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[silverspawn]

I played poker in a casino today! I think there's an important life lesson here. Important for me, anyway.

The lesson is this -- going in, I had all these strategic plans for what I wanted to do. Then when I had my first good hand, I was incredibly nervous and immediately forgot everything and just did something very stupid. Not a big deal, I'll get over it after a few times, but I like I was already nervous hours before, obviously that would be the main factor when I actually got a playable hand. So yeah, this should have been extremely predictable. Instead of making complex plans I should have just resolved not to rush it the first time I have to decide anything.

Anyway so after folding the first ~18 hands, I got Aces. Then like a total idiot I made a medium raise. This was extremely stupid because well these people call way too much and I have the strongest possible hand so obviously I should raise higher. But as I said, nerves.

Then two other times I won something from the big blind because everyone else limped. Those were the only three noticeable hands the net result was +160€. It was super lucky, but man these people are astonishingly terrible at poker, so I'm definitely going to go again.

It's all amazing -- low rake, awful players -- except that the stakes are way too high for me and I don't have the proper bankroll for it. But maybe I'll get there.

[silverspawn]

But yeah these people play much worse than Pokerstars 5ct-10ct blinds, 10$ buy-in cash games, despite gambling for several thousand euros in some cases. I don't really get why this is a thing; you'd think someone else would go there and wreck them. I was told people offline play badly, but this surpassed my wildest dreams.

[silverspawn]

Aside from me, boredom was a more prevalent emotion than nervousness. Lost of people looking at their phones or even listening to music

[Awaclus]

of course people that start two world wars and lose both are horrible at gambling

[silverspawn]

So if Obama does in fact become the Democratic nominee, I hereby commit to taking back basically everything I think I know about how politics works.

It just makes 0 sense; if there was a Deep state, like I've said before, Trump wouldn't have won in the first place. The idea that there is a deep state but it only controls the Democratic side is incredibly convoluted. So if it happens, my world model is grossly off.

[silverspawn]

I remember making this point to my sister. I should have been far less timid about it. I should have just acknowledged that there is a deep state. Then what? Well,  if it is too incompetent to swing 20000 votes in a single state, I'd say not much. Seems pretty unimportant. This argument is criminally underrated.

You could hold that Obama will run without a D/S but she said she won't so that makes even less sense

[silverspawn]

Then in 2020 they did election meddling so poorly that the side they helped underperformed polls by 4%. This deep state has some genuine comedic value.

[silverspawn]

And then they tried to perform mass genocide through the vaccines but it was just too difficult to make them deadly. But A+ for effort!

[silverspawn]

So I think planning is good, which means I actually think the world would be a better place if the deep state had its shit together. Maybe it's just understaffed? Someone should hold a fundraiser. Your donation will help nake the Deepstate great again!

[Awaclus]

For some values of "deep state", there absolutely is a deep state, and it is pretty important even. It's extremely different from what conspiracy theorists imagine it to be, but undeniably there are entities that hold political power despite not having been democratically elected or otherwise chosen through the official procedures.

[silverspawn]

For some values of "deep state", there absolutely is a deep state, and it is pretty important even. It's extremely different from what conspiracy theorists imagine it to be, but undeniably there are entities that hold political power despite not having been democratically elected or otherwise chosen through the official procedures.

What are those values? In my mind, the most important property of being a deep state was exerting control over the course of the world

[Awaclus]

For some values of "deep state", there absolutely is a deep state, and it is pretty important even. It's extremely different from what conspiracy theorists imagine it to be, but undeniably there are entities that hold political power despite not having been democratically elected or otherwise chosen through the official procedures.

What are those values? In my mind, the most important property of being a deep state was exerting control over the course of the world

"Entities that hold political power despite not having been democratically elected or otherwise chosen through the official procedures" would be one value for which there is a deep state. Which includes stuff like big corporations, people who are networked with the right people, etc. They don't exert absolute control over the course of the world of course, and they don't all even try to steer it in the same direction as each other, but they do have some level of control over the course of the world and a lot of this is not very transparent.

[silverspawn]

I admire your willingness to stretch the concept, but yeah fair enough

[silverspawn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like AfD really has all that much power in Germany?

It's true, but they have been doing well in polls lately, and state elections are coming up in several states that are strongholds for them, meaning they will probably win first place there.

Also as far as I can judge from the Finn's party Wiki page, the AfD is significantly more extreme than them. There has been a recent scandal about a secret meeting in which they discussed the deportation of naturalized citizens (and even German-born ones that aren't white).

The AfD is actually polling ahead of the SPD nationally, which is the party in power ... well, in a 3-way coalition that's in power, but the one who had the most votes and got to provide the chancellor

[silverspawn]

Alright, second day in the casino, and +150. I'd put an exclamation mark there except that I only won 150, not 150!.

The players were significantly better than last time, but still not very good.

[silverspawn]

I bought in for 150 this time (with the idea of rebuying once for another 150 if I lose) instead of 300, which was my luck because I almost immediately lost my stack with two pairs against a set. So if I keep the 150 buyin, then I only need about 1000 euros to have a reasonable insurance. Seems doable!

[silverspawn]

I asked GPT-4 for the 10 most influential bands or musical artists today and the first pick was...

... the korean boy band BTS, before Taylor Swift at #2. Man, different worlds.

[silverspawn]

And they are now on break because they have to go to the military. Whelp. I'm kinda glad that starcraft programers aren't the only celebrities who aren't exempt.

[silverspawn]

Alright let's listen to some BTS. I have no idea what I'm about to get into but I resolve to listen to the entire song with full concentration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdZLi9oWNZg

[silverspawn]

That actually wasn't nearly as bad I as I thought it'd be.

I am a little confused about the girly presentation and feminine vibes, but I don't know anything about boy bands so it may well be the norm

[silverspawn]

So the Buddhist thing would be for me to have already accepted the possibility that Trump can win. I don't think I have, though. I mean logically I have, but emotionally, I'm still focusing on the case for optimism.

It's similar to the global decline in order that we're witnessing right now. I have serious trouble accepting a deep level that things seem to be getting worse. My mind keeps making responses like "Ukraine is a big part of the problem right now, that just came from a single person, so no reason to extrapolate a trend", i.e., looking for reasons why the thesis may be wrong, rather than dealing with the fact that it may be true.

Why did I have to get more optimistic about AI just to become more pessimistic about global order?

[silverspawn]

Btw if it's this close with an amazing economy just imagine how screwed Biden would be with a bad economy

[silverspawn]

Is nostalgia really about remembering something from long ago, or is it really that children feel the-emotion-called-nostalgia frequently, maybe almost constantly, and the reason we associate it with memory is because it's not in the default state for adults, so we almost only get to experience it when remembering something from your childhood?

[silverspawn]

(Apologies for the messed up grammar.)

Like, if it were the former, which I think is the default view, then nostalgia is something you never experience as a child, or almost never. But I'm very skeptical that's actually true.

[faust]

Is nostalgia really about remembering something from long ago, or is it really that children feel the-emotion-called-nostalgia frequently, maybe almost constantly, and the reason we associate it with memory is because it's not in the default state for adults, so we almost only get to experience it when remembering something from your childhood?

I'm not sure your theory holds up.

a) People can be nostalgic about experiences that were not even pleasant at the time.
b) People are frequently nostalgic about events that happened when they were already adults. Like I can think back with nostalgia to the time when I started studying.