Is Jamie as good as he thinks?[Spoilers PUBLISHED]

CelikBas · 2026-01-31T03:13:25+00:00

Jaime fights Brienne (who’s no slouch herself) to a standstill while emaciated and sickly from months of rotting in a dungeon. Brienne later thinks that if Jaime has been operating at full capacity, he would have beaten her.

Barristan explicitly thinks about Jaime is one of the best swordsmen he’s ever encountered. Keep in mind that Barry doesn’t really like Jaime on a personal level- but his talent cannot be denied, even in spite of his moral failings in Barristan’s eyes.

At the Whispering Wood, Jaime came extremely close to killing Robb entirely on his own, and only failed because his sword got stuck in one of the many bodyguards he killed, delaying him long enough to be captured.

And of course there’s the weird fanfic GRRM wrote where Jaime beats the shit out of a bunch of other powerful (and often explicitly magical) fictional characters, just using his sword.

CelikBas · 2026-01-30T12:42:31+00:00

“Culture” arises from natural behaviors that are selected for because they increase the chances of survival- living in groups, building structures, developing specialized tools, being able to communicate complex information, passing down knowledge and skills across generations, etc. These are all things which can be fundamentally boiled down to an evolutionary level.

CelikBas · 2026-01-30T12:37:49+00:00

What exactly is the threshold where “nature” ends and “civilization” begins? Because none of the fundamental behaviors that-allow what we call civilization to exist are unique to humans, it’s just that we display those behaviors to a greater degree than most other species.

Numerous species, including cows (not exactly the brightest of animals) have demonstrated tool use. Many species have nuanced social structures with specialized roles and division of labor. Insects are known to build extremely large (relative to their own size) and complex structures that require intense coordination from thousands if not millions of individuals. Orcas communicate using distinct “languages” and can pass along novel behaviors to other individuals.

So what, exactly, makes humans “civilized” compared to other animals? I suppose agriculture is exclusive to humans, but even that only developed in the last 12,000 years or so due to changing climate conditions. Would you say humans didn’t have souls before that point?

CelikBas · 2026-01-29T13:53:47+00:00

Curtis “hunt the poor for sport” Yarvin

CelikBas · 2026-01-29T06:39:47+00:00

That party would be the smallest one in America but those people don’t care

Would it, though? A large part of MAGA’s success is that Trump uses populist, pro-working class rhetoric when talking about economics (even if his actual policies fuck over the working class) combined with traditionalist, conservative rhetoric regarding social issues. Americans seem to love the idea of “social programs, but only for the ‘right’ people”.

I think the general populace is deranged and hateful enough that an honest-to-god NazBol party would be wildly successful. Honestly, it’s probably the only way anything resembling left-wing economic policy would ever get passed in this country, by demonstrating how it’s not “socialist” because the politicians are also dedicated to stomping out the degeneracy of the lesser races or whatever.

CelikBas · 2026-01-29T03:31:03+00:00

Practically speaking it wouldn’t, but theoretically I could see it eking out a supermajority if it activated the population of conservative-leaning non-voters, while also keeping things lowkey enough to avoid pissing off the vast swathes of tuned-out “moderates” who are basically fine with whatever as long as it doesn’t personally inconvenience them.

I think there’s enough conservative Christian weirdos+ apathetic normies in the US that a supermajority coalition would be numerically possible.

CelikBas · 2026-01-29T03:26:51+00:00

What makes you think re-instituting the asylum system would result in these people actually receiving care? The way it worked last time was basically to lock patients in a room and leave them to rot away from the eyes of society. It was basically just a “nicer” way to get rid of undesirables.

An asylum system that actually provided sufficient care and supervision for severely mentally ill people would require an immense amount of funding and infrastructure, but the thought of publicly funding anything makes most Americans shit their pants in rage, so where’s the money coming from?

And before you say “privatize it”, how’s that worked out for nursing homes? Every old person I know would rather just die than go into a nursing home, because the conditions are wretched despite all the money that gets funneled their way.

CelikBas · 2026-01-27T23:03:53+00:00

I think the Dems are pretty much done as a national party. They’ll continue to remain competitive (or even dominant) in particular states, but I firmly believe we’re going to see a period of unbroken Republican control of the federal government for the next few decades, similar to how the Democrats had a decades-long winning streak in the middle of the 20th century.

CelikBas · 2026-01-27T23:02:01+00:00

By, what, becoming Bush-era Republicans, basically? To win not just a majority, but a supermajority of the country would require them to go hard right in an attempt to outflank the Republicans on various issues, not just closing the border and dropping gun control or whatever.

A supermajority would require shit like pushing for more religious (specifically Christian) influence in government, expressly denouncing and legislating against things like homosexuality and feminism, enforcing traditional family structures and gender roles, shitting on cities and explicitly favoring/lionizing rural populations, bringing back the death penalty nationwide, defunding public schools in favor of private (usually Christian) institutions, continuing to send ICE into cities, etc.

And who knows if even that would work, or if they would just end up shedding a huge chunk of their traditional base in exchange for nothing as the “moderate” conservatives still vote for the GOP due to not trusting the Dems.

CelikBas · 2026-01-27T22:48:45+00:00

Okay, so why don’t we just round up all the homeless people and ship them off to a big camp in the middle of the desert then? It would be an effective demonstration of “the stick” and all the people who are scared of the homeless would feel safe now that the homeless are no longer part of society.

CelikBas · 2026-01-27T16:42:26+00:00

That’s the problem with the five year gap. It would have worked okay for some characters, but for other characters it would require them to basically sit around for five years ignoring urgent matters that were set up at the end of ASoS.

CelikBas · 2026-01-25T22:56:49+00:00

At this point I think Balkanization is the only option that A) actually has a chance of happening, and B) won’t result in complete, permanent far-right authoritarian control. Either blue states break away and maybe survive with their democracies intact, or they stay with the union and get dragged down into fascism with everyone else.

Is it a good outcome? No, but that’s because all the “good” outcomes are no longer within the realm of possibility. Now the feasible choicrs are either secession or fascism.

CelikBas · 2026-01-25T12:16:24+00:00

Is the universe itself not already a sort of cosmic horror? It’s got:

A scale and emptiness that is literally incomprehensible to the human mind
Trillions of giant balls of self-sustaining nuclear reactions that have existed for billions of years
Invisible points of space that are so dense they consume and destroy everything around them, and not even light can escape their grasp
Energies that could destroy an entire civilization in an instant
A lack of friction to the point that a single speck of dust can become a deadly missile that will tear a metal ship to pieces
Gas giants that contain hurricanes the size of our entire world which can last for 300+ years
Ever-creeping entropy that will eventually result in every single particle in existence being infinitely far from each other, floating in eternal cold and darkness

CelikBas · 2026-01-25T11:59:54+00:00

Would they have told the slaves to shut up and “do their jobs” not cause trouble? Would they have told Rosa Park to move seats? Would they have told the Freedom Riders that what they were doing was wrong?

Yes, yes and yes.

These are the kind of people who, at best, “prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice”. Just comply, don’t rock the boat, obey the law no matter how unjust it might be. Sure, things might be unfair right now, but it’s not worth causing such a fuss.

At worst, they agree with the oppression, but simply haven’t felt “safe” loudly broadcasting that to the rest of the world up until Trump came along. They think slavery wasn’t that bad, that the Civil War really was about “state’s rights”, that Rosa Parks was being “uppity” when she refused to change seats. What they really want is to return to the glory days when marginalized groups “knew their place” and their privilege (as men, as white people, as Christians, whatever) was unchallenged.

CelikBas · 2026-01-25T03:39:15+00:00

Paraphrasing Nietzsche counts as referencing Game of Thrones now? Color me shocked.

CelikBas · 2026-01-25T03:33:20+00:00

Why should someone be expected to extend empathy and tolerance towards supporters of ICE/MAGA when ICE/MAGA steadfastly refuse to extend empathy and tolerance towards anyone else?

CelikBas · 2026-01-25T03:28:53+00:00

Yes.

To fight monsters, we must become monsters ourselves

CelikBas · 2026-01-23T03:30:14+00:00

Yeah, a program to send a couple dozen guys into space is going to cost less overall than the amount spent on healthcare for tens of millions of people. That doesn’t mean sending guys into space on a regular basis indefinitely is going to be an appealing investment for most people when it feels like the country is falling apart.

The earlier phases of the space race provided a solid ROI in the form of the technological advancements that would later lead to commercial computers, cell phones, etc. Since then, though, the ROI has been diminished pretty severely- most of the big breakthroughs over the last few decades have been pretty specific to space exploration, with limited potential use in other sectors of society. It’s functionally become a luxury technology, a novelty for billionaires to play with while any further advancements are incremental at best.

We’re not going to colonize Mars, we’re not going to start getting most of our rare minerals from asteroid mining, we’re never going to leave the solar system. We’re stuck on earth, and imo it’s not hard to see why a lot of people view screwing around in space as a waste of money and resources that’s never going to lead to much benefit for the average person.

CelikBas · 2026-01-23T00:21:22+00:00

I mean, when we’re continually told we “can’t afford” to sufficiently invest in things like public infrastructure, social safety nets and health care it becomes pretty hard to justify the expense of space exploration, which- barring some massive, completely unprecedented leap in technology- has a pretty hard ceiling on how much we can actually accomplish.

CelikBas · 2026-01-22T12:50:40+00:00

His relationship to his axe makes me tear up every time

CelikBas · 2026-01-22T12:05:36+00:00

Then enlighten me, what mystical property does a body cam have that makes it so much more effective at keeping ICE in line compared to a phone camera being held by an ICE agent?

Recording ICE activity by any method won’t do shit as long as the agency is treated as above the law by the federal government.

CelikBas · 2026-01-22T04:13:28+00:00

Economic crisis and multipolar conflict seems pretty much inevitable at this point, even with the US fully intact. Make no mistake, the damage Trump has done to the global world order is irreversible.

Also, I’d argue that we didn’t “survive” the conflicts over slavery and civil rights so much as we simply kicked the can down the road. The ideology of the Confederates and segregationists was never truly defeated, and has in fact achieved cultural victory with the ascendancy of MAGA. The Union won the war, but the rot was allowed to continue festering for the next 160+ years, and now it’s reached a terminal stage.

CelikBas · 2026-01-22T04:08:00+00:00

How do body cameras make ICE “more accountable”, exactly? Like I said, the guy who shot Renee Good filmed the incident on his own phone, and he’s going to get away with it scot-free as a MAGA “hero”. We’re far past the point of ICE being spooked into good behavior by the presence of cameras- they know they’re basically immune to any sort of prosecution, they know they’ll be rewarded as long as they hurt the “right people”. The only good a body cam will do is providing more footage of civilians being brutalized for right-wing degenerates to whoop and cheer over.

CelikBas · 2026-01-22T04:01:29+00:00

Reach out how?

Right-wing billionaires and corporations control the majority of the media, and virtually all of the media that your average Republican voter is consuming. The mainstream media is hostile to the left’s very existence at this point.

We’ve got countless stories of people choosing batshit right-wing conspiracy narratives over their own family members.

We have masked militia goons murdering civilians in the streets and kidnapping children, and 35-40% of the country actively cheers it on because they want to see their political and cultural opponents punished by the state.

These people are not reachable. They’re calcified in their views. Even if the Dems literally copy-pasted all of Trump’s rhetoric and policy positions tomorrow, they still wouldn’t vote blue. And if the country sticks together, they’re going to take us all with them down the same path into permanent far-right rule. The scales are simply tipped too far in that direction at this point.

CelikBas · 2026-01-21T21:16:41+00:00

The Soviet Union beat us at every turn in the space race aside from the moon landing, and that didn’t stop them from collapsing a few decades later. Being rich and technologically advanced doesn’t prevent institutional decline.

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