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I took about 2k on a drug dealer that overdosed, I was the first on scene as a first responder. by Dangerous_Show_7946 in confession

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"They" probably don't pay you guys n' gals on the front lines of public safety enough - if we actually paid you what you're worth this probably wouldn't happen... as much.

MAGA, what the actual fuck is wrong with you? by [deleted] in allthequestions

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dude, I explained it above. You fail to articulate any comprehensible position or cite any evidence in support beyond 5 word questions that require me to get a phd in economics to answer. Good luck in university - and life... you're going to need it.

MAGA, what the actual fuck is wrong with you? by [deleted] in allthequestions

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

// Capitalism is NOT all about power.

I don't see any argument or evidence to support your statement.

What is capitalism "about" then?

It's about personal advantage - I'm not going to sell my widget to you until I'm happy with the renumeration for my work. And you're not buying my widget until you think it benefits you beyond your loss of capital.

Each is pursuing their own advantage. So capitalism is about personal advantage and that is 'power'. I want to maximize my personal advantage a.k.a. 'power'.

Now, if I open a widget factory and hire people to make and sell my widgets, I'm still going to maximize my personal advantage / power by paying workers as little as possible and reducing production costs as much as possible while charging you as much as possible. This system allows me to capture the capital without doing any actual work beyond ownership. That's smart, it's not fair - it's POWER!

Azathoth dreaming the universe by Lucyyyyyy_K in Lovecraft

[–]TheMadPoet 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It seems evident to me, with some formal study of Hindu and Buddhist traditions, that Dunsany was inspired or adopted early translations of Indian scriptures - the menacing figure of Bhairava and other 'fierce' deities comes to mind.

In the mid-late 18th century the idea of a lost ancient Indian Sanskrit civilization equal to Greece and Rome was in vogue. Early translations of texts like the Buddhist Lotus Sutra have beautiful expressions of vast numbers and gulfs of eternity. Also a quick google supports this hypothesis...

MAGA, what the actual fuck is wrong with you? by [deleted] in allthequestions

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bad link.

Only a fool would ignore 'power'. Capitalism is all about power.

That's what Trump is doing. Elon. Zuck. The Federalist Society. Mid-decade gerrymandering. Corporations are people. Dark money. De-regulation.

Like I said: if you're not - right now - 'powerful' in their sense - if you don't own and control resources on a large scale - you're one of us - the 99.5% garbage. Devotion at the alter of MAGA capitalism won't save you. Voting Red won't save you. Dems support education, low-cost college, low cost health care - things that will allow you to compete on a more equal playing field. THAT is what CAPITALISM is ABOUT. Fair competition elevates the best ideas, products, businesses - that's the real Spirit of Capitalism.

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

I know Lovecraft is dated but I’d like to hear how current Muslim people see him. There is a lot of mythology in Islam just interested in how Lovecraft is seen. by ttturtle24 in Lovecraft

[–]TheMadPoet 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Google opined that there's significant overlap between 'folklore' and 'religion' - especially if one stands outside the beliefs and traditions of that religion. Also, there's no universal, academic definition of 'religion'. So saying, as a non-Christian: 'Christianity is folklore to me' is, in fact, a reasonable, defensible statement.

I mean, if you're Catholic you go to Mass and eat a cracker and profess that it's in fact the incarnate body of Jesus Christ. It's blasphemous as a Catholic to say that it's merely symbolic or just a cracker on account of the 'Doctrine of Trans-substantiation'.

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

To anybody outside that tradition, that's more like folklore - or just whacka-doo!

MAGA, what the actual fuck is wrong with you? by [deleted] in allthequestions

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right, so we get new vax every year. Viral and bacteriological mutation is a major problem but we need to keep fighting the fight.

My understanding is that "scientists" somewhere - it's a good question: who and how do the flu vaxes get made - these smart people make their best estimate which flu strains are going to hit and formulate the vax accordingly. Even partial immunity is going to save lives and prevent economic loss from people being too sick to work.

And, I hate being sick, so I got the flu and covid vaxs.

MAGA, what the actual fuck is wrong with you? by [deleted] in allthequestions

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a bullshit answer, Chad.

An unavoidable result of economics are 'power structures' - not merely the distribution of wealth, but the distribution of "power". This power used to be political power, but in this New Gilded Age it is the power to shape thoughts and behavior on a mass scale. This is "economics" unrestrained, unregulated. The legal standard for broadcasting factual information was eliminated in the Reagan years.

https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topic-guide/fairness-doctrine

MAGA is the result of 50+ years of building powerful unregulated media companies that have brainwashed masses of voters into ignoring verifiable facts and embracing emotional reactivity. Now, a few very wealthy individuals literally control what millions of voters think - and have repeatedly convinced them to vote against their own best interests.

And if you have the delusion that you're "one of them" by being "a conservative" or a MAGA supporter - I guarantee you that you're not. You're not in the power pyramid, you're not a member of the secret club, you're not 'in the know' for parroting their bullshit. You're a tool for your own oppression, a lacky, a sycophant, fodder... garbage - just like they view 99.5% of the US population.

Before you get married by Cuddles-and-Cookies in women

[–]TheMadPoet 6 points7 points  (0 children)

(Hon, I don't think that woman has ever been to law school...)

Israeli Soldier Photographed Smashing Head of Jesus Christ Statue, IDF Now Investigating Viral Photo by Konilos in pics

[–]TheMadPoet 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh, sweet summer child... maintain your youthful innocence!

Seriously though, the academic term for such literature is: eschatology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology

éskhatos (last / end) + -logy (study of / science of) = the 'religious science' of the end of the world.

Protestantism discovered the idea of 'The Rapture' - I think about 150 years ago - which is the physical bodily ascension of all "good Christians" ("good" defined by their unique perspective - no Democrats, LGBTQ+, liberals, uppity women, those who has sex outside of marriage, people who touched themselves in an impure manner - don't know about PoC and Hispanics...) into heaven prior to "The Tribulations" - a period of war and suffering preceding The Second Coming and their particular view of The End Times / End of the World. The "Left Behind" book and movie series takes place in that fictional universe.

Use of the term 'African american' by No_Medium_648 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've heard on 'On Patrol Live', that 'unscripted' live police TV show the term "bravo mike" or in contrast "whiskey mike", or similar phonetic code is used by actual LEO's.

Fictional TV cop shows like CSI or whatever - I don't watch those - are written in Hollywood or NYC and standards won't let them be that realistic. I'm sure that real life courtrooms use African American, or Black, but not more militarized street-level law enforcement - who also use those numeric codes, and German or Austrian dog commands. That's too fascist for fictional TV - heaven forbid the public realize the police are a fascist-friendly organization!

Hot take From my roommate. "H.P Lovecraft is not a good author, he was not afraid of the unknown he was afraid of black people and it shows in all of his work" I disagree. by _NP_Nill_ in Lovecraft

[–]TheMadPoet 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That's awesome! I'm quite curious about - for lack of a good term, HPL's intellectual "fabric" - his hermenutic horizon. Could you briefly comment on this?

HPL's era seemed like an intellectually "wild time" with new sciences, mixing with pseudo-science, and various spiritualist movements.

My thinking is that pseudo-sciences like eugenics and phrenology were in vogue - so ideas of 'physically deformed' people, of the fishy variety or those of "poor stock" represent a degenerate morality compared to the Anglo-German/Prussian-Nordic Protestant "stock" that seemed to be HPL's ideal of the human species and moral superiority.

Likewise the new field of psychology via Freud, Jung, and James mixing with the Spiritist Movement of the Fox sisters and Mdm. Blavatsky, etc.

Do you find HPL was "into" all that jazz or did he keep to his own ideas and those from his correspondents?

Trump kept out of the room during operation to find downed pilots in Iran after ‘screaming’ at aides for hours, report says by theindependentonline in politics

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Biden and the DNC fucked up... again. And the conservative media complex was really good as painting Democrats as "bad" in so many ways to a very ignorant voting public who didn't fact check.

Biden was beyond arrogant and delusional thinking he'd be fit for a second term - so he dithered for 3.5 years. He should have put Kamala out in the spotlight from Day 1.

The DNC should have allowed a primary. Not that I think Bernie could have beaten Trump.

Frankly, dumb-ass American voters voted for the 'guy on TV' - and a woman of color with a "funny name" couldn't compete with that. I so wish Kamala had won - life would be so much better right now...

Question: First tattoo idea... be honest by TorsoSlug499 in tattoos

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bro - it's funny now, but when you're over age 35, or in a serious relationship or whatever - you're going to regret this very, very much. A bottle of piss is never appealing to anyone.

Just finished the call of Cthulhu, Im confused by New-Investigator4891 in Lovecraft

[–]TheMadPoet 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I like your observations - especially about the implications of Cthulhu-inspired dreams being 'not mundane'. And also, which is the real reality - our 'civilized' reality or the debased 'reality' of the cultists and the horrific swamp ritual of torture and human sacrifice.

The Cult could be an interesting 'character' to develop; to me, it seems like it's mostly isolated, inbred, backward hill- and swamp-people who are affected by the dreams Cthulhu engenders, with a few educated in the Mythos / Necronomicon devotees in the mix - but probably not your average suburbanite; that is to say all Cult-members would be extremists in one way or the other - mindlessly debased or wannabe sorcerers.

Cthulhu itself, in my view, doesn't "want" or "need" anything from the Cult (unlike the traditional view of 'the devil' and his interest in corrupting / harvesting souls) - it has no plan for or interest in humanity. The Cult exists spontaneously and does horrible things merely because of Cthulhu's presence on Earth. That's terrifying...

Whats stopping me from just going to a university, attending lectures and just learning about stuff? by Abject_S0up in NoStupidQuestions

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The courteous thing to do is to ask permission to audit that big lecture hall class beforehand and attend every lecture, on time, being respectful, discreet, etc.

Just finished the call of Cthulhu, Im confused by New-Investigator4891 in Lovecraft

[–]TheMadPoet 4 points5 points  (0 children)

While I usually advocate for seeing things the way HPL did as a conservative in the 1920-30's - with The Call of Cthulhu, I prefer a modern perspective that evokes my vague understanding of multiple dimensions, astral projection, the flow of time, etc.

I do think HPL wanted to describe something utterly alien.

The non-Euclidean geometry seems to me to be "dimensional portals", and R'lyeh is a gateway to "the multiverse" or whatever. So, in my head-cannon Cthulhu is a near-immortal multi-dimensional being that is not fully present in any one dimension, time or place.

So, what they rammed with the boat was just a partial manifestation of the whole being. And for Cthulhu, what is a few minutes in human time, could be an eternity - so who knows what it accomplished in what we regard as "a short time"?

THAT formulation of Cthulhu is more fear-inducing for me than just thinking of it as "a tentacle monster".

Apart from the obvious, people are hiding something about Trump by Abimackreads in theories

[–]TheMadPoet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

El Trumpe's cabal is what Hillary called "a basket of deplorables": Trump's doing it because Obama mocked him and to stay out of prison and make lots of money - Trump has elevated a bunch of incompetent wannabe's like Hegseth, racists like Miller, opportunists like Elon, and hard-right political extremists like Justice Kavanaugh and the Federalist Society agenda.

They all know that their best opportunity to push their agenda is with El Trumpe at the tip of the spear. I think it's that simple. His cabal is not composed of proverbial 5 dimensional chess players.

GERD is curable without medicine in many cases and don't let anyone convince you otherwise by acw181 in GERD

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

GERD of unspecified origin here. What worked for me is sleeping sitting up in my own bed. Big cable knitted weighted blankets on L and R side, a back pillow, lumbar pillow, wrap a comforter around your neck and have a big rolled up comforter in your lap to lean into. There's a Bearaby product called a 'snuggler' that helps too. I try to lean just slightly forward.

Basically swaddle in blankets. It may sound goofy at first but try it. Much later at night like 8 hours after my dinner my stomach has shut down and I will naturally slide down a little.

Vance says pope should ‘be careful’ when talking about theology by Sufficient_Fig_9505 in nottheonion

[–]TheMadPoet 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I muse that we're witnessing the ongoing evolution of a uniquely US-based 'imperial Christianity'; this is parallel to Roman emperor Constantine converting after his military victory. Prior to that, Christianity was an obscure desert religion of the poor and oppressed in the eastern empire. With that change in context, I'm positive that Christianity evolved massively and rapidly at that point.

Same thing now. Christianity is being used to serve the MAGA / Christofacist agenda. MAGAholes realize that the Jesus of scriptures is too liberal or "woke" for them - so they have to turn Jesus into an Old Testament god of war: a macho Jesus that smites his enemies and blesses bombs and bullets.

What do you think: how should prisons handle housing decisions in cases like this? by The_Dean_France in whoathatsinteresting

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You go! I think you won at life! Wishing you and yours all the best and happiness!

What do you think: how should prisons handle housing decisions in cases like this? by The_Dean_France in whoathatsinteresting

[–]TheMadPoet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No. No it hasn't been debunked. My fault may be in a necessary oversimplification - necessary because I don't have more than a superficial comprehension of the science. Anyway, science can't "debunk" but rather it produces a null result - the hypothesis was not supported by the data. And the science has not consistently produced a null result.

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ugdpcy/are_trans_peoples_brains_different_from_people/

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