FiveHourMarathon
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Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
If Ukraine were to launch successful attacks on Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk, this could have a similar effect.
Is there any realistic method where Ukraine has the wherewithal to actually capture a city filled with Ukrainian civilians that the Russians don't want to give back? They probably lack the will or capability to bombard it, as the Russians would go to ground among the civilian population, and in many ways a bombed out city is easier to defend than an intact one. Siege would starve the civilians long before it starved the Russians. And taking it by frontal infantry assault would cost the Ukrainians far too many men. The idea that the Ukrainians are going to take back any cities is a pipe dream.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Just like the proper amount of a crime that is costly to stop is non-zero, the proper amount of "SEALs killing themselves by violating the rules" is non-zero.
Definitely true. I think every gym should have the Glassman quote framed or crosstitched or something:
"If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don't want you in our ranks. CrossFit can kill you. I've always been completely honest about that."
If you're so paralyzed of hurting yourself that you don't try, you'll never achieve anything. But nonetheless, it's tragic to see extraordinary lives cut short, and we should be minimizing the damage. Such as by having a medical team directly monitor PED use. What's fun about it is, once the docs are monitoring things like bloodwork regularly to help you through your official cycle, it's super easy to spot if something else is being inserted off the books.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Won't the standards get even higher to match the better performance they get from steroids?
Why? If the ideal SEAL can do X pull ups, run Y miles with a pack on, and swim Z miles in icy rough water; then that's the standard you need to hit whether we get 20 of them who pass or 2000. I don't really see the point of curving the test so it gets harder, just make more teams. God and the CIA only know how often we use them.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Or the shit fit that was thrown when some people who take the same hormones were going to be disqualified from military service.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Different PMC handing out big paydays.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
The impression I get is that allowing PEDs would be akin to lowering the standard, and that's not okay.
Cute theory, but in any athletic endeavor, especially one where there is no testing, if someone is using, then all the winners are probably using. Some of the former seals whose content you consume are probably using, including some of the ones that are moralizing about it.
Further, while the training is very physically demanding, the physical burden is a means to weed out individuals that are not able or willing to push themselves through the pain. PEDs would supposedly make for a lighter physical burden, which means a candidate could get through without needing to exert the same level of mental toughness.
That doesn't make any sense. By that same logic, they should weed out athletic recruits, ban training before BUDS, and specifically pick recruits with sub-optimal builds for the course. PEDs only make for a lighter physical burden in the same way that being in good shape, or being the optimal size and build, or any number of other natural or trained advantages would make for a lighter physical burden.
Malcolm Gladwell, of all people, makes that argument really well here: [Largely quoting another work]
“Dope is not really a magical boost as much as it is a way to control against declines,” Hamilton writes. Doping meant that cyclists finally could train as hard as they wanted. It was the means by which pudgy underdogs could compete with natural wonders. “People think doping is for lazy people who want to avoid hard work,” Hamilton writes. For many riders, the opposite was true:
EPO granted the ability to suffer more; to push yourself farther and harder than you’d ever imagined, in both training and racing. It rewarded precisely what I was good at: having a great work ethic, pushing myself to the limit and past it. I felt almost giddy: this was a new landscape. I began to see races differently. They weren’t rolls of the genetic dice, or who happened to be on form that day. They didn’t depend on who you were. They depended on what you did—how hard you worked, how attentive and professional you were in your preparation.
[This] is a vision of sports in which the object of competition is to use science, intelligence, and sheer will to conquer natural difference. Hamilton and Armstrong may simply be athletes who regard this kind of achievement as worthier than the gold medals of a man with the dumb luck to be born with a random genetic mutation.
The recruit who uses PEDs is arguably showing a level of dedication far above that of the recruit who does not. He is showing skill at (often illegally) acquiring the tools he needs, he is showing diligence in dosing and cycling, he had to train hard to use these tools. At any rate, it's no more or less unfair than a million natural advantages between candidates.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
I'll sit down and eat a handful of olives as a snack. Especially if they're stuffed with something fun.
See, counterpoint to ContraPoints, let's look at the man who did more than anything to make JP hit it big: Joe Rogan is the biggest positivity merchant active today. He introduces his guests universally as either "my friend X" or "the great and powerful Y." He rarely challenges his guests on personal grounds, occasionally on political or technical ones but never "Mike Tyson, I love you champ, but did you really rape that girl? Do you think that's forgivable?" He's about self-improvement, about talking to great people about how you can be great too, Joe thinks we can all be heroic athlete-warrior-comedian-mystics who take DMT in the sauna to commune with the aliens after dining on elk meat or whatever. When I listen to Joe Rogan, I feel like an insider, and the negativity all feels directed at someone else. The criticism that he levels against the lazy, the fat, the improvident, the snowflakes, the fearful feels like it doesn't include me; even if I suspect that I could do with a little more Goggins and a little less Taco Bell in my life. I've never felt personally offended or attacked by anything Joe Rogan has said into my right airpod while I worked out or did the dishes. I guess it doesn't meet the technical definition of "hugboxing" because it can have negativity directed vaguely outward, but if you feel like the ingroup for Rogan and his guest it does nothing but butter you up.
Where when I listened to Slate's DoubleX Gabfest or whatever they call it now, I constantly felt my ego under attack. I'm a 30 year old straight white man who looks like a 90s romantic comedy antagonist. I'm male, pale, and probably getting stale too. I'm clearly Slate's putative outgroup, the boogeyman that every bad thing that happens to the proud Queer/WOC hosts of the podcast can be pinned on. I'm responsible by identity for the economy, every bad sex partner the host has ever had, every bad meal the host has ever eaten, and human suffering more generally. If it made her cry, she'll find a way to pin it on "CIShetero white republican men." And when I KNOW I'm a CIShetero white republican man, it's a pretty negative experience to be the "THEY" in a conspiracy theory.
Compare, as you did below, to Q. You talk about Q as being negative, but I think Q is successful because it boosts the egos of its followers. When I think about conspiracies I think about my friends who are very into them, and one commonality among the Q/Infowars/MyPillow types in my life is that they've had hard lives, largely through things they more or less perceive as out of their control. Bad things have happened to them: a son addicted to drugs, a daughter seduced by a much older neighbor, working hard and having talent but never getting ahead because of divorce and confusing tax laws. As Scott argued cogently in Epistemic Minor Leagues, Q gives you a sense of importance and control for people that lack it day to day. Q might be negative to adrenochrome-addled pedo elites, but simply by listening to it you're among the righteous. The great day of the rope is always understood by the follower to be a day of ascendance for the follower, and destruction to the follower's enemies. Which is just a more extreme and explicit version of the same ingroup-positive/outgroup-negative flow of a Slate podcast or of Joe Rogan. Slate might not openly dream of herding cishetero white men into camps, but it doesn't hugbox them either.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Trying Super Squats for the second time. Started reallllly light and jumped 20lbs each workout every other day, now I'm moving down to 10lb jumps per workout and hopefully stick to that to 275 which is my prior best, then grind it out to 300-315 5lbs at a time. Been a long term goal, gonna give it a run this winter and see what happens.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Meta irony: i disagree with your point, but find it well argued.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Rediquette is stupid, always has been always will be. The downvote button is used to signal disagreement, or perhaps even more accurately: "I wish this person to experience negative feelings." There's no accountability, so the "disagree" and "quality" tools will just be used as "I don't like this person" buttons.
If y'all want to do a goofy voting system, it should be one with stakes for the person voting. There needs to be a cost to make it worth the effort.
I was already typing this out, so I figure I'll add it to the thread on PA elections to avoid being repetitive.
Two Faces of Trumpism: PA Statewide Elections Predict the Future of the GOP
TLDR: Trump as a political phenomenon in America can't be understood from only one angle. He didn't win by being this, or that, or the other thing; he won by getting some people to believe he was this, some to believe he was that, and some to believe he was the other thing. Two Trump proteges running in statewide races in PA this Fall give us a bellwether as to which of two versions of Trumpian politics will be successful going forward: Dr. Oz is the flip-flopping celebrity dillettante with no political experience and vague ideas as to why he ought to be in charge, Doug Mastriano is the hardened veteran culture warrior tough guy with frighteningly specific plans about what he'll do in office.
In the 2022 midterms there are two major elections in Pennsylvania, one for senator (seat vacated by Pat Toomey, pour one out for my former bar owner homie) and one for Governor (Wolf is term limited out). Pennsylvania has been arguably the swing state for two presidential elections. It's earning its nickname of the Keystone state, and its electoral map is a microcosm of the country with Blue islands on the East and West and Red up the middle. Pennsylvania is the best state to watch to see what the future politics of America will look like, and these elections are the best way to see how it is playing out.
After heavily contested primaries, both the GOP Senate and Gubernatorial nominations went to the candidate endorsed by Donald Trump. As far as I recall, every primary candidate tried to claim the banner of MAGA, all of them claimed to be ready to fight "the woke mob" and the liberal agenda. No squishy moderates here. In the end, the winners were the candidates Trump directly endorsed, not the upgrade Mitt Romney or barnyard Candace Owens. It's Trump's party now. But the two candidates represent divergent visions of Trumpism. Dr. Oz is a lightweight, a celebrity huckster with no political experience, who is either a non-devout Muslim or in a cult run by his in-laws, with no strong political opinions that can be traced back more than a year, long time ties to popular Democratic politicians and liberal causes, and no roots in Pennsylvania to speak of. Doug Mastriano is the opposite, a former Army Colonel and War College instructor, with years under his belt in Republican politics, a devout Christian and Nationalist (and maybe Christian Nationalist) who has recently decided to stop cooperating with subpoenas from the January 6th Committee. To put it in internet: Oz would fit right in on Instagram, Mastriano would fit right in on /r/themotte. Among Republicans in PA, I've run into a lot who they like one but not the other. Either "Oz doesn't seem that bad, and he must be smart to be a heart surgeon, and Fetterman's a bit whackadoodle...but Mastriano, his soundbites are so bad..." or "I can respect Mastriano, he has balls, but Oz is a fake."
And in 2016, I remember hearing both those things said about Trump by different people. He excited a lot of far-right sentiment that was sort of dormant prior, bringing out Evangelicals who were ready to wage the culture war in the open, and nationalists who were ready to build the wall; while at the same time he benefitted from being viewed as a moderate by a lot of people who knew him from TV. That was what put him over the top, and it will be interesting to see which version of this strategy is successful going forward.
Mastriano Wiki ; Theme music Highlights: Mastriano wants to cut state funding to public schools to the bone, with local reporting showing that staffing at local high schools would fall by 40-65%; Mastriano has stated that as Governor he would have the power to declare a Presidential election vote void in 2024; Mastriano is hilariously direct on Gay Marriage and abortion, wanting both illegal in every single case no exceptions no way no how; Mastriano was definitely at the Jan 6th rally, but probably didn't storm the capitol, although if he had he wouldn't have left a trace as the dude was literally a war college instructor on intelligence operations. People who like him like that Mastriano is a full bird culture warrior, his campaign slogans are mostly biblical references and his yard signs feature bible verses. His campaign also has some surprisingly funny spots given that I've never seen Mastriano so much as smile. I trust Mastriano to be exactly who he says he is, to the greatest extent he possibly can be within the system as it exists. He's running against Josh Shapiro, and I'm convinced that Shapiro keeps centering his devout Judaism in advertisements hoping he can bait Dougie boy into saying something vaguely anti-semitic.
Dr. Oz wiki ; Theme Music Highlights: Oz was a well respected heart surgeon before getting on Oprah, marrying into a family of cult leaders and becoming a full-time huckster and quack; he's taken liberal positions publicly in writing on topics like Abortion (says he saw how bad outlawing it was before Roe), Guns (wrote an op-ed favoring a federal assault weapons ban, and has argued in favor of Red Flag laws, a red line for me); he has never lived in Pennsylvania though he has lived near it his whole life, his listed address when he filed to run was his in-laws house, meaning that if he voted in the 2020 election in PA his vote was almost certainly fraudulent; in addition to still living in New Jersey he's still a citizen of Turkey, which I wish he would center as a positive ("Turkey has been an ally of the USA for 70 years, acting as a pillar of the free world against Communism and Islamic Extremism, and my dual citizenship will help us build ties with this key ally."). People who like Oz basically think he's more moderate than he's letting on, that he must be a smart guy because surgeon, and that he'll figure it out once he's in office. He's running against the guy they'd cast as Gritty if they made a live action adult themed mascot film.
So which Trumpism will succeed to the banner? Keeping in mind that PA is the swing state of swing states, Oz can never run for president without an amendment to the constitution, but it's quite likely that any of the other three candidates could be presidential/VP short-list contenders within the next decade if they become Governor/Senator. If Both win, then we're probably seeing a Red Wave, and Trump 2024 is a near certainty, because voters are embracing both the Christian Nationalist and Quack Celebrity Pseudo-Moderate strains. If Mastriano teaches Shapiro how to Dougie, but Oz quacks out against Fetterman, then it would seem that Trumpism has left behind the cable-tv popularity contests in favor of raw rightist culture warring, and if an anti-abortion extremist can win in PA then there may be hope for the pro-life movement nationally. If Oz beats up a stroke victim, but Mastriano loses to a Jewish government lawyer, then it would seem to indicate that Trumpian candidates are better off triangulating towards vague moderation than fighting for pure culture war idealism. If both lose, then the lesson would seem to be that only Trump is Trump, and other Republicans would do better not to try to follow him too closely.
Leaving aside, of course, the possibilities that for example people start really looking at what Swedenborgians do, or that Mastriano finally makes a Jew comment, or that Shapiro turns out to idk diddle kids or something, or that Fetterman literally dies. That's the problem with elections, there are too few of them and they're all unique, individual events can ruin the predictions.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
I like the thread system, I'm used to it.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
I can think of celebrities, but probably not to the ratio of 1 in 5. Somehow I imagine that the Hispanic population can name more.
There's a whole continent of real fully formed countries producing music, books, films, sports in Spanish; they don't need mainstream America's hand-me-down tokenism.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Fibbing Fat Fetterman the Faker.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
I get a big 40oz stainless steel water bottle (I have a ton of them out of the lost and found when I ran a gym...), before I leave I fill it with ice, water, and LiquidIV (Gatorade probably works just as well) and put it by my bed (guess this won't work if you don't know where you'll sleep). I get home and drink half of it, then fill it back up with fresh water and drink it throughout the night.
So far have gotten zero hangovers after bachelor parties and polish weddings with this technique.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Probably still good. I just have a real attachment to half strength sports drinks as a panacea from scouts, and I like LiquidIV better than Gatorade these days. I do think that the electrolytes or whatever the fuck are probably a positive (they're what plants crave!) and the taste at half strength makes it easier to chug for me.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
I could imagine a perfectly chaste drag show which is purely about affirming the participants, about announcing pride rather than erasing it.
Maybe it's a boy scouts thing, but I see a drag show for kids more like a Summer Camp skit gone too far than anything about LGBT rights or whatever. Frankly, I could see having boys and girls dress up as and mock each other as stereotypes being a very normal, traditional activity.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
The more probably middle ground is somebody like Blackwater expanding to a force over thousands and deploying. It's accepted to train troops, it's accepted to offer material aid, and it's legal but frowned upon for third nation citizens to join the army, but when you combine all three at once I think we'd see difficulty not seeing that as escalating.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
In general I think mileage is more folk-logic than anything else. But I would say across many sports you see the phenomenon of a player playing an extreme outlier high stress and high use seasons can lead to a player breaking down.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
What superstitions do you have? What ordinary acts do you find vaguely supernaturally sacred/blasphemous?
For me, I don't really like most cakes, but if I'm at a Birthday Party or especially a Wedding and there's a cake for the event, I feel like not eating a little bit of it would be deeply disrespectful. Like saying "I hope your marriage fails."
Equally, out of some vague sense of karmic justice, if I'm late for something I self consciously avoid doing anything rude to try to hurry up. So no cutting people off in traffic, no letting the door slam in someone's face, etc. I just feel like if I cut courtesy corners like that, the next piece of luck will 100% go against me.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
The thermostat, TV volume, and radio volume must always be on even numbers. My wife also does this.
In any car with dual zone climate control where you set a temp, I always have them on different numbers. Just by a degree or two. I thought it was funny when my mom got her first car like that when I was 8, and I've stuck to it ever since.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Flaw in your logic from a Latvian Nationalist perspective: Why do we start history at Operation Barbarossa? Why don't we start history with the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, or earlier? Nazi aggression up to that point is enabled by Soviet deliveries of raw materials right up until the Nazis invade Soviet territory. Take seriously the arguments made in the book Stalin's War for a second, Guardian summary/review here "His account highlights the brutality of Stalin, who began the war on Hitler’s side and ended by obtaining western recognition of his territorial acquisitions first made in 1939-40 on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact." Stalin's manipulations towards a war between the Capitalist/Imperialist powers in Western Europe were clear for the entirety of the 1930s.
So maybe don't give the guy who set up the fight credit for winning it and stopping the other guy from beating you up. I see no justification for treating the situation circa 1941 as your fixed polestar and navigating from there, when you could just as easily set 1917 or 1920 as your fixed point and say the Soviets were always the bad guys threatening Latvian sovereignty.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
((Indeed, one of my complaints about the QC roundup is how mediocre a QC can be and still get awarded, while some very good posts in the same time frame either weren't nominated or didn't pass the cut, and I'm not just or even mostly talking about my own posts.))
I'm curious what this means beyond "I have different taste from the person putting together the QC list." I'm sometimes side-eyeing some QCs, but that's just a difference of opinion isn't it?
Definitely good to take any sob story with a whole shaker of salt, but it's more emblematic of a general problem than about a particular person (Success=SEAL, Failure=Nobody; even though BUDS failures are probably in the top 1% of human beings in fitness and fortitude), and that general problem is more about the mindset it creates in candidates than about the actual results of success/failure. Whether we believe it to be true, if candidates making decisions about whether to take steroids thought it was true than it served its purpose.
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