Legitimately the only time we felt threatened is when a lady in a giant SUV turned onto Michigan Avenue too soon; there were still people crossing but she was in too big a hurry to wait. She had a large Thin Blue Line flag on her back window
Marxist, wife guy, ne'er-do-well. Concerned with words, generally. Chicago-based eating enthusiast. Crime, baseball, communism. http://immortal-science.com
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Legitimately the only time we felt threatened is when a lady in a giant SUV turned onto Michigan Avenue too soon; there were still people crossing but she was in too big a hurry to wait. She had a large Thin Blue Line flag on her back window
Of course it was a struggle to avoid getting knockout-gamed by the many urban murder gangs who rule our ruined metropolis, but maybe they'll be easier to deal with once we have 300 weekend warriors from South Carolina shuffling awkwardly around the Bean and picking up trash outside the United Center
Good reminder that they'll call seniors the greatest generation, say they fought for the country, and tell them they have good values (not like the lazy, spoiled kids), but the minute they advocate for anyone else's rights they'll beat their brains in and throw 'em in the jug
We had out-of-town friends staying with us all weekend. We went to Jazz Fest, ate out every day, walked and took trains everywhere, did touristy stuff, and had a wonderful time. Perfect weather, everyone feeling good. A great reminder of why it's so great to live in this amazing city
and (b) Nate Silver doesn't know anything about any cultural tendencies on the left because he is not a leftist and has no cultural ethos or political ideology beyond "Give Nate Silver money"
Some critics may point out that he is not talking about this site specifically, but rather a cultural tendency on the left. I would respond that (a) He is definitely talking about this site specifically and he is doing that because people made fun of him here
A DEGENERATE GAMBLER WHO WAS ELEVATED TO INCREDIBLE WEALTH AND INFLUENCE FOR GUESSING ONE THING RIGHT AND WHO HAS BEEN WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING SINCE THEN: The decade-long Democratic death spiral is the fault of a small social media company founded in 2023
Hard to believe Cuban doesn't know what he's talking about, that only happens five or six times a day
one of my faves
The thing he is 1000x-ing here says we don't really have a democracy at all and Trump will never let us vote again and we should respond by...hoping we're allowed to vote one more time for the people who kept losing and then completely failed to prevent this from happening
This is truly the 9/11 of Chappaquiddicks
I'm sure everything about this will turn out to be extremely normal
ME, ABOUT TO EAT AN ENTIRE LOAF OF WEEK-OLD PUMPERNICKEL: I'm gonna end it all
SOME COMPLETE KNOB ON THE INTERNET: Chicago is a crime-riddled hellhole where everyone is killed by murder gangs. You can't speak English or buy white bread there ME, SPEAKING ENGLISH TO THE WHOLE FOODS CLERK WHILE BUYING WHITE BREAD AND NOT GETTING KNOCKOUT GAMED: Holy shit
"You can't do [thing that is done constantly, everywhere, in every part of the country, every single day, by practically everyone, everywhere you look] anymore" is my favorite genre of reactionary grievance
If only there was a way to enjoy this, the most popular bread in America, that is only now available at every grocery store, convenience store, and supermarket in the country
Tommaso Giuffursoni
Mayors are not named crazy stuff like "Zohran Mamdani". Mayors have regular American names like "Fiorello LaGuardia"
Hmm a plan to forcibly expel a native population and develop their land into a kind of "living space" for settlers, I wonder if there is a word in German for this kind of thing
When was the last time we won a war
Capitalism barfs up one sociopathic elitist after another on a daily basis but one dipshit teenager who can be accused of being a tankie discredits everything every Marxist theorist since 1870
Conservatives and liberals can both say the most insane shit and nobody gives up on capitalism or neoliberalism but if one person with anything vaguely left on their bio says something dumb we immediately see the "leftists come get your man, no thanks to any movement that claims this guy"
"First the chickens, then the children" is an even more malevolent "Kinder, kirche, küchen"
This is one of my wife's favorite stoner snacks and we have legit had conversations about their future as a worker-owned collective
It seems like a missed opportunity that there is a dog breed called a malamute and another dog breed called a malinois and the latter isn't just the former with the volume turned up
So who has a ton of money, an increasingly obvious desire to live forever (or at least be the only people with access to decent medical care and the benefits of such research), and now, a compliant, defenseless labor market full of specialized workers with nowhere else to go?
So now workers who made good salaries and did protected and relatively stable work either in academia or the public sector are out of work, and experiencing precariousness, and they're getting increasingly desperate with most of their career options now cut off
But consider that these are often relatively good-paying jobs, with union representation (many NIH cancer researchers unionized in 2023), doing work that basically only happens because of the government or universities
There are certainly elements of pure Trumpian cheapness, an ideological commitment to disempowering government, and just ordinary fascist cruelty in it, to be sure
Not to be Mr. Reductive Vulgar Marxist here but I think you can't entirely ignore how much of this is about disciplining labor
RIP President Doo Doo Ass
OMG I can't wait
It's Funny Friday at IMMORTAL SCIENCE and before we take the long weekend off, please memorize these new workplace mnemonics from the American Society for Sentiment Reduction.
LOL
"Sometimes it really surprises me!" The technology your company relies on to perform its sole function should not surprise you
"People are better at handling busy times at a restaurant than a computer program that has no idea what anything is and has no awareness of anything that exists outside of data inputs" -- a person who makes at minimum mid-six-figure income
A person who makes more money than I ever will, and probably more money than anyone I will ever meet, had to *figure this out*. He had to integrate the technology, spend who knows how much money, and completely revamp his company's processes to understand something an 11-year-old could have told him
Okay so this is hilarious and all but
A slight inequality in housing under communism during the recovery from a global war is proof that communism is a failure A complete lack of housing equality, massive slum populations, and massive homelessness under capitalism is proof of nothing at all
Back in my day, when Macho Man Randy Savage said "OOOH YEAH, FREAK OUT FREAK OUT", damn it, we freaked out
Well, I mean, there arrive plenty of issues you can never convince me on, like that it is acceptable to sacrifice a group's civil rights or that we should materially aid a genocide. That's not being stubborn, it's having values.
It is not "weakening the left" to criticize Democratic politicians. It is actually strengthening the left to do so.
10. The Democratic Party is not even a democratic organization, let alone the sole organizing entity of whatever you perceive to be "the left". You are confusing "actually doing politics" for "leftist infighting"!
9. The argument that we only have two choices and you have to pick one is not only depressing and fatalistic and lacking in vision and understanding of what politics is, but also an argument for replacing such a terrible system, not for shrugging your shoulders and accepting it.
8. It is extremely suspect, not to mention demoralizing and lazy, to act, 3 years before an election, as if the candidate, issues, and strategy of that election is already a settled matter and to construct absurd hypotheticals to argue about it. It is in fact harmful to the party, and a purity test!
7. Even if you think the primary process is terrible, it is the way we determine candidates. It is not cheating to let that process play out without the party putting its thumb on the scale.
6. Politicians are not your bosses, your leaders, your superiors, or your moral avatars. They are people doing a job and their job is to do what their constituents want them to do.
5. Criticizing bad behavior or bad policies is not harmful to the party or its chances. It is the bad behavior and bad policies that are harmful to the party and its chances. Criticizing it is how we fix it!
4. Politics is not a team sport where you just cheer for your side to win, or a bet where you put your money on the number you hope will pay off. It is the process of organizing society to create outcomes that reflect your values.
3. The previous point is especially applicable considering that the Democrats are extremely unpopular and have been taking a beating at the polls and the ballot box of late!
2. If, despite this, you, as a Democratic Party voter, still perceive actual leftists as political allies, you should be trying to win them over instead of scolding them, belittling them, and insisting they shut up, abandon their values, and do as they're told.
1. The Democratic Party is not a leftist party. It is a liberal party that currently, at best, is center-right, and that's being generous.
Good morning! It is not "weakening the left" to criticize Democratic politicians. Let me explain!
It's Television Tuesday at IMMORTAL SCIENCE! What say we look back at LOST? What say I make everyone irritated by saying it was much, much better than anyone gives it credit for these days? What I say I invoke it in the same breath as THE SOPRANOS and TWIN P...no! He wouldn't dare!!!
I'm not saying there aren't a lot of bad things about it, but mainstream media is how people know about the games. It's how players get paid. No media coverage means they can't make a living. I'd love them to be nationalized but that's not our present reality, it's not growing without media coverage
Do the people on LOVE ISLAND ever get to leave or are they just perpetually filming year round hoping for parole
...okay?
It is if you want the league to survive
If you say so
Just bookmarking this for all the people who have told me over the years that James Cameron is a Maoist, actually
Seriously my man is out of politics, he's a media mogul, he's insulated from all the shit that's happening, and he has nothing to lose. All I want to see on his reading list is IMPERIALISM: THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM. Do a playlist that's all Fushitsusha and Phill Niblock
You know what else is a blueprint for reforming government so it can deliver for working people
It's the most wonderful time of the year That's right, the time where we all have to pretend to give a shit what Barack Obama's interns are reading
Of course
Or, I dunno, maybe not! We're undergoing a cultural shift where the imposition of mass cruelty is seen as a virtue. So who knows? Anyway we used to do propaganda of the deed, that's a good thing to remember, let's get some RETVRNs in the chat for that shit
If someone was shooting the number of people who are going to suffer and die because of this motherfucker they would drop a bomb on him
"I exist and would like to continue doing so" is not an ideology, but "white people are the natural masters of humanity" is
The trolley problem is the only reason most people know what a trolley is
You get that the trolley problem isn't real, right I mean you understand that it's not an actual thing that is happening and that you have to participate in
It's times like this I remember that I chose to become a Man U supporter because I wanted to root for a winner for once in my life
And all you have to do is look at the degree of enforcement that's been directed at Palestine Action on the completely unproven claim that they're violent vs the degree that's been directed at the two actually dangerous O9A offshoots that were prescribed at the same time to give the game away
If Curtis Yarvin is a regular philosopher and Stephen Miller is a regular politician then O9A is a real ideological cohort; a lot of why the press treats the Zizians with kid gloves is that they're connected and their beliefs have been mainstreamed. A bunch of billionaires believe in it so it's okay
It's interesting that they would have (and did!) get more attention in the past *because* the whole thing is lurid and sensationalistic than they do now by a press that fetishizes being serious, with the further irony that they're now normalized to a degree that they're almost respectable
I don't want the helicopters replaced with drones, I want the whole program to be eliminated
Yep
THESE THINGS ARE ALL TOTALLY NORMAL, YOU FREAKS, THE SYSTEM YOU SUPPORT IS NOT COMMUNISM, THIS IS JUST CAPITALISM WITH A GUY YOU DON'T LIKE RUNNING IT
It's also just so stupid on its face. Every capitalist country in the world has a government that owns companies! Most countries control their central banks! We only think tariffs are weird because we're so addicted to free trade! Idolize their leaders with posters & praise?!? Oh my fucking God
Absolutely, I think there is a slight something-new-under-the-sun because the collapse of the Soviet Union legitimately took the only serious counterweight to imperialist capital off of the board and it kicked everything into hyperspeed, but then again, now we have China, just a different dynamic
They fucked up the Reconstruction that was supposed to fix the sins of slavery, and they're trying to fuck up the Reconstruction that would fix the sins of anticommunism before it even happens. That's what American fascism is all about
I keep saying the great sin of the 19th century was slavery and the great sin of the 20th was anticommunism (both labor issues, of course, but also both having an electric streak of white supremacy and exceptionalism), and the 21st century is them trying to reintroduce them both
Yep. It's the exact same situation, the exact same tensions, the exact same motives of the pigs behind it. The fact that it manifests itself in increasingly weird ways is because America invents new ways to be weird every day, it's individualism and capitalism leaking down into its rawest gooey form
My better days, I look at it through the correct Marxist material lens and it makes perfect sense. My worst days, I look at it and see something older and darker, something reeking of eldritch magic, a whole civilization of takers. But it manifests almost always as white nationalism and that's grim
That's the genius of fascism's lack of ideological coherence. The action needs no reason, the hate is the point. You can always point it at anything you want
That's why it's a fool's errand to look for 'reasons' behind these killings: it's just pure brainless cruelty by mal-developed freaks who stumble on a hodgepodge of excuses to do what they want to do anyway. Why not? That's our fascist ruling class. That's what capitalism without communism got us.
Conditions like that, you don't need to plot and manipulate; the machine runs by itself. We've invented a self-sustaining strategy of tension; our Years of Lead work without supervision. We can push 'em in the right direction but this country mints stochastic violence like it does t-shirts.
That's the great thing about America. Drunk on capitalism, sold the myth our whole lives that solidarity and community are bad, afraid of weakness or need, constantly surveilled, scared of our own shadows, drowning in guns, ruled by sociopaths, no social safety net, polarized, no material analysis.
Do I think this is a plot by the CIA or the bosses or the illuminati or whoever? Not really. It's too incoherent, too random, too pointless. But I do think, especially as almost every one of these guys ends up mentioned in an FBI "on our radar" mea culpa, they know about it a lot and let it happen.
You don't even have to go to meetings or make pledges or pass ideological tests. The phantom nature of these 'organizations' means that any kid can pick up the argot on the internet, toss them onto a blog or video or rifle stock, and boom, you're a legendary O9A monster and not just a lone nut.
Their ideology, if it even exists, is all over the place - nihilism, Satanism, Nazism, racism, black magic, tech cult stuff, extreme misogyny, all thrown in an incoherent blender. You can see the appeal to young, mostly white, isolated, unstable, internet-radicalized, racist, resentful men.
But there's no doubt they're at least theoretically real, and there are a decent number of them, and they've done some gross, violent, depraved, awful shit. It's kind of like the gang database: exaggerated, used by law enforcement for systemic racism? Yes. But are there violent gangs? Also yes.
One of the proscribed O9A-adjacent groups is called, for real, "Maniac Murder Cult", and was founded by a 16-year-old kid, which is the only person who could have dreamed up the name "Maniac Murder Cult". How much evil shit they've done is as nebulous as if they're all real and somehow affiliated.
The reason I went down a rabbit hole on it is that in the UK, to sweeten the passage of the law proscribing Palestine Action, the government added it to the proscription of two other Russian terror groups in the O9A orbit. (They're most prominent in Russia and the US, in a nasty historical echo.)
Regardless of what they are or aren't, they're fucking creeps, and it's not surprising one of their fans ends up doing this heinous shit. There is, very obviously, a large population of aggrieved, mentally sketchy young sociopaths out there getting their brains further cooked by the internet
I think it's probably true that O9A barely exists as an actual organization, that it's really more a convenient hangar on which to drape a narrative about Satanic cults and that neither they nor the affiliates don't really exist in any formal way. It's a flag of convenience for sociopathic weirdos
In one of those terrifying moments of synchronicity that happen way too often lately, I've been reading about the Order of Nine Angles and some of its 'affiliated' outfits a lot this week, just before someone shoots up a school and has O9A-adjacent slogans and symbols on their guns and manifesto.
I really, really do not like the black court the Atlanta Dream play on. I try to be open-minded about new things in sports but it just looks really bad, it's jarring to the eye and makes the players look like they're superimposed on the screen.
Thanks! This is good info, I'm reading about the guy right now!
Ah thanks! I assume that means it's this guy, but I'll also guess it's a repro and not an original. Either way I love it
I assume this is the date it was made (it's also the date I was made) and that this is the sculptor's name. I think it's Russian but I could be wrong; anyone able to read it? I'd be mighty grateful!
