Nilsi

The perfect example of toxic stage orange is American hegemonism. There’s nothing quite like exporting “enlightenment values” with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball.

Radical Islamists aren’t exactly known for avoiding perverted interpretations of the Quran, are they? I’m just wondering why someone who’s anti-Islamist and anti-Saudi would target German civilians during a Christian festivity. That said, I’m not taking a stance here - I don’t have any intel beyond what’s being discussed on both sides. In any case, it’s clear this was a deeply disturbed individual who had radicalized himself to an extreme degree.

Many are accusing him of being a Saudi double agent and a jihadist engaging in taqiyya (disguise/deception in the service of Islam). https://x.com/MaralSalmassi/status/1870413236996092217

Oh, totally, those pathetic nurses and cops are such sheep for working night shifts - clearly, they should stick it to society by refusing to conform to such oppressive norms.

Wtf? Seriously, nothing is more disgusting than bourgeois biohackers. Nobody’s stoked about night shifts, obviously. But for a hell of a lot of people, it’s not a choice .- it’s survival. They’re doing what they have to to keep themselves and their families afloat.

So, what, "life" and "heaven" are mutually exclusive now? If that's the case, why not cut to the chase and launch the nukes already? Why waste time slogging through this compromised state of existence when we could all just skip ahead to the "blissful ground of being"?

Affirming your own meaning is no task for the faint of heart.

You mean these folks?

I’m not condemning her actions, just as I wouldn’t condemn most terrorists. To me, this is a profound encounter with the Real. It’s fascinating to watch society struggle to contain it, as if by denying its existence they can ward off its destabilizing force. There’s no legal basis to shut this down. Whereas the standard response is to pretend there’s no trouble in paradise, while moralizing and condemning those who break through the media’s carefully curated boundaries. The so-called “civilized world” strains to maintain strict divisions, always drawn in opposition to what it perceives as destabilizing. Hegel is likely rolling in his grave. The dialectical reasoning that once underpinned Western thought seems to be fracturing in the face of something so seemingly banal - and yet so fundamentally disruptive. No longer, old man.

I've read it, along with most of Ken Wilber's oeuvre, and the conclusion is clear: these are serious creeps using the same imperialist language that's dominated U.S. foreign policy since the Spanish-American War. If Wilber weren’t such a jargonite, we could play a fun drinking game: “Who said it - Wilber or U.S. foreign policy?” At the end of the day, it’s just classic colonizer talk.

Spiral Dynamics is such a disgusting piece of ideological weaponry. It’s the same rhetoric that’s been used for centuries to justify colonialism and political intervention: "They’re underdeveloped savages, and we, the morally superior enlightened ones, must bring them democracy and freedom." The U.S. has looted resources, propped up dictators, and crushed autonomy in Latin America, and now Spiral Dynamics strolls in with its color-coded charts, slapping a pseudo-psychological gloss on the same tired, colonialist narrative. Just take Bill Clinton - the original Ken Wilber and Spiral Dynamics fanboy-in-chief. All that supposed “Spiral Wizardry” didn’t stop him from bombing Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, leaving trails of destruction while selling it as “helping the less developed.” And, of course, any critique of this nonsense gets dismissed as “green relativism” by smug elites who think they alone can see what’s high and low on the sacred ladder of human evolution. Naturally, they’re the ones “more evolved,” while anyone who dares to question them is stuck in the “flatland” of pluralism. It’s the same colonialist sneer we’ve always known, just dressed up in rainbow colors and self-congratulation.

What exactly do you mean? There are platforms that provide access to decision-makers' contact details. However, they assume you already know who you want to reach out to, and their accuracy can be inconsistent. That said, they can be useful when you’re stuck dealing with gatekeepers or aimlessly dialing random extensions. RocketReach is one such platform, and I use it occasionally

Cold calls are a ruthlessly efficient way to seize entrepreneurial power. They slice through all the bureaucratic sludge, the smug hierarchy of status and connections, and drill straight into the raw core: two humans, here and now, deciding whether to strike a deal. You can’t even begin to imagine the kinds of deals that can materialize on a cold call, the caliber of people you can reach out of thin air. Take it from someone who’s clocked 60 hours a week for the past two years hitting the phones: the reality is wilder, the opportunities are bigger, and the hierarchies are flimsier than you’ve ever dared to believe. All you truly need is a clear target and a cunning plan to outmaneuver their gatekeepers. That means forging near-conspiratorial rapport with the very people paid to keep you out - becoming just friendly enough, just plausible enough, to slip past their defenses. No footprints, no fingerprints, no red flags. Once inside, you’re free to claim your prize: a conversation that shouldn’t have happened, with someone you shouldn’t have reached, forged by nothing but your own voice and nerve.

Of course, she is a profoundly perverse individual, and I refuse to degrade myself - or her - by pretending to feel pity. Yet what’s truly unsettling, and undeniably fascinating, is how she has weaponized her own existence to become a radically transgressive figure - a grotesque media spectacle typically reserved for terrorists and mass murderers. But unlike those for whom we craft neatly moralized narratives and build airtight prison cells, she can’t be simply locked away to contain the horrors of human depravity. There is no concrete cell holding her back, no apparatus of law or force; there’s only a pathetic $5 paywall on her OnlyFans. This cheap barrier doesn’t safeguard us from her transgression; it invites us in. Here, our moral coordinates go haywire, leaving us to confront the raw and unmediated abysses of human desire without the comforting anesthesia of justice or the moral high ground of condemnation. In doing so, she forces us to acknowledge the emptiness of our moral architecture, exposed and ineffectual in the face of a depravity that demands not walls and laws but our own willful participation.

You know the drill: Spotify Wrapped, Apple Replay, and all the personalized music streaming recaps of the year are out. So... What’s your most-streamed song of the year? Here’s mine:

Yeah, yeah, Monday morning will bring reality, but let them celebrate today - they’ve earned it. I’m truly happy for the people of Syria. May God bless them. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/08/world/video/syria-lebanon-border-celebrations-after-assad-clarrisa-ward-digvid

This is the one time I regret using TIDAL - it only showed my top 5 artists: Charli XCX, Jane Remover, JPEGMAFIA, Sonic Youth, and Cities Aviv. Pretty authentic for a dirty Gen Z postmodernist, though lately, I’ve been really into ambient music like Tim Hecker and William Basinski.

You’re better off reading Lacan than wasting your time on this low-IQ manosphere bullshit. Chances are the so-called “cute girls” you mention have indeed had their encounters with the “Chad,” yet it is precisely the elusive nature of desire - forever encircling a constitutive lack - that leads them to move on, chasing men they believe will at last fill that emptiness first confronted in their experience with him. Naturally, this endeavor spirals into a perpetual merry-go-round of dating and fleeting liaisons, draining everyone involved until, in the end, they settle with a partner almost by sheer contingency rather than any true resolution of their desire. This is also why very young women initially gravitate toward the “Chad”: they have not yet tasted the inevitable disappointment that would force them to recognize that no object can fully satisfy. Consequently, as their fantasies undergo a kind of refinement - or perversion, depending on how you frame it - they begin searching for qualities in men that stray from the simple conventional markers of desirability.

I’m not that desperate. Anyway, send me some pics - maybe I’ll come visit someday.

The notion of the Real emerges only after the fact - only when we first find ourselves lost in fantasy do we imagine something greater just beyond it. Yet the Real is always that elusive surplus within the very fantasies we inhabit. No matter how far you search or how carefully you clear the air, it keeps slipping away, remaining what it has always been: pure virtuality. You can circle the globe trying to grasp it, but like your shadow, it will always evade your reach. Even if you drift into deep space, where no light can cast a shadow, you still won’t catch the Real - because without light, there’s nothing to see. And should you dare fly into the sun, there would be no “you” left to experience the Real, as you’d burn away in the very furnace of its reflection. There is no escape - yet still you will restlessly search for one until your final breath. And how lacking in appreciation for the tragic must you be not to see that this very impossibility is the only reconciliation with the Real you will ever need?