I have experimented with sugar, cream (dairy, soy, almond, coconut, oatmilk), and both combined, but I return to black and have stayed this way for years now. Sugar hurts my teeth, and I am not realy interested in adding calorie dense stuff to my happy juice. And I love the taste of black coffee. It can be shit sometimes, but at it's best it surpasses anything sweeteners or cream can add.

YES!

Also apologies for where my communication fell short.

Can we dial this back a little, because I respect the posting I’ve seen from you over the years and internet debating stresses me out. I think I may have used a couple loaded phrases to poke a little, and I would like to clarify where I have contributed to a misunderstanding.

I appreciated the first part of your response where you linked to information about the things that were found at crash sites. I found this as cogent reasoning and respectful practice, as I am not swayed by the passports, not to mention jet fuel etc.

I shouldn’t have said “dismiss everything” and I should have made clear that I took umbrage with what I interpreted as equivocation between legitimate paths of inquiry and irresponsible and wild conspiratorial speculation (UFO shit, as I put it). To me, you were saying all 9/11 questioning contra the official narrative is conspiracy theory. This irked me ngl.

When I said dismiss everythin in the fillowing response, I was alluding to you presenting a cohesive narrative with facts which didn’t really address some if the points my first response, in particular the point about insider trading. None of the facts I pointed out and none of the facts you pointed out are immiscible, and could be explained away under the paradigm of “the official narrative”. Like who knows what networks could’ve tipped off investors. I can accept that.

But I thank you for pointing out long standing relationships between Saudi’s and the Bush family, both in official state operations and myriad business ventures. Poppy and a select group of his closest pals in US intelligence and otherwise were absolutely instrumental and intimately involved in modernizing Saudi intelligence, and he was personally involved in seeing Saudi funds reintegrated into US investments. All of the networks that surround these people and their activities are characterized by subterfuge, lies, in dealing, fucking holes in the ground for energy, fraudulent investment schemes, and pursuing war for profit. Even if all evidence pointed to the straight forward narrative, one should be chilled with how much these folks directly benefitted from the expansion of the military budget and intensification of secrecy and surveillance at scale in the aftermath. We saw a 2 trillion dollar transfer of public wealth to the defense industry in as many decades, to give a sense of the incentive structure their cohort had to pursue such an open ended war in such a geopolitically important region. This does not include the private wealth pursued by like, every single general and JCoS asshole after their “service” to use soviet maps to strip mine the regions that had decimated and conquered for empire.

We could go on trading details toward this or that end, but to me the previous paragraph is sorta my reasoning as to why the official narrative should be critically evaluated, and where it is weak or points to troubling and unanswered lines of inquiry, well all the more reason to press. It is strange that these calculating and conspiring fucks were able to use their networks and conspiring to personally enrich themselves and pals over decades in adjacent and directly related industries, but this 2 trillion dollar gift from god required none of that. Maybe I am naive or somehow uncritical for this still being unsettling to me, and enough for me to keep an open mind to counter narratives.

It is pretty uncontroversial to say that people in a position to take advantage of this event for personal, political, and imperial aims did so the umpth degree. I think where we might disagree is whether it is necessary to pursue the question of “were these actors, who may have been in a position to tip the scales in favor of this event, act to or fail to act so as to contribute to this eventuality” as a legitimate line of inquiry, or if the facts as presented obviate the need to do so.

You’re cool and funny and I respect your posting. I don’t post much, and I lack the wherewithal to engage most the time. I hope this made any sense and that my good faith and lack of malice come through in the tone of this message.

*edited for clarity (i hope)

Word. That’s fair. I was just put off by what I interpreted as an unfair equivocation between attempting to apply material analysis to major historical events and undisciplined conspiratorial waxing. Having spent ungodly hours attempting to form a cohesive thought on the matter, even the most conservative interpretation of evidence leaves me with nothing like the confidence on display in advocating on behalf of “the official narrative”. “I think it’s bullshit but there is merit in pursuing questions with a critical disposition” seems way more honest and comradely a response than “even if there is a ton of contravening evidence problemetizing the official narrative, it is all bullshit and I am correct”. So thank you for your generosity.

Ok, dismiss everything. My point is that there is a ton of data points which should raise eyebrows of researchers, and to dismiss with such certitude in the face of unanswered/unanswerable questions is just as unreasonable as being credulous with every conspiracy theory posited. Your conflation of people troubled by these data points and questions with the fringest of conspiracy theorists reeks of unmerited condescension. A more reasonable position would be to state your personal feeling on the matter but acknowledge that there are unknowns and unknowables and certain evidence that make any sort of confidence one way or another impossible at this point in time. Instead it’s “this is just UFO shit” and I was surprised this is your take.

This is your take? I mean, the insider trading stuff is pretty heavy evidence that people knew ahead of time. People with money and resources to act on this foreknowledge. And the case that we are presented with by the commission is, well, a story of people close to important state actors conspiring to commit the crime. The state dept story is a conspiracy theory, even if truncated, obfuscated, covered-up, that is still what they presented us with. Oh yeah, and that many in the intelligence community knew of the attackers presence in the US, others knowing of an impending attack, and the attackers being closely related to Saudi intelligence, ya know, the intelligence service buttresses with US technology and training in close partnership. But yeah, just like “UFO’s”.

Some folks are presented with facts which should cause alarm and suspicion but instead reel and dismiss, and I can only point to a lack of intellectual curiosity, ideology, or a motivated viewpoint based on a perceived in-group’s general opinion which steers then into taking the state department position, and that of the Atlantic Monthly. “Actually it’s all chaos and accident, and our pattern seeking brains project meaning onto events which are random.” I’m nit saying that’s your position, but it is a common refrain to dismiss real conspiracies, and reminds me of Parenti’s take on historians who talk about “the reluctant US empire who rose to the occasion at a critical juncture to bumble its way into global dominance”. Like, no calculation or conspiring required.

As if these shit hole leaders are braying at every opportunity to make money dropping bombs. Just god smiling on them I guess. Nothing to see here.

https://twitter.com/yugopnik/status/1773315647411261827

If i must know then so must you

All my blue reps voted for this. Oh yeah, they also voted for unconditional military aid to Israel and to not support UNWRA right after. Loser party.

LogSec for students, project organization, and the aspiring corkboard conspiracy theorist in your life wanting to be the next Mark Lombardi. Use markdown in a free flow style notes app that has powerful tools to connect ideas, so you can focus on the information as opposed the organization. Semantics instead of syntax, as it were.

DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.

A leaf was riven from a tree,
"I mean to fall to earth," said he.

The west wind, rising, made him veer.
"Eastward," said he, "I now shall steer."

The east wind rose with greater force.
Said he: "'Twere wise to change my course."

With equal power they contend.
He said: "My judgment I suspend. "

Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
Cried: "I've decided to fall straight."

"First thoughts are best?" That's not the moral;
Just choose your own and we'll not quarrel.

Howe'er your choice may chance to fall,
You'll have no hand in it at all. —G.J.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I exclaimed "YES!" and started clapping after reading your comment. Just hell yeah. Beyond the weird issues that come with the model of seeding to gain access, there is something fundamentally off about the idea of private trackers, and you nailed it. It is antithetical to the whole enterprise of sharing. This transactional shit serves as a price tag that only the privileged can afford

Megalovania. I was proud that I knew it on sight. The benefits of having a kid I suppose

I loved the Mary Worth posting and I am loving the Mortensen posting, too. Thanks for sharing

Yes they acknowledged the old sub for sure. Will and Felix did AMAs at different times. I feel like Felix posted in the sub in 2016 for an AMA that was like for 10 people because the sub was so small at the time and Will did his AMA in 2018 or so. Chris definitely was in there and did an AMA and I remember this huge thread where he was engaging with like every question. I was impressed. One of the mods (mugrimm) told him the shows were too long and to keep them at 1hr45min which pissed me off because I lived for content at the time. Even funnier that Chris agreed that that was the perfect length and recently they are going for a solid hour and that's pretty much it. Dave Anthony from the Dollop did an AMA on the sub, too, lol. Dave Anthony would post on the sub sometimes randomly and he would get into it with shit talkers. Did not shy away and embraced being mad online. I think cush had a couple of comments on the sub from the early days out of curiosity, and I remember somebody around here saying that he was asked about this site on a cushvlog and was aware of hexbear and supportive of the decision to stop calling it chapo.chat. And BadEmpanada would shit post there from time to time too

places hand over butthole, smiling nervously ‘Yes. I too use this soap for my… “balls”’

Honestly the one that came to mind involves the same user from the same thread which is unfortunately buried in a morass of text block. But a comrade was explaining to them why they disagree with common mischaracterizations of Stalin, and the lemm.ee person responded approvingly, saying they appreciated the nuance in the comrade's representation of Stalin.

I lol'd when comrade replied that it was jarring too hear a self-declared conservative approve of their explanation of Stalin's legacy.

Also, other comrades did great work in politely suggesting further reading, and the .ee poster was open to it and thankful.

I keep thinking about how "Lib" r/cth was back when it started. How the struggle sessions and the desire for learning led us to refine our understandings, filtering out the nonsense, and how long this took, how many of us straight left the community, some to return and some not. It was and can be painful to have your held beliefs challenged and to be negatively implicated in harboring reactionary tendencies. I read another user from on of the defederated instances talking about how the comments that they received from hexbear pushing back against their received wisdom obsessed their thoughts for days (relatable) before they moved on (no you didn't). It's easy and advisable to "not get mad online" but I would be lying if I said I hadn't. I have grown from the uncomfortable interactions I have had in this community over the years (uncomfortable in the sense of challenging my preconceived notions and reflecting poorly on my thinking) even though I have been overwhelmed at times by the intensity the community can sometimes operate on during tumult and struggle sessions, but I come back because we have the best posters, the most caring online community I have encountered (our mutual aid community speaks volumes), and we are by and large willing to challenge our own thinking. The growth of the community (in the intellectual, political, "spiritual" sense) is obvious when you look how far we've come from like 2016 or whatever (I joined r/cth mid 2017). That growth has been hard fought, and while the culture is still that of the "overly online irony poisoned" variety, little remains of the political tenor that characterized r/cth. If the posters from r/cth were transported here by time machine, they would be dunked on as succ dems by their future selves or something. If anything, hexbear seems a closer cousin to r/cth2, which was itself controversial among some users of the original sub.

I am rambling, but it is funny that we went to an online hidey hole and emerged this striking figure which is unfathomable and highly foreign to the reddit brain after only 3 years of breaking away. Reddit cut off the potential of r/cth and it appears what they were thinking about our presence there and it's effect on the broader community were at least partially true. Our engagement was a threat to the western anglosphere thinking that dominates the site, and when they took the sub away many of us fled and stopped posting there. Since r/cth was nuked I have commented only a few times, and it's for stuff like "how do you do this in minecraft?" or something. When the sub was alive I was all over the site engaging with others in political discussions etc. The sub being nuked left a rhetorical and philosophical void, the fallout of which we are now seeing as we attempt to reintegrate.

These other instances have not gone through the same kind of community building and education that defines ours, and I hope that federation is at least successful enough too see the lemmy verse grow, and to have our presence a relevant force in that space as new users are exposed to new ideas. I can already see fellow travelers from other instances who were unaware of our existence previous to federation cautiously dipping their toes in and I for one am here for it.