A small tool to view real-world ActivityPub objects as JSON! Enter a URL
or username from Mastodon or a similar service below, and we'll send a
request with
the right
Accept
header
to the server to view the underlying object.
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"content": "BACK IN BATTLE, WITH A MINOR CHANGE OF TONE<br /><br />Sometime during the last year, I have decided that the cause of human liberty is worth taking as seriously as humanly possible, and - for my part - I ought to rededicate to spreading precisely those ideas I most confidently believe I'll take pride in defending, long into the future.<br /><br />Reading over prior posts, at times I have been more trollish and cavalier than I'd ever like to be, while describing the nature of Jews and Blacks, and their impact upon American society. I've never seriously believed either of these groups to have had a uniformly negative impact upon America - and if either group has had a negative net impact (which ought to be debatable), I have never wanted this to serve as a basis for denigrating either group's constituency, or for stigmatizing Black or Jewish identity. Liberalism is invaluable, precisely because it minimizes the impact of public policy on everyday life, and preserves a set of social conditions wherein collective assessments don't have to manifest as collective resentments.<br /><br />Without compromising my willingness to express what I sincerely believe, I'd like to avoid any future posts which might discredit the cause of liberalism by inviting the conclusion that liberals, such as myself, are the true bigots - and that by eschewing liberalism, the progressives of the world have been following a course of righteous opposition to The Enlightenment. I'd like to share the kind of ideas that moderate leftists can read (and likely disagree with), instead of dismissing as intellectual \"non-starters\". I'd like to be able to direct particular Jews - who enjoy a good debate - to the space of this blog, without decorating (or using) any corner of it as a figurative gas chamber.<br /><br />I believe this is a reasonable resolve, and not tantamount to cuckoldry. If I ever become targeted by the ADL, SPLC, or a rogue battalion of SJWs, I'll consider myself in (mostly) good company, and wear their contempt as a badge of honor. I don't wish to acquiesce to the demands of evil people; merely to plant my flag firmly on the right side of history. In future posts, I'll try to describe what I believe this \"right side\" to be, in greater detail.<br /><br />The right side of history WILL NOT consist of patently accepting those who shield their manners and habits beneath the sociological umbrella of an endonym (ex: Islam), then proceed to exercise political power to seek arbitrary protections and privileges for themselves.<br /><br />Recognizing the freedom of religion of a populace, DOES NOT make it wrong to privately discriminate against a religious group within this populace, nor to privately criticize any individual member of this populace on the basis of his or her creed. In some casis, it even becomes MANDATORY to perform such criticism, in the service of freedom. Functionally, the word 'freedom' is nearly synonymous with 'responsibility,' because freedom without responsibility would be chaos.<br /><br />Where biological traits like skin color are immutable, a creed is a set of voluntarily-chosen and heavily codified principles, which an individual uses as a blueprint for regulating his or her behavior, and for determining which behaviors he or she may expect from others. If it's unreasonable to hold a man morally responsible for his creed, then it becomes unreasonable to hold him morally responsible for anything at all.<br /><br />To display a belief in something, is to ask to be judged by the merits of this belief. To simultaneously demand NOT to be judged by this belief, is philosophically schizophrenic.<br /><br />The argument is often made that religions are more than just personal creeds: they're traditions, or dynastic modes of being. In other words, an individual's religion is not autonomously chosen, but externally imposed. This is more true of certain religions, than others.<br /><br />When dealing with religions which are transmitted in the most (culturally) heavy-handed ways, the capacity - of the recipients of these religions - for informed assent, is the most aggressively bypassed. When you consider individuals who have been completely indoctrinated, and choose to focus on their individual lack of moral responsibility for the contents of their own indoctrination AS A JUSTIFICATION FOR morally prohibiting external judgments of their religion, you are performing the highly-illiberal task of according protections to indoctrinators.<br /><br />In other words... 1) It is just to judge people by their religion, because their religion is what they have chosen to believe. 2) In cases where religions are being practiced by people who never actually chose to believe them, it's EVEN MORE important to allow for criticism of these religions, as a means of stopping the transmission of ideas too horrible to be critically accepted.<br /><br />A true liberal respects only cultures which are transmitted by subscription. A fake liberal invokes the concept of mandatory respect for all cultures, to demand conscription. This is, of course, a gross simplification. Please correct me, wherever I err and omit.",
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"published": "2018-11-11T18:13:02+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "BACK IN BATTLE, WITH A MINOR CHANGE OF TONE\n\nSometime during the last year, I have decided that the cause of human liberty is worth taking as seriously as humanly possible, and - for my part - I ought to rededicate to spreading precisely those ideas I most confidently believe I'll take pride in defending, long into the future.\n\nReading over prior posts, at times I have been more trollish and cavalier than I'd ever like to be, while describing the nature of Jews and Blacks, and their impact upon American society. I've never seriously believed either of these groups to have had a uniformly negative impact upon America - and if either group has had a negative net impact (which ought to be debatable), I have never wanted this to serve as a basis for denigrating either group's constituency, or for stigmatizing Black or Jewish identity. Liberalism is invaluable, precisely because it minimizes the impact of public policy on everyday life, and preserves a set of social conditions wherein collective assessments don't have to manifest as collective resentments.\n\nWithout compromising my willingness to express what I sincerely believe, I'd like to avoid any future posts which might discredit the cause of liberalism by inviting the conclusion that liberals, such as myself, are the true bigots - and that by eschewing liberalism, the progressives of the world have been following a course of righteous opposition to The Enlightenment. I'd like to share the kind of ideas that moderate leftists can read (and likely disagree with), instead of dismissing as intellectual \"non-starters\". I'd like to be able to direct particular Jews - who enjoy a good debate - to the space of this blog, without decorating (or using) any corner of it as a figurative gas chamber.\n\nI believe this is a reasonable resolve, and not tantamount to cuckoldry. If I ever become targeted by the ADL, SPLC, or a rogue battalion of SJWs, I'll consider myself in (mostly) good company, and wear their contempt as a badge of honor. I don't wish to acquiesce to the demands of evil people; merely to plant my flag firmly on the right side of history. In future posts, I'll try to describe what I believe this \"right side\" to be, in greater detail.\n\nThe right side of history WILL NOT consist of patently accepting those who shield their manners and habits beneath the sociological umbrella of an endonym (ex: Islam), then proceed to exercise political power to seek arbitrary protections and privileges for themselves.\n\nRecognizing the freedom of religion of a populace, DOES NOT make it wrong to privately discriminate against a religious group within this populace, nor to privately criticize any individual member of this populace on the basis of his or her creed. In some casis, it even becomes MANDATORY to perform such criticism, in the service of freedom. Functionally, the word 'freedom' is nearly synonymous with 'responsibility,' because freedom without responsibility would be chaos.\n\nWhere biological traits like skin color are immutable, a creed is a set of voluntarily-chosen and heavily codified principles, which an individual uses as a blueprint for regulating his or her behavior, and for determining which behaviors he or she may expect from others. If it's unreasonable to hold a man morally responsible for his creed, then it becomes unreasonable to hold him morally responsible for anything at all.\n\nTo display a belief in something, is to ask to be judged by the merits of this belief. To simultaneously demand NOT to be judged by this belief, is philosophically schizophrenic.\n\nThe argument is often made that religions are more than just personal creeds: they're traditions, or dynastic modes of being. In other words, an individual's religion is not autonomously chosen, but externally imposed. This is more true of certain religions, than others.\n\nWhen dealing with religions which are transmitted in the most (culturally) heavy-handed ways, the capacity - of the recipients of these religions - for informed assent, is the most aggressively bypassed. When you consider individuals who have been completely indoctrinated, and choose to focus on their individual lack of moral responsibility for the contents of their own indoctrination AS A JUSTIFICATION FOR morally prohibiting external judgments of their religion, you are performing the highly-illiberal task of according protections to indoctrinators.\n\nIn other words... 1) It is just to judge people by their religion, because their religion is what they have chosen to believe. 2) In cases where religions are being practiced by people who never actually chose to believe them, it's EVEN MORE important to allow for criticism of these religions, as a means of stopping the transmission of ideas too horrible to be critically accepted.\n\nA true liberal respects only cultures which are transmitted by subscription. A fake liberal invokes the concept of mandatory respect for all cultures, to demand conscription. This is, of course, a gross simplification. Please correct me, wherever I err and omit.",
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"content": "<a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=2a\" title=\"#2a\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#2a</a> When egos collide...",
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"published": "2017-10-24T16:01:07+00:00",
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"content": "#2a When egos collide...",
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"published": "2017-10-23T16:27:07+00:00",
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"content": "The Daily Beast warned America about a 'pipeline' leading from <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=libertarianism\" title=\"#libertarianism\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#libertarianism</a> to the <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=AltRight\" title=\"#AltRight\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#AltRight</a>. After much searching, it appears that I've finally discovered it!<br /><br /><a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=fashforfreedom\" title=\"#fashforfreedom\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#fashforfreedom</a>",
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"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/768201834060849152",
"published": "2017-10-20T19:59:46+00:00",
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"content": "The Daily Beast warned America about a 'pipeline' leading from #libertarianism to the #AltRight. After much searching, it appears that I've finally discovered it!\n\n#fashforfreedom",
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"content": "AFROLUSIONS<br /><br />When university professors teach that Europeans were \"civilized\" by black Africans, we need to stop calling these professors Afrocentrists. This supposed insult, is actually a great insult to Europe and her people.<br /><br />A Eurocentric curriculum is called \"Eurocentric\", because it chooses to FOCUS on great European civilizations which ACTUALLY EXISTED; it doesn't need to INVENT FICTITIOUS ONES. We shouldn't adopt terminology which confuses the activity of teaching Western civilization, with that of scamming federal student aid money by extoling KANGZ.<br /><br />These con-artists and their rubes, are nothing but <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=Afrolusional\" title=\"#Afrolusional\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#Afrolusional</a>.",
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"published": "2017-10-20T15:09:43+00:00",
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"content": "AFROLUSIONS\n\nWhen university professors teach that Europeans were \"civilized\" by black Africans, we need to stop calling these professors Afrocentrists. This supposed insult, is actually a great insult to Europe and her people.\n\nA Eurocentric curriculum is called \"Eurocentric\", because it chooses to FOCUS on great European civilizations which ACTUALLY EXISTED; it doesn't need to INVENT FICTITIOUS ONES. We shouldn't adopt terminology which confuses the activity of teaching Western civilization, with that of scamming federal student aid money by extoling KANGZ.\n\nThese con-artists and their rubes, are nothing but #Afrolusional.",
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"content": "Everyone who performs <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=censorship\" title=\"#censorship\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#censorship</a> on the basis of ideology, tends to adhere to two shockingly simple, perfectly counterfactual edicts:<br /><br />A) Certain things must always be true, even when they're not.<br />B) Certain other things may never be true, even when they are.<br /><br />Though the mindset of censors is sometimes described as \"baffling,\" it should remain accessible - so long as you keep these two principles in mind.<br /><br />Because the actual list of propositions applying to principle A or B is always subject to spontaneous revision, all censors are advised to check Salon.com frequently, lest they accidentally squelch a constitutionally-protected form of expression which has come back into style ; ]",
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"published": "2017-10-16T21:24:43+00:00",
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"content": "Everyone who performs #censorship on the basis of ideology, tends to adhere to two shockingly simple, perfectly counterfactual edicts:\n\nA) Certain things must always be true, even when they're not.\nB) Certain other things may never be true, even when they are.\n\nThough the mindset of censors is sometimes described as \"baffling,\" it should remain accessible - so long as you keep these two principles in mind.\n\nBecause the actual list of propositions applying to principle A or B is always subject to spontaneous revision, all censors are advised to check Salon.com frequently, lest they accidentally squelch a constitutionally-protected form of expression which has come back into style ; ]",
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"content": "SPEAKING OF JEWS...<br /><br />When Jews go out to eat, how do they determine who pays the bill?<br /><br />| They go Dutch, by looking for a Dutch guy at the next table, pretending he's part of their party, and sending the bill over there.<br /><br />Why did the Waffen-SS officers all switch to drinking red wine?<br /><br />| No Riesling.",
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"published": "2017-10-16T15:12:30+00:00",
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"content": "SPEAKING OF JEWS...\n\nWhen Jews go out to eat, how do they determine who pays the bill?\n\n| They go Dutch, by looking for a Dutch guy at the next table, pretending he's part of their party, and sending the bill over there.\n\nWhy did the Waffen-SS officers all switch to drinking red wine?\n\n| No Riesling.",
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"content": "DISCRIMINATION IS GOOD, Y'ALL!<br /><br />Not only is discrimination utterly ubiquitous, it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for the sustenance of civilization. As Ayn Rand points out, we must discriminate between food and poison. We also discriminate between steak and dog food, safety and risk, convenience and burden. But most importantly (for wealth creation), we discriminate between courses of action we believe will multiply our resources, and courses of action we believe will diminish them.<br /><br />We discriminate between decorating our stores to imitate palaces and outhouses, between selling purfume and bottled oxygen, between photocopying advertisements and hand-copying them. To discriminate is merely to recognize the real differences between things, to the best of our subjective abilities, and choose courses of action we believe will be the most effective. As Mises points out in Human Action, all economic activity is founded in the inescapable human tendency to exchange less preferable states for more preferable ones, by acting to change things which subjectively displease us, or impede our goals.<br /><br />We all discriminate for and against people, as well. We choose who to date and marry, who to add as Facebook friends, and who to stalk on Minds, while leaving mean comments under all their posts.<br /><br />If we see someone walking down the street and choose to follow them home and burn their house down, we've crossed a line between mere discrimination, and aggression. Even though we \"chose\" this person as a victim of arson, the necessity of discrimination doesn't justify our action, because we did commit arson. This may sound obvious, but it's an important point to remember, because when we forget where (mere) discrimination ends and aggression begins, it becomes easy for UTTERLY EVIL people to seize our liberties, by brainwashing us into habitually conflating the two.<br /><br />If I refuse to hire someone to work at my business, or to run this person's ad in my newspaper, or to give his daughter piano lessons, this choice is a reflection of my own subjective assessment of the likely consequences of doing otherwise, and neither inherently righteous nor indecent. It's no different than being a child, and denying another child admission to my treehouse club. Either the tyrannical principle must apply that EVERYONE must be allowed inside my treehouse, or else the principle (of liberty) must apply, that I am sovereign over the matter of who is to be allowed in my treehouse. Using the word \"discrimination\" doesn't magically entitle a child to enter my treehouse, and any child who attempts to claim otherwise, is setting a precedent for any number of uninvited \"guests\" to follow him home, sleep in his bed, and sit one micrometer away from him at the dinner table, while eating food directly off his plate.<br /><br />When I refuse to let Harry join my treehouse club, it doesn't matter whether my reason is A) Harry isn't fun to play with, B) Harry is fat and smells funny, or C) Harry's family are a bunch of Gypsies. The other kids may argue all they like about whether my reason for excluding Harry is a good or bad one, but regardless of their opinions, there is no such thing as an illegitimate reason for my exercise of this exclusion, because my authority to exclude Harry is derived from my OWNERSHIP OF THE TREEHOUSE, not from my REASON FOR EXCLUDING HIM.<br /><br />If they don't like my decision to exclude Harry from the club, some other members of the club who I do want to play with, may quit in protest, placing pressure upon me to change my mind about Harry. This is just as much their prerogative, as it is my prerogative to exclude Harry. In this way, I am HELD RESPONSIBLE for the manner in which I discriminate. However, my act of discrimination against Harry doesn't entitle a dissenting member of my treehouse club to punch me in the face, any more than my distaste for Harry might've entitled me to chase his Gypsy family out of town with a shotgun. Either of these would've been an act of aggression.<br /><br />These concepts are simple enough to understand, but when it comes to adult activities such as hiring and college admissions, we allow ourselves to be talked out of our own understanding of them, by irrational claims that discriminating against individual members of certain classes, would be inimical to the welfare of these entire classes. This couldn't be any further from the truth.<br /><br />If I own a shipping company and refuse to hire any Muslims, my ability to damage the job prospects of Islamic Americans is limited to the size of my business. The more irrational I am with my hiring decisions, the less effectively my shipping business will be able to compete against local competitors (who will swoop in to hire all the productive labor I pass over due to my prejudices, and use this productivity to out-compete me), and the MORE MY ABILITY TO DAMAGE THE JOB PROSPECTS OF ISLAMIC AMERICANS WILL DIMINISH.<br /><br />This is how capitalism works. Everyone pays the price of their own discrimination, and over time resources flow from those who discriminate foolishly, to those who discriminate wisely. This is equally true, whether the question is \"Should I offer a summer sale price on overstocked pens?\" or \"Should I let Mohammed operate the cash register?\"<br /><br />As the owner of a business, it's my task to operate the business profitably, and I may use whichever traits of people I wish, as a shortcut to passing judgment upon their ability to cooperate with me in achieving this goal - in their roles as vendors, partners, employees or customers.<br /><br />If laws exist (such as the 'public accomodations clause' of the 1964 Civil Rights Act) which infringe upon my prerogative to judge people according to my own criteria, it should be clear that these laws were passed by lawmakers who disliked liberty, didn't understand capitalism, and were very hypocritical as children in their policies concerning treehouse admission. But what else should we expect, from those who attain positions of political power in a democracy? To paraphrase Plato, in The Republic: \"That shit ain't fair; it jus' be mob rule, dooooooood.\"",
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"url": "https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/765249094682681344",
"published": "2017-10-12T16:26:37+00:00",
"source": {
"content": "DISCRIMINATION IS GOOD, Y'ALL!\n\nNot only is discrimination utterly ubiquitous, it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for the sustenance of civilization. As Ayn Rand points out, we must discriminate between food and poison. We also discriminate between steak and dog food, safety and risk, convenience and burden. But most importantly (for wealth creation), we discriminate between courses of action we believe will multiply our resources, and courses of action we believe will diminish them.\n\nWe discriminate between decorating our stores to imitate palaces and outhouses, between selling purfume and bottled oxygen, between photocopying advertisements and hand-copying them. To discriminate is merely to recognize the real differences between things, to the best of our subjective abilities, and choose courses of action we believe will be the most effective. As Mises points out in Human Action, all economic activity is founded in the inescapable human tendency to exchange less preferable states for more preferable ones, by acting to change things which subjectively displease us, or impede our goals.\n\nWe all discriminate for and against people, as well. We choose who to date and marry, who to add as Facebook friends, and who to stalk on Minds, while leaving mean comments under all their posts.\n\nIf we see someone walking down the street and choose to follow them home and burn their house down, we've crossed a line between mere discrimination, and aggression. Even though we \"chose\" this person as a victim of arson, the necessity of discrimination doesn't justify our action, because we did commit arson. This may sound obvious, but it's an important point to remember, because when we forget where (mere) discrimination ends and aggression begins, it becomes easy for UTTERLY EVIL people to seize our liberties, by brainwashing us into habitually conflating the two.\n\nIf I refuse to hire someone to work at my business, or to run this person's ad in my newspaper, or to give his daughter piano lessons, this choice is a reflection of my own subjective assessment of the likely consequences of doing otherwise, and neither inherently righteous nor indecent. It's no different than being a child, and denying another child admission to my treehouse club. Either the tyrannical principle must apply that EVERYONE must be allowed inside my treehouse, or else the principle (of liberty) must apply, that I am sovereign over the matter of who is to be allowed in my treehouse. Using the word \"discrimination\" doesn't magically entitle a child to enter my treehouse, and any child who attempts to claim otherwise, is setting a precedent for any number of uninvited \"guests\" to follow him home, sleep in his bed, and sit one micrometer away from him at the dinner table, while eating food directly off his plate.\n\nWhen I refuse to let Harry join my treehouse club, it doesn't matter whether my reason is A) Harry isn't fun to play with, B) Harry is fat and smells funny, or C) Harry's family are a bunch of Gypsies. The other kids may argue all they like about whether my reason for excluding Harry is a good or bad one, but regardless of their opinions, there is no such thing as an illegitimate reason for my exercise of this exclusion, because my authority to exclude Harry is derived from my OWNERSHIP OF THE TREEHOUSE, not from my REASON FOR EXCLUDING HIM.\n\nIf they don't like my decision to exclude Harry from the club, some other members of the club who I do want to play with, may quit in protest, placing pressure upon me to change my mind about Harry. This is just as much their prerogative, as it is my prerogative to exclude Harry. In this way, I am HELD RESPONSIBLE for the manner in which I discriminate. However, my act of discrimination against Harry doesn't entitle a dissenting member of my treehouse club to punch me in the face, any more than my distaste for Harry might've entitled me to chase his Gypsy family out of town with a shotgun. Either of these would've been an act of aggression.\n\nThese concepts are simple enough to understand, but when it comes to adult activities such as hiring and college admissions, we allow ourselves to be talked out of our own understanding of them, by irrational claims that discriminating against individual members of certain classes, would be inimical to the welfare of these entire classes. This couldn't be any further from the truth.\n\nIf I own a shipping company and refuse to hire any Muslims, my ability to damage the job prospects of Islamic Americans is limited to the size of my business. The more irrational I am with my hiring decisions, the less effectively my shipping business will be able to compete against local competitors (who will swoop in to hire all the productive labor I pass over due to my prejudices, and use this productivity to out-compete me), and the MORE MY ABILITY TO DAMAGE THE JOB PROSPECTS OF ISLAMIC AMERICANS WILL DIMINISH.\n\nThis is how capitalism works. Everyone pays the price of their own discrimination, and over time resources flow from those who discriminate foolishly, to those who discriminate wisely. This is equally true, whether the question is \"Should I offer a summer sale price on overstocked pens?\" or \"Should I let Mohammed operate the cash register?\"\n\nAs the owner of a business, it's my task to operate the business profitably, and I may use whichever traits of people I wish, as a shortcut to passing judgment upon their ability to cooperate with me in achieving this goal - in their roles as vendors, partners, employees or customers.\n\nIf laws exist (such as the 'public accomodations clause' of the 1964 Civil Rights Act) which infringe upon my prerogative to judge people according to my own criteria, it should be clear that these laws were passed by lawmakers who disliked liberty, didn't understand capitalism, and were very hypocritical as children in their policies concerning treehouse admission. But what else should we expect, from those who attain positions of political power in a democracy? To paraphrase Plato, in The Republic: \"That shit ain't fair; it jus' be mob rule, dooooooood.\"",
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"content": "The (crypto-communist) left loves <a href=\"https://www.minds.com/search?f=top&t=all&q=democracy\" title=\"#democracy\" class=\"u-url hashtag\" target=\"_blank\">#democracy</a>, because it's an inherently flawed system that generates lots of problems.<br /><br />Professional leftists profiteer from \"social\" programs, which centrally address these problems without actually solving them, and typically make them worse.<br /><br />So when you break it down, it's completely rational that leftists take every opportunity to praise and promote democracy. They've even manufactured the false dichotomy of democracy/communism, to confuse people into supporting their interests under one name, or the other.",
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"content": "The (crypto-communist) left loves #democracy, because it's an inherently flawed system that generates lots of problems.\n\nProfessional leftists profiteer from \"social\" programs, which centrally address these problems without actually solving them, and typically make them worse.\n\nSo when you break it down, it's completely rational that leftists take every opportunity to praise and promote democracy. They've even manufactured the false dichotomy of democracy/communism, to confuse people into supporting their interests under one name, or the other.",
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