SoylentNews

I just bought a bow (up to 45# draw)
https://odinsonarchery.com/the-assassin/
and some arrows. If i do okay, i will look at buying another.

Anybody got experience?
Anybody got tips?

I've done some research and will do more, but experience is wonderful to learn from.

There is a word, "accelerationist," to describe the mindset of people like yesterday's Christchurch terrorist. You see, he didn't do this just for its own sake; he's trying for nothing less than to provoke the collapse of civilization via race war and internal strife, presumably to rebuild it as some sort of whites-only paradise. He in effect believes that he has to destroy it to save it (and that worked out SO well everywhere else that idea was tried...). I believe his scope is global, and he's trying to encourage copycat attacks worldwide with this.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't be too worried about one single psychopath trying to start a race war, and even saw him explicitly compared to Charles Manson and his "Helter-Skelter" plan in the main forum thread. Ordinarily, I'd agree and let it go as another sad but inevitable tragedy. Ordinarily, though, we wouldn't have an Anglosphere that's spent at least the last 20 years soaking in hatred and the last 2 and a half gleefully parading around its worst tendencies and members with all but official sanction from the leader of the supposed Free World.

"Accelerant" is also something that worsens and fuels fires, and there's a good reason for that. What we have now is the social equivalent of a pine barrens forest with decades of leaf litter, just waiting for that one spark. I did my junior year research on precisely this phenomenon, back in college. When the litter builds up, the entire forest goes up in flames at the slightest provocation. So I would say another term for people like this is "socilogical arsonist."

Unfortunately, I also believe his kind has won the day. I felt the US go over the edge about 12-18 months ago; civil war is at this point a matter of when, not if, and unlike the last one, today we have powerful enemies who are just waiting for the right time to swoop in and rip the country apart to loot it for their own ends. Which, to be fair, is probably what the country deserves at the national level, but will suck massively for individuals, most of whom are innocent. You know, just like when the US did it to other countries. Regardless, unless something incredibly huge and positive happens, I believe we're long past the point of no return.

Now, as to the other two terms in the title: you may be familiar with Roko's Basilisk already. I am referring to something more general than that: my definition of basilisk in this sense is "a pernicious meme or memeplex that does permanent damage to the mind in, at the very least, ways related to itself, specifically regarding removing itself or blunting its influence." Like the stare of the mythological basilisk, it slips in through the eyeholes and flays the mind from the inside out. You can think of them as a kind of memetic advanced persistent thread-type malware.

Basilisks have several things in common. They are "sticky" in memetic terms (that is, they leave a lasting impression). They are self-sealing, meaning they reinforce themselves, often recursively and through a variety of mechanisms, including hijacking other memes. Sometimes they work in pairs or larger groups, reinforcing one another. While they need not be readily infectious, they often are. And, like the stare of the real thing, they are often fatal if left untreated.

One key component of a good basilisk is that it takes advantage of the human tendency to be lazy thinkers. That is, once within its gravitational field, people will prefer to stay in it rather than change what at that point has become a large and important part of their thinking. Thus a good basilisk has an ad-hoc answer to pretty much every objection that might be raised to it as a sort of anti-malware-evasion routine.

Calvinism is an excellent example: it centers on the idea of TULIP, this being "total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, persistence of saints/saved." Basically, this undercuts critical thinking by making it an issue completely out of one's control; one is either saved or not, through God's action and not one's own, no one can do anything to become elect or reprobate, and (here's the stinger): "if you're really saved, you wouldn't be doubting in the first place, now would you?" The "stickiness" is of course the threat of eternal torture, which is probably the single "stickiest" meme it is by definition possible to create. So what we have here is a persistent, all-encompassing black hole of a memeplex.

Much white supremacist thought, or supremacist thought in general, works the same way. The hook, the "stickiness," is something along the lines of "your life sucks unfairly, and it's not only not your fault, it's the fault of $ETHNIC_GROUP." That is *very* powerful to anyone who's suffered unfairly. Plant this one, and entire categories of critical thought get cut off at the roots, not least because when people are suffering and tired and angry and traumatized, they very literally do not have the energy to do more than the laziest thinking.

Finally, the exploitation of these patterns is what I am referring to as "dark psychohistory," which is a direct nod to Asimov. People who understand this can have effects completely out of proportion to the amount of direct force they are capable of bringing to bear. "Stochastic terrorism" is another way of talking about this, and it's something Trump is doing: while we're going to get bootlicking psychopathic apologists like Hallow pointing out that Trump himself never directly incites people to violence, he says things that make it likely-to-certain that among a large enough group of people with a certain mindset, *one or more of them* will do something violent.

If hiring a hitman is one degree of separation, stochastic terrorism is two or three. We can't, in this case, draw a direct line as we could from the hitman and the person hiring him. But it's fairly obvious that things like "I'll pay their legal bills" are just a degree or two of separation further removed; we have a name for this, which is "incitement to violence."

And that is one tool in the accelerationist toolbox. Our friend in Christchurch sees himself as a sort of revolutionary vanguard trooper; he is hoping that the very fact that he was able to pull this off, combined with the force multiplier of global news broadcasts, will be enough to spark off more attacks of a similar kind, which themselves will generate more, and so forth. It's rather like a runaway nuclear fission reaction in that sense.

So what do we do about this? Unfortunately, little to nothing: i have concluded that most humans simply are not capable of the type of introspection and critical thought necessary to ward this sort of memetic plague off, many of them because they are suffering too much and too concerned with simple survival to have the energy to invest in that sort of mental hygiene. I do, sadly, believe that civil war is not only inevitable but not so very far away. My one solace is that these "accelerationists" are going to get exactly what's coming to them, here and hereafter; the world they create will be one in which the living envy the dead.

If you all wonder why I keep saying death holds no fear for me, this is why.

Just heard about the horrible murder that happened Thurs. night. Frank Cali, shot many times right on his own doorstep. And ran over with a truck to make sure. Or just to be mean. Very disrespectful, one of our great N.Y.P.D. Officers said -- you do it in Manhattan, he says. Not at the guy's house in Staten Island. Show some respect, show a little class. Whatever happened to class? I'll tell you, New York is one tough town. Maybe a little too tough. But, it's home and I miss it a lot. My condolences & best wishes to the Family. If there's anything you need, anything you want, I'm ready to help. As always. Rest in peace, Franky! foxnews.com/us/frank-cali-gambino-crime-family-boss-fatally-shot-outside-staten-island-home-reports

Update, I did VETO of the Reckless Resolution. So chuffed!!! pic.twitter.com/tEgQFkcMs1

About to do 1st. VETO -- as I promised. About to protect our Country & "people" by signing my magnificent name. And already feeling incredible!! insider.foxnews.com/2019/03/15/hogan-gidley-president-trumps-first-veto-after-border-emergency-declaration-blocked video.foxnews.com/v/6014452641001

So horrible what just happened in the "country" of New Zealand, home of my fabulous gay friend Peter Thiel. He's gay, and that's O.K. So say I, and so says V.P. Pence.🏳️‍🌈

New Zealand, they've been bringing in many Muslims. Often referred to as the Islam Invasion. And so many are good people. Innocent people. But, somebody thought it was too much Muslim. And they had 49 people dieing. Or, being killed. Also injured. Our thoughts & Condolences go to ALL the people of New Zealand. On all sides.

But I'm not offering just my very smart thoughts. I'm offering much more. New Zealand, if you're listening -- America is with you. We stand with you, fully. And if you need some bottled water, if you need paper towels, we will bring it. We have plentiful supplies of paper towels. As well as a magnificent Air (soon Space) Force. And you have a big mess on your "hands." Lots of blood, and other things. Probably some other things, right? Do you know Formula 409? We had a maid from El Salvador, we taught her Formula 409. And now she's one of the biggest people doing that one. God bless!!! oann.com/president-trump-offers-condolences-to-new-zealand-after-deadly-mosque-attack-49-dead

Pence hosts openly gay Irish prime minister and his partner for breakfast

Vice President Pence hosted the openly gay prime minister of Ireland and his partner for breakfast at the Naval Observatory Thursday.

Leo Varadkar, who is in the U.S. for an annual meeting with U.S. officials ahead of St. Patrick's Day, shared photos of the event on Twitter.

[...] Although Pence has hosted Varadkar before, this is the first time the vice president has hosted the partner of an openly gay world leader.

gay men > lone woman

Well the good news is that most congresscritters do, and Trump's fake-ass emergency was rejected.

41 Republican Senators and 182 Republican House Representatives, on the other hand, just proved how completely full of crap they are.

Folks, I talked this morning with Dennis/Boeing. And it wasn't a "nice" talk. Boeing, as you know -- big crash in Nambia. We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an UNelected, UNaccountable, global bureaucracy. Often referred to as United Nations. America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism. Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination.

That said. When you have 157 people dieing horribly. And ZERO survivors. It's a little bit much. Even if a huge amount of those was U.N. people. They're still victims (RIP!!). My prayers and condolences -- also thoughts -- to the families of the victims.

I'll tell you, they're the victims of Modern Digital. Boeing had a great thing. Called the 737. That one has been flying more than 50 years. And, only about 5,000 people killed in that one. Very safe airplane -- steam. But, they had to "upgrade" it. With the latest digital. Cyber everything. They maxed everything out, they call it 737 MAX. And we had one of those crashing very badly in October -- Lion Air of Indonesia. ZERO survivors from that one either. Very bad (RIP!!).

But, Dennis says it's safe. I don't think so. I don't think so. They put so much cyber in it. And you have to be Einstein to fly that one. I'm the first President that ran an airline. Not counting Bush Original and Air America. So I know more about this than anyone. Airline guys are like Tim/Apple. They don't want to hire Einstein. They don't want a Computer Scientist from M.I.T. And they don't want a College graduate. They want somebody that went to Flight School, that hopefully passed Flight School. Smart enough, but not too smart. A hard worker that's not looking for a lot of money. Somebody that, when huge flames start shooting out of the tail of the airplane, will know what buttons to push to make everything O.K. But Boeing took away the buttons. They put in Touch Screen. Put in Modem. And complicated, very greatly, the lives of our pilots. Nambia, the flames came out of the tail. And nobody knows what happened in the cockpit. But people are saying, the pilots didn't know what to do. Because Touch Screen is like a woman, there's so many very special ways to touch it. The pinch. The swipe, or wipe. The tap. Double tap. The press -- long press. Drag -- it never ends. And these guys, probably, were going, "oh, flames coming from tail, swipe left or swipe right?" Because Boeing took something old, something simple, 737. And made it as complex as Tinder. Or Grinder. Unnecessary. Dennis/Boeing, get your act together. Or our foe the European Union will eat your lunch!!! youtu.be/UZq3iCn2y74

A man is on his way home from work. Traffic comes to a complete halt.

"Wow this traffic is worse than usual. Nothing is moving."

Soon he observes a police officer moving back and forth among cars getting closer and closer.
He rolls down his window and asks "Officer, what's the delay?"
The officer replies...

"Trump is so depressed about not always getting his way, that he stopped his limo in the middle of traffic and is now threatening to douse himself in gasoline and set himself on fire. He says everyone hates him. He can't just quit because the Fake News would laugh at him. And he doesn't have, and never has had, enough money for REAL lawyers to defend himself from all the criminal prosecutions that would follow."

"So I've been taking up a collection.", the officer says.

"Oh, really, how much have you collected so far?"

"So far about 26 gallons, but many folks are still siphoning."

_{adapted from a "Canadian prime minister" joke}

Join Us for a Tom's Hardware AMA with Intel Optane

1. What even is it?
2. Why does it suck?
3. Can I have some for free?