5434a
14d ago
Go to www.chatgpt.org/chat, you won't have to sign up or log in. Then type in the box.
5434a
10d ago
How long is the engagement for a typical arranged marriage? What would be the longest and the shortest?
5434a
22d ago
@zorbathehut
While we're doing site UI feedback, it would be great if the site tracked read/unread status while logged out.
When I'm logged in the site tracks how many new unread comments a thread has accrued since last viewed. When I log out and log back in the new comment count resets to all read, meaning I can't see which threads have been active, and I can't ctrl-f through the thread for "~new".
5434a
14d ago
I've been reading more of James Clavell's Asian Saga. I've also been catching up on cleaning and maintaining my garden tools.
In the books every peasant bows and scrapes at the feet of the samurai. My very limited knowledge of martial arts is that those same peasants developed ways of fighting with their gardening tools because they were forbidden from owning real weapons.
So... who were the peasants fighting?
5434a
1mo ago
name some role models off the top of their head, those people are going to be very famous
Those are figures, not roles. A role per the examples offered would be actor, footballer, and whatever Ted Lasso is. You can't play the role of being Marcus Rashford, but you can play the role of being a footballer and associate other pro-social behaviours like fair play, fitness, practice and respecting the rules with that role.
Influencer is a shitty role because the common behaviours are a blend of populism and commercialism by the nature of the business. Good editing and production skills aren't the basis for a society.
a lot of young men who want to be progressive without a reliable script to follow
The difficulty progressives have with promoting more general role models (train driver, doctor, policeman(!)) is the ""problematic"" nature of lauding people who work hard and take responsibility. It's too close to the small c conservative script of studying hard, working hard, following the rules, saving your money, having kids and raising them right.
The progressive role models are often more akin to radical activists of one stripe or another who rebelled against what society told them they should do... ironically like Andrew Tate.
It's like it's not enough for a plain old teacher to instill good study habits, they have to instill Critical Theories too. Just look at the flack Katharine Burbalsingh catches for being a non-white woman who opens a school in a deprived area and turns it into an academic success story through presenting high expectations for her students, or hardship afflicted single mother and feminist turned squillionaire children's author JK Rowling. In progressive's eyes Marcus Rashford isn't popular for his personal success, he's popular because he scored one for team social justice against the Conservative government. Stormzy raps about spunking on your girlfriend's face after going church but he also dropped that angry outburst for the social justice crew dem about Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May. Those are the roles they're promoting.
5434a
15d ago
Lost Girls is a fun bit of erotica from Alan Moore you could finish in an afternoon. The Sandman is another good Alan Moore piece but as far as I know it's a full length comic series rather than a self-contained graphic novel, but maybe there's a compendium.
For something not involving Alan Moore Transmetroplitan was good fun and from what I remember would probably appeal to the Motte crowd for it's cyberpunk / absurd culture war aspects (sexy Sesame Street!) but it's another full series.
5434a
15d ago
I read one of each of the gentleman burglar character books (Fantomas, Arsene Lupin and Raffles) and from what I remember Arsene was the best of the bunch.
5434a
17d ago
I think trans people have shared traits and interests that justify - make useful - the existence of the group term.
So do I when they're grouped as a sub category to a referent super category, but if we call them women the super category ceases to signify anything essential and becomes effectively arbitrary and correspondingly insignificant. (And when it's arbitrary I have no need to justify my opinion beyond it being an opinion that's mine. Back to square one, the circle created by trans rhetoric travels in both directions despite their intention.)
When I say "transwomen aren't even transwomen" I say it to contrast their own rhetoric and demonstrate their dependence on the binary they (selectively) disavow.
At base my argument is that "men who [choose to pursue and increase their femininity, AKA transwomen]" is legible. Each element points to something distinct even where the element might be fuzzy at the boundaries. "Transwomen are women who want to affirm their gender identity as women by pursuing feminine social signifiers" (the most charitable framing I can come up with) loses legibility the more you think about it as each element circles back to itself until the boundaries it depends on collapse into meaninglessness.
My own belief is that they do this because, less charitably, they are men who [want to be women and throw out these convoluted rationales to avoid the distress of acknowledging that they simply can't]. What they can do is increase/maximise their femininity, which is what they're already doing, and which I can't see anyway of discrediting. It's plausible, it's feasible, and it's legible. It doesn't float my boat, but it doesn't knit my brow either.
5434a
15d ago
I consider those attributes critical inasmuch as absenting them from the discussion leaves us with nothing to discuss, or at least nothing conclusive. Non rhetorical question: How can it be otherwise?
I might be mistaken but your objection seems to rest on "man" operating as a floating signifier that can be either male (sex) or masculine (gender). This is problematic because for transgenderism to be legible the gender has to be associated with sex. A gender that is unassociated with a sex is effectively arbitrary. If transgenderism depends on gender being arbitrary then it can't make strong claims predicated on gender, if gender is illegible then claims on gender can't be understood, and if gender is strict then gender only serves its function as it relates to sex.
5434a
2mo ago
It's been a trend since the '70s via simple hybridisation and selective breeding but since the decrim/legalisation in America what I've seen on social media is people moving from the already strong weed to ever more potent extracts and concentrations, which they then use by eating them (which counter-intuitively gets you wrecked for hours because it's too easy to underestimate and eating it sounds more benign than smoking) or by vaporising them in elaborate "dab" rigs. I guess it's driven by the previously unavailable access to industrial tech like chemical analysis services and the removal of the need to be clandestine. Now you have people on Instagram posing for photos with their kilogram balls of lab refined 98.8% pure THC.
In the '90s you might see a variety of weed that was hyped up on claims of being analysed at ~25% THC (on an ideal sample a single time). Now, at least if you live in a decrim state and my impressions are correct, you can buy all manner of products that are regularly analysed by dedicated professional labs.
You also see more interest in the other cannibinoids now that the labs allow them to be distilled out and separated by people who know what they're doing rather than mad scientist stoners burning down their houses while playing with ether after reading a couple of articles in High Times.
With that said I think there is a separate phenomenon where people spend their youth smoking lots of weed, burning off all the neurochemical novelty and good times and being left with little more than the side effects that were probably always there but weren't very noticeable because they were having too much fun. They blame it on the weed being too strong but it's more like an alcoholic blaming the nausea and broken relationships on brewers putting diesel in their overproof rum. Yeah, the rum is too strong, but if you gave a couple of shots to a teetotaller they probably wouldn't shit their pants and start a fight with a policeman. They'd probably fall over, start laughing and tell you you're their best mate.
The stupid thing about illegal drug use is that people massively disregard dosage. There's a Scott article about Adderal vs street meth where he describes how the dose street meth users are taking is something like 100x more than the typical prescription dose. At that level it's no wonder that instead of studying harder they rip up their floorboards looking for listening devices. Instead people think that doing more = being hardcore, and people ignore that an overdose doesn't have to mean dying, it just means that you experience negative and unwanted effects from having taken too much.
UK. I flicked on the most popular commercial station while I wrote this which was showing reality contest dreck that's carefully produced to appeal to as many viewers as possible.
Halfway through an ad break when I switched on:
Supermarket - white man cooking Christmas dinner for his white family
Mattress - white man solo
Washing powder - multi ethnic races and genders, white man in background, black man in foreground
Whiskey - black woman solo
Toothpaste - brown woman solo
Perfume - white woman solo
Next full ad break:
Theme park - multi ethnic group of kids, white grandma
Make-up - multi ethnic women, brown and black focus, whites in background
Indigestion remedy - multi ethnic
Perfume - white woman solo celebrity
Supermarket - glimpse of white hand
Bubble bath - brown woman
Bleach - glimpse of brown hand
Flagship phone - white woman
Butter - white man, brown woman
Stock cubes - white family
The only thing I can note in support of your point is that the non-white people tend to appear more emphasised. In the white-centric adverts the emphasis leaned more towards the product, and the more non-white people there were the more the camera gazed at them.
5434a
1mo ago
I blinked and my comment got eaten. TLDW find a practical project that puts work in your hands, not your head.
5434a
1mo ago
I'm an in-and-out, follow the list, know the layout, largely own-brand supermarket shopper who pays the minimum necessary attention to packaging. Years of internet content have made me selectively blind to anything less attention grabbing than literal naked women (and even then...). But I was lying in bed yesterday reminiscing on being a broke student and getting a "free" Bodum cafetiere by collecting something trivial like two empty coffee packets plus P+P, and some other similar giveaways that I still have in the kitchen cupboard.
Do retail suppliers still do those promotions, or was it a golden age of economic abundance and marketing largesse? What's the best thing you've got from a retail promotion? What do you still regularly use that came as a freebie?
The only one I can think of having seen lately is the tokens on branded yoghurt, which I ignored for years until I one day I caved in to curiosity and looked up the details of the offer. Turns out you basically need to be a commercial kitchen consuming gallons of yoghurt every day to make it remotely worthwhile, and IIRC the offers were split between consumable cross-marketing crap like a sample bottle of artisan moisturiser (which you still needed far too many tokens for) and then jumped up to a weekend in a fully catered holiday cottage, with very little in between.
5434a
1mo ago
37 according to the substack post.
It's about as edifying as a man signing up to 37 porn sites in one day. It's an anti-achievement.
5434a
6mo ago
Women appear more psychologically threatening than physical adversity, hence the procrastination and post-Hock rationalisation.
Mountains are static and predictable.
5434a
2mo ago
Today the doom is climate change and we get... nothing.
Because we're all complicit. It's easy to protest against The Man with The Button, it's a lot harder if the enemy is our own inescapable lifestyle. Follow the logic through far enough and you're left with a choice between tech evangelism or retvrn to anti-natalism and depopulation.
The other alternative is to shrug and/or put your head in the sand, hence the "...nothing", or to argue that it's all fake, but that's limited by its reactionary nature. It doesn't advance an independent agenda.
5434a
1mo ago
I think you're being overly cautious and perfect's-the-enemy-of-good but fair play, you've considered that suggestion and it doesn't work for you. All I'd say is that for any bootstraps enterprise to work you're better thinking of it like a penniless illegal immigrant would approach it, ie bending the rules, delay spending until you've got the work assured, bargain hunting for materials, and starting with the small jobs no one else wants.
Magic man repairs, maybe? That looks like a basic/niche kit could fit in a backpack, there's no end of broken shit for free you can take home to practice on and then throw out again, and people pay top dollar to avoid redoing expensive work. Just an idea.
My underlying point was that identifying practical issues and potentially overcoming them to achieve a material result is more productive and stimulating than reading a book, writing a song, lifting some weights or listening to a preacher. It's about finding something external to focus on that you can effect a direct meaningful change upon. Admittedly that's a lot harder if you need it to be profitable but it's potentially more rewarding too. Chin up.
Ah, I was going to suggest something small scale to reduce costs (electronics, crafts, etc) but motor issues rule that out. Gardening might have been a good substitute but if you live in an apartment in Alaska then that's probably not going to work either.
Still if you can think of something that suits your situation I think it can help with the "why get out of bed, what's the point" problem. Seeing something that makes physical progress, that you direct, that presents discrete problems to solve, and that you can point to whether to show other people or just to yourself provides hard evidence that you're making an impact on something. It also gives you a clear objective where upon completion you can make a judgement of whether you've succeeded, failed, or can improve. I think all those aspects are valuable to mental wellbeing and not half as legible in areas like religion/community, exercising, or creative-aesthetic-intellectual activities.
Edit: Reading more of your replies (not much money, government hand outs) maybe consider starting a cash-in-hand pressure washing business? The equipment is cheap enough to make it low risk and small scale, the work isn't fine skilled, you can earn some money, you leave things noticeably better for your efforts within minutes, you can work alone part-time or build it up into a legit business, and having seen a few pictures of Alaska it looks like all the slush makes everything constantly flithy meaning repeat business. Sure it's not a "higher" purpose but keeping things clean and getting paid is a positive sum contribution and should be sufficient for basic self/social esteem. If you're really savvy you don't even have to buy any equipment to start, just make some flyers and see if there's any interest before you lay out any cash.
5434a
1mo ago
I've got a couple of things housemates who worked in similar sectors have left behind but honestly most B2B swag seems kind of shitty, although that might have been due to their entry level positions. Stationery. Toys. T-shirts. Nothing you'd really miss (so you leave it behind), and more like a grown up version of the stuff you would have found included directly inside every box of cereal. I suppose it's a different affair if you manage a multi-million dollar budget.
I refuse any loyalty points scheme more complex than "collect 10 stamps to claim a free coffee".
5434a
1mo ago
That's close, but I mean more along the lines of:
Packet of branded food item (coffee, cereal, yoghurt, soft drink, snack, etc)
"Collect X proofs of purchase and get a free Y!"
And the free Y is something durable and/or worthwhile, and the X proofs is realistic, not triple digits. Or if it's triple digits the Y has real monetary value like a games console. The branded items running the promotion were available in every shop, so it was designed to cultivate brand loyalty rather than loyalty to a chain of shops. Stamps were more agnostic about what you purchased and tend to be limited to one chain or a small consortium.
I suppose most marketing campaigns have transferred to apps, loyalty schemes and other sign up lists, but I get the impression those are focused on discounts and other volume sales promotions rather than straight up material freebies.
5434a
1mo ago
Beat them to the punch and send them a brief message on the day-of to cancel.
I'm joking of course but psychology and dating is so counterintuitive it would probably work.
5434a
2mo ago
The internet has diminished the cultural isolation art and culture needs to gestate and develop organically leaving us with a choice between big budget, mass market, safe investment, market-led retreads or retro nostalgia for "authenticity". The shortfall is filled up with short-lived memes that people can latch onto and share but don't engender any feelings of lasting personal investment ("I was a let's go brandoner before it was cool and I'll remain one when the casuals have moved on").
There's a whole chapter in David W Marx's Status And Culture that covers this in some depth if you want to read something longer than Motte comments.
There's also the matter of consumer technology maturing and effectively stagnating. When technology phases into affordablity there's a lot of low-hanging fruit available, plus the promise of higher-hanging fruit as the tech improves, plus a residual barrier of entry to casual participants. Now everybody has a combined office/studio/library/theatre in their pocket whether they need it or not and its workings are locked behind bootloaders and signed certificates on one hand and hot-glued security screws and millimetre scale surface mounted components on the other. You either have to be a team of specialists or a border-line autist savant to meaningfully explore beyond the walls of the heavily populated omni-garden.
5434a
4mo ago
There usually are other places that you can ask your questions but nowhere that offers such a broad range of topics to such a large userbase with such a low barrier to entry and all in one place. That was always a double-edged sword but it progressively swings further towards the low effort = low quality side.
In terms of content it used to be like HackerNews and now it's like Facebook. People don't go there to discuss questions, they go there to reassure each other they're in the right.
The scale of users means you get increasingly squeezed between the opposing forces of shitposters and overworked moderators. So they get a lot of idiots asking questions and a lot of replies that assume anyone asking questions is an idiot, and then the mods have to spend time cleaning it up instead of building out better tools that might help prevent those questions.
It doesn't help that Reddit's search has been shit forever. The sorting algorithm and karma system also incentivise repeating popular questions no matter how any times it's been asked before. And instead of fixing search to improve the UX for existing users Reddit prefers to chase new users by gamifying and appifying, while marginalising their smarter users (who might have contributed a lot of the better quality content but didn't represent much/any value to their revenue).
5434a
2mo ago
I looked through and downloaded IMDB's top rated original (1959-1964) TZ episodes a while ago. I ended up with 9 episodes from S1, 8 from S2, 9 from S3 and 4 from S5. There's lots of other selected Twilight Zone episodes lists out there to browse, they're all roughly in agreement. If you're not bothered about filtering the best of the best you can't go far wrong by starting at the start as that's where the benchmark that justified the additional series and reboots was created.
I don't know about the '80s and '00s reboots but I'd avoid Jordan Peele's 2019 reboot, it's more concerned with moral commentary on $current_year American culture war than it is the human condition.
Like Atelier says TZ is lacking in the sci-fi aspect compared to The Outer Limits. You could try 2017's Phillip K Dick's Electric Dreams but I haven't seen any of those. TZ is a bit dated and unsophisticated compared to modern counterparts like Black Mirror but like OG Star Trek it's classic television that stands the test of time.
Transwomen aren't even transwomen. In their quest to deconstruct gender in order to grant themselves accommodation within that same genderscape that they disavow they have inadvertantly demonstrated that it's transgenderism itself that carries no semantic water. That is to say; there's no such thing.
Nevermind the old chestnut of "what is a woman?". That one has multiple satisfactory answers from the simple to the scientifically robust. Try out "what is a transwoman?". The sole universal quality of every possible rational answer begins with "a man who...". A man. Because without that there's no binary boundary to transit. A woman cannot be a transwoman.
Either it's real, and they're not it. Or it's not real, so there's no it to be.
[Obligatory olive branch that I don't care two iotas (iotes?) about men rendering themselves maximally feminine. Obligatory post script that this all applies vice versa too.]
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