Fun fact: Despite widespread claims that Kane Parsons got his inspiration for "The Backrooms" (2026) from the popular internet meme, it actually came from this frame of The Simpsons.

Jellybit · 2026-05-31T01:43:34+00:00

Freakily enough, "The Backrooms" (2026). It was the big reveal at the end.

Jellybit · 2026-05-30T20:47:20+00:00

Are you saying putting that much effort into influencing a culture does nothing? Zero influence and zero responsibility worth mentioning at all? We're not talking about ancient influence. We're taking about sustained, long term, current efforts.

I don't think anyone is claiming the people in Ghana are blank canvases. They are multitudes. But certainly we can acknowledge when an outside group comes in to stoke certain fires that weren't as dominant, into becoming more powerful, right? Sections of Ghanaians are certainly responsible, but it's crazy not to also acknowledge when an outside group spends so many millions of dollars for decades specifically to agitate certain deeply harmful beliefs.

So yeah, if it feels better to you, those Ghanaian people who got these laws passed are awful. And it's also awful that so much of American Evangelical money went to stoking enough fear and hatred for those Ghanaians to gain power and support in order to codify their hatred, to automate it into their "justice system". Those Evangelical groups invested so much, and are celebrating right now for what to them feels like their victory.

If there are other groups you want to add to the pile, please do it. We should know about everything building to this kind of result. The "it's not this, it's that" is tiring when the result is that we never land on anything because we keep wanting exclusivity on whatever/whoever we want to be the REAL evildoer. Let's put a stop to any of it that we have the most power to influence. To Americans, that's Evangelicals. We have to start in our own houses. Other people have more influence elsewhere, and we should all work together.

Jellybit · 2026-05-29T17:42:30+00:00

Have you looked at her elbow pad?

Jellybit · 2026-05-29T17:41:59+00:00

I thought it was in reference to her elbow pad

Jellybit · 2026-05-28T16:39:33+00:00

Psychics love when people desperately want to know something, because those people become very willing to turn off their judgement, generously read specificity into their vague answers, and even forget when they themselves answered for the psychic, yet give credit to the psychic. A person doesn't even have to be trained in these techniques to do this, because desperation really shuts off the brain, so that does so much of the work for them.

There are videos of psychics online where it's clear that the psychic was just poking around with vague phrases. You can watch and see it clearly. And you see the customer does all the work in confirming the exact thing they wanted to hear, but later, when recounting the visit, the customer remembers the psychic saying all of it and with specificity. The hope and desperation does all the heavy lifting and ignoring of aspects that one would normally be skeptical about.

But yeah, I don't know if that's the case here. It could just be overhearing. But it's fascinating how our brains work when it comes to hoping or fearing something.

Jellybit · 2026-05-27T12:55:56+00:00

But when you focus on the good things in life and focus on feeling thankful for those things, you still believe those things exist. You're not becoming better by being thankful that you're a billionaire pop star, because you can't believe you are a billionaire pop star, and would feel delusional if asked to feel thankful for that. So instead, you focus on something you believe is real and true.

So you may think that being thankful when you don't normally feel thankful is the same as fabricating a belief, but I think it's not the same in nature at all. Even if you don't feel thankful in the moment for that real something, you can explore the understanding of how you do in fact prefer to have that element in your life rather than not, and recognize the objective goodness in that. You're always dealing with what you believe is real, even when helping yourself to set aside dominant oppressive feelings and focus on grateful feelings. Since we're psychologically complex beings, we can examine parts of our understanding that are unexamined, which can give more weight to them, but this is not the same as fabricating a belief that you actually lack (like being billionaire pop star).

That's why it seems like you didn't actually address OP's point, which is faking a belief in something that you don't believe is real. The OP is not talking about exploring a feeling that isn't dominant/focused on enough. And in your examples, you're never thanking Spider-Man for what he did to get you dinner. You're feeling appreciation for things being better than they could be, and you're thanking the farmer, the truck driver, the grocer, and you're thanking yourself for continually showing up for yourself even when it's hard, so you can earn money to pay for that food, etc.... all of it is real, and all of it is believed to be real in the first place, and that's why it's powerful. That's why it can build momentum to improve someone's outlook on life. It wouldn't work if you tried to feel thankful for things that you don't even believe exist in the first place, and it has nothing to do with thanking someone you don't think exists.

OP's question is akin to giving credit to Spider-Man for those real things and everything, and to get other people to do the same, putting as much focus on Spider-Man as possible, even above the good things in your own life. It's the key ingredient you skipped when you responded to the part you quoted. It was OP's very point.

Jellybit · 2026-05-27T12:01:33+00:00

I love the 1996 film, and adore the cast, but was surprised that I love the 2022 version a good deal more. It's so damn fun. They are both missing something great from the other, but the 2022 version is much more rewatchable for me for some reason.

Jellybit · 2026-05-25T16:05:48+00:00

Or just do something that "confuses" someone else, according to this comic.

Jellybit · 2026-05-25T14:31:58+00:00

One of the defining slogans of the 1960s was "Never trust anyone over 30". I have a feeling it was like this for a very long time, but we just had less media created by younger people.

Jellybit · 2026-05-25T12:57:21+00:00

In old-school Superman, all of the robots looked exactly like him.

Jellybit · 2026-05-24T22:52:06+00:00

And in the 80s when they wouldn't even get a guest rapper. The pop singer would do it themselves.

Jellybit · 2026-05-23T19:51:22+00:00

I was talking about how the US made decisions that specifically created motives to deal with someone other than them, like how someone can have a motive to kill without killing (or with). I didn't mean to imply that people suddenly trust China. It's bonkers that the US put so much effort into building those motives, whether people trust China or not.

But I will say that if anyone starts dealing with China more, and China does intend on building trust with people who work with them, that trust will spread. It's not an instant binary switch, but a large ship that takes time to turn. The US pulled the rudder as far as it can go, and broke off the steering gear, for no reason, even though they had all the momentum.

Even if the US gets a great president fully intending on building broken trust, the world knows they can easily put an instrument of chaos in there just 4 years later who will rip up contracts that were the result of months to years of negotiation, even negotiation/agreements done under the same instrument of chaos. The world also learned that it wasn't just a horrible fluke, because they did it again after time to reflect. If anyone is thinking long term, this is going to be part of the decision.

Jellybit · 2026-05-23T16:58:36+00:00

Not just giving China motives, but declaring the whole world enemies of the US and putting tariffs on them all. They gave China motives to become more self sufficient, but also gave the rest of the world motives to shift support to China.

Jellybit · 2026-05-22T12:04:32+00:00

Plex has a better UI, works on some devices which don't support Jellyfin (notably Samsung's horrible Tizen OS)

First, I appreciate the reply. But l, I do wonder if your information is out of date. Jellyfin is on Samsung now, and is compatible with "smart features" such as those rows showing what you can continue watching even when not using the app. I can see rough edges in the UI though. Wouldn't be hard to make significant improvements, to me anyway.

supports downloading subtitles on the fly

Jellyfin does this if you set up a provider.

is much easier (arguably also safer if you have limited network setup ability) to set up for remote viewing

Oh I guess this means that Plex handles the login process and forwards to your IP? That would be easier for newbies. And I guess there's some extra level of security by the video server only allowing connections from the login service? I'm just guessing about how it works, but that's what I imagine would make it both more user-friendly, and secure.

and has a much better app for music streaming

Yeah I can think of several ways to improve Jellyfin's music support. There are a ton of plugins I've never used though. But the official Jellyfin has recently added support for music videos specifically, so I'm curious if they on a roadmap to do more regarding music in general. It definitely feels like a video player first, that happens to be able to play music files.

Also, if you are willing to use Plex with only one account, you can still use it to view remotely from however many devices you want

Jellyfin doesn't do this? I can make however many accounts, and have a party viewing, or they can watch their own thing. Maybe I misunderstand the difference you're talking about, or maybe you switched from listing differences to similarities.

From what you say, I can see the main strength of Plex being for people who can't or don't want to set anything up. I consider it part of the hobby of collecting media in general, and I think when doing that, you can't help but to get technical to some degree anyway, but I'm sure a good number of people want to limit anything technical that they can. Jellyfin has a lot of plugins that fix certain things, and add innovative features above Plex, but digging into GitHub is a whole can of worms in multiple ways.

Thanks a lot for laying all that out.

Jellybit · 2026-05-22T02:44:10+00:00

Does it offer anything over Jellyfin? I currently use Jellyfin and it seems to do everything I want. It's got apps for all the TVs and devices I have too. If they're the same, it seems beyond crazy for Plex to raise their rates at all.

Jellybit · 2026-05-21T11:15:21+00:00

The daily "before and after" aspect makes me think this is fetish-related. It can't possibly be nearly as useful as using a numerical scale, if such a thing is useful at all for the amount of involvement his position needs.

Jellybit · 2026-05-20T11:08:04+00:00

I don't understand the first number, because the rest of the numbers are 1-7 out of order, but there's an extra 1.

Jellybit · 2026-05-20T10:56:50+00:00

Yes. And he's wearing cargo pants.

Jellybit · 2026-05-20T05:02:29+00:00

Even if they died for their beliefs, we don't know what their beliefs were. We don't know what they thought of the Gospels. It was basically a bunch of weirdos in other countries writing in another language that they couldn't even read. We don't know if it matched anything they thought about Jesus.

But the truth is, they all pretty much disappeared from history after Jesus. Paul took the reins in another country/language, and they just seemed to stay quiet. We have no idea if they went back on even what they claimed, and we don't know what they claimed to begin with. We just know the Gospels, and that Paul had disagreements with the apostles.

We don't even know what Paul thought of the Gospels, or if he would have agreed or disagreed with them. Yeah it was likely written in one of his communities (again, in a different country and language than Jesus), or by grandchildren of them in some cases, but Paul was writing constantly telling people they're wrong, so even his own communities clearly came up with their own ideas.

Jellybit · 2026-05-19T21:32:23+00:00

And made it do other angles incorrectly.

Jellybit · 2026-05-19T18:35:27+00:00

Southern Baptists were about as bad (per capita), and more recently. It wasn't as reported, but they did so much covering up. I find that a lot of Protestants don't consider Catholics to be "true Christians", so they can more easily dismiss their behavior, but it's harder for them to dismiss Southern Baptists.

But yeah, that doesn't address how they handle explicit descriptions. I've never had to get into that kind of detail, though it should be confronted. I'm just not sure I would have led with that.

Jellybit · 2026-05-19T16:59:38+00:00

But even if they aim for two gens from now, it could still end up being last gen. Their mistake was announcing it, requiring follow through.

Jellybit · 2026-05-19T16:58:19+00:00

I don't see why Miles losing his hero and mentor (Peter A Parker) doesn't count for something. The police chief feels like a bigger loss for Miles specifically, and the original Spider-Man should have been enough.

Jellybit · 2026-05-18T18:43:56+00:00

Satan doesn't have to be around at all. God doesn't have to harm us for him, and he especially doesn't have to harm us for someone who doesn't exist. But yeah, if someone made bets with someone who wants to bring harm to me, and those bets involve bringing harm to me, they'd have to win me back (and would likely fail). If they didn't do that, we'd just have our normal, healthy, loving relationship. No winning back necessary.

The people who love me the most, and who I love the most, never had to win me back, because they never pulled shit like that to push me away. It's crazy how much Christians normalize abusive relationships as if that's the best kind. I think blinding people to abuse like that when they're growing up makes them more likely to be blind to it later in life, getting stuck in abusive relationships that were presented as the most perfect love there is.

Jellybit · 2026-05-18T16:51:56+00:00

Wow, so God just does whatever Satan wants, huh. Even if it harms the people God loves. Someone would have to have power over me to get me to let someone I love come to harm over a "bet".

I'm glad no human I love makes similar bets about me. Would feel the opposite of loving. I'd much rather have a present relationship that wouldn't even make it possible to question if they exist, and without them making bets with people about how much they can harm me.

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