Ethan
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User ID: 2275
Ethan
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1yr ago
What about De Sade may anybody find fascinating? He's not a good writer and his books are calcavades of whatever indecent actions he can think of. You'd have a similar product if you'd asked a rambunctious teenager to write "the naughtiest story ever."
Ethan
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1yr ago
It's been a while since I've seen the film, but I do remember that.
Also, the Lego Movie. Its message is that sometimes "conformity" is good! Being a teamplayer means following some rules and sometimes curbing your impulse to be your own peculiar creature.
Ethan
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1yr ago
The implicit view our media-makers seem to take is that taboo-breaking is intrinsically good. Turning Red, whatever it did, was sold as a boundary-pushing film with scatological subject matter discussed frankly. But is that itself venerable? Why are we celebrating that as an unmitigated good?
Our culture, our art, tends toward this destructive impulse. Watch the language: we break taboos, smash sacred cows, subvert expectations, break stereotypes, and so on. Correspondingly, what is traditional, conservative, or restrictive to nearly any capacity is represented as backwards and fearful, rather than as healthy and signalling a robust community.
What movies have been made in our lifetimes wherein a character's negative snap-judgments on an outsider have proven correct? When has art made within the last fifty years even come close to endorsing a societal taboo as good and wholesome? When has "boundary-pushing" for its own sake ever been represented as the deeply lazy and pathological trait it often is in reality? Barely ever.
Ethan
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1yr ago
I think much of the callousness toward "normie" behavior stems from a healthy desire to avoid some of the and common vices people indulge. But beyond that, what's more "normie" than exclaiming how un-normal you are? How many movies have you seen where the lesson is that conformity isn't suspect at best?Contrarianism is the fashion. Everybody's special.
I think, along a similar vein to your post, that maturing means moving past the silly idea that what's common is bad and that diversity in itself is some positive good. If anything, the opposite is probably true.
But I can see why a lot of people, especially those to whom social interaction is difficult, want to throw their hands up and declare the effort sour grapes. I think deep down there's a thrill in being an outcast, even if your exile is self-imposed. It's easier than cultivating relationships which lead to in-groups. Us introverts and socially awkward people have special incentive to take that path.
Ethan
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1yr ago
I'm a big fan of Jules Verne-style scientific adventure novels. The whole 19th-century spirit of adventure is great fun to read. Are there any modern books, fiction or nonfiction, which have the same vibe?
Ethan
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1yr ago
I think the wariness of pop-masculinity is warranted and cultural attempts to reclaim masculinity are often reactive. There are political reasons for that. The Left hates pretty much all traditional masculinity and so mocks it with reductive caricatures of anger, excess and bravado. The Right often responds, intentionally or not, by embracing this caricature of masculinity. Boomer-tier memes of guns n' trucks abound. That these things are considered "masculine" with no reference to craftsmanship, robust physical culture, or the higher virtues like honor and courage leaves the impression that men are chasing shadows of a once-unified ideal. I'm not naive enough to think that this was ever a settled image -- there were many of masculine archetypes through Western history. But these archetypes share traits. A few of them are a willingness to take physical risks, an emphasis on physical development, and an honor culture.
So of course testosterone matters in cultivating the physical and psychic qualities of manliness. It's no secret that testosterone levels in men have been declining and that our culture encourages this emasculation. That passive entertainments like video games and sportsball are indicators of modern male identity is a tell that our culture is degraded. They're abstractions of war and sport. The solution, best I can tell, is to meet the realities again. Lifting heavy objects is probably the most direct way to do that. I prefer bodyweight exercises to start with. It's possible to do many improving workouts with one's body in a small space. Plus, it helps to avoid the problem you identify with lifting too much with improper form. I think it's important to get a good foundation of balance and flexibility before lifting heavy stuff for those who aren't used to using their bodies for labor.
Swing dance seems like good fun. I'll look into it.
Ethan
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1yr ago
Sure, but I'm quite fine with reading and developing myself in that direction. I really do regard a liking for books as a strength. Many great men like Theodore Roosevelt have developed mind and body in tandem. The habit I'd like to "shame" is risk-averseness, so I don't think I substantially disagree with this response.
"Bookishness" is, I think, pathological exactly when reading becomes a habitual escape from the world. Think people who read self-help books but never apply any of the tips. It's easy to defer action in favor of more research; cowardice is easily disguised as prudence.
Ethan
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1yr ago
You might be fine with a cheap coffee maker, a coffee bean grinder and whole coffee beans. Grind them beans fresh just before use, to desired consistency. (Generally, if you were using something like a french press to brew the coffee, the ideal coarseness of the beans would approximate kosher salt. I prefer going a little finer if I'm using a regular percolator. Experiment a little.)
The way I've described is an easy way to upgrade the average coffee routine.
Ethan
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1yr ago
From a stylistic view alone, it'd be a lot better to just use your own words. The robot-talk is like the visual equivalent of eating raisin bran.
Ethan
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1yr ago
I'm a nerdy guy looking to develop my action-taking side. Bookishness is nice and all, but the reserved temperament doesn't jive with my dreams to become an action-hero.
What actions did y'all take to become more risk-taking and less prone to analysis paralysis? Maybe something a bit more specific than "just take small risks and scale upward!" I'd venture a guess that certain hobbies and activities -- certain sports, handiwork, skilled trades -- develop the qualities of manly self-assurance more than others. Has anybody undertaken a similar path to self-improvement?
Ethan
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1yr ago
https://twitter.com/TheWorthyHouse/status/1599041437081161728
This tweet. Charles Haywood writes at a blog called theworthyhouse.com which is excellent for longform dissident content. He doesn't give attribution for the flea circus comparison, so I guess it's his idea. And he criticizes stuff like this often on his Twitter, including self-driving cars and the idea that robots will take our jobs. And I agree that a lot of our fears and hopes about these things are unfounded.
Ethan
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1yr ago
I've heard it described as a flea circus. If you want to be convinced, you will be. But look at GPT's output under the cold light of day and it's very clearly a kind of mush. There's no human texture to it, nothing idiosyncratic.
Ethan
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1yr ago
This lack of consistency from mainstream conservatism indicates a deeper philosophical problem with it. This cuts to the core of their neutered responses to easy divorce, gay "marriage," looser abortion stances, etc.. At bottom, neoconservatives have very liberal positions. This internal friction is caused by their implicit acceptance of the Enlightenment project's axiomatic positions, such as Mill's no-harm principle. Neoconservatives would generally not deny that all agents should be free, with minimal constraints on their behavior as long as all parties consent. They believe that absolute neutrality in the public sphere is an unmitigated good, and that "freedom" should be maximized -- to mean that we shouldn't enforce moral standards, even Christian ones, except by social means.
So when private businesses refuse service to customers not wearing a mask, the conservative can't object on any solid grounds. Unless they're willing to apply a similar standard to Christian bakeries refusing to service homosexual couples. Both are private companies and they can do what they want, under the liberal, egalitarian view. The best neoconservatives can hope for is a grassroots social change which effectively renders Christian morals the dominant position anyway, rendering the problem of enforcing this morality a non-issue.
Ethan
Quality assurance
1yr ago
You say you're not going to "suck it up and lie." But then why do you say one paragraph before "I'm not misgendering [my friend]" because "he's never formally asked me to change names or pronouns?" Would you capitulate to that request, if he were to make it? Wouldn't accepting such a request also be lying?
I'm rereading Christopher Columbus, Mariner by Samuel Eliot Morison. Morison is a mariner himself, and sailed the routes Columbus took on his four voyages to the Americas. Morison's experiences in seamanship give him insight where book-learning is likely to fail, such as in this anecdote, from just before the actual sighting of America:
At 10 P.M. ... Columbus and a seaman, almost simultaneously, thought they saw a light, "like a little wax candle rising and falling." Others saw it too, but most did not; and after a few minutes it disappeared. Volumes have been written to explain what this light was or might have been. To a seaman it requires no explanation. It was an illusion, created by overtense watchfulness. When uncertain of your exact position, and straining to make a night landfall, you are apt to see imaginary lights and flashes and to hear nonexistent bells and breakers.
Morison's characterization of Columbus, aided no doubt by their shared experience on the open water, is generally favorable. Columbus was guided by strong religious sentiment, ambition, and greed -- motivations shared in varying proportions by nearly every European explorer during the period of discovery following the Reconquista. Morison plainly discuss the sufferings inflicted on the American Indians. But unlike many modern retellings of this story he doesn't allow this to dampen the feelings of admiration toward Columbus' courage, nor to obscure the obvious fact of how immense and profitable Columbus' discovery was.
See how far you could get with GPT 4.
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