Maximizing my market appeal by capturing the crossover fanbase of political + economic history discourse & tweets about anime. Rat-Adjacent Tumblr castaway
Joined December 2016
- Tweets5.9K
- Following1.3K
- Followers304
- Likes114K
Pinned Tweet
After a bit of a delay, I finally finished my translation of FLCLick Noise, an interview book with Tsurumaki & Sadamoto about the production of the original FLCL. Each chapter is a post on my blog with a Table of Contents linking each:
simulacrarealities.substack.…
WW1 beats it actually - WW2 has tons of narrative "moments", but actually 1943-1945 is just one big post-arc slog to finish off two foregone conclusions.
Meanwhile WW1 has an insane third-act twist of Russia out/US in, and a Final Big Battle before it all falls apart in months.
Ash Kantor retweeted
technically Jensen Huang is still CEO because they used Outlook to send his termination email this morning
My take on this is that while Miyazaki is not really qualified to judge modern anime, the industry has changed massively since he began his career and an old man being nostalgic for a world gone by is normal. Let him miss the past, while understanding what is being missed.
Hayao Miyazaki on modern anime, via Roland Kelts the author of 'Japanamerica'
"Hayao Miyazaki said to me at one point: 'The problem with young anime artists today is that the only thing they study is anime. When we were young, we studied French literature, we studied impressionism, we read Dostoevsky. We swallowed everything. And then we went and created original anime. But if you grow up and all you watch is anime, you're just regurgitating spinning wheels.'"
He also spoke about his work on the upcoming documentary 'Tezuka! God of Manga'
1
67
There are in fact platonically correct "districts", aka better electoral systems! This is a solved problem, even if debately the US constitutional order makes adopting them difficult.
I think I’m anti-anti-gerrymandering. The whole concept presumes the existence of a platonically correct district, no?
4
206
I think after you make someone read Das Kapital you just let them go. That is punishment enough, a jail sentence on top is just gratutious.
(After you eyeroll my dumb joke def check out Hishiya Ryoichi's incredible work, a true legend)
When wartime Japanese thought police arrested artist Hishiya Ryoichi in 1941, he had no clue what communism was. The cops forced him to read Das Kapital so he could learn it and make a false confession.
After WW2 he strongly opposed any new laws that restricted civil liberities.
79
There is a part in Aquinas's Summa Theologiae (Q. 57) where he debates where the physical power for Jesus's ascension came from - and if it was fully divine, why didnt he *instantly* teleport up? And concludes that Christ's dual divine/human nature powered his ascent more slowly.
I'll highlight this one because it's a response to one of those guys who is calling me an idiot with 1st grade theology but not saying why I am an idiot.
This person asks a reasonable question-- and gets no answer.
2
18
955
IMO Meier speaks of true pyschology re Rise & Fall mechanics, but this is also a failure of game design. The key is to make "failing" a goal of the player. Make it give achievements/xp, unlock new future paths, show unique content, etc. "Decline" should be *fun* - it's a game!
Sid Meier spoke on this with Civilization.
In comparison, his Pirates games make bouncing back from defeat very easy, as you keep all your collected personal upgrades and mid-tier ships are simple to steal. Even ARS fails to learn from this lesson.
2
7
498
Ash Kantor retweeted
While I've been delayed by current events, the new article on the blog is now out!
It is a review of Jonathan Clements' Anime: A History: its qualities and defaults, and some more for those interested in anime's social and formal history 🔽🔽
animetudes.com/2026/11/09/an…
Ash Kantor retweeted
HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!! It is with a bit of sadness but a considerable amount of jubilation that I announce that this is the final day of the archive. And ya know what, we're going off with a bang.
DAICON III & IV OPENING ANIMATION
Farewell, goodbye, and have a great weekend!
As always with these debates, it is completely fine for the union to strike - get whatever wage you can. In this case Harvard should clearly just say no, since these wages are very high! They could easily refuse-and-replace as needed.
Ofc, does US law permit that? Ah, well...
Does this guy realize he's getting a Harvard PhD education for free (tuition is 60k per year at Harvard, and most PhD students don't pay it)? Does this guy realize the extensive margin effect of these strikes? At UCI, PhD enrollment fell 30.3% from F22 to F23 after the strike.
5
313
I lack the expertise here but this seems fine to me - it isn't the *judge* saying this, the prosecutor was making their case. They shouldn't have said this, but is obviously did not affect the trial outcome, and we can't throw out entire judgements over every small error.
2
2
367
Beyond the obvious insanity of this tendentious claim, the idea that a bill passed by Congress, implemented by the elected President, should be *blocked* from building a detention center via *weaponized environmental review litigation* is everything wrong with US politics.
what is the ACLU doing??
politico.com/live-updates/20…
1
7
163
Broke: ew he used math
Woke: wtf this math is cooked, children become adults?? They have more future adult years ahead of them on average, actually! What is the time discounting function being applied here, must be weirdly high. Maybe workshop this again...
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The excerpt is from Dario Amodei's 2010 GiveWell guest post as a Princeton physics grad student; he donated the $10k to VillageReach (child vaccines) and described the critical analysis as emotionally taxing.
blog.givewell.org/2010/06/03/my-…
nytimes.com/2026/11/05/tec…
"And then there were none."
Probably the last of the first generation of online journalism projects that was worthy of the name, amazing to realize. The model just couldn't last, but still - era defining site for the 2000's, a great legacy.
Today, after 31 years, we are saddened to announce that Salon is ceasing publication. It has been an extraordinary privilege. salon.com/2026/11/05/goodbye…
2
54
IMO GM has little impact on this, actually - every "single rep" system has safe seats, and most elects today arent this old.
This is mainly A: weak parties who cant force out members, and B: partisanship. Most voters *correctly* get your rep is just a vessel for their party.
This is one of the unintended side effects of gerrymandering, by the way.
If fewer seats are made competitive, fewer incumbent politicians have to prove they're mentally capable of the basic duties of office to voters. So you'll wind up with more 13-term politicians obviously suffering from dementia with no one calling them on it.
Let's not go this hard on defense - MY didnt say Stevens was the Most Electable, sure. But Hasan is objecting to saying Stevens was *more* electable that El Sayed - which he did imply.
Hasan's problem is that this idea is totally valid! Recent events don't contradict that at all
This quoted post is unavailable.
1
1
141