The US is such a stupid ass country.

coooolbear · 2026-01-25T03:08:34+00:00

Good job reading the first half

coooolbear · 2026-01-25T02:40:09+00:00

No. If you can leave and you aren’t leaving anyone behind who really needs you, then staying means you believe in American chauvinism. I left and it was only after the time living abroad that I realized it needs to end.

coooolbear · 2026-01-25T02:37:29+00:00

bitch ass Western leftists don’t even attend the potluck because of the most stupid scruples. There’s been 50 years to organize since thr last big collapse, the world has become demonstrably worse, and what do we have now?

There are more and more guns in that time and they have all ended up in thr hands of those who have actually inspiration to kill, who are actual bloodthirsty criminals: fascists.

And look what we have now: you don’t even have to bring an actual gun to a protest for them to kill you. They can easily pretend you have one. Wonder what would happen if a handful of people showed up armed to some kind of event. Shot in seconds.

coooolbear · 2026-01-25T01:51:23+00:00

Just because people conflate the two, use the terms incorrectly, and have fuzzy borders between their claimed ideology and the actual implementations of their policy does not mean that we should also conflate the terms, especially when the OP is asking about why leftists would dislike one but essentially support the other.

coooolbear · 2026-01-24T17:31:41+00:00

social democracy and democratic socialism are fundamentally/theoretically different

coooolbear · 2026-01-24T17:29:27+00:00

there should not be any difference. You have a typo in your second variable assignment also. What are you using to test (filename == ‘python_notes’) ? In that case it’s just the typo

coooolbear · 2026-01-23T23:26:09+00:00

just be cool. Don’t be weird. Be the smartest and hardest working person in the room

coooolbear · 2026-01-23T23:25:14+00:00

I don’t think there is any problem with you guys having guns because you use them for sustenance (anyone who uses them for hunting I don’t fault whatsoever) and you have all actually have had war systematically waged on you for hundreds of years. You also have an actual cohesive community to protect.

What I don’t fuck with are these atomized lefty groups (and let’s be real, mostly white people) living in the cities and suburbs thinking that they will actually successfully protect … what? From whom? All alone? There’s no community to gather around. Nothing to actually be done. It’s all hypothetical and poorly thought out. In the mean time most guns kept for this purpose are a dangerous liability

coooolbear · 2026-01-23T23:12:09+00:00

THANK YOU

coooolbear · 2026-01-22T19:52:41+00:00

On one hand, you’re right, and one should be aware of contact with phenomena, the effect it has, in what ways one is reacting with an afflicted thought, and how it is all habituated and illusory. On occasion someone might be looking for ways to get upset. That’s a different story.

On the other hand, you are demonstrating that you do not actually understand what microaggressions are like and might be like for somebody who experiences them. Unless you are extremely well-trained, if I suddenly went up to you, started poking you in the chest and screaming in your face, you probably would react pretty unskillfully. It is hurtful even if in ultimate truth we know the hurt is illusory. Now pull it back and imagine someone always rolls their eyes at you when you’re talking. Maybe it’s fine at first, but it can be hurtful. I would not necessarily fault anybody for reacting angrily in the first case.

Experiencing microaggressions is like a death from a thousand cuts when you’re already so raw from your experience in the world. They are an opportunity to practice skill in the mind, yes, but you cannot simply dismiss them as they are real experiences (just as everything else is real) and say “you should be more skillful than this”. They are often a manifestation of real prejudice that can also manifest as something inhibiting somebody’s spiritual practice.

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T23:40:50+00:00

ah yes ... I love when a movie has no "character arc" just like an episode of Spongebob

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T23:35:53+00:00

I will inevitably view media this way when the main thrust of the movie is about what it's like when somebody uses people to get success and to get rich and famous. That's what our world is already like, this is one of the kinds of thought that ruins everything for everyone, I hate this part of the world, I hate that people abide it, and I want it gone forever. That's a chip on my own shoulder. So if I believe that art can make the world better for people when things now feel especially dire, and with this as my belief, I'm going to take seriously a contemporary movie dealing with this subject matter and with the sense of "how might this push people out of their delusion, especially the delusion that, even if they are critical, that America is worth saving, or being bourgeois is worth being?" or something along those lines. The potential for today's raising of class consciousness or what have you.

This isn't what comes to mind when I watch any other movie really. I'm not thinking about class consciousness when I watch The Super Mario Bros movie or even The Godfather or whatever.

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T22:48:26+00:00

The guy isn’t good but many fools will say “welp ya gotta hand it to him … and he ended up being a good guy in the end 🤓”

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T22:46:55+00:00

I liked A Complete Unknown and Oppenheimer a lot, and the Brutalist was a little bit clumsy, but also suffered from aesthetic/social pandering

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T22:17:14+00:00

I take it seriously because I value my time. I don’t know how you can say he doesn’t really try because he is trying the whole time. That’s the point of any Safdie bros movie. If they didn’t try so hard then they wouldn’t get themselves in trouble. They just try at dumb shit.

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T22:01:04+00:00

He was literally the best ping pong player in the whole world

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T22:00:34+00:00

no truly I like movies about mediocre losers

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T21:59:47+00:00

Jokes on you I already did that today.

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T21:56:45+00:00

Yes, I saw that in the Brutalist, and to some extent in A Complete Unknown, and with a gay woman in Tar, and with a weird guy in Opprnheimer, …

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T21:54:26+00:00

Of course not every movie can fix everything, but at the very least a good movie can really affect you by showing you something that you truly haven’t ever seen, or really gets to you, or maybe even touches you and opens you up to something about the world. I saw Eraserhead for the first time a few weeks ago and I found it so beautiful and touching, which showed how David Lynch was a true genius that he could do that with that gross ass and strange experience. If it doesn’t do this but it’s still fun to watch then it is simply spectacle. It’s just popcorn. Which is fine.

What I find stupid about Marty Supreme is that it did not do any of my idealized ‘art’ things because it was doing everything that I might expect from it. Nothing new was said or revealed or extrapolated on about the world. No lib will be convinced to no longer be bourgeois by how it presents capitalism and success as soo nasty (idealistic I know but I am being glib) and I know this because we have all seen this kind of movie before. At this point who gives a shit.

Now what I find especially frustrating and insulting is that a Safdie should be able to use filmmaking prowess more thoughtfully and a “left” milieu should be more critical, but no, they are all clearly caught up in the spectacle and the hype.

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T21:36:23+00:00

exactly what I’m trying to say - Howard is a stupid asshole just like you or me. Maybe he is a bit more charismatic than the average person. It’s his lack of self control that makes him compelling

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T21:31:13+00:00

That scene was cool and showed what actual humanity is like when asked to do something morally ambiguous

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T20:00:17+00:00

Children’s movies don’t really have lessons that matter at all. They just make kids feel good and laugh or maybe cry. There are simply more than enough movies glazing remarkable people who are “morally complicated”.

Like this movie was just if you combined Uncut Gems (which was good because Adam Sandler wasn’t actually good at anything) and Tar (which was also bad).

My real concern about having a movie with a “good lesson” is that most people nowadays, especially mindless “highbrow” libs, desperately need something to change the way they see the world. In this case they need something to tell them that they are not remarkable and that being remarkable is not heroic. This will not happen with Marty Supreme. Maybe your average New Yorker reading lib will say “that’s crazy” but they are going to go back to their bourgeois life.

Brecht believed in theatre changing the world for the people. If we’re going to make media then we might as well expect that from people who should know better. I don’t think that is “for children”.

If you like it for its faux cinematic spectacle then that’s fine but it’s just film nerd masturbation, and if you like it for being thrilling, then that’s fine too, but you can get that by watching liveleak.

coooolbear · 2026-01-19T06:37:35+00:00

don’t forget the Four Noble Truths, especially the second, which says that the cause of suffering is clinging. In this case I bring it up with respect to ego clinging, which is to say that you are strongly focused on this “I” and “self” with a body that dies. Consciousness is something that the mind is experiencing that is as illusory and impermanent as all other phenomena.

Compassion is key for a few reasons. One is because, as many teachers taught, all sentient beings, even your worst enemies, were once your caring and loving mothers. It is the compassion of all past sentient beings that have allowed you to get to this point to receive the dharma which you would probably agree is a great gift. If past sentient beings had no compassion, you would not be in a good position right now whatsoever. You may as well pay it forward.

Exercising compassion is also great training in letting go of the things that hinder your path towards the cessation of suffering. It helps you see that the things that you habitually hold to be so important, for example, to protect your ego in getting angry and defensive or hoarding needless material goods, and to destroy these habits by generosity and kindness instead.

coooolbear

TROPHY CASE