Details please.

Run DMC - Rock Box (1984)
"After having to wait for the heavy metal band Riot to finish their studio time so the group could record new tracks, the group and producers were influenced by their loud guitar sound and attempted to create a guitar based track. After McDaniels and Simmons recorded their rhymes, Smith developed the track, including inviting his friend Eddie Martinez to record layers of guitar solos to match the song."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Box

Until today I didn't know Century Media had added a ton of stuff on their Bandcamp.

Lots of good stuff by Coroner, Afflicted, Sindrome, Demolition Hammer, Voivod, Gorement, Asphyx, Dark Tranquillity, Grave, Cro-Mags, Nevermore, Sentenced, The Gathering, Orphaned Land, Necrophobic, Triptykon, Morgoth, Unanimated, Unleashed, Dawn, Borknagar, Krisiun, Moonspell, Strapping Young Lad, Aborted, Tribulation, Morbus Chron, Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, Misery Index, Napalm Death, and more.

https://centurymedia.bandcamp.com/music

One hole in my death metal knowledge has always been Grave. Last week I decided to remedy that, and holy shit where has this band been my whole life? Not only are their first two albums exactly what I want out of '90s death metal, but their most recent two are so much better than I expected a death metal band who's been at it since the '80s to sound -- hard-hitting, heavy, brimming with endless riffs. I still have quite a few albums to get to, but I have the impression they have one of those whatever mid-periods. Anyone know why they haven't done one since 2015?

Is there a hole for Unleashed? Their 2006 and forwards releases are great.

Big ABV dark beer = cool brew. Rich sips till I die.

heavy beers are the absolute best. eagerly waiting to try the ones i posted on the discord

Dating apps have been a colossal disappointment. I was briefly talking to a woman and things seemed to be getting on fine enough. Fizzled out like a bad fart

Yeah, talk about a waste of fucking time

Unrelated to the above (seriously, not trying to be a jerk), but I just read a short article about an AI "companion" named ElliQ.

Here's an especially sad quote:



And yet, to my surprise:



Man... I find this pretty strange and sad, disturbing in a way. Maybe it's just me.

--
Edited to add:

Q. How do Internet forums differ from AI companions?
A. With Internet forums, you can tell yourself that there's consciousness, comprehension, and some degree of caring on the other side of your screen, and you'll be correct at least some of the time.

I mean, you've been on this very forum alone for how long now? People are judge-y, smug, ignorant (confidently ignorant/wrong sometimes, which is even worse), edgy just for the sake of being edgy (this is a metal forum, after all), etc...
I could probably list every negative adjective known in the English language and they'd all be on point.

It's the same reason many people say they prefer dogs/cats over humans. They're not going to judge you, you know they have no ulterior motives and you never feel the urge to kick their teeth in, even if they do something that annoys you you know it isn't out of malice or just for the hell of it. I can't even say that about many people on here, frankly.




On the rare occasion, yes. Most of the time, you'd be hard pressed to find any. At least anything genuine

And this is one of the better internet message boards as far as insanity and idiocy goes. Sites like Reddit are an absolute hellhole. I think being on Reddit and working customer service for so long before I landed my current job has driven my opinion of my fellow human into the ground. I try to be reasonable about people and my expectations of them, but I can't help but harbor a bit of antipathy. It's no wonder that dating has become something of a shitshow if you analyze the current state of interpersonal relationships.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply anything about this specific forum... My train of thought on reading the article was like: "This is troubling, as it seems to show how people can be so lacking in actual companionship that they'll settle for a technologically sophisticated but still illusory substitute. But wait, doesn't that sound a bit like what you (Defenestrated) are doing just by posting on a message board?" - hence my sort of wondering aloud about the similarities and differences between (pseudo-)socializing with an AI bot and (pseudo-)socializing on a message board. The "pseudo-" is IMO more applicable to the AI bot, deeply applicable, I'm tempted to say.

I'm sort of instinctively an AI skeptic. I know someone who likes to tease me by allowing me to witness them "exchanging pleasantries" with Alexa. I'll pretend to be bewildered and insist that it (not "she") is only a combination of a very elaborate calculator and a literally mindless parrot, or something a lot like that... (But part of me isn't pretending!)

In many cases, you'd still get more substantive conversation from an AI bot than a random dipshit on any given message board. At least in my opinion...

My point still stands, the state of interpersonal relationships are in the toilet, both online and IRL. Your thought experiment only further supports that notion I think

That's been my own observation too. I think what I've realized lately - and I hope this will help others too - is that a lot of interpersonal relationships are built and sustained on a lack of intimacy, openness and honesty. I've noticed that my attempts to improve my communication in those aspects has, if anything, compromised a lot of potential relationships that might have flourished had I been more (for want of a better word) inhibited. That's not to say those attempts haven't helped enormously with the few people I have authentic connections with, but the overwhelming majority of people don't want authentic connections because it makes them vulnerable. They want protection and safety, and that requires hiding behind mental illusions. And as soon as those people realize you're not offering that, they run for the hills. Most of this occurs subconsciously, I might add.

So don't feel bad if you're not getting much luck in the realm of relationships. If, like me, you're wanting something real and authentic, those kind of romantic relationships that everyone else but yourself seems to be able to have might not have been what you wanted anyway.

On the subject of AI companions - I'd guess that it's a mix of both. It offers safety because you're being seen but not by someone who could criticize or judge or hurt you. So you're able to be open in a way you wouldn't with a real stranger. I must admit I find it a little bit sad that there are so few opportunities or spaces where people feel they can do that in the real world, with real people. But maybe in some strange way it's a step towards that.

Openness and authenticity are and always have been a matter of balance. I think most people today would agree that, yes, authenticity is a valued human characteristic and authentic connection is something to be desired. But I know people who think that means if they are 'authentic', then they're entitled to connection, whether or not they fit well with the people they're trying to connect with. And I know people who are sure as hell open and 'authentic', which leads them to say and express things that end up just making people uncomfortable. In both cases, they assume they fail to connect with people because those people don't want authenticity. In reality, sometimes you can be your authentic self and it just doesn't connect with certain people, and that's okay. And sometimes, the things your authentic self says and does show that you need to work on yourself before people feel comfortable connecting with you.

It seems pretty egotistical to proudly label yourself as one of the precious few who still values authenticity in a society that has gone shallow/judgmental/insert your negative adjective of choice, which is how some of these posts come across. Is it more likely that you're the only ones with the perspicacity and authenticity to see the dismal state of interpersonal relationships and rise above it... or is it possible that, actually, people connect with one another just fine (even if the way they do so changes with developments in communication technology) and you may just need to reconsider how you view and connect with people?

People in general, for all of time, would probably agree that authenticity is a valued human characteristic. It's one of those traits that people...homo sapiens as a species, regardless of creed, religion, culture, etc... tend to value more often than not. Which is why it's bizarre that it's something people are so coy about when it comes to interpersonal relationships. It's only gotten worse with time from what I've observed.



Yes, we all know and/or have known folks like this. That isn't what we're talking about, here, homie...



Give me a break. We ALL have issues, personality flaws and shit we need to work on in order to be able to better connect with people. Every single person currently alive and everyone that has ever lived and everyone that ever will live. It's just the human condition.

That fact doesn't negate anything that's been pointed out here



Well, I'm sorry you feel that way.



It isn't as if we're the select few that have noticed it. There have been numerous articles, studies, reddit posts, etc... that have outlined, discussed, observed the state of modern interpersonal relationships. The common denominator is that they all seem to point out one or more issues with the state of things today.

The bizarre thing is, even though the consensus seems to be that there's a problem, nobody really seems to have the gumption to do shit about it, at least not in any way that's meaningful or significant. I don't expect any one person to make mountains move, or even a bunch of someones. But if people really are lonely and miserable, what would it take for humans to go back to being the social creatures that we literally evolved to be? Instead of careening towards a self-fulfilling prophecy of turning to technology to fill those voids and needs/wants?



I'm sorry, but if you truly believe that...then you're either delusional or just not paying attention at all.

Yes, yes you are.

Thanks for contributing to the discussion

(while ironically also contributing to the problem)

You're welcome!
So it's all of us who is the problem, and you are somehow above it?

Clearly you didn't read anything I wrote

No, because I'm ignorant.

You said it, not me!

In fact, you did.
Leaving this now

I implied that you were one of those things, I never specifically said which one. That was you, homie!

Either way, no sweat off my back

I don't know if you're picking up what I'm putting down here, which is that the folks making posts of the kind I was responding to might consider if they are, in fact, among those with a mistaken sense of what it means to be 'authentic'.


That's very true. But I had reference to folks whose issues might include, say, having trouble recognizing when a topic of conversation isn't appropriate/welcome, or recognizing boundaries, or correctly gauging their level of closeness with another person, and who may then feel annoyed because they were trying to be authentic but failed to connect or 'scared off' the person they were trying to connect with.


The problem with a lot of those articles is that hardly any I've ever seen can really articulate what the problem is. And the ones that can, the ones I think do make a valid case-- the Bowling Alone phenomenon comes to mind-- don't seem to really be what you and others in this thread are getting at, which is that "people are lonely and miserable" to an extent they never were before because they have "mental illusions" and because their relationships are built on a "lack of intimacy, openness and honesty."

I accept that criticism and it's nothing new for me, looking down on "others" who aren't doing the thing I believe they should be. Communication is my biggest challenge and in spite of some improvements I've still got a lot of hurdles to overcome, so I'll step back and reflect for a while after this. Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.

One last point of contention on the word "egotistical" - wouldn't you agree you're doing the same thing you accused me of with the word "authenticity"? I've tried living in the world without an "ego" and, believing it bad, bending over backwards to accommodate everyone else's wishes but my own and eventually becoming so passive I didn't want to do anything except eat and sleep and go on meditative forest walks. I'm now trying to build some balance and sometimes I swing too far in the one direction, so I hope you'll forgive me for that.



Yes, those are all valid issues. They can be worked on and overcome. I know I have some of them, I just don't see them as reason to abandon my attempts to be more honest and sincere in my interactions. Simply because I've found those interactions to be more fulfilling, NOT just for me. But yes, boundaries are very important.

But let me ask - what's the alternative? To greet every person whom you ask "how are you?" with a response which is clearly bullshit like "I'm good", when you can see on their face how untrue that is? Is the fact that our societal conditioning has called for such generic responses for so long a justification for our disengagement and inhibition? I can only speak for myself, but I'd rather interact with someone as they are, not as they are expected to be. And, again from experience, I think they'd rather that too. And that's not to say there aren't exceptions and of course no one should be forced into interacting in a way they don't want.



I agree there's not enough being done. Have you looked into the Authentic Relating or Radical Honesty movements? There are groups and in-person events in most major cities, might be good for meeting like-minded people whose values are more aligned with yours. At least, from what I've read from your posts here.

I repeat my statement: THAT'S EVERYBODY

Are you telling me, not once in your adult life have you had an instance where you didn't read the room properly and said something off kilter or offensive and scared off someone or multiple someones? Or misread your degree of closeness with someone and inadvertently damaged the relationship, if not outright sabotaged the relationship? Or had some major miscommunication or had a falling out with someone due to either issues that all involved parties equally contributed to or issues that you alone caused?

Hell, maybe you've even had that happen more than once or twice.

If not, you're the most perfect motherfucker on the planet. Please tell me your secrets, oh great one!

People who find themselves chronically in those scenarios usually have other underlying issues or may have an actual mental health condition that plays a huge role in that, which is unfortunate, but it's factual. Those are separate factors altogether.



So I'm going to infer that you think the state of interpersonal relationships in today's society is just fine and dandy, just simply different?

Again, sorry but I wholeheartedly disagree lol.

I might have to look into it.

This is sort of relevant to the discussion; but it's about my relationship with two of my dearest friends

One is brutally honest, to a fault. I've shared my deepest, darkest secrets and thoughts with him. He has zero issues telling me where I fucked up, why I fucked up and that I'm an idiot for thinking/behaving in the manner that I was.

...and frankly, I love him for it. I jokingly tell him all the time that if I was gay, I would've married him. He gets a kick out of it every time, his bf not so much, but whatever.

My other friend, while he's still awesome, has a tendency to sugar coat things or blow smoke up people's asses (mine in particular) to spare their feelings or to make them feel better. It actually pisses me off when he does that, and he acts surprised and turn it back on me whenever I point that out to him. I don't care what he says to his/our other friends, but don't do that shit to me. I'm not interested in that sort of friendship.

I generally trust both of them are being equally authentic with me, but I do question the second one. Perhaps that's a fault that I have to work on, but at least I'm aware enough to recognize where that may be a problem with myself.

I haven't heard of Authentic Relating. What's the idea behind that?

Radical Honesty, I think I read an article or two on - or maybe I'm thinking of some discussions I saw on Sam Harris's Lying...it's been a long while, though, and I haven't followed Sam Harris since 2014's Waking Up. (I actually remember enjoying Waking Up for the most part, though ultimately I was more inclined to explore outside the neighborhood of New Atheism, and it also looked like Harris was being increasingly embraced by people of an alt-right or Intellectual Dark Web bent.)

The impression I had of Lying was "Yes, dear, that dress makes you look fat" as a way of life. Maybe that's caricaturing it a bit, but I think the idea was to reject the notion of white lies, lies which seem to be harmless and/or necessary. It sounds noble, sure, but I can't escape the sense that it's...well, the adjectives that come to my mind are "rigid," "naive," "severe," "over-ambitious"...

Taking a somewhat more careful look at Radical Honesty - I mean, simply perusing this Core Principles statement I just now Googled - my reaction is mixed. I'll just quote and respond to this bit:



This is bold, and its plausibility/implausibility depends on how broadly "lying" is understood. If the standard case of lying looks like "No, dear, that dress does not make you look fat" (or whatnot), then it strikes me initially as pretty far-fetched: Are we supposed to picture a world in which cashiers say to customers, "My employer expects me to muster the appearance of interest in your holiday plans"; customers say to cashiers, "I'll just be moping alone in my apartment, pausing between beers to wonder where it all went wrong"; and then we all reflect on these and any similar transactions, drawing and applying the appropriate lessons...until war is finally brought to an end?

OTOH, I could see the attempt being made to address this sort of knee-jerk skepticism by generalizing the meaning of "lying" - hence, as the author says: "withholding, pretending, attachment to belief about what 'should' be true, etc." But I think there are problems with this as well, or at least with this particular attempt:

-"Withholding": There are very often good reasons to refrain from expressing our thoughts and beliefs. We seem to grasp these reasons automatically, without noticing, as they're practically built into the practice of communication. For one, many of our thoughts and beliefs are impertinent (or even hostile) to the common, underlying purposes that shape our communication. What we say and what we mean don't exactly coincide.

There are all kinds of illustrations of this here: e.g., "I drank a bottle of vodka and fell into a stupor" means that I drank a bottle of vodka and consequently fell into a stupor. Although I obviously believe that my stupor was caused by my vodka consumption, there is no need for me to explicitly state this belief - and similarly, there is no risk that the hearer will misinterpret me as indicating that the stupor might've taken place before (even years before!) the vodka consumption, even though the "and," strictly speaking, technically does create this ambiguity in the sentence as it's composed. (Incidentally, I've read that AI programmers can really struggle to capture all these unstated nuances, and so it's supposed to be surprisingly, perhaps hopelessly challenging, to create an AI that mimics human conversation without such bizarre non-sequiturs.)

-"Pretending": Does this apply to wearing makeup and deodorant? (Clothing, for that matter?)

-"Attachment to 'shoulds'": When are we not "attached" to the sense of how things should be? Maybe I'm off on this, but isn't this basically what it means to have goals, purposes, desires, intentions...? (Also, I'm not clear on how the insistence/recommendation to avoid "should"-thinking is not itself an instance of "should"-thinking. I think the author tries to avoid this sort of inconsistency by rejecting "moralistic" language, but I doubt we can ever quite achieve and maintain this.)

I'll stop for now, but here and elsewhere, my sense is that a lot of the author's statements are too imprecise and simplistic to be particularly helpful. (And it'd be very hard to achieve a decent level of clarity and precision without unwittingly implying some absurd things.)

Is this the metal venting thread?

Abigor releases a new album, hell yeah!
Only physical format, fuck no!


I don’t have nor want to have a cd/vinyl player. If they had made a k7 release at least I’d manage with my old tape recorder.

It's the final 30 minutes of 2023 in eastern Australia. I hope 2024 is the best year for everyone and that you all reach your goals, whatever they may be.

2023 was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some good, some bad. I have a lot of goals for 2024 and I do plan on getting some or all of them in progress throughout the year. Overall, though, I have the same resolution as always: I want to be/remain happy. No matter what happens, as long as I'm happy, that's fine.

Happy new year.

Well, MikeyC, by now you've entered 2024! Myself, I've still got 13 hrs., 11 mins. to go... So, er, congrats on getting there ahead of me, I guess.

I agree that 2023 was a mixed bag, at least for me. Could've been a lot worse - as always, it certainly was a lot worse for many undeserving people. But as far as my personal experience goes, 2023 gets like a 5 or 6 out of 10. I mostly look forward to things getting better in 2024. I'm optimistic that I'll have the resources, inner and otherwise, to get out of this slump I've been in lately...

(And as far as the dreaded elections go...I'll just try to make the most of the breathing room we have between now and November.)

6/10 is how I would rate 2023 for me also. No real highs or lows but family stayed healthy and thankfully no problems at work or financially.

This year is off to a good start and I hope it is for all of you out there, too. Kids having a sleepover with her grandma and my wife drank some highballs and went to sleep so I can just play games and chill for a few hours, and my mom is bringing my daughter home with cake tomorrow. Happy new year everyone.

I'd give 2023 a 7/10. It was a surprisingly good year for me all things considered. 2024 scares me, though

For me, 2023 was a pretty good year too, though I'm bracing myself for the shitshow that will be the 2024 election in my country...

2023 was one of the greatest years of my life. Maybe the #1.

I'm hoping everyone here has the best year of their life in 2024.

I mostly want to leave last year behind entirely. I've made some pretty poor choices for a long time now.

Henceforth, put up your choices here and we will tell you what the right choices are.
Make a thread: Make Empy make the choices he should make.

Ah I think it's pretty obvious to anyone including myself at this point. Lol.

Copy-paste from authrev.org:

"Authentic Relating (AR) is the practice of freely expressing your true experience in the company of others.
Expressing in this way enables you to create connections in the world based on who you really are.
Authentic Relating practices create a safe, intentional space - rooted in play and supported by clear boundaries - to create meaningful and enjoyable connections to self and other. By learning Authentic Relating skills, you can drop your conditioned relational habits, and learn to relate with yourself and others from a deeper more authentic expression of your truth.
This allows us to be more human with one another, in ways that often fall by the wayside in today's social norms."

I've heard it called by some facilitators a type of "meditation", a practical method that allows you to see what is there in relationship, without self-judgement. Which is something we aren't given many opportunities to do in everyday life - if any.

All of that might sound vague, and that might be because authenticity is hard to define. Here's a decent article on what it means to be authentic: https://authenticmontreal.ca/2019/04/29/authentic/



The idea of Radical Honesty is a bit different from this - the intention isn't to eliminate lying but to help reverse the "domination of the being by the mind". As my Radical Honesty book says, the language of being is descriptive while the language of the mind is evaluative. And really, the phrase "that dress makes you look fat" may not be a lie but it's very mind-centered and opaque. It isn't describing what is happening within the being of the speaker at that moment, it's making mind-based judgements based on comparisons and standards which are completely different from one person to another. It's also pretty obvious the intention of saying "that dress makes you look fat" is to criticise and not to be honest, to expose the self, to be authentic. I think the honesty vs transparency point is important - a statement can be "honest" but not transparent, and like you I feel like Sam Harris is being way too literal in talking about honesty.



The book I've got devotes a whole chapter to the levels of truth-telling, and it's obviously inappropriate to give higher levels of truth as a cashier to a customer. I do agree there are practical challenges, but see no reason that cultural changes can't be implemented gradually. Eventually I see people getting used to simply being honest - instead of the dead-faced obligatory response of "I'm good" to "how are you?" maybe we can open to expressing deeper levels of truth, gradually changing the existing culture of relating. I'm not particularly happy with that culture, and haven't been since a young age. It's exhausting to have to pretend to be something I'm not and I've noticed how it strips aliveness from my interactions and relationships. I think there's been a reversal going on since the 60s at least, and I see that process continuing naturally in each generation who aren't as willing to put up with the bullshit of the previous one. More active movements like AR and RH come in to accelerate that process, and I think more people are starting to see their value.



This goes to what I said above - telling stories isn't what is meant by being honest. If you're going into the past with the mind and reflecting your perceptions as truth, then you're not describing what is true for you in the moment. You can't be describing the truth because perceptions change according to the perceiver. We all see things slightly differently, and holding "our" truth as the only truth is only going to lead to trouble. Isn't this partly the reason for most of our conflict in interpersonal relations, in international relations, in domestic politics?



Possibly, although I don't see those as much of an issue. I'd probably say it's more about why those particular forms of pretending are used. Is it to conceal, out of a felt sense of obligation or lack, our of fear of not being enough? Or is it out of a positive desire to add color to external aspects of the person? Personally it's been a huge relief for me to not feel like I need to somehow make myself conform to a perceived external standard, and that in turn has improved my communication and interaction with others greatly.



I think having a goal is different to being attached to the outcome of that goal. I can have a goal or intention and desire a particular outcome, but that is very different to believing that same outcome "should" occur. That's when attachment and the desire to control comes in, and in turn, anger, greed, egoism, hate, etc. Buddhism talks about this in its doctrine of non-attachment and the ancient Vedic texts talk about the practice of Karma Yoga, which is about performing actions without expecting any particular result. Interestingly, honesty is also a pretty big part of these ancient religions, and the Buddhists I know seem just a little less neurotic than the rest of us.

Thanks for all that! Lots of stuff to chew on...

When I read statements like this one (from the second of your two links):

"I believe self transparency and self honesty have value and must be practiced and exercised. I also think we need to take breaks sometimes and relax. Interpersonal transparency and honesty don't always have value and one must chose wisely when to exercise them and when not. That's my belief, but I also have a strong value in moving toward more interpersonal transparency and honesty."

...I get a different impression than I initially had. It sounds more reasonable and down-to-earth. (But I also find myself wondering what's really "Radical" about it.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not without sympathy - I sometimes notice my peers talking and behaving in ways that strike me as "phony" or "stilted" etc.; if it happens enough, then I'll get frustrated, and struggle not to resent what feels like a weird and arbitrary expectation to perform these roles and play these "games" I frankly suck at, to feign thoughts and feelings that are really quite alien to me, etc. (But at the end of the day, I figure this is pretty much a universal experience, which everyone's bound to have to some degree in certain uncomfortable situations: i.e., simply being out of one's element.)