shmups.system11.org

I imagine part of what changed (at least more recently) is youtube and social media. There's a difference between a black and white film shot and a video that can be instantly uploaded and seen by potentially millions.

Going back much farther cameras were more novel, film just a bit valuable and probably few subjects had any notion of an image being of any use outside of being a snapshot, artistic or otherwise.

There's also a difference between a human holding a camera with the intent to to capture something specific vs a cctv camera that silently records everything even an empty street. I can imagine most people are pretty naive about how often they're on camera, or they tune it out. As far as the cops in that case it could be they were conscious of the evidence being recorded, but didn't feel like they were that far out of bounds given how common police brutality is and how rarely it gets punished. Even the cops who beat Rodney King got off.

I knew a guy back in the day who planned sort of an epic tour of the country doing art photography of people. IIRC he used a false pretense to approach people, like he was with an agency promoting clean water or something. He ended up getting his camera broken and severely beaten to the point of hospitalization bc he approached the wrong people with a camera. This was probably more than 20 years ago? So there's also just the random factor where you need to watch yourself in certain places or around certain people.

Oh they agree there's something wrong with the system, they just have their own ideas about what it is and how to fix it.

Probably we should start by giving every kid in America a JR-15.

https://youtu.be/3vqSCdVbDl4

The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good kid with a gun.

You'll shoot your eye out.

I think I know what little Jimmy wants for Christmas. A real semi-automatic assault rifle that fits right in his stocking.

It's a interesting conversation, and I'll entertain anyone that wants to have it, but I won't change my mind. Some of the best photos ever (most of them I'd argue) were taken on the street, without the subject even knowing. To one up the conversation, if there was some type of law passed which did grant anyone on the street a right to privacy (which they currently don't in most cuntries), then think of the field day unscrupulous assholes could have enforcing that for people that accidentally get some shit head in their selfie.



A lot has changed. The deal is most people get uppity at the guy walking around the street with a camera in plain view... and yes while they zone out on the CCTV cameras that are everywhere, they seem oblivious to the other guys that take photos incognito on their phone, all the fucking time. While I think the style is definitely not for me, Bruce Gilden's unapologetic (but thankful) approach is entertaining.

I think we all know what you're really up to here.



Degenerate.

100%!!

Just a reminder to anyone who might've missed it, the US economy ends Wednesday:



The patriotic NESARA gold standard-backed international Quantum Financial System system is poised to erase all outstanding debts and possibly jews.

It's a bit frustrating to hear all the declarations of complete failure in police reform using cameras. This is a process. I understand the frustration and the glacial pace of change, but it hasn't failed.

Cameras didn't fail us. Video evidence is why these cops are locked up. It's also why EMT's and firemen are going to be sacked. There's more video coming. Transparency hasn't failed us. None of these assholes believed they would be held accountable. We don't know what we have until it's fully implemented. We don't know how far we can get, because our law enforcement didn't think they would get into trouble. We have to keep pushing forward with the plan. They didn't realize the video would be used against them.

"Cameras don't work" is a hot take. When people start to really understand that they will be held accountable, there will be benefits. And, we'll eventually reach a point where we assume police are guilty when they turn off the camera. That's perfectly normal; people that destroy or hide evidence are often considered suspicious. Nothing wrong with that.

We don't know what works. We just got started with this. Cameras won't fix America, but it will help. We need more transparency. These arrests and charges are more success than failure. Yes, I realize a man is dead. I've already said people are inherently evil assholes many times. That's why they need to be watched.

In the latest chapter of America's unstoppable mudslide toward TOTAL COMMUNISM, only most of the radical leftist democrats voted yea on a house resolution to denounce socialism.



Thank goodness there were enough free speech patriots in there to pass it. Liberty remains...but for how long?

Just in case anyone needed another reason to, without a moment's hesitation, throw the fucking book at the Capitol rioters. Or an answer to the question "How could the right's obsession with lapel pins get even more classless?

Wow. They actually felt the need to write down "I got mine, so fuck all of you" and vote on it. They also decided to publicly denouce the policies of their closest allies. Fuck.

Freedom Fries.

Do Republicans hold their first primary to choose a presential candidate in Rhode Island? Do they? No. They don't. They hold it Iowa, but that state is purple.

So, why is the DNC going to a red state first? Why South Carolina? It's insurance against another Bernie. It's got nothing to do with black people having a voice. We've gone from purple to deep red.

It's about making sure Reagan loving Republicans make the decisions. They identify as Democrats, but they are from a deep red right wing state. Well, love them, they're liberals! Useful idiots. Turkeys voting for Thanksgiving. The same voters that suddenly became so important when they chose Biden and ended his slide.

Fuck.

Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama are the leaders in the polling for 2028. So you don't have to worry about republicans not having total control of everything for another eight years, that ain't gonna happen. Jobbers gonna job so hard.

No wonder I get so goddamn butthurt every time a lib demeans everyone and pretends "policy" matters. It's like Norm said, it's all about personality and party loyalty.

We deserve Trump. Every time he's won in the past, every time he will win in the future.



o7

You're so silly, MM. RESPECT!

Meanwhile, if you're wondering what sort of person would be handing out those exceedingly tasteful AR-15 pins in Congress, it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

...and speaking of exactly what you'd expect...

At long last, a patriotic alternative to big gay insurance.

I'd prefer an alternative to insurance companies, period. Based on my own experiences with them, they seem to be some of the most greedy, corrupt and generally assholeish corporations in America. Most of our problems with US medical care can be traced back to them and their shitty business practices.

They very much are, essentially the pinnacle of "only take, never give, no matter what" carnivore capitalism. Which makes me curious how anyone might ever consider them "woke", since the only consistent definition I can find for the word on the right is "occasionally not being a complete and utter asshole".

That's the see-saw of wrestlemania. One side is like, "don't be an asshole" and the other's like, "don't be a pussy". And that's all the difference there is.

This week's spotlight essay is, The Confusing Nature of Black Conservatives.

As I've loudly remarked over the years, conservatives make a lot more sense to me than liberals. If you actually like capitalism, of course you want more cruelty to exist in the world. As opposed to the liberal, pretending cruelty doesn't go hand-in-hand with hierarchical exploitation. Who has to pick a couple issues here and there to grandstand on, but never ever ever ever vote for Bernie Sanders in a primary despite supposedly "supporting" universal healthcare. Aka, functionally identical to the guy here who wanted abortion illegal in all cases, but claimed to "support" universal healthcare when pressed.

This essay touches on one of the core theories why so many people become like that despite not being a mid level employee of the banks, or better, themselves: A coping mechanism to accept the world as it is and survive within it. Changing the world is utterly unthinkable, accepting the world is bad or even worse one is bad for accepting the world... internalizing those kinds of things would be a kind of ego death. "No, my life isn't about being a tiny blop of capital for the banks, it's about providing for my kids." "No, it's not absolutely monstrous that I spend 90% of my waking life doing something I'd never ever do if I wasn't paid for it, that's just how the world is."

Everyone wants to feel like they're the "good" guy, like in a Star Wars movie. But as I always harped on and on about: real life isn't fiction. Despite how most people mentally occupy fictional worlds during their elective time. Winning and losing is only a function of how miserable someone is.

Which is why you'd have to be a spergy asshole that can't stand a single drop of bullshit, to want to be a leftist, the only people who lose 100% of the time. Liberals can at least pretend they "win" sometimes when they get to sit a president at the top of an organization completely controlled by republicans. For all of four to eight years.

Fuck, remember that time a giant oil spill happened and a judge apologized to one of their executives for them having to pay a single dollar in reparations? Ya should, since that's basically every oil spill in history.



Coming back to this, I agree with the breadtubers that actions actually mean something. Words on their own are the most worthless thing in the world - MM, you'll be smug to hear that I've long come around to thinking Jimmy Dore is pretty shit overall. Many many years ago.

You misjudge me.

My anti Jimmy Dore posting isn't motivated by smug superiority, but by alarm. He mislead me with false info about Syria by preying on my frustrations with the Democratic party establishment right after Hillary blew it. I don't consider myself "above" Jimmy Dore fans, I was one of them. And if he could get me arguing in favor of a murderous dictator, he could do it to other people too. That's why I leapt on every opportunity to warn people away from him.

I consider Jimmy Dore and the rest of the Dum-Dum-left to be the leftist equivalent of what Aaron Sorkin's "The West Wing" is for liberals. A fun source of entertainment that encourages leftists to always make the stupidest political move possible because losing with dignity is better than imperfect but concrete gains. Kinda like that Phillip K. Dick short story "War Game."

I used to work in insurance up here in soviet canuckistan. Insurance companies are all owned by the banks at the back end, so nickel & diming is in their dna. But it's exacerbated by the fact that it's such a heavily regulated industry that every company is essentially offering the same product, so barring an attractive marketing campaign the only way to get ahead of the competition is good old-fashioned scumbaggery. In my experience the footsoldiers who lasted were mostly just the type of person who didn't give much thought to what they did for a living, and were content just drawing a paycheque for their family then going home to watch Amazing Race.

But to climb the ladder? Literal reptilians. It was just a game to them, and up-selling a grandma on earthquake insurance when her house is in a safe zone, or denying a perfectly valid claim and daring the client to come at you with lawyers was like scoring a touchdown for middle management. Fist pumps and all.

Heh, really? >_<

Matt Bors had already summed up the entire situation pretty well:



Certainly there are arguments on pacifisitic or on general "we always fuck up regime change. We'd just replace him with another fucker. And fuck up imposing colonialism on them somehow" grounds. Arguments on calling Assad a golden lion... well....

Also note how Syria is completely invisible and non-existent in our mind-palaces these days. Another two minute news cycle to pump up another war, that somehow fizzled out. They didn't put a fraction into it as they did Iraq.

I dunno. I wouldn't watch TV to be "informed" about facts and identically, I wouldn't watch some guy on youtube to get them either. Entertainment, vibes, different opinions sure. Guess I take it for granted, as I rarely feel 100% sure about anything and accept uncertainty as my default position on almost everything. A tiny human brain can only hold and see so much. If I need to actually know something, I'll look it up.



;_;

It's like that time They dressed up as homeless people at their halloween party or whatever. Is it not enough that They get to eat people? Do They have to teabag the corpses, as well?

Up until that period in my life, I had thought Mr. Burns was just a silly over the top caricature. I didn't realize that no, there really are tons of people who somehow ran the entire gauntlet of childhood cartoons without learning that this was how the villains act. "If the client can't pay, I'll leave them bleeding on the floor" was something one of the managers once said that's stuck with me for years. He said it like he thought it made him whatever the milquetoast white guy equivalent of being gangsta was. It really was an island of (evil) misfit toys who finally found their shady calling in life.

The experience was so soul-corroding for me that I started writing a magic-realist horror novel about what it was like, having my brain directly plugged into The Great Mammon via headset most of my waking life. Still think about finishing it up at times. I'm not sure if it'd be more relevant now, or just seem like run of the mill life in the 2020s.

The Simpsons and The Onion have been far too gentle, for understandable reasons. The #1 tv show for five years starred a serial rapist, and they might still be trying to squeeze money out of the guy? The actual blood and rape that make up reality is definitely not "fun" or pretty to look at, it's completely understandable why liberals would rather look away and retreat to a fantasy world. The lady at Blizzard who was raped and molested so badly that she killed herself is as emblematic of our society as the guys who periodically get murdered by cops.

... do any of these State of the Union things not start with a "the state of the union is strong" followed by the guy blowing smoke up his own ass for an hour? One where they go "the state of the union is shit and you should feel bad"?

We're approaching the middle of the beginning of the end here. It'd be refreshing to see an authority figure that didn't do their job of gaslighting people, for a change.

You just need to start paying more attention to people who are all about building others up, not tearing them down.

Per Load.

Not a measurable quantity, like 10cc's or whatever.

I assume this won't be in high demand so maybe you can get a lot of bang for your buck?

Or a lot of bangs for your buck breaking?