FtttG
User ID: 1175
FtttG
25d ago
To be fair, I had a boomer coworker who claimed to be a vegetarian despite eating fish ("I consider fish to be vegetables").
Is it @thejdizzler who's vegan except for oysters?
so there's presumably a variety of reasons that meat eaters call themselves vegetarians besides virtue signalling.
Regardless of their motivations, calling yourself vegetarian when you eat meat is simply a misuse of the word, surely?
FtttG
25d ago
In that case, why are the buttons right-aligned on mobile? Left-aligned was haram?
In one of The Last Psychiatrist (hereafter Edward Teach)'s articles, as an exercise, he challenged the reader to describe themselves without using the word "am".
Given that English speakers habitually describe their professions this way ("I'm a fisherman" rather than "I catch fish"), completing the exercise can be surprisingly difficult.
I've long thought that there has never been an interesting sentence beginning with "I identify as", but Teach's writings illustrated to me that such a framework can be not just tedious and navel-gazing, but actively harmful to oneself and those around you.
When I criticise sentences beginning with "I identify as", I am of course referring to our modern fixation on "identities" in the sense of "identity politics" ("I identify as a QPOC agender neurodivergent...") but also in the sense of "identifying as" something wholly removed from any corresponding action associated therewith. As you point out, being a musician is seen as high-status in a way that selling insurance isn't: there are innumerable people who still call themselves musicians (namely in their Instagram handles) despite never having recorded a single note of music or having gone years without playing a gig (if ever); likewise for people calling themselves "writers" without having written anything, never mind published. This worldview is starting to affect more traditional identity categories as well: a majority of American women who call themselves lesbians have had sex with at least one man (6% in the last year); there are sexually active people who call themselves asexual; there are self-identified vegans who subscribe to a non-standard definition of veganism. "Inclusivity" has become so valorised and "gatekeeping" so stigmatised that it's seen as poor form to tell a meat-eater that they aren't vegan; a person who's diagnosed themselves with autism that they aren't really neurodivergent; a chronic masturbator that they aren't asexual; a bearded, penised male in jeans and a t-shirt that he isn't a woman. Identity has become wholly uncoupled from essential rule-in criteria or adherence to a standard of behaviour (broadly defined): vague, unfalsifiable "vibes" are the order of the day. I wonder if you could draw a bright line between the relaxation of academic standards you outline in your post, and the relaxation of standards of behaviour for who is and isn't a "lesbian".
"Why are you getting so incensed, @FtttG? It's just some kids on college campuses – who cares if a woman with multiple male sexual partners and zero female ones calls herself a lesbian?"
But I actually think it's much more insidious than that. I think the relaxation of standards such that anyone can call themselves a musician (without playing a note of music) and anyone can call themselves queer (while exclusively pursuing hetero relationships) – and that anyone who calls them a fake and a poseur is an exclusive elitist gatekeeper – can lead to some extremely toxic habits of mind, ultimately causing people to "identify as" the only thing anyone should aspire to be: a good person.
Because if you don't have to write anything to call yourself a writer, and you don't have to adhere to a plant-based diet to call yourself a vegan – if it's all just vague, unfalsifiable, unquantifiable vibes – it stands to reason that you can "be a good person" without once doing anything good, without once doing anything to improve the lot of the people around you. How does that cash out in the real world?
- Obsessive fixation on the cheap talk of good person signifiers (when admonishing people to be more woke, woke activists sometimes point out that it costs nothing to put a Palestine or pride flag in your Instagram bio, or your pronouns in your email signature. They're right: it costs nothing, meaning it's a cheap signal easily exploited by bad actors);
- Obsessive fixation on all the bad things you haven't done, with a corresponding effort to downplay or undermine the positive achievements of others;
- Obsessive fixation on the bad things other people have done that you haven't (the more cartoonishly evil, the better*);
- Periodic paroxysms of performative self-loathing after a particularly atrocious instance of bad behaviour, followed by immediate resumption of business as usual (including said bad behaviour); and
- A hypertrophied fundamental attribution error mindset, in which exculpatory circumstances for every bad thing you've ever done can always be found or confected (but every person who hurts or upsets you in any way is a toxic narcissistic abuser who's just going out of their way to hurt you out of sheer bloody-mindedness)
As Teach pointed out, the last bullet point is particularly unsustainable for forming a real sense of self and personal identity. In principle, one could take full responsibility for all of one's impressive achievements while refusing to take responsibility for all of one's failures (moral and otherwise), but most people are no good at that kind of compartmentalization. If you've gotten into the habit of refusing to take accountability for your fuckups, it's only a matter of time before your positive achievements don't really feel like "yours" either. Thus, impostor syndrome.
I suppose it could be worse: identifying as a good person hasn't yet become wholly uncoupled from consistent pro-social behaviour. Believing you're a good person because you've never set a cat on fire is a low bar, but it's a hell of a lot better than thinking there's literally no difference between someone who sets a cat on fire and someone who doesn't. Insincere performative virtue signalling still acknowledges that there is a thing which exists called "virtue"; aspiring through one's actions (namely insincere performative virtue signalling) to be seen as a virtuous person still acknowledges that virtuous behaviour is a precondition for being a virtuous person. Reflexive invention of exculpatory circumstances to explain away one's bad behaviour still acknowledges that said behaviour requires explanation. "Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue" and all that. Still, two decades ago anyone who called himself autistic without having ever consulted a mental health professional would have attracted a lot of funny looks – nowadays it largely passes without comment. (Indeed, the concept of "social awkwardness" no longer exists: every such person is reflexively assumed to be "on the spectrum".) I worry about where this train leads. Will we end up with innumerable tautological Templars running around, who no longer even feel any need to explain away their bad behaviour; who sincerely believe that, as a PoG (person of good), everything they do is good, because they did it?
Anglophone Gen Zers were raised in a discursive environment which tells them they're smart (even if they've never done a smart thing in their lives); which tells them they can be queer (even if they've never done anything queer in their lives and have no desire to); which tells them they're beautiful – even, dare I say, a certified bad bitch (even if no one wants to have sex with them); and, most toxically of all, tells them they're good, even if they've never carried out a single selfless act, maybe provided they parrot a catechism of cookie-cutter woke catchphrases they don't even understand never mind positively endorse. No wonder they go into adulthood with no idea of who they are, what they're good at, what they're bad at, what they want from life, how they come off to other people, what makes them them. They can list off all the identity categories they fall into like a math nerd reciting digits of pi, but they couldn't begin to tell you who they, personally, are. No wonder they report unprecedented rates of mental illness**, sexlessness and social isolation. How can you begin to make friends based on common interests if you don't have any interests (besides rotting in your bed watching Netflix), and neither does anyone around you? What does it even mean to be attracted to another person if you've been consistently told all your life that all bodies are equally attractive? How can you form a relationship with another person if you don't even know what you want out of life? How can you and your partner have shared relationship goals if you don't have any goals of any kind?
*I used to occasionally read an online article which I found so insightful and perceptive that I felt like the author had cracked one of life's cheat codes: this was the first time I can remember it happening. One of the most recent times I had such a feeling was when I read the TLP article linked under "periodic paroxysms" above. The second time was when I read my first post of Scott's, "The Toxoplasma of Rage". And he succeeded in inducing that feeling in me again, and again, and again – and now he mostly sucks. Nothing good lasts forever.
**To bring it back to the subject of the OP, I have no doubt that this is partly an artifact of young people or their parents attempting to game disability frameworks to secure carve-outs and accommodations – an extra hour in an exam for a student diagnosed with anxiety or depression is a low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked. But I don't think that's the whole story: I think there's a real signal of Gen Z being miserable in a way and at a scale that previous generations weren't. Yes it's the phones, but it's not just the phones.
FtttG
25d ago
META: The upvote/downvote etc. buttons underneath comments display correctly if the zoom on the browser window is set to 100% or lower. If I zoom in to 125% (as I normally do, my eyesight not being what it once was), the buttons appear right-aligned (screenshot).
FtttG
26d ago
According to this article, 80% of artists on Spotify have fewer than 50 monthly listeners
It's good to be above average.
FtttG
26d ago
Do we have any native Russian speakers here who might like to lend me a hand with a small creative project?
FtttG
26d ago
I'm working on a musical project. Do we have any native Russian speakers here who might like to lend me a hand?
FtttG
26d ago
see how it was before widespread trans acceptance in the West
I notice you're making a factual claim about the recent past here. Do you have any evidence for your claim that suicide rates for trans people have declined over time?
the scolding types gloating about talking down to their transphobic uncle at thanksgiving.
I've heard that this woman was actually involved in Kamala's campaign. Can anyone confirm? What's her name?
Edit: apparently her name is Arielle Fodor and she joined a "white women for Kamala" Zoom call.
FtttG
27d ago
Why did it kill your interest in him? Assuming you can answer the question without spoiling the plot.
FtttG
27d ago
Seconding "Categories" as the post to read on Zack's website, though he has plenty of other bangers too.
FtttG
27d ago
@ymeskhout's "In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes", which he originally cross-posted here: there's an interesting discussion in the comments.
In rationalist circles, Scott's post "The Categories Were Made for Man, not Man for the Categories" is a very respected pro-trans article. I used to find it persuasive.
On the pro side, Freddie deBoer has waded into this topic on several occasions, which prompted my response to him:
- "I Think You Should be Kind"
- "And Now I Will Again Ponderously Explain Why I Am Trans-Affirming"
- "What Goes On in the Public Bathrooms Where You're From, Exactly?"
- "Perhaps If You're a "Of Course Trans People Can Be Trans, But...." Type, You Should Front the "Of Course" A Little More"
- "... No, We Definitely Want to Use Medical Arguments to Defend Trans Children"
FtttG
27d ago
Obligatory self-promo: https://firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com/p/contra-deboer-on-transgender-issues
I recommend binging everything @zackmdavis posted on his old site.
Gender:Hacked by Sarah Mittermaier formerly/also known as Eliza Mondegreen.
A review of Shannon Thrace's memoir 18 Months, her account of how her marriage collapsed after her ex-husband came out as trans.
FtttG
28d ago
It's interesting again because the words "overrated" and "underrated" are only ever used in the context of qualitative assessments which are extremely subjective, namely those of artistic works. "Breaking Bad is an overrated TV show" sounds normal; "the bridge collapsed because the inspector overrated the quality of the steel used in its construction" sounds weird, even if that's literally what happened.
FtttG
28d ago
My girlfriend has been reading Jonathan Strange for several weeks (months?). She initially found it delightful and easy to read, but then came to a chunk of it where the pacing slowed to a crawl. I believe she's now about three-quarters of the way through it and is determined to finish it before the end of the year.
FtttG
28d ago
Progress on Cryptonomicon has been slow, and I'm now about a quarter of the way through it. In addition to being very long it's also very slow in terms of plot progression.
FtttG
28d ago
Forgive me for asking the obvious question but – were these writers "female" in the biological sense or in the "identify as" sense?
META: I'm getting some weird CSS errors when I view my own comments on mobile. See the upvote/downvote counters in this screenshot.
Possibly related, hovering over the upvote/downvote counter on a desktop browser doesn't work.
There is an archaic noun "ruth", which seems to mean the same thing as "rue". Many centuries ago it was a commonplace for Christian parents to name their children after Christian virtues they want them to embody, which is where the name "Ruth" came from: along with "Grace" it's the only such name which has really stuck around in Ireland. Some of these like "Hope" are more common in the states, and you'll sometimes encounter Nigerians called "Goodluck" ("Chastity" only gets used ironically by sex workers).
FtttG
30d ago
"Rate" seems to me like it is indeed used as you describe. Someone's accoplishments can "rate", or properly deserve, praise. A work of art can be "rated highly". There are plenty of industries in which saying that someone's job is to rate, or grade or assess, quality or purity would be perfectly logical.
But my point was that the adjectives "overrated" and "underrated" refer to instances in which the assessment of an item's quality was considered to be inaccurate, either too generous or too harsh, respectively. To me this implies that "to rate" something is to make an accurate assessment of its quality. But I don't think it really does carry this de-/con-notation: much as with "interpret", the verb "to rate" is equivocal on whether the resulting assessment was a fair or accurate one.
A few weeks ago my girlfriend was on Instagram and found a reel of a group of women (and one man) respectively cosplaying as the Bubble Head Nurses and Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2. I mentioned that the game is really good and we could try playing it together if she liked, a suggestion she responded to with enthusiasm, despite not really being a gamer.
I have a complicated relationship with Silent Hill 2. I was aware of the franchise (and I think even played the demo for Silent Hill 3 as a child, without having played either of the previous two instalments, only to find that my PC couldn't hack it), but the first time I encountered the idea that Silent Hill 2 specifically was a game with real artistic merit was from hearing Yahtzee relentlessly gush about it. Curiosity piqued, about fifteen years ago I bought a secondhand PS2 and a copy of the game and gave it a whirl, only to give up on it an hour or two in. The same thing happened on my second attempt. On probably my third attempt I decided to just power through it and made it to the Brookhaven Hospital — at which point it finally clicked for me, and I played all the way through to the end. I played it through to the ending a second time, and haven't touched it since.
With my PS2 gathering dust somewhere, I installed the PC port of the original game* which is apparently abandonware, along with the "Enhanced Edition" mod, which optimises the experience for modern PCs and enables controller support. We booted up the game and got stuck in, with my girlfriend playing until she got too scared and then asking me to take over. I don't scare easily, and even on the times I've played the game to the end generally found it more creepy and unsettling than outright scary. My girlfriend scares much easier than I do, and after subjecting her to innumerable scary movies over the years, I can say without exaggeration that Silent Hill 2 was the most scared I've ever seen her: she was literally shrieking in terror in places, and mentioned having had nightmares about Pyramid Head. In much the same way that comedy films can seem funnier when watched with a group, playing a horror game with someone sitting next to you who's frightened out of her wits really enhanced the experience, and I found the game scarier and more unnerving than any previous playthrough. By the time you've emerged from the Historical Society and are making the lonesome voyage across the lake, the game has become utterly hypnotic.
In some ways my opinion of the game hasn't changed: almost everything prior to the Brookhaven Hospital remains a boring slog through a set of bland, repetitive environments. (Maybe that's necessary to lull the players into a false sense of security so they can pull the rug out from under them later, modulating from survival to psychological horror.) The titular town is terrifying at nighttime but dull as dishwater during the day, fog notwithstanding. The transition from in-game cutscenes to pre-rendered cinematics might be the only thing that really dates the game to the early 2000s, as it's a trope that completely fell out of favour once graphical fidelity hit some floor. In other ways I'm surprised to admit that I get it now: the people claiming that the dodgy voice acting and imprecise facial animation contribute to the game's dreamlike Lynchian atmosphere sounds like pure cope — but goddamn it, those things do contribute to the game's dreamlike Lynchian atmosphere, whether intended by the creators or not. (Part of me even wants to call the game a spiritual adaptation of Mulholland Drive, given that both stories are fundamentally about
Roger Ebert once said that, for him, cinema is first and foremost an emotional medium: he dislikes films that delve into intellectual debates, considering it a misuse of the form. I tend to agree: I can't remember a film I loved specifically because it made me think (although it may have done so incidentally). By contrast, despite video games' strenuous efforts to replicate the visual iconography of cinema, I've long thought the medium they most resemble is actually books, in the sense that they are long-form storytelling media the consumer must actively engage with to move the story forward, unlike passively consumed movies or TV shows. It is for this reason that I've long considered games more compelling from an intellectual standpoint than an emotional one, which makes sense when you consider that even getting to grips with the game mechanics is, to a greater or lesser extent, a fundamentally intellectual exercise: most of the games I've loved, I've loved because they made me think, not because they made me feel (e.g. Metal Gear Solid 2, Spec Ops The Line, SOMA: they all made me feel emotions a little bit, but the main reason I loved them was because they made me think). But I now think Silent Hill 2 might be the exception to this trend. Having now completed my third playthrough, I think it might be the most unsettling, moving, emotionally affecting video game I've ever played, bar none.
gushing over
I've become vastly fussier as a gamer in my advancing years. Last night I wanted to play something by myself, so I played the first half-hour of Trek to Yomi. Gorgeous to look at and I like that the spoken dialogue is in Japanese, but the gameplay was already starting to feel a bit rote and repetitive, so I gave up on it. Next I tried Advent Rising, notable for having its story co-written by Orson Scott Card. Gave up on that even quicker, inside of ten minutes.
A few years ago I tried playing Undertale after the world and its mother were raving about it. I think I played it for about two hours and remember enjoying it, but for some reason I never got around to finishing it. Last night I took another crack at it, playing about as far as the title card (i.e. the game held my attention for significantly longer than the previous two games I tried that evening). It's rare for a game to make me laugh out loud, or to make me think "aww, how sweet", so props to the game for doing both. Will see if I can manage to make it to the end this time.
*No remake for me, thank you very much.
There are many words in the English language which are formed using a prefix or a suffix, but for which the antonym formed by removing that prefix or suffix (or using the opposite prefix or suffix) is never used. There are even a handful of cases in which two compound words can be formed using a prefix and its antonymic prefix, but the word itself is never used in isolation, or has a vastly different meaning than would be inferred based on the meaning of the two compound words. Some examples:
- abuse, v. (antonym: disabuse): to affirm that another's belief is correct and not a misconception
- appointment, n. (antonym: disappointment): the state of feeling satisfied
- baseful, adj. (antonym: baseless): (of claims) with sound evidentiary backings
- concerting, adj. (antonym: disconcerting): tending to cause ease and comfort
- faultful, adj. (antonym: faultless): containing many imperfections
- feckful, adj. (antonym: feckless): purposeful, competent, effective
- gormful, adj. (antonym: gormless): sharp; intelligent; with his wits about him
- gruntled, adj. (antonym: disgruntled): content, satisfied
- gutful, adj. (antonym: gutless): brave, courageous
- hatful, adj. (antonym: hatless): the state of wearing a hat
- homeful, adj. (antonym: homeless): of a fixed abode
- inotic, adj. (antonym: exotic): indigenous, native
- interminate, v (antonym: exterminate): to commit mass suicide à la Jonestown
- interpret1, v. (antonym: misinterpret): to understand correctly and accurately
- jointed, adj. (antonym: disjointed): connected, coherent.
- parage, v. (antonym: disparage): to commend or praise.
- peerful, adj. (antonym: peerless): (of individuals) with many equals
- pitiful, adj.2 (antonym: pitiless): empathetic, caring
- rate, v.3 (antonyms: overrate, underrate): to assess the value of accurately
- react, v.4 (antonyms: overreact, underreact): to respond in an appropriate fashion
- reckful, adj. (antonym: reckless): cautious, careful
- ruthful, adj. (antonym: ruthless): scrupulous
- seamful, adj. (antonym: seamless): amateurishly put together
- spotful, adj. (antonym: spotless): dirty, disheveled
- substar, n. 5 (antonym: superstar): a minor celebrity; a B-, C- or Z-lister
- subvise, v. (antonym: supervise): to oversee ineffectually
- superstandard, adj. (antonym: substandard): in excess of requirements, superior
- timeful, adj. (antonym: timeless): bound to a particular era, a product of its time; an unintentional period piece
- tireful, adj. (antonym: tireless): prone to exhaustion, easily worn out
- topful, adj. (antonym: topless): decently clad
- underdose, n. v. (antonym: overdose): an insufficent dose
- underdraft, n. (antonym: overdraft): a positive bank balance
- underkill, n. (antonym: overkill): to use methods insufficient to accomplish one's goal
- undersee, v. (antonym: oversee): to supervise ineffectually; to ignore or forget about
- understay, v. (antonym: overstay): to cut one's residence short
- undertake, v.6 (antonym: overtake): to be overtaken by sb
- whelm, v. (antonyms: overwhelm, underwhelm): just the right amount, neither surplus nor insufficient to requirements
- witful, adj. (antonym: witless): intelligent, sensible
Can you think of any other good examples?
1 Obviously this word does see use on some occasions, and yet it isn't strictly an antonym for "misinterpret": "misinterpret" specifically denotes an inaccurate interpretation, whereas "interpret" is equivocal on whether the interpretation was accurate or not.
2 We move here into the realm of pedantry, as while this word does see use, it's not used as an antonym of "pitiless": rather, it denotes someone deserving of pity, which is more properly denoted by "pitiable". See also "nauseous"/"nauseated". In other cases people get this distinction right e.g. "contemptuous"/"contemptible".
3 See also "interpret": unlike "to overrate" and "to underrate", "to rate" does not pass judgement on whether the assessment was a fair or accurate one. Confusingly, "to rate" also carries a colloquial meaning of "to think highly of, to commend"; when Roy Keane said of Mick McCarthy, "... I didn't rate you as a player, I don't rate you as a manager, and I don't rate you as a person..." he meant that he didn't think highly of him in any of these capacities. This runs contrary to the word's usual meaning of "to assess", which includes both positive and negative assessments.
4 See also "rate".
5 There was a British comedian (it might have been Lee Evans) who once quipped that every actor who appears in a porn film is denoted a porn star, which is not the standard we apply to actors in general, only a minority of whom can be called "stars". "Where are all the porn actors?"
6 As distinct of its meaning "to undertake a task".
Ah, fair enough.
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