apriorion

What's the "preventing mass hysteria" bullshit? First, it's incredibly paternalistic. For all this talk of the "freedom" afforded by democratic governance, it's really fucking annoying to see once again a person in a position of leadership determining what the public can or can't handle. Second, the state of the world is pretty silly now. I'm doubtful that telling people about a galactic federation would make things that much worse. Arguably, it might bring people together. What is the reasoning exactly that this would pull people apart? It's more plausible that people in positions of power would prefer to keep this information to themselves, so that they can find ways to use this information to their advantage. It's what they do. Third, all of this is rather silly, anyway, and I don't put a whole lot of stock in any of it. As someone already mentioned, we have evidence of tic tacs or something. That's about it. Could be explained in all sorts of ways that don't have jack to do with a Galactic Federation. This has been said many times, but it could be some unexplained weather phenomenon, could be some random anarchist aliens, could be some country with some really advanced, as yet undisclosed tech. It's really not hard to imagine so many other things than a silly Star Trek Wars plot. Goodness, it's embarrassing to even address this. Fourth, we have a hard enough time understanding non-human terrestrial forms of life. We've all heard the old Wittgenstein addage: "If a lion could speak, we wouldn't understand it." Are we to believe our leaders are so smart that not only can they handle information that can't be entrusted to the rest of us, but they're also great at communicating with forms of life from a completely different evolutionary timeline? Fuck right off. I had a few more points, but that's enough for now.

By far by far

So, one could call it “remixes for cash”?

Yes, that first one is excellent, and the second one felt like a huge dip in quality by comparison, although there are some great tracks on there. I'm cautiously optimistic about this, but the Orb has been pretty disappointing lately, for the most part.

What's with this flippant use of death threats?!

Goodness, I've been saying for decades now that the expression of these exact sentiments--without any shame and out in the open--is a seriously scary warning sign. As someone who fits into one of those very groups he just mentioned, that's terrifying to see. But as someone who (for some reason) still cares about the proper function of society, that's disheartening.

Excellent news. Thanks!

Thanks for the tip: Joel is a sweet human being who also makes killer fucking tunes and throws amazing, high-energy live shows. Had the privilege to see him *twice* at my favorite place in the whole world (Rozz-Tox, QC) and always loved hanging with him and chatting with him. Excited for adding this to my vinyl collection: it will earn a pride of place among my faves, instantly.

IDM heh

Is there a rage facepalm reaction icon? There should be. Sparking up the base by intentionally broadcasting things to upset people in the opposing "tribe" (I hate that language, but that seems to be the motivation here). It can't get much more blatant than this.

It shouldn't have been so close. But then again, who are these people, these 70+ million people, who voted for the wannabe dictator in the first place? That should not have happened.

Yeah, but similar arguments were advanced in 2015 for the claim that he couldn't get elected. "They're incompetent, therefore they'll fail." It's not that I think we're overlooking any great genius here--there isn't any--but those commentators who dismissed his candidacy as a joke weren't counting on how effective it is to tap into provincialism, scapegoating, and good ol' fashioned racism in America. And his popular vote actually increased this time around, right? He knows how to milk those die-hard followers, we have to give him at least that much. I'm with Jules on this: it's pretty scary shit.

Wasn't that a contributory factor in the downfall of Rome? Lead in the aquaduct system?

Really remarkable how the opening of "Constructivist" sounds a lot like the opening of Autechre's "latentcall" from elseq 4.

Fair enough. Look, I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief too. But I'm still thoroughly shocked how many people still voted for Trump. I'm going to let go of it for today. Sorry to bring everyone else down with my pessimism. It isn't easy for me to accept the good, especially when the bad is so overwhelmingly present. But there's still good, and I'll focus on that from now on this weekend.

Sorry to be a debbie-downer, but that's a surgical removal of a tumour while the cancer has metastazied in the liver and has spread to the brain of this, Our Great Country. We be celebrating the hacking of a rapidly decomposing corpse. Granted, that's a bit dramatic, but we shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back over this terribly weak showing. We have to remain vigilant now, and brace ourselves for whatever nutty declarations Trump will signal to his rather substantive base. These are the people with guns, who organize Weekend-Warrior militia groups like the three-percenters or the oathkeepers. They all believe the weird things that Trump says about the election being stolen, and they are ready for a civil war. Listen: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/28/928644025/after-covering-civil-war-overseas-journalist-examines-u-s-militia-movement The size of the Trump base is what's truly disturbing me right now: it's much worse than I thought. I thought (given 2016) that his support was a sizable minority: just enough and distributed just right to secure the electoral college victory. While he didn't secure it this time, what this shows is far more people were willing to vote for this guy--despite all that he said and did to undermine democracy--than a mere 30%. It was basically half of this fucking country. Fuck this. No, we should not be happy.

We shouldn’t be happy about this. Relieved, sure, but not happy. Half the country voted for this wannabe dictator, even after all the shit he said and did. They aren’t going away. They seem to be growing in number. This was close, way too close, and Trump beat Obama’s record for largest amount of votes (as did Biden). The problems are here, they’re deep, and they’re probably going to get worse.

Of course it is.

Great! Thanks for the tip. I've been a huge fan since "Spanners", but I was obsessed with "Liber Dogma" and this past winter I had "Conspiracy Tapes Live" and "Conspiracy Tapes RMX" on a loop. Looking forward to digging into this and the follow-up in a month!

I'm sure others have come up with this, but just in case... #metoobin

This album fits right between my copy of Steve Hauschildt's recent "Non-Lin" and Locust's recent "The Plaintive". All three are hitting me in the heart in complicated ways, accented by the grey, windy fall weather and cold house, personal struggles, work demands, political uncertainty, and the prospect of death. And I couldn't be more grateful for this.

holy shit I'm already dying Thank the non-existent God for you, Alco, you prince of undead princes.

They should title the next one "ificant" as in "that would be significantly stupid and I do not wish for them to do things like that" Or it could be a collection of remixes called "re-sign" as in "I resign from making silly predictions".

Oh my. It exceeded my expectations by so far, and those expectations were high. On second listen now... THAENX!!!

I probably should not have lolled, but I literally just laughed out loud at the delivery in that tweet. Thanks.