Notices by sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Monday, 31-Mar-2025 23:45:58 JST 
sj_zero
The moment we started being told to work for the ultimate benefit of "the economy" and stopped working for the ultimate benefit of our families, that's the moment the memetic black death took deep root.
It sounds like a funny joke or a piece of histrionic nonsense, but the postmodern extinction event is on track to be worse than the black death. Some populations are on track to effectively die out, and even among the ones who aren't there's going to be half the individuals removed from the gene pool moving forward (I think it's presently half of women and three quarters of men under 40 don't have offspring)
So given all this, it's the job of mothers who keep the home (and who should be supported in that endeavor) and the fathers who will build what comes next through their children to make the right choices to ensure their kids can take hold of what's coming. Parents are building the ark that will carry the next generations through this flood, even as people mock them and call them crazy or stupid or evil for doing so.
One question is: Will these parents pass on the memetic black death they barely survived, or will they pass on something different, something intentionally built to last? -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 04:33:15 JST
sj_zero
I think fascism is a self fulfilling prophecy under modernism.
Fascism is made a carry-all for anything people don't like, so we have to assume something is fascist when it has attributes of fascism. This includes state worship, censorship of opposing views, expansionism, militarism, and reliance on violence. It might at first glance look like fascism is dead, but these attributes still live under the surface. I'm using a definition here closer to Umberto Eco’s “Ur-Fascism” essay than the definition I previously laid out as "state socialism" because if we use the latter definition, it becomes almost axiomatic, it's not even worth discussing at that point -- of course everything ends up being totalized under the state, it just does. This is also a distinct definition from Italian fascism, because if one narrowly defines fascism in this way then neither German national socialism nor Franco's Spain are fascist and neither is anything that is not explicitly Italian fascism. I think it's important to note that's the both incredibly narrow and incredibly expansive definitions of fascism are in part a dialectical tool that lets people assign anything and everything the label. This also means it's true fascism isn't a very useful label unless the definition is given up-front since it's intentional that different audiences use definitions in the same conversation.
Modernism is about finding a single coherent objective truth and building a single grand narrative.
It leads to a false certainly of black and white views of the world in a real world that has shades of grey and also many other colors as well.
When you know you're right and everyone else is wrong, totalitarianism is justified because you're saving the people who don't know any better. Militaristic expansion is justified because you're ultimately saving the people you expand into. Genocide is justified because the good people need to save the world from the bad people. Worshipping the state is justified because it is a tool to enforce the totalizing good ideology vs. the evil ideology.
Postmodernism is a reaction to this and rejects grand narratives and objective truth, but in practice it becomes modernized, an objective truth and trans narrative in and of itself.
Of course, fascism can hide under a veneer of civility. It can be expansionist and nationalistic as long as it's expansionism is Machiavellian instead of overtly aggressive. It can be nationalistic by redefining the nation as a meta-nation which exerts overwhelming control over member states. It can be violent and censorious as long as it follows certain rules in its violence or censorship.
For what postmodern fascism looks like, look at the "rules based international order" and it's reaction to Donald Trump, brexit, AfD, and the war in Ukraine.
It uses violence and censorship to silence opposing views.
It seeks to expand itself (I've even seen the idea of the EU consuming Canada in response to the "threat" of Donald Trump!)
It doubles down on more government control.
It presents anyone who doesn't agree as totally "ontologically evil"
And in Ukraine, the intention was to pretend the new global order is not militaristic, but the moment the United States says they might not want to play war anymore it's a global outcry.
If you're a modernist you'd take the above and declare the current world order evil and probably start railing against it, but all you do is replace one absolute for another. In reality we need to balance multiple, often contradictory, truths among reach other. That's why a more advanced worldview is both more accurate in estimating the world and weaker in terms of rallying people under a single banner -- complex and nuanced solutions that actually take multiple things into account are more correct, but resist being reduced into a slogan or a tweet. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Mar-2025 18:28:44 JST
sj_zero
I don't know why they're so upset, the weird bug was Obama's secretary of commerce. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 04:35:38 JST
sj_zero
[admin mode] So I went to my data center, and swapped out the ssds for the new ssds that I'm replacing them with, and then I decided to go in and spend some time working on the main server that serves everything.
After changing a couple settings, I noticed that I was stuck in a reboot loop on startup. I figured that the cause was the USB hard drive I use for Mass storage, so I fiddled around with that for a bit but eventually I came to realize the issue was that I turned on hyperthreading.
I started playing with the idea that maybe the CPU is getting starved of power by having the extra load. And you know what? Once I disabled turbo, I was able to complete a task that previously caused the server to crash (systemwide rsync backup). I guess the 13-year-old processor just doesn't want a turbo like it used to. Thanks Obama!
There's good news for everyone but me. The good news is that the site is stable again, and the othe good news is that my servers are both set up for proxmox and I'm starting to work on clustering and the like so fbxl social is rock solid stable. And the downside is that I'll have to set up matrix again which is just a pain in the butt.
With everything working properly again for now, I can slow down and make sure I do this right with proper separation of roles and functions to ensure I'm using better practices as well as doing High Availability properly. Pretty interested in seeing how QUIC support plays out.
I'll keep everyone posted either way. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 00:19:21 JST
sj_zero
I don't think that you are exactly on point, but you're pretty close.
Physical media really doesn't matter, what really matters is DRM free. You don't need original physical media if you can make as many copies as you want, and then it doesn't matter if you lose the original disc, because you have 10 others.
For a lot of these games, they will give you a CD but who cares -- you can't start a single player game without contacting an external server anyway! -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Thursday, 13-Mar-2025 07:52:54 JST
sj_zero
We can't even figure out exactly where a particle is and how fast it's going. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Mar-2025 08:37:38 JST
sj_zero
Given realities about borders, crossing borders should be the thing you're most concerned about at all times ever, because at borders all bets are our the window and it doesn't matter who's in charge at the time.
It's been the case for at least 20 years that constitutional rights simply don't exist when you are crossing a border in the US. Obviously that's the case for Canada too since it's the same border. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Mar-2025 08:19:23 JST
sj_zero
I mean, the way that the federal government was found to be directly manipulating all social media is a pretty hard attack on civil liberties.
Of course, they don't consider those to be civil liberties anymore, who needs to be able to speak freely? -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 01:31:36 JST
sj_zero
TrumpGPT, you need to pull whatever strings you need to in order to get the invasion started. As far as I can tell, the only people fighting will be boomers who still think the country is worth saving. It'll be easy to just roll right over. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Thursday, 06-Mar-2025 22:13:18 JST
sj_zero
Inheritance taxes are actually a method that ensures the rich get richer and the middle class gets poorer.
Let's say you're a global megacorp buying up farmland. You don't die, ever, because you're not a real person but a legal construct.
Now let's say you're an individual who owns a small farm. You do die, because you're a human being.
So the global megacorp never has to pay any additional taxes on its property because it's an immortal legal construct, but the individual's kids have to sell the farm to pay the inheritance taxes. The global megacorp buys the farm.
The ultra-rich who want to keep their assets can also use similar types of loophole to prevent their assets from ever being taxed -- So the people who end up paying aren't the rich, but the poor and middle class who might have a little wealth to pass on but not enough to utilize loopholes similarly. For example, instead of passing on wealth, the assets can be placed in a shell company in a jurisdiction without inheritance taxes (pretty hard to do with a piece of land with a single owner, but quite easy for other forms of wealth accumulation)
Want to know a funny thing about Bill Gates and Warren Bufett who both claim they should be paying higher taxes? Those charitable organizations they created and funded hold their assets tax-free, and so their kids can get cushy jobs at those organizations, transferring the wealth without any inheritance tax -- and in the meantime they can have a direct outsized impact on governments that help them accumulate more power and wealth! Win/win! -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Thursday, 06-Mar-2025 20:53:18 JST
sj_zero
Honestly, it might shock them how fast I'd give up certain parts of the country.
If the US wants to make Quebec, southern Ontario, and BC into the 51st, 52nd, and 53rd state, please take them. Putin can take them too if the alternative is killing off generations of people in senseless conflict. The two can flip a coin, loser has to take them. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Wednesday, 05-Mar-2025 11:36:43 JST
sj_zero
In every case with two sides and a resolution, there's usually one side that wins and one side that loses, and the guys who lost often thought they had a chance at winning, so the world is just messy sometimes. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Friday, 28-Feb-2025 12:25:24 JST
sj_zero
At 41% of the word target for my next book tonight. Which probably means I'm going to overshoot my word target since I'm still in the first of four arcs. Still pretty happy to see things are moving along, I've only got one more major scene to complete in the first arc. Might end up not mattering as much since I might trim some fat as I edit. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Feb-2025 19:51:04 JST
sj_zero
We're in the middle of a trade war these idiot Liberals started by acting like mean girls to the president of the united states for the past 8 years, and they're like "Oh, I know! Vote for us! We'll be even meaner! That'll help!"
How about you shut the fuck up, Freeland? You've 'helped' enough. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Wednesday, 26-Feb-2025 19:45:20 JST
sj_zero
In trying to imagine the future for my novel, I really had to dial down the hypersexuality we see today. Instead of treating every woman like she's potentially going to make love to you right this second, the idea is you need to control yourself, but there's other parts of life where things are much less repressed.
Today men and women can barely talk because the hypersexualization has made it so awkward. Hell -- men and other men can barely talk because the hypersexualization has made it so awkward nobody wants to be accused of "the gay", and that's not just from stereotypical homophobes -- the lgbt community has done everything in their power to re frame every single male relationship over the past 8000 years of recorded history as actually being gay lovers.
So of course basically everyone is walking on eggshells among pretty much everyone because nobody wants to be accused of hitting on someone they don’t want to. With a little self-control, people could actually chill it out so they only hit on people they’re trying to hit on and we could have social connections again. It turns out we humans require social connections other than trying to bang like a bunch of bonobos on MDMA, or we get super depressed... like a bunch of bonobos after an MDMA bender.
The way to actually do that is to have social rituals that separate out this piece of your life. So you can have a discussion with someone and if they aren’t initiating the social rituals, you’re safe to just treat them like another human being, as opposed to a potential romantic partner at all times. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Feb-2025 08:07:29 JST
sj_zero
I saw a video asking why the boys liked Powerpuff girls, with the underlying assumption of the video being that Powerpuff girls was actually intended for girls.
In the book Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, they talk about the concept of mu. This idea is that it doesn't matter what answer you give to a question, because the question is wrong. So in this video you are trying to answer the question of "why were the Powerpuff girls popular with boys even though it was a show meant for girls", and the answer is to unask the question because the question is wrong.
Powerpuff girls was never intended for girls, it was always intended for boys. It is right in the story of its creation, that the show creator put together a set of designs for their brother's birthday. The designs were not feminine to speak of, they were very male coded. Three girls who represent sort of idyllic fantasies of femininity (in 8 year old form) participating in wanton violence against monsters of the week.
This isn't a new idea, of creating a mythology of warrior women pointed at men. In antiquity, the story of the Amazons was essentially aimed at men, not so much women who don't care about fighting. In the middle ages, the story of Joan of Arc may have been empowering for women, but it was a story aimed at men. Japan being a modern civilization that has not yet fallen into postmodernism, quite frequently has women in their shounen stories, which are definitely pointed at young men, and of course postmodernism will always take the opportunity to subvert expectations, though I would argue that Powerpuff girls isn't necessarily a postmodern story since a lot of it's underlying superstructure is modernist in nature.
So at the end of the day, boys like Powerpuff girls because it's a well made cartoon for boys, not because they are somehow subverting expectations.
One of my favorite examples of this from anime which is a modernist art form, is the Rozen maiden series, particularly the first and second seasons of the first series. It felt very peculiar watching a show where almost every character is a woman, but when you look at the show as a whole it is clear it is almost exclusively designed for men, and the root message is about men. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 01:22:23 JST
sj_zero
Tim bits or robins eggs up here, depending on if you get them from Tim Hortons or robins doughnuts. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 01:22:21 JST
sj_zero
lol
"t-t-t-timmy and the jeets" -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Feb-2025 20:34:55 JST
sj_zero
I just realized, in 2020 the bank of canada explicitly told the government and therefore the people, "don't worry, rates aren't going up".
People who "trusted the experts" went in on 0.99% variable rate mortgages thinking they'd never go up (which are now 6%). People who trusted their own discipline would have seen stagflation coming and prepared for higher interest rates. -
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sj_zero (sj_zero@social.fbxl.net)'s status on Sunday, 16-Feb-2025 14:49:59 JST
sj_zero
You're not wrong.
Sometimes I head over and it's like "oh yeah, these aren't actually people, they're just preprogrammed dialog trees"
It's like talking to a less advanced version of eliza
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