ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
No bio...
User ID: 1012
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1d ago
I get something new out of The Abolition of Man and The Great Divorce each time I read them.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1d ago
Relevant passage from The Great Divorce, spoken by Lewis's spiritual guide:
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1d ago
I think it's a great source to quickly get up to speed on any given hobby or subculture's memes.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1d ago
There are two types of people you will never convince:
- Those who believe they have a vested interest in this not being seen as a conspiracy
- Hardcore "nothing ever happens" people
I really think that, if Epstein were not apparently connected to intelligence, powerful people in government, and were not Jewish, nearly zero people would argue that he killed himself. There are simply too many "coincidences." But there are people who like the political status quo (or at least despise the upstarts trying to disrupt the status quo), and there are other people who perceive the emphasis on Epstein's Jewishness/Mossad connections as dangerous to themselves (I have sympathy for this second group).
I don't know what to make of the "nothing ever happens" people. I have a friend like this, and I gave up talking to them about anything a long time ago. Any time I bring up some current event, I get some variation of
- "Eh, it'll blow over and everyone will forget in a month."
- "Actually it's always been like that."
- "I don't think that will actually change much."
- "I dunno, that sounds too far-fetched to be true."
- "I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I can see both sides."
It's closely related to the "enlightened centrism" meme. These sorts of folks are not "arguing to understand."
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1d ago
Regarding fuddlore and similar, there's a certain type of person who loves to repeat these sorts of shibboleths regardless of whether they're true. They're a cheap way to signal that you're part of the ingroup and get credibility. Reddit seems to attract these sorts of people since all you have to do is mindlessly paste the fuddlore (bonus points if you add some passive aggression or irony) and you'll be showered in karma.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
1d ago
Wait until you get to the endgame: pickled sausages. Pure lard, vinegar, and salt, absolutely nothing redeeming and absolutely delicious. Bonus points if they come out firecracker red.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
3d ago
- <1 km
- 3km
- 1km, apples
- 5km (not Amtrak)
- 4 km (local equivalent)
- 220km
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
4d ago
Even as a tattoo hater, I have to admit that this is pretty neat.
I remember suddenly hearing the verb "judge" a lot in high school from girls. "She was judging me!" "You're being really judgy!" etc. and I was baffled by the usage. My internal reaction was something like... uh, yes? Everyone's judging everyone about everything all the time? Subconsciously most of the time, even? I understood that the girls were not trying to stop others from "judging" per se (since presumably they themselves often made knee-jerk and subconscious judgements about others) -- they simply wanted immunity from criticism about their choices (bad boyfriend, questionable fashion, low status friends, etc). I remember feeling unconvinced by their appeals against "judging" but at the time I couldn't put my finger on why. Nor could anyone else, so it was an effective tactic to immediately shut down any criticism (cf. "you're being inappropriate").
Americans are taught from a young age that we "shouldn't judge a book by its cover," that we should "judge by the content of their character," that we "ought to walk a mile in their shoes," and so on. This stems from a belief in an obscure nameless virtue that's not quite captured by the term "tolerance." The best name for it I've seen (sadly from a writer whose name I cannot remember) is "indiscriminateness." It's not enough to tolerate your neighbors weird facial piercings/taste in movies/cooking/religion -- to simply let them enjoy those things without trying to stop them -- no, you must pretend (and strive to actual believe) that you can't even see a qualitative difference at all between Christianity/Islam, Michael Bay/Ingmar Bergman, natural look/septum piercings, etc. I think that "indiscriminateness" as a virtue is the fruit of Americans' extreme fixation on egalitarianism and discomfort with any sort of hierarchy or authority.
So what is it "okay" to judge? Everything, I suppose. You cannot stop other people from judging you, at best you can just shame them into lying and saying they're not (which sounds like a worse outcome to me -- now you don't even know who looks down on you!).
If you want to get a hideous septum piercing or dye your hair some ludicrous color, please weigh whatever benefit you'd get from that action against the negativity you'll get from others (comments, mockery, rejected job applications) and then, make your decision and own that decision.
To directly answer your questions:
How much should you judge people? All the time. Unless you've been living alone on a desert island you've met a lot for people, so you have tons of data to use. It would be foolish not to use it. Your brain is designed to due exactly that sort of thing (pattern recognition).
On what should you judge them by? Any characteristics for which you have data.
Is there something you think it's wrong to judge people for? No, with some exceptions for leniency on people who have Seen Some Shit (e.g. abuse victims, war fighters/survivors, mentally ill people).
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
6d ago
This is it. After the (imaginary) authoritarian socialcon revolution, I'll let my kids roam free in our safe, crime free neighborhood, I'll let them attend public schools without fear of them absorbing enemy propaganda. I'll work a normal middle class drone job (like I do now). I just want to be free to live my small traditional peasant life and raise my family among the same. I don't want to be a warlord or a artist. I just want to grill.
They're still a reasonably popular clothing brand in Japan, for some reason.
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