Bartender_Venator
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User ID: 2349
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
My understanding of the current consensus on the Great Game is that neither the Russians or (sensible) Brits believed that the Russians could conquer India. Rather, they believed that Russian spies and then an expeditionary force could spark a massive uprising in India that would deny it to to Britain. Neither side was really aware of the immense logistical difficulties Russia would have faced in doing this, though, it was more an assumption that Russia would be able to overcome them at some not-so-distant point in the future.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Amusingly, Indian nationalists and Western post-colonialists like to point to a study that shows the Bengal famine was caused by the British, because it's the only Indian famine that doesn't correlate with the monsoon conditions which have caused famine in India since time immemorial. They then turn around and blame the British for all the previous famines, too.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
In all my years on themotte, the most valuable lesson I've learned is that checking your interlocutor's sources is a superpower. Nobody else will do it, and there's a fair chance he hasn't.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Shades of the Judge. I agree almost entirely, but I'm compelled to point out that Isandlwana was essentially campaign-ending, in that the British had to completely withdraw from Zululand and plan a second, more competent invasion. Bad planning, sure, but it was also a perfect storm scenario for an African force to defeat European riflemen - a large part of the area the Zulus charged over was dead ground from the perspective of the British lines, and the British were undersupplied and had little space to fall back into. A Roman legion would have whipped the British there.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
I would not recommend buying new if possible. Go on Craigslist etc. and find a warehouse with lightly-used office furniture and you can get a high-end Herman Miller or whatever you want well within that budget. Offices offload barely-used expensive chairs all the time, particularly in volatile economic times.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
As a regular US-UK flyer, I'll also point out that the supersonic premium on a night flight is not much of a premium unless you are doing a very quick-turnaround meeting. What makes NYC-London miserable is that it's not enough time for a decent night's sleep - I would rather fly LA-London, than NYC-London, personally, and would choose subsonic over supersonic just for the extra sleep.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Hey, you could be an invertebrate that gets eaten alive by its young or, conversely, an invertebrate that gets to eat the smaller male after mating! I think it's fair to say this book is arguing that, to evolution, nobody and nothing has any "worth" at all except insofar as they can effectively replicate their genes by successful reproduction (except possibly their caloric value to something higher up the food chain). You're anthropomorphizing a blind and utterly callous force of nature, and even anthropomorphizing it as assigning rather modern values to its objects.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Weed might suppress the latter two but it definitely doesn't suppress neuroticism. Paranoia is a notable side effect of both smoking weed and the hangover from it.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
I would add two further points:
- Urges satisfied physically are more satisfying. Obviously actual sex is more satisfying than gooning, but casual gamblers will also tell you that playing cards is more satisfying than pressing buttons, and there's something much more satisfying about smoking a cigarette than sucking on a vape. The act is done, the ritual is complete, you can now go do the next thing in your day/night. Maybe even go to sleep, if you didn't do too many lines off that hooker.
- These low-friction processes are much more amenable to optimization for addiction and wallet/soul-draining. The term slot machine designers use is "gambling to extinction". And we've gotten very good at optimizing things for addiction. It's not just that it's low-friction, it's that you can add all kinds of dark patterns into the process itself to get users hooked and get them to spend more and more of their money. Slot machine addicts often report that on some level they're trying to gamble away all their money, because that means they can finally stop their session. Gooners are a bit more resistant to that because post-nut clarity will eventually hit, but this would be the dream monetization process for OnlyFans to develop.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Prostitution, for all its serious problems, is as lindy as it gets. Fairly analogous to how playing roulette at the casino is better for society than sports gambling on an app.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
I can second KENKA. I believe that's also one of the two spots that Vibecampers/postrats have their meetups.
If you feel like Chinese food instead, there's loads in Chinatown but I like Spicy Village for something casual - David's Bar next door will let you take their food in if you want to have a drink and likely meet some folks (more generally, a good way to meet people in NYC is to pop through a bar that's so small everyone is in close proximity). The infamous Dimes Square is nearby, but there's nothing to actually see at the moment.
Since you've got a lot of time, definitely go see the Cloisters. It's a great neighbourhood, too, and will give you some topological variety and good cardio just walking around.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Scotland (well, urban progressive Scotland, not the Highlands) is the Canada of Britain - their modern identity is deeply wrapped up in not being their richer, more famous, comparatively more conservative neighbour. As such, Scottish nationalism has taken on a distinctively left-wing, almost third-worldist character. Devolution hasn't helped, in that it's given Scotland a sort of toy government where SNP politicians can play around knowing they'll be bailed out of any serious consequences for bad decisions by the British taxpayer.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Not terribly often, but sometimes. Just helped a friend move last weekend (though I did get some old books and a sweet radio that I will likely never use any more than he did). I've probably done bigger good deeds than this one but it sticks with me: I was staying at my aunt's place in a third-world country where she rents out flats. Some elderly regulars were visiting, and the man was in very poor health, clearly not going to be around to come back next year. One day I'm walking out of the vestibule as he's walking in, and he suddenly starts to collapse, I'm in arms reach to dart in and prop him up. He's a big, portly guy but I'm strong enough to hold him up, my brother gets in on the other side and we slowly walk him over to a stair where we can sit him down safely. At that age, in that poor health, and with the issues of the local hospitals, a bad fall would likely either have killed him or meant the end of his mobile life. There's also something particularly satisfying about being able to help somebody just by being there and being physically strong/quick, primal male stuff.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
They're just chinos, not dress pants (sometimes available in wool iirc), but Epaulet's Wilhelm cut is designed for serious lifters. Even their regular cuts are extremely flattering and have a lot of thigh/seat space.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Tailoring is not the end of the world. If you can get one shirt tailored to the fit you want, you can take down the measurements and send them to Luxire or a similar overseas place for made-to-measure shirts around the same price point as State and Liberty (depending on fabric quality and sales, but I can promise you even their cheapest fabric will be better-looking than some kind of "stretch performance" thing).
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
The other advantage of disassembling a planet is that doing so also disassembles the gravity well.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
There's a good Nick Land essay about this where he argues that space exploration is really about planetary disassembly by posthuman intelligences rather than domestead frontier LARPing.
Iirc he starts from the premise that spheres are an extremely inefficient shape to extract mineral resources from, compared to disassembling a planet into asteroids and having space drones mine them.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
You just get exposed to different pathogens than your immune system is used to, it's traveler's diarrhea (which can absolutely hospitalize you if you're unlucky). I would assume all the unpasteurized cheese or cured meat or whatever doesn't help in avoiding trace levels of them which will be nothing to a local but will thrive in an unprepared gut. If you want to avoid it, avoid anything that wasn't cooked before serving, and wash your hands like it's April 2020.
Bartender_Venator
1mo ago
Peptobismol and Imodium can be combined in all but rare instances, usually when you wouldn't want to take one of them in particular (think dysentery, not regular travel shits), different mechanisms of action.
Bartender_Venator
2mo ago
Nice, both great films. If you want an interesting experience that will teach you a lot about Lynch's influences, I recommend watching Eraserhead and then Orson Welles' version of The Trial.
Bartender_Venator
2mo ago
Fair warning, no spoilers: Lynch left Twin Peaks for an extended period in Season 2, and it gets really really bad for a bit. Not quite unwatchable but close. Soldier on, though, because The Return is arguably the greatest TV ever filmed.
If you decide to take a break and watch other Lynch stuff, Mulholland Drive was originally conceived as a Twin Peaks spinoff, and Blue Velvet is probably his Peaksiest film.
Bartender_Venator
2mo ago
Sadly Turok's discussion of class was less than worthless, and seemed to mostly be about his own unexamined class insecurities. As I said elsewhere, "It's a funny barber-pole-of-status-signaling thing. I have never encountered someone on the internet who is actually upper-class for whom "lower-classness" is an object of vitriol rather than of disinterested study." But bringing that directly into discussion would also violate the norms of this space, such that any discussion from his posts was already drawing from a poisoned well.
Bartender_Venator
2mo ago
It's a huge, huge topic, and from a Mottizen perspective a lot of the received wisdom on wine is very questionable. My advice:
- Go region-by-region and familiarize yourself with it. There are some regions I know much better than others, and a lot of depth to go into in each one. This is particularly the case if you're in a marginal wine region, like Niagara, that specializes in particular varietals due to climate.
- Find a really good local shop and talk to the owners/go to their events. Can be a pleasant way to spend an evening and wine lovers like to go in-depth on why a wine/region is the way it is. Consider joining a wine club that will give you a couple varied bottles along with tasting notes.
- Stick to wines around the $20 price point for trying new stuff (maybe $25-30 now with inflation and tariffs). Even the experts will tell you that, for the most part, the price difference between $20-$80 is marketing. If you want to splurge, go above $80 on a varietal you know you like.
- Pairings do make a huge difference, particularly cheese. With a meal, the 'ideal' pairings are generally pretty well-known, just look up what you'll be cooking.
- It's ok not to like varietals. I don't like merlot and I can count the chardonnays I've liked on one hand (though one Franschoek chardonnay in particular is a grail of mine, has an incredible smoky flavour. Sadly my uncle has a long-running beef with the guy who owns the vineyard so no schmoozing in for me). Don't be afraid to develop your own taste.
- Don't be a snob. If AlexanderTurok drank wine, he'd be a wine snob. Nobody wants that at their tasting.
Bartender_Venator
2mo ago
I wish you had posted this yesterday. It would have gone well with my wine - I had a South African Cape Coast sav blanc, from an east-facing vineyard at the foot of a coastal valley, where the sea air and rocky soil produce a really crisp, refreshing white with an almost salty minerality. Paired that with a very mild, milky cheddar and some raspberries. In the evening, when it wasn't so hot, I cracked a Salamino di Santa Croce lambrusco. Again, that's a bit tarter and more acidic than your typical fruity lambrusco, but I paired it with a rich mushroom bruschetta. I don't actually know that much about Italian wine (the family place in Italy is on the coast, quite some way from the real wine country), but I know what I like.
P.S. I know you're supposed to capitalize "Sauvignon", "Lambrusco", etc., but that's always struck me as a little pretentious.
Yes, when young Africans talk about this they often call it the "Black Tax". It makes the kind of low-level capital accumulation necessary for growing a black middle class almost impossible, outside of people willing to move to the city or to a different country and cut ties with their family - a very difficult and painful thing to do in any culture, but particularly in African cultures. On the other hand, it's good for Malthusian survival.
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