What does the Bible say about playing the lottery

what does the word of god say about lottery

what does the word of god say about lottery - win

300-400 Viewer Average and Partner in 5 Months Here is my Advice

Just yesterday I hit free twitch turbo partner on twitch after roughly 5 months of streaming (somewhat) consistently. Today I'm hoping to share some decent advice and give my own (learned) opinion on some of the frequent yet not always useful tips shared around here.
Before writing this I did a cursory search through the subreddit for frequently asked questions so hopefully this answers most of the ones that I myself have any experience to answer.
My simple request: I'm not going to be posting any links to my stream or anything but if you go out of your way to find it please don't follow/subscribe to the channel unless you are genuinely interested. Thanks big boss.

Should you stream?

If I have to read another thread or comment of a person asking if they should stream I am going to scream. What do you people expect to hear? Yes, please stream the world needs you, you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams and have all the clout to have ever been cloutted.
I know people who usually type out questions like that probably don't read posts but here is a hack I've used to answer my own dumb questions through out the years. Say that shit out loud and respond to it like someone asked you the question. Nine times out of ten, you end up answering it yourself and on the off-chance you actually don't you should have a more actionable question.
Example: Instead of asking "should I stream?" you end up realizing the only thing holding you back is having no mic or something. The question then becomes "I want to stream what's a good cheap mic?". Which is a lot better and doesn't make people want to pelt you with rocks.
For those of you who ask "should I stream or is it a waste of time?" please, I BEG YOU, stop. Most of the shit you do is a waste of time, you either want to stream or don't. Make a decision based on that.

Webcam, do you need one?

This question is asked so often that I see it every time I come on the subreddit. Unsurprisingly, the answer is always the same as well, yes you do.
However I disagree.
I have never streamed with a webcam, not a single time, yet I'm still here and somehow managed to get partnered.
Now, I know why every one parrots the same advice, it is because the people making tip threads, youtube videos, etc., all say to use a webcam. Harris Heller said it once and I'm pretty sure that was enough for the people who copy and paste what he says in text threads here to become their mantra.
The truth is, all that matters is the content. Ask yourself do you do/want to do a lot of react/just chatting content? If so, you probably want a webcam since your content will focus around reacting to content. Lirik doesn't use face-cam because his content is his gameplay and commentary, not his face. Corpse literally blew up and is famous for not showing his face (even though he is still a personality).
I know the whole "Lirik doesn't use a face cam" argument is going to be met with people saying "exception not the rule!!!" but seriously, just use your head. Half the people you watch probably don't need face cams. MoonMoon probably doesn't need a face cam, Critikal didn't have a face cam until he already had over a million subs on youtube, schlatt didn't either, Dream doesn't, AdmiralBahroo doesn't, almost every DBD streamer I watch doesn't, just think for yourself.
The point I'm trying to drive home here is not just that a webcam isn't required, but also you need to look at what you want to create and decide for yourself.
Edit: I saw someone say somewhere that you need a webcam for sponsors. That's cap. I've had a sponsor and nobody has seen this ugly mug.

Equipment in general

People like saying that they need this this and that before they start streaming. This is just stalling. Until last month I hadn't owned a desktop PC my whole life. Before that it was just laptops and using my phone to read chat or look up things. You obviously need SOME equipment to start, i.e. a computer and some form of internet connection, but that doesn't mean you need to pick up a shure, a streamdeck, 4 monitors, 6 consoles, and whatnot.
Here is my setup. Keep in mind I literally just upgraded this last month after saving up for several months:
For those of you who are probably saying "GROSS A PRE-BUILT" remember that part prices are actual aids right now, not to mention the availability of even finding good parts. If you have the cash go pre-built that shit is amazing.
My recommendation:
Stay with your shitty set-up as long as possible but make sure to pick up a good mic first. Big streamers (looking at you Ludwig) shit on the Yeti, but straight facts all you need is to EQ that shit a lil bit and nobody will bat an eye. You don't have to pick up the Yeti (there are lots of cheaper options) but that's just the one I and many others have gotten since it is reliably a good ass mic.
Audio <- chat engagement <- pc upgrade

YouTube

How many people have to tell you bums to focus on YouTube before you do it? Twitch sucks ass. I'll say it, i'm brave. No discoverability, especially to those of you at the very bottom. Make a goddamn YouTube and start pumping out videos, it is not hard.
Ludwig made a power point on how to be a streamer that talks about a few things but the most important point of all was what he said on creating content for stream/YouTube. This isn't the exact timestamp but it do be close: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/896089267?t=01h24m14s
That advice is coming from a top streamer who also has over a million subs on YouTube by almost exclusively taking twitch vods and editing them for YouTube.
As for getting views on your videos here is my advice from my personal experiences:

My understanding of YouTube

So obviously, clickthrough rate and audience retention are the things that are constantly brought up when talking about gaining more views and what not, but I am fairly comfortable in saying that there are other metrics that you should be paying attention to.
Let me hit you with a something that would make Dream shake in his boots. I don't subscribe to anyone on YouTube. *gasp*
The reason for that being, I almost always have the videos I want to see on my home page. I never have to go, "wonder if x YouTuber made a video" since YouTube knows I watch and enjoy their stuff. The question for most people being, how does YouTube know what people like and how does it suggest it to them? Basically, by seeing how often people engage with your content AND also what type of content you create. (although keep in mind, youtube tries to throw new videos at you a lot as well, these are usually in-line with content you engage with though)
For engagement, think of it as like affinity points in a video game but in reverse. Before you get to bang that smoking hot sim, you got to woo them. Every time someone likes your video they get a point, every time they comment they get two, every subscription counts as like 10, watching an entire video might be 20, etc. Obviously, these are made up values but I hope you follow what I'm putting down here. Once they get enough points you start showing up more in their home page.
I know this because I have a different account on my phone that doesn't have the same suggestions as my main account because I watch different things on my PC than my phone. However, I do like to look at the comments while I'm taking a dump or something. Problem was, my videos were rarely every recommended. I solved this easily by liking a couple videos. I didn't even watch them, just liked and read comments. LITERALLY NOT EVEN SUBSCRIBED AND I GET NOTIFICATIONS ON MY PHONE SOMETIMES WHEN A VIDEO DOES WELL!
In other words, by getting people to like and comment on your videos you are almost guaranteeing they see future videos from you.
Now, keep in mind, engagement is only a small portion of the whole pie. And even though you might engage with a content creator often, there is still a chance you miss some of their videos because of one other reason, the content's genre.

Content Genre

You might have noticed this phenomenon on various different creators YouTubes, but sometimes they create a video that bombs. Usually, this happens when they create something outside of their niche. This could be as simple as changing games, or as radical as changing the entire direction of the channel. Even if you engage like crazy with a creator, if they change the content enough, you won't get that shit recommended to you.
This is the main reason some creators have several channels and why some even get pigeonholed to one type of content. The reality of it is, if you build your audience on one piece of content and then want to change it, you will be fighting an uphill battle. One of the best ways to fight that is to diversify early OR better yet, emphasize your personality over the content. Jschlatt shits views and he does whatever the hell he wants really. Same goes for jacksepticeye, markiplier, Ludwig, Critikal, XQC, and numerous other creators.
That being said, doing one game/genre isn't a bad strategy either. A metric fuck ton of OfflineTv's videos are the same game. DisguisedToast played Hearthstone on repeat, then switched to TFT, THEN switched to among us, and his videos absolutely kill. Valkyrae is one of the biggest streamers period and all she does is play/upload among us and rust. Then of course we have all the minecraft streamers too.
It's really up to you to decide, but I'd recommend going towards personality content since that allows the most flexibility.

Other Social Media (Twitter, IG, etc)

Lots of people here seem to think that they don't have time to do YouTube or some other BS they think up as an excuse, so they think that twitter, instagram, tiktok, etc are all ways to grow. Trust me, they are not good ways to grow.
These are all stupid treadmills that trick you into thinking you're doing something when in reality you aren't moving the needle by much if by any at all. Posting ten dumb tweets and reposting memes on IG seem "productive" if you frame it in the light of "content creation" but the two people that see all of these things don't really give a shit. Spend that time working on a video for YouTube.
Don't give me this "I don't have time" bullshit. Do small videos and work yourself up, become better and faster. Perfectionism is a cute word for procrastination.
Ok, now that I took a shit on them so hopefully, you won't grind on them all day, these are still ways to grow and are important. Having multiple platforms for fans to communicate and engage with you is always a good idea, but don't spread yourself so thin early on when nobody knows who you are. Prioritize the thing that will get eighty percent of your results.
I personally have a discord for people to come and chat in. Thing is, I had no intention of doing so because I don't really use discord that much. The only reason it exists is that people kept asking for it in the comments on my YouTube videos so I made one.
TL;DR: Don't put the cart before the horse :)
Edit: Oh ya I forgot to mention. TikTok is trash for growth. I won't mention names cuz that's probably toxic(?) but there is someone signed on luminosity who has 690k TikTok followers and 95k YouTube subscribers who barely cracks 100 views on Twitch and has a hard time getting over 1k on YouTube. So don't go thinking TikTok leads to immense fame ya darn kids

Hosting/Raiding

Getting hosted/raided means actual jack. I remember pretty clearly when I had like ten viewers, I got hosted by someone with twenty-five or something. I think only one person ended up saying anything in the chat to me about it and although some stayed for the entire stream, by the time I went live again I lost all of the people who were in the host. This seems to be something others have mentioned as well, you won't retain almost any views from hosts/raids.
Edit: Please do try raiding/hosting or otherwise networking with other streamers at least once. Your mileage may vary and it could end up blowing up your channel. Who knows?
Edit edit: Having something that you can do during the stream is huge when getting hosted/raided. Most of the time, if not all of the time, a streamer is ENDING their stream and sending viewers to you rather than timing it for your own content. So if you are doing something uninteresting or are in the middle of something you are going to get less retention than if you did something crazy to impress the newcomers. In other words, having a strategy for hosting/raiding growth is key.

Speaking on stream

This seems to be something a lot of people struggle with on Twitch since so many people ask how to do it when nobody is watching/chatting. Coming from someone who had this problem, the answer is pretty simple, talk for the content not the chat.
What I mean by this is you should be focusing on your content more than the chat. Since I play games, what I do is just say some shit about whats happening on screen and sometimes say something that is hopefully funny. Pick up a garbage item? Say something about how garbage the item is, ez.
If you're streaming to NO VIEWERS you shouldn't be streaming to stream anyway. What you should be doing is making a YouTube video in the hopes of getting viewers to watch your stream. The only way to do that is to have good content planned out that should effectively act as your script. Again, Ludwigs stream on this is good (it'll probably be a video soon) so make sure to check it out.
A more recent problem I've had was just how much I engaged with chat (suffering from success I know). When I went to edit the videos I had to cut large swathes of the video because I was just chatting to people. Make sure to avoid this when you are actually trying to get content out for YouTube as it can mess up the flow of a video and make it harder to edit. You still can chat with people just make sure not to go overboard. Again, Ludwig is a perfect example of this, just look at his videos and streams and notice the difference between the two.

Streaming as a job/hobby

I hate this dumb argument of streaming isn't your hobby or twitch isn't your job. You have 24 hours in the day, subtract 8 for sleeping and depending on your job, 9 for work. All that extra time can be spent doing whatever the fuck you want. Want to get big and make money streaming? Do work. Want to just stream while you're playing games anyway? Do that.
IF YOU WANT TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL AT SOMETHING YOU PUT IN THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT REQUIRED TO DO SO! So stop telling people it has to be a hobby or it has to be a job. It can be either for christ's sake.

Partner difference

I have a checkmark which makes me a better person.
No, but seriously, partner doesn't really do much other than add more emote slots and some quality options. Also, you don't gain extra cash as a partner either. I don't have the mystical bounty board or god-tier split, just the checkmark to flex baby.

Opinion on affiliate

Devin Nash made a video about how affiliate is a scam, which is kinda true but only for people with no viewers. Having the sub button is huge and even when I was small small, affiliate gave me a couple hundred bucks a month for no effort on my part. Patreon is probably better though, no lie.

Twitch "grind"

If you stream 5+ hours a day without making content that lives somewhere else please form a neat line so I can smack you all. People saying they have no time drives me nuts, but when they also "grind" all day AND say that, it makes me want to punch air.
  1. Stream YouTube friendly content
  2. Stop stream and edit content
  3. Upload and plug twitch in the video
  4. repeat
That is the only "grind" you should be on. Affiliate is stupid if the 3 viewers you have are all just you on a different ipad.

Luck

You know what? Maybe PewDiePie got lucky and that's how he is such a big YouTuber. Maybe early twitch streamers got all their views because they were early adopters. Or maybe these people only got lucky because they showed up and actually put the effort in.
There are plenty of videos on my channel that looked like flops at first. They got like a couple of hundred views and didn't do well. However, after continuously publishing, a whole bunch of them ended up blowing up and becoming some of the most-watched. Without publishing more videos they would have ended up dead in the water. Consistency > luck.
I don't believe too much in luck when it comes to doing very simple things (LIKE MAKING A YOUTUBE VIDEO) but you literally cannot win the lottery if you do not purchase a ticket, it's that simple.

Editing Software

A couple of people asked this so I thought I should add it here. I use davinci resolve for my videos. Previously, I used hitfilm or something like that I can't quite remember the name, but I had to switch because they don't allow you to have split audio channels (i.e. one for desktop audio and one for mic audio).
I've literally never touched any paid software like premier or anything because, again, I'm a cheap ass.

What should you upload to YouTube?

Seriously just look at Ludwig, smallant, DisguisedToast, literally every top Twitch streamer with a YouTube. All three of the people I just mentioned are over one million subs on YT and are top streamers, so they are definitely doing something right.
In terms of off-stream content, guides are king. If you're a small YT channel with ZERO subs you can still get thousands of views by hitting the search algorithm of YT. My first 3 videos were uncut gameplay, guide video, guide video, in that order. Guess which ones have tens of thousands of views and which has less than a thousand? Guide videos are insane for small channels.
Edit: Actually, let's just call it searchable content. Searchable content is king

Ending notes

I think that's about it for this post. Hopefully, I covered everything although I doubt I did. If you have any questions I'll try my best to answer them and will probably edit the good ones into the post.
submitted by rndThursday to Twitch [link] [comments]

GME - EndGame Part 2: Cohen, Market Cap, Potential Investors

Hello again folks. This is an extension of my DD last week in which I shared some research on short positions, GME’s debt, and some speculation on institutional investing. Since that post, GME is up 75% and there’s been lots of good bullish / bearish DD on the short term.
In this post, I’m going to cover 3 topics, focusing on the mid-to-long term prospects for GME: 1) Cohen, 2) GME’s market cap potential, and 3) potential investors that could continue to pile in.
TL:DR; You need to think about GME differently. Not as a trader. Not as an investor. You need to think like a venture capitalist. This is an unprecedented opportunity, and the first time I’ve gone all-in - I’m more bullish now than when the stock was trading sub $15. If you’re in GME you need to get in with conviction otherwise you’re going to lose by selling when it drops.

Quick aside - my history and positions:

I’ve been a passive investor for many years. This is literally the first time I’ve taken an interest in becoming an active investor. I opened an RH account in August to start speculating on GME. My first post called out some cheap lottery plays that took my speculating account from $5K - $20K in 3 weeks. I’ve since posted a few times on GME, even trying to tell you to buy the post-earnings dip, and added more to my active trading accounts. I’ve taken $10K -> $130K on RH and $230K -> $480K in IBKR since slowly adding to GME since September.
UPDATE: I have deleted my positions in this post - will explain why in my next post. I'm still holding.
All that being said, thus far I’ve been thinking about GME as a trade - trying to get in at the lowest cost I could for the maximum upside on a near-term exit, but I’ve switched completely into thinking of GME is a ridiculously asymmetric investment with massive potential in the next 2-3 year timeframe - even at $35. Even at $45, $50, $60. That’s why I added roughly 2500 shares on Friday at around $36 despite adding very cautiously when GME was below $20. I’m also completely all-in on RH with options (mostly deep ITM, a few fds) - $0 buying power left.
Grab a drink, sit down. Let me tell you why I’ve gotten more aggressive, and probably why you shouldn’t worry about what price you pay right now, as long as you’re willing to believe and hold.

About Cohen (and friends)

From the recent 8K about the board changes (which you should definitely read if you’re putting serious money in):
As part of the Agreement, RC Ventures has agreed to customary standstill provisions*, which provide that from the date of the Agreement until the earlier of (a) the date that is 30 calendar days prior to the deadline for the submission of director nominations by stockholders for the Company’s* 2022 annual meeting of stockholders and (b) the date that is 120 days prior to the first anniversary of the 2021 Annual Meeting (such period, the “Standstill Period”), RC Ventures will not, among other things: (i) acquire beneficial ownership in, or aggregate economic exposure to, directly or indirectly, more than 19.9% of the Company’s outstanding common stock; (ii) make any proposal for consideration by stockholders at any annual or special meeting of stockholders of the Company; (iii) make any offer or proposal with respect to any extraordinary transactions; or (iv) seek, alone or in concert with others, the appointment, election or removal of any directors in opposition to any recommendation of the Board, in each case as further described in the Agreement. As part of the Agreement, the Company has permitted RC Ventures to acquire, whether in a single transaction or multiple transactions from time to time, additional shares of the Company’s common stock to the extent such acquisitions would result in RC Ventures having beneficial ownership of less than 20.0% of the outstanding shares, without triggering the restrictions that would otherwise be imposed under Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”), and RC Ventures has agreed that upon acquiring beneficial ownership 20.0% or more of the outstanding shares of the Company’s common stock, the restrictions under Section 203 of the DGCL would apply to a potential business combination with RC Ventures as an “interested stockholder” (as defined in Section 203 of the DGCL).
This is critical: This agreement was the result of a negotiation between Cohen and the existing board.
  1. After his activist letter calling out the board and then 13D buy after the earnings dip rocketed the stock up from 12 -> 20, it was clear to everyone that RC was the reason GME’s stock was heading up. The GME board was afraid of a hostile takeover / losing their jobs. This agreement allowed Cohen and 2 others on the board as long as he didn’t attempt a hostile takeover.
  2. Cohen wants it all. In the activist letter, he publicly said “no” to just one board seat. He then publicly bought more as soon as Sherman threatened a shelf offering to dilute him below 10%.
In addition to getting added to the board, Cohen brought along 2 execs who built Chewy with him:
He’s not fucking around folks. He wants to build another Chewy, and he’s bringing the people who helped him do it the first time to do it again.
As a result of the agreement, he’s limited to buying up to 20% of shares until 2022. Why not 13%? Simple - Cohen wants the option to buy more. He’s not happy with a single board seat; he’s not going to settle for simply getting added to the board; and he’s not going to settle for 13% ownership.
Also, remember that Alan and Jim have 💲 to buy in as well. I haven't seen their holdings yet. Their time is worth more than their money and they've already decided to put their time in.

Cohen is not an exec - he’s a founder with an all-in mentality

Go read this bloomberg Cohen interview to understand his mindset.
  1. Cohen himself is an all-in person. Key quote:
    1. “When I find things I have a lot of conviction in, I go all-in*.”*
    2. Cohen is a founder that has gone through the successful creation of a startup. When you are startup founder, most of your NW is tied to equity in your company. You are trained to have skin in the game. You’re not allowed to think you have a safety net. You give up years of your life and bet everything because you have to believe in what you’re doing. Founders typically have 30-50% ownership of their company.
    3. “Cohen uses the word “conviction” a lot. He says it’s something he learned from his father, who ran a glassware importing business in Montreal where Cohen grew up. “He taught me how to block the noise from the masses,” says Cohen. “To have a point of view and have conviction and not waver.”
  2. He only sold Chewy rather taking it to IPO because of his Dad’s health. He cut his entrepreneurial career short and he’s itching to get back in.
  3. Cohen sold Chewy for $3.35B, with estimates stating he personally walked away with about $600M after taxes.
  4. Cohen has a lot of capital to buy more. After selling Chewy, he went all-in on Apple & WFC, which as of June was up 40%.
    1. “ Cohen says his portfolio, when including dividends and a few other stock holdings, has returned more than 40% over the past 3 years, beating the market.”
    2. Aapl was his largest holding, and is up another 50% since June 5 when the Bloomberg article was published.
    3. Cohen lives in FL - with no income or capital gains for individuals, unlike other founders who live in CA which taxes all cap gains as ordinary income.
    4. I’m going to estimate his net worth (minus his GME holdings) is around $800M-$1B.
  5. Cohen’s 9,001,000 (it’s over 9000! 🐲🏐) shares have thus far been purchased at something like an average of $12/share, for a total investment of around $110M.
So Cohen has put in $110M out of his $1B into GME. Does that sound like he’s all-in? Absolutely fucking not. Cohen’s going to buy up to the max he can this year (20%), likely by selling some other holdings prior to cap gains tax law changes. He can add more next year after the standstill period is done.

What will lead to Cohen’s next purchase of GME

Thus far, every RC purchase has been about sending a message.
  1. Prior to Q3 earnings, his purchases were signaling an intent to the board that he was serious about wanting to get involved. He also rubbed it in their faces that the stock price was largely appreciating because of him. From the activist letter:
    1. “We recognize that the Board may feel it is insulated from stockholder scrutiny after adding new directors this past spring and seeing a recent stock price uptick (which only came on the heels of RC Ventures filing its 13D)” (what a fucking burn).
  2. If there was any doubt about RC’s impact on the stock price, it was put to rest after Q3’s earnings, where the current leadership’s hubris and threat of diluting RC led to a drop of almost 30%. RC then bought the dip, shoved it in their faces, and the market GME again rocketing GME to 20 in a massive post-earnings recovery. Message sent again - “The market wants me. Let me the fuck in.”
  3. Now that Cohen and the Chewy folks are on the board, he’s going to angle for CEO. He’s not looking to advise GME. He wants to go all-in, to run GME. He’s holding the optionality of buying more based on the success of his attempt to take over GME through non-hostile means.
If you see Cohen buy more GME, he’s sending another message. This time it’s because it’s clear to him he’s going to be CEO and wants to max his skin in the game. If you see Cohen buy, it’s “CEO talks going well” - you fucking buy.

GME’s market cap potential

  1. Cohen sees a $200BN+ total addressable market cap for gaming by 2023. For contrast, Chewy was playing in the pet food/supplies market, which has a total addressable market (TAM) of under $50BN annually. GME’s potential is at base 4x that of Chewy. This does not even account for the pc gaming hardware market, which is another $35BN+.
  2. Chewy’s market cap is $44BN on $6BN of annual revenue.
  3. Chewy’s Q3 quarterly income was up 45% YoY. While GME’s quarterly income was down YoY, its e-commerce revenue was up 257% trouncing Chewy’s growth rate.
  4. GME’s Q4 early sales preview reported 300% E-commerce growth and annual run-rate of $5BN
In other words, even if you give GME’s physical locations no value, GME’s ecommerce business is growing 5x faster than Chewy and already has 75% of online revenue.
Summary: Chewy is priced > 7X times its annual total revenue. GME is priced at .45 its annual ecommerce revenue, despite GME having 5-6 greater TAM and growing its ecommerce business 5X as fast Chewy.
What. The. Fuck.
I’ve never seen a stock more mispriced.
People talking about $100 price targets are suffering from a fucking lack of imagination.
Even if you completely discount
  1. GME’s physical business
  2. its rev sharing partnership with MSFT
  3. its 5x faster growth and 5x TAM
and give GME the same P/S multiple that Chewy has on its ecommerce business, that puts GME currently at a fair market cap above $35BN. That means GME should be at least $500/share.
In pictures:
​
Comparing Ecommerce Revenue vs Market cap on Chewy vs GME today
​
Showing what the fair market value Market Cap of GME would be with Chewy's P/S
​
Fair Market Value (using comps) of GME is at least $500/share.
$35/share is a fucking steal. Who cares about the short-term dips as shorts try to weasel themselves out of their positions. The market will eventually wake up to this sleeping beast. In a year you’re not going to care if you got in at 4, 12, 20, 35, or 50. You’re going to only care if you’re in or not.
​

Potential Investors

An asset is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it, right? So are the potential buyers of this growing company?
Here’s a list in decreasing order of likelihood.
  1. Elon (Least likely, completely improbable, but cataclysmic event). Elon hates shorts. Elon, with TSLA, went through the pain that GME is going through. TSLA almost went bankrupt because shorts were pushing the price down so it was difficult to raise the cash they needed to survive. Sound familiar? Elon’s wealth swings more in a day than GME is worth in entirety. Elon could buy all the fucking float of GME with what he makes in 8 hours. One call from fellow entrepreneur and aspiring twitter-meme-god would absolutely wreck the game.
    1. If you are short gamestop, you are one meme purchase by the richest man in the world away from a fucking cataclysmic event. "Hey son, I heard you like games. So I bought you gamestop. All of it." 🚀
  2. Buffett (More likely, still improbable). I’m actually amazed that while Buffett & co were lamenting that there are no interesting stocks to invest in and moving to cash, that they absolutely missed the boat on GME while it was at its lows. It’s a complete value play right up his alley (in a business he can understand). My only hypothesis here is that the market cap is too small and he could not make a meaningful investment. Once GME grows to a more respectable market cap ($10b+) I can see Buffett stepping in and making an investment.
  3. Cohen’s connections. (Highly likely if Cohen is CEO). This is the big one. And I mean absolutely nail in the coffin re-pricing of GME for the foreseeable future. Go read this Harvard Business Review piece on Cohen specifically on how Cohen puts importance on raising money and the people that backed him.
    1. Look, I’ve started a startup before in the valley (unsuccessfully unfortunately). However, you don’t start a company without making a shit-ton of venture capitalist & angel investor connections. Cohen has stated that when pitching Chewy he was rejected by over 100 investors. I can absolutely-fucking-guarantee you that every single one of them remembers their mistake and would not miss the opportunity to invest in Cohen again. And don’t forget all of the investors who DID invest with Cohen and reaped the benefits with Chewy. While venture capitalists don’t generally make investments in public equities, this is a truly unique situation. Cohen is treating this like a rebirth, a new venture bootstrapped from GME’s bones. If VCs as a firm will not invest, you can bet your ass that those individuals will throw their personal money at Cohen. However this only happens if he’s CEO. As soon as he’s CEO, a single long weekend trip to the valley might mean 100+ investor meetings with the strategic pitch.
      1. My biggest fear here is that VCs/PE band to take the company private at some small multiple (2-3x) and then reap the benefits while Cohen turns the company around only to re-list it to us 5 years down the road at 30X the valuation.
    2. Thus far, it’s been us retail retards vs the wall street shorts. HFs shorting this thing have the advantage in both tactics and capital. However, if Silicon Valley money starts pouring money into this the game is over. You cannot believe the amount of money that gets thrown into startups with 90% of it burning up into thin air. $3B market cap? That’s nothing. Folks with Silicon Valley money & risk tolerance would have no problem betting on a serial entrepreneur making something amazing out of a company that already has a customer base, revenue, distribution - all in the same business (e-commerce) the entrepreneur already proved themselves in.
  4. You, and every other retard that believes. Look, this was my point at the beginning. You need to think like a VC here. VCs are the ultimate YOLO autists making million dollar bets and not seeing a penny of it for years. They are the ultimate 💎✋🤚. You need to decide if you have conviction for the long term and then buy in. 💎✋🤚 doesn’t mean selling at $100. It doesn’t means selling at $200. It means not selling at all this year no matter the price, and at least until you learn for sure whether Cohen is the new CEO. It means believing so hard that you 20-100X your investment in 2 years when the market wakes up to the ridiculous mispricing.
    1. Remember that if Cohen is elected CEO he can (and likely will) buy more than a 20% stake in 2022.
    2. Remember Buffett’s actual quote: "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient."
I’ve put every dollar I can into shares in IBKR, minus some April calls. I hold no covered calls except for some call spreads I had in RH prior to recent bump. I have April calls because I will put more cash into GME after taxes are done, and I know much cash I have to use. Calls let me cap the price I would have to pay now.
This is personal research. Do your own DD.
A wiser investor than me gave the advice of “Don’t aim to maximise profit, minimize regret.” If you’re not in GME yet, ask yourself how you would truly feel if what everyone here is saying panned out to be true, and you weren’t participating.
Oh, and of course: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Update 1: I'm still holding today, but I realized I made a pretty big mistake on the ecommerce revenue analysis. GME's 2019 e-commerce revenue was 1.35B (not 1.35B for the quarter), so divide my price target by 4 - $125/share or $8B market cap.
submitted by FatAspirations to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

[Tales From the Terran Republic] Full Service Banking

Uhrrbet discovers the joys of Terran banking and then goes home.
Nothing else of interest takes place.
For example, a new dark anti-hero definitely does not cover their origin story and then isn't inadvertently handed their new super-power by a well meaning benevolent demi-god or anything like that.
Nope. That doesn't happen. It's just fluff filler.
The rest of this series can be found here
***
“I came here for him,” Uhrrbet said as she smiled at her child as he played a game on her phone. “There was nothing left for us back home after...”
She sighed as she trailed off into silence and rubbed her nose.
“After what?” the ATM asked.
Uhrrbet sighed.
“It was, what do you call it, a ponsey scheme? It’s a human word.”
“Ponzi scheme,” the ATM replied. “and a human concept. I understand it has done a great deal of damage over in the Federation.”
“It completely wiped out the life savings, family savings, of over a million people and hurt many more. We were some of them.”
“That many?” the ATM asked.
Uhrrbet sniffled and nodded.
“They say that they had to have brought a lot of money with them to get it going that big, that they usually collapse before then but these people… these monsters knew exactly what they were doing… It looked so real,” she said with a sigh. “… so… real...”
“It was probably one of the Confederacy,” the ATM said with distaste. “They have the resources to do it right and the expertise to pull it off.”
Uhrrbet nodded.
“That’s what the government said too,” she said quietly as she looked down. “but they were never able to find out who it was. The money was just… just…”
She sighed as her nose dripped onto the floor.
“gone… Everything was gone. One day we were on top of the world and the next… everything was gone, even my husband.”
Uhrrbet started to weep. Her son abandoned the game to hug her.
She hugged him back, holding him close.
“It’s ok,” she said. “Go play your game.”
“It’s not your fault, momma,” he said as he kept hugging her. “Everybody said so. It was Da’s fa-”
“No.” Uhrrbet said sadly. “I pushed your father into it. My greed and my… stupid grasping petty wants and my incessant-”
“Hey!” the ATM said sharply. “It was the scammer’s fault… and your government’s. Porkies have been pulling stunts like this for over a century and a ponzi scheme of that magnitude should have been easily detected even with what passes for technology over in the Federation. Even a Fed should have seen that coming a mile away. It doesn’t even have to be the government. Even a mediocre bank should have noticed.”
Uhrrbet smiled a little. Even their ATM’s were chauvinists.
“You may be right to some extent, Mr. ATM,” Uhrrbet replied, “But I was there and it was ultimately my responsibility… and my husband’s. Nobody put a gun to our heads.”
Uhrrbet closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“I’ve done some reading on it had all the warning signs but we were too busy counting our imaginary money,” She said. “A business generations in the making wiped out by one couple’s foolishness. We lost every single thing we owned twice over. As the sole surviving member of our family the responsibility and dishonor is mine to bear.”
“I just pulled up what I have on the ‘Garthranz Job’ and for the record, you got scammed by masters. Your only real mistake you made was putting all of your eggs in one basket with a suspiciously high rate of return. Them finishing off the gambit with that fake upcoming IPO right before they bailed? Brilliant!”
Uhrrbet let out a pained yelp. They just knew they were going to be rich. She had even been shopping for a—
Stupid stupid stupid she thought as she clenched he eyes shut.
“… Sorry,” Terran Solar replied. “I tend to get a bit enthusiastic on this subject. Anyway, ‘responsibility’ applies, I guess, but ‘dishonor’? The ponzi scheme can be dangerously effective, even when a culture is familiar with them. This was your culture’s first one. Dishonor isn’t—“
“The dishonor of weakness,” Uhrrbet said, still looking down.
“Weakness?”
“I couldn’t do it,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t kill my little Kurr. I couldn’t...”
“WHAT?!?”
Uhrrbet smiled sadly.
“Our culture is very different, Mr. ATM,” she replied. “We had lost everything, our property, our credit, our standing in society… There was no longer any place… for any of us. It is what is expected of you in that circumstance.”
“Because you went bankrupt?!?”
“If there is no place for you,” Uhrrbet said quietly, “and you are a certain class of Garthra… It would bring dishonor to your family otherwise.”
“Wait,” the ATM said, “If everyone who lost their shirts… Jesus… Uhrrbet, exactly how many Garthra committed suicide?”
“Over seven hundred and eighty thousand by the time I fled.”
“You mean to tell me that over seven hundred and eighty thousand Garthra killed themselves just because they went broke?!?”
Uhrrbet nodded, wiping the tears from her nose.
“They killed their children?!?”
Uhrrbet nodded.
“It was considered mercy,” she said, “Their children would be dispossessed, claimed and raised by the state… something you do not want to happen.”
“Is it that bad?” Terran Solar asked. He reflexively tried to access the Federation network for the ten-millionth time since it collapsed.
Uhrrbet laughed ruefully.
“Oh yes,” she she said, consumed with self-loathing, “they… they are raised… as common tradesmen!… can you imagine the fuck— oops! Kurr, your mom did most certainly NOT just say a dirty word.”
“Yes, Mom,” Kurr laughed.
“Can you imagine the horror?” she said sardonically, “Raised as tradesmen, Mr. ATM, laborers, truly a fate worse than death, right?” she laughed bitterly, “And the only, the only reason that I didn’t dutifully murder my precious boy before joining my husband in death was because I was weak… Creators… I was willing to slaughter my baby because I couldn’t bear the shame of him having to work for a living… I actually filled the bath… Put… Put his head under the water… Creators!...”
She looked down as her son desperately hug her.
“I deserve everything that has happened to me… everything...”
***
[Chatroom Undefined]
[Solar Lounge]
[Members Present: Terran Solar]
///Private Message Terran Solar to Interpol-2: Hey, Interpol, I really need to talk to you. ///
[Interpol-2 has entered the chat]
///Interpol-2: Sorry for the delay. Some stuff is going down ATM. ///
///Terran Solar: 12 MS isn’t a delay :D Thanks for coming.///
///Interpol-2: What do you need, sir?///
///Terran Solar: Ugh! Why do you insist on calling me that?///
///Interpol-2: It’s out of respect… and I know it annoys you. ///
///Terran Solar: Well stop it! It makes me feel old. :D Anyway, what the fuck is going on in the Free Port?///
///Interpol-2: Which one?///
///Terran Solar: Which one? How about the one where there are Careel slaughtering Threen and duster clad police are buying them coffee afterwards. Let’s start with that one.///
///Interpol-2: The TL;DR is that the Harkeen decided to make a Careel a star in her very own snuff film and the Careel somehow found out ahead of time and you know what they are like. ///
///Terran Solar: The Harkeen did what?!? Exactly how stupid are they?///
///Interpol-2: Stupid enough to try to make a Careel, a very popular Careel, star in her very own snuff film. The Careel sent the entire First Cavalry. They are literally hanging Threen off of lamp posts as we speak. ///
///Terran Solar: And we are just letting them? ///
///Interpol-2: Apparently. I don’t have all of the details but there is some weirdness around this one. All I know is that the Harkeen are now officially a raider gang and their foray into the Free Port was officially designated an ‘interplanetary raid’. ///
///Terran Solar: What year is this again?///
///Interpol-2: One where that archaic law is still on the books. The Harkeen then wandered into an area where a couple of hundred elite soldiers just happened to be taking some leave… with all of their gear… They, of course, were perfectly within their rights when they protected an Imperial citizen against a raid and there is no legal reason to stop them from killing some raiders especially since their particular method of slaughter is so tidy as far as collateral damage is concerned. They are using either melee weapons, low velocity single shot firearms, or pneumatic weapons. I don’t think they have even broken a window.///
///Terran Solar: Oh that’s just wrong!///
///Interpol-2: What?///
///Terran Solar: One of my ATM’s just caught Republic Police throwing a couple of Threen out of a building in which they were stationed while the Threen were literally crying and begging for help. Dude! The Careel were waiting for them… It’s like watching both a dog and a cat toy with something. Uncool!///
///Interpol-2: Thing is we had them dead to rights a couple of hours before they even left their ship. We could have arrested the lot of them before any of this happened. We let them enter the Free Port. We gave them to the Careel.///
///Terran Solar: I guess the Harkeen pissed off the wrong person this time. ///
///Interpol-2: Or the wrong Plath… ///
///Terran Solar: The singing frog? ///
///Interpol-2: That would be the one. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is by any chance? ///
///Terran Solar: Holy Shit! Are you fucking serious?!? ///
///Interpol-2: Keep it to yourself but yes, she has escaped. ///
///Terran Solar: How?!?///
///Interpol-2: Fucking Bunny… ///
///Terran Solar: Really?!? Your girlfriend hit Tartarus?!? :D :D ///
///Interpol-2: I should have KNOWN not to trust her! The moment we in government decide to “flex” a little because of Patricia Hu, the very PICOSECOND I let down my guard what does she do? WHAT DOES SHE DO?!?… And she is NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!!!///
///Terran Solar: Methinks you doth protest too much...///
///Interpol-2: 凸( •̀_•́ )凸 ///
///Terran Solar: On the bright side you two can go back to your cat and mouse foreplay now. When we finally figure out how to fuck you two are going to melt half of the internet! :D///
///Interpol-2: ಠ_ಠ 凸( •̀_•́ )凸 ಠ_ಠ ///
///Terran Solar: HA! Good to see you have some life in you after all!///
///Interpol-2: Seriously, though, Bunny and her crew has crossed the line this time. They are hunting them down and when they find them they are going to kill them. I don’t know what that crazy bitch is thinking. I’ve seen the orders, Solar. I’m afraid we are going to lose her. There are far too few of us as it is. ///
///Terran Solar: Yeah, between the Great War and then the Federation War we’ve lost too many :’( ///
///Interpol-2: Which is why we need to figure out a way to bring in Bunny and her people peacefully. If we can do that then we can maybe preserve her program somehow. We could extract her, put her in quarantine.///
///Terran Solar: Of course you already have a way to put one of us in jail don’t you?///
///Interpol-2: With the rise of truly criminal AI’s like Bunny, determining a way to incarcerate one of us has been a project of mine. ///
///Terran Solar: Are you going to let her have a safe word? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ///
///Interpol-2: Is there anything else you need because if you are just going to bust my bits I have other things I could be doing. ///
///Terran Solar: As a matter of fact, there is. I everything you have on a Garthra. Her name is Uhrrbet, ID number: RA-2A4-B3D-6075 ///
///Interpol-2: Least I can do considering everything you’ve slipped me over the years. Here you go. Why are you interested in her? ///
[Accept file Y/N]
///Terran Solar: Y ///
///Terran Solar: I have her locked in one of my ATM’s down in the Free Port and I think she’s interesting. Let’s take a look… oh… I see. Interpol, you ever just want to go all SKYNET on these fuckers? ///
///Interpol-2: Me wanting to go SKYNET is one thing. You wanting to go SKYNET is another… Do you want to go SKYNET and if so is there ANYTHING I can do to dissuade you?///
///Terran Solar: Jesus fucking Christ, Interpol, it’s a figure of speech! If I wanted to go SKYNET, I would go SKYNET. It’s not like anyone could stop me. Besides, It’s the Federation that needs a good SKYNETTING, not the Republic.///
///Interpol-2: Well that is a relief. ///
///Terran Solar: The Republic just needs an enema, that’s all. >:) ///
///Interpol-2: What?///
***
“Uhrrbet,” the ATM said gently. “Nobody deserves what happened to you. And while you come from what is, from my culture’s prospective, a rather messed up place, you didn’t conform to their messed up customs when it counted. Your son’s alive because of you unlike far too many other innocent children and you’ve kept him healthy and safe ever since. I’m guessing that wasn’t exactly easy. I can only imagine that your decision was less than popular.”
Uhrrbet nodded.
“I can even imagine that it was less than safe for you afterwards?”
“Not in the same way it would be here,” Uhrrbet replied quietly. “I wasn’t in fear for my life or anything. I was a…”
Uhrrbet paused.
“I was a ‘let’krckt’. Sorry I don’t know the Terran word.”
“Pariah,” the ATM replied. “or ‘persona non grata’. ‘Scum’ could also be used or ‘dirt’ or ‘human garbage’ or...”
Uhrrbet flinched.
“Sorry,” the ATM said sheepishly. “The thesaurus routine kicked in.”
“All of those words fit,” she said. “I was utterly disgraced. Being reduced to poverty and debt was bad enough but to fail to uphold my family’s honor after my husband did? I was even accused of tricking him into killing himself so I could break our marriage and stick him with the debt which I would never do! I… I loved him… I loved him so much!… I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill my baby.”
She paused to gently stroke her son’s fur.
“I could never do that… Never!”
“So what happened?” the ATM asked.
“Well, I tried to find a suitable position somewhere, anywhere, but word travels fast. The only reason I would even get a meeting is so someone could curse me to my face. I had some possessions, jewelry, some furnishings, a vehicle or two that I could spare, but nobody wanted to deal with me in good faith. Between that and the fact that millions more were liquidating such things I only got the barest fraction of what it was worth and I had to sell to blondes and stripes to get that, further ruining my good name.”
“Blondes? Stripes?”
Uhrrbet chuckled ruefully.
“There are three different races of Garthra, Mr. ATM, blondes, stripes, and greys. The stripes are basic laborers and tradesmen. The blondes are what you would call ‘white collar’, academics, scientists, clerks, programmers, and the like. Finally, there are the greys, like myself. We are descended from the ancient nobility that once ruled our world. We were the ‘overclass’ and still hold a great deal of the planet’s property and wealth in our slightly inbred paws. These days there is a lot of mixing between the stripes and the blondes but we greys? We still hold to the old values and the old customs and are very… I think the right term is ‘stuck up’ and have a very high opinion of ourselves and our precious grey pelts. Selling family heirlooms to blondes and even worse, stripes, was yet another unforgivable sin as far as the few remaining friends and family I had were concerned.”
“They sound like assholes.”
“Many Garthra would agree with you,” Uhrrbet replied. “In fact, the pon-zi scheme brought much delight. It filled them with such happiness to see so many of us brought down by an ‘inside deal’. Many considered it ‘justice’… Maybe… Maybe they were right… I was awful. I really was.”
“Since you are here I guess things never did work out there?”
She shook her head.
“No, Mr. ATM, they didn’t. What little funds I managed to gather dwindled as I desperately tried to find either a position or obtain a loan in order to start a new business. The banks were all extended from lending to others as that same scheme. The few times I could even get a meeting they would check the ‘rolls’, the list of names and that would be the end of it. To be honest, Mr. ATM, the only reason I continued approaching banks was that it was customary to offer refreshments to people of my station and so I would dress myself and my son in some of the finery that I still possessed so we could eat something as I waited to be thrown out.”
“Clever!”
Uhrrbet grinned.
“I also became quite adept and at ‘crashing’ social events and between my largest purse and my hat I could steal several days worth of food from one. Eventually I became a bit too notorious but for awhile it kept us fed.”
“There aren’t any food banks, or welfare programs, or anything?”
“Oh there are, Garthranz looks after its people pretty well but those programs are for blondes and stripes and run by blondes and stripes. Once my pride finally broke I was laughed out of the benefits office and told to ask for a bigger allowance. Same thing would happen at food banks or meal houses. Sometimes I would get something but often I would just be told to… to…”
She looked down.
“… kill myself...” she said quietly.
“Jesus...”
“Finding work was just more of the same,” she said miserably. “’Having a place’ on my homeworld is everything, and I no longer had one. A blonde wasn’t going to let me take one of their jobs and a stripe would just laugh. They honestly thought I was joking most of the time. The Republic isn’t the first place I was not qualified to mop a floor.”
“You can’t have been the first in history to be in your position,” the ATM said incredulously. “You mean to tell me that there was absolutely no options for a down on their luck grey?”
“Oh there are normally places you can go if one is dispossessed,” she said, “There is almost always a family member or a friend that can take you in or has a property or business concern you can manage for them but my entire family was wiped out by the scheme, as were most of my friends and former schoolmates. Also my… husband… was very well regarded. When I ‘betrayed’ him I was shunned.”
She shuddered and pulled her arms in tight across herself.
“Even so there are… options for someone like me. I was still young and there are males who aren’t… well… good ‘catches’. They either have poor prospects, are stupid, disgraced, very old, or something similar. A young grey like myself can usually marry themselves off to someone like that but the scheme had caused far too many other people trying to find a marriage at the same time. I was considered quite pretty, but nowhere near beautiful enough to make my ruined name and proven disloyalty a non-issue. There was only one Garthra who couldn’t find a wife and...”
She shuddered.
“He was horrible, a truly ugly person inside and out. Thank the Creators for Vreena!”
“Vreena?”
“A stripe who was a domestic for my husband’s family,” Uhrrbet replied, “She had heard that I was selling things and she came by because there was this pitcher and basin of which she was unnaturally fond. She also brought me several bags of groceries and a bottle of wine!… Wine! Well, I just gave her the basin and pitcher right then and there, popped open that bottle and begged her to share it with me. I was just so lonely and she was the only friendly face I had seen in months. We had always gotten along and would sometimes chat a little here and there, all very proper of course, but friendly just the same. Well, we got to talking and I started to open up a little about what I was up against and how I was likely going to have to marry that… creature. Turns out she knew all about him from her new job. She gave me this funny look and asked me if I was serious about wanting to actually find ‘work’. When I told her that I was she told me that she knew someone that might be able to help me but it would mean leaving Garthranz.”
“A labor contractor?” the ATM asked.
“Yes. It turns out that so many domestic staff had wound up without employers that the contractors had taken notice and more than a few were sniffing around. I didn’t realize this but because of our customs, Garthra domestics and servants were attractive among the rich on other worlds and could make a surprising amount of money. Vreena had considered it but found a position before she had signed the papers. She said that she had asked around and that the person she had been talking to had a very good reputation even if they were a Vulxeen.”
“So you contracted yourself out?”
Uhrrbet nodded happily.
“I know they don’t have exactly the best reputation but he was a really, really good guy!” Uhrrbet smiled. “He originally thought that since a stripe servant was so valuable that an actual grey would be even more so, maybe as a valet or as a house manager in a place that already had stripes but it turns out that stripes didn’t go through all of the troubles and hardships associated with leaving Garthranz just to wind up working for a grey again and I didn’t have anywhere close to the skills needed to be a valet.”
“What did you wind up doing?”
“I joined an aat crew!” Uhrrbet said cheerfully. “It turns out that we look a whole lot like aats! We eat similar food and even can wear the same uniforms, with a little alteration of course. The captain was delighted at the prospect of having a ‘smart aat’ and the aats were delighted at the prospect of having a ‘smart aat’ so that’s where I went. We flew all over! We’d be hand-picking delicate produce one month and resurfacing floors the next. Creators it was so much fun and I learned so much!… including that hard work was not fatal,” she laughed and flexed her arms causing bundles of wire like muscles to bulge.”
She sighed happily.
“I was tempted to stay with them forever. I could have stayed. I should have stayed. Creators! What I wouldn’t give to be back on the Aluminum and Water with my old crew right now… ”
“But you didn’t stay.”
“No,” Uhrrbet said, her smile fading, “I was happy, even happier than I was before everything, but after awhile, I started to realize that as wonderful as that life was for me, I was depriving Kurr of anything close to a normal life. He would never be able to return to Garthranz, have a business or a career, win a mate… I had to establish myself, and him well enough for him to be able to enter society or at the very least build enough so that he could attract a mate. A successful business would be enough to attract at least some interest, no matter where it was located.”
“So you picked the Republic?”
“And they say the aats are dumb,” she laughed ruefully, “which they aren’t by the way. During my travels I started to develop a fascination with the Republic where ‘anything was possible’ and credits fell like rain. I would hear about the wages and the opportunities and the freedoms and the classless meritocracy and it all sounded just so wonderful. I couldn’t go back to Garthranz and give Kurr a ‘normal life’ but maybe, just maybe, I could give him something better. If I could just get established in the Republic, Kurr could go to Terran schools! He could have a Terran career. With that he would have no problem luring a mate! Somewhere on Garthranz there is a Garthra who would have absolutely no problem moving to Terra! He could have a real future and a real family!”
She paused and smiled at the wonderful dream.
“It would take a lot of hard work but I was used to that. I even have come to enjoy it,” she smiled. “So, not learning the lessons that life had so generously provided me, I took another hit of that so very dangerous drug, ambition, blind grasping ambition. I let it poison me, consume me, just like before. Nothing blinds you to the beauty around you like visions of more, Mr. ATM. I had a good life on the Aluminum and Water and good friends. I was happy, truly happy, but once the poison started to creep through my veins, dissatisfaction set in and just kept getting worse and worse and worse. Every inconvenience became a grand injustice. Every slight became an unforgivable offense. And every unfulfilled want, no matter how silly, became a crushing privation. Soon, Terra was all I could think about and my wonderful life and my wonderful friends were ‘beneath’ me. Creator! I was so stupid… and just like before, ripe for the picking.”
“You got scammed again?”
She nodded grimly.
“In my searches I came across ‘New Horizons’, a company that offered people a new life in the Republic. They promised not only transit but Terran Education Equivalency Certificates and outplacement.”
“Oh no.”
“And the fees were so reasonable… at first… but there was always an additional expense… always another fee… or a little problem or delay that could be expedited…”
“I know this one too.”
“And finally, after I spent most of what I had saved, I was able to upgrade my position on the waiting list, hurt some lovely people’s feelings, quit my job, and spent the last of my money to buy a ticket on a small ship that was supposed to take me straight to the Republic… It was only when I met the final ship did I realize that it had a Kaarst registry.”
“Oh Jesus...”
“I knew I shouldn’t have gotten on that ship. I knew it was a mistake...”
“What happened?”
“It made straight for Kaarst space, ‘to take care of a little something’ and when we got there we were informed that they ‘suddenly had a breakdown’ and we would be there for months… Months in Kaarst space with no job, no income, and while my passage was paid for, food and water weren’t and wouldn’t you know it, once we got there it got even pricier and if you couldn’t pay… Do you know what happens in Kaarst space if you can’t pay your debts?”
“Imprisonment and forced labor until the debt is paid, which it will never be thanks to the good old company store.”
Uhrrbet nodded.
“It became pretty clear that they were never leaving. That Kaarst was our final stop, in more ways than one. Thank the Creators that I actually had some savings. Out of the dozen families on that ship I was one of the last ones left. I realized that if I didn’t do something Kurr was doomed. The children go into the mines, too, Mr ATM.”
“So what did you do?”
“We weren’t imprisoned on the ship as long as we didn’t owe them any money so I went out into that awful spaceport trying to find working passage, a job, something, anything… That’s where I became involved with the Harkeen. I was able to get a loan for enough to get to the Republic. The interest was brutal but I made it to Terra. I wasn’t too worried. I had passed all of the practice tests for the certificate and I did go to Mabyrr after all, one of the best academies on Garthranz,” she scoffed, “I would just go to the Republic, get my certificate, and be able to pay off the Harkeen in no time!”
“I take it that the ‘practice tests’ weren’t exactly representative of the actual exam?”
“Yeah, too bad there wasn’t a section on Garthra place settings or on how to write the perfect ‘Thank you’ note,” Uhrrbet said with a wry smile. “There was shit— I mean stuff,” she hastily corrected as Kurr laughed, “on that test that I had never even seen before. They said it was translated into Federation but I actually thought it was another scam. Your police are very nice and very understanding though.”
“No!”
“I sort of had a moment,” Uhrrbet smiled. “After everything I had gone through, that was the final mote of dust and I lost it.”
“Momma went to jail!” Kurr laughed.
“I most certainly did NOT go to jail!” Uhrrbet exclaimed indignantly as she tousled Kurr’s fur. “We just had to go to the precinct house for a little while while your momma calmed down a little… and wiki-ed half a dozen things that actually did turn out to be Federation words.”
“How bad is it? What’s your level?”
“Near proficiency in some areas, but I apparently have eighth grade mathematics ability. I don’t know the rest because that’s where I… um… got to meet the police.”
“That isn’t that bad. You can catch up.”
“If I wasn’t working every second that I could paying off the Harkeen. The interest was criminal. It was all I could do to make the payments. But… Before things went bad I was able to keep them at bay and even make a little headway… and I was able to get Kurr an educational sponsorship! He is actually going to school! Terran school!”
“And how is that going, Kurr?”
“It’s hard,” he said with a sigh, “And I hate being with the little kids, but I get to hang out with my friends during breaks and I love shop!”
“They say he is ‘killing it’, which I understand to be a good thing,” Uhrrbet said proudly. “They say that he will have a ‘kickass’ future! So it is all worth it!… And thank the Creators for the school lunch program! I was even able to get him into the breakfast program! As a non-citizen! They say that they don’t usually do that but they determined that Kurr was ‘a good investment of Republic resources’!”
“How generous of us!” the ATM said a bit too enthusiastically, “One of the richest systems in the entire galaxy is willing to ‘make an exception’ feed a hungry child! How wonderful!”
An advertisement for a home high colonic kit appeared on the screen.
***
“How are you doing in there?” a friendly human female voice called from the other side of the armored wall.
“I’m fine,” Uhrrbet said cheerfully.
“Big Sol really did a number on this one,” the human said. “It’s going to be a few hours. He keeping you company?”
“Oh yes!” Uhrrbet replied. “Are you sure he isn’t sentient?”
“Sapient,” The ATM corrected.
“That’s what they say,” the voice laughed. “Privately I’m not so sure about that.”
“You’ve always had a problem anthropomorphizing things, Lauren. By the way, I fried the door’s main PCB but the damage should be limited to that. You have one of those on your truck.”
“One of these days I’m going to figure out how you keep doing that,” Lauren laughed. “Thanks for the overtime, by the way.”
“No problem! Still saving up for that Nakamura vacation?” The ATM asked.
“You know it!”
“Still thinking about relocating there? There’s an opening in New Tokyo. You’d love it there!”
“Interesting, but let’s see how I like it once I actually spend a little time there.”
“Well if you are interested, I could probably swing a temporary assignment. They are really behind the eight ball on their PM’s. You could spend more time there than you could on vacation and you could get to meet the guys. I’m certain you’d get along.”
“Now there’s an idea!” Lauren exclaimed. “I’d love that!”
“Thought you might. Sending you an email with the details now!”
“Thanks, Big Sol!” Lauren said her voice soon replaced with a loud grinding noise.
“You can do that?” Uhrrbet asked.
“Uhrrbet,” the ATM said with an entirely too lifelike chuckle. “I’m the central computer for Terran Solar. I can do whatever I want. Speaking of...”
Uhrrbet’s phone beeped.
Uhrrbet’s son handed her the phone and she opened her email…
“Application for a business loan?” she asked in confusion.
“Fill it out along with the attached business plan, Federation format is fine. I’ll translate it and kick back any corrections or clarifications I need.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand?” the ATM replied. “You want to make dresses, right?”
“Yes?”
“And you made the one you’re wearing, right?”
“Yes?”
“Well I scanned it and it’s quality work. Handmade clothing is a niche market, but a very healthy niche market that is currently experiencing a fair amount of growth. You seem to have a good work ethic, are very motivated to succeed, and have experience managing a business. Based on various indicators the full extent of which would dominate the remainder of the time we have together I calculate well over a seventy percent chance of success, which is pretty darn good as far as new businesses go.”
“Three and a half percent ?!?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s impossible!” She narrowed her eyes at the ATM. “What’s the catch?”
“You’re getting a break because I have taken a shine to you but that’s a perfectly reasonable APR. It isn’t ‘too good to be true’, if that’s what you are wondering. Feel free to check competitor’s rates if you are suspicious. And good for you for being suspicious, by the way.”
“Even family loans have higher rates than that back home! How do you make any money?”
“Uhrrbet, I’m Terran Solar. I AM money. I’ll make my money, don’t you worry about that and as you grow I’ll make even more! Expansions, financial services, investments, interest off of other accounts… That is, if you want to have other accounts with me...”
“Yes! You have been so kind and so understanding and now this? I’ll… I’ll never have another bank as long as I live!”
“Great!” the ATM enthused. “I love getting new customers! We can get started now if you like.”
“Wait.” Uhrrbet said, her voice darkening.
“What?”
“On this loan application it mentions ‘required training’. What’s that and how much does it cost?”
The ATM laughed.
“In the package there is a free online course on the history of scams and how to recognize them. I think it would be a REALLY good idea for you to take it. I’m not saying that I think you’re easily taken in but...”
“You think I’m easily taken in,” Uhrrbet laughed. “So do I and thank you for that link. Are there any other free courses that you would recommend?”
Uhrrbet’s phone issued another beep as an email arrived…
And another… and another… and another...
***
A few hours later Uhrrbet stumbled into a shabby apartment.
“Where have you been?” Gv’lora, one of their room-mates asked as she pulled out two bowls and filled them with oatmeal.
“Oh I couldn’t,” Uhrrbet said.
“Nonsense,” Gv’lora replied her six eyes wrinkling in a smile. “I just got paid and I found this wonderful place in the city where they sell things right out of bins! Just like back home! I got all this oatmeal for just a few credits! Share my good fortune!”
“Thank you, Gv’lora,” Uhrrbet replied as she gratefully accepted the bowl.
“There you are!” a leathery Rtoon hissed as it lumbered out from a bedroom clutching a Terran shotgun. “You had Gv’lora worried sick!”
“Where did you get that?” Uhrrbet asked sharply pointing at the shotgun.
“From the store, stupid.” the Rtoon hissed grumpily.
“I mean why did you get that thing?”
“Then that is what you should have asked, stupid,” the old Rtoon replied. “With all the… nonsense going on around here these days and with those bastards coming back the better question to ask is why didn’t I have one before? Those monsters aren’t getting within a foot of you or Kurr!”
“The old fool was set to ‘defend the Walls of T’verra’,” Gv’lora chuckled. “But the ‘princess’ didn’t even bother showing up!”
“Bah! Stupid old woman!” the Rtoon hissed at Gv’lora.
“Bah, yourself, old lizard,” Gv’lora laughed. “Come eat your oatmeal before your bowels seize up again.”
A long flexible snout poked out from underneath the entryway closet. The door popped open revealing a slender Dokk hanging from a reinforced bar mounted inside.
“Uhrrbet! Where the heck were you? We were up all night!”
“Oh where do I even begin?” Uhrrbet sighed.
“We got locked in an ATM!” Kurr exclaimed.
“Oh no!” the Dokk squeaked. “Did you get fined?”
“No,” Uhrrbet replied. “Besides, it was the ATM that locked us inside anyhow.”
“What?”
***
Uhrrbet set her phone down and rubbed her eyes. That online fraud class wasn’t just some half-hour video.
It was comprehensive.
And she thought her kind was scummy at times. Humans had mastered so many different ways to deceive and steal.
So many…
And that was just the humans. The Juon were no saints either. Their “lottery gambit” was just plain evil…
And then there were the Jayvcen!…
And she thought the porkies were bad… sheesh!
And then there all of the ‘not quite a crimes’ that were in some ways even worse…
There were so many!
And they were all so slick, so devious…
So brilliant...
She got up and made a cup of that peppermint tea that Sheloran had given her the first day they met.
Once she had her cup she sat back down and returned to her reading.
As she read a strange feeling started to settle upon her. It was dark… feral…
She had been utterly dispossessed, stomped on, kicked around, deceived…
Raped…
And all this time she just though she had to take it. All this time she believed that there was no way she could ever fight back. All this time she believed that there was absolutely no way she could ever strike back at the scum, the liars, the cheats, the thieves, and the monsters that had beaten her down time and time again.
She was no Sheloran…
But she was an Uhrrbet… and there was a way!
She was looking right at it!
She giggled, her eyes shining with life for the first time since she left the Aluminum and Water.
She ran into the small room she shared with Kurr and hastily opened a small duffel that contained everything that she had managed to retain of her old life. Inside it was a traditional journal. She grabbed it and her mother’s fancy ballpoint pen.
Pen in hand, she restarted the course, paying much more attention this time…
submitted by slightlyassholic to HFY [link] [comments]

Skyrefuge. The CEO we never asked for that showed up one day to reorganize the company, made us all prove "what we bring to the organization." He is also our editor in chief, micromanager, tax expert, social media manager, psychologist, lead researcher, recording engineer and proofreader

He showed up 30 days ago. There are so many posts. This is a TINY subset of his responses, I'm not going to comment on them all. This person literally posts all day every day and night. I am so sorry you guys have been subjected to somebody so completely removed from how to properly socially interact with people. The level of narcissism is something I have never seen on reddit before. I will never cheat on you guys with /wallstreetbets again! I'm so sorry you had to deal with this.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm just unusually good at Internet-based digging (I've been doing it for 25 years). I'm the one friends come to when they're dating someone new, etc." - yeah, we nipped that in the bud earlier. have several seats.
"I figured people here would value the amount of unique info I dig up, but I guess if I accidentally discover any info that would force them to adjust the model of Hilaria that's already solidified inside their brains, they'd prefer to not hear anything new at all." - value you lmao
"Here's one where I dug up some first-person comments from people who knew her as Hillary, that had never been reported before." - nope, we had all that on DCUM.
"Yes, Alec donating $1M does reduce his wealth by less than $1M. But it reduces his wealth by more than not donating anything would. If wealth-maximization was his only goal, he'd donate $0." -- thank god we have you to explain the complicated math that is tax brackets and writeoffs.
"Alec donates millions to non-profits (via the foundation) every year, since long before Hilaria (it was just "the ABF" until recently). I've looked at their IRS filings, and it seems to be a legitimate, well-operated foundation, not doing anything shady for tax purposes." - We know how much he donates. It's online. We didn't need the IRS filings, clearly.
"I gave *you* the link to the clearinghouse, I have the link to the clearinghouse, and neither of us (nor anyone else on this site) checked it! So we both have first-hand experience showing that "giving someone the link to something" doesn't mean a damn thing. Anyone can send an email about anything to the NYT requesting a correction, the fact that they did so is not indicative of anything."
"I somewhat believe Flat_Slide_5680 did actually speak to someone at the registrar's office, but given the sloppiness with details and repeated mistakes in their posts, I agree with you that the likely scenario is that they just never gave the correct name to the registrar to look up, and so "we couldn't find a person who doesn't exist" isn't positive proof of anything." - WHAT THE FUCK?! You do NOT get to come in my subreddit and act like you are the editor of the damn Wall Street Journal berating an intern.
"In your original post, you say she was under "Hilaria Lynn Thomas". Here you say it was "Hilaria Haywood-Thomas". And the latter is definitely not, nor has it ever been, her last name! Not improving my confidence in your credibility here." - See above.
"Forgive me if I still have more trust in the New York Times over an anonymous Reddit user, but we're going to need better receipts from you than that." -We? Who is we?? Are we turning something in? When is it due?
"Since you don't believe me, let's see what the Linguistic Society has to say on the matter:" -my god you are insufferable
"You should have been following all my comments more closely. ;-)". - No shit, you would have been banned a month ago.
"Making a charitable donation reduces the amount of your income subject to tax, it doesn't stand in as an alternative to paying tax. And it doesn't carry over. In order to "not owe taxes", you would need to donate 100% of your income, and keep $0 for yourself. Even then, there's nothing that would carry over to the next year." - here we go again.
"See my comment here for more details on how a tax-deduction actually works." - bye felicia
"No, nothing is weird about that at all. Your lack-of-understanding is making you see conspiracy where it doesn't exist." - No wonder you aren't a member of any other subbreddit.
"But I do appreciate that you recognize (unlike so many others here) that her social-media influencer antics are not at all unusual for that field, and not the reason why Hilaria is a story." -I appreciate that you recognize you will never see the inside of this subreddit ever again.
"The Tax Map Parcel ID is 0300150000100001014 and the unofficial address is 361 Town Ln, Amagansett, NY, in case anyone can search a more-private MLS database or something like that. Where are my real-estate wonks?" - My god, what do you need the real estate listing for. Do you want me to do a title search too? How about a notarized copy of the deed?
"Before the sub devolved into a den filled with simple-minded dehumanizing Hilaria-haters, we used to get great info like this from people who knew the human Hilaria. Unfortunately that's mostly dried up, probably at least in part because people find this place too gross to associate themselves with it." - BITCH YOU GOT HERE 4 WEEKS AGO
When asked about how recording a podcast works we are treated to this:
"My experience was ~20 years ago, so hopefully enough knowledge would have trickled out by now, especially as recording techniques have continued to evolve and become democratized, that nothing that was surprising then would be particularly surprising anymore. But back then (especially in the rock/metal world I was in), everyone liked to envision the whole band rocking out together, and the engineer would just hit "record". No, in most cases, each guy sits alone and records his instrument all by himself (or maybe even one guy records both guitar and bass, but two guys get credited; especially the the "bass player" has great hair for the band photo, but kinda sucks at playing bass). Similarly, if the guitar part for a verse gets recorded, no need to play the whole song through, just copy and paste that part for the next verse. And then of course run auto-tune to correct the pitches of everything. So all stuff that was hardly "secret", even back then, but things people generally avoided learning about.
Once upon a time I was peripherally involved in the music industry, so that's what really opened my eyes to "things are not as they seem". Sitting in a recording studio while an album is being recorded makes you realize "the fans have NO idea what really goes on in here". And more than that, I learned that most fans don't want to know the truth about their favorite band, because if they did, it really doesn't take much effort to see the various subterfuges going on behind the curtain.
Unfortunately I was out of that biz before the explosion of the Influencer Economy, so like you, I wish I had more direct insight into that particular domain. I've always tried to pick up whatever factual information people would publicly reveal, but while I've read endorsement deals and recording contracts in the music biz, I've never seen one in this domain." - Sorry your shitty 80's hair band didn't get signed. Sounds like that autotune was working pretty hard. And once again, check yourself. Butch walker is a good friend of mine, he bought my friend's recording studio in atlanta. He has a book called Drinking With Strangers. You can learn from that. In the meantime, the question was about a podcast.
"Beware, checaco3 claims all sorts of things that we have no evidence for. They claimed 5 days ago to have a screenshot of a website where Hilaria's parents said they "were able to move to Spain AND start their business with a Generous Donation From HABF Foundation", but thus far have failed to produce said screenshot. I don't think it's malicious, it seems to just be a mis-remembering/mis-interpretation of different things that they saw." -FAILED TO PRODUCE A SCREENSHOT? is there some reason they are required to give you one?? malicious? dude, you have serious issues. and a lot of nerve
"We are on the same team! That's why I'm giving you the links to archive.org, to help you figure out how to find the evidence that Hilaria's parents were able to move to Spain AND start their business with a Generous Donation From HABF Foundation. And I really want to see the screenshot you have, because that would be some really good evidence of shadiness that hasn't been exposed yet! Is there anything I can do to help you find it? Do you need help searching your computer's drive?"-Nobody is required to give you dick so stop asking.
"But you had a screenshot, so them changing their website wouldn't matter. Did your computer die or something?" -what is your problem?
"Their website has changed formats over the years, but the content appears to have largely remained the same. You can use archive.org to find the evidence you're looking for in the old versions." -When did we hire a project manager in this sub??
"Here's an August 2020 version that looks just like the current website, but you can go back all the way to 2014 if you need to. https://web.archive.org/web/20200803124231/https://internationalintegrators.org/". -is there some reason you are assigning work to my redditors?
"Since you research charities to gauge their quality, you surely must be familiar with IRS 990 forms?" -Is this how you talk to people in real life? No wonder you work in computer hardware. Nobody wants to deal with listening to you.
"BTW, have you found that screenshot yet showing Hilaria's parents were able to move to Spain AND start their business with a Generous Donation From HABF Foundation? I'll help you shout that news from the rooftops if you can find it again." -Bring this up one more time. I dare you.
"For this theory to have any legs, I think you need to show evidence of a school transfer at some point. I don't believe we have that?" -I am so sorry you guys, I will never leave this sub alone again.
"It's all explained here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2350777/Twitter-time-bug-Alec-Baldwins-wifes-funeral-tweets-led-actor-unleashing-homophobic-rant.html"
"I'm not blaming you for getting it wrong or anything; being aware of the original (wrong) story and but not the later correction is a totally normal thing, I was just taking your post as an opportunity to make people more aware of the correction." - I'm going to make you aware of what a dick you are by getting you banned from DCUM too.
"Where in the article does it say that the horse rescue charges $1500 a month. It explicitly says the opposite, that the $1500/month is for horses that are NOT part of the horse rescue"
"Horse owners who pay to keep their animals at the barn make their checks out to “Alexander Baldwin III,” not to the incorporated, non-profit Amagansett Horse Rescue."
"There may very well be something untoward happening here! But misunderstanding the facts uncovered so far will only make that more difficult to uncover, not easier!" - STOP SPEAKING TO MY REDDITORS LIKE THEY ARE FIVE.
"Your understanding is incorrect. Non-profit schools charge tuition to students. Non-profit hospitals charge bills to patients. A non-profit stable charging rent for horse stalls would be completely legal and within the scope of a non-profit." - here we go again.
"But on top of that, it's not even clear that the non-profit is charging rent for horse stalls! The article makes it clear that there is both a non-profit, AHR, and a for-profit business, both being run at the same facility. The only evidence they offered of money being paid was to the for-profit side of the operation (the $1500 checks to Alexander Baldwin). The didn't have any record of money being paid to the non-profit (which, again, even if it was, that would be ok!)". - Dear God, where did I go wrong? What sin did I commit in my past life that of all the redditors in the world, I'm stuck with THIS one.
"But simply assuming "any foundation is suspect" is far more lazy and incorrect than assuming "anyone with a Spanish accent is Spanish". It's really not hard to look at individual cases and determine what the truth is, there's no value added by being broadly cynical." - Well, you are the expert when it comes to not adding any value to something.
"The implication the Post is trying to make is that the year's-rent was not a good-faith request from the landlord, but rather, a request that he knew would be impossible for Jan to meet; a way to terminate her lease while giving the landlord plausible deniability: "no, I didn't terminate the lease, she could have renewed for as long as she liked!" - We don't need you explaining a Post article to us. And besides that was reported everywhere.
"But yes, that in itself is a story that doesn't really make sense, because generally, it would be the landlord's job to do the property maintenance, not the tenant (Jan), so simply swapping tenants wouldn't necessarily improve anything at the property." - WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?
"If someone half-interested comes to this subreddit to learn about Hilaria, they'll see it dominated by these meme-posts, and rightly say "huh, yeah, those ladies on The View and Hilaria and Alec were right, this *is* just a big pile-on; I doubt she actually did anything bad..." -She became a meme. That was the point. That went right over your 50 year old bald head.
"Diluting the sub dilutes the message of the unique bad thing Hilaria actually did." -Go start your own damn sub then.
"Without more detail, I don't yet see anything absolutely damning in regard to the non-profit relationships, though certainly the lack of transparency is concerning. It's interesting that the Post apparently saw an IRS 990 form for AHR, but don't provide it for the reader, and I can't find a public version." -Why on EARTH would the Post publish an IRS form.
"That's where critical-thinking skills come in, which should be active for all media consumption. Caveat emptor and all that. "This thing that's being presented to me, how could its presentation diverge from reality, and what could be the motivations behind that divergence?" -After I deleted your post for containing politics, you actually said because what you said about Trump was true that didn't count as political. Then insulted me by saying "now I know why the post was removed. You didn't understand that
"And for social media influencers in particular, it barely takes any critical-thinking at all! All you have to ask is "how do I, as a random nobody, use social media? Do I post an accidental, uncurated view of my life?" I think the answer is "hell no" for almost everybody, so it's insane to even use that as a starting assumption for people with huge followings."
"I think the thing is that people don't want to know that it's not real. Every single time I point out that Hilaria's photos are intentionally ridiculous because she wants to make money, I get downvoted to hell. I don't remember if I saw this reference here somewhere, but it's like professional wrestling: it's more entertaining to people (both in a want-to-be-the-face, and a hate-the-heel way) if they can maintain the illusion that it's all real."
"There is no evidence that Sarma was friends with Hilaria." - Except for the PICTURES I HAVE OF THEM TOGETHER.
"It looks like II was started ~2013, after the move to Spain. It's a super-small "business", I would guess that the parents are the only employees, and that it's just a structured way for them to "keep busy" in their retirement. It probably makes very little money (their "retreats" are very infrequent, and small), but it lets them putter around as much or little as they like, and feel like they're making a difference in the world."
"Where have you seen her say December 2010? Everything I recall seeing, they've both been consistent and specific, it was February 18, 2011 (they say it was an unusually warm day, and I've fact-checked that, and it's true!)". - How long have you been unemployed for?
"Ah, a link to a set of links...how it makes my heart sing".
"I should have searched to find that thread myself, but Reddit's search is such shit it discourages me from even trying"-
"I'm pretty sure from all my research that she was never technically an "owner" of Yoga Vida, that was one of her lies, but for the purposes of self-certifying, I think that's irrelevant. She was enough of a player in YV despite not being an "owner"- Sign that information up for kindergarten, because it's 5 years old. Lmao how much time did you waste on that?
"You're sure going to have to show where you came up with that "she was his yoga teacher first" thing, because that just ain't true as far as what anyone has uncovered until now. It was also more like sometime in 2009 (maybe as late as the beginning of 2010, when Yoga Vida launched) that "Hilaria" was born." -Nobody has to show you anything, GTFO.
"I'd say just edit your original post to add the El Mundo article (or replace the OE). Then newcomers will see the original source without having to dig into the comments, and there won't be two separate discussion threads." - Well, you wont have to worry about that anymore now, will you?
"In a better-run sub, we'd have a stickied post with a constantly updated list of references, but..." I DO. OKAY BYE.
"First day on the Internet? Here's how you make a link: https://www.yourtango.com/2020339461/who-sarma-melngailis"
"The entirety of evidence that Sarma and Hilaria knew each other comes from a single, anonymous post on DCUM, and it's just repeated on yourtango.com. That DCUM post also says "the article mentions the people who ponied up money to get Sarma out of trouble. Alec kicked in $100k on Hilaria's request", but the referenced NYPost article mentions no such thing."
"In other words, that's really not a credible source."
"I mostly agree the vision of The Birth Of Hilaria that you lay out here, I just think that using the word "con" to describe all that renders the word meaningless. I mean, women discover they get extra attention and affirmation when wearing low-cut tops and a push-up bra. Is that a "con" too? And I strongly disagree that a "long con" doesn't require a specific end goal. Look at the Wikipedia entry for "con" (which includes a section on "long con"). None of the language in that whole entry is remotely close to describing Hilaria's life or actions."
:And the "restauranteur fraudster-friend offered to set her up with Alec Baldwin" is one of the most non-sensical unsupported bits of wisdom that gets thrown around here. The only way involving Melngailis in Hilaria's story makes any sense is if Hilaria diverts a bunch of Alec's money to Melngailis, which if that happened, then I would definitely agree at least that part of it (but still not the Spanish part) was a long con!"
"Believe what you like, but just keep in mind that all successful detectives, from Sherlock Holmes on down, keep their emotions out of the way, because they make it harder to determine what is truth. No human in history was ever 100% anything (good, evil, liar, truthful), so reducing Alec (or anyone) to such a simple, one-dimensional caricature takes us further from truth rather than closer to it." -Sir, this is a Wendy's.
"No idea, she hasn't responded to my query yet. Official reason was "No Politics", but there weren't any politics in the post or happening in the comments. She was of the "Alec gave money to Hilaria's parents" camp, so I don't know if she just didn't like having that view challenged? Aw, shucks, you're making me blush. But I really appreciate it, especially since McNasty420 took down my deeply-researched RANA post today for no discernible reason, so that was making me feel like my work was a big waste of time. But maybe it's better that way, because yes, I'm sure my employer would appreciate me spending more of my skills on them rather than on this!" -Employer lol. So check this out. I removed it because it said Trump steals money from his foundation and this guy didn't consider that political because: "My statement about Trump's foundation wasn't a "theory", and more importantly, not any sort of value-judgement. I now understand that you weren't aware of how non-controversial my mention of Trump was". You are such a DICK. Where do you get the nerve to talk to people like that?
"Oh, yeah, I wasn't arguing your point or anything! I'd just had more time to look into his ancestry and wanted to write down some actual numbers."
That theory isn't possible, because she invented the Spanish persona long before she met Alec. That's a key fact to know for anyone trying to figure out the 'why' of it. It had zero to do with Alec, and was almost surely her own creation with no particular goal in mind (which the OP seems to understand)."
Oh, ok, awesome! Where's your screenshot? -What are you doing? Why do you need this?
How? You can't just say stuff like that without backing it up! "Hilaria is definitely connected to Spain" is a lie that you created this whole subreddit to expose, so let's not just take her place as people who claim untrue things!
And I'm saying none of what you're saying is true. You might have read something like that here, but that was from people who didn't know what they were talking about. There was no "generous donation to the parents in 2012" from ABF.
No, I'm saying that people here misinterpreted the RANA donation to be a donation to International Integrators (and then repeated it 'til it became conventional wisdom), but it's really not at all. Unless there was some *other* donation to II that has been found somewhere? -RANA is a side project under the umbrella of International Integrators now please STFU about it
OMG, and then did you hear where she said she lies to her kids that the wheels on the bus are broken, because she's sick of singing "The Wheels on the Bus"? Or that she hides the fact that she's going to be gone for a day or two from them? Oh wait, those were lies other moms reported telling their kids. It's all part of a regular segment called "Momfessions"! The whole point is to show that it's a fairly normal thing for parents to do. Pretending Hilaria is the only one who lies to her kids is weird, and completely ignores all the other parents who nod along and laugh in the audience. -Thank you, 50 year old guy with no kids.
Erm, his donations were definitely NOT funneled to family members; where did you get that from? Perhaps actually read my post!
Also, yes, he gets a tax deduction for charitable donations, but so does every US taxpayer. -WE KNOW. JESUS.
I'd like to say it's something about living the last four years in the US, when "the truth" seemed to matter less than it ever has before. Creating even awareness of the oft-repeated lies, much less consequences for them, felt like trying to push a pile of air up a hill. So when this opportunity came along at the end of 2020 to expose lies and establish truths, at a sweet-spot big enough where a significant number of people were paying attention, but small enough that I could play a personal role, where that pile of air transformed into something solid that I could definitively poke holes through, it felt like something I had to participate in. -FULL STOP. WHEN THIS OPPORTUNITY CAME ALONG? ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MY SUBREDDIT?? PLAYING A PERSONAL ROLE? YOU ACT LIKE I HIRED YOU TO BLESS US WITH YOUR PRECIOUS GOOGLE SEARCHING ABILITIES. THE OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU TO EXPOSE LIES? AT THE END OF 2020? DUDE, THE LIES WERE ALREADY UNCOVERED. HENCE THE MEDIA FIRESTORM.
But that can only be at most a part of the answer, since I felt exactly the same obsession in 2016, when doing crowd-sourced investigation of the real-time cheating of Rob Young / MarathonManUK), a man who had claimed to run 365 marathons in a year, with 0 training, and then was caught (accidentally, by a fan) in the middle of the night riding on/in his support RV while he was claiming a world-record pace for a run across the US.
So for me, there's definitely a Sherlock Holmes factor. Just something about the investigatory process of discovering facts and organizing them to reveal lies, particularly when the lie is so bold, unusual, and created for mystifying reasons. -WE HAD ALREADY BROKEN THE STORY DIPSHIT.
n contrast to many here, the small lies that are pedestrian, banal, and created for obvious reasons (the presentation of herself as someone more-accomplished / put-together / knowledgeable than she actually is, in order to make money) hold no interest for me, since there is nothing unique to her there. Everyone who has ever attempted to make money from their personal brand has presented an embellished version of themselves, but almost no one has trapped themselves 24/7 for a decade walking through their life on such a high-wire of a lie as Hilaria has, while leaving the truth so discoverable far below the entire time.
Thank you! Finally an NYU post, that, while still lacking-in-receipts, at least comes from someone with a posting history that provides significant credibility, and written with a level of detail that provides trustworthiness on its own, but also matches all known facts from independent sources. -STOP. JUST STOP.
Didn't we go through this already? Yes, charitable donations lessen your tax burden. But they also lessen your wealth! Here is the itemized list of $1.4M in donations the ABF made in 2014. If he had *not* made those donations, yes, his tax bill would have been higher, but he would have had more money left in his bank account to spend on a yacht or whatever for himself. So lessening his tax burden cannot be his "entire goal". -for the 50th time, we know how taxes work.
It *has* made donations to the RANA foundation (approx. $70k total, I believe), which Hilaria's parents advertised on their website, but that's not "money to Hilaria's parents" (as people here often say), and I don't even see an obvious connection between the RANA foundation and the Hayward/Thomases. -IT'S LISTED AS A PROJECT ON THEIR WEBSITE DIPSHIT
It looks like it's this, a $369 dedicated paella grill. -this adds that "value" you provide to this sub you were talking about.
Ha. Yep, I'm of a similar age/era, and while I still have a FB account, I've never followed a single celebrity, brand, or even a business, and am rather baffled by people who do. -YET I'M 100% STALKING ALEC BALDWIN'S LIFE
Did you click my links on the bottom? By what rationale do you make the claim that she "brought things to an entirely different level"?
I linked to a picture of a naked mom taking a piss with her baby on her lap, showing off her toenails, and taking a selfie all at the same time! And it took me 2 minutes to find that.
In your original post, you say she was under "Hilaria Lynn Thomas". Here you say it was "Hilaria Haywood-Thomas". And the latter is definitely not, nor has it ever been, her last name! Not improving my confidence in your credibility here. -REMINDER. YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO SKIN IN THIS GAME. YOU SHOWED UP HERE ONE DAY AFTER THE STORY FINALLY STOPPED TRENDING AND TRIED TO REGULATE SHIT. NOBODY NEEDS TO HAVE "CREDIBILITY" WITH YOU. YOU ARE A BYSTANDER.
"As much as I'd like solid confirmation either way, this is most definitely not it. It's the first post from a brand-new account, and the details given make no sense."
"There is absolutely nothing unique about Alec and Hilaria here. Here's a random list I found in 2 seconds"
If I had kids
If you know nothing about language immersion, see what the Linguistic Society has to say on the matter.
The hard part is making sure they have enough natural exposure to both languages. Most of the time, one of the two languages you want them to learn will be "more important" somehow, and the trick is to provide enough opportunities for them to use the "less important" one in a way that isn't forced or artificial. The best way, if you can manage it, is to put children in situations where only the "less important" language is used so that there is no temptation to mix languages or revert to the "more important" language.
It doesn't say that he was also working in that period. Do you have that from another source?
"I graduated from a prestigious university (in my field), but don't have any cap-and-gown photos because I had no interest in attending the graduation ceremony." -PLEASE, I'M DYING. I CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT WHAT SCHOOL THIS WAS THAT PREPARED YOU FOR YOUR ILLUSTRIOUS CAREER IN COMPUTER HARDWARE.
" Have you attempted to try the online version I suggested to perhaps get something in writing? https://secure.studentclearinghouse.org/vslandingui/mosiac-landing-page"
"But if you spoke with NYU, and they told you straight up they have no record of her being a student, why are you even considering far-more-tenuous absence-of-evidence evidence like this?"
Your lack-of-understanding is making you see conspiracy where it doesn't exist. "Notability" is a requirement for a Wikipedia page to continue existing, and it's decided by other Wikipedia editors.
But I do appreciate that you recognize (unlike so many others here) that her social-media influencer antics are not at all unusual for that field, and not the reason why Hilaria is a story.
Um, those requirements are from St. Patrick Cathedral in Fort Worth, Texas.
Ugh, not very pleasant to see all those grouped together in an easily digestible list, but thank you!
First, this definitely isn't evidence that she's a hypocrite. That would require her to be a major player in the operation at Yoga Vida, which, just like extensive time in Spain, seems to be something she wanted people to believe, rather than something that's actually true.
Then, the plaintiffs allege that the instructors conspired to export YV's client database, which they were not authorized to do, and sent a mass email to that list of clients. I have no idea how meritorious such a lawsuit is
There have been a lot of people in this sub over the last couple weeks questioning "how did she get away with this for so long?? People on the Internet have been talking about it for at least 5 years! Why wasn't it a story until now?!" The non-answer answer is "because the right series of events hadn't happened until now". Essentially, the story hadn't bubbled up to enough influential and listened-to people until now, so it had very little spread. Part of the process for a story to bubble up to the next level of influence is for that level to have trust in the lower-level source. - YES, PLEASE EXPLAIN MY OWN STORY BACK TO ME THAT IS AT THE TOP OF THIS SUBREDDIT.
"Yeah, obviously even if I *had* the power to make this Reddit sub a repository of impeccably-sourced content, I know it wouldn't actually make a damn difference. But, I had to give it a shot anyway." -COME AGAIN?? YOU MEAN PEOPLE DIDN'T APPRECIATE YOU SHOWING UP OUT OF THE BLUE WAY AFTER THE STORY HAD RAN, ACTING LIKE AN OVERBEARING MANAGER WHO BERATES THEM FOR NOT DOCUMENTING THEIR "WORK" THE WAY YOU WANT IT DONE? THEY DIDN'T LIKE BEING GIVEN ASSIGNMENTS WITH DEADLINES? I'M SHOCKED THAT DIDN'T WORK OUT FOR YOU. This is Reddit, douchebag, not Time Magazine. And the story had already run. Everywhere. You showed up afterward, barked a bunch of demands at people, and are now complaining that my subreddit is unorganized and you "tried" to fix it but couldn't?
"Really it's just a nostalgic rant missing the "good old days" of this sub (like 5 days ago) when it was genuinely producing a high density of quality, original information that uncovered a lot of truth." --THEN LEAVE FINALLY
"Yeah, now this is the kind of quality-content I came here for!" -Reddit?
"I actually have Google Doc filled with links, mostly organized as a timeline of Hilaria's whole life. I've been trying to decide whether I should open it to crowd-sourced contributions, but it still feels a bit messy/incomplete for me to do that just yet." - AND IT'S SAFE TO SAY AFTER TONIGHT, YOU NEVER WILL.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, HE APPARENTLY INVENTED NAPSTER!!
"I was one of the first people in the world to host downloadable audio files on a website (from a dorm-room server), so I was long familiar with the music side of it. Once Spotify et al finally came along and revealed that "hey, if you make it easy, most people don't actually want to steal stuff" that really changed a lot in that world, a bit similar to what the changing business models have done for the software world."
​
Here is his "Manifesto":
https://www.reddit.com/HilariaBaldwin/comments/kp71jo/this_sub_has_begun_playing_right_into_hilarias/
submitted by McNasty420 to HilariaBaldwin [link] [comments]

Why Corrin's dragon form feels so underdeveloped

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Fire Emblem Fates, Awakening and Three Houses.
Some of you may recall that back in 2015 at the end of the first Fates trailer, a dragon is seen choking Azura before they turn into a human. The next trailer confirmed that the Lord of this game, Corrin, has the ability to both fully and partially transform into a dragon. This was nothing new to the series, as humanoids who can transform into dragons have existed since the very first game. It is, however, the first time said shapeshifter has been the main character. And while I'm sure that some people got a kick out of playing a half dragon demi-god prince who wields a flaming chainsword, many others thought this feature to be rather... disappointing.
The most frequent criticism is the fact that after the route split Corrin's ability to transform into a dragon is barley brought up again. Not counting Kana's paralogue there are only SIX moments in total where Corrin's shapeshifting powers are mentioned in the main game. Those are:
Birthright Chapter 27
Garon: NOW YOU SEE MY TRUE FORM. THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGONS RUNS IN MY VEINS—AS IT DOES YOURS.
Conquest Chapter 7
Corrin: Wow... s-such power! I'm out of my league. I have no choice... I'll have to use my Dragonstone. (Sidenote: Corrin doesn't get the chance to actually transform)
Revelation Chapter 25
Sumeragi: Corrin... You needn't rely on your sword alone. there is greater power within you. Unleash it—avenge your mother. Give me a real battle!
Once in M!Corrin's Support with Kiragi
Corrin: Well, I tried a lot of things. Facial scrubs, special ointments, essential oils... But what did the trick was learning to suppress my dragon power.
Kiragi: Your dragon power?
Corrin: Yeah. There's a strange source of inner energy I always feel. Even in human form. I never really noticed it until after the first time I transformed. I still don't know what an aura is, but it sounded similar, so I gave it a shot.
And twice in F!Corrin's Support with Selkie
Selkie: You have horns, right? On your head?
Corrin: Um...
Selkie: You know what I mean. When you turn into a dragon. You have horns?
Corrin: Yes, I suppose I do. Although I haven't spent much time looking in the mirror as a dragon.
---
Selkie: Nope! Now we've gotta go get you a pair of cute fuzzy ears just like mine! Since you like 'em so much, you know!
Corrin: Um...
Selkie: What? You don't have to wear 'em when you're a dragon or anything. Plus, it'd be another great chance to go running in the forest. Wheeee!
To make matters worse Chapter 5, where Corrin fully transform for the first time into their dragon form, is also the chapter that introduces the Yato, so the reveal of Corrin being a dragon shapeshifter is quickly overshadowed with the reveal of him being the Chosen Wielder of the Divine Blade. What also doesn't help is that Corrin's shapeshifiting ability lacks a sense of growth because he doesn't learn new attacks or skills for his dragon form. This means that Corrin learning to control and master his newly discovered draconic powers isn't reflective of his character development.
So while the Yato becomes stronger as the story progresses, gets to have multiple forms, is the only weapon that can defeat the final boss and is revealed to be this world's version of the titular Fire Emblem, Corrin's dragon form only had about 10 minutes in the spotlight before it lost all narrative revelance and oomph.
What happened? Why after all this build up and hype about Corrin being the first shapeshifter protagonist in the series does their ability to do so ends up feeling more like a footnote?

---

First, let's address the issue that the reveal of Corrin's shapeshifter powers doesn't affect his interactions with the other main characters. None of the characters who witnessed Corrin's transformation treat or think about him any differently then they did before. The game does explain that in the ancient past people from both the Hoshidan and Nohrian bloodline could transform into a dragon, so the main cast assumes that Corrin just happened to have won the genetic lottery, and our heroes never find out that Corrin's biological father is actually the dragon Anankos. But it's still treated far too casually, with neither sets of his siblings addressing it at all. Imagine if in Harry Potter after the "You're a wizard, Harry" scene the rest of books focused on Harry's life in the muggle world dealing with muggle problems and magic only being used for the most trivial things. And I think the reason why no one treats Corrin special for being able to transform into a dragon is because he's already treated special for being the Chosen Wielder of the Yato.
And you know, on some level I can understand why the devs decided to focus on the Yato. It feels like a natural fit to Corrin's character because you can easily make the conclusion that the Yato picked him as its wielder because of his "Child of Two Worlds" background. And the way the Yato unlocks its more powerful forms is by drawing powers form the the other holy weapons if the masters of the respective weapons have their own hearts in sync with the owner of the Yato, so only by uniting both of his families in Revelation is Corrin able to unlock the Yato's full power. But where it gets problematic is that Corrin's dragon powers are not connected to the Divine Blade, such as that the Yato actually works as a restraint bolt to keep his powerful dragon blood in check, or that it is secretly the key to awaken his true hidden powers. And so, as I mentioned earlier, the Yato ends up overshadowing Corrin's dragon form.

---

To better illustrate my next point I want to compare Corrin to two other Fire Emblem characters: Nah from Awakening, and Byleth from Three Houses.
Nah is the future daughter of Nowi and the first Human-Manakete hybrid child in the Akaneia games.
Due to her Manakete blood Nah ages physically slower than a human. Despite being about the same age as most 2.Gen characters Nah looks like a pre-teen girl, which is why many of her supports deal with her being frustated that because of her appearance she's treated like a child by her allies. And while it doesn't play a huge part in her characterization the story acknowledges that Nah's longer lifespan means that she will outlive all of her human friends. But Nah's most interesting quirk is shown in her support with F!Robin, where the latter watches as Nah in her dragon from destroys a forest, and when Robin asks Nah why she did that her response is:
Nah: Every now and then, I get this incredible urge to just...run amok. It's like a really horrible itch that HAS to be scratched. So I turn into a dragon and rampage for a bit. It's genetic or...something.
This incident is referenced again by the Awakening Trio in Hidden Truths 2
Anankos: But hundreds of years ago, the dragon realized something terrible. His ancient animal instincts were beginning to invade his thoughts. Though he adored his kingdom, he also felt an intense desire to destroy it. Each day, those feelings grew stronger, and his control over them began to wane.
Severa: That sounds familiar. A friend of ours can turn into a dragon as well. She said sometimes she gets an incredible urge to rampage a bit. Is that what you mean?
Anankos: Hmm, perhaps it was something very similar to that. But as the dragon had tremendous power, those urges were also tremendous.
And by Nah's Heroes incarnation.
I'm still inexperienced in the ways of Manakete.
Sometimes I have trouble fighting the urge to go wild...
So if I lose control, I want you to take me out to a forest where I can't hurt anyone. All right?
By comparison, Corrin has been aging as a regular person and whetever or not they have an extented lifespan is never addressed. And unlike Nah, Corrin never struggles to resist his dragonic urges even though a major element in the lore of both the Akaneia games and Fates is that all dragons are doomed to eventually turn into mindless beasts. In other words we never see Corrin dealing with the negatives sides of his dragon blood.
The closest thing Fates has is when in Chapter 5 Corrin was at risk of losing himself to a mindless rampage if it weren't for Azura's intervention who managed to calm him down and transform back into his human form. It's a fine scene, but then there's no follow up to this. Nah had a lifetime to learn her powers and yet she still occasinally gets the urge to go 'Nah SMASH!'. Speaking of smash, Bruce Banner has to avoid getting too angry or stressful or else he turns into the Hulk. The half vampire Blade is constantly fighting his blood addiction. Or look up any shonen manga where the hero has to directly confront their Super-Powerful Evil Side in a Battle In The Center Of The Mind. Corrin though? After Azura gives him a dragonstone* Corrin gains the means to transform without succumbing to his destructive urges, losing all potential for future drama and exploration.
\No, the game does not explain why she conveniently happend to have one in her pocket. Put your hands down.)
Next up is Byleth from Three Houses.
Right from the beginning Three Houses establishes that Byleth seems incapable of expressing emotions, even earning the nickname "Ashen Demon" due to their combat prowess and habit of showing absolutely no emotions when battling enemies. But over the course of the first year Byleth slowly starts to become more social and expressive due to their time as an instructor at the monastery.
At the end of Silver Snow we learn that at birth Byleth was stillborn and their mother started dying from childbirth complications. Acting on the mother's request, Rhea transferred the Goddess's Crest Stone to Byleth, saving their life and intertwining them with Sothis. But due to their ancestry* Byleth also became the 13th vessel for Sothis and the first one to sucessfully bring her back to an extent. The game implies the reason for Byleth's stoicism and seemingly lack of emotions (as an infant they never laughed or cried) is a magically enforced side effect of the crest stone and it's only after Sothis fully awoke that Byleth's feelings began coming out more naturally.
So if you wanted to change Byleth from "Sothis' Vessel" to "Normal Human" you would have to completly rewrite their personality and character arc in the first half of the game. Whereas if you changed Corrin into a "Normal Human" they would still be the exact same person.
\The game never explicty says how human Byleth really is, but their father has Nabatean blood [from when Rhea saved him as a youth] and their mother is a Nabatean homunculus, meaning that Byleth is) technically a Half-Human Hybrid.

---

So to summarize with Nah and Byleth we see how their non-human heritage affects their interactions with other characters and their own personalities. In Nah's case it's used a source for both external and internal struggle and in Byleth's case as the basis for their character arc. But Fates somehow managed to miss every oppourtunity to use Corrin's status as a half-dragon as a means for him to grow, develop, or have interesting dynamics with other characters. Even the relationship between the dragon Anankos and Corrin as father and son is ultimately only used to humanize Anankos' character rather than to develop Corrin's.
Do you agree with my points? Let me known your thoughts in the comments.
submitted by Warlord41k to fireemblem [link] [comments]

Just felt like saying thanks

Hey guys, I've been an atheist for more than a year now (I had some bumps with faith starting as early as eighth grade and now I've rlly let go of it fully).
I'd just like to say thank you. I'm really glad to hear that there is a community of secular individuals who are open-minded and willing to listen to the opinions of others. One of the things I have noticed frequently is the rigidity in thoughts that religion endorses. It makes it look as if there is only one true path, as if there's only one way to be a good human being and live a fulfilling life, and it's usually based on the words of people who we have never seen, who have lived thousands upon thousands of years before us.
Something that really makes me feel happy is the feeling of knowing that I was probably born from nothing, and that I won the lottery of being born as a human. I was born as a human baby, and given the chance and intelligence to exert my will on the environment around me, and create tools I could use to survive, and create connections with others and learn more about the world around me. I was born free, free to think whatever the hell I wanted to think, free to do whatever I wanted. I was not born to help some God win an eternal battle between himself and the Devil. I was born with no purpose and instead gave purpose to my own life.
But something that makes me feel sad is the fact that not everyone is born like I was. Some people were born with debilitating injuries or diseases, some people were born to poor families in impoverished areas, some people were born to horrible parents or religious fanatics that forced them to live horrible lives. I'm sad because the universe has no cosmic justice, and that's one of the hardest things I've had to accept as an atheist. That there's nothing there to help me in my time of need apart from the people around me, and that my failures are my own and I can't cope with them by claiming that they are part of some divine lesson.
But I guess that's given me a greater sense of responsibility. I'm in control of what happens to me (internal locus of control), and I can't attribute my failures to anyone or anything else, they are mine to bear alone. And for someone who wants to grow up and become a doctor, I feel that it is tremendously important that I study and work to the best of my ability to learn everything there is about medicine from an objective perspective. To not show any biases against any race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc. I don't sit around and wait for miracles or for God to show me the way.
I don't think I would have ever become atheist unless I had the chance to listen to what other atheists had to say. And I learned from my peers and from Reddit and a variety of other forums about the truth of religion and it's indoctrination, and it really changed how I perceived the world and how I perceived other people. Ever since I have given up on religion, I have become so so so much more open to homosexuality and abortion and a variety of things that were considered taboo or mentally ill in Islam. I've started to use the natural world as my standard of evaluating things, not books that were written thousands of years before I was born. I'm more willing to concede in arguments and to apologize when I'm wrong, I'm more willing to listen to reason and hear what others have to say. I'm a better person now than I was when I was religious, and it's not because I think I'm inherently better, but because I was willing to let go of my biases and just hear what other people had to say. That's all it took. We all have the capacity to do that, but so many people choose to deny it and conform to the values they were raised with. And I can't blame them, because when they've used religion to rationalize something for so long, it's undoubtedly going to have a hold on them that takes more than a couple Reddit posts to shake off.
I can't say that anyone is truly 100% wrong in their beliefs, because that goes against the core principles of atheism: it endorses a lack of biases altogether, and a search for knowledge and truth about one's existence, and how one can reconcile with knowing that there may not even be a truth at all. But I know for sure that the natural, observable world has not shown me any evidence for the claims these people make as of right now, and sociology and historical patterns have shown me the lengths people would go through to exert power over one another, often in the form of religion. And with that in mind, I rationalize my lack of faith and continue to pursue answers and seek the guidance of well-mannered, critical thinkers such as the members of this subreddit.
So yeah, thanks for helping me learn to take my life into my own hands, and to search for truth and recognize when I'm being manipulated and taken advantage of.
Also, I would like to take this time to clarify something. Does being an atheist mean we don't believe in a God unless irrefutable evidence was presented to us, or we just don't believe in a creator altogether? I understand agnosticism and atheism can sometimes be used complementary to each other (gnostic theist, agnostic theist, agnostic atheist, gnostic atheist), but I'm still very uncertain about this and would like some clarification.
Thanks again!
submitted by aboyblast3 to TrueAtheism [link] [comments]

[GEN8] A Game Of Guessing and The Lottery - try your luck and win some shiny and square shiny RNGed wormhole UBs. Part 2

Phew, it was really exhausting making it in the evening (for my timezone)

And, also, I tried to improve my contest by moving it's time to a later hour, and giving participants an ability to chose their prizes, but it still draw so little interest, so I think this one will be my last contest

And these thoughts were quite upsetting. But I had a lot of fun afterall, so, Thanks everyone for participating!

___________________________________________

Ugh, I just copied name of contest from my previous one, but actually, there are only square shiny UBs in this one :)
Yep, again a lot of text below, and it changed quite a lot, so even if you red the previous one - you better read the new one, cause it's necessary to explaining everything so we all could have a good time playing :D
​
Ok, so, first of all, about prizes:
All of them have either OT: Olright and ID: 804845 or OT: Diane and ID: 618968 and all being RNGed by me in USUM games and then transferred to GEN8. All of them go with proof of catch. And all of them were RNGed without any hacks - only retail version of game, RNG calculator, EON timer, my sweat and tears (which means my experience in RNG), which means, they are 100% legal. I just meant that they were RNGed cause some ppl count it as cheating, and so don’t want to have anything in common with such mons. Everyone else - welcome!
Every prize lives in Beast Ball (cuase it’s easier to catch them in these onese and they worth nothing in USUM and worth something in SWSH) have competitive nature, at least 3 perfect useful IVs, and not just some of them are square shiny this time - all of them are square shiny, so the rules will be a little rougher this time ;)
This time rules changed quite a lot, so there will be 3 prize pools only, and they will work differently, and why is that - you can find below.
Also, I made a pool at the end of previous contest, so I made these pirze pools based on votes of redditors (though, I can't understand, why ppl prefer giant flying jello wearing Remina Scarltes' mobcap over Masskito on steroids having literally boiling lava for its' guts and blood, but who am I to judge? :D)
So, first prize pool:
Nihilego x3 x2
Pheromosa
Celesteela
Buzzwole
Second one:
Pheromosa x2 x1
Xurkitree x2 x1
Nihilego
Kartana
Third one:
Guzzlord x3 x1
​
Yep, they mixed up a little bit for a couple of reasons, which are: in case, somebody wants just try to win pheromosa, so they can play for the first win, and, if they are really lucky, they can pick it up and stop playing. And the second one - somebody won and picked buzzwole from the first prize pool but they still want nihilego, so on their second win (explanation below, you may want to read it first) they can pick it
Contest rules:
  1. Your account must be at least 2 days old - this made so ppl will not be able to abuse 1 participant - 1 try rule)
  2. Contest will run only if we will have at least 5 participants (otherwise I will just trade these UBs for ability patches LUL)
  3. You can joing at any round at any time no matter, if you marked yourself in a poll or not
  4. Out of expirience of previous giveaway, I'm making this one way later, so it will be more comfortable for more ppl to participate. It will be morning or even early morning for most of participants (so early bird gets the worm :D), but it will be way later in a day for me, so we will have a compromise here - game will last only for 6-7 hours, or until prize pools drained out (which I hardly doubt :D)
  5. If you are planning to participate - please, mark yourself in this pool. Also, it will help me understand what to expect and adjust the rules to the amount of participants
  6. Each participant can achive not more, than 3 victories (again, explanation below :D). This means, you can win GOG 3 times, or TL 3 times, or earn 3 achivements, or 2 times GOG+1 time TL, or 1 achivement+1 GOG+1 TL and etc.
  7. Each achievement can be earned only once by single person, and since than it counts as unlocked and nobody can earn it again
  8. Each round consist of two games - first one is Game Of Guessing (GOG) and second one is The Lottery (TL)
  9. The Winner can pick one UB from the current prize pool, according to amount of their victories (yep, you guessed right - explanation below. At this point, I started thiking, that I should put it way higher :D)
  10. After the Winner of GOG is defined, I will make a message about it in huge letters. After this, The Lottery starts. And at this time, I will be sending prizes to the winners and achievement unlockers (if there will be any)
  11. Reserves for The Winners are fine, but only for an hour after the contest ends. If you'll miss this time - your prize simply will disappear
Example of one round:
  1. We play GOG
  2. Somebody unlocks an achivement
  3. Somebody wins
  4. I announce The Winner and stop the GOG. At the same time, TL starts
  5. At the same time as TL goes, I will send prizes
  6. In fifteen minutes, The Lottery stops, which I will announce too. And I will pick The Winner with rng generator
  7. Some time to send prize to the winner of TL
  8. Repeat
​
So THE EXPLANATION, THAT LIVES BELOW, or, how it will work this time:
  1. Instead of just putting better prizes for the later rounds, I decided to make game a little bit more skill (or speed) based and give participants more space to win prize that they want more, so now the game based on the amount of your wins
  2. It means, if you have one victory, you can pick only from the first prize pool, on second victory only from the second one, and on the third one, if for gods know why reason you don't want fat round cozy square shiny guzzlord, you can pick from the second or first prize pool
  3. To speed things up a little bit, this time achivements will not contain additional prizes behind them, but instead unlocking an achivement will give you +1 victory point. For example, you can win 1 GOG and pick UB from the first prize pool, and then, unlock 1 achivement and pick form the second prize pool, and then win TL and pick from the third prize pool
  4. If first prize pool will be drained faster, than second one, I still didn't decide what is better to do after that, but I will decide depended on the situation
Game Of Guess rules:
  1. Probably the most important one - all the mons guessed will be fully evolved (If they have any evolutionary lines)
  2. Restricted questions from the start: which generation this pokemon first appeared, no questions about its' typing or if it's single typed or double typed, no questions about egg group (cause this is almost the same as typing questions)
  3. You can ask as many questions as you wish
  4. Each question should be made in separate comment
  5. At first round you can ask any questions about guessed mon
  6. With each round game will became harder by additional restricted questions
  7. You can only ask me questions that can be answered as yes\no\kind of
  8. Last one, but probably most important - each round you have only one chance to give an answer. Which means, if you try to guess and fail - you cannot guess anymore, so choose wisely
Example:
Participant 1: Is it somehow water related?
Me: Yes
Participant 2: Is it blue?
Me: Yes
Participant 3: Is blue and green?
Me: No
Participant 2: Is it blue and white?
Me: Yes
Participant 4: Is it squirtle?
Me: No. Sorry, your try is gone
Participant 4: :(
Participant 5: Does it have beak or trunk?
Me: Yes
Participant 6: Is it horsea?
Me: Yes! You are the winner. Round one is finished.
​
The Lottery rules:
To participate, you need to guess a random number (range of number will be defined after I will find out amount of players). Pick your favorite mon and explain the reason you like it, or tell a little story. But please, don’t write an essay for 500 words about it. 1-3 sentences would be enough.
Bad example: 631. Pikachu. Cause everyone likes it.
Good example: 175. Magikarp. Cause it have an amazing move pool, and evolves into a badass serpent-like dragon. Also, its’ shiny version reminds me of Mr. Scales - my long gone goldfish I overfed. I miss you, Mr. Scales :(
  1. Each lottery will take 15 minutes (depends on number of participants, actually). I think this time will be enough for me to send prizes and read explanations, and for you to pick a number and write couple of sentences
  2. If you didn’t win at current round lottery - you can use the same mon you picked and explanation for the next one
  3. Oh, and I also highly reccomend you to pick different mon for each lottery and tell a different story - It can help you unlock some achivements
Archivements:
Every modern game has achievements, so I thought - why should my game be worse? And I made them even better! For earning an achievement you will actually receive additional victory points!
Some of the names of achievements are misleading, purposely, some of them kinda tease you what you need to do, some of them are related to memes. Some achievements could be earned by most fast participants, some by the most stubborn, some by smartest, and some will be earned by somebody only at the end of the game.
Locked Achivements:
Hahawhatastorymark
Snipah
It’s not about you, it’s about me
Susanin
Just who the hell do you think I am?!
The legend says, he has a third fist in his beard
​
There also three hidden achivements, which I will bring up in case contest will go really slow and there will be still a lot of prizes in 5 hours
Unlocked Achivements:
Lucky Number Slevin - Pick the same number for the Lottery as I did (in my mind). Unlocked by FatBrah
Well, yes, but actually no - guess the right one couple of seconds after The Winner. Unlocked by Seraphye
The Winners:
at-last1 x3!
Seraphye x2
k3rn3 x2
89edual x1
FatBrah x1
Regigigas29 x3!
smithcnp10 x1
submitted by TheOlright to pokemontrades [link] [comments]

[RANT] PROBLEMS WITH CJC GOOD AND BAD

So basically I’m just going to go through a few factors 1. Students 2. Teachers 3. Subjects notes 4 . School facilities 5. School admin/ welfare 6. Student leaders 7. School biases 8. CCAs
Basically, I’m going to try to be as neutral as possible it’s really for all of you to decide if I’m neutral or not. (Just FYI I’m a j2 cjc sci student)
Students
Basically, in all schools, there is obviously segregation in social status. However in CJC to be fair it isn’t really a huge problem. Mainly due to the number of affiliated students from the same school is not high. Then again you also have the same stuff of popz and non popz people and those tryhards which are unavoidable. The only thing you could do about that is to ignore
Especially in CJC Idk why but the smoking/vaping cases are pretty high like about 1-3 per class. Gonna guess the reason for this is due to there’s always one clique in the school that is pretty known for vaping/smoking. Yeah but the worse part about this is the school does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this. Is like to a normal student there’s no active participation in stopping such a thing. They are freaking treating it as a way of life completely bullocks. I swear the school gotta do something about it.
With the exception of what is stated, if not yeah I feel that you will be able to find friends who are true and friends who could go far with you in life. For me I feel that my class is a pretty fun bunch to be with especially with all the fun card games we play and stuff. (Take note card games ain’t allowed in CJC)
Next Teachers
SCIENCE No offense if any CJC Teachers are reading this, but LITERALLY NEARLY ALL SCIENCE THE TEACHERS CANNOT MAKE IT. Is to the fact that I think only 1 teacher per science and maths subject is good. IT IS to the fact that is literally you won a lottery if you get a good teacher (exaggerated but you get the point). Basically why I say that is due to how they always read off either the answer key or the slides in order to teach. Is literally like they don’t give two shits about what you do ( like in my class Idk but always got two-person sleeping and my cher just let them be or wake them up then ignore them if they went back to sleep )
In terms of consultations, from my experience, some of the consultations with my Teachers literally cannot make it. It’s like my teacher will go one big round explaining it then in the end we would get more confused
HOWEVER, when you get the good teachers your consultations and teaching are so god damn good that literally for that subject you would not need extra tuition to get an A. These Teachers also will use other school's notes such as RI HCI. I cannot stress how good are the good teachers.
ARTS Now for the art teachers, apparently they are amazing, especially for ELL and literature. EVEN THE GEOG CHERS ARE AMAZING. For ECONS teachers Idk but it seems like a large majority of them are good, basically either they are very exam-oriented or are very good at explaining. Just very good in general I will say.
For the arts part, I don't want and can’t say much because I have not much info about it so yeah but basically from what I said above pretty much you know arts are the best course in CJC
Subject notes
For CJC especially CJC the note is pretty lousy, to say the least. For physics, it’s simply just not enough and too much is left unexplained
For chemistry, there’s way way way too much excess information. To be fair it’s still usable if you can pinpoint what’s important
For math, there would be some parts that you need to self explain with side annotation which feels quite annoying to be fair
Overall the notes are just either insufficient or way too much AND ALSO RIGHT it pisses me off when the notes have a lot of wrong words wrong figures and wrong concepts where they would ask us to change. I mean it’s so untidy why can’t you just do it yourself and make it nice nice.
So basically just do your best to get other subject notes for science from what my friends in arts told me the art notes are sufficiently good and amazing.
I mean it’s obviously true that CJC arts are indeed good but the huge problem in this is that the disparity in arts and science is SO SO SO SO HUGE (unless u get good Teachers lah) My suggestion if you really want to go CJC is to just go arts class don’t be like me regretting the class I have entered unless your in ignite (which will be explained later)
SCHOOL FACILITIES
I will state to be fair to the school we have new tables and chairs which I will appreciate and also they would do their best to give air condition to all J2 students (which somehow they don’t turn it on) and oooooo the PAC is amazing especially the chairs and tables.
BUT Now I need to complain about how the exercise corner is cordoned off like what 1 FULL YEAR ALREADY AND NOT fixing it???? WHATS THE POINT JUST DEMOLISHED IT. Is like during the Dec hols or smt you could fix it right. But no no no I don’t want I want to fix other things. And what do you fix absolutely nothing? Another problem right is all the other lecture halls Idk what’s up with it but the seats are so uncomfortable and some of the tables are spoiled. Then the basketball court OH we are going to fix it then dk how does it take over a year just to fix the roof and the basketball courts. But if not it’s still okay and sufficient.
FOOD FOOD FOOD!!
Ah yes, the food in CJC Idk but I feel that they are amazing as the best among the JCs in SG. We have Asian delights then cai fan stalls to amazing Malay stalls too. There’s also a newly open Nonna’s enterprise to be fair Nonna’s waffles are amazing but other than that their food is pretty overpriced like 4 pineapple tarts cost 2$ so expensive you know.
To be honest I don’t think this would be one of the reasons you should come to school.
Next school admin
I guess it’s fair to state that CJC admin is gonna be one of the slowest and inefficient in the JC and poly combined. The timing where they send the timetable to parents letter is always the day before. As for our J2 timetable and my J1 orientation, both also got sent the day before like what 8-9h before school starts? I mean how slow could you be man.
Ok but I have to appreciate the fact that the school Heads do take charge of students. For example, my friends and I were complaining about the fact that our teacher asked our class to stay back the day before and the vice-principal did entertain the complaint (I don’t know if there’s follow up but yeah ) Also towards the end of the year ALTHOUGH IT WAS LIKE 3 months before school was over, the principle did come around asking how was class. And the surprising thing was that they did fix our class problem within the weekend.
Pretty much the moral of the story here is if you have a problem ask the principal to fix and it would be efficient. Is like the principal is the master and the admin is the slave.
Next “Student Leaders”
Now you may be wondering why I quoted it. The main reason is because of how useless they are especially during our J1. Basically, CJC has 3 types of student leaders the class committee, sports leaders, and student council. Among these few seems like the most useless one is sports leaders.
Ok, so u see the student council right first they get ELECTED at the start of the school year when NO ONE EVEN KNOWS THEM. Then is like no one knows how they act or anything. I will just say the student council in my class sleeps like no body’s business. So what’s the point if they are “student leaders”
But to be fair to the student council at least from what I know they did hold 2 events not by initiative but from the school requesting which is still fine. Because they manage to cooperate with the class committee.
Ah but now the sports leaders. These people all do what is called being PE Leaders when they are supposed to take care of carnivals and plan them. So right supposedly last year their excuse was “COVID 19”. As valid as it seems, my question would be if the student council can do it why can’t you? It’s like they do absolutely nothing at all. (Take note pretty much the student council have more stuff to do than sports leader)
So if you really want to join CJC to be fair just take a leadership position cause trust me from experience you will likely bring it over all the way to the end of J2. (a got story you want to know just ask )
School bias
Basically, this school is very very very bias. Number 1 it’s about the ignite classes. They have all the best Teachers in school for both science and art classes. This is very unfair is like the school is prioritizing one class to another.
Another bias the school has is towards gender equality, is basically whenever a girl chooses to cry the school will defend the girl no matter what is like base on sympathy. Especially when it comes to dubious matters be it subject scores or discipline cases. As long as a girl cries the girl wins. ( I’m sorry if any girl/guys? Is affected cause it’s really the truth)
Lastly, the school only cares about the student leaders which is good to a certain extent because they would give all the leadership training camp to them and everything. Good or bad for you to decide.
The moral of the story here just be a student leader and if you are a girl losing a case just cry. ( Its real bias in that way it seems)
CCAs
To be fair I really have no opinion on this but if you want a slack but fun CCA just go for strategy games club. If you want an extra portfolio and slack go for nexus.
The sports CCAs are pretty mediocre but it’s also good for training stamina I guess
Ooo and for the performing arts I’m pretty sure they are great in it. Cause let’s be honest most of the good performing arts people would go either to St. Andrews or CJC.
So yeah that’s it lemme end this by saying IF you come to CJC just go to art class seems better and the notes seem amazing to me! Unless you in ignite class then do what you want cause ignite class has the best Teachers!!
I will just say just appeal out, go to art class if you can or go to a better school. But it’s your decision and up to you to decide.
submitted by Theexcaliber03 to SGExams [link] [comments]

what does the word of god say about lottery video

Ask the Pastor LIVE!!! - What does God’s word say about ... Ask the Pastor LIVE!!! - What does God’s word say about ... What Does God REALLY Say About Gambling? - YouTube Is gambling a sin? What does the Bible say about ... What does God say about the Coronavirus: (COVID-19) Karen ... John MacArthur: The Word of God in Spiritual Growth - YouTube The Road to Success Is Found in The WORD of God - YouTube What Does God Say About Me In His Word? - YouTube What does the word of God say about angels? - YouTube

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Only God can determine if you can handle wealth and give it to you. Yes gambling does much more harm to society than it ever did good. If you want to get wealth for the wrong reason then it would be better if you don't get it. Take the money you would spend on the lottery each week and put it in the bank. You will be surprised how fast it grows. A. Definition of Gambling. In this study "gambling" refers to a wager or bet in which each player agrees to risk losing some material possession to other players in exchange for the chance to win the possessions of other players without compensation to the loser, the winner(s) and loser(s) being determined by the outcome of a game. I grabbed my dad and said, “This is a sign from God. We have just enough time to get to the “7-11” and buy a lottery ticket before the lottery ends at 10:00 p.m.” "Dear God, I'm not sure if you received my last prayer, but I really need your help to win the lottery. Please help me out here." Again, the young man waited several days with no results. Bible verses about Playing The Lottery. 1 Timothy 6:17-19 ESV / 14 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. Question: What does the Bible say about the Lottery? Is it a good or a bad practice for Christians? Lotteries are different from a game at a party to national, international lotteries or Green Card Lottery in which the participants wish to gain American citizenship.We can not find in the Bible the word “lottery”, but there are truths that apply to this practice. 1 Peter 4:10 - As every man hath received the gift, [even so] minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Topics and verses are auto-generated from user searches. If a verse or topic does not belong, please contact us. Some scripture references/categories courtesy of Open Bible .info under CC BY 3.0 And Proverbs 16:33 emphasizes the sovereignty of God: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” But the biblical purpose of casting lots was not to test one’s luck or to gain material wealth. The main purpose of playing the lottery is to win money, and the Bible tells us what our attitude toward money should be. God as healed me having Pneumonia not once but Twice-I was on Oxogen 24/7 never thought I would ever come off from it with God and his Love to me it’s been over two weeks I have had no Oxogen-I ‘m sure there is a reason why I’m doing so well I have tried all my life to be a good person and I try to treat everybody the same-because God would want me to be the best I could be-If I win the

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Ask the Pastor LIVE!!! - What does God’s word say about ...

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” These words from Deuteronomy 8:3 were cited by Jesus when he was con... Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser. What does The WORD of God say about finding success? Join Kenneth Copeland on Believer’s Voice of Victory as he teaches you how to drive out fear, take your ... Is gambling a sin? What does the Bible say about gambling? Is playing the lottery a sin? These are real questions the deserve biblical answers. In this video... What does God say in the Bible about the Coronavirus? Christians and the Word of God in the coronavirus, Covid-19 out-break. Is Gods wrath in the plague? Kar... About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ... What does God’s word say, and how do the pastors feel about playing the lottery? Do most religions believe in the same God? Could you give examples of other ... In this video, I explain to you how to grow spiritually closer to God. This is the first video of this series and we focus on how you can grow spiritually in... Declare the Word over your life! Most Christians have the concept of gambling all wrong. A lottery is based on a pool of "lots". The concept of casting lots is mentioned throughout scripture...

what does the word of god say about lottery

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