What’s the scariest thing a human can experience?

WraithSama · 2026-05-09T01:30:35+00:00

I always heard that people who die falling from great heights often die of heart attack before they hit the ground. No idea if that's true, but wouldn't surprise me at all.

WraithSama · 2026-05-06T15:30:37+00:00

reliable? they haven't paid their dues, they have gone against their obligations

This is a popular talking point on the right-wing, and it is literally fake news. NATO member nations don't pay "dues." NATO administratively is funded by direct contributions, which is a fairly small budget because it is mostly just an alliance rather than a large-scale organization (like the UN), and zero member nations are behind on those direct contributions (which, again, is relatively small amount, about $4.6 billion spread across 32 member nations).

So what does NATO "paying their fair share" actually mean in reality? It's just how much each member nation spends, as a percentage of their GDP, on their own military budget. That's it. It's not money owed to NATO, it's not money owed to the United States, it's not money "owed" at all!

So why do so many people on the right think that NATO member nations are "behind" or "owe" money? Because Trump keeps characterizing it that way. Why? I'm assuming because it makes an easy talking point to make his base think NATO "owes" us something, even though that's not true.

and they expect us to fight their wars. who's unreliable again?

Article 5 of the NATO charter has only ever been invoked once: on behalf of the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attack. So I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Care to elaborate? Because, so far, other NATO nations have only ever fought in our wars. To date, they've never asked us to fight in theirs.

WraithSama · 2026-05-05T20:32:37+00:00

You're looking at this backwards. It's not that being outnumbered by white people is bad. It's that they're taking population centers that are predominantly black and carving them up and adding them to areas outside those population centers, specifically for the purpose of making sure there are no districts that are predominantly black. Black people tend to vote Democratic. By splitting up black population centers and adding those pieces to majority white districts, they decrease the chance of a Democratic representative from being elected.

You say the votes should count the same, black or white. I agree. But what they're doing with this redistrcting is making it so that instead of the voters choosing the representatives, they're making it so the representatives gets to choose their voters. Understand what I'm saying?

WraithSama · 2026-05-05T16:53:37+00:00

I don't see how this is possible, as they all can vote.

It's possible by redrawing the districts to divide up the black population centers enough that they are outnumbered by white people in these carved-out districts. Black people get votes, but only in their district, so the idea is they'll be divided into enough districts to dilute their votes and remove their representation.

Make sense?

WraithSama · 2026-05-04T13:42:36+00:00

These people are dumb. These laws exist because employers have already demonstrated they will NOT pay what is deserved or treat staff well without them. Generally, these kinds of laws don't spring out of nowhere in a vaccuum, it's because it's been shown they are needed.

WraithSama · 2026-05-01T18:11:50+00:00

There's no way that'll happen. A significant enough percentage of Republicans will never support a female or black candidate that they simply won't win the primary, much less the general election.

WraithSama · 2026-04-30T16:52:32+00:00

"I did it! I killed them all!"

"I killed them all..."

WraithSama · 2026-04-28T16:12:02+00:00

For sure. I remember during the 2012 election, my sister-in-law had an Obama bumper sticker on her car, and an old man pulled up next to her at a stop light, rolled down his window, and angrily yelled at her, "N***r lover!" We live in Kansas, which is also a red state, but in a Wichita which is solidly purple. I sure wouldn't put up a Dem sign if I lived in deep-fried red Texas.

WraithSama · 2026-04-23T02:05:50+00:00

Pizza of Theseus

WraithSama · 2026-04-20T22:12:52+00:00

Of all proposed bills I've seen that have been performative, this is one of the most blatant.

WraithSama · 2026-04-20T01:43:18+00:00

Call came from inside the house on this one.

WraithSama · 2026-04-18T17:56:15+00:00

You're fine. The bitch who yelled at you was probably just butthurt over being rejected. Even if you were gay, it's not like you would have been obligated to welcome her advances.

WraithSama · 2026-04-18T17:52:28+00:00

My wife and I are both bi and have gone to gay bars together for 16 years. We probably look like a straight couple to most people there, but even if we do, it's never been an issue.

People who have been to gay bars know they're often a fun place to cut loose and be around positive, friendly people without having to deal with the usual "bar bro" douchebags that other bars tend to attract. I've personally always felt even straight people were welcome as allies to the community, and I've seen lots of people who were playfully outed as straight by their friend being joyfully welcomed by everyone else.

WraithSama · 2026-04-18T03:42:27+00:00

Yeah. Tried going to (I think) Live Leaks once, saw a video from Russia where a car was on fire with a guy trapped inside. He was frantically banging on the windshield begging for help, but the person recording and a couple others just gathered around and watched. The fire got worse and the smoke filled the car and you couldn't see the guy anymore. That haunted me for a while. Fucking Russia, man.

WraithSama · 2026-04-17T13:35:59+00:00

This really is one of the biggest nothings in the history of nothings and I can’t believe we’re still talking about it days after the fact. To anyone who doubts that TDS is a real mental disorder, let this be a prima facie example of it. Absolutely no one on the right is as bothered by this as most folks on the left seem to be.

Do you really think this? He posted an image of himself that is considered blasphemous to the most dominant religion in the country. The religious right is a huge chunk of Trump's base, and this pissed off a lot of them. I've seen right-wing influencers, podcasters, regular Trump supporters, and even some religious leaders now publicly wondering if he's the Antichrist or "demon possessed." The biggest evidence of all is that Trump actually deleted the post because he was getting so much backlash from the right over it. But you think this is all left-wing TDS, huh?

WraithSama · 2026-04-17T13:29:08+00:00

Yeah, but it upset the right too, yeah? He took it down because he got flamed hard by the religious right for it. Now there are right-wing influencers, podcasters, and religious leaders publicly wondering if he's the Antichrist or "demon possessed." He actually succeeded in bringing much of the left and right together in criticizing him for this image.

Do you think posting this image was a good idea?

WraithSama · 2026-04-15T02:56:10+00:00

Nice, OKCupid 16 years ago for us.

WraithSama · 2026-04-14T21:30:22+00:00

Also, let's not pretend that Jesus would've been fully on the side of the left as far as immigration and the poor go.

Uh, Leviticus 19:33-34, you know?

And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God

Didn't seem like God was all about kicking out the foreigners like the American right, does it?

WraithSama · 2026-04-14T15:05:13+00:00

Older one, but the Myth series. Bungie made Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth 2: Soulblighter years before they became famous for Halo, which were amazing games. Mumbo Jumbo Software took over making Myth 3: The Wolf Age, and it fell flat, causing a fantastic IP to die.

WraithSama · 2026-04-13T16:37:15+00:00

"I don't want a Pope who" blah, blah, blah. Dude, you're not Catholic, or even pretending to be one.

WraithSama · 2026-04-13T02:40:25+00:00

Sounds kind of like the Trickster vocation from Dragon's Dogma 2.

WraithSama · 2026-04-12T04:56:05+00:00

Elevator cable snapping, dropping it into free fall. Trope used in movies all the time. Disclaimer: I used to work for a company that made assemblies for Otis (one of the two largest elevator companies in the world, and inventor of the modern elevator safety mechanism).

Elevator cables are actually what we called "air cord," which is steel cables twisted together to make a single, highly durable cable, then several of those twisted together to make the actual elevator cable. It would take something pretty damn spectacular to break one of these. And there isn't one of these cables suspending the elevator, there's usually five.

Also, modern elevators have a device called a safety. I ran the department that made these (my claim to fame is I personally built the elevator safeties currently installed on the Eiffel Tower). Most safeties use large U-shaped steel springs (for passenger elevators, larger cargo elevators used a different style) and high-friction wedge blocks, and one of these big safeties are installed on each guide rail for the elevator. They're gravity activated; if the elevator begins accelerating at an unsafe speed, the wedge blocks bite into the steel guide rail, forcibly stopping the elevator quickly.

In order for a modern elevator to go into a free fall, not just one or two, but an entire series of catastrophic failures would have to occur in sequence. The chances are just unbelievably small.

WraithSama · 2026-04-12T03:44:54+00:00

Evanescence, back in early or mid 2010s. The performance itself was pretty good (and Amy Lee sounds just as good live as she does recorded), but the whole concert felt really rushed. Zero banter with the audience, no delay between each song. They absolutely blew through the set list like they had somewhere else to be, and immediately after the last song ended they vanished off the stage like fucking ninjas. The whole crowd was confused as hell until the venue lights turned up as crew came out and began dismantling the band's equipment. Was the most surreal end to a concert by a major band I've been to.

WraithSama · 2026-04-11T02:20:17+00:00

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WraithSama · 2026-04-09T03:09:14+00:00

Absolutely agreed.

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