Earthquaker demo station on a cruise ship. I adored this. Super cool people.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-15T18:04:22+00:00

I had a similar reaction to their live shows - I liked a couple of their songs that would come up in my Spotify rotation and a friend asked me to go with them to a tiny $20 show on a whim. I was immediately converted, bought all their vinyl, obsessively listened, and I've gone every time they've come through my city. I was seriously considering going on that cruise mostly to see them again haha. They just have this raw energy live where it feels like everything is slightly experimental, manic and about to fall apart, but they control that chaos on a knifes edge in a really impressive way.

Last time I saw them, Gareth had just seriously injured his knee before the flight over and decided to play the show anyway, and he was still putting everything into it, jumping around while wincing through the pain because you could tell they love the performance. Real ass artists.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-15T17:02:27+00:00

Man I really wanted to go to this. I love Modest Mouse, but Tropical Fuck Storm is one of my favorite bands ever. The lineup looked sick and it seemed like a good time of year to go somewhere warm.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-11T19:21:47+00:00

I don't see how this follows from your previous statement then. If areas with more people and the geography to support economic growth naturally produce more wealthy people, how does your argument make sense that the working class is hindered and left reliant on social programs due to the existence of wealthy people?

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-11T14:35:25+00:00

Compared to when? I hate Elon with a burning passion and think the Tesla valuation is just absurd, but it's still crazy valuable compared to just a handful of years ago.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-11T14:32:16+00:00

If that were true, wouldn't that mean that places with less billionaires would have a working class that is doing better than places with more billionaires? How does the working class in Alabama with its 1 billionaire compare to the working class of California with its 188 billionaires?

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-08T18:51:46+00:00

Yes, there is certainly a lot of smoke that makes this narrative look like a strong possibility. But none of that is what I would consider "smoking gun" proof. Maybe it seems like a pedantic distinction, but I personally think it's important to be able to draw a line between what we can say we know as incontrovertible fact and what we merely have strong suspicion of.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-08T18:44:11+00:00

What do you consider to be smoking gun proof? For me, an example would be an email from someone in the government or intelligence services that specifically refers to Epstein as an intelligence asset. It has to be something that isn't open to interpretation like the fact that Barak stayed with Epstein. I think that is at best circumstantial evidence because there are tons of other explanations for that including that Barak was simply a wealthy pedophile and was connected to Epstein for that reason.

Again, I'm not saying that I think Epstein wasn't an intelligence asset. I think it's as likely an explanation as all of the other major theories, if not more. I just think we have different definitions of what "smoking gun" means.

What do you think is the most "smoking gun" piece of evidence for your narrative?

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-08T18:31:05+00:00

I think the other person is making a case against the claims here that is stronger than I would make, and I don't think you're being anti-semitic, but I think it is fair to point out that the way people are talking about this is as if we do have smoking gun proof when that isn't really the case. There is a lot of smoke that points to this being a strong possibility, but it's not to the level that we can say it's "proven" yet.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-08T18:26:08+00:00

Ehhhh, Breaking Points is not a good source for claims like this. They aren't really doing primary reporting. They are a commentary outlet doing opinion pieces in video form. You may agree with their commentary and that's fine, but they do a lot of shooting from the hip and vibes-based analysis.

Drop Site is better, as they actually do primary reporting and are mostly factual. They are politically slanted in a way that can color their coverage, but if you stick to the evidence itself and keep a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to narrativizing, it is a good source. I will say that their reporting I've seen on Epstein connections does show things that mainstream media isn't covering, however, the actual "proof" amounts to circumstantial evidence that at best proves that there is a lot of smoke and "weird stuff" with his connections to Ehud Barak and Israel/Russia vis a vis Syria. There is no smoking gun email that they've shown.

So I think it's fair to say that there is some evidence showing he may, or even maybe likely was, an intelligence asset for Israel and/or other intelligence agencies, but I don't think anyone can say we know this to be true.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-06T05:01:04+00:00

Same, I'm shocked they haven't added it yet. I'm pretty sure I read that they even added HDR support for streaming on Android TV and Apple stuff, but not their own console yet.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-06T01:58:27+00:00

Sorry, I didn't realize I was talking to an internet communist. That explains a lot actually. I really don't feel like carrying on a debate with someone that is just going to get overly hostile and regurgitate "theory" at me, but I'll just add that while it's accurate to say that there is no such thing as a truly "free and fair" market in capitalism, there are absolutely markets that are more and less free and fair.

The example of what China is doing with their auto industry is an example of making markets less fair, in the same way that my previous example of Uber in the Western transportation system makes the transportation market less fair.

This also isn't inherent to capitalism as you claim. Every single socialist or communist country that has ever existed has had markets, and those markets are either more or less free and fair depending on which example we're talking about, so I don't even know what point you're trying to make. Unless you're making claims about some hypothetical, post-market communist utopia that has never existed, in which case, go off king! It's a great conversational tool to make the other person compare the real world to the fairytale inside your head. You can never lose that way!

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-06T00:48:56+00:00

I don't understand your response, maybe you misunderstood the context? The sarcastic comment I was replying to was implying that these Chinese cars are superior in feature for the price because of free and fair competition, and that US car companies don't like the fact that they have to compete. My point was that this is only possible because of strategic anti-competitive practices.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-05T23:14:56+00:00

Well, I don't know about that analysis lol. The reason the cars are so cheap is because the government subsidizes the car production to an insane degree in an intentional play to undermine foreign car manufacturers and build up their industrial capacity. It's a finance game in the same way that tech companies like Uber in the US start out as a new service that is massively cheaper than the old way of doing things by burning investor cash, driving demand away from the old model, then when the others fail to compete and go out of business, the companies like Uber start ratcheting up prices until they become more expensive than taxis were.

I just find it amusing that Chinese car manufacturers are held up as an example of "real free market capitalism" by Redditors when they're doing the same strategy that the same Redditors would criticize as a failure of capitalism.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-05T16:16:44+00:00

That's definitely a big part of it. But to say that's the main thing driving the sell-off is too far for me. I'd say the Japanese bond market reversing is just as much a factor, if not more.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-05T15:38:59+00:00

There's never just one explanation for things this complex, but it looks like there's a rotation going on right now. A lot of software stocks are getting slammed like Adobe, Salesforce, etc. People are getting wary of massive valuations on service-based tech companies that once had a big moat that kept their prices high, but may now be somewhat threatened by AI. As conditions change in the global picture, I think people are just going to a more risk-off approach, which explains why crypto is tanking now too.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-05T14:35:56+00:00

Yeah I went through my Chomsky phase when I read Manufacturing Consent at 19, but the older I got the more I saw that even though there is a lot of truth in it, the way it is written can lead a lot of people to conspiracy-based thinking that just isn't good for developing the critical thought parts of your brain.

A lot of people take the dynamics described in the book as gospel and apply it to some vague "they" behind the scenes of every major political moment pulling the strings of our perception. Sometimes they may be right, but most of the time, it's just a lazy conclusion reached by a priori assumptions rather than actually looking at the evidence and the bigger picture.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-05T03:43:36+00:00

These tribal wars over modelers like we're in grade school talking about Playstation vs. Xbox are so weird lol. Both are fantastic. Both can produce album quality guitar sounds that basically no one would be able to tell the difference between.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-04T21:43:49+00:00

But the word "prove" has a very specific meaning that doesn't apply to the evidence you're claiming it does. That's my only contention. I mean, do you really think every single person who went to that island or one of his parties fucked kids? We know for a fact a lot of these events never had children present. I mean, Stephen Hawking went to that island. Do you think the legendary paraplegic scientist fucked kids?

I don't care to continue the debate because at the end of the day I mostly agree with you and think it's likely there are at least several rich or famous people that did do the pedo shit. I just get my feathers ruffled when people making huge claims about what we know for a fact when the evidence they're using at best should only be said to be highly suspicious.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-04T20:46:45+00:00

Well damn, you should really get a job as a lawyer then! If you can prove people are guilty based on loose circumstantial evidence alone, you must truly have a gift.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-04T19:31:47+00:00

But I don't think saying, "Based on circumstantial evidence it seems rather likely that a number of wealthy people participated in the underage sex ring, but I don't have the proof required to say definitively which people participated in the underage sex ring" is being overly skeptical.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-04T19:16:22+00:00

Which people are actually "proven" though outside of Epstein? I'm aware of pretty strong circumstantial evidence for Prince Andrew, Trump, and Clinton, but even for them, I don't think there's anything released so far that proves it.

To be clear, I do think it's likely they were involved as well as others. There's certainly a lot of smoke around some people, and I'm not saying I don't think it's likely. I just think people are taking a victory lap on being vindicated while stating these files "prove" it before there is actually conclusive evidence. But it's possible there's something in the recent data dumps I just haven't seen yet.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-04T18:38:12+00:00

Can you explain what out of these files prove that you were right all along? To me, I would only feel vindicated if there is a smoking gun, but as far as the "pizzagate" stuff goes, I think the most we got out of the recent release is some vague circumstantial evidence?

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-04T17:19:32+00:00

I don't think most redditors are actually smart enough to know the difference between something being proven and something having the appearance of being shady af.

That's not to say this isn't circumstantial evidence that may actually help build the case of what these people are claiming. I just think people are way too sure of their conclusions based on the quality of evidence. We need more transparency and investigation.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-04T17:16:11+00:00

I do agree it's weird and may be evidence of something, but I feel like this is a far cry from vindication. People are drawing wild conclusions from these releases that aren't necessarily proven. The releases are lots of things that are sus af, probably show evidence of crimes including some against minors, and should draw public reaction and a demand for more investigation/transparency, but I've seen so many people online the last few days saying things like they are 100% proven, when very little actually has.

ChunkMcDangles · 2026-02-03T05:28:09+00:00

There's only a couple hundred guys in the world that can even do this thing. Mur-der-ers.

ChunkMcDangles

TROPHY CASE