voltroon posted:

Wouldn't a community of otherkin where everyone was the same character devolve into infighting about who were 'fakes' and doubles? I thought one of the core components of otherkin-ness was believing you are "literally, actually, irl" your chosen character. Or are there multiple Noids in canon?

Mantis42 posted:

We tried to avoid the Noid question.

happyhippy posted:

Isn't there a bit in Atlas Shrugged where the main character breaks into a factory and shoots dead a security guard, then waxes for 15 pages how it was good and great that she did it?

A = A

BrandorKP posted:

The disintegration of public truths (by figures like Trump) and apocalyptic cult groups are probably not unrelated.

Endorph posted:

I mean, they're all nerds who hate conflict. They'd probably be fine just tolerating it or justifying it somehow, I doubt it'd even reach a Three Christs of Ypsilanti level.

Morbus posted:

PJ, repeatedly using otherkin as the anchoring analogy to your ideas about the social dynamics of the alt right and related topics is like being that guy who talks about leading a world of warcraft guild in his job interview.

quote:

Fox News has pulled an ad by San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer calling for President Donald Trump to be impeached, prompting questions about the motivation for Fox’s decision.

The ads having been running across the U.S. for two weeks, and Steyer bought a second week of advertising in a prime time Fox News slot on October 27 as part of the $11 million ad buy.

Fox News confirmed it had pulled the ad. “Due to the strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers, we could not in good conscience take their money,” the channel’s co-president Jack Abernethy said.

RuanGacho posted:

I can't help but feel this isn't at least in part a result of people feeling like they have a right to be horrible without consequence, you know a core part of wider internet culture right now.

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Fox News pulled impeachment ads



https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/fox-news-pulls-tom-steyers-impeach-trump-ad/

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Fox News pulled impeachment ads



https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/fox-news-pulls-tom-steyers-impeach-trump-ad/

voltroon posted:

They've gone full State Media, huh?

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Fox News pulled impeachment ads



https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/fox-news-pulls-tom-steyers-impeach-trump-ad/

Young Freud posted:

Newsweek makes a clickbaity statement: Las Vegas gunman was a Trump supporter, happy with President because stock market was going well


However, Paddock had a lot in relation to Trump, mostly his need for status and narcissism.


According to the Las Vegas NOW interview with the sheriff, Paddock had been planning on this since October 2016, so I'm wondering if he was planning on a Hillary victory. Given the planning of the event, the attempt to obfuscate his position, the surveillance of the hallways, and his vehicle with the unrigged explosives, I would think he probably had thought he could get away and have the blame put on Muslims or Antifa.

If you're interested, Lombardo makes the "Trump" statement at about 4:10 in the second interview.

RuanGacho posted:

No but seriously I'm surprised that some people can't recognize that everyone has narrative spheres they exist in and it can blind us to and completely avoid intersection with reality or other people's perspectives.

KickerOfMice posted:

We all knew, but this is evidence.

Morbus posted:

PJ, repeatedly using otherkin as the anchoring analogy to your ideas about the social dynamics of the alt right and related topics is like being that guy who talks about leading a world of warcraft guild in his job interview.

RuanGacho posted:

So is it late enough in the day to turn off the Patriot Annihilator Laser Disco Ball with a Black Hood on it, yet?

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Fox News pulled impeachment ads



https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/fox-news-pulls-tom-steyers-impeach-trump-ad/

KickerOfMice posted:

How many white parents' heads you got?

Spiffster posted:

Seriously the projection of these fuckers. I get it every drat day in work. but they are so drat entitled and get beyond angry at the SLIGHTEST of inconvenience but are more than eager to be smug and claim that younger generations are lazy/oversensitive/etc.

Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:

Fox News pulled impeachment ads



https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/fox-news-pulls-tom-steyers-impeach-trump-ad/

Cracked posted:

7.) I Didn't Know It Was a Cult Until I Left

There's a certain type of person we expect to wind up as the member of an apocalyptic cult: glassy-eyed, thoroughly insane, possibly sprouting tentacles. Boze Herrington and his friends never wanted to be cultists; they started out as normal, run-of-the-mill college nerds:

"When I joined a prayer group in the fall of 2007, we were just five college friends with a shared interest in fantasy novels and Harry Potter. We'd go to the movies together and meet up once a day to pray -- pretty unexceptional stuff for a group of religious kids going to college in Texas."

Within five years, that mild-mannered prayer group had relocated to Kansas City and grown from five members to 20. They cut off contact with their families and lived together in two gender-segregated houses. To fill out their crazy-cult bingo card, they started identifying themselves as God's "final army" and dedicated their free time to training for the apocalypse.

If it sounds like lunacy, then you'd be right, because that's textbook goddamn lunacy. Winding up in a cult can be a little like binge drinking with your friends: you don't quite realize how hosed up you got until you wake up alone and hungover the next morning. Boze was kicked out of his cult for asking too many questions in 2012:

"Only then did I start to realize I had broken free from a cult. If you'd asked me about the cult leader prior to that, I'd have said he was the kindest person I knew. If you'd accused me of being a cult member, I'd have mocked you -- even during the eight months** they shunned me with silence in my own house."

Seven months later, another cult member murdered one of Boze's friends, allegedly at the behest of their leader. So how the hell did nobody notice the crazy until it leveled up into murder? Well ...

......

The cult was originally the "religious version of a fraternity," in Boze's words. Things really amped up when Tyler moved the group to Kansas City to separate them even further from their families. The prayer group was the center of these kid's social lives and also the only familiar thing in a strange new town. Questioning Tyler meant the risk of losing that one bit of familiarity, so most people just didn't:

"He claimed he was an end-times apostle and that God spoke to him. As the group started to grow, he weeded out the members who were more apt to pose questions, to confront. The ones who were left believed that we were not supposed to question people who have spoken with God, so we didn't."


5.) A Mainstream Church Validated Our Most Insane Beliefs:

The cult started off as an offshoot of the International House of Prayer. The less-fun IHOP is a major church and "university" affiliated with something called the New Apostolic Reformation. The NAR is a vast network of prophets and apostles active across the United States, Australia and even South Korea. There are 3 million estimated American attendees of NAR churches. And that South Korean NAR church we mentioned is the largest megachurch in the world, with more than a million members.

NAR leaders teach that in the next 20 to 50 years, before Jesus returns, the entire Christian church will be led by apostles. These apostles have the power to forgive sins, release blessings and curses, and bind high-ranking demonic spirits. They can control the weather, cause earthquakes, and unleash death and destruction on nonbelievers.

In other words, some brilliant, cynical people took all the best elements of Harry Potter and the X-Men, mashed them together, and started a church about it.

"When we got involved with them, Tyler read a book called The Final Quest, which is a cheesy fantasy novel that claims to be a prophetic vision of the end times."

"We were all nerds, so this sort of adventure narrative fit us like a glove. And it spurred Tyler on to some truly crazy 'visions.' The first big dramatic shift away from 'prayer group' to 'cult' occurred when Tyler suddenly claimed to literally see an army of demons on our campus. Now God was calling him to train the 'last generation' for spiritual warfare."

None of this upset the church leaders at the time. It was more physically active, but no less crazy than the apocalyptic prophecies they preached every weekend. After the terrible murder that ended Tyler's cult once and for all (hopefully), Boze sought counseling from the International House of Prayer.

"I tried to come to terms with my former belief under Tyler, that I had been called to battle the forces of the Antichrist, which I now saw as a lie. But the counselor didn't agree with me. His beliefs fell squarely in line with Tyler's. I was told, 'No, Tyler was right about that.'"

4.) The Cult Piggybacked Off of Our Pop Culture Brainwashing

Boze and his friends had grown up watching The Matrix and reading the Narnia books, dreaming of the day they'd get their acceptance letter from Hogwarts. What they don't tell you in those stories is that if a strange bearded man approaches you in the dark with stories of "wizard school," the education you're about to receive isn't going to make you better at anything but repressing memories.

"According to Tyler, he had first gotten the 'word of the Lord' to start a prayer group during a midnight release party for the last Harry Potter book. He returned to school after this episode with a special revelation that everything we had ever known was a lie and that there was a deeper reality beyond what our eyes could see. He was offering us a chance to join him in leading a spiritual revolution. Who could refuse?"

Well, we should rephrase that: What nerd could refuse?

"We went together to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince during opening night. We left the theater at 3 a.m., and Tyler said, 'God spoke to me twice during that movie. The first time was when Harry was trapped in the water and Dumbledore pulled him out with a lasso of fire, and God said that's how he'd protect me. And then later, during Dumbledore's funeral, God said, 'That's how it's going to be whenever someone dies in this group. You have to keep moving; you can't let it stop you.'"

2) Things happening around us seemed to confirm our beliefs.

.......


"During one particular prayer session at our university chapel, two members of our group tried to heal a friend of ours who had cerebral palsy, through God. In the midst of a prayer trance, they ran over to her wheelchair. One of them knelt down, grabbed our friend's knees, and said, 'In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to stand up and WALK!'

"She writhed and stretched her limbs hopefully, longingly. She tried to get out of her seat, but nothing happened. Undeterred, the two group members continued praying. They eventually unstrapped her legs from the wheelchair, and each grabbed one of her arms.

"She flailed her feet helplessly. While the two members held her up, she put one foot forward, then another. The rest of us crowded around her. 'I don't believe it,' one of us said, looking around with wide eyes. 'That right there is an honest-to-God miracle,' said another, grinning with all her teeth. 'A mi-ra-cle.'

"The ones who helped her walk hugged each other tightly. People began texting their friends who had already left. Others prayed in tongues. They all seemed to agree that something extraordinary had just happened."

Except it hadn't. Their friend had always been capable of walking a little: "she could only do it for a short period of time, and she had to use crutches. The two group members, in this case, had acted as her crutches.

Overwined posted:

This is loving class warfare plain and simple. I have not yet seen a more bald attempt by our current wannabe oligarchs to keep the lower classes under their heels. It's loving disgusting.

Endorph posted:

i mean if you can spin it the right way and dont mention what it actually is, you can totally list that on your resume. 'lead a group of volunteers in my free time.' 'what did you do?' 'oh, you know, uh, played games with children with mental health issues'

QuoProQuid posted:

https://twitter.com/ICIJorg/status/926932184530866177

the icij, who released the panama papers, is readying to drop another bombshell

stay tuned

empty whippet box posted:

Will this actually cost them money? How could it not? Don't they have trouble filling advertising slots lately?

Gumbel2Gumbel posted:

*throws powdered sugar in Liquid Communism's Face*

"Your powers don't work here demon"

QuoProQuid posted:

https://twitter.com/ICIJorg/status/926932184530866177

the icij, who released the panama papers, is readying to drop another bombshell

stay tuned

Prester Jane posted:

Ague Proof posted:

Already read it. Apparently Kevin Spacey is gay.

Mister Adequate posted:

They should never have booted Dean from head of the DNC.