iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 6h

tbf back when I could still get 1.5% i'd take as long a term as they'd give me. At 6.5-7 this is crazy.

Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 9h

The only ones I've gone back to watch are the two based around the devil cults. That could be made into a pretty good story line, IMO.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 9h

can't believe i was so stupid to grab a 9070XT for $550 last year. smdh

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10h

Granted I have not seen the movie in question, but that sounds like something that would actually be integral to the plot and characters, rather than on interchangeable plot device.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10h

Lot of great jokes here, but on a more serious note: Even without the typo, they're just wrong here, right? Isn't an incriminating piece of evidence the opposite of a McGuffin?

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10h

aloo ghobi is natures valium as far as i'm concerned.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 11h

yeah, it's tough out there. I grew up very religious, so I sorta understand the mindset. It's like a funhouse version of religious belief, in a sense. Like, you don't attack biology directly, you find some counter-intuitive aspect (like carbon dating being used despite a 30k year inaccuracy).

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 11h

It's also, I think, why people are most likely to fall for a cult when they're already experiencing some kind of personal crisis.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 11h

yeah, being adjacent to the skeptical community back in the day showed me that disproving something is just not convincing to most people. It's more about being available until they themselves feel some doubt so you're there for them when their world falls apart.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 14h

Giving the Antichrist lecture at the old Mason lodge is certainly a look.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

4. cont: But that simple line kinda lets you throw all that over your shoulder. Later when Sev is at war in the north he gives some details about the horses they ride, and it's very clear it's a different beast the 'translator' is calling a horse. Jack Vance via James Joyce is a very neat conceit.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

4. Coolest detail I picked up on this read through: When asked about why Urth has changed so much and humanity so little over the long ages, he gives Severian a dumbfounded look and says, "but you have." It always bugged me that it was eons in the future but humans were still humans.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

3. Pretty sure the popular theory of First Severian (from, I assume, the last couple pages) being Malrubius is wrong. I still need to reread it, but I thought Urth made it pretty clear that Ymar is the first severian.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

So I've just (finally) finished Book of the New Sun for the second time, and I def have to retract/rethink a lot of my theories here. 1. Severian being the off-scene woodcutter is wrong--name is Becan. 2. My theory of Severian being the Autarch all along is probably wrong. Need to reread Urth tho.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Some of y’all seem a lil *too* disappointed you didn’t get to watch a man get shot today

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Iron is actually less hard than bronze. Iirc the khopesh had more to do with their casting ovens being subpar in the early period, and then tradition and mass production.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

(I also thought the khopesh was usually not very sharp, more of a wedge than a blade)

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The problem these pmc goobers will always have is that while they sell themselves based on the reputation of their former special forces personnel, the “tip of the spear” doesn’t actually work all that well without the rest of the spear.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Didn’t they use them khopesh style? It’s been a long time since I watched the show, and it’s not worth a rewatch by any means.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I thought that was the motto specifically of the ruling house? I just assumed that the average guy from the islands was probably fishing or herding sheep, à la medieval Scandinavia.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I feel like HBO’s Rome did a decent job of this, grading on a curve for popular media.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

He was kinda a snarky lil bitch about it, to be fair

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I think even just looking at the relative concentration of wealth among free men, we’re wildly more unequal. The entire society is wealthier, but the distribution is much worse. Sure I’d rather be poor in the modern age than in Athens, but it still warps our politics in unhealthy and dangerous ways

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

the corpse emperor demands blood; the scheming viziers trip over themselves to unleash gore upon the streets

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

This is the axe a Khorne Cultist would wield in battle, is what I'm saying.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

It's honestly the most familiar thing in the world.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

imo validation is a basic psychological need that the major platforms prey upon.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

they have done an unholy thing, and the veil is torn

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

like it's a common horror trope to have a smiley face drawn on the killer's mask or weapon.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

It's always incredible to me how alien and yet familiar the bronze age is. It's true that the past is a foreign country, but it's also not always that far away from our own borders.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

and a nature shared by pretty much all socializing animals. The termite mound is also constructed to overcome the material conditions of the savanah.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I put it once on twitter that “Fukuyama was right but in the wrong way” but maybe I should have said “but not enough”

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Turns out you have to go high to catch him right in the neck.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

This is also “when they go low we go high” Go high for the fucking jugular

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

He’s counting on them being even more unpopular in two years. I feel like he’s betting on the right horse.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The people who claim to love America the most publicly hate America's true superpower: the ability to make new Americans on demand. Do the Americans you have not want to count things in exchange for money? Good news! You can probably find some new ones who will. It's the definition of win-win.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I guess a lot depends on what dates you're playing with as well.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I don’t think he’s even capable of grasping that high level of abstraction, and if he ever was he certainly isn’t now. He has not ever, imo, been capable of passing the marshmallow test. It’s why his businesses always fall apart—he has no ability put off a pay out for greater gain later.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I think it’s even less abstract than that: someone told him he has the power of tariff, and for him having a power means being able to extract a bribe.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

“Me-cantalism” is one of those typos that is actually more true than the correct spelling.

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Defective Altruist (Official) @tokenwhitefriend.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Damn, I am incredibly amped for @adapalmer.bsky.social ‘s before cast to talk about the Discourses. That combined with his Art of War were incredibly important to younger me, and getting all the historical and biographical connections with it has me looking forward to this a lot.

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