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Primaprimaprima

Bigfoot is an interdimensional being

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joined 2022 September 05 01:29:15 UTC

"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."


				
User ID: 342


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Primaprimaprima


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being

				
				
				

				

					2 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 01:29:15 UTC
				


				
					

					
"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 342


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				confessions of a femcel: why i'm a 24 year old female virgin.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I got about halfway through before I called it quits because it got repetitive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				confessions of a femcel: why i'm a 24 year old female virgin.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What do you want exactly, in concrete terms?


Presumably you want a return to pre-1960s norms surrounding sex. But what does that entail and how do you enforce it? Is it just a shift in soft cultural norms, or are there actual policy changes?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				confessions of a femcel: why i'm a 24 year old female virgin.
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can you explain what that means, and what your justification for that claim is?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Not engaging and being critical is a default victory for the minoritarian/woke supporters. Does this means you are obligated to take part in the culture wars? Well, kind of. Like it or not, those who show up are those who win.




Depends on what you mean by "show up", and what you're expecting to get out of it.


There was no conceivable act of individual heroism that could have shattered the power of the Catholic church at the height of the Inquisition, or hastened the fall of Soviet communism during the reign of Stalin.  There was no "war", just those with power enforcing their will on their powerless, with very few meaningful avenues for rebuttal.  Only through the accumulated weathering of decades (or centuries) did a change of conditions eventually become possible.


I certainly think it's virtuous to not be afraid of the censors.  Do what you want to do, and don't let them stop you.  But don't have delusions of grandeur either.  If the only reason you're waging the culture "war" is because you think you can change the course of world history, then you should consider if there are better ways you could be spending your time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it’s just a foregone conclusion at this point, even among the most optimistic Western analysts, that Ukraine isn’t getting the far eastern territories back.


Have any recent events made you update towards thinking that Russia will be able to force complete regime change?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.




But, as I've argued before, there is no neutral definition of what constitutes an "inflammatory" claim.  The claims that count as inflammatory for you depend on the particular ideological viewpoint you've adopted.  So it would at least be good to specify the viewpoint from which you're judging a particular claim as inflammatory.


I personally don't think there's anything inflammatory at all about "women love a killer".  Regardless of whether the claim is true or false, I don't view it as a slight against women, or a failing on their part.  Plausibly it could be taken as a relatively natural corollary of a Darwinian/Hobbesian view of life.


I'm aware that my view on this particular question may be unusual, and in the framing of say, polite upper middle class Western society, most people would view this as an inflammatory claim.  But if "polite upper middle class Western society" is going to be the frame of reference that we use for judging claims as inflammatory on TheMotte, shouldn't we be modding a lot more posts than we already are?  Every time HBD comes up for example, a number of posters write under the assumption that HBD is true.  But HBD would be considered to be an extremely inflammatory complex of claims by most people in the West today.  Is no one allowed to post under the assumption that HBD is true unless they include a link to a list of HBD 101 resources laying out the supporting evidence?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it is highly unlikely they’d care about us. We don’t have anything they don’t already have.




We extensively study all sorts of animal and microbial species here on earth, simply out of curiosity, even though these species don't "have anything" for us.  Sometimes this research leads to medical advancements, but usually it doesn't.  Most academic research is in the same boat.  There's no "practical" reason to study obscure religious treatises from late antiquity, or the cultural practices of a hunter-gatherer tribe in Africa, but people do it anyway.




The aliens are undoubtedly weirder than we can possibly imagine




Maybe.  But if they are, then that means that we'd be impossibly weird to them!  Which would make us rather more interesting.


Of course, it's an open empirical question whether aliens would find any value in studying us or interacting with us.  Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't.  But thinking that humans couldn't possibly be interesting to a scientifically advanced alien intelligence is just as much of an unfounded bias as thinking that humans are always at the center of the universe.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I really look forward to Zvi’s AI roundups every week. It’s easy to just skim for the relevant bits and ignore the rest.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


/r/theschism




Checking their current discussion thread, the posts for this month are about the role of community and tradition in conservatism, the declining usage of "social construct" language in political debates, furry aesthetics, whether we can really designate some societies as more advanced than others...


Damn, I've been cheerleading for TheMotte this whole thread, but I have to admit they have us beat!  I'd love for our CW thread to look like that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hmm... I always felt like the most salient divide was between current events posters and everyone else.  Concrete vs abstract, basically.  People in both camps could be interested in the culture war to a greater or lesser degree, but the current events camp is more likely to be interested in "let's analyze the most likely outcomes of Greg Abbott's border policy" types of CW talk and the theory building camp is more interested in "let's uncover the general mechanism by which Ivermectin became coded as right-wing".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
@DaseindustriesLtd, @self_made_human, and... I'd be tempted to give it to @HlynkaCG if he were still here, but he's not, so, I'll give it to @2rafa.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If they don't have anything original to say, but do want to hear what others think




Frankly, I'd rather that we have rules that select against those types of posters.  If someone can't even write one paragraph of non-trivial thought in response to a news story - not world-historically original thought, not thought worthy of prestigious publications, but just a simple "hey I've been thinking about the Israel campus protests and how they compare to BLM, I wonder if this will help Trump in November because he's more of the law and order candidate, could tip the scales in some battleground states" - then they're probably unlikely to post worthwhile replies in response to other people's posts, and we really don't need them here.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But the world is not made up entirely of strivers. Some people just want to raise their kids, and play soccer with the boys on the weekend.




So what do strivers do on the weekends?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


so most large, well formatted top level posts get at a minimum 20 upvotes




Actually not true!  It's clear that the community favors some long posts over others, they don't just all get automatically upvoted.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Adding a paragraph of blather about Columbia




I'm confused by this attitude.  Why do you assume it would be blather?


You have to find value in some of the writing on this site, otherwise you wouldn't be here.  If you don't like the top level posts, then you must find value in the replies.  Replies that often feature multiple full paragraphs.  But you don't dismiss those as blather.


What's wrong with the idea of taking one of those paragraphs, like the ones you see in the replies, and putting them in a top level post?  Why is that such an onerous effort?  Why do you assume that there could be no value in that?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Write too little, and you get a lot of "This isn't what we like to see from a top level post" mod warnings.




Warnings for effort on top level posts are handed out pretty rarely.  I made this very short post about Iran's attack on Israel (over half of it was copy-pasted quotes) and I didn't get modded for that.  The bar is pretty low.




In fact, posting virtually any topical bit of news often gets you a "boo outgroup" warning




Going through last week's top level posts, the Eurovision post didn't get modded, the Mike Cernovich post didn't get modded, the summary of Trump's trials didn't get modded, the post about DEI at MIT didn't get modded... there are lots of topical posts that don't get modded.


I definitely don't agree with all the mod decisions here.  But it's also false to claim that the mods are paralyzing all discussion, because it's just a fact that the vast majority of posts don't get modded.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You literally just need to write one paragraph.  Five to six sentences.  I have never seen a post that had at least one paragraph of original thought get modded for effort.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Posts about the war in Ukraine consistently get some of the most engagement out of all top level posts.  We've had at least two posts in the past month about Ukraine that generated lots of discussion.


There doesn't necessarily need to be a new post about Ukraine every week because most weeks, nothing newsworthy happens.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In some sense the weekly thread format is vestigial at this point, but, I still like it and I wouldn’t want to change it. It draws everyone into one conversation, it encourages people to read posts that they might normally not, and it creates a FOMO effect which spurs engagement: if you want your reply to have maximum visibility, you have to strike while the iron is hot, because you only have about a day before a post gets buried under new top level posts and not as many people will see the old posts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Different people want vastly different things out of TheMotte.


A few times over the years I've seen people share their lists of their all time favorite Motteposters.  Some names are expected, other names make me go "...wait, what?  That guy?  Why?".  Sometimes people will list someone who I find to be totally uninteresting and whose posts I skip over as a matter of course, because they write about topics that aren't relevant to me.  This doesn't mean that I or them have bad taste.  It just means we have different interests and we want different things out of TheMotte.


For my part, I'm not particularly interested in a play-by-play of current events, unless the event is particularly earth-shattering, or the post has a novel theoretical take.  I don't really care that Canada introduced new hate speech laws for example, but if you have a new argument I've never heard before for why hate speech laws are actually a good thing, then that could be a post worth reading.


As usual, you are the forum.  If people aren't writing the kinds of posts you want to read, then you should write more of the kinds of posts that you want to read.


EDIT: Why do you think the response to your post about abortion was abysmal?  I think the response was pretty good.  It generated a decent amount of engagement for a top level post and it prompted some interesting replies from @RandomRanger and @self_made_human about transhumanism, so, job well done, mission accomplished.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, I had that dialogue in mind when I wrote that sentence. He of course chooses to remain in prison.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Should your voting record be public too?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, I do too, but I'd rather not have the wheels come off while I'm driving.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The protagonist exists in what is, essentially a linear corridor, and he can only move forward. Whatever he may want to do, there's nothing he can do but move forward.




That's certainly a very interesting thing to consider.




Philosophy, meanwhile, is mostly confusion.




Yes, precisely.  That is the intent.


If there were one sentence to summarize philosophy, it would be the line Heidegger chose to inaugurate Being and Time:




"We, however, who used to think we understood, have become perplexed."




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's no requirement for art to be a perfect reproduction or imitation of reality (otherwise, why bother with writing fantasy and sci-fi stories?), so saying that it deviates from reality in this way or another can't be a generalized criticism without further elaboration.


Most human artifacts entail a reduction of entropy, that's almost the definition of what it means to create something.  You don't want your car to be a confusing mess of possibilities and unpredictability, or your medication, or your web browser.  You simply want it to work correctly and perform as advertised.  I don't see why art should be any different.