DefinitelyNotAFae's recent activity

  1. Comment on Millions of Americans may now also be considered Canadian under a new law in ~society

  2. Comment on Single, solo, poor, woman gets $500k pre-tax, how to make the most of it? in ~finance

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    No worries, it wasn't worth the back and forth with them and taking up the space in your thread. I don't have financial advice, I wish you the best of luck and hope you have all the support you...

    No worries, it wasn't worth the back and forth with them and taking up the space in your thread.

    I don't have financial advice, I wish you the best of luck and hope you have all the support you need for your mental health and grief as well. If I can assist in any way, feel free to ping me on whichever account you like. I did hit "ignore" on this thread so unless I intentionally click in, I won't see replies here automatically, but didn't want to miss replying to you (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Single, solo, poor, woman gets $500k pre-tax, how to make the most of it? in ~finance

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I appreciate the defense but I've decided to delete my posts and ignore the thread rather than get sucked in to the tangent further. I appreciate how kind people are being in the thread to OP and...

    I appreciate the defense but I've decided to delete my posts and ignore the thread rather than get sucked in to the tangent further. I appreciate how kind people are being in the thread to OP and the good advice given.

    5 votes

  4. Comment on For $700 a month, sleeping pods make San Francisco more affordable, but at what cost in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    No no, I get that I'm just pondering some bigger picture things I think about with work too. I'm glad you did enjoy a lot of your experience!

    No no, I get that I'm just pondering some bigger picture things I think about with work too. I'm glad you did enjoy a lot of your experience!

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Millions of Americans may now also be considered Canadian under a new law in ~society

  6. Comment on Millions of Americans may now also be considered Canadian under a new law in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Well I don't have those either, but the invite for the coconut was just to visit. My mom lived in Canada for two years as a kid, but I don't believe that her parents became citizens as my...

    Well I don't have those either, but the invite for the coconut was just to visit.

    My mom lived in Canada for two years as a kid, but I don't believe that her parents became citizens as my grandfather was just there for work. So...... It's not like I could leave anyway

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Millions of Americans may now also be considered Canadian under a new law in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I don't like coconut unfortunately. But they seem yummy otherwise!

    I don't like coconut unfortunately. But they seem yummy otherwise!

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I mostly just have so many other things to read it's hard to devote the time. But I do appreciate the depth of the wikis out there, though there's always only so much research I'm going to put...

    I mostly just have so many other things to read it's hard to devote the time. But I do appreciate the depth of the wikis out there, though there's always only so much research I'm going to put into a discussion that keeps pulling away to different points. It's probably more than I should but still only so much.

    I am adding a reread to my tbr though

    1 vote

  9. Comment on The US Chief Justice and his wife took $20 million from firms he rules on. I'm filing for his disbarment today. in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    It wouldn't matter what topic you used, the argument would have been a false choice either way, the specific kind is what I was highlighting. I repeat: We should not avoid acting out of fear it...

    It wouldn't matter what topic you used, the argument would have been a false choice either way, the specific kind is what I was highlighting.

    I repeat: We should not avoid acting out of fear it will get worse. And the actions in this article are "filing a bar complaint" so this whole chain continues to make little sense.

  10. Comment on The US Chief Justice and his wife took $20 million from firms he rules on. I'm filing for his disbarment today. in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    You follow this up with "sure there's some element of it" .. so you understand that was what you're doing? The scenario you set is pinkwashing. I don't know that you intended it, but especially...

    I'm going to be charitable and assume you're not accusing me specifically of pinkwashing

    You follow this up with "sure there's some element of it"
    .. so you understand that was what you're doing? The scenario you set is pinkwashing. I don't know that you intended it, but especially directed at a queer non-binary person, it's what it is. It's not uncharitable to point this out.

    Yes, we don't have a button. I'm aware that there can always be someone worse, there could be a coup, my existence could be illegal.

    But the answer is not to avoid trying to bend the world back towards justice because we're afraid that it won't work. That logic would have us always do nothing.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on The US Chief Justice and his wife took $20 million from firms he rules on. I'm filing for his disbarment today. in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    This is pinkwashing. I'm not engaging with that. Roberts wrote the decision upholding the bans on gender affirming care in Skrmetti; he's not a friend to trans people. And someone "could" be worse...

    This is pinkwashing. I'm not engaging with that.

    Roberts wrote the decision upholding the bans on gender affirming care in Skrmetti; he's not a friend to trans people. And someone "could" be worse but they'll have to get that person confirmed still. Someone a Dem nominates could also be worse about Trans Rights. As if they aren't already revoking trans rights now. Btw Thomas also needs to go for the same reasons. He's pretty shitty... Do we also need to wait 3 years for him?

    Even if this were talking about impeachment and removal that would also take time and a vote and wouldn't be instantaneous. But the idea of "waiting and seeing if they keep the Presidency" before we try to do anything about any corruption, even point it out and make the smallest of official complaints is burying our head in the sand and giving up all of our power entirely. It's a lack of courage that inevitably carries over

    And when I say rip corruption out I mean all of it, including the people who would nominate replacements and vote on them.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on The US Chief Justice and his wife took $20 million from firms he rules on. I'm filing for his disbarment today. in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    But a) this is an article about filing for disbarment and not prosecution and b) this person isn't running for office or part of the Democratic party and obviously isn't subject to or included on...

    But a) this is an article about filing for disbarment and not prosecution and b) this person isn't running for office or part of the Democratic party and obviously isn't subject to or included on their political strategy, so it doesn't make any sense to expect him to operate that way.

    You want to wait for years? I don't want anyone to drag their feet. Start rooting this shit out everywhere. Discredit them all.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Why America is so much better than Europe at immigration in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    The subheader seems to be referring to L/liberals in Europe? Maybe? But that doesn't make a ton of sense.

    The subheader seems to be referring to L/liberals in Europe? Maybe? But that doesn't make a ton of sense.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Thanks for more context! I really did not read past the Silmarillion with regularity, just bits here and there and it's been a long time on that. There's only so much timeline I can drag up from...

    Thanks for more context! I really did not read past the Silmarillion with regularity, just bits here and there and it's been a long time on that. There's only so much timeline I can drag up from the depths and Google only gets me so far. Might be time to dip my toes back in or hit up a podcast or two.

    Missing out on Shippey's class at my undergrad was quite a bummer (he only taught it every four years)

    2 votes

  15. Comment on The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal, unrelenting decline in ~food

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Makes sense in this case, still don't love our monoculture farming style but I get that it isn't the issue here. I'm just tired of everything being awful I think

    Makes sense in this case, still don't love our monoculture farming style but I get that it isn't the issue here.

    I'm just tired of everything being awful I think

    3 votes

  16. Comment on Donald Trump officials reclassify medical marijuana as Schedule III drug in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Not that much of one if he's not trying to actually decriminalize it. I do not envy the lawyers trying to figure out if campuses can/have to allow medical cannabis now. Previously we had to ban...

    Not that much of one if he's not trying to actually decriminalize it.

    I do not envy the lawyers trying to figure out if campuses can/have to allow medical cannabis now. Previously we had to ban all cannabis regardless of the state, if at Schedule III it's legal for medical use then.... Idk. Impacts my job but not my job. Assuming this is actually legal in and of itself.

    16 votes

  17. Comment on Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    The public and not for profit sectors aren't always good but I am very happy for the work I get to do now with the people I work with. And while there are definitely ethical quandries or...

    The public and not for profit sectors aren't always good but I am very happy for the work I get to do now with the people I work with. And while there are definitely ethical quandries or disagreements with policy from time to time it's not the soul destroying drain that my previous job was.

    I hope you find your thing that lets you fill your cup

    3 votes

  18. Comment on Ezra Klein interviews Alex Bores on AI and Palantir in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Highlighting his support of Hillary is odd, she's rather notoriously hawkish and Karp explicitly supports Western military superiority and by now is highlighting the - checks notes - cultural...

    Highlighting his support of Hillary is odd, she's rather notoriously hawkish and Karp explicitly supports Western military superiority and by now is highlighting the - checks notes - cultural superiority of the West while praising Trump and highlighting the "pagan religious views" taught by universities. (And he called himself a socialist but absolutely was not one). By now his views mirror the exact same language of all of the Trumpian right. And would never have been supported by the Dems in 2016. He went from fearing fascism to supporting it.

    But I think Bores comes off as naive about his time at Palantir. And maybe, to be fair, all of us were in 2014.

    • The opioid epidemic, great!
    • Violent crime - ok only if it's not a dog whistle (it was)
    • Civil immigration - we won't touch it.. Except they do it sounds like nearly immediately. He just wasn't involved. He wouldn't touch it but Palantir would, obviously. And the executives - eyes Karp and Thiel and the others - absolutely are on board with it. It's why the commentary about Karp supporting Hillary is odd.

    I appreciate he got out. I don't know anything else about him but it pretty much aligns with the "are we the baddies" realization some other employees are apparently just now having.

    7 votes

  19. Comment on For $700 a month, sleeping pods make San Francisco more affordable, but at what cost in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Yeah I didn't want to invalidate your experience by any means, and while on the one hand you probably couldn't pay enough for me to run a university, on the other, our president is paid a small...

    Yeah I didn't want to invalidate your experience by any means, and while on the one hand you probably couldn't pay enough for me to run a university, on the other, our president is paid a small fraction of that amount. (And still criticized for it) And perhaps surprisingly for the US our football coach is much more similar to that fractional amount than the higher one. Also thankfully no dining vendor, it's all in house (which still leads to accusations of ridiculous costs despite it being an all you can eat buffet and cheaper per meal than any such restaurant).

    I don't have all the answers by any means, and there are definitely things I don't like that my institution is doing at any given time. There is always plenty of scandal to go around in higher ed.

    I look at pictures of the same rooms from fifty years ago and they don't have the beds built immovable and attached to the walls (with a secret little cupboard and cushion that made it daybed/ couch) anymore. Students bring more stuff, want to loft beds to have more space for a desk hutch or a futon. The rooms now look much more spartan but aren't smaller, or less private and are more customizable and accessible for different needs. Students don't like to mediate with roommates anymore, no one wants to talk, nut everyone wants to shit talk in the group chat. I don't know the history of dorm rooms (a dirty word in housing I swear) in the UK and whether there's a certain way that American culture has changed in the past fifty years to make the same rooms worse? Fewer kids sharing rooms as they grow up maybe as the birth rate has dropped? Or maybe it was always bad? I don't know, but I do try to think about it.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    With Tolkien given how he changed his mind and never stopped editing, no his notes don't always clear things up. The Silmarillion he published, the rest is less clear and is sometimes...

    That would be ignoring all the times the palantir were used in the simarillion and the rest of the legendarium. I don’t see any reason to ignore these. If we’re trying to analyze what message an author is giving, their notes and other works are perfectly valid.

    With Tolkien given how he changed his mind and never stopped editing, no his notes don't always clear things up. The Silmarillion he published, the rest is less clear and is sometimes contradictory as it was a work in progress and ever edited.
    My point is that we know how the palantir ended, regardless of their beginnings or intent. (And I don't think Thiel has read all the legendarium either. So as we get to his intent that matters even less)

    Even in LotR, we have the example of Denethor using the palantir for pure reconnaissance. The Sauron calls were later.

    He used the stone to spy on Sauron who used those connections to drive him to despair. They weren't separate "calls", they were intentional corruptions of the visions he saw in the same calls he was scrying in. Denethor had the authority as Steward to use the stone to scry but not the wisdom to refrain, Aragorn notably did not attempt to scry, just to trick Sauron into falling for a feint.

    If you don't think that calling a company "The Flame of the West"

    Are we not talking about the the roles of these concepts in the story of lord of the rings?

    Not entirely no, we are talking about that with the palantiri, but this all rolls back into "why was the company named this and should that name have been a clue." The palantiri are widely regarded by notable Tolkien scholars to be warnings about divination, forbidden knowledge and the like. One doesn't have to agree, sure, but I'm not pulling my read on this out of nowhere either. I think anyone who names their company after them, either doesn't care about being evil or misreads the trilogy as an intentional western/white supremacist narrative.

    While the shards of Narsil reforged to Anduril are not an "evil object" that doesn't erase that the company was named The Flame of the West by a man aligned with white nationalists Neo-Nazis, and the alt right. Thiel's intentions are suspect at best and even if they somehow weren't the outcome is at a minimum disrespectful of Tolkien's views on war. Suggesting again that Thiel doesn't get it. (Same with elven immortality and the other random references he makes beyond those five (a fund he calls his Precious for example))

    After all...

    " I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend".

    Tolkien was very well aware of the trauma of war, and hated the glorification of violence and combat.

    That also segways into Tolkien himself. I wouldn’t give him that much credit - he was undoubtably against nazis, but no one was more against nazis than Churchill, and he was vigorously racist and perpetuated more than one genocidal event.

    This is the same story where all the good guys are nobles of good blood lines, and are in the west, who fight against hordes of peoples from very obviously the Middle East and Africa. Where a race of colonizers are glorified, and their bloodlines exalted.

    Standard 1900s British things, no doubt. But I think 1900s British men would have a lot in common with the alt-right today.

    He's not perfect, no, he's of his time and there are certainly racist themes in his books as well as nearly no women for example. Here, however, I'm talking about the man. He staunchly opposed Nazi-ism and Aryanism, the dehumanization of Jewish and Polish people by Germany and the Germans via British war propaganda alike. And this is a man who fought Germans in The Great War saying that the British had no more right to declare the Germans subhuman than the Germans did.

    He did love Europe, and was writing a very English and European mythos, but even then he didn't adhere to white supremacy as a belief system. He explicitly opposed it.

    For example

    Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories

    And

    But I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation and separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White.

    And even in the books, for example, he was often thoughtful about such things. Such as how it wasn't "mixing" of the Numenorean blood that diminished that people, it was existing in Middle Earth itself.

    A man who hates "racialist theories" is anti race science and anti-eugenics. He absolutely had Victorian ideals taught to him and shoved in his head, and I'm sure today half the things he'd say on the subject would feel horribly backwards. And yet he still managed to make clear, intentional anti-racist stances.
    I can't speak for all British men, I can't even speak for Tolkien, but I think his words speak for themselves. There's no way he would be flattered by a man who clearly misunderstands and misappropriates his work. The implication that Tolkien would be aligned with the alt-right is pretty ridiculous as they chant "Blood and Soil."

    But let's leave that aside, my original point in response to you about just the palantiri themselves is that the narrative of the trilogy is how they are primarily in this age used to lie and deceive; to the point that the pride of using them leads to the fall of even great men. Aragorn describes using it as

    A struggle somewhat grimmer for my part than the battle of the Hornburg

    and that if he'd known how fast Sauron would respond he might not have. Even then it was a gamble. At its absolute best use.

    It's not a movie read to see them this way. Even including the whole legendarium does not change how they're corrupted and lessened and are, like the elves, past their time. One, maybe, survives after and it likely would be so colored by the images it saved, I personally doubt it would be something ever used again. I doubt the Tolkien scholars I've read quoted on the matter based their opinions on the movies either.

    We don't have to agree, literary analysis/criticism is full of many opinions, I just object to the idea that you can only get this perspective from outside the text and I enjoy discussing things.

    7 votes