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478 results for “fatsam”
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@fatsam the law says hanging is a fair punishment for their crime. i say apply it to them.
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@fatsam I won't stay at the Jupiter Hotel any more if I come for a class. It was to noisy, even on the "calm side". I'm better off finding a chain hotel downtown since I won't do AirB&B, thanks to their assnozzle #MAGAIdiot CEO.
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@fatsam I won't stay at the Jupiter Hotel any more if I come for a class. It was to noisy, even on the "calm side". I'm better off finding a chain hotel downtown since I won't do AirB&B, thanks to their assnozzle #MAGAIdiot CEO.
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@fatsam I won't stay at the Jupiter Hotel any more if I come for a class. It was to noisy, even on the "calm side". I'm better off finding a chain hotel downtown since I won't do AirB&B, thanks to their assnozzle #MAGAIdiot CEO.
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@fatsam I won't stay at the Jupiter Hotel any more if I come for a class. It was to noisy, even on the "calm side". I'm better off finding a chain hotel downtown since I won't do AirB&B, thanks to their assnozzle #MAGAIdiot CEO.
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@fatsam I won't stay at the Jupiter Hotel any more if I come for a class. It was to noisy, even on the "calm side". I'm better off finding a chain hotel downtown since I won't do AirB&B, thanks to their assnozzle #MAGAIdiot CEO.
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@fatsam It's quite easy to get most LLMs to contradict themselves, but sadly they don't explode the way they do when Kirk and Spock do it #liarparadox
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@fatsam
But... but... #DeathPanels! 😒 -
@fatsam @TerryHancock Let's get our money back from the 1% #billionaires
#tax financial trade and #investment
They will dodge income tax but they must invest #tobintax #billionaires
https://econrevolt.com #econrevolt Let's get our money back from the 1% #billionaires
#tax financial trade and #investment
They will dodge income tax but they must invest #tobintax #billionaires
https://econrevolt.com #econrevolt -
@fatsam Thanks for the boost!
I’ve received a lot of comments on this post, in various locations, to the effect of “don’t bother, you’re never going to convince these people anyway.” So this is a copy-and-paste reply. My apologies for the impersonality, and please don’t take this as a lack of interest in discussing the finer points of the issue.
Absolutely, there are many people who will never be convinced. I think there are, more or less, three types of people who hold #antivax / #creationist / etc. positions, and two of them are hopeless cases. But the third is a different story.
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Hardcore believers. For #creationism, this usually boils down to “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” The others are more complicated, although there’s often a religious element there too: e.g. “we’re made in the image of God so #vaccines are blasphemy” (they never seem to object to wearing glasses, though) or “the Earth is a divine creation and we mere humans could never change the #climate.” Once they make their beliefs clear, the best thing to do is walk away. No one in that debate is going to change anyone else’s mind.
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Propagandists. They may or may not believe what they’re claiming, but they think they can gain some political advantage by doing so. “If you don’t want #woke #liberals telling your kids they come from #monkeys, elect me to the school board!” That kind of thing. You’re not going to change their minds either—especially since the #propaganda is often horrible effective—but it may be worth countering it to try to persuade the people they’re trying to recruit.
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People who just don’t know any better. Members of the first two groups, particularly #2, are much more sophisticated than they used to be, and a lot of their propaganda is very slick and superficially convincing. So a lot of people with little #scientific #education (or bad science education: that’s a separate post or ten) fall for it. The longer they believe it, the more resistant they get to alternatives—they can slide into #1 very easily. But if you can catch them at a critical moment, you can sometimes bring them around.
I know this is possible, because I’ve done it. Not often, and less often lately, with the hardening of political identities and the ever-stronger association of profoundly anti-scientific views with one political identity in particular. But it still happens now and then.
Of course if you assume everyone is in group #3, you’ll waste a lot of time and energy on 1s and 2s. It’s really dispiriting to put effort into a clear, simple explanation presented with tolerance and good humor, only to be met with dismissal or mockery or baffled rage. Telling the difference is a survival skill, and a tough one to learn.
No one should feel obligated to tackle every case they encounter, or even most cases. That’s a game for the very young, and if you play too much of it you’ll get old before your time. (Trust me on this.) But when you can … well, sometimes you win. Those small victories feel pretty good. I have to believe they still matter.
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@fatsam I got to that point after just over a season of #NextGen (though I had great fun being a vocal detractor on rec.arts.startrek for several years). But #Babylon5 was the last nail in the coffin for sure.
It took #MichaelChabon for me to take #StarTrek seriously again - but only for one season as it turned out.
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@fatsam When this tool tells me that the best version of #Bertha performed live was on a date that the #GraterfulDead never played the song - it has a long way to go. And the best #DarkStar was played on a date that there was NO concert - really??
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RE: https://mstdn.social/@fatsam/116216674976957047
#Heinlein #GloryRoad #HerWisdom #Star #Empress of the universes.
A story with good entertainment value, and as always a stimulus to thought. -
I wrote political essays, in excess of 100k words. It felt valuable, if not important, explaining how Reagan or Bush or whomever, was screwing with people. Not an embarrassing effort at worst.
We're in a world today with cartoon Nazis. People we made the mistake of not hanging when we should have, in many, many cases.
Whatever disagreements I have with decent people are trivial in the current moment. And I don't have the energy for slicing and dicing those relatively fine distinctions.
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I used to enjoy arguing with lefties/liberals about places where I thought they were wrong. It was never many, I'm solidly off on the left myself. But you would get an intellectually interesting argument from people you trusted and thought well of.
I don't do it anymore. It's possible 10% of our problems are caused by liberals, I won't argue the specific number. (I don't exclude myself from that 10%.)
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😁😁😁
Let met know if you try it.
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Statue of Juana Maria, the woman from the novel "Island of the Blue Dolphins."
I don't think that's my photo, though I've photographed that statue myself.
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One certainty in life is that if you are not disabled in some fashion, time will make you so if you live long enough.
We're on the other side of scarcity. There's nothing left that stops us living in a just society except the greed and viciousness of the billionaires.
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Do I think a meritocratic society is a good goal? I do. That doesn't mean that things like a Basic Income and universal health care are not also a good idea. You can't have a meritocratic society until the playing field is level.
Even *then* -- in a meritocratic society that has never existed in human history -- you want decent lives for those who are unable to perform, for whatever reason.
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You cross a picket line?
You can convince yourself, out of resentment taught to you by fascists, that Those People on the line -- any line -- are undeserving. But those of you feeling that resentment? Were broken, usually when young, by people who hold you in even more contempt than I do.
And that's saying something.
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They'd have made my kids grow up in poverty, if they'd been able to arrange it.
They'd kill me for a buck fifty profit. They'd kill people I love for less than a buck fifty.
Sure, Nazis are the enemy. But it's billionaires who created this wave of Nazis, this go round. They're the stink of death in human form.
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"Scab" is as bad an insult as "fascist."
I've never crossed a picket line. Obviously I wouldn't do it for a Writer's Guild strike: the fact that people I respect would look on me with contempt would be sufficient reason by itself.
But I wouldn't cross a food service picket line, a school teacher picket line, a garbage collectors picket line. I'm a reasonably well to do white man ... which means the billionaire class is my implacable enemy.
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Fear me. Five hours after my complaint, Bluesky wavers.
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But? Mostly I like the way I look in the mirror, and I like my energy. The pool time is my favorite: that second wind, the runner's high they call it in a different context, is one of the best things there is in life.
Steve Barnes compared getting old to caring for an ice sculpture in the heat. Eventually it all goes away, and it will for me. But maintaining the best shape as you diminish is *winning.*
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40 reps except where noted:
130 pounds back extension
90 seated row
125 seated bodyweight row
40 back thighs
85 butterfly
85 biceps
80 crunch (31 reps today)
Inclined pushups at home, 55 reps today.I'm down to 182 this morning, and it's a pretty good 182. Body fat around 22%. Still overweight, according to my rotten scale, I have to get under 20% to no longer be overweight.
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The first four or five months of this year, I merely swam. Easy on the joints -- I have bum knees, hips, and shoulders. Still not easy enough: when I got up around a mile swimming my shoulders started hurting. So I pulled back to a third or half a mile a day.
Little over half a year ago I started adding weight work. Currently I am at:
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A year ago I was down to about 195 and started going to the gym regularly. Couldn't play basketball any longer, which was how I had stayed in shape for 50 years, couldn't ride a bike, couldn't run, couldn't box.
Went to the gym and started swimming. I was that stereotypical thing, an old jock who was now in the pool.
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Don't think there's a lot of old jocks in my feed, but for those few:
I'm 63. A year and a half ago, Christmas, when my then-wife and I were separating, I was 214 and had been in and out of the hospital for a couple years. (Various different issues -- kidney, suspected stroke, allergic reaction to Ozempic. The first required surgery, the suspected stroke put me in ICU. The Ozempic near killed me. Turned out to be no stroke, just a probable inner ear issue.)