TheGodhead
1mo ago
Planning a trip to Italy and realizing I might be one of the last few generations who can see it once its lows birth rates lead to population collapse. Got me thinking about how the Romans and Byzantines would have felt knowing their descendants would be rich beyond their wildest dreams and simply not reproduce enough to replace themselves.
On a happier note, any travel recommendations? It will be on a cruise but we’ll get 12 hrs a day in a few major cities.
TheGodhead
2mo ago
Thoughts on Dune Part 2
I'm a huge fan of the first 6 books, read the first 3 times (though granted it has been a few years), and thought the first movie was a very well-made, faithful adaptation. It had a few flaws, such as no mention of the thinking machines, Butlerian Jihad, or guild navigators, and also the Harkonens being a little too cartoonishly groteque. But it took itself seriously, was visually dazzling, and I really liked that it captured the psychedelic/religious ecstasy elements of the book.
The second one, I'm much more lukewarm on. Much more significant changes from the books (rarely for the better) and just wasn't as dramatically impactful. Spoilers for both movies and Book 1 to follow:
|| Much shorter timeline, so Alia isn't born yet by the end of it. Jessica taking the Water of Life was a very intense scene and I thought the image of the fetus' eye opening conveyed a lot to the audience in a simple but direct way, but there were no visuals explaining her newly acquired access to her genetic memories, it's sort of just explained to us later on. I recalled this Villenueve quote from an interview:
Villeneuve: “Frankly, I hate dialogue. Dialogue is for theatre and television. I don’t remember movies because of a good line, I remember movies because of a strong image. I’m not interested in dialogue at all. Pure image and sound, that is the power of cinema, but it is something not obvious when you watch movies today. Movies have been corrupted by television.”
And this scene largely fails at that, especially compared to the first. With this movie's $190 million budget, I'd have liked to see something like this scene from the Northman that really drives home the point that "hey, this is a big deal, this woman now has millennia of memories from her female ancestors, it's not just a creepy voice possessing her every now and then".
Paul's Water of Life scene is thoroughly underwhelming. No trippy psychedelic visuals, just a brief glimpse of an adult Alia and a vision of a baby Jessica in a crib with the Baron watching over her, revealing her parentage. Later we see a shot of starving people crawling across a dry desert floor with Jessica walking around them completely unbothered, suggesting the jihad (though they unfortunately but unsurprisingly stick to the phrase "holy war" in the movies) was largely her doing.
Stilgar is much more noticeably zealous. I actually liked this change, added some tonally appropriate humor to the movie (unlike Marvel heroes quipping in the middle of a battle).
Chani isn't the consistently loyal, supportive wife in all but name from the books. Zendaya (playing the same role she plays in every other performance) is defiant and is by the end of it the only Fremen who openly disapproves of Paul's actions. The final shot is her frowning into the camera waiting to ride a sandworm away from Arrakeen. Contrast that with the book's iconic "history will call us wives". This dynamic could have been much worse in today's climate, there's no girlboss moment where the competent, self-assured woman teaches the incompetent, overconfident man a lesson, but I still get the sense, like with the Wheel of Time show, that Hollywood just can't commit to a hero's journey story truly centered around a male protagonist.
This line was dropped:
“Try your tricks on me, old witch,” Paul said [to Reverend Mother Gaius Mohiam]. “Where’s your gom jabbar? Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You’ll find me there staring out at you!” The old woman dropped her gaze. In favor of a less demeaning scream of "Silence!" Too sexist for a modern Hollywood?
Absolutely no mention of the Spacing Guild or CHOAM. 2 of the 4 factions that run the Galaxy and the ones most directly reliant on Spice production, a pretty significant omission. Granted, this is a complicated power dynamic to explain but we could have at least gotten a shot of them in the ships above the planet discussing the political situation like we did in David Lynch's adaptation. Come to think of it, I'm not sure how anyone who hadn't read the books would have understood just WHY the spice is so important. Sure we see Paul and Jessica unlock some new abilities with it, but that doesn't itself explain why all the Imperium's houses are so invested in this one planet.
Chalamet is just not the best choice to play Paul IMO. Book Paul had an edge to him, Tim mostly doesn't.
The final showdown in the throne room was in general, VERY underwhelming. In the book, Paul's internal monologue really conveys the psychic weight of this scene. It's exactly the sort of moment that could have used the first movie's dramatic Middle Eastern chanting and slow-motion. The future of the humanity hinges on this one point forseen in Paul's visions. But the cinematography was very dry and it was over as soon as it started.
Lasguns everywhere. Fun to watch but totally immersion-breaking. Why are the Sardaukar bothering with swords at all if lasguns-shield explosions aren't truly mutually assured destruction?
This change really bugged me because it just feels so thematically off-the-mark. In the book, it's established that Paul's ultimate control of the spice hinges on the fact that he knows how to trigger a chain-reaction that would kill all the sandworms. This is unique to him as it depends on his knowledge of the planet's ecology he learned from the Fremen and their fanatical devotion to him. The Landsraad accepts this and surrenders to him as the de facto Emperor, though there's a jihad anyway. In the movie, Paul threatens to somehow use the family atomics to destroy the spice supply. The noble houses reject this and this kicks off the jihad. This sets up a Part 3 more clearly but ecology is too thematically integral to the plot of the books to justify this change.
Feyd Rautha's character gets much more screentime than the books. Gives as an aesthetically pleasing black-and-white scene on Giedi Prime, but he seemed far too robotic for me, doesn't even react to being fatally stabbed other than to congratulate Paul on fighting well, which is totally out of character. ||
Overall this isn't a terrible movie by any means, and I imagine if you liked the first and haven't read/don't particularly care for the books you'll enjoy this one. But it was a letdown especially compared to the high bar set by the first.
TheGodhead
1mo ago
chainsmoking
Isn't vaping a much less unhealthy way of consuming nicotine?
Considering who posted this it's difficult not to read it as a thinly-veiled rant. I think the responses cover most of the best answers but I'll add that the phenomenon you describe is very exaggerated online where a subset of users (especially on Reddit) have a rabid hatred of incels, Redpillers, and any group of men who have anything less than perfectly normie, bluepilled opinions on gender relations.
I'm reminded of this thread where a young man sexually propositioned a classmate he was friendly with. It did not go well for him. I think his approach was misguided and someone should nicely tell him that, he's still very young and has plenty of time to learn from the mistake. But many of the commenters jumped straight to "he's doomed to be an Andrew Tate fan or an incel". I think this is a bizarre, almost autistic response. Like telling someone posting about struggling with their faith in Christ that they're doomed to be Dawkins fan. There's definitely some people just looking for an excuse to rag on sexually unsuccessful men. Either women who just use them as an outlet for their rage or men virtue signaling their superior moral status.
/r/Tinder is similar. Every now and then a woman will post a man starting a convo with an overly forward pickup line and the comments will be filled with people saying "ha! next thing you know he'll be complaining about how women on Tinder don't wanna fuck him!". Which is especially bizarre considering that the most popular genre of post on the sub is men trying similar lines successfully. Almost like a low-effort, sexualized pickup line will sometimes get you laid on an app designed to get you laid with as little effort as possible. Shocking.
In general I wouldn't put too much stock into the opinions of people who comment things like this. Worth remembering that a lot of the content you read online is produced by insane people. In real life, women are mostly just baffled when they hear an otherwise normal guy is romantically unsuccessful. I remember an ex being shocked my college roommate was still a virgin and she said something along the lines of "why doesn't he just talk to some girls at a frat party and get it over with?". Which is sort of adorably naive. Though tbf that was in 2017, slightly before that incel discourse had reached its peak online.
TheGodhead
1mo ago
The Darkness That Comes Before.
Finished this series (The Second Apocalypse) recently, highly recommended for fantasy fans. In terms of word count it's actually only as long as Harry Potter, though obviously a more challenging read. Really not that many characters to keep track of though and there are some handy guides online for it.
TheGodhead
3mo ago
Millei seems interesting, anyone have a good summary of his beliefs and policy goals/ how likely he is to achieve them?
Unrelated but what exactly is the Starbucks situation that lead to some people boycotting them? I’ve heard it was nothing more than them telling union workers they couldn’t display the company logo in protests that activists decided to describe as “Starbucks supports genocide”, is this true?
TheGodhead
8mo ago
Pretty much thought it was fake based on the title alone. When he described his appearance I was about 100% sure it was fake. Even male models would likely struggle to get to 200 matches/week and looks matter more than job title in online dating. And the job title on Hinge is not displayed that conspicuously. He didn't mention anything about pictures in a ferrari or a nice beachview apartment.
TheGodhead
8mo ago
Interesting video on Near-Death Experiences and what they might tell us about the afterlife.
It's basically a summary of the book "Why An Afterlife Obviously Exists" by Swedish philosopher Jens Amberts. It makes the case that:
- Almost everyone who has an NDE comes to believe in an afterlife
- There are no psychological/sociological predictors of who has an NDE, so they are a random sample of the population
- 10s of millions of people have had them
- They're skewed by age ofc, but even children who've had these experiences describe them in similar terms
The go-to physicalist explanation for why these happen is a release of DMT in the brain at the moment of death, which I'm sure the author is aware of. I haven't read the book yet but I'd be curious to know how he compares these experiences to DMT trips. Given the sheer number of people who've had NDEs there must be a few thousand who have also tried DMT, would love to read their thoughts comparing them. Of course, even if they did claim there were substantial differences, we could say that other chemicals are involved in different doses and these are all just a particular flavor of psychedelic trip. Still, seems like a topic worthy of more research.
not merely an innocent misunderstanding in my view.
What distinguishes an "innocent misunderstanding" from, well, whatever you think it is? I lean toward "it is an innocent misunderstanding" because that sort of behavior can easily result from uncritically taking terrible mainstream dating/hookup advice at face value, such as:
- always ask for consent (as @Quantumfreakonomics mentioned)
- casual sex is fine (we don't slut shame around here!)
- be upfront about your intentions (lest he gaslight her or make assumptions)
#1 and #3 taken literally are retarded but they're suggested all the time online, mostly by women. In reality hooking up almost always involves a situation that starts with some plausible deniability and maybe a little alcohol. And women hardly ever complain about the setup after the fact. He might have gotten away with this had he invited her over to his place to study, rushed through a problem set and then handed her a beer and put on a movie. But were he to post about this idea there would be people, some of whom presumably understand signaling and subtext irl, who would accuse him of getting her drunk to take advantage of her or being a creep who tried to sexualize what the poor girl thought was an innocent study session. To a naive young man who doesn't have the experience or intuition to understand that advice on Reddit and from women generally is effectively designed to preserve your virginity as long as possible, the approach he actually took seems much less manipulative and therefore ethical.
TheGodhead
7mo ago
Thought I'd share my experiences playing soccer for the first time. Maybe some fans can weigh in on this and confirm/deny some of what my friend said in the following story. And if you're not a fan, might motivate you to watch/play a match yourself.
Sports have never really interested me. Try as I might they always seemed repetitive. I have a friend, we'll call him John, who has been playing soccer casually for 11 years now. He often sends me highlights of Ronaldo or Messi's best plays and I sort of just nod at what I assume is impressive athleticism but never really appreciated on a deeper level. Last week I was traveling and ended up in John's city, where he agreed to let me spend a few nights. But he insisted that I join him for a casual soccer game. He plays in a rec league at his university (not varsity) and we weren't even playing with the rec league team, just a bunch of grad students who play casually. The circumstances were less than ideal. I was running on about 7 hours of sleep total the last two nights combined and was kept awake mostly by nicotine. But the weather was nice and John was adamant so I agreed to a match.
I was predictably terrible. Slow runner, uncoordinated, had a hard time keeping track of the action. To make matters worse the players for whatever reason didn't bother to wear any identifying jerseys or headbands so I had to figure out as I went along who was on what team. Overall, I pretty much achieved blocking the player with the ball a few times and forced them to make an inconvenient pass. Not particularly fun but a decent workout at least.
Later at John's apartment, he asked me some questions about the experience and we talked in person for the first time about the game and why he enjoyed it so much. As we talked, I began to understand the appeal myself, even as an unathletic STEM guy. John basically made it seem like, at the highest level, soccer is more of a mind game than a test of speed and strength. Before, I naively thought the game worked like this: "You dribble as fast as possible. You keep track of the few people closest to you and look to pass it to the teammate closest to the other team's goal who is available. Rinse repeat until you win the game." In a sense this isn't wrong, but I massively underestimated just how much information processing the best players do during a game. John estimated that as one of the better players in his rec league, that he could keep track of 4-5 objects on the field with a very high level of accuracy. Say, the ball and 4 of the players' bodies. He guessed that the best player in his rec league could track 6-7 objects at the same level, and the best pros could easily handle over 20. Idk how accurate this is. But to prove his point he analyzed a play by Sergio Busquets (I'll edit this post with the video once I find it) where he, based on a very brief <1s glimpse of a teammate in his peripheral vision, running at an angle to him, knew exactly where to pass the ball such that it would reach said teammate from a distance. And it was by far the best pass possible in the situation, far from any of the other team members. In another video, he receives a pass from a teammate despite 3 defenders standing between him and the ball. This seems impossible. How did he know where to stand? The answer: he was watching where the defenders were looking the entire time enough to know they hadn't seen him. I had no idea that level of spatial awareness, that fast and over such a large distance, was even possible.
Some more videos he showed me featured Ronaldo scoring goals in the dark and Ronaldo pulling off knuckleballs, basically a technique where you kick the ball with such little spin that it takes on a very erratic trajectory, but when does correctly might lead a goalkeeper to anticipate where it would land had it had a normal spin.
Overall, much more interesting things going on that I had previously given the game credit for. And something I could see myself watching in the future. Also worth noting that for the first hour of my own match, I felt like I was going to vomit or faint. But after that, I got a second wind of energy, and felt very relaxed, even had a mild runner's high. John explained it as my body burning fat instead of the glucose in my bloodstream, have no idea if this is bro science or not.
TheGodhead
8mo ago
why won't the bitches just open their legs for any guy without strings attached
I don't see how you read this into his comment
What the fuck is it about sex that makes humans crazy?
Is this a rhetorical question? I feel like you could answer this
Total War: Warhammer 3
If anyone has a favorite faction they want me to try (as a total beginner) I’ll give it a shot this week and post updates next Friday.
I'm not very good at it. I usually do okay on Easy/Easy until I'm up against Skaven or a particularly well-defended city battle. Just picked up a bunch of DLCs for Steam's Spring Sale though, so looking forward to trying Chaos Dwarves (EDIT: tried these, way too complicated, will put them off until later), Malus Darkblade, or the Sisters of Twilight. Hopefully the next DLC actually changes some of the base mechanics of the seriously underpowered Empire, Dwarves, and Nurgle factions with balance/campaign mechanics tweaks and not just giving them 20 new units each.
TheGodhead
4mo ago
This song is mostly unheard of in America, but I’ve been trying to spread the good word about it since I heard it around holiday season 2017.
TheGodhead
6mo ago
I have precisely the opposite problem. Basically an atheist with respect to a personal, interventionist God, but trying to incorporate some sort of progress-oriented spirituality in my life to mixed success. I’ve experimented with New Agey concepts like the Law of Attraction, but it’s difficult to fully embody them when I know they’re fundamentally psychological tricks without any metaphysical underpinning.
TheGodhead
5mo ago
Any fans of Warhammer 3 or Victoria 3 here? I’m not a serious gamer at all, picked them up on a Steam sale and just find them confusing. Only game I’ve played seriously is the last three Civilization entries and even then I only have 600 hrs on Civ 6 since 2016.
I got tired of the Culture War Threads’ thinly-veiled rants against the same handful of topics that are phrased as questions even though most of us agree on the answers and the poster knows that. Think it’s a shame that so many smart, relatively independent thinkers choose to post about that as opposed to their more unique areas of expertise and interests. I asked a question a few weeks ago in the Sunday thread that was “how did NW Europe become the world’s dominant civilization” and got a lot of great responses that seemed free of the demands of political correctness I might have gotten on Reddit. Would like to see more of that.
Even just more freeform takes on “hey here’s an idea/analysis I have that I want to share” would be preferable to the Culture War Thread imo.
TheGodhead
7mo ago
As a huge fan of the books Season 1 was a massive letdown. I was willing to cut them some slack on some of the standard woke stuff (every country's demographics looking like a college brochure, unisex magic source instead of the book's gendered system) but
To hijack this thread, what's everyone watching? I finished Midnight Mass recently and thought it was great. Well-written, unpredictable, and balanced takes on religion. Starting Yellowjackets now and am not particularly enjoying it.
TheGodhead
8mo ago
Being unemployed is seen as a moral failing because someone has to provide for you. Either a relative or your countrymen through benefits paid via taxes. Doesn't really apply to inceldom. Even then we recognize there are people who are unemployable through no fault of their own (the mentally disabled/mentally ill).
TheGodhead
10mo ago
Male bisexuality is heavily stigmatized among women. Even many women who call themselves allies and post about their support for LGBT rights would find it a turnoff to learn a man sleeps with other men. Female bisexuality on the other hand, is so common (at least among my demographic of Zoomer yuppies) that it wouldn't signal much of a loosening of priors at this point. So it's mostly gays who have their own communities now.
TheGodhead
11mo ago
"Based", "seethe"
This kid is very committed to Peter Turchin’s Secular Cycles idea which predicts some kind of large-scale societal dysfunction every 120 years (including now), but I’ve never seen him acknowledge just how paradigm-shifting the last century has been. Genuine Malthusian constraints are increasingly less relevant. Human-imposed Malthusian constraints like the horrible land policy most of the world has are a limiting factor to continued development, but even then lots of trends could be offset (in either direction) by AGI, or a planet-killing pandemic, or nuclear war.
I will say his Understanding _______ Civilization series is solid though.
TheGodhead
8mo ago
INTJ, I would guess it’s INTJ’s that are overrepresented in here. Judgers are more systematizing than Perceivers, no? But the last letter isn’t as relevant as the first 3 anyway.
TheGodhead
8mo ago
Respect for disregarding the social norm Zoomer women seem intent on pushing these days.
TheGodhead
8mo ago
The case he makes is that there is significant overlap. A Christian might see Jesus as a spirit guide, a Hindu might see Shiva, but there’s still a sense of the other reality being eternal and more real than this one.
Neither can they, will frequently get immigrants open conversation with me in Hindi. 2nd gens like myself are even worse, most can't even tell I'm south Indian after hearing my extremely Dravidian last name.
More options
Context Copy link