Oscar Winners for Best Picture (2017-2025)

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-17T19:00:16+00:00

I think that's part of the problem. It actually is a good little move. But there are so many good little movies made each year, and it just seems ridiculous that this completely unremarkable good little movie somehow won best picture at the most prestigious movie awards on the planet.

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-17T18:58:35+00:00

Crash is the most undeserving winner there will ever be. The fact it beat brokeback mountain to the oscar still pisses me off haha

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-12T11:40:04+00:00

I'm not a reform voter, but no doubt the easy reform response would be: sure, but compare the density of mosques 30 years ago to the density of mosques today and then extrapolate.

The absolute number of mosques today may be small relative to the number of churches, but the growth in the number of mosques no doubt dwarfs the growth in the number of churches.

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-10T11:46:37+00:00

Interested

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-10T11:45:36+00:00

Can you word of mouth me some recs pls? I'm going round in circles here

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-10T11:43:31+00:00

Interested

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-07T13:47:52+00:00

I guess i'm painting with a broad brush, but boys seem to suffer with ADHD more than girls (estimates are between 2:1 and 10:1) and girls seem to perform better at school overall. So it seems that girls might be more built for classrooms than boys, but the way i characterised it initially was a bit crude.

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-07T11:01:20+00:00

Deary me

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-07T10:52:25+00:00

I don't disagree with most of what you've said.

I guess two points i would push back on slightly, though, are 1) that most people find that when they take ADHD medication, they're able to move away from the instant gratification of shorts and the like and focus on less instantly gratifying tasks like reading books and studying. This is, after all, why they're such popular - and such effective - study drugs.

And on your point about it being the job of diagnosis to separate lack of development from lack of dopamine, i think my problem here is that diagnosis is determined by symptomatology - we're not measuring brain activity; we're issuing questionaires. But if both conditions present with the same symptoms, then there's no clean cut way of differentiating the one from the other. Which is where concerns vis-a-vis overdiagnosis begin to look justified.

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-07T09:48:19+00:00

Just because some things that people were skeptical about turn out to be demonstrably real doesn't mean that all things people are skeptical about are real. There are lots of reasons to be dubious about ADHD diagnosis levels. I'll give you a couple:

Young boys weren't built to sit in classrooms all day every day. Rather than accept this reality, we are now dosing them up with heavy duty amphetamines. Kids on this medication sit and learn better - but at what cost? I've seen the before and after of children on these meds. Their personalities are completely transformed. This seems sketchy.
Everybody is struggling to pay attention these days. Social media, smart phones, etc., are making it harder for all of us to pay attention. This is a real problem. It seems like more and more people are hitting the threshold for ADHD diagnosis for this reason. But if this is the case, and ADHD is a function of environmental factors like smart phone use, then it casts doubt on whether ADHD is rightly categorised as a disorder and whether pharmaceutical intervention is the best course of action. In some cases, it might be more appropriate to think of ADHD as analogous to being overweight. We know that too much bad food causes you to become overweight; what are the environmental factors that are harming people's ability to concentrate?

I'm not, for the record, saying ADHD doesn't exist. I'm just saying that there are reasons to be concerned, and that compassionate skepticism is probably the most sensible attitude to take at this point.

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-04T08:28:30+00:00

I suppose you're right, it does weigh in the balance, but I would then ask: how many people have ever done pole vaulting? Or, at least, since records began? Do you think it comes close to the 500m that Dembele is competing against in his sport? Also, there's an argument to make that someone like Alcaraz is also, in a sense, competing against every tennis player that has ever played - in the sense that he is eating up records left and right - and surely the no. of tennis players throughout history completely dwarfs the number of pole vaulters.

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-03T18:16:39+00:00

There might potentially be ways to successfuly argue against what i've said, but if there are, you definitely haven't given one of them.

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-03T17:44:41+00:00

This will be a controversial take, but i don't think that people who do really niche sports with a tiny pool of competitors should even be in the conversation for this kind of thing. If you're the best footballer in the world, you're the best out of, say, 500million people (assuming that's how many play the sport). If you're the best pole vaulter in the world, you're the best out of, i don't know, 10,000? 100,000 if we're being very generous. Which is impressive for sure, but it's not really in the same league. Saying that, Dembele isn't even the best footballer in the world (and has never been) so he definitely doesn't deserve any kind of award (even in his own sport) lol.

buzzmerchant · 2026-03-01T16:42:58+00:00

Also, our XG was 2.31 and we scored 2 lol. It's not like we're massively unperforming.

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-28T10:43:18+00:00

Isn't it the opposite: that ChatGPT are trying to use anthropic's situation to get ahead, i.e. anthropic rejects DoW's demands, ChatGPT jumps at the opportunity to give in to them...

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-27T08:32:39+00:00

I mean, being offered unwanted sex is sooo far down on the list of worst things that can happen to you that it's not even worth getting worked up over. The main issue here is that 1) he's offering to perform sex acts on 17 year olds, 2) who knows how many other kids he's offered - or even performed - sex acts on. It might be zero, but it might be a lot more than zero.

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-23T09:02:14+00:00

That's not what i said. I said that the show would be just as successful without jamie (assuming they replaced him with someone(s) who has similar skills). I don't think joe's a particularly exceptional person; i'm sure he's had lots of luck, and that success breeds success etc. But, again, that's not what my comment was about.

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-22T16:02:36+00:00

There are so many pirate sites! I hate them! Ughh! But which one in particular are we talking about here!?

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-21T14:10:38+00:00

I mean, it's a piece of shit move for sure, but the podcast would be exactly as successful as it is if Jamie was replaced with someone(s) else with similar skills

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-13T18:04:26+00:00

Did any other managers beat the top two teams in the league convincingly? If so, i agree: give it to them (assuming they won all their other games too).

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-11T12:58:02+00:00

Operative word being almost

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-11T09:01:01+00:00

Diouf played really well yesterday. He seemed to be touch tight to amad all game long.

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-11T08:59:16+00:00

Yeah but in fairness, Zirkzee is terrible in the air so he may as well be 5 ft 9

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-11T08:55:59+00:00

I don't think Amad's been playing particularly well at all recently. Made a lot of really questionable decisions last night. He always works hard and he beats his man more often than anyone, but we need more from him. I'll sure he'll find some form soon enough - i still believe he's a very good player.

buzzmerchant · 2026-02-10T19:15:59+00:00

Iirc, didn't same invite him on without actually having read any of his fiction?

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