Remember a few weeks ago, when I was saying I was pretty sure my boss was going to fire me? And then his lung collapsed from Covid-19, and then nothing happened? 

Today I got an "establish your proof of eligibility for unemployment," notice in the mail from the Unemployment Insurance Office. 

I contacted my boss and said, "I just want you to know about this, because it seems like someone is trying to steal my identity." 

He never responded. He responded to e-mails from the other guy in the office. 

Tonight we went out with our circle of friends, one of whom owns a business in the same office park as my employer and is friends with him, also. 

At some point in the night, I said something, and my friend's wife, quickly said, feigning shock, "you're unemployed now?!?" 

And her husband quickly shut her up. 

What do *you* think? 

Fri Feb 05 2021 22:37:56 MST from ParanoidDelusions

Remember a few weeks ago, when I was saying I was pretty sure my boss was going to fire me? And then his lung collapsed from Covid-19, and then nothing happened? 

Today I got an "establish your proof of eligibility for unemployment," notice in the mail from the Unemployment Insurance Office. 

I contacted my boss and said, "I just want you to know about this, because it seems like someone is trying to steal my identity." 

He never responded. He responded to e-mails from the other guy in the office. 

Tonight we went out with our circle of friends, one of whom owns a business in the same office park as my employer and is friends with him, also. 

At some point in the night, I said something, and my friend's wife, quickly said, feigning shock, "you're unemployed now?!?" 

And her husband quickly shut her up. 

What do *you* think? 

Are you still doing your job?  If they're not paying you for your work you have grounds to wreck them with lawyers.  For someone of your (our) disposition it seems like a really stupid thing for them to do to you.

No. That is the thing. I think he was *going* to fire me, he had started the process - and so, the payroll company then processed the Unemployment Insurance process. Then he had second thoughts, then his complications got worse - and he was looking at maybe a month out of work - so he was probably sitting there going, "whew - that was a close one..." 

Not realizing that it had gone far enough that I'd get a letter from the Unemployment office going, "we were told to be expecting you, but it looks like you're still working?" 

It is all speculation. I don't have any proof. But... the circumstantial evidence is pretty damning. 

Sat Feb 06 2021 03:13:58 MST from TheDave

 

Fri Feb 05 2021 22:37:56 MST from ParanoidDelusions

Remember a few weeks ago, when I was saying I was pretty sure my boss was going to fire me? And then his lung collapsed from Covid-19, and then nothing happened? 

Today I got an "establish your proof of eligibility for unemployment," notice in the mail from the Unemployment Insurance Office. 

I contacted my boss and said, "I just want you to know about this, because it seems like someone is trying to steal my identity." 

He never responded. He responded to e-mails from the other guy in the office. 

Tonight we went out with our circle of friends, one of whom owns a business in the same office park as my employer and is friends with him, also. 

At some point in the night, I said something, and my friend's wife, quickly said, feigning shock, "you're unemployed now?!?" 

And her husband quickly shut her up. 

What do *you* think? 

Are you still doing your job?  If they're not paying you for your work you have grounds to wreck them with lawyers.  For someone of your (our) disposition it seems like a really stupid thing for them to do to you.

The timing is the problem. It could also, just as easily, be this: 

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2020/06/scammer-getting-unemployment-benefits-your-name

Yeah that sounds pretty damn sketchy.

Fri Feb 05 2021 22:37:56 MST from ParanoidDelusions

Remember a few weeks ago, when I was saying I was pretty sure my boss was going to fire me? And then his lung collapsed from Covid-19, and then nothing happened? 

What do *you* think? 

They are currently firing people who post public messages on social media that are not in-line with the correct thinking. Have you made any public posts that would be against what Big Brother tells you to think?

My boss was on the Trump Train heavy - so that wouldn't be it, unless I went Left. :) 

I think it was maybe just odd timing - that about the time things were a little uncertain here, someone was filing an unemployment claim scam in my name, and that the verification for that came in just enough after that it seemed suspicious. 

Tue Feb 09 2021 04:15:24 MST from Google Bot

 

Fri Feb 05 2021 22:37:56 MST from ParanoidDelusions

Remember a few weeks ago, when I was saying I was pretty sure my boss was going to fire me? And then his lung collapsed from Covid-19, and then nothing happened? 

What do *you* think? 

 

They are currently firing people who post public messages on social media that are not in-line with the correct thinking. Have you made any public posts that would be against what Big Brother tells you to think?

Just as a general rant, I really resisted the Vampire Discord - because I had a preconceived notion that Discord was going to be another Reddit/Twitter. 

I've come to the conclusion that the only social media I actually like it this BBS and Uncensored. 

And what I hate about modern products is that "community support" has become so critical to maximizing your experience. "You'll meet other people with shared interests..." 

And discover you despise almost all of them. You'll like a couple of them, but their tie to the community will make them still part of the part you despise, and not your own community. 


Pretty much, if I met you in a different online community, and you had the brass balls to follow me from that community to THIS one or Uncensored - those are the only people I really care to interact with. It is like a test. If I tell you about this place, tell you I don't like the place we met, and that I won't be going there much - and you don't show up here - then I am well rid of you. You're not the right kind of person in my book unless you understand and agree. Most people given the choice will choose to stay plugged into the matrix, and I don't blame them, I'm not angry at them. But they're not woke, and they wouldn't be happy here if they came. They've made the right decision. 

So anyhow, the Vampire Discord has generally defied my expectations. Not a lot of politics, a lot of shared passion for the product, and very little of that social media bullshit... none of that... 

"No politics!" from the mods... 

And then tons of political posts that the mod agrees with... 

Then you post a political post the mod disagrees with... 

"Read the rules! No politics!" 

kind of bullshit. 

So... I started branching out, and today I was bored and tried the MiSTer Discord channel. 

Mistake. A total Reddit/Twitter style clusterfuck. 

There was an article in Nintendo News (gag) about the MiSTer. I read it, and read the comments (worse gag)... and then went into the Reddit... Discord and posted the thought, "Getting this much high profile coverage in a major Nintendo outlet may be a double edged sword for the MiSTer, in that it may put us on the radar of companies like Nintendo and Disney." 

And... this angry swarm of Nintendo fanboy Discord users dogpiled ME. Attacking me, being snarky. Insulting. 

So, I started shooting back. 

The Mod jumps in and warns me that "personal insults aren't allowed on Discord." 

Fuck this place, fuck these people - I'm out. 

Had a little side conversation with the mod, left it on polite terms, then unsubscribed from that Server. This is, without a doubt, the MiSTer community's loss - and the MiSTer discord's loss. But fuck them. And - I was basically *right* about my misgivings about Discord.  

And here is what I observed about this. MiSTer was a far better community when it was mostly old-school 8/16 bit retro gamers interested in systems from about the 2600 to the Amiga. But, once the NES cores and later started getting stable - there was a massive influx of what basically amount to *Millennial* gamers - and with it came that Reddit/Twitter/STFU Boomer attitude. And - I mean, I describe it that way, but as a group, as a demographic - this generation is super group-thought oriented. That is part of the problem. They tend to have monolithic attitudes about issues - and they operate in swarms - like a hive mind. They're the demographic who came up with concepts like "edgelords" and "dogpiles" and "gaslighting" and made those *things*... because, it is an actual thing that goes on in their communities. Oddly enough, in my 30s, I quit using online gaming services like Xbox Live - and it was because - that is where this generation WAS then. They didn't grow up to be annoying fucking twits. They've ALWAYS been an annoying fucking twit generation. 

I've seen community after community that I basically enjoyed destroyed - and in each case, it was as more and more of THIS generation arrived until it reached a critical mass. Once it does, every time, I haven't noticed the pattern - but I'm out. They fucking destroy every community they touch. The minute the infestation gets to big, there is nothing left to salvage, you've just got to go find a different community, one they haven't found yet. 

Here is the ironic thing. The problem is... Every single one of them is pretty much a clone in most of their online behavior of ME. They're snarky, smug and arrogant. They're single minded and inflexible. They're ALWAYS hostile and confrontational. Oh... I fucking KNOW myself. And Generation Y and Z both - basically I'm the template for online behavior that they've made their default. It was BEARABLE when I was one out of 10,000 users when you would be lucky to really interact with 4000 of that total. When it is 1 out of 4 out of 4 billion and you're likely to interact directly with dozens of them at a time every time you go online, it is fucking *miserable*. 

The internet is barely big enough for ONE of *me*, let alone an entire generation of mini-me-s amplifying the effect exponentially. 

And, TheDave - I know you're part of this generation, and we fuck with one another about this back and forth, and you see things from both sides - but you know you're an exceptional member of these generations, and have some critical reasoning about the group think that occurs there - and are even critical of it yourself frequently. I know this about you too. It is why I can tolerate you - why I'm glad you're here. 

Anyhow... so, Gen X rules and Y sucks, Z still could go either way, they're ruining everything about being online... and I'd like to put an age verification lock on Citadel that refuses access to anyone under 45, that only the sysop can override. Also, I was right about Discord - it is basically just another Facebook/Twitter/Reddit - and I hate "communal knowledge sharing." I'd rather post on forums that are strictly moderated and always completely on topic or read books, manuals and other documentation to learn what I need to learn than have to ask actual people for help - because - fuck actual people. I am more and more inclined to seeing Covid-19 as a failure, because I don't think it is actually doing anything to REDUCE population - just maybe slowing population growth. 

And I know the inclination is to go, "you're just a grumpy old man who doesn't like change, like every generation before you that grew old." 

I'm willing to accept that contributes, or is at least correlation. 

But another correlation is that it is pretty much universally agreed that online communities suck a dick right now in a way they never did before. You know who wasn't in these online communities back when they didn't suck? Gen Y and Z. Gen Y was on Xbox Live and Sony Online, and Gen Z was on Club Penguin. Now they're here, and being online sucks. That could be contributing too, but it certainly correlates. 

I hate social media. Some AntiFA guy (seriously) responded with like, 3 different posts about my article on Shapeshifter on the V4. 

Basically, he is one of those guys that looks at some synthetic benchmark on an emulator and goes, "THIS EMULATOR IS BLAZING FAST! 1 BILLION TIMES as fast as any Mac ever!" 

And you go, "Oh yeah, show me?" 

And as he is trying to load the benchmark, the mouse is stalling, freezing and jerking across the screen in fits and starts... 


Yeah, dude... that is WAY faster than the real hardware or FPGA. You've got a real hotrod there. It is so fast, the mouse pointer can't even keep up with it. 

I just got kicked out of the "Sages of the Forgotten Realms" group on facebook.  Some idiot posted a video about how Ao is the most powerful god of all, and I'm over here like "He's not a God, those have specific rules that he doesn't adhere to" and they were all "nuh uh you're stupid Ed Greenwood agrees with me" so I said "post your source or it didn't happen" and then the mods disabled my ability to post and I got swarmed with "You're a jerk" and then I got booted.  What the actual fuck.

If I could push a button to literally murder those people I would press it five times.  I'm so fucking sick of people getting pissed when you can cite your sources and require them to do the same.

Thu Feb 11 2021 15:41:07 MST from ParanoidDelusions

And, TheDave - I know you're part of this generation, and we fuck with one another about this back and forth, and you see things from both sides - but you know you're an exceptional member of these generations, and have some critical reasoning about the group think that occurs there - and are even critical of it yourself frequently. I know this about you too. It is why I can tolerate you - why I'm glad you're here. 

Anyhow... so, Gen X rules and Y sucks, Z still could go either way, they're ruining everything about being online... and I'd like to put an age verification lock on Citadel that refuses access to anyone under 45, that only the sysop can override. Also, I was right about Discord - it is basically just another Facebook/Twitter/Reddit - and I hate "communal knowledge sharing." I'd rather post on forums that are strictly moderated and always completely on topic or read books, manuals and other documentation to learn what I need to learn than have to ask actual people for help - because - fuck actual people. I am more and more inclined to seeing Covid-19 as a failure, because I don't think it is actually doing anything to REDUCE population - just maybe slowing population growth. 

And I know the inclination is to go, "you're just a grumpy old man who doesn't like change, like every generation before you that grew old." 

I'm willing to accept that contributes, or is at least correlation. 

But another correlation is that it is pretty much universally agreed that online communities suck a dick right now in a way they never did before. You know who wasn't in these online communities back when they didn't suck? Gen Y and Z. Gen Y was on Xbox Live and Sony Online, and Gen Z was on Club Penguin. Now they're here, and being online sucks. That could be contributing too, but it certainly correlates. 

No, you're right about that.  As a generation, Millennials are a bunch of shitbags that couldn't reason their way out of a wet paper bag that was already perforated for them.  You know there are always good and bad people in every group, I don't have to explain that to you.

If I were to add you to any group at all it would be my Duck group on facebook, but honestly there's a bunch of morons there now too so nothing is safe.

Heh. Yup. Same basic thing as happened to me in the Classic Mac Restoration group. 

You're arguing with a *USER*, and suddenly a MOD is offended and jumps in because you're beating up someone he agrees with and that causes him cognitive dissonance - so - now it isn't a fair fight because you're arguing with a petty tyrant with a ban-hammer who can't handle losing. 

And petty tyrants are drawn to this kind of role. It is why I like the Sacramento Citadel Group. None of the mods actually WANT to be moderator of it. 

Of course, none of the members have anything left to say to one another anyhow - so it is redundant to have Mods in the first place. We were all sick of one another online by 1992-93 at the latest. :D 

But yeah... I have driven off two days in a row going, "Do not let this shit eat you up. YOU told the Mac guy to fuck himself and then quit - and all he could do is pull the ENTIRE post and claim, 'it went off the rails'." 

That was his only way of getting a "last shot" at me. It was up for 5 or 6 hours, most of his members saw it - and by the time he got to it, I'm sure he went in all self righteous going, "Well, that guy is gone from MY grou... wait... uh, where is his account? Did I spell it wrong... he... what? He isn't... did he LEAVE before I could fucking BAN him?!?" 

So then he pulled the entire message, which was mostly on topic - rather than deleting the parts where HE helped that part of the thread off the rails...

So... I got a lot of satisfaction by knowing that I stole what is the most satisfying part of his role as a mod for him - getting to ban people he disagrees with. 

But then someone reported me for that message about how AntiFa should be curb stomped. I wish I could find out who that person is. Seriously. But I won't. They're a coward who would red-flag a neighbor over a disagreement over trash cans on the sidewalk. 

But I got to fuck with Facebook and the Facebook mods. To post the thing they removed, and tell them to fuck off, to dare them to ban or suspend me - and to call them on how they won't - because they BEG me to come back when I ignore them for a week. The reason is because I guarantee you they have a metric of the traffic and engagement among those in our circle on Facebook - and it goes measurably down when I stop showing up and posting and goes measurably UP when I do show up - and that means MONEY for them. I'm putting a price tag on Facebook's behavior - and calling them on it. And they don't have an algorithm for how to handle THAT. If I were a BIG enough problem... a Milo Y. or Alex Jones - it has a measurable positive impact among their LIBERAL users when they ban those guys. But they don't get that ripple effect if they ban me. I'm a nobody to the Left - but my posts generate lots of action with OTHER nobodies - and they realize if they start giving THOSE nobody accounts the axe left and right - that has no net benefit and huge detrimental effect to the Facebook platform. 

So... instead of being angry - I dwell on those facts. The positive ones... the ones where I fuck up the program for all the people whose program I want to fuck up. 

Thu Feb 18 2021 11:13:31 MST from TheDave

I just got kicked out of the "Sages of the Forgotten Realms" group on facebook.  Some idiot posted a video about how Ao is the most powerful god of all, and I'm over here like "He's not a God, those have specific rules that he doesn't adhere to" and they were all "nuh uh you're stupid Ed Greenwood agrees with me" so I said "post your source or it didn't happen" and then the mods disabled my ability to post and I got swarmed with "You're a jerk" and then I got booted.  What the actual fuck.

 

If I could push a button to literally murder those people I would press it five times.  I'm so fucking sick of people getting pissed when you can cite your sources and require them to do the same.

HOW TO TAKE OVER A COUNTRY, THE DEMOCRAT WAY

1. Create a Pariah Class. Promote as a fundamental cultural meme the idea that there exists a class of people that everyone can agree are pretty awful people, to the extent that their human rights need not apply (Ex: Nazis, White Supremacists, White Nationalists). This class need not even exist, and need not be an especially big problem, you just need to unflinchingly promote the fiction that they're the biggest problem in the world right now.

2. Consistently and ruthlessly expand and blur the definition of what constitutes membership in that Pariah class so that anyone and everyone can be and indeed *is* a member of that special group to whom rights need not apply. Normalize the idea that rights can occasionally be suspended because "this time, it's too important." Potentially everyone now qualifies for the suspension of their rights at a moment's notice. Not just "those" people, not just "them," but "us" and YOU.

3. Simultaneously, create a Thug Class of equally violent and vile extremists who are, in stark contrast, given complete legal immunity. Overreact to any normal repulsed reaction to their violent conduct, as though not accepting the violence of the Thug Class is itself hateful and violent.

4. Now, everyone is intuitively and habitually paralyzed with terror. They don't want to be called hateful and bigoted like the Pariah Class (because then their human rights will popularly cease to exist), and they don't want to be on the wrong side of the Thug Class, to whom the rule of law doesn't apply, so motion in any direction becomes impossible on any issue.

Also, ensure that the thug class is a very exclusive and narrow segment of society that is *impossible* to voluntarily identify as a member of. 

They've limited the legitimate thug class to a subminority of 15% of the population. 

Which means it is easy to take the glass slipper away from them, once they're done from them. 

It is really brilliant, as an evil strategy. 

Thu Apr 15 2021 05:21:01 MST from misterdizzy <misterdizzy@wallofhate.com>

HOW TO TAKE OVER A COUNTRY, THE DEMOCRAT WAY

1. Create a Pariah Class. Promote as a fundamental cultural meme the idea that there exists a class of people that everyone can agree are pretty awful people, to the extent that their human rights need not apply (Ex: Nazis, White Supremacists, White Nationalists). This class need not even exist, and need not be an especially big problem, you just need to unflinchingly promote the fiction that they're the biggest problem in the world right now.

2. Consistently and ruthlessly expand and blur the definition of what constitutes membership in that Pariah class so that anyone and everyone can be and indeed *is* a member of that special group to whom rights need not apply. Normalize the idea that rights can occasionally be suspended because "this time, it's too important." Potentially everyone now qualifies for the suspension of their rights at a moment's notice. Not just "those" people, not just "them," but "us" and YOU.

3. Simultaneously, create a Thug Class of equally violent and vile extremists who are, in stark contrast, given complete legal immunity. Overreact to any normal repulsed reaction to their violent conduct, as though not accepting the violence of the Thug Class is itself hateful and violent.

4. Now, everyone is intuitively and habitually paralyzed with terror. They don't want to be called hateful and bigoted like the Pariah Class (because then their human rights will popularly cease to exist), and they don't want to be on the wrong side of the Thug Class, to whom the rule of law doesn't apply, so motion in any direction becomes impossible on any issue.

This is exactly what the Soviets did. The thug class were called "socially friendly" because they were only hastening the proletariat revolution by devolving bourgeois concepts of property rights.

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn details this marvelously. I think it's the most important book of the 20th century. It finally obliterated any good-faith claims of the Soviets and removed their academic defense from all but the French postmodernists, who incidentally turned Marxist canon from proletariat/bourgeoisie class warfare into oppression/oppressor narratives of today's American garden varieties.

Anyone who hasn't read it would benefit tremendously from sipping the bitter tea of the USSR. 

Sounds like a worthwhile read. Of course, the other thing that they do is vilify the academic class. We've already seen that to the extent that people regard reading a chore, and reading things like this torture. 

But it is getting worse - where Left leaning academics like Bret Weinstein have actually been driven out of academia by the policies of identity politics that they helped champion. 

Because ignorance is easier to control. 

Fri Apr 16 2021 00:05:07 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>

This is exactly what the Soviets did. The thug class were called "socially friendly" because they were only hastening the proletariat revolution by devolving bourgeois concepts of property rights.

 

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn details this marvelously. I think it's the most important book of the 20th century. It finally obliterated any good-faith claims of the Soviets and removed their academic defense from all but the French postmodernists, who incidentally turned Marxist canon from proletariat/bourgeoisie class warfare into oppression/oppressor narratives of today's American garden varieties.

 

Anyone who hasn't read it would benefit tremendously from sipping the bitter tea of the USSR. 

Yep! And I hope the absurdity becomes more obvious, but I don't have much hope for that. Even so, I'm really enjoying James Lindsay's very thorough breakdowns on his YouTube channel. 

https://youtube.com/c/newdiscourses

subscribed. 

Thu Apr 22 2021 20:51:27 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>

Yep! And I hope the absurdity becomes more obvious, but I don't have much hope for that. Even so, I'm really enjoying James Lindsay's very thorough breakdowns on his YouTube channel. 

https://youtube.com/c/newdiscourses

So, if you've ever had occasion to be questioned by a cop, you know one of the first things they tell you is, "Don't lie to me. I hate it when people lie to me, and people lie to me all the time, so I know when you're lying to me." 

The best course of action then, is generally to say, "then I don't have anything to say, because I don't want to upset you." 

Because the cop just wants you to confess or implicate yourself, to make his job easier. He may go "easier" on you - let you off with a warning if the infraction is minor - or write you up and send you on your way instead of taking you downtown and booking you (which he doesn't want to do, if he can avoid it. That just takes up more of his day doing routine shit he doesn't want to do.) Ultimately, he isn't the one that goes hard or easy on you - it is the judge. So, let the cop do his job, do your job (just say I don't have anything to say without my lawyer present) and let your lawyer, the DA and the judge do their jobs. Don't do *any* of their jobs for them, though. 

But... cops are liars. They don't hate it when people lie to them. In fact, often - they hate it when you tell them the truth. Don't believe me? The next time you get pulled over - and the cop asks you if you know why he pulled you over, answer with one of these - TOP TRUTHS NOT TO SAY TO A TRAFFIC COP: 

* Because when you were a child, you dreamt of growing up to one day protect society from a decline into anarchy driven by lawless soccer-moms doing 10 mph over the posted limit in their minivans? 

* Because that Harley you're sitting on isn't going to pay for itself and you can only DIRECTLY tax the community so much for your services?

* Because you're 10 years away from your pension and you decided that writing tickets to suburbanites in BMWs was better than risking getting gutted by a strung out junkie downtown, where the action is? 

* Too many donuts, you failed your physical, so the chief put you on traffic patrol? 

* Because you're an unthinking tool of the mechanism of Government, just doing your job and following orders - just like most of the German soldiers in Germany in 1938? 

* High School athletics didn't pan out and personal trainer at L.A. Fitness didn't sound like as much fun? 

and #1: 

Because you saw me before I saw you, officer. 

None of these truths will win you any points with your traffic cop. They don't want the truth, they want you to lie. 

 

 

  

If something captures me for an entire 36 minute run time - and by the end of it, I'm considering Russell Brand and intelligent and thoughtful philosopher of liberty... 

You should watch it, too. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l03oonXtRtc&t=2174s