Clowns

Response

Chill Clowns, Politics

At the time, I thought shooting all the people who invaded the Capitol Building on January 6 was the correct response1. In prior times, it’s what would’ve been done to a hostile force attempting to violently take over the most important government building in the country. That level of fierce response would’ve been justified and unquestionably correct2.

But I was wrong about that. Allowing the mob to beclown themselves as they did was far better. There wasn’t a martyrdom event, therefore. They just looked like fools and dimwits, dressed in doofy clothes, stealing laptops and putting their feet up on desks. My way, though the “correct” response, would’ve been hugely counterproductive to the republic as a whole. The Jan. 6 rioters lost vastly more support with how stupid they looked and that was probably worth allowing them all not to get peppered with rounds from MP5s.

So I was wrong. It does happen, though not often. And I admit it when I am.

  1. Yes, I know that one of them was shot and killed.
  2. Shooting them till they surrendered or were repulsed, obviously. I am not advocating for summary executions.

Shape of the Possible

Chill Amusing, Clowns

For some reason I can’t stop thinking about how often people on Reddit (and other places) are fervently insistent that things are “impossible” that have already been occurring for years. I can’t help but feel that has some sort of meaning, is some sort of indicator of both a disconnection from reality and that it’s just difficult to stay apprised of what’s occurring in such a rapidly-changing world.

It’s mystifying that those types are so insistent about it when it’d take all of two minutes of research to show that that they are wrong. For instance, it’s a common Reddit trope to declare that voice cloning is impossible or that it takes an enormous quantity of samples. But I went to Speechify, gave it 30 seconds of a sample reading and it cloned my voice 95% accurately. It’d pass just fine over a crappy cell phone and anyone would be fooled.

I just am having trouble getting past the fact that things that are now trivially easy so many people are strangely rabid about their impossibility.

One Two

Chill Clowns, Politics

My hope is that Harris will trump Trump by enough of a margin that the highly-likely coup attempt will fizzle. We have more important shit to do than defend the republic against the divorced dads/incel brigade. We must get ready for probable war with China and likely war with Russia while dealing with climate change.

And that is quite enough, thank you.

Cho

Chill Amusing, Clowns

I was laughing at the Rowling-haters when that nonsense came up a few years ago. “Cho Chang” is a fairly common Chinese name. I met at least one, maybe two, people named that when I lived there. Can’t remember for sure now.

It’s fucking annoying how my fellow liberals will insist on telling you how the world is, even though they don’t know a goddamn thing about it. I’d be very hesitant to speak on behalf of another entire culture I didn’t know jack shit about. But many of them do it with laughable and predictable results.

Saw It

Chill Clowns, Rant

I think this is generally true:

Many women like to womansplain about what men “really feel” or how they should feel in a given situation1. They see all emotions and relationships as their territory by right, and just as many men “mansplain” when a woman talks about cars or reciprocal saws, a whole lot of women do that when men talk about anything related to feelings or relationship dynamics. These women are perfectly happy to gaslight you about your own reactions, emotions and preferences. They will even attempt to tell others how you “truly feel” about something that in no way matches what you’ve said or how you actually feel.

And yes, it absolutely is just as toxic when women womansplain as when a man does his version of the same.

  1. Of course, this is always 100% how they’d react only.

Drags

Chill Clowns

In addition to sociopaths in management, a lot of the rank-and-file RTO types are those who look at work as a social club and as a free party. Without exception, these people are incredibly unproductive and drag down the productivity and sanity of anyone around them. However, they are generally loved by management as they have good social skills.

But no one within 100 feet of them gets anything done all day. I’ve worked at a company where these people predominated and it was terrible.

Gap Years

Chill Clowns, Rant

I think age gap romantic relationships are beneficial to the vast majority of people1, but even more than that I think age gap friendships are far more beneficial than the romantic variety. It saddens me to see so many people say it’s “creepy” that, for example, someone 38 is friends is with someone 21. That seems to be the majority view, at least in the US. Other countries don’t insist on such strict and dogmatically-enforced age segregation — and in fact find it odd how bizarrely age-segregated the US is when they visit here.

This is completely platonic I’m talking about here, by the way. (Though I think Americans place too much importance on sex and its meaning too.)

Even more than we should normalize age gap romantic entanglements, I think we should make age gap friendships almost a requirement as there is so much benefit to be had from the perspective and experience of someone who has been around the bend a few more times than you have.

Also, I liked this comment:

Why in hell do so many people think that people of varying ages are completely different species? I just truly cannot fucking understand. I have never, ever found this to be the case. Hell, at my old job I had far more in common with the interns in their 20s (when I was early- to mid-40s) than any of the people in my age range.

Guess I will keep ranting about this forever because nothing about the modern discourse matches any of my experience.

  1. Yes, including women. They are not in fact fragile children.

Denial Style

Chill Clowns

Climate change denialism and NIMBYism are birds of a feather1 because both are about the renunciation of and attempted prevention of necessary change.

  1. Not a 100% correlation, as Kevin Drum demonstrates.

Crumble

Chill Clowns

Anyone who talks about how wonderful and glorious Putin is and who does not live in Russia should be:

1) Required to emigrate to Russia.

2) Required to sign up for the Russian armed forces.

Those two requirements would probably solve that problem.

Ok, ok, I’m not really serious. But damn, such clownishness should be punished somehow.

Corp Love

Chill Clowns, Rant

Corporations Are Not Our Friends.

That so many people sincerely believe that a corporation is or can be their friend, or even love them, boggles my goddamn mind. The world just does not work that way. No corporation loves you. It simply cannot. As an amoral entity, it has no feelings, no loyalty and no personal attachments. It can and will throw you away like trash the moment doing that benefits it more than keeping you around.

Happens all the time. An individual person can love you. Nothing beyond that can — and certainly not a corporation.