unixknight

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Everything posted by unixknight

  1. I think manipulation is more about controlling others without them realizing you're doing it. If I threaten you to do what I want, that's not manipulation because we both know full well what's happening. The same goes for offering incentives, persuasion, etc. I once heard diplomacy defined as "the art of letting others get your way." I think that description more aptly fits 'manipulation' than 'diplomacy.'
  2. I'd say those examples are more historical revisionism than the Mandela Effect.
  3. And not to be nitpicky, but "Scotty, beam me up" isn't the same as "Beam me up, Scotty." Kirk never says "Beam me up, Scotty." Not one single time. People cite it as an example of the Mandela Effect but I don't think it is, because nobody actually remembers him saying it. (Or at most, they think they remember him saying it because they've heard every Trekkie in their circle say it.) It's just that "beam me up, Scotty" is the sort of thing that Kirk would say, so people just assumed he did and ran around making T-shirts about it. To qualify as a Mandela Effect, it has to be remembered in specific detail and by multiple people. So "Beam me up Scotty" would be Mandela Effect if a lot of people could point to a specific moment in a specific episode when they clearly recall Kirk saying "Beam me up, Scotty" but it's nowhere to be found. As an example, I've seen a Mandela Effect video or two where the guy claims that a couple of specific verses in the KJV Bible were altered because he remembers them differently.
  4. The title of this thread made me think of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's prayer at the end of The 13th Warrior.
  5. 2 things I wish about that: I WISH they'd used this as the basis for the D&D movie. The actual movie has nothing to do with the D&D cartoon... or the game, for that matter. I WISH I was the voice actor who plays that unicorn. His name is Frank Welker. You may know him as Fred from Scooby-Doo, Megatron from the Transformers cartoon, Nibbler from Futurama, or any of hundreds of other tv shows and movies. He's actually the highest paid actor of all time, owing to the sheer volume of work he's done.
  6. Well then it figures, since in the movie he's singing it to his own heavenly Olympian father, is he not?
  7. Ok. I've been hiding this for too long. I've been living in the closet and it's time to come out, and admit the truth, both to myself and to the world. *deep breath* *exhale* Ok. Here goes... I like the Dungeons & Dragons movie. WAIT HEAR ME OUT I *know* how awful it is. I know how embarrassingly terrible the writing was. I know how cringeworthy the acting was. I know how miserably it represented Dungeons & Dragons as a game and a cultural icon. I know the Director and lead actor were stoned out of their minds when they recorded the commentary, and I know Dave Arneson wasn't actually in the room with them. I know how cheap the sets, the costumes and the props were. I know how derivative some of it was, and I know how utterly mind-numbingly pathetic the VFX of the dragons were. I know. It's just... it's just that the movie is just so much fun to laugh at. It's like a drinking game waiting to happen. "Jeremy Irons chews the scenery. Drink!" It's so awful but tries so hard that you can't help but love it... Like the mutant fish with the missing fin in an aquarium. He's not as good as the other fish, and in an actual lake he'd be eaten on his first day... but ya just can't help rooting for the little guy. Don't get me wrong... I can't promise I'd never punch Courtney Solomon in the mouth for what he did (and is still doing, with the rights battles) to Dungeons & Dragons as a theatrical property... but I just can't make myself hate this expensive little vomit cascade of a movie.
  8. I like Michael Bolton. Ever listen to the lyrics to "Go the Distance?" That song could be listened to as a hymn. I'm not kidding. Think about it. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Now read the lyrics with that in mind: I have often dreamed of a far off placeWhere a hero's welcome would be waiting for meWhere the crowds would cheer, when they see my faceAnd a voice keeps saying this is where I'm meant to be I'll be there someday, I can go the distanceI will find my way if I can be strongI know every mile would be worth my whileWhen I go the distance, I'll be right where I belong Down an unknown road to embrace my fateThough that road may wander, it will lead me to youAnd a thousand years would be worth the waitIt might take a lifetime but somehow I'll see it through And I won't look back, I can go the distanceAnd I'll stay on track, no I won't accept defeatIt's an uphill slopeBut I won't loose hope, 'till I go the distanceAnd my journey is complete, oh yeah But to look beyond the glory is the hardest partFor a hero's strength is measured by his heart, oh Like a shooting star, I will go the distanceI will search the world, I will face its harmsI don't care how far, I can go the distance'Till I find my hero's welcome waiting in your arms I will search the world, I will face its harms'Till I find my hero's welcome waiting in your arms
  9. Dreams, with the Blue Angels video. Much luvs.
  10. Which is why we have cargo cults.
  11. No doubt. he goes on a breaking and entering spree every year.
  12. HAY I M OFFENDED BCUZ I M A DM AND I M NOT A SATANIST I DEMAND U TAKE IT DOWN AND U SHULD APOLOGIZE (WICH I WONT ACCEPT ANYWAY) AND U SHULD BE N JAIL BCUZ U R A NAZI
  13. I was bummed about the Caps, but back to back Stanley Cups is a rare thing. That said, I do wish they'd managed to avoid being eliminated in the very first round. But it is what it is. As for me, for now... GO AVALANCHE!
  14. Yeah the tendency to stop pedaling is my son's biggest hurdle, now that I got him to stop leaning to the side and use the steering to correct when he starts to go over. I'm also letting him crash so he's used to dealing with that and won't be afraid. No serious wipe outs. He just gets frustrated. He's almost got it, we just need to get back to the park... which is more exercise for me too.
  15. "Everybody's a winner!" culture from the '80s/'90s, which has produced a generation whose feelings are so fragile that they consider words to be violence. ..what does that say about them, I wonder, when they think words = violence and so quickly resort to insults, name-calling and attacks. I guess that means they think they're bringing violence upon us. Do you think they're surprised when we don't clutch our wounded chests and fall over dead?
  16. In this case, I wasn't talking about the right. I was specifically addressing the current phenomenon we're seeing on the left. Relax, bro. This isn't a "but the right does it too!" defense of the behavior of the contemporary left. Just pointing out the nature of politics.
  17. I think it's partly hypocrisy, but also partly myopia. Keep in mind that most of the loudest and most aggressive voices weren't even alive for most of the 90s, nevermind the 80s. To them, it isn't hypocrisy, because they never saw what it was like to be on the other side of cultural sentiment. The pundits and politicians making those noises? They're just pandering to the young. They know what they're doing. We all, on both sides, have a tendency to be more forgiving of shenanigans that are pointed at the other side and less forgiving of mistakes affecting ours. It's human nature. The more honest and rational among us try to be as objective as we can, but it's still a struggle sometimes.
  18. Great? Nah. But over the weekend I took my kids (and their new bikes) to that local bike trail. Mostly rode around as my son got used to his bike, and then we started practicing to remove his training wheels. I think most of the exercise I got was jogging along beside him.
  19. I watched the Stanley Cup series last year and I gotta say, the Golden Knights home games were a lot of fun to watch. I mean, I know it's Vegas. They really know how to put on a show! Of course, as a Caps fan I wasn't rooting for the GKs but yeah...
  20. My favorite is the one about Sinbad being in a movie called "Shazam." I was fully convinced of this one myself. Know where it came from (in my case?) When I was a kid I watched a cartoon show about a genie, and "shazam" was the magic word you'd say to summon him. He had dark skin. Later, Shaq did a movie called "Kazam" Combine these elements into a memory stew, add a dash of years in between, and voila! A false memory of a movie with Sinbad in it called "Shazam!" What's freaky is how many people share the same false memory... but it's not like my own movie/TV history is unique, so it probably comes form the same place for many people.
  21. I think it comes form an article written a while back which stated (inaccurately) that he had died, and even included a photo of the funeral. An error, but a lot of people were led to believe Mandela had died because of it. I've watched a few videos on YT about the Mandela Effect and it's an amusing phenomenon to talk about. The idea is that it can be explained by one or more of the following: They've changed the Matrix, but some of us remember how it was before. There's a parallel Earth, and some of us are actually from that alternate world but have been transported to this one. Some variants of this story maintain that on the other Earth, we had a slightly different anatomy and that the Earth itself had slightly different geographical features. There's another Earth on the opposite side of the galaxy. Similar to the second item, but it holds that people have been moving back and for the between worlds. It all ended a few years ago when the other Earth was destroyed, meaning no new Mandela Effect differences have been observed since that time. Fun ideas, to be sure, but man, these people are sure of themselves. Too bad the strongest bit of evidence they are able to come up with is "I'm really really sure it was different before!!!! I remember!"
  22. I totally understand, and no I didn't think you were being evasive. 😊
  23. No worries! I'm inclined to agree with you just based on my respect for you, but I don't know anything about that issue, to be honest. It's something I'll look into. True, though I'd add to that by pointing out that it's not all happening at once. For instance, there have been times, historically, where atheists could certainly claim they're being persecuted, and they wouldn't be wrong. I do not believe that to be true today. Similarly, gay people have bene persecuted at some points (and some places) historically and not in others. Again, I think they're overall on top of the social ladder, at least in this part of the world. Meanwhile I wouldn't say that Christians are being persecuted per se, since we still have it way better in this time an din this country than we have in other times and places, but the caveat I would add is that the pendulum was definitely swinging in the direction of Christianity getting stepped on. I think its momentum has slowed over the last couple of years, but it hasn't yet stopped. I agree. At this point I think there's a strong movement to push back against the loss of free speech. We just need to do what we can to help keep it going.
  24. Given that we're seeing legislation in other countries (and an effort to introduce it here) meant to punish people for saying offensive things, and given that's the subject of the thread, of course I'm making generalizations. We agree that it's better to ignore people being offensive to us if they refuse to stop, right?