ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
No bio...
User ID: 1012
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
7hr ago
Off-the-cuff non-rigorous stream-of-consciousness take:
Their increased numbers mean assimilation has slowed and they remain foreign instead of assimilating. They have started tapping into the vicitimhood politics despite being recent arrivals who often do quite well for themselves which people see as hypocritical. They are displacing white collar workers who have rarely felt the effects of mass immigration this directly before and are thus shocked and outraged that this could happen to them. Those same white collar "chattering class" workers have a much bigger megaphone than the blue collar, so we are hearing a lot more about their grievances. Rural Indians have a third world mindset (clannishness, petty scams, lying to save face, deference to authority, cruelty to underlings, hygiene differences, etc) that is not unique to India but is nonetheless very alien and uncouth to middle class Americans. Also, honestly, there seems to be a small(?) minority who are hardcore ethnoreligious chauvinists who truly look down on their host countries. For example, I think erecting a 90-foot pagan monkey god statue in notoriously conservative Texas is a really bad PR move for an immigrant minority which is (presumably) seeking acceptance if not assimilation, but the attitude from that minority seems to be "tf Timmy gon do?", unfortunately, that colors people's opinions of all Indian immigrants.
I actually feel pretty bad for the Indians who were living quietly in Western countries, working hard, learning the language, trying to get naturalized, and otherwise being model citizens before the current immigration wave. I worked closely with two 2nd genration Indian-Americans who were basically indistinguishable from Euro-Americans besides their skin color and they were both great guys. I feel sorry that they are probably dealing with the fallout from all of these recent developments that occurred outside their control. They're not even immigrants, they're US citizens.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
16hr ago
Not a mod, but for what it's worth, I would rather read your slightly less coherent, less well-sourced, but fully organic comments rather than something passed through a slop machine. I thought your ideas were interesting enough on their own. The cons of being called out for slop outweigh any minor stylistic improvements you might gain.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
6d ago
IIRC this was what Jade Empire did, and it worked well IMO.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
11d ago
You're supposed to read it with an old-timey radio mid-Atlantic accent.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
13d ago
The "Eagle mills" are definitely real. I was part of several troops, and every single Eagle was essentially carried by an overzealous parent, usually his mom. There were a lot of "social studies homework" merit badges I had to do, and those all sucked. I remember being horribly embarrassed by the "sexual abuse awareness" training section of the handbook I had to read with my parents.
The most fun troop I belonged to was run by redneck dads who took us on 7-10 mile hikes on coastal islands or through hill country. The dads mostly just followed to make sure nobody died, and the SPL ran the show. We'd pick a place to camp, then the SPL would tell us to go get firewood. Me and my buds would go fuck off in the woods for an hour, whittle little spears and wooden daggers, set interesting looking plants on fire, hurl rocks and playful taunts at other patrols we encountered. Headed back to camp, cooked and ate dinner, cleaned up, made a fire, play some cards while cracking the raunchiest jokes and using the worst profanity we knew while the dads snickered and pretended not to hear. Then it was lights out, to our tents and sleeping bags where we talked about girls (90% bullshit, we knew nothing) and busted each other's balls for this or that. The dads cracked a bottle of whiskey and shot the breeze; if you were quiet enough you could eavesdrop and learn a thing or two.
Good times. Sad my sons probably won't get to experience the same thing. I'm thinking about trying to get some of my extended family together to do something like it, though.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
Great breakdown. His trolling sometimes gets me, but it's artful enough that I can't truly be mad. And he's pretty witty sometimes.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
If he was James Damore or something, sure. But how on earth would someone 2 states away be like "hey it's that mid-30s Red Vines guy from that feminist me too short story published several years ago!" Was he actually doxxed? Is his real name online?
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
Part of the reason that this topic is hard to discuss is that suicide is the end of a wide variety of behaviors, such as:
-
Suicide to avoid certain torture and death at the hands of genocidaires
-
Suicide to escape chronic pain that cannot be alleviated
-
Suicide due to a chronic mental illness
-
Suicide due to pain from deep and profound tragedy (wartime PTSD, death of ones spouse or children, etc)
These are clearly all sympathetic cases, and I think you would have to be extremely callous indeed to condemn those decisions.
But then there are other reasons:
-
"Suicide" to regain control (often only attempted but sometimes accidentally? completed) -- your BPD ex saying "Goodbye, it was nice while it lasted" via text after you fight
-
Suicide due to loss of prestige or wealth -- the guy who kills himself after blowing it all in Vegas, leaving a grieving wife and kids; the guy who is outed as gay despite being and ardent anti-gay activist
-
"Suicide" by recklessness -- I'm super depressed and I don't care what happens to me; I'm not going to blow my brains out but maybe I'll drink a 12 pack and then speed down the highway at 120mph just to FEEL something
These IMO are less sympathetic. If (and as I keep saying -- it's a big if! We don't know why this guy really died!) he really did commit suicide because someone wrote a mean story, that is pretty weak. If (again, as I stated in my original post) he had other stuff going on like a congenital mental illness or something, his (alleged) suicide is a lot more sympathetic.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
Thanks for elaborating. I can see that angle as well.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
Sorry, I'm having a hard time understanding your comment, but I'm interested. Are you saying that even if nobody cared about the story, the story's implication that he was actually "Robert" made him feel guilty and self-hating enough to become suicidal?
Is your distaste rooted in some actual lived experience with suicide, or is it based on some abstract sympathy for suicides as an abstract, theoretical class of people? If it's not the former, I would recommend thinking twice about casting judgement on how others react to it.
Flippant is defined as "not showing a serious or respectful attitude." I assure you that I was quite serious about what I said. I was not mocking his death, I was saying that it was a pity, a shame, a sad and grave mistake, completely and utterly unnecessary (assuming the article caused it). And I afford suicides the respect they are due, which outside of extreme circumstances, is IMHO not very much, as it is often a quite self-absorbed act.
If you disagree, I'd be interested in hearing why. I don't claim to be the sole authority on the subject, I'm on The Motte to have my opinions challenged after all.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
Off the top of my head, for me personally I guess it's about something like dignity? A widow (presumably) expected to be married forever, so she does not lose her dignity by remarrying. An abuse victim did not consent to the interaction as so her dignity remains intact. Both cases involve external forces outside of the woman's control. But a promiscuous woman does things within her control to willingly degrades herself and thus becomes undignified and unworthy of respect.
Maybe you really are a Tleilaxu Ghola.
Please don't tell anyone.
This is an incredibly callous response.
Why? Does committing suicide mean you are automatically relieved of accountability for all of your actions? I don't think my response is callous at all, on the contratry, it's the the performative sympathy strangers display for the the person who commits suicide that is insincere, Machiavellian, and callous. I feel more sympathy for his parents and siblings (if any) who have live with that gaping hole in their life, wondering if they could have done something, wonder where they went wrong. FWIW, that is an experience I have personally lived and to some degree will live every day for the rest of my life. He could've chosen differently. He could've chosen not to let some dumb story cut his life short (again, assuming it even has anything to do with it -- he could have had other issues we know nothing about, in which case I may have more sympathy, as I stated above).
It's never been easier to move to another town, lose weight, read some PUA books or whatever, and get your shit together. I don't know what was going on in that guy's life, so I'm not trying to speak ill of the dead, maybe he was wrestling with other demons, and if so I might have more sympathy. But I also think the suggestion that this mean article was so awful that he killed himself is, as we used to say long ago in the 90s, really gay. Nobody makes you do anything. Did literally every single woman in the town know about this dumb story? Did literally every single woman care? Would anyone still have cared 5 years from now? Would anyone have cared 5 miles outside Podunkville city limits? I guess this comes across as mean, but external locus of control males just turn my stomach. I mean imagine being rejected by some literally who college girl because she thinks you're a "loser," and then going ahead and proving her right for all eternity be necking yourself. Just fucking embarrassing. The best revenge is a life well lived.
Even granting everything in the story as true, I don't really get the outrage from either side.
Was she a rape victim? No, she clearly was into it and egged on his advances without thinking about the consequences, and then she lacked the courage to tell him she wasn't interested so she let the sex happen by lying about her feelings.
Was he treated poorly? No, he had a chance and blew it by being out-of-shape and awkward.
The only part of the story that didn't work for me were the last lines. "Are you? Are you? Whore." just seems unrealistic. That kind of guy would say something more subtle and passive aggressive, "Guess I should've known when you told me you weren't a virgin. Guess I was wrong about you. Enjoy fooling around in college, I guess." or something like that. Less raging misogynist and more seething "nice guy."
Anyway, I'm also not impressed by these new revelations. Nobody would know that this story was about this dude if Alexis hadn't said anything. It seems anonymous enough and the story consists of so much internal dialog that unless you were a close friend if either the guy or girl and had heard this story from them, how could you possibly know it was about them?
And it's a silly piece of fiction that was written years ago. Are we meant to believe that this guy killed himself because of the story?
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
This was cool, you should allow your autism to activate more often.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
I think there is definitely less murder and violent assault, it is indeed hard to hide a missing wife or girlfriend.
But unlike many other countries, perverts generally seem to avoid tourists. Western women are stereotyped as being more assertive, and they're generally just physically larger and less demure than Japanese women. And from what I can tell and what I've been told, Japanese men just aren't that attracted to non-Japanese women. There seems to be an assumption that Japanese women are the most feminine, womanly women out there, and that anything else is a downgrade. And there's also the faint but pervasive sentiment permeating every layer and aspect of Japanese life that anything Japanese is "good" and "normal" while anything foreign, while perhaps interesting, is nonetheless alien and inferior (c.f. the stereotypical 20th century Englishman's "proper tea," "proper fish and chips," "foreign parts," etc).
On the other hand, very much like other countries, I've heard that a lot of the sexual assaults happen to lower-class women -- unsupervised teenage daughters of single working moms, young women very drunk or passed out in a nightlife district, and of course, young girls in crowded trains (although this seems to be decreasing). It seems like there is quite a lot of this, and tourists rarely experience it.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
Having experienced the latter and currently experiencing the former, I wish I could have started in my early 20s.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
On the other hand, less sexual violence
I think it's just endemic and underreported. I've heard that cops here will often blow off accusations of assault or violence unless it's truly egregious. He's your boyfriend/husband, right? Are you sure you weren't just having a lovers quarrel? He could get in a lot of trouble if you insist on reporting this, you know. What were you doing out this late, anyway? Were you drinking? A young woman your age shouldn't be doing that sort of thing. Etc etc. Which is not to say that they don't have a point, but I think there may be more sexual violence that you see in the news or in official stats.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
"Nobody 'makes you mad.' Nobody 'makes' you do anything. Don't make excuses for how you choose to feel and what you choose to do."
t. my mom (paraphrased)
As a kid I hated it, but as I became an adult I realized she was so very, very right. I'm endlessly amazed at how very many people age 30+ still blame others for their own emotions and choices.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
At last, something on which we can agree.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
I've spent years working at several different Japanese companies, and this is a pretty spot-on analysis.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
I'm aware of the Quran passages, but I thought that Judaism mostly cozied up to Islam throughout middle ages and early modern ages, and that Jews were willingly employed by Muslims as spies and 5th columnists against Christian kingdoms. AFAIK the current Jewish-Muslim feud did start with the Zionist settlement of the Levant.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1mo ago
My impression is that this was actually true for an earlier period of American history, though. American media from the last 70 years is rife with caricatures of scared mean old men or stupid meathead bullies calling anything perceived as effete or unusual "Communist" or "pinko." My right-wing extended family uses "What? What are you, some kind of Communist?" in response to the same as an ironic self-deprecating joke. And so if you call someone a "Communist" in 2025, all but the most brainrotted boomercons will just laugh at you.
Okay I want to pick a fight about this.
Americans view their floors differently than other countries' floors. Our floors are treated much more like the ground outside than a clean indoor surface. We don't put pillows on the floor and lay on them, we don't eat off the ground. So it's really not a big deal.
That said, we don't just track filth indoors -- we have doormats and it would be unthinkable to track mud or shit inside the house. And in practice, a lot of people do kick their shoes off when they get home, they just do it near the couch instead of the front door. I live in Japan where walking into someones house with your shoes on is a sin nearly as great as, say, whipping out your junk unprompted. And while their floors have less outside dirt and dust, they are far from clean unless swept regularly, especially if one has kids or pets. So the difference in cleanliness is also exaggerated.
Don't get me wrong, I'm firmly in the side of taking off shoes near the threshold. But this whole meme smacks of "wypipo don season dey food" or "white people are all inbred pedos," nonsense made up out of whole cloth, or very nearly.
More options
Context Copy link