It's interesting that for all the repudiation of narcissistic individualism and neoliberalism by the new, young right, they're far more cutthroat and "realist" about a mandatory sense of competition in life. They're far more zero sum about things. "You're not in competition with others, just yourself" is a load of hogwash. Dropping out and doing your own thing is looked down as cope. I don't think they believe someone when they say they're unhappy doing something prestigious and wants to quit, even at the risk of becoming invisible. A mandatory sense of hustle, but from their peers, not bosses and older adults, is so omnipresent and taken for granted such that they can't imagine someone not wanting anything to do with it unless they're just sucky losers.*
(This also helps to explain why third parties in politics have become passe. It's thought of as a way of dropping out, and at a time when your cultural enemies seem like they're right on top of you, necessitating remaining in the 1 of 2 political tribes and with gusto.)
They're the least Buddhist people in the universe.
*Karl Pilkington once told Ricky Gervais that he quit his job as a program manager at a radio station to...walk dogs. Gervais was aghast. "I wasn't happy doing it." How could you not be?!
Pongalh
1d ago
He also likes to give advice to young men to move to the middle of nowhere so they can buy cheap houses and work at the general store down the street... just absolute drivel, in my opinion, and he's passing it off like he's actually saying something
This has me thinking, the idea of "dropping out of the rat race" is very Gen X coded. Youth today think that's "copium" and seem to want to fight for control of the places and positions that matter. One's individual sanity or ability to remain morally-cum-cognitively uncompromised is not as important as the culture war and prestige. And living humbly is just deluding yourself that you aren't a loser accepting loser outcomes.
Michael J. Fox was right to leave Smallville and go to NYC in the 1987 film "The Secret of My Success." And Harrison Ford was wrong to leave for the Mosquito Coast in the movie of the same name. Even if the latter meant literally working harder - for which there are romantic and agreeable vibes - it wasn't working smarter.
Pongalh
5d ago
If you want to see the utter opposite of Shane Gillis, look to Nathan Fielder. Highly g-loaded conceptual comedy that plays a long game. Yep he's Jewish.
Pongalh
5d ago
Great point. Adam Sandler went to NYU, ended up dorming with other comedians who'd blow up later in life, though not to the same degree.
Pongalh
7d ago
On another note, it's astonishing how little Roe v. Wade is discussed. To paraphrase NIN, that god is dead and no one cares.
Pongalh
9d ago
You’re telling me, at this point in your life you are surprised when a politician exaggerates for effect? How old are you?
New levels of cynicism unlocked. You're upset that a politician lied? Psh.
Pongalh
12d ago
It's surely a tiny fraction. But still, relative to other scenes, which have zero who've made it with Aella, that's something.
Pongalh
13d ago
Low income people saving money must look like idiots to a guy like Yud making 600k a year (?) and thinking it's all going to hell soon
Pongalh
14d ago
No, that's not enough to make him a lefty. It makes him just a liberal, though right-liberal, and the right is moving away from liberalism, albeit still split. The left are mostly not liberals - in fact have not been liberals for longer - and don't want him.
Pongalh
14d ago
"It's not a real thing. Never has been."
But it can be approximated. In some times and places it's more real than others.
Pongalh
16d ago
But the rationalists combine sexual urges with UMC constraint. It's "calculated intemperance." Rational license.
Pongalh
17d ago
Misanthropic probably means doesn't yuck it up with a random person while waiting in line for a movie, or, not as gregarious as a car salesman.
Pongalh
17d ago
Uh, are you under the impression that there are internet-rationalist leaders sleeping with Aella? As far as I know Aella is just a normal prostitute/internet-celebrity who happens to also be interested in LessWrong stuff and do internet surveys.
Yea. This is easy to do when you're not in a particular scene. Like, I imagine Dan Baltic, Dasha/Anna, Geoff Shullenberger and anyone else I can think of who lives in NYC as hanging out with each other a lot. Because I'm not there to see they don't, but I see their tweets and know where they generally reside.
Pongalh
18d ago
If you've been jailed for offensive statements and not already employed, what are your prospects going forward?
Pongalh
18d ago
If you spend time in jail, how is that not awful for your job prospects. Are mugshots not searchable in the UK?
Pongalh
18d ago
And it's not only progressives who are eager to inflate stories of elite white male misbehavior. Apolitical middle- and upper-class readers/viewers find it more interesting too. For reasons of it being more naturally compelling to see people like yourself.
Pongalh
20d ago
"if the Iranian regime collapses."
Had a back and forth with "Lion of the Blogosphere" on X, he in favor the war. We agreed on this point about the regime, but I claimed the fallout would be even more refugees flooding into Europe. He responded, "that's Europe's problem." Incredible.
Pongalh
22d ago
I couldn't have imagined Israel/Palestine becoming huge in the US back in the 2000s. That was very much a European lefty thing to care about. One of those ways in which European politics influenced the US, not the other way around (BLM in Germany, etc.) You could say shifting views on free speech by the left in the US is another way.
Apart from politics, US music being so electronic-sounding now is another Euro>US trend. European radio in the 90s was far more dancey than American radio, which was full of rap and rock.
Pongalh
28d ago
Nope, not a bit. I'm in Sacramento, California. I think your milieu might be much more successful than average? This list of problems is pretty banal. Alot of us shop mainly at the Dollar Store, etc.
It's kind of odd I'm even privy to a forum like this but not UMC or on the way.
Pongalh
29d ago
My apartment complex gate stops working constantly. My car's undercarriage keeps dragging on the ground and I have to keep it up with rope. My basic Android phone can't set reminders accurately. Speech to text is randomly capitalizing stuff I then have to correct. A delivery driver the other day couldn't find an apartment in my complex and I was unable to help him. He kept wandering around...
I just see normie problems persisting and I'm supposed to be fearful or at least anxious about post-scarcity and a lack of meaning? The UMC creative and knowledge worker is surrounded by seamless efficiency and can actually ponder some potential problem of life being much too comfortable and bereft of purpose. The rest of us are gleeful AI dilettantes who still have to left with our legs, not our backs.
Pongalh
1mo ago
Makes me wonder if some black Americans took up a nation-building exercise in West Africa, if it would be racist criticize that. Unless you're black.
Pongalh
1mo ago
Ah. They seem to punch above their weight in the discourse, so it seems higher. Especially if you're in a college town. It's ambient.
Pongalh
1mo ago
I've heard plain old white evangelicals and people with names like Mike Huckabee referred to as Zionists too. They refer to themselves as such. This cohort was huge in the 2000s but since seems to have become contested territory, with some breaking toward Tucker and Fuentes. That leaves increasingly only Jews left. And this too gets dicey because left-wing Jews have only become more strongly anti-Zionist. When a left-wing Jew calls a right-wing Jew Zionist, is that also anti-semitic? (If so, are they a self-hating Jew, like an Uncle Tom?)
Right. But there are men for whom "Is there a woman around?" isn't the most important thing.
I forgot who said that one hallmark of intellectualism is thinking there are things more important in life than chicks. Paraphrasing.
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