#so-it-is-not-a-solitary-experience
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lawgeek.bsky.social
Weekend reading! I'll finish Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands tonight & then it's on to Maisy Magill finally. Unlikely I'll get to Wherever the Stars Call by S Jean because of the knitting frenzy but you never know - it looks great! #BookSky #amreading
Synopsis to Must Love Moss and Moonshine by Maisy Magill: Desperate to quit the vagabond life, traveling enchanted jewelry artisan Tansy Foxglove is determined to get to the autumn market in the village of Moonshine Hollow. Nothing will stand in her way… except an ancient forest that has its own plans. When Tansy sets off for the village, she definitely doesn’t mean to get lost in an enchanted wood. She certainly does not intend to lose her memory. And she wasn’t planning to be irresistibly drawn to the ancient glade’s dryad caretaker. Kellen’s life is one of solitude. He has no interest in interacting with the outside world. He’s perfectly happy with his solitary life. Right? When a beautiful Sylvan elf who has lost her memory appears in his forest, he has no choice but to take care of her. But when taking care turns to simmering attraction, will this loner change his ways? What happens when her memories return? Will their magical connection survive? Synopsis to Wherever the Stars Call by S Jean: Living within the Galactic Federation of the Solar System isn't all it's cracked up to be. Laurel got sold into strict federation schooling where if she doesn't shape up, they'll scramble her mind until she's no longer herself and build the perfect citizen out of her. Juniper got fitted with invasive cybernetics to augment the human experience at the tender age of eight and if they act up, the feds can turn them off--effectively killing them. So, the two of them decide to run away together. All they need is to get past Jupiter where the fed's hold isn't as tight. There, Laurel can figure out what she wants in life free from fed control and Juniper can figure out how to stop their cybernetics from ruining their life. Easy, right? Not when they find a busted federation ship on the way with a vampire on board who might need their help with a severed head the federation is after, or perhaps, he just wants their blood. One of the two.
January 23, 2026 at 6:22 PM
moonwatcher99.bsky.social
I swear by it…Viktor trembled, forehead pressed gently against his partner's. Jayce's words echoed in his ears, slowly warping as his mind replayed the experience of the Arcane unfurling around him, the imprint of uncounted other Victors contained within.…swear by it……swear it……I swear it…It was overwhelming, the absolute conviction that Jayce offered him. Devotion so total that it transcended the timelines, offered to Viktor countless times over. "Always… how can you always..?" Concerned, Jayce reached up to cup Viktor's face in his hands, trying to draw Viktor back to himself. "Vik? What is it?"Viktor struggled to find his voice, to find words to explain the sheer enormity of what was unfolding in his mind. "Jayce… you were almost taken. The Arcane did not merely pull — it ripped, it tore at you." In his mind he could still see it: Jayce, lying curled on the ground while the Arcane flares around him. The sound of his agony as he fought to hold himself intact. "I feared… I feared that you would be lost. That this would be the anomaly that pulled you from me. There was nothing I could do, except wait… wait and have faith that you would be strong enough." Not for a second had Viktor even considered letting go. After so many weeks and months of having his partner back, the very idea was unthinkable. He had been determined to remain with Jayce until the end, however that end came to be."In that moment I saw it. I saw the endless realities. I saw you. And myself."Two figures kneel in the snow, surrounded by stones that carry an echo of the Arcane.'Will you love me then?''I wouldn't know how to stop.'They meet in a kiss, in several kisses, before turning to walk back to their dwelling in silence.A single tear makes its way down Viktor's cheek. "It was overwhelming, Jayce. To feel so intensely these emotions, over and over."Two heads rest together in perfect trust. From their cupped hands spills a blaze of light, a single rune held between them. Around them the Arcane dances and twists, fighting to pull them apart. 'We finish this together…'"And in every timeline, I felt myself wanting you. Whether you were alive or not." A solitary figure reclines on a couch, goggles pushed up to rest on his head, wrapped in bandages from his latest surgery. In his hands he cradles a book, pages worn with time and use, and spilling over with notes. He speaks aloud as though conversing with another, discussing research and comparing findings. For a moment he runs his hands gently across the cover, almost a caress. His fingers rest gently against the large T embossed upon the cover.Desperately Viktor pressed closer to Jayce, as if struggling to ground himself with touch. To remind himself that he was real, that they were real. "I don't know what to do with this information. With the feelings. It makes me feel reckless." He drew in a shuddering breath, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Like I want to believe you will stay."Tenderly Jayce wrapped his arms around Viktor, trying to impart as much warmth and reassurance as he possibly could. "I want to stay, V. You don't have to believe it right now. But I hope someday you will. Because I want you, too." Pulling back, he met Viktor's gaze directly. In his eyes, Viktor could dimly see the reflection of all the Jayces whose presence had surged through each time the Arcane has splintered reality around him. "All timelines… all possibilities…" Carefully he pressed a soft kiss to Viktor's forehead."It's only you… always you."
January 18, 2026 at 8:23 PM
fantasmavie.bsky.social
Incredibile, donna di destra 🇬🇧 su GB News (giornale molto di destra inglese) reagisce ai Tories (e Labour) che vorrebbero mettere le donne trans nelle prigioni maschili. Chi vuole farlo è una persona orribile che vuole donne trans stuprate migliaia di volte e ammazzate da detenuti affamati di sesso.
By Ann WiddecombePublished: 06/08/2025 - 10:14 | Updated: 06/08/2025 - 11:30Share Like 23 CommentsKEMI BADENOCH NEEDS TO GROW UP AND TELL US THEN IF IT IS CONSERVATIVE POLICY TO PUT TRANS PRISONERS IN DANGERSIGN UP FOR OPINION NEWSLETTERSENTER YOUR EMAIL SIGN UPBy signing up you agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Community Rules.There seems to have arisen some confusion about Reform’s policy in the case of trans prisoners, following the recent press conference in which Vanessa Frake, an ex-governor, said she thought such issues should be dealt with on a “case-by-case” basis.Immediately, it was claimed that this was not in line with stated Reform policy, which is that trans women should serve their sentences in male prisons. Let me attempt some clarification.IT IS INDEED Reform policy that, in order to protect women from assault, the norm should be that a prisoner should serve the sentence imposed in a prison of the sex that he was born in. However, there is a very small number of trans people who have gone the whole hog. They have undergone extensive surgery to remove their male genitalia and to create a seemingly female body. They have developed breasts and have taken drugs to suppress male hormones and promote female ones. They look and sound exactly like the women they believe they have become, and they may have lived that way for years. We have a duty to ensure their safety too, and beyond all peradventure, they would not be safe in a male prison but liable to serious sexual assault, including rape. They would not however pose any threat to women and it is unlikely that women would in turn feel threatened. This is not a man in a dress: it is somebody whose body itself has been extensively altered. There are not enough of such prisoners to justify a special unit and so the choice is between housing such a person in a male prison in solitary confinement for that person’s own protection, which is clearly unacceptable for any length of time, or housing her in a prison where she will look and feel like the other inmates. A transgender woman was 'raped 2,000 times' in all-male prison Transgender woman 'raped 2,000 times' in all-male prison 'It was hell on earth, it was as if I died and this was my punishment' Will Worley A transgender woman has spoken of the "hell on earth" she suffered after being raped and abused more than 2,000 times in an all-male prison. The woman, known only by her pseudonym, Mary, was imprisoned for four years after stealing a car. She said the abuse began as soon as she entered Brisbane's notorious Boggo Road Gaol and that her experience was so horrific that she would "rather die than go to prison ever again". "You are basically set upon with conversations about being protected in return for sex," Mary told news.com.au. "They are either trying to manipulate you or threaten you into some sort of sexual contact and then, once you perform the requested threat of sex, you are then an easy target as others want their share of sex with you, which is more like rape than consensual sex. "It makes you feel sick but you have no way of defending yourself." Mary was transferred a number of times, but said Boggo Road was the most violent - and where she suffered the most abuse.
August 6, 2025 at 7:26 PM
basicchunnel.bsky.social
Rob Horning is absurdly on-point, as usual. He really helps to clarify the stark qualitative difference bw chatting thru text and meeting someone irl: One is a kind of content and the other is a memorable sensory experience
Many commentators have pointed out that Zuckerberg's statement sounds like something that someone who has no friends and who is perpetually surrounded by toadies and opportunists would say. It betrays a blinkered understanding of friendship (or "connection," to use the network-derived term Zuckerberg prefers) as being like a consumer good, something one has a quasi-economic "demand" for in the midst of an uncertain supply, something you should stock your pantry with, something that has an optimal consumption dosage. It seems to posit that having friends ("connections") is something solitary individuals can elected to choose; they are free presumably to decide how much time and money they should allot to friend acquisition, which is all that limits their total. Likewise, friendship is regarded as something from which satisfaction is extracted on an individual and unilateral basis - you take pleasure in friendship, whether or not it is given. The idea that reciprocity, responsibility, and care are aspects of friendship is alien to Zuckerberg's apparent vision of the world, as the trajectory of Facebook as a company has long made plain. His platform has always encouraged users to view friends as resources and as content. Built into the mission of "connecting the world" is a view of people as nodes or sockets into which wires can be plugged or unplugged at the network scientists' whims, and a view of "connection" as a matter of signal efficiency rather than meaningful exchange. So naturally he would see no concerns in replacing human contact with LLM-generated content-connection is connection, and doesn't imply the mutual interpenetration of consciousnesses. You can connect with a person, or a joystick, or a spreadsheet, or an algorithm, and it all counts the same. So it's no surprise that, as John Herrman explains, "Zuckerberg imagines media platforms in which other people are augmented or replaced by chatbots trained on their collective data, with all parties involved coming together to engage with content produced by Al tools trained on 'cultural phenomena' in a space arranged according to opaque and automatic logics." Herrman points out that this merely extends the premise that one now uses Meta platforms not to engage in friendship but to communicate with algorithmic systems to guide them in the kinds of entertainment content they supply. Talking to a bot is just a new Ul for the long-established slop machine. So why does Zuckerberg talk about "friends" at all? Is there some dim awareness that people don't want too clear of a look in the mirror Meta supposedly holds up to them, and that they still need to be coddled with promises of camaraderie, to distract them from the slurry they are killing time with? Is the idea that if you call TV shows something like Friends, the viewers feel less guilty and less stunted when consuming them? I argued before that "social media" was an alibi for injecting more TV into people's lives to take advantage of increased network connectivity — that we had to be persuaded that it was a pro-social thing to do to carry little TVs around and watch them at every possible moment. Conflating friendship and entertainment was part of that campaign. Now chatbots are being put to work on the same ideological project: Here are entertainment products that you can treat as friends, just as you have become accustomed to regarding your friends as entertainment products. But that Zuckerberg and other tech moguls have to go on podcasts and make idiotic pronouncements suggests that entertainment and friendship are not so easily conflated, and that inculcating that notion requires constant hammering, constant bolstering not only through apps and interfaces but from media coverage that is meant to normalize what we all tend to resist, the idea that we should use other people for our amusement and nothing more.
May 3, 2025 at 5:26 PM
lovelaced.bsky.social
i would definitely not have this weird love for this movie if it were ANYONE else than will, so that's hypocritical of me. i just love the "pride comes before fall" plot and will as rich bully who gets his comeuppance is just ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥
Screenshot of Rotten Tomatoes Score of "Let's Go to Prison", released Nov. 17 2006 1h 29m Comedy Tomatometer: 13% Popcornmeter: 48% Career criminal John Lyshitski (D*x Shepard) wants revenge on the now-dead judge who put him away. He gets a prime opportunity when the judge's son (Will Arn*tt), though innocent of a crime, is convicted and sent to jail. John immediately has himself thrown back in the clink to become Nelson's cellmate and make sure he gets the full prison experience. Larry Ratliff San Antonio Express-News Rotten Score If movies could be punished, Let's Go to Prison would be sent to solitary confinement for impersonating a prison comedy. Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 20, 2006 Mark Pfeiffer Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema Rotten score. As crazy and subversive as Let's Go to Prison's makers might believe it to be, it's too undisciplined and predictable to amount to anything Full Review | Original Score: D | Nov 20, 2006 Frank Scheck The Hollywood Reporter TOP CRITIC Rotten score. Arn*tt underplays to the point where he seems as shellshocked as his character, while Shepard seems to have forgotten that the film is supposed to be a comedy
September 17, 2025 at 4:23 PM
joffeorama.bsky.social
I have not played HZD so I can't comment on it specifically, but I do not think friends are required for a game to be a road trip. while the "friends road trip" is often the quintessential classic rpg experience, the classic shmup is usually a solitary affair, yet both are undeniably road trip games
November 23, 2025 at 2:14 AM
roseb809.bsky.social
There’s so much energy in today. Obviously. I am trying to find ways to put it to good use, but there is only so much I can do from my house in Pennsylvania with this type of whatever. (good words) (not repetitive at all) (SO MUCH). I’m about the reference A Field Guide to Getting Lost again because it’s fucking good and relevant and timely (as is often the way in my life). In it Solint says: “Writing is the most disembodied art, and reading and writing are largely private and solitary experiences, so music and dance have always enchanted me as arts in which the body of the performer communicates directly to the audience, welding a kind of communion writers rarely experience.” This is the frustration. The energy of the day screams for deep communion and embodiment, yet it feels slightly out of reach still. Then again, the best magic is always made through tension. Holding it, shaping it, surrendering to it. Desire exists at the crossroads of longing and ease, tension and surrender. Words aren’t sufficient for the moment. Nothing is sufficient for the moment. Even still, I went for a walk to attempt to move some of the energy. Sent emails to local shops to get my Seeds of Creation project out into the physical world. Progress. I, fortunately or unfortunately, align closely with the archetype of a shapeshifter. It requires a well developed central pillar from which I can move and twist and meet the many faces of myself. Central missions. Personally, to be a good ancestor. The legacy on my familial stage is more important, more central than any legacy on a world stage. My story is for them, first and foremost. Professionally, to labor in service of art and/or artists. Broad, I know, but I’ve found it is the central thread through all my heart’s desires. Plus, I’m a fucking shapeshifter, you think I should pin myself down to a single focus? Don’t be stupid.
September 24, 2025 at 11:04 PM
desarrayed.bsky.social
Elon is so unlikable that he couldn't buy friends

so he and his fellow social pariahs decided to burn it all down and force people to pay with their lives
The Promise of a Consumer Utopia In a recent tweet, Andreessen claimed that the fall in human wages due to AI is not only logical but necessary. “A world in which human wages crash from AI – logically, necessarily – is a world in which productivity growth goes through the roof, and prices for goods and services crash to near zero,” he wrote. “Consumer cornucopia. Everything you need and want for pennies.” He then concluded that the “best humane alternative to genocide” is to “virtualize” these people: Imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement” where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual-reality interface” so they could “experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.” Yarvin’s disturbing manifestos have earned him influential followers, chief among them: tech billionaire Peter Thiel and his onetime Silicon Valley protégé Senator J.D. Vance, whom the Republican Party just nominated to be Donald Trump’s vice president. If Trump wins the election, there is little doubt that Vance will bring Yarvin’s twisted techno-authoritarianism to the White House, and one can imagine—with horror—what a receptive would-be autocrat like Trump might do with those ideas. Trump’s first campaign was undoubtedly a watershed moment for authoritarianism in American politics, but some thinkers on the right had been laying the groundwork for years, hoping for someone to mainstream their ideas. Yarvin was one of them. Way back in 2012, in a speech on “How to Reboot the US Government,” he said, “If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia.” He had also written favorably of slavery and white nationalists in the late 2000s (though he has stated that he is not a white nationalist himself).
February 27, 2025 at 2:24 PM
lsdaif.bsky.social
This is all part of the Yarvin/Vance/Musk/Thiel plan to imprison those deemed ‘not productive’ in AI/VR prisons.
Sounds crazy?
Take it straight from the mouth of Yarvin himself.
Yarvin, a self-described reactionary and extremist who was 35 years old at the time, clarified that he was “just kidding.” But then he continued, “The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass. However, it helps us describe the problem we are trying to solve. Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide.” He then concluded that the “best humane alternative to genocide” is to “virtualize” these people: Imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement” where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual-reality interface” so they could “experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.”
November 10, 2025 at 4:58 PM
criminalerin.bsky.social
Jesus Christ
In 2008, a software developer in San Francisco named Curtis Yarvin, writing under a pseudonym, proposed a horrific solution for people he deemed “not productive”: “convert them into biodiesel, which can help power the Muni buses.” Yarvin, a self-described reactionary and extremist who was 35 years old at the time, clarified that he was “just kidding.” But then he continued, “The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass. However, it helps us describe the problem we are trying to solve. Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide.” He then concluded that the “best humane alternative to genocide” is to “virtualize” these people: Imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement” where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual-reality interface” so they could “experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.” Lisa Simpson, staring at an empty dinner plate in stunned horror
August 7, 2024 at 2:00 PM
criminalerin.bsky.social
I am not being dramatic I am not exaggerating for comedic effect about what the fash in charge are very very very open about actively wanting to happen and apparently succeeding in making happen to us for their sport and profit GET BETTER RHETORIC FASTER, DEMS

bsky.app/profile/crim...
Yarvin, a self-described reactionary and extremist who was 35 years old at the time, clarified that he was “just kidding.” But then he continued, “The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass. However, it helps us describe the problem we are trying to solve. Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide.” He then concluded that the “best humane alternative to genocide” is to “virtualize” these people: Imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement” where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual-reality interface” so they could “experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.”
February 17, 2025 at 4:55 PM
keezyyoung.bsky.social
you should read the whole article (i want to also read the book!) but i want to highlight this first question, because so often you hear that solitary is bad, BUT it's a necessary way to protect the vulnerable (whether bc queer or mentally ill or something else). that's not true. it is never that
In your experience, was solitary doled out to protect people from the person in solitary or to punish the person in solitary?‪ –@highlandsurfer‬ on BlueSky Christopher Blackwell: No matter how you look at solitary, it can ONLY be viewed as punishment. I say that because solitary is a form of torture. To put a person in a box without human contact does nothing to keep them or others safe—it only prolongs future harm. It does nothing to address the reasons why they were harming people in the first place. Solitary is always to punish through abuse and oppression. But no one stays in solitary forever, just like over 90 percent of people are eventually released from prison. What’s it going to look like when that person gets out after weeks or months of even years of torture? They’re probably going to keep harming others. Kwaneta Harris: It’s punishment, plain and simple. Don’t let them fool you with that “administrative segregation” language. It’s designed to break you down. I’ve seen women thrown into solitary for refusing a guard’s sexual advances, for filing grievances about medical neglect, for being gay or trans and not conforming to the administration’s idea of femininity. I watched them put a woman in the hole for 2 years because she asked for a kosher meal she was legally entitled to. Another woman got solitary for “threatening” behavior. What she did was tell a guard she was going to file a complaint with the warden about being denied her heart medication. The system uses isolation as its ultimate weapon of control, and they wield it against anyone who dares to maintain their dignity or fight for basic human rights.
September 19, 2025 at 8:17 PM
shikra-redkite.bsky.social
Your life story reads like a WebMD entry - one that would send most people into a panic attack: Aches, pains, nausea, vomiting, on and on. But you've become so good at dealing with the pain that others have a difficult time believing how bad it really is. And it is bad... but it's not just the pain. It's the constant, exhausting worry - especially in those rare moments when the pain subsides - of what tomorrow has in store. Certainly more of the same. Maybe something new and worse? A whole life is planned around illness, medication, and treatment. An endless cycle others can only glimpse in flashes while you remain fully immersed with little hope for escape. But despite all this, you bandage yourself up, grit your teeth and keep going. And in the midst of it all, you take a certain solitary pride in your ability to endure. You might not look it - and you certainly don't feel it - but you're tough. Even the toughest among us can use a companion who understands. Someone with a shared experience and a couple of aches and pains of their own. Ouchie is here for you to cuddle and squeeze through the worst of the battle. He understands your aches and pains. And he has a heart full of love to give. He also doesn't mind if you use him as a support or pillow.
July 15, 2024 at 2:09 PM
martynjb.bsky.social
...an article by Crawford that is a tad out of keeping with those other contributions. Essentially Crawford was a little angry with Cambridge dons in general and A. C. Benson in particular. I've found no other mention by Crawford of Benson ever, and this piece never appeared anywhere else. Enjoy.
The first of four images covering the whole of Crawford's article. Part 1 reads as follows: The Writings of Mr. A. C. Benson. Some years ago, when Tariff Reform was a common topic of conversation, a lady who was asked her opinion of it, said “I don’t of course understand it, but I feel very strongly about it.” That story very well describes Mr. A. C. Benson’s attitude towards the world; only his feelings can hardly be called strong. He is a typical don – kindly and well-meaning, full of a kind of sentimental sympathy, but without a spark of real insight or critical power. The don is a child who has never grown up. To him the world of nature and of men is like a fairy kingdom, full of strange beings whom he can not make out. His eyes grow round with wonder at their simplest actions. What, however, is natural and engaging in a child is out of place and even repellent in a grown-up man. It becomes a pathological symptom – a form of arrested development. The tears shed by a little girl over her broken doll are normal and healthy tears; The article continues: but these [tears] which fill the puzzled eyes of Mr. Benson as he regards the mysterious things around him are unnatural. For “men must work and women must weep.” Mr. Benson tells us that he takes more pleasure in writing than in anything else in the world. He thereby lays claim to be considered as a literary artist. In one of his essays – The Thread of Gold, page 63 – he says: “It is impossible not to feel, when one is brought into contact with an artistic temperament, that the basis of it is a kind of hardness, a fanaticism of spirit.” That is very true and very well put, but does one find any “hardiness or fanaticism” in Mr. Benson, as revealed in his writing? I trow not. On the contrary one finds there a certain flabbiness and lack of purpose which seems inseparable from the academic character. Literature is one of the greatest among the arts, but good writing need not be good literature and it is not always good art; good writing is meaningless if it is not rooted in reality. Mr. Benson’s essays have no roots; they are like the cowslip-balls of children, an ingenious exercise in stringing words melodiously together. The game may give pleasure to the player, just as there is a kind of pleasure to be derived from constructing Latin Verse. But it is a silly game. The books of an author should be like a lens through which we look at the world, or like the colour-screen which cuts out the haze in a landscape and casts a clear image on the plate. The writings of Mr. Benson are a mirror in which we see only the pale reflection of his won rather bloodless emotions. Continues: Mr. Benson is a great overgrown baby peering at a callous world through his college window. But he lacks the healthy savagery and red blood of youth. It is significant that the one solitary essay in “The Thread of Gold” in which he touches the discoveries of modern science should refer to an extinct reptile of gigantic proportions. Like all children he is attracted by strange beasts. And that is all that the head of a Cambridge college can find in science. Ye Gods! Can he indeed be deaf to the multitudinous tramp of Darwin’s mighty army, and to the rhythmical blows of Huxley’s oratory breaking on the muddy sands of orthodoxy? Can it be that all that is vital in modern thought eludes him and his like? The article concludes: Unfortunately one knows from personal experience that it does, and that of all those dons and tutors only a very few have any idea of what is being said and done in the busy world outside. It has been said that the mind of a British Philistine is impervious to ideas; if that is so, then Mr. Benson and his fellow dons are typical Philistines for whom there is but little hope. A whisper will arouse a sleeping dog, but not all the shouting in the world can disturb the peaceful slumber of a jelly-fish.
November 11, 2025 at 1:54 PM
desarrayed.bsky.social
Remember, Musk and Andreessen follow this bullshit idea that crashing the economy is a good thing (it is for them because it'll create a workforce willing to drink sand)

A country of disposable people

finance.yahoo.com/news/wages-c...

newrepublic.com/article/1839...
He then concluded that the “best humane alternative to genocide” is to “virtualize” these people: Imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement” where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual-reality interface” so they could “experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.” Yarvin’s disturbing manifestos have earned him influential followers, chief among them: tech billionaire Peter Thiel and his onetime Silicon Valley protégé Senator J.D. Vance, whom the Republican Party just nominated to be Donald Trump’s vice president. If Trump wins the election, there is little doubt that Vance will bring Yarvin’s twisted techno-authoritarianism to the White House, and one can imagine—with horror—what a receptive would-be autocrat like Trump might do with those ideas. Trump’s first campaign was undoubtedly a watershed moment for authoritarianism in American politics, but some thinkers on the right had been laying the groundwork for years, hoping for someone to mainstream their ideas. Yarvin was one of them. Way back in 2012, in a speech on “How to Reboot the US Government,” he said, “If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia.” He had also written favorably of slavery and white nationalists in the late 2000s (though he has stated that he is not a white nationalist himself). The Promise of a Consumer Utopia In a recent tweet, Andreessen claimed that the fall in human wages due to AI is not only logical but necessary. “A world in which human wages crash from AI – logically, necessarily – is a world in which productivity growth goes through the roof, and prices for goods and services crash to near zero,” he wrote. “Consumer cornucopia. Everything you need and want for pennies.”
February 27, 2025 at 1:48 PM
happynatto.bsky.social
Strong benefit of being so consumed by work is that I didn’t realize this was coming out. 😅

Time to play a game that maybe makes me feel a little bit hopeful about things for a bit.
Game box for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Collector’s Edition. It features an image of a baby sleeping in a seat shaped like an otter. Signed photo of Hideo Kojima. Features the following text: Deat Fellow Porters, Welcome to the world of "DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH." I am very happy to embark on this new journey with all of you once again! "DEATH STRANDING" is a game experience designed to help players feel the importance of "connection" through the Social Strand System. During the pandemic, many of you may have experienced feelings of isolation and loneliness akin to the world of "DEATH STRANDING." In this sequel, however, our protagonist Sam is not the solitary figure he once was. With the support of his new companions, the members of Drawbridge, he will strengthen his connections. Now, Sam —and all of you— will begin a journey of new choices. In a time where the word "division" is at the forefront, what is the "connection" we should truly seek? No matter what choices lie ahead, we encourage you to never lose sight of hope, stay true to your mission, and discover and explore the "connections" you can find from there. Hideo Kojima Game Creator KoJima PRODUCTIONS
June 24, 2025 at 8:14 PM
woodenstares.bsky.social
newsletter. In 2008, a software developer in San Francisco named Curtis Yarvin, writing under a pseudonym, proposed a horrific solution for people he deemed "not productive": "convert them into biodiesel, which can help power the Muni buses." Yarvin, a self-described reactionary and extremist who was 35 years old at the time, clarified that he was "just kidding." But then he continued, "The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass. However, it helps us deseribe the preblem we are trying to solve. Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide." He then concluded that the "best humane alternative to genocide" is to "virtualize" these people: Imprison them in "permanent solitary confinement" where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an "immersive virtual-reality interface" so they could "experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world."
November 10, 2025 at 9:15 PM
kumquats.bsky.social
I dunno, but I definitely wouldn't call it a bad thing! wanting to experience something you can truly call 'love,' not being satisfied with an inferior knockoff, that is allegedly among the higher order of human emotions. at least that's my impression - I'm solitary by nature so hard for me to say.
March 28, 2025 at 6:28 AM
yuyunjiffxiv.bsky.social
4. I'll admit, FFXIV is really the only multiplayer game I enjoy. I'm usually a solo experience player outside of the odd game of Mario Kart or Smash with family. Gaming is how I relax, so it tends to be a solitary, not talking to anyone experience for me.
November 1, 2024 at 12:18 AM
woodenstares.bsky.social
newsletter. In 2008, a software developer in San Francisco named Curtis Yarvin, writing under a pseudonym, proposed a horrific solution for people he deemed "not productive": "convert them into biodiesel, which can help power the Muni buses." Yarvin, a self-described reactionary and extremist who was 35 years old at the time, clarified that he was "just kidding." But then he continued, "The trouble with the biodiesel solution is that no one would want to live in a city whose public transportation was fueled, even just partly, by the distilled remains of its late underclass. However, it helps us deseribe the preblem we are trying to solve. Our goal, in short, is a humane alternative to genocide." He then concluded that the "best humane alternative to genocide" is to "virtualize" these people: Imprison them in "permanent solitary confinement" where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an "immersive virtual-reality interface" so they could "experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world."
November 10, 2025 at 9:13 PM
ellipticalnight.bsky.social
I relate to this so much I just said out loud "oh my god thank you" while listening this afternoon

writing on the border that doesn't exist between poetry and prose, animated by where desire leads is where I'm happy
I've just never been interested in that. And for a long time, I thought, oh, this is why I'm not a real fiction writer, because I can't do that. Or what does it mean about me that I don't put other people like it's usually just a sort of consciousness moving through a garden or something. And I guess I finally decided like landscape animates me and interests me in a really specific way. And I want to just I want that to be OK. It's OK that my narrator sort of thinks more about plants, you know, than like people around her sometimes, because I mean, my own experience is often very solitary.
April 28, 2024 at 7:20 PM
figgityfigs.bsky.social
About to simply block these people because I never need to hear from them ever again, but they are so Twitter brained that they cannot grasp that their experience of this place is broadly defined by *them*, not by the place and the people running it.
Eli Valley @elivalley.osky.social • 2d • Bluesky Elder I'm guessing that (to their solitary credit) they took Musk's presence on twitter seriously and migrated away from there en masse. And maybe they wanted to stake bluesky as centrist territory and put a lot of energy into going after leftists. But that just explains the numbers, not the rabies. 6 © 123. jeff computers featuring minipan an... • 2d • Bluesky Elder it's the specific guys you have on here honestly. low quality guys like the walmart dude who long ago wore out their welcome elsewhere. banding together and making an island of misfit toys who yell at you if you aren't reading from the latest dnc press release © 71 ••• jeff computers featuring minipan an... • 2d • Bluesky Elder the what's bappin guy would be worshipped like a god if he came here 68
October 20, 2024 at 3:01 PM
florette.bsky.social
🤝 IT TRULY IS NOT THE SAME!! ntm I'm cygames obsessed so their general "brand" of chars/writing is something I already know I like
ntm since its still ongoing ppl are always talking abt it which just isnt a thing when you're getting into older things. idm the solitary experience either but,,
August 14, 2025 at 1:36 PM
consume.red
a few more
It may be that Pessoa was enchanted by Octavio because of its audacity—because he too, like the play's lead character, felt desire for other men. But he wasn't sure if he really wanted whatever it was he desired. And perhaps, after all, he preferred not to desire anything. "T'd like to be able to like liking," begins one of his poems, but it was signed by Álvaro de Campos, who follows up this confession by asking for a cigarette. Along with his ponderous letter, Pessoa sent Côrtes-Rodrigues a dozen typed poems, mostly of recent vintage and all signed with his own name. His favorite of the lot, "A ceifeira" ("The Reaper"), was a remake of William Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper. Like the narrator of Wordsworth's poem, Pessoa's poetic speaker is enchanted by a young woman who plaintively sings as she harvests grain in a field, but rather than just observing her and remembering her song, he imagines himself in her place, transported from his present life to become her "weightless shadow." Three lines from the penultimate stanza contain the crux of the poem, as well as a key to understanding Pessoa's poetry generally: PESSOA CONTINUED TO DEAL with his sexual uneasiness in the literary realm. It was during this period that he perfected the story line of Marcos Alves, his novel in progress about a sensitive young man pathologically afraid of sex, and in his diary entry for March 8 he acknowledged a close affinity with this protagonist. In 1913 he also jotted down some ideas for a work of fantasy fiction titled "Timidez-O caso do dr. Garcez" ("Shyness—The Case of Dr. Garcez"), in which the shy doctor tries to figure out how to experience intimacy with a woman without actually being with one. After discarding the possibility of inventing an "extrahuman" female, he ponders the hypothesis of a woman created out of his own body, with him surviving only as a soul and becoming her one and only dream, her "Ideal Prince." In this way he would possess her, yes, but only inwardly, psychologically, which is not what he desires. He wants "to be like other men" and to possess a woman physically. What he needs to do, he concludes, is to "create a real woman" but one divested of a "central consciousness," such that she would not see him, not notice him. The poem was as divorced from personal experience as it was ostentatiously homoerotic. It belonged to a larger literary project, Livro do outro amor (The Book of the Other Love), for which the author planned to write a long poem titled "Morte de Antínoo" ("The Death of Antinous") as well as more sonnets. Three weeks later he did write half a dozen additional sonnets, in which the narrator wishes that his hypothetical male lover were more like a woman or, alternatively, that he himself were more feminine, so that they could live together as a heterosexual couple—the only model of passionate intimacy fully accepted by society and by the narrator, who is still struggling with guilt one year after courageously declaring love for a man in Pes-soa's first two homoerotic poems. "I hate myself for loving you," he confesses in an unfinished sonnet for The Book of the Other Love
January 1, 2025 at 10:02 PM
sunburst.at.app.wafrn.net
#Oh #what-a-coincidence-LOL #so-it-is-not-a-solitary-experience
November 16, 2025 at 6:41 AM