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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. A pro-bike stance might make some enemies around here.
  2. I’m inclined to agree with you, but the bolded gives me pause. I’ve learned over the past few years that the dumbest possible answer eventually seems like the compromise position. Boundless stupidity and ingenuity are deeply intertwined.
  3. Speaking as someone who is evangelicalish theologically, evangelicals and their political madness have caused the greatest damage to the stated evangelical cause of spreading the Gospel. They’ve done more harm to the Gospel message than every abortion doctor, married gay couple, anti-prayer lawsuit, and whatever other social issue they claim to care about combined (if these issues hurt the cause at all). From my limited observations, Q beliefs have become deeply imbedded into evangelical churches. I doubt that you’ll find too much pure, uncut Q, but the less insane claims (still a low bar) seem to be easily and widely accepted. A lot of this stuff has become mainstream. I have no hard data; this is just what I’ve witnessed.
  4. I’m really tired of all of these unresolved questions. It took us a couple of centuries, but I think we’ve found the coup loophole. I miss norms.
  5. That’s so cool. Let me try: IheartDerka
  6. On the other hand, she’ll miss out on some prime grand standing moments when she gets to berate a high school math teacher for indoctrinating children with polynomials when everyone knows the answer is always 1776.
  7. Consider greatness. A great man must have a following, whether he gain it Like Roosevelt by good intentions, cajolery and bribes, or Hitler by fanatic Patriotism, frank lies, brutality and terror, Without great following no greatness, it is ever the greedy Flame on a wick dipped in the fat of millions;
  8. I’m disappointed in you people.
  9. We should keep celebrating these ex Q people: treat them like America heroes; even put up statues that we can tear down 100 years from now. It’s very difficult to go so public and admit just how lost from reality you were. It’s very affirming to see this happening. As to the percentage of Q adherents, some Q ideas have seemed to infect the mainstream. Your next door neighbor might not believe that you’re JFK Jr. in a new lizard person form, but they might have believed the Wayfair sex trafficking thing or something else that is Q light.
  10. There’s combating lies and then there’s combating lies while making your opponents look like the idiots they are. There’s a time for each, but the more contentious approach needs to be used more judiciously. I get that it feels good to make bad people look bad, but it often isn’t helpful. AOC isn’t even the biggest culprit, but she’s so good at it. There are larger cultural issues at play than simply humiliating one individual on Twitter. Sometimes the humiliation is appropriate, but it needs to be considered in the context of the whole and not just the individual interpersonal interaction. These are public performances that should be considered as such. Public performance changes the culture. The performance and larger message matter. AOC didn’t cause the cultural rot, but she has a very powerful and effective voice in the current discourse. I expect her to use it wisely even when her opponents are reckless. To be clear, the insurrectionists and their sympathizers need to be shamed, but the constant contention of recent years reduces the discourse to something so lacking in depth so as to have no useful meaning. Shallow, reductive insults is currency of performative social media, but it doesn’t have to be. Jon Stewart’s Crossfire appearance remains as relevant as ever. Things are so much worse than when he accurately called Tucker a dick on national TV. It’s infected every part of our lives. Surely there’s another path. Reducing things like this creates a false dichotomy. We can see Biden trying to find another path where he’s trying to reignite a mutual respect while also remaining firm and not rolling over. We’ll see how much he succeeds, but it’s no doubt a different path than Obama took. It’s possible to firmly tell the truth and use the full extent of your political power without reducing every interaction to a zero sum game. Sometimes the metaphorical kill shot has value, but it isn’t helpful as a matter of course.
  11. There’s a bit of a false dichotomy lurking here. The following all seem objectively true to me: 1. AOC is well qualified for her position and does an admirable job. She takes her job seriously and works hard. Even those well to right of her should acknowledge this if they were to be honest. I can respect people that come to different conclusions than me when their thinking is well-reasoned. 2. Ted Cruz and the Trump terrorist movement is very bad and deserves lots of shaming. Twitter shaming is getting off easy for them. There’s no need to condemn AOC for going after them. Have at it. 3. A significant part of AOC’s public communications involve extracting the Twitter pound of flesh. She’s really good at this. Sometimes it’s warranted, but often it’s not. Sometimes it’s helpful to the cause, but more often it probably isn’t. It may feel good in the moment, but sometimes the winning move is not to play. 4. r/murderedbyAOC is not a positive reflection of our discourse. Just because it’s less harmful than the rantings of deranged republican lunatics doesn’t mean that it’s helpful. AOC is good at defeating people on Twitter, but sometimes destroying your enemy isn’t the same as victory. The last 4 years should have taught us this. 5. A sharp Twitter tongue is a powerful tool. We just watched it incite a terrorist movement. Adults in the room have a responsibility to manage this power responsibly, even if their opponents aren’t. Otherwise, we all lose. Fighting fire with fire is fun until you burn everything down. Remember, this is a goal of a large part of the Trump terrorist movement. 6. On the whole, AOC is a net positive on the national scene, but her Twitter presence is a negative. More often than not, tearing down opponents on Twitter only pushes us all deeper into the madness that we’ve lovingly embraced. Each step seems small, but they clearly add up. In summary, the culture of trying to humiliate opponents verbally is making things worse, not better. AOC is a master at this game. She does other things very well, but in this respect she’s contributing to the deteriorating culture. Ted Cruz is terrible and supports a terrorist movement. I support and admire AOC or any other victim of the Trump terrorist movement speaking honestly about their experiences.
  12. The parallels are unsettling.
  13. With the assumption that things will continue to get exponentially dumber: 1. Kanye/Nikki 2. Hershel Walker/Scott Baio 3. Tucker/Diamond 4. One of the Duck Dynasty Guys/The Pawn Star Guy 5. Q Shaman/George Will
  14. I haven't listened to him in over a year, but Rogan has always struck me as a bit of a blank slate, enthusiastically along for the ride of whatever his guest is selling. When he has a smart, interesting guest, it's a good show because the smart interesting guest is driving the show. When he has a nutcase on, the show is unhinged because the guest is driving the show. In a healthy culture, we would understand this and calibrate accordingly. Our culture isn't healthy.
  15. I'm a sucker for the bittersweet themes like Hillstreet Blues, Taxi, etc., but Dynasty is my favorite theme. There's not even the nostalgia for me that so many themes are wrapped up with, since I've never seen a second of the show.
  16. He needs to write a productivity/organization book like David Allen’s Getting Things Done. How do you keep track of all of that? His organizational skills must be out of this world.
  17. As has been widely stated: 1. This is dumb. 2. Getting worked up about it is also dumb. Local issues are local. People are free to do dumb things in their communities especially when those things are mostly harmless. 3. For a supposed liberal echo chamber, this board widely seems to think this is dumb. 4. Culture war gonna culture war. Outrage over dumb things needs constant new material, so I guess SF is doing their part. Wonderful. 5. This isn’t erasing history. My middle school was named after the road it was on, which was presumably named after somebody mildly important to my community. I have no idea who my middle school was named after but I know who Lincoln was.
  18. Far and away my favorite Asimov book and one of a small handful that aren't a really compelling idea and total beating to read.
  19. Although the writer is objectively wrong about Ornette Coleman. Here’s some great music from my favorite current jazz trumpet player. I don’t know if this music gets made without Ornette Coleman’s contribution to jazz. You hear so much of Coleman in some of the best jazz from the past few decades.
  20. Honestly, that GQ list isn’t that bad as far as lists go. It has my favorite big band albums (Electric Bath and Atomic Basie) and puts Clifford Brown appropriately high. It’s also not 100% stuck in the distant past, although it still largely is.
  21. I didn’t know Ben Shapiro posted here.
  22. I think we both come from similar perspectives about where we should ultimately place our hope, but it’s so disheartening, although not completely unexpected, to see so much of the suffering going on around us coming from people acting from that same hope. When cruelty and selfishness get spiritualized as righteousness and it’s your friends and people you love turning to it, that’s a bitter pill to swallow. It breaks my heart. Largely though, things are so much better today than they were a few weeks ago. Some have doubled down, but I’ve seen the spell lifting somewhat.
  23. Mole

    Composition Thread

    If that's a Bb part, that long note would be a top line F for horn in F, which isn't that big of a deal. It's a big breath, but doable. The peak of the ascent towards the end reminds me of something that I can't put my finger on. It has shades of Barber Adagio for Strings with the tension/resolutions, but there's something else that it reminds me of that I can't place and it's really bugging me. Other than the guitar/fake violin, what are you working in for the audio?
  24. Mole

    Composition Thread

    It sounds good and that horn line is nice. It tops out at a written Bb for the horn? The line would take a good player, but it’s playable and would make a strong player sounds really good. My general philosophy is to err on the side of easier if you want it to be widely playable, but good music is more important. Fun to play is worthwhile too.
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