What grinds my gears

I have noticed that it usually requires a particular type of personality to believe in conspiracy theories, especially the silliest ones. That's because quite often when someone believes in one such conspiracy theory it's 99.9% probable that he or she will also believe in several other conspiracy theories as well (which are usually completely unrelated, without any connection to each other). As an example, I don't remember ever knowing, seeing, or reading about someone who strongly believes in the Moon landing hoax conspiracy theory who at the same time does not believe in and can present strong counter-arguments to the 9/11 terrorist attacks conspiracy theory. Or the other way around. There may be such people, but they seem to be very rare. By far one of the silliest conspiracy theories in existence, which a scary amount of people appear to believe in, is that the Earth is flat. They honestly seem to believe that literally millions of people, including scientists, engineer...

Recycling, especially of plastic, is very fashionable. Rather than throwing plastic bottles etc. away, it's much better to recycle them so that they end up reused rather than throw them in a landfill, in nature, in the sea, polluting the environment for hundreds of years to come. I have noticed a strange omission when it comes to the plastic recycling conversation. Because of this omission, most people think that plastic can be recycled forever. In other words, that if all plastic was recycled, again and again, then none of it would end up in nature, and thus plastic pollutants would be essentially eliminated. That's actually not so. The plastics used in bottles, plastic bags, plastic containers, plastic wrapping etc. etc. quickly degrade after each recycling. So much so that such plastic can be recycled only once, maybe twice in the best case scenarios, before it has become so degraded that it just can't be recycled anymore. After that there is no place for the resulting j...

The Yakuza, even to this day, is one of the biggest, if not the biggest organized crime syndicates in Japan. While it has been romanticized a lot in movies, TV series and video games, it is nevertheless one of the "nicest" such criminal organizations in the world in the sense that it has always had a quite strict internal code of conduct, a strong set of moral and ethical values, and a sense of honor and duty not only to their own but also to the community. For the most part they leave members of the community alone, ie. in general they don't rob people, assault people and so on, and instead mostly concentrate on crimes like gambling, extorting businesses, money laundering, prostitution and so on. Despite their depiction in fictional pieces of media (especially certain video games), they are surprisingly non-violent, only resorting to physical violence when their honor is challenged, or to assert their territory over non-Yakuza petty criminals. In fact, Yakuza members are...

One of the last things that Joe Biden did before stepping down from the office of the President was to issue a huge amount of blanket pardons to his family members and many other people, including Anthony Fauci. These were not pardons for something they had done and convicted of. These were blanket pardons for any future accusations they might face, no matter what they are. It's pretty much in essence a "get out of jail free" card, quite literally. If these blanket pre-emptive pardons are enforced, it means that it's useless to prosecute any of those dozens and dozens of people of any crimes, because they have this get-out-of-jail-free card in their back pockets, and they are automatically pardoned of any crimes they might be accused of. Doesn't matter if they committed murder, rape, sedition or high treason, they are pardoned and can't be prosecuted. Which is absolutely ridiculous. Such presidential pardons should not exist. Presidential pardons should only b...

Ten years ago openly classifying oneself as a "feminist" was the ultimate form of virtue signaling. We got heads of state, most prominently Justin Trudeau, openly and proudly declaring themselves as "feminists", we got entire governments declaring themselves "feminist", and we got millions of far-leftist activists not only classifying themselves as "feminist" but strongly advocating for others to do the same. There were even far-leftist activist public speakers, eg. among the atheist community, making entire speeches about feminism, what it is, and how important it is to call oneself such. Nowadays, however (and for quite some years now), you very rarely see far-leftist bigots using that term anymore to describe themselves, or advocating it. I don't even remember the last time I saw a leftist calling him or herself a "feminist", or even talking about "feminism". Sure, some might still do, but in my experience it seems to b...

It is undeniable, and a bit scary, that game development studio after game development studio, mostly in the west, has been invaded by the cancer that's modern far leftism, and how one after the other they have started to placate to the so-called "modern audience" (an audience that for the most part are not their customers), and one after another they have started deriding, insulting and despising their own customers. What started as "'gamers' don't have to be your audience" in 2014, rather than being relegated to the annals of history, has now become more and more the norm, as studio after studio has been embracing this toxic ideology. And not only have these studios started deriding and insulting their own customers, the toxic ideology is being reflected in their products. "The message" is being shoved more and more into the video games, female characters are being deliberately uglified (most egregiously often compared to the real-life pe...

 (これは https://grindedgear.blogspot.com/2024/04/my-message-to-japan.html から機械翻訳されたものである。) 日本へ。 あなた方の政府はあなた方を裏切り、あなた方の社会、文化、国を急速に破壊しようとしている。それを止めるにはまだ遅くはない！手遅れになるまで、10年も20年も待っているわけにはいかない。 あなた方の政府は、少子化がこの国に差し迫った大惨事であり、この差し迫った「大惨事」に対する唯一の解決策は、できるだけ多くの移民を、主に貧しい国々から受け入れることだという嘘を信じてきたか、あるいは何らかの理由で積極的に推し進めてきた。何百万、何千万という移民だ。 こうした嘘を信じてはいけない。出生率の低下は、それが長く続けば、国の経済に比較的小さな影響を与えるかもしれないが、その影響は破滅的なものには程遠く、常に一時的なものである。 あなたの国は、他の多くの国と同じように、過去に何度ももっとひどい経済的大災害に見舞われてきた。経済が下降し、おそらく少し苦しい時期を経験することは、その国の歴史において普通のことであり、それが国を滅ぼすことはない。 私は、人類の全歴史において、少子化やそれに起因する経済不振によって滅んだ国をひとつも知らない。少子化が迫り来る大災害であり、それを防ぐために早急な対策が必要だという考え方は、大嘘以外の何ものでもない。信じてはならない。 さらに、将来の経済危機に対する予防策を講じようとしても、貧しい国々から何百万人もの人々を輸入することは、絶対に正しい解決策ではない。それは問題を引き起こすだけであり、このことは、貧しい国々からほとんど無制限に大量の移民を受け入れるという政策をとってきたヨーロッパ諸国やその他の国々で、何度も繰り返されてきたことである。 あなたの国には、名誉、尊敬、義務、責任、勤勉の文化がある。あなたの国には、国民を形成してきた非常に長く豊かな文化的歴史がある。あなたの国の犯罪率は極めて低く、街は極めて安全です。貧しい国からの移民たちは、こうした文化的伝統や信念を共有していない。名誉、無私無欲、他人への敬意といった概念を共有することもなく、責任を取ることも、勤勉さを信じることもない。与えられた仕事を精一杯やるという義務感もなければ、他人の仕事、財産、幸福...