ArbitraryValue

I don't know if Tolkien's notes support this, but I always assumed that Treebeard's Entish name was something completely unpronounceable for anyone who isn't an ent, and "Treebeard" was a nickname that he picked for himself. Maybe because he finds it funny that other species think he looks like a tree. (I'm sure that ents look clearly different from trees to other ents.)

Edit: he says so himself.

Hrum, now, well, I am an Ent, or that's what they call me. Yes, Ent is the word. The Ent, I am, you might say, in your manner of speaking. Fangorn is my name according to some, Treebeard others make it. Treebeard will do.

easy work in an air-conditioned office

despair

First, having a lot of allies is strength, not weakness.

Second, with that in mind, the last American-led major conflict that ended with the unambiguously successful attainment of America's major goals was the first Gulf War, but the failures since then in Iraq and Afghanistan had nothing to do with the military bring insufficiently deadly. Killing people is a tool for winning wars, but not the only tool and often not a sufficient tool.

“If Gavin Newsom wants to oppose the training exercises that ensure our Armed Forces are the deadliest and most lethal fighting force in the world, then he can go right ahead,” Martin said.

Not just the deadliest. The most lethal too!

There's a filter but I'd say it's a "dedication" filter rather than a "sanity" filter. People on here generally seem to put more effort into understanding the causes that they support than the average person on Facebook does, so they avoid making the most basic mistakes. However, their causes are still often far out of the mainstream ("crazy" in a colloquial sense) and their understanding of why someone might disagree with them in good faith is often rather poor.

That's an extremely vague post. There's some irony in arguing against the suppression of an idea without clearly expressing what that idea is.

I think blaming billionaires for this is incorrect. Look at Lemmy: this place is very much a silo. I've been actively participating here for over two years and in that time I have encountered one or two people who supported Trump (the ones posting in /conservative/ before it apparently got taken over). I routinely get called a fascist for being a mainstream Democrat. I'm not complaining (after all, I choose to be here rather than in a more comfortable silo) but clearly being a federated open-source non-profit isn't solving the problem.

Some billionaires got rich by enabling people to join online silos, but those billionaires were doing what the people wanted already.

I don't get it. Obviously hobgoblins don't think hobgoblins are ugly.

I often watch other people play games and they look like a lot of fun but then I buy them and try playing them myself and don't like them. For example:

Kerbal Space Program

Baldur's Gate 3

King of Dragon Pass

Subnautica

This is an interesting prompt. I am fascinated by ancient Rome, both the memes and serious history, and I know for sure that I'm not a member of the alt-right (you might not believe me but that's irrelevant to my analysis of myself). So why do I find Rome so interesting?

Part of the reason is due to the fact that Rome was powerful. I suppose that I share this with the alt-right but I don't think that it is an inherently alt-right way of thinking. Ideologies, forms of government, and ways of organizing society must be able to compete in terms of raw power. Ancient Rome was, in these terms, exceptionally successful. It isn't sufficient for my modern-day values to be in accordance with my moral sense, which is very different from the moral sense of an ancient Roman. My values must also lead to, or at least be consistent with, a society that is able to exert more power (military, economic, and cultural) than other societies organized along different values. Looking at Rome is a way to see what that can look like.

With that said, the western world, organized largely in accord with liberal values which I share, has been not just the best place to live in all of human history but also the most powerful in this sense. I think the alt-right, to the extent that they prefer other values (like ancient Roman ones), are largely fools: the west in general and the USA in particular are far stronger than Rome ever was. This ties into the second part of the reason Rome is interesting: the Republic ended not at a time when it was under threat from external enemies (it was, in many ways, at its strongest when it was the most threatened) but rather at the height of its wealth and power - most of what we think of as the "Empire" was already conquered by then. Then the Empire declined and fell largely because of infighting (although the full explanation for the collapse is a lot more complicated and, frankly, beyond my level of historical expertise). Romans were each other's worst enemies. And when the Empire fell, it fell far. Things got a lot worse, not just for the Roman elite but for almost everyone, rich and poor. We're a lot higher up than they ever were so we have a lot further to fall, and yet a lot of people are willing to risk the integrity of our society due to a short-sighted view of history that fails to appreciate how good we do, in fact, have it. The alt-right is among these foolish people - I am lower-case-c conservative because I oppose making large, sudden changes, but the alt-right is not conservative in this sense.

Then the final part of the reason is that Rome is both alien and familiar - Roman ideas and aesthetics were deliberately preserved and spread, so that they are familiar to me in the modern day. Other ancient empires like China are also a source of useful lessons, and I'm sure they're fascinating to people who know enough to appreciate them, but to me they are far more alien and so I don't. If I were a professional historian, that wouldn't be an excuse, but I'm not so I prefer to read and think about Rome.

Those look like rubber galoshes, not jackboots. Don't settle for imitations. Demand the real thing!

(I'm joking. They look about the same in a drawing.)

Yes, but the controversy (and Newsom's stated justification for his veto) seems to be primarily related to the ban on nonstick pans.

I don't know enough about the risks to confidently say whether or not a ban is a good idea. (But what I do know leads me to keep using nonstick pans.) However, what jumped out at me in this article was this:

“Whether or not California passes a ban, Pfas is on the way out because consumers are demanding it,” Salter added. “If lawmakers represent their constituents then they’ll pass a ban, and if they represent billion dollar companies then they will oppose it.”

People freely choose whether or not to use nonstick pans, so how can passing a ban possibly represent constituents even in principle? A law regulating the negative externalities of pollution makes sense as something that constituents might want, but is the concern here really about the harm done to one person by a different person in a different house using nonstick cookware? It seems to me that laws like this are about protecting constituents from themselves, which is often justifiable but not really representative.

(A ban on pfas in other contexts where people don't expect to find it does make sense as something that could represent constituents.)

I wish it was easier to travel with animals. I'd be willing to pay for an extra ticket if that meant being able to bring a dog with me in the cabin.

Handcuffs can leave signs, but I'm not sure how examining a body could indicate that the person had been blindfolded. Were the bodies returned with blindfolds on?

I think that then North America would look like central and South America, in terms of demographics.

A more expensive therapist may not be better. I don't want to assume anything about your own experience - maybe you've talked to several and found them all equally helpful. However, I've found some to be a lot more helpful than others, and the more expensive ones were not necessarily the most helpful to me.

As for what to tell your wife: maybe there's nothing you could say that would be received well. Of course I don't know your wife, but my grandmother (who I am very close to) is an anxious person who worries a lot about my safety. I try not to make her upset, even though that often means not taking a risk that I would otherwise choose to take, but sometimes I decide that upsetting her is justified when something she's worried about is important enough to me. In these cases, I would like to be able to convince her that I'm making the right decision but usually I can't, she worries, and that's still the best possible outcome.

ArbitraryValue

@ ArbitraryValue @sh.itjust.works

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ArbitraryValue

What is a useful or interesting product under $100 that you wouldn’t normally think to buy?

You'll be fine

life purpose

Artillery shell exploded prematurely over California freeway during marines celebration

Artillery shell exploded prematurely over California freeway during marines celebration

Permanently Deleted

Saviour (September 14, 1909)

Criticizing Immigration Laws Is Not Racist

Saviour (September 14, 1909)

Permanently Deleted

Dibs on the hat

They say word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing. What games did you (not) enjoy that came well-recommended by friends to you, and why did they recommend it to you?

TIL - the Alt-Right is obsessed with Roman Memes

Bob's Air Fried Jackboots!

Gavin Newsom’s veto on bill to ban Pfas hands industry a win, advocates fear

Gavin Newsom’s veto on bill to ban Pfas hands industry a win, advocates fear

In the doghouse: flying canines count as cargo, EU court rules

Palestinian bodies returned by Israel show signs of torture and execution, say doctors

That's an, uh, extremely suspect phrasing there, school textbook

Feeling Stuck