Posts by Journeyman

23

Putin the Pressure Up!

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/nato-rapid-reaction-force-counter-russia-ukraine.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/02/08/russia-investors-on-war-watch-wednesday/.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11397924/ukraine-crisis-europe-and-us-debate-how-to-handle-russia-live.html.

Journeyman

I'm bumping this thread because there has been a lot going on in Russia in the past few weeks (not least Prigozhin's aborted coup-not-coup) but noone has really mentioned it on this site to date.

I also noticed in re-reading this thread that DJS was very prescient in some of the points he made given what we now know has developed in Ukraine and the proxy conflict between Russia and NATO.

On a lighter note, the weird situation between Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenaries, and Putin's Russian authorities continues with the Russians releasing details about their raid on his HQ in St Petersburg. They released photos of what they seized including cash, weapons and hilariously, a set of disguises including wigs, along with alleged selfies of Prigozhin wearing them.

It's likely this is all an attempt to discredit him in the eyes of the Russian public, but it does seem that the more I see of Prigozhin the more bizarre a character he is! First there was the video of him going to the Russian Ministry of Defence to hand over a letter - just like your average person taking a tax form to their local government office - now this! (Unfortunately I can't find the video I saw on Twitter of him handing in the letter now, but it was gloriously mundane and the woman at the counter shuts the window in his face and leaves when she sees his people are filming!)

Alleged selfies of Prigozhin in "disguise" found:

Footage of raid on Prigozhin’s residence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tihuBay_DTc

11

Poll says Gen Xer's would like to return to pre-internet

by SydBarrett in

jw
friends

according to a new harris poll shared exclusively with fast company, most americans would prefer to live in a simpler era before everyone was obsessed with screens and social media, and this sentiment is especially strong among older millennials and gen xers.. asked whether they would like to return to a time before humanity was “plugged in”—meaning before people had wide access to the internet and smartphones—77% of americans age 35-54 said they would, the highest of any group.. .

what would you consider your ideal level of the internet?

as a gen x'er, i would not want to go back to the per-internet world, but i would like to go back in some specific technologies.

Journeyman

I love the convenience that today's wider internet access, speeds and technologies have brought but I agree that one of the worst aspects is the overreach of social media.

Another huge potential problem that I believe is looming is linked to the global risk to cybersecurity (which also takes in the issue of possible sunspot activity that Beth Sarim mentioned)

Back in the early days of the internet, right through really to only about 10 years or so ago, critical systems still retained manual backups. Banks, emergency services (911 in the USA, 999 in the UK, etc), social security systems and many others were bringing in computerised operations but they still retained some fallback manual systems or alternative means of access for users in case of critical failure.

Today that's more or less gone, or on the way out, which I fear is actually making our increasingly tech-dependent world more vulnerable not less.

We've already had numerous warnings from periods of hacking activity or outages which have affected financial payments, traffic control and other critical systems in different countries at various times. To date, most of these issues have so far been inconvenient rather than catastrophic, but I suspect it's only a matter of time, with how dependent we are becoming on technology and the fact that so many analogue or manual backup systems have been totally removed, that a nation somewhere may suffer a complete meltdown, either accidentally or caused by sabotage.

A related issue is how many governments and corporations have used increased technology to restrict choice. For example, in the early days of electronic payment it was sold as a convenient alternative way to pay for things that increased customer choice. But now, increasingly the 'old' ways of payment (cash, cheque, etc) are being, or have been, completely removed in favour of solely card or online. Many shops won't take cash now, only card and contactless, and where the option to pay cash remains it's being swiftly marginalised - supermarkets increasingly replacing their humans at checkouts with self-service points which at first used to take cash or card, but often are being 'upgraded' to card only ones now.

Ultimately, that's a restriction of customer choice and, linked to my earlier point, makes shopping more vulnerable to future system failure. Imagine the trouble that could be caused if/when all cash payment is gone but a technical failure or cyberattack causes all store checkouts to go down?

And don't get me started with the nonsense of cryptocurrencies and NFTs...

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Journeyman

He really is that petty and perfectly willing to damage his channel...

It would have been better for himself as well as for everyone else if the channel had abruptly crashed and he was forced to move on to something else

True. He could've got over the blow to his ego in a shorter time, shut things down and moved on, which would also have saved the rest of us from having him hanging about too.

As it is, he's stuck getting more and more frustrated and bitter, raging against the dying of the light for however many months it takes for the whole thing to grind to a halt (or until he gives up and brings an end to it), and becoming more of a painful haemorrhoid on the backside of the exJW community in the meantime.

20

Very Interesting Post...

by XBEHERE in

jw
friends

and then, for two years…..nothing happened.until they pretended everything was normal and sent everyone back to the hamster wheel.

back to meetings, back to d2d, back to assemblies & conventions.

everyone, get back on the hamster wheel, and don’t you dare complain or try to get out of it by using zoom.. https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/14fhe4y/exercise_patience_classic_gaslighting_from_wt/ .

Journeyman

Here's a very interesting post.

(Sorry, couldn't resist that.)

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Journeyman

And I thought that he was focusing on convention videos??? Why is he doing all these little caller videos and interviews?? Pretty sure he still hasn't talked about the new documentary or anything else relevant.

I don't watch his material any more, but I know if I did I'd be increasingly irritated by his obsession with all these so-called "sushi" clips and voicemail responses.

I know it's relatively quiet in JW-land right now since the last major story around the departure of Anthony Morris, but there are still some bigger stories which he has either not covered at all or has been very late to address. His reaction to events in the JW world lately has been very lacklustre, and that's in part because he's lost the contacts he used to have and also, as others have noted, he's clearly lost interest and is just going through the motions now despite his claims that this is his livelihood and he is committed to his "work".

55

"Independent" Scotland joke!

by BoogerMan in

humza yousaf, scotland's first minister, said: "scotland, i'm afraid, is suffering because we are not independent.

" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-66012834.

try telling that to scotland's tourists and many island communities: the ferry services are dying month by month, and the two new overdue & over-budget ferries justify a serious legal/criminal enquiry.. any bunch of incompetents who can't provide a small country with a ferry service and a legally binding contract to build 2 new boats - having controlled scotland since 2007 - has no credibility in claiming they could run a country!.

Journeyman

I know how one has to be careful of slippery slope arguments, but i'm gonna make one

That's my concern about the obsession with devolution too.

Here in the UK, for example, we've already had hints in that direction with some in Cornwall, London and even Yorkshire suggesting that their respective regions could or should become 'independent' of the UK in some form or other. I think it's madness.

Cornish nationalism (Mebyon Kernow) does at least have some basis in ancient cultural and territorial differences, but in general I still think these secessionist movements are unhelpful at best.

103

I'm now turned off by this site

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

in one form or another i've been a member of this site for almost 10 years.

in the past this was a great place for debate, news and support for ex jws.

i logged on several times a day and posted several times a week.

Journeyman

I remember reading all those discussions very well.

Ugh. Sounds like a nightmare. Glad I wasn't around here back then.

The worst we seem to get at the moment are some COVID-conspiracy obsessives (who drop the subject into any thread whatever the original topic) and the occasional flare-up of Trump/Republican vs Biden/Democrat bickering, and those are bad enough. Sadly, I suppose as we get closer to the 2024 US election, the opportunities for lengthy boring on about those issues will increase.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Journeyman

Where I do agree with him is that aggressive activism (crashing Halls during meetings, for example) is counterproductive and supports the persecution narrative. But that's hardly an opinion exclusive to him. Likewise with opposing the kind of extreme clampdowns on JWs (or any other religious organisations) that countries like Russia apply.

He tries to create a narrative that only he has the most sensible or reasonable view in the room, when in fact plenty of others are against the more militant forms of action against groups like Watch Tower. He was hardly bringing a new or radical approach.

14

Facts or Biasedness?

by Ardian in

the watchtower and awake have been listed as the most popular magazines.the figures are astonishing.

i am not sure whether it is based on reality or not.. source: https://tingtopten.com/2020/01/top-10-most-popular-magazines-in-the-world/.

i have seen the link on many social media networks.

Journeyman

That list seems to conflate "popular" with "most circulated". As some people in the comments on that page have pointed out, the two things are not comparable, and also the WT and Awake are distributed without charge, while the others are actually paid for.

There are three possible measures:

Most widely circulated magazine
Most widely read magazine
Most popular magazine

Of those, I would imagine that WT and Awake might top the first list, but it's unlikely they top the other two.

How do you define a "popular" magazine, if not by sales? Because the reader has not had to part with any of their own money to get it, a free newspaper or magazine may be widely distributed, but may just end up in the bin after a cursory glance. In the UK, we have a free newspaper called Metro which is distributed at bus and railway stations. It's common to see copies all over the seats and floors of trains and buses throughout the day, after commuters just pick one up in the morning, skim it on the way to work, then dump it when they reach their destination. Can it be said that it is "popular"? Perhaps. Or perhaps it's just convenient because it's free and widely distributed.

55

"Independent" Scotland joke!

by BoogerMan in

humza yousaf, scotland's first minister, said: "scotland, i'm afraid, is suffering because we are not independent.

" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-66012834.

try telling that to scotland's tourists and many island communities: the ferry services are dying month by month, and the two new overdue & over-budget ferries justify a serious legal/criminal enquiry.. any bunch of incompetents who can't provide a small country with a ferry service and a legally binding contract to build 2 new boats - having controlled scotland since 2007 - has no credibility in claiming they could run a country!.

Journeyman

I see the SNP's wunderkind Mhairi Black is abandoning the sinking ship too now.

She claims it's because of the "toxic environment" of politics at Westminster, but it's just as likely that after the departure of the old guard of the SNP (Sturgeon, Blackford, etc) she sees the writing on the wall and doesn't want to stick around to face the music from the electorate.

To be honest, if I were in her shoes I wouldn't want to stay with Yousaf in charge. I find him a pretty uninspiring party leader (along with all the rest too, these days!)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/04/mhairi-black-snp-mp-to-step-down-next-general-election