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.
9d ago
I am a cradle catholic, but with two caveats. First, I was raised in the very definition of a "leafy suburb Novus Ordo" parish. Second, almost all of my 20s I was totally away from the church - zero mass attendance, zero daily prayer.
I'm now a (developing) traditional catholic. Latin mass, much better (re)cathechesis, real theological reading and study - although this last part is largely just do to my ability to sit still now.
However, I didn't have any specific moment of reawakening. The journey was longer and sort of ... academic? I started reading about epistemology when I was working in Data Science. I did this because I found it profoundly preposterous how professional "data scientists" and their managers would find some very weak frequentist statistical relationship between two variables and present it as 100% iron clad evidence for some sort of business decision. After letting myself become jaded with business data science, I wanted to at least recover faith in an analytically rigorous process of both induction and deduction. So, lots of books on epistemology and prob/stat.
Pair this with a growing awareness of culture war topics starting in the mid 2010s. That led me to a much quicker "conversion" from a wishy-washy tits-and-beer lib to an Old Right style conservative. Philosophically, I went hard into the idea that at least the conception of an absolute morality is required for a functioning society.
Thus, you have a combination of adherence to the concept of absolutely morality paired with a constant suspicion in how humans reason and come to believe things (side note: a pure rationalist / empirical stance is epistemic downs syndrome). That's a pretty good petri dish for faith formation. I think that maybe the specific bridging function was reading Alasdair MacIntyre (RIP, homie) combined with all of my latent catholicism - as lame as suburban NO history is.
I'm a big hiker and I do "find God" out there more than I do in other places. I think you said it well in your own post - looking at something the Wyoming Rockies and shrugging it all off as "ehh, random collision of atoms over billions of years. All noise." seems far too trite. It's overwhelming beauty that your brain can't fathom beyond "oh my god this is wonderful" (see what I did there?).
Obviously I'm going to make the unsolicited recommendation that you look into the Roman Catholic Church. Adult cathechesis - at a traditional parish - will tickle your lawyer brain. It's very structured, very grounded in philosophy and theology often in the tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas.
In terms of finding that personal spark, sorry to be trite, but that's on you, bud. There's no way to force it.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
13d ago
I think this will fail.
The humor on CumTown, and the dirt-bag left in general, is built on deep irony and sarcasm with a huge helping of funny sounding nihilism. It assumes you have a college degree or, if you don't, that college was at least on your roadmap for some time.
CumTown in particular has no sense of achievement, adventure, and purpose. It may be funny, but it's "dudes sitting around smoking weed and cracking jokes" funny.
Rogan is Rogan because he mixes so many different things but the underlying themes add up to a greater whole than the dirt-bag left. Rogan is curious about the universe, likes comedy and joking around, is more curious about culture war ideas, and, of course, wants to be in shape to kick other people's asses and hunt elk. For young men, this is a podcast that promotes within them the desire to set a goal and then take the necessary actions to achieve it. That's the nucleus of manhood.
But let's assume that this CumTown sperm fellow is the one that's going to win the race to the egg of young male voters (wow this metaphor is really getting stretched). What does winning look like? Because the problem for the democrats right now is that they don't have any conception of how young men would fit into their party. The major camps of male voters in the democratic party are: aging hippy boomers or their silicon valley equivalents, virtue signalling bi-coastal (and often bisexual) elites, men who want to be women (trans), and, well, ... women.
Young blue collar men? Please.
Young white collar? Lightly Dem through college years but as soon as they see their tax bill, they start to question things. If any of them run afoul of HR, they go hard MAGA in a hurry. Many here are smart enough to code switch in public (mostly in order to get laid), but you can bet a lot of them love privately smashing that Red Button in the voting both.
Dorky engineer types (the descendants of the Gen-X style "slackers")? Used to be far more reliable, but then left in droves when woke got woke'nd.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14d ago
"If you x then unfriend me" style posts, I believe, are one of the best pieces of evidence for the argument that social media broke our brains.
This is because people can react to that post. And the only people (well, not only, but the majority) of people who would post a reaction to that post are going to highly validate it. "You tell 'em, girl!" that kind of thing.
The original poster is getting a source of approval and affirmation that is orthogonal to the original subject-object construction. By blasting "people who x", the poster gets thumbs up and smiley faces from group y who was never in the original "conversation".
The physical world equivalent of this would be something like saying "I told off my (ex)friend Tom because he likes Trump" and immediately having several people applaud you. This doesn't happen because, in the physical world, people are far less like to constantly re-count negative interactions publicly. Yes, of course, you do it with close friends or your drinking buddies or whatever, but, generally speaking, you're not walking around shouting about how you got into a fight with your drunk uncle at thanksgiving.
Social-media opened up this entire new vector of indirect praise related to fundamentally negative emotions and interactions. Which creates this really fucked up feedback loop of "the more negative emotions that I have in public the more I can count on public affirmation." How else can you explain people posting crying/screaming video selfies after Trump wins (or after x thing happens).
Negative emotions are a part of life. Prior to social media, I actually think the default pop-culture responses to them (talk to a friend, go for a run, journal about it, etc.) were good enough. They created a process of negative emotion --> sublimation of some sort --> return to normal emotional equlibrium. Now, with social media, the cycle reminds me of someone saying "Time to get good and drunk so that I can do some coke to get back on top of things."
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14d ago
(Always excellent when I can resort to life lesson from The Wire)
How do you deal with those who are too seasoned?
Because, eventually, you're going to have a non-trivial amount of people who actually have exchanges like this:
- What if you had a life sentence?
- Then I'd fucking escape.
Fat tails are real. Whenever I see someone make your argument of "we have to love them more, and educate them!" I know, and even sympathize, with what you're thinking. You're thinking of my cousin who's just kind of goofy bro who drinks too much, smokes pot, lives in his girlfriend's parents' basement, and has been to jail a couple times. His shit isn't in order, but it could be. Is it his fault? Eh, his dad wasn't there and his mom didn't try. Love him more, educate him.
And that feels good because it feels manageable if we all just pitch in! And for a good number of guys-like-my-cousin, it would probably work! This is why I am a believer in charity in principle.
But what do you do with people like our friend Sean (from the clip) who, when faced with a hypothetical life sentence, immediately defaults to "I will escape from prison so that I can murder a man" -- and means it (inasmuch as he can "mean" anything, driven by immediate emotion and instant gratification as he is).
The fat tails of society are both what lift it to new heights (real entrepreneurs, real political leaders, et al.) and what pose a constant existential threat. The social consensus since 1964 has been to look at that constant existential threat and say ... just got to love 'em more!
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14d ago
I broadly agree. For a certain subset of owners, they've literally labeled themselves as virtue signalers.
I have now seen Tesla's with bumper stickers that read "I bought this before Elon was a Nazi" or something to that effect.
Publicly broadcasting that you feel the need to qualify your previous purchase with a political semi-re-(un?)-justification is a sign of deep commitment to virtue signalling above all other considerations. I have zero tolerance for such people.
Regarding EVs in general, while I am not categorically against them, they still fail a very simply problem for me that gas 100% solves (and has for sometime).
Say that I am in the mountains (because I am!) I want to drive around to some various trails and fishing spots and whatnot. Uh-oh, running low on gas, and I'm 30 miles from a gas station. Thankfully, I've got a 5 gallon gas can on the outside of my truck.
With an EV, I don't believe a "pony battery" is possible? Correct me if I'm wrong. Even more to the point, with US infrastructure construction permitting being what it is, how long would it realistically take to get EV supercharger stations in all of the same rural locations that currently have well functioning gas stations?
This points to another issue with EVs but Tesla's specifically. The people who are really into them are inherently bought in to the idea of complex system dependency. It's hilarious to me that, in Teslas, if your car needs a software update - you can't drive it. If your main dashboard panel breaks for whatever reason, you can't roll your windows down. When planning a road trip, the Tesla software cannot simply plot the fastest route from A to B, but it must factor in recharging stations and battery life. Because of how battery recharging works, you will also likely be driving at between 20 - 50% charge for much of the time. Hilarious. How do we use this complex system we've created? Well, we hack it so that it kind of works in a counter-intuitive way. Also, don't deviate from your pre-planned course to much.
This is the very definition of over-engineered. But, I believe, for many Tesla owners, that is also the very point.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
14d ago
I am now nearly certain we live within 100 miles of one another.
We must never meet. My mental image of you is as a 7'9" Ajax hurling kettlebells at random passers-by a la Donkey Kong. I cannot support the dismantling of that fiction.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
22d ago
A lot of bodybuilder types are actually geeks / nerds. The best example of this that comes to mind is Dr. Mike Israetel on YouTube. Watch just a few of his videos and you'll catch the sense of humor; a little too dry, heavy on puns, self-deprecating in a very cringey way. He gives out excellent lifting and nutrition advice and I do recommend him for that.
But as far as personality, charm, charisma, and "game" go, Dr. Mike reveals the truth of a lot of gym rats -- they're weirdos who just autist'd their ways to the weights.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
29d ago
As is become habitual for you, excellent writeup.
The problems for the "hot brilliant war hero ladykillers" archetype gets complicated with details, scale, and scale's inverted cousin, depth. Let's approach this from a few angles.
"1. We want strong men. Warriors!"
I do bemoan the fact that Congress is now only 5% or so military veterans. And, of that, an elevated amount are non-combat veterans (this in a nation coming off of 20 straight years of deployed warfare). And isn't masculinity in crisis? Shouldn't we have more ass-kicking real life G.I. Joe's on Capitol Hill?!
Well thank god for the likes of Eli Crane, Dan Crenshaw, and Marcus Luttrell! Not exactly. These guys are all former SEALs. They're badass credentials are unimpeachable. And they're wildly ineffective in congress. This is not only objective but obvious. One of my favorite examples is Eli Crane who for some reason decided to go on record with a gossip columnist for politico. This is bizarre. Politico is a DC specific news outlet that covers the "deep inside baseball" of Congress and The White House. Their reports are often ex-communications junior staffers and they live and die by their connections to politicians and their offices. There's a lot of quid pro quo and handshake deals. To be en effective politician, you have to know how to handle the press. You can't be too coy, you can't be an open book.
The one thing you don't do is go on record, multiple times, talking shit about your colleagues personal lives. It doesn't matter the party affiliation. There are 530+ members of Congress with complex networks of personal friendships, loyalties, and favors. Saying crazy shit about each other's policy positions is totally fair game, but you don't tell a reporter - on record, cited by name - "yeah, actually, that person drinks too much." This is because it will then be impossible to get anything done because no one wants to spend time with or trust you - you might dime them randomly in a gossip column.
But Eli Crane isn't thinking this way because Eli Crane is a SEAL. That's a hypermasculine world where everyone talks shit about everyone all the time. If there's a real problem it is handled directly and head on - "hey, bro, you and me slug it out in the parking lot." That was his professional calibration for years. And I am very happy we have thousands of other men like him on our side with their guns pointed in the other direction. But the job of "warrior" today (in the most traditional sense -- being an Air Force cyber general doesn't quite relate) is a hyper-specialized role because today's true warriors are the best in history; they are in the best physical shape, with the longest and most rigorous training, with an insane level of technological proficiency, and a support structure that costs billions of dollars.
Applied to other domains, however, they don't generalize well. So, back to the archetype, the problem here is that what the archtype assumes (at a higher level of resolution) is the JFK (and generations past) version of a warrior; a dashing young officer (because enlisted is low class, ew) who did a few years of service but not a full career, maybe saw some combat, and was in an elegant role; Navy PT boat captain, a British Cavalry officer, WW2 Fighter Ace.
Navy SEAL, Green Beret in GWOT? And enlisted? I dunno ... those guys can get into some shit. Again - I firmly believe these are the most pure form of "warriors" we have on the planet today. But the archetype model I started with above doesn't want that, they want Romance Novel Ready Warriors.
"2. Shooters gonna shoot and cads gonna cad"
This is more directly related to @FiveHourMarathon 's post. Can adultery be heroic and masculine if done correctly? If I am flying around bedding starlets instead of masturbating with my goon goggles on, my wife could maybe find some pride in that, right?
The problem here is when we consider scale, both large and small. It's possible to read the JFK sex files, chuckle, roll your eyes and go "Different times. Guy was an asshole. Got laid a lot, though." But what you're dismissing is the real human toll it all had on people like Jackie, Marilyn, and the countless nameless secretaries who undoubtedly went through all kinds of mental and emotional anguish (and, in some cases, physical - STDs, yall).
Okay, but, that's a couple dozen (a hundred) people. And it's not my problem. Can't we still, you know, try to support the idea of "Responsible cocksmen-ery"? No, we can't, because people will be irresponsible and, frankly, bad at it and irresponsibility and incompetence at scale are awful for society.
If men are suddenly "empowered" (lol) to run around like JFK trying to seduce the pants off of every waitress, it ends with the emotional and mental anguish of full families, with violently acrimonious divorces, with kids with fucked up families, and, on the harsher end, with actual no-debate-about-it sexual assault. Additionally, if I a have reasonable suspicion that my drinking buddy wants to Oval my Wife's Office, I might get a few whiskey's in me and decide to take a swing at him. Remember, men kill each other for money/drugs, respect (hierarchical preference in a male dominated space), and for control over specific females. Making Adultery Great again is a good way to Make America Murdery Again.
The archetype fails, here, when it's extropolated to scale. The sociological mechanism of monogamy-marriage is explicitly to create high social penalties to being a cad so that society doesn't eventually devolve into jealousy-motivated murder madness.
Was the adultery somehow necessary? Or an inevitable side effect.
It wasn't at all necessary and, mostly as you pointed out, the product of the lack of concept of real consequences for multiple generations of a family who had grow up as the elite of the elite of the elite. There's a reason they called it "Camelot" - the Kennedys, specifically, are the closest American got in the post WW2 era to anointing our own royal family.
As they say, one of the the best things you can do for your career is die. JFK catching a hot one from Lee Harvey Oswald's blammer prevented what I think was a highly likely outcome for his presidency - nothing gets done and JFK flames out publicly when his affairs become too much for Jackie to bear. The seduction of the Hot Young President gives way to the ugly truth. Goldwater wins in '64 - running on an even stronger "morality" platform.
Yep. Pretty common for sin to feel good in the moment. That's the whole "trick" of it.
Childhood trauma does not entitle you to a lifetime of unlimited compassion from others.
I've been seeing this meme more and more across wide swaths of social media - and from all corners. People are starting to point backwards to "childhood trauma" (ill-defined, subjective, and often shrouded in mystery) as the root of all their problems. This is neo-Freudianism but, somehow, with less rigor and logic.
The entire process of adolescence and early adulthood is the process of recognizing that when bad things happen to you, you have some level of control in how you react to them. Yes, there are some things that are incredibly and objectively traumatic. They will take time to heal, but you have the tools and capability to fuel that healing process if you developed emotional maturity.
When people fail to do this, they not only become unreliable, they become socially dangerous. Most of the men in prison right now had a childhood of neglect and abuse to at least some degree. They are repeating the patterns they were exposed to. Sadly, many of them lack the IQ to even sort their emotions into reasonable buckets, let alone manage them constructively. Should we extend our inexhaustible supply of compassion there way, let them out, and hug them until they've changed? Alarmingly, about half of the voting population would YesChad.jpeg this idea.
This is all part of the rot and incipient counterproductive nature of "therapy culture." It invites negative feedback loop rumination on bad feelings, the opposite of personal agency, all while promising constant absolution from responsibility that one can presume and demand of others. It's a kind of inverted religion; a kind of satanism, if you will. A self-referential cult of the victim ego.
Returning to Aella, and the sexy-rationalist-e-girl archetype, perhaps you had some level of childhood trauma. Let's assume this trauma was real and not cultivated by a very online life that invites all of us to make emotional mountains of molehills. You're (self-proclaimed) like, really, really smart or whatever. Perhaps you ought to take the time to sort through your own emotional baggage and then move beyond it. In her tweets, she is literally calling for internet friends and strangers to defend her honor to other (mostly) internet strangers. This is an obvious sign of emotional immaturity. She is outsourcing emotional regulation to other people through the odd mode of chivalrous honor codes.
(Side note: I bet Scott does it)
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