Open Thread

Open Thread #254

Aaron "Sleazy" Elias

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42 thoughts on “Open Thread #254”

    1. A while back, Aaron Clarey wrote an article wondering if we’re simply stuck with this sexual cold war because, at bottom, women simply don’t like men much, and now don’t need them.

      I think we’ll find instead that female economic independence from men is merely another facet of history’s largest economic bubble, made possible by gigantic and unsustainable male-to-female wealth transfers (both redistributive methods like taxation and inflation, and other methods such as discriminatory academic admissions, corporate hiring, etc).

      Somewhat related:

      https://compactmag.com/article/the-email-caste-s-last-stand

      ‘As a recession looms, Silicon Valley is shedding the non-essential workers it acquired when unlimited venture funding made turning a profit an afterthought. Musk happens to have taken the helm at Twitter just as this reality is asserting itself. In this sense, the revolt against his leadership is the last stand of a cohort of activist hangers-on who are about to find themselves unemployed.
      …
      Many “unicorn” tech startups began with a few engineers and a product they wanted to sell, but over the past decade-plus, they have accrued a bloated bureaucracy of “equity”-minded h.r. activists, ESG-savvy consultants, affinity-group mavens, climate-change specialists, and many other email-caste hangers-on. Now that times are turning bad, tech companies can no longer afford to sustain a massive “court” of professional-class nobility, paying sinecures to sons and daughters of the good and the great who don’t know how to code or crunch numbers, but know how to write emails, hold useless meetings, and talk about diversity and inclusion.’

    2. aj, that’s a great take. There is nothing natural about the way things are right now in the sexual marketplaces- it is deliberate government and corporate policy which allows this female wealth transfer. If policy can create this it can also undo it.

    2. This is an interesting example. You cannot imagine similar lyrics show up on a hit record nowadays. This also makes me wonder how those lyrics made it onto this record in the first place. Sure, Michael Jackson had handlers, too.

  6. On to whay exactly? If you’re referring to getting married to a rich man, I would disagree. That’s still going to be a lot of work.

    Traditionally if a woman stays home eith the children she’s going to be cooking multiple meals a day for the entire family. Keeping the house clean. Doing various social errands. Etc.

    Kevin Samuels also has great bit that being the wife of a high value man is a full time job. You need to wake up early to go to the gym, fix his meals, do all the needed activities with children throughout the day, be made presentable for when he gets back from work, get the house ready, then help him relax, Add in that any guy who can give this girl the lifestyle she will deem “acceptable” is going to have plenty of options if all she has to offer is her [soon to be fading] beauty.

    In short there’s no free lunch in this life. Women have always worked in some way, with the exceptions of the 1950s, a disaster decade which bore the 60s and all the trappings of modernity.

    Being the wife of any rich man worth a damn is going to be work, not sipping martinis on the beach. If she wants a life of leisure her best bet is to marry some old simp who doesnt want kids, with a moderate but not exorbitant amount of money, since there will be less competition.

    She can probably live a more leisurely lifestyle working a BS white collar job and extracting wealth from simps vying for her attention rather than being a full time wife and mother.

    Reply

    2. The issue is that the jobs women pursue are not very fulfilling. Huge number of women work in the service sector, or some make-work office job that could largely be automated. Given the current wave of layoffs, quite a few of the latter are now disappearing. I also do not think that having an office job is rewarding due to the social aspects either, and if you have ever seen women status-jockeying, basically reenacting “Mean Girls”, you would agree.

      In contrast, a woman could simply keep the house in order and have kids. I see this around me, in my current environment, quite a bit. The women have one to two kids, with the rare outlier having three. Many of them seem to be working part-time, and some do not work at all. I have the impression that sometimes those part-time jobs are little more than a way of passing the time. There are, for instance, women who work as helpers in a kindergarten, a job you could probably do if you flunked high school, but those sometimes have even completed higher education. Teaching part-time also seems quite popular here. This is basically the old middle-class now upper middle-class lifestyle.

      In terms of looks, those women could not compete in a big city, so they may quite enjoy their little safe spaces. Once the kids are a bit older, these women have a lot of spare time. I know this from when I was a kid, and my mother hung out with the other mothers in the area. They take turns inviting themselves into their houses, and spend the afternoon drinking coffee and talking crap about whoever of their female friends is not in attendance.

  7. I just watched Elton John and Britney Spears’ new track together titled ‘Hold Me Closer’ out of curiosity and wanted to briefly describe the music video real quick.

    It’s basically a mash of different couples dancing very aggressively/primitively in various locations. The funny thing I noticed is that it starts out with a white woman dancing with a black man, a white woman with what a appears to be a Middle Eastern man, two white women dancing with each other, then there’s a woman who looks to be Spanish/Inuit (Brazilian chick) with another black man, most bizarrely we have an old homeless and schizophrenic looking version of Morgan Freeman dancing with an oriental child, and finally two fags get down together before all the couples rush into the center frame to embrace each other before the song’s abrupt ending. Notice anything? Not one straight white male in the video.

    Reply

  8. Hey Aaron, you remember that post you made a while back about how poorly written Bethesda/ID Software’s response to why they couldn’t release an OST for Doom Eternal was? Turns out the guy who composed all the music, Mick Gordon, is now attempting to clear his name stating that director Marty Stratton offered him a six-figure sum to stay quiet, and that he was financially abused, kept in the dark about the creative process and marketing decisions, and over worked per contract agreements. I just thought it was pretty interesting, as this potentially means he was essentially being slandered for years by that original post:

    https://medium.com/@mickgordon/my-full-statement-regarding-doom-eternal-5f98266b27ce

    Reply

    1. This was a fascinating read. It seems that Mick Gordon got screwed over royally, but partly the blame is also on him. He worked without a contract, and overall did not seem to stand up for himself a lot. I also wonder if something like this is even legal:

      Pay issues: Arguments over pay began when id Software threw out two entire suites written for Super Gore Nest and Mars Core shortly after the QuakeCon 2018 premiere. The rejection was bad enough — it meant scoring four levels simultaneously the following month — but id Software also denied payment on the notion they changed their mind and no longer liked the music. I argued music appearing at a promotional event constituted usage; therefore, they owed me compensation. In this case, they caved.

      You normally have to pay a contractor even if you do not use the work. I can imagine that companies would much prefer contracts where they only pay if they end up using the work, but this would disadvantage contractors to the extreme. For instance, a company could just hire ten contractors, let all of them waste one year of their life, and pay just one of them in the end, or none at all.

      Lastly, I think that Mick Gordon should have lawyered up a lot sooner. ID Software using four hours of his music, but only paying for two does not fly, and this was not the only issue he mentions in his post. Only quite recently have I discovered the joys of using the law. In one case I dealt with a company that wanted to screw me out of some money they owed me. I made a, in my view, well-written and well-argued legal threat, and quickly got the money I would most certainly have gotten had the case gone to court. (I was very sure of my case because it was incredibly clear cut.) In another case, I have actually taken someone to court, but this is still ongoing. You may want to talk from adult to adult, trying to sort things out, but if you are dealing with a dickhead who is not acting in good faith, you eventually need to pull out a big stick.

    2. It does seem that Mick Gordon was pretty naive in this circumstance. He had worked under the Zenimax umbrella plenty of times before, as well as the first Doom entry, and probably believed in the good faith of the team leaders. From what I understood, the contract was worded in a way that he had to fulfill about 142 mins of audio, and that if they didn’t like the music they weren’t obligated to pay for it. So, their strategy seems to have been to be extremely vague about the ongoings of game development, level design, and gameplay, while “rejecting” just enough audio so that they could get double the work for the price of one. I mean, it sounds like a contract, just a super shitty one, right? One that Mick was naive enough to take in good faith, and by the time he was 11 months in without pay he was apparently super deep into the sunken cost fallacy.

      I wouldn’t have originally believed that the original open letter that Marty Stratton posted online could have been full of slander and lies, because who the hell would have the balls to do that knowing the possible repercussions of it? Marty probably believed Mick to be completely spineless by this point and thought he could get away with it, is my guess. Alternatively, I’m inclined to believe that Mick wouldn’t post such a response to the open letter unless it was true, correct? Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle, or maybe Marty is a complete psychopath who managed to climb his way to the position of director for a triple AAA title.

    3. It is quite possible that Marty Stratton is a total psychopath. Also, Mick Gordon gives the impression of being rather meek. Assuming the hypothesis that the former is indeed a psychopath is true, this would only have encouraged the former.

    4. Btw, I know you’d probably be super reluctant (rightfully so) to post details about your dealings with the law and shady companies, but it sounds really interesting.

    5. I have to keep the details about the ongoing issue under wraps. The other one involves a former employer who initially refused to pay out vacation days I had not taken. They were pretty pissed that I had resigned, and the HR ditz was not particularly cooperative at first. When I asked why I did not get the money I was owed, I got a message that could be translated to, “But we already paid you, teehee.” I sent her a pretty stern response, did not not hear from them for about two weeks, and then I got a one-line response from someone higher up in the chain saying that I can expect the money to arrive in my bank account by the end of the month.

  10. I got an e-mail from Steam letting me know DMC4&5 went on sale and they were about 70-80 percent off, so i grabbed ‘em both for less than $20 total. I was sort of put off at first by the idea of not having physical versions that I could later sell, but now I’m just rationalizing it that if I’m buying games dirt cheap anyway then at least I’ll get my money’s worth out of them with the added bonus that they don’t take up any real-estate (which is nice when being on the move periodically). Anyways, on to the games.

    This is my first time playing any game in this franchise and I wasn’t sure really what to expect, as I’ve only heard things or seen a few clips. I initially booted up DMC4 and was really enjoying the arcade looking graphics and the classical European setting. After tinkering with it for about an hour I decided I’d boot up DMC5 just for comparison, and now I’m completely sucked into it.

    This game has more of a modern sort of steam punk kind of style to it, but what I really prefer about it so far is that there seems to be little to no platforming or ‘puzzle solving’. It’s just straight forward arcade style combat and trying to string together the most intricate combos possible while collecting orbs to add more move sets to your repertoire, this creating a viscously engaging feedback loop. Capcom can be pretty hit or miss even from a historical viewpoint, but I think if I had to choose they just might be my favorite developer overall currently.

    There seems to be a fair amount of attractive women in the game also, which is nice. What’s hilarious is that there is a traveling merchant of sorts named Nico Goldstein, whom happens to be a tatted up literal trailer slut with a thick country accent that can generally be seen puffing on a cigarette. This game doesn’t take itself seriously at all and just feels fun all around. For $10 I don’t think you can really beat it!

    Reply

    1. That’s a great price! Also, the PC version of DMC4 was completely reworked, compared to the PS3 original, and contains more playable characters as well as other bonus content. I think there are two good reasons for physical copies. One is that you may enjoy displaying your favorite games in a shelf at home and look at them, and another is that you can indeed sell them, albeit often at a loss. Normally, you would lose more than 10$, so if the aspect of looking at nice covers, assuming they really are nice — the DMC games are lacking in this regard, in my opinion –, is less important to you, you have made a great deal. Also, you can often refund games if you don’t like them, which is an advantage of digital copies. Epic even has “self-serviced refunds” enabled for some games.

      I did not know that the “traveling merchant” in DMC V is called (((Goldstein))). It would be rather amusing if some based Japanese designer originally put a member of the merchant class in this role, only to have this decision overruled by someone from Marketing. A future hack of Capcom may answer this question. On that note, Capcom got hacked one or two years ago, and there were some doubts about it, with some people claiming that it was fake. Yet, there is every indication that it was the real deal. This was also the first non-rumor that an RE4 remake is in the works.

    2. If that were the case then it would be hilarious. Her name is Nico after all, which can be lengthened to Nicolette, or perhaps in the hypothesized scenario it was Nicolai Goldstein making him some sort of Eastern European or Russian merchant.

      My only real complaint with these games so far is that considering how action focused they are, the default control scheme seems kind of unintuitive imo. Though, it’s not really a valid complaint because thankfully you can change the entire layout to your specifications. Like, for example, the melee button is originally designated to ‘Y’ or ‘triangle’, while projectiles are ‘X’ or ‘square’. Meanwhile, your jump/evade (which you will be utilizing a lot) is ‘A’ or ‘X (on PS controllers)’, so it makes since to have your melee (which deals more damage and gets used a lot more) next to your jump/dodge with the projectile button on top. Basically just swap the melee and projectile inputs. Then the lock-on button which you have to keep held down is ‘RB’ which feels awkward to me since you’ll be smashing the action buttons a lot, so I places that for ‘LT’. Then a couple other inputs inevitably get swapped around but it feels much more natural to me. But what do I know? I always invert the Y-axis for the vertical camera, too, which barely anyone I know does that these days.

    3. DMCV is one of the best games I’ve probably ever played from a sheer gameplay perspective. It’s way up there with Doom Eternal. I can see myself replaying the game several times over just trying to go for the S ranks, it’s so addicting trying to combo enemies in the most bullshit ways you can think of. I honestly think this title along with its predecessor, DMC4, will keep me entertained in the gaming department for months to come, which is great because it will save me a ton of money. I’ll try and give it a decent review at some point, but if you liked 4 then I’m guessing you’d enjoy 5.

  11. It has already been four years since the announcement trailer of The Elder Scrolls VI got released:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFdqqyI8y4

    I did not get into its predecessor, Skyrim, and I don’t think I will even try this game. However, there is something seriously off in game development if we only get a trailer in a time interval that used to be sufficient to release a trilogy or at least a strong first release and an improved sequel.

    Reply

    1. Never played these games, but I believe at least that modders were given the keys to Skyrim and the game continues to remain relevant because new content is consistently being released. These mods aren’t restrained to only PC but indeed consoles, with a rating system to let players know which mods are worth downloading. I think that’s at least a pretty praiseworthy move on behalf of the developer, whereas others would just let a beloved franchise fade away.

    1. I capitalize Lady Boy while leaving feminist uncapped. It probably triggers a low T cuck like “Tyler Durden.”

      PS Fight Club was very gay!!!

      PPS–or is it PMS goys? He called them Hispanics, isn’t that so 1988 and waycisst aren’t they LatinaXXX or something?

    2. Lol. All those dudes fawning over Brad Pitt’s physique in that flick. And yea, latinx or some shit.

    4. Our favorite “latinx” AOC has had a lot of memes about her. There are a few pictures in which she looks like a raving lunatic, with her mouth wide open, looking enraged. Someone photoshopped this onto a Trump picture, looking as if she is taking his (photoshopped) big cock. It seems this meme has been scraped from the Internet, though.

    5. This is interesting. On ZeroHedge, most articles are republished from other sources, but they also publish their own writing. The handle “Tyler Durden” is shared by several people, and I wonder if there is an editorial guide. Seeing how hit-and-miss the writing quality of these articles is, I am tempted to think there is not. Yet, this instance shows that at least one of the writers on ZH is much closer aligned with the mainstream than they would like to have you think.

    6. That meme does seem to be scrubbed from the search. At any rate, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get some more circulating.

    7. There was another meme about AOC that was pretty popular: Someone photoshopped her head on some pornstar in revealing clothing and gave her blue eyes as well as blonde hair. This one seems to have been scrubbed off the web, too. I am not sure this was a good decision, though, as it certainly helped with increasing her popularity, just like that video from her student days where she dances like a slut in a tight Boston U top.

      Also, it seems that there are too many AOC horse face memes out there to get rid of all of them. Here is one:

  13. I posted a news-article about 14-yo refugee wives in Germany on German med2-forum. It was an article from popular German news page FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). I got banned for posting that article. Reasoning for banning me: Racism and provocation! So apparently it’s forbidden to discuss 14 yo refugee brides in Germany. One gets cancelled. Appalling!

    Reply

    2. “Dieser Thread provoziert genauso wie der Thread über die 14jährigen Ehefrauen, den du hier starten wolltest, Hetze mit rassistischem Bezug, vgl. Forenregel III.5”

    3. See, the funny thing here is that they’re kind of telling you the truth. By you spreading this information and revealing the horrors of unsolicited immigration, it rightfully stokes the rage of the native populations whose daughters are being raped in exchange for being given a free ride into modern civilization. What’s fucked up is that they’re basically telling you, “we’ve chosen our side, and it’s the low IQ shit skins that get off on raping your daughters while destroying your culture and outbreeding you.” They’re a protected class, and you’re a threat to the hegemony of the ones who protect them should you ever actually organize and decide you’ve had enough.

    4. But I wonder what the woke leftists (libtards) hope it will bring. What do they hope to gain by helping them? Back when the Iranian Ayatollah took over, the first groups to be exterminated were the leftist college-students, communists, socialists! His biggest supporters before the take-over!

    5. This is why the rulers refer to those people as useful idiots. They will be the first to be lined up against a wall and, in fact, may even be ordered to build the wall in front of which they will get executed so that they get to enjoy the pleasures of physical labor at least once in their life.

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