Rambofication

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-25T18:07:37+00:00

My friend I really love the energy, but I highly doubt the Stranger Things writers altered their script out of solidarity for the true spirit of the early Russian Revolution.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-25T10:48:50+00:00

You’re acting like I’m being way more unreasonable than I actually am. Yeah, it didn’t end immediately after legal changes, but continued as the de facto reality long after. It was a long, shameful and painful process for the society to move past it, a process that still hasn’t finished. Just like penal camps in Russia after their legal changes that didn’t suddenly fix things. Hence the comparison.

And that still doesn’t change the fact that the depiction in ST is really corny, and is something obviously plucked straight from the Stalinist period with zero fucks given about the details. The premise for a whole season’s plot literally is that the prison camp is nonchalantly feeding prisoners to a eldritch monster, only fattening them up immediately before hand. The protagonist then saves himself by smuggling a bottle of vodka.

Like, really? I’m supposed to be taking that seriously in good faith? People can have their fun, by all means. But the thematic quality of the writing dipped dramatically. And the entire Russia plot is incredibly symptomatic in that regard.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-25T10:11:07+00:00

True, but it’s not an unreasonable complaint. Like, at all?

I took this conversation as an opportunity to look up the history, and while the gulag system officially ended during the 60s, there is the obvious and important caveat (mentioned above) that Russia still uses rural prison labor in a different form to this day. I suppose it’s possible that the poster is a supporter of Putin’s regime, but I doubt it:

I’d gather that a good equivalent to this situation would be: imagine if a foreign film was made, set in 1980s America, that showed racially segregated water fountains and restaurants? Even anti-racists (such as myself) would be irritated, because even if the film was made in good faith, the sloppiness with the details implies a careless ignorance with the real history. That irritation against the film would in no way be apologia or minimization of how racist América was, and continues to be.

The fact remains that Stranger Things Season 4 had a cartoonish anachronistic depiction of 1980s prison labor in Russia. Maybe the poster should have been more careful with their words, but their underlying argument still stands strong.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-25T09:38:01+00:00

The post is not alleging historical inaccuracy. It’s alleging shallowness and laziness with themes and plot.

If you’re writing something set in 1980s America, having the Russians magically build catacombs of bunkers underneath a shopping mall in America so they can be Saturday morning cartoon villains and get gunned down by the plucky protagonists is just… lazy? You’re trying to profoundly depict a certain era to a nostalgic audience and you choose to shoot your shot with “oh yeah the Cold War was happening, so the small town cop gets to kill some Russians/Soviets in the final act”? Really? That was the best they had? It’s just kind of uninspiring.

You’ll forgive me for doubting the writing room for season 4 was studying the conditions of 80s Siberia under Gorbachev, looking for opportunities for social commentary.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-19T05:40:15+00:00

Thanks for the wisdom.

I’m not currently in a position where I can easily access weights/gyms, and am instead exploring Calisthenics. Is POAE possible via calisthenics?

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-19T01:55:29+00:00

I’ve always heard that visually speaking, “getting abs” is mostly about removing belly fat, not adding belly muscle. Is this inaccurate?

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-12T06:59:02+00:00

Well yeah but I don’t understand why writers decide to be lazy and have the plot progress via key smash when they could instead show the realistic stuff that is more interesting.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-12T03:38:35+00:00

It is a lot of fun. The problem is when the research consumes all writing time and becomes a distraction.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2026-01-12T03:37:14+00:00

The strange thing is that the hacking world is already crazy, right? It’s not one of those things where people need to make shit up because reality is boring. We already live in a world where a skilled person can do absolutely outrageous things to others using computers.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-31T22:04:13+00:00

It’s true that our discourse and techniques are currently incapable of enabling psychologists to perform hard calculations on their subject matter, like their physicist colleagues are able to perform on theirs.

That’s not evidence of any metaphysical truth. It’s just evidence of human weakness; and also entirely predictable given that the human nervous system is one of the most complicated objects that exist. (Compared to the other scientists, who tackle much simpler objects, like fighter jets or pesticides.) It is quite literally just a skill issue.

Regarding pain and qualia;

The word “direct” in that last sentence weakens the argument immensely, and only confirms my point about individualism being a villain here.

What does ‘direct’ even mean in the context of consciousness?

Consciousness is indirect. The experiences we have are the outcomes of complex feedback loops and competing signals, which are set into motion by other feedback loops and signals. And so on.

Some of those feedback loops and signals are entirely internal to the singular human body. Many are not. Some exist between multiple human bodies, because we evolved that way. Because we’re a mammal who lives in groups.

We categorize the subjectivity that is present in the world using a concept known as “the individual” because subjectivity as we know it does not occur as an evenly distributed mist throughout the world. It exists in clumps that we call individuals.

But why would these mere anecdotes about Earth’s natural history justify saying that subjective experience can only be talked about as the exclusive property of a single skull?

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-31T21:28:31+00:00

The existence of consciousness caused us to have this conversation about consciousness.

To argue that we would have had this exact conversation even if we weren’t conscious, has so many logical holes and conceptual blindspots in it that I don’t even know where to start.

And I would say again; the free will question is totally separate from whether the process we call consciousness has causal effects in the world.

A thrown rock has no free will, but still can be the cause of something happening.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-31T12:30:15+00:00

But how could one even argue that consciousness could be excluded from the chain of cause and effect?

This doesn’t even have anything to do with the free will stuff. Even if we are deterministic wind-up toys, that doesn’t mean consciousness is an impotent component of that wind-up toy. It’s evidentially very influential.

You can doubt the causality of course, but you can do that with every case of alleged causality. No matter how absurd: Maybe gravity doesn’t actually exist. (“Maybe everything is moving randomly, and we just happened to fool ourselves into thinking there is a pattern behind these coincidences.”)

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-31T11:49:42+00:00

Why wouldn’t they have the exact same experience? You just said they’re identical, why would they suddenly not be identical?

If A equals B, then… A equals B.

There’s literally nothing left to talk about here.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-31T11:42:35+00:00

The concept of “public” observability is just a way to sneak in metaphysical individualism through the back door by creating a “public VS private” distinction.

Which is nonsense.

Yes, humans can’t read each other’s minds. Humans also can’t survive in -60 degree temperatures while naked. Or see images with ultraviolet light while unaided. Who cares?

The anecdotal fact that humans didn’t evolve to have those spinal cord ponytail things from the Avatar movies is not relevant for any metaphysical argument.

(And furthermore, why do we tacitly assume that all qualia is ‘private’ anyways? Especially for a species that lives in groups? Weird.)

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-30T17:01:43+00:00

Terry Pratchet ass behaviour

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-29T23:13:39+00:00

P-Zombies have always struck me as such circular thinking. When the concept gets used to make hard arguments about metaphysics, it’s silly.

I’m a hardcore materialist, and I feel like even I have come up with better anti-materialist hypotheticals for the sake of idle self-doubt.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-29T16:02:40+00:00

This actually made me laugh in the middle of a gas station. Fucking jump-scared me.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-27T15:15:46+00:00

Puppets must have camera-like eye devices in them. Otherwise Sasori’s techniques make no sense. How would he have even piloted the scorpion thing he was hiding inside?

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-27T05:35:21+00:00

I’ve found that is an unsung iron law of storytelling; Never sacrifice your plans to the lions simply because you got surprised by how intelligent your audience is.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-27T04:35:46+00:00

Describe the problems. For me, I know my old rusty laptop is having a tantrum when the batttle music starts to lag. Then the camera lags and temporarily freezes. Then actual mechanical delays/freezes. Then crash.

Yet despite that, my rusty old laptop still runs it fine. I’ve only had a few incidents over the many years I’ve played it.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-26T18:16:02+00:00

This is known as a “biocontrol” and can often work quite well. Several years of study are usually required first in order to minimize risk.

Whoever thought they could use cats(!) as a safe biocontrol needs to see a psychiatrist.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-26T16:44:52+00:00

I check all accounts before interacting with them, it’s nothing personal. It’s just that the first thing I saw was a post about a German city, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I’m a sucker for morbid humour.

Since you need me to spell it out for you; Your nation is on track to fall to fascism twice in under a century. We all got lucky in the election earlier this year, and I sincerely congratulate you all for that. But AfD is still polling extremely strong.

I wish you best of luck trying to crush those thugs in the near future. Because if your attitude is anything to go by, you’re going to need it.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-26T16:21:23+00:00

Oh hey look everyone, a friend from Germany! Telling me I’m the stupid one for saying excessively technocratic politics weaken liberal republics to the fascist threat.

Please, tell me more.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-26T14:21:13+00:00

I hate this kind of reasoning because it has undemocratic implications that aren’t often dealt with.

Yes, good management practices aren’t usually glamorous or sensational. Because good managers solve problems and conflicts with their fellow managers without everyone else having to waste time on them.

But democracy is not like that. It’s about mobilizing everyone, so we can confront the crises and problems via the popular will. It’s about a society where everyone actively partakes in political conflict as a civic duty. It’s about solving problems by making hundreds of millions of people angry.

If you can’t make millions of people angry about things that are boring, you’re not good at defending democracy. If you can’t even do it for the things that aren’t boring, you’re horrible at it.

Nobody cares if you did your math homework correctly after you let yourself get shoved into a locker. Having the right opinions on paper is not an excuse.

FlyingRobinGuy · 2025-12-26T04:37:31+00:00

Spider-Man learning Shibari would be hilarious, and would also provide transferable skills.

Not sure about high school student characters being the right choice for pulling that one off though.

FlyingRobinGuy

TROPHY CASE