A Door on Other Time

Title is from Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories". Handle means "storyteller" in Nahuatl. This'll mostly be about pop culture, linguistics, philosophy, history, and other things that interest me, but also about writing.

[tlaquetzqui]

[agentofdeterioration]

The Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad is, to a modern audiences, what classicists have called “boring as hell,” but I can’t help but think that if you were watching Homer recite it it would have been more like when comedians go, “anybody here tonight from Chicago?” and the Chicagoans in the back start cheering

Homer’s like, “and there were forty black ships from… LOCRIS” and the Locrians in the crowd start going absolutely nuts

[larkspurglove]

While I personally dislike the casting of matt damon as odysseus I think, if given the chance, he could actually pull off a decent homeric-adjacent portrayal of odysseus (if his filmography is anything to go off of). However christopher nolan decided that his version of the intelligent trickster asshole king of ithaca should be a generic stoic guilt ridden action hero instead which ruined any chance of damon proving himself as a good casting choice

[thissweetenamor]

[tlaquetzqui]

It’s very fun to remind people on both sides that the Labor Theory of Value comes from Adam Smith.

[binturong-of-the-day]

The binturong of taunting

[sophsun1]

The Muppet Movie (1979) dir. James Frawley

[insomniac-arrest]

I think we should figure out what age we’re living in now so we can say how it’s collapsing to each other

[insomniac-arrest]

Our age of plastics is collapsing

[insomniac-arrest]

Our age of information is collapsing! *remembers generative AI, nods to self* our age of information is collapsing.

[uncle-beanbag-mojave]

It's the dawning of the Sword Age, the Axe Age

[tlaquetzqui]

Shields riven, no man having mercy on another. A wolf age, a wind age, whoredom rife, where sisters’ children defile kinship.

[beardedmrbean]

[1americanconservative]

@MosabHasanYOSEF

Muslims love to brag about the golden age of science,

Al-Khwarizmi invented algebra, Ibn Sina medicine, Al-Razi chemistry.

None of them were Arab. All three were Persians from lands conquered by the sword.

The Arabs enslaved their women, stole their gold, looted their cities, then put their own name on the achievements of the conquered and called it “Islamic.”

It was never theirs.

[tlaquetzqui]

Also most of Al-Khwarizmi’s math was learned from India.

[thememedaddy]

[tlaquetzqui]

Counterpoint:

Admittedly his doctorate was not conferred by a mortal authority. (In this-worldly terms he has a BA in English with a minor in women’s studies.)

[mutantrenegade]

You know Jones soda cap, as a tumblr user i can actually say i think I have.

[jardinssteve]

[tlaquetzqui]

First one is actually the number one advice, regardless of any other condition—not walking alone is even more significant to safety than being armed. But the rest…

[jardinssteve]

[the-davest-of-uncles]

When NYC's economy utterly collapses...and it's inevitable that it will...and they come to the Feds for a bailout --

They should be told no.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Not only should they be told no, but it should be publicly broadcast by the White House the absolute failure and that is their socialist ideals. Because they can blame whoever they want to but the fingers pointed at them first and every failure that led up to it it's a lot harder for them to climb their way out.

[pussybitchasscons]

Obviously that money would be better spent on the epsteinclass

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Ah yes. Another moron that doesn't understand how economics work.

[cookingwithroxy]

Actually, it's worse. Think about it this way. The Miniapolis Day Care Scandal.

There's a system out there, actively working to aid in allowing for child care so that small families and families without support can get daycare easily so that parents can work and keep up with the cost of living.

Instead, the money was being misdirected into criminal cartels and financial scams, and few if any children were getting care. And that's just one aspect of a pretty large scandal.

And people like that yahoo responded to a thing that was taking money AWAY from kids who need care, from the sick, from the disabled, and from the dying. Money being stolen from the most vulnerable people, seized by people who only care about benefiting themselves.

Any failing system is going to fail the people in need, and benefit abusers. People like that yahoo? Do not care about those people in need, who will have less support and aid in their times of trial.

They only say they do to feel smug about themselves. They care far more about tallying up points for some kind of political scorecard than about people actually in need.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Well that's the thing isn't it? They never care. Their entire sentiment is literally either orange man bad or everyone who has money is, "evil Epstein class". Not because they actually give a damn. Because Epstein has become the new Hitler as far as ad hominem attacks goes.

The sad reality is they want very much to have the entirety of the United States destroyed. Because they don't care about kids. Even though they mention epstein. They don't care about people stealing from the taxpayers. They don't even care about the fact that the people who they effectively worship are filthy rich themselves. And most of whom were probably in fact involved with Epstein or people who are worse.

The unfortunate fact here is that we have to constantly deal with these people saying whatever the crap they want to and acting like they care. It is quite literally a grift. Certainly a pathetic one, but still one nonetheless.

And, you are 100% correct. But that is the whole point though. Every time that me or others like yourself attempt to talk to people and make them understand common sense they don't want to. There are people who are brain-dead morons who will like their comment reblog their comment and act like they are telling the truth. But the issue, is that rich people leave. When you text the crap out of people and they have the means to go away they will. And unless you're pro tyranny you're not going to keep them where they are. The issue though is that these people are pro tyranny. Because they're driven by greed and jealousy or just a desire for destruction.

When you have illegal immigration in massive numbers, you get lowering wages with rising prices. Which means you get a perpetual serf class of people. One that the Democrats have openly talked about wanting. "Who's going to pick our avocados", I believe was the question. Over taxing the rich doesn't make things better for the people under them. All it does is tell the people under them they aren't allowed to ever get to that level of success. And that if they do get to that level of success or even close to it, the dumb socialists and Communists will literally come for them and make them the next Target. And then use every buzzword and name it pulling technique as an attempt to shame people away from looking at reality the way it really is.

[inkandguns]

lol

[theconcealedweapon]

"Capitalism lifts people out of poverty."

If that were true, poverty wouldn't exist.

There will soon exist a trillionaire. If capitalism is powerful enough to create a trillionaire, surely it must be powerful enough to accomplish every single one of its goals. So if one of the goals of capitalism is to end poverty, why does poverty exist?

[otakuvampyre]

Poverty pre-capitalism was infinitely more widespread, and no other system eliminates it to the same degree that capitalism does.

Also, you seem to be under the impression rich people just have billions sitting in a bank account. This is untrue. Most of their wealth is in net worth (aka. it's largely Property, not cold hard cash).

And poverty still exists because we don't have a system that truly eliminates it in its entirety. We humans are a flawed species, there will always be people who can't or refuse to work. There will always be drug use, gang violence and mental illness. No system, not even the most fantasized socialist utopia could eliminate all these issues. And ergo, there will always be people who don't make enough money to live, or who don't make money at all. And unfortunately, capitalism is the only system where that number is truly minimized.

[hst3000]

Doesn't help that it's a moving goalpost and most definitions have it as the lowest 5 or 10% of the population by income.

Which, since you will ALWAYS have a lowest ten percent when you divide anything, means that poverty is impossible to remove definitionally, any more than you can get rid of top floors in buildings.

And someone in poverty in the developed world is as likely to be morbidly obese than they are starving. Most of them have somewhere to sleep. Clothes. They can walk into most any medical facility and get lifesaving treatment.

Most of the people you now consider intolerably poor around you live lives that mid-level merchants and businessmen would have DROOLED over before capitalism. That's lifting pretty hard.

[manfromberlin-blog]

The argument that capitalism is a failure because there are poor people is completely ignorant of the fact that

A. There are poor in every system

B. That capitalism is the only system where you are free to choose who you work for and for how much.

C, people are free to make bad decisions that have consequences to their own lives

[tlaquetzqui]

B is wrong actually: guilds also allow that. Lawyers have one, they can choose their clients and set their rates.

There are in fact not just two systems in the world. It’s just that the system that defines itself by opposition to one of the others, is obviously not viable.

[liberalsarecool]

Freedom FROM religion is mandatory.

[generallemarc]

Said the person defending a religion in this very post.

[tlaquetzqui]

Similarly, yes, if Israel was a Haredi theocracy that followed the Talmudic prescriptions for the rights of “idolaters”, it would be a lot harder to decide who to side with between them and Hamas. But it’s not and they specifically amended the constitution in 1985 to keep people like Meir Kahane from making it one.