100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
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User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
12hr ago
and he has claimed the intention to convert to Christianity.
You can't fake true, in the heart intent. If Scott Adams is doing this because he is, all of a sudden, afraid of going to hell, then 1) He's acting out of fear (sinful) and 2) Is not acting out of a true love for God (also sin). All that being said, I don't actually believe that all deathbed repentances are invalid. Sometimes, someone is called in those last few moments. While it may seem like this is the ultimate "Get out of jail free" card, the reality would probably be that the person, while truly called to Christ and therefore happy to (after a stop in purgatory) go to paradise, is also full of remorse for not having Him in their life for all of their other years. Imagine having had an entire life you thought was happy and then, moments before death, discovering the ultimate in music / art / passion. It probably wouldn't actually be that enjoyable as you'd be full of regret.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14hr ago
But if you're not implementing a minmax strat, playing for the 'meta,' you can feel like you're losing constantly in the short term.
Absolutely. So what matters more is which game you choose to play. Finite and Infinite Games does a great job of describing the two types of primary social games. This is one of my most recommended books.
Not to bring it back to Jesus, but ... to bring it back to Jesus, the entire "game" chosen there is sacrificing the fame / wealth / comfort of this world for the infinite comfort of the next. From a pure game theoretic standpoint, it's a total no-brainer. If not only the expected return but the guaranteed return to one course of action is literally infinite bliss forever, you go all in on that. For people who choose not to believe, they are still making a somewhat rational decision in their pursuit of wealth/status in this life. The tricky part is for lukewarm believers - C&E beige Catholics, whishy washy mainline protestants, cultural Jews, secular Muslims etc. who "believe" yet also hedge by pursuing wealth and status on earth. It's actually that exact non-minmax you're talking about and they'll likely get caught in the middle one way or another. And then, you know ,go to Hell forever.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14hr ago
Good review.
There's also kind of an unintentional self-own. During the riot scene, when Jenkins gets everybody food, rallies the troops, and says something like "Everyone goes home tonight!" it's hard not to feel solidarity with the police as a horde of barbarians encircles them.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14hr ago
I don't think they are actually fighting for male attention. I think this is ingroup status signalling and woman trying to be more popular among women. The prize seems less tangible.
I agree. This (and mobile gambling / sports betting) is the only "social media is destroying the world" narrative I buy. Political / ideological "radicalization" has been more or less debunked (it's the 1-5% of online political hyper posters who actually get real weird). "Phone addiction" while real in a habitual but not neurochemical sense is mostly a matter of self discipline and cultivating a dynamic and varied lifestyle.
But intrasexual competition for status is hardwired into both males and females. The difference being that for females, a lot more of the status is derived from attention markets - what other people think of you relative to other women. For men, it's more about quantitative and hierarchical absolute performance rather than a group voting / market dynamic. Far less ambiguity.
This is where social media really does "hack" the brain. It is an always on, 24/7 "who is the popular girl" machine that requires constant updates and vigilance from all users. The only want to win is not to play or - as in the Bonnie Blue case - to pursue such an extreme strategy that you'll have very few direct competitors, but may, perversely, actually lose status the more you exploit it.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14hr ago
I think it can be done if you're a high status enough male and if the framing is correct.
I can't think of a good example for the pure high status male, but, for framing, the host of the "Whatever" podcast, when he wants to, does this well. Unfortunately, that show has mostly turned into a circus where he invites on OnlyFans models and then literally guys from Andrew Tate's posse to flame each other. If you can find clips, however, where it's just the host and usually 1 - 3 OnlyFans girls, he actually does a passable job of framing he issue as one of personal integrity and self-worth versus instant gratification.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14hr ago
I like this comment because it sets up and interesting model.
Want a thing and don't care about status games? Buy it. Get rich, get what you want.
Want status but don't care about money? Get famous through any means necessary.
Want a thing and also care about status? Play whatever status game you want, and get to the level of wealth you need to acquire the thing.
But, of course, we see the hacks all over the place.
If you have lots of money - like, lots and lots of it - you acquire at least some status. If you have a lot of status (fame) you can pretty easily acquire money, perhaps even lots and lots of it.
It's that "both" model that is tricky. You want both status and money but you have to balance out one with the other lest you lose one or the other.
I don't know. This was off the top of my head, but it's interesting to play with.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14hr ago
They are both reenacting the past to give themselves gender valdiating experiences, men getting to pretend to experience heroism and self-sacrifice in combat
War re-enactors?! No, these are neckbeards playing dress up. They want to be hailed for their assiduous attention to historical detail and accuracy, not their "heroism." Even if airsoft, which is pseudo-athletic, most of the time is spent geeking out over hyperrealistic gear, rather than drilling movement to contact.
The male "gender validation" activity is sports. Go to any sports bar and just listen, you'll find several different styles of conversation, but it's all about the fantasy of kicking the shit out of the other team. You have the has been High School QBs who know more about the game than the NFL does ("sloppy defense!"), you have the hyper nerds who want to systematize dominance ("Davante Adams averages 1.8 yards of separation per target, you can't cover him even if you're covering him!"), and just the highly emotive (and likely drunk) general issue fans ("Go! go! go! COME ON, COME ON, YOU CAN'T CALL THAT A HOLD!").
miming heterosexual sex positions.
I woke up feelin' cheesiest, coach in a kind of DEUS VULT! mood. This has only exacerbated it. Burn the witch.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
15hr ago
I agree with this and, sadly, think it extends further.
When men do communicate directly, it's perfectly acceptable for a female partner to issue a blanket veto in either a positive or negative sense.
"Hey, babe, I like blowjobs."
"I am not a fleshlight for your entertainment!"
Subtext: The guy wasn't commanding or coercing a blowjob, but was voicing his own kinks or whatever. The response assumed an imperative "command" and the veto is delivered.
"Hey, babe, I'm stoked about your plans for your friend's baby shower, but, that's the same time as the football game I wanted to watch. Perhaps you go it alone?"
"You never support me!"
Subtext: The guy is gently trying to message that he'll be miserable at the baby shower, it's likely she will detect his miserableness, and this, in and of itself, may be the cause of a fight later in the day. Furthermore, he has a reason that is, to him, quite important to not be at the babyshower. He's probably looking to make a compromise, she immediately jumps to the assumption that he's merely thinking "lol, fucking gay-ass babyshower."
First, I don't think the above is the de facto communication pattern in modern relationships. It is, however, common enough in my own experience and observation that I don't think what I've outlined above qualifies as hyperbole. And, of course, there are mature couples who can talk about their sexual kinks / fantasies etc. without getting weirded out (even if it includes toaster fucking) and can reasonably make concessions on social outings and recreation to fit each other's strong preferences as well.
Still, I think there is a an imbalance between how normie men and women are allowed / incultured to use vetos and other strong-arm relationship tactics. And I believe it is new. I can remember as a child asking my Grandfather what going to work was like for him (did you use a typewriter or a quill pen, ahahaha!) He told me about his day and then dropped this nice little anecdote;
"Your Grandma always had dinner ready when I got home, because a good wife knows that her husband is going to be hungry after a long day of work!" The obvious level of recoil on one or two of my aunt's faces was priceless. Even the more well adjusted pair rolled their eyes and gave small smirks.
But, perhaps, isn't this just the revelation of my Grandfather's preference that he, very likely, explicitly communicated to my Grandmother? Was this horrifically insulting and demeaning to Grandma? (I can assure you it was not.)
In today's normie long term relationships, I see a verbal pattern with men that is equivocal and designed to be low impact. "Hey, babe, I was thinking that ..." or " You know what could be fun?" or "Oh, hey, wanted to run something by you ...." It is extremely uncommon to hear a direct imperative tense verb; "Pick up the dry cleaning, please" or "Make sure dinner is ready at 6:30" or "We are going to the potluck on Saturday." This is a retreat from male coded directness to female coded subtlety. It is, in fact, the de facto verbal mode of the basic normie marriage.
Up front caveat: I love prediction markets.
First, don't think of prediction markets as roughly the same as the stock market. They are wildly different. The "stock market" - which is, more broadly and accurate, the regulated exchange of financial instruments - is far more complex and serves vastly different purposes. The stock market is not about bidding on the correct outcome of something in the future. It isn't even, necessarily, about maximizing - in all cases - return on investment. Hedging and managing risk is just as important, if not more so. Much of it is about how to finance the ongoing operations of a firm. Still other parts of it are about building a portfolio that performs to a given objective with understandable and (didn't I already say this) manageable risk.
Most critically, the stock market never "resolves." It is continuous (unless, of course, we actually have a financial meltdown).
Prediction markets are, first, continuous before they're discreet. You have a range of outcomes, though most commonly two. People are free to trade their confidence on those outcomes (via price). That's it. Can this be manipulated to work like the stock market? Yeah, kind of. Except, the bids you make on Kalshi or Polymarket don't actually represent ownership in anything. There's no preference in liquidation (a la senior debt etc.) It's just a bet on what will, eventually, happen. It's a truth discovery mechanism.
Therefore, insider trading is actually great. If someone has better information, we want to know about it, and the market ought to reflect this. That a prediction market about Maduro being deposed even kicked off the night before the op is valuable info! Would I bet into it? Probably not. Which brings me to point 2:
Don't bet on things - directly - that can have insiders. The easy example is something like weather temperatures they are natural phenomena - nobody knows, for sure, what the weather will be tomorrow. There are other examples which are more indirect -- will Mike Johnson be speaker of the house at the end of next year? That requires a vote and no one knows what that vote will be until, perhaps, the very final hours before it happens. There is no insider here until after a certain time and, even then, it isn't a "hard" insider the way this Maduro thing probably was. It isn't hard to look at a market and go "how much insidering could there be?" If you want to bet into it, that's fine, that's your decision.
The knee jerk aversion to insider trading is mostly a product of a lot of Enron era hectoring by Congress and the press. (Fun fact: Enron wasn't even really insider trading so much as straight up fraud). To me, the bigger problem is that the overregulation of the markets makes insider trading "a thing" as the kids say. If markets were open 24/7 (as they should be), companies could choose to report whatever and whenever they wanted, there would be a lot less rigidity. The game would "move faster" and so trying to cheat at it via insider moves wouldn't be as profitable. Open and free flowing information means there is less opportunity to profit from having "special" information because so little of any information can be special when it's all "out there." The government created the space for insider trading to be a problem. Prediction markets show that it isn't a problem and, in fact, gets us faster to "truth".
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