Alabasata
2mo ago
I wrote a Dethklok-style song during the pandemic about that trend. It was cathartic to fantasize about burning those kinds of HOAs (and their contracts) to rubble.
The existence of keycard-locked and gated neighborhoods is a strong signal that most of the Americans that can afford them believe their surrounding society deserves low-trust interactions. This, in turn, earns a disgust response from me and others who cannot afford the security you buy.
I saw the trailer for this conference. This was held last year in Austin. I am a father, and before I was a father I could not have afforded a trip to attend this. I expect their target audience are HENRYs & PMCs, not tradesman.
I've wanted to be a father for a very long time. I could imagine my kids, but for a very long time I couldn't picture the woman who would want to have mine. After I bought a house, I couldn't find a local woman who wanted my children.
I don't care how beautiful the rhetoric is. They're not talking to me. I already kinda buy in, but I'm not who they want to sign on.
It sucks to be looked past. And I recognize Sean Hannity in the series of audio quotes. "Beyond politics", my ass.
Alabasata
4mo ago
So I've made a lot of headway into my local neighborhood. Next month, I'm set to join the board of my neighborhood organization. I'm replacing a member who has too many commitments. (Note: this neighborhood does not have an HOA, so membership is voluntary.) I'm also the volunteer webmaster, so thankfully I get to structure how our online real estate looks and feels.
My goals as a board member are twofold:
- Provide good reasons to be a member.
- Replace the membership that has dropped off in the past 10 years. We just built a bunch of apartment complexes; surely some of them are civic-minded enough to want to participate.
Out of curiosity: what would be some good reasons to join a group that reviews building permits, holds open meetings with bureaucrats and local elected officials, and serves cheap chicken dinners to dues-paying members?
Hell of a selling proposition, I know.
Better yet, what more would we need to do to make it worth leaving your residence on a Thursday night? Y'know, instead of being here on The Motte with you fine folk? 🙂
Alabasata
4mo ago
Unfortunately, "none of the above" is not an option at the polls. Until that's the case, my default option is "someone will win this election, and the consequences of who wins is directly proportional to my likelihood of voting".
Alabasata
6mo ago
I wasn't reading comics when Dave Sim went over the deep end during his Cerebus run. But I did see Ishida skew his views over the years. And Jon Schaffer go from "historical re-ennactment" metal to 6Jan attender. I guess if you're going to be playing with ideological tropes in your day-to-day work, you're likely to get changed by them.
I - for one - am thankful I never made a career out of being creative. Probably would have been at least as insufferable as these folk.
Alabasata
1mo ago
I'm starting a GoFundMe to commission a klezmer rendition of "On Eagle's Wings". Then, and only then, will the inferior WASP culture be washed away from sea to shining sea.
/SaturdayCartoonVillain
Alabasata
2mo ago
Remind me, how common are acid attacks in that corner? Because that type of antisocial assault is something the subcontinent is infamous for. Not interested in starting the "if I'm getting beat up by the townies anyway, let's give them a real reason for it" ball rolling.
Alabasata
4mo ago
Let's see if rephrasing this helps.
If "none of the above" were allowed to win, I'd be okay with selecting that more often. If you're stuck picking which color boot is going to be on our necks - and that's the world we live in - then I'm going to pick the color that matches my hair.
Alabasata
4mo ago
I was in the backyard of my grieving stepbrother. He was a widower due to a vehicle accident and not even 40 yet. I hadn't seen him face-to-face in about 15 years. But we reconnected over video chat during the pandemic.
Because I knew I was only going to know our parents there, I made it my mission to talk to everyone & be curious about them. I had enough surface-level knowledge to engage with anyone. That caught the eye of the most bookish of the bunch, a coworker of the deceased.
Less than 2 years later we became parents, and she packed up her belongings and moved 1000 miles away to live with me. It's an imperfect arrangement, a local maxima, but it works for now.
Alabasata
10mo ago
Your value judgements on manner of death don't make sense. "A strength that is greater than your own" can be interpreted in a great many number of ways.
An adult human is capable of 2 kW from time to time. It's pretty easy to buy sodium lightbulbs that are rated at 1000 Watts. By that logic, it's somehow not-shameful to die to three large grow lights - whether by burning or by a slow increase in heat or some other creative method- but not by one large grow light.
How?
Alabasata
10mo ago
Silly question, but have you seen anyone try to use GPT-4 to...create documentation? Maybe it'll write something that's better than what exists. (I'm not in programming, so I wouldn't know the limitations.)
Alabasata
2mo ago
When was the last time you've heard of people making real decisions based on fiction they've read or seen? Or based on news articles from only one color of the spectrum?
If kids see a cartoon about bullies targeting people with glasses, they're less likely to wear glasses. Adults are nowhere near immune from that kind of false-positive threat modeling. They're just a lot more effective at overreacting. See: post-9/11 reactions to Arabs & Muslims, Japanese internment camps, Pizzagate, parental advisory stickers.
People can and do put the cart before the horse when making decisions on which neighborhoods to move into. It's common, and no amount of 'rational threat analysis' will change that.
Alabasata
4mo ago
The last time this happened to me, it was for temperature-related reasons. We were outside below 60F, and taking off my shirt was a bad move. Blood rushed to where it needed to go, not where I wanted it to.
If you're indoors, it couldn't hurt checking to see if you need to turn up the heat in order to turn up the heat.
Alabasata
4mo ago
Meet People IRL
Frankly this approach seems dead in the water in this day and age. The only reliable way to meet people in person anymore has been, in my experience, through academia.
Our experiences do not match. Granted, I am not an academic. Meeting people in that setting is not my idea of a good time. Instead of talking about sustainability theory at some convention, I'd rather hang out with likeminded people ripping out decorative bushes and planting a food forest. People who are capable of Doing The Damn Work are my people.
Filtering out the flakes (men and women) who RSVP but don't attend makes the selection process for who to associate with so much easier. I'm not sure how that translates to your areas of preference. Hopefully, you can connect the dots there.
I joined because I bought a house in the neighborhood. I'm not from here, and this is probably the best I can do as far as what I can afford. (Six years later, I'm priced out of buying in this neighborhood. There's nowhere cheaper to move to within an hour's drive.) Might as well figure out how to help make where I'm at the best that it can be.
Alabasata
4mo ago
This sounds like a great time to talk about our panics when dating.
Here's a fun one for you. Have you ever been out for a drive with a woman, limp as a wet noodle, and it is only after she leaves that you get erect? This happened with one woman who I met while hawking meats at a grocery store.
Have you ever had your leg suddenly shake uncontrollably when both your pants are off? This happened with a woman that I used to know back in my freshman year of high school, that I reconnected with in my early 20s.
Have you ever accidentally eaten so much at a date, all your blood rushes up into your stomach - leaving you unable to escalate the rapport? This happened after meeting a woman on a flight home from a job interview.
Guys, I have fucked up so much due to anxiety and inability to predict my own biology. It's kind of a wonder I managed to have kids at all.
If you're failing, at least it means you're trying.
Alabasata
4mo ago
What's your take on Sam O'Nella or Max Miller?
Alabasata
5mo ago
I disagree with your definition of "woke". It might have been telephoned to that degree, but I operate from a much different vantage. In short, I see woke as "Systems of power have been designed, and they weren't made with your prosperity in mind. Don't fall in the cracks that their laws and loans and research has made. Don't be a victim of The System: stay woke."
A medical example: sodium is painted out to be a much bigger factor than it is in blood pressure studies. But the government & processed food industries stand to make money off of advertising and low-rigor studies, so re-education is low on the priority list. Staying woke means cooking from scratch and adding salt to taste.
Now if you're going to look for grift, you'll find it. There is more bullshit being written every day than you can read. If you want to find something to fight, you're going to. But why would that be good for you?
Alabasata
6mo ago
I bought my house in 2018 and refinanced in 2021. If I were working the same job I was then - today - I could not afford to buy the house I now occupy. Wouldn't even be close to qualifying.
My fellow line workers are in far more precarious financial situations than I am. It is not their fault. If the wage-to-property-value ratios were restored to pre-pandemic levels, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But they are not, so I cannot.
Alabasata
8mo ago
Back in the 1970s, they saw sitcoms presenting the Hapless Husband. They listened to "Paradise By The Dashboard Light". They read about Billie Jean King's challenge and David Bowie's trysts. This isn't terribly different from gender roles and non-conformity today. Heck, you could go back to Chaucer's Wife of Bath. How different have things really gotten since then?
I suspect you'll see more of the same. People seeking novelty will gravitate to the Gender NonConforming (GNC). People who wish they had more will fight for their side of the fence. People concerned about keeping what they have will play concern troll. Professors will abuse their authority, and schoolmarms will abuse theirs. The cycle will remain unbroken.
Round and round we'll go - until medical tech figures out stuff the smut-writers on Fictionmania.tv have been dreaming about for decades. Now that will be a fun wrinkle.
Alabasata
11mo ago
I'd be curious to hear why Captain DeJearnette deserves similar disdain for having a red headstone. Unless both of them simply paid extra for a custom piece.
Alabasata
11mo ago
Friday is my last day as an 811 utility locator. There are a lot of reasons I'm leaving the job behind: contractors abusing the free service, no reasonable opportunities for additonal training or advancement, out-of-touch upper management. I am accepting a position as a engineering locator that is a double-edged sword: I'm effectvely taking a paycut because there's less overtime available.
Thankfully, my budget is at a surplus of $1500/month, so I can currently afford the hit. However, I ought to figure out how to do more valuable things...and I am just at a complete loss on a path forward.
If there is anyone else here who is construction-adjacent and can offer some advice on how to clear six figures within 5 years, I'd love to hear it.
I am trying to figure out what the "wrong side of European history" means. In the American sense, it usually means "bad ideas that deserved to be crushed". In the European sense, I'm thinking more "unable to exercise one's advantages", as they were largely playing from the same ideological rulebook.
(I hope I'm wrong about this, and look forward to any effortpost this inspires.)
More options
Context Copy link