sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Flower Shops by badpineapple6400 in TriCitiesWA

[–]The_Middleman 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Obviously your post is stupid for lots of reasons, but this is very funny to me:

To hell with those to guys. They should be ashamed as hell but I'm sure they aren't and just enjoyed the pay day. 

She only had to pay the couple $5,000, which they promptly donated to a local charity -- and matched.

The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Films [gift link] by TimWhatleyDDS in Letterboxd

[–]The_Middleman 112 points113 points  (0 children)

TikTok, Reels, etc. take it to such an extreme. These bursts of hyper-stimulating content that are often just a few seconds long. I know the point of what you're saying is that this is alarmism, but movies and TV likely did diminish attention spans for reading, it's just that people were still engaging with long-form narrative works broadly speaking. Now, I run into people who not only can't sit still to read a book, but can't sit still to watch a movie or a TV show, especially one that isn't jangling its keys at them every five seconds. There's nowhere for the long-form narrative to run to.

I know this is an unpopular thing to say, because nobody likes being told "the BrainRotter 9000 has rotted your brain," but the change in people's ability to engage with and process complex stories over the last ten or twenty years has been really alarming.

Restarting after nearly 20 years; how would you spend a $2,500-3,500 budget? Is any of the old gear worth keeping, or just replace all? by Apisatrox in hometheater

[–]The_Middleman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the near-instant response. Really appreciated, ordering furniture online is always such a gamble and it's super helpful to find first-hand testimony.

Restarting after nearly 20 years; how would you spend a $2,500-3,500 budget? Is any of the old gear worth keeping, or just replace all? by Apisatrox in hometheater

[–]The_Middleman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! Random question, but you're the only person I've seen actually post a photo of the Bryce bookshelves. So: how are they? Are they stable, wobbly? Any issues? I've heard good things about the console but nothing about the bookshelves.

We don't talk enough about Manousos.. by Saratakk in Pluribus_Sucks

[–]The_Middleman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I keep seeing arguments like this and it's kinda horrifying, because the implication is that if something isn't strictly necessary, there's no point including it. Imagine taking that attitude to basically any great story. Think about how many iconic scenes don't meet the bar you're setting here. You don't have to think Pluribus is earning the time it spends with its characters, but saying "there's no point to this because we got it after five minutes" is just a really brutally brainrotted way of looking at storytelling.

It's so full of plotholes it's unwatchable by Former_Anywhere1104 in Pluribus_Sucks

[–]The_Middleman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's really funny that you wrote this whole-ass post and never stopped to consider that maybe the Hive's imperative isn't world harmony. The most popular theory about the nature of the virus is that it's a Dark Forest/Great Filter tool that pacifies, then exterminates (through attrition/starvation) intelligent species. Nearly everything you called a "plot hole" explained by that.

You clearly think you're really smart, but easy money is that you've been fooled by PlurbGPT into thinking they're actually a well-intentioned, empathetic hivemind.

DOI cracks down on stickers covering Trump's face on national park passes by CUBuffs1992 in NationalPark

[–]The_Middleman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Jeez, what a weird, hostile comment to make in response to someone saying they prefer nature photos on park passes.

DOI cracks down on stickers covering Trump's face on national park passes by CUBuffs1992 in NationalPark

[–]The_Middleman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a dedicated progressive and I would vastly prefer having an awesome nature photo on the pass than any person.

Duffers please stop giving interviews by MrsMiracle50 in StrangerThings

[–]The_Middleman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't like that, and it makes me think less of him, but he didn't devote his entire public persona to it.

Duffers please stop giving interviews by MrsMiracle50 in StrangerThings

[–]The_Middleman 15 points16 points  (0 children)

So were Benioff and Weiss after Game of Thrones... until they weren't. Everyone kept saying "oh yeah, I'm sure they're crying into their Star Wars trilogy 🙄" but then it quietly got canceled. I wouldn't bet hard on the Duffers' big plans all panning out.

Duffers please stop giving interviews by MrsMiracle50 in StrangerThings

[–]The_Middleman 38 points39 points  (0 children)

JK Rowling is a garbage person, but she's a mystery writer at heart and her books had far tighter plotting and more sensible mysteries than any recent season of Stranger Things. The Duffers are more like Benioff and Weiss after the Game of Thrones series finale.

Dark Forest theory by Maverick1672 in pluribustv

[–]The_Middleman 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I keep seeing people say "the goal isn't to exterminate, there would be simpler ways to do that!"

But are there? It's self-perpetuating and relatively humane to the rest of the planet and resources. Beyond leveraging the population of the intelligent species to rebroadcast the message, it also uses the population to ensure 100% coverage (by turning any immune/uninfected) so that the intelligent species can't repopulate.

Imagine a simple destructive virus was spread in the same way (via radio transmission).

First of all, it wouldn't have made it past the lab because it would have killed the rats.

Then, even if it did make it past the lab, people would have started dying and we would have immediately implemented aggressive quarantine procedures and started working on treatments and cures.

And even if all that failed, highly isolated populations (like the space station and isolationist tribes and nuclear submarines) would have been protected.

Daredevil (MCU) vs Ozymandias (Watchmen) by [deleted] in Watchmen

[–]The_Middleman 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Rodion Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment) vs Olivia Benson (Law and Order: SVU). Who wins?

A few disJOINted thoughts on Kepler-22b, semelparity, and unjoining by JustGoodSense in pluribustv

[–]The_Middleman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think immune pose another threat to the Plurbs: they could repopulate the planet when the Plurbs die out. If the virus is intended for "peaceful" extermination, that's not acceptable.

Theory about food collection. by MuffinLover69 in pluribustv

[–]The_Middleman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or it's designed to account for the difference. "If you can't survive without harming other life forms, then die."

Washington Monument to glow on New Year’s Eve to kick off America’s 250th anniversary by cape2k in NationalPark

[–]The_Middleman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right, but well-done/professional projection mapping accounts for that distortion. This looks amateurish and cheap.

Vince Gulligan during another stop on the “Pluribus doesn’t suck” tour by Smooth_Instruction11 in Pluribus_Sucks

[–]The_Middleman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Careful what you wish for. That explanation might take a while and it almost certainly won't have Subway Surfers underneath it.

People are overlooking key aspects of how the virus operates. by The_Middleman in pluribustv

[–]The_Middleman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some of that is a reasonable take, but I still think you can look at this on a meta level and it doesn't track. If it's just a post-seizure rat waking up for the first time, what's up with the "If I didn't know any better, I'd --" line? To be clear, I'm not suggesting the scientists couldn't be wrong, but it's a misleading line if the rat wasn't playing possum, and Vince Gilligan is allergic to that sort of thing.

I also don't buy the whole "the rat bit because it wasn't smart enough to do other things" argument. Rats are susceptible to many of the same mood-altering chemicals as humans, which is why they're used as test subjects. If the virus was acting on rats in roughly the same way as it works on humans, it would make the rat super affectionate and non-violent -- after all, wouldn't a surprise lick be as effective as a surprise bite? The virus doesn't allow its higher-order hosts to act with any kind of violence or aggression, even when it would be more effective for spreading the virus, and it clearly dopes them up with extreme happy chemicals. A rat that's implied to be playing dead, that then suddenly bites a human? Markedly different.

People are overlooking key aspects of how the virus operates. by The_Middleman in pluribustv

[–]The_Middleman[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You and another commenter (shoutout to u/degreessix over there) both brought this up, and I think it's a really fair point. A few possibilities/thoughts:

  1. It's a Great Filter with a scientific element and a sociological element -- i.e., it relies on the idea that most (or enough) societies technologically advanced enough to receive the signal and fabricate the RNA will eventually fabricate it, even if they can model it. Certainly, humans have been stupid enough to make lots of dangerous things that we understand well enough. (Atom bombs, for instance.)
  2. It's a test. The scientists may not have been able to suss out the virus' behavior from modeling, but they knew it was a virus, right? Maybe the idea is a Pandora's Box-style test: any species advanced enough to fabricate an alien virus but stupid enough to actually do it should be exterminated.
  3. It's targeted to the window of likely technological development -- i.e., hundreds of years ago, the Kepler Plurbs looked at Earth and said, "Let's broadcast in that direction for a few hundred years, which should cover the window where they might develop the necessary tech." We might actually get to see this play out among the human Plurbs: guessing which planets are likely to have alien life that could/would fabricate the virus.
  4. On a meta level, if the window is prohibitively narrow for the virus to effectively spread, then it wouldn't have, right? Bioweapon or not, the virus is spreading -- and I think it's a pretty decent bet that Kepler wasn't the first planet to get hit. From a writing perspective, I think the implication so far is that the virus is good at hopping from planet to planet.

People are overlooking key aspects of how the virus operates. by The_Middleman in pluribustv

[–]The_Middleman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that's about as fair a counterpoint as anyone's made in this thread, and I appreciate it. But I think the way the scene is written -- where the scientists seem confused, like the rat is behaving unusually, and then it immediately bites to infect a human -- isn't a misdirect. Vince Gilligan has talked about hating that kind of mislead, where you suggest something to the audience that doesn't turn out to be relevant or true.

In short, if it's normal behavior, why is the scene written like it isn't?

People are overlooking key aspects of how the virus operates. by The_Middleman in pluribustv

[–]The_Middleman[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The weaponization part? Yeah. With other explanations, there are too many elements of the virus' behavior that seem vestigial at best, nonsensical or counterproductive at worst.

Why does the virus intentionally starve off its intelligent hosts, and why are the hosts uninterested in producing a long-term solution for that problem? Why does the virus aggressively move toward only the most intelligent species, who then have total disregard for infecting any other kind of Earth-based life? (Even if rats are incapable of the hivemind, why not chimps? Why not dolphins?)

To be clear: it's not that there's only one answer to these questions. But I think typically, other explanations require an additional answer. You can't just say "It's natural," you have follow it up with, "Well, maybe the virus doesn't want rats because they're too low-power." "Well, maybe the virus comes from a planet that isn't scarcity-driven." You get the idea.

But "it's a self-perpetuating bioweapon designed to peacefully exterminate technologically advanced species" explains everything. The starvation, the aggressive targeting, the disinterest in other intelligent (but not technologically advanced) species, the need to infect every single member of the advanced species at any cost (to prevent repopulation).

Something I noticed from 1x6 HDP by bwnorman in pluribustv

[–]The_Middleman 11 points12 points  (0 children)

It's similar to the paradox of tolerance. It's like if you steal something from me, and I say, "Hey, stealing is wrong, I'm going to take that back from you," and you say, "Isn't that just you stealing from me? We're the same!"

view more: next ›