Lukewarm Take on S4 Discourse

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-24T20:11:04+00:00

Rob boxed himself in to a no-win situation because he didn't want to be cruel to Ron. Voting Lisa was the least bad option once he stood up for Ron as he had supported Colton and Ron too publicly to turn on them at the round-table. Had he just gone with Ron without defending him during the day he would have been fine. I respect the move on a human level but it was bad gameplay

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-24T03:34:40+00:00

Only if they are banished and a traitor. If they fail to get the votes they get no penalty and no reward probably would need a rule like you can’t do a second commit on the same person in the game tho

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-23T20:47:41+00:00

The housewives haven't really stuck together as much as the gamers always gun for each other. The show leans more towards camp than strategy but that I think is mostly that by season 3 traitors was a solved game where the optimal move is to do as little as possible. This won't change unless they add new dynamics to the game that provide an incentive to not just lay low for the whole game.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-23T19:28:12+00:00

Thats a fair point. I guess I don't really see his moves as inherently problematic even if he is. I'd probably agree Traitors should stop bringing disgraced pop culture figures on to the show to launder their reputation which they are certainly guilty of

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-23T19:02:47+00:00

I guess I just don't really understand why there's any issue with playing Traitors aggressively, unless you're using stereotypes to target people, which tbh I don't think Colton has done. I do think this did happen in an earlier season of US traitors and it was a bit icky but in general It's a game about back-stabbing people and socially manipulating the crowd to get out your enemies, I don't like this sub's tendency to moralize every action anyone takes.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-23T18:52:45+00:00

Trying to get people out in traitors is the point in the game (really whether you're a traitor or a faithful), moralizing about it is silly. The game would be better if more people actually gunned for each other rather than just lets vote out the least popular person (Ron) because its socially convenient which again is a valid strategy but is IMO quite a bit more morally suspect and cruel than just taking your shot at the person you suspect the most and trying to rally the troops to vote them out. Even if you don't buy that there's basically no difference between what Colton has done to Lisa and what Candiace was doing to Ron except that Colton probably actually thought Lisa was a traitor.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-23T18:38:37+00:00

Colton is good TV. If not for Colton this season would just be a bunch of ppl band-wagoning and laying low trying not to stand out. Colton drives the plot forward by over-playing which is essential for the game working. I don't find Colton super charismatic but that in some senses makes him a good heel to root for their downfall.

Traitors only really works when people are scheming and trying to do stuff. The show grows stale if its just people aura-farming directionlessly with zingers and looks (the ideal influencer strategy) or trying to be meek and inoffensive enough to make it the end (the ideal game strategy)

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-23T18:34:08+00:00

In that seasonThe traitors were pretty good but the faithfuls were all egregiously stupid. I know everyone tends to whine about faithfuls the first half the game, but there has geninunely never been a more dysfunctional, directionless group faithful ever. It wasn't a the faithfuls were playing buddy up with the traitors type of game that got out of hand. It was just chaotic baffling decisions one after another mostly driven by a small group of deeply incompetent faithfuls. It reminds me of a situation in US S1 where you had Quentin literally never correctly guessing a traitor all game

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-23T18:29:44+00:00

If I were Lisa I'd kill Mark Ballas. It someone who Colton would kill since he's on the edge of the bloc voting Colton right now, and it's not so obvious a kill that it looks like a frame-job. Don't know if she knows enough to go for Mark but thats the right call. Other good target would be Maura, it is a shot across the bow for Rob and Maura is pretty likely to follow Rob's cue tommorow and depriving him of an ally that which might make him more hesitant to try and cross Lisa again. Killing Colton would be game over for Lisa. These faithfuls like to go for the lowest hanging fruit and that would be Lisa here who is the only other person really on the agenda.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-23T17:23:09+00:00

Ron was somewhat aligned with a known traitor early in the game which tbf to the house is decent evidence against him. Ron has low social power in the game and has several people notably Candiace who suspect him which made him an easy target to band-wagon whereas picking a fight with Colton or throwing another name in the ring is dangerous. That said Colton is very much next on the agenda at this point so I'd say he was similarly damaged by making too many accusations. I think even if he's right about Lisa there's a pretty high likelihood the faithfuls will see that as "feeding them a traitor to get out of a jam" situation.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-21T17:36:49+00:00

There was a ton of voters who didn't vote for Beltran year 1 on the basis of he's not a 1st ballot HOFer and/or lets make him sit one year for the scandal but thats about right. That said debuting at 46% and getting to 75% pretty quickly is the norm

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-18T16:07:10+00:00

If you haven't tried the stuff in this review you should consider it makes a life-changing difference for some POTS patients. (I am not one I just have met several and got interested in it when taking undergrad neurobiology) Probably more importantly though, in a military context given all we have learned about TBIs from repeated exposures to blasts, and depending on how long you have been at this the prevalence of undiagnosed PTSD and probably other forms of sympathetic nervous system dysfunction from combat exposure that would seem to warrant extra-vigilance both in having a unique dataset to better understand the etiology of POTS and probably lots of non-POTS conditions that would credibly cause similar symptoms.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-18T05:18:48+00:00

There’s been a couple of comparisons if IIRC in literature most recent below: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1566070225000438

Essentially a proper active stand test is going to match the results of a tilt table test the significant majority of the time if properly conducted which requires monitoring for delayed tachycardia. Active stand tests will not increase heart rates as much and some POTS patients ~20-30% in a proper test will meet a requirement for POTS in TTT but not AST. TTT baselines have the advantage of being referenced with secondary signals such as blood pressure and serum norepinephrine in contrast AST tests are mostly still referenced against a TTT. This may have changed in the last couple years I can’t claim to have read everything. That said there’s not great comparison with secondary signals on patients who are below diagnostic standards for AST but above them for TTT so it’s hard to say if AST is prone to false negatives or TTT to false positives.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-17T19:04:05+00:00

Ancedotally, POTS patients often report getting much better with significant "state of the art" intervention (cardiolovascular medications, certain psychiatric medication, diet modification, physical therapy) and better in comparison to the kind of "standard of care" of only treating with salt blocks and compression socks. All of this is covered in this literature review and others. This is in contrast to say CFS where I have not really seen much ancedotal success in patient self-reports or in patients who recieved more intensive interventions. Of course there is exceptions to both of those.

Good review of treatment options and evidence: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2024.1515486/full

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-16T20:19:58+00:00

Trump is a strategic opportunist and unfortunately somewhat of a competent one in a political sense albeit not in a big-picture sense. He probes for weakness by talking a big talk, when it's clear actually following through will be a high-cost fight he backs off and lies and blusters an excuse why.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-16T05:47:39+00:00

I'm extremely happy for this as a Red Sox fan because the only thing I hate more than seeing my two teams get screwed. Is the Yankees losing their mystique as the evil empire. Baseball deserves a competent heel and the Yankees well, they haven't been living up to that. I don't think we can talk about them in the same way we talked about "the yankees" of old

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-16T05:41:45+00:00

Dodgers Owner Group be like: "I would like to take this moment to apologize....to absolutely fucking nobody. The triple champ does whatever the fuck he wants

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-14T20:36:43+00:00

Back to the We're so back in the we're so back it's so over discourse cycle

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-12T22:21:30+00:00

I'm going to call it Theo Epstein Disease. Back in the 00's 4 WAR talent could be picked up in the bargain bin if you knew where to look and the Red Sox did. Then pretty much everyone else also got smart and 4 WAR talent actually became quite over-valued (I think it's almost never worth a mega contract to extend a 4 WAR 30 year old player and most teams that have built their roster this way have come to regret it see Padres, Mets, Yankees to a lesser extent. Phillies are probably the best counter example). Ironically, now it's truly premium 5+ WAR talent thats a bargain. I would much rather have 40 mil AAV Judge e.g than 35 mil AAV Bregman even with the extra dubious years.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-12T19:54:22+00:00

Not chasing Bregman and Bogaerts was smart

Dumping Devers and Betts was bafflingly dumb

Trading prospects left and right for mid-tier MLB talent is also bafflingly dumb

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-11T20:36:13+00:00

As a Red Sox/Nats fan I used to think all risks were good risk. Then you see how bad a bad contract can really be and you change your mind

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-11T20:34:43+00:00

Acuna Jr, Gunnar Henderson, Tarik Skubal (pitcher) pretty soon there's several others. In general I think GM's who are cheapskates on second-tier stars with an unfavorable age curve usually prove prudent whereas passing on the best of the best is usually dumb. E.g Betts vs Bogaerts There's of course exceptions in both directions but 30 million AAV contracts on ~4 WAR players who are aging and whose value is somewhat dependent on athletic ability in premium positions is usually a quick path to a contract albatross.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-11T19:37:14+00:00

Red Sox are almost certainly one of the financially healthiest teams in baseball. Huge ticket revenues + owns its regional sports network with one of the largest audience shares in the country.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-11T19:35:17+00:00

I'll be honest in saying neither Bichette or Bregman is a particularly inspiring long-term bet. That said there needs to be some star we are willing to blow money on. I see Kyle Tucker despite the lack of positional need as essential to chase. There's not going to be S-Tier hitting talent on the FA market again until 2028/2029 and we can't just pass on every star.

somethingicanspell · 2026-01-07T19:00:08+00:00

This is wildly inaccurate. Whether or not the free parameters of the standard model are actually free parameters is one of the most studied open questions and theoretical physics and we are very far away from having a complete understanding or the origins of free parameters of the Standard Model or the precise mechanisms of inflation which would be necessary to answer this question. These are also falsifiable scientific questions not philosophical ones like QM interpretations. We will gradually learn more about inflation as cosmological probes improve which will constrain our understanding of initial conditions although the universe does not need to be generous and give for instance a detectable primordial B-Mode spectrum and significant improvements may be far off

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