This is another video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. This video is my quick reaction to the season one finale of HBO’s The Last of Us. Like my other quick reacts, I didn’t script this or structure it like a video essay. As a result, I stutter and stammer a lot. I also make a few errors here and there. But I still try to get my point across.
Also, I do mention some heavy spoilers from both the show and the games. So do keep that in mind. Enjoy!
Filed under Current Events, HBO Max, Jack's World, technology, video games, YouTube
This is another video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. This video is a brief video essay, as well as a reflection of sorts, on the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. It’s an issue that has suddenly become more relevant in recent years and for all the wrong reasons. But the circumstances (and absurdities) of what happened in the 1980s were unique. And they’re worth learning from, especially if those with agendas are intent on starting a whole new panic.
Filed under Current Events, Jack's World, politics, psychology, YouTube
As a general rule, I exercise a healthy skepticism when it comes to news from the American media. I emphasize healthy because it’s one thing to be skeptical. It’s quite another to be so skeptical that you doubt or outright reject all news stories from the media, regardless of the topic.
That’s not skepticism.
That’s just willful ignorance, plain and simple.
But to be fair, it’s not like the American media has a spotless track record. In fact, if you were to grade the American media on the basis of accuracy, honesty, and ethics, it would probably get a C-minus at best and an F at worst. That’s not to say everyone in the media is dishonest or every media outlet is untrustworthy. There are certain some outlets that garner more credibility than others. And if you’re a responsible, well-meaning person, you should strive to get your news from a credible source.
Then, there’s Fox News.
Now, I could say a lot about Fox News. I’ve been tempted to go on plenty of angry rants about them on this site and on my YouTube channel. I usually choose not to because I know I would be inviting some pretty serious vitriol from certain people with certain political leanings. I won’t say who they are. But you follow American politics in any capacity, you know who I’m talking about.
The only reason I’m daring to talk about Fox News now is because recent revelations have cast their whole operation in a new light. The news came out last month in mid-February 2023. For the past three years, Fox News has been among the many conservative news outlets that platformed and entertained theories that the 2020 Presidential Election was undermined by major cases of voter fraud.
Now, I prefer not to get into the details of that politically charged shit storm. Many other people far more qualified and smarter than me have done extensive breakdowns on why the results of the 2020 election were legitimate. If, at this point, you still believe the election was stolen and the mainstream media refuses to report on it, then I’m sorry. I can’t convince you. I can’t help you, either. You’ve bought into a fraud and there’s no way someone like me is going to get you out of that.
But it’s this politically charged issue that finally got Fox News in trouble. For years, Fox News has been branded as the conservative counterpart to the more liberal-leaning news outlets like MSMBC and CNN. As to just how “liberal” those networks lean is up for debate. But there’s no debate that Fox leans conservative. They champions conservative talking points and figureheads, sometimes to an excessive degree.
However, their willingness to entertain this demonstrably untrue conspiracy theory about the 2020 election finally got Fox News into serious legal trouble. There’s a real possibility that Fox News and their parent company, News Corp, could be on the hook for billions of dollars in damages. That kind of lawsuit is a big deal for any major media company. And while it’s not yet clear how it’ll pan out, one important detail did emerge.
Apparently, the many TV personalities that Fox News employed during this narrative didn’t actually believe any of the crazy election conspiracies that they were entertaining on air. They’ve even gone so far as to say outright, and with verified text messages and legal affidavits, that they didn’t believe the election fraud claims for a second.
AP: Off camera, Fox hosts doubted 2020 election fraud claims
To millions of viewers, Fox News hosts gave allies of former President Donald Trump a platform to champion false claims that he lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud. To one another, they expressed doubts about the claims and mocked the people making them.
Private exchanges between Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and other network bigwigs — including the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch — show a wide chasm between what the network promoted in primetime and the doubts that its stars held behind the camera, according to new court filings in a defamation lawsuit being waged by a company whose voting systems were regularly maligned on air.
“Sidney Powell is lying” about having evidence for election fraud, Carlson said via text on Nov. 16, 2020 to a Fox News producer, referring to one of Trump’s lawyers.
Ingraham texted Carlson that Powell is “a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy,” referring to the former New York mayor and Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani.
This sort of revelation is not a trivial matter, at least with respect to the lawsuit. The fact that Fox knowingly entertained these conspiracy theories that they believed to be wrong is a big problem. It means that the talking heads you see on that network may say they believe one thing when the cameras are rolling, but they believe something completely different once they cameras and teleprompters are off.
They often make the defense that their shows aren’t “news” as much as they are opinion pieces. However, their opinions are often framed as news stories or as serious questions about established narratives. And, like it or not, these people have huge audiences. The people who watch these shows take what they say seriously. And that can have serious consequences. We saw some of those consequences play out during the January 6th riots at the Capitol.
It paints a very cynical picture. These people, who are well-paid and very powerful within conservative circles, are just telling their audience what they want to hear. They’re not giving people the news. They’re feeding them whatever political spin they think will get them riled up, impassioned, and most importantly, watching night after night.
That is an objectively dangerous practice and it will continue to have serious consequences. I will even go so far as to say that what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, probably wasn’t the worst manifestation of these consequences. I’ve had to deal directly with some of these people in my private life. I’ve been threatened by them. I’ve been yelled at by them. These people claim to be patriots, but they’re nothing of the sort.
And that brings me to the harshest truth about this revelation that I think is worth highlighting. Yes, it’s important that this came out. Yes, it’s a big deal that these influential figures at Fox News flat out admitted that they didn’t believe the bullshit conspiracies they were promoting, but did so anyway because it was good for ratings and revenue.
However, in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t matter to the average Fox News viewer in the slightest.
It doesn’t matter that official court documents prove that these people have been lying to them.
It doesn’t matter that Fox News admits outright that the 2020 election was not stolen and there’s no evidence at all to support the fraud claims.
The average Fox News, deeply conservative viewer doesn’t care what the truth is.
They only care that they’re fed a narrative that makes them feel good and vindicated.
I know this because again, I’ve dealt with these people. I’ve tried to talk to them. I’ve tried to reason with them. It doesn’t work. At best, they think I’m just shilling for the mainstream media. At worst, they think I’m they’re enemy. A few have even said that when the next American Revolution begins, they will target me. I will be on their hitlist of people they think are traitors to America who need to be eliminated.
Truth is no longer applicable in the minds of these people.
The very concept of what it means to be an American patriot doesn’t matter, either.
All that matters is that they get to be the heroes in their own fanciful narrative about America. The fact that the America they’re envisioning just happens to be a Fascist government run by Christian Nationalists isn’t beside the point. It is the point.
They may know what the truth is in their heart of hearts. They may even accept it on some levels. They just don’t care.
That is extremely dangerous. And I genuinely worry that the danger is going to get much worse before it gets better.
Filed under Uncategorized
This is another video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. This video is a reaction and response video to Marvel’s recent announcement that they’re revising the world of Ultimate Marvel in June 2023 with Ultimate Invasion. I found this news somewhat striking because a year ago, I made a series of videos arguing that Marvel should reboot the Ultimate Universe. And there’s a real chance we could get something like that with this event. However, based on what little we know about the event, my feelings are somewhat mixed. And in this video, I explain that sentiment while also exploring the potential and pitfalls of this news.
Filed under Jack's World, Marvel, superhero comics, superhero movies, YouTube
I am a man.
I strive to be a good man.
I like to think I’ve done the best I can in that regard. I know I’m not perfect, but I still strive to improve. I also try my best not to judge others who don’t do as well or struggle to be the man they seek to be.
I say all of this as a precursor because I’m about to go on an angry rant, of sorts, on those who take advantage of insecure, vulnerable men. That rant will include profanity, tirades, and insults. So, if that doesn’t appeal to you, this is your warning. I’m just sharing that as a common courtesy.
Having gotten that out of the way, I’d like to make some important statements that hope finds its way to men and women alike.
Fuck every man who calls himself an alpha male.
Fuck every man who promotes the whole alpha male mentality.
Fuck every man who actually buys into the bullshit behind alpha males.
I understand that’s a bit terse, but I promise I mean every word. I only wish the English language had stronger forms of profanity to get my point across.
Because as a man who has written about men’s issues in the past, I have nothing but abject hatred and disdain for those peddling the objectively stupid notion of the alpha male. I would go so far as to argue it’s worse than the idea of “toxic masculinity,” another label I think is built on a foundation of bullshit.
But the notion of the alpha male isn’t just stupid and wrong. It’s dangerous.
It presents men with a rigid dichotomy that supposedly determines whether they’re a “real man” or just some loser weakling who can’t open a pickle jar. Either you’re some muscle-clad, sports-loving, macho douche-bag who builds his day around how many women he sleeps with or you’re some pathetic, scrawny weakling who deserves to get shoved into lockers in high school.
There’s nothing in between. You’re either one or the other. And unless you’re constantly striving for that alpha status, then you’re somehow a failure as a man.
Again, that’s all bullshit. I seriously cannot emphasize that enough. There is no such thing as an alpha male. That is not a thing in science, biology, or objective reality.
In fact, the whole concept behind “alpha males” is based on horribly flawed study about wolves in captivity that was later disproven. If you want to know the details, please see the following from Phys.org.
If you don’t care to read the whole thing, the long and the short of it is simple. The study that first coined the terms, alpha male and alpha female, was based on observations of social structures of wolves in captivity. However, that social structure does not manifest in the wild.
Instead, the structure is largely based on adult wolves looking after their pups. It’s not too different from how most social animals look after they’re young. We don’t call their parents alphas. That’s just a byproduct of having a particular social structure that relies on adults protecting, teaching, and guiding their young.
That’s exactly what happens in humans, too. We don’t call the parents of children alphas. They’re just parents. Their role is the same as the wolves observed in the wild. They raise their children as a family unit, looking after them and teaching them so that they can survive on their own.
At no point is there this alpha male of the pack who gets all the females and makes all the lesser males do his bidding. That’s not a social structure we find in nature. That’s a social structure we find only in cults, namely the dangerous ones.
That’s exactly what keeps the whole alpha male myth going. It feeds into the agenda of selfish, power-hungry narcissists who need some excuse for being the one who gets all the money, sleeps with all the women, and gets others to do his bidding with little to no compensation.
I won’t name names. But if you follow the news about people who throw around the whole “alpha” label, you know who I’m talking about.
Again, fuck those men and every asshole who buys into their bullshit.
Because that’s what this stupid concept propagates at the end of the day. It’s an enabling force for assholes seeking to exploit those who are vulnerable. Every cult leader in history does the same thing. Organized religion and toxic fandoms do it too. But the people who embrace the alpha male label are just uniquely insufferable.
So, the next time you hear someone throw that alpha male label around, remind them that it’s based on bullshit science and only exploited by wannabe cult leaders. And if they refuse to accept that, then don’t give them the courtesy of calling them alphas. Just call them insufferable assholes. Because that’s what they are and that’s what they’ve always been.
Filed under Current Events, gender issues, human nature, men's issues, psychology, rants
This is another video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. This video essay is me making the case that, for the most part, Fox got Wolverine wrong as a character over the course of multiple movies. In some cases, they got him egregiously wrong. And there are definitely lessons to learn from these movies, which will hopefully lead to a better Wolverine once he enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Enjoy!
I talk about artificial intelligence a lot, both on this site and on my YouTube channel. It’s not just because Artificial Intelligence has the potential to be one of the most important technologies that mankind will ever create. It’s a topic of genuine fascination for me. I’ve always been a fan of the science fiction stories that can be told about AI. I also have a keen interest in how it may ultimately impact the real world.
However, as much fun as it is to speculate on the future of artificial intelligence, it’s a bit more productive to understand what it can do for you right now. I feel like AI has become a lot more mainstream with the rise of programs like ChatGPT. It’s very likely that other programs like it will emerge in the coming years and be very disruptive to multiple industries.
Granted, these AI systems are nowhere close to becoming sentient like Skynet or Hal 9000. We honestly don’t know when we’ll reach a point where an artificial intelligence will be as sentient and as intelligent as an average human. But for the time being, there are a growing number of tools powered by AI that are helping people within multiple fields. I’ve used quite a few of them. I’ve even shared some of the work I’ve done with them. And I can use these tools, then anyone can.
So, in the spirit of exploring this new world AI is creating, I’ve created a brief list of current AI tools that I hope others might find useful in whatever it is they do. Whether it’s writing, graphic design, web development, cooking, or personal interaction, there’s probably an AI tool to help you. While these tools might be limited in their use at the moment, it’s likely just the early versions of something that’ll become much more refined in the future.
And if you have other AI tools you find useful, please share them in the comments.
Copy.AI – An AI-Powered Copywriting Program
Piggy To – An AI-Powered Program That Creates Small, Shareable Websites
Riffusion – An AI-Powered Music Generator That Creates Music From Simple Text Prompts
Midjourney – The Most Popular AI-Artwork Generator
Yoodli AI – An Interactive AI That Helps Improve Your Communication Skills
GymGenie – An AI That Helps Develop A Workout Program
Article Fiesta – An AI Tool That Helps You Create Articles For Websites And Blogs
MeetGeek – An AI Tool That Helps Record, Transcribe, And Summarize Meetings
ChefGPT – An AI Tool That Helps Develop New Recepies
Avatar AI – An AI That Helps Develop Digital Avatars
Natural Reeder – An AI Text-To-Speech Tool That Creates Natural Language Narration Audio
Cowriter – An AI Tool That Helps Improve Your Writing
Filed under AI Art, Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, futurism, technology
This is another video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. This is video another entry in my ongoing “Jack’s Comic Gems” collection. And this particular gem takes Cyclops, one of the most controversial and well-known X-Men characters, and puts him in an unfamiliar setting. He’s not leading the X-Men. He’s not clashing with Wolverine or obsessing over Jean Grey. He’s not even in his adult form thanks to some time travel shenanigans.
Instead, he’s in space re-connecting with his father, Corsair. He’s going on adventures with the Starjammers, channeling his inner space pirate. It’s not your typical Cyclops story, but that’s exactly what made it such a gem. Enjoy!
Filed under comic book reviews, Jack's World, superhero comics, X-men, YouTube
If you’ve ever worked a full-time job, chances are that job had set hours during certain days of the week. It may vary from job to job, but in most developed countries there’s this concept of a standard work week. And it goes like this.
You work five days a week, often Monday through Friday.
You work eight hours a day, usually around 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
You typically don’t work major holiday or overtime. But if you do, you get paid overtime.
That’s seen as a “normal” work week these days. I put “normal” in quotes because what constitutes a normal workday has changed a great deal over the years. But I prefer not to focus on the history of the work week. I just want to ask a simple question about the work week as we currently accept it.
Is the five eight-hour workday schedule really the most effective approach to work?
It’s an honest question and one I think the COVID-19 pandemic has made more relevant. Beyond revealing how much work we can be done remotely and from the comfort of our homes, it also revealed that our concept of a normal work schedule is somewhat skewed. And it might be a good time to re-evaluate our understanding.
Some are already doing that. A number of companies in various parts of the world are starting to experiment with a four-day work week. It doesn’t always entail less work. In some cases, people opt to work four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days. The duration of the shifts don’t change. It’s just the structure.
And according to the conclusions of multiple studies, the results have been a massive success for everyone involved.
Overall productivity remained unchanged or actually improved.
Worker satisfaction increased, as did overall work/life balance.
The same amount of work got done, even when fewer hours overall were worked.
There were practically no real downsides. People got an extra day off, but were just as productive. They were also happier, overall. Even if you’re a ruthless business tycoon with no sympathy for others whatsoever, these results are encouraging. After all, happier and more fulfilled workers means less turnover and less conflicts overall. Unless your company runs on the tears and suffering of others, that’s generally good for business.
Even in the absence of these studies, I can personally attest to the appeal and the merits of a four-day work week. While I wasn’t lucky enough to have that schedule with any of the full-time jobs I worked, I do know it was a popular option in one particular company.
Since I don’t know if my former employer visits my site, I won’t say their name or their industry. I’ll just say that this company utilized a lot of shift-work. There were some typical nine-to-five shifts, but most varied considerably in order to ensure 24/7 coverage of our operations. I typically worked five days a week, usually 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
However, there was an option for those with kids to work four ten-hour days. The day of the week they got off varied. My supervisor actually encouraged those who used this option to coordinate and decide amongst themselves which day of the week they would take off. Some preferred having Monday off. Some preferred having Friday off. One even preferred having Tuesdays off.
It was probably the most popular shift, but one that wasn’t widely adopted. It was always framed as a shift reserved for those with young children who needed an extra day to take care of doctor’s appointments, personal matters, and what not.
Personally, I would’ve definitely preferred working four ten-hour days. Even if it meant those four days were longer, I would’ve gladly worked that time in exchange for a longer weekend. It would’ve made a lot of things easier, especially when I was young and just out of college. Even today, it would make a lot of things easier. An extra day would give me more time to rest, run errands, work out, and work on my personal life.
I suspect many feel the same way. Just think about how excited/relieved you are every time you have a long weekend to look forward to. But honestly, is a three-day weekend really that long? It’s still less than half of the week. And can you honestly say you get less done on a shorter work week?
Now, I understand that not all work is the same. There are certain jobs for which a four-day work week just isn’t practical. By the same token, there are also types of work for which a five-day work week isn’t practical, either. We just still use that schedule because it’s considered standard and “normal.” We’re so used to it that we don’t even question it.
But we should. The results of the studies I mentioned imply that there are better ways to get just as much work done with less time in a manner that is just as productive, if not more so. So why not embrace that?
I suspect a part of it has to do with how the five-day, 40-hour work week is engrained in a lot of labor laws. That is not a trivial detail that we can just overlook. But laws can be changed. And in this case, there’s a better and more efficient option available.
In a world with so many diverse people and so many diverse forms of work, it makes sense to be flexible. If a shorter work week means equal or greater amounts of efficiency, then the only thing stopping us is outdated assumptions about what constitutes “full-time work.”
I sincerely hope that changes in the coming years, especially as people continue to realize the value of a good work/life balance. Just because we’ve been structuring our jobs a certain way for decades doesn’t mean we should keep doing it that way. If a four-day work week is better by every measure, then we’re only making our jobs more miserable by clinging to outdated practices.
Filed under Current Events, health, politics, psychology
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