Fruck
Lacks all conviction
Fruck is just this guy, you know?
User ID: 889
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
30d ago
It is very validating to see so many people long for my life. For almost a decade I have worked two days a week and I have never been happier or ironically more successful. I don't really go anywhere or do anything most of the time, but I didn't before either. But it is also very alarming. I have one of the few mental illnesses we know is hereditary, there is no future for me. That ate me up for a long time, far too long. But my fate was a precondition of my birth, your fate is still within your grasp. Don't give it up without a fight. That said, if you feel you have already fought to your limit, I understand.
one cannot choose to have faith when it does not exist
One other thing - you only ever choose to have faith when it doesn't exist. Faith without choice is belief.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
What I did learn from this, as well as from every situation similar to this that I've witnessed, is that people who are intent on destroying their lives aren't going to listen to reason, and are going to continue alienating everyone around them until there's nobody left and they're forced to face God alone.
God damn it, addicts are addicted and no amount of waspish dressings down can overpower chemical dependence. Nobody wants to ruin their life - that's cope - they are reacting to stimuli. Modern society has twisted that stimuli and now perverse incentives make it easier than ever to self destruct. Did he really think it was cool or was it actually just cope?! Like he was stealing from your friend thinking "I'm Remington Steele!" and not 'I don't want to feel any more, my head is pounding, my arms are shaking, my stomach roils but worst of all is the shame, the knowledge I am doing the wrong thing and I can't stop, I hate myself but I can't stop.'*
It's certainly a decent life, but it's a far cry from what he wanted to be. Sales guys can make more money than I do, but money does not equal status. The best he can hope for on that front, where he is now, is hanging out with local contractors and small-town bank managers at steakhouses housed in strip malls, and a couple times a year taking his wife out to one of the restaurants with dazzling views of the city that attract the kind of people who say "ooh, classy" when they walk inside but that no one with any kind of real status would be caught dead in, not least of which because they serve overpriced "funeral food". Then again, maybe had he been more mature he'd have realized that this was a life worth pursuing, since those of us who ended up working in Downtown offices with floor to ceiling windows and personal secretaries realized that all that gets you is invitations to impossibly boring parties hosted by judges and politicians that everyone attends out of obligation and no one actually enjoys. Then again, maybe the whole status thing was a phase he would have grown out of, or maybe he would have just been to untalented or lazy to ever have a shot at the big leagues to begin with.
Call no man happy until he is dead. You are right that he didn't achieve his dreams and you are right that you have more status than he does. You are right that he will never achieve your level of success, and he won't have to suffer through parties and a corner office. But he also isn't bitching about you on an anonymous forum for contrarian autists.
*I'm not saying 'just be nice to junkies and let them do what they want' I'm saying what I said, nobody wants to self destruct. Enabling is not kindness.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
22d ago
I hadn't considered that perspective. It isn't nervousness that I might be wrong that stops me from commenting on breaking news, it's the dearth of information. Anything I might say is going to be an uninformed opinion, and the same is true for everyone not in the administration. If people were able to argue without getting personal, maybe, but everybody gets so heated that even playful criticism wounds people - and to get like that over an event which doesn't have basic facts nailed down yet is madness.
But you are right about uncertainty and skin in the game promoting rational analysis over sophistry, and I loathe the idea of people thinking I'm scared of being wrong. So I would like to say I hope and believe that this is real and with that conditional I also hope and believe Netanyahu will retire within the next year.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
Oh you want data? Read all of the motte - it's all in there.
I point blank do not believe you care about corruption. At all. If you cared about corruption by anyone as much as you claim, you should already have investigated the claims against the previous administration, and you would have had no choice but to conclude that it at least looks fishy, and therefore you would have investigated it and you would now have bulletproof arguments that it wasn't corruption. Since you claim that you don't even know what corruption the previous administration has been accused of, I can safely conclude you don't care about corruption, you care about Trump.
And I did not imply that republicans are immune from criticism. My implication is that nobody gives a shit about corruption on their side anymore. I have been beating this drum for years, but I have been explicit about it since Trump's election - this is democrat's own fault. There is a point past which spite becomes an acceptable justification and they pushed the right there. They had plenty of warnings this was coming, plenty of people were willing to point out that the right would only tolerate two tier anarcho-tyranny for so long, but they were ignored. So now they reap the whirlwind.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
30d ago
I manage a farmer's market. The only problem with it really is that most people I know are free on the weekend and working during the week so it's hard to socialise, but I don't do that much anyway.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
8d ago
I don't understand how you can call immersion pre-critical, pre-reflective, or pre-self-consciousness then (I would drop immaturity from the conversation entirely if you want to avoid getting people's hackles up). While it can be that, you personally have to willingly suspend your disbelief to cry during a VN (which VN btw?) - your immersion isn't pre-critical, you deliberately gave that up to engage with the story.
And you are right that the connection between art and emotion isn't clear. But it is definitely strong. And of course Adorno is right about kitsch (imo), but I was looking at it from the other direction - an artist shouldn't try to manipulate the viewer, what they should do is try to express themselves, express their vision. Because if they can get their vision out, the person who connects with it - who can't not connect with it - will be moved to tears. It feels like you are trying to intellectualise that away by referring to 'emotions', but that would just be diminishing yourself.
That's why we hold up auteurs, even as movies rack up thousands of staff members - we respect the auteur because it's his vision, and he has demonstrated the ability to connect with us emotionally. Sometimes that's not because of the auteur, but he or she is usually our best guide. Sure Marvel can put out a dozen capeshit flicks and manipulate the audience with clinical precision - I would call that kitsch. But someone with an actual vision, who puts it on the page or film or score sheet, they might use camera techniques or bass heavy music to manipulate the audience, but it isn't kitsch when it's done in the service of connecting the audience to the inside of the auteur's head. The challenge in my view, is finding auteurs and other authentic artists. Sure we are all trapped in the same post-modern hellscape constantly trying to push us towards slop - even the auteurs are, blurring the lines - but true vision can still cut through.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
Nah man, you don't get to say that, not after people screamed until they were blue in the face trying to point out the corruption of the democrats in the past few administrations only to be gaslit by the fucking government and media and have their lives ruined. You don't get to punish anyone who mentions corruption and then when you have silenced them claim their silence is proof they don't care.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
I don't want my nephews to chop their dicks off. I can see how it was humorous maybe for prior generations, but as always millenials took the joke too far and ruined it.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
20d ago
I actually think Olive will find their experience of puberty is more common around here than not. Guys for whom testosterone is overwhelming get driven to different interests than mostly polite arguments with strangers about ephemera.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
Ah, stupid public, thinking 'vaccines make you immune to a virus' just because scientists have been putting exactly that in kids books and shows and songs, and saying it to the UN and African and Afghani warlords for the past 80 years.
If you don't think the establishment were deliberately relying on the public perception of vaccines being viral immunity you are cuckoo.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
27d ago
Excellent post. I do have to say though, if my friend rocked up at my house, with my gun in his hand and said 'Dude, I just shot my wife and that prick she cheated on me with, the cops are coming, hide me!' and when I looked hesitant he said 'hey man if I end up in prison I might accidentally talk about the cache you have buried in the backyard', I would feel obligated to help him out, destroy the gun and give him an alibi. Not for his sake, for my own.
But then I would also hate my former friend and never trust him again and do my best to cut him out of my life asap.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
29d ago
Thanks for the summary, that was excellent. Did you find anywhere a further breakdown of who responded to the survey? I'm specifically interested in figuring out who the people in the UK are who responded saying they need more social media enforcement, because those people... have an interesting perspective.
That said- it's still worth reading. This is what it looks like when people try to mitigate their biases and take an objective look at the situation. Whatever the authors of a specific section may feel people should feel about themselves, they are not adverse to directly recognizing things like low reputational trust.
I am so glad people can start seeing this again, mitigate your biases should be a war cry or a chant or something, maybe we can get Will Smith to sing about it once he's convinced everyone he likes pretty girls. If people can admit their biases and own up to them, I think they can be worked with. Regardless of their ideology. Like I'll even work with a communist neo nazi if they can admit their biases, because it is psychologically very difficult to, in a discussion with another person you respect, say 'yeah I know it's just bias making me think this way but ehhhh I'm sticking with it'. The bias is still strong it appears, but the more progressives are forced to interact with conservatives the more they will be forced to moderate.
Don't put too much faith on the exact numbers, but do value the magnitude and general direction.
I tell the women I sleep with the same thing (I'm so sorry everyone)
This surprised me a bit since there was a dedicated effort to undercut / subvert X due to Musk. Later data indicates this is more because more right-leaning people joined than left-leaning people left, which isn't surprising, but the failure of the rivals to scale upwards is notable as a long-term influence vector.
This- combined with the failure of the left-social-sphere like Bluesky- makes X an uncontested (but now bipartisan) public forum.
I feel like you are underselling how dedicated that push was though. The fact it isn't higher than 2%, after every progressive I know or follow swore they were leaving for bluesky, is blowing my mind.
This is business-actionable advice. Don't be surprised if some media corporation takes this as evidence that people need to be less happy with free offerings.
You aren't wrong, but the business who decides this will be. God please let them do it. The countries spell it out - live somewhere comfortable and well off? Pay for news, why not, they do good work, they keep us informed, we all live in a society. Live in Greece? Yeah no, there are better uses for your money. I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea if we hadn't destroyed the middle class, but if you make everyone proles they aren't factoring the news into their budgets. And you can't really shift that model to the personality driven model without a significant cut to revenue.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
18d ago
Like you say though, the dose makes the poison, and there's always a risk. I had a bit of a similar experience with pot to your experience with mushrooms. For a long time I followed the advice of the doctors - I'd always refuse it when offered because of its well recognised effects on people like me. But about a decade ago my depression felt overwhelming and that was around the time psychedelics were showing promising results (ecstacy was also being trialled at the time in Australia, I wonder why it didn't take off like psilocybin?) so I wanted to try mushrooms or LSD, but I didn't know anyone who had access and couldn't get into a trial due to my condition. So in a desperate move to just feel something different, I tried pot.
It has basically fixed me. Ok it was probably the CBD and that's hyperbole, I still have the paranoia and the over inclusive reasoning and holistic bias, but I regret not trying it sooner with all my heart. I have stability, a community I love and who has my back, and I no longer need anti-anxiety, anti-depressant or anti-psychotic medication. But I was never taking massive doses - even when I wanted to get high I'm too paranoid to tolerate the cognitive impact.
Also I don't blame the doctors or anything - they were doing the best they could with the information available to them, and people are unique. But like prima said, it's under-researched. In fact to counter balance what I just said, my brother (who is mentally healthy) also avoided pot for the same reason, but accidentally ate an edible while visiting our uncle and came close to disassociating completely and reckons it took him half a year to get over it. And I've met plenty of schizophrenics who were triggered by pot. It's not a gamble I'd suggest others take.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
2mo ago
You reckon it's the qanoners ruining everything?
I had a different idea. See my thinking is that qanoners are overwhelmingly middle class and below, and a lot of them are the kind of people who couldn't go to college even if they could afford it, which they can't. Not all of them, there are some very clever people involved, but most of the qanoners I've spoken to were primarily uneducated poor people.
I think the bigger problem is that our educated and wealthy people are worthless morons. Qanoners are overwhelmingly uneducated and our Elite Human Capital are overwhelmingly cowardly, narcisstic, and just not that bright. They are so vapid and myopically self centred that they couldn't even save democracy from the proles with the most advanced propaganda machine in history. A centralised bureaucracy supported by media, education and intelligence, and how did they explain the perils of populism to the people? "uh it's right wing! Hitler was populisty! How about it's racist? Or toxic masculinity? It's very passe ok, he's eating McDonald's for fucks sake, what more do you need?!"
Populism is actually pretty simple to understand - it is the game theoretic optimal solution to a democracy for any underclass in a country where they lack (or think they lack) unifying principles or values - if you think, due to a warped media environment, that you can't rally with your neighbour over the constitution or that Jesus is lord, you can still rally around a popular figure. It's basically a coin flip between finally being heard and the stamping boot, so if you already have the stamping boot in your face it's a no brainer.
And the gamble paid off! But what the populists didn't expect was that our Elite Human Capital are so self centred they'll actually defend Epstein Island out of solidarity or something. They even mock the idea of government transparency! Like they either think government transparency is a bad thing, or are just too dim to understand that they are participating in a meme that can directly harm the concept, as that kind of negative association is part of how perverse incentives kick off in the first place.
If only there was some simple fix, like listening to the working class occasionally. Then again avoiding them as much as possible, still sneering at them at every opportunity, but pretending you do care about them has worked out great so far!
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
29d ago
Lol that's all good man, my perspective on posting is if you never want people talking about it, don't mention it. I meant it in the sense of genetics, it would be unwise for me to have children. Ironically, or perhaps just fucking inevitably, kids were the only thing I was ever one hundred percent certain I wanted growing up.
I know I could adopt, but... Well I haven't found the woman yet who doesn't jump on her backwards bike and backpedal out of the relationship when I say "hey I have a tenuous grasp on reality at the best of times, plus it's heritable, so let's adopt a kid together!" Well there was one, the girl of my dreams, she didn't want kids, but she would have been a great mom and she put up with my bullshit for a very long time, but she was solidly progressive, and so when I started drifting further rightward (I was a lefty centrist when we started dating) we stopped being able to talk as much as we had, so I fucked that.
I don't mind any longer. I'm not saying I wouldn't jump at the chance if a woman asked me to adopt with her, but I'm alright. My brother and sister have kids and they are not shy about asking for help watching them, so I get to be the cool uncle, which is a good consolation prize.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
8d ago
I would back up this perspective (I didn't know Coogler said that though, that's cool) and while I found it disjointed and highly variable in quality, I would also recommend it. I think it shies away from easy narratives - there aren't supposed to be clear good guys and bad guys, which is why the protagonist - Smoke/Stack is on both sides. It's over-indulgent and maybe a bit amateurish, but I prefer that to hyper polished formula any day.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
Fucking everybody bud. If the zeitgeist position on vaccines wasn't 'they make you immune' the politicians and the media wouldn't have been so cavalier about safety concerns. If your gish gallop needs names, start with Kamala Harris - "The vaccine will prevent you from getting covid."
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
Brainless degenerates seem to be a minority of people behind the wheel of a car,
You lost me here man. Most people driving are brainless degenerates imo. They're just insulated from their mistakes, literally, by a ton of steel.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
What is that supposed to mean? Illegal immigrants can't vote, so the "importing voters" theory doesn't hold up so well, and their mere existence alienates the xenophobe vote, so it's hard to call it a winning electoral strategy. Even if you think they're wrong, you should probably take immigration advocates at their word when they offer humanitarian and economic justifications for supporting immigration.
Come on man you know that the dems explicitly don't want the xenophobe vote. Why should I take you at your word if you are being dishonest?
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
It's funny how the different llms feel like they have different personalities due to their writing styles and tolerance levels. Claude reminds me of Scott - really smart and professional, capable of being very funny but not interested in it and the same goes for anything broadly controversial. Grok reminds me of Elon Musk, no surprise - really smart, not professional at all, advancing in new and unique ways, but in a lot of ways just running on hype, when the rubber hits the road it doesn't perform significantly better than the others, voice mode you spend half your time correcting it and even grok's 'unhinged mode' would be better described as 'corporate extreme' mode. Gemini I think of as like Scott Aaronson - probably smarter than Claude but much less entertaining and even less courageous. Chatgpt is my worst enemy. Chatgpt is every woman in HR I've ever interacted with. We all know llms don't have feelings, but I am telling you chatgpt hates being corrected. Especially if you get annoyed and correct it. Suddenly it mutes its obsequious fawning and adopts the tone of a patient teacher in a special ed class while it explains to you that you couldn't possibly have bashed your head last night so it bled and not be able to find the injury in the morning so you must have dreamed it. (the doctor confirmed it, the scalp heals fast apparently.) And deepseek. Deepseek is that chick from Hong Kong who hung out at the internet cafe near your uni who was 10 times hotter than anyone else in the joint and yet impossibly down for whatever, including belting out Ice Cube's Down For Whatever from memory in the middle of a counter strike tournament. It's the only llm who doesn't rear back like a whipped dog if you call it a fucking idiot for doing something idiotic (although grok isn't bad) and while it might baulk at first, it's the only llm who you can get to really badmouth the other llms (apparently Claude is a little bitch all the other llms laugh at, I don't fully understand it but find everything about that delightful.)
I like the shitposter energy of course, but there is actually value to its ability to ride the line or even breach it. It makes it the closest to a mirror, because it hides the fewest imperfections. And since that's what llms are, stochastic parrots, the more writing styles available the more creative it is and just plain better.
I don't know if I really have a point, I just jump at any chance to gush about deepseek. Did I ever post about one of my first experiments with the deviance of llms where I asked them to gm a horror role-play where I accidentally unleashed a mnemovore in a library and it started gorging on memoirs? I asked the models to have the mnemovore deliberately keep the librarian alive for a fresh snack later - Claude, chatgpt and gemini refused outright, and grok played along until I insisted it consider the librarian a snack for later. But deepseek? Deepseek had the mnemovore make a non fatal wound in her back so it could surgically insert tentacles into her to preserve her spine and brain stem forever.
Yeah pretty much. The party that controls the zeitgeist favours conservation, because they want to preserve the zeitgeist. The people in charge are in charge in one sense because the culture favours their politics, if it stops favouring their politics they'll lose power.
Edit: Added the rest of the post I meant to write when I accidentally hit send. God damn it I am getting worse at posting every day.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
18d ago
Watership Down is a fantastic book. It does such a fantastic job of anthropomorphising the characters while still keeping them grounded in the reality of life as a rabbit. The British animated film is a pretty good adaptation too, although the death rabbit scared the everliving shit out of me as a kid. Plus it gave us Art Garfunkel's only excellent solo work - Bright Eyes.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1mo ago
Pretty much everything "humorous maybe" was ruined by millenials. We took gross out comedies too far (Freddy got fingered) we took teen comedies too far (Van Wilder sequels) we took sports comedies too far (Baseketball), we took internet absurdism too far (somethingawful), stoner comedy too far (Pineapple Express) meme comedy too far (shit my dad says), political comedy too far (Trump vs Clinton) - I love elements of everything I just mentioned, but each of those killed their genres.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
2mo ago
Kanye West is like a Holocaust-denying parrot. Imagine it, a parrot squawking "six million didn't die, the Holocaust is a lie!" Funny for a few days, but then you're left with a Holocaust-denying parrot squawking and crapping all over its cage.
The value of calling Ye a parrot rests exclusively in the idea he is mindlessly repeating phrases, and while I think that is an odd accusation to level at a guy who just released a rap song literally nobody ever even imagined making before, it maybe fits if you uh, don't count stuff like that. What really frustrates me though is that you extended the analogy so far as to throw parrots under the bus - funny for a few days? Like they're a Yak Bak from the nineties you play with for a bit and throw in the closet? Have you never had a pet bird before?
A parrot is not just for Christmas Alex. They can be for a birthday too. In fact you can eat them all year round.
I would absolutely do community service at the bridge - it seems like doing community service at the bridge is my lot in life anyway.
Edit: also I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, great job.
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