Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Sengoku Strider]

FOX NEWS CHANNEL NPR NEWS ALERT
FOX NEWS CHANNEL NPR NEWS ALERT
FOX NEWS CHANNEL NPR NEWS ALERT



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Tackling head-on the puppet related controversies that lamestream news is too afraid to.

[BryanM]

A new muppet this late in the game is pretty news-worthy indeed.

As I've mentioned before, Sesame Street intentionally starred a variety of races from day one. Children's programming's #1 goal isn't to teach them their letters or numbers, it's to help them have decent psychological health as a foundation for whatever it is they want to do with their lives. The most important message of all? Don't be afraid.

For people with a sales pitch 100% based on fear and hate, they're not fans of children's programming on the whole. I guess since Romney's run eliminating public funding and making it 100% capitalist propaganda has been an initiative of theirs. For total, eternal victory, claiming all of the grooming outlets is necessary.

It's bad enough The News Hour is total shite.

[GaijinPunch]

Good time to mention everyone should check out "Street Gang" on HBO Max. The cunts that freaked out about Sesame Street's diverse cast when it first came out are the types that would procreate (through a hole in a sheet) and then bear the likes of Tucker Carlson (rectally, of course).

[Sengoku Strider]

Noted public intellectual and member of congress Marjorie Taylor Greene apparently has a complicated love life.

She cheated on her husband for a decade with guys from her gym. One of whom leads a polyamorist tantric sex cult. And while that's her business, my very dna refuses to pass up sharing one of the greatest captions of all time:



"On Instagram, Ivey calls himself The Tantric Warrior, describing himself as 'Living a warrior lifestyle while finding tantric love'. He also participates in reenactments of medieval battles and teaches sword fighting. Above, he is seen dressed as Zangief' a character from video game Street Fighter II"


This whole thing makes every headline about her so much more palatable, now you can do the Chinese fortune cookie 'in bed' thing.

• "Twitter permanently bans personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene for spreading COVID misinformation in bed with Zangief cosplayer."
• "Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, suggests the Second Amendment should be used against Democrats in bed with Zangief cosplayer."
• "Marjorie Taylor Greene Accuses Jewish Space Lasers of Trying to Shoot Down Santa in Bed with Zangief cosplayer."
• "Marjorie Taylor Greene Claims no Evidence Shown for 9/11 Plane Hitting Pentagon in Bed with Zangief cosplayer.”
• "Marjorie Taylor Greene Supports Bullet in the Head for Nancy Pelosi in bed with Zangief cosplayer."

[BryanM]

I've come to deeply envy the strong, lesser evil "one concentration camp less" types. My question of "how many times does Hillary Clinton have to metaphorically lose to Donald Trump until they become jokerfied" answers itself: most of them will never break out of their mindset.

Me, I'm made out of clay-dough. Another inevitable round of literally Clinton vs Trump will break me. What's below doomerified? I have no idea. After a second and third Clinton vs Trump rematch? I can't conceptualize a circle of hell that even comes close to expressing the nightmare we're living in.

... this is why I do my best to ignore any horse race crap. Exposure to seeing what their lackeys, the lanyards, are up to, always triggers these kinds of grimdark thoughts. It's easier to look away from reality and pretend I'm an elf race car driver or something.

This year is just another data point of seeing how many old people have dropped dead versus how many young people are completely disillusioned with electoralism. The perfect world for them is one immortal boomer giving consent to the status quo while 300 million millennials stand by thinking nothing can ever be changed. What a society.

[Randorama]

I've come to deeply envy the strong, lesser evil "one concentration camp less" types. My question of "how many times does Hillary Clinton have to metaphorically lose to Donald Trump until they become jokerfied" answers itself: most of them will never break out of their mindset.

It is perhaps irrelevant to this point, but I believe that you may find this quote useful:

"But as writer and game designer Kyle Marquis reminded us in a much-circulated tweet in 2013, “unless you’re over 60, you weren’t promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go.”"

(From The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture, Eds. Anna McFarlane, Graham J. Murphy, and Lars Schmeink, p.1. 2019. Reference formatted at random, I'd add).

I'd post a few TransmetropolianJudge Dredd/stock cyber-something pictures, but I am too lazy to do so.

[Sengoku Strider]

Ideology is for nerds.

[Sengoku Strider]

HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP - SCOOP!! "HUMAN FLESH IS THE BEST MEAT," SAYS HUNGRY KATY



She ate a girl and she liked it.

[BIL]

Nostalgic, this thread. It's like the checkout aisle at my granny's old store. National Enquirer, News Of The World, Daily Star etc. Fidel Castro seen guffawing in crowd @ JFK headshot, Nostradamus says planet asplode next month, Lil Debbie CEO injects twinkies with Super AIDS II Turbo as part of Israeli black op, etc etc.

No lie, I'm smelling paperstock and twinkies and freon as I write this. Jesus, this was supposed to be a hit/run shitpost. Now my winking arse hole is in full view at the scene of the crime.



I suppose the difference is, much like how it's the fat sweaty neckbeards fucking themselves up the ass with horse dildos now, instead of dead-eyedly professional porn starlets, so too have the tabloid userbase gone into business and/or pleasure for themselves. Does an Ouroboros burst open eventually, with all the shit that's built up inside it? I do hope so, these are some great seats.

[BryanM]

I used to really like that fantasy crack nonsense as a kid. It got extremely tiresome as it never evolved - the moment I grew to loathe it was back when I used to troll a conservative political forum. "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams" is funny the first couple times. Not after a thousand.

The ancient aliens stuff has some racist subtext underneath it as well: "these foreign people in the past were too dumb to be able to figure out how to cut out a rectangle, so obviously aliens did it."

I don't know why people hate fiction just being fiction so much and need to mix it with reality. Coping mechanism is my working theory.

The hypothesis that pizza gate emerged due to Five Nights At Freddy's is one I like. You'd have to be bat shit stupid to believe they'd put a sex dungeon in a public place of business: all of these people have their sex dungeons in the basements of their mansions and shit.

There's a freaking passenger manifest of Epstein's plane! It's sitting right there! You can read it with your eyes!

"But as writer and game designer Kyle Marquis reminded us in a much-circulated tweet in 2013, “unless you’re over 60, you weren’t promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go.”"

Yeah, we live in the shittiest cyberpunk dystopia is the common observation.

"I wanna kick reality to the curb! I wanna enter the Matrix!"

The matrix:

Spoiler

Remember when I mentioned those idyllic synthwave mixtapes with nostalgic pastel anime land/cityscapes as a background image? (Stuff like chilling out at the beach with your feet in the waves, etc.) The more reality-based inversion of that is soul-grinding darksynth with 80's cyberdoom/horror movie imagery in the background.

In our post Komm Susser Tod reality, I guess that's the anthem of the moment.

[Mischief Maker]

I'm currently playing the Phoenix Wright clone "Paradise Killer." It's quite possibly the most vaporwave game of all time. Not just because of the aesthetic, but also its underlying theme of cheap 80s glitz selling a lie about a brutal system.

You're investigating the murder of a member of the ruling elite of this alternate world, but the world itself is built upon a gigantic underclass of kidnapped slave labor who are routinely slaughtered en masse to placate the lovecraftian gods worshiped by the ruling class. But as you do your investigation you learn that just about every member of the ruling elite hate the system in their own way too, but they're at the top and get shinies, so they may as well keep turning the meat grinder's crank.

It's pretty good. If you see it on sale, give it a try.

[Sengoku Strider]

instead of dead-eyedly professional porn starlets, so too have the tabloid userbase gone into business and/or pleasure for themselves. Does an Ouroboros burst open eventually, with all the shit that's built up inside it? I do hope so, these are some great seats.

Those tabloids are still around, but they thrived in an era in which media gatekeepers had power to maintain standards, granting them a certain prurient energy simply by existing outside them. With the advent of social media the gates themselves have evaporated, leaving the tabloids a quaint reminder of days past when writing about celebrity sex cults didn't end with wishes for their slow and painful televised dismemberment in the name of moral decency.

I don't know where it all goes - save that the sense of helpless nihilism underpinning this public burning at the stake of consensus reality will continue to overwhelm these people, leading them ever further down their atavistic road. The deep longing for a crytpo-fascist strongman to stomp in, burn the degenerates and set it all straight again isn't even a fringe conservative stance anymore, it's fully mainstream:





Those tweets are from just this week.

I don't know why people hate fiction just being fiction so much and need to mix it with reality. Coping mechanism is my working theory.

For some, it's a muse.




Sad to say, not all researchers,
have humanity's, best interest at heart.
It doesn't take much digging to discover,
that vaccine research utilizes, aborted baby parts.

Dr. Seuss never spat straight fire like that.

[BulletMagnet]

Globalists prepare, for tribulations,
on their road to domination.
Enslavement, power, control,
and decimation of the world's population.

[Sengoku Strider]

INSPIRING! PATRIOT STREETFIGHTER VOWS TO PUT BALLS INSIDE PEOPLE

Pour yourself a mug of hot cocoa and snuggle up in your warmest winter blanket, as we share the uplifting message of loving Christian "Patriot Streetfighter." Just like in the book of something or other, this world warrior got on a public stage at the ReAwaken America Tour and declared World War IV, threatening to massacre doctors and nurses to crowd applause.

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/its ... providers/

Stalking the stage while brandishing a tomahawk at the rally, McKay declared that “World War IV” is underway and warned doctors and nurses that if they “have the courage to kill our people, you better have the courage to stand in the direct crosshairs of Patriot Streetfighter because this is now going to happen.”

Bravely refusing to let virtue get in the way of his Christianity, the humble follower of the Good Shepherd then sat down for an interview with the America God America America America Show (or something, you figure that mess of chyrons out) hosted by a sensible clear-headed adult who agreed with everything he said.

“We can’t allow the enemy or anybody to use our virtues against us,” he continued. “I don’t allow anybody to use the semantics of language or use my virtues against me. This is war. It’s gonna get bloody, and I’m going to get ugly too; no less ugly than any 1776 preacher that dropped his Bible on the lectern, grabbed his muzzle loader or musket, and went out and put balls and bullets inside people and watched blood flow on a battlefield. That’s what they had to do. That’s in the name of Christ.”

“It’s an evil enemy,” McKay declared. “Any of the minions, including the doctors and nurses who were part of it—knowingly or unknowingly, that’s not for me to sort out—but they need to know what’s coming next.

Thanks to Patriot Streetfighter for the inspirational reminder that sometimes, patriots have to put balls inside people and let blood flow. Like I guess Christ did in some extra part of the Bible that was only available to kickstarter backers or something.

Globalists prepare, for tribulations,
on their road to domination.
Enslavement, power, control,
and decimation of the world's population.

*Team Rocket*

I want to say that's a spot on comparison, but TBH Team Rocket had a better flow, without random commas, in awkward, places.

[BIL]

After all this, if burgerhomoville don't see open warfare and mass casualties in the streets* soon I'm gonna be very disappointed - as disappointed as the Old Man was with Dick Jonez in the sunnily optimistic fictional Detroit of our youths.

*black-on-black don't count, Lemon & Fredo @ CNN told me, otherwise y'all woulda done been BUSSIN LIKE LONDON

[BulletMagnet]

I don’t allow anybody to use the semantics of language or use my virtues against me.

It would have been simpler to just say "I have no qualms about completely disavowing the beliefs that supposedly define me the moment they become inconvenient", though I suppose that when it comes to people who use their religion to justify their politics that's understood to be a standard feature.

I want to say that's a spot on comparison, but TBH Team Rocket had a better flow, without random commas, in awkward, places.

Meowth, that's elitism!

[Sengoku Strider]

After all this, if burgerhomoville don't see open warfare and mass casualties in the streets* soon I'm gonna be very disappointed - as disappointed as the Old Man was with Dick Jonez in the sunnily optimistic fictional Detroit of our youths.

*black-on-black don't count, Lemon & Fredo @ CNN told me, otherwise y'all woulda done been BUSSIN LIKE LONDON

Even after the endless parade of doomsday portents I post, if there's one thing I know about history it's that the army decides who runs the civil government. And that ideology and loyalty have tended to be low-value currencies in wartime. Soldiers go where the money is.

The American Flag Punisher Skull crowd's AR-15 collections that they're always threatening the government with on Facebook aren't going to hold up against actual military ordnance. The best end around the US government ever ran on these yokels was banning actual assault weapons & explosives while making them think they were winning their "I can beat up a tyrant" 2nd amendment battles.

So like everything in America, ultimately it's going to come down to what Raytheon & Lockheed Martin want. If they think losing the US government as a single client is bad for business, then they will make sure the actual military is backing the unity side, and there won't be much of a fight.

The one complicating factor is if the Newsmax/OAN contingent actually do fall in with "Vlad the Great," who will be only too happy to supply their noble cause.

I don’t allow anybody to use the semantics of language or use my virtues against me.

It would have been simpler to just say "I have no qualms about completely disavowing the beliefs that supposedly define me the moment they become inconvenient", though I suppose that when it comes to people who use their religion to justify their politics that's understood to be a standard feature.

I mean, there's no other formal system of ethics you can plug in which changes that equation. People are fine with equality and fairness and good neighbourliness until they decide they're not getting what they need out of the system. At that point people turn to whoever's shameless and ruthless and capable enough to smash through the rules and 'set things right.' That a character as absurd and incompetent as Donald Trump was able to rise up on the backs of the lower-SES-white-Americans-without-a-college-degree demographic speaks to just how deep that disaffection began to run among working class have-nots post 2008.

[BulletMagnet]

That a character as absurd and incompetent as Donald Trump was able to rise up on the backs of the lower-SES-white-Americans-without-a-college-degree demographic speaks to just how deep that disaffection began to run among working class have-nots post 2008.

I suppose I agree with this up to a point, though methinks you and I would probably differ significantly in precisely how we would classify "what they need" for this group (hint: the guy they still slavishly support made his fortune in no small part by screwing over working people, and his signature achievement was a deficit-inflating tax cut for rich people).

Off to the side, we have a new contender for "Most Simultaneously Hilarious and Depressing Headline".

[orange808]

I mean, there's no other formal system of ethics you can plug in which changes that equation. People are fine with equality and fairness and good neighbourliness until they decide they're not getting what they need out of the system.

When did that ever happen? Never. People are fuckers. That's all there is to it.

[BryanM]

As much as I've been bellyaching about the lame boring The Postman apocalypse we're trudging slowly toward.. I'm starting to think it might be a bit of a relief when it manifests.

Just last week I learned about the ape NFT's, just the worst thing. You know how GANs are an exciting emerging technology? You know how it could be used to create illustrations from nothing that can then be used elsewhere you'd use art, like a game or avatar or cover? How about the opposite of all that.

This two hour video essay was a light primer for the current cryptofascist scam craze rocking the world. The butthurt Warlock main was lulzy.

One thing that annoys me personally is their theft of "we're all gonna make it, bro". That's perhaps the only platitude I actually like. In that it usually wasn't meant in a "making it" literal sense of being successful, immortal, or even necessarily happy - just a kind of trying to inject positive vibes into other people's lives. Co-opting it to feed delusional pyramid scam culture is an abomination.

The entire field feels more like an "end state" of capitalism, than a "late stage" one. All those new windows of huge opportunity to ascend to a godking already closed forever, grabbed by the Zooks and the Bills and the Banks. The ensuing fascism is gonna be 'great'....

... hey, at least one SC justice cares about other people just enough to actually retire. Silver linings, eh.

[Mischief Maker]

You know how GANs are an exciting emerging technology?

Jesus christ, that's nightmare fuel.

The face in the center usually seems normal enough (usually), but refresh a few times, looking at the edges of the screen, and you'll start to see Jacob's Ladder-esque flesh things.

[BryanM]

Indeed, the discriminator doesn't care much of anything besides the primary head. Any ancillary humans standing by turn into The Thing fleshmonsters pretty quick :3 Knots on the primary face were more common in the early days, it especially did poorly with ears. Sometimes it was like looking into Ted Cruz's mouth.

It has been seeing practical use in movies. Most importantly: fixing old movies starring the rock.

(Did you ever notice there's an entire rack at Wal-Mart where the movie genre is the "The Rock" genre? It reminds me of that Infinite Ikea SCP: an endless warehouse full of infinite rock movies from parallel realities, of what might have been or should never have been.)

[Mischief Maker]

Why does it keep showing me children with scabs and knife scars on their faces?!!

Christ, when it comes to malevolent AI, give me Skynet over AM any day!

[Steamflogger Boss]

This two hour video essay was a light primer for the current cryptofascist scam craze rocking the world. The butthurt Warlock main was lulzy.

Actually could not stop watching this. Pretty interesting.

[BryanM]

Why does it keep showing me children with scabs and knife scars on their faces?!!

Christ, when it comes to malevolent AI, give me Skynet over AM any day!

I'm getting mostly old people with the occasional cute girl sprinkled in today. Maybe the algorithm lieks you and wants to share its feelings? I never got any spooky stabbed children why do you get spooky stabbed children.

There are sites with similar GANs that have filters you can use, but last I checked they were a bit lacking. Overfixed criteria that gave samey results without the wonderful flesh monsters. Boring slate grey backgrounds, so boring.

NVidia was making a big hublub over how they were able to reduce aspects of a photograph to mathematical knobs. Like Woman With Glasses - Woman + Man = Man With Glasses.

Actual comprehension would be when the dream explodes. It's impressive what the GPT projects have accomplished with a simply transformer model. In real world results, trying to be clever has only gotten so far, and throwing dumb horse power at a problem has been where most progress was found. Thus, the "stack more layers" meme:

Spoiler

Many people paid a lot of money hate this meme.

AM probably is the likeliest direction this ultimately would go if they're successful. Disregarding the sociopaths who'll own the thing, AI safety is kind of an impossible problem.

[Sengoku Strider]

Are we officially in dystopia yet, or do we have to wait for politicians to start wearing Dracula capes or something before it counts?


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[BryanM]

I think it's subjective. And a real "problem of the heap" where you have to point at where in the downslide was dystopia. NFT's are just a very very loud and ridiculous datapoint.

My offering for this week's breadtube, a video essay on Company Towns. The ideal end of capitalism, slavery but with monopoly money. (Paying in crypto is being proposed for modern company towns of course.) It's a depressing reminder that if anything we did mattered, we'd be immediately murdered. There's no direction except near-immediate (from the perspective of a species' timespan) extinction.

Also the reminder that hourly work is an insane capitalist construction: just like how cars weren't the only material reason anyone exists, we used to just do work that needed to be done and go home.

On a related note some mod on the anti-work reddit went on FOX News and was harshly bullied and set his forum on fire. Really shows how backwards some brains are: this guy has a ten-hour work week? Walking dogs? How the hell is that not a great role model?

The man might actually have a hobby or two, with actually having the hours for anything more complicated than sitting in front of the TV and drooling on himself.i

[BIL]

His chair sway was on point! Hypnotic, like one of those fucked up snakes, or some shit!

[Sengoku Strider]

NFT's are just a very very loud and ridiculous datapoint.

I kind of feel like the move to claim colour as intellectual property is one of those "Wow, the ancient barbarians really had backward ritual beliefs like that?" moments.

On a related note some mod on the anti-work reddit went on FOX News and was harshly bullied and set his forum on fire. Really shows how backwards some brains are: this guy has a ten-hour work week? Walking dogs? How the hell is that not a great role model?

From what I read that whole affair sounded suspiciously astrofturfed.

On the one hand, the masses were upset that said professional dogwalking mod had taken it upon themselves to speak for the whole movement, despite everyone telling them not to, and them not actually having any particular leadership or organizing role in the first place.

But mostly I think people were just embarrassed by how badly they were represented. A greasy unwashed 30 year old nerd identifying as "Doreen" and trying to overthrow the system from behind a computer in their bedroom - because they don't want to have to work 25 hours a week walking dogs - is like, Fox viewer confirmation bias overload.

But the giant reaction and the sub splitting makes me think there were astroturfers stoking the flames on that one. That sub has steadily been the fastest growing on Reddit for a good while now, and was an outlet for employees to air a lot of corporate dirt. A lot of these corpos are willing to die before allowing genuine meaningful structural changes.

The Bloomberg op-ed crowd has very different plans for the morlocks.

[BryanM]

They're seriously going to do the Epstein mass extermination+insemination thing like immediately if they ever develop AGI, aren't they.

Here's some fiction on mind simulation. I think it falls under techno-optimism. Shit, I think Black Mirror episodes are techno-optimism now. Always more, always worse.

Musk manipulating the pump and dump curves of Bitcoin and Doge Coin with a couple tweets is one of the stupidest things. Robbing idiots of so much money feels like it should take more effort, you know?

This would make for a terrible boardgame.