Johann Lau
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johannlau.bsky.social
Johann Lau
@johannlau.bsky.social
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johannlau.bsky.social
basically
December 18, 2025 at 2:09 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
Now this is letter writing. A lot of women going "woo yeah, men suck!" never stop to realize just how infantile they are next to the thinking women that paved the way for their slop, or ask themselves when they last wrote or managed to read a letter. Some never have, and never will. But hey, vagina.
May 7, 1776, Abigail Adams to John Adams: “I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the ladies; for, whilst you are proclaiming peace and goodwill to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken; and, notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims, we have it in our power, not only to free ourselves, but to subdue our masters, and without violence, throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet.”
December 18, 2025 at 1:04 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
> Wenn die Propaganda der Wahrheit ihrer Ungeheuerlichkeit wegen den noch normalen Spießbürger nicht überzeugt, so hat sie eine desto gefährlichere Wirkung auf diejenigen, welche aus ihren eigenen Phantasiemöglichkeiten wissen, daß sie so etwas tun könnten, und aus diesem Grunde nur zu froh sind, an die Realität des Gezeigten zu glauben. Urplötzlich stellt sich heraus, daß, was die menschliche Phantasie seit Jahrtausenden in ein Reich jenseits menschlicher Kompetenz verbannt hat hatte, tatsächlich herstellbar ist. Hölle und Fegefeuer und selbst ein Abglanz ihrer ewigen Dauer können errichtet werden, indem man Menschen mit den modernsten Mitteln der Destruktion und der Heilkunst unendlich lange sterben läßt. Was diesen Typen, von denen es in jeder Großstadt sehr viel mehr gibt, als wir gerne wahrhaben möchten, beim Anblick dieser Filme oder beim Lesen jener Reportagen aufgeht, ist, daß die Macht des Menschen größer ist, als sie sich einzugestehen wagten, und daß man höllische Phantasien realisieren kann, ohne daß der Himmel einstürzt und die Erde sich auftut. -- Hannah Arendt, "Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft",
December 16, 2025 at 2:26 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
December 16, 2025 at 4:00 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
Ghouls vs. the person they stand on so they might seem a little taller.

And I say this as someone who didn't give the time of day to all that "outrage over mean jokes" stuff... just because I am a callous asshole, why would I assume Reiner to be, too?
December 16, 2025 at 3:57 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
classic
December 15, 2025 at 10:44 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
Here's Chomsky saying the same thing essentially.

Remember when the Democrats forced Sanders to stand down to Hillary? When Biden promised only 4 years, then suddenly that changed, then everybody claimed he wasn't senile, then Harris was switched in the last moment, offering NOTHING?
December 15, 2025 at 1:24 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
"to save them from having to grow"

pfff wtf did I just read

try something serious on for size
December 15, 2025 at 1:08 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
last, but never least
Ich habe aber erfahren, dass ein harter Geist ohne ein weiches Herz ebenso unfruchtbar sein muss wie ein weiches Herz ohne einen harten Geist. Ich glaube, der Satz stammt von Maritain: Il faut avoir l’esprit dur et le coeur tendre. Ein Wort, das von der Seele nicht erlebt wird, ist ein totes Wort, und ein Gefühl, das nicht der Schoß eines Gedankens ist, ist vergeblich. -- Sophie Scholl, Januar 1942
December 12, 2025 at 12:44 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
My charitable reading is those who can't stand the backwardness and regression wander off -- and I hope that is is the case, and not "it's fine for us to look for work in Germany, but not for other people to work here", because I would feel A CERTAIN TYPE OF WAY about the latter.
Next year the problem of labour shortages will be far greater, since Stellantis plans to produce in Kragujevac, in addition to some 150,000 Pandi, a further 40,000 Citroëns. Foreign workers will continue to arrive, as there are ever fewer local ones – or none at all. And there are none also because, in the region of Šumadija and Western Serbia, according to official data, from the beginning of the year to the end of October there were around 9,600 fewer inhabitants than in the same period last year, solely due to natural population decline. How many left in that period in search of a livelihood in Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland and elsewhere is unknown, but it is assumed to be no fewer than 10,000 people. These two regions have lost about 230,000 inhabitants since 2011 due to negative natural growth. It is likely that a similar number, mostly young people, have left the country altogether.
December 12, 2025 at 12:04 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
Was ist das für eine debile Logik, das eine gegen das andere auszuspielen?

Es ist scheißegal, WER es WEM tut, es geht um das WAS -- und wen das nur interessiert, solange er oder sie selber Opfer ist, interessiert mich wiederum nicht.
I remember once asking my mother, ‘How did you do in your studies?’ She replied, ‘What are you talking about? How could you study under those conditions?’. When she saw the segregation of African-Americans, whether at a lunch counter or in the school system, that was, for her, like the prologue to the Nazi holocaust. Whereas many Jews now say, Never compare (Elie Wiesel’s refrain, ‘It’s bad, but it’s not The Holocaust’), my mother’s credo was, Always compare. She gladly and generously made the imaginative leap to those who were suffering, wrapping and shielding them in the embrace of her own suffering. For my mother, the Nazi holocaust was a chapter in the long history of the horror of war. It was not itself a war – she was emphatic that it was an extermination, not a war – but it was a unique chapter within the war. So for her, war was the ultimate horror. When she saw Vietnamese being bombed during the Vietnam War, it was the Nazi holocaust. It was the bombing, the death, the horror, the terror, that she herself had passed through. When she saw the distended bellies of starving children in Biafra, it was also the Nazi holocaust, because she remembered her own pangs of hunger in the Warsaw Ghetto. --- Norman Finkelstein
December 12, 2025 at 11:45 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
und dieses "Datenbanken"...
December 10, 2025 at 12:53 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
From the perspective of those who dream themselves to somehow still hold the reigns, have control of "the" buttons and those who have clearance to press them, the answer to all of these (and much, much darker ones) might be "YES, AND YESTERDAY PLEASE!"

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4620...
Suppose an AI can produce like a human. Are you ok with merging that code without human review? Are you ok with having a codebase that is effectively a black box? Are you ok with no human being responsible for how the codebase works, or able to take the reins if something changes? Are you ok with being dependent on the company providing this code generation? Are we collectively ok with the eventual loss of human skills, as our talents rust and the new generation doesn’t learn them? Will we be ok if the well of public technical discussion LLMs are feeding from dries up?
December 9, 2025 at 11:33 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4620...
I may have developed some kind of paranoia reading HN recently, but the AI atmosphere is absolutely nuts to me. Have you ever thought that you would see a chart showing how population of horses was decimated by the mass introduction of efficient engines accompanied by an implication that there is a parallel to human population? And the article is not written in any kind of cautionary humanitarian approach, but rather from perspective of some kind of economic determinism? Have you ever thought that you would be compared to a gasoline engine and everyone would discuss this juxtaposition from purely economic perspective? And barely anyone shares a thought like "technology should be warranted by the populace, not the other way around?". And the guy writing this works at Anthropic? The very guy who makes this thing happen, but is only able to conclude this with "I very much hope we'll get the two decades that horses did". What the hell.
December 9, 2025 at 11:27 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
"Stripe" Koinange (Malachi Kirby) and "Hunter" Raiman (Madeline Brewer) are squadmates in a military that hunts roaches—pale, snarling, humanoid monsters with sharp teeth. Each soldier has a neural implant called MASS that provides data via augmented reality. Stripe and Hunter's squad searches a farmhouse while squad leader Medina (Sarah Snook) interrogates the owner, a devout Christian (Francis Magee). Stripe discovers a nest of roaches, one of whom points an LED device at Stripe; unfazed, he shoots one roach dead and stabs another to death. Medina arrests the owner and the squad burns down the farmhouse. [..] They reach a cave in the woods where the woman, named Catarina, explains that the MASS implant alters soldiers' senses to show people of her ethnic group as inhuman "roaches". They are victims of a genocide justified by the military as genetic cleansing. While laypeople see the group as they are, they treat them as inferior due to propaganda. Hunter arrives and kills Catarina and her son Alec, then knocks Stripe unconscious. Stripe awakens in a cell, where Arquette apologizes for his MASS glitch, which was caused by the LED device. Arquette reveals that MASS alters soldiers' senses, enabling them to kill without hesitation or remorse, and that Stripe consented to this when he enlisted before having his memory wiped. Stripe faces the choice of allowing his MASS and memory to be reset or opting for imprisonment. Arquette compels Stripe to rewatch the sensory feed of his farmhouse raid, where he now sees himself gruesomely killing people.
December 9, 2025 at 11:07 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
from "The Last Vampire on Earth"
Chloe Parish: Stop or I'll shoot. This is a good man and if you took the time to get to know him you would find that out. He doesn't want to hurt us. He doesn't feed off of humans. He wants to help us. He wants to help find cures for diseases. He wants to help find cures for diseases like AIDS. Maybe that doesn't mean much to you but it means a lot to people like me who have it. That's right I have AIDS and it's advancing very quickly. I don't have that much longer to live and I will not hesitate to shoot someone for trying to kill Aurelius. I'm not afraid of punishment, death, or things I do not understand. All of you are afraid of him not because you truly think he is evil but because you don't understand what he is. What kind of Christian spirit is this? Would you do this to someone who has cancer? No! You would help them because they have a horrible disease. What makes him so different? Do you think he revels in what he's become? [shoots man] Chloe Parish: I'm not playing around!
December 8, 2025 at 9:02 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
perfection
December 7, 2025 at 6:39 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
I was just going to say...
December 7, 2025 at 3:16 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
O_O
> The Sateré-Mawé people of Brazil use intentional bullet ant stings as part of their initiation rites to become warriors or leaders. The ants are first rendered unconscious by submersion in a natural sedative, and then 80 of them are woven into gloves (which resemble large oven mitts) made of vines or leaves, stingers facing inward. When the ants regain consciousness, an initiator repeatedly blows smoke at the ants, with the objective of making them agitated and aggressive. Once this is done, the initiate has the gloves put on his hands and keeps them on for 5 to 10 minutes or longer. Afterward, the boy's hand and part of his arm are temporarily paralyzed because of the ant venom, and he may shake uncontrollably for days. The only "protection" provided is a coating of charcoal on the hands, supposedly to confuse the ants and inhibit their stinging. To fully complete the initiation, a boy or man must go through the ordeal 20 times over the course of several months or even years. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraponera_clavata
December 7, 2025 at 1:51 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
Puny people and their fear of death.

Empty hands, clawing at the void.
> what is “power”? It is rather ironical that this word denotes two contradictory concepts: power of = capacity and power over = domination. This contradiction, however, is of a particular kind. Power = domination results from the paralysis of power = capacity. “Power over” is the perversion of “power to.” The ability of man to make productive use of his powers is his potency; the inability is his impotence. With his power of reason he can penetrate the surface of phenomena and understand their essence. With his power of love he can break through the wall which separates one person from another. With his power of imagination he can visualize things not yet existing; he can plan and thus begin to create. Where potency is lacking, man’s relatedness to the world is perverted into a desire to dominate, to exert power over others as though they were things. Domination is coupled with death, potency with life. Domination springs from impotence and in turn reinforces it, for if an individual can force somebody else to serve him, his own need to be productive is increasingly paralyzed. ― Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics
December 7, 2025 at 12:46 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
December 7, 2025 at 12:27 PM
johannlau.bsky.social
I was on stage and I looked out, and I knew they weren't ready. We were doing 'Piece of My Heart.' You know you can do a lot of different things: you know sometimes they get up spontaneously. Out in the Midwest they don't. They aren't supposed to stand up and they know it. It's hard to get 'em up. But I remember I was singing 'Piece of My Heart,' you know that 'Come on, well, come on' line -- well, you know the guitar solo that leads into that part? I came in early, and I walked all the way to the front of the stage and shouted [in a hoarse whisper], 'Come on, come on!' and just fucking stamping my foot, and saying, 'I'm not going to sing anymore unless you do something,' you know, and they're going, 'Whoo-ooo-ooo, yes ma'am! Yes ma'am, yes ma'am!' A riot. Groovy. All they want is a little kick in the ass. You know, sometimes I jump off the stage and grab somebody and say, 'Let's dance.' When they reach a certain level, you know, they want to be lifted, but they're scared. Then all you gotta do is give the old kick in the ass, a big fucking kick in the ass, man. Then the promoters get goony, turn the lights on, pull the power, but by then it's all over [crackles]. I dig it! I dig it so much, man! -- Janis Joplin
December 5, 2025 at 11:18 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
for the slow ones in the back:

"dedicated, in principle, to destroying the only means we have to defend ourselves from destruction"

Und wie die Weiße Rose schrieb: "Verbergt nicht eure Feigheit unter dem ­Mantel der Klugheit!"

"Gelassenheit" vis a vis der Tatsachen ist doch nur Versteinerung.
The neoliberal era of the last generation is dedicated, in principle, to destroying the only means we have to defend ourselves from destruction. It's not called that, what it's called is shifting decision-making from public institutions, which at least in principle are under public influence, to private institutions which are immune from public control, in principle. That's called "shifting to the market", it's under the rhetoric of freedom, but it just means servitude. It means servitude to unaccountable private institutions. -- Noam Chomsky
December 5, 2025 at 10:07 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
ja, wo anfangen, und wie aufhören ^^

z.B. Oxfam-Reporte, oder das, was hiervon einer Prüfung standhält (ist jedenfalls genug, um so ein bräsiges "alles gut" monströs zu machen) -> wtfhappenedin1971.com

Und es geht ja auch nicht nur um "Wirtschaft" oder Trinkwasser aus dem Klo, wtf.
Don't be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there's no poverty to be seen because the poverty's been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don't be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces. -- Jean-Paul Marat Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it. That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible. -- George Orwell, letter to Noel Willmett (1944) From a philosophical viewpoint, the danger inherent in the new reality of mankind seems to be that this unity, based on the technical means of communication and violence, destroys all national traditions and buries the authentic origins of all human existence. This destructive process can even be considered a necessary prerequisite for ultimate understanding between men of all cultures, civilizations, races, and nations. Its result would be a shallowness that would transform man, as we have known him in five thousand years of recorded history, beyond recognition. It would be more than mere superficiality; it would be as though the whole dimension of depth, without which human thought, even on the mere level of technical invention, could not exist, would simply disappear. This leveling down would be much more radical than the leveling to the lowest common denominator; it would ultimately arrive at a denominator of which we have hardly any notion today. As long as one conceives of truth as separate and distinct from its expression, as something which by itself is uncommunicative and neither communicates itself to reason nor appeals to "existential" experience, it is almost impossible not to believe that this destructive process will inevitably be triggered off by the sheer automatism of technology which made the world one and, in a sense, united mankind. It looks as though the historical pasts of the-nations, in their utter diversity and disparity, in their confusing variety and bewildering strangeness for each other, are nothing but obstacles on the road to a horridly shallow unity. This, of course, is a delusion; if the dimension of depth out of which modern science and technology have developed ever were destroyed, the probability is that the new unity of mankind could not even technically survive. -- Hannah Arendt, "Men in Dark Times"
December 5, 2025 at 10:07 AM
johannlau.bsky.social
so ask subrey blocked me after getting a like for telling off this sexist piece of shit? Bottom feeding hypocrite moron hah
no justice, no alt text :P
December 4, 2025 at 6:52 PM