Ex_Nihilo
10mo ago
What a brilliant response. Your takedowns of the common "cop-outs" are of such an undeniable verity that, I think, you sufficiently lance any notion of video games as worthy of inclusion at all in a life not be wasted. Even cocaine seems to confer greater benefits - real productivity in the real world - albeit with much greater costs. Your hours-spent thesis is a fatal blow to simulated productivity, as even one minute of real productivity in those 50 hours is infinitely greater than the faux-accomplishments of a simulated world. Your last paragraph is a very clever retort to a common excuse that I'd neither heard nor considered before.
Is there any reason to not forgo video games completely? Are they in a category with gummy candy, smoking, and lottery tickets - no benefit of any kind beyond a dopamine release - or more like classic movies, dime novels, and social media - escapism with some degree of social and intellectual benefit?
I’ve enjoyed my two-week trial run of Lex Fridman’s maximally productive daily schedule but do find myself missing my offline career-based sports games. How sturdy is the argument that “not everything has to be productive”? Are books and television and film so far above video games in the usefulness ranking (after all, they can confer knowledge and social benefits, if not maximally condensed) that it’s a no-brainer to stop gaming completely? Or should sedentary leisure as a whole be relegated to “break in case of emergency” status, never part of a daily routine but “around” when more productive options are not available, or only to be used in the company of others?
I’ve wrestled with this for every day of these two weeks and still see benefits of escapism, while simultaneously seeing the futility of time spent achieving nothing in the real world - even if only for an hour or two.
EDIT: I coincidentally just discovered the "End Poem" of Minecraft; a poignant take on this discussion:
[teal] and the universe said I love you because you are love.
[green] And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.
[teal] You are the player.
[green] Wake up.
Four Questions of the Culture War After the Campaign Announcement of Dr. Cornell West
1. How viable is Dr. West as a third-party candidate?
I was fortunate to meet Cornell West when he visited Penn State around 2016; having known nothing about him at the time, I was struck by how viscerally he resurrected the images of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, effectively combining the biblical fire-and-brimstone tonality of the former and the political fire-and-brimstone of the latter. Yes, the black people of America are a uniquely oppressed people-group, he asserted, but they are not the only such group, and the Democratic Party is as a "Good Master," happy to have blacks in their company, but always keeping minorities in their proper place.
If I, not a person of recent African descent by any measure, could be emotionally captured and intellectually moved by his lectures, how much more must they work on his target audience? And if his many soapbox sermons which are undoubtedly to come gain a viral following among both the subjugated races and those true believers of the Woke Ideology who didn't realize they weren't actually supposed to believe what they were told, I wonder if we might see a percentile impact beyond that of any similar candidate in recent memory, perhaps even chipping at that of Ross Perot. After all, Black Americans make up (as many a rightist could tell you) more than twelve percent of the populace; even a minority of that minority could shift the movement of greater tides.
2. Are viral speeches still the greatest arm in an Outsider Politician's arsenal?
Much - indeed, maybe all - of West's power in the 2024 presidential race rides on his ability to create viral bits of speechmaking; neither his fame nor his name are quite potent enough to make up for the steep paths he will have to traverse. Trump's impact in 2016 certainly had something to do with him simply being famous and not an established party member of either warring titan, but the viral bits of speechmaking really made the difference; even the gaffes were proof that he was getting under the enemy's skin. Perot, Sanders, and Nader had the speechmaking, but not the fame, name, or party acclaim (or, I suppose, the luck of going up against a detested old-timer). If speaking is still powerful in the future we're living in, then I suspect that West will fly high. I wonder, though, if his ideology might be a tad too grand to fit into TikTok bites and YouTube got-'em compilations, too academic for the vox populi, too rooted in the real history of the Civil Rights Movement to swim in heavily-chlorinated intellectual waters.
3. Will this campaign introduce trepidation in the academic veneration of Black Americans?
The 2024 presidential race will put the Ivy League in the uncomfortable position of having trained two detractors of their party-ideology; one who could be seen, easily enough, as a mistake of the distant past that has been corrected and overcorrected for in DeSantis, but another who, very inconveniently, took advantage of the scales balanced in his favor for the express purpose that he would strengthen their cause, then turned around and had the gall to openly disagree with them in West. Their mistakes in McWhorter and Sowell were repressed and erased to the best of their cultural ability, but West presents a new problem: he could actually, really kneecap their cause on the scope of national humiliation, with the enemy in 2024 being potentially far more potent than they were in 2016. One wonders if, with language undoubtedly lacquered in a thick veneer of "continued anti-racism and justice," the idea of sola pellis might be modified into something with a smaller, controllable aperture.
4. What new ideological platforms will be introduced to navigate the thorny task of denigrating a formerly sacred opponent?
While the Ivy League merely finds themselves in an uncomfortable corner, the Woke-Liberal-Progressive alliance will again be forced to test the unquestioned ideological "upgrade-ability" of their constituents with West in the race. While this has been deftly executed in the past, and the /r/politics clan sees no paradox in throwing West overboard, none of Cain/Powell/Rice/etc. had a substantial black following, certainly nothing that would have caused a ripple in the enemy camp. How, though, will the left respond to a candidate that can't be dismissed as "ain't black" or "white supremacist" due to the risk such a claim would run in alienating one of their prized demographics? The "single vote away from losing to fascism" rhetoric doesn't hold up as well as it used to, and I'm genuinely curious at the language that will be contorted, revised, or invented to solve this problem.
Ex_Nihilo
10mo ago
If it’s any comfort, most people pick up this tic simply by being immersed in leftist academic or professional environments, not necessarily by being a leftist themselves. Compared to some of the other answers in this thread, the rhetorical “right?” is a sort of “hidden indicator,” not necessarily a conscious change of vocabulary.
Ex_Nihilo
10mo ago
I have found one of the strongest subtle clues to indicate that someone is a leftist (or mired in leftist ideology) is their use of the rhetorical “right?” to end statements of dubious fact, or just statements which they know are unacceptable to refute, mostly things “we all know, right?”. It’s like a tic where they can’t stop doing it even if they tried.
Ex_Nihilo
11mo ago
I think that part of the reason so many of us have difficulty with self-controlled weight loss is the rarity of examples like your uncle; that's an incredible story that can serve as a powerful "carrot" for many who know him. 90% of adulthoods are descents into overfed and underactive lives, so I imagine many people lack the evidence that such a transformation is even possible.
Ex_Nihilo
11mo ago
Is eating 100 calories and walking two miles (supposing that, at my height and weight, one mile walked burns an additional 50 calories above TDEE) chemically the same thing as eating nothing and doing nothing? I'm in the middle of a weight loss campaign and love to walk, but am continually baffled at the futility of "exercising to lose weight."
Human Biodiversity is the Foundation of the Woke Civic Religion
I enjoy a long Sunday walk ("Just like Dickens and Beethoven," I think to myself as I stare at my own reflection in the local duck pond), mostly as a primed canvas for whatever thoughts pass my way. Today, I was captivated (or captured) by the concept of "Native Americans;" a term we apply as a gift of copium to once-enormous numbers of Russo-Asians who, a long time ago in a biome far far away, happened to be curious about where that land bridge led. In Canada and ANZAC territory, they are called "First Nations" or "Aborigines," again applying a Cracker Jack prize term to groups of people whose claim to fame, whose founding mythology, whose justification for sanctity in our modern era is.... getting there first and doing nothing about it.
The irony is especially delicious in that the "Indigenous" term is exclusively applied to those who wandered the farthest from their native lands, and that "Sacred Native Land" is a term applied exclusively to the territory where the "Indigenous," at least as far as the story goes, just happened to stop wandering for an unspecified period of time. The brouhaha over Mt. Rushmore and Indian Reservations and all the rest of it has about as much sanctity as Richard Nixon claiming the Sea of Tranquility or the North Pole as Ancient Sacred Nixonian Lands.
Yet, for once in my life, my thoughts today were not captured by Futile Fury (my natural emotional resting state nowadays), but instead by the mere concept of... "us." For all of its hilarious hypocrisies and unaware self-satire, I believe that the Woke Civic Religion's lasting legacy will be a potent dissolution of any concept of "the human race;" a term which, for a 1990s schoolboy at least, evokes images of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" music videos, children's books about the Summer Olympics, and felt cutouts of the world's children - all of which required the paints, inks, and dyes of every skin tone and every form of native dress known to man.
If the past is any sort of indicator of the future, the de facto leaders of the WCR (aka angry young women and their social hostages in Washington) will eventually clarify and codify the currently uncomfortable contradictions within their worldview concerning the treatment of races as something akin to various "species" or "tiers" or "sanctities" of human being. This new dictum will most likely appear for the first time in a viral TikTok from the mouth of a vaguely-transish black person who teaches one or all of the social studies at an exurban public elementary school. And I predict that the WCR will, while publicly reviling the concept of HBD-RedEdition as the mindset of an IncelFascist, reveal HBD-BlueEdition.
It will not be a sensational revelation; it will have its real origin sewn, in the now-trademark Actually1984 manner of the WCR, deep into the goldfish memory of the populace, such that, by its second week of existence, HBD-Blue will appear to have AlwaysBeenThere.
Because, without HBD-Blue, the Indigenous are just "us," and the Black Trans Women are just "us," and the Asians we need to StopHating are just "us," and suddenly no one is special and everything is an accident of history and, worst of all, that blood relative you hate who DefinitelyVotedForTrump... is "us" too. The WCR wholly relies, in the only part of its identity that has any foundation at all, on an unshaken belief in the metamorphosis of humanity into the Twelve Tribes of InThisHouseWeBelieve.
Over the land bridge, Humans became Indigenous.
In darkest Africa, Humans became BlackandBrownBodies.
Through the vast deserts of the Middle East, Humans became Asians.
Hidden in a university dorm, or a Lower East Side nightclub, or a San Francisco bathhouse, Humans became TransLives.
And over the straits of the Bosphorus, on papyrus rafts across the Mediterranean, or rock hopping around Gibraltar, Humans remained Humans, a crime for which we will pay with our blood and our bounty until the children are standing on the same number of boxes, and then onward still, until the poor whites of West Virginia or Florida or Alabama retreat to the swamps and caves and outlying trash heaps, and then onward still, until their offspring view the homosexual as purity and the heterosexual as filth, and then onward still, and then onward still.
And then, just when the BaBBs have been reeled in to the precipice of the doorframe of power, HBD-Blue will be at its most useful. For only then will the BIPOC and the Activist, the Queer and the Ally, who always believed themselves to be the greatest servants in the Master's House, come to realize that they are merely the last lines in our modern remix of "First they came for the... but I was not a..."
And there will be new reservations for these new Indigenous, these muted urban aborigines who, just like the Cree and the Mohawk and the Nez Perce, once thought they ruled their land, only to realize that, an ocean away, another species had harnessed thunder.
So the question… how does it really end? When are the scales balanced, the veils torn, the doors open?
Ex_Nihilo
1yr ago
I played against Amy on Jeopardy! before anyone knew who she was (I thought I was going to play against Amodio). Seeing her in the makeup chair from behind, I thought she was an old woman, with the strand of pearls and cardigan and wiry hair. Once I heard her voice, I thought it was pretty obvious that she was trans.
Even dumber than the Ladies Nights at your gym, Jeopardy! hails Schneider as their best-ever female contestant.
Ex_Nihilo
1yr ago
Honestly? I have to know who wins the Champions League this year. And the next. And whether Haaland becomes a true rival to Mbappé. And what the coaching career of Will Still looks like. And how good Endrick becomes. And if the USMNT will ever win a World Cup. And whether I’ll get that interview with Carlos Valderrama. And what that opportunity will lead to. And whether my work will be produced at a high level. And what that achievement might mean for finding love, simple happiness, and stature in my industry.
And when Michigan State will win the Big Ten again.
Ex_Nihilo
1yr ago
“If they’re unashamed, let us also be so.”
A tungsten turn of phrase if I ever saw one; small but dense, concise but wielding the kind of power that changes the course of a nation’s history.
Ex_Nihilo
1yr ago
I love those types of shows too… I highly recommend Mad Men and The White Lotus if you haven’t watched either. Guessing you would also enjoy the BBC anthology series Inside No. 9 - there’s an episode called “Tom and Gerri” that’s pretty close to what you’re describing.
Yes, you're definitely on to something there. It's not that I don't enjoy meeting women with enthusiasm and knowledge of the game, it's just not the time and place (which now seems like the most taboo of ideas).
But there's something else happening there too. In 2022, women are, generally speaking, the enforcers of Woke Morality and, therefore, The Fun Police. This morning the BBC panel were rhapsodizing on how the World Cup needs to be about unity, diversity, equality, etc... and very much downplaying the competitive and nationalist aspects, both of which now seem verboten to glorify. So on a bigger level, it is ironically as if women in sports act as the executioners of real diversity, substituting it for a puritan globalhomo ideological version of Soylent: all the nutrients in controlled amounts with no variety, ever.
Ex_Nihilo
1yr ago
Why do I find it so heartbreaking that so many 2022 FIFA World Cup commentators and panelists are women? I have a hard time articulating my justifications for these feelings, but there’s a weight in my chest as if I’ve lost a close friend or just discovered that my lover is cheating on me. One of those ideas that’s like seasickness - you feel like you’re going to die and everyone else thinks it’s pathetic and funny.
Ex_Nihilo
1yr ago
Just finished Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals, an astounding collection of prophetic essays from the early 90s that now ranks as one of the best books I’ve ever read. I anticipate I will re-read it frequently.
Ex_Nihilo
1yr ago
I’m fascinated by the female propensity to watch ads, to the extent that nearly half of all commercials during sporting events are aimed toward women. What’s going on there?
Ex_Nihilo
1yr ago
Thank you for sharing that. It's surprisingly heartening to hear of others in similar situations.
To draw from the example of Dietrich himself, the Bonhoeffer is more outwardly counteractive than the Schindler from the very beginning:
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Forming and/or joining groups and associations meant to oppose the oppressive ideology, with a particular concentration on reforming the thought processes of schoolchildren and young adults.
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Constantly plotting with sympathetic colleagues about how to strike the seat of power at the opportune time.
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Leaving academia (as Bonhoeffer did) as a countercultural statement.
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Signing one's own name to inflammatory documents and incriminating papers.
I also generally operate on your concept of balance; not being seen to advocate for the dominant ideology while building up just enough evidence in my favor that would give pause to any Inquisitional tribunal with suspicions that I am against them. I intend to live to see the end of this war, and to have had a hand in deciding its victor.
It's true, I have no analog to the cover of a factory nor to victims of a murderous regime, but I am the only unrepentant member of my race and gender in my department. Time and again I have seen that glint in the eyes of students (male and female) who see me as the last vestige of intellectual masculinity (not that I embody that in any definitive way, but given the environment, I might as well be Tolkien himself), someone who is proud of the Western world and the European legacy (in parts) and who maintains a spine in a world of competitive cuckoldry.
Without sounding too vain, I'm reminded of the Jordan Peterson phenomenon with young men finally finding shelter from a world that hates them. I think about where I and many others would be without 12 Rules for Life and feel the imperative of being the only lighthouse on a rocky shore.
But then again, maybe I am actually doing all of them a disservice by deceiving them into thinking this could be worth their time, deserving of their effort, a reason to be hopeful. Perhaps without me, accelerationism would take over and students who would otherwise "grin and bear it" would leave academia. Or perhaps I have deceived myself, and I truthfully do not alter the confidence and futures of students. Any of the above is possible.
What I want to do is alter the ideological temperature of the department, and I very much understand the impulsive scoff I often hear in reaction to that. But the fact of the matter is I've already seen results in small ways; students thinking about issues from two sides, contemplating perspectives they never would have had reason to consider before. So that vision is still there... essentially, I suppose I quixotically believe in academic reformation with the idealistic chaos of a Disney or Luther. I expect to have visions of the devil within the semester.
Working in Far-Left Environments; or, The Schindler-Bonhoeffer Spectrum
I (justly) don't tend to bring about much sympathy for being a logos-based rationalist in the overwhelming pathos of academia, which is why I have, on many occasions, mused to myself about why I legitimately desire to stay in a hostile environment as the very definition of The Enemy. The work is rich and fulfilling, the students are extraordinary and curious, and I have found a feeling of purpose that always eluded me in Industry.
And yet...
The feeling of being a "sheep in wolf's clothing" is ever-present, and the anxiety of "how long before I'm finally discovered" flashes constantly in the back of my mind.
To process this paradox, I have devised a system that helps justify and/or explain (to myself, if not to anyone else) what exactly I'm doing here:
I must choose a position somewhere between two polar opposites, both of which I have seen in others and one of which tends to work in the long term.
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BE A BONHOEFFER || Attempt to diligently do your work in your own little corner until you can no longer pretend that all is well. At the moment the Eye of Sauron finally scans your hiding place, don't let them get the first shot off. Strike before they understand your true belief system, with the full understanding that failure means it's all over, probably in the field as a whole, not just that one place of employment. Be viewed with respect by those on "your side," even if some people are saying your time and/or manner was all wrong.
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BE A SCHINDLER || Do everything in your power to appear the pristine model of their belief system, going to political functions, advocating for their causes, volunteering for all the seminars encouraging the community to smoke out the very thing you secretly are. Work diligently under the table to undermine their platform and save their targets of elimination. Survive and thrive as long as no one suspects that "there's something weird going on with that one wolf." Fall to the permanent blacklist if caught. Be viewed with reluctant respect by those on "your side" (after all, you did help to promote causes for the "other side"), even if those you "saved" don't fully realize what you put on the line for them.
My question: Is this a valid system of judgment? What have I neglected to think about? Can I really Schindler my way to retirement?
Not sarcasm; I really do think your response was fantastic. I tend to overenthusiastically react to good points that I hadn't considered before.
That thought was not to say that cocaine is a viable, more productive alternative to gaming, but simply that, if even one of the most dangerously addictive substances on Earth has the potential to leave more of a positive impact on the progress of one's work, that's a pretty good indicator of where video games should sit on the hierarchy.
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