Tollund_Man4
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User ID: 501
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
@Tollund_Man4 will probably be able to write basic french online, which might be more useful than speaking online
I'm also listening to the Inner French podcast to get a sense for the pronunciation, and thinking of enrolling in a class for a short time just to break through the everyday conversation barrier (my experience with Spanish is that once you reach this point self-study can do the rest).
I don't think protecting safety precludes protecting freedom. We cage people for coercing others i.e unjustly limiting their freedom, even in cases where the victim's life or health hasn't been injured. You could say coercion implies the threat of violence and so this is really about safety but the concepts have melded together at that point. You've also got cases like blackmail where you're unjustly constraining people's choices without the threat of violence.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
And how would the progress justify itself? You'll look more attractive i.e. people will find you more attractive. Sure, you may feel more confident, be generally healthier and have improved mental health, but these are ancillary benefits at best.
Attention from women is also an ancillary benefit (and not necessarily more important than the others you mentioned imo), and something I think could be gotten with much less effort through other means. The gymcel is a real thing and if you're grounding your motivation for lifting on women you're risking disappointment. Unless you take steroids it's going to take at least a year (more like 2-3) and hundreds of hours to get jacked.
I'll expand this to self-improvement in general and say that if something is worth doing it's worth doing even when the ancillary benefits aren't clear, that's how I'm distinguishing shallow from meaningful pursuits. I could try my hand at listing all the external reasons you should focus on fitness but strength is valuable in a way I can't exhaustively articulate, anecdotally I'm getting way more attention from women now than when I was at my strongest but there's still some feeling of loss from no longer pushing the limits of my body.
and failing to recognise this leads to "I don't wear makeup for guys, I wear makeup to feel good about myself" levels of cope and rationalisation.
I'm no feminist but I think it's both. Women do care about beauty for its own sake, this is evolutionarily ingrained in them for its mating advantage but as an internal state the drive for beauty precedes making the connection to attention from men or learning facts about evolution. It also extends beyond the former in the fact that women care about making things look nice which have no connection to male attraction (and might even annoy the men in their life by insisting on beauty at the cost of utility).
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
The 20th century saw dictatorships and aristocracy on a never-before-seen scale. Unimaginable blood and treasure backed up the ambitions of a few men. Regimes warred against Christian thought, not to mention liberalism itself. “Will to power” in action. And what did it buy them? Most went out with a bang. The USSR, a whimper. Outcompeted by the essence of materialist pluralism.
War was certainly one factor Nietzsche thought would contribute to the realisation of the overman (I'll quibble on the point about this being the same as bringing back master morality, he says too many good things about slave morality for the overman to be a mere negation of the slave revolt), but if we're discussing how Nietzsche missed his chance - the wasted opportunity he saw in the Jews as a partial antidote to the nationalistic small-mindedness which was holding the Europeans back from truly becoming clay in the hands of a deserving ruling class should be mentioned. From Beyond Good and Evil 251 (bolding mine):
That Germany has ample quantities of Jews, that the German stomach and the German blood have difficulty (and will continue for a long time to have difficulty) coping with even this number of “Jews” – as the Italians, the French, the British have coped, due to a stronger digestion –: this is the clear statement and language of a universal instinct that needs to be listened to and acted on. “Don’t let in any more Jews! And lock the doors to the east in particular (even to Austria)!” – so commands the instinct of a people whose type is still weak and indeterminate enough to blur easily and be easily obliterated by a stronger race. But the Jews are without a doubt the strongest, purest, most tenacious race living in Europe today. They know how to thrive in even the worst conditions (and actually do better than in favorable ones) due to some virtues that people today would like to see labeled as vices, – above all, thanks to a resolute faith that does not need to feel ashamed in the face of “modern ideas.” The Jews change, if they change, only in the way the Russian empire makes its conquests (being an empire that has time and was not made yesterday): namely, according to the fundamental principle “as slowly as possible!” A thinker who has Europe’s future on his conscience will, in every sketch he draws of this future, consider the Jews, like the Russians, to be the most certain and probable factors at present in the great play and struggle of forces. What gets called a “nation” in Europe today (and is really more a res facta than nata – every once in a while a res ficta et picta will look exactly the same –) is, in any case, something young, easily changed, and in a state of becoming, not yet a race let alone the sort of aere perennius that the Jewish type is: these “nations” should be on a careful lookout for any hotheaded rivalry and hostility! The fact that the Jews, if they wanted (or if they were forced, as the anti-Semites seem to want), could already be dominant, or indeed could quite literally have control over present-day Europe – this is established. The fact that they are not working and making plans to this end is likewise established. Meanwhile, what they wish and want instead, with a unified assertiveness even, is to be absorbed and assimilated into Europe; they thirst for some place where they can be settled, permitted, respected at last and where they can put an end to the nomadic life, the “wandering Jew” –; and this urge and impulse (which in itself perhaps already reveals a slackening of the Jewish instincts) should be carefully noted and accommodated – in which case it might be practical and appropriate to throw the anti Semitic hooligans out of the country. Approached selectively and with all due caution, the way it is done by the English nobility. It would clearly be unproblematic for the stronger and more strongly delineated types of new Germanism (the officers of noble rank from the Mark, for instance) to get involved with them: and it would be very interesting to see whether the genius of fortune and fortitude (and above all some spirit and spiritedness, which are in very short supply in the place just mentioned –) could not be added into, bred into, the hereditary art of commanding and obeying – both of which are classic features of the Mark these days. But I should really break off my cheerful speeches and hyper-Germania here, since I am already touching on something I take seriously, on the “European problem” as I understand it, on the breeding of a new caste to rule Europe.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
If you're only doing that because you want people to find you more attractive and not because the progress justifies itself I think there would be a problem. Would this stuff be worthwhile even if it didn't get you attention from women? It should be, and you're not going to surpass any heavy lifters if you're relying on a steady increase in female attention for motivation i.e. onlymenaremiring.png.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I really think this is a bad/unproductive framing. How exactly is it fraud if the quality of the good is raised, and not just the marketing of it?
There's no distinction being made between quality of a person (which has inherent value) and marketing is my point. If we judge things solely by the metric of getting women building bigger muscles is just a more effortful alternative to peacocking or practicing pickup lines, marketing and quality are just different strategies geared towards the same end.
Maybe I'm just being a poor decoupler, but in the same way that a Christian would be offended at someone saying that going to Church paid no dividends in their dating life I want to shout 'you're missing the point!'.
Another point the book makes, which I mentioned before, is that no strategy really seems to pay clear and great dividends
Surely the dividends of self-improvement are just that, self-improvement? If someone is only improving themselves in shallow ways to get girls then perhaps this would be better categorised as fraud. This point is more than a quibble about definitions, as women find the moral qualities (or lack thereof) which motivate men to be attractive or repulsive in themselves.
Lately I’ve greatly improved both my wealth and general status, and yet success has been sorely lacking
Wealth and social status certainly play a part in attraction but perhaps there are certain personality traits people fail to display which makes this all for naught, wealth and social status alone don't make it pleasant to spend hours with someone after all. Tattoo artists don't have much wealth or (outside of being the best of the best) social status, but they get laid a lot as spending hours distracting someone from physical pain while they talk about their life is great empathy training.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
If I was really invested in learning a new language, I would enlist GPT-4's help.
Sounds interesting, I suspect I'll need a lot more help drilling grammatical gender exercises so it should be useful here.
But I wouldn't bother myself, because I don't intend to go anywhere where English + Google Translate won't suffice, and because I expect ubiquitous real time translation in my pocket or ears to be a reality sooner rather than later. (It kinda is, but you have to fiddle with apps. I'm talking something that's just running in the background or in my visual field through, say AR glasses)
I'm finding the process very rewarding but it is a big time commitment so I can see why people wouldn't bother. As for real time translation, it sounds like it would be of great practical help but intellectually I do wonder if something would be lost in the process the same way 'I can just google it' has given people an excuse not to bother memorising a large number of historical facts.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
It's not enough on its own for sure. But while it might take a second to click knowing the grammar and plenty of vocabulary will help you make sense of what you're hearing in spoken French, and making an attempt at voicing what you've only seen written is better than drawing a blank (At least that's the bet I'm making with the time I'll be spending on these books).
As long as you've got some foundation and have a go at it a native speaker can always correct your pronunciation when you try for real.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Conservatives wouldn't have much of a need to fight to preserve thier traditions if this were the case.
To strawman:
Lindy - has been around for a long time therefore will be around for much longer.
Conservative - has been around for a long time therefore should be around for much longer.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
'Teach Yourself French' by Sir John Adams and Norman Scarlyn Wilson. It was published in 1938 and so is quite different to modern textbooks, there is very little filler, there are no games or illustrations. The whole thing is self-contained such that if you have completed the earlier exercises and understood the previous chapter you will (they promise) be able to progress through the current one without consulting outside sources. Unlike the book Brighter French, the author promises that I do not even need to be 'particularly bright' to find this book useful.
I used a book from the same series to learn Spanish and helped me quite a lot. In this series there are 3 books, I'm starting on the more grammar focused one and will work through the 'Everyday French' (probably quite out of date by now) and then on to the 'French Reader' translating excerpts of novels and poems.
If you just start shooting them, even just with rubber bullets (but lots), or even better with paintballs that smell horrible when they break, they will stop rioting.
As far as Irish culture is from Islam, both have tended to make good use of martyrs. If we can learn from the wealth of experience the former has with rubber bullets the inevitable deaths that will result from large scale use will cause the more radical types to gain support amongst their own.
The Irish also made use of sympathetic Americans, but my guess is that present-day Americans have about as much or more sympathy for brown people being oppressed by police these days.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I haven't verified the authenticity of this (I found it off some nobody on Twitter, and they were a left-leaning pro-capitulation to these ethnics)
It's on the UNSA Twitter (with a follow-up post saying that the 'we are at war' phrase was a reference to Macron saying the same about COVID.)
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Meanwhile, the west is busy deconstructing the same "racist, patriarchal, oppressive social structures" that we are bewildered that the migrants don't adopt.
This doesn't look right to me. The people deconstructing "racist, patriarchal, oppressive social structures" aren't bewildered at the fact that migrants aren't becoming devoted Christians, but the fact that they aren't becoming secular feminist progressives.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Although it's striking to me that even with Ukraine, the acceptance rates dropped from 85% in 2015 to 59% in 2022.
Apparently most Ukrainians are not even applying for asylum: "as of 25 March 28 000 people have arrived from Ukraine and registered in Denmark. 2 000 of these have applied for asylum and are now accommodated in asylum centres". It seems like this is the result of a special law which grants them work, schooling and welfare rights without the need to gain citizenship through the asylum process.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
In Ireland's case the legal mechanism is there and plenty of deportation orders are given out. Very few of them are ever enforced.
How do these compare to the retirement riots from a few months ago?
They're far more immediately violent and disorganized from what I've seen.
My French is terrible and I've only talked to English speakers (still mostly French people with good English) here but anecdotally everyone had a strong opinion on Macron, whereas this time around people aren't discussing policy and are just hoping the violence doesn't get worse.
at what point migrant camps / ghettos / unassimilated population centers / banlieues / HLMs become colonies in the colonial sense.
When the government lacks the power to do anything about them even if it wanted to. As long as European countries have the theoretical state capacity to eject the migrants then it's a matter of domestic policy rather than one of necessity imposed from overseas. It may be very bad domestic policy, but African countries aren't threatening to impoverish or take military action against France if it stops taking in their overflow.
The only groups who can externally constrain Western countries this way are the US and supranational organisations like the EU, and you do sometimes see the rhetoric of colonisation used by their opponents.
I'm surprised nobody is talking about the riots in France given how dramatic the imagery is. You've got rioters throwing grenades, brandishing shotguns, trying to rob a bank and setting police stations on fire.
The triggering incident was the fatal shooting of a black teenager who tried to drive off after the police pulled him over for driving dangerously. Riots are mostly located in Paris but have spread to other cities like Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse, with other incidents in smaller cities. Marseille has also banned public protests and stopped public transport. Iirc the military was called in to prevent a prison break in Paris.
in which even one's greatest accomplishments will always carry the tinge of having occurred on artificially fixed terms.
I think this is a far more important point than that of 'shared experiences'. In one sense I would define 'being in contact with the world' as being exposed to the possibility of genuine novelty and discovery - a war game has a meta that teenagers can figure out - real war will regularly surprise even the best minds.
We do our best to pierce the real world and bring it into the realm of intelligibility. Learning what others have made intelligible before us is an important part of that, but you have to venture into the difficult and unintelligible to make real conquests.
The virtual world isn't necessarily distinct from the real world on this definition, and solitary pursuits can still produce genuine insight - but in a standard game as in a grammar textbook you're never going to learn more than the author has set out for you to learn.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
What I'm trying to get at here is that real meaning is ill-defined and most philosophers do include some form of pleasure and hedonism as an intrinsic value.
Your examples at least don't show that it's ill defined. I think most people would say those pursuits are meaningless or even harmful without hesitation.
Perhaps you can't objectively determine the meaningful ahead of time but it becomes quite clear when things are compared.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I don’t see why in the slightest that I should center my life on “productivity”. The greatest benefit of being someone in a rich Western country with an easy-ish email job is that one’s material needs are extremely easily met,
Productivity construed in material terms is indeed shallow. I don't think the same is true for recognising that becoming a better person in a virtue ethics sense is going to take a lot of time that you really shouldn't be wasting.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
The problem of politics seems unavoidable. People want to have more resources than their rivals. Their rivals want the same in turn. The winning move for humanity is not to play zero sum games.
People want more resources than their rivals sure, rivalries can also be dissolved or transferred into healthier forms of competition.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I don't know what options prisoners have but it seems what they have in common with kids is a genuine lack of options and both may lack enough of an introduction to books to make them seem interesting (which I see wasn't true in your case). As an adult I can't really count all the other things I could be doing with my time, exploring the woods nearby will take a bit of effort but will probably be something I look back on as more rewarding than the same time spent gaming.
I think back to the endless boredoms of my childhood, my brother occupying our shared Game Boy Advance, my books finished, nothing on TV, sitting in a hotel room on vacation bored out of my mind. What did I do? Fucking nothing lmao
Hotels can be very boring places for kids to be fair, you're pretty dependent on your parents' schedule to leave and do something.
I had similar experiences arguing with my brother about who got to play the Xbox this time. Even having a strong stimulus like a Game Boy nearby can be disruptive as instead of finding something new to do you can just wait or argue for your turn, your sibling isn't going to put his mind to the same problem because he's occupied. Things were much more relaxed when we visited my grandparents' house and there was genuinely nothing to do but go out in the garden and look at bugs.
It might be more efficient, but is the thing you're improving efficiency on really that much of a constraint in the first place?
Like it would take X amount of time for 100 immigration officials to thoroughly sift through 1000 applications. You're suggesting we save those 100 people a lot of time by implementing a race based admissions system, why not just double or triple the amount of immigration officials? It's not like they're a big item in any country's budget.
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