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Joined 2 months ago
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Cake day: January 8th, 2025

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  • Insert joke along the lines of ‘I don’t.’

    More seriously, I’ve thought about this a bit. The simple answer is already seen in other responses: rural enough to escape crowds, close enough to urbanity to get good internet. The more perspicacious answer is overly complex: someplace where the weather is mild enough not to kill you if you lose your keys, and likely to stay that way despite climate change, mountainous enough to have nice views and avoid flooding, flat enough to build, sparse enough for land to be affordable, populous enough to be able to get the things I want without making a long trek, wooded enough to get the benefit of trees, bare enough to allow access, not too many racists or zealots, not too rich or poor of neighbors, neighbors not close enough to disturb me, but not so far that I couldn’t run over for something if needed, somewhere politically stable, somewhere I can work without a million-mile commute, where the soil doesn’t suck, where there’s a pleasant amount of rain and sun…

    It’s not a small question.


  • Cigarette advertising was banned in the US. It famously increased profit because they didn’t have to burn it all on advertising.

    Advertising is like nuclear weapons. It’s bad that it exists, harms people around it, and is only needed because the opposition has it. If it disappeared, everyone would benefit, but no one wants to be the first.


  • I actively avoid shorts so most of what I watch is long form.

    • Technology Connections - A guy needing out about household tech
    • Unlearning Economics - a trained economist turned public edutainer who kept learning after Econ 101, unlike others who shall remain nameless
    • Behind the Bastards - Chummy laughter about the worst people ever
    • RPG with DBJ - RPG talk with a focus on creativity and exploring the opportunities afforded by the space of ‘limited only by your imagination’
    • We’re in Hell - A guy looking at pieces of media and the ideology infused into them by culture
    • Gresham College - lectures on widely ranging topics, presented by professors but targetting the layperson
    • The Morbid Zoo - A cool gal doing analysis of movies, usually horror, but sometimes others, with an eye toward ideology and culture (Hellraiser, Smile, Twilight, PotC, etc.)
    • Folding Ideas - More film analysis, but with a tack toward various criticisms
    • Doctor Who - the old series are all on the tubes now. Not educational, but fun.




  • I don’t think modern American political discourse is capable of the old style of revolt on a large scale. Old political movements were based on policy and rhetoric. Media has taken the place of rhetoric, and the majority of media serves to push toward one party or another rather than a real position on anything. Much of that media is based around the idea of negative partisanship (Vote for us because we aren’t Them.) rather than policy because there is so little policy space to play in when the choice is Right vs More Right. That is enough to get people to pick up a ballot, but generally not a weapon, when all of the institutional power has been focused on convincing people to do anything but. Team Red is (slightly ironically) anti-communist when it bothers to pretend to have an ideology. Team Blue is usually just anti-Team Red, which is why they can barely manage to get some semblance of support. And there is essentially no other option because of the voting system and the memories of the Cold War keep anything collectivist at bay for the time being. When you combine ‘Vote for change, don’t fight for it,’ and ‘Your options are An Unpolished Turd Promising You A Better Tomorrow (falsely) or A Polished Turd Promising You More of What You Got Yesterday (Truthfully),’ you get what you see now.


  • As it does in many other areas, the controversial nature of the discussion poisons the well on sources supporting either view. The days of ‘here’s a study saying…’ being a useful tactic in anything are kind of dead. Most discussions can have reliable-sounding sources to support contradictory points. It gets hard to find the truth about anything without engaging in in-depth meta-analysis, let alone in a place like a comments section under a webcomic.






  • They often end up with bits of stuff stuck to them while they’re wet, like feathers, bedding, etc. Poop isn’t uncommon either. The same people who won’t buy salmon unless it has that freshly dyed pink color, and won’t buy potatoes if they aren’t universally convex, balk at the bits that remind them they come from a real place and aren’t just summoned into existence for their sake. Washing the eggs takes off the bits but also the ‘bloom’ which is the natural barrier to bacteria and the like. Hence, refrigeration.






  • Do you have a definition of fascist you approve of, or would argue for? It’s absolutely true that some people throw around words as dismissal but that doesn’t mean we just all throw up our hands and say all words are meaningless.

    Ultimately, the fight over ‘fascism’ is a fight to define ‘fascism.’ Having no definition is not a position to argue from. It’s ignorance. Arguing on behalf of ignorance is just noise. Even if no one else shares your definition, decide what it is, then argue for that.