BahRamYou
6mo ago
The only way it can happen under this rubric is that someone either got lucky through no fault of their own, in which case they'd better share, or else they got a leg up by taking advantage of someone else, in which case they'd better be punished.
When you put it like that, it really does sound remarkably similar to the real-life experience of communism. Got some money? Or any sort of useful property? Here's some thugs coming to confiscate it "for the people."
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Even then, it's kind of a strange label. When people do that now, it's basically a historical LARP. The real Nazis weren't larping, they saw themselves as a very modern and revolutionary movement that would lead to the future.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Instagram is still pretty hip IMO. Lots of young people on there posting bikini pics. It's just a matter of who you follow. But I think the instagram format of photo-dominance is well suited for anyone who wants to be hip, regardless of age. Despite it's name, Facebook was more of a text platform.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Yeah, I remember thinking that Google Plus had some good ideas, but it was just too much work to use it properly. It's easier and more natural to just think like "LinkedIn is for work, Instagram is for hot pics, twitter is for politics." Facebook is for baby pics and connecting to my elderly relatives.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Imagine being a young adult moving for the first time away from home and to the big new city and starting your new exciting student life, only that you know no one, everyone is a stranger, and university life is complicated in all kind of ways. If I recall correctly TheFacebook had group chats, like mini message boards, which were made by students for every course (and of course used for organizing partying). You could stay organized. You could connect. This was a very useful and fun service.
This is exactly what it was for me.
... and then they took all of my private posts and photos and made them public to the entire world. I don't think I can ever feel the same trust for an internet service ever again.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Apple, Commodore, IBM, and RadioShack tried very hard to corner the market in the 1980s. It's their own fault that an upstart competitor was able to take it away from them, despite their first-mover advantage, because they did such a crappy job of actually taking care of their consumers.
Isn't that kind of a "programmer" perspective on Microsoft? From a normie perspective, Microsoft brought computers to the masses and made them useful to normal people.
- Instead of typing cryptic commands into a terminal, you could just click buttons with a GUI
- Yes, I know, Apple also had that in the Lisa and Macintosh. But those cost $10,000 in 1980s money, so no normal person could afford them.
- Yes, I know, Xerox had it even earlier. Again, no normal person could afford that or even knew that it existed.
- Instead of trying to choose between 12 different competing brands of computer that all ran totally different software, Microsoft made it easy by dominating the market with one standard that could run almost any kind of software
- Microsoft didn't just sell computers, they came prepackaged with a bunch of useful software so that it would "just work" right out of the box. Tech nerds might call that an exploitive monopoly, but normal people were pretty happy that they could easily write a document, run a spreadsheet, or get an email on this complicated gadget which they had spent a month's salary on, without having to do some complicated "software installation" process. Hell, even just Freecell and Minesweeper were mindblowing to people back then, when the alternative was ordering game installation floppy disks by a mail-order catalogue, or programming them yourself.
- A lot of their security problems were just because they had so many users, and so many hackers targeted them. Nobody bothered to target Unix or Apple back then because it simply wasn't worth it. But I'm sure they also had security problems that could have been targeted if "rich old boomer boss" had started using them en masse. hell, Richard Stallmen in his early years was notorious for hacking into people's accounts at MIT and changing their password because he believed that noone really needed a private password.
- In general, they just did what any corporation does... try to make money. IBM and Intel were exactly the same. Commodore under Jack Tramiel was even worse. The early hackers like Steve Woz were just too naive to understand how the world works. They thought they could just give away everything for free in live in a hippy paradise forever.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
So, I agree with you about the "enshittification" of Facebook, and that Zuckerberg is a uniquely influential person. I wrote a post here a while back arguing that Facebook was the only real social network, while most "social" networks today are more like TV, people just watch celebrity influencers with no meaningful interaction.
I think you give Zuck too little credit though. Whatsapp might be small in the US and Europe, but it's huge in developing countries like Mexico. They use it for everything, not just social networking but basic calling and sending money. If it continues to grow, it could end up being more important that Standard Oil.
More broadly, I think Zuck is a guy who knows how to take risks. He doesn't just stay complacent. He saw that Facebook was losing it's zing, and went heavily on trying other things. Instagram worked. The metaverse didn't. But that's fine, he doesn't need to win all of his bets, he just needs to win some of them. Or even just once. I feel like all of his projects attract good engineering talent that looks to high quality networking, security, and AI. That used to be true of Google and Microsoft but is not true anymore.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
For one, the median Mexican lives very far from the border: ask an American what they think of Mexico and your answer will describe the border, or maybe Cabo or Cozumel. The large cities in Mexico are mostly further south, and many aren't considered particularly dangerous with respect to the cartels.
Yeah, that was a shock to me when I went to live in Mexico for a year. The average Mexican thinks of the border... basically the same way as the average American. It's very far away and you have to cross a huge inhospitable desert to get there. The Mexican states near the border are their version of New Mexico/Arizona/rural Texas... not exactly "normal" states.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
I feel like it's the opposite. The "online right" has become so big that it's not just one movement anymore. There's lots of people with lots of different views, who don't agree on much except that the left is bad.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Growing up, multiple Vietnam war vets I worked with or had as scoutmasters or baseball coaches told me that to understand what Vietnam was like, I should watch Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now.
I can't help but object that those are all really different movies, which makes me confused about those people thought Vietnam was like? Full Metal Jacket is mostly famous for the first half showing the brutal boot camp. The second half is pretty forgettable, with the main character working as a journalist in Saigon. Apocalypse Now is based on Heart of Darkness, a book set in 19th century Africa, so it makes the Vietnamese look like primitive savages, which always bothered me. Platoon is by far the most realistic, since it's based on Oliver Stone's own experiences in the war, although of course it focuses on the most sensational parts and ignores all of the bland, boring parts that would make up any normal soldier's life.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
If you're like Charlie Chaplin, doing it explicitly as a satire making fun of Hitler, it's fine. But you're not allowed to wear it as a regular fashion. I think it's illegal under the Geneva convention or something.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
At that time he was ridiculously popular, not just in basketball but in life in general. I think he was genuinely curious how far he could push the line and still get away with it. I'll bet he could have run for president and won if he had tried it seriously.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
This reminds me of how Michael Jordan once decided to rock the Hitler mustache. And then quickly shaved it off. Not even MJ, at the peak of his popularity, could overcome that stigma. I definitely don't think Elon musk can.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Most people prefer a woman’s touch for their dwelling, and most men cannot replicate it for themselves.
I think this really varies from person to person. I've seen too many single guy friends get married, and then when I visit their home, it's totally dominated by their wife's style. Frilly cute things everywhere, and not a single visible trace of the stuff the guy used to like (or maybe it's hidden away in a single room, the mancave). The women in a modern western marriage just have so much power they can take over the house if they want to. One of the benefits (for the man) of prostitution is he can still get sex very conveniently but allso still have his own living space just the way he likes it. Including being roommates with a close male friend if that's what he wants, which most married women wouldn't tolerate.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
I read an interview once with a prostitute who also had a boyfriend. She said she loved him very much, but it caused problems all around. When she was with him she was tired from having sex in her job and just wanted to take a break. When she went back to work, she felt like she was cheating on her boyfriend. Not sure if she was telling her boyfriend the truth about her job, but it caused problems all around.
Good review. I'm also a big fan of that book, and of Houllebecq in general.
Worth noting that the book came out in 2001, presumably based on what it was like in the 90s (I'm very curious how much of this he experienced directly and how much was just his imagination or interviews with other people). I went there a couple years ago, so I can speak to what it's like. In some ways things are still the same, but in some ways things are different:
- onlike ticket sales, no need for a travel agency. Not a lot of people doing prepackage travel tours, at least not from Western countries.
- online dating is a thing. In Thailand a lot of the female profiles are either obviously prostitutes or blatantly looking for a rich husband. But brothels and streetwalkers are still a thing there
- The Thai economy has developed a lot, going from roughly $2000 per capita in 2000 to $7000 now. Still a rather poor country, but a lot less of the desperate poverty it used to have. The average Thai girl has a lot more options now, and there's an upper-middle class who are on par with the poorer foreign tourists who go there. The girls who still do it there now are usually either from Isaan (by far the poorest, most rural part of Thailand) or from Laos or Cambodia. So it's a bet less normalized there than it used to be.
- Prostitution in the tourist areas is mostly focused on "short time". It's harder now to find the "long-long time" that used to be common there, where you basically hire a girl to be your girlfriend for the week or whatever and show you around. Still exists, but you have to look outside of the main tourist areas. And that's a shame, because I think that sort of thing does a better job giving tourists the "Romance" experience the way Houllebecq showed it in the book.
- Bangkok is weirdly segregated by race. There are different bars for whites, chinese, japanese, indians, arabs, and probably other types of people too, but those were all the ones I saw directly. They might or might not ban you directly, but they'll look at you funny for being the wrong race when you go in there.
- Most bars are run by a "mamasan" who's MTF trans. They sort of act as a third gender, helping men and women connect with each other despite limited English and general awkwardness. They're really good at it! I wish the LBGTQ community in the west could taken more of that role to bridge the gender divide.
In general I agree with your review. Houllebecq holds up a magnifying lens at the ugly warts of modern society, forcing us to confront some of the things we'd rather not think about. The sexual revolution idea of "free love" isn't going to work for everyone, it can't work for everyone because there's not enough attractive peole to go around and western society is still kind of awkward and cold about sex. One obvious solution is to solve that problem like we do everything else in capitalism- hiring poor people to do it with money.
And sure, in principle it's not that different paying a poor 3rd-world person for sex just like we pay them to sew garments or grow fruit. But it does feel different when you experience it directly. Most of us are never going to run a 3rd-world sweatshop, we just buy the t-shirts and don't think about it much. But when you go to Thailand, and some woman quote you a price for sex that you know is too high, and you don't want to get taken advantage of like a sucker, but it's still not that high and you know how poor this woman is, but then you look around and see so many other women around who look hotter and are offering it for cheaper... you feel a little piece of your soul die.
On the other hand, it was an interesting experience to see capitalism "solve" sex, the way it solves everything else. Unlimited liquor, junk food, and sex, all for sale in the same place and for basically the same price. Whatever you want, you got it. Now with legal marijuana, too!
BahRamYou
6mo ago
I think the important part of the metaphor is that this isn't just any old set of tools, they belong to someone called "the master." He might lend them to you for a specific purpose like doing housework, but if you start trying to destroy his house, he will instantly call down the thunder on you. The only way to really destroy his house is to forcibly take away his power.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
I think "nerds," as a specific subgroup, have lost their identity. For one thing, basically eveyone uses computers now, at least a little, so one of the core parts of being a nerd became gentrified. And all those other things you mention- band, cross country, anime, Magic, AP classes, chess, sci-fi, whatever, it's very popular with a huge swath of different people. At the same time, there's so much of that stuff that it's basically impossible for even the nerdiest to keep up with all of it.
Put it this way- I think that in the 80s there was a very real subculture of nerds, like the guy in "Ready Player One." They could all handle basic computer skills, watch Star Trek and Star Wars, quote Monty Python to each other, and play chess at an amateur level. They all had a shared reference of nerdy interests, which few normies were interested in back then. But now, that's changed in both directions- too much nerd interests to learn them all, and too many normies invading to keep the culture. Black nerds were an even more specific subtype, so they probably got pushed out even harder.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
I thought that New Englanders used it to mean someone from New York, and New Yorkers used it to mean the baseball team.
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Is there an objective ranking somewhere for "top five most famous chairs of the 20th century?" How would you measure that?
BahRamYou
6mo ago
Hahaha. The Bauhaus strikes again!
There was always a set of bentwood chairs,blessed by Le Corbusier, which no one ever sat in because they caught you in the small of the back like a karate chop. The dining-room table was a smooth slab of blond wood (no ogee edges, no beading on the legs), around which was a set of the S-shaped, tubular steel, cane-bottomed chairs that Mies van der Rohe had designed—the second most famous chair designedin the twentieth century, his own Barcelona chair being first, but also one of the five most disastrously designed, so that by the time the main course arrived, at least one guest had pitched face forward into the lobster bisque.
Though, in this case I guess it kind of makes sense, serving double duty to both look cool and as hostile/defensive architecture to prevent people from sitting there too long.
"Sea of America" has a nice ring to it...
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