Author Archives: Raizen

Why do people laugh at activists?

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It’s likely that, at some point, you’ve run into an activist. You know who I mean; it’s the kind of person who makes a point of identifying as a feminist, a desegregationist, or any of a variety of flavors of activism currently promoted by Tumblr.

Because they understand no setting as too inappropriate, they’ll work the conversation into activism, and drive themselves into a fit as they labor the points they’re trying to make about the issues that they perceive as being a matter of life-or-death. The people around them will try to keep their distance, and once they tire themselves out, they’ll retreat to their base of operations (their mother’s basement) where they’ll work out their next scheme to save the people of the world from themselves.

But you don’t actually have to meet an activist to see signs of cringe. In fact, it’s a snap to see those signs of cringe outside of people’s houses, usually in three different languages, because apparently inclusiveness means being poly-lingual just to read a platitude that does nothing more than express a feeling.

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Even on social media, it’s easy to find an activist meltdown, and it provides an opportunity to watch it happen from a safe distance. If you’re like most people, whenever you see activism, you laugh, cringe, watch in fascination, or at least keep a safe distance. But did you ever wonder why?

Why do people laugh at activists?

When one hears their stated causes, they seem just. They want equality between the races. They want sex discrimination to be illegal. They oppose religious discrimination in the workplace. Their causes are like this, and most people wouldn’t argue against any of these things.

But here’s the deal: These kinds of discrimination are already illegal. If your employer discriminates against you because of your biological sex, for example, you could take them to court. If you could demonstrate that it happened, it would be an open-and-shut case.

Also, if there were any people out there that were sincere about their racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory views, they are afraid to be up front about it. This is because they know that their views would make them an outlier, and they’d quickly become a pariah if they were to come forward with them.

When you consider all these things, do you know what they collectively mean? If you need to be brought to the finish line, I’ll tell you:

We’ve won.

Equality of virtually any kind exists throughout the civilized world, and is actively enforced by the strength of the law. The major civil rights battles have already long-since come to their conclusion.

Yet, the activists of today still continue to complain. They continue to fight against their own imaginary enemies in an obvious effort to look good in doing so. Even though all the major civil rights battles have already been won, they continue to live in the past, as though they’ve never been properly informed of the reality that the civilized world has been living in for decades. Because of this, people have a hard time taking activists seriously.

In the sixties, people took to the streets in protest of various injustices. They also spent a lot of time getting high. But eventually, they won.

In the seventies, people continued to protest injustices and they got high. But they won.

In the eighties, people took it easy, listened to cassettes, and got high. Because they won.

In the nineties, people listened to CDs and got high. Because we’ve long-since won.

In the 2000s, people listened to music on their iPods, and a few of them listened to music on Zunes. Needless to say, they also got high. People accepted that the major social justice battles concluded decades ago, and things were generally nice. Those victories would probably have come much sooner if people spent less time getting high. We still don’t have the cure to cancer, by the way. I’m just sayin’.

In the 2010s, things stopped being nice when a bunch of Social Justice Warriors appeared on the scene, bent on chasing down the boogeymen that they themselves imagined. People laugh at their stupidity and also get high.

While the rest of us laugh, play, work, and enjoy life, activists work themselves into temper tantrums. They’re missing out on the good things of life so they can savor the cynical sense of satisfaction that comes with fighting a battle that doesn’t even need to be fought. That is both hilarious and sad.

While the rest of us work for college educations, meaningful jobs, and take home paychecks that allow us to afford decent-size homes, cars, families, beer and many other good things that we appreciate, activists are on a mission to achieve a greater level of cynicism and misery. Eventually, they’ll have to look back on what they’ve accomplished over the course of what would come to be the most regrettable years of their lives, and come to the realization that they haven’t really accomplished anything, except maybe pick up a criminal record. Maybe they’ll also realize that everyone else has been laughing at them, cringing at them, or even egging them on as one would an ignorant source of amusement.

One could make the case that humans are well-conditioned to having enemies. In light of this, it’s understandable how, in a lack of a major long-term conflict, a person can still regress into a form of tribalism. We see this all the time in how many people identify themselves with what media they consume, the cell phone they own, their brand of automobile, their fashion choices, and so on. Ironically, the many fad activists that we see today exercise the same in-group thinking of the kind that they accuse other people of practicing. Psychological projection provides a tidy explanation for this behavior.

You know what’s better than activism? Here’s a list:

  • Having sex
  • Watching anime
  • Being great at your job
  • Being great at someone else’s job
  • Driving a car that doesn’t need restarted each time it comes to a stop
  • Performing a benchmark of reps in a workout in one go
  • Playing video games
  • Whiskey

The list could be amended, but the idea is that anything that’s either fun or meaningful belongs on it. Activism does not, not just because the list was constructed specifically to exclude it, but because the trendy form of fad activism that accomplishes nothing really isn’t about having fun, and a pretense of meaningfulness doesn’t satisfy the condition of being actually meaningful.

I know it seems like I’m laboring the point that there are better, more awesome things to do than make yourself miserable for the non-existent returns of activism, but that’s what it really comes down to. Suppose you were given the choice between a pack of beef jerky and a bowl of celery. If you’re like most people, you’d go for the beef jerky. It’s tasty, while the celery is not. It’s one of the obvious choices in life. However, there are people out there that would choose the celery, thinking themselves better than the plebs that go for the tasty beef. As they munch away at the green, bitter limpness, they stew in resentment towards those that are happier because they chose the beef jerky.

We chose right, my friends. We chose the beef jerky. Not only that, we chose the prettier women, went for the jobs that paid better, and live in homes that aren’t parked outside Walmart. When it comes down to it, living happier begins with choosing to live happier.

You know what else can make someone happy? Schadenfreude. And for a steady supply of that, we have activists. So, if activism is your thing, you’re giving the rest of us something to laugh about.

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Not that it would be to your own benefit, of course.

LOLWAT: Star Wars is about Nazis, now.

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It looks like everything is still about Nazis, even today, the greater part of a century after the ideology was wiped out, and the memory of it so distorted by the mists of history that almost nobody today has any idea what Adolf Hitler actually stood for.

According to J.J. Abrams, the director of the upcoming Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars will still be about Nazism. The use of the word “still” carries the implication that Star Wars was ever about Nazism. Maybe it counts that Armitage Hux Hitlered it up before firing up Starkiller Base, because how many heads of state in the history of mankind ever gave an impassioned speech before firing weapons on an enemy that they’ve declared war on?

While we’re discussing Nazis, I think the time is ripe for a confession. Are you ready? Here it is:

I’ve never taken Nazism seriously, and have never viewed them as a serious ideological threat.

Yes, I’m being serious. At their most significant, Nazism lost the only war they had ever fought, within years of having started it. In fact, Nazism was defeated so quickly that the bulk of World War II became about staving off Japanese imperialism. Hitler became viewed so unfavorably that his name became an insult, and any idea that he put into practice became grossly unpopular. People today hate eugenics, and relate the idea to Hitler, even though he didn’t come up with it. He pretty much took the idea from the United States, because he saw that it was popular there. Which it was, especially with the super-wealthy family of Rockefellers feeding into it, and the then-popular idea that criminals and the poor were genetically inferior. It took Hitler taking eugenics to its conclusion for people to realize how disgusting it was. He was the leader where everything he touched turned to crap.

Hitler was slow-witted to the point that he believed that military victories would be inevitable due to the virtues he perceived in the ideology his soldiers were fighting for, and his own generals feared he would derail any strategy they could come up with with his sheer, naive idealism. What’s more, he believed that we lived on the inside of a hollow earth, and could therefore spy on the British by aiming telescopes upward at an angle.

See what I mean? Nazism is way too stupid for anyone to take seriously. Today, most people who claim to be a Nazi do so as a joke for shock value. Not my cup of tea, and a rancid cup of tea at that, but I understand the humor of it.

Nazis are viewed so poorly, that when someone wants to tear someone down in as few words as possible, “Nazi” is usually the go-to insult. It’s gotten to the point where a rule for debate was made called “Godwin’s Law”, which states that the longer an argument continues, the likelihood of one side comparing the other to Hitler approaches one. The implication is that in an exchange that wasn’t originally about Nazism, the side that calls the other a Nazi is considered to have lost the argument, because that will be considered the point where they have exhausted any reasonable argument that they could have alternatively made.

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I’ve made the point before that it’s super-easy for anyone to read into a fictional narrative a political movement that’s not intended, such as the Separatist movement from the Star Wars prequels as a close equivalent to the SJWs of today. But it’s hard to argue that a point is not there when the director of the film himself states that a comparison was intentional.

One point that I found interesting in the Newsweek article that I’m referencing is that George Lucas had intended for Star Wars to make comparisons with the Vietnam War, which is a comparison that I had not noticed when I had previously seen the original trilogy. While one can get carried away and call it “subtle”, I think it can be credited to a failure to properly articulate the social commentary that was intended. Having said that, that’s not as bad a crime against creativity as being so on-the-nose about one’s point that the director takes it upon himself to point it out months before the film is even released, expressing no faith in the viewer’s ability to interpret the film for themselves.

Personally, I think the case can be made from the first ever Star Wars film, A New Hope, that it’s intended as a commentary on how religion will always play a role in human affairs, even if it were to come to the point that humans were to dwell primarily in space, which would be a time that secular types seem to like to imagine as a time where humanity would have long since given up on religion.

A few obvious points can be made for this from the original film, such as:

  • The prolific use of Biblical names such as Luke, Ben, Leah, and even Anakin, which sounds like Anakim, the race of people that Goliath originated from.
  • Speaking of Goliath, Luke’s attack on the Death Star seems like a type of David vs. Goliath. When Luke points out that hitting the target was like hitting a target he was familiar with, one can easily think of how David pointed out that he had slain a lion and a bear when making the case to Saul that he could take on Goliath. Then there’s the obvious point that a single, well-placed shot took down something big.
  • Imperial officers seemed to make a point of referring to Darth Vader’s ideology as his “religion”, even after he had demonstrated his capacity to strangle someone from across the room.

Even considering this, it’s still possible that no such point was intended, which goes to show (again) how simple it is to read into something a message that wasn’t intended.

Now, one can imagine that a Newsweek article about Star Wars would have gotten a lot of attention. However…

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Hours into its publication, and no comments. It’s almost as though no one cares what Newsweek has to write about Star Wars, Nazism, or Social Justice, even when the topics are rolled into the same article. But when some guy with a blog trashposts about Digimon, something far different happens.

But the question that remains is, what is the relevance of Nazis today that they’re still used in films to make a point? What political ideology can be accurately compared to Hitler’s National Socialist German Worker’s Party?

Nintendo Stands Up to SJW Bullying

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While SJWs claim victimhood all the time, it’s obvious at a glance that they’re the real bullies. They’re so boisterous that it’s difficult to stand up to them, and when they come in numbers, most people would prefer to look the other way and just let them wear themselves out to the point that they dismiss themselves to their mother’s basements.

Because of this, it’s refreshing to see a large media company decide to put their foot down and decide that they’re not going to put up with their horse-puckey. Today, the company that we have to thank for being brave is Nintendo.

I’ve always admired Nintendo. They’re one of my favorite companies, because they’re about the games and the entertainment, while other video game companies become obsessed with stuff like multimedia. Nintendo is one company that sticks to its guns, and that’s allowed it to stick around for a very long time.

Recently, someone decided that they’d use Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s Stage Builder to make a political statement, which would then be disseminated through Nintendo’s network services. The stage in question contained an LGBT flag. Nintendo saw it, and was like “Nope, we’re not going to have that.” They then put the kibosh on the stage, and not only that, they banned the stage’s creator from the game’s network features for nine hours.

Bravo, bravo. Now, it would be great if they could do more about the user-contributed content of Splatoon 2, since many of its users think little of using a game primarily aimed at children to peddle a sexual deviancy.

Many of us are well-aware that SJWs don’t see their causes as being about politics, but about basic human rights and decency. I have views that I see as a matter of basic human rights and decency, but some people view those as political opinions. For example, I view it as an outrageous offense against decency that children as young as three have experimental treatments performed on them that are designed to stunt puberty. Some people have an opinion different from my own.

Unlike SJWs, most of us are aware that there are venues that are entirely inappropriate for spreading certain viewpoints. This is because we possess the capability to comprehend why those venues are inappropriate for spreading those views, and how wrongly exploiting those venues in such a fashion can result in the general population becoming less sympathetic to a cause. When SJWs use a video game primarily targeting children to promote a sexual deviancy, they’re going to think that SJWs are predators.

Media companies, Nintendo has set an example for you to live up to. What is intended as escapism should remain escapism and not another tone-deaf reminder of the problems that we watch movies and play video games for temporary relief from. If we wanted Star Wars to remind us of our problems, there’d be more demand for games about Poe Dameron paying his bills, or Han Solo doing the dishes. We don’t like doing the dishes, and we don’t want Splatoon to remind us that perverts are bullying themselves into control over the establishment.

WordAds is garbage.

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I decided to check out how this site looks from a device other than my computer, seeing how my site would look for my visitors. What I was treated to was a bunch of super-gross advertisements. The content that I typed away to deliver to you guys was being undermined by drawings of cross sections of intestines that looked like they were exploding with worms, and I wasn’t even aware of it. When I finally learned that it was going on, I wasn’t happy.

A little while ago, I decided that a little ad revenue wouldn’t be a bad thing for supplementing my income. I wasn’t really planning on going professional by blogging as so many people out there attempt to do, but it would have been nice to have been making a little money on the side to subsidize how disappointingly little I was making with a STEM degree. What I didn’t anticipate was just how little my income would be supplemented:

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That’s right, eighteen cents. Thousands of ads have been served, some of which making the site a nauseating experiencing for an unknown number of visitors, and I didn’t even get enough money out of it to buy a gumball.

At first, I applied for Google Adsense. I figured I’d try. It took a long time to hear back from them, but after they reviewed the content of my site, to my surprise, they gave the OK. This in spite of the rants I’ve made about Google. It would seem that they are actually some pretty cool guys.

But it took so long to hear back from them that I decided to sign up for Amazon affiliate links. That was much faster, but there was a problem: the links required the use of script tags that weren’t permitted when editing this site. I had a WordPress Premium account, so adding my own adsense code should not have been an issue.

I checked various tutorials that came up in search results, but the methods that they described no longer worked. For some reason, it seemed impossible to implement one’s own ad code into their own WordPress site. That’s suspicious.

Shortly afterwards, I learned why it was so hard to add Amazon affiliate links and Google adsense codes: WordPress had developed their own advertising program called WordAds, and they’re pulling some shady tactics in an attempt to eliminate the competition.

WordPress worked to ensure that people would primarily use their own ad network, which requires a hundred dollar investment to participate in. After spending that to start to monetize this blog, and getting just pennies back as the return on my investment, it seems like the way to make the most of the money spent would be to eliminate ads from this site, so that readers can enjoy my content without it being interspersed with unintended gross-out pictures. If WordPress has a problem with my benefiting financially from my writings, then I can reduce their ability to benefit financially from my writings, as well.

At the moment this post is made, I’ve disabled advertisements on Magnetricity, as a service to you, my readers. Any ads that are running on this site would be doing so without my permission.

Currently, I receive marketing messages from WordPress to use their email system. Apparently, if they think I’m gullible for spending a hundo to activate ads on this site, I must be gullible enough to spend money to have an email inbox.

Wordads is garbage, don’t bother with it.

My Opinion of the Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Trailer

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Paramount Pictures just released a trailer that has been precision-engineered to demolish your childhood in a thermonuclear detonation of suck:

 

I don’t usually do this, but it’s reaction time:

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If this trailer did as most trailers do and showed us the most exciting parts of a movie, this one is a pretty safe skip. It didn’t do a single thing right.

Did they really just make Sonic a hairy monstrosity? Did they really just have Jim Carrey do Dr. Eggman? Did they really just unfuse Sonic’s stylized eyes and made his arms blue? Did they really just labor a child abduction joke? Did they really just use a song over two decades too old to use for movie trailers?

What I really want to know is what the film industry has against anime style. It’s not like hand-drawn animation would kill the budget, especially if millions can be spent on overly-hairly CG models. Detective Pikachu could have been hand-drawn, but instead they made the pokemon have ugly scales and fur. Dragonball Evolution could have been hand-drawn, but instead they brought in actors to proceed to disgrace the source material.

adumanga daioh.pngHey film industry, we actually watch this.

Here’s the thing: we really do want anime movie adaptations to be done in the anime style. When characters are done in the anime style to begin with, that’s how to do them justice. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, because when movies like Pokemon and Spirited Away aren’t watched in theaters, the film industry takes this to mean that people aren’t interested in traditional animation. Not only that, the film industry is really proud of its ability to throw tons of money at CG models.

At any point during this movie’s production, a person familiar with Sonic the Hedgehog could have piped up and said, “Look, this isn’t what Sonic the Hedgehog is supposed to be. I know this because I actually played the games, and watched some of the cartoons.” The reason I doubt this happened is because the film industry is packed with directors and producers who think they’re right about everything, and they’re surrounded by inefficacious suck-ups who are afraid to question them.

 

If they would have made the movie look like this:

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Viewers would have loved it. Instead, someone threw up, decided to sprinkle dog hair on it, colored it blue, and called it Sonic the Hedgehog:

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As you could imagine, this film’s creative direction was made without Sonic producer Yuji Naka’s knowledge or permission. When he was introduced to Sonic’s new style from a leak earlier this year, his reaction was “This is a Sonic the Hedgehog movie?”

Well said, man. Very well said.

EDIT (5 May 2019): The director of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie has since come forward saying that he’s taking fan input and will change Sonic’s design. What he comes up with remains to be seen. It’s refreshing to see someone in the film industry listening to feedback.

Why Does the Left Have a Close Relationship With Islam?

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It’s long been a difficult thing for those outside of leftism to understand: the political left of the western world has a close relationship with Islam. On the surface, it doesn’t appear to make any sense, as the left prides itself as being tolerant and free of mysticism, while at the same time championing what is easily the most mystical religion, and the religion that plays the least nicely with any of the other religions.

What explanation is there for the left’s close relationship with Islam?

Nearly any political ideology that exists today has an image to maintain. The political right is embodied by conservative principles and believes in limited government, among other things, and is usually represented by the Republican party. The Green party is characterized largely by environmental responsibility and various socialist principles. We’d be dealing in some pretty broad generalities in describing these political ideologies with such few words, but these descriptions are pretty accurate.

So then, what does the political left and liberalism in general have a reputation for? Helping the little guy. The left’s positive image hinges largely in helping the disadvantaged and downtrodden, which includes religious and racial minorities. Because Islam is a religious minority in the western world, they’re a natural choice for those looking for groups to stand up for to maintain a helping-the-little-guy image. What’s more, the left’s traditional political adversaries have a history of being critical of the actions of Muslims, the adherents of Islam. Because of this, it would be easier for the left to cast themselves as coming to the little guy’s defense.

Let’s be honest here: Anywhere that Islam is in establishment control, they are not about helping religious minorities. Under Sharia law, the law of the Islamic world, Christians and Jews are treated as second-class citizens or worse, other religious groups are treated poorly and sometimes singled out for death, atheists are nearly always singled out for death, and so are homosexuals, in spite of the fact that they are another group that the left champions.

This being the case, it would seem to make even less sense for the left to come to Islam’s defense. For the left to continue to defend Islam in spite of its abuse of non-Muslims, they would have to overlook not only these abuses, but also the fundamental tenets of Islam that call for these abuses.

That’s exactly what happens.

But why? Why did the left get behind Islam to begin with if what Islam is about is diametrically opposed to the principles of western civilization?

Simply put, it’s because back when the left started to get behind Islam, the abuses of Sharia law were pretty much unknown to the western world, and as religious minorities, there was more incentive for Muslims to live in relative non-belligerence with the community around them as an alternative religion. As it appeared in the public eye, the Islamic religion was just another religious identity that was capable of living at peace with the people around them. Thus, they were “little guys”, and it would have been very easy to cast anyone who objected to them as religiously-intolerant oppressors.

But, that was then, this is now. Islam currently has a reputation for being a volatile ideology that doesn’t play well with the other religions, especially anywhere that they exist in sizable numbers. In fact, it would appear as though their belligerence is directly proportional with their representation in a population.

One would think that making the choice to prop up a violent ideology as an underdog was a mistake. This being the case, it would seem productive for the left to go back on it’s choice to do so. So, why aren’t they doing this? Why does the western political left so insist on continuing to defend the Islamic ideology?

The thing is, mistakes are not easy to admit having made. This especially holds true for political ideologies, which must maintain the image that they stand for, but also must maintain that they won’t make terrible mistakes against their own values, and in so doing, betray the trust of the people who view them as leaders. To this end, the left continues to insist that treating Islam as an underdog wasn’t a mistake.

Another aspect of this matter is that the left would otherwise be wanting for a religion associated with their image. This is very important, as most people in the western world are religious, and have historically been leery of those who do not identify as having a religious identity. This holds especially true in the United States, which is sometimes referred to as the most religious country in the world. Religious affiliation is so important to the electorate that, to this very day, there has not been a US president that has not professed Christianity.

Generally speaking, the western right has historically professed Christian values, a fact that makes Christians have a very easy time identifying with the right, and those on the right usually identify as being Christian. While those on the left do identify as being Christian, it’s hard to reconcile many of the values of Christianity with the liberalism that the left embraces. When the left expresses a religious identity, while it may be in many cases sincere, it’s often a nominal profession.

The left’s relationship with Islam is in large part due to the fact that, without an expressed acceptance for the practice of a religious ideology, they’d appear non-religious, which would alienate a population that is mostly religious.

So then, why Islam? When there are so many other religious identities out there, why does the left continue to defend what would be, if left to its own devices, the bully of the playground?

In a sense, it was the right that provoked it. While the right has good reason to be critical of the Islamic ideology, that criticism provokes a response from those who traditionally serve as their check. Because the left has an image of being the defender of the little guy, it’s easy to come to the defense of a minority group that appears misunderstood, especially when it’s one’s political opponents that are supplying the criticism.

But there’s more to it. The left doesn’t just defend Islam, it respects it. It respects it like it respects no other religion out there. The left could get behind Jews, and historically, they tried. But the right has a great deal of sympathy for the Jews by nature of their own Christian background and the theology that the two share. In the American south, Jewish job applicants have been trusted more than any other religious group. As for other religious groups such as Sikhs, Buddhists, and Hindus, they’re still relatively obscure in the western religious landscape, and the right doesn’t as largely criticize these groups in the same manner as they do Islam.

What is behind the left’s respect for Muslims and the Islamic religion?

Simple psychology tells us that people have more respect for other people when there is a connotation of consequence with upsetting them. Most religions teach principles like patience and forgiveness. This is especially true of Christianity. There isn’t much expectation of an immediate backlash for disappointing a person whose religion emphasizes mercy, patience and forgiveness. When one understands this, they have a pretty sound explanation for why Christians are singled out for mistreatment in many places where they’re a minority.

When it comes to Muslims, the expectation is far different. If someone is going to come at you in an angry fit because you put bacon in their chicken sandwich, you’d be more likely to keep the bacon far from their chicken sandwich. If someone wants you to keep alcohol away from your gathering because their religion forbids it, most would respect his request if his religion says it’s incumbent on believers to fight non-believers. If someone complains about your music and dancing because their religion forbids both, you’d wonder what’s wrong with their religion. But if that person can make you sorry that you decided to smart-mouth them, you’d be considerably less daring.

Again, people tend to have more respect for those with whom there is a connotation of consequence with upsetting them. This being the case, it’s easy to see why people are more reluctant to step on a Muslim’s toes than those of a Christian.

Considering all this, it’s much easier to understand why the western political left is sympathetic to Muslims in spite of the fact that, if Muslims were to call the shots, their policies would stand in opposition to many, if not most, of the values of liberalism, and of western civilization.

Leftists are enabling a great danger to western civilization and the world at large. The sooner they understand this and take the necessary corrective actions, the better.

The Right Way to Play Pokemon Black and White

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pokemon black and white soundtrackThat’s right, it has a soundtrack.

If you’ve made the choice to play Pokemon Black or White, you’ve already made a great choice. It has aged well as a true gem in the Nintendo DS lineup. You may be playing it, but are you playing it right?

To play a game of Pokemon right involves choosing the right team for a playthrough. After all, what says that you’re great at a game quite like beating it quick? Not only that, you’ll be quicker to open up the postgame and get right down to the finer aspects of competitive play.

A lot went into making this guide. Most in-game teambuilding guides for Pokemon games seem to focus on meeting an arbitrary requirement for filling out all six team spaces. There are a few problems with this, most notably, that late-game experience doesn’t spread as well among a team of more members. For the most part, you’ll be better off having a team of a few slightly over-leveled battlers than a full team that doesn’t quite measure up. Not only that, but many teams don’t seem to consider dedicated HM users, which can increase the player’s mobility. Without HM users considered when teambuilding, players might have to place team members in boxes to seek out ways around progress-hindering obstacles.

Pokemon Black and White does shake things up, however. For one thing, the way EXP works in this generation is changed so that the EXP a pokemon gains is multiplied using a formula that involves their level compared to the level of their opponent. A lower level pokemon gains more EXP than a higher level pokemon defeating a similar pokemon of the same level. This makes it easier for freshly-caught pokemon to catch up to the rest of your team, and it also makes it harder to over-level.

Not only that, HMs aren’t as necessary for a playthrough as they were for other games in the series. The only HM that’s needed to progress is Cut, which is used early on. After that, HMs are pretty much optional, and usually just take you off the path. There are two that make things easier on Victory Road, but even then, they aren’t a necessity.

Teambuilding for this guide got trickier still when it comes to just how many pokemon in the 5th generation are great battlers. There are a lot of pokemon that almost made it onto the team, that still would have made great choices. So if a pokemon that you chose didn’t make the team, you might still have a pretty effective team.

Much of this guide focuses on pokemon that would be of help when facing Ghetsis’ Hydreigon. Hydreigon is the main opponent that players complain about when playing through this game. Yeah, Ghetsis is the final boss, and final bosses tend to be challenging, but Ghetsis with his Hydreigon has proven to be a little much for numerous players.

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Hydreigon is a vicious pokemon, and it’s a winner even in competitive play, with great typing, a wide movepool, excellent stats, and a helpful ability. Ghetsis’ Hydreigon is right up there with Whitney’s Miltank in terms of challenge, and enough players have voiced their frustrations that it’s justifiable that this guide places a focus on helping them out. As challenging as the gym leaders are in this game, they’re still trivial compared to Ghetsis, mainly because of his Hydreigon.

Now, onto the team choices:

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Name: Oshawott
Location: Starter
When obtained: Outset
Evolves: at Level 17 and again at 36

How this little guy came to be so adored is an interesting story, but it also happens to be the most practical starter choice, all things considered. Because its physical and special Attack stats are both usable, it’s actually reasonable for Oshawott to have two Water moves on its moveset, allowing it to grill statistical weaknesses of a variety of opponents with moves based on its type. By the late game, this guy clearly tends towards the physical side of things, particularly with access to the excellent move Swords Dance, which gives Oshawott the ability to sweep entire teams.

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Name: Pansear
Location: Dreamyard, as a gift (requires having selected Oshawott)
When obtained: Before obtaining first badge
Evolves: With Fire Stone

Rainbow Monkeys! Pansear is a pretty bad pokemon, but he’s got some selling points for an early game of Black or White. For one thing, he’s got a type advantage against many early opponents, which makes up for how pathetic his attacks otherwise are. He also is a convenient option to teach Cut, which is necessary to use just once in a playthrough. Teaching it to Pansear will keep moves available for the rest of your team.

Pansear is mainly useful against the first and third gym leaders. Against the third, he does really well if you evolve him with a Fire Stone, which can be obtained in Castelia City from a scientist. The scientist gives you a choice between three stones, so if you goof and get the wrong one, you’d have to obtain a Fire Stone from somewhere else.

After the third gym, you should probably box this guy, because he won’t be contributing much more to your team, otherwise.

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Name: Drilbur
Location: Wellspring Cave (dust cloud)
When obtained: After obtaining first badge
Evolves: Level 31

Drilbur is like the Wolverine of Pokemon: he may be small, but he means serious business. Drilbur learns a variety of useful moves, including Dig, which is seriously strong for the point when he obtains it. And once this guy evolves at level 31, that’s when things get even better: he’ll pick up an additional Steel typing, which gives this little guy a pile of resistances. What’s more, he’ll be levels away from learning Earthquake, one of the best moves in the game, and Swords Dance, which allow him to demolish most opponents.

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Name: Scraggy
Location: Route 4 (higher level at Relic Castle)
When obtained: Before third badge
Evolves: Level 39

Simply OP. Scraggy is such an excellent pokemon that it may quickly become your team’s MVP. Fighting and Dark are great types, but putting them on the same pokemon gives it an immunity to a type that would normally be trouble to one of them. They’re great attack types, giving you an advantage against three of the members of the Elite Four. Not only that, but the moves this guy learns are relatively powerful. And if you get one with the Moxie ability, that alone can help him build momentum which can make him unstoppable against many in-game opponents with larger teams.

The main drawback to Scraggy is that he is a little on the slow side. But that really doesn’t hold him back by much.

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Name: Archen
Location: Somewhat complicated, see below.
When obtained: After third badge
Evolves: Level 37

Players were at first quick to write off Archen because its ability was more of a penalty than a benefit. But then they noticed that its excellent Speed and Attack stats allowed it to wipe out numerous in-game opponents with Acrobatics, which it could learn early on without the need for Skyla’s TM, thank you very much. That alone is justification for having Archen on your team, but there’s more: his move selection is excellent. Crunch? Shadow Claw? Rock Slide? Archen can really bring a whoopin’.

About that ability, it only kicks in when its HP is at half or less. Because you can stock up on healing items like Lemonade from vending machines, it’s a snap to keep this guy’s morale up.

You might be wondering how to obtain this guy. After the third badge, you can access the Relic Castle in the Desert Resort. A backpacker inside gives you a choice between the Cover Fossil and the Plume Fossil. Choose the Plume Fossil (the second choice). Then, take it to Nacrene Museum, where it can be restored into an Archen. Save before the exchange at the Museum if you wish to soft-reset for a particular nature. Adamant or Jolly work great.

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Name: Herdier
Location: Cold Storage
When obtained: Before 5th badge
Evolves: No need to worry about it.

The main point of having Herdier on your team is that it’s a nice, convenient pokemon that can learn both Surf and Strength, two moves that make the trip through Victory Road much easier. There’s no hurry to get one before then, so you can come back for it. It pretty much helps you through the use of these HMs, but they aren’t even mandatory to get through Victory Road.

It’s spoilers from here on out, so it’s up to you whether you read on and ruin the surprise. They begin immediately after the picture of the two legendary pokemon below:

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Name: Reshiram (Black version), or Zekrom (White version)
Location: N’s Castle
When: Immediately after the Elite Four
Evolves: They don’t, and don’t really need to.

Wow, your league challenge really got derailed, didn’t it? Now it’s time for an epic throne room showdown that seems somehow reminiscent of Gilgamesh. But first, you’ll need a legendary pokemon to face N’s. It’s pretty much a scripted event, and the catch rate for the legendary is pretty high (no need to use the Master Ball). Afterwards, if you already have six pokemon on you, you are given the option to immediately box one so you can add the legendary directly to your team.

Nothing really needs to be said to sell anyone these legendaries, seeing as they have to be caught to advance the story (a few clever players have found a way around it, but it’s really not worth the effort just to say you did). They’re both strong Dragon types, but with some differing characteristics:

  • Reshiram, the white one, is exclusive to the Black version. It’s a Fire type, and is more inclined to being a Special attacker,
  • Zekrom, the black one, is exclusive to the White version. It’s an Electric type, and is more inclined to being a physical attacker.

After catching it, you can have it in your party for the next two battles. If you immediately add it to your party, it will take point, so it will face N’s dragon right away, which he leads with. N’s dragon seems programmed to continue using a move until your own legendary dragon uses it’s own equivalent, which is actually to your advantage. The two dragon’s signature moves go that if they both use them on the same turn, the one to attack after the first gets a power boost. N’s pokemon is a couple levels higher, so your own would be likely to go second. So go ahead and grill that weakness, because the game seems to want you to.

Outside of that, N’s team doesn’t have much to challenge you. Be warned that he has a Zoroark on his team, so there’s potential for mistaking one of his pokemon for another.

In case you’re concerned, you do get your team healed before the battle with N, and before the battle that immediately follows. Yeah, it’s Ghetsis that’s up next. That and his famous Hydreigon. Thankfully, you have plentiful strategies to get you through him, but they take planning, and not every player plays through with a confrontation with him in mind.

First, the stats on Hydreigon:

Hydreigon
Level: 54
Nature: apparently random
Item: None
Ability: Levitate (grants immunity to Ground-type attack moves)
Moves: Dragon Pulse, Fire Blast, Surf, Focus Blast

Hydreigon has decent bulk, a nice Speed stat, and a high Special Attack stat for those special attacks to come off of. It has a set of very strong moves with excellent coverage, so it’s little wonder that it wipes out the teams of many a player who felt confident after beating everything else up to that point. You know that super-powerful Dragon-type legendary pokemon you just caught that supposedly has enough power to destroy the Unova region? Ghetsis just laughs at it. Hydreigon is not a joke.

As much as I wanted to use some damage calcs in this, it appears that the nature of most trainer’s pokemon in Black and White are random, with those of Ghetsis included. Because of that random element, there may be some wide variation in the outcome of the battle with Hydreigon. You might get off well and he doesn’t get a nature that benefits Hydreigon much, or he might get a Modest nature and wipe your team out easily.

Also, be aware that Ghetsis can use Full Restore up to 4 times during the battle. If you count the number of times he uses one, that could make the battle more predictable.

If you plan on taking on Hydreigon the old fashioned way, you’ll want the pokemon that you’re saving for it to remain at full HP until the time comes for them to face it, otherwise, it’s going to be hard for them to tank its moves and return fire. Many of your best choices Hydreigon will likely outspeed, which makes it much harder to go blow-for-blow with the thing.

There are a couple fine Fighting types that might serve you well if you go with them: Sawk and Throh. If you choose to go with either of these, they’d likely replace Scraggy on your team. I recommend Scraggy because it’s better against more of the game’s opponents. Between Sawk and Throh, which one is easier to find depends on the version you’re playing, but they are both available in both games.

If you go with Sawk, it will be preferable for it to have the Sturdy ability. This will allow it to survive one of Hydreigon’s moves, and get an attack in. At level 46, Sawk can get a likely 2HKO with Brick Break, but you’ll be much better off with Close Combat at level 49. If Sawk reaches level 55, it gets a very likely OHKO with Close Combat.

Throh is superior as far as its defense stats go; it’s out of OHKO range by about level 39 (of course, crits can happen). At around level 48, Throh gets a 2HKO with Storm Throw. It learns Superpower at level 49, but has to be brought up to a high level of 58 to get a likely OHKO.

You can still attempt Scrafty, though. The main move to watch out for would be Focus Blast, which it’s weak to, but because Focus Blast has an accuracy of 70%, it’s a risk that can pay off. Use caution if going for Hi Jump Kick, as it has an accuracy of 90%, and if it misses, Scrafty takes a big blow. Scrafty is such a heavy hitter that a Hi Jump Kick can do 50% of Hydreigon’s HP by around level 40, and at level 58, it’s a OHKO.

Samurott is usable, as it’s not weak to any of Hydreigon’s moves. It’s still likely to take over 50% damage due to how strong its attacks are, but at least it can tank a hit and get in one of its own. Revenge would be a prime choice, because Hydreigon is weak to it, and it does more damage if the user took damage already on the same turn. Hydreigon only has attack moves, so Revenge might serve you well. Samurott is likely out of OHKO range by level 46, and Revenge can take a decent chunk out of Hydreigon.

However, levels like 55 and 58 are kind of hard to reach, unless you have a stock of Rare Candies to spend right before battling the legendary (your last chance to use them if you plan on beating the last bosses on the first try). Your team may be at around level 50 by this point, so it would take some power-leveling to reach such high levels, which doesn’t really lend itself to an efficient playthrough. But there are other strategies that you could use.

One fun and somewhat cheesy strat is to immediately switch to Excadrill at the start of the battle, as Ghetsis leads with Cofagrigus. Cofagrigus uses the Toxic/Protect strategy, but because Excadrill is a Steel type, it can’t be poisoned. What’s more, Excadrill resists Cofagrigus’ attack moves, so there isn’t much it can do about Excadrill.

Preferably, you want Swords Dance and X-Scissor (which Hydreigon is weak to) on Excadrill’s moveset. The idea is to use Swords Dance until Excadrill’s Attack stat is as high as it can get, then use X Speed on it a few times so it can outspeed anything on Ghetsis’ team. Use healing items as needed. You might also want to use a couple X SpDef to make up for the Special Defense drops that have a chance of happening due to Cofagrigus’ moves. Once you’re ready, you can have Excadrill go ahead and attack. Excadrill will likely be able to wipe out Ghetsis’ entire team by itself, Hydreigon included.

There is another strategy you can use, and it’s easily the most reliable and hilarious of what’s available. I’ve tested it, and I can tell you through experience that it works.

You’re up against an oppressive and tyrannical force. And your weapon is Roggenrola.

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Name: Roggenrola
Location: Various, but preferably Wellspring Cave
When obtained: After first badge
Evolves: Don’t worry about it.

Roggenrola gets Sturdy as its ability, so if its HP is full, it can withstand an attack move with 1 HP remaining. If Roggenrola is low enough in level, then you can easily replenish its HP with a cheap item like Fresh Water, which you can buy at vending machines. See where I’m getting at?

But you’re not just stalling out Hydreigon’s moves, you’re messing with it. As it so happens, Roggenrola learns Sand Attack, which it likely has when you catch one at Wellspring Cave. So not only can Roggenrola withstand Hydreigon’s attacks, it can also lower its accuracy. If Hydreigon can’t get a move in, it won’t matter how strong its moves are. Six uses of Sand Attack will be all it takes to bring Hydreigon’s accuracy to its minimum.

But it gets better. Roggenrola can be taught Toxic by TM, so it quickly loses HP as it swings away at Roggenrola in vain. Better still, Roggenrola can be taught Protect, which puts it in a better position to stall out Hydreigon as its HP drains away. If Ghetsis uses a Full Restore, just use Toxic again.

One thing that can potentially go wrong with this strategy would be that Fire Blast might cause a burn, which could take away Roggenrola’s last HP. If you still have a Rawst Berry which you can get from Pokemon Rangers, you can give Roggenrola one to hold as a precaution, in case things go wrong.

The TM for Toxic can be reached once you have a pokemon with Surf. It’s on Route 17, and can be easily reached. As for the TM for Protect, you can obtain one from Professor Juniper at her lab once you’ve seen at least 60 pokemon. That’s pretty easy to accomplish through the course of the game.

So, there you have it! Now you know how to beat Ghetsis and his Hydreigon, and in so doing, beat Pokemon Black and White. Then you might be ready for the postgame, where you face some seriously overleveled opponents, including a buffed-up Elite Four.

Hey, Pokemon Black and White are great games to play if you’re looking for a challenge.

How to Tell That Someone is a Pedophile

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iris sternly regards

DISCLAIMER: This post is sarcasm.

You know all those times when someone is accused of being a pedophile, and you hear your friends say, “I knew it. I can tell the signs.”? It happens every time someone is outed as a pedophile, even though they don’t seem to say anything about it until after the facts are known.

You nod and say that you could tell the signs too, but we all know the reality of the matter, and that’s that you really didn’t see it coming. Don’t you feel left out when your friends have the ability to determine that someone is a pedophile, but you don’t?

Well, have no fear! By the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll have had the training you need to determine whether someone is a pedophile, well before you either see them on the news or they are accused on Facebook.

To tell whether someone is a pedophile, you have to look for certain mannerisms. To be more specific, if they do something that you find at least mildly irksome, that’s a sign that they might be a kiddie-diddler. The more irritating that you find someone’s behavior, the more likely it is that they’re a pedophile.

For example, if you find it annoying how that guy on the corner taps his feet when waiting for the light to change, that’s a sign of pedophilia. His pedophilia, of course. Or, if someone in front of you is just a little too slow or is taking too long to get out of the way, that’s a classic sign that he’s a pedo. You don’t know for sure, but play it safe and assume the worst. Or, if someone pays for a small grocery order with a check, that’s a sign he’s a pedophile, too. Keep your distance, and regard with disgust.

In fact, the longer that you pay attention to someone, the more little signs you’ll notice that he’s a pedophile, and it will continue to add up. Proven fact.¹ You might notice that there are a lot of pedophiles in public places you frequent, such as big box stores. In spite of the fact that true, clinical pedophilia is something rare, they tend to congregate everywhere you go, for some reason.

Another sign that someone is a pedophile is that they’re being too nice. How is that a sign of pedophilia? It’s a little known fact that a large percentage of child molesters are someone who the victim knows. Pedophiles are actually quite methodical; they’ll build a positive rapport in an effort to get closer to the one their sights are really set on: your child. Don’t have children yet? They’re planning ahead for the eventuality that you get one. They’re really cunning.

But, what about your children? What if the mean people go right for your kids when you’re not around, and try being nice to them? There is a time-proven method for preventing child abuse, and that’s to teach your children about “stranger danger”. How it works in principle is pretty simple: just teach your children that people they don’t know are molestation waiting to happen, and your children will be much better prepared to take care of the rest. Your children may have their ability to form interpersonal relationships stunted for the rest of their lives, but that’s a small price to pay to avoid having their faces show up on milk cartons.

While we’re talking about your children, we know it’s hard to avoid taking them into public. To avoid having a pedo snatch them away, teach your kids to scream “RAPE” at the top of their lungs in the event that someone gets too close.

The exact odds of a child abduction may be significantly lower than them being struck by lightning, but you’re still not willing to take that chance, are you? Besides, people get struck by lightning with frequency compared to winning the lottery. You buy tickets, don’t you? Play it smart.

Another sign to watch for is whether someone seems to be particularly jittery about being accused of being a pedophile. It’s true that accusations of pedophilia are going around like crazy, and are increasing all the time. But no one would actually be afraid of being called a pedophile unless they have actual reason to be concerned, right? And who would be more concerned about being outed than an actual pedophile! Am I right?

So, how can you use this to determine whether someone is a pedophile? Easy, just bring up pedophiles and how much you hate them, every opportunity you get. Say how much pedophiles make you angry, and what you’d do if you met one. If there were any pedophiles in earshot, they’d start to get at least slightly fidgety. That’s a giveaway! If anyone so much as breaks a sweat, they’re busted.

The last method for finding pedophiles is by far the most effective. Just go around and accuse people of being pedophiles. It can be for any reason or no reason at all. If it turns out that they’re not pedophiles, don’t worry, they’ll be screened by the criminal justice system. In the meantime, there will be plenty of media attention surrounding that person’s alleged pedophilia, so people will keep their distance from them and employers will avoid hiring them, which will makes things much harder for that pedophile in the event that they actually are one. And if they’re not, the press will just go back over their archived news articles and search engines will edit their automated indexes, and things will be all better again. That’s how it works, right?

And if it turns out that that person actually is a pedophile, you’ll have been the person to have nailed them. Sweet victory! Just be aware that you might have to take a few shots with different people until one of them rings true.

So, there you go! Because you stumbled on the right article while using the internet, you’re now armed with knowledge, and ready to spot those pedo-meanies with your EAGLE EYES! Child molesters won’t be able to resist your ability to see the green-colored glow that they emanate.²

I’m glad I was able to help. I aim to please.

Works cited:

  1. I’m not sure. Some guy on YouTube probably did the legwork or something. Look it up.
  2. Do NSA-type folk actually have the ability to see green glows around pedophiles? I don’t know. I heard it somewhere, and decided that it would sound neat for this article.

Expensive Tech as Fashion

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airpods as fashion.jpg

Apple is attempting to market AirPods as fashionable. I get the idea that fashion is supposed to be intrinsically difficult to figure out, because I’m having a hard time comprehending how fashionable it is to look like white plastic solidified while oozing out of someone’s ears. It’s like the earwax of nightmares. Gross.

The audio industry has long been a scary place. To start with, there’s “ordinary” headphones that a person can easily find for something like $20 at places like Target, then there’s the stuff of elites which can set a person back something like $300, which supposedly offer a superior audio experience. When a person is considering dropping all that cash on a single piece of tech, they’d want to be sure they’re getting their money’s worth, so they start doing some research to find which pair of headphones are right for them.

Then they’d find out that there’s many, many different varieties of elite headphones that each cost tons of money, and they’d have to do more research than they thought. They might attempt web searches to narrow things down, and find some blogs making direct comparisons between headphones on the market. Can we trust their opinions? When we see their pages littered with Amazon affiliate links for these products, it becomes apparent that these are for-profit blogs, and their opinions may be largely informed by what brings in the greater ad revenue for them.

The audio industry is intimidating, but lately, it’s gotten worse. The Beats brand of headphones has previously been marketed using endorsements by Dr. Dre as Beats By Dre. Since then, the Beats line has dropped the Dre endorsement, and was purchased by Apple, a company that already had a reputation for producing questionably expensive luxury tech.

That’s not to say that they’re no longer into the idea of celebrity endorsements for Beats, as the Beats brand has been endorsed by a number of celebrities, with even a special edition commemorating an endorsement by Justin Bieber. What sets these headphones apart from other headphones in the Beats line? Their color. That’s pretty much it.

These headphones are pricey, so one would imagine that they are some high-quality headphones. Instead, they are panned by audiophiles everywhere. The high price of these headphones is driven by the force of the demand generated by celebrity endorsements. The audio industry has found yet another way to liberate people from piles and piles of cash: with the words of people that are rich and famous.

And now, people are wearing Beats headphones and even AirPods with the belief that doing so would make them more fashionable. With tech companies standing to profit, I wouldn’t expect them to discourage this, but I’ve been noticing an increasing trend in the audio industry of encouraging style over producing a quality product, which provides another obstacle to avoid having spent hundreds of dollars on an inferior product.

I admit that if I were to spend a lot of money on something, I’d have a desire for it to look appealing. But when someone places undue importance on fashion when purchasing headphones, they just look like a sucker that caved in to marketing.

NHS Performs Unethical Experimental Treatments on Children, 5 Employees Quit

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What is with the timeline we are in? I ask this because there is a clinic in the UK which has been performing experimental hormone therapy on children as young as three that is designed to prevent the onset of puberty.

An NHS clinic has been determining children to be “transgender”, then performing hormone therapy on them. Five employees of the NHS have called it quits over the experiments, with some of them saying that they felt pressured to prescribe the treatment against their better judgement, and that the transgender status of the children had not been properly ascertained.

No kidding.

At least one clinician stayed in their position by reason that they’d be in a position to protect children from inappropriate therapy. Here’s an idea: don’t diagnose children as transgender. They’re too young to know what’s going on, and are obviously being preyed upon by being introduced to terrible ideas, the full implications of which they don’t fully comprehend. And while you’re at it, don’t perform unethical human experiments of any sort. I know that there’s money involved, but giving yourself up is too high a cost.

Once the subjects reached the age of 16, they would then be put on a hormone regimen to help them develop the characteristics of the gender they have been deluded into identifying with by people they were supposed to be able to trust.

If you’ve wondered what things would look like when those who are more concerned with profit than your physical and mental well-being are put in establishment control, that’s where we’re at right now. This is the kind of thing that happens when we allow into positions of authority those who propagate obvious delusions to the detriment of even children.

And there’s likely a lot more going on that we don’t yet know about.