FtttG
User ID: 1175
FtttG
50m ago
There is at the very least no reason, by your logic, why confirmed lesbians and asexuals couldn't be allowed to serve.
I'm confused by the implication that being a lesbian or asexual means you don't want to be a mother, or can't find fulfilment by so doing. Many lesbians get pregnant via sperm donor.
FtttG
1d ago
On Sunday morning my girlfriend and I left our apartment building, which opens on to a little pedestrian lane. Directly opposite the entrance is another apartment complex and a shisha café, and standing outside was one of the most gopnik-looking Slavs you've ever seen: navy tracksuit, white sneakers, baseball cap. We assumed he was waiting for someone, although he'd incongruously placed two full canisters of nitrous oxide on the path in front of him.
We leave to do some shopping, and when we come back a few hours later he hasn't budged. Watching him from the window in our flat, he starts openly huffing the nitrous. I'm a bit put out by someone openly huffing nitrous oxide in broad daylight in a pedestrian thoroughfare with small children walking past with their parents, so I call the police, who never show up.
However, a few minutes later, the proprietor of the shisha café (an Arab man) comes out of the building and tells the gopnik to get lost, which he does immediately. Problem solved.
This little encounter inspired me to invent a new game I'm calling Ethnic Rock-Paper-Scissors. As we can clearly see from the exchange above, Arab beats Slav. Slav, of course, beats Jew. And who does Jew beat? Why, Arab obviously.
When I explained the concept to my brother, he proposed that Roman > Anglo, Anglo > Celt, and Celt > Roman. His friend suggested that Pakistani > Bangladeshi, Bangladeshi > Indian, and Indian > Pakistani.
What others can you think of? Note that I'm specifically looking for ethnic groups, not nationalities ("Vietnamese > American" doesn't count, because the American soldiers in Vietnam were multi-ethnic).
The proposition that the Wachowskis could make another thought provoking Matrix movie is unfounded.
Interestingly, while the original trilogy was directed by the Wachowskis, The Matrix Resurrections was solely directed by Lana. I'm not saying that Lilly's involvement would have improved the experience, but strictly speaking the Wachowskis have not made a Matrix movie together since Revolutions. (Lilly is, uh, otherwise occupied.)
FtttG
1d ago
Take the internet historians video about the sinking of the Costa Concordia, i was barely aware of it having happened but the story of how crazy the disaster was was interesting on its own without any investment in the actual real world event.
I hardly knew anything about Costa Concordia before watching that video, and I've since watched that video about five times.
FtttG
2d ago
I heard once that someone wanted to make a movie of it, and I'd be interested to see how the hell they would try.
James Franco has attempted to adapt at least one of McCarthy's less cinematic works, and my understanding is that the results left a lot to be desired.
FtttG
2d ago
It's the only McCarthy book I've read from start to finish, and I remember sobbing for literally hours when I got to the end. Not sure if I could put myself through it again.
I don't know why I mentally associated Cormac Mcarthy with abstruse James-Joyce-style "literary" fiction
I've heard that this is true of Blood Meridian, but that his style became more accessible the older he got.
FtttG
2d ago
I told my boss that, for my friend who works in a tech company, "AI" stands for "Affordable Indians". He nearly fell out of his chair from laughing so hard.
Earlier this week I finished The Story of a New Name, the second book in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet. While I can admire these books on a theoretical level, ultimately I just think they're not for me. The thing that really puts me off them is just how slow they are: that holiday in Ischia went for well over a hundred pages, most of which consisted of "we woke up, went to meet Nino and Bruno at the beach, we talked about this and that, there was sexual tension, then we went home", occasionally jazzed up with Lila throwing a tantrum or a visit from Stefano. Even my girlfriend, who loves those books, did admit that the slow pace had become a problem for her by the fourth book. I don't plan to read books three and four any time soon: I have a hard time caring what happens to any of the characters.
At @TitaniumButterfly's recommendation, I ordered Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, not realising until it had arrived that it's about nine hundred pages long. If I manage to finish it before the new year (which will be an undertaking) it will be the longest book I've read this year by almost three hundred pages. I started reading it on Thursday, and by page 17 it had already made me laugh out loud twice, which is more than e.g. Doxology managed in ~400. I'm liking it so far, but it has the same problem that every book with this narrative structure has: with the constant jumping back and forth between different perspective characters in different temporal and spatial locations, it's hard to stay immersed, as just as you're getting invested in one of the characters' stories, the chapter ends and you're whisked off elsewhere.
A long time ago I asked on this forum for deadlift advice, and someone linked this video which pointed out numerous things I was doing wrong: bending my knees too much etc. For deadlifting I wear a weightlifting belt and lifting straps. Yesterday my girlfriend pointed out that I may be leaning my head too far back at the top of the lift which could be hurting my shoulders.
With squats, I find the single most important thing is that the barbell should only move up and down: if it's moving forwards and backwards, you're doing something wrong. Maybe film yourself on your phone to make sure.
FtttG
4d ago
This video is private.
Obviously some people weren't as partial to it as you were.
If a person begins socially and medically transitioning, as a consequence of which they begin to face harassment, abuse, violence and so on, and hence decide that it's not worth the hassle and resume their original gender presentation (even though doing so makes them unhappy) – then that's a travesty the trans community has every right to be outraged by. Whether they're trans women, cross-dressers or drag queens, I don't want any male people getting bullied or assaulted just because they're wearing clothes cut for women. A male person should not get harassed or beaten up for wearing women's clothes, even if by his own admission he's doing it to fulfil a sexual urge.
But if a person begins socially and medically transitioning, as a consequence of which they attract a few funny looks, and hence decide it's not worth the hassle and resume their original gender presentation – I have to be honest, I'm nowhere near as sympathetic. To me, the fact that they were so easily swayed by minor social influences like this suggests to me that their gender identity wasn't a particularly stable one in the first place. It's grist for the social contagion model of trans identification. If getting someone to change their mind and revert back to being cis is as easy as getting a fence-sitting goth to remove their piercings, then I have a hard time believing that their gender identity is anywhere near as fixed, deep-seated and innate a characteristic as trans activists would have us believe. And if ten strangers giving you funny looks is sufficient to trigger a change in one's gender identity (or at least sufficient to make you change your mind on socially and medically transitioning), it stands to reason that medical transition on the basis of something so flighty is an even worse idea than it sounds at first brush. Like it or not, if you do anything a bit unconventional, there will be some amount of people who will laugh at you or give you funny looks. Imagine you heard someone say "I tried being a musician, but some people laughed at me and told me not to quit my day job, so I gave it up". A determined musician will keep at it in spite of people laughing at them and telling them not to quit their day job.
Maybe I'd be a bit more sympathetic if the study found that this was a common story: "I started socially and medically transitioning, but some people started looking at me funny or giving me dirty looks, so I decided not to bother – as a consequence of which my anxiety and depression have returned tenfold". But somehow I suspect that this isn't the case.
FtttG
5d ago
I don't doubt that some self-identified white nationalists have voted for candidates other than Trump. But I think it's reasonable to assume the majority of such people have voted for Trump in every election they've been able to.
The last few weeks, I've been doing strength training on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On each day, I do three of the five exercises, for which I do five sets of as many reps as I can before I have to stop. I vary it so I only repeat one of the exercises on consecutive sessions, and after five sessions I've done an equal amount of all five exercises. For example:
- Monday: deadlift (1), squat (1), bench (1)
- Wednesday: pullup (1), squat (2), overhead (1)
- Friday: pullup (2), overhead (2), bench (2)
- Monday: deadlift (2), bench (3), overhead (3)
- Wednesday: pullup (3), squat (3), deadlift (3)
Every Monday I increment all the free weight exercises by 2.5 kg.
I'm making steady progress on my deadlifts, and can now do ten* reps of 152.5 kg without stopping (this website puts my 1RM at 203kg which would put me in the intermediate category for my age and mass – that being said, I've never actually lifted that much weight). Partly this is because I've started using lifting straps: I always found my grip strength was the limiting factor, and it's always the grip on my right hand which falters first, even though that's my dominant hand. I can do fifteen squats without stopping, although admittedly only 80kg (I gave up on squats probably two years ago and have only recently taken them up again). My current goal there is to squat my bodyweight at least ten times, which if I maintain this program I will achieve by January at the latest. I'm a bit frustrated to find that, while my reps and maximum weight are steadily increasing on these two exercises, when it comes to the bench press my maximum weight is increasing but not my reps: last week I could do ten reps at 70kg without stopping, but on Wednesday I could only do seven reps at 72.5kg. My pull-ups are shockingly poor, and with the overhead press I'm starting from literally nothing, having never done one before a month ago.
I think taking protein powder every day (immediately after working out, where possible) is improving my motivation: it doesn't feel like such a struggle to go to the gym before work as it used to.
*True at the time of writing, I did eleven this afternoon.
FtttG
5d ago
I can't help but thinking that Stoeffel bears a passing resemblance to Denny from The Room. And earlier this year I said the same thing about Ziz.
Is everyone Denny from The Room? Are you Denny from The Room? Am I Denny from The Room?
I don't recall ever saying trans people aren't being discriminated against. What I've been consistently saying is that there's a big difference between discrimination and unjust discrimination. If you have gender dysphoria and people "treat you like a mentally ill person", that's "discrimination" – in the same way that it's "discrimination" to make accommodations for people with disabilities. Definitionally, you are treating people differently based on a trait. I literally don't know what the demand is here: "I have a mental illness (gender dysphoria), I am receiving treatment for that mental illness (hormones), it's obvious to everyone around me that I have a mental illness – but I don't want to be treated like I have a mental illness"? It just seems incoherent to me.
If you experience autogynephilia and people treat you like a sexual deviant, that's "discrimination" but, well, you are a sexual deviant. If you dress in a knowingly unconventional manner for your sex and people look at you funny, that's discrimination – but I also just think that's part of the game when you dress unconventionally. No one would care if a goth complained that he stopped being a goth because everyone was looking at him funny, so why should we care here?
I also think the practical effects of the discrimination being experienced matter here a great deal. I don't want trans people to be murdered, beaten up or harassed because of how they identify, nor to be unable to secure accommodation or employment. As trans people are so fond of telling us, they just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace. Over the last ~decade I've had an increasingly hard time believing that's all they want – but if the worst discrimination you can honestly claim to personally experience is that people sometimes look at you funny but otherwise leave you alone to do your own thing, that sounds as close to their stated goal as makes no difference.
FtttG
5d ago
An AI covered Eminem's "Without Me" in a soul/R&B style and it works incredibly well.
FtttG
5d ago
If Scott read this, he'd be kicking himself that he didn't think to include it in Unsong.
And if they are tall, broad-shouldered and square-jawed, and they decide to transition, but half-way through, pre-op, they feel the society treat them as a freak, or a sexual deviant, or mentally ill, or just an extremely ugly woman, and they decide to not go through with it.
I'm having a hard time parsing this. I'm sure it must suck for people to think you're mentally ill when you aren't.
But for most of its history, the concept of being transgender was seen as synonymous with suffering from gender dysphoria (or, as previously known, "gender identity disorder"). I have it on good authority (including from people in this very thread) that medics don't just hand out HRT to anyone who requests it, but rather that these medications are rigorously gatekept and people who want to take them subjected to a painstaking screening process, weeding out the malingerers from those legitimately suffering from gender dysphoria. So when I see a clearly male person walking down the street wearing clothes cut for a woman's body, and with visibly budding breasts because he's recently commenced a course of HRT — like, statistically, it's reasonable for me to assume that he's been formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and hence mentally ill, right? Are you suggesting that it's a form of "discrimination" for people to correctly identify that mentally ill people are, in fact, mentally ill, and treat them accordingly? In a different context we would call that "accommodation".
"I suffer from a mental illness that made me want to do X, but it made me sad when people started treating like I have a mental illness, so I decided to stop doing X." I don't understand any part of this.
And if they are tall, broad-shouldered and square-jawed, and they decide to transition, but half-way through, pre-op, they feel the society treat them as a freak, or a sexual deviant, or mentally ill, or just an extremely ugly woman, and they decide to not go through with it.
I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but if you start your transition, people treat you like an ugly woman, and you decide to detransition specifically for that reason, it sounds like you don't want to be a woman so much as you want to be a hot woman. In other words, you're not exactly beating the autogynephilia allegations.
And if you consider autogynephilia a real thing (I certainly do) and think that someone who experiences it is a sexual deviant (certainly that's true in the statistical sense that it's a rare condition; your mileage may vary on the "moral disgust" definition of "deviance"), it's a statistical probability that a given trans woman experiences autogynephilia, with estimates ranging from 60-75% of trans women.
And if they are tall, broad-shouldered and square-jawed, and they decide to transition, but half-way through, pre-op, they feel the society treat them as a freak, or a sexual deviant, or mentally ill, or just an extremely ugly woman, and they decide to not go through with it.
This sort of reminds me of a column I read years ago in the heavy metal magazine Terrorizer. They had a monthly column written by a standup comedian (whose name escapes me) who was a big metalhead and looked the part: long hair, piercings, tattoos etc. He was discussing a piece of legislation currently being debated in the House of Commons which would essentially make facial piercings and tattoos protected characteristics, and it would be illegal to discriminate against people with these features. In this column, he said that this was ridiculous: by getting facial tattoos or piercings you are making a conscious decision to deviate from the beauty standards and social expectations of your community, and you can't have your cake and eat it. If you want to work in a customer-facing job, don't get face tats. No one forced you to. If you really want a face tat, you must accept the trade-offs that come with that decision.
Like it or not, this is also true of anyone who chooses in an unconventional manner, which includes all obviously male people wearing clothes cut for women's bodies. If you're interviewing for a role as an account manager (for which you are well-qualified) and you walk into the interview wearing a clown suit, I suppose strictly speaking you have been "discriminated against" if the interview panel immediately thinks "freak" and decide not to proceed with your application. We're expected to make a special carve-out for any male person who purports to "identify as" a woman and dresses accordingly, but I'm not entirely sure why. It's not like they're compelled to wear clothes cut for women's bodies, and many of them aren't even the least bit discreet about the fact that they're doing so to satisfy an erotic urge.
FtttG
5d ago
The concept being referred to for anyone unfamiliar. The tl;dr is that a "scissor statement" is an assertion (or, more nebulously, an event) which is optimised to provoke disagreement and controversy within a particular community. It sounds obviously true/good to one half of the community, and equally obviously false/bad to the other half.
FtttG
5d ago
I'm forced to conclude it's very unlikely the Rotherham girls were coerced either.
The Rotherham girls were a lot younger than the women/girls on Epstein's island. The official report states that the majority were between the ages of 10 and 16.
FtttG
5d ago
I don't think it's controversial to imply or state that some Trump voters are self-identified white nationalists. I don't think they represent a majority of people who voted for Trump, and would hazard a guess that there might be fewer than 1 million self-identified white nationalists in the entire US. But if I were to meet an American who described himself as a white nationalist, I would put money on him having voted for Trump over any competing candidate.
Why are you sceptical? Many people who do heroin do so more than once, from which we can infer that they have a strong revealed preference for doing heroin. Many women who have one child have more than one, from which we can make the same inference.
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