the Sea Peoples

You're saying you want historical accuracy and you bring this up.

We know about the "Sea Peoples" from like 4 sentences on one Egyptian stele and lots of conjecture about the "Bronze Age Collapse" hypothesis which I think has been pretty conclusively proven to be bullshit. Ancient historians had written a million words by 200 AD about who the Pelasgians might have been. This is probably the number one question they had, at least in the Greek-speaking world. But you never hear about them in pop history, do you? You know why? Because there's a lot of contradictory information that doesn't make sense. Strabo struggled with it and couldn't figure it out and gave us our best answer, that he doesn't know. He doesn't even know if they were a nation or if it was just a word that described a certain category of people. You might refer to them in English as "Sea Peoples".

But you've never heard of the Pelasgians, have you? (If anyone actually has please call me out.) Why? Because it's way easier to write up imaginary stories about Bronze Ages and collapses if you're basing it on 4 sentences about one event at one time. The Pelasgians don't make for good pop history because there's too much goddarn evidence. They pop up all over the place for several centuries even into the beginnings of historical time. Herodotus said that the population of Athens were descendants of Pelasgians who had learned Greek. (BTW I think there's a kernel of truth here but basically I don't buy it.) And we've all been taught that Athens was the epitome of Hellenism, which we know because they fought the war against the Persians to save European democracy. Which we only know about because of Herodotus. There ain't a heck of a lot archaeological evidence. (In fact the parts of Herodotus we can actually prove are the stuff that happened in Persia.) So how do we solve this conundrum if we're the 1800s English libertarians who invented "classical studies"?

Just don't talk about things. Like most stuff, just never mention it.

• The Pelasgians ever existing.

• The Etruscans being universally recognized by everyone immigrating from Asia and still having part of the population there in Asia.

• All of the ethnic minorities that existed in Greece that we are explicitly told by Thucydides were not Hellenes.

• Most of these Greek authors considering Cyrus to be the greatest thing that ever happened to the world. (Everyone writing in the Greek language must have always agreed with the ideology of the 1800s Greek nation state.)

• Almost all of Greek history is about a bunch of rural shitholes where they had like 400 people who raised goats in the mountains and were a "city" because they had a wall. You've heard about all these guys who supposedly lived together in Athens at the same time but have you heard of Phocis, Locris, Acarnania? Half you r-slurs couldn't find Thessaly on a map.

• Xenophon obviously didn't write any of those works. You know because the author of one book assigned to him explicitly says "read this book by [other guy]" if you want to know about Xenophon. If we believe in anything assigned to Xenophon it is the Cyropaedia(*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyropaedia). Basically the gospels except about Cyrus being the messiah. Extreme efforts have been made to say this is all just historical fiction by Xenophon, a Greek, who really was trying to express Greek ideas about... how the Persian emperor should act... And they totally correspond with Jewish accounts of him (that whole bible thing) and lots of archaeological evidence.

• Metadata on books from back then might not be totally accurate. If you look at the Suda, the Greeks a thousand years ago were debating the provenance of a lot of these and who people were.

• There's no evidence that Euclid was actually supposed to be a person. We know literally nothing about them except they're Egyptian.

• The "Pythagorean Theorem" has nothing to do with Pythagoras and never did until tards started printing math textbooks. That's an easy one.

• Pythagoras is sometimes written about as an avatar of Apollo. Either that discredits everything we've heard about Pythagoras or we have have to start taking every mythological character seriously. Remember that time when Dionysus invaded India?

• Definitions of words. You can claim that words like "polis" and "hoplite" are uniquely about Greeks if you just never mention that they called cities and heavy infantry from the Middle East the exact same thing.

• Western Civilization survived because the Persians never defeated Greece, who were in a war of civilizations and Greeks never liked them. The anti-Persian side won a couple times but later they did unconditionally surrender to the Empire. Western Civilization survived because the Persians didn't give a shit about jannying distant provinces' cultures and they were probably half-Greek already.

• Ancient Greeks explicitly said that the Phoenicians taught them how to stop being illiterate savages.

• The "Minoan Empire", which a British archeologist convenientally "discovered", right before Britain annexed Crete was half-Arab. Just read the story, half the family is from Tyre.

• Thucydides actually gives us real plausible about a lot of things. I mean he gives out like a hundred numbers at least if you read through it and I only recall one that sus and he himself pointed out he didn't trust it. IIRC he said that the population of Attica in his time was about 200,000 and 90% of them lived outside the city. Kinda blows away the whole "city state" thing. He also gives a figure for paying sailors which, if you can do 3rd grade math (I know it's hard for humanities folx), adds up to 50 men per ship. So the whole "trireme" thing, at least as we imagine it, is obviously bullshit. Also Athens from all its activites pulled in about 400 talents/yr. The King of Odrysia did the same. They were equals.

• The obvious turning point in the Peloponesian War if you believe Thucydides [oh yeah, we kind of have to because that's the only reason we know about it] was that the Thracian [Bulgarian] King of Odrysia went up the Danube to fight the Triballi (a very obscure nation but everyone says they're buttholes) and was killed in that battle. It's likely the army was destroyed too because you don't go that far, let your king get killed, and walk home in peace. Odrysia falls into civil war. As soon as Thracians hear the news that the Athens-Odrysia alliance is broken they rise up and take over Amphipolis. Athens is fricked now.

I unironically just consume any post-Roman historical content because they're not even asking the real question.

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Sneedman who was so tiny he was often mistaken for children half his age. His voice was high pitched and squeaky and whenever he spoke the gentlemen of the little town of Bethlehem would quickly take of their fedoras and bow, thinking that there was a fair lady in their presence. Nevertheless, despite it all, Sneedman got on just fine.

Now Sneedman was in love with a beautiful lady named FrozenChosen who lived two towns away in the Valley of Encante. Whenever he saw the dame pass with her father on their butt-drawn cart his heart would do somersaults, his knees would go weak and suddenly breathing became a laborious task. Her long blonde hair flowed like a rich waterfall down her petite frame. Her round wide eyes sparkled beautifully and her rosy cheeks looked like ripe apples in an autumn orchard. He would often see her softly ask her father to stop the cart and let the butt rest while she collected water for the poor beast from the well. On other days she would pick out stones from the hooves of the butt and pet it lovingly. She always smiled as she did this, as if she was a stranger to suffering and strife. It was easy to see why Sneedman had fallen head over heels for the lady who was beautiful on the inside and outside.

Sneedman had turned eighteen and had finally set out to ask for FrozenChosen's hand in marriage. He had never spoken to her and she had never spoken to him but the pain of keeping his love a secret ripped through his insides and made him feel nauseous and upset. So he packed a knapsack consisting of a small lunch, twenty coins of gold and a red handkerchief as well. At dusk he began the long journey from Bethlehem to Encante, thinking that he could escape the heat of the day under the cloak of the night. Walking down the crooked cobblestone roads wearing his best coat, trilby and suspenders, his heart beat fast in anticipation. What was he to say when he arrived at her door? Would he know where to find her? Would she turn away in disgust or fall lovingly in his arms to embrace their new life together? Either way, Sneedman was more than glad that he would finally get this huge weight off his chest.

After a long walk that lasted well until midnight he reached the borders of the town of Encante. He stood on a knoll which afforded him a view of the entire town. The quaint houses crowded together in the darkness, only visible thanks to the pale moonlight. Ahead of him was a thick forest and on the other end of that was the valley containing Encante. His tummy gave a low grumble which made his gut twist into a knot. Sneedman hadn't eaten supper. He sat down on his soft knoll, unfurled his knapsack and decided that it wouldn't hurt to have a little nibble of his lunch. He munched a few delicious sweet biscuits and sipped on his apple juice, taking special care to leave enough for the next day. After subduing the beast of hunger, he thought it too dangerous to try and cross the forest in the night time and chose instead to sleep on the knoll until sunlight returned again. As he laid his head down and let his eyelids fall shut he was disturbed by a tiny voice.

"Do you have a biscuit to share sir?"

Sneedman woke up started! He looked all around but could not find the owner of the disembodied voice.

"Just one sir, I know that greed is a sin."

Sneedman stood up, his head twisting all over. Was he going mad? There was no one around him at all!

"Who are you?" Sneedman yelled, "show yourself now or we shall have to fight. I may be small but I have swift punches. I shall fight you and I shall win."

"A swift punch you say?" replied tiny voice.

"Oh yes and a nasty kick too! Right in the shins I'm known to kick foes," Sneedman replied bravely.

He held his fists up, still trying to find the source of his voice.

"Where are you then, show yourself," Sneedman demanded.

"I'm here."

Well I'm here too so you couldn't possibly be here."

"But I'm here too."

"Can't be. If you were here I would have seen you."

"Fine, have it your way."

"Well then where are you?!"

"I'm there."

"Where?!"

"Here."

"This is a nasty game you are playing. I shan't spare your shins if I ever find you."

Finding himself irritated by the voice, Sneedman packed up his knapsack and reattached it to its stick.

"Halt, you might kill me!" screamed the tiny voice just before Sneedman could rest the knapsack on his shoulders.

It spoke so loudly that Sneedman dropped his knapsack in fright.

"See what you've done now, that's probably my biscuits crushed to crumbs," Sneedman complained.

"All the better, I haven't a large mouth to begin with," the voice replied.

"I am insane?"

"No, just stupid. If you would just turn your head to your right you would see I was here all along."

Sneedman turned his head. There, on his shoulder, was a green little caterpillar.

"So you're the dastardly fiend. I shall flick you off."

"Please don't do that. I might get lost and you might trample me in the grass without seeing me. Just give a biscuit or two and I'll be gone."

"But I'm off to ask my love for her hand in marriage. The remaining biscuits were to please the servants."

"Well they're all crumbs now, they won't be pleasing anyone anymore… except for a caterpillar of course."

Sneedman scratched his head. The caterpillar had a point. With a sigh he opened up his knapsack, scooped up the biscuit crumbs and placed them in front of the caterpillar, which had crawled into the grass by now. Without so much as a thank you the caterpillar began gobbling up the biscuit crumbs greedily.

"Oh slow down. What would your mother say if she saw you eating with such uncouth voracity?"

"Don't care," the greedy caterpillar replied.

"And a rude little caterpillar you are. Didn't even say thank you. I suppose you shall want some juice to go along with that," Sneedman said sardonically.

"Yes, I will."

Sneedman poured out a little juice for the caterpillar but instead the caterpillar crawled into the glass and stayed there!

"Oi! Get out," Sneedman ordered.

"I shant. If I stay in the grass I might be trampled but here I am safe. Don't drink me. I taste bitter and I will infect you from the inside if you swallow me," the naughty caterpillar said.

Fed up, Sneedman chucked the glass in the grass, sealed it shut with the lid and set off. There was no use trying to sleep again, the morning sunrays were already peaking from the horizon, painting the sky in beautiful shades of pink and peach. Sneedman was scared to enter the forest. There had been many stories of marauding creatures in the forest that ate human brains and spread nasty rumours about postmen. It was only his burning desire and love for FrozenChosen that kept him going as he passed the first tree of the forest and entered the darkness.

The forest was so thick barely any sun broke through the canopy of leaves and branches. As he walked he felt wood creek under his feet and heard the terrible grunts of wild pigs. It was all very scary! He walked and walked until high noon where he had to stop. He found a tree stump and thought it as good a place as any to rest. Sneedman wiped his sweaty forehead with his red handkerchief. He panted with tiredness, wondering when this loathsome forest would end. It was then that a cloud of butterflies flew out from the trees, so thick that for a while Sneedman couldn't see anything. Their wings flashed in colours of auburn, red, crimson and yellow. They looked like a fireball shooting through the air. When they dissipated a capybara stood in front of him with beautiful pink fur.

"I must be insane!" Sneedman said, rubbing his eyes.

"No, just disbelieving," the capybara replied.

The capybara had a sweet voice, sort of like a mother.

"I am Aevann, the guardian of the forest. I welcome you to my wonderful paradise," said the capybara with a smile.

"Paradise? This place is terrible what with all the pigs and darkness."

"Hmph, disbelieving. Just like that goat-loving postman. I'll show you," the capybara said.

The capybara shook its head stomped the ground and said a magic incantation. Suddenly a strange wind blew and everything transformed. The leaves of the trees became soft clouds of pink cotton candy, the ground became rich chocolate and the sweet smell of sugar filled the air. Rabbits burrowed out of the ground and tickled Sneedman playfully. Owls came out the trees and hooted a beautiful tune. It truly was a paradise. For hours Sneedman stayed there with Aevann the pink capybara, chasing rabbits and humming along with the owls. When he grew hungry he ate clumps of chocolate from the ground and picked the cotton candy from the trees. It tasted sweeter than anything he had ever tasted. Soon he had forgotten all about his journey and Encante.

"So you see, this forest really is a paradise," the capybara said as they collapsed in tiredness beside a tree.

"Yes it's glorious," Sneedman said as he stuffed his face with clumps of chocolate.

"I knew you'd love it."

Love… Sneedman's memory was jogged! He remembered FrozenChosen. He had to go before nightfall! Suddenly the capybara's fur became an ugly brown and the cotton candy disappeared. Was it all a spell? He looked at the rabbits he had been playing with. They were actually porcupines. His clothes were torn and tattered and he was smarting in several places. He looked up in the trees. The owls were actually ugly crows which squawked in their horrible voices, which meant that… the chocolates were crow droppings! Sneedman spat and dry heaved, escaping from the forest as fast as he could. In his haste he had forgotten his knapsack. Now all he had left was his handkerchief and his ten gold coins.

It was late afternoon and finally he had arrived in Bethlehem. It was a bustling city alive with energetic vendors, gypsies and ringmasters luring visitors to enter their colourful circus tents. Sneedman ignored it all, although he was hopelessly lost and knew not where to find the fair beauty FrozenChosen. Eventually, he resorted to asking one of the ringmasters. He had a white star painted over his right eye and had only two fingers on each hand. This scared Sneedman very much.

"Excuse me sir, I was wondering where I could find FrozenChosen?" Sneedman asked.

"That'll be ten gold coins," the Kaamrev the ringmaster replied with a rough voice, after introducing himself.

"That's ludicrous," Sneedman said.

"If you want to find FrozenChosen you will pay ten gold coins," the ringmaster said.

"I must be insane," Sneedman said as he pulled out the ten gold coins from his pocket.

"No, just gullible.

The ringmaster snatched the gold coins and fled before Sneedman could chase after him. Sneedman swore and cursed at the ringleader but it was no use. He was long gone. Sneedman sat on a curb, distressed and defeated. He began to cry. He was so close to finding his love and yet he had failed. He was heartbroken. He was soon spotted by a police officer who pitied him. Sneedman told him his story and by the end of it the police officer had lost all sympathy.

"You got swindled by a caterpillar and a ringmaster and you ate crow droppings? Hilarious," the policeman said, "you know you could have just asked for help at the police station or at the very least called beforehand instead of arriving at a stranger's home unannounced asking for their daughter's hand in marriage. Nevertheless, the house is the last one down the street. "

Sneedman thanked the policeman and headed down to the house and knocked on the door. FrozenChosen answered. She was just as beautiful as Sneedman remembered her. Her hazel eyes glowed in the setting sun and Sneedman felt his heart beat just a little bit faster. The moment he had been waiting for was finally here.

"FrozenChosen. So much to say, so many words to say them with yet I still find it so hard to express what I'm feeling inside. I love you FrozenChosen. I love you so much. Mere thoughts of you are enough to send my heart racing to have me gasping for air and forgetting about all the suffering in the universe. Your smile encourages me to be a better person. Your laugh reminds me of what bliss is. Your love is what I need. I may not have biscuits or fancy coins for you but what I can provide is love and a promise to be the best man ever for you. FrozenChosen, will you marry me?"

FrozenChosen's eyes glistened with tears. A smile crept upon her face and I'm pretty sure you know what she said!

The two bought a lovely home in Encante, and with her father's blessings, were married within the year. It wasn't long before they had kids of their own and even a few asses to spare! And to this day they keep Sneedman's red handkerchief right at the door of their home, to remind them of the adventure Sneedman took to find the heart of his love.

Now if Sneedman could do all that, what is stopping you?

Avery, 26, Austin, TX

Career:

• 44k at some car company "building cars"

  • paid hourly, thinks it's fairly stable 40 hours a week - 10 hours a day 4 days a week, sometimes 11 or 12

Personal Life:

• Wasn't her first choice to move to Austin, she moved here because her friend already works at the car company

• 800ish rent

• Most of this section got lumped into financials

Financials:

• Checking Account

  • Overdrafts

• "I live above my means"

• Credit Card 1 ($369) timestamp

  • Paid $45 on it

  • Made $116 in purchases

  • $10 in interest added

  • She tries to explain why she hasn't paid if off - she divides her payments between her paychecks???

    • Mentions at least 5 other credit cards

• Credit Card 2 ($450) timestamp

  • Disney Rewards Card

  • Minimum payment $40

  • because she used to go to Disney but hasn't for a very long time

  • Sally Beauty $50 purchase "on a whim"

  • Also some eating out

• Credit Card 3 (2051) timestamp

  • $73 minimum payment

  • $53 interest charged

  • $30 in new purchases

    • "I needed an outfit for a concert"

    • Actually she went to Taco Bell and a Boba Tea place

  • "I'm still making my payments, that's all that matters"

  • Mentions that she will be going to see a couple more concerts. 21 Pilots and a band whose name I can't make out

  • Claims the food purchases are justified

  • Some weird explanation about how she couldn't use her card to get a protein bar and water so she went to get taco bell instead? (I assume she means the vendor didn't have a card reader?)

• Credit Card 4 ($492) (Walmart) timestamp

  • 28 minimum monthly payment

  • No new purchases on this one?

  • She usually uses it but didn't this time?

• Credit Card 5 ($5'004) (Discover) timestamp

  • She bought a computer on there?

  • Minimum payment $125

  • Interest $104

  • She doesn't really understand how interest works and has been trying to pay slightly more than minimum on all her debts? timestamp

• Credit Card 6 ($136) (Hot Topic) timestamp

  • There's a $3 fee on it? "What do you mean fee"

  • $30 minimum monthly payment

• Student Loans timestamp

  • Something about her mother taking out student loans too on her behalf and she's paying for those as well? I didn't really understand this one

    • her mom's loan is on deferment but she's still paying it while on deferment (she really doesn't understand how interest rates work)

    • Later clarified that her mother used her brother's credit to take these loans out? He knew and approved it

  • Some talk about family situation, nothing super interesting she mentions that she likes to give expensive gifts, sees that as a need not a want

  • Didn't catch how much she's paying off for the mother but she herself has $5'162

    • Was paying it off while in school - went to school for theater, got degree

  • Going to go back to school for "advanced manufacturing" - her job is covering it? Community college (ACC)

• Caleb stimming timestamp

• "So what do you do when you are low on money on your checking account but only have your credit card to survive?" timestamp

• Car (Toyota Camry) (31'972 balance) timestamp

  • $650 monthly payment

  • Storytime - weird ex-boyfriend story

  • Purchased March 2023

  • 6 year agreement

  • She thinks a 9% interest

  • Scratched on the side, damage to the windshield

    • Heat damage on the windshield? Apparently you want to roll windows down when it's very hot?

  • valued at maybe 21'000

• Income 3617 timestamp

  • "I've never really checked my finances to be honest with you"

• Checking Account timestamp

  • Highlights a nintendo charge, some eating out, google play, playstation network

  • 5 overdraft charges in a row

  • She Klarna'd some tickets and a $100 Back to The Future Lego set

• Other people borrow money from her??? timestamp

  • Her mother borrows money from her sometimes about $100? Not every month? Just rarely???

  • She overdrafts

  • "That's only once"

    • "No"

• Funny drama confrontation about her future in society timestamp

• Confrontation over phone finances timestamp

Finances Pie Chart timestamp

Greetings Dramatards!

How are you guys, I'm boiling alive! Thanks to the Gods of luck, this week has been the ONLY week in which I had to work outside in the field every fricking day, during a High Pressure Front dominating southern africa, and spurring on dust storms from the dry heat all over the country My think my brains are literally fricking fried.

Anyways, I saw a remarkable animal in the veld today - the Kommandowurm, South Africa's most fearsome famine causing pest.

Most people when it comes to famine inducing swarms, think of grasshoppers and their mutations into locust swarms which obliterate crops and any vegetation or bio matter visible across the horizon. I've written about the devastation African Finches/Vinke cause to the crops/livelihoods and food-security of many african countries - to the extent in which desperate South African farmers even went t such extreme degrees as to fricking use explosives to destroy known treelines in which a Finch Swarm nests during the night, in the hopes of culling the swarm.

https://rdrama.net/post/201913/marseyflagsouthafrica-drama-10-15-years-ago

But few people expect a puny worm of all animals to be a pest, at least a famine-causing pest of biblical proportions. But just like the teensy tiny African Finch bird, there is great strength and devastation in large numbers, and when Kommando worm swarms strike, they can literally devour hundreds of hectares of farmland crops within hours.

The Kommando worm is the larva stage of an unassuming moth whom few people could differentiate from their household cousins. The larwe feeds on all forms of grasses and plat seeds, including seeds from mielies, rice, sorghum, corn, wheat, sugarcanes, and even peanuts. They would even devour all of the non-bark foliage of mall enough trees, leaving summertime saplings as barren as if mid-winter.

The Kommando worm obtained its name from the early dutch/proto-boers who saw the worm swarms march in concert similar to the style of famous Army-ants. This was during a time when Kommando was the got to word for any small military warband or civil security detail which patrolled between farms and villiages as a proto-police force by the citizens of a town or farming community.

There's no definitive prediction for Kommando worm swarms, but they tend to explode during times of extreme droughts, just prior or during the rain-season of South Africa (October - March).

Kommando worms are not typical swarming pestilent insects, and don't behave similar in the manner in which Locusts swarm, as a byproduct of their natural cycles.

The moth form lives about 10 days before dying of hunger, and lays upwards of a 1000 eggs in that time. The eggs hatch in 2-5 days, and become fully grown larvas in 2 weeks. The worms turn from bright green into their famous and dreaded dark striped colours

https://www.agro.basf.co.za/af/Dienste/Plaaggids/Plae-(Insekte-Knaagdiere)/Kou-insekte/Kommandowurm

Yet most times when Kommando worms appear, it's as if out of nowhere, since proof of their previous presence had been absent, and they would appear very suddenly, before farmers could for example obtain warning signs such as fledgeling tiny hatched worms, instead it's usually the fully grown "adult" black striped kommando worms devastating farmland literally overnight!

One hypothesis from the frequent observations and witnesses of Kommando worm swarms breaking out suddenly overnight, is that Kommando worm "troops" migrate over hundreds of kilometers -

they can start in Mozambique, and end in Free State within mere weeks.

Both the moths and worms migrate as groups, and both the moths and worms are extremely mobile and prone to very long distance migration. Oh and Kommando worms can exist in the entirety of Eastern Africa the continent.

In the Youtube video opening of this post, the farmer basically shows a great example of a Kommandowurm swarming outbreak, the long streams and rivers of black are millions upon millions kommandowurms infesting his lands; basically this guy is already turbo fricked or at least all crops within the video frame is beyond help or saving as the worms had already streamed past any barrier and are gorging themselves upon all of the agricultural plants here.

GUIDELINES IN RESISTING KOMMANDO WORMS:

https://www.landbou.com/landbou/nuus/riglyne-om-kommandowurms-te-troef-20170914

Even up until 2017, no effective chemical or poison had been discovered which were effective or safe to use against Kommandowurm incursions. The RSA Department Agriculture, Fisseries and Forestry had published aid for both commercial farmers and subsistence farms in the Homelands of SA, so that south africans may prepare themselves in the coming decade for defending their farms against this pestilence.

Above is a whole long boring list which GrainSA and the government had deemed to be viable (but not definatively 100% effective) chemicals usable for commercial and subsistence farmers in the protection of their crops (against kommando worms specifically). Many problems are that these poisons and chemicals are expensive and difficult to transfer where needed. Sometimes they are sprayed by either plane or tractor; sometimes even by "hand", where farmhands portable pneumatic pumps in a backpack kit (this is usually what medium or subsistence farmers use). Point is though SA farmers are not idle in their experimentation and reseach, no pesticide has been foolproof.

THE 1000% FOOLPROOF KOMMANDO WORM CONTROL METHOD!!!!

When my father was a young boy in highschool, my father would regale me, the discipline and control of Afrikaners were pretty hardcore, even within school system. Almost military like.

Men/boys in "Koshuis" or School-Residence or School-Hostels, were expected to have their beds and linen made up every morning at 7-oclok. The Household-master would inspect every room, bed and school-uniform and if they were less than barracks-perfect, then corporeal punishment would follow in quick succession. There were no nonsense in those times about child abuse or human rights, only strict absolute discipline. Boys could be called anytime by the principle to assist locals in a small town, like aiding the local retirement home in moving beds and helping the elderly with hard manual tasks. This was normal and could be a weekly event.

One day, during hot humid summer, the Head of sports, during end year Exams, the school head of Sport and facilities, would burst into the main School Hall.

His face was red with panic, horror and exasperation. He shouted that a Kommando worm swarm had just originated West of the school grounds and were destroying everything in their path, including local gardens and backyard mini-farms.

Even WORSE! They were heading directly for the school's two RUGBY FIELDS!!

The principle ordered every boy from grade 7-12 to race back to their dormitory, and put on their school boots. That afternoon, 200 boys, all male teachers, and several dozen bystanders and local farmhands (black and white), on that hot and humid summer day, sometime in 1980ish, would stand like a greek phalanx before the school's two rugby fields, and crush thousands upon thousands of black-striped Kommandowurms to mush before they could devour the well-maintained and mowed grass of the Rugby fields!!

There was no mercy for the squemish, there was no point in saying no, every man with boots within reach, was expected to help hold the line against the endless swarm of Kommando worms migrating past the school grounds.

Ichor and worm guts would plaster and cake the sides of the Rugby fields, and several exhausting hours later, the commando swarm relented and died out. Women and girls would bring water and wet clothes for the men and boys in the foreground, relentlessly crushing worm after worm with their boots, like trashcompactor at the scrapyard.

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=571820076746878

https://www.facebook.com/blommeboer/posts/ons-het-die-laaste-ruk-verskeie-navrae-gekry-oor-die-amaryllis-borer-of-lelie-bo/564079524026838

It sounds like I'm making this up, but but forming long human lines with farmhands and anyone you could grab with heavy work boots, and crushing the frickers was a legitimate strategy and method of combatting the frickers before their swarm came to your crops or garden. This was of course with the caveat on how much manpower could be gathered, and what the size of the swarm was. Sometimes the panicked and desperate endeavors of only a handful of farmhands would not be nearly enough to stop the migrating swarm of worms, from bypassing the poor south african farmers and feasting upon the crops of mielies, maize or wheat.

Physically crushing worms with boots, bakkies or tractors repeatedly driving forwards and reversing across a killing field was also employed by desperate farmers, with similarly mixed results in the past and even current present. Yet even with there being no magical bullseye poison specific to Kommanwurms, pesticide has still been proven to be more efficient in protecting large, hectares-spanning crops, from worm swarms, compared to the feeble attemps of like a dozen farmhands in crushing millions and millions of flood like kommando worms.

On a happier note, that day in 1980, my father and co, succeeded in saving their Rugby Fields for the Rugby season!

Regular once a semester warming in the above pic about Kommandowurm swarm outbreaks.

https://heidelbergnigelheraut.co.za/21457/gevreesde-kommandowurm-heidelberg-gevind

Even countries far away from RSA, like Uganda struggle with Kommando or Army worms devastating their agriculture.

https://kosmos.com.na/uganda-sukkel-met-kommando-wurm

Anyways that's all I got

Assassin's Creed Mirage

Assassin's Creed: Mirage (PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S [reviewed on PS5])

Developer: Ubisoft

Publisher: Ubisoft

Release Date: 5 October 2023

We find ourselves with yet another Assassin's Creed game on our hands. It would be so easy to treat it with indifference, especially in a year where AAA games have been coming in a non-stop conga line. However, I find myself spending way more hours with the game than I anticipated. Assassin's Creed isn't the best game this year - not by a long mile - but it says some very important things about the future of the gaming industry and our world. Heed what it says, for it speaks wisdom.

Today, we'll be reviewing Assassin's Creed: Mirage. In the lead-up to the game's release, Ubisoft has very much marketed it as a return to form for the franchise. In many ways, it is. But it also represents the franchise at its most confident, and it is evident that a lot has been learned from the world's reception to Valhalla and the often loathed “Ubisoft formula”.

This is much more than an Assassin's Creed throwback. It's one of the first must-play titles in the franchise in over a decade. Go with me on this journey through the sacred streets of ancient Baghdad. I think you might like what you find.

A word on Islam

In short, Islam is a religion centred on the teaching of the prophet Mohammed (PBUH), and belief in a divine creator called Allah. The five pillars of Islam are:

• Profession of Faith (shahada) - A true Muslim believes in the Tawhid, the oneness of God.

• Alms (zakat) - You must donate your money to mosques and charity

• Fasting (sawm) - This is practiced during Ramadaan

• Pilgrimage (hajj) - All able-bodied Muslims must make the Pilgrimage to the Hajj in Saudi Arabia at least once in their lifetime

• Prayer (salat) - Prayer is observed five times a day, facing the Kaaba

Islam is one of the youngest major world religions, having only gained its footing in the 7th century. Despite this, it is very easy to make the argument that Islam is the most important religion of our lifetimes and one of the biggest zeitgeist-makers.

Don't believe me? Let's analyse the stats. Islam has 1.9 billion adherents, making it the second-biggest religion sitting just behind Christianity. It is expected to surpass Christianity within the next 30 years to reach a peak of 2.2 billion, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Furthermore, 79 countries will have a million or more Muslim inhabitants in 2030, up from 72 countries today.

What could be fueling this love of such a patriarchal religion? Does society crave order and rules? Does Islam contain a central truth that has managed to shine through the confusion and disquiet of our times? I can't answer these questions, but I can say that Islam is a beautiful religion that has given birth to stunning cultures. We get to explore some of the history of Islam in Assassin's Creed: Mirage, the latest entry in Ubisoft's flagship franchise.

Background

Assassin's Creed: Mirage is one of Ubisoft's most profitable franchises. Unfortunately, it hasn't been doing too well lately, and although Assassin's Creed: Valhalla performed well commercially, it was impossible to ignore the mounting criticisms facing the franchise.

Mirage comes at a time when Ubisoft's future hangs in the balance. Many of its latest titles have failed to reach expected milestones, leading to lower-than-expected financial results. Consequently, several Ubisoft titles have been cancelled (including a Splinter Cell VR game and a new Prince of Persia game).

In many ways, Assassin's Creed: Mirage is a response to the prevailing criticism. The franchise has gone on a diet, and you can complete this in about 20 hours if you rush, 30 if you slow down to take in the sights. Furthermore, it returns to the franchise's roots by focusing on stealth gameplay.

Developers haven't been afraid to reveal just how much they're appealing to nostalgia. For example, you can even throw on a filter that makes the game feel like the first entry in the series. The work wasn't for nothing, at least in my opinion. I'm here today to say that it is the best Assassin's Creed game in recent years.

Story

Admittedly, I haven't played any other prior Assassin's Creed game except for a bit of Liberation on my Vita a few years ago, but I managed to get into the story without any issues.

Assassin's Creed: Mirage stars Basim who you'll recognize from Valhalla. He begins his life as a typical street thief who gets by through pickpocketing. One day, a revenge killing results in the death of a young child, leading Basim on a path to redemption which has him joining the Hidden Ones. He is guided by Roshan though, as you learn, their relationship isn't as it initially seems.

I like Basim as a character, though at times it does feel like the accent is being laid on a little too thick. Furthermore, it is strange to watch him anguish over this one particular death when he commits large-scale atrocities throughout the game's playtime, killing dozens of guards simply doing their jobs. It is hard to believe he cares that much about murder when he murders so frequently.

Although the story is about Basim, it is impossible to not feel like Baghdad is a character as well. The setting oozes personality. The hawkers on the streets, villagers on their way to classes, and wildlife immediately transport you to an Oriental dream. Take me to the Islamic Golden Age, please! One of my favorite details is the fact that if you walk up to a mosque, you can sometimes hear the sacred call to prayer. It is enough to bring me to tears. Baghdad consists of the following areas:

• Abbasiyah – where scholars and scientists congregate

• Karkh – market district

• Harbiyah -The industrial district

• Madinat As-Salam – Baghdad's center

Turn this historical city into your playground, but don't forget to show your proper respects. Oftentimes, media depicts Baghdad as a war-torn place where nothing good happens. Nonsense! This is a cultural hub, and it is great that the region is receiving positive attention.

The game explores Basim's backstory as a young thief in Baghdad, and we learn a lot that expands his character. Nevertheless, you can fully appreciate the game without playing any prior titles. Newcomers won't be lost. In fact, this is a great game for anyone who wants a taste of what the franchise is about. However, if you want to understand the plot in its totality, you need some experience with the franchise, especially the first three games and Valhalla.

Gameplay

From early on, it is evident that we're dealing with a game that is stealth to the core. As you wind through the streets of Baghdad, you have plenty of opportunities to blend into the crowd, leap on roofs, and slide into sidestreets. You're also given plenty of cowtools to enter stealth. This includes noisemakers to distract foes, smoke bombs to conceal yourself, and throwing knives for silent kills.

The stealth gameplay is fun, and this comes from someone who's a big stealth gaming fan. This is easily my favorite part of the game. Nevertheless, it's not perfect. Most notably, you can do many of the annoying stealth cheesing tactics you typically find in bad stealth games. For example, you can just hide in a bush, whistle, and then murder guards one by one, leaving you with a singular pile of dead bodies.

Though the main story is short, there is plenty to do around Baghdad. You can complete World Contracts which earn you Favor Tokens. You can also complete the Tales of Baghdad which teach you more about the region's culture. Do not miss these if you want to learn more about Islam! There are also your typical collectibles including lost books and mysterious shards.

If it pleases you, it is possible to engage in crime and pickpocket locals. Be careful when you're engaging in criminal mischief because if you get caught, you'll be wanted. Allah is watching of course, but you'll face immediate danger from guards.

Like past games, you'll find wanted posters around which you can rip down to reduce the odds of you getting caught. If you're tired of running from the law, you can pay off your bounty. Here are the wanted levels:

• 1st threshold: wanted posters are stuck around

• 2nd threshold: guards and archers look for you, and civilians will report you

• 3rd threshold: The Elite Shakiriyya guard is unleashed

You have an eagle companion! Use it to scout but be careful, as archers can take it down. Lastly, there is a skill tree to focus on, but it doesn't feel like a major part of the game or something you need to grind for. Instead, you have the freedom to enjoy the story, and if you don't want to do any of the side activities, that's perfectly fine as well.

Audio and visuals

The game looks stunning. The streets are vibrant, and you get to enjoy varied environments including deserts, busy markets, and oases, to name a few. On PS5, you have a Quality and PErformance mode. Go for Quality, as you'll still get a consistent 60FPS. You'll also find lots Islamic art, and as you'd expect, none of it depicts any living things.

The music is great, allowing you to easily immerse yourself in the time period. These are the sounds of Islam and I love them.

Criticisms

There are a few things I don't like about the gameplay. Let's start with the minor stuff. You have “eagle vision”, essentially x-ray vision. I hate it, and I hate any game that does it. To me, it just indicates that you haven't designed your world well enough to be organically explored.

There are also those Ubisoft annoyances you can't escape. You can't reasonably without having some degree of a HUD up. The image above is the cleanest your screen is going to get. It is so annoying, especially when we're presented with such a gorgeous world. Modern games have come up with so many solutions to having an ugly compass on your screen. Dynamic HUDs, path indicators, and companion guides are just some of the creative solutions that have become industry standards. For Ubisoft to be lagging behind and still cluttering your screen is just frustrating.

Cats

Cats are beloved in Islam! They are considered to be clean animals, so clean that they are allowed to enter mosques. According to Mohammad (PBUH), "Affection for cats is part of faith”, and according to (often refuted) folklore, the prophet had a cat named Muezza.

Mirage has cats! You'll find them on the streets as you walk through Baghdad. Look out for the ones with the AC crest on their nose.

Conclusion

At present, according to Pew research, there are at least 49 countries that have a Muslim population of over 50%. For a while, Albania and Kosovo have been the only Western countries to have a majority Muslim population.

That's about to change. Why? Well, for starters, the Muslim population is expected to grow by 35% in the next 20 years. In contrast, Christian conversion rates are going down. As research reveals, the following countries are predicted to become majority Muslim within the century:

• Cyprus

• Sweden

• France

• Greece

• Belgium

• Bulgaria

• Italy

• Luxembourg

• UK

• Slovenia

• Switzerland

• Ireland

• Lithuania

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/PRR-12-2018-0034/full/html

Let's get more specific. In the USA, the population projections show the number of Muslims more than doubling over the next two decades, rising from 2.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2030. You'll also be interested to learn the following:

>The greatest increases – driven primarily by continued migration – are likely to occur in Western and Northern Europe, where Muslims will be approaching double-digit percentages of the population in several countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, Muslims are expected to comprise 8.2% of the population in 2030, up from an estimated 4.6% today. In Austria, Muslims are projected to reach 9.3% of the population in 2030, up from 5.7% today; in Sweden, 9.9% (up from 4.9% today); in Belgium, 10.2% (up from 6% today); and in France, 10.3% (up from 7.5% today).

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/01/27/future-of-the-global-muslim-population-muslim-majority

This is the greatest thing I have ever learned. The world is about to change for the better. You better enjoy Assassin's Creed: Mirage because there will be so many more games that embrace Islam as the beautiful word of Allah penetrates Western society. Once you hear the Word, you can't deny its truth. It is like being in the desert and finding water, like taking a breath of fresh air just when you are about to drown.

AC Mirage gets 65/100 Hollys.

Sienna Wereham, 25, Austin Texas

Self-rated - 1.5/10

Personal Life:

• From Montana

• Lives with Boyfriend (Korean)

  • He pays rent, she "takes care of everything else"

  • Owes him money

  • 29, law student

  • He gets money from his family

  • Just finished his first year (2 more years then Bar)

• Was doing pretty good this time last year but "then like I had a series of like um events come up and that kind of resulted in me using my credit card a lot more than what I normally would have been using"

  • Trying to focus on paying off her credit card but it's going slowly

• No car, uses his car to drive to work

  • Lives close enough to law school he bikes there

Career:

• Bond underwriting assistant

  • 23/hr, 37.5 hours per week (doesn't know yearly pay)

  • Was 40 hours they decreased this during covid?

  • Thinks about 42'000

  • recently hired as a full time employee (only 2 pay periods?)

    • 1'200 a paycheck?

  • 401k contribution is 3% (company match )

  • Contract to hire type thing, she is hired as of March?

    • Paid weekly as contract, biweekly as full timer?

Debt/Expenses:

• timestamp

• Personal trainer twice a week

  • Trying to lose weight

  • Virtual appointments since trainer moved from Austin to Chicago

  • Might be $55 an appointment, neither person says the price but that's what's on the venmo

• Credit Card 1 timestamp

  • "Trying to pay off"

  • "I was paid weekly when I was a contract worker and I switched to biweekly as a full time employee so there was like a bit there where I umm uh I need to go to like the grocery store and stuff but I didn't have enough money to go to the grocery store"

    • DSP soundbite

  • $3212 => Paid 271, Spent $1688, $91 interest => $4720

• Student Loans

  • University of Hawaii at Hilo

    • No idea what this is and I probably heard it wrong timestamp

    • Wanted to go to Portland State but that was too expensive for her (50-60k)

  • 32'000

    • About a 400 minimum payment (5-6% interest)

    • Always been on deferment, graduated in 2021

• Owes Boyfriend $1'800 timestamp

  • Had borrowed money to pay off her credit card that she'd used to make purchases when they first moved to Austin

  • Where'd he get this money from

    • "I can't share that"

  • Gave her the money in August (they moved there in July) ($4'000)

  • After this money her credit card was $2'000

    • Boyfriend said not to pay him back initially because he wanted her to pay off the card, the card is now 4'720

  • Currently paying him $400 a month

Retirement/Savings:

• Story time timestamp

  • "Yeah, so, about this time last year um I had about a thousand dollars in my savings account or twelve-hundred actually but then like I said earlier um there's like a series of like events that happened um"

  • Grandmother in Idaho had a health scare while Sienna was in Korea (boyfriend is from Korea) so flight costs, then spending money while she was visiting?

  • She and her boyfriend had nothing saved when moving into the Austin apartment after that?

    • Took on debt on spending to furnish apartment and groceries? A little uncertain, she backtracks on whether it's furnishings or just essentials

    • Boyfriend had just paid tuition so his account was pretty empty

  • Initial job when she moved to Austin was very stressful

    • Remote job, no friends in Austin, shopping was her only reason to go outside

• Checking

  • $98 started => 1691 in, 1232 out => $557

• Savings

  • $69.26 stated => 10 out for being below min, => 59.26

    • Two charges a half month apart each $5

  • Bank had increased minimum balance from 50 to 100 and she hadn't seen that notice?

    • Bank is up in North Dakota

• Retirement account

  • $86

• Robin Hood

  • $77 total in here

The coup and counter-coup in Korea right now vaguely reminds me of Iran in 1953.

You may have read in A People's History of the United States when your pinko high school history teacher assigned it to you, and what you've heard from every midwit in the media, that Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup plotted by the CIA to put the Shah into power because the oil companies wanted to make money. All of these things have a pretty big kernel of truth but way more important stuff was going on.

The Abadan refinery in 1950. At the time it was the largest in the world.

(I'm just gonna summarize this part really quick because it's undisputed: In 1951 Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry built and owned by Britain because they were just stealing it all and not paying royalties. The British together with the big (mostly American) oil companies organize a boycott so that other third world countries don't see this and get uppity. After two years, Iran is suffering badly because of the lack of money from oil among other things.)

Mohammed Mossadegh. He did this strange thing where he would say he was sick in bed and do his business from there. He did it even when visiting America. Maybe there was some meaning to it in his culture but if there was is it went way over everyone's head here. Or maybe it was just an extreme passive aggressive thing. You can understand why negotiating with this guy might be frustrating.

The oil nationalization thing was the big issue looming over everything, but not in the way you might think. Pretty much everyone across the different factions supported it, but there was infighting over whether Mossadegh was doing it competently. As well as a billion other issues. Iran was one of the more democratic countries in the world at the time and people had all kinds of different beliefs and things to fight over. Obviously the religious thing that blew up in 1963 with Ayatollah Khomeini didn't come out of nowhere.

Part of the fleet review for the coronation of Elizabeth II, 1953. This is the overwhelming power they were threatening to use.

Besides the situation in Iran, there was another crisis in a troubled country. Britain was still trying to figure out what its identity was after they lost India. A lot of people thought they should continue running a global empire. This wasn't some weird fringe Tory belief. Across the country there was deep resentment that they were losing their place in the world to the Americans and their anti-imperialism. Britain had been exploiting Iran's entire oil industry for about 40 years based on a deal they got through bribery and threats and paid only a tiny fraction of their profits to Iran. So Mossadegh nationalized it. The British went apeshit and told the Americans that they would have to invade because they couldn't dare lose face in front of the Orientals. So the US is trying to solve this situation without two allies going to war with each other. It's been two years now and it's deteriorating rapidly.

So Eisenhower eventually relents and orders the CIA to implement the coup the British had been begging for and partly planned. So the CIA gets together and plots with various army officers and politicians they think will back it. You can guess how well that goes. Other factions are tipped off and get their army units in the streets to put it down. The Shah flees the country into exile, presumably forever. Ironically, the whole reason why Eisenhower ordered the CIA to do all this wasn't because they wanted Mossadegh out. He was a pain in the butt but they could live with him. It's because Eisenhower was afraid the increasingly unstable, unpopular, and dictatorial regime was vulnerable to being overthrown by the communists and then everything would really go to heck. So the idea was that we would do it first.

Stuff like this was happening but with multiple factions.

But the failed attempt caused so much chaos, with tanks and various angry mobs from different factions roving around the streets of Tehran, that Tudeh (the commies) decided now was their chance and they tried their own coup, but that failed too. At the end of this game of musical chairs, Gen. Zahedi ended up in power, the guy the US had wanted all along. It's hard to say exactly how much American support helped him. The CIA was bribing newspapers and influential people in the time leading up to it which may have had some influence on events, but the actual coup they totally fricked. This all happened in 4 days.

Epilogue

Ashraf Pahlavi. Once at dinner in front of several foreign diplomats she yelled at her brother "Are you man or are you a mouse?" about some policy issue and stormed off. Would.

The Shah returned with Zahedi's permission, like a browbeaten cuck coming back from his shed. The Americans had never liked him. The CIA considered him to be a spineless coward and preferred dealing with his sister Ashraf, who was much more strong-willed and exerted a certain level of dominance over him. But something surprising happened over the next couple years. The Shah managed to lever Zahedi out of power and make himself an autocrat.

After the coup, BP was forced into giving up their monopoly of Iranian oil. They had been shamelessly screwing over the Iranians, using tactics like claiming that they couldn't pay anything because they weren't making a profit. The oil industry remained nationalized but Iran made a contract with the world's big oil companies (the "Seven Sisters") to operate it for them as a consortium. For various complicated reasons that are certainly way above your head, this meant that the Iranians got a way bigger share of the profits. It paved the way for them taking real control around 1970 and OPEC actually getting some teeth in the following years, under the leadership of the Shah to a large extent.

I dunno why monarchs these days always have to wear military uniforms. Your dad became famous for killing a lot of bandits with a machine gun when he was young, but who are you kidding?

The Shah would go on to be denounced as a puppet controlled by the US. I wish. The CIA said he had a (actual quote) "pathological fear and hatred of the British". He'd been brought up this way by his father, who had been deposed by the British. Delusional megalomaniac? Definitely. Somebody looking to be a puppet? No. CIA wasn't even allowed to spy on Iran. In the late 1970s he got cancer which he hid from his "puppetmasters" until it was too late and was overthrown. But that's a story for another time.

This is the only image of paratroopers landing in that war that Google will return now. Serious 1984 shit.

Britain, having been cockblocked out of invading Iran, was still desperate to use its (still very potent at the time) military power to thrash some wogs to show they were still dominant. This led to the disastrously r-slurred invasion of Egypt in 1956 in which the Americans spanked them and put them back in bed, ironically proving that Britain was no longer a global power that could do incredibly stupid evil stuff without American permission.

Addressing your whining

But Redactor! It was a rogue CIA operation!

Just like how sending Gary Powers out on that U-2 was a "rogue operation" until Eisenhower admitted he ordered it. This is an excuse that politicians use to protect themselves. Please grow up and don't be so naive.

But Redactor! He was democratically elected just like Allende! That should trump everything!

And then when things got tough he made himself dictator. Park Chung-hee was democratically elected. DeGaulle was democratically elected. Nixon was nowhere near a dictator but you're butthurt about him and he was democratically elected. Trump is too r-slurred to know when he's breaking the law and he's been democratically elected twice. It's funny how it's only people lefties want to identify with are the only ones who get a lifetime pass for being a dictator because they won an election once.

But Redactor! This is the reason why they hate us!

I know who obscure musician Sahba Motallevi who plays the tar is, which proves I must know what I'm talking about.

Give me a fricking break. Do you know any Iranians? They're some of my favorite people in the world but they are batshit insane about some things. I'm not usually into "Human Biodiversity" but I think they might have a genetic predisposition toward being paranoid. These are people who, when JFK Jr's plane crashed, their first question was who assassinated him. Where the Cinema Rex fire was so obviously done by Islamic militants that it must be a false flag. Where Jimmy Carter is a ruthless thug who secretly wants to stomp all of humanity under his jackboot. Where a really smart well-educated person asked me if Saddam Hussein had really gotten executed several years after it happened. They would have blamed America for something if we never did anything.

Also it's a country with a deep sense of persecution by foreign powers because they were basically colonized by Britain and Russia from ~1800-1945. Except it wasn't done openly. Everyone knew what was going on but it was behind the scenes. The kind of thing that makes you suspicious of foreign superpowers.

This kind of animosity isn't sparked by a single really complicated event. It gets into all kinds of really complicated psychology. Look at the left in South Korea and their reasons for hating America:

I wonder if a single one of these tards has ever even realized that they must have been wrong because the beef genocide never happened.

• We were really the bad guys in the Korean war. (Yet literally about 90% of people who actually lived through that think we were the good guys.)

• There was a traffic accident once and a little girl got run over by accident. (Car accidents never happen in Korea. Ajussi is totally fine to make it home after a few bottles of soju.)

• American beef has prions in it that specifically target the brains of Koreans and give them mad cow disease. (This was a real thing I'm not even exaggerating. It was a huge national issue and there were massive riots over it.)

I can't even begin to list the number of cases of people irrationally hating America when we did nothing wrong:

• British leftoids like John le Carre who were obviously butthurt that they lost their empire to America, so now they call us imperialists.

• That whole thing in France in the 1960s-1990s where their foreign policy was all about hating America.

• Indians who lived off of rice donated by America but were butthurt because we reminded them of the British or something.

• Canadians. I think that speaks for itself.

In Iran especially, their culture requires them to have a Britain to blame for their problems, so that's going to be the USA. And in South Korea they need a Japan to blame for their problems, so that's going to be the USA. (I mean seriously, hating Japan has turned into this pathogical need where some of them can't live without it.) !asians

Was it the right call?

So should we have done it? That's the $64 question, isn't it?

Eisenhower with the 101st Airborne chads before D-Day. This guy lived in a world where he had to make some extreme choices and they weren't just when to upmarsey or downmarsey.

Imagine being in Eisenhower's shoes. Stalin has just died a few months ago and presumably his heir is going to be like him. You were in a legit shooting war with the commies in Korea up until... 24 days ago. You're 8 years from leading a war on a continental level against another totalitarian regime and having to order the deaths of hundreds of thousands because that's how real shit was. There's a bunch of crises going on all over the world now. This one is especially dangerous because of the extreme strategic importance of Iran. Europe, the place you spent so much of your life fighting to protect, is dependent on Iranian oil. That war would have been a heck of a lot worse if you didn't have more oil than the other side so you know just how important this is. Given the information he had at the time and the imminent danger of WW3 breaking out, I think his decision was fairly reasonable.

Here's my view in hindsight: I don't think they should have done it. I think if there was a better understanding of Iranian culture they would have realized that there's such a large majority who will never accept communism that you don't have to worry about that unless they get invaded. They had a large portion of the population who are conservative Muslims (especially in rural areas). The educated elites liked freedom and democracy. There's actually a democratic tradition going back pretty far and while it was far from perfect it wasn't a complete joke. Beyond that, look at the virtually total failure of communist subversion throughout the Middle East. In the entire Cold War the only truly commie state they managed to take control of was South Yemen. These countries have a really good immune system against communism. Also they really really are not sympathetic toward Russia. You hear it to this day when somebody makes a deal with America and they say "It's another Treaty of Turkmenchay! !" And they are extremely nationalist. They are not interested in world socialism.

But don't take my word for it!! We have access to an actual honest assessment from within CIA about what happened.

Overwhelmed. That's the only word that can describe how I feel right now. I'm drowning in emotions, thoughts, and ideas that I can barely function. Perhaps writing out the issue will provide some relief.

Physical Strife

I've returned to self-harming. I don't even need benzos or painkillers to do it anymore. I can slash myself to the white meat and just sit with the pain. It barely phases me. In fact, there's a part of it that feels deliciously good. It's an entire experience - the blood that drips, the sight of carved-out flesh, the sensation of being obliterated. It all comes together beautifully. I'm not even ashamed of my scars anymore. I think what I've done to myself is quite remarkable, and not many people could manage. If only I could challenge that willpower and dedication to something worthwhile, but I'm stupid as frick and all I can do is longpost and do drugs.

I tried to contact my psychiatrist but they're closed until January. I made an appointment with a GP for today but I don't really know what I'm going to do or say. Just tell them I've been self-harming and having panic attacks? I don't know what they can do for me. I doubt they'll be allowed to prescribe me anything, since I'm technically still supposed to have a supply of benzos for the month (I ate them all ages ago).

Should I go or should I just leave it? I think what I'm really looking for is just someone to talk to, though I don't know if a GP is the right person to be talking to.

As I write this, I'm listening to Nas Illmatic, and I'll say it's my top 5 most favorite albums of all time, and I'd argue it's the greatest hip hop album of all time. I think Life's a B-word is the greatest rap song of all time, and AZ absolutely kills it.

My favorite line is:

I switched my motto; instead of sayin', "Frick tomorrow!"

That buck that bought a bottle could've struck the lotto

I love how it encapsulates that "quiet violence of dreams". We have a vision of someone trying to escape the sins of their environment, but their most reliable means of escaping their heck is to win the fricking lotto. There's such a sense of futility and misery wrapped in these lines.

Social Strife

So it's clear I don't belong here. Everywhere I go I annoy people and make them angry. People have actively verbalized that they don't like me, and this recurring pattern is one that has characterized my life since childhood. It isn't a big problem - I'm a generally introverted person. However, I'm not schizoid and I do need some amount of love and acceptance. I fail to find these things and that makes me sad.

I'm so fricking depressed about being an incel. I'm 29, broke, no hope of GF, children or marriage. I can't even buy hookers because nobody's going to frick a dude with actively bleeding legs. I have literally permanently locked myself out of s*x for the rest of my life with my mental illness and self-harm. I do wonder, if I had the same personality, but I wasn't a 156cm ugly black man, would I still be an incel? These are questions we need quantum computers to answer.

I crave self-harm right now but my appointment is in three hours and I don't know if I can stop myself from cutting until then. And again, I'll probably be wasting my time and money going to a GP who is going to look at me and say "I didn't go to school to deal with schizos" and refer me to a psychiatrist which, as I have highlighted, is gone until January.

Conclusion

I don't know whether I should go to the doctor or not. Am I wasting my time? What am I hoping to achieve?

>Hey, you cute twink, you said you're leaving the site forever!

Well Reddit is shit and I need something to do when I'm not playing RDR2 so I guess I'm stuck with you r-slurs. You people who will give me griefing awards, insult me, tell me to kms, and accuse me of using ChatGPT (an accusation which confuses me. There are tons of plagiarism detection sites online. Proving I use ChatGPT would be trivial, yet nobody does it).

I'm so fricking overwhelmingly sad I can't think straight. This was supposed to be a longpost about Eugene Terre'Blanche but I'm too sad to do it.

Ghosting and No-Contact

I feel like the pills I'm on right now have put me in a spot where I can deal with a lot without freaking out too much, so I'll take advantage of that and write this high drama and potentially fricked up article. I'm on a vow of honesty anyway. The aim is to literally never tell a lie again until the day I die. Lying is beyond evil, but I'll discuss that in a different post.

It's a cliche statement at this point, but humans are social animals. We need each other not just for practical reasons, but for social reasons as well. Though there are so many incentives to cooperate with others, at many points, we find ourselves in moments of conflict.

Conflict can take many forms. Sometimes, it's petty insults in the workplace from a bully. Other times, it's a divorce stemming from infidelity. I think you'll agree when I say the desire is deep to be on amicable terms with everyone, but it unfortunately isn't possible.

We will fight with loved ones, ruin friendships, and even upset our pets. Due to my experiences, I find that most people will forgive you following the conflict, provided they believe you are a good person at heart. A significant percentage of people require an apology. And of course, we have our “grievance collectors” who will never forgive you, and they will harm you as soon as an appropriate opportunity arises.

One of the biggest factors that affect conflict is that people who are at odds seldom hold equal power. Here are some examples: The son is upset with his mom's lack of respect for his privacy, but his gripe holds less weight than his mother's rules in her home. A staff member in the workplace is publically humiliated by a manager, and there's absolutely nothing they can do about it.

Sometimes, the best option in a case of conflict, or potential conflict, is to flee. Putting physical distance between you and your combatant can be a life-saving move. If you're lucky, simply leaving a friend group is sufficient. Other times it's necessary to leave the city.

In such cases, you have the choice to

a) Explain to the other person why you have removed them from your life

b) Cut contact without explanation

Option B often goes by the term “ghosting”. Today, I want to talk about ghosting and no-contact, why people do it, and its effects on both parties.

Ghosting and No-Contact Defined

Explained most simply, ghosting is the act of cutting contact with someone without prior warning and without an explanation. It's sometimes been used to describe people who suddenly stop talking on dating apps, or accepting an invitation to go to a church, then not doing it and blocking the priest's number.

Personally, I believe ghosting only occurs if there is a notable prior relationship between the two (or more) parties. It doesn't have to be extremely intimate. For example, if someone stops chatting on a dating app, I don't think that's ghosting. However, if the two of you PHYSICALLY go on a date, and following this, you suddenly cease all messages and block the person, that is a genuine case of ghosting.

Ghosting is part of the larger concept of going “no-contact” with someone, which is a concept you've probably heard of. On Reddit, it's recommended for people who have “narcissistic parents”, for example. Stefan Molyneux has also spoken about the concept and encouraged his fans to go no-contact with their entire families and he often uses the term “deFooing”.

Going no-contact is not limited to ghosting. It can sometimes involve telling the person what you're about to do. This can take the form of a letter, email, or even an explanation in person. According to studies, women are far more likely to ghost than men. This article provides some reasons as to why this is the case.

Of course, many men will take a polite rejection well, but as women, we are not trained to reject, talk about our needs, or even think that our opinions should matter. So, sometimes, disappearing or fading away seems like the safest bet.

https://www.bustle.com/p/women-are-more-likely-to-ghost-someone-theyre-dating-than-men-theres-a-very-good-reason-for-that-8963133

Why ghosting is frowned upon

I'm going to speak about ghosting specifically (i.e. no-contact with no explanation). From my research on Reddit and other sites, the most common position is that this is immature, cruel, and anti-social. The reason for this is that the person who has been ghosted is left without a sense of closure. They have no idea what they did wrong, and can feel abandoned. This can lead to self-doubt and low self-esteem. It's also a harsh form of rejection, basically telling the person “I don't respect you enough to explain why I'm cutting you off.”

Depending on what kind of person you are when ghosting, you'll be interpreted in one of two ways.

a) If you're generally a meek person, it will be seen as the act of a coward. “You're a little b-word too afraid to even explain yourself so you slink away.”

b) If you're confident, you'll be seen as a narcissist who treats people like objects and discards them when they're done.

Lastly, ghosters are often considered to be people who aren't capable of good communication or appropriate social skills. I am capable of nothing. Well, that's false, I'm capable of being a wretched stain on this beautiful planet, a streak of slime that inevitably repulses even the most kind-hearted people. I can't be helped. I deserve to be cut to the white meat, several times Can you take 4 white gashers and 5 normie cuts in a single session you worthless piece of shit? Of course you can, just focus on your worthlessness.

I've started learning how to use first aid kits. The first time I just wrapped gauze over everything and it stopped most of the bleeding, but not without becoming soaked itself. Had to take it off slowly in the shower the next day because it stuck to my cuts. So for you dumb cutters out there - you need dressing first. They're squares that are placed over the wound. They have a material on one side and feel like plastic on the other. Don't take the material off - that's the side you place on the cut. Depending on your self-harm style, you may need a couple of dressings that overlap to cover the entire area. Change the dressing and bandages regularly.

I've been slipping hints of psychological distress and suicidal ideation at work. I think I'll stop because I don't want to lose my job lol. It's not as bad as the last two paragraphs which only like 5 people will read, but they are disturbing one-liners. Also, don't worry about me, I haven't cut in a couple of days. It feels like I'll be fine for now, though I now have numerous cuts that should have been stitched so now they're still sitting wide open, occasionally bleeding and sometimes secreting white secretion film indicative of purulent drainage which is an infection.

Ghosting and No-Contact

Let's discuss communication first. If you go on Reddit, you'll find countless stories of people complaining about being ghosted by friends, romantic partners, work colleagues, and gaming friends. Often, they express feeling betrayed and complain that the person doing the ghosting has poor communication skills.

This is an easy position to understand. If you have a problem, you should speak instead of just fricking off. It's childish to be afraid of confrontation and to run away from your problems. “Use your words” is the advice that's given.

I want to explore these points. Firstly, I'd like to talk about the unexpectedness that is complained about. I call bullshit. I hypothesize that VERY, VERY few cases of ghosting are absolutely unexpected. Deep down inside the ghostee knows where they wronged. You know darn well what you did or didn't do. You understand what flaw of yours repulsed the person. You're just incapable of taking responsibility and admitting you were wrong.

To believe otherwise is to argue that most people take an irrational approach to relationships and regularly choose to cut contact with people they love and get along with. No, this doesn't happen. People on good terms seldom have to deal with ghosting. Far from it, they talk, and they increase how often they interact with each other because they enjoy each other's company.

Am I to believe that those complaining of ghosting are in the situation described above? It's obviously not the case. The ghostee knows the relationship was shit in some fashion, and that they were almost certainly the one to blame.

Why ghosting is not a form of poor communication

I've already outlined that many consider ghosting to be a poor form of communication. I disagree, and I believe that those who make this argument are the ones who are poor communicators.

We've all heard the meme that communication is only 10% verbal or some shit. We also know it's false. The concept of there being any percentage of verbal communication is flawed. At any given point we may dedicate varying aspects of our communication artillery. It all depends on the situation.

If you're talking to a younger child, you may focus sharply on your words and your tone to ensure the child feels safe. If you're speaking to your husband, You may focus far more on your body language to express your desire for intercourse.

With that out the way, I wish to present the idea that silence is a valid and often effective form of communication. If you tell a joke I find offensive, and you hear no response, I have communicated to you everything you need to know about what you said. Communication in this situation has occurred effectively, and both parties know how the other feels.

Ghostees fail to understand that silence is a powerful form of communication, and there is often 0 ambiguity regarding what is being said. This is the best example I can give. You're at a party. Person A is going around speaking loudly and telling everyone exactly how happy he is to be partying. Person B is seated on a couch, saying nothing at all and just fiddling with the label on a bottle of beer.

Has either individual communicated less? No, they've made their mind state absolutely clear, just not in the same way. You know Person A is comfortable and happy with the party through his words. You know Person B is uncomfortable and not enjoying the party through their silence. Neither party is a worse communicator. Just different.

If you go on a date and don't hear from the person again, they've told you in clear terms they're not interested in pursuing you. The frick do you want them to do, provide a detailed list of why they think you're unworthy of their time?

If you're ghosted in the workplace or by family, you almost undoubtedly know why it happened. You pissed someone off to the point where they're not interested in talking to you anymore. The problem isn't the communication - you just don't like what is being communicated.

You're also annoyed by how it's being communicated. You lack the knowledge of the intricacies of silence in any communication setting. Hearing words is easy. We have dictionaries to tell you what every word means. We don't have “silence dictionaries” explaining the definition of every form of silence. Nevertheless, through life experience, we should learn what they mean.

Is ghosting immoral

Upon research, I am utterly shocked at how many sites and Reddit posts call ghosting a form of emotional abuse. It's even on Wikipedia!

Ghosting is associated with negative mental health effects on the person on the receiving end and has been described by some mental health professionals as a passive-aggressive form of emotional abuse or cruelty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosting_(behavior)

This makes me laugh. It's a foolish statement. I thought I was a soft b-word, but my spirit is lifted to know that there are people more pathetic than myself. I would feel no sense of guilt whatsoever ghosting someone unless I had some kind of obligatory relationship with them e.g. wife, children, or someone who is dependent on me.

Except for that, ghosting is always on the table, and I will use it without a hint of shame. I am an incel, and I have absolutely no right to demand relationships from women. No woman on Earth is obliged to show me affection, acknowledge me, or even speak to me. If I demand a woman speak to me, that is harassment, and I could potentially incur legal consequences for that.

By the same logic, You are not entitled to any form of relationship with me, and you are not to make me speak. I understand feeling hurt by being ghosted. As I said, it is a form of rejection, and in many cases, it is a callous way of doing that. The ghostee may be left feeling abandoned if the ghoster had provided emotional support. The ghostee could also be slightly confused regarding future plans they had made with the person.

However, any argument that the one doing the ghosting is wrong in any form is one I strongly disagree with. If I ghost you, I've ended a relationship I did not want any longer. I am not your therapist, and I don't need to give you psychological closure regarding why I'm leaving your life.

I'd like to know your take on the matter, and whether you think it's moral and mature.

Ghosting and borderline personality disorder

The act of ghosting is HIGHLY associated with BPD. Such individuals are known for their unstable relationships and tend to place heavy blame on their targets, snap at them, and eventually view them as either pure evil or flawless angels. As such, they may ghost close friends and family members with ease for even the slightest infractions. Sometimes, they cut off all friends out of fear of abandonment, essentially erasing their entire social life. It is understood that they pathologically fear rejection and abandonment, so they choose to reject others first as a defense mechanism.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BPD/comments/r8lcug/people_that_have_cut_everyone_off_hows_it_been

https://old.reddit.com/r/BPD/comments/w30l61/i_feel_like_cutting_everyone_off_again_and

https://old.reddit.com/r/BPD/comments/o2mqrj/i_just_cut_off_everyone_from_my_college

The BPD subreddit as a whole is pretty based if you're looking for an interesting subreddit. Alternatively (and sometimes concurrently), they'll obsess over one friend, their "best friend" or "favorite person", and if they lose that friend they will undergo a genuine life crisis.

This “black and white” view of the world extends to themselves, and they will oftentimes deem themselves to be wholly bad and unworthy with no shades of grey. This leads to self-harm and suicidal ideation. Broadly speaking, self-harm is almost exclusively a BDP thing, and if someone is seriously self-harming (not edgy teens), it can almost be certainly tracked back to BDP. It has been estimated that 65%-80% of people with BPD will resort to self-harm.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a major concern in both clinical and non-clinical populations. It has been approximated that 65-80% of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) engage in some form of NSSI. Despite such high co-morbidity, much remains unknown about the relationship between NSSI and BPD symptomatology.

https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2051-6673-1-14

No-contact in my life

I have had people go no-contact with me. I've also done the same to others. These situations affected me differently, but I don't think I am morally wrong in any instance, nor do I believe the no-contacters did anything bad. I think all examples illustrate that there is often no mystery behind why you're being ghosted or being no-contacted, even if it's "this neighbor is choosing isolation".

Here is a brief and highly incomplete list of cases of me going no-contact that I consider significant:

1. My university supervisor - when I dropped out of university, I did so ghosting style. I did not explain to my supervisor why I left. To do so would be to explain years of maltreatment, bullying, public humiliation, and tyranny. I don't know if the professor was affected by this and quite frankly I don't care. I don't have to give any words to explain why I did it. My silence explains everything: I have moved on and I no longer want you or your bureaucratic institution in my life. I feel so strongly about this, that I'm willing to throw away four years of PhD research.

2. S.H. - I've spoken about this woman a few times. She rejected me.

https://rdrama.net/post/224434/i-told-my-friend-i-have

She is a long-time friend, probably a decade, who I am ghosting after she rejected my romantic advances. I will admit that this is a case where my silence is somewhat ambiguous: I could be saying “I'm a butthurt incel” or “I don't think this friendship can continue while I have feelings”. I admit that words may have been better to use here.

Meowsommar - She is a known figure in the Groomercord community, and she's easily one of the people I got closest to. I considered her a best friend and spoke to her almost daily. Last year, I basically did a mass ghosting and cut contact with all my Groomercord contacts. She was one of them. I don't remember the specific reason I did the mass ghosting, I was probably having an emotional breakdown. Nonetheless, the communication was clear: I entirely erased Groomercord from my life, and I was willing to erase our friendship with it. I wish I could say something kinder but I promised to never lie. I'm a bad person who hadn't enough love to reciprocate the love that was shown to me.

Here's a brief and incomplete list of people who have no-contacted me:

1)Steam friend - I used to have a friend on Steam I occasionally played with. He was very kind to me, and we had fun playing Resident Evil 6 multiplayer together. He recently deleted me on Steam and Groomercord without warning. I could whine about being abandoned, but I know exactly why it happened. He had invited me to a Groomercord server he was running with some other friends. He liked me enough to give me the role with the highest privileges. I threw that back in his face by not participating at all in the Groomercord server because I just didn't care enough. I was a bad friend in that instance. The Groomercord server was important to him, and I didn't understand that.

2) My high school teacher -In high school my physical education teacher stopped talking to me in the 11th grade. For years, I was hurt by the incident, claiming it came out of the blue. At my current age, I can admit I know exactly why. During high school, I taught myself basic HTML and how to make websites. In the 11th grade I made a website that satired the school, and I wrote about how shitty our sports teams were. These were teams he coached. I can fully understand why he would be hurt by that to the point where he didn't want to speak to me and didn't owe me an explanation. I don't empathize with a grown adult who got salty over teen student drama, but I know exactly why I was ghosted.

Meowsommar - I consider this a beautiful case of reverse no-contacting. I've tried contacting her again but I never get a response. She has (had? I have no idea what goes on in the Groomercord dramasphere now) a server that contained her closest friends online. It was a small, intimate server containing people she trusted and sometimes shared quite personal information with. I'm pretty sure she's even posted pictures of herself if my memory serves me correctly. She often streamed movies in her server. Where I lived then I had horrible internet, and she was infinitely patient with me and accommodated my inconveniences. This was an act of patience and kindness she did not owe me at all. Her silence communicates more than an essay could. It is an explanation covering years of information. I understand why I was no-contacted.

It is interesting to note that never in my life has anyone ever gone the no-contact route that involved a worded explanation prior. I've never been spoken to, messaged, or given a letter.

I suspect this has to do with being an incel and I would presume those with relationships would have experienced someone telling them why they're not only breaking up but also going no-contact. Care to share these experiences?

Sarah Schulman - an alternative theory

In the above, I give my views and opinions regarding ghosting and going no-contact. In short, I consider them to be valid forms of communication, and I have no problem using them. I already attempted to debunk opposing views, but for the sake of fairness, I'd like to feature the work of a woman who believes the opposite of what I believe. Her name is Sarah Schulman and she believes that if there is conflict, it should be discussed. Ghosting, to her, is horrible behavior that encourages hurt and further conflict.

Sarah has been no-contacted. She describes being in a community where she was basically told to frick off. She emailed everyone trying to resolve the situation but was still told to frick off and finally not to contact them as well.

She wrote back: “Never contact us again.” The concept of mutuality was unbearable.

Sarah calls this kind of behavior shunning, but what she describes is essentially the same thing as going no-contact. She claims that ghosting is wrong because we prevent the other person from giving their side of the story. In this way, it is quite arrogant, as you only believe that you have the right to express your thoughts.

She also brings up how modern technology has allowed for more people to go no-contact. You can hide behind an app or email or social media and tell someone to frick off without seeing them in person. In this way, you can always imagine a monster on the other side of the screen, someone bad and who deserves nothing but your contempt.

Certain character types send criticizing, hurtful emails, with misconceptions and false information concluding with, “I consider this matter closed” or “Do not respond.” They may ignore clarifications or even block their email, or defriend or block them on Facebook or Twitter

On another occasion, I was one of five people who received letters from a colleague who told each of us that he no longer wanted to be in communication with us because we were “losers.” His concluding line was, “Do not contact me.”

Like Redditors, she considers going no-contact to be harassment. She acknowledges extreme cases, such as going no-contact with someone who killed a loved one. But even in these instances, she seems to argue that some form of verbal communication would be better.

I disagree with Sarah, I believe not speaking to the murderer is the best move and is the one that will lead to healing, not opening dialog with the murderer.

Shunning, an active form of harassment, is never useful in resolving problems; in most cases, it is petty and primarily a way to avoid adjustment of the self that is required for accountability. If it has no terms for resolution, it is simply a form of asserting supremacy and imposing punishment, and punishment, as we know, rarely does anything but produce more pain. Deciding not to speak to someone who murdered your mother makes sense. But so does deciding to speak to them, as a movement of victims for reconciliation makes clear.

Ultimately, her views can be summarized as such:

Shunning someone you know or loved or shared space with because there was a misunderstanding caused by email, or because they said something you don't want to face, is one of the centerpieces of injustice. Having reasonable and achievable terms for reconciliation is different.

That is one point I am willing to consider. When you ghost someone, you kill any chance of the other party explaining themselves or offering forms of reconciliation. If the ghostee feels guilt for their actions, they have no way of relieving this guilt. With no-contact, there are no chances of saying sorry.

Conclusion

What are your views on ghosting and going no-contact? Is it the road of the coward, a fool's way of communication, or a form of harassment as Sarah argues? Or, like me, do you think it is a valid form of communication that paradoxically speaks volumes?

I'm on benzos and ambian right now. I would like for my next post to be about dishonesty, but I get distracted easily so who knows.

When we attend out place of employment, we are typically expected to behave in a professional manner, and to abstain from sexual activity and forming relationships. There are a few reasons for this. For example, nobody likes being gossiped about and its OBVIOUS that the married couple at work goes home and talks shit about all of you. Secondly, when there is anything that needs to be voted up, its easy for husband wife to team up, essentially doubling the weight of their vote. Lastly, it's just fricking awkward. Stop it.

(Today, I'd like to shine a light on one of the most disgusting ways men acquire s*x - prostitution. These cases will illustrate the harmful effect it has on women.) = this is not an absolute statement because there are exceptions because there's billions of humans and great variety in our dispositions and desires.

University students become s*x workers

Today I'd like to investigate a few cases of folks who had s*x in inappropriate place (mostly work). It's up to you to judge if they were fricked up or whether we should give them sympathy.

I'd also like to know if you've had s*x at work. I haven't but I recall stories of teens having s*x at school.

There's no denying how normalized s*x work has become. Here's the crazy thing - make a Tinder profile and have your image just be a wad of cast. You'll instantly get swipes from girls listing their prices. There's plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating this. Show your face and you'll return to the normal Tinder experience (i.e. no likes unless you pay for gold to see the bots that liked you).

Two young girls from the University of Miami and Florida International University attempted their hand at prostitution. They seem to be what everyone imagines s*x workers as - just regular girls looking for some extra money. Nevertheless, they get into trouble because they're also found with drugs. One of the girls is studying a criminal minor, and they were willing to charge more for bareback.

Do you think the Johns are evil in this case? They clearly know they're not leading these women down any good path. THey are agents of corruption. Although we still need to consider consent. So here's a thought experiment: one could put a gun to a women's head and say ‘have s*x with me or die'. Or, one could dangle a dollar over a poor person's head and say ‘have s*x with me or starve to death'. In both instances, there is no real consent, only the desire to live. In this way, payment in prostitution acts a form of force.

Girls do porn

You've probably heard about this case, but are you aware of just how fricked up it is. I watched a documentary that detailed what one woman went through. She was contacted via Craigslist (?!) to do fitness modelling (okay, for me I would 100% interpret that as prn but whatever). They pay her for accommodation and transport and all the expenses. She arrives and when she's on set, they take her handbag and lock it in a safe. They tell her she 's going to get fricked in a porno.

She immediately says no, but they convince her that she can't leave unless she does it. Basically, the doors are locked and she's r*ped and the r*pe doesn't stop until she puts on a good act and pretends she's loving it. The sheet are filled with blood. She is locked there for the whole night, and given a brief moment to rest. when she wakes up, she is made to masturbate on camera, which she does out of fear. Once she's out, she so traumatized she doesn't tell anyone, but she does need medical care because of the internal injuries. Oh, and that's another thing. So many girls in porno will suffer internal injuries from being pounded.

Eventually, the video is released, and its edited to make her look like she was a slut looking for it. Most of her family disowns her, leaving her lonely and suicidal. She begins to lean that plenty of other women have been treated that way by the company, and she rallies with them to find justice. They were able to file and win a criminal lawsuit, but due to the clandestine nature the company hides its fines, none of the women have been paid a cent of the millions they are owed.

All of that is shocking. What's more shocking is that the videos of women being r*ped made it into Pornhub's top 20 and have been viewed over 680 billion times. The women brave enough to come forward have ceaseless tried to get their videos taken down - this is even after the lawsuit that proves that those videos are literally videos of r*pe. Yet you can still find them online very easily.

The effect this has had on these women has been devastating. One has committed. Many have been disowned by their parents (remember, the pornos are filmed to portray the women as enjoying it). Many lost their jobs as well. Despite all this, there is a question that remains - why are these videos still up?

Let's think about. Child porn is immediately taken down and the uploader is arrested. Adult r*pe is considered obscene material which is 100%. There is no legal obligation to destroy a r*pe video of an adult, especially if you own the intellectual property. In both cases, r*pe is occuring, the only difference is the age of the victims. However, the recording and distribution of one is considered a serious crime while the other is considered entertainment. You can find the videos online if you want to watch r*pe.

Linda Lovelace

Deep Throat is one of the most famous pornos of all time, but very few know the evil that went behind it. The 1972 movie stars Susan Boreman who, as you might guess, displays her felattion skills. She performed under the pseudonym Linda Lovelace. Not convinced it's historic? Well, it became one of the highest grossing x-rated films at the time.

The premise is stupid. Linda discovers her clitoris is in her throat. Consequently, she deep throats several men as she seeks the one she can call her husband. It was shot over 6 days with a budget of $47,500 but it managed to rake in a staggering $50 million. S*x pays.

Years later Susan Boreman came forward with allegations that the director, Chuck Traynor, had abused her during filming. Furthermore, she claimed that she was forced to do several scenes against her will, with Chuck standing with an M16 rifle pointed at her just off camera. The whole thing is a r*pe video and it generated $50 million. Still available online if you want to watch r*pe.

Asian Massage Parlours

Individuals who want to sell s*x for money should be free to do so. However, it is worth remembering that the vast majority of s*x work globally is based on exploitation, r*pe, and coercion. This includes pornography which, as I've demonstrated, is sometimes r*pe in a pretty bow.

Some men turn to prostitutes but you face the same problem. There is a plethora of women being coerced, exploited, and manipulated into the job. It's not nice. A common scam implemented in modern day is to operate in grey areas - occupations that allow for intimate contact. I'm talking masseuse parlors. Asian massage parlours have a massive human trafficking problem. Many of the women working often have no immigration papers and are brought into the United States with the promise of employment only to find that they will be expected to do s*x work.

With no immigration papers, many are afraid that they will be arrested should they complain to authorities. Although the joked about ‘happy ending' in Asian massage parlors is often spoken about in comical terms, the reality of it simply isn't funny. For more information on this, I would recommend the documentary Hidden S*x Slaves of Massage Parlours which follows an investigator in San Francisco who inspects Asian Massage Parlours and finds many women desperate to leave.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x46zwk2

Pornstars who died in 2023

Saya Song - Sewer side

Dahlia Sky - Sewer side

Hank Hightower - died in sleep

I oppose s*x work and it's not a feminist stance. Like, fricking someone because you have more money than them and they're desperate, or they're emotionally damaged. I understand that there's woman who do s*x work with no oppression, and see underwear, nudes etc online. Nonetheless, I don't believe anyone should be reduced to their sexuality for the sake of survival. I support the Swedish model and I hope you do too. Benzos are giga based

I've always found it weird that we regard courtrooms as the final arbiters of truth. We cannot call someone a killer until they've been convicted, or you're committing libel. I've always had a different view, believing that courtrooms regularly get things wrong.

Today, I'd like to look at three cases where the courts may have gotten things horribly wrong. It will be up to you to decide whether these three men got their just desserts, or if they've been screwed over. The three people we will be discussing are:

a) Daniel Holtzclaw

b) Tex McIver

c) Michael Dunn

Daniel Holtzclaw

I have 0 love for cops. I had an extremely horrible experience with police as a youth when I was apprehended with marijuana on my person. Since then, my hate for cops has been strong. Nevertheless, I always question whether Holtzclaw has become a victim of the system he sought to uphold.

Holtzclaw was born in 1986. He's a big guy, played football, and like his father, he joined the police force in Oklahoma. In 2014, he was accused of sexually assaulting African American women while on the job. The allegations claim that he would drive around in poor areas and stop random women. It was obvious that most of these women had prior convictions, so they were eager to comply with the cop to not get into trouble. He would then take advantage of this by ordering them to give him fellatio, or by vaginally raping them.

His interrogation is pretty interesting. You see the cops attempting to build a rapport with him by making lewd jokes about s*x and masturbation. He seems like a regular guy, and he isn't too stressed out by the questioning.

He was tried in 2015 where a jury of eight men and four women found him guilty. There was a lot of evidence against him, including DNA samples. He was served 263 years in prison, leading to the now infamous video of him crying as he declares that he didn't do it.

Since his arrest, he has continued to assert his innocence, and he has the support of many friends and family. Many have argued that the DNA was a consequence of transfer DNA. In other words, he touched a surface that a female suspect then touched as well. Furthermore, many of the convictions were upheld through testimonies of women claiming to be victims. It has since arose that not all these women may have been telling the truth. A site has been created to defend Holtzclaw, and it claims the following:

>The public has been told of the 13 Daniel Holtzclaw accusers that resulted in criminal charges. They are even often referred to as the "OKC 13." What the public hasn't been told is that there were actually 21 accusers in total and that 62% of all accusers were found to be not credible. That's right, 8 of the 21 total accusers were eliminated almost immediately because they claimed to have been assaulted after Daniel had already been placed on administrative leave and had been relieved of his badge, gun and patrol car. Most of whom later admitted to police they lied. Of the 13 remaining accusers, 5 were not believed by the jury and resulted in acquittals. Eight plus 5 equals 13 women who either eventually outright admitted they lied or were dismissed by the jury. Thirteen of 21 is 62%.

https://www.holtzclawtrial.com/untold-story

At 4:25 of this video, you see what seems like a story being stitched up by a witness.

So where do you stand? Is Holtzclaw a villain that deserves all the years in prison and more? Or is this a man locked up by an overzealous prosecuting team? You be the judge.

Tex McIver

This is an interesting case, and I still don't know where I stand on it. The ultimate problem is that we weren't there. Consequently, it's impossible for us to know the full truth of what happened. Even if we were there, we'd need access to McIver's mind to truly know what he was thinking.

Tex McIver was a highly successful attorney living in Georgia. Additionally, he was a partner in the Atlanta office of Fisher Phillips LLP specializing in labor and employment law, and he was a vice president of the Georgia State Election Board. Most men would be happy with his list of achievements, but he wasn't because he always lived in his wife's shadow. Diane McIver was a successful businesswoman who earned far more than her already wealthy husband. Nevertheless, the two got on well by the looks of things.

One night, the couple, along with a friend of Diane's named Dani Jo Carte, were driving home from an event. It was late at night, so Tex decided to fall asleep in the backseat. However, he kept his gun - a 38-caliber revolver - in his lap because he was afraid that they might run into trouble, as they were driving through the hood on their way home. During the drive the gun went off, killing Diane. According to Tex, it was an accident, and he pulled the trigger while sleeping.

The prosecutors had other ideas. According to them, Tex planned this event, and he wanted to kill his wife whom he was jealous of and owed money to. As further evidence, the prosecutors pointed out that he drove to a further hospital when a nearer one was available. In 2016, Tex was served with a life sentence. This conviction was eventually overturned, and he was found guilty of manslaughter instead.

https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/07/01/murder-conviction-overturned-for-man-who-shot-wife-in-suv

Do you think he did it on purpose?

Michael Dunn

The final case for today involves a gun, Black teens, and rap.

In 2012, Dunn and his wife were returning from a wedding when they stopped at a gas station. Here, Rhonda entered a convenience store while Dunn remained in the vehicle. He soon became annoyed by a group of teens blaring loud music. He told them to turn it down, they told him to frick off. Dunn responded by firing his gun at them. The teens drove away, but 17yo Jordan Davis was struck and died.

Dun and his wife fled, but they were found pretty quickly. Although his wife had heard the shots, she did not know that anyone had been hit. In court, Dunn claimed that he saw the boys produce something that looked like a stick or the barrel of a gun. Prosecutors pointed out that these black boys had no criminal records or history of getting into trouble. None of them had any reason to have a gun, and they were not known for getting into criminal activities. They were literally just driving around blaring loud music. They may have been rude to Dunn, but that is not an excuse to kill someone in polite society.

He was found guilty of murder and was served a life sentence. It seems like a cut-and-dry case, but you should remember that this is the song that was being played:

Does this change your mind regarding Dunn's actions? His daughter stated the following in an interview:

>he's a good man. He's not a racist. He's very loving. He has a family who loves him, and I feel like people need to remember with this verdict his family is over here suffering, just like Jordan's family is suffering so no one wins in this

https://archive.ph/20140222005745/http://www.firstcoastnews.com/story/news/local/2014/02/16/michael-dunn-daughter-interview/5544083#selection-4387.106-4387.345

Want more information on the case? Listen to Davis' parents speak. It's evident that Davis was a regular kid who genuinely didn't do anything:

You can also listen to one of the jurors discuss how they came to the conclusion.

Conclusion

I have never understood the mindset that makes someone believe they're fit to be a judge. Nobody has the right to condemn anyone else to life in a cage. Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed today's post. Spider-Man 2 review coming on Monday can't wait!

The first YouTube video was uploaded in 2005. It is barely 20 seconds and it features a young man at the zoo. Who could have predicted the cultural juggernaut it would become?!

Today, we're going to look at one of the world's biggest YouTube stars. His name is JiDion, and he rose to fame through his pranks and comedy. I'd like to discuss his career trajectory and the morality of his work. I feel that this is a pertinent issue as we face multiple cases of YouTubers being shot for pranks. Apologies if the writing is sloppy, this is a somewhat rushed piece.

Who is JiDion?

Born on 12 December 2000, JiDion is a Houston native whose legal name is Jidion Adams. According to him, he was a football player in high school and quite a troublemaker. His YouTube career when he hosted a dance-off at his school. It didn't get a lot of views, but it does demonstrate that JiDion is a charismatic, confident person. Completely unflappable.

He posted more videos, but they never gained much traction until his "giving people the N-word pass" video.

Today, it has 3.6 million views. Jidion has revealed that during this time, he was desperate to create more videos and grow his career, but he didn't have anyone to film his videos. Eventually, he would find a friend, but he would need to pay him a full time salary in order to film videos at the rate and quality he wanted. To do this, Jidion sold off almost all his electronics.

Today, Jidion has close to 8 million subscribers, making him one of the most popular YouTiubers. He's also ranked as one of the most popular YouTubers among GenZ viewers. His rise hasn't been without tribulations, and at one point he found himself banned from Twitch after he sent his viewers to harass Pokimane. At this point, if you haven't heard of him, you might be curious about his content. Woo hoo hoo. Ha ha. Oh hee hee. Let's begin.

Jidion's Pranks

Before we delve into Jidion's content, it is worth noting that he goes by many names, including Demarcus Cousins III. Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure how all these names come about. Secondly, be warned that his content is offensive, rude, and crass.

The uber prank

Sp I thought I'd start with the very few JiDion pranks that I actually like. This one has him pretending to be an Uber driver, and then proceeding to do insane things. At one point he plays a tape of himself screaming, to the shock of the passengers! He also pretends to drink alcohol, and surprisingly, while it is evident that the passengers are uncomfortable with the situation, very few actually freak out or demand to be let out. I wonder whether people are really that afraid to speak up, or whether he just edited out all the people who told him to frick off.

I wish he did more pranks of this nature. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Jidion goes bowling

There's two reasons I dislike Jidion's content

1. He's an attention whore

2. He's mean

The bowling videos demonstrate his mean side. He goes to bowling alleys and bowls with coconuts and watermelons. It is quite evident that the people there are trying to enjoy their game, and he is literally rolling food into the gutter, and disrespecting the workers. A woman yells at him, and Jidion says "I'm him". The woman responds by saying "you're not Him!" as she points up! This is not a prank. It is him going to various places and being an butthole.

Jidion vs Tyrone

This is a series of videos in which Jidion harasses a single person. The prank begins with him going to a shoe store to return an empty box. The manager, Tyrone, is obviously a busy man and he doesn't have time for that shit so he slaps the box out his hand and tells him and his cameraman to frick off. Eventually, Jidion does leave, but Tyrone insults Jidion's mother. For this, Jidion insists that he must seek retribution. He returns in a silly disguise, but he is obviously recognised. He then returns once more. This time, he brings speakers, and plays a Tyrone diss track. At this point, there is nothing Tyrone can do except call security and attempt to ignore this man ruining his business and driving customers away. At one point, an entrepreneur from another store comes and tells Jidion to turn off the ruckus because its interfering with her business. Overall, I think Jidion's being a bully here, but its not even his worst bully moment.

Jidion goes to Best Buy shirtless

Jidion enters a Best Buy not wearing a shirt. A worker tells him to either wear a shirt or frick off. His choice. Jidion doesn't like this, so he returns the next day with scores of his fans and they all take off their shirt as they harrass the worker who eventually has to retreat to the staff room. This is bullying, plain and simple, and I think he is being a bad person here. I don't find it funny at all.

https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/q5d70o/tiktoker_refuses_to_put_on_a_shirt_and_then_comes

Jidion at sports games

I thought we'd end off with what could be his most impactful videos. JiDion has attempted plenty of his pranks at sports games. The one you're probably familiar has him getting an autograph from the NBA star Demarcus Cousins, only for a security guard to come and attempt to separate him from the basketballer. The basketballer tells the security to not take his job so seriously.

I don't want to discuss this video. Instead, I'd like to discuss the time he got a haircut at the NBA. To me, this video sums up why I don't find him funny. You see, trolling is an art. It's not just about annoying people. It's about triggering their ire, but not making it obvious that your intentions are necessarily malicious. There are very few people who have mastered the art of trolling, and Jidion definitely isn't one of them. So he manages to finally get into the NBA game and sneak in a hair clipper. It's not enough for him to simply do this though, he needs to speak to people and demand their attention with his unfunny quips. It's so cringe. Just let your trolling play out. The humor should come from their reactions, not your attention whoring.

I like the idea of the next video. He went to the WNBA and proceeded to sleep across three seats. It's a funny concept but he ruined it again with his attention whoring. What I'm more interested in was the public response. Many deemed the prank misogynistic because it makes light of how poorly attended WNBA matches are. I don't agree. Upsetting women isn't inherently misogynistic.

JiDion turns a new leaf

At this point, it should be obvious that JiDion does not impress. I do not like his content, and I think he is harming society. It appears that Jidion has also come to the same conclusion, as just a week ago he turned his life to Christ!

Though JiDion has given thanks to the Most High in his prior videos, he claims he is now taking his religious life far more seriously. He admits that he is wealthy, but he would rather focus on his heavenly wealth. Of course, this means no more pranks.

My personal opinion? He's young. He's having a phase. This is like me and asexuality, I think everyone goes through a phase in their 20s. He's also at the age where he believes that he can replicate his success in a different field. I don't think he fully comprehends how lucky he was to find success as a YouTuber. The sad truth is that the immorality of his content was a selling point. He was doing things other people wouldn't, because we have shame and morals.

The effect on his channel has been steep and definite. This is his secondary channel. Almost all his videos easily scored over a million. Since the religious turn, he is struggling to crack 500k. It's over.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Tune in next week when we review Assassin's Creed: Mirage and take a terrific trip through Islam

Back when the trailer for Secret Level dropped I was intrigued, Love Death Robots but with vidya franchises sounds cool, but when the Unreal Tournament logo showed up I was ing hard. UT is one of my favorite multiplayer franchises and I was surprised to see it show up here, especially that Epic Games desperately wants you to forget what the Unreal Engine's namesake comes from.

I don't watch a lot of shows but this one got me interested ad I gave it a watch. What did I think?

Now on to the review:

The episode is basically an origin story for Xan, the final boss of Unreal Tournament. I did think the backstory was a nice touch considering that the games don't really delve that much into plot. There is a lot of appearances of classic maps which I think is a cool touch. Unfortunately the short did not contain this cool remake of the original intro that Blur did as a teaser:

The weapons featured are the enforcer pulse gun, ripper, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, minigun, redeemer, flak cannon, and impact hammer. The impact hammer and ripper had the most screentime and were portrayed pretty accurately. I did like the bit where the Facing Worlds map devolved into a sniper battle. like it does when actually playing the game. A complaint I have is that the artstyle seems not quite up to par with the original, mostly taking inspiration from UT3. I get that the animators took some creative liberties but I did not like how the sniper rifle looked more like the Halo 4 lightrifle than any of the UT rifles.

However my main complaint would be the fight scenes and choreography. They were well done and look nice to the casual viewer, but as a big player of the game I don't feel like they got the feel of Unreal Tournament's combat right. The game is a fast paced arena shooter, not quite as fast or mobility focused as Quake, but still about running around the map racking up kills. The sort features a lot of scenes with the characters standing still and taking potshots behind cover. the action looks nice and the casual, viewer probably wouldn't care about this sort of thing, but the action does not feel like the game. Also they never featured any iconic equipment items like the shield belt

Of course it wouldn't be a true Unreal Tournament adaptation without the most famous part of the series. the announcer:

They use all of his cool lines and this was a welcome touch, it really takes me back and gets me pumped up.

Overall I liked the episode, but mostly because it was some form of UT content in 2024, not to mention how the series has been treated by Epic recently

Oh and about the controversial Pac-Man episode, it was ok, but this version is a better twist on the formula:

Next week I will review the Megaman episode

General Unreal Tournament '99 discussion:

I was also wondering if any Dramanauts would be up for a game night where we play some matches. !fightclub anyone?

You can get the game here or here , please buy the game legitimately if it ever gets re-released.

Let me know if any of you guys are up for a game night or if we should play 2004 instead.

!g*mers !boomers

An Assortment of Quotable Quotes

• "Pudge." She shook her head and sipped the cold coffee and wine. "Pudge, what you must understand about me is that I am a deeply unhappy person." – Alaska Young to Miles in Looking for Alaska by John Green.

• She thought all Janine's snivelling and repentance meant something, she thought Janine had been broken, she thought Janine was a true believer. But by that time Janine was like a puppy that's been kicked too often, by too many people, at random: she'd roll over for anyone, she'd tell anything, just for a moment of approbation. – The Handmaid's Tale

• "Shame is the sense of being singular" – Fitz Hugh Ludlow, The Heart of the Country

• 'You see, Dumbledore?' said Phineas Nigellus slyly `Never try to understand the students. They hate it. They would much rather be tragically misunderstood, wallow in self-pity, stew in their own -' Order of Phoenix

• "I been silent so long now it's gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen." – Ken kesey, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

• "facts are facts, the world is the world, and we've got to live in it" – George du Maurier, Trilby

• "It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire," Yann Martel in Life of Pi

• "Besides, now that he was quite alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know." – Septimus (Mrs Dalloway by Virgina Woolf)

• "'Good words,' I replied. 'But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.'" – Wuthering Heights

• "He refused to be moved, saying he needed the seclusion and the rural air to finish the book he was writing. If he went and mingled with the English in the streets and spent all his evenings in their pubs watching football on TV, he would lose the edge of his recollections and there would be no point to anything he had done." – By The Sea

• "We all desire to find out how we began, force the legs of memory open" Ariel Dorfman, headed south, looking north.

• "Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts." William S. Burroughs

• "Truth is a matter of fitting words to the world." – Metaphors we live by

• "His heart beat faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete" – Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby

• "If you feel someone resents you because of expectations you've set for them – or you resent someone such as your boss or co-worker for expectations they've set for you – talk to them." – John Hoover

• "People of character do the hard work first. Then, as a result, they are ready for things to be easy for a long time." Dr Henry Cloud

• "But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing" – The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• "Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it" Albus Brian Wulfric Dumbledore (Goblet of Fire)

• "Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last;" – Proverbs 31: 30 (A Wife of Noble Character)

• "Don't let people hold you down." Sydney of The Internet (Purple Naked Ladies album)

• "The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages." - Virginia Woolf

• "I am a horse for a single harness, not cut out for a tandem or teamwork… for well I know that in order to attain any definite goal it is imperative that one person do the thinking and the commanding" – Albert Einstein

• "It's not that I'm so smart, it's that I stay with problems stronger" – Albert Einstein

• "I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talk can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth." – Mahatma Gandhi

Conclusion

As organisms, we generally strive toward that which betters our existence. That is to say, we are driven towards pleasure rather than pain - the pleasure principle. This is basic Darwinism. Freud throws a wrench in things and complicates the matter a smidgeon. He proposes we have two drives - a death drive and a life drive - call it Thanatos and Eros if you must.

The life instincts, also known as "Eros," are focused on survival, reproduction, and pleasure. These instincts encourage behaviors that foster growth, connection, and the continuation of life. They include things like nurturing relationships, seeking food, and engaging in activities that promote well-being and happiness.

On the other hand, the death instincts, or "Thanatos," represent a more destructive aspect of human nature. Freud suggested that these instincts drive people towards aggression, risk-taking, and self-destructive behaviors. Rather than aiming for survival and growth, the death instincts are about reducing tension through destruction and ultimately returning to a state of inertia or calm. This concept is more abstract and complex, reflecting a drive towards the end of tension and the restoration of a more primitive, non-living state.

As humans we have to wrestle these drives while striving for sanity and happiness. What happens when the death drive wins over, but not quite enough to trigger suicide? My theory is that we get into the realm of self-harm. As the name suggests, self-harm is a behavior that involves physically harming oneself, though not suicidally. This might involve behaviors such as cutting, burning, hitting, or other forms of self-inflicted injury. People who self-harm often do so as a way to manage overwhelming emotions, express feelings they find hard to put into words, or feel a sense of control over their own bodies.

This life isn't worth living. It hurts too much and I want to end it all. I'm so suicidal but I'm such a kitty all I can do is cut myself, turning myself into a mutilated monster. I need the rope

Holly's knickers

Megachurches raise ambivalent reactions in society. For some, they are a source of faith, hope, and inspiration. I look to folks like Joel Osteen and am impressed at the leadership qualities they possess to command a crowd that large and to do it consistently for years. Regardless of your views on religion, it is undeniable that individuals like Joyce Meyer are cut from a different cloth. They have qualities and abilities that have helped to make them insanely successful.

However, these megachurches are inevitably the source of controversy. Many despise the prosperity gospel promoted by these groups. Others claim that this isn't in the spirit of true Christianity, which does have some Biblical basis.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him

Over the years numerous megachurch pastors have found themselves falling from grace and losing everything they have built. Ted Haggard is a great example, and there are several documentaries you can watch on his tragic downfall. Joel Osteen has faced his troubles, but has managed to come out the other end still highly successful.

Right now, we may be watching a new controversy unfold, this time from Pastor TD Jakes. Who is he, what did he do, and what can we expect of him and his congregation? That's what I hope to explore next.

Who is TD Jakes?

Thomas Dexter Jakes comes from extremely humble beginnings. His parents were entrepreneurs, and while he wasn't poor, he certainly wasn't wealthy either.

At the age of eight Jakes began selling vegetables from his mother's garden. While in high school he cut grass, delivered newspapers, and sold Avon and Amway products.

When his father died, he was struck by grief and he left high school to pursue life as a preacher. He was so poor, he was afraid to get on his knees and pray because his shoes had holes in them. However, it is within religion that he found his calling. So what are his main beliefs?

• He believes in Pentecostalism

• He believes in sexual abstinence before marriage

• He believes in the Trinity

• He believes that God will bless those who believe in him, not just in spirit but financially as well

Perhaps most importantly, he does not believe in homosexuality. Although he said his views are "evolving" he is pretty clear that he does not support it.

>I was SHOCKED to read that this was manipulated in a subsequent article to say I endorsed same s*x marriage! My position on the subject has been steadfast and rooted in scripture. For the record, I do not endorse same s*x marriage but I respect the rights that this country affords those that disagree with me.

https://www.facebook.com/bishopjakes/posts/my-comment-on-huffpo-tv-drifted-into-issues-of-the-supreme-court-ruling-and-chan/10153758229753322

So, he is clear that he stands against bussy.

Diddy do it?

We'll have to take a detour right here to briefly discuss Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Sean Combs. Like TD Jakes, Diddy comes from humble beginnings, but his hunger for success is pretty obvious from his early years. He always wanted to be wealthy and goddammit he did everything in his power to reach the heights he has. He is inarguably one of the most influential figures in hip-hop and Western music as a whole in the last few decades.

In the 80s and 90s, Hip hop was a violent, dangerous business and one had to be mentally and physically tough to succeed. It is for this reason that you'll notice a MASSIVE difference in the nature of modern hip hop artists and those of the "golden era". My favorite example of this is Method Man. Watch his interviews, and you see that genuinely BIPOC style of "cool but dangerous" that pretty much no other race can pull off. Like this interview where he clowns an interviewer. The way he just dominates the interview while still being cool and funny is pure BIPOC swag at its best.

The fact of the matter is NONE of you would be able to handle this situation with this much finesse. There's also this interview where he threatens Wendy Williams (honestly a lolcow who deserves her own post if not her own hole entirely) about what she(?) said about his wife.

But back to Diddy. He is currently the latest to receive a #metoo allegation. They have come from a few sources, with some claiming that he has a history of sexually assaulting women. For the most part, Diddy has been silent on the matter, though he has made a statement defending himself.

Enough is enough! For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth

Like Epstein, Diddy threw a lot of parties, which means that others have been dragged into his allegations.

TD Jakes = Takes Peepee Jakes

So with Diddy allegations flying around, TD Jakes also receives allegations. It has been said that he attended plenty of Diddy's parties. This isn't something his camp denies.

"As a filmmaker, executive producer and one of the pioneers of value-based movies, Bishop Jakes, in his role as CEO of T.D. Jakes Entertainment, paid respect to the former Chairman of Revolt during the celebration of his birthday," Williams said.

"Bishop Jakes was in LA for important business meetings, and we felt that a quick appearance at the former Chairman of Revolt's birthday event was the respectful thing to do since Bishop Jakes' sermons are aired on the Revolt Network," he explained.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/td-jakes-camp-refutes-viral-allegations-as-unequivocally-false.html

The latest allegations against Diddy concern Cassie who has filed lawsuits against the producer.

In a lawsuit that was filed last month, Cassie alleged that she was abused and sexually assaulted while with Diddy, and that the artist and mogul r*ped her in 2018 when she tried to break up with him. The lawsuit was settled less that 24 hours after it went public, although Diddy denied Cassie's accusations. He's also been handed three additional lawsuits, including one from a woman who says she was 17 when she was r*ped by Diddy and two other men in 2003.

https://www.complex.com/music/a/jaelaniturnerwilliams/cassies-songwriter-and-friend-says-singer-couldnt-record

It is now also alleged that Cassie has handed a phone to the feds which has evidence that TD Jakes attended Diddy's parties and he was out for bussy! He slept with male escorts is the claim. He's also getting Michael Jacksoned and is being accused of taking advantage of a young boy whose parents were given hush money.

https://x.com/yungforeverrr/status/1737630728177774723

This has already affected TD Jakes and his brand. The pastor's camp has denied the claims:

"[It's] disheartening to witness the proliferation of numerous deepfake photos and the distortion of words through false, sensationalized misrepresentations, encapsulating purported statements to falsely speculate and attack others, including Bishop Jakes."

https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/747740-t-d-jakes-diddy-rumours-bishop-statement

What to believe?

Well, we have no definitive proof of TD Jakes liking bussy cakes, but it doesn't look good for him. My main source of suspicion comes from the claims of "deepfakes" when there are no photos out yet, which suggests that they know some photos might surface.

He wouldn't be the first pederast pastor, but we should be careful when evaluating wild claims about people. If he's gay, I accept him fully and sympathize with his struggle. If not, I sympathize with him dealing with public attacks that aren't true.

Conclusion

Honestly, the whole thing gives me hope. Both TD Jakes and Diddy came from nothing and managed to amass so much for themselves. And unlike these men, I don't have extreme degeneracies that can destroy me - except for being a druggie, but I'm still functional it's not like I'm snorting coke or shooting heroin. I can still say no to getting high (I always choose yes).

I feel like if I try like a maniac for ONE year and not give a frick about rejection, I can find a gf. Not just a vagina, but a woman I like. I just need to try. I haven't been trying, just getting sad I got no Tinder matches and not talking to women IRL. Honestly, I feel like this is a problem 90% of incels fall into. You come online, end up talking to e-girls, and your lizard brain thinks you're making progress because "of course this terminally online female is going to fly to my country and frick me eventually if I'm nice to her". Stop talking to e-girls (COMPLETELY) and start talking to women IRL.

When I say this, I don't mean to avoid all women online. I've met many genuinely based human beings who just happen to be female on the internet. Folks like:

@MrsFrozenClaus

@universal

@solace

Genuinely some of my favorite people in my life ever. But there are also e-girls you're fricking orbiting and it's wasting your time and mental energy. Cut it out, stop giving them your attention. Like I said, it's preventing your brain from realizing you're not making any real progress toward actual normal pair-bonding with a real woman you can see, touch, and love.

It's time to go places I don't usually go (festivals, nightclubs, maybe even Mormon church) and just TRY talking to real flesh and blood women, even if I have to do it alone and it's guaranteed I'm going to get fricked off at least 70% of the time. I'm definitely not going to be like those dudes you see making videos of themselves hitting on every girl on the street, but I am going to try to see if I can talk to women in appropriate social settings and leave if I sense they're getting creeped out or annoyed.

>If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done

From TD Jakes and Diddy, I also learned that balance is important in everything. If you want good, sometimes you have to do bad. Yin and Yang. I'm not perfect, but I do try to treat women with respect IRL. I'm certainly not going to stop this, but I will be dipping into the dark triad. Here's the thing - if you research dark triad, you'll learn that you don't even need to be a sicko to use it. They're not signs of evil, but behavior patterns that anyone can adopt

The dark triad is a psychological theory of personality, first published by Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002, that describes three notably offensive, but non-pathological personality types: Machiavellianism, sub-clinical narcissism, and sub-clinical psychopathy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

I'm mostly interested in Machiavellianism which involves pragmatism over principles. I've got strong principles concerning women IRL. Despite my shitposting here, I do believe women face unique problems in society and endure shit treatment from men who sexually objectify them. Hence, I absolutely don't want to be another man making my horniness their problem. This is good on one level, but it also leaves me feeling intense guilt and frustration about my normal sexual desires. Like it's something hideous I have to hide.

There's the principle, but the pragmatic part is that I don't want to die an incel. So what's the solution? This is the question I ask myself:

>Some men are perverts. Can you express sexual interest without being a pervert?

To a hardline Machiavellian, the plan of action is simple - i want to coom, I find the easiest route for s*x, there's no need to consider morals". I can't do that. There's a middle ground though - I'm human and horny, surely there are other horny human females. Can we not find shared desires? That's what I mean when I say dipping into the dark triad. Taking the best qualities of the worst values. To be clear, I don't just want s*x - I desire a gf, and eventually a wife and nuclear family. But s*x is definitely part of it.

I have a few big obstacles to overcome

• getting full braces on Jan 15 at age 28

• no experience talking to women romantically

• 156cm ugly manlet

• rekt legs from self-harm

• thinking of getting an eyebrow piercing soon so probably going to have a swollen eye area for a while

But these aren't impossible odds, especially if I let go of the "must be 9/10 white blonde girl" mindset Holly got me stuck in. Classic incel mistake. Almost nobody on Earth has access to literally the most highly desired type of female. Unless you're rich, abnormally handsome, or a male feminist, you're not fricking big tiddy blonde girls. Get over it.

TD Jakes and Diddy - I want like 10% of your success, and I'll use it 100% more wisely.

Although it's technically a holiday in Hong Kong I am in the office, albiet with nothing to do so I have been watching DS9. Here are my thoughts...

Emissary

The best Star Trek pilot, both in terms of entertainment and setting the scene and establishing the main characters for the subsequent series. Quark and Odo aren't given much to do but nevertheless we get an impression of who they are and their relationship to one another- Quark's nephew BIPOC is presented here as more of a hardened delinquent rather than the naughty kid he would later appear as and BIPOC's father Rom only appears in the background. Kira is pretty annoying tbh and it took most of season 1 to let her calm down and stop being angry and unhinged about literally everything. Everyone else is pretty much as they would be throughout the show, including Gul Dukat who has a brief appearance.

The story revolves around the immediate aftermath of the Cardassian withdrawl from their 50-year occupation of Bajor and the uneasy new alliance between the Bajorans and the Federation, who the Bajorans fear might just be a new occupation force. The Bajoran gods, the Prophets, are revealed to be aliens who exist outside of time and space in an artificial wormhole which connects the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants of our galaxy. By the end of the episode the Prophets have agreed to allow transit to the new frontier through their wormhole after a lengthy extrapolation between themselves and DS9 commander Sisko on the nature of linear time.

This focusses on why Sisko- who insists we temporal beings are always moving forward- continues to dwell on the death of his wife during the Borg invasion, rather than moving on which he has argued is what we do. This is very smart writing- taking the very out-there concept of aliens who exist at every point in time simultaneously and linking it to the very relatable experience of grief. It would have been better without Avery Brooks' profoundly uneven performance. I think he is capable of acting some scenes very well- the relationship between Sisko and his son Jake is one of the best father-son combos in tv history- but he cannot play strong emotions and resorts to this odd staccato shouting which just seems weird.

Why exactly the Prophets- who experience past, present and future as one- would seem surprised or even threatened by Sisko deserves some exploration. Especially so since later seasons will reveal he has a very close relationship to one of them. I hypothesise that they are, to some extent, playing along with the scene but, at the same time, this actually is the beginning of a linear cause and effect series of events for them. They use Sisko's description of linear events as a template to create their own, deciding to interract more closely with the temporal universe beyond their own wormhole- that these events occur in the past from our perspective is irrelevant as the Prophets can leave their own dimension at any point along the timeline. From their perspective the line of cause and effect is- meet with Sisko, realise he's 'one of them'; send one of their own to create him; take a greater interest in Bajor and the greater galaxy (including abducting an ancient religious extremist to act as an alternative emissary- a wake-up call to goad Sisko into taking his role as emissary seriously, and saving the Alpha Quadrant from a Dominion fleet); and latterly suffering a schism among their ranks which creates the Pah-Wraiths. This happens all over our timeline but is a series of one-after-the-other events to them and is their exploration of linear existence. Of course, to some extent, they always knew they would do this as they always had knowledge of past, present and future as one- in the words of Dr. Manhattan; "We're all puppets, but some of us can see the strings".

Past Prologue

The first regular episode of DS9 introduces possibly the greatest reoccuring character in Star Trek history- challenged only by his fellow Cardassian Gul Dukat- Elim Garak (or "plain simple Garak" as he prefers). He is the only Cardassian to remain on the station and is suspected of being a spy, which is half true (but of course, the truth is just an excuse for a poor imagination). Andrew J. Robinson (who also played the Scorpio in Dirty Harry- he was wrong to feel lucky- and the heavy-bleeding father in the original Hellraiser) plays Garak a little too creepy and gay and apparently Rick Berman told him to cut that shit out, so Garak straightens out quite a lot in subsequent appearances. Garak is the best part of the episode, the rest of it is some guff about Bajoran extremists- whom we never hear from again- and another appearance by the utterly tiresome House of Duras in the form of the sisters Lursa and B'Etor (in their defence, they do seem to have nice tits) who are smuggling bomb parts for the extremists. Lets just remind ourselves of what eventually happened to them:

Anyway, none of this goes anywhere and Kira ends up looking like a bit of an idiot for initially supporting the nice-haired extremist leader- to be fair she does redeem herself towards the end. All anyone cares about in this episode is Garak and it's worth watching for him.

A Man Alone

Cut to: Bashir and Quark lusting after Dax (Jeets and Jews being notorious for this kind of shit). Everyone assumes that Sisko is going to feed her a length but he insists they're just old friends. For some reason I startrd imagining the noises Avery Brooks makes when fricking while writing this.

Anyway- none of this is the point of the episode and Odo harrumpfing and admitting to being a vocel before jumping up and slugging a guy at the dabo table and telling him he's got 26 hours (one Bajor day) to get off the station cues us to the focus of this episode. The guy he hit was some kind of smuggler but not the good kind- he let a kid die cos her family couldn't pay for the medicine she needed. He then killed a Cardassian for which Odo arrested and charged him. Later on he's seen getting a massage by a web-fingered holo-whore when's he's stabbed in the back and killed.

The tale requires us to go along with the notion that Odo might actually be the killer- after all, we don't know him that well. However Rene Aberjoniois is a fully paid up regular cast member contracted until at least the end of the season. I suppose, back in the 90s, there were still a lot of people watching who didn't understand how TV gets made but the whole thing never gets resolved and a bunch of threads get left hanging- most notably the motivations of Chudd McWrinklenose...

...who leads the witch hunt against Quark when he gets relieved of duty. I'm going to spoil the ending cos it's not very interesting. The suggler guy cloned himself and then killed his clone. Bashir demonstrates this by growing a clone of the guy revealing that, when it's grown, it will be allowed to leave medbay and go have a life- Odo states that "killing your clone is still murder". Now, I grant you that this might just be Bajoran law but lets just recall how Riker and the awful Pulaski reacted when someone cloned them:

The B-plot is about the O'Briens and Keiko being unhappy with nothing to do on the station. The woman was a botanist on the Enterprise (I assume she and a bunch of other civilians worked in specialist jobs like than somewhere among the huge and echoingly- empty halls of that ship- seriously, the Enterprise-D had a compliment of less than a thousand people -including civilians- and had literally millions of square feet of floorspace- place must've been empty as frick) and now she's sat at home with the kid. So she decides to become a schoolteacher because, when all other career choices dry up, that's what you do. She goes to persuade Rom to send his son to the school. Rom is... very different to how he'll be later. Of course,nobody likes Keiko so anything about her is unpopular. A lot of this is for the same reasons that nobody liked Skylar in Breaking Bad- male writers project onto wife characters and make them drag-wheels for the male protagonists... their feelings and ideas an obstacle to be overcome. Nevertheless, here's a compilation of Keiko being an annoying c*nt:

In summary: meh.

I really want to know why Odo doesn't just turn his arms into tentacles and wrap up perps when arresting them or why he grunts and gasps while he's fighting considering he's a changeling who doesn't breathe.

Babel

Cold open on something I've never seen before: a hard working Irishman. Potatoneighbors usually only put the effort into three things- drunkeness, spousal abuse and the glorification of heinous acts of terrorism. But Chief Miles O'Brien will do anything to avoid having to go home and talk to his wife so he's personally taking charge of literally every actof maintenence on the station. DS9 was a shoddy rush-job, it seems and Cardassian technology is a bit shit compared to the Federation stuff. After fixing yet another anus-juice-producing replicator we see a mysterious object within release a strange gas...

The station becomes Wuhan to an aphasia virus which makes people spount gibberish. This is never funnier than when it's O'Brien- Colm Meany (an actually legitimately great actor) delivers this stuff wonderfully and it's an incredible shame that he's removed from the episode so soon. I could watch this shit for 40 minutes no trouble:

This episode is actually quite good and benefits from having no real b-plot. The closest you get is that Quark inadvertently spreads the virus further by breaking into the crew quarters on the command decks to use the replicators after the ones in his bar break and O'Brien's too busy having his spazz to fix them. Now this begs a question: what the frick are people paying Quark for if he's just using the same ship replicators as everyone else to make his food and drink? Is it ambience? I considered the idea that maybe Quark has licences to replicate stuff you can't get at home but then how's he doing it from a crew replicator? Maybe everyone only gets a certain ration of replicator credits and Quark's takes latinum for more but then that really raises the idea that his patrons are gluttons. I suppose the gambling and holo-whoring is something you can't do in your quarters but everyone acts like the food and drink is something special too.

Quark and Odo are the only two main cast members who don't get affected by the virus by the end of the episode which actually makes a lot of sense as Odo's a changeling and numerous TNG episodes established that Ferenghi brains don't work like goyim brains do.

Anyway- first objectively good regular episode of season 1. The next episode will be even better...

Greetings. I hope you are well. I've been doing a lot of research on fascism lately and I've been left utterly terrified. I can see the power the political ideology has thanks to its reliance on a palingenetic rebirth myth that is very effective at uniting people and bringing them under a charismatic strong man. This shouldn't be surprising, as human beings think in terms of stories, so if you're able to tell a good story and piece together archetypes in aesthetically pleasing ways, you can make billions or rule a nation.

The problem with fascism is that it brings with it war, violence, and the death of human rights. If fascism were to take root again in the West, it could lead to another World War and this would affect everyone. I don't want mass death, nor do I want to be conscripted into the military. I'm scared of what will happen to BIPOCs, LGBT folks, and immigrants in such a scenario. The third world isn't safe either, there are dictatorships in Africa with strong militaries and these nations are teetering close to fascism, including countries like Eritrea. The Second Congo War is just a taste of how deadly things can get, as this war led to over 5.4 million deaths within 4 years, the deadliest war since WW2.

South Africa isn't exempt from the threat of fascism and there have been very active fascist parties in the country. This makes me so, so scared because I don't want civil war. Our government has enough problems to deal with. Consequently, I believe that this is the most important longpost I have ever written. Within it, I'd like to outline what fascism is and how it took root in South Africa and almost collapsed democracy before it started.

This is the first part of a two-part series. In this post we'll look into the background of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and in the next post we'll delve into the life and death of Eugene Terre'Blanche.

Before we begin, I'd like you to complete this poll.

Do you believe your country is currently at risk of fascism?

What is Fascism?

I have outlined a brief definition of fascism in a previous post, but I'd like to redefine it here in a little more detail. The first instance of fascism can be found in 20th-century Italy under the regime of Benito Mussolini. Benito was inspired by the works of Nietzsche and Georges Sorel. The movement arose while Itality was going through political and economic hardships. Mussolini, after returning from war, believed Italy needed a dictator to lead the nation to greatness. To do this, he would need a myth to unify the people.

He coined the term Fascist which he derived from the Latin term "Fasces" which refers to a bundle of wood. Individually, each piece of wood can be broken with ease. However, when they are bundled together, they become unbreakable.

Pictured above is the Italian fascist symbol used by Italian fascist uniforms. Mussolini rose to power in Italy thanks to his energetic speeches and his ability to tune into the anxieties of the masses and exploit them. For the sake of time, I won't go deep into the history of Mussolini's rise to power, but it is important to know that by 1925, he was the country's dictator and he enjoyed widespread support.

Fascism was exported to Italy's colonies, including Eritrea, which may explain the far-right, dictatorial bend the country has to this day (it is often termed the North Korea of Africa). It also spread through Europe, eventually reaching Germany where Adolf Hitler would establish a dictatorship of his own. When fascism is mentioned, Nazi Germany is usually what comes to mind first. This shouldn't be a shock, as the Third Reich is easily the most powerful fascistic State the world has ever seen. If we are lucky, fascists will NEVER acquire that much power ever again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_again

Hitler was directly inspired by Mussolini, though he also drew from philosophers like Nietzsche and scientists like Charles Darwin to advocate for social Darwinism and eugenics. Hitler was also strongly anti-semitic, a position which Mussolini would also adopt in Italy. With this said, hatred of Jewish people isn't the defining characteristic of fascism. In fact, as Israel is proving, it is possible to have a fascistic State that isn't anti-semitic at all. This raises an important question - what makes a fascist?

How to Identify Fascism

Defining fascism is no easy task, and it is among the hardest political ideologies to adequately categorize. We know it is right-wing, authoritarian, and ultra-nationalistic, but other political movements have these traits as well. Saudi Arabia would be a good example of a country that is right-wing, authoritarian, and ultra-nationalistic but not quite fascist. After doing some research, I've identified the following as the key traits of fascism. If you think I've left anything out or gotten anything wrong, I'd like to hear it. It is important to note that while a nation can exhibit some of these traits and not be a fascist nation, but when they occur altogether, the word fascism starts becoming more appropriate to use.

1. Support of political violence

Unlike liberal movements that were gaining popularity in the 20th century, fascists do not believe that violence is inherently bad and it is viewed as a healthy part of political life. This viewpoint is in part inspired by ideas of social Darwinism which championed the concept of the "survival of the fittest". Hence, it was only right that the strong should subjugate the weak. Violence is also the means by which social hierarchies are reified. I'll touch on it more in the next point, but violence is also an integral part of fascist masculinity. Violence is used to eliminate opposition, undermine democracy, force people into compliance, and expand the borders of the nation.

2. Support of strict gender roles and social hierarchies

As I've stated, fascists believe in social hierarchies, and that some people are more deserving of life and power than others. In Nazi Germany, this viewpoint led to the mass involuntary euthanasia of huge swaths of the population that were disabled either mentally or physically. The most appalling example of this can be found with Germany's Aktion T4 program that claimed up to 300,000 lives.

There are also strict gender hierarchies in fascist nations. Fascism generally takes on a patriarchal shape with a "strong man" leading the nation. Women are expected to remain subservient and to serve a reproductive and domestic role in society. In contrast, men are expected to take to the frontlines of the army and participate in violence and war for the sake of the greatness of the nation. For this reason, you'd be hard-pressed to name a female fascist leader.

3. Belief in a palingenetic rebirth myth

This is perhaps the most important aspect of fascism. The fascist leader will convince the people that they were once a great nation but they have been subverted by outside forces i.e. Jews, communists, immigrants, liberals, etc. The populist fascist leader claims that they are the only ones who can restore the greatness of the nation and rescue the people from economic and political hardships, as well as from the threat of decadence and degeneracy. The palingenetic rebirth myth is reliant on a scapegoat to blame for the nation's decline and to give the people a common enemy to unite against.

4. Opposition to any initiatives or institutions that are racially, ethnically, or religiously diverse

The fascist leader will often create an "us" vs "them" schism. Those in the in-group are the true inhabitants of the nation while those in the out-group are invaders that dilute the blood of the land. One of the slogans used by Nazi Germany is "blood and soil" which illustrates how the regime tied race and nationality together.

Don't be fooled, however - a fascist nation does not need to be racist. The founder of fascism, Mussolini, stated the following:

Race? It is a feeling, not a reality. Ninety-five percent, at least. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today.

However, he did also create an "us" vs "them" schism by scapegoating communists and Jewish people.

So there you have it - four pillars of fascism. If all four are present in a political system, you may be dealing with a fascist nation. I'd like to discuss a fifth possible pillar - isolationism. It appears that a lot of fascist nations aim for an autarkic economy and espouse ideas of isolationism and strong borders. The reason why I do not add this as a pillar of fascism is because scholars generally agree that there is no economic system that is essential to fascism. A sixth possible pillar concerns the use of lies and irrationality. This is seen with both Mussolini and Hitler but I hesitate to add it as an essential element of fascism because quite frankly all politicians lie - it's just a matter of degrees.

The nature of fascism is that it strives to gain power. Consequently, it manifests in varied ways depending on the context. This can make it hard to determine when a nation is fascistic. This has become increasingly true in the modern world where wannabee dictators are aware of the stink of fascism and therefore cloak their ideology using more palatable terms such as "nationalism" and preach about the restoration of "law and order". This isn't always the case, especially with the group we're going to look at today - the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, also known as the AWB.

Apartheid in South Africa

I'm sure the topic needs no introduction, but I'll quickly define apartheid. It was a system implemented in South Africa from 1948 to 1991, and it was led by the National Party, which was an Afrikaner ethnic nationalist party.

Pictured above is the National Party flag and the apartheid South African flag. In short, apartheid is a system predicated on institutionalized racial segregation, and it favoured the White minority. Segregation was achieved through forced removals and the creation of townships for Blacks, which had the secondary effect of creating a cheap source of labour. The government also used pass laws that required black South African citizens to carry passes when travelling outside their homelands. This was enforced by Acts such as the Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923 and the Black (Natives) Laws Amendment Act of 1952 that deemed urban areas "white". If 'non-whites' were found travelling in urban areas without passes, they faced the possibility of arrest. As you can imagine, interracial marriage was also banned.

The "heyday" of apartheid occurred during the 1960s and 1970s, but the National Party soon began facing strong resistance from the ANC and condemnation from the international community. Consequently, in the 1980s, some of the petty laws of apartheid were repealed, including the law banning interracial s*x and marriage (the Race Relations Act) and the mixing of the races (Group Areas Act). The government also provided limited political rights to Indians and Coloureds, though it wouldn't be until 1994 that South Africa would have its first democratic elections which were won by the ANC, allowing Nelson Mandela to rule the nation.

So, was apartheid South Africa fascist? No. Importantly, the movement lacks a palingenetic rebirth myth. Nevertheless, there were fascist movements bubbling in the country, with the most popular easily being the AWB.

The Birth of the AWB

As apartheid laws were slowly repealed, some liberal White South Africans saw this as progress. However, there were huge swaths of the White population that did not agree with the increasing liberal influences on the country's politics.

One individual who opposed the direction the country was going in was Eugene Terre'Blanche. We won't go too deep into his history (there will be a separate post dedicated to him), but all you need to know for now is that Eugene was born in 1941 and he expressed Christian Afrikaaner nationalist sentiments from a very young age. In 1973, he called a meeting with several men where he complained of the increasing liberal influence in the country under the leadership of Prime Minister B. J. Vorster. He also feared the increasing influence of communism, and as a response, he formed the AWB, with him as the leader.

The AWB is an extremist far-right party that strives to create an independent Afrikaaner state (Boerestaat) separate from the rest of the country. Is the AWB fascistic? Yes! The group is openly fascist, and is strongly influenced by Nazi Germany. Consequently, the group is anti-semitic, and it uses a flag featuring a "triskelion" which is a three-armed swastika.

It also exhibits all four of my pillars of fascism:

1. Support of political violence

The group has used significant violence since its conception, and it remains committed to using violence to bring about the Boerstaat. It is responsible for many terroristic attacks during apartheid, especially in the 80s and 90s. Notable episodes of violence include:

• The Battle of Ventersdorp in 1991 which saw the AWB go head to head with the South African Police Force, and resulted in three deaths

• The Storming of the Kempton Park World Trade Centre in 1993 which involved 3000 members of the group storming the World Trade Center in Kempton Park

• 1994 bombings which resulted in the death of 20 people

The violence did not stop after apartheid ended. In 1996, the group planted a bomb in a grocery store, killing four civilians. Eugene Terre'Blanche also served time in prison for beating a petrol station attendant until he had brain damage (more on that in the next post).

The AWB is violent and aggressive. You can see it in this Louis Theroux clip featuring the documentarian speaking with Eugene who gets annoyed with Louis and squeezes his hand.

2. Support of strict gender roles and social hierarchies

The AWB uses Christianity to justify its gender roles and social hierarchy. They are insistent that the Bible says that Blacks and Whites must live separately, and they wish to bring about a patriarchal, pastoral Boer society.

3. Belief in a palingenetic rebirth myth

This runs strong in the ideology of the AWB. Their fall from grace comes with the Second Boer War which brought about the end of the Boer republics of South Africa. The party promises to restore these republics and bring about the great Boer empire once more.

4. Opposition to any initiatives or institutions that are racially, ethnically, or religiously diverse

It goes without saying that the AWB strikes for a homogenous society. They do not want Blacks, Jews, or communists in their Boer republics. They scapegoat the ANC, immigrants, and Black people as their enemies.

Unfortunately, the AWB had a huge following and at its peak, it boasted a membership of close to half a million. It also caught the attention of the international world, including Nazi sympathisers. Consequently, the group is quite prominent in right-wing literature, especially alternate history fiction novels such as Gun of the South. I've read the book and I quite like it. This is my favorite quotes from the text:

The AWB in Modern Day

Since South Africa became a democratic republic, the AWB has only shrunk in size, but its supporters remain passionate. One of the topics they rally around is the issue of farm killings, which they frame as a white genocide. They will often protest by shutting down highways and waving Old South African flags as well as the Nazi triskelion flag.

The group is still concerned with creating a Boerstaat, and they have their eyes on the Transvaal and the Free State but they haven't had much success claiming land. In one video worth watching, a member of the AWB tries arguing his case on television, and he threatens the Black female, leading to an altercation between him and the male host who warns him not to touch him on his studio.

Perhaps the biggest blow the group has experienced occurred in 2010 when he was killed by two of his own Black farm workers! He was beaten to death with pangas (machetes) and pipes. The murderers claimed that Eugene was buckbreaking them, though no evidence of sodomy was found.

Today, the group has about 5000 members and it is a shell of its former self with no political teeth at all. So is there any reason to fear the AWB?

Does the AWB still pose a threat?

YES! The AWB is actively recruiting the youth and trying to grow its numbers. It is doing this through the use of social media to spread its message. Several scholars are warning about the rise of fascism in South Africa and it's terrifying me! I'm so scared of fascism, I feel I have to do everything in my power to stop it. Unfortunately, all I can do is longpost. If they win, the races will be separated, then I'll NEVER have a white gf.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/transnational-white-supremacist-militancy-thriving-south-africa

The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement), founded in 1973 by noted white supremacist Eugène Terre'Blanche, also remains active today. The group apparently boasts around 5,000 members, and in 2010, members of the group were arrested for plans to attack Black townships in the wake of the murder of Terre'Blanche—which some claimed was racially motivated. The plotters, based in Pretoria, had also threatened foreigners and players traveling to the country for the 2010 World Cup. And in 2002, a far-right group calling itself the "Warriors of the Boer Nation" claimed responsibility for a series of blasts targeting the township of Soweto, in which one woman was killed.

https://www.ru.ac.za/perspective/2012archives/theleftsfailuretoresolveglobalcrisisgivesfascismroom.html

Last week at the 24th Socialist International (SI) congress in Cape Town, a similar warning about the threat of fascism was issued. However, this referred to a global danger. And this week, as the local mining industry faced turmoil, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) spokesman Lesiba Seshoka also raised the spectre of fascism.

Conclusion

I hope you join me in my next post when I discuss the life and death of Eugene Terre'Blance. It is a long, sometimes funny, but always frightening story. Look, I'm just searching for a way to stop the chuds from winning. I will NOT live in a segregated nation, I will NOT have my vote taken away from me (even if I don't vote), and I will NOT live in a fascist country. Videos like this absolutely frighten me:

I don't know how Americans sleep at night when they have a proto-fascist about to take the wheel. FASCISM BAD!

!africans !nonchuds !effortposters !mayomoment

We're finally ready to risk leaving the city and heading out into the countryside. But first, why would we even want to?

There's lots of things that we just can't get here in Duisburg. Remember how in part 2 I mentioned that knowledge of saints and alchemical formulas is going to be critical later in the game. We can't learn them all here. The shops here don't carry every product we might need. If we want an exotic weapon like a composite bow we'll have to search for a place that sells them. Also most items in the game have a quality rating and different cities are better at making different kinds of items. The best swords can be found in Nurnburg, the best hammers in Prag, and so on. Alchemy requires a lot of traveling to find the various components needed for making potions. If you want training, not all cities have a physician or alchemist who is actually skilled enough to teach you. And of course at some point we'll start doing quests which will send us all over the Empire.

Let's see if we can pick up a little knowledge here before we leave.

Saints

Remember that urban monastery where the nuns healed our wounds? That's not all they do. They have a library where one of our party can learn about a saint. There are many, many saints in the game, I think over 100, but this library gives us the choice of 4 of them. This is one of the things in Darklands that got a young Redactor to go into the real world library and read about these people so I could remember who they are and which ones to pick in the game. Let's see how my hagiography holds up:

• Edward the Confessor - This one is easy. He was a famous King of England.

• St. Jude - We just read about him earlier because coincidentally this happens to be one of the saints that Yuna started the game already knowing.

• St. Albert - I blanked on this one. Tried to look him up but there's a million St. Alberts. Many of the saints in this game are really obscure ones who were important to medieval Christians but forgotten today, not ones who are currently hip and trendy. I think the one referred to here is a king in early medieval England.

• St. Maurice - I used to know about this guy but forgot and had to look him up too. He was an Egyptian general in the Roman army. Long story short, he refused to kill civilians so he was martyred.

TW: If you're religious you might find what I'm about to say a little bit flippant and offensive because we're going to be comparing these saints based on what they can do for us in a video game. I totally get that, but I would argue that keeping them in mind even when doing frivolous things like playing games is a good thing. It never got in the way of me appreciating these peoples' lives and martyrdom. In fact it got me to learn who they were. In a later episode I'll go more in depth about how Christianity is depicted in the game, but for now just trust me that this is not atheist edgelords trying to take down God, either me or the people who made the game.

Having gotten that out of the way, let's ask ourselves, what can these saints do for us? Let's remember who we've already got. Redactor has St. Anthony, who does a lot of great things but is especially good for academics and dealing with people. Yuna has St. Jude, who can bail us out of desperate situations but isn't particularly focused on anything. So with that in mind, let's evaluate our choices.

• Edward - He was a king, so I'm guessing in the game he will help us deal with nobility or something. And IIRC he was a scholar who spent a lot of time studying. That overlaps a lot with what St. Anthony already can do for us.

• Jude - Even though Yuna already knows him, it's actually worth considering having Redactor learn him too. Having two people who can pray to the patron of lost causes would be useful.

• Albert - I have no idea who this is so that rules him out.

• Maurice - He was a soldier, so it's likely that he can temporarily boost our weapon skills. At this point, early in the game, that could give us a crucial edge in a tough fight.

Well that's not exactly what I was expecting. Sometimes saints end up being patrons of all kinds of places, jobs, etc. that are not immediately obvious. I gotta read more about this guy to figure out what he could possibly have to do with alchemy. Unfortunately, note the "Success: 0". He's one of the saints who doesn't just listen to every whiner. Yuna will need to earn the right to talk to him by living a virtuous life. In order to keep things simple for my loyal readers I haven't asked any saints to intercede for me yet, but in a later episode I will explain how that works.

What does this have to do with travel? Remember how the nuns healed us that one time but they're not going to just do it over and over again? Many things in Darklands are like this. It's intended to avoid the "water finds a crack" problem. You can't just always stay in the same place and do the same thing. The librarians here won't let you back in again for a long time, maybe 6 months. But there are other libraries out there.

Alchemy

Let's see if Redactor will be more successful. He knows three formulas for potions. We aren't going to actually make any of them any time soon because we first need to collect the necessary components which involves a lot of traveling and a lot of paying money, two things we haven't done yet. But maybe he can learn a formula now that will be useful later.

Notice that we only managed to find this guy because Redactor knows enough about alchemy. Let's try to trade formulas with him. If we're very lucky he'll accept and we'll get a new formula for free. But it's very unlikely. Redactor only knows those 3 formulas and with 13 charisma he is not, as Richard Nixon would say, a "personality boy". Alchemists aren't trying to be helpful like monks and nuns, they're neurodivergent neckbeards who need their ego to be stroked. Normally we would have Sasha handle a task like this as she has amazing charisma and knows how to speak well, but in this case it's got to be Redactor who does the talking. This is a really low-percentage shot like when I try to talk to girls but hey, it never hurts to try, does it? At least that's what I tell myself when I'm sexually harassing women on the internet.

It actually worked! He just gave us a formula for Stonetar. This is sticky goo, extremely useful stuff. You can use it in battle to slow down your enemies and it helps in all kinds of weird unexpected situations. Someday we will definitely be making this.

Why don't we just do this constantly in the hopes that we'll get lucky again and get another formula? It's like with the library. You can't pester these guys every day. If you want to discover new things you've got to go to new places.

Travel

Okay, I've been jerking you around long enough. It's time to get to what I promised you. We're going to leave town and go out into the wilderness of Germany in 1400, ravaged by plague and warfare, where you're stalked by everything from wolves to satanists to demons straight out of heck.

Note how you're given 6 different options just for leaving the city. These would be relevant if the cops were out looking for us, but we're clean so we can just walk through.

Wow, thanks buttholes for not even removing the fricking copy protection from the game before you sold it to me. I'm used to playing a cracked version where you can just click on anything and it lets you pass. But this time it booted me back to DOS. I guess next time I'll look it up in the fricking manual again just like in living in fricking 1992 again. Last time I saved was before I got that Stonetar formula so that's lost. Anyway, let's try this again.

Okay, here we are out in the open world where we hear that iconic music.

Anton's original marseys still remain among the best.

Let's walk around for a second. Oh wait, we just ran into a random encounter. Dealing with these is half of the game. If you've played King of Dragon Pass or Six Ages you'll get how this works. If you haven't, you're in for a learning experience. We're going to be constantly running into enemies, problems, opportunities, all kinds of stuff as we walk around the Empire.

These are just some old geezers who want an escort to Duisberg. Why not? TBQH there's not actually any purpose for us to be out here other than for me to show you what the world map looks like.

Through this act of Christian charity, Yuna's Virtue has increased. Maybe some of those saints will pay more attention to her.

Where should we go? Let's check out that village to the east.

Okay that's pretty dire. That last sentence "There is nothing you can do here." I have always found really haunting. So yeah, there's some pretty dark stuff going on out here. We'll find out later how that village got destroyed.

Let's follow that road up north. I know Duisberg is somewhere in the lower Rhine area, I think Westphalia. Oh look, it turns out there's another city very close by.

It's Wesel, a city I don't know that well. Just that it's pretty far down the river. I think we're almost getting into the Netherlands. I guess I'll just walk right in. Wait a second. A toll? B-word, please. I haven't paid a dime for music since Napster got started and I'm sure as heck not paying any toll to walk into your little shithole town. Let's have Sasha try to use her charm and get these guards to simp for her.

Frickin' moids, man. Works every time.

Next episode: Actually I'm not sure what to do. So far I've planned these out really well to gradually introduce important gameplay mechanics, but at this point we're in an awkward stage. There's big parts of the game that we can't get into yet just because we can't afford it. Maybe I'll grind for a little while and then we'll be in a position to take on our first quests. And if anything goes wrong I can just savescum and never tell you about it.

I was trying to find that old janny post about WPD updating it's rules to include no child torture porn and the mass seethe this rule generated also I was looking up videos of influencers falling off buildings when I stumbled across this:

This of course made my chuddar go off so I had to take a look. Yeah yeah it's a 7 month old post but nobody else has mined the comment section The video itself is footage of nazis getting the firing squad treatment, which I'm pretty sure I've seen before in an old History Channel documentary. Anyway let's set the comments to 'Controversial' and see what we get:

They were just following orders

Off to a great start.

14/88 \o

follow your leader 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅

lol

I want this to happen to the Biden crime family and everyone part of the CIA and FBI involved in ruining the US.

Yep. And Bill Gates and Fauci and Klaus Schuab. Line em all up.

Keep making the list boys, I agree with all so far. Line em up.

Very strange how whenever nazis are getting dunked on Republicans come running out of the woods.

The original commenters know what's rlly up. Much love to y'all.

Bro I love how the Biden lovers came and downmarseyd us to death exactly like they do to every sort of media that is accurate. I can make 100 things the Biden crime family has done but yet they want to act like Trump ruined America somehow lmao. Gas and inflation have been up higher in Americas history in the past 60 years than ever. Whatever keyboard warriors.

He's still crying about Democrats.

I thought it wss going to be lefties killing small business owners

Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

Darn i came here to see ukraine's be killed

Of course there would be ziggers in here.

Ah the good old days when we executed nazis instead of electing them as Governor of Florida

You mean, before we started sending them weapons in a proxy war with Russia?

so killing ideological enemies is ok when u give them "dignified" execution proper burial

>"When you kill your enemies they win" ... WAIT NO DON'T KILL THOSE ENEMIES THEY'RE BASED

This is white genocide

It is and it's a good thing.

so many leftists here living out their edgy nerd rage

It's not 'edgy' or 'woke' to kill people who want to exterminate you based on things you can't change, such as ethnicity.

u just make up shit in ur head go outside

I'm making up shit? I'm making up the millions of innocent people who were killed by the Third Reich? Buy a rope and follow your leader.

Strawman argument

You were saying that wanting to see Nazis executed is edgy. I don't see why you would defend such people unless you are one yourself.

mimimi ur a nazi mimimi cry kiddo

I'm fairly certain that the first guy is underage.

We should still be doing this.

go ahead and try you estrogen guzzling freak

you seem like the kind of guy to have a secret shit fetish

for a woke OF America!

The only good Nazi is a dead one, best time to get those tats removed was yesterday, if you're a modern day shit-eating frick-head

Only good commie is a dead one

You misspelled cops.

Only good cops is a dead one isn't a very logical sentence

Not for your smooth brain, but if you had more than room temperature IQ, you'd think differently.

dumbass got embarrassed and now he's trying to insult me 😭😭😭

Now this is what we should have done with the Confederate traitors after the US civil war.

There is not one thing Biden has done good for America. Y'all are brain washed.

He's back seetheing about Biden lmao

Inflation and gas prices are higher in America than in the last 60 years due to Bidens one term as president. Not to mention that disastrous pull out of Afghanistan no one wants to talk about. How about watching some real news like how Biden treated that armless vet then we can talk. Y'all are the reason for this. And crime, the list goes on and on, the Russian collusion for trump has been proven false and all 51 CIA agents admitted it's a forged document. Seriously get educated

Sure sure, please break it down to us since you're so immune and smart. What has Biden done to the US? I'm sure you can think of some specific example to say. After all, you're so immune to brainwashing that you can't just be parroting propaganda, right?

Exactly, because I have proof on my YouTube channel C.T.I. On YouTube under Andy Frisella. Check it out. Been exposing the corruption the last 3 years. RARELY wrong and Independent media. Not right or left, just American.

>Not right or left, just American.

Alright, let's take a gander at this fella's youtube channel...

HE'S A QTARD INFLUENCER AHAHAHAHA

You still haven't provided any example. Link your YouTube channel if you want or talk about it to the next century. But give me one solid example. You can't, can you? 😂

Here you go, there's over 100 examples https://youtube.com/results?search_query=andy+frisella Political is the C.T.I. Motivational is anything else.

I asked you for one specific example, not for homework and a video from what I'll assume is a Qtarded conspiracy theorist. As I suspected, you're just an r-slured sheeple blindly parroting propaganda without the ability to critically think for yourself. You even lack the basic comprehension skills to formulate your own sentences and need to rely on some video to argue on your behalf 😂 Classic. Qtards never disappoint.

Dude you're sad. Goodbye.

>Dude you're sad. Goodbye.

Well I'm sure this "just American" is going to cover how the Hunter Biden witness is fake news, right?

This is what we need to do to the leftist commie traitors that have infiltrated the government

Lol most of the FBI are conservative mormons

Yes of course. That's why they exclusively assist the Democrats with their shady schemes

Alright I thought this guy just made a spelling error but it turns out the feds really do heavily recruit Mormons. Learn something new everyday.

People on here probably sad about this

Kinda. My fellow countrymen on the chopping block. Dark times.

Hahaha... ""Nationalism""

Can anyone translate this?

Translation: You can love your country and countrymen. But in this case, you're empathetic to your countrymen even though these ones specifically committed horrible atrocities and totally deserved that outcome. So your nationalism is laughable in this case. Americans for example love their country and countrymen, but won't be sad to see serial killers or mass shooters in the gallows just cuz they're American.

It is incredible to see you high-roading people who lived in Nazi Germany. You with your fat butt in the 21st century from your comfy chair in times of peace. You have the absolute arrogance to claim that you would have defied all odds and lived a morally spotless life had god placed you in their shoes. Your American delusions of grandeur make me sick. But it's nothing I am not used to from your people. In my original comment, I referred to this as "dark times" for Germany and stated that it makes me sad to see all the people that lost their lives during these times. It could easily have been me or you. There is no nationalism (I am convinced none of you know what it means anyway), no propagating nazi ideology, no trivializing anything. Just me expressing some basic human empathy followed by a bunch of rabid, pathetic Americans who want to feel good about themselves. God have mercy on all of you.

Dude got really mad at everyone having a giggle at his grandparents getting what they deserve

It means cope and seethe bozo, your 1000 year reich got outlived by Fortnite

Hardly a good translation. But at least you managed to outperform your predecessor in incoherent babbling. Calling everyone Nazis to make yourself feel morally superior or validated is about what 90% of American "eloquence" amounts to. Yalls education be failing yo asses! Also, cope with what, r-slur? Germany is doing just fine.

Not American. Nazis are nazis. Simple as. Keep crying lil reichtard.

You think saying "x=x" is a mic drop? My guy you need help

Had to simplify it for your mouth-breathing bottom feeding butt to understand

Funny how you call me an r-slur. You accused me of being a neo nazi and went full ballistic on me solely because I empathized with people who died violent deaths. You are a brain-dead SJW. Your lizard brain scans the internet daily for excuses to get outraged in pursuit of perceived virtue/ moral superiority. Everyone internally sighs when you speak, and your parents ask themselves what they did wrong when you turn your back.

You bore me with those quips you stole off of /r/rareinsults lmfao, do better Empathising with nazis does indeed mean you suffer from some sort of cognitive dissonance. I wish you a speedy recovery from whatever mental defect it is you suffer from. Ciao, go cry some more into your pillow

Sure thing! Do me a favor though: Reread your comments in this thread, understand the context, and reevaluate wether my assessment of your performance is a "quip" stolen off some dogshit subreddit or a perfect summary of your mind. (or lack thereof) You are no better than nazis. Not in any way.

He's trying so hard to not come off as angry.

Phew, well that's pretty much it. I was not expecting to find the Qtard influencer and got a good laugh out of that. The vast majority of the comments were "frick nazis lmao " which I was actually surprised by as most gore sites I've found are infested with rightoids, so if it wasn't for the fact this this is still a gore site I'd call this pretty dang wholesome

I figured I'd write out something of a summary of Vordrak vs Kiwi Farms since it's quite possibly the maddest I've ever seen anyone get on the internet. It includes a seven month r-slur-feud, an entire school district being shut down after a terrorism hoax, a £10,000 lawsuit for hurt feelings, a £5,000 bounty on yours truly, and the typical swatting/doxing/mean words type of fare you usualy see in an internet drama.

For those who don't know, the kiwi farms are an 'internet culture gossip' forum that began as a Chris-Chan discussion forum and discusses/archives/mocks the internet lives of unusual weirdos on the internet. I've heard some subreddits are iffy about linking directly there due to the open hosting of dox, but you can find it easily enough through google.

Vordrak, who goes by the pen name Matthew Hopkins the Witchfinder, as well as openly going by his real name Samuel Collingwood Smith, is a Britsh ex-councilman, blogger, and obsessive g*mergater and wikisperg. You might know him as the guy who tried to blackmail an anti-g*mergate feminists patrons, or the guy who tried to get wikipedia blocked from the UK because they permabanned him, or as the guy who's building his own twitter with blackjack and hookers. His ED article provides a good rundown of his past, while his KF thread features this entire spat in chronological order, through it's like 100 pages now and packed with garbage shitposts the whole way through. You can find his blog directly by googling 'matthew hopkins witchfinder', but if you're interested enough to be reading all this garbage your best bet is reading the KF thread and following the links there to get it in chronological order.

Anyways, I first met Vordrak when he contacted me here on plebbit to try and feed me dirt on some enemy he'd made who does g*mergate or atheism blockbots or something. The first thing I ever said to him was that I'd heard of him before, he's an r-slur, and he's lucky he doesn't have a KF thread himself. He brushed it off (lol) and pushed forward with giving me his info. I'm not up on all that blockbot drama so I just passed his info on to somebody I know who is. That person decided Vordrak was far more deserving of being the subject of a thread, and made one.

The thread was basically a non-starter. People laughed at him a bit and that was it. If he didn't react it would have got maybe 3 or 4 pages of replies and been forgotten. We didn't realize just how insanely he'd react though. I don't want this to read like a fricking novel and I tried making it something of a timeline but verifying dates and shit is too much effort. I'll just put a list of shit what I remember, basically. If it interests you, I'm sure you'll be able to find the full story elsewhere on the internet.

It all started January 21 - KF thread on Vordrak is created

Vordrak quietly reports us to Linode for non-existant child pornography. They dehost us.

Vordrak reports us to our new host, Gandi, again for child pornography. They dehost us. At no time have we ever hosted child pornography, obviously.

Badly forged emails purportedly from the Kiwi Farms admin, in which he openly admits to being a child molester and stealing/blackmailing the KF community, begin circulating on 8chan.

Vordrak begins releasing a series of smear articles on KF, in the style of tabloid yellow journ*lism. I was going to link them but it's too much effort so just google his blog if you want to read them I guess. They start in April and continue up till now.

Vordrak shops for allies in his crusade using sock accounts and gets told to frick off basically everywhere he can think of. He tried wrongplanet, a bunch of autism activist subreddits, baphomet, /cow/, I can't remember where else. He also contacts every single mentally ill degenerate we make fun of trying to score allies, including actual libertarians (despite almost every single blog post he makes accusing his enemies of being libertarians). To date, the only one he's managed to win over is a developmentally challenged neo-nazi from Metapedia, which is kind of sweet I guess.

Vordrak contacts everybody in KF Admin's extended family and their friends and employers, accusing KF Admin of libertarianphilia and his family of enabling and/or profiting from a child pornography ring. I can't remember everyone he contacted but it got to the point of going after the KF Admin's temporary host's friend's cousin's father's boss or something ridiculous like that.

Vordrak releases smear articles on KF Admin's mother, doxing her and revealing her unpaid parking tickets. Contacts her boss repeatedly insisting she is at the head of a child pornography ring.

Somebody who cannot be proven to be Vordrak, but is obviously Vordrak, impersonates KF Admin to send school shooting threats to schools and media outlets in his local area. The entire school district is shut down in panic and KF Admin gets a knock'n'chat from the Pensacola sheriffs and has to explain why an insane g*mergate nutjob is targeting him.

He makes threats veiled as 'warnings' on his blog that more terror hoaxes will come unless KF Admin is arrested, up to and including anthrax threats.

Realising he's getting nowhere against KF Admin, he starts targeting me. I get some cool smear articles too, and he also starts obsessively contacting his local police, and the police in Pensacola demanding they arrest me for international terrorism (I posted the Hatred intro meme), and libertarian s*x crimes (I tweeted a peepeepic once). He even has a series of insane blog posts in which he photoshops more and more devils horns and garbage onto the Sheriff of Pensacola for his continued refusal to arrest me for being an internet terrorist.

Somebody signs up as 'KiwiDynastia' on ED. Along with Likeicare, they edit Vordrak's article to call him a libertarian. Vordrak immediately threatens Likeicare, KiwiDynastia and Zaiger with a lawsuit.

Vordrak serves me papers over email, which I laugh at. I tell him I'm not KiwiDynastia, he doesn't care. So I laugh more. Our email exchanges are hosted on ED afaik. I'm quite rude to him.

Vordrak offers to drop the suit against Likeicare and Zaiger if they submit to certain demands ; namely reverting his article, banning me and KiwiDynastia from ED, unbanning him from ED, and doxing me and KiwiDynastia. They tell him to frick off, but revert his article anyway because the libertarian stuff is unfunny bullshit.

Vordrak calls for a stay on Likeicare and Zaiger, taking his suit to court against KiwiDynastia. He's awarded a default judgement of £1,000 actual damages, £1,000 costs, and £9,000 in hurt feelings (literally says this). The judge specifically notes that he'll never be able to collect because I'm the only person he properly served, and all I have to do is deny being KiwiDynastia. Oh, and I'm in a jurisdiction that uses British libel judgements as potty paper.

Vordrak posts a £5,000 bounty on my dox. Before you get your hopes up, it's contingent on him getting a full payout from his lawsuit so like... lol.

I do a bit of digging into Vordrak's past to find out what all the Evanescence stuff was about, and track down a young girl he stalked and harassed for over two years because she got made moderator on the Evanescence forums instead of him. The harassment included her family being harassed, compromising her debit card information and IM programs (presumably with a keylogger), and even a failed parliamentary petition to call her 'mean-spirited'. When these failed he started slandering the band as libertarians until legally forced to stop. His victim was 17 when he started that. I post these new revelations. He immediately emails her threatening a defamation suit if she continues talking to me. That's not actually part of the feud, but I thought the fact that he stalked and harassed a minor for over 2 years is worth noting.

Vordrak gets our paypal cancelled by sending them emails or whatever.

And now, seven months down the line, just yesterday, Vordrak demanded that the British version of 'internal affairs' launch a full investigation into why the police aren't taking him seriously and arresting me right now for terrorism and peepee selfies. Apparently an internal affairs investigation is ongoing, because British police are just so darn polite.

That's basically an overview. If you took the time to read all that shit and want to know more, you'll have to go to KF, lolcow.news or Vordrak's blog to get a more detailed version, but at least it won't look (quite so much) like an incomprehensible mess.

But he has got used to handling firearms. "Anyone can shoot," he says. "It's hitting the target I'm not so good at."The situation on the front lines is widely accepted to be as difficult as at any time since the early days of the war, with many fearing a significant Ukrainian retreat may soon be inevitable.

That guy has some top tier humour

I always find it wild that there are people who claim to be "pro-Ukrainian" but completely ignore the reality of the situation ( just go to worldnews). I was shocked reading a story ( in the Kyiv Post!) about how at least ~100,000 Ukrainian civilians have returned to occupied territory. They fly to Russia then go via land back home.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/42704

In the literal article it explained the reasons why people were returning because it interviewed the people returning. And mostly it was due to them just not being able to live in Ukraine. Nowhere to live, no support from the government and skyrocketing food prices

So they moved to Russia because it's simply easier to live there for them.

It's interesting seen Redditors realising things ain't looking good for Ukraine

And as always when bodies are traded

🇺🇦🇷🇺‼️🚨 502 vs 50 Ukraine and Russia exchanged the bodies of fallen soldiers.

Russia handed over the remains of 502 Ukrainian soldiers, Ukraine - about 50 Russian.

According to the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War:
- 397 died in the… pic.twitter.com/4ykJnWh9M7

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) November 29, 2024

Ukraine gets way more bodies like every single exchange.

Here previous exchange

Ukraine and Russia have again exchanged the bodies of killed soldiers. The two warring nations’ latest repatriation of remains sent home the bodies of 563 Ukrainian soldiers and 37 Russian soldiers. https://t.co/BJhc9Lvt5n

— Meduza in English (@meduza_en) November 8, 2024

Meduza is pro western

This is from October

But best part Biden administration now telling Ukrainian to lower the mobilisation age to 18

I wrote before that at one point khohols will hate west more than Russian and it's slowly happening.

Ukraine was promised by Boris Johnson that they will win. But now Ukraine is in worse situation than in 2022 and it desperately trying to regain 2022 March situation to sign a peace deal. Than west telling them to kill them self by mobilising their future that they already almost lost. Just look objectively, boy that is today 18 was 15 when it started, his parents probably brought him to EU where he is finishing school/starting college. So age group 18-21 has huge hole and after the first time to mobilisation age was lowered, desertion went up and now there are daily attacks on mobilisation organisation.

Also they tried to get help from Korea even by creating that story of North Koreans are about to attack Ukraine at any moment for 2 months now.

🇰🇷🚫🇺🇦 South Koreans remain widely opposed to directly supplying arms to Ukraine, recent polls show, despite renewed international requests from Kyiv and allied capitals after North Korean troops were reported to be helping Russia, - Reuters pic.twitter.com/Jehl8JpV1H

— MAKS 24 🇺🇦👀 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) November 27, 2024

Majority of Ukrainian now are ready to sign a deal with Putin and don't want to fight anymore.

Kurakhove is good as gg. Ukraine did put some of its elite soldiers to hold it but it made Velyka Novosilka weaker

Russian will turn this city in to a FOB

Russian will get this territory with ease under its control and go after Pokrovske (don't confuse with Pokrovsk) capturing of Pokrovske will cuck Zaphorochie city and help Russia isolating it.

In north Russian crossed oskol river in multiple points

Basically annulation of the great Kharkiv counteroffensive greatest achievements

Chasiv yar is also in shit

Toretsk is last true OG fortress under Ukraine and things don't look good

Zelenskyy even fired his ground force general today and replaced him

🇺🇦 Zelenskyy appointed Mykhailo Drapatoy as the new commander of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

In 2022, he was in charge to capture the right-bank Kherson region, and in 2024 to defend the Kharkiv region and to stop the Russian offensive.

Drapatiy is a combat… pic.twitter.com/oCWcMlaGcP

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) November 29, 2024

Ukraine now is in giga shit situation. Ukraine in their best case scenario with lowering mobilisation age can get 250k men. When they lowered from 27 to 25 they expected 500k men. There was some logic behind why in 25-27 are more people than in 18-25

Their demographic is frick up.

But let's assume they decide to do it and it's absolutely best case scenario. For Russian that means 250k Ukrainian man till total attrition war victory. Russia will get whole Ukraine.

They fricking dreaming about 2022 March deal now. But western media tries telling them it was bad deal

So Trump peace deal won't work. Zelensky can't sign a document that will officially give Russian Crimea. Putin won't agree on anything other than official recognition. Giving Ukraine more weapons won't do shit, they got over 1000 tanks from west, ammunition they are getting are straight out factories, they got like 80% of western air defence ammunition, we now don't even get reports what Ukraine is getting because probably over half of m777 are in Ukraine and over 800 Bradley's no other nato country except US is as well equipped as Ukraine yet they failed to liberate a single town with all that gear.

Also west now don't tell what Ukraine is receiving so guys like this one can cope

When simple Wikipedia that shows the absolute minimum. States clearly more than 167 leopards 2

It won't be a surprise if Ukraine operates the most leopards per country. But for people like that guy it's easier to cope that if Ukraine receives its 38rd leopard it's going to win. With abrams the situation was more r-slurred, Russian captured like 10 abrams and visually fully destroyed 30 so -40 abrams and Ukraine officially only got 31 so they decided to bump it to 80 but it's clearly over 100.

So giving more weapons won't change anything Russian are now stronger they drone mog Ukrainian by x20. Ukraine won't liberate anything. Their main problem is they are out of men. For a lot of Ukrainians now it's even better to live infer Putin than die under Zelenskyy.

They kinda have no way out. If they decide to sign a July 2024 Putin deal, Putin will offer a new deal that they can't sign so it's grinding time for them.

The moral of story, it's important to know when to stop gambling. Defeating Russian in Kiev was already a miracle for them. But they thought it was their skills and they will defeat Russian

There is a saying

/ Otto von Bismarck

Beautiful that it was posted on September 2023

When @pizzashill coped with counteroffensive

Edit just now

This is also interesting cope.

500 Patriot missiles that were build this year went straight to Ukraine for free so in some ways the money went to Ukraine and to weapons factories owners and the losers were tax payers

Great, so Congress is taking money from poor Americans to give it to rich Americans—who happen to own a piece of the military-industrial complex https://t.co/bN56DUisdd

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) November 29, 2024

Like for real how did media and gov was able to sell this bs as something good it's like average citizen knows nothing about economy

"Trump isn't a fascist. He's just an old man inflicting his narcissistic delusional consensus reality on the entire nation, backed by white supremacist militias which he has already used to attempt to overturn an election."

distinctions WithouT differences

@Impassionata asked me to handle @carpathianflorist 's cowardly request to define "tds," and while at first I was annoyed that Impassionata punted to me, the task has been growing in my mind.

There is this problem with predictive models: if you modeled Trump as an authoritarian dictator type from day one, you were carrying certain preconceptions which may or may not predict Trump's behavior on any given day. It became fashionable, in this postmodern way, to talk about "two movies on one screen." It became fashionable to view Trumpian 'fascist vibes' as an affectation and not an indication. After all, Trump didn't actually attempt to lock Hillary Clinton up.

This notion of 'kayfabe' made politics virtual in a way that would have stunned Baudrillard. Trump, it could be said, was only LARPing fascism, but (so went the theory of the people who denied the validity of the fascist indicators) this was only an elaborate ruse by which to draw leftists into overreacting to the fascist vibes and further discrediting them and empowering Trump.

The net effect was the term "Trump Derangement Syndrome," borrowing from "Bush Derangement Syndrome" which was a traumatic response to the machinery of war being leveraged in post-9/11 America. A large number of people described Bush as a fascist, and this was simply not true.

But it is true that the latent fascism of the United States accelerated under Bush. It is true that surveillance became normalized and the police state became deeply established.

I think much harm has been done by a misreading of Umberto Eco's ur-fascism. Seeking a simplistic definition of fascism and seeking to understand leftists in their own words, would-be commentariat, the chatterati, descended on Eco's article and misunderstood it.

It's also worth noting Jacques Ellul's assertion of "The Victory of Hitler," that regardless of the demise of Nazi Germany, there was no undoing the power of the military-industrial complex, that it could be tethered to a racist political movement at any point. This is the 'ur-fascism' lurking in the background of politics since 1945.

So there's a difference between the latent tendencies towards fascism, the introduction of the "pledge of allegiance" to classrooms, and the development of an actual racist violent movement.

It's more or less indisputable that Eco's ur-fascism exists in American politics. The question is whether or not a movement is active in its pursuit of power, a racist movement, a violent movement, a movement around a strongman.

Which is all to say that there is precedent for "Trump Derangement Syndrome" to describe an overreaction, a label for leftists who are 'taking the bait.'

But this is about communication of the danger. There were many, many points before Hitler's complete control of the police state. The historian says: this movement, Trumpism, bears many of the markers (but not all) of other movements with authoritarian demagogues. It's reasonable to expect that this is a danger to the continued stability of the United States, a danger to democracy, a risk of a purge of undesirables.

Indeed, the actual fact of the matter is that the child separation occurring in immigration processing centers was a deliberate cruelty (and that any separations which occurred under Obama were not inflicted as a regular punishment but out of concern for child trafficking; a distinction with a difference.) This cruelty of Stephen Miller was one of a large number of events which occurred which could not reasonably be said to be 'kayfabe.'

So there is all of this smoke, and there are all of these people who habitually engaged in denialism about that smoke. "That's not smoke, it's just kayfabe." "That's not smoke, it's just a LARP."

And prior to January 6th, perhaps there was limited evidence that Trump would actually engage dictator mode. But this refusal to accept the results of an election is the act of a tyrant. It's the act of a tyrant who is attached to a white supremacist movement which glorifies violence.

It's a fire.

So I ask you the question: who has been deranged by Trump? The people who reacted reasonably to the presence of a fire and called it a fire, even though the denialists called them deranged in their urgent reaction to the presence of a real threat?

Or the people who engaged in denialism about the fact of that fire?

Again, this is simply a matter of fact: Trump is a tyrant, a dictator, an authoritarian leader who does not care about the truth, who resorts to violence, who makes up lies about immigrants to demonize them and justify their mistreatment.

Anyone who can't accept that these people, if given power again, might very well commit genocide, has Trump Derangement Syndrome: Trump distorts their ability to see reality plainly. Trump becomes a figure who they have habitually defended and this deforms their understanding of the reality of these social forms.

Trump is a national disaster.

If you are late to this understanding, and can only now admit to the fact of the fire that the left has been warning about for the better part of a decade, pull the fire alarm. The best time to pull the fire alarm is as soon as you see the smoke. The second best time is now.

Admittedly, she is one my favourite feminists and scholars so I do have a soft spot for her even I don't agree with all her arguments. Catharine is a feminist law professor whose work has focused on civil rights. Her most influential work has been in the field of sexual harassment and has had a considerable impact on laws regarding sexual harassment in the workplace and in education. Consequently, her book titled Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of S*x Discrimination, published in 1978, is one of the most academically cited American legal texts.

Before we begin, I should provide a few definitions beforehand. Erotica is a broad term that covers a host of erotic art including nude photography, erotic literature and many other mediums each with their own conventions and degrees of explicitness. MacKinnon defines pornography as a subcategory of erotica which serves to subordinate women. To explain it more clearly, here is MacKinnon speaking for herself.

For her, pornography is an enactment of male sexual dominance over women. What should be noted about her definition, as Encyclopaedia Britannica points out, is that “The distinction between pornography (illicit and condemned material) and erotica (which is broadly tolerated) is largely subjective and reflects changing community standards”

Typically, anti-pornography stances are based on religious objections and moral disgust at sexual behaviour individuals find personally offensive. However, MacKinnon takes a much different route, one I consider worthy of consideration even if I don't entirely agree with it. One of the biggest influences of MacKinnon's views has to do with her experiences she's had legally representing women who have been harmed while working in the porn industry. One of the most famous examples of this is Susan Boreman who in 1972, starred in the pornographic film Deep Throat under the pseudonym Linda Lovelace. The film became one of the highest grossing x-rated films at the time. However, years later Susan Boreman came forward with allegations that the director, Chuck Traynor, has abused her during filming. Furthermore, she claimed that she was forced to do several scenes against her will, with Chuck standing with an M16 rifle pointed at her just off camera. Furthermore, she claims that in the film, bruises from her abuse could be seen. Such cases have caused MacKinnon to state that pornography differs from other sources of media in that what is depicted may be fantasy, but it requires actual women to be subjected to the acts being seen. In other words, porn is done to women. As MacKinnon writes: “with pornography, men masturbate to women being exposed, humiliated, violated, degraded, mutilated, dismembered, bound, gagged, tortured, and killed. In the visual materials, they experience this being done by watching it being done.” She continues by writing “As an initial matter, it should be observed that it is the pornography industry, not the ideas in the materials, that forces, threatens, blackmails, pressures, tricks, and cajoles women into s*x for pictures. In pornography, women are gang r*ped so they can be filmed. They are not gang r*ped by the idea of a gang r*pe. It is for pornography, and not by the ideas in it, that women are hurt and penetrated, tied and gagged, undressed and genitally spread and sprayed with lacquer and water so s*x pictures can be made.” MacKinnon also makes that claim, without providing a source, that “all pornography is made under conditions of inequality based on s*x, overwhelmingly by poor, desperate, homeless, pimped women who were sexually abused as children”.

Although pornography is a subcategory of prostitution, the kind of widespread research Farley provides from prostitution isn't available for pornography. Thus, we cannot be sure that MacKinnon is talking about token cases, or whether she is describing what the majority of what the industry does. Consequently, one can find numerous cases of women within the industry speaking both positively and negatively about pornography. For the sake of fair representation, I shall display two camps from within the industry talking about their industry.

On the negative side, a porn actress has recently accused a popular porn production company of sexual assault and abuse during one of her shoots. She claims she was choked, slapped and thrown against a wall until she bled. In 2015, several porn actresses came forth with numerous claims that James Deen had r*ped and sexually assaulted them during filming. There are also testimonials from ex pornstars who document several cases of humiliation and abuse on porn sets. However, for every negative story, there are several positive cases of women who claim they feel empowered by porn and find it to be a fun occupation. It is for these reasons that I hesitate to agree with MacKinnon summaries of the entire industry. There simply needs to be more research. If one is interested in the topic, I would strongly suggest the documentary ‘Hot Girls Wanted' produced by Rashida Jones which offers a relatively objective and neutral look into the porn industry.

So, what I do wish to focus on with regards to her anti-porn arguments lie with her discussions of pornography as free-speech. According to MacKinnon, pornography, at least in the United States is protected as free speech. Because of this, there is a belief that all free speech should be protected lest we fall victim to tyranny. She sums up the argument as such:

“The evil to be avoided is government restricting ideas because it disagrees with the content of their political point of view. The terrain of struggle is the mind; the dynamic at work is intellectual persuasion; the risk is that marginal, powerless, and relatively voiceless dissenters, with ideas we will never hear, will be crushed by governmental power. This has become the "speech you hate" test: the more you disagree with content, the more important it becomes to protect it. You can tell you are being principled by the degree to which you abhor what you allow. The worse the speech protected, the more principled the result. There is a faith that truth will prevail if left alone, often expressed in an openly competitive laissez-faire model taken from bourgeois economics and applied to the expressive marketplace: the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor. The marketplace becomes the battlefield when we are assured that truth will prevail”

MacKinnon problematizes this by arguing that although free speech exists, not everyone has equal amounts of free speech. Furthermore, the privileged have louder free speech or ‘more' free speech. Thus, in the case of pornography, subordinated women's bodies become the free-speech of porn producers (almost always male of course). Secondly, she questions why some forms of speech are banned when they target marginalized groups yet pornography does the same thing. In other words, hanging a noose in front of black person's lawn or burning a cross are all forms of free speech which conveys ideas. So is sticking a ‘whites only' sign in front of a store. However, these are regarded as prohibited forms of speech using a kind of rationale that isn't extended to pornography. MacKinnon argues that the free speech of pornography sends the message that women are to be subordinated. She writes “at stake in constructing pornography as "speech" is gaining constitutional protection for doing what pornography does: subordinating women through s*x.” MacKinnon argues that pornography, if it is speech, is a kind of speech (much like racism) that is harmful to society. She writes “Social inequality is substantially created and enforced-that is, done-through words and images.” Thus, by displaying women in subordinated positions, pornography conveys the message in society that women are second-class citizens that exist for the sexual pleasure of men. Now, for this claim, MacKinnon may in fact have evidence on her side. A study by Maree Crabbe which looked at the most popular porn found that 88% of it depicted physical aggression. Of this 88%, 94% of physical aggression was directed towards women. So what message does such ‘free speech' convey? According to MacKinnon, “the message of these materials, and there is one, as there is to all conscious activity, is ‘get her,'”.

The second aspect of MacKinnon's arguments which I wish to discuss concern the effects of pornography on society. MacKinnon claims “Pornography makes the world a pornographic place through its making and use, establishing what women are said to exist as, are seen as, are treated as, constructing the social reality of what a woman is and can be in terms of what can be done to her, and what a man is in terms of doing it.”

Now, there is an interesting phenomenon I want to discuss. When the influences of media on society are brought up, there is often a pushback. The argument is typically as such: ‘I know how to separate fantasy from reality, thus it is ridiculous to claim that media makes people do things'. On the surface, the argument is true. In most cases, adults can distinguish fiction from real life and it is also true that one cannot hold media accountable for the actions that they commit. However, within this there is an often overlooked fact that media doesn't outright control so much as it surreptitiously influences and, furthermore, individuals who believe that they are immune to this are often most at risk. It is often claimed that video games, movies etc don't contribute to violence. However, when one does even the most cursory research, we find that the complete opposite is true. There is in fact an almost unanimous agreement among experts that what we consume affects our beliefs and actions. If this were not the case, a multi-billion dollar advertising industry would not exist and propaganda would not be the dangerous weapon it is. In an article by Craig Anderson et al we learn that:

“Research on violent television and films, video games, and music reveals unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behaviour in both immediate and long-term contexts

This isn't limited to violence. Another study by Todd Heatherton et al found that:

• Compared to adolescents with low exposure to smoking in movies, those with high exposure are about three times as likely to try smoking or become smokers.

Yet many laymen still believe that media doesn't influence people. To explain this phenomenon in the face of an unquestionable scientific consensus, Brad Bushman et al posits that

• One reason is people think the media have a much stronger effect on others than on themselves—called the third person effect (Davison, 1983)

In other words, everyone thinks that they are the exception. More than just media having an impact on society, there is evidence that pornography itself has permeated society. According to Maree Crabbe, among “13–16 year olds in Australian schools, 93 per cent of males and 62 per cent of females had seen pornography online”. For many of these young children, porn will serve as one of the only sources of s*x-ed, which is a frightening thought. Maree writes, “porn has become a central mediator of young people's sexual understandings and experiences. Young people are exposed to porn at unprecedented rates. Many young people discover porn before they've encountered s*x. They are seeing it more frequently, through more media, and what they are seeing is harder and more aggressive. Young people are living in an era of new sexual expectations, acceptance and practices […] There is evidence that many young people are enacting porn scripts.”. Part of the issue is that porn catalogues women according to their race and body parts – in other words, this is peak objectification where women are merely the sum of their parts. This is problematic because, as MacKinnon points out “Sexual objectification is the primary process of the subjection of women”. She also adds that this objectification is far from different to the worker alienation described within Marxist theory.

Now if porn does create a misogynistic society, an opposition to pornography becomes a little more of a reasonable idea. For instance, oppositions to confederate statues in USA are often based on the grounds that the existence of these statues contribute to creating a society where African Americans are degraded every time they are forced to walk past them. In fact, similar arguments are made in South Africa regarding colonial statues. In other words, what these statues say is conducive to a white supremacist society. Could those same arguments be transferred to pornography? Does the proliferation of pornography create a male supremacist society? This is a very difficult question and, of the four horsewomen, I'd argue that MacKinnon poses some of the most troublesome ideas to wrap our heads around.

One criticism of MacKinnon and her theory is that it falsely categorizes r*pe as s*x. In other words, porn depicts s*x and thus could have nothing to do with r*pe. This is a rehashing of the “r*pe is about power” mantra. MacKinnon outlines these criticisms by writing that “some feminists have encouraged and participated in this type of analysis by conceiving r*pe as violence not s*x”. The problem with this, as MacKinnon points out, is that it fails to account for the fact that for some men, the force and violence in r*pe is arousing and sexually satisfying. Sexual sadists do exist. A huge deal of criticism towards MacKinnon has also come from Judith Butler. Summing up MacKinnon's views, in Excitable Speech, Butler writes: “In Only Words (1993) pornography ought to be construed as a kind of ‘wound' according to MacKinnon, because it proclaims and effects the subordinated status of women.” Butler's problem with this is that by insisting that pornography is subordinating, it limits the ability to rearticulate the hate speech as something that isn't subordinating. As Moya Lloyd summarises, “Dworkin, MacKinnon and Helms are, for Butler, actively and somewhat ironically engaged in rearticulating and reinvigorating the very discourses they seek to repudiate” (114-5). Thus, Butler argues that “keeping such terms unsaid and unsayable can also work to lock them in place, preserving their power to injure”. If one is familiar with Butler's work, it becomes clear that Butler very much favours rearticulation, that is, disrupting the relationship between signifiers and signifieds. Now, broadly speaking, I agree with Butler's theory. However, I feel as though examples of successful rearticulation of hate speech are few and far between. Language and symbols change over time, but hate speech seems to be very resistant to change. Hate speech such as BIPOC and queer are said to be rearticulated and have been used in different contexts, yet it's plainly obvious that after all these years they still carry their injurious power. In terms of pornography, there have been attempts to rearticulate it. Some feminists have championed feminist pornography which features female directors, sets to depict genuine female sexual pleasure and seeks to subverts the harmful tropes of traditional pornography. Furthermore, with the proliferation of webcams, amateur pornography which is not dependent on large corporations has been allowed to flourish, enabling a variety of pornography which strays from heteronormative and subordinating depictions of women.

So, in closing, I'd like to ask the rest of you: In light of everything I've said, considering the fact that 84% of pornography depicts physical aggression (the vast majority of it directed towards women) does pornography create a pornified society? Is pornography, as it exists today, the proliferation of hate speech? Can pornography be rehabilitated to promote a healthier kind of sexuality?

For further reading, I would suggest MacKinnon's text Only Words as well as her excellent article titled “Feminism, Marxism, Method and the State” which, for me at least, has offered one of the most definitive outlinings of the purpose of feminism and what its methodology for action should be. It also brings up my discomfort regarding the relationship between capitalism and feminism.

Duet

A unscheduled spaceship asks for docking permission at DS9 and, in what seems to me a massively wasteful use of resources, Kira (second in command of the station remember) deals with the request. This is how she hears that the ship has an emergency case of Space AIDS (not really, obviously, but I just got done in the last post claiming that a 1970s British multi-instrumentalist and songwriter was murdering people in space so you'll forgive my lack of exact details). Only survivors of one of Cardassia's most awful mines during the occupation (which we will hitherto call Michigan Mine cos apparently the air quality was so bad it gave everyone AIDS). Kira skips down to the infirmary to greet a brave survivor of the occupation to be greeted by this cheeky chappie:

He's obviously one of the guards from the camp and, as Kira tearfully explains to Sisko, those guys did a few too many of the old Nanjing Massacre recreation activities during their time in Michigan. This one is called Maritza and is played by Harris Yulin, an incredibly prolific character actor- if you don't recognise the name you'd recognise his face from one of his many, many movie roles. I've always remembered him best for his role as the corrupt pig in Scarface who was cocky enough to think Tony Montana wouldn't shoot him:

Although Maritza claims to have a different sickness, Bashir confirms it's definitely Michigan AIDS and Kira goes all Simon Weistental in her quest to see him hang. Sisko's reluctance to bend the law in order to hold the man on circumstantial evidence threatens to cause a diplomatic incident with both the Bajorans and the Cardassians and he's forced to give Kira 26 hours (one Bajor day, remember) to wring a confession out of the guy.

Sisko gets a call from his predecessor Gul Dukat...

Remember him? Yeah this is only the second time he's appeared in the series, believe it or not. Season 2 will see him appear far more prominently but, until now, he really hasn't played a large role.

Now, the rest of the episode is basically a series of one-on-one interrogations where Kira tries to prove that Maritza was actually the commander of the camp and was therefore responsible for everything that happened there and Martiza both denies it openly but also implies she's right and mocks her for not being able to prove it. These scenes are largely played straight without much in the way of special effects, location changes or other cast getting in the way- hence 'Duet'.

It's very strong stuff and gives Nana Visitor a lot of chances to prove her acting chops (which are considerable- everyone's just going to have to accept that I am going to simp hard for Visitor from now on because she's hot and talented AND I LIKE HER HAIR OK? I have been traumatised in recent years by the genocide of tomboys and I like to return to the 90s when boyish girls were loved and cherished and not hoodwinked into cutting their tits off*).

This episode reminds me of TNG's 'The Measure of a Man' in as much as it's a strong script presented plainly with very strong performances without needing a bunch of expensive vidual effects or the fricking camera rolling around on a fricking skateboard like modern Trek. The ending is a bit contrived (Maritza turns out to be the camp clerk who was too scared to stop the atrocities and wants to set himself up as a great villain to provide the Bajorans with a sense of justice and to publicize the massacre across the quadrant to stop the Carsassian revisionist history from burying it- Kira goes from hating him to feeling pity for him) but the road there is well worth travelling and it does a lot to explore the Bajoran and Cardassian attitude to the occupation and their relationship with each other. Having established that he's actually innocent- and a Bajoran sympathiser to boot- Kira escorts Maritza to his ship but, along the way he is attacked and killed by a Bajoran- not because he was a war criminal but simply because he was a Cardassian.

Ahhhhhhh

No seriously- it's good. Just falls apart a bit at the end.

*This was a sperg out and I'm sorry. I'm going to remember that obssessing about trains helped elect Dumpf and his gaggle of neo-lib Jeet-entusiasts.

In the Hands of the Prophets

So last episode re-introduced Gul Dukat. Lets meet another one of the DS9 rogues' gallery for the finalé of Season 1...

Vedek Winn is a religious fundamentalist and one of two Vedeks (like bishops) in line to become the next Kai (like the pope). Literally the first thing she does upon arriving on the station is shut Keiko the frick up and shut down her stupid school.

So far she's a very sympathetic villain. Winn's issue with the school is that it's teaching the kids, specifically the Bajoran kids, that the Celestial Temple is just an artificial wormhole and the Prophets are merely aliens.

Now this is some real Star Trek shit. The general disdain for religion and the repeated debunking of supposed "Gods" has been a cornerstone of this show from it's earliest days.

DS9 would tackle things differently- the Prophets are, essentially, just very advanced aliens... one theory posits them as what the Bajorans will eventually become although this idea has some issues and also it's a rip-off of the ultimate fate of humanity in Babylon 5...

...but since when has DS9 ripping-off Babylon 5 ever been something new?

Anyway, as I was saying- although the Prophets are just aliens to the Federation, DS9's writers never undermine the religious beliefs of the Bajorans: they are gods to them and they literally do all the god shit that gods are supposed to do. Similarly, just because Winn is an extremist that doesn't mean her religion is entirely bad or wrong.

To compound Keiko's problems, Miles is finding himself quite enamoured of his Bajoran assistant. She has actually been in a couple of episodes before this one but here she's given a lot more to say and do- she's smart, competent and she keeps sticking her tits in his face all the time.

Anyway, after all the shit Winn's been stirring, someone bombs the ( by luck, empty) school...

Remember how I said Winn was one of the Vedeks in the running to be the next Kai? The other one is Vedek Bariel.

You may recognise Robert Anglim as the younger priest guy (who wasn't Richard Chamberlain) from The Thorn Birds. Maybe you don't- he was later in the series after Rachel Ward and Brian Brown weren't in it. Bariel is the moderate candidate and Sisko tries topersuade him to come to the station to try and offset the violence.

He eventually agrees and arranges a photo-op with Winn- "let us stand together against this violence" he says- when Tits McWrinklenose tries to shoot him but is intercepted by Sisko doing a slow motion dive. He even gives us a slow motion "NOOOOOOOOO!" when he does it which is pretty funny. I actually don't want to undermine this scene- it's a heck of a climax.

Ahhhhhhh

Note the Bajoran special-needs clapping as Bariel does his rock-star priest act.

OK straight off- Louise Fletcher as Winn is fricking amazing. The passive aggressive shit she pulled as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Works even better here where she ties it to smiley insincere religious doubletalk. I know the Oscars is bullshit, and I guess some of the schizo dramatards think the Academy a cabal of old libertarian Jews handing out awards for whatever shit they think will most destabilise the midwest, but Fletcher's Oscar deserves to be celebrated and is a badge of her talent. Let's just have a bit of that now...

Yeah, that's Brad Dourif- voice of Chucky and another Star Trek alumni.

Bajoran extremist shenanigans will kick off season 2 and Winn will be back in action, this time allying herself with multiple Tony Award winner Frank Langella (The Tony's are the stage Oscars but even more gay).

DS9 will return... maybe even in the new SciFi hole, who knows?