Ioper
5mo ago
That doesn't help him since he is complaining about monthly payments as well, which will likely stay the same. When the interest rates go down again then the prices will rise at the same time.
The housing market isn't "improving" unless you're sitting on a bunch of liquid capital, which it kind of sounds like he is but he is going to have to eat the higher monthly payments.
Ioper
11mo ago
Has Facebook radically increased the amount of ads you're exposed to?
I don't really use Facebook anymore, I log in maybe once every other month or so to check it out.
I have blocked the people using it to advertise and those just posting about politics but I still have some 600 "friends" or so there is usually some kind of activity. However, when I logged in yesterday maybe less than 1/20 posts were from my friends and the rest were ads. Most weren't literally ads but rather posts from groups I wasn't a member from, the content usually being some kind of bottom of the barrel pop culture memes feeling like a poorly disguised ad for the subject matter but could just be bad posts I suppose.
I was a bit confused and thought maybe I got some kind of bug or something so I reloaded the site and finally got some posts from people I actually know but it was still only maybe 1/6.
Is Facebook like this nowadays or have almost all of my friends finally stopped using it and Facebook is trying to fill my feed with anything it can find?
Ioper
1yr ago
Fencing is cheap though, what fencing indicates isn't high class, it's that you're not part of the the lower working class or underclass and live in a decently sized metropolitan area. The cost is similar to playing basketball.
A bit interesting how he describes the volunteers.
Everyone (western at least) was pretty great, except the people with American military experience, outside the special forces, who were spoiled cowards. The Americans without military experience were great but people who'd served multiple tours were useless.
Also funny how the British guy makes himself popular by brining equipment to make people tea (and other hot drinks).
Ioper
1mo ago
I don't know man, Sweden does that too and includes things like getting shot and cancer. If you exclude those you get an adjusted rate of <2 deaths per 100k births.
Ioper
6mo ago
Paying a small fee for a service you use a lot doesn't sound like being a sucker.
Ioper
10mo ago
Lots is underselling it. The overwhelming majority, like 90%+, "have to tell their kids" that they're not going to be able to go to any remotely prestigious college and that the upper middleclass is almost certainly out of reach, nevermind things like being an astronaut.
It's boring and stressful. You're essentially an administrator getting yanked in a million directions with little to no power.
Of course this can vary between sectors, organisations and projects but project managment being a kind of shitty gig consistently been my impression from my own career and those of my friends and acquaintances.
This is mostly in the Nordics and UK mind you.
Can someone explain the ongoing crisis in Israel? I have trouble making sense of it.
From what I see described online the leftwing (broadly defined) has made a series of anti-democratic grabs for power through the judiciary since the 90s through abusing the mess that is Israel's legal system.
The rightwing, now dominated by a combination of far rightists and religious extremists are unhappy about this and seeks to curtail the supreme court's ability to prevent legislation from happening based on shit all. The opposition to how the judiciary operates is broader than the current coalition in power but due to polarisation people can't agree on what should be done.
This makes everyone very mad. Both sides sees the conflict as existential and widespread protests are now happening.
The reform by itself isn't really bad on an object level, the issue is that Bibi is a piece of shit and parts of his coalition are extremists and people fear what they might do with the democratic mandate they've won.
People are so hysterical that I have trouble making sense of this and would appreciate for someone more in the know to add context and correct me where necessary. I'm open to having completely misunderstood this.
It's election today in Sweden.
Despite what people might think, there seems to be less excitement or conflict internally in Sweden than usual, ime.
The two blocs have largely converged on a set of desired policies and the question is just where the focus should be and just how hard you should go. One might argue that this makes a large difference but I would say that this at the very least diffuses a lot of the drama surrounding the election itself. People kind of expect things to continue on largely as they have been regardless of who wins. We've had debates between the leaders of the two major parties where one says something and then for the other to just reply "I completely agree".
There is no side that doesn't want to restrict immigration, there is no side that wants to dismantle the nuclear reactors, there is no side that doesn't want to join NATO, there is no side that doesn't want to strengthen the police. Etc.
Interestingly, where people have radically different opinions about things it's within the blocs rather than between them. Both blocs have parties for and against private profit in the "public sector", both sides have parties for and against rent control and both sides have parties for and against lowering or keeping the current levels of unemployment income insurance.
Even the drama surrounding the Sweden Democrats (anti-immigration/xenophobic populists) has somewhat died down. It's still there to be sure and part of the peculiarities about this election and the likely issues with governing after it has to do with this, but the hysteria is mostly gone in my estimation.
So, who will win? Who knows. It's incredibly even and might come down to a few votes or one of the smaller parities unexpectedly not making parliament (there is one on each side in the risk zone).
More interesting to me will be how the actual formation of government and governance will shake out after the election. The social democrats have been able to govern on their own for the past 8 months or so with a very small number of votes directly supporting this (also having to use the right wing parties budget) and it seems unlikely to continue after the election if they win since this was kind of a bridge solution after a crisis last winter and the next election being so close.
On the other side there is the issue of the Swedish Democrats and how they will be incorporated in a ruling coalition. The other parties don't want them in the government, which they might be fine with, but there are pretty severe issues surrounding the fact that SD is in many ways more closely related to the social democrats policy-wise than the right, despite often being labeled as "far right". One salient example of this is them saying that lowering the unemployment insurance payments is a "red line" for them, but it's a campaign promise for the right... This is obviously not the only issue.
Regardless of who wins things aren't going to be easy but my analysis is that the internal contradictions are a smaller on the "right" but that the social democrats are skilled political operators and might do things like create bi-partisan agreements regarding some issues in order to sideline some parties on their side, kind of like what has happened with NATO.
I don't care if people like it or not, I dislike when people get the wrong idea and then spread it. I've seen so much false claims about this and it irritates me.
People are fed, they're just not invited to dinner as a rule. They're not invited to dinner because they're not planned for (and people actually are planning) and because people don't want to presume or irritate other families. That there isn't enough food isn't the only reason, it's one of the multiple reasons that taken together amount to why people might not be invited to dinner.
If people don't like this, then that's fine. It's just that it is not true that people aren't invited for dinner as a rule, it's just a possibility. It isn't weird to offer your kid's friend dinner, if you check with their parents first.
IMO the massive decline in fertility is a direct result of the sexual revolution. There were other causes like urbanization but the sudden drop in the 1970s is staggering.
I genuinely disagree. Sex with a condom isn't really worth outside of the first sexual encounters with someone (and even then it's highly frustrating) or when you're a teenager.
I feel like the expression of eating candy with the wrapper on is fairly accurate. There is some enjoyment to be had but unless I'm really starving I'm not going to bother.
What makes cabbage rolls insane? Or do you mean that they hollow out a cabbage head and fill it with stuff, kind of like a bread bowl?
Ioper
1yr ago
It detracts from what we should be learning about re: WWII, like the enormous sacrifices of white Christian American men
World War II casualties by nation, ranked from highest to lowest:
Soviet Union - 26,000,000
China - 15,000,000
Germany - 5,533,000
Poland - 5,820,000
Japan - 2,830,000
Yugoslavia - 1,700,000
Romania - 1,600,000
France - 600,000
Hungary - 580,000
United States - 405,000
Italy - 410,000
United Kingdom - 383,700
Canada - 42,000
Australia - 39,700
Netherlands - 301,000
Greece - 520,000
Czechoslovakia - 345,000
Belgium - 88,000
Norway - 12,000
New Zealand - 11,900
As a percent of the population, America is not even in the top 20.
People are exposed to that elsewhere too but arent turning progressive. It seems more likely that "conservatives" have shat the bed spectacularly in both the US and UK, allowing for this memetic takeover. There is dominance but the reason it is allowed and works is because of the clownshow on the right.
Ioper
1yr ago
I don't think you have to go that far. Just be moderately high status in some way and not a massive sperg, the latter of which I realize is an impossible standard for many.
Since there is close to no inflow of quality posters it is a problem, especially since we're close to reaching scarcity tipping point of quality posters so as that they have no other quality posters to talk to (or who're willing to engage).
To be clear, I'm not claiming to be a quality poster, I'm just pointing out that we're bleeding quality engagment in general, and have been since almost immediately after the original split from ssc. The liberal/leftwing exodus was easier to notice but we have lost plenty of rightwingers as well, who've not been replaced.
Fundamentally the issue is a lack of quality inflow, of any ideological flavour. It seems to happen to more than this community. Perhaps people are just on substack and twitter now, idk.
I feel like this misses the case where the "real" and psychosomatic overlap.
There are some conditions that are "real" but rare and their "popularity" far outstrips the rate of the sufferers of the "real"/"physical" condition. Here we have things like various exotic mental disorders/syndromes, pain conditions, digestive disorders, allergies, fatigue conditions (most recently long COVID), auto immune disorders and transexualism.
Also, people who have the conditions likely have some of the conditions that causes psychosomatic symptoms similar to the condition, often because the condition itself causes or encourages behaviour leading to depression, anxiety, inactivity and or isolation.
How does a doctor tell whats going on? How does the social security system? How does the general public? How does the person themself?
As soon as something like this goes mainstream it inevitably gets dragged down in partisan politics.
Ioper
2mo ago
On a slightly different note, what do you guys spend your money on?
I have a very high savings rate primarily because there isn't really anything I want to spend my money on. The only major expense I see among peer that I don't have is traveling.
Ioper
4mo ago
Good foreplay only makes it worse.
Also, regardless of whether the sex ends in orgasm or not, the sex is so much better without a condom. The goal is as intimate and pleasurable sex as possible, condoms are a major impediment to both, with or without orgasm.
Ioper
5mo ago
I'm honestly a little worried about the direction Open AI is taking lately, going headlong into AGI research while being hypervigilant about woke microaggressions
I'm not so sure I am, it seems to severely hamper the performance of their model. If they keep going down this path they will be overtaken.
Ioper
5mo ago
Also you can easily find reluctant heroes/leaders. Moses, King Arthur, Brutus in Caesar etc.
I don't think it as common as it is today but it's hardly unheard of either.
The men who don't... will just not reproduce and die off.
I'm not so sure. You have to desire women, sure, but care about what they want? Only a bit.
My experience is that being (relative) high value and signaling interest is much more effective than 'caring' about what someone wants. The same goes for friendships. People want to be desired by high value people, they don't want servants. They want a at least an equal exchange in status, but most likely an increase (or the perception of an increase).
Once you're in a relationship things obviously change a bit.
I'm a bit curious, how are the rest of you stacking up against that chart?
I've never been above a 2 and I'm a bit of a slob. I don't even think I've been in a home that's at a 4 and I can count the number of threes on one hand.
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