I read HPMoR back in the day, I don’t remember any grimdark shit, but he was still writing it when I stopped reading so I’m not surprised to hear it went that direction.
It was so weird to hear the author of HPMoR come up in a recent TrueAnon episode, but not at all surprising to learn that he’s an ai grifter these days.
Mennonites are generally pretty good on Palestine. The anti violence angle can lead to some annoying rhetoric, but they’ve been on the right side for a long time.
I tried posting there but was told my post was too bad for badposting, so I too want it banned because my feelings were hurt.
The difference between people that vote in favour of shitty policies like this vs people that vote for racist policies is huge. You cannot fault the average person for voting in favour of keeping utilities private the same way you can fault people voting for nazi policies. Understanding why a publicly owned utility is better for any non-capitalist (meaning people that own capital, not people who prefer capitalism) is a matter of political literacy, of which the average American is objectively severely lacking. It's easy to fall for propoganda (and at a 40:1 ratio there's no winning here) when there's no deeper understanding of the implications. Voting in racist policies is totally different imo. It doesn't require political literacy to understand that racism is bad, if you fall for racist propaganda then more severe measures are needed, something deeper is at play.
The form factor of the sodastream is nice, but I’m confused that a keg setup wasn’t getting the water fizzy enough. Getting a small adapter to transfer from a bigger tank to a sodastream canister is the simplest solution imo.
I’ve been thinking about ways to have some recourse for aggro cagers. I feel like there are two options, carry something obvious that encourages them to leave you alone, or carry something that wouldn’t trigger a violent reaction. Smashing a car with my u-lock would feel amazing, but that’s asking for a fight that I’m not really interested in.
I’ve been thinking about carrying stickers to slap on cars, most people won’t notice till I’m long gone, and it’s not a huge deal to remove. And I’m petty enough to feel good about knowing I’ve slightly inconvenienced them.
Many white British Columbians will think of themselves as good little liberals and not racist or anything like that. But for some reason making racist comments about Chinese people is perfectly acceptable to many of these same people.
I'd hold off on New Spring until you're introduced to/know more about the two main characters (Siuan and Moraine). I think it's meant to be a look back on the beginnings of known characters, not an introduction to them.
Jordan apparently recommends reading the books in published order (which would slot New Spring after book 10 of the main series, but I'd say anywhere after book 5 or 6 would be fine too.