First people aren't going to agree with me on my assessment of Jews. That's fine. You hate them, I don't. That has nothing to do with the assessment of Nazis. If Nazis targeted only people who were "too asian" they as an ideology would not change from my perspective.

There's this idea that the nazis were good because they were targeting Jews and Jews = degeneracy and therefore the cause of the nazis were good and anti-degeneracy.

Things pointed to are that a lot of the books being burned were degenerate and many of those books were written by Jews. Yes that's a historical fact.

This doesn't make a prove racial characteristic, only it proves that Jews typically are where power is, but tons of the Jews in the concentration camps were not powerful. And a lot of the degeneracy pushers such as in Weimar were not Jewish either, but were German. The point is where power, and decadence is, degeneracy follows. Few would disagree with that.

Here's a big problem with the trying to wonder if the nazis were actually good that the young right in the post-truth age wrestle with.

First of all, nazis, socialists, russians, communists, these are all European political systems. We, in America had a completely different overton window and thank goodness for that. While Europe was trying to figure out what flavor of socialism to implement, America was enjoying a level of freedom, including in speech, and especially in religion that essentially no European country could fathom. So to try to tie nazism to Americanism and borrow it is foolish. We already were operating on a superior level than all those brands of socialism.

If you want to know what nazi Germany would look like in the modern day or any day, just look at Germany from the fall of Nazi germany to today.

Germans have not changed one bit in authoritarianism. Did they drop nazism in favor of freedom after the fall of the Nazi regime? Nope, they hopped immediately into the GDR the German Democratic Republic that lasted until the 90s. The GDR hardly differed at all from Nazi Germany in terms of a government being who you feared rather than a government fearing its people. In fact, it was so close in behavior that I was confused when I was shown a film portraying the GDR in school growing up, having to be explained that this was not WW2. Everyone telling the Stasi about neighbors and teachers and everything else, I could see no difference from the Gestapo as the Gestapo were alwas portrayed.

Then you'd think, after that falls, Germany would FINALLY be ready for freedom, right?

Well rank the free-est nations in Europe and tell me where you put Germany. Germany, if you post memes or criticize Islam, the police get sent to your door just like in the UK.

If you want to know what Germany would be like if they continued on with Nazism, well I've got good news for you; you already know what it looks like. The only thing that got dropped from Germany's government was concentration camps. In all other ways Germany looks the same as Nazi Germany ever since.

But here's the other real issue I have with "maybe the Nazi's were the good guys"; and it has to do with the post truth thing.

If it were to come about, that we made being a woke leftist utterly unpalpable. That, rightfully so, they look at the transgender movement and abortion promotion as the abomination it is, and those people get expelled from the society, in 100 years, you'd have other post truth people trying to re-evaluate the woke people, sitting from a place not like the place where we sit, where we know EXACTLY how awful they are and playing armchair historian and philosopher and they too will go "well maybe the woke people weren't that bad" and if we could time travel into the future we'd slap them across the face and go, moron, yes, yes they were, you're just going to have to take our word for it.

Just because communists are as bad as the nazis doesn't make the nazis good. It just makes European politics an example of why Europe is a total craphole. It's why in America, the 1980s was seen as a time of optimizim and patriotism, yet ask any Eastern bloc nation what the 1980s was like for them and they'll explain that it was a time of alcoholism and despair.

America is not Europe and nazism is just another example of the numerous examples of the hopelessness that Europe has always been further down the drain than America, and that's because America was a fresh start from Europe. A blank slate. A chance to not have to share in Europe's rot.

To want Nazism over what America had in the 1930s-1950s is to say "I wish America was set back 100 years and was a shared partaker in Europe's desperately bleak systems"

To look at modern day America and conclude it's a piece of crap is absolutely rational. It's also absolutely rational to want it to be different. No sane man wants America to be like it is today. The answer isn't wishing the Nazis won. It's wishing that the Marxism that was still being promoted from places like Soviet countries weren't allowed to take root and fester in America.

1940s/1950s America was and will always be 100 times better than modern America and 100 times better than Nazi Germany as well as every totalitarian version of Germany we've seen to this day. Why would we look to a tricycle as the model (Socialism via Nazi Germany) when we have a Porsche as the model (1940s/1950s America and earlier).

I love the Matrix. I don't care that the Wachowski brothers are trannies and haven't made a single good movie except the first Matrix. The first Matrix is a masterpiece.

But there was this narrative that started getting thrown around in the early 2010s popularized by sites like Cracked where "was it really necessary to kill those innocent guards who were just doing their job in the building lobby".

Yes, for many reasons established by the movie.

1. Time is of the essence. Every second matters. Morpheus could break at any moment and the fate of humanity is at stake (reveals the location of Zion and all humans are killed off). This is not a time where you can waste valuable seconds trying for a more humane approach. Just like in wartime, when drastic measures are called for, sometimes unfortunate side effects happen with bystanders.

2. They can't teleport in and out wherever they want. They have specific ins and outs, that are specific telephone booths around the city. They can't just teleport in to the top of the building. They found the closest portal into the Matrix to the building where Morpheus is being held and proceeded.

3. Those weren't just security guards, they were the first line of defense of a small military wielding heavy armory guarding the agents and by extension Morpheus. The security guard immediately radios "send backup" to these military combatants. Meaning at the very least, these human guards, though they know nothing about the Matrix, knew there was a higher risk of threat that day as no normal building has guys right around the corner with M16's, Spaz shotguns, etc. The guards were innocent as far as knowing what the actual threat was, but they had to have known that there was an increased chance of threat and were probably fed some lie about a high level political figure who has threats on his life. So they knew it was a risky day on the job, they just didn't know the true nature of the reality.

4. All the guns that Neo and Trinity spawn in weren't for those security guards. They were for the military force that they knew inevitably the agents would have as a barrier between them and Morpheus. Humans who have no idea about the reality of the Matrix were always going to die in this scenario, whether they be security guards or soldiers. You don't have the time nor the means to have a pacifist way towards getting to Morpheus.

5. The soldiers were just as innocent as the security guards. No one feels bad about the soldiers dying, but they were just as unaware of the Matrix as the security guards. The security guards were just the less trained initial defense, that needed to be dealt with quickly, hopefully before they could radio for backup, which Neo and Trinity failed to do. Neo actually tried to kill the guy before he radio'd for back up but he dove out of the way and was just able to before Trinity killed him. So the security guards were actually more competent than you'd expect.

So yeah, it's this narrative of "they needlessly murdered these innocent security guards". Well if the standard for getting Morpheus was "no innocent people die" then they couldn't kill the soldiers either. In the Matrix if someone stands in your way, whether they be a normal cop who's just trying to do their job, or a military person, you kill them if you have to. In the lobby scene, these security guards were threats in terms of the preciously little time they had to get to Morpheus and mount the rescue.

The reason I rant about it is that little narrative spin on that scene has penetrated the zeitgeist where even non-online normies spout it, because inevitably they've watched it with someone who is a redditor type or an online type who's pointed it out and the normie goes "huh, yeah that is cruel" and then it gets repeated.

Except it ignores everything about the scene and the situation and why it was inevitable. It's also why Trinity said it was suicide and everyone was ready to pull Morpheus' plug because they knew wherever Morpheus was going to be kept, it would be guarded like Fort Knox. So zero innocent human, non aware of the Matrix deaths, was never an option when the decision to rescue Morpheus was made.

I don't know if you guys have gotten the same sense I have, but whereas last year, the left seemed confused and scattered and were keeping their heads down in the cultural space, and as a result there was basically no "gay pride" stuff across the country on the scale we had seen in the past, as people were genuinely worried about a Zeitgeist shift; now, it seems like the left are getting bolder and bolder again in the internet space. They're being more open about wokeness. They have the same expectation of not being called a faggot for promoting certain stuff that they did in 2022. I predict that this June, we're going to see an uptick in "rainbow people" promotion and whatnot than last year. Not as high as it was under Biden, but still higher than the low that was last year. I get the sense when I look online that the left, whereas temporarily were discombobulated, are now just biding their time. In some ways they're worse and woker than they even were before, and are just waiting to exact revenge. That's the "feel" I get when I'm on Youtube or other places. Have you observed this same "tone"? It's not something I can pin down exactly....it's more just a way they carry themselves. They have shifted from the aggressive fighters of the religion of wokeness to more of a European mindset of "this is the accepted baseline of truth" within their circles even more than they were in the past. And once a society has an established, codified framework, it's only one power change until the consequences for going against it are persecution. Wokeness feels codified in the left in a way I didn't even feel from the Biden regime, where plenty of infighting with their intersectional Olympics. They kind of have, more like the black community, settled into ingroup preference in a way that's unsettling where anti "other" is more important than their pet issues and they're more in agreement on certain "dogmas".

Maybe I'm just projecting things that aren't there and reading things that aren't there, but it's just the sense I've gotten over the past 4 - 6 months or so.

When the original Star Wars trilogy came out, you can see footage from that time of people entering and exiting the cinemas. Men and women alike. It wasn't just men, there were plenty of women. Star Wars was a phenomenon with both sexes. In fact all cultural big hits were. You wouldn't encounter a female fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark or Jaws and go "a WoMaN likes this?!?"

Big movies didn't really need to cater. Now Star Wars is the most feminine bullcrap ever. The biggest thing movies do is play on two things with women. Cutesy and their love of animals. Baby Yoda as an example and also what porgs and the little sphere R2D2 was meant to trigger in them. There's nothing really "cute" about R2D2 in his design. That little sphere droid in Force Awakens was meant to trigger that feeling in women though, the cutesy feeling. LIkewise Chrewbacca looked really off and the reason for that is he was cutefied. In the OT Chrewbacca had a menacing look to him. In the Disney trilogy every element of his face was softened so that he looks no more threatening than whinnie the pooh.

Likewise with the animal thing. The reason John Wick has his dog get killed is that is the quickest way to get women on board. In reality it's stupid.

I love animals, but I don't give a crap if they die. That doesn't make me heartless, that makes me a man who, like most men, has the ability to compartmentalize and understands the value of animals as compared to human life. I've never seen a woman who isn't really manipulated by their love and protective feelings towards animals. Watch a woman react to John Wick and see how much it impacts them, the dog aspect, compared to men. There's a reason in the old days revenge centered on killing someone you were related to in stories. Because that was universally understood. And don't give me any crap about "the dog represented the wife symbollically". It's just cope to get away from the fact that it's meant to be a lazy shortcut to get women invested in the plot when they otherwise wouldn't.

There's many ways that movies soften the action hero in ways more appealing to women but this wasn't always the case. Women enjoyed men who were rough in movies. Plenty of women enjoyed Bond films and Bond would often be cold, and harsh with women. Which they of course, as we know, women like. They like Bond being charming and wooing women, but they also like that he doesn't put up with women's crap either.

Today men are emasculated in films and despite women naturally hating this in men instinctively, they seemingly let this slide or don't see it happening on some level when they go to the theaters. Like how is it that I can see that Daniel Craig is emasculated compared to 1960s - 80s Bond and this bothers me, yet women who are repulsed by emasculated men flock to the softer action heroes today like John Wick or Daniel Craig bond whereas in the past they might have gone and seen the Dirty Dozen with their husband. Are women becoming lesbians, is that the conclusion?

It's one of my favorite TV shows, probably my favorite if I had to pick. Lately I've just been watching scenes on Youtube, but one scene struck out to me as a clever thing the writers did. So the part where Skylar is explaining how they've had money coming is becuase Walters been gambling, is a gambling addict and is shockingly good at it because of his intelligence making him good at counting cards and whatnot. If you piece together earlier scenes and look between the lines it's clear that this story is a lie, that actually he's been making his money by cooking and selling meth.

It's become more like ChatGPT in the last several months. It's just not as good as it was 3 months ago or so. And at that time, months back, they showed you what version you were on. For free tier you had limited Grok 4.x access as it was in beta, and then slightly less limited access to expert which was 3.x (x was something, can't remember what) and fast which was also 3.x.

Now they don't tell you what version you're on. It just says fast and expert where only 4.x aka supergrok available to those who pay, which I'm not going to pay for Grok or any AI.

What I think is due to the possibly lesser cost of more primitive models, they have rolled back free users to an older model, while allowing paid users to access the Grok that was much more useful.

Again, it's feedback is far less helpful and much more like ChatGPT which is one of the worst AI's in my opinion in recent months. And that would explain the showing what number you're on. They could rollback free users to like 1.x or 2.x and no one would have any way to prove it.

Just the tone and usefulness seems archaic compared to what it was lets say 4 months ago.

She shared this the other day and I realized she was 100% on the money and profound.

You know how in John 11 we saw a Sadducee high priest unknowingly give a prophecy

" But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,"

My mom pointed out that the leftists are unknowingly saying the truth. They may have convinced themselves that they're protesting Trump and may have convinced themselves that holding signs saying "no kings" is about Trump, but they're actually saying what they really believe. Most of them are deeply, deeply anti-Christian and anti-Christ in their attitude and Jesus is the King of kings. Like the end times generations who shake their fist at God during the tribulation, the leftists are unkowingly declaring what is on their heart. They're saying no to the actual King of kings, we'll be our own god.

It's just like caiaphas. In their mind that sign is all about Trump, but I think it's a clever thing where just like how caiaphas thought he was making a pragmatic statement about how to deal with Jesus, his evil scheme was unknowingly being spoken as prophecy.

Likewise I think it's the same with the leftists, unknowingly declaring something deeper while thinking within their mind it's about Trump because of the echo chamber and the TDS delusions.

I'm not the first person to make this point, but it's something that every time I hear it, I get a similar reaction to "eat ze bugs".

When everyone on the internet describes their stuff as "content" or other things as content. Like "Wow Nintendo just announced a bunch of new content coming for [insert thing]"

What a bland revolting consumerist phrase. I wish the term "content" was banned from the English language unless you're describing the content of someone's character.

When you say they have a good content of character, it's a fine word.

But when you describe art, entertainment, or videos as that way you couldn't pick a more soul-less word, and they're choosing it for themselves.

Something doesn't have to be high art in order to not be called content. The weather channel is pretty dry stuff, but they don't open up the show by going "hi here's our weather content for the day". It really is like something a dystopian society would say.

They say "Good morning everyone, glad to have you back. Let's look at how the weather is going to look like today". Or I assume that's along the lines of what they say. I haven't seen a weather channel in many years.

Anyways, mini rant, had to get it off my chest.

What album do you consider their masterpiece vs what do you find yourself listening to more?

Like for instance, Dark Side of the Moon, basically a perfect album and like a lot of albums from them you need to listen all the way through to appreciate it.

But Dark Side of the Moon also gets a bit boring because it's kind of one note in my opinion. It's a double edged sword. It makes it feel like a masterfully designed cohesive album, but you can't have true cohesion without a bit of sameyness.

The wall is great for a different reason.

It's a wild sort of story of an album, but it's got lower lows than the DSotM (which basically had no lows) but arguably higher highs.

Then you have animals which to me is like almost a masterpiece. The parts I love about it are in some ways better than dsotm and the wall, like the part with the acoustic guitar while the dogs bark gives me chills every time, but I'd say 50% of the listening experience of animals is not that great.

Wish you were here is great but really it's like 3 and a half songs when you break it down. Shine on you crazy diamond is like more than half the album put at the beginning and end of it.

It's enjoyable but when you look at it objectively they wrote like 3 or so songs with one of them being massive and bookending both parts of the album.

Point is I couldn't pick my favorite album. They all have strengths. I think my favorite album is what I wish animals was. The potential I hear in animals, if it's best parts were 100% of the rest of the album I might like Animals the best.

Anyone else' personal tastes with Pink Floyd that you want to weigh in, why you rate one album above another?

I remember it was about 4 years ago, I was sitting in my living room and suddenly I started shaking with fear as the realization hit me. Charlie Chaplin, the silent film era star had sexually assaulted me.

I had suppressed that memory, but here it came rushing back like a tidal wave. I started crying, and when I finally stopped crying, I went and approached my parents, who I thought I could trust, to tell them.

To my horror, instead of empathy, I was met with dismissal and was told "I was seeking attention". I know how prevalent rape culture is, and I know the lengths people will go to to protect powerful men, especially entertainers, but to hear even my own parents running defense for my abuser was a new pain I hadn't felt before.

I heard all the excuses and coping mechanisms any fellow abuse survivor hears. "you're acting crazy" "you want attention" "have you been huffing paint thinner again? "Charlie Chaplin died decades before you were born, what you're saying isn't even physically possible, you need to go see a doctor, you're unwell".

What do all of these statements have in common? They're all saying your lived experience isn't valid and the narrative that happens to protect the abuser is what is more legitimate.

For a few years I quasi-internalized what they said, but it never quite sat right with me.

About 2 years ago I was seeing my therapist for our weekly meetings and I decided to follow my therapists own advice which was to be brave and vulnerable; so I brought this topic up. I explained the excuses my parents gave for Charlie Chaplin.

The therapist paused for a long time after I gave my story of survival from a powerful man, when she did speak I was mortified by her words considering this is a person who deals with trauma victims. Hearing her spout one of my parents rape culture enabling excuses saying "I understand you are distressed by this, but Charlie Chaplin did indeed die before you were born" broke my faith in humanity even more.

I couldn't believe it. From my backwards boomer parents, I was only halfway surprised, but this was a progressive female therapist who has dealt with many sexual abuse victims. Again, what society will go through to protect powerful men turns the stomach.

I quickly cancelled them as a therapist which my parents said "was a bad idea" and that "I was making mental health progress with them". I should say so that they'd believe that considering their idea of mental health is denying a persons testimony around sexual assault.

After much reluctance, my parents allowed me to choose my own therapist. I overheard them one day saying "he's nuts, any therapist is bound to be better than none"

Isn't that rich? When you happen to be the victim of a powerful man and dare bring light to it, suddenly you're "nuts".

After picking someone I semi trusted based on everything on their website, I knew better than to bring up my experience of Charlie Chaplin assaulting me. I couldn't live through that again. I began even to internalize my parents excuses for him once again, wondering if I may actually be delusional, which is exactly how rape culture gets perpetuated through the internalization of gaslighting.

But to my surprise, my therapist, though I prefer referring to her as a Shamanic Guru, kept prodding because they could tell there was something still eating at my core. I hedged my bets as I explained my story about Charlie Chaplin while still echoing the "acceptable" narrative such as "maybe my parents have a point about him having died before I was even born" and my therapist Ms. Moon-Flower cut me off and interjected "did I just hear you right? You are parroting narratives your parents fed you....let me ask you, did Charlie Chaplin do anything to them?" I said no. Ms. Moon-Flower responded "Then what they have to say about the topic is irrelevant. What matters here is your lived experience and what it tells you is that Charlie Chaplin abused you....never let bigots try to forge narratives so they can remain cozy rather than challenged by uncomfortable truths".

I broke down crying, this time from relief and joy. Finally someone who saw the trauma and didn't immediately make excuses for the abuser. This helped me regain empowerment. After more weeks of seeing Ms. Moon-Flower, I got my confidence back and I confronted my parents and told them how "Ms. Moon-Flower agrees that I should never deny my lived experience and how you two are bigots trying to shape and color my experience to suit your patriarchal ideas of protecting powerful men and rape culture."

The look of shock on their faces still brings me satisfaction today.

Sometimes I will eavesdrop and hear my parents muttering and whispering downstairs saying "I knew we should have never let him visit that hippy....I knew it was a bad idea...I don't know what to do". My dad even consoles my mom as she's crying.

Do you see what accusing a powerful man from Hollywood will do? Even your own parents will cry over THEM instead of shedding one tear for the abuse they put YOU through. This is how ingrained rape culture is.

But I still wake up and smile because I know that everyday I deal with and don't deny my lived experience, is another day the monster that is Charlie (I won't dignify him by even typing his last name ever again) gets smaller and smaller until I can truly feel as empowered as I bravely choose to be each morning.

Body cam utterly destroyed the narrative around "police oppress black people". It vindicated the "racists" a thousand fold. Even the most reluctant normies were starting to see the truth on this.

Something that troubles me is the best looking most realistic looking AI videos are body cam AI videos even at this fairly early state of AI videos.

So the powers that be will inundate and flood video sites, and twitter with fake body cam footage that will suit their narratives.

Tons of fake body cam footage of white people, tons of fake body cam footage of cops being abusive towards black people.

The ace in the hole that was starting to work and people were waking up; it's discouraging that we're about to have that scene in the Running Man where they show fake footage of Arnold's character committing murder to get the audience to turn on him.