. It used to be part of Yugoslavia, and was the last group to frick off and declare independence in 2006, where they were until then, the most loyal group to daddy Serbia throughout all of the genocidal breakups of Yugoslavia.

Montenegro's population is very tiny, clocking at a mere 620 000 people, although the common citizen is above average in terms of wealth for the Balkan standard. This is worthy of taking note of just so that you guys can appreciate the magnitude of WallStreetBets levels of degeneracy which will take place. This is a tiny micro state, with a tiny population, with very little in the way of political power or natural resources to fall back to.

Even the profound r-sluration of dictator Mobutu would do less to frick over Zaire in comparison, as the Congo has always been a fantastically resource rich country, but unfortunately too straddled with over two centuries of ethnic strife and political instability to take any advantage of such. Montenegro has NO such resources.

LAND OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN:

The 1st thing we all need to know about Montenegro is that it is as mountainous as Tibet, with some of the most rugged terrain in the entirety of the european continent. Deep ravines and gorges dot the landscape as frequently as the cliffs of its mountains, which range from 2000-2500 meters above sea level.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Montenegro

To put into perspective for myself just how incredibly fricking sloping this tiny fricking land is, I had to compare the average height of South Africa. The average elevation in RSA is a mere 1030m above sea level, with the interior of the Free State ranging from from 1300m above sea level on the "Inland Plateu" where RSA evens out in terms of its sloping upwards drastically from the Eastern and western shores. The highest average elevation above sealevel ranges from 1500m-1600m above sea level. But to realize that elevation usually takes about 1500km from the nearest port or beach.

Meanwhile our friendly micro state of Montenegro achieves fricking 2000m above sea level in the span of just 40 fricking kilometers - now that's a very hilly country!

And more significantly, is the main reason for you Dramatards to understand why - since 2022 - Montenegro houses the most expensive stretch of highway on the entire fricking planet.

THE A1 HIGHWAY:

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-billion-dollar-chinese-highway/32217524.html

"Valued as one of the world's most expensive roads, the first 41 kilometers opened in July 2022 and cuts through Montenegro's soaring mountains and over its deep gorges, with an estimated 60 percent of the highway made up only of tunnels and bridges. For a toll fee of 3.50 euros ($3.75), a previously arduous journey north has been turned into a roughly 25-minute trip along freshly paved asphalt until the stretch of road peters out at Matesevo"

The A1 Highway as this newly built road would be called, stretched for 41km, and would a testament to modern engineering, and the marvels of construction. It is in a vacuum absolutely impressive, and probably one of the greatest engineering feats ever accomplished by man. 20 Bridges make part of this 41km stretch, alongside 16 tunnels carved right trough several mountains. Trust me, me there is nothing on the entirety of the African continent which can be compared to the fantastical scope of this engineering mega project.

However, that might be for good reason.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/05/07/the-billion-dollar-motorway-leading-montenegro-to-nowhere

40 bridges and 90 tunnels had been expected to be built and financed by the Chinese. "However, the project has been hit by corruption allegations, construction delays and environmental tragedies. Today, out of the planned 170 kilometres, just 40 have been completed."

BACKGROUND:

The story starts with Montenegro's former Prime Minister and current President, Milo Đukanović. He conceived the motorway to boost trade in the small Balkan country.

Our boy Milo was a fast believer in the development of tourism and privatisation, and he and his supporters believed that economically linking the port city of Bar with Beljare (border town with Serbia), the route of A1 would economically link Serbia and Montenegro, so Serbia would have access to a short saltwater port road, and Montenegro would share within the trade inland.

The idea of the A1 Highway, was that SUPPOSEDLY it would transform the microstate as one of the most important transport hubs from the Mediterranean to the Balkans, while also allowing tourists easy and cheap inland access.

2ndly due to the extremely mountainous terrain of Montenegro, the very closest highway inside Montenegro between Bar and Beljare was a vast 180km detour, along dirtroads and winding cliffside roads, notorious amongst the locals for their constant fatalities in people falling off of the precarious steep thoroughfares.

So the notion of somehow connecting the interior of Montenegro with its coasts via bridges or tunnels or some form of road infrastructure wasn't a new hairbrained scheme, it has always been a talking point for many of the Montenegrins.

However, it was the financing and feasibility of modern highways within the rugged terrain of Montenegro, which would put this conceptual idea into the r-slur zone.

THE VAST COST ESTIMATES:

Montenegro would have several foreign companies carry out feasibility studies about the viability of trans mountainous highway constructions.

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20211126-montenegro-s-billion-dollar-road-to-nowhere

"In 2009 and 2012, a British consultancy ('Scott Wilson', later 'URS UK Limited') carried out two feasibility studies. The indicators suggested that the ambitious Bar-Boljare motorway project was not economically viable. These studies, made public by the current government in November 2021, were kept under wraps by the previous government."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/europe/montenegro-highway-china.html

The Frogs engineers would also be called in to do a feasibility study.

=====(from nytimes article)

A 2012 study led by a British company for Montenegro's Ministry of Transport warned that construction costs would be unusually high because of the mountainous terrain. Even so, its cost estimates were considerably lower than the more than $900 million charged by the China Road and Bridge Corporation to build the 25-mile, but particularly difficult, stretch of the highway.

An earlier feasibility study, in 2007, by Louis Berger, an engineering company in Paris, warned that traffic along the proposed highway would not be “high enough to justify” investment “from a purely financial basis.” But it added that “social, political and economic” factors “should be considered before making a decision on whether to continue with the proposed program.”

even yanks gave a go

When Mr. Djukanovic first floated the idea, several foreign companies, including Bechtel, the American engineering and construction giant, expressed an interest. Bechtel proposed a more modest and less costly project but lost out to a more expansive and far more expensive proposal from China Road and Bridge Corporation.

=====(end)

Basically all of these fricking westoid companies kept giving the corrupt Montenegro gov officials dire and pessimistic declarations about the viability, or at least the economic viability, regarding the construction of such an ambitious project as constructing a Superhighway in the incredibly challenging terrain of Mentenegro's mountains. The yanks even went to great degrees to tell our r-slurred slavs to approach the project with a more modest budget or objectives in mind, and proposed a much cheaper alternative, though I couldn't find any articles as to what exactly that entailed.

But our Boy Milo and his corrupt Admin didn't wanna hear about it They wanted their fricking Superhighway!!!

So our class of clowns looked elsewhere for support.

THE BELT AND ROAD:

It was during this timeframe in which Winnie the Pooh, our glorious and impeccable Chinese leader Xi Jinping, would embark upon the most ambitious collective group of engineering projects ever attempted in recorded human history - Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, the globe-spanning infrastructure initiative launched in 2013.

Basically, it attempts to build global infrastructure all around the 3rd world, particularly over Central and Eastern Africa, as well as between the Middle East and SEA. The idea is to recreate a modern incarnation of the old Silk Road of the middle ages. China would build or loan to these other 3rd world countries to build transport infrastructure like roads, railways and harbours, to facilitate the ability to transport goods between China, and the various 3rd world nations, thus expanding China's influence and favorable prestige from these future grateful client states

The Belt and Road initiative has been a perpetual slapfight between wingucks and r-slurs about whether it's actually a good thing in the long run, especially for the very poor nation states whom had gratefully accepted these loans and constructions from bid daddy Xi.

The anti-West and Anti-american wingcucks who hate burgerland and european influence basically support this blindly as a good alternative influences from a superpower capable of opposing the rancid cucks of Burgerland. The neoliberal cucks from the west opposes this as they dont trust china, and believe that any influence that China has is bad, because china is bad. Opinion on these vast nation state sized loans are also complex and divided.

Western nations and more western oriented international organizations like the IMF have been extremely reluctant and hesitant to loan too much money or resources to places like Africa before. The largest private banks need to estimate the risks involved in any loaning endeavor, and often balk at the notion of risking loans of any substance to 3rd world dictator shitholes, or corrupt kleptocracies.

On the other hand, we've seen what happens when nefarious banks loan recklessly to those who didn't have the capacity to pay back in the 1st place. When Credit Suisse fricked over Mozambique by overloaning to corrupt officials who spent the loans on personal gratification, instead of investing in public infrastructure. Thus, basically the rich 1st world have done very little comparitively when it came to financing African countries via economic loans, as the risks were always seen as outweighting the rewards.

But the Chinese have had no such qualms. So in 2014, in addition to the construction contract, the Montenegrin government at the time also signed a contract with the state-owned Chinese Exim Bank for a loan worth close to one billion US dollars.

R-SLURRED LOAN CONDITIONS: FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK

But from the very fricking onset of the loan, and the project signatures, there was massive perpetual drama and controversy.

First of all our galaxy brained frickwits of Milo's Admin would take out a loan in Burger dollars $, meaning they had no currency control of the loan they were taking out from China. They use Euros, but took the fricking loan in dollars, thus they had no control of foreign currency swings in the half decade, which is partially to blame for the massively inflated budget from 2014-2022.

But it gets WORSE: The contract signed with Beijing was both horrifying, and shockingly steriotypical of what anti-China neoliberals have come to view the Belt-And-Road "debt trap" policy of China has been towards developing African nations. It granted China the fricking right to seize land in Montenegro in the event of defaults, because chinese banks gave really really good loan interest rates compared to the westoids.

This fricking draconian clause was so feared by Milo's Admin to make them look bad (which it fricking did), that they fricking declared the contract with Chinaland as state secrets!

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20211126-montenegro-s-billion-dollar-road-to-nowhere

=====(from france24 article)

Montenegro got the loan for its motorway, but at what price? Article 8.1 of the contract states that Montenegro "waives any immunity on the grounds of sovereign or otherwise for itself or its property" if it fails to repay the loan. Also, any arbitration would take place in a Chinese court. Several media outlets have speculated that Article 8.1 could allow China to gain control of Montenegro's territorial assets, like the port of Bar on the Adriatic Sea.

=====(end article)

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-billion-dollar-chinese-highway/32217524.html

======(from rferl artice)

Because Podgorica didn't hedge against currency swings and failed to include a turnpike in its original plans, the cost of the project continued to soar over the years, leading to the current debt problem and the ballooned $1 billion price tag attached to the first stretch of the highway.

The project was also controversial from the start among local civil-society groups and the country's opposition, with the Network for Affirmation of the Nongovernmental Sector (MANS), a Balkan watchdog organization, raising corruption and transparency concerns over how construction contracts were distributed to Chinese and local companies.

Questions over total cost and how the project would generate revenue have also followed the highway since its conception. Under a new government in 2021, Montenegro's Capital Investments Ministry published two previously confidential international feasibility studies, which suggest that the estimated cost of the first phase of the highway was greatly exaggerated. One of those studies, compiled by British consultancy Scott Wilson Group, said it should cost $570 million, a little more than half of the current cost.

Environmental concerns also followed its construction, with CRBC accused of damaging sections of the riverbank along the UNESCO-protected Tara River traversed by the highway, which Montenegro's Nature and Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) said was raised with the Chinese builders, but ignored.

======(end quote)

In fact it was believed that China only really enabled this 1 Billion Dollar loan in the 1st place (it wasn't even 1 Billion from the start, it just ballooned its way up to there!!!), and released their engineers and workers towards the Balkans, specifically because they saw a geopolitical strategic position, in them placing themselves as economic benefactors of Montenegro, while also placing themselves into a position of leverage, should the r-slurs fail to pay up - giving China a toehold in the Balkans, a locality just on the precipice of Europe, while remaining outside of the influence of the EU. (at least at the onset of the construction of the A1 in 2014)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/europe/montenegro-highway-china.html

=====(from Nyt article)

A 2014 loan agreement with Exim Bank of China, a state lender, has been made public — and it revealed that China could seize property in the event of default as it did in Sri Lanka, where it grabbed the main port after the country fell behind on a Chinese loan. But nearly all other documents relating to the Montenegrin highway have been classified as secret.

When Mr. Djukanovic first floated the idea, several foreign companies, including Bechtel, the American engineering and construction giant, expressed an interest. Bechtel proposed a more modest and less costly project but lost out to a more expansive and far more expensive proposal from China Road and Bridge Corporation.

Robert Gelbard, the Clinton administration's Balkans envoy, recalled advising Mr. Djukanovic that he should be wary of hiring the Chinese company, telling him that Poland had recently canceled its own highway contract with another Chinese firm and was suing it over shoddy work.

======(end quote)

As the news of corruption broke, and wistleblowers leaked the horrifying details to the press and public of Montenegro, a frenzy would grow to tank Milo's party and popularity.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/05/07/the-billion-dollar-motorway-leading-montenegro-to-nowhere

=====(from euronews article)

An NGO backed by the EU is investigating corruption allegations involving subcontractors. Dejan Milovac is part of the team digging the dirt on the motorway project. Out of the huge loan from China, 400 million euros were given to subcontractors. Milovac says some are linked to the President.

He tells us that "there was no public procurement procedure for the subcontractors. Most of the project was declared as a state secret. All the benefits that CRBC receives, such as not paying VAT, or no taxes on labor, or no customs on imported goods, was also applied to the subcontractors with absolutely no control". According to him, this creates "a huge opportunity for corruption".

More and more citizens are fed up with corruption in Montenegro. Last year they voted in a new government. Today's Deputy Prime Minister, Dritan Abazović, has a solid reputation as a fighter for transparency, a precondition to bring Montenegro closer to the European Union.

Some fear that China has its eyes on Bar's deep-water harbour. When signing the billion-dollar-loan with China, Montenegro agreed to some strange terms, like giving up sovereignty of certain parts of the land in the case of financial problems. Arbitration in this scenario would take place in China using Chinese laws.

=====(end quote)

THE SCOPE OF WASTE:

Now a couple of rich yanks and fat Canadians will very likely chime in the background that the shitty sewer system or underground subway of New York's newest 15 centimeter stretch of development in 2023 alone costs annually 1 Billion dollars $$$, but it is important to grasp the context of this situation - Montenegro is by global standards poor as dirt, even if their country is cleanly built.

Montenegro has a mere GDP of 5,86 Billion $ (by 2022). Thus, the final estimates of the finished unfinished 41km of Highway would tally into the realm of 15-20% of the micro-nation's entire annual income, good God.

The biggest problem was that this giant fricking massive 41km engineering mega project.....stopped at the tiny village of Matesevo, with a population of 100 peeps. Thus, instead of the original dream of having a 160km superhighway connecting the Interior of the Balkans with the Mediterranean, and connecting the Montenegro port of Bar with the Serbian border town of town Boljare, which everyone had been dreaming of since fricking 2014, our foolish idiots now basically sat straddled with a 41km overengineered highway which ended to a village with fricking 100 peeps MONEY WELL SPENT

"While many locals along the road say that the highway was busy in the summer, nearly six months after its launch the traffic appears to be light. Many roadside signs that show icons advertising shops, water, gas, and other services in rest stops are also now crossed out, highlighting a lower-than-expected demand."

In fact many wonder if the remaining 120km of the originally intended 160km Superhighway from Bar to Boljare will even ever be constructed, or even attempted, as our boy Milo would lose the election in 2023, with a new Administration in power which shows little interest in continuing the madness of this Superhighway, and incurring even further levels of unassailable debt.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/europe/montenegro-highway-china.html2

"Montenegro's new prime minister, Zdravko Krivokapic, who took over late last year from the government that signed the road and loan contracts with China in 2014, described the highway as a “megalomaniac project” that “goes from nowhere to nowhere” and badly strained his country's finances."

ATTEMPTS TO PAY BACK:

You guys are beginning to understand why I would personally designate this particular project as the most wasteful Infrastructure vanity megaproject in human history. Because certainly there have been much larger construction endeavors across the world from superpowers like Russia in their railways, and Burgerland and their dams, or Europe and their collection of fabulous subways. But even among historic r-slur projects like Stalin's mad 5-year plans, or even the behemoth Belt-And-Road turbo mega projects in Africa, like the highways in Kenya or Mongolia, never before had there been such a moronic level of economic self-sabotage for so fricking little that I'm aware of.

But yet again, in the most 3rd world way imaginable, it keeps getting worse and worse. The EU and Burgerland had to literally step in and save Montenegro from themselves, by financing a joint international loan to Montenegro at a lower interest rate, just so that Montenegro doesn't lose sovereignty over its own fricking ports to China, to which it WILLINGLY abided to when signing secret contracts under Milo's corrupt admin, holy actual jumping fricking shitballs "Montenegro says it needs help from the European Union to pay off a whopping $1 billion Chinese loan for a controversial road project that has left the Balkan country in a dire financial situation."

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20211126-montenegro-s-billion-dollar-road-to-nowhere

"In July 2021, the Montenegrin Finance Ministry reached an agreement with three Western banks to convert the Chinese loan from US dollars to euros, cutting the interest rate from 2% to 0.88%. The Finance Minister, Milojko Spajic, says this move will save Montenegro 8 million euros a year and so reduce the risk of default."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/europe/montenegro-highway-china.html

=======(from nyt article)

"The financing, however, has caused severe headaches for Montenegro. A loan provided by Eximbank to fund the project was denominated in dollars, which made Montenegro, which uses the euro, vulnerable to the vagaries of foreign exchange markets. Interest was set at 2 percent a year, far higher than what European lenders usually charge for infrastructure loans.

“It was a horrible deal, obviously,” said Milojko Spajic, Montenegro's new finance minister. He recently negotiated a so-called swap deal with European and American banks that effectively converted the Chinese dollar loan to euros with an interest rate of .87 percent. Montenegro made its first payment on the Chinese loan last month and, Mr. Spajic said, will not default.

======(end quote)

https://thediplomat.com/2024/01/montenegros-scandal-ridden-chinese-road/

=====(from the diplomat article)

"Yet the Chinese loan from the costs of the highway has saddled the country with debt and nearly resulted in economic collapse, until Montenegro received restructured financing relief from European and U.S. banks. The debts amounted to more than a third of the government's annual budget."

Montenegro is not alone; other BRI members have struggled to manage the loans issued under the Belt and Road framework. According to Euronews, Argentina, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malaysia, Montenegro, Pakistan, and Tanzania are all dealing with extreme debt-to-GDP ratios that force crippling decisions in order to service the debt.

As Carla Freeman of the United States Institute of Peace wrote, “But now a lot of these [BRI] countries are saddled with immense debt and are having challenges repaying that debt. Also, they faced problems with forced resettlement of populations with often consequences for the stability of their countries. Environmental degradation has been associated with a lot of these projects. And so now that the hype is over, there's a lot more international scrutiny.”

======(end quote)

That's right frickers, ONE 3RD of the country's fricking annual budget is paying back debt !!1!

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-china-billion-debt-highway/31203309.html

==========(from article)

China holds approximately one-quarter of Montenegro's total debt, which reached 103 percent of GDP last year, and if Podgorica defaults on its loan the contract for the road project gives China the possibility to access land and assets in the Balkan country as collateral.

According to the current contract with the Export-Import Bank of China, the first loan payments are due in July.

The stakes are now high for both Brussels and Podgorica (the capital of the Montenegroes r-slurs)

=========(end)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A1 HIGHWAY TOLL:

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010832606/road-deal-with-china-is-blamed-for-catapulting-montenegro-into-historic-debt

Also apparently so few fricking vehicles use the darn road on a daily basis, that they cant even accrue the speculated annual 77 million euros needed to maintain the darn thing, as too few toll money is collected.

As a consequences of this road, the gov of Montenegro was forced to raise taxes, and cut public social spending. Yet in spite of all of this stunning r-sluration, is that the local inhabitants of Montenegro have a generally positive view of the new road, and optimism about its capacity to economically aid the country.

BUT WORSE

The fricking fricking fricking Montenegro gov are STILL in talks with China to CONTINUE building the bloody road!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/07/12/chinas-crbc-keen-to-build-montenegrin-highways-next-stretch/

Holy hells these people really are the BIPOCs of europe

Anyways that's all I got, Good day!

@A