ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
No bio...
User ID: 1012
I sometimes decide not to post just because I don't want to get Gish galloped or have to litigate my entire argument from first principles. Usually it has something to do with a belief based on Catholic theology which most people here don't have a background in and (more importantly) seem to look down on as inferior to modern materialism/atheism/utilitarianism (maybe we just all have PTSD from the Great Internet Atheism Wars).
It's not that I don't like explaining or getting pushback, it's mostly just the shitty, condescending, or dismissive tone people sometimes use when responding. Interestingly, the worst offenders are often members fellow right-wingers (edgy Nietzscheans, mostly) or centrist liberals. The leftists who post here are often really charitable and succeed in making me sympathetic to their views (shout-outs to @Hoffmeister25, @gemmaem, and @chrisprattalpharaptr).
As much as I like TheMotte, I'm really busy and responding to rude or derisive people on the internet just doesn't seem worth my time. If you pride yourself on "telling it like it is" or "being blunt" you're probably one of these people. Letting go of your righteous outrage and using a little tact and empathy goes a long way towards sparking good conversation and making this place more interesting and productive.
I could have written this post, I feel the exact same, the whole thing made me even more cynical about the average person. But what creeps me out the most is
Turn the switch on, and people who are ordinarily perfectly reasonable are frothing at the mouth saying you're killing grandma, you're a menace to society, you're a dirty plague rat. Turn the switch off and it's all forgotten. Like it never even happened. They don't even think about it anymore.
What does this phenomenon really tell us? To me, the implications are quite disturbing.
When I've gone around loudly proclaiming to be right about something (online or IRL) and then turn out to be wrong, I feel highly embarrassed when I get called out after the fact. In my better moments I respond with humility, and in my worse moments I respond with rage or misdirection. But the point is that I respond somehow, I feel something.
But a lot of the covid fanatics seem to simply not care at all that they were wrong. When you call them on it, you might get a shrug and a "things were different then," or even just a vague confused stare -- why are you still talking about that? Don't you know it's $currentyear? Haven't you heard about Putin?
When they were shouting about killing grandma or plague rats, I had understood those utterances as words that containing meaning or argument. But was I wrong? Were the vast majority of people literally just making mouth noises that simply signalled their alignment with the current Correct Opinion? I'm not being metaphorical here -- the Covid hysteria makes me wonder whether a large majority of our population just parrots slogans to jockey for status without engaging their thinking brains at all (outside of status calculation I guess)? If so, this would explain their apathy about their argument being wrong. "What argument?" they might respond.
Yes, it's not news that the average person is not a deep thinker. Everyone here is aware of that. But to me, the above implies that many people are not just "not deep thinkers." If they were, that wouldn't bother me much -- they and myself would be essentially the same in that we both think, just to different degrees.
But maybe these people are not just shallow thinkers, but non-thinkers. The difference between thinkers and non-thinkers is huge, and I am weirded out by the idea. It almost feels like sharing a society with a bunch of p-zombies (EDIT: to be clear, I don't actually think these people are literal p-zombies). Recent memes about internal monologues and "The Breakfast Question" come to mind. If this model is closer to the truth, it changes my outlook on many things.
I don't understand the seemingly recent popularity of "tomboy gfs" (bonus meme).
There's a lot of meta-ironic shitposting on 4chan and sometimes reddit about how tomboys are the best because, as far as I can understand the arguments, they're bros that have a pussy. I can kind of see how a bro-gf might have appealed to 14 year old me who thought feelings and femininity were totally gay, dude, and who just wanted to play Halo with my bros while we farted and laughed and punched each other. But I can't imagine any well-adjusted man over age 25 feeling this way unless they're particularly feminine themselves (in which case they would be attracted to "tomboys" for a different set of reasons).
I've been attracted to feminine girls my entire life (yes, even as a 14 year old retard) and have, for as long as I can remember, found their femininity mysterious and alluring. Is there an element to tomboy popularity that I'm missing? Is there an emotionally mature segment of men who are still into tomboys? Or is it all just a forced meme?
Edit: Since this post has caused some confusion, let me clarify -- I'm asking about a narrow definition of tomboy as described in the meme and in threads about "tomboys", not "any woman who isn't 100% feminine in every way." For those who don't want to click on the meme, the "tomboy gf" has the following non-traditional qualities:
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Thinks makeup is stupid
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Likes porn
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Likes video games
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Rough speech like "I'm gonna kick your ass/suck my dick/fag"
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Gets mistaken for a boy (presumably due to hairstyle and clothing)
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Puts you in headlocks/wrestles with yoy
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
11mo ago
Thanks for sharing. But I'm nearly as tired of Holocaust-themed morality plays as I am of the Civil Rights Era-flavored ones. Has anyone under age 70 not been bludgeoned through their entire lives with "Prejudice is bad!" and "The banality of evil!" and "Never again!" etc?
I don't understand people who write books on these themes in 2014. Is there even the thinnest residue of stunning bravery to be mined and exploited by speaking truth to a (long vanquished) power? I have to imagine that even blue tribers would yawn at yet another Holocaust tear jerker or To Kill a Mockingbird clone, "don't they know trans persecution or MAGA terrorism are where the points are scored in 2023?" And even dispensing with the cynicism, is there really anything interesting left to say on these topics? I'd wager that nearly any book you could write on them has already been written.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
11mo ago
HBD is even weirder as probably at least sort of real science that Blue doesn't dare to acknowledge the existence of, and even Red mainstream shies away from.
Blues generally have a worldview that is very uncomfortable to reconcile with HBD, so that makes sense.
Reds' aversion to HBD is a little harder to figure out. My theory is that conservatives as "progressives driving the speed limit" is broadly true, but that mainstream conservatives don't realize that they've absorbed many progressive axioms and that, consequently, they have sabotaged many of their strongest arguments against leftist programs like CRT. When you're a conservative who believes in deeply in Equality, hates Racism, and believes in Women's Rights (but all "only to a certain extent and not as far as those crazy libs take it!") you've already given up the game.
So while a conservative from 1963 might have been comfortable with HBD, a conservative from 2023 has ceded too much ideological ground to feel comfortable with the idea.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
10mo ago
My reactions to reading your synopsis:
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This sounds like a social justice fantasy so outrageous that it borders on pornographic
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This sounds like what might actually happen today if the races were swapped (and sure enough @Folamh3 says it was; do you have a link to the case?)
To your prompts:
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"No" to all those questions. Alabama in 1996 is much closer to Alabama in 2023 than to Alabama in 1926.
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Not very differently. Which is to say, both back then and today the jury would have been quite fair and just, unlike the ridiculous civil rights fantasy the movie portrays. Alabama today might actually be slightly less tolerant than Alabamians in 1996, since back then they were on board with "colorblind" race relations as a sort of truce. Now, racial identity politics and tribalism are on the rise, but I still don't think it would be enough to change how the trial would be handled.
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Light sentence for the murders of the two scumbags, and whatever the standard sentence is for unintentionally shooting someone.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
I liked the rules and aesthetics of pre-2003 MTG (last set I played with was Judgment). The game seems to have changed a lot in 20 years, so what are the latest sets I can play with that will still feel the same?
Bonus questions:
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Can I just ignore Planeswalkers for casual play? They always seemed kind of dumb to me, I liked them much more as lore characters than cards
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When did WotC start censoring stuff? I'd prefer to buy cards before then.
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What's the best way to get bulk cards before a certain era? I don't care about value or quality, I just want to play some casual games
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
I can never shake the feeling when reading stories like this that the person in question is in fact a hardcore devotee of the religion of empiricism or humanism with all the implicit metaphysical positions that come with that relief, gazing longing at other religious traditions but too rock-solid in his own faith to ever forsake the Enlightenment pantheon. I kind of get it, as a Catholic I look at the beauty and solemnity of the Orthodox faith, the strong communities of the Evangelicals, the relative seriousness with which some Jews and Muslims incorporate God into their lives, and I am envious and wish that I could partake in those communities. But my reason and faith lead me to Catholicism and no matter my issues with the Church I can't will myself to disbelieve in what seems to me to be the Truth.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
to a point where families are becoming far too expensive to sustain.
Can you expand on why you think families are too expensive to maintain?
will decadence necessarily mean decline?
I believe so, and I think it might take a century or two. The future will belong to the people who "show up" genetically which means eventually the vast majority will have hardcore trad parents and or grandparents, hardcore in the sense that they resisted the current corrosive liberalism by virtue of their personality traits, cultural or religious tradition, or whatever. There was some triumphalism during the age of New Atheism about how fast many faiths were hemorrhaging members, but I think that those were the easy pickings and eventually a hard core will remain, and the numbers will stabilize and then reverse course. Of course, it's possible by then that the groups will be small enough that they can successfully be painted as "dangerous to democracy" by liberals and destroyed with punitive laws, taxation, lawfare, and targeted propaganda. Who knows.
how can traditional norms become tenable enough to be a potential solution?
I've come to believe that this is impossible, or at least unbelievably difficult. Liberalism, scientism, and humanism have thoroughly penetrated every level of education, entertainment, and "common sense" morality, to the point where it's the water in which every westerner has been swimming for at least several generations. This is a trumph for the secular humanist/liberal projects, but unfortunately it turns out that the axioms in which these projects rest lead to beliefs that are incompatible with societal flourishing (while being great for - a certain definition of - atomized individual flourishing). It's hard enough to remain Christian swimming in this water, nevermind trying to convert the fish who believe they are totally at home in it! It would be like parachuting into North Korea and trying to convince a random North Korean farmer --while you are both still in North Korea -- that the U.S. president is actually a good guy and Americans mean them no harm and that they should unilaterally disarm and then engage in trade with the archenemy. Even if the farmer wanted to, the years of slogans, of propaganda, of emotional speeches by the dear leader would make it extremely painful to change his mind, and even if he did, he would be under constant mental and emotional pressure to "deconvert." So it goes with traditional values today. Absent an authoritarian right wing theocratic coup, I think you're out of luck.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
Just curious -- what's your objective in engaging with people on TheMotte? Are you mainly here to raise awareness about and defend your own beliefs?
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
Did they want western-style atomizing individualist freedom in the first place?
There is freedom in social obligation and in existing in a definite hierarchy. You are free to focus on things in life outside the culture war, freed from an obsession with the political that has seeped into every aspect of western life, even into the formerly sacrosanct household, poisoning the most fundamental human relations (man/woman, parent/child).
Likewise there is a sort of slavery in western "freedom." Slavery to vice born of anomie. Nothing matters, all choices and lifestyles are equal. Many people experience a sort of analysis paralysis and just choose the past of least resistance. Not to mention the nigh-mandatory participation in politics; as they say, you may not be interested in it, but it is interested in you, and it's not going to leave you alone (and some true degenerates engage in it willingly, even spending their free time furiously refreshing a certain CW thread...).
Consider that your definition of "freedom" is one among many.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
How much stock do you put in the age of someone posting? How much in their "stage of life?" Does it matter to you whether a poster is in high school? University? Do you care if a poster is only in their teens or early 20s, already in their late 30s, or early 40s, or approaching senescence in their mid 50s? Does it matter whether they're married or not, whether they have kids or not? Whether they're male or female? From the first world it third world? Do any of these factors affect how you read their posts?
Some of these definitely affect me, but I can't decide whether it's a good heuristic or just a knee jerk reaction.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
Can anyone recommend a left-wing analysis of how economic Marxism* seemingly got supplanted by "woke" or "bioleninist" Marxism in the U.S.? I'm interested in learning (1) what caused the shift, (2) a history of the shift itself, and (3) how economic Marxists view this change (i.e. how would they describe the phenomenon in Marxist language).
- There's probably a better term for this, but I don't know it. I'm referring to labor union/working class Marxism that seemed to dominate for most of the 20th century.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
What's with the extreme Polish seething relative to other post-Soviet states? The most irrationally hateful anti-Russian posters I see online are Polish. Many Eastern European countries suffered under the Soviets, but AFAIK there wasn't anything uniquely awful about Poland's experience? Perhaps "Russian Oppression" has just become central in their national historical narrative in a way that it has not in other Eastern European countries? Like slavery for Black Americans, the Japanese occupation for Korea, the "Century of Humiliation" for China, etc.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
11mo ago
Care to speak plainly? The rhetorical questions are getting tired.
Here are my uncharitable unfiltered thoughts on the matter: something is seriously wrong with you and other people like you, and you're either unaware of it or willfully ignoring it. Maybe your standards are too high, maybe you lack social skills and weird people out, maybe you're fatter than you think, I don't know. But something isn't right.
I'm not really singling out you specifically, but I just don't understand where these posts come from. I'm a barely above average person. I'm 5'7"/170cm (!!!), face is maybe a 7/10 though under age 25 or so I often got called "cute" (never handsome or hot), body is... I dunno, 6/10? I'm not fat and not ripped, just "normal" I guess. I come from rural nowhere America from a middle-middle class family, went to an average college in a rural state, and prior to marriage made a below average salary. I'm not particularly witty or suave, though I am friendly and genuine and perceived as non-threatening. Never was athletic or played sports, but was also never overweight (until my mid 20s). I'm definitely less intelligent than many people on this board and I only did reasonably well in school, definitely wasn't near the top of my class. I majored in an uncool liberal arts subject and currently work in an unsexy part of tech and make a meh salary for a tech worker.
My point is that my stats are thoroughly mediocre except for some minor strengths here and there (and one big weakness). And yet, after turning 18 I dated continuously for 8 years (4 different women) until getting married at 26. I never had trouble finding a girlfriend, there was always someone in my social circle who I thought was cute and vice versa. I'd rate these women as 7/5/6/8, so I want knocking it out of the park looks-wise, but it was better than being alone and thirsty. I'm only in my early 30s, so this isn't advice in the vein of "just ask to speak to the manager and give him a firm handshake." Perhaps your standards are just too high?
tl;dr as a mediocre person I was able to pull it off, so anyone should be able to pull it off barring serious handicaps.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
10mo ago
Where do you go on the internet to have fun in 2023?
I used to frequent the chans back when there were many small ones, read a lot of SA, Fugly, iMockery, even early Cracked and some Maddox, among dozens of other small sites. Then there was Stumbleupon which was like magic to me when it came out, and I came across all kinds of weird and interesting sites while using it.
I've outgrown a lot of those sites now -- they were a lot funnier when I was 15 -- but I haven't really found any new sites or communities that scratch the same itch. I usually check this place first for interesting bathroom reading, then if there's nothing new I check a few subreddits, and if I'm truly desperate I'll open 4chan, although the noise/bots/spam seem to finally have killed any originality that was still lingering (except for during the rare major Happening).
Help me avoid reading books and going outside by recommending a few fun, funny, and/or interesting sites to read.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
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The thermostat, TV volume, and radio volume must always be on even numbers. My wife also does this.
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I avoid stepping on sidewalk cracks when I can
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If I walk across a tiled or patterned floor I try to step on only tiles of a single color or walk along the shape of the pattern
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All the cards have to be facing the same way before they get put back in the box
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When I put away my daughter's pencils I always either organize them from tallest to shortest or into a single continuous color gradient
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
Definitely aimed at the hegemonic ideology and not me, since I relate intensely to this paragraph:
If I had had to suffer through a few more skeptics calling me racist because I wanted to know why there were giant underwater pyramids, I probably would have believed in Atlantis even harder, out of spite, and never talked myself out of it. And then when ivermectin came along, I would have thought “Scientists? Experts? They’re the guys who are so dumb they can’t even figure out Atlantis existed when there are giant underwater pyramids right in front of their eyes. Screw them, I’m listening to Bret Weinstein."
I often find myself leaning into weird or unsubstantiated beliefs due solely to resentment at how much scorn is poured on people who dare question the relevant orthodoxy. I'm probably a lot more willing to entertain HBD or even JQ stuff simply because asking a good faith question about either topic (and others like them) gets you shouted down, ostracized, blacklisted etc.
It's actually worse than Scott's example, because unlike the the guy Scott is beefing with, who apparently knows something about ivermectin, most people aren't even capable of arguing the "orthodox" positiom but still wouldn't hesitate to puff up and self-righteously shout some string of load catchphrases at you to score social points for being a Doubleplus Goodthinker "LMAO HORSE DEWORMER INJECTING BLEACH LOL" It's all so tiresome.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
11mo ago
What advice does The Motte have for someone who has never managed people before?
I'm starting a new manager role. I will have 4 reports who are customer facing engineers.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '21
1yr ago
And it only gets worse when you get married and have kids. I briefly had to bike to the supermarket almost daily to buy meat and vegetables and other sundries for our family of five. It was a short bike ride, but the sheer amount of stuff required ghetto engineering to get home. Several time I had to lash a box of diapers to the back of my bike because my basket and backpack were full. First world problem, perhaps, but simply living close isn't always enough to make walking or biking convenient. We have a car now and life is way easier.
Anyone watched Solar Opposites? It's a Justin Roiland cartoon with a similar look to Rick & Morty but is a lot lighter and more fun. It doesn't suffer from the euphoric, grimdark, nihilistic worldview I dislike in Rick & Morty. I was pleasantly surprised by the ongoing subplot that is woven into the show as well. It's a good "serious" counterbalance to the total silliness of the main plot.
I used to sneer at "sportsball" as a teenager but started to enjoy casually watching games in college. I have a college football and NFL team that I follow and I'll occasionally watch a baseball game.
What I still don't understand is how people keep up with all of the names of the coaches, the players, the interpersonal drama between them, scores, etc. When I watch a game with someone and they ask me what team I follow and I say $NFL_TEAM_NAME, I sometimes get a response like "Oh man how about that thing with your QB last week during that press conference? And do you think John Doe is going to play again this season after that epididymis injury? What do you think of Coach Fillintheblank getting fired? And what about his replacement Coach Newguy?" And I just shrug and say I don't follow them that closely.
Do some people just read sports news all the time and relish all the drama? Seems like the male version of those women who are really into what the royal family is up to. Baseball stat nerds at least make sense to me, but I don't understand the drama people at all. Maybe there's more to it than that?
Edit: Thanks for all the awesome responses. I think I have a better understanding of the appeal now.
Trigger warning: traditional gender roles
But I enjoy providing, protecting, and listening. That's what men by nature want to do. I think men who don't want to do that have something wrong with them, like women who hate children or want to spend their life in an office cubicle instead of marrying . Those men are either abnormal or immature (I believe "manchildren" is the hip term).
I don't want my girlfriend to be my friend, she's not a dude, she's a romantic partner. She fulfills a different need. I have male friends who fill the other role. A tomboy just seems like subpar gf mixed with a subpar buddy.
In this post, @Walterodim confessed to his coffee and whiskey habits, which got me wondering:
How does The Motte enjoy its coffee and whiskey?
Coffee
I prefer buying fancy, freshly-roasted light roast beans and doing a pour over in a Chemex. I grind my beans in a DeLonghi grinder (middle of the road quality wise), put the grounds in an unbleached paper filter that has been rinsed to remove the papery taste, and then pour hot water (slightly cooler than boiling) from a gooseneck kettle over the grounds. Then I drink the coffee black, in silence, while it's still piping hot.
These days I've moved to a place where I can't get good beans at an affordable price, so I often get mediocre stuff and put a splash of milk in it to take the edge off of some of the less appealing flavors.
Occasionally, on Saturday morning or during holidays, I'll make myself an Irish coffee. I make a cup of coffee, add a shot and a half of Tullamore D.E.W. Irish whiskey, whip some cold cream with a cheap little milk foamer, and then pour the cream over the back of the spoon so that it settles on top of the coffee. These days, since it's autumn, sometimes I'll sprinkle a bit of brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg on top of the cream. It's a nice little treat for a lazy morning.
Whiskey
Ah, the water of life. I prefer Irish whiskey and Tennessee whiskey. I usually have a bottle of Red Breast 12 for sipping, Tullamore for mixing (or for my second glass), and then Four Roses as a "multipurpose whiskey." I like to drink my whiskey neat with a small splash of water. I used to make old fashioneds, but I don't feel that they're much of an improvement over just drinking the whiskey neat (and I'm lazy).
When it gets cold, I like to make a nice hot toddy with some cheaper whiskey. I boil some water, pour it in a mug, stir in a bit of lemon juice and honey and add a shot or two of whiskey. I like to use a covered Miir mug because it prevents the drink from cooling down too quickly as I sip it. This is one of my favorite winter drinks.
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