The dramatic exits

It's weird...I mean, Dan had been here for 10 years...and honestly, it seems like he might be dealing with some issues. So, he's welcome back any time. It started with Michael Carnes - and I certainly understand if you want to disconnect when you retire - just thought it a little dramatic to have an "I'm leaving" thread. The Shadowk thing is just flat out weird. No idea what triggered that.

I like to say that everyone needs to follow their own path and that's what we have to keep in mind. Dealing with people nowadays requires a lot of patience because so many are into denying facts and reality like some MLM cult member. With a lot of subjects across a lot of avenues of communication, I'll share tips, advice, etc. But I know a lot of people won't listen or even acknowledge it. And that's ok, it's what I expect. People I know have gotten Covid or into other problems because they didn't listen to me. It was their choice to make. All you can really do is put your best info out there, give people a chance to hear it, and remember to save yourself.

I didn't even know he left. What happened? I see now that Shadow deleted his account.

“Ain’t an airport. No need to announce departures.”

Interesting point and I have to agree that many people nowadays are very magnetic, both positively and negatively. Meaning, easily pushed towards things they resonate with and easily in resistance to things they don't. I don't know if this is due to larger societal polarization or some sort of shift in the collective consciousness, but it does seem to be happening more often.

Sometimes even just mentioning something that is "out of resonance" with someone else nowadays can result in an unpredictable reaction, there is literally a war against or for everything nowadays. I guess the internet was always a bit like that, but nowadays it seems to be in every corner.

That being said, I tend to be more attracted to positive attitudes, even when critiquing, judging, or discerning different components of audio. The best is when people with different points, pros and cons of something can come together and say, 'cool I see your perspective and respect that, but also this is why it doesn't work for what I'm doing.' Everyone hears music differently, everyone uses gear differently, and that should be fundamentally understood. If you are rigging up an online ego, all sorts of weird situations can arise and people maybe get a bit carried away sometimes with how they respond emotionally to this type of environment. Humans are weird as shit. 

He's fine...I guess we luddites bored him.

There is a lot going on. The people who wield the power and have the biggest spheres of influence want society engineered socially in certain ways. Most of this revolves around corporations. They want us miserable so we'll consume. They minimize and deny that we still have a level 3 biohazard circulating so that we'll consume. Our increasingly disastrous and polygamous dating market is the result of targeted attacks on women aimed at manipulating them into turning against the men in various ways. As a result of that, we now have a huge industry of shows and podcasts aimed at the 30% or more of the men who have been frozen out of the dating market. And a lot of that is about bringing on women who have very high standards that only 5% or less of men can meet and then letting the audience beat up on them by paying to have the host read their verbal tirades. But the women don't know that these new standards are only met by a miniscule percentage of men or that a lot of this 5% is gladly taking advantage of their new found abundance of options and putting something like 20% of women in polygamous situations without them knowing. There was just something where a mob-connected guy sued 27 women for talking about him on "are we dating the same guy?" right when he got indicted. I've heard other stories of men "dating" someone and then they go on dating apps and can instantly have a woman in their bed the second their "girlfriend" doesn't do what they want. And these guys would go through several women a week. Then we end up with a lot of angry women who think the other 95% of men are exactly the same.

When certain people are reminded about the level 3 biohazard still circulating, they snap. "It's over" or "It's a mild cold" and "why are you still wearing a mask". Used to hear that a lot until this current ongoing wave. Now just about everyone who said that to me had to concede that I was correct even if they haven't changed their risk-taking behavior. Denying this made denying other things into a normalized idea. You don't like a fact, just deny it exists. Create your own version of reality. On a lot of social media, long Covid advocates get censored, shadowbanned, you name it. It's in the interest of governments and corporations to downplay all this. Kick the can down the road and see who survives. It's like eugenics. 

All over social media, it's rampant narcissism. People taking pictures and video of themselves like they're "The Narcissist" Lex Luger in 1993. Zealotry used to be confined to small circles. Now it has become the norm. People who haven't been exposed to cult behavior in something like Amway or Primerica can be very susceptible to brainwashing campaigns. I've already seen people become brainwashed and do crazy stuff like stay at a meeting from 7 pm to 7 am routinely and lose their jobs as a result. It's tough to fathom the mindset of supposed "leaders" who think that basically forcing people to do that after spending thousands and thousands to tour the country at company conventions is a rational idea. Of course, the point was to get you further enmeshed in the brainwashing. This is what we see with a lot of politics too. One side is always leaning towards authoritarianism based on claiming to have the moral high ground, it just depends what year it is. What I've noticed is that people don't really scrutinize what politicians say if they agree with what they're saying. Doesn't matter if it's based in fact or not.

Internet groups do become radicalized. We go back 25-26 years ago, and it's a lot of people into pop culture stuff that was frozen out of the mainstream market venting their grievances at the things that were on MTV and radio. People have been prone to zealotry since the beginning of Internet discussion. With our audio, I think we can hold companies accountable without being zealots. If someone wants to use a plugin or piece of hardware with objective flaws, all you can do is present your case. It's on them if they want to invest their money in it. People are gonna do what they want to do. It's often a fine line between a passionate expression and being a zealot. But a strong expression directed at a harmful action is never really a bad thing. Like speaking out against record labels and exploitive contracts the way someone like Steve Albini does. 

Yeah, you definitely nailed it.

After listening to Torment Saint for a few days about Elliott Smith's existence my conclusion was that he was not only a genius (I was and am still a massive fan and his death was a shock) but also one of the first social network narcissists type people, to a severe extreme. The whole part where he has like 12 or 13 people doing an "intervention" to help him not kill himself was just ridiculously appropriate for the world today. The guy was so beyond gifted. But also never had to hold down a day job. That is a freedom that brings out the best or worst in you, I guess.

Side note, cool to hear RGO members brought up in the book. I certainly mean NO disrespect to you. Can't imagine what being in those moments were like, especially the "hold it together with duct tape" parts so the songs could get out.

I digress, I guess. ShadowK seemed to have a lot of distracting things going on when I spoke to him over Zoom. Those things can snowball over a couple of years. Deleting your account though doesn't really make sense to me though.

Well that's surprising. Lame.

I also don't understand deleting an account. All you have to do is just stop logging in?

It's an audio book on Audible (probably elsewhere). Didn't cover everything I'd hoped to learn more about, like left out his time in Omaha, brushed over Larry Crane's role, his session at Capitol (I think?) where he's skateboarding around, plays the Yosemite Sam vs Buggs Bunny piano note joke where the piano exploded and also plays School House Rock "Figure 8". Meandering video that is so fascinating. But the book is a good listen. I just got worn down by me-me-me after several hours and that was a bit disappointing.

This is the thread that did it for some reason.  I can't for the life of me figure out why:


realgearonline.com/thread/16718/understanding-aliasing?page=1