Is the bag itself sentient? Or is it the bag and the rats as an animal/textile hivemind? Or just the rats? The answer may shock you.
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Sentient Bag of Rats retweeted
I’m once again reminding you that people don’t hate racially diverse casting; they hate 1) double standards, 2) badly made films, and 3) the injection of the leftist political messaging in every single piece of media.
The racebending of Snape and Hermione checks all the boxes, but is most egregious because of 3:
1) Hermione spends the majority of the films being called a “mudblood” by the blond white kid.
2) Snape is likewise bullied, ostracized, and distrusted. Accused of crimes he did not commit. Literally strung up and tortured by a bunch of white boys after being rejected by the white girl he had a crush on.
Casting a mixed-race girl to play Hermione and a Black guy to play Snape inserts obvious modern racial political overtones into all of these interactions that distract from the story and the characters. That these two characters in particular were race-bended while others were recast as virtual carbon copies means this decision cannot credibly be given the benefit of the doubt.
People don’t want everything to be about leftist politics. They’re sick of it. It cheapens the writing, which already addressed the themes of eugenics, slavery, totalitarianism, propaganda, discrimination, and social ostracism, but did so using world-building and metaphor in a politically agnostic way. It examined themes in the abstract rather than being one step removed from a political yard sign. This is what good writers and filmmakers do because it universalizes the message and doesn’t insult the intelligence of the audience.
WHEN HERMIONE IS CALLED A MUDBLOOD, IT’S AN ALLEGORY FOR EUGENICS
Yeah, no shit, everyone with a brain already got that. They didn’t need it spelled out by casting a mixed girl.
(By the way, the American South is not the only time in history that people have cared about bloodline purity, so you haven’t deepened the allegory by underlining it in red marker; you cheapened and provincialized it)
People just want good writing and filmmaking. They don’t want everything everywhere to be a vessel for hack writers and leftist propagandists. And they’re not racist for wanting that. But you’re making them racist by making everything about race and politicizing beloved media in the process.
HBO is spending $100 million per episode to reboot Harry Potter. That’s more per episode than the average Harry Potter film cost to produce. Seven seasons. 56 episodes. A potential $5.6 billion total production budget.
Paapa Essiedu signed a 10-year contract for this role. He’ll be 45 when it’s finished. He’s receiving death threats on Instagram. People telling him to quit or they’ll kill him. His response: “The abuse fuels me.”
Here’s what the people sending those messages don’t understand about how this actually works.
The original eight Harry Potter films grossed $7.7 billion at the box office on a combined $1.2 billion production budget. That’s a 6.4x return before merchandising, theme parks, and streaming revenue. Warner Bros. is spending $100M per episode because the Wizarding World generates roughly $2 billion per year across all revenue streams, and they need a new content engine to keep that machine running for the next decade.
Essiedu was one of the first actors attached to this project. Emmy and BAFTA nominee from I May Destroy You. Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy across all eight films, called the backlash what it is: racism.
The casting controversy has generated more press coverage for this show than any marketing campaign could buy. Every article about the death threats includes the trailer link. Every outrage tweet puts the show back in people’s timelines. 13M views on this single tweet are proof.
Warner Bros. has run this playbook before. The internet raged when Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker. When Daniel Craig was cast as Bond. When Michael Keaton was cast as Batman. Each of those performances became the definitive version of the character.
Essiedu grew up reading these books at a local library because his mom couldn’t afford a babysitter. Now he’s anchoring the most expensive TV series ever produced. The people threatening him over Instagram DMs are going to watch the show anyway. That’s the part they’ll never admit.
Community note
While the Harry Potter series is a major investment for HBO, the claimed $100M per episode budget is inaccurate. This rumor was debunked; costs are similar to Game of Thrones (~$15M/episode).
metro.co.uk/2025/05/28/hbo…
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Sentient Bag of Rats retweeted
The Fourth Industrial Revolution vs the Third
DeFi/web3/crypto is Fourth Industrial Revolution technology. unlike industrial revolutions before it, it doesn't exist to make human activity more efficient; it exists to disintermediate the middle. because the middle is where exploitation and coercion occur.
globalism outsources the periphery; blockchains disintermediate the gatekeepers. to decentralize is to inherently sacrifice efficiency, why do that?
we're making databases and applications less efficient intentionally because it makes them more impervious to abuse, censorship, and corruption.
this means DeFi is not an engineering solution, but a political one. because this is a politically optimized technology, at the expense of engineering optimization.
DeFi makes accessing previously privileged resources and infrastructure a right. permissionlessness is a profoundly critical concept for us. states and corporations in no way operate "permissionlessly"; for them, everything is permissioned.
if you understand the middle as a fulcrum of censorship and coercion, it makes intuitive sense to you to build around it. if you understand the middle as your friend (eg Krugman), you'll be continually confused by what we're building and why it even exists. you will correctly perceive it as a threat to you.
Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR) tech cannot be compared to Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) tech insofar as the coordination and adoption problems it will face.
the TIR and tech before it is is apolitical. it only magnifies productivity and efficiency, some form of "a bicycle for the mind". it is accretive to the state, corporations, and the individual.
FIR exists to disintermediate the existing structure of compute and finance. it is detractive to the state and corporations, and wildly accretive to the individual.
DeFi removes the state out of financial infrastructure as its essence. as its core motivation.
your sales pitch to the state when advancing DeFi will always fundamentally be: "hey how about you have less control and power than you do now?"
federal power is a politician's power; you are asking them to willingly relinquish it. the same power that the US fought world wars to win, and forcefully imposes on the current financial system. that does not get handed over with words and lobbying, it is taken. you cannot "lobby" the CIA.
this is assuming you understand DeFi as an ethereum-style cypherpunk "no one controls this" instantiation, which is what true crypto is. a fedchain is not DeFi. I'm sure corporations and the state will be fans of and support fedchains. if that's all we become, then that means we were defeated.
the very nature of what we're building implies political action, and thus will require forms of political coordination and messaging. sides will have to be taken, because like it or not you are actively advocating libertarian ideology with this technology.
blog linked in profile.
Don't sympathize with the state, empathize. You'd hate us too.
see, the thing is, Krugman is right: crypto is a political threat, by design. because it's an inherently political technology. he's right to fear us. separating state from money and the financial system... what do you guys think that means? vibes? essays?
countries wage wars over this. we sanction people and put them on lists if they violate it. intelligence agencies overthrow leaders because of it. Saddam wanted Iraqi oil sold in euros in 2000, several years later, he was gone.
we created a literal Proof of Violence network to enforce and support the use of the dollar globally and impose our will on international financial transactions. but yeah Trump's speech at the bitcoin conference in august of an election year was cool though.
as a loyal state stormtrooper, Krugman's stances on DeFi are not misguided. the neoliberal's heart weeps openly at the thought of government having less power; the neoconservative's heart weeps silently, while telling you it's fighting for you.
all of the post-hoc justifications they use to slander DeFi ("it's for criminals!" "it's money laundering!" "climate and equality, or something!") are just that, a client-facing rationale for the real motivations: control and soft power.
an unstoppable force and immovable object clashing do not have PR departments that say they're unstoppable and unmovable.
remember that conservatism is liberalism going the speed limit in wealthy nations. it does not thwart anything over 10-20 year timelines, it's merely the more scenic route to your destination. I will vote right, because it gets us to confronting these irreconcilable differences more slowly. it lets us advance our tech and positioning in the interim. it is strategically expedient.
I expect no one who represents this state machine and its interests to advance ours, because those interests are not aligned. and neither should you. I say this not to bring you down, but because I don't want to see those I consider allies and friends hurt and deceived.
don't delude yourself that the party that's stopped essentially zero liberalization of institutions, as well as facilitating the expansion of the state just as much as the "opponent", is going to protect you. controlled opposition says all the things you need to hear (especially in election season!), with little intent or ability to actually do any of it.
excerpt taken from here, The Vietnam Thesis (remove 7s):
backthebunny.subs77tack.77com/p/the-vietnam-thesis
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If you struggle to explain basic crypto concepts to friends and relatives, show them that crypto is a circle of ducks wearing goggles:
mirror.xyz/0xEE6933900f8acb6…
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Sentient Bag of Rats retweeted
0/ So @GaryWinslett recently asked for a defense of crypto and why he, as a well-situated middle class American who largely thinks our system works, should believe in it or support it. I think that’s a totally legitimate question to ask, and one that cuts to the heart of why the debate has been so broken.
I think it was also asked in good faith, so I believe it deserves a real answer. One of my criticisms of the crypto space is that CT has a bad habit of just screaming at people instead of actually debating real concerns and questions, and I don't want to behave like that myself. Thus, I am going to endeavor to answer Gary in a few parts, and specifically point to some things I think align with the worldview of many antitrust folks, YIMBYs, classic liberals, and those who care about financial inclusion.
In other words, good question Gary, and I am glad you asked.
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