George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
28d ago
Reddit is to my gears as a big bag of unshelled peanuts and gravel would be if thrown, bag and all, into a fine clockwork. There is only grinding. Short extremely niche subs, I can't stand visiting the site.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
20d ago
FaceH would be clearer in this regard than faceh, which I assumed was a whole word with some private meaning for you, pronounced "FASS-eh." This is not to doubt that you have circulated through faces A to G, just to say this may explain why no one has asked.
I am not sure characterizing the experiences she had as a child as "religious conservative" is accurate, or at least it's drawing the Venn diagram a bit large to encompass what I'd consider pathologic violence. The getting whacked with the stick bit repeatedly when told "come here" is far more a weird, violence and control for the sake of it experience than simple religious conservatism at work.
I have no idea if religious conservativism leads to damaged girls. I do know absent or distant father figures, and particularly violent and/or emotionally manipulative ones, do very much lead to damaged girls. And that's what she described in her partial memoir that was linked.
Also your characterizing Aella simply as a "sexually liberated woman" seems off here. Something something motte and bailey.
If I were her friend ot acquaintance (I'm not) I expect she'd not be able to tolerate me, as I'd be telling her all this LSD and free love isn't going to work out well for her in later life.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
My normie perspective: It definitely 100% sounds like a manipulative weirdass culty thing. Teenagers? That's minors. If it's therapeutic what's the licensing? Based on what?
Attend as you like but there is zero reason for you to make any attempt to adhere to their framing when in interaction with them (i.e at the meeting.) Be an observer and listen as closely as you want. No hugging or touching me plz, not my thing. If they don't allow or tolerate that or try to guilt you, boom, proof that it's manipulative scam. Watch for signs of incremental steps toward closer physical intimacy. This sort of bullshit is a slippery slope into sex (probably reframed as something other than sex). I'm assuming there is something desirable in the females involved who are being incorporated into this gang. Maybe just youth and vulnerability. Any teenage boys also involved? My alarms are going off.
Then do the responsible thing and (should you agree with my assessment and your current suspicion) make one of two choices:
-
Ask the friend if she has had similar weird vibes or understands why others do, explore the why, say you do too, and suggest she extract herself from the influence of these people. Maybe she's actually into one of the people in the group, or maybe she just feels a connection she's been missing and wanting, etc. etc. Yeah we all have that, but there are other less obviously weird ways to fill that void.
-
Manipulate her into extracting herself. (Which is in essence not much better, if better at all. But manipulation works.)
I thought of a third: Do nothing, thanks for catching up, guess you'll soon go radio silent on me as you become fully indoctrinated. Lose your friend to whatever she ends up becoming (a version of this will happen no matter what you do.) Read about it later. You can't save everyone.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
18d ago
She does half-assed twitter polls. That is not data science. I don't know of anything she's done that could accurately be described as data science
Thank you! Spot on. The confounders and limitations in her data collection are obvious.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
29d ago
My opinion is just my opinion and is not meant to represent the macro level worldview of the group you're labeling "conservative." I'm speaking from my own experience of the world, particularly over time, and my views have evolved since I was much younger and the world seemed an eternal spring.
I've read on this very forum the view that parenting doesn't matter much, possibly related to a widespread view that nature trumps nurture. I think parenting most definitely matters--I'm absolutely certain of it--and also because of my own experiences and from watching people grow up around me.
I wouldn't suggest a certain parenting style will produce particular results all the time, but that's different from saying it doesn't matter.
I am not a psychologist thank god, and am not charged with having any particular view of this woman's psychology, damaged or not. I would suggest that her lifestyle at 30 is probably not sustainable in any sort of happy fun time past, say, 40 or beyond. Thankfully it's none of my business.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
8d ago
I'm for the dual-pricing system in Japan-- one for Japanese (or local residents) and a different, higher price for tourists, who are almost always disruptive and are seemingly everywhere in Osaka now. This could be charged to me unless I initiated some negotiating tactic, which would itself be disruptive.
I read your post and this led me to then read Aella's. I don't know, the points made by others responding to you are valid--she was just a kid. She seems to have had a very messed up childhood and I feel for her. This doesn't change my mind about her--it is, in fact, exactly what I might have expected had I ever given it much thought. I have known women with backgrounds that are variations on the same violent/controlled theme, and they have all been, unfortunately, intolerable to me (and some themselves given to violence). Which is odd because I have had a savior complex most of my life (I'm using a popular term here, I don't know or particularly care what the psychological term is).
I've never been interested in finding out more about this woman. I don't wish her ill, but I find the terminally online male obsessive fawning over her a strange sign of the times. Not a good one.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
20d ago
I have before, and it's interesting to me as well why people do it. In my experience the AIs of just a few years ago were very clearly robotic (to use a word that might not fit) in that they would seem to "forget" things very quickly, even things you had just told them. Currently I think they're considerably better, but their popularity suggests that they're still overly positive and loath to criticize or call out the user the way a human might. In other words there is a narcissistic element in their use (the link is an internal link to a recent Motte post) where the user is fed a continual stream of affirmations in the self he or she is presenting to the AI. Hell on Reddit people are literally marrying their "AI boy/girlfriend."
I have a friend who is having issues with his wife, and has taken to interaction with AI in ways that I am not completely sure of except to say he's given it a name (feminine) and has various calibrations that he uses (one that is flirty, etc.) I can tell by speaking to him about this that he is engaging in what I'd consider a certain wishful thinking (asking the AI what it means to be real, to be alive, etc.) but it's difficult in such situations to tactfully draw someone back into reality. So I am untactful and say "It's not a She and it's not a real person, bro." This gets a laugh but the behavior continues.
I wouldn't discount the idea that this (treating Ai as a companion, romantic or otherwise) will all become extremely widespread if it hasn't already. How (and how soon) it will then become acceptable to the mainstream will be interesting to see.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
25d ago
I'm now wondering what the redhead"s problem was aside from garden variety psychopathy. I've never found a workable solution to female histrionics (the Jake Gittes slap has been out of play for many decades now) and I sympathize with what sounds like a stupidly harrowing experience. A barfight would be less traumatic. Well except for that possibility of dying or being permanently maimed. No, maybe a barfight would've been worse.
In any case the only solution to this is personal resolve to keep moving forward and allowing time to do its thing. Avoid too low a profile. The current year ability to stay in ones room and get one's rocks off to a live thot (via camgirls, etc.) is toxic to real human interaction and I encourage you to eschew that route and stay out among humans as much as possible.
From the sound of it you've got something going on that is attractive to at least some females to whom you would be attractive. That's a good thing. Remember humor--that is to say finding humor in situations --is gold, if you can manage it. Humor both armors you and disarms your opponent.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
It should be noted that wife sales were often the idea of the wife, and an escape plan that provided her an out she wouldn't otherwise have had.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
Oddly I spent the better part of my considerable commute time this morning reading several of your old posts debunking materialism. I saved them.
@rae if I am correct is a trans woman. Now I don't know to what degree masturbatory practice is consistent among biological males of whatever stripe, but one might assume the "ideal partner" as it was put might be considerably more difficult to locate. A good man is hard to find, etc. Or the other way round as the case may be.
I can't sit in judgment of masturbation as an act, but I would certainly caution any young man against relying on it, and chaturbate or whatever, as any sort of long term answer to the yearning for companionship. For that matter one doesn't have to look far in my part of the world to find men who seek solace in hostesses, call girls, or various other professional services, and I don't see any of them smiling broadly on a regular basis. And finally, I would suggest orgasm itself outside of some Tantric whatnot isn't particularly long-lasting, post nut tristesse is real, and, perhaps sentimentally, ultimately nothing beats (cough) the dozens of micro-interactions that are just spending time with someone you love (or are attracted to), completely outside the context of the boudoir.
After 20 years of marriage the dynamic changes somewhat, but the thesis still holds.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
I'm sure you've seen the recent stories about tourists being squirted with water guns in Barcelona. As I was reading that story I could understand the locals' frustration (though were I to go to Spain again I would certainly be the one getting squirted).
The downturn of the yen, the very modern era attraction of live streaming from an exotic locale, the now-happening Osaka Expo, and perhaps a general interest in Japan fueled by anime/manga and Shogun and whatever else, have combined into a perfect storm where currently large areas of Osaka are bereft of Japanese people, though they are still full of people. At an outdoor bar by the river in Namba recently (I know, what did I expect?) the bartender didn't understand my Japanese (he was from Vietnam.) The shopping arcades are thronged with tourists. At least in such places one can adopt a sense of free-for-all and just push through. My commute, however, takes me through a hub on the way to an international airport, so the subway cars are routinely filled with giant suitcases rolling on casters and you see a lot of behavior that is notably non-Japqnese.
Yesterday at 5:50 am three British travelers were so loud on the train (just having a good time, but annoyingly so) that I could see the Japanese passengers were disturbed (though the British group probably had no idea they were causing any disturbance...maybe). A Thai woman was speaking extremely loudly into her phone while standing in a crowded, moving subway car. One group of New Zealand kids on some school tour made a crack about my suit (which I heard and then began to discuss with them).
Most behavior is very benign. Probably even just reading my descriptions of what I've seen as faux pas seems absurd, as if I am fretting over the most insignificant nothings in a world where bombs are falling. And this is true of course. But it reminds me how Japanese people probably regularly expect me to behave like an unschooled savage most of the time (and honestly, because I am always learning new Japanese I realize I probably screw up a lot still.)
The kicker is that generally no Japanese will ever say a word about this. The very first rule of 和 is that you don't talk about 和. I have been intending to write an effortpost about this but life keeps getting in the way.
My friend from way back had a family beach house--it was right on the beach up from Eugene (somewhere in) Oregon though I don't remember the town--you could see the ocean right out the window, and to get to the sand and the water was a minute's walk down a short sloping hill. The beach was one of those long wide ones where you could splash your feet around, almost like a tidal flat--you'd go for meters until the water ever came as far as even your ankles. Truly beautiful. I stayed there once, two nights; we drank Full Sail bottled beers on the deck, ranged barefoot up and down the stretch of sand, flew kites, ate Mexican omelettes with homemade salsa and drank hot coffee there in the kitchen nook where you could watch the morning waves coming in. What a place.
They had money from a very well-known business owned by I think his grandfather, but something happened and there was a breakdown in relationships, and then everyone began squabbling over that house, and I think it was either sold or just torn down, or both. A terrible waste. My friend was (is) a very laid-back guy and just shrugged it off. Would have hurt me bad.
I wonder if the ability (or lack of ability) to draw has anything to do with what I've heard termed aphantasia? This is not an original wonder, I expect. I was sitting around a table of men and women several months ago, and our host asked everyone to close their eyes and imagine I believe an apple (This was back in November.) I could see an apple in my mind, with a dark background, imagining the color of it from stem to bottom, red to pinkish to green-yellow, the way apples are sometimes mottled, and when we all opened our eyes, of the eight or so people there, I think only two of us said we were able to imagine it. My wife in particular said she just saw black. I was thinking this might simply be an artifact of how the question had been asked--an excess of honesty might produce "I didn't see it" because really there was no apple, I wasn't seeing a real apple with my eyes, it was in my "mind's eye" as it were. But if--and this assumes at face value that the host, his wife, the others there, and my wife simply could not visualize an apple in the way I could--would that have an effect on their ability to, say, draw an apple?
Many Japanese are almost stereotypically talented at drawing (my wife is not). Often however this means that they draw manga-type stylized figures very well, but not realistic objects. Then some of my students who are required by their histology instructor to draw, say, glomeruli in the kidneys can do so with impressive talent. Just with a pencil and eraser. Surely someone has studied this. I should look it up.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
26d ago
I once read a JM Coetzee book (Disgrace) that spelled the adjective "Loth" and I still haven't gotten over it.
Good story. Mine:
Okinawan girl. Twenty maybe 21. Probably 20. I was around 34 (Sue me, cancel me, etc.) She was gorgeous, funny, got my humor or at least laughed convincingly, and had a really nice, um, well, body. Like she could have been on the beer posters holding up a frosty glass wearing a bikini, that type. Really proficient at English. This would've been my 3rd or so year in Japan. The image of her returning from the washroom standing in my bedroom doorway in a state of complete undress is burned pleasantly into my memory. If my memories eventually all fall away, I hope that's one of the last ones. But let's not get tawdry. Anyway eventually there we were, an hour or two later, and as I reached that sublime moment I looked up and there she was poised over me laughing. "I've seen your happy face," she said. I felt as if this were an admission of larceny.
I saw her again a few more times until I didn't. She had a guy in the US military back home (whenever he was in port I guess). I always completely ignored any declaration of boyfriend back in the day as simple noise from mouth and utterly irrelevant (unless I knew him of course). But it complicated matters. Point being I never did know how to process that moment. It seemed, I don't know, disrespectful somehow. I will admit I no longer hold women to the standard I once may have (specifically: Well I'd never do that to you type reactiveness) but it was weird.
Edit: Linked image is obviously dated, but roughly from the same era.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
28d ago
Ok let's do a quiz. In which of the following scenarios would you either judge someone as having committed a faux pas, or wouldn't immediately think less of someone who did judge:
-
Man wearing hat inside someone else's house (ok cap, it doesn't have to be a bowler or whatever)
-
Girl applying make-up on a public train full of people.
-
Hawking a big throaty loogie and setting it free via a big spit off the train platform while waiting for the train.
-
wearing white socks with a dark suit
-
woman going bra-less at her friend's wedding
-
walking barefoot in a mall (in a landlocked town)
-
bikini top in a restaurant (enclosed)
-
striped necktie with plaid shirt
-
speaking while chewing food
-
laughing after your partner's orgasm
These are in no order. Your answers will be entered into your permanent record.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
29d ago
The King in Yellow, sort of a pre Lovecraft, Lovecraftian set of weird short stories.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
During COVID I had my hair cut really short, like a buzz cutt even in front, just because. I thought it was cool enough but then looking at pictures of the cool guy buzz cuts it seemed my own buzz cut was considerably higher up the forehead. I proceeded to have a moment where I was sure I was beginning the downturn and my hairline was receding at an accelerated pace. Began growing it out a bit. Now I find I still have a pretty full head of hair, even in front, but I probably just have always had a fairly high hairline. Old photos suggest this is true.
Hair is weird for men. You can lose the beer gut, you can build your arms and legs and abs. But you can't diet or exercise yourself more hair.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
Yes. I have a thing where I memorize Shakespeare sonnets. I have no reason for doing this and it never got me laid, but I am occasionally pretentious enough to recite them. I know a few other poems as well just from repeated reading of them (usually only one and often not even all of one before everyone loses interest). I don't know what benefit it has beyond the same benefit one gets from listening to beautiful music (not catchy, not rhythmic or current , but beautiful): you have knocking around your brain some of the best things, instead of a bunch of memes, porn, etc.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
18d ago
Regarding sperm:
Short-term abstinence may be associated with limited improvements in semen quality in healthy men but could be more beneficial for infertile men, especially within the first 4 days of abstinence.
Regarding testosterone:
These data demonstrate that acute abstinence does not change the neuroendocrine response to orgasm but does produce elevated levels of testosterone in males.
Also several bullshit studies. No credible peer-reviewed studies on cognitive or emotional benefits, beyond anecdotal.
YMMV, but oddly jacking off in the 21st century hasn't had much research.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
27d ago
(dossier updated)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
28d ago
CBS gymnastics
Not that there's an abiding difference but I believe you meant NBC gymnastics.
You called it, right there. Not to say I don't sympathize. I've been called--online at least--a Pollyanna, a goody two shoes, and, once, a Candide. So it goes.
But this eventuality of "Aella's" should surprise exactly no one. The internet is the very definition of the mob. What's more surprising to me than that she unwisely pulled back the veil of Isis is her Captain Renault-like "shocked, shocked" reaction, which would seem performative if it weren't so pathetic. This was always going to happen and unless she does some serious scouring this isn't the end of it and it's only going to get worse.
I'm prone to quoting movies but that John Huston line comes to mind: "Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough." Unfortunately for this young woman it's far easier for a politician or building to last the requisite number of years. Easier for geiko I imagine, in that they are not technically prostitutes and do not base their charm in physical attributes alone (or even primarily), and create an exclusivity that the
gangbanging harlotcourtesan of many admirers doesn't.That said, I'm with you in that I don't wish her ill. At the same time it's difficult not to feel some schadenfreude when I've long wished she would just stop her bullshit. Human nature suggests a doubledown and reversion to activism rather than the self reflection and life change I might prefer (but then I'm a judgmental Pollyanna).
Anyway what's for breakfast?
More options
Context Copy link