AssortedBiscuits [they/them]

mfw you still use Windows in 2023 2024 2025 2026

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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: May 22nd, 2022

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  • The essay is nothing more than a polemic in an ever-expanding pile of polemics. I think people fall into a trap of trying to find the best argued polemic when as a science, the principle criterion should be first and foremost how well the science can predict phenomena. “China is capitalist” means that you can say “a capitalist state responds to A, B, and C with X, Y, and Z, and since China is a capitalist state facing A, B, and C, it will respond with X, Y, and Z.” Ditto for “China is socialist,” “China is fascist,” “China is authoritarian,” or whatever other label you want to stick to China.

    Polemics will often have arguments in the form “China responded to A, B, and C with X, Y, and Z, and since a state that responds to A, B, and C with X, Y, and Z is [adjective], China is [adjective],” but they almost always do it after the fact. It’s no different from some astrologist pulling something out of their ass to explain why a relationship failed. You know, the asspull explanation would’ve been a lot more helpful before the relationship happened. Curious how their actual predictions seem to always either be wrong or be vague enough that they can wiggle their way out of getting called out for being wrong.

    Fundamentally, people do not take the idea of the immortal science as a science seriously. The thing about science, the only reason why people even care about science in the first place, is its ability to explain and predict phenomena. Predicting phenomena is key. It’s why meteorology replaced killing birds and divining predictions based on their mangled corpses or sticking sticks in the grounds and somehow predicting weather with them. The reason why people value astronomy over astrology is the science of astronomy can be used to predict solar ellipses, used to predict when the number of solar flares will go up, and so on. Meanwhile, astrology doesn’t predict anything. It may offer some kind of explanation of human behavior, but it certainly can’t predict how people would behave. At best, it offers explanation to explain shit after it had already happened. Virtually all polemics are of this character.






  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.nettoSlop.@hexbear.netOh no
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    10 days ago

    No, the why is only important insofar as to find ways to mitigate or prevent it from happening again. As far as addressing restitution is concerned, it doesn’t mean a whole lot. If I knocked over your vase, the restitutional act would be to replace your vase or pay you money. Examining the particular events which led me to knock over the vase is only important to check whether I knocked over your vase for the sake of preventing additional damage or prevent harm to you. Outside of those two exceptions, the particular reasons why I knocked over your vase (I was too clumsy, I had too much to drink, I didn’t see the vase, I thought the vase was more sturdy) doesn’t alter the proper restitutional act of replacing the vase.


  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.nettoSlop.@hexbear.netOh no
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    10 days ago

    At the end of the day, a whole lot of Black people, from the actors on stage to Black members of the audience to Black viewers watching the broadcast, have to hear some white dude say the n-word. What actions have been taken to address the very real harm caused by this? This thread and the previous thread that got locked have said much to explain why the white dude said the n-word. But the fundamental gap of understanding between the POC users and the white users here is that his intent doesn’t matter an iota. The fact that he said it is already enough.

    If you’re not convinced, notice how I used the term “n-word” even though I’m using the word in a completely clinical non-racist context. “John Davidson said the n-word during this year’s BAFTA” is a completely neutral sentence reporting something that happened, but it would be grossly inappropriate to spell out the word and go, “uh aktually, I’m not being racist because I’m just reporting what actually happened.” The word is censored and rightfully so. So, the discussions about Tourettes, while enlightening, is ultimately not very relevant. He as a white man said the n-word in front of many Black people and that is good enough for those Black people to rightfully demand an apology and restitution from him, BAFTA, and the BBC.







  • The notion that an intelligence agency could fake the death of an asset is not one of them

    Assets are supposed to be disposable though. The hierarchy is case officers > handlers > assets. I think Maxwell is the handler, owning to her closer ties to intelligence through her father, while Epstein is simply an asset. The other convincing argument for this relationship is the fact that the handler is still alive while the asset has been liquidated. Epstein, like all assets who have outlived their usefulness, becomes the fall guy.

    You can see this pattern in other cases. For the Oklahoma City bombing, McVeigh and his accomplice driver were disposable assets while John Doe 2 their handler has connections with West German intelligence. And after the bombing happened, McVeigh and the driver were left to rot while the feds tried to erase all existence of John Doe 2 like confiscating security camera footage in surrounding buildings that would’ve definitively proven the existence of John Doe 2. McVeigh got executed with lethal injection while John Doe 2 got flown out of the US by a pilot working for the CIA. There are levels to this.


  • I’m still in the “intelligence agencies will unceremoniously liquidate assets who have outlived their usefulness and have become a liability” camp, so if they did whisk him out of jail, it’s to liquidate him at a black site where no one knows where he is. Why would they want to kill him and bury his body in an unmarked grave? It’s to liquidate him in a gruesome torturous fashion, presumably to serve as an example for assets who have become liabilities.

    Because Israel wants its operatives to know they’ve got their back no matter what despicable shit they’re doing for Israel. They want them to know they will not be abandoned by Israel, even when imprisoned. It keeps them from turning to save their own skin.

    They don’t need Epstein to be alive. They just need to think Epstein is still alive. Mossad isn’t going to bring Epstein out to shake hands with prospective agents to show that he’s still alive. It’s going to be through rumors like “I’ve heard that Epstein is still having coke parties at Tel Aviv.” Those rumors don’t require Epstein to be physically alive though.

    Perhaps this is the real conspiracy: they liquidate Epstein at his cell so he wouldn’t squeal and they fake enough discrepancies (autopsies with anatomical inconsistencies, edited postmortem photos to make it look like it’s not him) to push a “Epstein is still alive” narrative that both gives Mossad agents cope that they aren’t disposable tools and discredits the idea that intelligence agencies were behind his death (“saying the CIA killed Epstein is a conspiracy theory like how Epstein is still alive.”).