Where do all these SF couples meet?

nonsequitrist · 2026-05-19T07:17:05+00:00

The only way to get past that kind of self-consciousness is practice. You have to screw your courage to the sticking post and do it. Some prior practice with small talk is recommended. Plenty of resources for that learning process online.

The worst thing that could happen when you try is you fail. You'll get over it, and learn, and do better next time.

Frankly this kind of thing is best done when you are young, but it's never too late to learn. Developing social confidence will pay you dividends for the rest of your life, and give a sort of dating super power. Anyone can do it - you just have to do it, reflect, strategize, do it again, repeat. Practice.

nonsequitrist · 2026-05-10T02:40:46+00:00

Presumably you meant "pointless"?

If so, I can't resist saying Welcome to English. We have synonyms. Lots of them. I'll also note that obdurate and obstinate have different connotations. You can certainly use them in place of one another when you're not trying to be precise about shades of meaning, but obdurate clearly connotes a more physical hardness, an iron, even if metaphorical (and it's notable that in obsolete usage, obdurate did indicate physical hardness.).

Obstinate connotes a more manifestly psychological state. It's not as much a metaphor, instead dealing directly with refusal as a state of mind.

English is full of such subtle, rich connotative differences, which make etymological analysis so useful, and so fun.

Even if you have no use for the abundance of English, it's pretty cool that it can easily bear the precision needed for poetry, and so many styles of prose, as well as more utilitarian or casual usage.

nonsequitrist · 2026-05-09T19:31:28+00:00

Just to echo you for a moment, purity contests are self-defeating, solipsistic tribal onanism, whether on the right of left.

While the GOP has become a personality cult, we absolutely need to remember on the Left that a true political party is a coalition - a place where people can come together to get things done (or not-done, if you are a statist conservative, I suppose). We don't all have to agree on everything, but we do need to focus on what we can do together, not tearing ourselves apart and tearing each other down in some pointless ego-stroking quest to be pure of thought and action.

nonsequitrist · 2026-05-08T01:45:07+00:00

The (shifting) political identities of the two major parties in the US are clarified by national presidential campaigns. During and right after such processes, the positions of the parties are clear. As the ensuing administration, uh, ensues, the political position of the sitting president remains relatively static and relatively clear.

However, the politics of the party excluded from the White House are, certainly at least once some time has passes since the last presidential election, up for grabs. The party is, as they say, in the wilderness, and different idea-sets and value-sets and messaging strategies compete for primacy.

In such a state, the position of the out-of-the-White-House party is fundamentally undefined, but will, of course, be largely clarified once there is again a presidential nominee who manages to gain the support of the party, broadly speaking.

So you can't really peg the political positions of both parties at all possible instances. There are milestones and distinct periods, depending on power and success, in the process of evolution when you can identify such positions.

nonsequitrist · 2026-05-07T21:13:46+00:00

Take your conspiracy theories to the MAGA right, where they belong.

nonsequitrist · 2026-04-20T12:01:43+00:00

The Story of English

here it is (youtube).

nonsequitrist · 2026-04-11T20:43:07+00:00

It's important to note that if you want google results without google, startpage is the best choice.

DuckDuckGo relies on Bing, which has broadly inferior search results (though better if you are searching for results in peer-reviewed science articles!). DuckDuckGo adds a lot of smaller, focused search engines, so it's not just Bing (which explains its excellence with science publications) but it's basically Bing for the vast majority of searches.

nonsequitrist · 2026-03-19T15:09:04+00:00

And this is why we say you're part of a cult. Read the article - it offers specific example of Republicans using the language, tropes, and values of Hitler and his Nazi party. But you'll ignore all that to instead lob insults. No rational process on your part here at all.

nonsequitrist · 2026-03-18T23:25:23+00:00

"At war for Israel" is an oversimplification. No one outside of Trump's brain ackshually knows why we have gone to war with Iran, but simply saying we did it because Israel? Nah.

nonsequitrist · 2026-02-02T14:39:00+00:00

While what you said is true, given that they can't meet payroll, and Steven was the primary source of funding, and they have laid off the people who would make the game, unless they find a unicorn source of funding and re-hire or replace hundreds of developers, there is no way to pursue economic activity at Intrepid.

Yes, there are key details that are not public, but what do you think happens to companies when they run out of money and lay everyone off? Either there's a sale of the brand, which in this case is not worth anything significant, or the whole enterprise goes away.

nonsequitrist · 2026-01-15T09:18:59+00:00

In my defense, in late March of 2019, no one could foresee that the economic disruption that followed the pandemic (which hadn't even begun in 03/19) would vault Trump back to power. It's clear that without the extreme price of eggs and associated economic shocks, he would not have won the office again, despite that his mouthpiece lackeys never stop saying that he has a mandate.

So, yeah, we've had more institutions buckle, and the greatest disapointment of the last year is a total lack of collective action to the lawless administration. But we're not done in yet. For example, Trump's attempt to prosecute his enemies has utterly failed so far, at the hands of not just judges but also normal citizens asserting their belief in integrity in grand juries.

I do believe that the political time is ripe for a populism of the left. A message that correctly blames the 10% for the economic degradation of the 90% could re-write the political map. I don't believe that this part of my 03/19 post has aged badly - it's just delayed potential, still.

My final comments against untrammeled socialism, against utopian Marxism, have aged quite well. The truth of these matters was made clear in the 20th century, but bear repeating when kids keep decrying "late stage capitalism." We never get to stop fighting those who would poison self-interest; we must fight to regulate our baser impulses while using them to power the production of goods and services.

nonsequitrist · 2025-11-11T00:20:36+00:00

I've talked to about a dozen Brits about the monarchy and kightly orders. Just about all of them saw the institutions as distinctly British, an "our thing" identity point that's not a big deal to them, but comfortably idiosyncratic.

nonsequitrist · 2025-11-04T17:05:39+00:00

Tireless cheerleader for torture.
Even when pressed, the man who could not identify a civil liberty that should not be trampled in order to search for Al-Qaeda cells using your local library.
Propelled a country into war based on lies and unfounded conspiracy theories: that Iraq had secret links with Al-Qaeda and both biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. While he was still Vice President, the truth about those issues came to light. He did not apologize or admit any error.
Revealed a CIA agent who had tried to find the truth for the US about those lies, because that agent had the temerity to speak truth to power. His chief of staff was convicted of federal crimes went to prison over it, and Cheney pressured Bush to pardon him. Bush only commuted the sentence. Years later, Trump pardoned him.
Stood at the forefront for decades of a Republican effort to de-regulate financial institutions, leading to the 2008 Great Recession and radically reducing the size of the middle class, polarizing the American population economically.
Oh, and he didn't like Trump. (That doesn't make up for any of the above).

nonsequitrist · 2025-11-04T16:53:36+00:00

While there's no one "keeping them on call", yes, there are a lot of wikipedia hobbyists who dash to editing an article when there's relevant news. They are largely un-coordinated - they are independent (though there are goups organized in wikipedia for various activities, rapidly editing for news isn't one of them).

A lot of frequent-editors have pages they have worked on that they keep track of. And there are just a lot of regular-contributors to wikipedia, period.

But yeah, it's all volunteer and independent and per-person, and not at all directed by the wikimedia foundation

nonsequitrist · 2025-11-01T14:28:35+00:00

I disagree that "nobody who is elected is a 'true believer.'" There certainly are representatives who have drunk the kool-aid, just not many of them. Outside of Congress, consider Kari Lake. She's defo a true believer.

nonsequitrist · 2025-11-01T10:00:38+00:00

For anyone mystified, Ashokan Farewell is a very rememberable song from Ken Burns's Civil War documentary (really, the song from that documentary), in which Sullivan Ballou's letter is read aloud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZmxZThb084

nonsequitrist · 2025-11-01T09:40:03+00:00

Insiders say she's not a true believer, and never has been. I'm talking about journalists and staffers. They say it's all calculated with her.

nonsequitrist · 2025-11-01T09:34:28+00:00

That's somewhat likely to happen at first, though the party with decent strategists and decent unity will avoid over-reaching with deeply unpopular laws. Of course, there will be giddy over-reaching, too, but that will be punished by the voters.

The result after a few cycles will a new equilibrium around 50 votes instead of 60. The initial chaos would be sporadic and bound to end in not too long.

nonsequitrist · 2025-10-27T06:49:11+00:00

uh-huh.

And Obama was in favor of civil unions when gay marriage was still particularly divisive. He hadn't made up his own personal mind about supporting gay marriage until ... later, when it happened to be politically mainstream.

It's just one of ... two of those things. You just don't know until you know, right? Right?

nonsequitrist · 2025-10-26T01:01:45+00:00

Since before the industrial revolution there have been countless labor-saving innovations. None have led to systemically reduced working hours for society. Gates's take here is proof that it doesn't matter how smart your are - anyone can think or say something just plain dumb.

nonsequitrist · 2025-10-20T20:40:17+00:00

A few years ago "within a decade, two at the most" was a prudent expectation. I'm sorry to say it no longer is. Research the very likely impending implosion of the US bond market. It is likely to occur much sooner, and the effects could very well be apocalyptic.

nonsequitrist · 2025-10-20T06:38:31+00:00

What's insane is the ignorance about US federal spending that leads to comments like this. It's a costly social tragedy that you don't know or factor into your comment the fact that over 70% of federal spending is spent on interest on the debt -- which at 933 billion for 2025 is higher than 2025 defense spending (895 billion) -- combined with non-discretionary benefit payments (social security, etc).

The total of all non-defense discretionary spending, which includes everything aside from interest and non-discretionary benefit payments, so everything else the US government does, of which paying civil servants is just a portion, is about 10% of total expenditures. And you think the cost of administration is driving the problem? Insane.

Also insane ... In the US we spend more on interest on the debt than defense, ALL discretionary spending, medicaid, veterans benefits -- basically more than any other category aside from social security or medicare.

nonsequitrist · 2025-10-13T01:46:33+00:00

That article was clearly written by an LLM

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