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

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

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

Arena

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

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

PvE

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

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

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

Unheard Edition

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

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

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

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

The best part? The new edition costs

$250

Cue rage.

Drama

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

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

Highlights:

Big seethe thread

Lawsuits incoming

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

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

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

"No dlc planned"

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

Update

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

Redditors are still mad

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

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

Who will clean your pottys?

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

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

father spanks children for stealing

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

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

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

Do you think the father did the right thing?

Look who's leaving

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

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

Conclusion

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

Evening all.

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

Shiri's Slippers

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

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

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

You won't see this talked about.

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

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

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

Then his followers didn't do this either.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fascism

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

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

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

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

Shiri's Scissors

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

CONTROVERSIAL.

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

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

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

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

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

With Shiri's Scissors

Scott Alexander Cut The Cord

TETHERING

His Cult

To Political Reality

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

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

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

Postscripts

Cult Takes on Christian Nationalism

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

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

Cult Takes on Lab Leak Origins for Coronavirus

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

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

It was always a possible black site.

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

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

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

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

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

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

These people have almost no ability to understand deception.

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

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

And then lie about it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even as they stand in proud ignorance of contemporary politics.

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

How to Stoically forgive myself for attempted suicide?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is my neck okay after hanging attempts?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Male. 42. 85kg. 183cm.

Anxiety and depression.

Valium.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm very much hoping she is wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For a bit I thought I was making mild progress.

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

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

Thank you!

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

I'm 34 days in.

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

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

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

Thanks all.

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

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

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

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

14. Can carnivore help fibrosis conditions? 😞😮☺️

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

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

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

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

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

SUPPLEMENTS

CoQ10 – 400mg daily

L-Arginine – 3 grams daily

Acetyl L-Carnitine – 3 grams daily

Taurine – 1.5 grams a day?

K2 and D3 – once a day capsule.

DRUGS

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

5mg Cialis.

Pentox.

LIFESTYLE

Carnivore diet (zero carbs)

Daily walks.

No smoking.

No alcohol.

CONSIDERING

I'm now thinking of adding:

Ginkgo Biloba

Silymarin

Bilberry

Propolis

OTHER

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

!r-slurs our god has arrived

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sauce:

https://www.bea.gov

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

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

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

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

And finally,

Your mum's shrieks when I was doing her

!r-slurs !math

@Proud_Mossad_Asset please effortpost sir before it's too old

Frick all the Uvalde cops

They're all peepees

They don't peepee guns

They just run

When the shots rung

Chief Arredondo

The head honcho

Couldn't let the shots blow

For a whole classload

of kids

Talking about a barricaded subject

Nothing but a sick injustice

He's a man who can't be trusted

No disembowlment, but he's gutless

Sheeeit

The moral of the story be

No more weapons of war in the store

Because they used so morbidly.

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

The Early Days

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

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

Campbell on Myths

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

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

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

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

Death, Rebirth, and Myths

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Hero's Journey

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

Tune in next time when we discuss Richard Huckle, Peter Scully, and Cars 2.

Yesterday

Today

Another article from The daily beast

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

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

Some info on this foid ( instagram links)

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

https://instagram.com/israhirsi/

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

Some highlights:

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

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

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

• She is a certified coke-drinking zionist

• Just a couple weeks ago she was featured in interviewmag

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

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

Only poor people are allowed to struggle

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

it's not LMAO

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

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

SOCIALISM IS WHEN NO BRAND DEALS

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

This thread is sitting at the bottom

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

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

THEN ITS ALL READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!

THE SOMALIS ARE NOT IMPRESSED OR ARE THEY?

https://old.reddit.com/r/Somalia/comments/1camitt/ilhan_omars_daughter_isra_hirsi_is_worried_about/?sort=controversial

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Days after the suspension, food was also a concern.

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

But this feller was d to heck

On the other hand #RealSomalis are happy

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

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

The power #those ppl have is actually scary.

Real, more power to her 💯

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally Real brothers of !ummah with a real opinions

Where is her hijab?

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

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

!chuds !thotpatrol !anticommunists

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

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

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

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

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

Area code for 952 is Minneapolis/St-Paul

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So in a nutshell:

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

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

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

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

• same brand of lunacy

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

• timeline fits

!metashit

Please disprove me because

deep breath

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

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

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

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

Spoiled douchbag boyfriend, meet spoiled douchebag dad

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

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

Go get 'em, Ace!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm pregnant."

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

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

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

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

Blighted Beginnings

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

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

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

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

Turning the Metal Gears

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

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

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

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

Konami vs Kojima

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kojima post-Konami

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

Bye!

1. What is fueling this bull market

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. But what is the Fed then?

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

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

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

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

And so that makes policy pretty straightforward with today's world, which is, you have restrictive rates and you want to be restrictive and bring inflation down.

Thus there would also seem to be a disconnect between a certain number of Fed officials who will say policy is restrictive versus looking at something like that financial conditions index, or even the amount of refinancing being undertaken by like the corporate bond market or the loan market recently. So there are many financial conditions indices. Some of them show looser than others. As it should. It's miscalculation and hand waving from them, it's almost a schizophrenia inducing cognitive dissonance among ABS/MBS and bond traders. They have no clue wtf is going on and how to interpret yield curves anymore.

3. WTF is a housing market bubble (Section only for zoomers and below 60 IQ) !r-slurs

But how much a restrictive policy today restrain the housing supply of tomorrow; whether it's like a multifamily house, where there has been recent data that new multifamily development has really fallen off quite a bit. And in theory, that means housing becoming more scarce in 2026

And when fed started raising rates, the country was in the middle of as frothy a period in the housing market as it could have gotten. On an average, 12 bids per house. Houses going for $40,000 over listed price.

As of late, single family starts are quite strong and much stronger than normal in this cycle, in part because I think availability of existing homes has been so low. And multifamily starts have come down a bunch, but that was from a very, very high peak.

And so they're not that far off today where they were before the pandemic.

If the economy continues to be as robust it is with rates where they are, that'll tell you something. (Spoiler - Housing will not come down)

A. Productivity would be a very simple way to explain the change. A higher productivity economy is a higher trend growth economy, which would do it. Something something solow model or sumthn.

But coming back to inflation. Why is it set around 2% by the Fed?

First: IDK.

Second: It has worked for 30 years

Third: It's a good number to measure deflation

A good example would be encyclopedias. I used to buy encyclopedias, so did you. (Pre 2000s born). No one buys an encyclopedia today. It's on your phone. And so it's out of the index. And so it's gone from being whatever it's price was, say $399 to zero. That's deflation, but it's out of the index. And so speaking more about tech, actually, you're not buying a camera anymore or film. It's taken a set of things out of the index, deflationary.”

If you set a target at zero and you don't hit it exactly, you're in deflationary territory. And deflation is where everything tomorrow costs less than it does today. So the incentive to buy today goes down, which means an economy tends to stagnate.

Really the major tool the Fed has is credibility.

Tl;dr - DUMBFRICKS STOP LOOKING AT THE FED NEWS AND RATES TO REBALANCE YOUR PORTFOLIO

!metashit !math

Battlefield Earth (2000) is the infamous Scientology propaganda film commissioned by John Travolta. It is considered one of the worst moves ever made, but I'd never seen it before yesterday.

It is now one of my favourite films.

Literally everthing about this movie is hillariously bad. The sheer incompetence is awe-inspiring and I didn't want it to end.

Story & Writing

In Battlefield Earth, a species of 10-foot tall aliens called Psychlos (seriously) run a mining colony on Earth after conquering the planet a thousand years ago after a war lasting just nine minutes. Humans are now reduced to stone-age tribes in irradiated wastelands, or slaves of alien masters.

I can't really say much more except it makes no sense. The Psychlos believe "man-animals" are too stupid to mine for gold, but they already employ humans as a labour force in their city.

Also, how the heck did illiterate tribesmen learn to fly Harrier attack jets in seven days without electricity or fuel?

The film is filled with the most ham-fisted exposition I've ever heard. As an audience-member, can you understand what blackmail is? Yes? Too bad! We're going to tell you anyway in 90 additional seconds of dialogue!

The Acting

John Travolta stars the scheming Psychlo security chief named Terl (seriously), trying to earn a transfer off the planet. His nemesis is the human Johnny Goodboy (seriously), played by a wooden Barry Pepper, who must lead humans to freedom.

Travolta's (and everyone else's) performance is so far over the top, he can't see all the way down. He isn't chewing the scenery, he is engorging himself upon it. Hense my favourite line in any movie anywhere:

If you ever wanted to see John Travolta in dreadlocks and a codpiece shooting the legs off a cow, this is the film for you.

Even Forest Whitacker, who's acting talent is undeniable, is wasted with nothing to do except deliver terrible dialogue.

Cinematography

A "Dutch angle" is a filming technique where the camera is tilted off the horizon to portray a scene of uneasiness or tension.

Literally the entire film is shot in this way. It looks like the DP had a stroke.

Also, there are loads of corny slo-mo shots, an over-use of wipe transitions, and most scenes are shot with an ugly, sickly purple filter.

Pacing

Battlefield Earth is all over the place. Fast-paced action set pieces are inter-cut with corny slo-mo. Thematically important scenes are not allowed to breathe, but are immediately followed by more exposition or John Travolta overacting.

Special Effects

Honestly, for 2000, the special effects aren't half bad. It all looks ugly as sin, of course. But I think this was a deliberate choice rather than technical negligence.

Summary

This film is worse than I ever thought possible and lives up to its reputation. But it's so bad, it became a joy to watch. I found myself laughing many times at the sheer absurd awfulness of this movie.

If you haven't seen Battlefield Earth, I thoroughly recommend it. I love this movie.

“You'll be alright. Just stop squirming honey, lay still,” Orpah said.

Samson lay on his back on the hot rocks beside the rugged rock path of Sonder Mountain. The sun was flaming intensely, laying a blanket of heavy heat over them. His leg was bent awkwardly, unnaturally, so much so that a lick of the white of his bone could be seen through his shin.

“Calm down honey,” Orpah soothed him, leaning the water flask into his mouth.

The yelling had stopped. Samson had screamed and yelled in pain until his vocal cords were bloody. It was obvious that there was no one else on the path, and with nighttime fast approaching, unlikely it was that the situation would flip. Orpah took off her top, leaving her in just her skimpy white vest, before soaking it in water and laying it over Samson's forehead. The sky was a deep shade of orange. It would have been quite beautiful to look at if the situation was different, less dire perhaps. Orpah knew she would be able to find help at the bottom of Sonder Mountain. But that was easily a three-hour hike, and with night looming over them, she couldn't risk leaving Samson at the mercy of the coyotes. Not while his leg dripped blood and he dipped in out of consciousness, driven hysterical from pain. So she remained at his side, lovingly combing her fingers through his long hair as she tended to his needs.

“They'll notice we aren't there at dinner and come out looking for us. I'll start a small fire to make us a tad more visible,” Orpah said.

Samson gritted some form of acknowledgment through his gritted teeth. His face was almost as pale as his knuckles. Pain like this, it was nothing he ever felt before. It had him contemplating death, wondering whether a life with this amount of agony was one worth cherishing, worth fighting for. Was death not void of all such suffering? But he held on to life, if only for Orpah and her beautiful face, the love she evoked within him, and the tenderness of her touch.

“Go… find… help,” Samson managed to utter without opening his jaw.

Orpah looked up at him.

“Light the fire… and go find help… it'll keep the… coyotes away,” Samson explained.

“Are you sure?” Orpah asked.

Samson nodded. His leg had gone numb from the pain. The feeling of being stabbed over and over again was so consistent it had become a non-factor, like when noise is so ceaseless it becomes soothing or when you wear your glasses for so long you forget they're on. The first few stars twinkled in the sky which was slowly turning from orange to black. Orpah reached into her backpack and pulled out a box of long matchsticks. The trail was mostly stones and sand, but Orpah managed to gather enough sticks to start a sizeable flame. She cordoned it off with a few rocks, kissed Samson on the forehead, and headed down the trail.

“I'll be back as fast as I can,” Orpah said.

The smoke from the flame was serpent-like, the wisps slithering sinisterly. Every moment remaining in consciousness was a conscientious effort. He was glad for the flame. The air had suddenly gone from sweltering to chilly which only made the pain worse. Suddenly he felt the ground shake. He wasn't sure at first; it was as subtle as can be. But it grew and grew until it was an undeniable tremor, as if a giant was walking in the vicinity. Samson didn't have to wonder too much before the source made itself known. A kangaroo hopped out from behind a rock. It was purple and had a flame on the tip of its tail.

“What the everloving frick are you?” Samson said aloud in fear, “what in the frick is that?”

The kangaroo looked at him, tilted its head, and smiled. About twenty crabs crawled out its pouch and scattered all over. The kangaroo stretched in relief. Samson tried to crawl away but failed. The kangaroo was still towering over him.

“I done carried them from Jupiter. Nasty lil buggers, those claws are nothing to be ignorin',” the kangaroo said in a raspy voice.

“What the actual frick is going on?” was all Samson could manage.

“S'pose now is a good a time as any for an explanation. My name is, well I aint got a name. No need for those on the dimensional plane I'm from. I've taken this form because your puny mind would never understand my true form,” it continued raspily.

Samson blinked hard twice. He was convinced this was some kind of hallucination, his mind playing tricks on him, insanity brought on by dehydration and deliria.

“I am the bringer of the gift of death. You can do nothing to earn it, nothing to lose it but like any other gift, you may decline it,” the kangaroo continued, but this time in a different voice like a lady.

“How do I know you're real?” Samson managed to ask.

The kangaroo paused for a while, thought, and then answered.

“On the sixteenth of December your wife Orpah was asleep and you wanted a sandwich. You were too lazy to make it yourself so you opened a jar of Nutella and ate directly from it, you ate it all Samson, all. You got sick the next day and denied eating it. You told Orpah that from the bottom of your heart you didn't do it. But you did,” the kangaroo said in a different voice yet again.

It was as though the kangaroo was having great fun altering its voice each time. Perhaps more out of embarrassment than anything else Samson admitted to himself that indeed the kangaroo was not a figment of his imagination. The entire situation fell into the category of ‘too strange to be fiction'.

“So… am I dead?” Samson asked tentatively.

“Only if you want to be,” the kangaroo replied casually.

Samson lowered his eyebrow, his forehead creased. He was flummoxed.

“Death is a gift, as I have said. You can accept it or reject it,” the kangaroo explained.

He held his long tail in his hand, swinging it around casually.

“And, uhm, if I choose death? What would happen, I'm not saying that's what I want, but if I did choose death, what would happen next?” Samson asked, making very sure to emphasise that he wasn't asking for death.

“I don't know. I've never died. I'm only the collector of souls. I can tell what will happen if you choose life though,” the kangaroo said.

Samson shrugged.

“Oh c'mon, the same old,” said the kangaroo, “pain, misery, discontent, disappointment. Amidst it all a few moments of love and happiness. I've seen a lot of lives in my job. No matter where you are, how you live, it's always the same. Just a different variety of it.”

Samson paused for a while. He had forgotten about his broken leg, something that tends to happen when you have a kangaroo from the realm of death before you. A sly thought crept in his mind.

“You said that death is a gift, right?” Samson queried.

“Indeed.”

“Then, like any other gift, I could pass it on, couldn't I?”

“I s'pose.”

“Then I give my gift to Orpah,” Samson said resolutely.

The kangaroo looked at him, vexed.

“Your own wife? Well that's certainly a new one,” the kangaroo said.

“If death truly is a gift, I would not want my last action to be something as selfish as running away from the strife of the world. If my wife takes it, I will know she loved death more than I. If she rejects the gift, then this will be a life worth living. I don't know, it makes sense in my head,” explained Samson.

“Very well then.”

And the kangaroo stuck its purple hands out, waved them and uttered a magical spell. The sky lit up in a million colours. And then the kangaroo was gone. Samson lay there in the darkness of the night with only the flickering of the flames as his company. No one came until morning when the mountain ranger came around for his morning route. In a state of semi-consciousness, all Samson remembered was being lifted up and put into the back of a pickup truck. He swung in and out of consciousness and found himself on a soft bed, his leg raised in a cast in some sort of log cabin. The ranger and Orpah stood over him.

“He almost died,” he heard the ranger say.

“Oh my poor honey,” Orpah said, “I'm so grateful you saved him. How can I ever show my gratitude?”

“Well there is one way,” he heard the ranger say smugly.

A bit of whispering and a bit of giggling and Samson heard the sound of something oddly similar to the clank of a metal belt buckle hitting the ground. They left the room.

Samson wanted his gift back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In South Africa, chastity devices don't work as well as in medieval Bongland, because we are the R*PE capital of the work.

https://www.news24.com/news24/the-r*pe-capital-of-the-world-20140821

Back in 2014, especially during the reign of the Jacob Zuma administration, where our president had the worst controversy of him being a known male feminist following him, South Africa had developed the reputation of r*pe being endemic to its society, because our dysfunctional Police forces (SAPD) and justice system did not catch criminals, and especially did not catch or punish male feminists and sexual assaulters.

10 years ago, even beyond India (which itself had started to develop a strong negative reputation for countrywide r*pe being rampant), South Africa was being regarded as one of the worst places to be a woman in. While South African violent crime was not as bad as other 3rd world countries, such as Mexico's and South America's cartel and gang murder crimes - it would be smaller crimes like petty theft which had become the norm for its international reputation.

As a tourist you were very unlikely to be murdered, but you were exceedingly likely to be a victim of petty theft, and having you electronics like cellphones and laptops stolen right out of your backpacks in the airport, or your rental car highjacked. Still you were very seldom violently hurt unless resisting. This was because criminal activity for the past 2 decades was simply not punished, not in any meaningful sense. The police had become corrupt, complacent, lazy and incompetent on a nationwide scale, and the prison system was woefully inept, small and inadequate. The justice and court system had been packed with ANC loyalists and BEE hires, and had become intensely corrupt, where only the wealthy could afford lawyers.

Petty crime was simply not punished. But alongside the reality of the daily threat if theft, the uglier side of RSA would also surface - especially mass unopposed r*pe. And especially unpunished r*pe within the homelands of south africans.

Now it is very likely that other underdeveloped african nations, or places like India, or even places in South East Asia have much greater degrees of systemic r*pe on their societies, but South Africa has an unusually above average community of journ*lists who punch above their weight in reporting. South Africa also has a very large degree of Freedom of Information, we are not censored like autocratic nations like China, and most of all we are highly self-critical and honest with all of our shortcoming.

Compared to other nations, we basically record every single misstep and corruption. Just like Burgerland's extreme levels of self criticism, it is likely that places like Ireland, England, Western Europe also have comparative levels of societywide sexual abuse, but are not as excessively self critical as Burgerland and RSA, and have such a potent media presence as us.

https://theconversation.com/r*pe-is-endemic-in-south-africa-why-the-anc-government-keeps-missing-the-mark-188235

The ANC women's league wanted to enforce chemical castration of male feminists in 2022, but many people criticized this endeavor, as they felt this type of punishment did not address the underlying motives for why r*pe is so consistently rampant.

R*PE SURGE DURING COVID LOCKDOWNS:

https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/spotchecks/old-claims-about-r*pe-south-africa-still-being-shared-online

Back in 2020, r*pes would surge in terms of statistics, and into the national conversation again during COVID19 Lockdowns. This was because of so many people forced into the confines of their homes for many many months, and domestic disputes would be aggravated by cabin-fever on a national scale.

The r*pe rates were of such a magnitude that one publication claimed that 40% of Safrican women would be r*ped within their lifetimes. And these were not Tumbler-kin definitions of spastic autismo womyn claiming they would be r*ped when some dude catcalled her, or violated her with his eyeball-pressure on the train with a skeevy glance, but these were full on penetration hardcore sexual violence and sometimes brutal gangrapes being reported.

"A widely shared tweet posted in July 2023 reads: “In what is known as the r*pe capital of the world, it is estimated that over 40% of South African women will be r*ped in their lifetime and that only 1 in 9 r*pes are reported. It is also estimated that 14% of perpetrators of r*pe are convicted in South Africa.”

This controversial claim would be disputed by many NGOs who would investigate along with Interpol and United Nations women's organizations, and they would find the claim of 40% of RSA women being r*ped being so excessive that they would be forced to check the statistics to see if there was any truth to this alarming horror statisitc. This would not be easy tasks, as r*pe statistics are notoriously unreliable and chaotic, just as the nature of the act of r*pe itself. And approximate reports by RSA police stations were often less reliable than publications of private journ*list organizations.

Unsurprisingly they found the methodology of the 40% flawed, yet ironically the new remodeled statistics STILL would be an atrocious and alarming figure!

"It quoted a 2013 World Health Organization report which used data from the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study to estimate that Southern Africa had a 17.41% prevalence of r*pe. In other words, around 17.41% of women in that region would be r*ped in their lifetime."

https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/302733/retrieve

Again these are not minor westoid white women definitions of r*pe - but full on unsolicited penetrative s*x and gangrapings!

INCONVENIENT TRUTHS:

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/why-sexual-violence-so-endemic-south-africa-and-why-has-it-been-so-hard-combat-jessica

So errr....the thing about South African r*pes is that they are not equally distributed by demographic and ethnic groups in RSA. This subject has been avoided due to the maelstrom of race-politics in South Africa for obvious reasons. The main takeaway is that whites, coloureds, Indians and Chinese Safricans just do not commit r*pes to the same magnitudes of their black countrymen.

But what is even more, is that r*pes are not per capita proportional amongst all of black south africans, and between the various ethnicities. Comparing Sotho and Lesotho peeps, as well as the descendants of Khoisan coloured peeps, and even Venda peeps, they commit the least proportional amount of r*pes. Instead r*pes are disproportionally distributed amongst the most conservative members of Safrican black society, ESPECIALLY Zulus, Xhosas and Pedi.

Any broaching of such a sensitive subject is like stepping upon nuclear minefield, as you can well imagine. Much of the reason for these r*pe rates are consequent of the parallel societies of South African Homelands

https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft0489n6d5%3Bchunk.id%3D0%3Bdoc.view%3Dprint

Now during apartheid, the NP regime would forcefully remove many black peeps according to their ethnicities, to live in their allocated historic Homelands, as in where their specific ethnicity lived before the dutch and Bongs arrived on the scene

What made this move atrocious and cruel, was that over time many people of various ethnicities spread all over the country post-1900, and mixed and went to work in the big cities built by europeans for work. The forced relocation to their historic Homelands, basically forced black peeps to life where they did not want to, and where there were no economic development or work, forcing many black peeps into lives of impoverishment.

If a black women of Zulu descent had been living in Gauteng for 20 years, and considered it her home, then poof, suddenly the Apartheid police would force her to take her shit and make her live within KwaZulu Homeland, the residence of Zulus - but she had no modern attachment to that province, and would be deprived of her fiends and home.

Additionally in the modern era of post 1900, much of South Africa's wildernis had been devastated and culled. The wildebeest and antelopes of SA had been severely depopulated, and the amount of game available for hunting and subsistence living was no longer possible by 1950 as it had been in 1850, further aggravating the poverty within which SA black peeps had been forced to live in within these Homelands system.

When democratization occurred within the Mandela Administration in 1994, there was a shocking development in that many tribes like the Zulus and Xhosa had indoenas and chieftans who wanted to KEEP some parts of the Homelands system, and did not want to adknowlegde the white European system of modern South Africa's government, and wanted to keep their tribal system, as they would lose their power of Customary land rule.

Indoenas and chieftans had a lot of sway within their fiefdoms, and did not want to lose their influence. The Mandela Admin did not want to alienate this critical voterbase, and would promise to supplement his overhaul of the white government, with additional Acts in parliament which would respect the cultural rule of Indoenas there.

These acts are flowery but the summary is that a lot of autonomy would be given to modern homelands, for example like the KwaZulu region as ruled by the modern Zulu king, and acted as both a reserve and unofficial province within South Africa. It basically ended up as a sort of ghost province and parallel society, which proved to be an extremely complicated arrangement in terms of enforcing law and determining where the municipal/provincial government reach began, and the Zulu-indoena authority ended!

This would perpetually be controversial within South Africa, as the ANC promised equal rights between all south african demographics, yet here was the Mandela administration allowing a semi-feudal state system within the confines of the country! Yet the very culturally conservative Xhosas and Zulus, WANTED this. So the ANC allowed it, as any Xhosa or Zulu person was free to leave and enter the modern Homelands as they wished if they did not want to live beneath the rule of their tribal leader or Indoena, so they were never trapped there.

Yet just like the Mormons in Burgerland, leaving your entire family to exit the stifling rule of a conservative douchebag chieftan wasn't as easy as packing your bags and going, you might cut off your entire friend circle, family and support. This would be criticized by feminist Zulu women.

ZULU KING ASCENSION DRAMA:

https://qz.com/africa/1985840/south-africas-next-zulu-king-will-have-to-modernize-the-monarchy

=====(from qz article)[my commentary]

By Norma Young PublishedMarch 19, 2021

The Zulu dynasty has almost been felled numerous times by trials, trysts and tragedies, but has stood steady through the centuries. The largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa today, counting in excess of 10 million people, the Zulus have a family tree with roots stretching as far back as the migration of the Bantu people from their origins in West Africa throughout the continent several hundred years ago.

They now face a challenge that threatens their growth and relevance. The late King Goodwill Zwelithini, who was laid to rest this week after serving for almost 50 years, leaves a legacy that is admirable, but not replicable.

With South Africa's next national elections set for 2024, the new Zulu king will maneuver through tricky political terrain quite early in his reign. This is particularly significant in the kingdom's home province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), which has seen decades of simmering tensions between the ANC and IFP political parties, who both have deep roots in the province, and therefore compete for votes.

King Zwelithini was reminded of this in 2012. At an event commemorating the Battle of Isandlawana, he sparked controversy with a statement that same-s*x relations are “wrong,” “rotten,” and not part of Zulu tradition. (South Africa legalized same s*x marriage in 2006.) Following condemnation from then President Jacob Zuma, the South African Human Rights Commission, and LGBT rights groups, the Zulu Royal Household walked back his comments.

====(end)

This article was just to showcase how vague and murky the influence of tribal leaders and the king of KwaZulu rivals that of the ANC within the province, and how defining power of the government is not absolute, when competing for the support of people in the KwaZulu-Natal province.

https://theconversation.com/what-the-zulu-kingship-judgment-tells-us-about-the-future-of-south-african-customary-law-178786

====(from article) [my commentary]

Following the death of AmaZulu King Goodwill Zwelithini on 12 March 2021 in South Africa, the royal family convened on 24 March 2021 and appointed Queen Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu as regent. Although the king's third wife, she was his great wife – a royal consort who, by Zulu law, births the king's successor. The king had five other wives.

Before her regency was gazetted by the premier of the KwaZulu-Natal province, as required by South African statutory law, the queen died on 29 April 2021. On 14 May 2021, the royal family unanimously nominated her firstborn son, Prince Misuzulu, as the successor to the Zulu throne.

[And oh yeah, to showcase just how much was at stake in this rulership, there would be infighting within the Zulu royal family the Zulu king had tremendous influence upon South African politics and power, especially within the KwaZulu-Natal province!]

Later that month, various members of the royal family, notably Queen Sibongile Dlamini, the late king's first wife, challenged his will, and the validity of Prince Misuzulu's nomination as his successor. On 2 March 2022, the High Court in Pietermaritzburg found that Prince Misuzulu was appropriately identified and nominated as the undisputed successor to the Zulu throne. By dismissing objections to his nomination, the court paved the way for his coronation as the king.

There are 10,7 million isiZulu speakers in South Africa, about 22% of the population, according to the 2012 census. [Yes 1 out of every 5 peeps in RSA is a Zulu person; they are the most populous ethnic group within the country, and thus hold tremendous sway over the running of the country, which is why I always harp upon them in particular]

Why was this dispute adjudicated with “the white man's law”, thereby questioning the authority of the AmaZulu Royal Council, whose dispute resolution mechanisms ought to be respected by all Zulus? What is the significance of the ruling for matrimonial property rights under customary law?

[Now this ascension was incredibly controversial within Zulu society because the current king basically used the RSA court system to validate his claim, instead of relying upon the Zulu custom law! AKA they used the mayo system]

Firstly, the royal family's resort to the courts confirms an uncomfortable truth: African customs and traditions are subject to state courts. Importantly, these courts – both procedurally and content-wise – are replicas of the colonial justice system bequeathed by the Dutch and the British.

Lest we forget, although European colonialists allowed Africans to continue observing their indigenous customs, they smartly subjected the validity of these customs to European standards and procedures. Moreover, colonial schools, churches, and work systems were configured to reflect European culture. So, in essence, African elites, especially judges, are philosophical clones of Europeans because they carried on from where their colonial masters left off.

[Basically the author is hardcore sneeding about RSA constitutional and court law being based upon previous dutch and Bong judicial systems, and that the Zulu king had abused the white man's system to solidify his authority]

The Sithole declaration is radical because indigenous African laws lacked binary notions of equality in marital property division. Due to the agrarian nature of precolonial societies, income was generated by the family as a group through farming, hunting, and artwork. Individual rights were muted, while group welfare was paramount.

Thus, women's property rights were confined to items of adornment. In rare cases of divorce, they were reabsorbed into the welfare system of their parents. Thus, their matrimonial property rights were unproblematic.

[HAHAHAHAH, this cultural wingcuck is trying to process the contrast of how his beloved Zulu cultural laws have been turbo cucked by the national constitutional laws, and is trying to Doublethink himself in that Zulu women being relegated as 2ndary citizens in past and modern Zulu cultural law was totally a good thing! ]

=========(end qz article)

I highlight this article to showcase the bullshit of Zulus who defend their cultural law within their modern Homelands, aNd how they basically are very resistant to national South African constitutional justice-systems to "meddle" within their affairs. The Zulus are not the only ones to resist enforcement of national law upon their custom laws, Xhosas and Pedis are also mega conservative and many wish to preserve their parallel feudal societies within South Africa, usually against the principles of equality which is the constitutional declaration.

This is important to the r*pe epidemic story.

Some comments beneath the QZ article

And guess what? The reason why there is a Zulu-Kingdom independence movement, similar to the Western Cape Independence movement, is because many Zulus are so turbo nationalistic and conservative, that they believe the ANC meddling in their affairs, AKA trying to implement gender equality, and put a stop to gender violence in the province, is seen as an affront.

YES, in this case the ANC are the good guys!

"This article appears to be in support of a ethno-traditional nationalist paradigm, arguing for traditional law to trump constitutional law." Yeah uh that's exactly what it's doing lol

THE REASON FOR R*PE CULTURE IN SOUTH AFRICA:

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/why-sexual-violence-so-endemic-south-africa-and-why-has-it-been-so-hard-combat-jessica

Why is sexual violence in RSA specifically so hard to combat? Because of culture, and political forces to actively preserve ultra conservative customs within factions in South Africa, specifically the ethnic group ultra-nationalists such as Zulus and Xhosas.

The desire to create parallel societies, governed by customaty and cultural law have created murky legal grey zones, where police are not always permitted to patrol or hold station. Where internal customary law is dependent upon the whims of the local Indoena and chieftan, and if that individual doesn't consider r*pe a punishable offense, then it will not be punished - thus creating a culture where r*pe is normalized, in a society where women are 2ndary citizens, in spite of what the actual constitutional laws are within the country of RSA.

And the women of these ultra conservative societies, especially Zulu women, actively participate and enable it. They grow up within these conservative customary tribal homelands, and believe it to be the normalized experience, and don't report it to the police, creating a chain-reaction where more and more peeps within these Homelands, especially men consider s*x to be their right to take whenever.

=====(FROM ARICLE) [my comments]

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/why-sexual-violence-so-endemic-south-africa-and-why-has-it-been-so-hard-combat-jessica

government legislation which is meant to protect women's rights, arguing that the legislation itself is progressive but that the implementation of these rights is significantly hindered for numerous reasons.

Firstly, the example of Zulu culture and the r*pe trial of President Zuma (2005/2006) will be used to show the justification and acceptance of sexual violence, particularly with the re-traditionalisation of South African culture. [ANC Women's League would attack feminists during the famous Zuma R*pe Trial, in support of Zuma, showcasing how even amongst women, r*pe was acceptable if done by their preferred leaders]

Generally speaking, the constitution and laws of South Africa are very liberal, yet the reality is that “beneath the heroic façade of the constitution”¦a vicious cocktail of violence, sexism and hatred brewed” (Hassim 2009, 57).

he realisation of the rights promised in the constitution is limited for several reasons, such as lack of political will and cultural beliefs. There have been attempts to combat sexual violence by legal means but the issue appears to be deeply embedded into South African culture which is a difficult obstacle to overcome. The realisation of these rights are hindered by certain barriers.

The first example used will be the importance of traditional cultures present in South African society and the patriarchal systems which they establish. This has been made particularly relevant in contemporary South Africa due to the 2005/2006 r*pe trial of (then, Vice-) President Jacob Zuma.

Prior to colonisation, South Africa was made up of many tribal cultures such as Swazi and Zulu. However, it appears contemporary South Africa is made up of a ‘patchwork of patriarchies'- women being subordinate in the majority of Southern African societies, subject to their chiefs or heads of the family (Bozzoli 1983, 149).

Whilst many cultures have helped to make up contemporary South African society, this section will focus specifically on Zulu culture due to the 2005/2006 Zuma r*pe trial in which he used his Zulu culture as a significant part of his defence. Moreover, Zulu cultural traditions still hold influence, particularly in isolated rural areas, such in the KwaZulu-Natal province where government services are less effective than in urban areas. [Very Importante ]

Whilst many cultures have a patriarchal structure, Wright highlights that Zulu society incorporates ideological controls which “served to socialise females into accepting a position of inferiority” (Bozzoli 1983, 150), limiting them to the traditional roles of mother, wife, daughter, accepting themselves as ‘second class citizens'. This idea of women as second class citizens has been carried through into contemporary society; in general, society conditions women to believe themselves at the disposal of men.

However, during colonisation in the late 19th century, Christian missionaries attempted to stop ‘backward' practises, in particular, as many colonists found sexual subjects' offensive to discuss. Therefore, throughout colonisation and into contemporary society, many traditional Zulu practises lost their popularity, such as polygamy. However, the patriarchal structure remained throughout society.

Zuma was accused of the r*pe of the daughter of a family friend. He argued that earlier in the evening the complainant had been wearing a Kanga; a traditional African cloth which usually symbolises modesty and respectability. Throughout the trial this was“sexualised and transformed into an object of seduction” (Robins 2008, 415). Importantly, the use of the Kanga within the trial can be used to “entrench stereotypes and the r*pe mythology that dress is a key marker in the potential for r*pe”

Importantly, Zuma especially, has made an attempt of ‘re-traditionalisation' within South African society. As Harrison indicates the “re-legitimisation of cultural pride has fostered belief that returning to past traditions can resolve contemporary problems” (Harrison 2008, 177). These traditions, such as polygamy or ‘virginity testing'[1], are symbols of an unbroken connection with the past.

The r*pe trial revealed many within the country openly sided with Zuma. On the opening day of trial, Zuma supporters were more than 1000 strong. His support was mostly organised by the ANC Youth League. (Kapp 2006, 718) This highlights the attitudes of those within South Africa, especially the youth who, generally speaking, tend to be the ones to push through liberal reforms and fight for change. Their support highlighted that many viewed “the accused [Zuma] to be considered a ‘victim' and the complainant to be viewed as an ‘accused'” (Reddy and Potgieter 2006, 520). The complainant was heavily scrutinised and following the trial, she was forced to leave the country. Zuma was acquitted of the charges against him. These attitudes against r*pe victims highlight key difficulties in overcoming sexual violence.

Moreover, general police incompetency further implants the reasons why women do not rely on the justice system. On the surface, the police are ineffective due to budgeting problems, resource issues and failure to properly train personnel but there is general lack of will by the services to address sexual violence. It is estimated only 14% of perpetrators of sexual violence are sentenced.

Moreover, the police do not just fail over women's rights but, also, 80% of murders and robberies go unsolved (Anderson 2000, 792). This is a shocking figure, showing that structural issues are also problematic in the general fight for justice. Sadly, the police are seen as “more likely to engage in crime as to solve it” (Anderson 2000, 820).

After consideration, it can be viewed that South Africa is a society of profound contradictions, particularly between the promises of the constitution and the realities of contemporary society.

It is essential to combat the violent legacy of apartheid but the encouragement by Zuma of re-traditionalisation only further entrenches the patriarchal system of governance.

====(End Article)

R*PEX:

The r*pe epidemic had become so extreme, that in 2010, some Safrican white woman had the ultimate white woman moment and prototyped a device called R*pex.

"This is R*pex, an anti-raping device for women. The woman inserts it like a tampon, with an applicator, and any man who tries to r*pe the woman impales himself on the barbs and must go to an emergency room to have the R*pex removed."

https://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/06/20/south.africa.female.condom/index.html

====(from article)

Ehlers said she sold her house and car to launch the project, and she planned to distribute 30,000 free devices under supervision during the World Cup period.

"I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe," she said. After the trial period, they'll be available for about $2 a piece. She hopes the women will report back to her.

"The ideal situation would be for a woman to wear this when she's going out on some kind of blind date ... or to an area she's not comfortable with," she said.

The mother of two daughters said she visited prisons and talked to convicted male feminists to find out whether such a device would have made them rethink their actions. Some said it would have, Ehlers said.

Critics say the female condom is not a long-term solution and makes women vulnerable to more violence from men trapped by the device.

"It not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma," she added. "It also does not help with the psychological problems that manifest after assaults."

However, its one advantage is it allows justice to be served, she said.

Various rights organizations that work in South Africa declined to comment, including Human Rights Watch and Care International.

Critics have accused her of developing a medieval device to fight r*pe.

"Yes, my device may be a medieval, but it's for a medieval deed that has been around for decades," she said. "I believe something's got to be done ... and this will make some men rethink before they assault a woman."

=====(end article)

As critics pointed out this device was both impractical and dangerous, as it would most likely turn a r*pe into murder. Also women who prototyped the thing gave feedback that the R*pex device was pretty uncomfortable....

It was only a prototype and the government had refused to fund it. The media also mocked it.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anti-r*pe-condoms-picture-will-jagged-teeth-deter-world-cup-s*x-assaults-r*pe-axe-hopes-so/

Anyways I don't have anything else of substance to say. Basically please don't r*pe anyone, GOOD NIGHT

In case you hate the shitty AI voice here's the summary

• In 2018 when he was 12 he discovered reddit. He eventually finds out that there's a karma leaderboard.

• By 2019 he has 3,000 karma. He cringes now looking back at his comments.

• His "breakthrough" happened in March 2019 when a meme he posted got upvoted. It was even reviewed in one of Pewdiepies videos.

• He makes it into /r/EternityClub realizes they're cringe and leaves.

• Still he wants to make it into /r/CenturyClub. Gets banned for 3 days for telling a furry to kill himself Continues grinding and finally gets 100k and makes it into /r/CenturyClub. Realizes they're cringe 30+ year old Americans obsessed with politics and leaves.

• In 2020 he turns his focus to minecraft. Gets bored with that and goes back to reddit.

• He had much more time now because of the pandemic which kept him at home for almost 2 years.

• Now he wanted 1 million karma. He messages Gallowboob for advice. Now he is locked in.

• It took almost a year to reach 100k karma. Another 6 months to 200k. But now it only took 6 days to get to 300k.

• He got every reddit award now. Some guy gave $175 worth of awards

• In September 2020 he reaches 1 million points after only 47 days of grinding. It was quite fast.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger even replied to one of his posts, but he didn't really know who Arnold was

• Now the American election is coming up. He's an Italian kid so he knows nothing about it, but he realizes reddit hates Trump so he starts posting anti Trump memes. They do well. He learns about more American politicians and which ones reddit hates so he can get more karma

• By the end of 2020 he was over 2 million karma.

• He joined a groomercord some Indian guy made called Redditors United where top karma accounts could share advice. He considered them idols, but later realized they were mostly "16 year old Indians with way too much free time. Just like me."

• He still wanted to grind to 10 million karma. He now posted 100 times per day at regular intervals.

• Time was not a problem since he had online school and could keep Google meet open while posting to reddit.

• He made a google spreadsheet to track his progress and aimed for 30k points a day or 1 million a month.

• By his 14th birthday he reached 5 million. He basically just spammed posts now and at one point was averaging 90k points per day. By May 2021 he reached 10 million karma after "5 months of grinding with no breaks."

• But this was starting to negatively affect his school work so he had to take time off reddit to focus on algebra

• He came back to reddit. Now he wanted to be number 1. The target was 38 million "set by /u/CheetahSperm18, a porn addicted American man who posted naked anime girls everyday."

• Someone gets suspicious and sees that this zoomer posted at almost the same times everyday. They assume he's a bot so he gets banned from the /r/BotDefense system. This banned him from 3k subs.

• Undeterred he carried on eventually reaching 25 million karma.

• Now he was back at in person school so he would run home when it finished and spam reddit with more posts. During this time he got banned twice. But appealed them successfully.

• The start of 2022 was great because Putin invaded Russia so now he could spam Zelensky.

• But he notices his karma started slowing. He was banned from too many subs. Had to focus on school. So he took 3 months off.

• He claims now is when he learned python and made a bot to automate his posts. Posting 360 times a day.

• People got mad. Someone reports him and reddit permanently bans him for content manipulation. Other big accounts got banned as well.

Now he was free to touch grass and just posts to his youtube.

Proving that reportmaxxing works!

I saw this here

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/1c66kpp/how_millions_of_karma_are_made/?sort=controversial

I didn't plan to watch it all due to the annoying voice, but the autism of it drew me in. Where were this kids parents. Absolutely r-slurred. At least he got away from it eventually.

If there's one thing we all share in common, it's that we need food to live. Food is our sustenance and without it, we perish. Some of us eat too little and become skinny. Others eat too much and become fat. Regardless, at the end of the day, we're all eating.

Children, especially young infants, cannot obtain their own food. Hence, it is the job of the parents to ensure that the child receives the sustence they require. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case and there are some parents who abandon their responsibility. Today I'll briefly discuss two cases of parents who let their children starve to death. My writing won't be all too animated, and you'll find out why in the conclusion.

The Deadly Vacation

Who doesn't like a good vacation? It's a chance to get away from the stresses of life, see new places, and maybe even enjoy a holiday fling. But what if the stressor is your own child? Suddenly, a vacation becomes a dark deed.

Kristel Candelario wanted to go on vacation. But her pesky 16 month old child Jailyn would take the fun out of it. So, she decided to leave the child in the crib while she jetted off to Detroit and Puerto Rico for ten days. While Kristel was on the beach, Jailyn defacated all over herself and ate the waste as her only source of sustenance. Of course, this turned the situation deadly and the child perished. After the ten day long holiday, Kristel returned home to a poop-covered dead child. She changed the child's clothing before calling 911, claiming to have found the child not breathing.

Of course, upon investigation, it was found that she had abandoned her baby who starved to death. Upon receiving her life sentence, the judge described Kristel's actions as the ultimate act of betrayal. Do you agree? What do you think was going on in Kristel's mind?

The Dirty Home

Seth Welch and Tatiana Fusari had a child named Mary Welch. They did not treat the child very well. CPS found traces of THC in the child, suggesting that the parents were blazing around the infant which is no laughing matter.

Mary was heavily malnourished but the parents refused to seek medical assistance, citing religious reasons. They say God dwells in a cleanly home. Their house must have been the domain of Satan because it was found to have roaches and vermin and mould. For unknown reasons, the parents witheld food from the baby. The likely cause is that they were too wrapped up in their drug-fueled life.

Eventually, Mary succumbed to malnourishment, and the pair were charged with negligent homicide and were sentenced to life. Prior to sentencing, when Seth was told he was facing a life sentence, he made the soyjack face.

This is no laughing matter however.

Conclusion

I can't sleep. I've stopped taking benzos and I feel sick. My head is pounding, I feel like puking and I am constantly moody and agitated. I feel like I need benzos like an infant needs breastmilk. I started playing Red Dead Redemption today. Very cool, but also very slow-paced. I like Bonny McFarlane and walking around the ranch. I think it captures the "Western" aesthetic better than its successor.

Why the Fed won't cut rates

There's a new storm on the horizon. But this is the kind of storm that brings relief on a hot summer evening. There is the scenario of a high for long soft landing on the horizon. A world in which rates stay high, but there's sufficient resilience in the economy to tolerate these high rates. About a 30% probability on this high for long soft landing, combined with the other scenarios of boil the frog with high rates as well, we see about a 75% chance that rates just stay higher than what is currently anticipated.

In terms of the CPI report from March, it obviously came in a bit firmer than expected. And so you're running at rates that are still, a bit uncomfortably high for the Fed. But more importantly, Fed officials had looked at the January and February numbers as maybe kind of an outlier, a bit of a one-off, probably a little bit stronger with underlying trend was. And so, another strong print for March certainly undermines that view and potentially shifts the Fed a little more cautious direction.

And obviously that's what's been reflected in market pricing and taking out some of the cuts that we've had. We're down to, atm, fewer than two cuts by year-end price for the market right now.

The two pieces the Fed had been kind of separating out between housing and the super core. Both of them have been firmer than expected. Housing is basically kind of moving sideways, 0.4 plus per month.

Investors have been expecting it to be gradually cooling a bit more. And the big one obviously is the super core. The three-month run rate of that thing is now above 8%.Thus that's a really strong signal that you've got some meaningful stickiness yet in services inflation. And that's just not the US.

Two points make a line, three points make a trend, and you've got strong growth, not much delinquency and Labor markets are super strong. Why shouldn't Powell just look at this and saying, you know what, the Fed's not done here.

At minimum, they should not be cutting at all. Maybe they should be even hiking. Is there even a counter to that?

Japan

Institutional clients have a very positive outlook on the Japanese economy because they believe that Japan exiting a deflationary era. And you're starting to see things like very tight labor market, higher wage pressure, so real inflationary forces come to the forefront.

Emerging Markets (Interesting counterbalance)

So investors did shift their bias from a bullish one to a more neutral one on both EM local bonds. And currencies off the back of yesterday's US CPI print. After arguing for some time that so long as the Fed is cutting rates, the timing didn't really matter all that much.

But if the market is confident of being in a gradual cutting cycle, that alone would be sufficient to help emerging market assets deliver decent positive returns. And that also explains why, despite a pretty decent repricing in the US yield curve lately. Back in January, markets were pricing in over 100 basis points of cuts.

And now it's far less. EM assets overall held in well on the view that the regime was still one of rate cuts and people can debate the details of timing and overall magnitude. But now, the US has had three consecutive upside surprises to CPI inflation.

That opens the door for a more bearish potential scenario and regime for fixed income assets more generally. So not saying that's the base case now, but clearly the probability of something like the market having to think about no cuts is increasing. So it makes sense to step aside a little bit and let the dust settle on this one.

At EM local bonds, if you look at them inflation adjusted, in real yield terms, those EM real yields are actually the highest since 2009 at the moment, given the lower relative EM inflation. EM currencies are also generally cheaper. If you look in long-term versus the dollar, looking at how EMs been lagging some of these global cyclical upturns at the moment, the valuation side of things is probably not in a bad place right now. And if you look at EMFX risk appetite index, which is good to follow, it's been sort of oscillating around zero (not as of 12 hours ago though lol when I started writing this. More on that below) as well, not showing any significant positions.

If you look at sort of global investors, if you just take flows as a metric of their sentiment and how they've been seeing the asset class, they really have not been putting any money into EM bond funds. In fact, quite the opposite. So far this year, there has been 10 billion of outflows. That's on the back of 34 billion of outflows last year.

And that was on the back of 90 billion of outflows in 2022. So it just doesn't feel like the global investor has been piling into EM. In fact, the opposite, they've, on the margin, been withdrawing money from the asset class.

So it's important to recognize that emerging markets have their own inflation story. It's no longer being driven by a common global factor, as was the case back in 21 or 22. And the contrast this week between the downside surprise in inflation in Mexico, which is the EM country with the greatest trade and economic linkages to the US versus the upside surprise here in the US, that was quite telling about the sort of independent monetary policy and inflation trajectories that we see in emerging markets.

So, in an environment where the market is questioning the Fed's ability to cut at all against the backdrop of firming global growth is not necessarily a bad one for credit markets as recession risks are being seen as fallen and certainly that's what US economists think. But it's going to depend which bit of the credit markets and that's been our theme for a long time. Fundamentally, there's also quite a lot of idiosyncratic driver in those, let's call them post-distressed EM sovereigns who are coming off the back of a couple of years of really special situations distress,[COVID and CHINESE BRI DEBT] some going through restructuring, some narrowly avoided it.

And those are drivers which are just, it's a very big cyclical driver coming off the back of a distress period, which is probably not going to be affected as much by even a rethink of this fed path as the market's going through.

What do I think?

So probably sticking with those post-distressed, very high yield type of countries in sovereigns is probably right. For the lower spread portion, you could see people start to look at it and ask and ask an environment where core rates are going to stay higher for longer, where the value proposition is in there.

EMFX with high yields as outflows increase as FED continues to hold rates still or maybe even hike is a good strategy. 70/30 is also good. 70 in US money markets, 30 in EMFX money markets.

Notes for further Study:

https://www.xtb.com/en/market-analysis/risk-appetite-sinks-as-risks-hit-the-market

2015 paper from Morgan Stanley: https://www.morganstanley.com/im/publication/insights/investment-insights/ii_emergingmarketattractive_en.pdf

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-12/emerging-market-currencies-hit-two-month-low-on-flight-from-risk

!math !r-slurs

Caution: ALL INVESTMENT ADVISE IS OPINION. MARKETS ARE RISKY. INVEST AT YOUR OWN RISK. I BEAR NO RESPONSIBILITY IN ANY OF YOUR INVESTMENTS.

Happy Confederates Lost The War Day pic.twitter.com/7UbJArzjKR

— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) April 9, 2024

Should be a national holiday smh

National today but only northern states get PTO

Former slave states should get mandatory work day with no pay

>Native American woman praising Sherman

Who's gonna tell her?

How much want to bet her boyfriend is a white

That like betting if the Sun will rise tomorrow

(https://twitter.com/BurnInHellParag/status/1778164587604460031)

Congolese-killing

I thought this was funny then I looked at the comments and the absolute seething from dorks mad that she's Asian made it 10xs funnier.

It's so funny that a goth highschooler on r/ShermanPosting managed to make so many people mad. Like...her other reddit posts are about the cool pants she found at Hot Topic (literally). Just 10/10 stuff.

There were exactly 0 union soldiers who behaved like this

Grant was hitting the dab as his troops marched on

He was actually hitting the bottle

Yet you still fear them to this day. Interesting.

No need to fear dead traitors to the republic 🦅

But you do.

Love how leftists are only patriotic from 1861-65.

American libs are only allowed to be patriotic when they're celebrating killing their own countrymen and I think that's funny

the men who actually fought in that war:

(In a press-staged photo, not showing injuries sustained from one of the Confed vets starting a fistfight with a Union vet for complimenting Lincoln)

Turns out that dunking on the Confederacy is what makes conservatives go "can comedy go too far?"

Oh, no ancestors who fought in the civil war? Opinion discarded.

Have some respect. The civil war was a tragedy in our history and people who have next to no connection to it making memes pissing on the graves of southern soldiers is sick.

this applies to most ethnic whites today whos ancestors came in the late 1800s and early 1900s but I totally agree its weird af when I see people in California fly a confederate flag or something. Its not your culture at all

Most of these people who hate the confederacy hate the union and will call America stolen land.

My ancestors fought for the confederacy.

It's good that they lost.

Traitors to what? The military pledges an oath to the Constitution, not to the number of states in the Union.

Today, the only way to preserve Americanism and the interests of real Americans is to initiate a National Divorce. Help Louisiana or Texas lead the red states out!

Native Americans despite being actual victims of colonialism and genocide still exist, whereas the Confederacy doesn't.

Native Americans: 1

Neo Confederates: 0

Union soldiers, get this man's butt

As someone with ancestors that served in the Union army, I'd like you to know that they'd declare you the enemy before any Confederate.

The Union troops did not fight for you and would loathe you if they were alive today.

You do know that the vast majority of natives fought with the confederates and against the union, right?

I don't recall the Natives gaining much from the Civil War.

A decent amount of Native American tribes fought for the Confederacy solely because they wanted to keep their slaves

In other words, happy indigenous peoples day amigx 🏳️‍⚧️❤

“The south were losers get over it” crowd reeeaaally don't like it when you extend that logic to Native Americans and colonized Africa.

It's important to remember when you see this video that soldiers who fought on both the Union and Confederate sides of the American Civil War crushed Mexico in a humiliating defeat where their land was only not annexed because we decided that we didn't want their people.

Is hating the confederacy some new way for 1st/2nd gen Americans to virtue signal their loyalty to the regime? Never see a white person doing this. Always Asians or something. There's also a weird trend of Asians to be very race conscious now, like they're upset they missed out.

Yes because we all know about the stories of those battalions of Korean women fighting the Southern states wanting to exercise financial agency and exercise the right to succession without being invaded by a Bankrupt corrupt Group who denied them representation in Congress

This is what rightoids actually believe

my ancestors fought for the union and i still think the punishment for dancing on graves of confederate soldiers should be immediate deportation

at minimum. you don't get to show up here and defile the legacy of the people that brought you in

Grant 🤝 Lee

Conquering Mexico

The problem with being a bumbling aesthete is that you don't know jack about actual history.

Grant was deeply ashamed by the Mexican–American War and his own participation in it, and considered it an unjust war that brought on divine punishment in the form of the Civil War.

Word...

If you're mad at this, there's only one explanation..

Never met a bigger bunch of sore winners. Who the frick gets off on degrading peoples ancestors? The Union defeated the secessionists. Why would anyone still be gloating 160 years later?

Imagine emigrating to China as an American and making TikTok videos mocking the Qing Dynasty dressed as Sun-Yat Sen.

Chinese people would laugh and think it's funny

That would be hilarious.

1. One of the major justifications towards overthrowing the Qing was racial identity, the Han made up the vast majority of China's populace. Sun Zhongshan described it as so.

“A political revolution must proceed simultaneously with the nationalist revolution. When we overthrow the Manchu regime, we will achieve not only a nationalist revolution against the Manchus but also a political revolution against monarchy. They are not to be carried out at two different times.”

1. Nobody would care, good luck finding someone who has any sentimental feelings towards the Qing Dynasty, except for maybe a handful of people in the northeast.

1. Comparing the Confederacy to the Qing Dynasty is the ultimate insult if you really think about it, and probably not a good parallel to draw.

It's not your history. But I understand your impulse to identify with the Union Army given that many of them were also immigrants who shared little history with the men whose ancestors established this country.

She'll be going back btw

Abraham lincoln wanted to send ex-slaves back to Africa. The idea that the average Union soldier (who was conscripted to fight), would side with this asian chick over the confederates is honestly hilarious.

There's literal written letters of standard regular troop men in the union writing back home talking about how they didn't know slavery was like this and regret it immensely. Human beings are capable of empathy

Ah yes, those devout Protestants would surely trade in their lives for the right of their decedents to be made a minority by sodomites! You read a few letters saying slavery was wrong, of course that's the end of it

Like I said, r-slur, even strident abolitionists like Lincoln wanted to send them back to Africa. They would not be on your side. They would despise you

Like seriously, read Sherman's thoughts

You are spiteful and angry, your ancestors would not smile upon your rage but find it pathetic. People who think like you do tried to do action on January 6th and you failed horribly, that's because you are all keyboard warriors and not at all a threat, as you think. I pity you

Notice how they cannot contend with the actual beliefs of the people of the time, so they do the typical r-slurred leftist thing and try to psychologize over a few internet posts (something no actual psychologist would do lmao). Do you actual think a single union soldier would prefer the company of a foreigner over those in the south? We can see the policies they voted for when they got home r-slur.

why would she care

Because those same union soldier went on to, overwhelmingly, ban her ancestors from coming to america with numerous asian/chinese exclusion acts. It is so pathetic that she has no connection with her own homeland (as they got dominated by the west) and then she must larp as a union soldier, who would despise her being in their country.

"The north was also racist, so that's why i must support the "we love slavery" guys"

A brown non-American woman is definitely a Union Yankee and not a border hopping wetback

Why is the union soldier a chinese woman

Who do you think built the underground railroad

The Confederate army was led by General Bruce Lee. Google it.

who do u think fought the war just old straight white christian men?

Uh, yes. The majority of them were I believe. I certainly doubt there were many if any Chinese ladies fighting for the Union, correct me if I'm wrong. Not that I really take any issue with this lady making a pretty dope video depicting it tho

hope ur sitting down for this but at least half, if not more, of the unions front line troops where chinese women

This girl's ancestors probably got killed in the Taiping Rebellion, where 30 million Chinese died over question of whether to worship a European religious cargo cult or a European imperial proxy state. Now their great-granddaughter is internet dancing about the American Civil War

she's filipino, you guys need take being racist more seriously.

The Civil war in Taipei?

Where were her ancestors in 1865?

French Indochina

Blowing themselves up making a railway west to california

Anyone who likes the rebel tears meme is either gay, obese, or an overbearing woman.

I like the rebel tears meme because the South sold out to British commerce and Jewish finance in opposition to President Lincoln who was basically a fascist.

Lincoln was the American Cromwell.

He was a proto-Bolshevik and Marx recognized him as such.

Lincoln was the American Otto von Bismarck

Rightoid infighting

The confederacy were democrats

- Blames Democrats for slavery

• Defends the Confederacy

Republicans in a nutshell.

I will continue to fly the stars and bars in my northern state.

Standard weeb response

Femboy who would get hate-crimed by his fellow Confederate participation trophy celebrants

Without fail, it's the chibi art pfp.

It's cropped hentai, actually

Average RuZZia stan

please k¥s homura will never like you homura will never be ur wife homura will never be ur “l0li” DIE DIE DIE

Foid seething lmao

I feel like old school racists would be absolutely disgusted with racists who love anime

Lmaoooo they crossdress too. Bringing back a confederate general and telling him his cause is being carried by a crossdressing fan of Asian art forms just so I could see them melt into a puddle of rage

Northerners would freak if they met one of my black buddies. Ones named black country who wears rebel flag shirts and hats. Rural black people are the best.

If your ancestors didn't fight for either side your opinion is largely irrelevant.

do you hold this view for all wars and events occurring in world history?

uhm. bad take. union soldiers were NOTORIOUSLY transphobic

and you're telling me that the people down in the south weren't??

oh so other people's transphobia excuses their own bigotry? do better

These edits have to be a reverse pschology dixie propaganda man they're cringe af

She’s pretty wym pic.twitter.com/a3ljCBAuBK

— ☆🄿🄸🄴 ☆ (on Break)(not anymore) (@Artiah669) April 12, 2024

!macacos !soyteens

Tried my best to doodle their pinkie! Any criticisms is welcome to this doodle and I don't mind updating it

woa this might be even worse

"she looks ugly" and it just looks like a regular person youd see in real life

i want a detailed description of whats supposedly ugly ab this design w out them being colorist

well..no! never seen anyone like this in my life lololol

have you considered talking to real people instead of playing royal high all day

31.5k posts telling ppl to go outside insane projection

Literally

edtwt stays online and inside too much looking at pinterest girls they forgot what other people also look like

Is this the female equivalent of accusing people of being a porn addict?

Do you live in Chernobyl?

It looks like a racist Wojack dude what are you talking about

Incomprehensible woahjacks from Bahia, Brazil

bro living in ohio

Normalise having average looking characters

normalise not looking like a runway model

girl looks so freaking happy and that's one of the many things that makes a person pretty, imo

The issue is that artists make inclusive POC and LGBT characters ugly as frick while the generic cis white straight characters are pinnacles of beauty.

This literally feels borderline racist like... No, that's not an average person look. That looks like some sort of wojack or minstrel cartoon ☠️☠️

literally. she IS pretty. i saw people jumping thru hoops in the replies trying to make this problematic which is really funny

She looks like a racist wojack made by some neonazi on 4chan

This design looks cute @RobotinTheVoid

^^ Twitter needs to stfu and stop bullying a child

the mlp fandom when artists ' human versions of magical rainbow ponies look like a regular human and not a supermodel ( the whole point of the show is friendship and accepting people for who they are )

Darn apparently every character ever needs to follow strict societal beauty standards rooted in white supremacy….

she's so pretty, i have a friend who looks like her

hope your friend doesn't know you think they look like this.

God forbid a black girl have braces ig??? seriously what is their issue

Babe its the… face….

nah learning that the artist is white made this whole discussion flip for me

Ok but that specifically looks like satire...

as a black girl, it's really aggravating when people draw us in these..unsightly ways and then try to gaslight us into thinking this is what every other black woman looks like. "this is what an average person looks like" average person here, no the frick its not!

like its just smth abt making the poc headcanons god awful ugly that doesnt sit well with me like lets think inwards on why yall wanna make the poc headcanons fat and ugly

the drawing is literally bordering on racist wojack and they're like "she's pretty!!!!"

imagine if the person who drew these was a very very VERY white person LOL

sources are saying theyre white

Why do they always make these exaggerated drawings ugly as sin. Black people are beautiful... this feels like racist insults every single time.🤦‍♂️

If I was told this was a right wing meme made specifically to make fun of s I would believe you

I've seen actual racist caricatures of black people that looked better than this.

"She's pretty wym"

my good friend spoke about this before

Hear me out...

I look like this

In France many shop assistants wear the hijab. The Islamization of Europe is proceeding at a rapid pace and no one is saying anything. Dark times ahead. pic.twitter.com/FPnzNBtEwS

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) April 13, 2024

Image/Video replies

More chud seething underneath:

https://twitter.com/Shunyaa00/status/1779163256965452202

Just a womyn looking outward of the window.

https://twitter.com/EuropeImmigran/status/1779163037976449410

Made an AI image and get mad at it.

https://twitter.com/vikasnisu_007/status/1779164439209705821

They truly won't stop being racists towards every non-yt race despite they're the main recipient of racism.

https://twitter.com/BananaN72477354/status/1779337312574505310

It the same as in Japan

Most japanese department stores have Koreans-style greetings

First time seeing Jap rightards hating Kimchis Koreans

https://twitter.com/Muhamadraslulla/status/1779432150930194839

Some halal food from puslims

We all know that only one country in this world would people do this.

https://twitter.com/MoMoney2030/status/1779173713470181576

Text replies

https://twitter.com/Mai_ASUR/status/1779163107320869101

Yeah but France always gets conquered without a shot.

So true

https://twitter.com/martin_karissa/status/1779322563182629102

Saw these outfits at a small town Texas festival this week.

Why are these people in a small town in Texas?

They have no interest in assimilation.

They are NOT here for opportunities.

It's clear they are here as part of a large, orchestrated plan.

Even they speak only English they're probably get treated in a racist manner lol.

Also, she looks like this btw

https://twitter.com/Cobratate_WR/status/1779164015421530397

are you trying to say Dubai, the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, is in dark time right now?

They're in dark times because they are letting indian workers in.

BTW this fake Andrew Tate doxxed Aevann:

https://twitter.com/Cobratate_WR/status/1779611192757203172

https://twitter.com/Ahly_wy/status/1779365234584743939

France is down

This chink coomer is mad about muslim despite is close with many islamic countries!

Muslims Retaliate

https://twitter.com/qanimahrez2/status/1779615658285658489

We will take over the whole Europe inshallah 🤺🗡️

Someone have that meme of a bell curve midwit meme, with the right side a saying "Islamic Emirate of Europe 2050 Inshallah"?

https://twitter.com/ragedmom/status/1779402637647179980

Didnt Mary wear head coverings? Head coverings are signs of submission to the Almighty.

>What's your problem?

It's funny chuds almost always forget Islam and Christianity are just reinterpretation of Judaism.

https://twitter.com/MBTCETH1/status/1779513511208538297

Soon everyone will be Muslim😀

Because they understand

Waiting for better days...

It's funny muslims do not hesitate to say "yes we are going to completely destroy your society and rebuild it in accord with our ideology".

https://twitter.com/canto8787/status/1779184020313587744

What's your effing problem with that?

Window shopper

People like u don't even buy stuff

U must be an Indian sexy Indian dudeh from the looks of it

Another day for and to fight! But it's mostly indian hating them rather than arabs hating them back.

Anyway I am tired now, see you next time!

Introduction

Q: What is Happy Tree Friends?

A: You should have watched it as a kid. If you haven't, you can watch this:

Q: who the frick like this show?

A: autists , and no, this is unironic.

The Subreddit

I watched Happy Tree Friends as a kid and think it is pretty funny, and found out they made a new episode recently, so I read something about happy tree friends, and found the subreddit:

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

It is filled with autists obsessing over their stupid fan-made characters:

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/1c3mrx1/my_first_animation/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/1c31s79/hi_im_new_to_this_community_htf_persona/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/1c0qcwk/millie_rabbit_feel_free_to_draw_her_anyway_you/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/1c0bnyz/help/?sort=controversial

It is not even that interesting until you look into the stickied post of the subreddit.

The Autist

Here is the stickied post:

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/198sto6/since_yall_wont_learn/?sort=controversial

I don't care if I left the fandom! If you mention brunynhoalves, you're getting a 5 day ban! Just frick off already! I said to stop talking about him! I saw another post today!

Even the mods talk like an autist.

But who is /u/brunynhoalves?

So basically he spams the subreddits with posts to tell people to subscribe to him or whatever:

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/15q2uet/do_you_wanna_subscribe_me_on_my_youtube_account/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/15vgrx5/add_me_on_groomercordbrunynhofernandes_99185/?sort=controversial (Trigger Warning: Groomcord )

Since he spams the subreddit non-stop, he is eventually banned from it

And he appeals to the subreddit mods :

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/17il0f4/the_entirety_of_my_convo_with_burnynhoalves_a/?sort=controversial#lightbox

So this is apparantly Flippy x Fliqpy ship:

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/16q0ach/brought_back_this_shit/?sort=controversial

It gets even worse:

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/17w6j17/the_entirety_of_my_convo_with_brunynhoalves_the/?sort=controversial

In case you can't see the screenshot in the last screenshot:

Can you rub your breasts on my peepee?

Hey

Can you rub your breasts on my peepee?

I said can you rub your breasts on my peepee?

He apparantly shit up the subreddit so much that there are many complain posts about him:

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/17vc4k7/i_dont_tend_to_be_an_empathetic_person_but/?sort=controversial

What the frick is even illegal shit? These are all fricking anthropomorphic animals and these zoophilic autist do be like "no only the yellow rabbit and the pink female one not the same character but two personality"

https://old.reddit.com/r/happytreefriends/comments/17vj3sb/brunynhoalves_meme/?sort=controversial

When the autists noootices

And from the above post, I found his twitter:

https://twitter.com/BrunoFe62752625

💚🐻Flippy HTF🐻💚 (DO NOT UNFOLLOW ME)

DO NOT UNFOLLOW

Gives off DO NOT REDEEM energy

13🎂| Neurodivergent🧩| Male | (he,) I'm a good artist, I'm obsessed with #happytreefriends, follow me if you want.

Neurodivergent

quite apparant

Look at this beautiful retweet:

https://twitter.com/ADONIS_577/status/1705743589676843332

And here's his YouTube Channel:

Made on Alight Motion

How To Make G Major 74 in Alight Motion:

1st go to up tempo and pitches:

-10

+9

+14

2nd: go to alight motion and create a project what you want

3rd: tap + on Bottom Right

4th: click Klasky Csupo

5th: go to homogenization and opacity and click Luminosity

6th: go to effects and search Stretch Axis:

Scale: 0,85

Angle: 0,0°

7th: go to effects and search Circular Ripple:

Centralize: X Axis: 0 Y Axis: 0 Frequency: 1,00

Intensity: -0,140

Phase: 0,00

Radius: 0,30

Feather: 1,000

8th: go to effects and Search Stretch Axis: (again)

Stretch: 1,22

Angle: 0,0°

The autism is strong

https://youtube.com/@brunofernandes7072/videos

And this is legitimately disturbing.

And of course it is easy to find his DeviantArt too:

https://www.deviantart.com/brunynhofernandes101

https://www.deviantart.com/brunynhofernandes101/art/Rubbing-your-breasts-on-my-peepee-981966251

Rubbing your breasts on my peepee

So, how neurodivergent do you think he is?

The RT subreddit jannies have "temporarily" suspended rule 6. Rule 6 says "6. Do not come here to complain about how "RT is dead"."

— @AverageBen10Enjoyer

For the rest of RT's history see my previous effortposts.

Part 1

Part 2

The End of RoosterTeeth

We covered the majority of the reasons why RoosterTeeth eventually went under in the previous post. In this Part 3 I'll wrap up a few points I didn't have room to elaborate on previously before detailing the actual collapse and aftermath. After all there isn't any single climactic scandal or crisis that did them in on its own.

Though the following point did contribute heavily to RWBY's decline.

Animation is Expensive

I'M GENLOCKING!

— Achievement Hunter

RoosterTeeth didn't have an actual animation department back when they hired Monty Oum for RvB. Monty and some of his "apprentices" handled all of the cgi for RvB seasons 8-10, and the first Volume of RWBY couldn't have had more than fifteen people total behind its animation. The success of RWBY is what created the proper Animation Studio, and going forward it would handle the rest of RWBY and RvB along with a few new IPs RoosterTeeth tried to get off the ground. RT's other animated productions include Camp Camp, Nomad of Nowhere, X-Ray and Vav, S*x Swing, and RoosterTeeth Animated Adventures.

The main show of note however is Gen:LOCK. Out of all the post-RWBY properties, Gen:LOCK was RT's biggest hope of recapturing that lightning in a bottle and was easily the most expensive production. Indeed it's been claimed that Gen:LOCK appropriated funds from other animated productions since its creator also just so happened to be head of the animation department

As I mentioned in the first thread, Xoomers were some of the first weebs and American anime is their fault Gen:LOCK creator Gray Haddock had originally only done minor voice work when he started with RT. But that made him a professional compared to everyone else involved with developing RWBY, a very indie show in which RT was turning to their animators, HR employees, and podcasters just to fill out the voice acting roles. Gray voiced and was popular enough to have the character stick around for three seasons when he was only meant to be in the first episode. When RoosterTeeth formed their proper animation studio in 2014, Gray was made Head of Animation. He was also a writer and assistant director for RWBY.

Gray grew up watching mecha and cyberpunk anime and much like Monty Oum he must have decided at a young age that he'd make his own cool thing if ever he got the chance. As CRWBY (production crew of RWBY) began work on Volume 5 and RT decided on what the best big show would be, Gray pitched his idea for RoosterTeeth's very own robot franchise and used his position over the animation department to give his pitch a few advantages over any others. For one thing he could have the artists draw up concept art on demand

Gray really wanted Gen:LOCK to be a full blown production comparable less to web shows and more towards network television. Not only would the production costs greatly exceed any previous RT animated endeavor. The show also shilled out for actual talent from SAG-AFTRA. Apparently it really started to come together after a concept artist used Michael B. Jordan as a reference for the main character and Gray sent an email to Jordan's agent.

I should note that at the time Jordan was most well known for the 2015 Fantastic Four movie so this might explain why RT's random robot pitch was taken seriously. But even though he eventually went and did Black Panther he still agreed to work on the project, apparently because he's a huge weeb and liked the idea personally. His company Outlier Society Productions even co-produced the show. Other names attached include Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) Dakota Fanning (Independent movies apparently) Koichi Yamadera (Cowboy Bebop) and David Tennant (Doctor Who)

No, really

Work on Gen:LOCK started in ‘17 at which point Gray left CRWBY to work on Volume 5 without finishing his workload or finding a replacement He also siphoned both funds and animators from other projects while still demanding every show hit their deadlines. It was at this point that RT started bringing on unpaid interns to finish their animation — more details on this in the "Controversies" section of my second RT effort post.

RWBY Volume 6 and Gen:LOCK were produced together through mandatory crunch time and free labor from interns promised a job at RT after 90 days only to be shown the door as soon their contracts expired Gen:LOCK's development went well into the red and was pushed back to 2019. It's been estimated that both GL and Volume 6 had about a third of their seasons made entirely for free thanks to not paying overtime. People were working up to 80 hours a week, with management offering empty platitudes about the crunch and how they'd resolve it. The planned number of episodes was cut from 12 to 8. RT had a whole pipeline set up with Full Sail Animation to provide them with yet more interns for the meat grinder.

Finally Gen:LOCK premieres in January as a FIRST exclusive. The show did moderately well in viewership and reviews. A dedicated fandom formed — probably the third largest RT fandom behind RvB and RWBY if that means anything — and the show actually made it to syndication on Cartoon Network's Toonami.

But as such an expensive and time consuming production with Hollywood actors attached, Gen:LOCK broke RoosterTeeth's bank and fell into the trap of needing to be a massive, breakout hit in order to make any kind of profit. Since RWBY made a lot of money as an indie success story, RoosterTeeth had hoped something with more budget would make proportionally more profit.

Gen:LOCK was their animation department's biggest misstep and a significant reason why the decline became terminal. Gen:LOCK was simply too expensive and didn't prove to be worth the investment. None of the other shows were runaway successes either. In the grand scheme RT's animation department only served to drain the company's treasury.

In the wake of the show's release RoosterTeeth's ‘19 Glassdoor scandal broke and soured their reputation along with the myth of their being a great company for animators to get their foot in the door. The RT founders had apparently given Gray Haddock a lot of leeway in animation and were unpleasantly surprised to learn how the department had been handled. He resigned soon after and RT never attempted anything this ambitious again.

Gen:LOCK itself wasn't (quite) dead and in October it was announced that Season 2 would initially premiere with HBO Max before becoming available to FIRST members.

But RoosterTeeth simply did not have the capability to make such a show anymore and so HBO was given reins to write and produce while outsourcing the actual animation to the people who did Planet Sheen and Fanboy & Chum Chum. The Ship of Theseus that was season 2 released in November 2021 and, well, I've never heard of anyone who liked it. Modern RWBY may not be great but it at least has an extremely dense fanbase conditioned over years to watch the show uncritically. Gen:LOCK died in its infancy and the few remaining fans mostly just ignore season 2 these days.

People are letting their nostalgia blind them as to what RT was at the time of its death: a corporate entity like any else, with widely documented worker-abuse issues. It's a shame that the studio that once pioneered independent animation on the internet became just another cog in the machine that was thrown out after it became useless, but it did it to itself.

/r/RWBYcritics

Speaking of RWBY, this show too became more and more expensive with every season and had probably stopped being profitable by the time RT imploded. Volume 9 supposedly cost over 6.6 million to produce and had to be funded with help from Crunchyroll in exchange for an exclusivity deal.

Looking back it's a quiet miracle the show even lasted nine seasons. There was almost never a time something wasn't wrong with RoosterTeeth's animation department. In brief,

V1: No budget lol. The only reason RWBY is a 3D show/got made at all is because Monty was already used to the animation software and wasn't asking RoosterTeeth to go find a studio.

V2: No major problems, but…

V3: Monty dies

V4: Switched to another graphics program entirely. Shane's infamous letter also comes out around this time (detailed in the previous post) He and other Monty loyalists are dismissed from the company.

V5: This is when Gray Haddock began taking resources for Gen:LOCK. The volume also had more episodes than usual.

V6: Gen:LOCK problems continued. The Glassdoor scandal happened for RT. Actor Vic Mignogna was also fired from his role on sexual harassment allegations.

V7: No problems, however…

V8: Covid and the Texas power crisis from Greg Abbot's paraplegic witch magic snow storm Also a longer season than normal

V9: Continued production issues from Covid. Made at the same time as the Justice League crossover movies. More RT workplace misconduct. Led to a 2 year hiatus.

V10: Isn't even greenlit. I'm bringing it up because CRWBY claimed in early March that preproduction was done and they were waiting for the go-ahead

In retrospect cartoons pushed RoosterTeeth to its limit.

Collapsing Influence and Fading Influencers

REMINDER THESE BIPOCS ARE WORSE AT BUSINESS THAN COLLEGEHUMOR OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS

@KoreanKongKing

In this section we'll discuss the evolution of the podcast half of RoosterTeeth. Many of these changes represented attempts to reverse course on the company's decline or, in the case of some influencers, to get away from the sinking ship.

First I'll bring up the Let's Play family. To clarify, "let's plays" are videos where people would play a video game and, uh... that's it. IIRC they go back to the noughties and predate any real streaming personalities. Let's Play as a proper noun was created by Achievement Hunter as a channel specifically for their relevant let's plays, originally featuring videos from just the main six AH personalities with the videos uploaded to YouTube. As RT grew Let's Play also featured people from Funhaus and other Fullscreen aquired groups like ScrewAttack. Gradually this evolved into a larger network.

On May 31, 2017, it was announced that YouTubers JT Machinima, NoahJ456, LazarBeam, and Steven Suptic (now known as Sugar Pine 7) had joined Let's Play, with JT Machinima being the first of which to have merchandise sold through the RT Store. Others to eventually join include Criken2, James Buckley, BedBananas, Tomato Gaming, ChilledChaos, Retro Replay, Castle Super Beast, GaLm, and Tom Fawkes.

Yeah I haven't heard of most of these people either There was also Etika though and I remember him entirely through the rDrama gayop

As mentioned previously, the evolution of YouTube and changes made to its policies regarding advertising revenue hurt RoosterTeeth over time. Aside from trying to make up for it by expanding on FIRST and their own website, they noticed the Let's Play "family" had always been a consistent source of income and was relatively less affected by YouTube's evolution. They represented numerous personalities and different kinds of content that still appealed to the ever changing algorithm while having a low overhead that RT wasn't entirely responsible for. RT hoped the Let's Play group would keep them relevant no matter how YouTube continued to evolve.

Unfortunately they never succeeded in cultivating the goal of having this many more Achievement Hunters. The partners that were already hemorrhaging continued to do poorly and others simply declined to renew their contracts as soon as they were up. The successful members must have decided there wasn't much to gain from working with RT. Individual influencers certainly didn't appreciate RT's restrictions on their individual streaming. Ultimately the Let's Play family was pointless.

Funhaus used to be really good before they lost their whole cast and replaced them by the same kind of sanctimonious r-slurs that made the rest of roosterteeth unwatchable.

They removed all the edge that made funhouse great. The new cast would call hr if you tried to make them watch vr gay porn.

-- @OutKongged and @w1n5t0n

This is as good a time as any to bring up how RT podcasts and meta gaming content simply lost SOVL over time. The let's play formula Achievement Hunter pioneered requires entertaining people with chemistry. Parasocialmaxxers want to feel like they're watching friends play a game together. RT started sticking random "influencers" in front of the screen in the hopes of hitting it big on the algorithm, never mind that these were random people who didn't know each other and were always talking over each other. Losing more and more of their originals to scandals and retirement and replacing them with culture warrior/"zoomers like this kind of thing right?" types didn't help either.

The comedy that the original g*mer dudebro demographic liked disappeared and RT never grabbed the limited attention spans of youngins to replace them.

I don't think there were any other major RT events and scandals left to cover so we're gonna start skipping ahead. The following developments are recent enough to overlap with the history of rDrama.net and represent some of the final happenings in the history of the company.

In September '23 it was announced that RT's longrunning Achievement Hunter would no longer produce content. The stated reason for this was the entire AH cast moving onto different creative projects throughout Rooster Teeth -- BlackKrystel and Jack getting more involved at Inside Gaming, Ky working behind the scenes, Lindsay doing voice work and Twitch streams for RWBY V-Tubing, and Geoff and Gavin doing the thing mentioned in a following section. Meanwhile Trevor, Michael, Alfredo, and Joe created an entirely new channel called Dogbark, which premiered its first video in October.

Michael and others apparently felt stifled by the AH name but even the RT community wasn't super enthusiastic and the subreddit left comments like the following,

I wish ya'll the best, and I'll give it a fair shot, but this video doesn't instill confidence guys.

Im gonna be honest this trailer just gave me "We're trying to be Smosh" vibes

"The community has consistently told us they dont like scripted shorts or improv bits and want us to just go back to being 4 to 6 friends playing games together and shooting the shit. So we have decided to move to a new channel that is exclusively scripted shorts and improv bits"

Incredible.

great to see them leaning into their weaknesses

Views were never great.

Always Open (aka the finger me podcast)

DAE vaginas amirite, ladies?

-- @JimieWhales

In December Rt shut down All Good No Worries which was meant to be a network focusing on female fans (And yes s were involved namely Charlotte from Funhaus) This was also the third and final time the Always Open podcast had been put on pause.

In the wake of Achievement Hunter's dissolution Geoff and Gavin started the FrickFace Podcast with Andrew Panton as well as becoming the new hosts of Let's Play. Some have said this was more akin to old AH because it was back to being a group of RT originals playing the games. This was one of the more active groups in RT's final hours.

The fact that this was announced 30 minutes before the end of rooster teeth

-- /r/frickfacepod

One of the funnier moments of RT's closing Ratyboy Adventures is a game that Andrew Panton subjected FrickFace to in a Let's Play video. For whatever reason he then decided to buy the rights to the character and so on March 6th, 2024 it was announced that RatyBoy would become the official mascot of Let's Play.

This, erm, news came out just thirty minutes before it was announced RoosterTeeth as a whole would be shutting down

Anyway, this is just some noteworthy tidbits from RT's very late history. Remember the true and boring background cause of their collapse was declining ratings and stagnation over time.

The Fall

RT's cause of death is via shooting themselves in the foot way too much over the years, or death via a million and one papercuts if you prefer. A studio like theirs surviving twenty-one years should be a success story, but they've been treading water for so long it doesn't feel that way, and despite many fans being upset with WBD, for all we know, they only pulled the plug once RT's brain function fully stopped.

-- /r/RWBYcritics

And now we reach the end.

Since it's not a podcast I'll mention in this section that the last RTX convention was held in ‘23. The majority of the event staff was laid off later that year and in December General Manager Jordan Levin announced the cancellation of RTX 2024. He notably cited that the conventions had never been profitable. This was a major red flag to even the staunchest RoosterTeeth fan since the conventions had always been an important way of promoting projects and making deals with other companies.

Remember Red vs. Blue, the show that started all of this? RT continued making it over the 10's, even after RWBY became the primary IP and even after Bungie's Halo transitioned over to 343 After 18 seasons it was finally announced in July ‘23 that the longrunning web show, the longest in American history besides maybe Homestar Runner would end with the following season. I'm not sure if this was the result of RT's imminent closure or not but the RvB finale ended up being a movie instead of a full season, Red vs. Blue: Restoration. This is set to premiere in May of this year making it one of the last RT productions.

Most people considered RT's announcement to be a long overdue mercy kill to the Halo series people once watched on their CRT monitors But it's fitting in the end that Red vs. Blue lasted as long as RoosterTeeth itself.

My favourite quote from the Rooster Teeth subreddit today:

For me personally, Rooster Teeth shutting down feels like the equivalent to an ex-spouse getting killed in an accident.

— @AverageBen10Enjoyer

The decision to shut down RoosterTeeth came from Warner Bros Discovery. As far as I know there isn't a specific reason why it was closed down last month other than a simple case of bean counters taking a hard look at the data. Warner Bros itself has been having money issues lately and under the reign of Daddy Zaslav they've been slashing expenses left and right. 2023 saw RoosterTeeth announce that RTX was unprofitable, the end of Achievement Hunter, the end of Red vs. Blue, and the admission RWBY's last two seasons had gone over budget and that the show itself wouldn't have continued without Crunchyroll's support. It's not hard to see why WB didn't let it go on another year.

Everything RT that still exists; Funhaus, Frickface, The RoosterTeeth Podcast (Formerly The Drunk Tank), CRWBY, and whatever else is currently being looked over by WB execs (picture that for a moment ) IPs like RWBY and Gen:LOCK are allegedly being shopped around for potential buyers alongside the podcast and gaming networks.

Worth noting that on April 8th it was announced the Roost Podcast Network (not the same as the regular RoosterTeeth Podcast ) had been sold by WB to Night, a digital talent management company. I think this represents the first sale of a former RT property.

I'll also clarify that March 6th was only the shut down announcement date and that RT is going to continue operating until early May. This might be because Texas law requires employers to give at least 60 day notices before layoffs actually start. Funhaus and Frickface at least will continue until then and the RvB movie is supposedly still coming out.

Late Stage RWBY

RT died with a whimper, and RWBY died with a teenage girl committing suicide because she gave up hope and nobody cared about her, which was very prophetic if you ask me. Salem's goal was the world's longest suicide note, which is fitting because that's what happened to RWBY and RT as a whole.

— /r/rwbycritics

You may be wondering how RWBY was doing throughout all this? As evidenced by the thread quotes RWBY fans had gotten a little unhinged by the time the show's last volume rolled around. The fandom divide was thoroughly entrenched and people started acting like very soy echoes of dramanauts. RWBY became less a show and more a vector for online antics where the terminally online would fling at each other and celebrate if anything happened to the other side Honestly the evolution of the FNDM's "culture" could be its own effortpost but it's also kind of hard to translate for normie comprehension

Regarding the civil war, those hardcore fans rabidly loyal to CRWBY — largely represented by showrunners Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross — are known for having parasocial relationships with crew members not so unlike people who followed specific AH or Funhaus personalities. The writers preferred to interact with them over any unfair and mean spirited critics and certain developments like Blake and Yang being together are accused of being bones of appeasement thrown their way for ratings. The most hardcore CRWBY stans outright hate Monty and basically anyone who left the show's development for any reason because they're not seen as part of current RWBY.

The other half are the heckin chud critics — though really it's about one part one part and two parts but for fantasy waifu slop. These guys haven't liked RWBY in a long time and have been waiting patiently for it to end either out of desire for a reboot or because of pure schadenfreude.

This divide is very serious business in places like Reddit i.e. posting regularly in /r/RWBYcritics grants an automatic ban from /r/RWBY

For those of you mayo scrotes who watch video essays one of more infamous RWBY fandom developments came from a critical video by hbomberguy. Idk who he really is honestly but his three hour video in which he simply points out how disappointing RWBY is/has become set the FNDM on fire and was otherwise good for dramacoin I don't consider this sort of thing to be news but I'm bringing it up because to this day you can really make RWBY weirdos just by reminding them it exists. Any criticism of CRWBY's precious little baby is not allowed

Moistcritikal also apparently made a negative comment about RWBY once though I don't think it was a whole video. He's also on the list

As mentioned earlier CRWBY went through a difficult production period post Covid, but though it took almost two extra years and outside funding to make it happen, they finally did finish Volume 9 as of last year alongside the two Justice League movies that Kang really loved and recommends you watch. As Volume 9 finally ended its Crunchyroll exclusivity and premiered on RT just these past few months, CRWBY also announced they'd wrapped up preproduction on Volume 10 (though they do tend to exaggerate how much they've done at any time) and were just waiting for the green light on funding. When this didn't immediately happen, the poor bastards even started appealing directly to the fans at places like RTX for support

But with the extra content that's come out since Volume 9, there's also evidence CRWBY could see the writing on the walls and that they were preparing Volume 10 as a possible last season though they'd previously claimed to have a 12 Volume roadmap for the entire story.

They were just one Volume short in the end

The Fate of RWBY

This is the first comment on the first thread I clicked on in rwbycritics:

"It's strange, while my countrymen cheer the beast's fall, I feel a strange melancholy, after all these years, what once was filled with majesty and pride, goes out not with a blaze of glory, but a whimper in the dark."

So that's how they're taking it

— @HugeKongson

Obviously RoosterTeeth's shutdown kills RWBY too since this former passion project now costs seven figures a season to produce. The true fate of the IP is entirely in the air though. The legal rights now belong to Warner Bros or one of the other companies under them in the family tree and it remains to be seen what will happen. Meanwhile a spattering of newish RWBY developments have happened since March 6th.

Volume 9's release on RT FIRST still happened as planned. In a rare moment of RT generosity it was announced that all RWBY content would be free on the RoostrTeeth site until closure. (Though this does track with their treatment of FIRST members ) As it wrapped up CRWBY actually released a slightly extended version of the season's epilogue, albeit it took the form of an unfinished animatic.

This leads into RWBY: Beyond, a four episode "storybook anthology" that will represent the last official CRWBY content and otherwise wrap up RoosterTeeth's tenure with the show. It actually premieres today

Unfortunately all the post RWBY shutdown content looks like this since the budget's gone.

But at least there's something since otherwise the below image would be true.

Alas the Justice League movies still represent the last properly animated RWBY content ever made by RoosterTeeth.

So what will happen to RWBY now? It entirely depends on whether WB finds a buyer or not and whether or not they can agree on a price. Unless some exec decides there's a lot of potential in the RWBY x DC stuff I doubt they'll want to make use of the IP especially since they'd have to find new producers.

Remember Dillon Gu and Shane Newville from earlier? After being banished from RoosterTeeth for violating the CRWBY Covenant they went on to have their own animation studio and make videos like the one above. A lot of the studio's work is obviously RWBY inspired.

Dillon Gu has expressed interest in acquiring RWBY but I doubt they have the money Warner Bros will ask for. I'm still bringing it up because all the nerds are hoping for this so it could be a good source of seethe if it doesn't happen that way.

The most likely potential buyer is probably Crunchyroll. RWBY has actually been one of their most popular shows over the years and was fairly popular in Japan for a western series. In fact RWBY was the most watched anime in Japan on Crunchyroll for the 2010's.

For the moment RWBY will remain on Crunchyroll even after the RT website disappears and if nothing else WB will talk to Crunchyroll about renewing that deal or not. It's quite possible Crunchyroll will look into buying the IP though it's not confirmed yet.

If no one buys RWBY then it will remain in the hands of Daddy Zaslav WB is the same company that made a Batgirl and Wile E. Coyote movie and chose not to release them. With the latter WB didn't even negotiate with attempted distributors. They just opened with an unreasonably high offer and refused to respond to counter offers.

So yeah who knows what'll happen to RWBY. I just wanted a fighting game out of it

CLOSING THOUGHTS

They are Austin, Texascels who drank California grade wokism but didn't have ANY of the California chuds or safety rails to rein in their bullshit and quickly alienated their fanbase.

— @KoreanKongKing

They had frickin huge billboard ads up in the heart of Austin overlooking i35 for the lazer team release- probably some of the most expensive in the city. , all of them.

— @Konggles

I've only tangentially followed the fall of Roosterteeth as a podcast I listen to was on their network, but in general I deeply hate how what ten years ago was framed as “independent creators can make things” has become so many levels of frickery.

— /r/hobbydrama

It's their 20th anniversary this year, and literal no one gives a frick. It's absolutely that this company that was pretty well loved on the internet and had a big enough fanbase to support a yearly convention has petered out to a corpse that's being puppeted by media corpos. I remember religious watching up to 2015 and leaving when Ray did. It's telling that Ray even gets brought up anymore going on 8 years since his exit.

— @DiamondKong

I've written three effortposts now so I don't have a lot to say here. Really I'm just waiting to see what happens to RWBY.

It is sad yet interesting to me that RoosterTeeth was in decline for as long as they'd been successful if not longer. No one was surprised to hear they'd be shut down. Most people only reminisced about when they'd been better.

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/3bgfa3/the_blood_gulch_chronicles_versus_the_later/?sort=controversial

If you want more info this hobbydrama post, while a little soy, is pretty informative especially regarding the podcasts and how YouTube's policy changes harmed RT over time.

And for you ypipo out there here's a YouTube video essay

This account is private

This user has enabled private mode to cloak their posting history.

— @ProterozoicBussy

ProterozoicBussy wanted me to quote him so I went to his profile on an alt and saw this and anyway I fulfilled my end of the bargain.

Also if any of you dramanauts have RWBY: Grimm Eclipse on Xbox then HMU I still need the four person achievements before the servers maybe go offline.

On the 23rd of May 2004, a young 22-year-old boy woke up and, that afternoon in his apartment stabbed his roommate George Chen 94 times, his second roommate Cheng Hong 25 times, and a third visitor Weihang Wan 15 times. Following this, he took his laptop, entered his BMW 328i coupe, and drove to Starbucks to purchase a coffee before, later that evening, driving to Alpha Phi sorority house at The University of California Santa Barbara with intentions of slaughtering everyone in the building. Failing to gain entry, he opened fire at three passing sorority sisters, killing two. He then re-entered his BMW, drove up Pardall Road and fired into an empty coffee shop as well as a Delhi, killing another student. After ramming several other pedestrians along Isla Vista police finally caught up to him and proceeded to exchange fire with the 22-year-old. They managed to shoot into the passenger's side and wound him in the hip. The night, which would come to be known as the Isla Vista Massacre, ended with the 22-year-old taking his own life with a bullet to the head.

Unfortunately, mass shootings of this nature aren't particularly rare. However, unlike most mass shooters, the 22-year-old, whose name is Elliot Rodger, had a Youtube channel (which is still up) along with a 142-page manifesto detailing exactly why he chose to commit this heinous crime he coined the “Day of Retribution”.

In his own words: “I cannot kill every single female on earth, but I can deliver a devastating blow that will shake all of them to the core of their wicked hearts. I will attack the very girls who represent everything I hate in the female gender”. Today, I will be looking at the body issues described by Elliot Rodger in his manifesto – namely his height, race, and masculinity. For each of the three body issues I'll be analyzing the poor – and eventually deadly – ways Elliot Rodger chose to deal with them which all involve a lust for power in order to reassert his masculinity. Due to the fact that Elliot Rodger had a history of mental illness prior it may be a futile task to try to find sense in his actions. However, I still think the fact that his mental illness manifested in such extreme misogyny is indicative of the society he grew up in and thus makes him a worthy subject of study.

Height

One of the insecurities that constantly come up in Elliot's manifesto is his height. It's spoken of so intensely that it borders on obsession. From a young age Elliot believes that he is smaller than the rest of his peers and, as a result, often feels inferior, intimidated, disempowered and dominated by everyone around him. One of the shining examples from the manifesto that mark the beginnings of Elliot's height anxiety is when he visits Universal Studios and is too short to board the amusement rides: Elliot writes: “The ride that I was so excited to enjoy at the theme park was forbidden to me. I immediately fell into a crying tantrum, and my mother had to comfort me. Being denied entry on a simple amusement park ride due to my height may seem like only a small injustice, but it was big for me at time. Little did I know, this injustice was very small indeed compared to all the things I'll be denied in the future because of my height.”

From this incident we see the seeds of his insecurities being sown. What was in actual fact a simple safety measurement put in place for practical reasons, Elliot Rodger interpreted as society telling him that because of his height he would be cordoned off from some of the joys of life. The feelings of inferiority that arise from this complex are revealed in another incident that occurs when young Elliot goes on camp is bullied by a taller girl. Surprisingly, Rodger is quite a descriptive writer is able to express his feelings quite eloquently. When speaking on the incident, he writes: “It made me feel like an insignificant, unworthy little mouse. I felt so small and vulnerable.”

It's clear that his height was a notable source of anxiety. One of the ways this manifests in his life is through an intense jealousy for men taller than him who were successful with women. In Elliot's own words: “Jealousy and envy… those are two feelings that would dominate my entire life and bring me immense pain.”. Elliot's younger brother Jazz becomes one of the biggest targets of Elliot's jealousy. When he speaks about his brother, Elliot rodger says “I realized how much different my brother Jazz was from me at that age. While I was shy, short, and physically weak; Jazz was tall for his age and very social. He had no problem going up to other boys at the playground and making instant friends. I began to form a bitter envy towards him, though I hid it really well. My little brother had all the potential to grow up to be a popular kid and live the life I was never able to live. I cursed the world for granting my little brother Jazz so many more advantages than me.”. His jealousy grows so intense that in Elliot Rodger's initial plan for the Day of Retribution, he had intended to first drive to his stepmother's house and kill Jazz because he couldn't bear to have his brother grow up and surpass him. Luckily, things didn't go as planned, Elliot never went to his stepmother's house and Jazz was spared.

Elliot's jealousy isn't completely unexpected.

Elliot seems to cope with the inferiority complex arising from his height anxiety by embracing an extreme narcissism as a defensive mechanism. He puts on a façade of an extremely confident individual, calls himself the “supreme gentleman” and convinces himself that he is a god amongst men. However, what strikes me as the most confusing detail is that Elliot Rodger was actually 5'9 or 175cm. The average height for an American male is 5'10 making him a negligible one inch below the average. This leads me to suspect that a lot of the perceived heightism he experienced might have been in his own head.

Race

Unfortunately, height is one of Elliot's more benign insecurities. The second body issue that surfaces in his manifesto is his race. With a Caucasian father and Asian mother Elliot Rodger was mixed race, something he was far from happy about. He believed that due to his mixed-race status, he was being rejected by his peers. As Elliot Rodger says: “On top of this was the feeling that I was different because I am of mixed race. I am half White, half Asian, and this made me different from the normal fully-white kids that I was trying to fit in with.

This form of self-hate due to race can be seen as a form of internalized racism which can be defined as “an individual's conscious and unconscious acceptance of a racial hierarchy in which whites are consistently ranked above People of Colour”. One of the ways this internalized racism is expressed is through an idolization of the white race. Throughout the manifesto, he expresses a fetishization of whiteness, especially tall, blonde white females who are often the subject of his sexual fantasies.

He tends to cope with this internalised racism not by empowering himself but by denigrating others. He tends to find races he believes to be lower than him on the social hierarchy and imposes on them the same discrimination and prejudice he feels he has been subjected to. One of the most disturbing times this occurs is when, in college, Elliot hears a black student talk about how he lost his virginity to a blonde white girl at age 13. Elliot snaps, runs to his room and cries before calling his mother and crying to her on the phone. He expresses his extreme racism when he says: “How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves. I deserve it more. I tried not to believe his foul words, but they were already said, and it was hard to erase from my mind. If this is actually true, if this ugly black filth was able to have s*x with a blonde white girl at the age of thirteen while I've had to suffer virginity all my life, then this just proves how ridiculous the female gender is. They would give themselves to this filthy scum, but they reject ME? The injustice!”

A similar incident occurs when Elliot Rodger goes out to a restaurant with his father and finds a Mexican man with white blonde female. The sight alone of an interracial relationship infuriates him and he is further enraged by the fact that he believes that he, as a half-white male, was worthier of the blonde. When expressing his frustrations, Elliot says: How could an inferior Mexican guy be able to date a white blonde girl, while I was still suffering as a lonely virgin? I was ashamed to be in such an inferior position in front my father. When I saw the two of them kissing, I could barely contain my rage. I stood up in anger, and I was about to walk up to them and pour my glass of soda all over their heads. I probably would have, if father wasn't there. I was seething with envious rage, and my father was there to watch it all. It was so humiliating. I wasn't the son I wanted to present to my father. I should be the one with the hot blonde girl, making my father proud. Instead, my father had to watch me suffer in a pathetic position.”

Masculinity

The third anxiety that Elliot Rodger mentions is his masculinity which I believe may have been at the centre of all his other issues. Everything else he mentions from his height to his virginity seem to offend him because they draw away from his masculinity. He often compares himself to his male peers and feels as though he doesn't size up to them. He also sees girls rejecting him as an attack on his masculinity. To Elliot, s*x and having a girlfriend were rites of passage into manhood and failing to achieve those things while his peers did inspired feeling of inferiority within him. In the ninth grade Elliot hears his friend talking about losing his virginity and upon hearing this he says: “I felt so inferior to him, and I hated him.”

In Elliot's mental landscape masculinity becomes a constant competition and failing to acquire the tokens of masculinity was a sign of failure and something to be ashamed of. Thus, because of his virginity, Elliot believed that other men didn't view him as a peer. Elaborating on this idea, Elliot says: “I had to suffer the shame of other boys respecting me less because I didn't get any girls. Everyone knew I was a virgin. Everyone knew how undesirable I was to girls, and I hated everyone just for knowing it. I want people to think that girls adore me. I want to feel worthy.”. The unfortunate thing is that Elliot's anxiety may not be completely unfounded. Throughout his manifesto examples can be found of Elliot being mocked by his male peers which points to the fact Elliot may very well have been genuinely persecuted for not living up to societal standards of masculinity.

Interestingly, Elliot makes up for his emasculation by aggressively performing masculinity in other ways mainly through the desire for the acquisition and control of resources. Shopping for clothing becomes a therapeutic habit for Elliot as he believes buying expensive clothing will make women like him better. Of course relating to others is much more complex than that and as a result Elliot's plans to get a girlfriend by wearing expensive clothing fails. He also develops a weird obsession with the lottery, going so far as to travel to other states when the jackpot was big enough. Again, he believes that by becoming rich he will be respected and girls will like him more.

Due to his constant social failure and perceived emasculation, Elliot Rodger grows an obsession with power which ultimately leads to the Isla Vista Mass Shooting. From the manifesto it becomes evident that Elliot's motivation for the mass shooting was to make himself feel heard and feel powerful and the only way he believed he could do that was through an act of terror. As the manifesto proceeds and the perceived rejections pile on, the character of Elliot grows much darker, much more interested in controlling others and the misogyny and violent fantasies grow more frequent.

It is my belief that Elliot's masculinity issues and subsequent desire for power were key pieces in why he wanted to enact the “Day of Retribution”. All the previously mentioned incidents Elliot viewed as society conspiring against him and deeming him unworthy. Thus, his attack was a way of reasserting himself and proving he was a powerful person. Elliot Rodger himself says that much in his manifesto. In perhaps his most lucid explanation for his motivations, he writes: Women's rejection of me was a declaration of war. They insulted me by deeming me inferior of their love and s*x. They hate me, and I will return that hatred one-thousand fold. I will inflict suffering on everyone in Isla Vista, just like they have made me suffer. In the past, I have always been at their mercy, and I was given none. On the Day of Retribution, everyone will be at my mercy, and in turn I will show them no mercy at all. My Retribution will be so devastating that it will shake the very foundations of the world.”

In conclusion, what Elliot had planned for the day of retribution was far worse than what had actually happened and his plan reads like a maniac's fantasy for power. He originally intended to sever the heads of his victims and roll them on the street so that everyone would respect him as a god. How Elliot Rodger's mental illnesses manifested tell us a lot about the narratives that society had made available to him for his ideas weren't born in an isolated mind but one which was, like all other minds, entrenched in the paradigms of the times. From this tragedy, we learn that ideas of women being pawns in the game of masculinity are still very much alive. We also learn that leaving these problems unaddressed and unresolved can have deadly consequences.

Goodbye!

Greetings Dramatards

I've had a crushing weak, and I believe I've had my soul broken by the confluence of corruption and societal-dysfunction amalgamating this week, into one unendurable boiling point.

I've spent the past year informing dramatards through various neurodivergent ramblings about the corruption and dysfunctions in modern South Africa, often trying to disguise them as Drama-effortposts, but usually they were vehicles for me to b-word into the ether of the internet about my daily problems, and bore dramatards about happenings in Safrica.

By this point in my lifespan, I've become accustomed to corruption and infrastructure-decay due to the poor leadership in government, and in usual circumstance are not affected by it. All the endless potholes, the serial theft unchallenged by incompetent police, all of the endless infrastructure-decay I had become so hardened to, that they were like inconsequential raindrops soaking down my skin, and i have never minded getting wet in under storms.

But I reached an abnormal breaking point this week, as various corruption related insanities had me aghast and my temper-fuse shortened into half a broken matchstick - felt an emotion of hopelessness and anguish which I could not process, and was physically twitching like spazzing druggy the whole week, with no mind as to how to vent out my compounded frustrations.

IRL i would snap at people not deserving of it, and even here on rDrama.net I behaved erratically; I believed I behaved very cruelly to Sneedman, and took out my frustration on him in a really mean-spirited comment, but i was so mouth foaming I dont even remember the cause of my triggering, or what precisely I had said, but I'm to cowardly to even go back and check in my shame.

I then remembered that the last time I was at such a corruption related breaking point, was more than I year ago, when I bitched into the void on rDrama.net about Loadshedding at its peak in RSA, and how surprisingly many dramatards would be curious and inquired about the circumstances of the country.

And in that time, I found the humor and stupidity of the corruption, and how fun it was regale other online autismos about the insane corruption stories of the country, instead of being angry all the time.

So let me regale you r-slurs about some depraved stories of corruption

MUNICIPAL TRASH-COLLECTORS STRIKES:

In South Africa, every municipality, or large Capital City government (like Cape Town), is supposed to be responsible for organizing the collection of trash and refuse from all homes within the vicinity of their rule. Once a week a trash-lorry is supposed to come to the neighborhood/suburb/township, and collect the refuse which is typically expected to be contained within plastic black bags.

In small towns (like most of the Free State province), the trash-collector teams are small, and thus spread out the collection of trash over the workweek of Monday==>Friday. With every sector of the city/town getting a designated date upon which the trash-collector teams will traverse through and collect the expected trash-bags placed upon the street curbs or outside the gates of the various homes.

IF you are lucky and live in a less-dysfunctional municipality, then the local gov will even have a timetable communicated to the residents of the town, and each city sector or suburb will know which day of the week the darn trash-lorry arrives to fricking come and collect the refuse and trash. Most municipalities in the Free State are so inept, and are such a black-hole of non-communication towards their residents, that you don't always know exactly WHEN the trash lorries arrive, or what your neighborhood's designated day of the week is supposed to be

For most in the Free State, you either guess by hearing in the morning the trash-lorries busy emptying the large wheeled plastic bins in which trash or trash bags are placed, and then come to the conclusion that Thursdays are your sector's trash day of the week, or you have to ask your neighbours. Sometimes even then, there is no absolute certainty, as the incompetence of both the municipality leadership, and the Trash-lorries Trade-unions can have the darn timetables in complete fricking disarray!!

Now most of you may be confused as to why I'm harping on about the trash-collection dates and timetables, most of you in functioning countries will say: kaamrev, you autismo spaz, just place the refuse-bags outside your house the whole week, and the trash-lorries will arrive eventually to come pick them up! Which is true, even if the trash-lorries are late by two days, leaving your refuse bags or filled up plastic bins outside will lend the certainty that they will be picked up eventually.

========

But in South Africa there is an additional feature of living in our dysfunctional society: namely trash-beggars or trash-pickers. These are souls who are so low on the totem pole, so poor and destitute that they unveil themselves to a decrepit lifestyle which even ordinary beggars would not succumb to.

Many foreigners and tourists are familiar with the spectacle of beggars hounding the Robots of Stop-streets, as they beg and make themselves a nuisance to tourists to unaccustomed to such behaviour, and often make themselves a target of petty theft.

https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/kwazulu-natal/police-urge-motorists-not-to-give-to-beggars-at-robots-44581093

https://www.news24.com/news24/community-newspaper/tygerburger/beggars-the-ire-of-table-view-and-milnerton-residents-20220913

These types of beggars can range from benign desperate poor old people (black and white) trying their best in a ravaged economy, selling brooms by old black ladies, or selling fudge and other bread by old white ladies with no retirement funds - and can range to the insidious charlatans who scope out easy theft-targets, and harass tourists, and sell chinese crap.

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/8cykkl/do_you_give_to_people_begging_at_the_robots/?sort=controversial

https://www.tripadvisor.co.za/ShowTopic-g312659-i9466-k10165035-o20-Aggressive_beggars_at_traffic_lights_robots-Cape_Town_Central_Western_Cape.html

Then there are the really REALLY insidious beggars who go so far as to destroy and sabotage traffic-lights, so that the traffic in 4-point stops are deliberately slowed for more begging opportunities, I'm not joking.

======

Yet even these types of traffic-robot beggars are less despised by all of safricans, that trash-pickers, who are people who dig through the trash which more fortunate South Africans place out in their black bags for their Trash-day. Even trasffic-street beggars are a whole economic level above trash-pickers, and it's hilarious to hear a streetcorner beggar talk about trash-pickers in disparaging terms, as if he himself wasn't clad in torn haggard clothing.

What makes these beggars and trash-pickers such a menace is that they have very little regard to what mess they make when searching through the trash and refuse bags of people they deign to malign.

God help you if it's a windy day in autumn, as especially callous trash-pickers will just rip open refuse-bags and dump them on your sidewalk. You come home to papers and plastic debris having flown all across your front yard, and all across your driveway, as the trash-lorries crew will only ever pick up the whole plastic bags, regardless if they have been emptied.

Thus it is a timing race between homeowners to place their refuse-bags outside of their gates/fences just in time for the trash-lorries arriving, without giving trash-pickers the opportunity to pollute your driveway, or bring ruination to your bags or trash-bin.

I've seen black owners lose their temper and chase trash-pickers away with their gardening rakes, as they had to time and again clean up the disgusting food remains of old fly-ridden bones or rotting apple cores from their polluted sidewalk. I've seen white owners unleash their bulldogs after waiting for trash pickers to frick up their trash bags. I've seen black gardeners chase trash pickers away with gardening sheers

Many homeowners don't even have the option to strategically place their refuse outside for trash-day. They have to go to work, most usually at 8AM, and have to leave their trash "exposed" for pilfering before the trash-collector crews can arrive to pick up the refuse-bags.

You can thus see the importance for homeowners in having at least some idea of when the trash-lorries will arrive, as leaving you trash-bags out for days, will expose them to looting and ruination by trash-pickers who will leave your sidewalk with I'm told that a similar race and strategic placements occur in Burgerland in the regions where the animal known as raccoons reside, as raccoons are also known for polluting a burger's driveway with their carefully placed refuse.

Additionally I've seen liberals in places like UCT moan and minge that mistreatment of trash-pickers, especially as they are so stiflingly poor, usually black, is a mistreatment and human rights abuse especially by the white upper middle class Bong Capetonians, and thus was emblematic of the economic disparity between races - but trash-pickers do not relegate themselves to merely vandalizing wealthy white neighborhoods, they malign lower-middle class coloured neighbourhoods just as frequently as the absence of security allows. In black inland townships trash-pickers live closest and cause the most pollution

This is not some Robin Hood story of the decadent elite whites being robbed by poor desperate people of color having to dig through trash to survive, the trash-pickers are a true menace for everyone who owns a home or even rents a place.

https://groundup.org.za/article/jhb-waste-pickers-face-routine-harassment/

On the other hand there are more benign and desperate poor trash-pickers who make a living collecting plastic for Recycling in these huge bags they pull on trolleys, and actively try to make themselves less of a nuisance by carefully filtering through trash, and even tie the black refuse-bags closed, once they are finished, and deliberately don't try to aggrieve the homeowner whose trashbags and bins they are picking from. And these are desperate people doing the best that they can in our godforsaken economy .

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Thus you can see how misery of Safricans are compounded by our incompetent trash-lorry crews, in that they often arrive late, if they even arrive. And for most small towns in South Africa there has been even MORE dysfunction by the Trash-Collector's Trade Union, having a massive scuffle with municipalities like the Matjabeng and Moqhaka leadership.

You see for the past year, our butthole trash-lorries crew had the galaxy brain idea to only work during overtime which is the weekends. All manual labour jobs, such as trash-collector teams usually have an overtime clause in their contract as per Safrican labour laws.

But our corrupt Trash-collector trade unions, have abused this clause, by deliberately not doing any work during the weekdays of Mondays==>Fridays, and only arriving to work on Saturdays and Sundays, and thuse collect double-pay for overtime. This is usually when everyone is at church or away for shopping ,and not at home to place their refuse-bags and bins as they hear the trash-lorries appraoching

Thus these corrupt fricks have raced through suburb and township and collected the minimum amount of trash, and claimed they have done their job, the residents are the ones at fault for not having place their bags outside, it's not their responsibility!!!

And thus many people languish with up to 4-8 weeks worth of trash in their yards, gathering flies and maggots after the rot of inevitable food refuse. And sometimes the frickers when they eventually arrive, refuse to pick up more than a set amount of bags, cuz one house is only supposed to be allocated 10 bags per driveby, but there's more than 10 fricking bags because these bozos have been absent from their job for 8 weeks REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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For the past 4 months, in this staggering sweltering heatwave in the Free State, almost every municipality had trashlorry strikes, and the union laws are so powerful, that they cannot even be fired. Public Unions are in my worldview a menace to humanity, Private sector unions have a place in society like actor's unions or whatever to confront Corporatism. But Public sector Unions like teacher's unions and trash-colelctor's unions have crippled societies to a standstill.

Even more r-slurred in the Central Free state region, the munipality have refused to pay the Trash-collectors for the time in which they had striked in the 1st two month of the year - SO NOW THEY ARE STRIKING BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOT BEEN PAID FOR STRIKING 1ST.

I had to personally clean up literal maggots from the driveway of the place I rent front this week, as once again the bags had not been collected on the designated day, and the refuse had been spilled everywhere by indifferent trash-pickers

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But the climax of the insanity of this situation has not yet been reached. Because having to wait literal months for the trash-lorries to arrive had become so intolerable, and the municipal leadership so defunct to deal with the situation, many entrepreneurial Safricans have been quick to advertise their services as private trash-collecting companies. I'm not joking.

Many companies for the past year would advertise their services and making a living, by plastering their phone numbers all over malls, cafes, school notice boards, and so on. And they have reached widespread use.

https://www.facebook.com/CJDromDienste/

Here is an example of a guy literally just fricking advertising his services on Facebook, which is a popular place for Boomers in SA still.

They even have officially painted cars after 2 years of existence by now!

Just imagine the reality where residents have to actively hire a private company to come and collect their refuse, and drive it away to dumpsites, because the ruling government is parralized with corruption and infighting. Worse yet still, it is once again the poorest who suffer the consequences of this dysfunction, middle class and up are able to afford the measly sum of R160 per month to take their refuse away, but even such a paltry sum is too much to bear for those living in the poorest regions of a township.

Then there is the Nala municipality, which by reputation and gossip is apparently the WORST place in the entire province, as entire streets are just covered from pavement to curb in plastic and paper, OMG.

TRAIN ELECTRIC WIRES AND COPPER CABLES STOLEN:

Transnet is South Africa's government public company responsible for our trains, rails and ports, just like ESKOM is for our electricity. Well their ineptitude towards security, has meant that a staggery and crippling amount of cable theft has taken place in the past 4 years all over the Western Cape and Free State region.

Both me and my employer have personally witnessed with our own eyes the lack of electric cables, for the electric trains are dependent upon to traverse across our railroads, just gone for hundreds of kilometers, all the way from the Western reaches of teh province.

https://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-and-courts/free-state-man-found-with-stolen-transnet-copper-cables-sentenced-to-15-years-behind-bars-762b2bdb-bc06-4e14-b981-1e769c00faef

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

https://www.ofm.co.za/article/centralsa/317873/free-state-municipality-suffers-huge-loss-over-cable-theft

The police are too worthless, lazy and corrupt to either investigate these thefts, or to patrol our railway lines.

And to compound our national misery, the constant loadshedding have afforded thieves the opportunity to easily steal these copper electric wires, while the power is off, as they had never been built with anti-theft in mind, as it was presumed in their construction that the power would always be on, and thus deadly for anyone physically touching them.

Regular electrical cables for transporting power to homes are just as frequently stolen. The suburb I'm renting from, had 3 cable thefts in the past 14 months, leaving us in the darkness even after Loadshedding was over.

https://groundup.org.za/article/cable-thieves-target-mangaung-communities-during-loadshedding/

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But the worst are when specific gangs target a suburb or railway line. There are two traffic robots between where I work and sleep, that have remained unfixed for over 2 years, because each time the municipality actually come and repair them, thieves just steal their wiring, as they are out of town, and out of sight, thus they have been relegated as 4-point traffic stops.

Other gangs will target traffic stops to steal all of the copper wire from the power poxes in a suburbs power-station when there is loadshedding. This has become so frequent that municipalities and private security have to place armed guards

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2023-05-08-government-spends-r146m-for-soldiers-to-protect-eskom-power-stations/

In some critical power-stations, ESKOM and the national government even places armed SADF patrols and watchposts to prevent cable theft. But they couldn't even do that permanently because it was too expensive to have so many patrols and watchposts for SADF.

https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/south-african-military-to-guard-power-stations-after-record-power-outages/

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2023-05-08-government-spends-r146m-for-soldiers-to-protect-eskom-power-stations/

Many corrupt informers work with the cable theft gangs, informing them of the precise timetables of loadshedding, and many scrapyard owners are also corrupt and buy stolen copper wires.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/18313-south-africa-s-illegal-copper-trade-dismantles-critical-infrastructure-at-all-levels

=======(from article)

Every day in South Africa, petty thieves and transnational organized crime groups siphon off the country's copper supplies from pennies to millions of dollars at a time. The result is billions in losses every year and a dismantling of critical infrastructure that shakes the public's quality of life to its core.

From mines to construction projects to any sites where copper cables are found, criminals steal whatever they can, no matter how much or how little. So pervasive is its allure for a quick score or a big payday that the yearly losses negatively impact the country at all levels, from energy, to transportation and mining, according to a recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

From mines to construction projects to any sites where copper cables are found, criminals steal whatever they can, no matter how much or how little. So pervasive is its allure for a quick score or a big payday that the yearly losses negatively impact the country at all levels, from energy, to transportation and mining, according to a recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

But such opportunity for growth and expansion means that criminal interest for the soft metal is widespread, especially when buyers can purchase it stolen for a third of the price, according to GI-TOC.

It's not only small-time thieves who are responsible for the grand scale larceny of the country's copper reserves. Syndicates made up of dozens of individuals have the resources and funding necessary to steal bulk amounts and transport it offsite to black market dealers, GI-TOC said.

While some of the stolen copper filters through the black market and back into the country's economy, a lot of it is ultimately exported to clients able to pay more. This problem is made worse by the fact that holes in the port industry and cases of customs fraud see the metal slip out undetected, either mislabeled or with the right people on the ground paid off.

By far the biggest buyer is China. In 2021, China acquired roughly 85% of all scrap metal exported out of South Africa.

Though that is not to say that importers are aware their purchases were procured illegally, Chinese triad groups reportedly have a strong interest and presence in South Africa. They are also well-integrated in local smuggling networks that siphon off the country's natural resources, according to GI-TOC.

=========(end article)

Yes we have literal fricking Chinese Triad gangs working with local copper-cable thief gangs, to smuggle stolen recycled copper to china!!

CONSTRUCTION CORRUPTION:

We've seen several projects this week completed for the development of RDP homes. RDP homes are government subsidized homes which provides beneficiaries with a fully built house that is built free of charge by the Government.

This was an initiative by the Nelson Mandela admin back in 1995, and in my personal opinion on of the best persisting initiatives of the RSA gov. You guys have seen the steriotypical south african squatter sink homes?

Well the Mandela admin made the initiative that the gov should build proper brick and mortar homes for all residents, and over 30 years several million homes have been built taking people out of homelessness and squatting, and into a properly built residential township, with planned laid out water and electrical utilities, approved by Town Planners, and laid ouw ith streets.

Of course like all government programs under the control of the ANC, this has also withered into shit over the decades. The absolute amount of money siphoned off by corrupt offcials, meant for buying construction materials, or paying builders is staggering and mind-raping. The amount of nepotism and tender corruption is just crushing.

The result of the usual ANC corruption, is that the costs of building these homes ballooned to many magnitudes to what they are supposed to be! And thus the planned 100 new RDP homes for which a municiplaity planned to build in their annual budget year, will inevitably be restricted to a mere 30 homes or such.

As an example to the atrocious effects which tender-corruption of nepotistic Municipalities can have upon a project, I have for example an uncle who builds windpumps in the Free State for a living.

He tender his services for government and farmers alike, and on average he would ask about R25 000 to construct one windpump, to either supply an animal crib, or supply additional water for a water tank for a newly built residential RDP township.

In that R25 000, it includes the labor costs and building material, and maybe he takes home 15 000 at the end. Well in order to even ALLOW the construction of any project or feature like a windpump withing the jurisdiction of a municipality, a tender waiver needs to be signed and approved by several clerks. I've heard horror stories where the same tender approval needs a concurrent bribe from official to offcial within the labyrinth of a Free State municipality's bureaucracy.

And that same R25 000 needs a further bribe just for the PERMISSION and approval of construction to begin, and sign and stamp of an illiterate individual who's never even seen a windpump, or even touched it, and they have to give their approval for the project to begin. And one the tender had proceeded through conveyor belt of bribes, that same R25 000, will cost the municipality a colossal R110 000 just to finish the construction

So some fat clerk can pocket R50 000 just for his signature and stamp, while the men doing the hard labour, will have to eat the cost of the orginal construction. In this manner the price of RDP construction balloons and far exceeds the originally national budget allocated for each provincial government, and every fricking year the national government will come screaming to each municipality, asking where the frick are the RDP homes!!!???

The worst part is that RDP homes are a lifeline and a hope for many poor impoverished black peeps, who often are on a literal waiting list 10 years long.

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This week and the months before, we surveyors had encountered a crushing level of corruption in the finished RDP homes in one of the townships we regularly survey in. It was brutal and blatant the corruption and stupidity involved with these two projects that it was like a cold iced bucket frown in your face.

The 1st: The fricking engineers didn't install a sewage system in a multi story building.

Whatever brilliant foreign Nigerian was hired had this brilliant 3 story building building constructed, which we had to come and survey the Sectional Title of, and to our disgust and dismay discoeverd that there were no sewage outpipes installed. Water could come in, but could not come out.

You could not flush your potty and water from the sink had nowhere to go, but through your flat. The whole building was a catastrophe. There were like 12 families waiting with lights in their eyes to come and live in this place after waiting literal years on the RDP waitlist, and we had to go inform them and the municipality who had hired us for this job, of this impending shitshow. The people could not life there, the whole structure would have to be overhauled or destroyed and rebuilt.

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Finally this week my employer and I would visit another worksite where RDP homes had been built by dodgy developers, and once more we would be utterly dismayed to the corruption and stupidity involved with the entirety of the project.

I had no personal stake in the matter, and no matter how badly the homes were built, our private company would be paid regardless, yet even I was in shock at the horror which was before us, on behalf of the poor people who would realize that their homes would be near unlivable.

The buildings were built by amateurs, the walls and roofs were scewed. But most of all, the walls were SOLID

The corrupt developers had not installed the electric wires and water pipes as they were supposed to between the walls, as the brick and mortar was gradually built. Instead as sloppy job of walls and roofing had been done in a massively hasty manner, without any attempt to even install electricity and water piping or sewage outflow.

Worse yet still, was that the frickers had disguised their ineptitude with mock ups. They had received pottys and taps and baths, and had actually installed them, in the sense that they had just placed the taps and shower heads into the raw concrete to make it look like they were attached to piping within the solid walls.

Light switches were basically plastered into the painted concrete walls, with no electrical utilities behind them. The poor souls arriving in these homes would turn taps unconnected to any water flow, and push switches, unconnected to wires, into the walls.

My employer had ripped the bath taps out of the solid walls, and pulled out light switches to show the municipal representatives this utterly kak job

As surveyors we are often the 1st in the field, before there are even bulldozers to clear the overgrown worksite, and I am often inquired by desperate poor peeps when the RDP homes are complete. We dont work for the municipality, we are independent private contractors who are hired by them.

Whomever corrupt official signed off on this tender is always unknown when the questions and anger starts flying, and we surveyors are often inline by desperate peeps when their homes are basically unlivable.

Anyways that's all the corruption stories I have for today.

GOOD night.