Open Thread

Open Thread #106

Aaron "Sleazy" Elias

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95 thoughts on “Open Thread #106”

    1. I wonder if they don’t actually suddenly realize that their grand plans are just plans.
      Schwab recently was coming across a bit more friendly (“versöhnlich” if you want) in the Weltwoche.

    2. Translation: “We are the elite ruling class. We have all the money and power. You little people have no right to speak up against us or we will destroy you. We’ve had enough of your resistance and if you don’t back down soon and convert to our way of thinking we are going to bankrupt you and eventually murder you. Becoming one of us might include that you chop you dick and balls off and submit your child to the state to be mutilated and molested in various ways. If you aren’t fortunate enough to be one of us, then you’ll just have to accept existing in VR simulations while dwelling in a pod and eating bugs. We don’t give a shit about you. In fact, we hate you and you are lucky we have let you live this far along. Hurry up and die already so we can have our transhumanist utopia before we get too old to implement it. We’re getting antsy.”

    3. I start to realize that democracy was one of the best ploys ever used by the ruling class.

      The ruling class still has as much power as they had in monarchy, maybe even more, (thanks to the mass brainwashing device which is the media), but now the masses are hallucinated into thinking they actully have the power, so now they accept and love their own slavery.

      Kings of the past would be so envious of the power modern plutocrats have over their populations.

      I mean just thinking about the medieval age in Europe… if a king became to tyrannical, most of the time he ended on the choping block. Because he was seen as the personification of the power structure, he was held accountable.

      But compare that to modern politicans and aristocrats. They can pretty much do whatever they want, and in the worst case they don’t get reelected, or have to go to prison for a few years.

    4. but now the masses are hallucinated into thinking they actully have the power, so now they accept and love their own slavery.

      I don’t think that’s true. Even sheep know they have no real power in the system. The way it works is more as a silencing tactic “well if you don’t like x, you have the power to vote it out, so stop complaining”.

      Nobody actually believes they have the power by just having a vote.

  2. The youtube censorship algorithm is absolutelly insane now.
    A comment of me got removed, basically just because I used the word “dumb”. Or maybe it was “brainwashed masses”.
    That’s why all the commenters seem like bots now, literally every comment that is not some generic feel good bullshit will be removed.

    On a more global scale, what we are seeing here is a global reprogramming of the dumb masses.
    This is when a religion takes over a civilization.
    It’s hard for me to see most people as humans anymore. They seem to be more like generic bee-like meme repeaters. Not a single original thought they didn’t get from the mass media.

    I just wonder how far this can go. But it seems like, pretty far. If you can program humans to go against there actual biological imperatives, and cut off their genitcals.. this seems to have no bounds at all.

    (I guess the true bound is when an ideology becomes actually very harmful to civilization, but in the west we are still living on the successes of our ancestors basically. but soon we are going to run out of savings)

    Reply

    1. At this point I think that WSB is nothing but one big psy-op, in order to introduce sweeping regulations. Think QAnon and the upcoming Patriot Act 2, in the wake of the Capitol thing.

    2. @Neutral

      No such genius exists, I’m sorry. Nobody can skillfully devise a “psy-op” that gets millions to spend hard earned cash like that. You seriously overestimate what’s possible to organize and plan for manipulation-wise.

      Capitol? Yeah that’s possible since there were things like gates being opened for them and only a small number actually proactively rushed in and did things.

      Wsb? Sorry no, that’s just not humanly possible.

    3. @Alek

      I see your point.
      But is it really that hard to orchestrate?
      Put a well spoken figure in front of a group and give them a narrative they can relate to and then just let the viral nature of reddit do its job.
      Worked well with all the Greta stuff. This one was even less effort.
      Plus, as one can se with the Bitcoin crowd, “number go up” is a very powerful unifying force.

      I think conspiracies are overestimated in terms of how much details may have been planned in advance. But they are underestimated how little micro-managing they need, once you have gotten the general direction right and have the right soil for things to grow on. And WSB is just that. Plus, conspiracies are very forgiving. Look at all the inconsistencies with 9/11, yet the country still went to war, enacted Patriot Act and printed shitloads of currency to fund the military industrial complex.

      Think of it as a call option: You pay a small premium, and the returns are unlimited.
      WSB consists of so little effort, there was only upside. Heck, one reddit post and the rest was already there, bored millennials, robinhood as an app, the stimulus checks money, the fed who has made them “rich” during the pandemic…
      It could’ve failed, or not have materialized to such a degree, but at this low cost, why not try?

    4. A big difference is that the mass hysteria behind climate change (lol) as well as other leftist issues like unfettered mass migration are marketed to and picked up by women. It also does not directly cost them anything. On the other hand, on r/wallstreetbets you arguably have mostly men who are risking their own money to prove a hypothesis. Also, the manipulation is going on at the other side, i.e. hedgies and the MSM pushing for silver as well as hedgies trading 100 shares of AMC/GME back and forth after hours in order to artificially lower the price and tricking people into panic selling. That’s not working because of #diamondhands. Consequently, we even had big shots in the media like the head of Goldman Sachs attempting to fear-monger the public.

    2. If by every single time you mean they dindu nuffin’, then yes. I wish I could find the clip of the Albanian historian explaining the 109+ purges and his exact explanation for why was, “we didn’t do anything.” I swear it exists.

    4. This is incredible. It reminds me of the saying, “If all you encounter are a**holes, then maybe you’re the problem.” This is very relevant for dating because there are a lot of women out there who complain about the deficiencies of their ex-boyfriends. Yet, the issue was not any of their boyfriends. Instead, the woman is the problem. Another way of looking at it is determining what the constants are, and what changes.

    5. Correction, the guy apparently isn’t a historian. He’s actually chairman of some anti-antisemitic movement called the Campaign Against Antisemitism, or CAA. That’s how you know this is legit and that he’s telling the truth.

    6. @Aaron, I agree with most of this, but this bit:

      “Before the GameStock saga, most people did not know what “stock shorting” was. Now they do, and they’re asking “how and why is this legal?” The answer of course is that the Jews that work in the government to regulate the economy are helping the Jews on Wall Street to make money and destroy businesses that they don’t like.”

      This ignores that the corollary, going long, is also legal. Ultimately, they having external observers evaluate the fundamentals of a company is a good thing for volatility, no? Separate entities can evaluate the company, and if some entities over short it, other entities can do their own analysis and long it, thus, reducing volatility. Lmk, if i’m missing anything.

    7. Stock shorting itself is not necessarily the issue because that would mean that you have to first borrow a share that actually exists. Instead, “naked shorting” is the problem, i.e. counterfeiting stocks as those people sell stocks that do not exist, which leads to more stock being in circulation that was ever issued by the company. Go down that rabbit hole for a bit, it’s truly shocking that this has been allowed to happen.

    8. If you bann naked shorts you need to bann all derivates basically.
      Options, index certificates, futures.

      e.g. the amount of gold futures/certificates is 100x the amount of actual gold which exists in the world.

      I don’t see a problem really. Derivates are just digital contracts basically.

      So if some hedge funds sign a contract basically that they owe me some stock, and the stock has X amount of value. The have to keep buying it until they are bankrupt, in my opinion.
      So yes, these “too big to fail” companies need exactly that, they need to fail. And then maybe they will adopt a more risk averse behavior.

      And to stop a chain reaction of failing companies from collapsing the entire financial system, I think there needs to be a strict separation between investment banks and “normal” banks. Which existed in the past.

    9. @ubermensch

      “e.g. the amount of gold futures/certificates is 100x the amount of actual gold which exists in the world.”

      ^I see. What’s the distinction here between this and counterfeiting?

    10. Not really. Most futures are cash-only (I don’t know exactly the term they use for it)

      Basically, a future is a contract:

      At this point in time, you have to pay me the price of gold, in cash.
      (a “real” future would be, that you actually have to deliver the gold, but most futures are cash-only)

      Obviously, there is no limit how many of those contracts you can create.

      But because it is not real gold, you obviously have counterparty risk. If the entity which sold you the future doesn’t have the cash, your future is not worth shit.

      And the same logic basically applies to options, certificates, and other derivates.

      Now when you have a lot of companies owning derivates, and then also ownings stocks of other companies. If one of them goes bankrupt, it can lead to a chain reaction basically.

      But I don’t really think this is a problem. A lot of companies going bankrupt at the same time.
      It only is a problem, when they now cry for a bailout. Then it is not a free market anymore. They called the 2008 crash “socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor”, which was correct.
      In a free market, these banks would all have went in bankruptcy, there would have been a recession, but then a few years later, the economy would have recovered.

      But there is also another problem: The government basically forces me, to have a checking account with a registered bank. A bank which participates in all kind of risky derivate bets, basically. So I cannot really avoid taking a risk with my money.

      That’s why I think there need to be a separation between banks. They must give me the option, to have a risk free account. I will not get any interest, but that is fine. But right now
      you don’t have this option.

    11. Oh and by the way, a risk-free account obviously should (and can) not pay any interest.
      This would basically imply that you can create wealth out of nothing. It cannot work.
      So when they tell you, that you can get interest in a risk-free account, they are lying obviously. There must necessarily be a hidden risk. (e.g. a collapse of the entire financial system, or hyperinflation). You cannot get something in this universe for nothing. That would be a perpetuum mobile.

    12. Oh and the difference between derivates and counterfeit stock:

      When I buy a stock, I expect to get a real share of the company. But you just sell me something, that looks like a real share (which is easy when everything is digital).

      Basically what the brokers are doing: you buy X amount of shares, and they put them into your digital account. But they don’t really buy the shares for you.

      Then the company prices goes to the moon, and you think you are rich now. But you are not.

      This is obviously illegal, and bullshit.

      But when you buy a derivate, it is not illegal, because the derivate is only a contract. The derivate is only a promise, to pay you some amount of cash, in the future, based on something real.

    13. That’s also why you have to be very careful with those “zero commission” brokers. (with brokers in general)
      Again, you cannot get something for free. Is is “free”, because there is a hidden risk they don’t tell you.
      Often these brokers have hidden in the contract with you, that they are allowed to do this bullshit. You have to read the contract very careful.

  5. Aaron,
    What does it mean when a girl say’s she has a “type” and doesn’t have a “type” neither? Would there be a difference between a woman having a type for casual encounters/one night stands versus long-term relationships? Is “type” a reference to looks or behavioural characteristics?

    Reply

    1. You’d probably find your answer here if you did enough digging. Short answer is a chick’s ‘type’ for hookup is a hot guy. ‘Type’ for LTR or marriage is generally the guy with decent salary that is also preferably good-looking. I suppose you could go further and say that her ‘type’ might be a guy that fits a particular niche i.e. thug/rocker/redneck or whatever, but it doesn’t really matter if he’s not attractive to her.

    2. Consider such statements to be more BS than anything else.
      They love telling themsleves stuff that makes them feel good and positions them somewhere within their perceived peer group.
      When Chad comes along, she’ll want to bang him.

    1. And there are still lunatics who believe in “efficient market hypothesis” fucking lol.
      yeah I’m 100% sure these two companies having exactly the same price chart is an accurate reflection of their “intrinsic value” 😀

    4. https://therightstuff.biz/2021/01/27/tds699/

      The Merchant Minute segment at 1:15:30 alerted me to the fact that short seller (((Andrew Left))), who is telling everyone that GME is only worth $20, is a fan of artwork by Cleon Peterson, who draws paintings of blacks massacring white women and children. These people do indeed have chutzpah.

    1. This whole story is so epic. Basically the financial markets are rigged to an extreme degree for the elite.
      I wonder how they will cover their asses this time.
      I wonder when people will realize, that there is no democratic way to fix this. There needs to be an armed revolution.
      People need to take their guns, kill the politicians and bankers and other members of the ruling class, and then establish a new system.
      This is how it was always done.

      But considering how stupid the voting population is, there will probably be another bail out, because these hedge funds are obviously “too big to fail” and they will get away with it again.

    2. Basically, any other outcome than completely wiping these hedge funds, and you can no longer speak of a free market or a fair system here.
      They took a risky play to make a profit, and now they have deal with the consequences.

    1. I think a reset in positive terms is around the corner.
      I mean, if I didn’t think that, I’d probably be very depressed.

  10. I came across a Twitter account that promotes “Jewish contributions” and I can’t tell if it’s satire or not. They recently posted a picture with the mugshots of the owners of the biggest hedge funds of which 18 out of 25 are Jewish:
    https://twitter.com/J_Contributions/status/1355276213204316161
    This is of course perfect timing, Moishe! (My argument for this not being satire is that I’ve observed that some Jews are remarkably tone-deaf. That would just be another example.)

    Reply

    1. I’ve come across this twitter account before and I’m almost certain it is a troll. Thing is, many people will see the ‘amazing’ feminist accomplishments of Barbara Cohen Silverbergenstein and believe that this is genuinely something worthy of praise and respect.

    2. I’ve received posts about how blacks, er POC, invented this and that…such as:

      – fridges
      – traffic lights

    3. According to Google, everything ever was akshually invented by blacks. Give it ten more years, and we’ll probably learn that, for instance, Beethoven wasn’t Black but a transsexual instead and that transsexuals in Africa had flying pyramids and their own Wakanda (Vaganda?).

    4. @Aaron: funny that you tried to distort “Wakanda” into “Vaganda”. “Vagando” in Spanish is the gerund of the verb “wander” but, more to the point, this verb may also mean “to slack around”. Blacks have a reputation of slackers even here.

      Was this a coincidence or is there some hidden German cleverness?

  11. Here is a very good discussion of the NPC phenomenon, courtesy of 4chan:
    https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/188735139/#188740434
    I particularly liked, “They can’t grasp the basic fundamental truths of the world around them, so any reasoning done will be flawed. However, the brain doesn’t like being left in this eternal state of logical limbo. It wants to order the world around itself. It wants to put things into boxes and label them, but it is being specifically trained not to do this, leading to a great deal of discomfort. It leaves the brain craving a structure to judge the world with. The solution? This structure is provided to them. They are programmed by authority figures and media with the fundamental logic they use to view the world. Their many contradictory positions are because their viewpoint is contrived, not derived. And it is also why their positions can seemingly 180 multiple times in a couple weeks.”

    Reply

    1. This part is also good:

      “In function, their beliefs are just an expression of hipsterdom in the modern world that wanks over self consciousness and image. Which is why getting through to them that their beliefs and behavior are actually extremely common and enforced on them is a death nail for their insecurities. The liberal hipster values above all else their special independence, and liberalism no longer provides that and they’re learning it slowly(see the lefties spiraling off into increasingly obscure movements or walking away from politics altogether).”

      The core motivation of those leftists is, they want to feel special.
      But how does a loser who didn’t accomplish anything meaningful, feel special?
      Easy, just make it all about race, gender, political belief….. basically anything you which doesn’t require any effort.

      And now it’s a problem because their view is already mainstream, so they cannot feel progressive and hip anymore.
      That’s why they need to come up with more insane bullshit every day.
      First it was homo acceptance. But when that became mainstream, it was no longer enough for them to feel special. So now it is trans acceptance.

    2. I recently had a conversation with an old acquaintance (NPC) via text when he sent me a picture of his 7 year old with the caption ‘Happy Birthday’… I congratulated them and we had a short discussion about learning an instrument. We both know each other from being involved in the local music scene in the past and we share in common that we play guitar. I asked him if he was going to get his son into playing guitar and he sent me a picture of the boy holding a Strat and explaining that he isn’t really into it yet.

      I asked if Mr. NPC had considered discipling the child, say for example, no video games or TV until you’ve taken your guitar lessons from dad or practiced on your own for at least an hour. He immediately became defensive even though I supplied evidence that when very young children learn an instrument their fingers take up more space in the brain versus if the child started practicing at age 13 (there is brain scan data on this topic). I also pointed to Van Halen (piano before age 10) and Alexi Laiho (Violin…) as examples of virtuosos who got an early start. Granted, not every child will become masterful from picking up an instrument early on but it’s arguably much healthier for a child’s brain development and ability to delay gratification than letting them rot themselves with smart phones, tablets and trans friendly video games/programs. Looking back, I wish my family had disciplined me in a more concerted and thoughtful way.

      I basically got the cliche, ‘If you want to do that with your kids then cool, but I don’t want to force my kid to do anything he doesn’t want.’ What a cop out that is to say, I thought. He’s basically admitting that he’s a lazy parent under the guise that he’s being compassionate to the child by giving him agency over his choices. If I had to guess, I bet he forced to child to undergo circumcision as a newborn, and he most certainly has no choice as to whether he’d prefer home schooling over public schooling. Children are forced into all kinds of things, but when it comes to teaching a child a good healthy dose of discipline in some field at an early age then that’s a big no no.

      It even got me thinking about the whole notion of ‘not forcing’ your kids to do certain things they don’t to do. Who’s idea was that anyway? So if your kid decides he doesn’t to fuck girls and instead would rather have his dick and balls chopped off and identify as Carol, you’re going to just go along with it because that is his wish? And people will want to avoid rational arguments and hold steady to their opinions without even considering an alternative view point. This kind of weak mindedness has really just made not want to bother with having more in depth conversations anymore. It’s infinitely easier and more productive in the end to just nod and agree with whatever dumbass flavor of the month opinion people may have and excuse yourself as quickly as possible. Society is sick and it’s easy to see why when people refuse to even invest in their children.

    3. I’ve seen a more sinister angle of this, namely mothers influencing their kids and then telling others that their kid wanted it. I had a case in my extended family where the mom had the earlobes of her young daughter pierced for earrings. When questioned, the mom claimed that it’s “just what the mother wanted” and that I should just ask the daughter. The daughter confirmed this. I then squatted down and, in my most encouraging voice, asked the daughter if she’d like to get her hand amputated as that was “really cool” and “adults do it, too”. Of course, I had no intention to physically harm that kid. Yet, as I expected, the kid then insisted that she wants to have her amputated (she had no idea what that word meant, obviously, just like she had no idea what it meant to have a hole punched into your earlobe). The mother was not pleased at all about this and caused quite a stink, complaining to my mother about how mean I was to her and her daughter. I’m glad that this bitch is no longer part of our extended family as she got divorced out of it.

    4. I was just thinking about my previous comment and something dawned on me, could it perhaps be that many parents don’t want to see their children thrive? The reason this seemed so foreign to me is because I personally imagine I would be ecstatic to see my offspring surpass me in every way. I’m not saying that people want their kids to grow up to be complete failures necessarily, but that it hurts some people’s pride on an unconscious level to see their kids excel past themselves.

    5. This is a good point. I think the parental neglect you see in the lower classes is often an expression of this, i.e. if their kids did better in life than them, it would somehow mean that they are losers as they could not reach the same level of success themselves.

      Another, and more sinister, aspect is the problem of narcissism in mothers, i.e. they need their children to be dependent on them. Thus, they do not raise them to be adults who can function in society.

    6. @Pickernanny: I think most people don’t love their children.

      Love more me is, when the other person is more important than yourself.
      (this is also a good way to tell yourself if you really love someone: would you sacrifice your life to save the other person? if yes, you love them, if not, you just like them a lot)

      So the difference between love, and just liking someone very much, is that if you have to do something which would make you feel bad, but the other person feel good, you would still do it.

      For most people today, their children are like toys to them.

      The reason they don’t want to punish them is, it makes them feel bad. And feeling good to them is more important than their own children.
      (they only have the children to feel good in the first place, it is a very egoistic reason for most people).

      And on another level, they are just conflict avoiding cowards.

      Another reason is, they think they should be friends to their children. This is also bullshit. As a parent, you are an authority figure. You cannot be friends with someone, if you are in a power dynamic with them.

      Especially as a father, you will often have to do something, which will make your children hate you, but is good for them in the long run.
      But if you don’t want your children to hate you, this obviously doesn’t work.
      Your job as a parent is not to make your children like you. It is to prepare them for life. If this requires something which makes them hate you… as a loving parent, you still would do it.

      This is also the reason probably so many single mums fuck up their children. They got them in the first place, because they wanted someone to love them.

    7. @Aaron

      Thanks for confirming my suspicions. And that’s an interesting story. It reminds me of when a close friend of mine went through a divorce several years ago. I remember him playing me a secret audio he had recorded of his then wife flipping out and attacking him while screaming like a lunatic right as they were in the middle of separating. Their young son was caught in the middle of all of this.

      Some time after they had divorced, I recall being shown her social media account where she was proudly stating how no son of her’s would ever grow up to disrespect women. The level of progressive this woman was is actually kind of rare around these parts, but she was one of those women that received 8 years of schooling to eventually just become a secretary, so go figure. She was also known to cosplay Harry Potter characters and have photo shoots done for social media. I ended up losing contact with my friend because he became and obnoxious drunk, however, that child is surely a teenager by now and I can’t help but wonder how he’s turning out.

    8. @ Ubermensch

      Thanks for the reply, I tend to agree with what you’re saying. A lot of women seem to me to look at their children as a pet or just a talking point. Women nowadays do seem to mold their children into future deficient citizens while many fathers fail them by putting up with their spouses nonsense or simply byvbeing ejected from the picture either partially or entirely due to State enforcement.

    9. Mike Enoch of The Daily Shoah pushed the meme that shitlibs are more like Pokemon. e.g., Status-signaling shitlib spotted! Throw pokeball! Captured! A working class goyim has been spotted! Status-signaling shitlib. Use snitch attack!” He may of course evolve into Trust Fund Communist Antifa Soycuck Faggot. Small Mom and Pop shop spotted! Soycuck! Throw (molotov cocktail)!

  12. Do you guys remember that Zeitgeist movement thing from like 10 years back? I don’t remember all the details but it seems to parallel a lot with the whole Gay Reset. At least with Zeitgeist, I remember they talked about growing meat in test tubes for the masses. Looks like they’re cutting corners and omitting meat consumption altogether now.

    Reply

    1. The “Zeitgeist movement” was hugely popular back then unlike the Goy Reset today. In particular women ate it up. I recall several of the women I hooked up with brining it up. I assume they wanted to demonstrate how smart they are. I looked into this myself later. It’s basically just communist bullshit, repackaged to address teenagers.

  13. Get a load of this reward winning anti-music video from Israel. As pointed out in the comments section, If some Christians wrote the reverse version of this song and dressed a little kid up in black face, it’d literally be the holocaust 2.0:

    https://youtu.be/s9ZfMMZIJJM

    Reply

    1. There is also plenty of black music that expresses hatred for the white man or, more precisely, white women. Yet, race-realist music by white men is “hate speech”. I wonder what the underlying dynamics here are. It may also be interesting to look into the ethnicity of producers of black music. I have a hunch that the 109ers are behind it.

    2. I was just reminded of the rapper Li’l Dicky’s song ‘White Dude’. Here’s a nice little lyric, “I ain’t black or Dominican, not Hispanic or Indian So imprisonment is not a predicament” and so on. Funny how (((they))) identify as ‘White’ whenever it’s convenient for them, like when highlighting how privileged we are. I also recall a video of a black rap critic harping on ol’ Dicky basically for being ‘White’. It’s funny because when BLM is attacking them in the street, suddenly being White no longer serves them and they quickly exclaim that they are indeed Albanian in an attempt to spare themselves.

    3. Wasn’t there a “Whites Against Trump” group that was stuffed to the gills with Hebes? I did a quick search but couldn’t find anything. Yet, that doesn’t mean that I misremembered, just that websites and news reports sometimes disappear for absolutely no reason at all.

  14. Aaron, just a heads up that Clubhouse is well worth paying attention to right now in connection to the topics and themes discussed on your site. You’ll be able to listen to people who are otherwise unreachable (famous actors, influencers, VCs, founders, people from wealthy backgrounds, finance) talk about relationships, dating, sex, porn, current events, and lots of other juicy stuff. An absolute bullseye of a scene and something that can’t possibly last after it opens up to the general public and starts getting competition.

    Reply

    3. The two cute ones @aleknovy refers to,,,

      Ms Bayern and Ms Saschen-Anhalt?

      (I’ll be shocked if Ms Hamburger is picked…I am shocked there’s no POC selected here – no the asian woman is not POC as due to IQ stats manipulation asians are now “white”)

      Some are past 25 years of age… isnt there an age max like 25/26??

    6. They ought to take a walk in the streets of any major Eastern European city and they’ll quickly forget that deformed scull they tell us to be the most beautiful woman on earth.

    7. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saschen-Anhalt

      Ms Mecklenburg-Vorpommern even has a decently petite bangable body, tiny joints and tiny waist almost a wonder they didn’t ask her to bulk up or ban her for being “too tiny”.

    8. What might have happened here is that the former GDR, with the exception of Berlin, is not very pozzed. The organizers probably didn’t get the memo or didn’t care whereas the other, like in Hamburg, went the extra mile and picked a hippo as their beauty queen.

    9. LOL, you guys have such higher standards than mine. So far my notch count is 5, 4 of which were below average in the looks department. I got to hook up with the only average one because she was a pregnant soon-to-be mother of two. This might explain the difference, heh. I need to improve myself to improve my average, though I’d like to settle down in a few years.

      OTOH if you’re talking about beauty queen standards, it’s a hell of a lot clearer case. You could find a bunch of similar quality in my uni back when I attended, and it wasn’t known for supplying model calibre students like other universities were.

    1. I’m actually rooting for China, Iran and Russia to bitch slap Albania. Once they purge all the competent goy from military and law enforcement, who is going to defend the Rose in the Desert from all those angry neighbors?

    2. I can imagine this happen, but on the other hand I can’t because the imagery is just so painful. Surely, nobody could strike Albanians while crying out in pain. If it were to happen, I’ll probably have to take a day or two of to mourn.

  17. I just now saw an MSNBC link on yootoob (I didn’t click on it) featuring an interview with Fauci with the headline reading approximately ‘Fauci warns new 2021 Covid mutant strains could be the most worstest ever’. Strap in, goys. Shit might just about be ready to start sucking a lot of ass (esp in the US, I’m guessing).

    Reply

    1. There will always be a new mutation, because viruses mutate all the time, and more restrictions. I have come across several articles in which the elites flout the idea that it may take four or five years until we can go back to normal, i.e. forget about going back to normal ever, goy! When 2025 comes around, you’ll still be wearing masks and jump to bizarre hoops. The key point here is that the state never voluntarily gives up its power. The TSA is still around as well, and presumably has prevented zero terrorist attacks in two decades.

      Pushing back seems to work, though. Austria is going to lift some of the limitations, arguably as a response to continuing protests in Vienna.

    3. Another argument pushed by the MSM is that the lockdowns are good because the more or less eradicated the flu, which is also mentioned in the article you linked. Well, Covid-19 is the flu, which is obvious, but I guess you are now a conspiracy theorist if you point out that the common cold is a coronavirus as well.

      I think the MSM work as follows: you have brazen liars at the top and stupid journalists at the bottom who push any agenda that they are asked for, even if today’s mainstream opinion is a complete 180 from yesterday’s.

  18. Considering most PS5 games will be released for PS4 at least for a while, I don’t see any point in making the plunge at least unless they end up making some impressive exclusives. But I imagine they’re probably going to end up having only a few titles worth exploring if the woke madness continues. I just wanted to gripe about the controller for a bit. When the PS1 came out, I didn’t have an issue with the double sticks in the center of the controller since it was a pretty new concept. However, I think they just need to swallow their pride and make the sticks asymmetrical already because the grip is noticeably way more comfortable that way. I’ve been catching up on the PS3 the last few months and I have some knock off controller that basically replicates an Xbox controller. It’s just some cheap piece of plastic but I’m much happier with this generic piece of crap simply because Xbox somehow managed to outdo Sony in the ergonomics department.

    Reply

    1. I currently don’t own a PS4 but I have a small stack of games for it. There was a lot less for it that interests me than there was on PS3, so there’s a trend already. Also, there are many developments in modern gaming I disagree with, such as the big focus on micro-transactions, DLCs, and games-as-a-service. Single-player experiences also seem to be quite same-y, particularly when you look at the big releases by Sony. (Microsoft doesn’t seem to care about story-driven single-player games, and Nintendo does its own thing.) I also mentioned previously that games have turned into huge time-sinks, compared to crisp 7-hour campaigns that were quite common during the PS3 era. Those you’re happy to replay unlike modern borefests that stretch those seven hours into 40.

      I agree with the ergonomics of the PS controllers. It may also be better to have the analog sticks on top on both the left and right as you very often use those and the L/R triggers.

      By the way, another PS3 game I recently discovered is Destiny. Of course I’ve heard about it before; I just never played it. I got it as part of a 20-games bundle I bought for 40 Euros. I’ve only put a few hours into it, but I really enjoy the gameplay (gunplay?). It’s a bit slower than the frantic Call of Duty pace and, even better, the game very clearly renders enemy fire, which is also a bit slower. It doesn’t happen that you get shot at and wonder where the fire is coming from. Enemies also react quite well, trying to flank you, or falling back to regroup if you’re putting pressure on them. A nice touch is that the game tries to punish passive gameplay. In my first larger shootout, my first strategy was to hide behind a pillar and take out the baddies one after the other as they pop out from behind cover. What happened instead was that they were moving in on me and one commander-type enemy even jumped up to the small hill I was on, presumably trying to melee me (he didn’t get that far). The sound design and music are, so far, also top notch. It’s really well made. Of course, the resolution is a bit rough on the PS3, but that doesn’t affect the gameplay. Also, the art direction is pretty good. I’m positively surprised. I may even jump into online co-op play. An added benefit of the PS3 is that you don’t have to pay for that. With PS4 and above, you need to pay 60 Euros a year or so, and over the lifetime of the console, that’s a big chunk of money.

      EDIT: A bummer with Destiny was that the updates, after putting the disc in, took over an hour, even though I now have reasonably fast Internet.

    2. I haven’t played Destiny but I’ve always heard good things about it. Seems like you’re enjoying it! I’m about 30% finished through TPP and managed to rack up up a ton of time. I’m taking a break from it for a while, not because I’m bored or dislike it, I’m just trying to savor the experience because it’s the last in the series and the last we’ll ever get. Have you by chance seen the Little Nightmares 2 trailer for the Switch? It looks like a really neat little puzzle platformer with fantastic visuals.

      Btw, in regards to the future of gaming it appears the Chinese might become big players in the future. I seriously doubt they’d give us a bunch of woke garbage. Here is a trailer for a game called Black Myth: Wukong by developer Game Science. The trailer showcases a top notch visual treat with what appears to be like a GoW style adventure game:

      https://youtu.be/uT6RZBz9ueM

    3. It’s good to hear that you’re enjoying TPP. I think I’ll eventually get it, maybe even for the PS3. This is such a cool system. A big reason why I like it is probably that its heydays were in the years in which I hardly played games as I was busy with pulling women and partying until the morning hours. One of my recent discoveries is Lost Planet. I only briefly played it, but it has very satisfying mechanics. Capcom made it, and that was during one of their high-quality-output periods.

      I haven’t heard of Little Nightmares 2. It looks quite interesting. Black Myth is building up a lot of hype. I’ll keep my eyes on it. In the best case, we’ll have to look forward to games not just from Japan but China as well. Developers in the latter country have been seriously stepping up their game, pun intended. Genshin Impact is an obvious example, but Chinese indies are getting good, too. Tales of the Immortal is a recent example. I haven’t played it yet, but I’ve seen in being mentioned at various places. It is hugely popular on Steam; https://store.steampowered.com/app/1468810/_/

    4. If you can get TPP for few bucks and feel like, I say go for it. There are a few considerations to keep in mind, though. I’ve talked about frame rates before but they don’t really bother me too much. It’s nothing like playing say, Gradius III for SNES. Resolution takes a big hit but the game still looks pretty nice. Load times can be horrendous. Idk how much better they are on the PS4 but navigating menus takes some time and there is a stuttering effect when executing certain functions like committing to a build, for example. In game, you’ll definitely notice some world building and what not but nothing that would affect your performance or ability to survey an area and know where you enemy is. I’m curious to know what you’d think of the AI, btw.

      Also worth considering, unless you grab Ground Zeroes as well then you’re missing the prologue. You could just watch a play through through and be done with it, however, PS4 does have the definitive version that includes the prologue and some extra content to make more sense out of the conclusion.

      There was a PSP game called Peace Walker which is also cannon and precludes the story right before Ground Zeroes picks up. It’s basically a bare bones version which the template would later be polished and upgraded to become the basis of TPP (If you’re wondering, The Legacy Collection has every game up to Peace Walker, even the two NES games which I didn’t fool with). The good thing about TPP is the narrative isn’t super heavy, especially compared to previous MGS games, so you won’t have to be super versed in the lore to understand much (though it would help to watch a synopsis on Peace Walker). You’ll mostly be completing main missions and kind of happily grinding through side ops to gain certain incentives (increasing buddy bonds, gathering gmp and resources, certain special items like blueprints or extractable soldiers, killing time while weapons and base facilities are being developed).

      When you do get a cutscene in this game it feels pretty rewarding, imo (there are a few rather lengthy ones early on but it’s not a trend). But anyways, lmk if you ever play it and what you think. You might hate it lmao.

      Anyways, I forgot all about Lost Planet. Apparently there are 3 in the series. I assume you’re playing the first installment? I never played them but I remember when they came out. I’ll have to check it out! Also, I still haven’t completed MGR. I’m sure I definitely will play through it at least a couple times at some point! I’m not sure what other games I’d be interested in atm, I’d have to do some digging. Maybe Dead Space. I remember a buddy of mine playing through some of FF13 back when it dropped. I recall it was pretty nice-looking but something about it threw me off. I haven’t enjoyed an FF game since X.

    5. Thanks for your elaborations on MGS! I just bought MGS:TPP from an online seller. I don’t know about US prices for used PS3 games, but here in Europe they are incredibly cheap. The average cost of the games in my collection is probably below 5 Euros. Slightly lower resolutions don’t really bother me. In fact, I think many cross-gen games look better on PS3 as the grainy 720p resolution hides deficiencies in texture quality, which the 1080p remasters on PS4 fully expose. We didn’t get the MGS Legacy Collection in Europe, but I bought the MGS HD Trilogy (for 8 Euros!), which contains MGS2, 3, and Peace Walker.

      I got pretty annoyed with Destiny the other night. I had about half an hour for a gaming session but because of network problems I couldn’t log in for about 15 minutes. The issue was with my ISP. So much for the glorious future of online gaming! This would not have happened with an offline single-player game, obviously.

      Yes, I was referring to the first Lost Planet. I only played it for about an hour to decide if I want to keep it. I also got the second one for very little money, but the third one I avoided as it was developed by a Western studio. I picked up the Dead Space trilogy too (the first two for a price I’m almost embarrassed to mention, 2 Euros each), FF XIII also cost me 2 Euros. All those games were part of a big haul. I played it for a bit. It’s pretty streamlined but my initial impression was pretty good.

      If you’re looking for more recommendations, look into the following games, but some of them I have not played yet: Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1 – 3, Devil May Cry 4, Binary Domain, Yakuza 3, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, Dragon’s Crown, Vanquish, and Tomb Raider (2013). You’ll probably end up liking more than half of them. Note that I have not played through the Ninja Gaiden games yet, but the first one controls so well that it put a grin on my face. It’s the most expensive game in my collection. It was an import from the UK that cost me around 12 Euros. I was quite surprised that even such a difficult to track down game, with fairly few listings on eBay, could be had for a fairly modest price. Well, I now have a collection to last me about a century, seeing that I currently get maybe 30 minutes a day on two nights during the week for gaming and a bit more on the weekend, but not regularly.

  19. Thanks for the recommendations! Vanquish is a definite on my list. I wasn’t aware of the Ninja Gaiden trilogy, I’ll absolutely have to research those. I also looked up Dragon’s Crown and that looks like a pretty nice little RPG. DMC4 is probably worth checking out, too. I’ve seen most of Tomb Raider so i’ll probably skip that one – it looked quite impressive. I almost forgot about Uncharted 2, btw.

    I think with the PS3 and Switch, I could easily make due for the next 4 or 5 years and not get bored. I see that you don’t have much time to game, which is a good thing. It’s really easy to get by cheaply when you don’t make your entire free life about gaming. I was just thinking about how emotionally people react to gaming when I recently had a conversation with a chick I know. She was complaining about all the over time she has been working because she is in a bad living situation and needs the money to break free. This conversation seemed to seamlessly segue into her stating her desire to invest in a PS5. I tried to walk her through how dumb this idea was. First, she can’t afford it (obviously the costs exceed more than just the console as there are also online fees, which you pointed out, and $60+ dollar games and accessories etc.) and for at least another year or so developers are going to be releasing titles across multiple platforms, so her existing PS4 is still going to be relevant for a while. This rationale was not enough to sway her desires, however. It’s not just women, guys are probably even worse about this compulsive buying in terms of electronics like gaming consoles and computers. Certainly, if no one bought the products there’d be no reason to make them, but it still stands to reason that if you are in a bind that you’d naturally prioritize your spending better. Another point is that if you’re spending a lot of time working or fulfilling some other obligation outside of work, which is relevant in her case, then you’re not going to have enough free time to justify the purchase anyway.

    For me personally, I think the better off I’ve become and the more resources I’ve squirreled away, the less and less I spend. Part of it is that I’ve already bought most of what I want and need, but I think it’s also that I’d rather see my savings and investments grow vs having another piece of what amounts to fancy ornaments or furniture in my living space. As much as I’d like to play the newest shiny survival horror installment from Capcom, I figure it will still be there 5 years from now and I can adequately get my gaming fix with other more cheaper means in the meantime. This Switch and PS3 I own I didn’t even buy. If they hadn’t shown up, I probably wouldn’t have picked up gaming again as of last February. Hell, I should probably look at receiving the free consoles as a net loss overall considering how much time I have sunk into gaming since last yeat, but it did seem to come at the ideal time (global lockdowns and indefinite restrictions on living).

    Reply

    1. I also want to mention a friend of mine who is an amateur audio producer. He’s basically in poverty at the present moment, yet he’s still stuck in this trap of spending money on hardware and software for about the last decade. He’s convinced that the next piece of gear is going to finally make the difference and propel his production value through the roof, finally having clients lining up around the block. He could have probably bought a nice small cozy home in a decent area by now and sit back and relax a bit if he hadn’t wasted all the money he has earned on shit that becomes ‘irrelevant’ after a couple years. I keep saying to him, ‘focus on the creation and production itself and stop throwing money at the problem.’ It never gets through, though.

    2. I think an issue here is that this guy built an identity around his hobby. Not keeping up by buying new crap would mean that he needs to change his perception of himself. This can be quite difficult to do.

    3. You touch upon a rather peculiar issue: why do we need to consume the latest media? A good argument can be made that the output of Hollywood has dramatically deteriorated in quality in the last two decades. I no longer even keep up with new movie releases as I have sat through the first ten minutes of forcefully woke-fied movies one time too many. I much rather rewatch a classic like The Godfather or Taxi Driver instead. Likewise, modern popular music is complete crap. I don’t even want to know who the target audience is. It must be people with a mean IQ of 80. The contrast between, say, a song by Alphaville and anything in the Top40 is astounding. It’s almost as if you look at the cultural output of a past civilization. Well, maybe that’s what happened. Pop songs used to tell little stories, cute vignettes, and they used innuendo. Today, one song is more crass than the other, and a real narrative is nowhere to be found. I bet the average teens attention span would not be sufficient to listen to the Pina Colada Song.

      With games, the more recent output is also much less interesting than past generations to me. A good game remains a good game. Of course there are advances, but Ninja Gaiden plays as great in 2021 as it played in 2005 or whenever it originally came out. Dark Souls came out in 2011 and people still play it. (I have to admit that I have not yet gotten around to diving into this game, but it’s on my list.) I still own a Nintendo Switch. The only reason I haven’t sold it yet is that my wife enjoys playing Animal Crossing. A new, and even a used, game for this console costs as much as ten to fifteen used PS3 games. I doubt that I get more out of a new Switch game, though.

      There is also a rather nefarious part of modern games: online gaming is huge. However, there are big PvE games where you play co-op against AI enemies, like in Destiny. I would argue that there would be no need for this to be an online multi-player game. Yet, it was turned into one to open up new avenues for monetization such as buying virtual items so that you can show off your avatar to random strangers online. The manipulation is sometimes incredibly obvious. Shoe-horned in RPG mechanics are a very good example, and so are extensive character creators to make you feel emotionally invested early on.

  20. “A new, and even a used, game for this console costs as much as ten to fifteen used PS3 games. I doubt that I get more out of a new Switch game, though.”

    To accentuate your point, just compare Astral Chain to MGR:R. Same developer, yet a huge dip in enjoyability for the former title. I picked up a brand new copy of the latter for only $12 USD plus $2.50 for shipping, whereas AC cost me around $50 plus a decent chunk of tax. I’d even argue that MGR looks better in certain respects, it certainly feels and plays better.

    Reply

    1. Btw, Aaron, I wanted to share with you a video I found recently of some high level play of TPP if you get time (10 mins, no spoilers). This guy makes the AI look dumb, but I think it’s actually really good in many respects!

      https://youtu.be/ms5ENyRH3Bs

    2. Thanks for sharing! This is a fun video. It reminded me of clips of the latest Zelda with their emergent gameplay and the many ways of approaching combat. Snake jumping out of the car, which then kills a guard is pretty hilarious. Many of the other takedowns are similarly creative.

      I was not aware that the game realistically renders your load-out. This is a great concept and I can see this working well in gameplay. In contrast, in many shooters you apparently carry half a dozen rifles in your backpack and are somehow able to switch between your active one and any of the others instantaneously.

    3. Yea, I don’t know if the guys at Nintendo took notes or not but another similarity between Zelda and MGSV is the interface you use to navigate menus and the world map (IDroid vs Shiekah Slate). The controls on MGSV are very streamlined. You toggle between your primary and secondary weapons as well as various ordinance, tools and items using the d pad and right stick. Anytime you access your items or the IDroid, it’s in real game time. The load times with the IDroid on the PS3 might be detrimental to your survival lol, but I’ve generally not had any problems.

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