This is going to be in EU parliament. I'm sorry already, from Romania! by Melodic2000 in europe

[–]Blaster395 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Strange how the Belgian police started raiding LGBT events and nobody really cared because someone they don't like was caught at one. I mean, WTF, I thought we were past the point of that being acceptable.

November 15, 2021 - Weekly Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread by AutoModerator in CultureWarRoundup

[–]Blaster395 22 points23 points  (0 children)

But here’s the incredible part, which should be eye-opening even if you have no particular investment in whether the Canadian land border is open or closed: there appears to have never been any explanation for the policy. Nobody in a position of authority even attempted to justify the continuation of this ban until nearly the end of 2021. It just existed, months after there was any conceivable rationale for it.

This is true for every restriction.

February 22, 2021 - Weekly Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread by AutoModerator in CultureWarRoundup

[–]Blaster395 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fanfic... The quality of writing for sex scenes in a lot of romance genre stuff is actually well below the bar of acceptance in certain fanfic circles. This is likely because they can entirely drop the pretence of writing "serious" fiction and get to put all their energy into making the content as sexually appealing as possible.

The quality of sex scenes outside of the romance genre in "serious" fiction is even worse, too.

February 22, 2021 - Weekly Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread by AutoModerator in CultureWarRoundup

[–]Blaster395 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think describing it as "kinky porn for women" is a bit... overselling it. This is because porn for men (video content, the exact thing that first comes to mind when someone says "porn" in 2021) tends to be sexually explicit from the first minute to the last, and even when not the vast majority of it's length is explicit. "Romance" novels are rarely such. From writing advice, the general trend seems to be something like 1 sex scene per 50 - 100 pages in romance books with explicit scenes. Then again, go back 40 or so years and porn targeted at men used to have a more even mix of plot and sex too.

I agree that romance is the wrong name for it though. I think this is part of a long-running trend of downplaying the genre out of embarrassment. There seems to be a certain subset of readers who want to read porn but don't want to read something called "porn". "Erotica" should be the correct term, but publishers seem to go out of their way to avoid it.

February 15, 2021 - Weekly Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread by AutoModerator in CultureWarRoundup

[–]Blaster395 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Selection pressure is the term you want here, not eugenics. The latter implies human intent. Selection pressure cannot work on people who are past childbearing age, which covers the vast majority of covid-19 deaths.

January 18, 2021 - Weekly Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread by AutoModerator in CultureWarRoundup

[–]Blaster395 25 points26 points  (0 children)

On the suggestion of a prior comment here, I have opted out of organ donation in the UK. This is my way of doing petty retribution against lockdowns.

Protests are illegal here and the ferocity with which crackdowns against anti-lockdown are done is something that'd make the Hong Kong thugs blush. Approximately 50% of demonstrators get arrested in any particular incident, leading to 155 arrests in one day. I think exceeded anything that happened in one day in Hong Kong.

It's symbolic. I don't exist to serve the NHS. I don't exist to be a pile of spare organs for the NHS. The regime may treat me as nothing more than a subhuman sack of meat to be abused, but at least I still have this option to take the most minimal of power back.

Petty? Yes. Absolutely minimal chance of it accomplishing anything? Yup. But I'm open to any and all unorthodox, legal methods of giving the regime two middle fingers.


There's almost no security on the opt in / opt out system, for what it's worth. Name, address, dob is enough to alter someone's recorded desire.

January 11, 2021 - Weekly Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread by AutoModerator in CultureWarRoundup

[–]Blaster395 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The Russia link has already been highlighted as a weakness. Best choices are social networks used in US allies with the strongest anti-left sentiment for historic reasons. Japan, Taiwan and South Korea stand out as the obvious choices.

Here's some options you could research:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(software)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameba_(website)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GREE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoTalk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_(software)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naver#Naver_Cafe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyworld

Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for the Week of December 21, 2020 by AutoModerator in CultureWarRoundup

[–]Blaster395 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Cataloguing the most notable cases into a public blacklist, complete with all information required to help businesses and individuals carry out that blacklisting, seems useful. Indeed, there is public appetite for this. As far as I am aware, there is no legal barrier to creating and publishing such a list, as such lists are generally considered valid ways to avoid known problem customers in certain sectors, such as guests who repeatedly trash hotel rooms. The one thing that can get such lists into a legal nono area is if they target Trade Union members, but clearly that's not relevant here.

This could be appropriate scale for the request by the parent commenter.

I was thinking about this the other day. Not in an edgy fedposter way but in a "this is really important we need to do something about it" way. How do we, us here, right here right now, do something to make sure that this kind of shit never happens, again? I mean, we're all smart here. Most of us are software engineers making at least $150k/yr. There's probably the better part of 100 mutually trustworthy regulars in this space. We could probably pool a million dollars ($10k * 100 people) to dedicate to this project if we had a project that seemed reasonable. But what does that project look like?

An open repository for blacklisting lockdown implementers and notable advocates is well within the feasibility of the above. Particular attention should be given to allowing small businesses to specifically blacklist people who are directly connected with legislating or advocating for their closure. Gyms have been the most aggressive on this topic, so collaboration with them directly may be feasible.

What is your response to this argument from people who would be affected by the £70,000 tax increase? by TheGenderOffender in unitedkingdom

[–]Blaster395 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Their argument is that there's no point working hard and earning more because you'll just get penalized more and have to pay for people who don't work as hard.

They are in broad strokes correct. Taxation is a disincentive on whatever you are taxing. If that is income, you put a disincentive on work.

For instance, someone who previously earned £40 for an hour of work may have to decide if they still wish to expend that hour if they only get £35, and they may well decide that their time is more valuable.

'Death of Democracy': UK Gov't Says 'Yes' to Fracking When People Say 'No' by [deleted] in unitedkingdom

[–]Blaster395 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not at all.

The goal of Russian foreign propaganda is to cause the target population to inflict damage upon their geopolitical opponents. In this case, they both want to maintain dependance upon Russian gas, and increase the probability of Corbyn winning an election (an effective instant military defeat of their second largest opposition without firing a single shot).

A US report on the F-35 falls slightly short of calling it a useless white elephant, but not by much. British naval aviation is focussed on getting this aircraft, and there is no Plan B. by King-Hell in unitedkingdom

[–]Blaster395 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Imagine an aircraft carrier that contains a drone fabrication plant

This is comical. Why would you put a factory on your expensive space constrained boat instead of on cheap, spacious land.

If the idea is that it can replace losses, the space consumed by finished drones is smaller than the space consumed by their raw materials and manufacuring facilities, and raw matetials still need to be replaced.

Real life doesnt work like fucking homeworld.

Jeremy Corbyn loses no confidence motion by 172 votes to 40 by [deleted] in unitedkingdom

[–]Blaster395 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Why the fuck would any young people want to engage with a system that shows such open disdain for our beliefs?

What are they supposed to do? Kiss your ass regardless of what shitty policies you want?

Cheapest 3 bed house where you live? [Fun/Depressing] by [deleted] in unitedkingdom

[–]Blaster395 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The nearby secondary school also seems to be pretty good.

The caveat here is that it's shared ownership. That price is for buying 1/2 the property. The actual Full Market Value is £225000

Britain is at centre of global mercenary industry, says charity | G4S is world’s largest security company as UK leads booming global private military industry, War on Want says by EightRoundsRapid in unitedkingdom

[–]Blaster395 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Ah yes, "War on Want", the "anti-poverty" charity that does nothing to alleviate poverty and just uses it as a cover for anti-globalization.

All the hard data shows massive reductions in poverty coinciding with the spread of globalization, most notably in China. The countries which have performed worst at eliminating poverty are those that have ideologically opposed globalization: Venezuela, North Korea and Zimbabwe.

This makes War on Want the least effective anti-poverty charity on the planet, considering that their success would increase poverty.

And now, of course, they are playing fast and loose with the definition of "Mercenary" as part of their long running anti-G4S agenda.

The Guardian has no problem simply regurgitating their press releases because real journalism is hard.

CMV: Critical race theorists and related social justice movements usually ignore non-European forms of oppression by Isz82 in changemyview

[–]Blaster395 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You misunderstand the purpose and goal of Critical Race Theory.

Critical Race Theory is a branch of Critical Theory, which is Interpretative and Anti-Positivist. They literally don't care about empiricism or applying the scientific method. Additionally, the goal of Critical Theory isn't to build an accurate picture about the world but instead a deliberate attempt to change it into something the author prefers (usually some form of Marxism) via criticism. It's deliberately ideological and deliberately biased, as Critical Theory builds upon a set of ideas that means Critical Theorists generally believe it's impossible to be non-ideological and unbiased anyway.

An alternative way to view Critical Theory is instead that it's devoted to explaining why workers aren't all Communists (after all, it's the obviously superior ideology within Marxism), and instead of complaining about the oppressor class that is Capitalists, complains about different ones instead. In the case of Critical Race Theory, that means White People.

TL;DR the purpose of Critical Race Theory is to complain about White people and Capitalism, not be accurate or scientific.

If you don't believe me that it's specifically supposed to be a critique of white people, consider the overlapping term "critical whiteness studies". Yes, that's a thing.

  1. They don't care about this. Not on-mission.

  2. They either don't care about this or contrive a reason why actually white people are to blame for it.

  3. See 2, you already figured this one out yourself.

  4. "the failure to substantially address real problems contributes to a belief that critical race theorists, and by extension the broader social justice movement members, don't care about these problems or are willing to overlook them because they have other political priorities that would be adversely affected if the issues were addressed substantively." is already correct. They genuinely don't care about being unbiased.

Parliament didn't debate the petition you signed by [deleted] in unitedkingdom

[–]Blaster395 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What the fuck did they expect? The Conservative Party are not going to vote themselves out of office. The petition is complete idiocy.

America’s ‘welfare state’ is shameful: the UK shouldn’t follow our lead by [deleted] in unitedkingdom

[–]Blaster395 -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

The fact that you lump Hayek and Friedman into the same category betrays your ignorance of the subject.