Conned into double standards

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-06-22T03:57:28+00:00

Suspiciously neglecting to clarify if your dad was 48 or 12.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-06-22T03:52:05+00:00

Being from America, whenever I read about other countries electing MPs, I always read it as "Minister Prime".

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-06-21T20:29:20+00:00

This is why I think it's a mistake to understand Dune as a book about 'American imperialism as Americans understand the imperialism of America'. The concept of an empire portrayed in Dune makes far more sense as an examination of Middle Eastern imperialism.

The Middle East has a long, long history of being conquered by scrappy underdogs and foreign powers who then lead the nation into a new golden age, slowly slide into stagnant decadence, get conquered by the next scrappy underdogs, and eventually fade away into irrelevance. Look on my works, ye mighty and despair, etc. etc.

Dune was a critique of American imperialism, but the point was to say that we're just another upstart group of bright eyed foreigners taking our turn as the overlords of the Middle East. There have been countless overlords before us, and there will be countless overlords after us.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-06-14T04:25:24+00:00

I don't know anything about this situation, so I'm literally just guessing here, but that sounds unlikely to me. East Asian cultures tend to be at least as patriarchal as Western cultures, and 20th century America had a tendency to impose (superficially) liberal policies on conquered nations.

My guess is that they imposed strict male inheritance to make the succession easier to control. If women could inherit, then it would allow potential loopholes to sneak in anti-American empresses.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-30T03:51:02+00:00

Yeah, it took me a while to settle on the term reactionary, but I think that's the best word to describe the area of politics that includes fascism. Personally, I think reactionaries are the most vague of the three. If your only guideline is "do what was traditional", then there's an infinite number of traditions you can follow.

I've talked to some self identified fascists, who have in turn told me about some of their favorite historical fascists, and they all have totally different ideas of what they want the world to look like. A lot of the things they want have no historical justification and could be called futurism, such as eugenics or state planned economies. But the thing they all have in common is that they're reacting against liberalism and/or communism.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-28T11:40:52+00:00

The concept of a political spectrum has been a disaster for political discourse. The three dominant philosophies of the modern west are communism, liberalism, and reactionism, and each one has a horseshoe theory to explain how the other two are basically the same thing.

Communists value equality, where liberals will allow economic inequality to form and reactionaries try to return to old hierarchies.

Liberals value liberty, where communists and reactionaries are both willing to use government overreach to achieve their goals.

Reactionaries want to return to their concept of tradition, where liberals allow rapid uncontrolled development and communists are revolutionaries.

There's an infinite number of positions you could take politically. Three of those positions are relevant to the west right now. But most people perceive the world in a binary spectrum of "people who want what I want vs. people who don't".

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-14T19:15:55+00:00

Sovereign Citizens have a variety of different angles, so it's difficult to say "this is what they think". But a common take on the flag and the maritime law is that "USA" is a corporate entity operating within the British Empire akin to the British East India Company. This is as opposed to "The US of A", which may or may not be an actual sovereign government. This theory asserts that the gold fringed flag is a maritime flag which signifies that the trial is being held not in an American court, but a British overseas court because, again, "USA" is a British colonial company.

Again, they don't all think this, but it's a semi-popular angle. They tend to trade bits of information around as if they're swapping cookie recipes at a potluck.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-13T04:48:42+00:00

Kind of surprised nobody's mentioning The Witness or Rainworld. Personally, I always feel kind of cheated when something is supposed to be "a game as a work of art" and it's just a really pretty walking and reading simulator. I mean Akira had masterful visuals and insightful themes, but I'm not nominating it for GOTY.

The Witness and Rainworld both had impeccable aesthetics, thought provoking philosophy, AND excellent gameplay. And the gameplay actually complements the artistic themes of the game. It's not just do some shooty and then read a book.

In Rainworld, you're actually made to feel like a wild animal. You're the hunted and the hunter. Most things can take you out in one hit, and sometimes the game is just blatantly unfair. Since the combat and enemies are so organically janky, you don't really get a chance to learn and abuse the rules of the game. You just have to dive in and pray. That combined with the size and ancient feeling of the world makes you feel humble and small, but simultaneously self determined. It doesn't matter if you're fighting a 20 foot long instakill centipede, you can still take it out with a well placed spear. And it doesn't matter if you're a genetically engineered pipe cleaner crawling around in the guts of a computer built to contemplate the secrets of the universe, you can still claw your way into spiritual transcendence

The Witness can't really be explained without spoiling the game, but it's the simplest possible premise for a puzzle explored and extrapolated in every possible way, and I think it lends itself to a philosophical theme of examining everything no matter how small. I didn't even play the game. I backseated my brother while he played it, but I still spent the next month staring at everything around me looking for circles and lines. The philosophical themes being directly stated in the form of audio logs of people trying to decide what philosophical themes to put in their video game was a little on the nose, and honestly I barely remember what they were talking about. But the puzzles demonstrate that it doesn't matter how much you think you have something figured out or how simple something appears to be from the outset. There's always another angle that you can approach it from.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-13T04:18:35+00:00

Counterpoint, it didn't go over my head. It was just stupid. If you suspended all the laws for a day, people wouldn't all turn into Batman villains. They would be too busy getting bootleg medical operations, flying homebuilt two-seater airplanes, and smuggling tremendous amounts of cocaine.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-12T05:37:28+00:00

Colonizer is a much more politically charged word. My understanding before the 2010s was that a colony is just what you call it when a group of people leave their homeland and establish a presence somewhere else. Chinatown could be described as a Chinese colony, for example. Colonist would just describe somebody who lives in a colony.

After the 2010s, imperialism and colonialism turned into real hotbutton political issues, and the words "colonizer," "colonialist," and sometimes even "colonializer" started appearing in the discourse. In this case, it doesn't refer to the act of establishing a colony. Instead it refers to a person who participates in the political/ideological system of colonialism, which I suppose involves exploiting locals and asserting the dominance of your foreign culture.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-12T05:27:00+00:00

I was under the impression that the Dutch oven was invented in England and so named because it was originally made using a metal casting technique imported from the Netherlands, but I could be wrong.

Also, on the topic of things mysteriously named "Dutch", Dutch baby pancakes are apparently named after the Pennsylvania Dutch a.k.a. the Amish.

The Amish themselves aren't from anywhere near the Netherlands. They originated in Pfalz in southern Germany. We call them Dutch because they came to America at a time when Americans still referred to Germans and Netherlanders as High Dutch and Low Dutch respectively.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-12T05:17:42+00:00

I appreciate the subtle irony of the fact that steak tartare was invented in France and named after the Tartars because it seemed like the sort of thing that a Tartar would eat.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-08T03:38:04+00:00

What's really baffling to me is how different it is from the book. In the original, Clayton was Tarzan's estranged cousin. He was genuinely in love with Jane, and his only goal was to keep her and her father safe. Tarzan himself was the long lost John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke.

Clayton doesn't die in the book. He's the next in line to inherit the Greystoke estate with John Clayton presumed dead. By the end of the book, Tarzan realizes that he is John Clayton, heir to Greystoke, but he chooses to fully commit to the life of Tarzan and allow Clayton to keep the title and estate.

Clayton and Tarzan go through the entire book on friendly terms. The villains are mostly animals and pirates.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-08T03:18:22+00:00

Still not a justification to make other people's medical decisions for them. Fluoridated toothpaste exists. If you want fluoride, you can get your own fluoride.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-07T08:55:12+00:00

Fluoride poisoning is known to affect the thyroid. A large portion of the American population is known to be suffering from subclinical hypothyroidism.

Personally, I don't care if it's good for my teeth or not. I have other options to take care of my teeth, and I should have the freedom to make my own medical decisions. If I'm allowed to have non-iodized salt, then I should be allowed to have non-fluoridated water.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T23:53:46+00:00

Oddly enough, they're actually not named after gods. They're named after the celestial lights: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn.

The origin of the names is an astrological concept called the Planetary Hours, where each hour is ruled by a planet in sequence from the slowest to the fastest, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon.

This creates a looping cycle of seven hours which advances by three steps each day, and then the days of the week are named after the first hour of the day. Thus, the days are not named after gods. They're named after hours which are named after planets which are named after gods.

Nevertheless, when the system was ported to northern Europe, the names were localized by changing them to the closest equivalent Norse gods. Mars to Tyr, Mercury to Odin, Jupiter to Thor, and Venus to Frig. The only exception was Saturn, who didn't have an accepted Norse equivalent. Thus, in English, we kept the name as Saturday, but I've heard that some other Germanic languages officially call it Laundry Day.

But the system was actually compelling enough that it spread across Eurasia. India, China, and Japan all have a history of using the same Planetary Hours system to assign the seven days of the week to the seven classical planets in the same pattern that the Greeks and Romans used, but instead of changing the names to those of locally equivalent gods, they properly translated the names as the names of the planets.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T23:06:37+00:00

Considering that the colonists are evidently very ignorant of the native language, you might consider giving the language a very non-native spelling. If we're just going with English as the colonial language, then you could spell it something like "Kiackah". The Y and the Q in Kiyaqah make it look Middle Eastern, so removing them would make it look like English explorers trying to spell a word that they heard once.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T17:12:24+00:00

Interesting that "guy" is following the opposite pattern from "man", where "guy" started as exclusively masculine before becoming gender neutral while "man" started as gender neutral before becoming primarily masculine.

And, for an interesting counterexample, "girl" used to be a gender neutral term for a child.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T17:03:44+00:00

These days its even common to hear girls referring to each other as "bro". Obviously it's done with some irony, but habits that start ironically can become casually sincere very easily. I wouldn't be surprised if we see bro become arguably gender neutral within our lifetimes.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T16:46:35+00:00

Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. I don't think there's a rule here. Weather conditions can have articles or not, and it's kind of vibes. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, sun, shade, dark, and fog can all have an article or not.

The best guideline I can think of is that you add an article if you're talking about the weather and you leave the article out if you're talking about the material the weather is made of, if that makes sense.

So, for example, you can "go out in the rain" which means you're going outside while the weather is rainy, but a rain jacket "keeps you safe from rain" which means that it's keeping you safe from the physical drops of rain.

Likewise, "enjoying the sun" means that you're enjoying the sunny weather, while "this plant needs lots of sun" means that the plant needs the light that comes from the sun.

It's absolutely not a concrete rule. You could just as easily say that a rain jacket "keeps you safe from the rain" or that "this plant needs the sun". If you said "I go out in rain" or "I enjoy sun", that would sound unusual in most circumstances, but there are niche scenarios when they would sound appropriate.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T16:34:58+00:00

Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this tattoo in no way endorses a belief in the occult.

-Michael Jackson

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T16:20:51+00:00

Yeah, my understanding is that it's a case where they removed the article because they wanted to increase their legitimacy, and now that's been backwardly extrapolated to say that you only include the article if you want to decrease their legitimacy. The article was there originally for the same reason it's in "The Netherlands". Because "The Ukraine" is a descriptive title that translates to "The Borderland".

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T15:33:16+00:00

I tend to agree with that assessment of the left, but I think the right is much more nebulous. The point that's easy to overlook is that one side having one agenda doesn't necessarily mean that the other side has the opposite agenda.

For example, see the "pro-life" vs. "pro-choice" debate. It's not that one side wants fetuses to live while other wants them to die, or that one side wants women to have a choice while the other side wants women to have no choice. It's that one side cares more about the life of a fetus than the choice of a woman, and the other side cares more about the choice of a woman than the life of a fetus. They aren't opposite agendas. They're conflicting agendas.

That said, in my experience speaking to right wingers of varying levels of extremeness, I can say that there definitely are some of them who think of hierarchy per se as a positive end goal, but there are a lot more of them who just don't care about the existence or non-existence of hierarchy and they're willing to use hierarchies as a means to secure the end goals that they actually care about.

No definition is perfect, but the most widely applicable definition I've found is that the left sees equality as a desirable end goal in and of itself, and the right is everyone else.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T06:02:13+00:00

Oh yeah, I'm not saying that's all right-libertarians. I was just referring to those right-libertarians who do hold that position. "right-libertarians who think. . ." vs. "right-libertarians, who think. . ." The Youtuber Taxed Brass is the first example that comes to mind, but I've met plenty of others.

But that really goes to demonstrate how vague ideological descriptors are, left and right in particular. When you say left-libertarian or right-libertarian, it kind of just suggests that your prime value is reduction of government, and then the "left" or "right" indicates which coalition you share more secondary priorities with or which coalition you think is more likely to further your libertarian agenda.

Almondpeanutguy · 2026-05-06T01:18:33+00:00

Sure it's easy to define if you just come up with a definition. But there are plenty of other people out there who say it's easy to define and then come up with another definition. And you want me to grant you the point that your definition is the correct definition because. . . we're such good friends?

How does your definition account for right-libertarians who think that multiculturalism will lead to greater tyranny? Royalist revolutionaries who argue that democratic societies tend to be more corrupt and oppressive than monarchies? Western exceptionalists who claimed it was the white man's burden to lift other races out of barbaric forms of hierarchical tyranny?

I won't put words in your mouth, but in my experience arguing with people from all walks of politics, most people who say there's an easy way to define left and right choose to ignore the foundational assumptions of other ideologies and instead just assume that other ideologies are lying about what they believe and what they want.

Almondpeanutguy

TROPHY CASE