Des

joined 5 years ago
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[–] Des@hexbear.net 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

watched the first couple eps with my partner after watching the Roman legion vs modern defensive position scene on youtube.

once we realized the whole show was just about a brutal power imbalance and the JSDF curb stomping fantasy Rome-China, we checked out. it's just a neo-con fantasy but instead of Iraq it's fantasy Rome-China and waifu liberation. yeah it's a slave society being liberated, that's cool, but the stakes just weren't there. can't have the military take a scratch like it was a recruiting commercial

better fix would be: gate opens, Rome-China kills civilians (canon), JSDF storms gate, sets up firebase (canon), crushes conventional scout army (canon), then Rome-China deploys sorcerers, dragons, monsters and modern humans have to think on their feet, find allies, and prevent a million-strong magic army from breaching the Gate and overrunning Earth (not-canon, but BETTER).

only cool thing was the show unabashedly showed the U.S. doing brutal imperialism openly, attacking allies (Japan) militarily, and being led by (not) Trump.

in my version, I could totally see the U.S. allying with Rome-China, trading tech for magic, and fight this awesome multi-dimensional techno-arcane world war

[–] Des@hexbear.net 1 points 18 hours ago

one thing that sets liberals apart from leftists is they just see revenge, leftists see opportunity. it's why liberalism is utterly stagnant

[–] Des@hexbear.net 2 points 19 hours ago

that's good at least but part of me thinks a cat god able to become incorporeal is still going to knock stuff around

[–] Des@hexbear.net 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

spoiler

it definitely gives you a way to just blow it off "ehh i'm just a male lesbian and like women's clothing". "i just like women so fucking much i want to be one." also the gender envy thing i thought that was the end all be all. "wanting something you can't have, wish fullfillment, thinking you would have an easier life as a woman". so many excuses in sequence, year after year. while i love my cis womens i really wish i hadn't kept getting in relationships with ones that were kinksters and turned on by it mostly because it just kept encapsulating my gender identity into "hornyness" which created a self-perpetuating cycle and stunting my partner and I's relationship by like a decade

apologies for info dump

[–] Des@hexbear.net 2 points 19 hours ago

spoiler

yeah. there is an ASMR transfemme youtuber i stumbled upon that was (and is) doing a whole "take it back for us" thing. she does purely affirmative and empowering feminization RPs, mostly SFW (her audio stuff might be less so) and her voice training is so on point too, she sounds so good but i just don't dig the lip smacky ASMR stuff she does. no real interest in it but i'm glad she's out there trying to find other lost eggs and help them through a different medium.


[–] Des@hexbear.net 6 points 19 hours ago

imagine traveling nuggie chefs, world renowned, entirely doing it for the craft, going from town to town, communal cafeteria after communal canteen.

both professional and hobby, each with a unique take. lab-grown or vegan, your choice, with some traditional communities still donating from their flock

post-capitalism, nuggies aren't made but also taught. quality over quantity baby, unlike anything you've ever tasted in the before times

flashbacks to the flickering flames of the last Tyson factory, a place of horror no use to the new society (fuck Tyson seriously)

[–] Des@hexbear.net 6 points 19 hours ago

don't worry they are really bad at it

[–] Des@hexbear.net 14 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

imagine how much that would burn

[–] Des@hexbear.net 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

is that that juche necromancy i keep hearing about

[–] Des@hexbear.net 19 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

lathe-of-heaven

israel will launch an air strike against the Hague, killing Khan and half the members of the ICC, along with 46 others. Europe will shrug it's shoulders after the U.S. invokes the Hague invasion act as a flimsy pretext, threatening any nation that tries to retaliate or even use air defenses. this will essentially legally solidify the Entity as part of the greater U.S., an "extra-jurisdictional sovereign U.S. territory".

a LLM written executive order makes it official. later the Surpeme court confirms it through divining a degraded legal scroll from 600 CE

then Trump will threaten a 10,000% tarriff against any resistance, as well as threaten to take away ukraine support. the last of European political dissent goes quiet, any protests by the masses are brutally put down

soon Europe will just have the endure the occasional air launched ballistic missile vaporizing someone that pisses off the Entity. there will be "collateral" damage, seen purely as tragic and unlucky, Europe must pay it's debt to the "only jewish state"

[–] Des@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

he'll never lose his true fanbase, the actual MAGA types, no. some might disengage and get lazy about electoralism. but yeah the Rogan libertarians will probably split: some will disengage, some go back to reason.com libertarianism to fret, and some remember their stint as Bernie bros but just like the Rogan sphere podcaster, see Mamdani as the new model of politically giving a shit.

i mean he's got fit, he's effortlessly masculine, has a classically beautiful wife, more radical then Bernie (for now..), and the State (and by extension, the Elites) are all united against him. dems hate him, which makes him anti-woke.

one thing I agree with Sam Seder on is that when these guys say "woke" they mean "weak".

it will be the subset that are the least racist, most amenable to pro-Palestine/anti-Zionism, and disillusioned with capitalism. it will be those mythical "white men" the dems want but they don't really want

[–] Des@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

a combo of horny stuff and dysphoria. let's call it hornphoria.


So I used to be into "forced feminization" as both a kink and erotica. It was basically all there was to find during the dark ages of extremely fragmented and almost non-existent online trans community. Most of it never sat right with me, because the stories tended to be about degradation and I wanted empowerment. So I wrote some of my own eventually. Since I have many, many kinks beside that I really feel it set back my own realization of being transfemme. Like, thought it was purely a kink (my gender identity) which was made worse by my gender dysphoria not hitting until puberty.

Now obviously it's diversified I suppose into spheres that include empowerment, or being helped by experienced transwomen (in a dommy way!), as well as the old school degradation type stuff. Not entirely sure, I only occasionally poke around. So I don't know whether that set me back like 10 years or was helpful, or it was purely a matter of being an elder millennial that missed the boat. Plenty of RL cis women partners that were into it, which at least gave me some validation but really twisted things up and left me unsure.

So yeah, still a kink, maybe it's because i'm a butch transfemme and like the idea of doing it to all genders, more of consensual "forced" make-over/dress-up or transform someone into an aesthetic that is alien to them. I think that's more what I'm into. Still hard to square this, maybe I should just consider it a learning experience and be grateful I was able to explore with partners even if it was a "set back".

I'm happy to hear anyone else's experience with this or if it was similar. Millennials and above or Z.

 

i know there's a vicky3 to hoi4 converter out there and I keep an eye on it's development, but it's not there yet.

All the HOI4 mods that try to cram in a century of historical events and alt-history into a few years do a heroic job but vicky 3 is so much better at setting up state of the world (social, economic, alliances, great powers, etc).

Full disclosure, I state this as someone that prefers the HOI4 build up phase over the warfare, but also think vicky 3 warfare is too simplistic and janky. So best keep vicky 3 focused purely on the set-up, the run up, the historical materialism and great social forces churning together in the shadow of industrialization.

Let HOI4 handle the big war and the frantic industrial conversion and tech rush. Why is that the "big war" vs a bunch of WW1 style great wars that broke out in vicky 3?

posadist-nuke Nukes. Fundamentally, that's what HOI4 is about. It's the last, conventional war possible before everyone can just start flinging nukes at each other. It's a ticking clock. The rush before the great equalizers that promise untold destruction to all sides. Whether you are leading a glorious global communist revolution or just rapping the knuckles of some unruly fascists (how dare you turn colonialism inward! uncouth!)

Obviously if you achieve global communism by 1936 there might not be a fun playthrough there. Maybe a reactionary/capitalist uprising to put down, or World War Leftist Infighting.

i've actually thought that if I finish a good run of Vicky 3 and like the result that I might just transfer what I can using the converter and try to make a bunch of focus trees based on my game's historical lead up. Using whatever tools I can find since my modding skills are limited to edits.

Anyone else thought of this as something that sounds really great together? your peanut butter + chocolate?

small addition: this is about converting Vic3 playthrough to HOI4 and playing it as a "long HOI4", not actually combining the games into one system.

 

basically treated like that by everyone from TNG on.

and everyone still created and appreciated art. shows how this shit could be integrated into FALGSC

 

you know haha funny 5 person book club, selling papers, marxists.org

but if we are in the "dark age" of leftism currently are they the equivalent of Irish monks copying ancient Marxist texts for safekeeping?

maybe those 5 person book clubs are monastic circles with complex scholarly initiation rites

those papers, well somebody has got to retain the skills to publish physical media

and marxists.org is basically the marxism library of alexandria

 

(boy's love writers) admit i didn't read the whole article because it seems ridiculous and western reporting on China is like 90% fabrications. someone educate me on whatever this is. is it conservative local governments doing local government shit?

my partner loves this shit especially from China and i don't want to inform her about some made up BS designed to radicalize the slash and yaoi community against the CPC

 

(boy's love writers, so i guess more yaoi then slash) admit i didn't read the whole article because it seems ridiculous and western reporting on China is like 90% fabrications. someone educate me on whatever this is. is it conservative local governments doing local government shit?

my partner loves this shit especially from China and i don't want to inform her about some made up BS designed to radicalize the slash and yaoi community against the CPC

 

While working on what is basically just glorified fan fiction I thought about how true space exploration/colonization will likely not be possible without world socialism.

A Hypothetical Future, likely hundreds of years from now

Social Background

This is following collapse of the U.S., a large regional war, the rise of China as industrial and research superpower, various climate wars, mass migrations, and expansion of a new international socialism that will be unlike anything we could predict today (and might even upset some, it could borrow from a variety of normally oppositional sects). Whatever it is, the material conditions of that moment, as well as historical forces, will give birth to it. Likely a number of currents, some Marxist, some ad-hoc, will form a mutual project and later a Federation. A glorious tapestry of local flavors of worker dominated governments, from libertarian socialist/anarchist collectives to Marxist-Leninist state powerhouses, all united under a world forum government against the bourgeois and exploitation of old.

A short history over a century or so

As capitalist nation after nation falls to rule by the working class, more frantic efforts will be made by the bourgeois to both make Hail Mary colonies (planetary or orbital), set up basic industry to sustain them, and otherwise bootstrap. They will flee from one nation-state to the next, trying to outrun the inevitable and strip their new "homes" for resources for this endevour. Con-men and grifters, they will bring wealth to poor nations and whisper promises, but really they are just there to build a few more rockets and leave wreckage in their wake. Eventually they will start to run out of places to loot, and some of these nations might even force ably exile these former rulers to space (basically a "you ruined the planet, you like space so much, why don't you go there and never come back").

As the world socialist project works on a massive climate change mitigation project, this nascent space society of capitalists, libertarians, reactionaries, and their lackeys is allowed to do whatever it wants outside of Earth's orbit. Eventually the last of the supply launches cease, and it's do or die. Using their stolen wealth, they manage to just barely establish a stable space economy that goes from Earth's Lagrange points, to Mars, and even the asteroids. It relies primary on large orbital stations, spun up to 1G, that receive unlimited energy from the sun and materials and volatiles from asteroids and intercepted comets.

There is an implicit threat here at all times: Leave us alone and we won't direct an asteroid at Earth. Vulnerable and recovering, the socialist nations of Earth make no moves against these "Spacers" as long as they stay out of low Earth orbit. Secretly, China and Russia (or their successor states) place weapons platforms in orbit. A promise of mutually assured destruction. Nobody can hide in space.

Over time (let's say it's around 2200ish), the world socialist project becomes a truly unified Earth government, living conditions are massively improved, and the Earth has a global baby boom as people again have something to live for and a world to bring up a family in. Tentative diplomatic agreements are made with the Spacers to be granted sovereignty where they are established and even trade (such as Earth produced materials/supplies in exchange for zero gravity manufactured stuff). Capitalism after all can hyper accelerate development, and even in space it has done so. They are always kept on a leash by Earth, but there is a sort of arms race cold war that develops.

As the terrestrial work week shortens to 30, then 20, and even 15 hours (meanwhile Spacer workers work 60-70 hrs/week in appalling conditions), most of humanity takes time to build a vibrant cultural scene and large swaths of the population, with universal access to education, start forming research cadres and Earth's technological progress supercharges. Post-scarcity on Earth is a realistic horizon now, with both fusion and solar power becoming mature and widespread. Life extension using regenerative biomedical science means a healthy quality of life until 100 or more. Sexuality and families become flexible and post-capitalist outside of some local respected cultural and religious norms. Gender becomes post-gender, and some experimentation with further biological modification becomes common.

While most cultures maintain their integrity, there is a new "Terran" culture that begins to form that unites humankind as comrades and children of Earth. True AI is developed and put in service of humanity as a whole, allowing central planning and automation in service to the People and further accelerating cultural and scientific development.

The Industrial Fabricator, a fully automated factory capable of micron scale precision, combines with highly distributed networks of local fabs, artisans, and craftspeople to produce a new economy of true abundance (lol fuck off ezra).

All of this possible because the worst of the worst bled the planet dry, and were forced off while the bulk of humanity spent generations planting trees, pushing back deserts, evacuating and housing the vulnerable, and rebuilding the husks the capitalists left behind. Often they did not even see significant results in their lifetimes, but did this knowing it would help their children and their comrade's children.

Earth, united and healed, returns to the Heavens

Soon the Earth government starts sending significant state assets into space. Research cadres, now with the state capacity of 21st century major nations, begin a flury of space exploration. Imperatives to secure the "wild west" of the last capitalists begins to drive manned expeditions and outposts. A research cadre maybe builds a Skyhook, space elevator, or magnetic accelerator to basically help assert it's authority over the Spacers and sovereignty over the Earth-Luna system. After all, the counter-revolutionaries (if there are any among them) cannot be allowed the high ground and dominance of the Solar System.

Meanwhile, the Spacers (divided into state-like oligarchic Corporate Blocs) entice bored young people of the large baby boom generation to offworld "adventure". Even in a developed socialist society, there will always be some enamored with being competitive and a promise of becoming a "king or queen", as well as reactionaries looking to escape or cultural/religious supremacists that see building an Orbital colony a way to escape the "godless commies". Counter-revolutionaries fail again and again, offering nothing to a content and purposeful global population, but mercifully are often simply exiled to Spacer colonies instead of being executed or imprisoned.

"Keep your capitalism and feudalism off our planet, you can go join your fellows up there. We'll even give you a free ride."

So basically the world socialist state slowly exerts it's influence against increasingly technologically backward Spacers, pushing them further into the frontier of the Solar system. A worker's revolt (supported by Earth) on the Mars colony establishes the Earth-Mars Collective. And the Spacers are pushed into the Outer System.

Advanced propulsion and power technologies are stolen by spies and Spacer AI systems, allowing them to scrape by. They remain backwards compared to Earth-Mars, but occasionally make their own breakthroughs often by just developing a novel but dangerous new method of using Earth tech. And of course, the elite of the Spacers live like kings of old, in orbital palaces. The vast majority are indentured servants, permanently indebted and highly policed and surveilled. Many of the wayward youth, betrayed, start seeds for militant unions and worker revolts. After all, they are typically educated and have connections back home.

And the Spacers need them. They always need fresh meat for the grinder.

So yeah this is just some basic background. Originally this was a project to fill my own timeline for Warhammer 40k's Age of Terra and Age of Technology and it can still be used by I might split it off into my own Kim Stanley Robinsonish semi-hard sci fi space opera. Like Expanse but more communist. With capitalism still there to add a dynamic setting and conflict (it's just too damn peaceful on Earth! everyone just hangs out at the theater and parks and wants for nothing!)

 

goddess i just want to be able to tag people to help my ADHD brain

 

top-use-words do it

i have like 5 cans of chickpeas i got for a discount and want to use them.

especially if you have one that uses cumin

 

World communism achieve tomarrow. You need to use all the combined state capacity of the world to deal with climate change and doing socialism. Is this capacity distributed in a useful way? Is there a time limit before it decreases below useful levels?

basically how much time do we have?

 

this is a chance for the Soviet Union to do one last really cool thing inshallah

better article here

 

not sure if legit. Evans did a short ep on his shitty podcast about it and has this article.

 

I was almost burned out on this game because it kind of stresses me out with all the game of thrones shit. Been really struggling to just get an ahistorical set up to transfer to EU4 and maybe Victoria later.

Stumbled upon "Crusader Wars" and already had Attila from forever ago. Sure it's got plenty of jank from that era of Total War but wow it's fun to actually fight the battle yourself and have every soldier from your army in the battle, accurately simulated as appropriate units, and transfer every casualty back to Ck3. If the battles get too large, like they do late game, just change the transfer ratios in the options.

Your martial skill converts to highly quality units overall, prowess beefs up your commander units, and knights adds special units of knights based on your culture. Commander deaths or injuries carry back to Ck3.

You can still fight battles normally in game if and save this for very important ones. Options for only your main character, or your Marshall as well, or every allied/friendly army.

Expect to wait a few minutes depending on your system to hop between the games when you fight a battle.

Seriously been thinking about how something like this could be used for other Paradox games to spice things up. The future of modding will just be chaining half a dozen seperate games together, each good at their narrow playstyle or something.

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