aiislove
2d ago
I was a digital nomad for over a year. I grew a bit desensitized to the place vs place, Japan thing. One of the first things I noticed was that when I was walking around a foreign country, everything seemed magical just because I knew I was in a foreign place, but eventually I started to realize that things aren't always super special just because it's foreign. Sometimes the small things are just small differences and don't really have any meaning. When I started traveling I was really annoyed with the US so every difference I would see I would make up some story to myself about how it's so much better than in America. Eventually I developed a better and more keen sense of where things lie and I can appreciate differences in culture and aesthetics while understanding the downsides to differences as well. I still enjoy traveling overseas and exploring new cultures but I think the most important thing I learned is to respect whatever I see everywhere I go, whether that's a foreign country or my small hometown.
Exploring more of Asia also brought greater perspective on the Japan thing as well, having been to Thailand and South Korea I feel like I understand Japan better and can see it more for what it is. I was always a total weeaboo for a long time and visited Japan a few times growing up but stayed there for three months recently and it was great to live there while working from my computer but having been to Seoul it's easy to see how the stagnating economy has been hurting Japan, compared to the up to date and high tech vibe of South Korea which Japan used to have a few decades ago.
Speaking as a designer I will say that Japanese aesthetics and design are objectively better than in most of the world though. There is something different about the sense of space in Japan and attention to detail that I find really attractive to the country.
To directly address the question you posed, what are some lesser known examples of place vs place, Japan?
I think the Appalachian mountains are ridiculously beautiful and extremely underrated. Every time I drive through West Virginia I'm impressed by the scenery. I would consider moving to the region.
When I was in highschool in the US midwest around 2007, I would flip through the cable channels when I was bored and note the race and sex of each person that was being shown as I changed to each channel. It was almost always white men. I pointed this out to other people and they thought it wasn't good. I haven't done this in years but I'm sure the demographics are not nearly as skewed in this way anymore.
Another conclusion that I could add to your list above is that the people in charge of casting in advertising are very worried about being seen as propagating white supremacy or making microaggressions toward minorities. They are not worried about white people being mad at them for not being represented because in the US it's culturally taboo to point out a lack of representation of white people. Basically advertisers are being socially conditioned to cast fewer white men.
I personally can't stand advertising and use ad blockers religiously. I would recommend it.
aiislove
5d ago
France and UK have lots of Celts...
aiislove
16d ago
It's hate for the weakness and dysfunction within themselves that leads to the hate for the strength and competence they see in others. Also the fear of being weak and dysfunctional themselves and not knowing enough about themselves to know their own strength or weakness. People who have pushed themselves to see themselves fully aren't as easily led astray into these modes of thinking.
aiislove
30d ago
When you imagine having sexual intercourse with a woman who do you want to have sex with? Someone who is aggressive and dominant or someone who is submissive and docile? I prefer the latter for men, the former keeps me from being comfortable enough to imagine performing with them. When bottoms are too active it is a turnoff, do you not feel the same way toward women? Of course I need to believe my partner is attracted to me, so I'm not seeking disinterest entirely, but a partner who is doing less makes it easier to perform versus a partner who is trying too hard to perform their role. You need confidence in yourself and your partner to make love and it's easier to have confidence with a smaller weaker partner than with a stronger one. If straight men don't feel this way then muscular strong women would be more popular as sexual prospects but they're really not. Similarly I don't want to have sex with men who are too strong for me because it makes me feel weak.
aiislove
30d ago
You're welcome, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm not sure if you are interpreting the sentence you quoted as meaning that I am applying the same ideas to the psychology that women have when they have sex with men, which is not what I was implying. I meant that I imagine that for men who are attracted to women, that those men also have to be able to see themselves as more dominant and masculine over the women they are having sex with, and that it is easier for, say, a blond white man to imagine himself dominating an Asian woman compared with dominating a black woman.
On another tangent, I believe men who are interested in being dominated by women are sublimating their domination instinct and directing their sexual anxieties toward the female to cover their insecurity and fear of not being able to perform. Exploring this dynamic in sex might be titillating and sexually gratifying for the man but I can't imagine it boosts or stabilizes his ego in the long term, it is a rather masturbatory practice and doesn't result in self security. Similarly a gay man who only bottoms or performs submissive roles in sex is probably unlikely to experience full gratification from sex.
aiislove
1mo ago
What can I do with my money after I'm dead? (No, I'm not planning on dying soon, I'm just curious.) Is it possible to, say, have all of my money invested and untouched for a hundred years, with someone as a steward of the fund who is paid from it yearly just to manage it, and then create a foundation to, say, support a certain art or something I'm interested in after the money has amassed to a great amount? Is this legal? Are there foundations that people have planned after their death that are operating today in this fashion?
aiislove
1mo ago
Who do you (you plural, anyone can answer) think the Girardian scapegoat will be? Is it impossible to predict?
Responding to @Forgotpassword as well here.
Speaking as a white gay man so your milage may vary. But as a gay top I am attracted to Asian and Latino men who are a bit smaller than me. It's difficult to top men who I perceive as bigger or stronger or more violent/aggressive than me so it's more difficult to top black or Middle Eastern men even though I often find them attractive in an abstract way. Even when I do "top" a man taller and hotter than me it leaves me feeling weird because I don't feel superior to him in any way so it feels like it shouldn't have happened. I suspect that straight men who are not black might find black women harder to "top" (excuse the weird gay metaphor applied to heterosexual intercourse) compared to white or Asian women. You have to be able to believe that you have a right to screw the person you're screwing and it's easier to believe it when you have a physical advantage over that person physically.
Does the black female face structure more commonly have more masculine components to it?
I don't know if it's necessarily "masculinity" that black women have more of but it's possibly some combination of aggression and strength and dominance that is off putting psychologically in a sexual context. Black men look stronger and more dominant so trying to top them as a white man is difficult and weird, compared with other more docile looking guys. I imagine it's the same with women, broadly speaking.
aiislove
1mo ago
I don't know about pornhub but I know on xvideos that the website automatically appends "step" to words like "brother" or "dad" (and also completely removes other certain words) so maybe pornhub operates the same way
aiislove
1mo ago
This sentence confused me as well, I knew he was referring to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as voxelvexillologist notes below but the 200k figure surprised me. The wikipedia entry states that 230k ethnic Armenians have been displaced by the conflict. I assume moldbug was using "ethnically cleansed" to mean "displaced" while I imagined he meant that there were 200 thousand casualties.
aiislove
1mo ago
Perhaps the greatest political challenge is what to do with surplus young men.
Give them more money and power and respect. Speaking personally, I felt I had very little incentive to contribute to society for a long time. I would do the right thing and not get much in return, or I would do the wrong thing and at least get the satisfaction of doing what I wanted. Once people in my family died and I was given greater respect and means to change my position in life I began to respect my family and the society that I lived in more. The fact that people live very long lives now is leading to fewer young people with wealth, and old people don't have the energy or interest to improve the world around them in the same way that young people do. A wealth transfer to people with energy and a longer time horizon would really help keep them from eating each other alive.
aiislove
2mo ago
That's correct but from my view, there will always be some background noise of politics going on but it's usually possible to tune it out. But there is a point leading up to the presidential election when it becomes completely impossible to avoid politics for months at a time- just driving down the street you'll see signs, non political people on social media will be posting non stop about voting, the news will be a landmine etc
aiislove
2mo ago
I definitely don't have anxiety about the election and its outcomes at all. I know dumb shit will happen either way and my actions have effectively no impact on the outcome, I don't even vote, what irritates me is that other people have anxieties about the outcome of the elections and I hate having to see their anxieties on full display for months on end. I really don't imagine anything particularly fiery or explosive happening either, but the incessant political signaling and cultural anxiety is enough to drive me crazy and the past two election seasons had me thinking "I wish I was out of the country" for months at a time and now that I can make it happen I have no reason to stick around
aiislove
2mo ago
I spent over a year traveling outside the US and it was great, I completely ignored local politics and didn't have to worry about US politics at all except for what I saw online. Almost no one talked to me about American politics or if they did they had such a different perspective than the people who irritate me in the US that I was able to hear them out and listen to them with a more critical distance than I do when people in America do the same. I like spending time in places where I don't know the local language because I don't have to get irritated by the political implications of everything and can just operate at a more basic level like a child does, sort of feeling what is going on around me rather than being bombarded with social and cultural messaging at every second like it is in the US
aiislove
2mo ago
Yep that's why I'm looking to be someplace outside the anglosphere and avoiding the media. US cultural domination is pretty much unavoidable anywhere that English is spoken these days
aiislove
2mo ago
Make sure you're not doing these things just to please other people. Think hard about what YOU are getting out of what you're doing and if it's not making you happy then think of something else that will make you happy and do that instead. You should also try to see the positives in the things you're doing, for example I used to feel like the work I did was bad and it made no difference but then I started to realize that my work is actually making a positive impact on people and it can help them lead happier lives and it made me respect myself and my work and the people around me a lot more. If you are alienated from society try to reach out and just be kind to people and talk to people more and stop isolating yourself as much.
aiislove
2mo ago
Context: I am now a bit overweight but used to weigh over 300 pounds.
someone overeats huge quantities of food (>6000 calories/day or more), possibly due to some emotional disturbance, and is able to override, temporality, the body's set point.
When I was obese, I would eat 4000-5000 calories a day without even thinking about it because it made me happy to feel full and my body was used to it. When I started cutting down, I was very crabby and irritated because I couldn't just drug myself with food all the time. Today I can eat a normal amount of calories most days without feeling urges to binge.
Losing weight is also the easiest for such individuals because all they have to do is not eat as much and their weight rapidly returns to normal, but without the constant starvation of dieting because they are still eating a normal amount of food
I felt like I was starving all the time, even when I just had to cut my calories down from 3000 to 2700 a day. Even just a 10 percent decrease in calories would drive me insane.
The second groups has a much slower metabolism than the first and in order to not be obese has to eat surprisingly small quantities of food, and become obese eating only average quantities of food, maybe only 2500-3000 calories/day
Well a 5'2 girl would probably be obese at 3000 calories a day. As a man of average height I'd still be overweight at 3000 calories a day so I aim for 2000 for a healthy weight (though I usually overshoot to like 2300 on average.)
Metabolism adjusts to your habits. If you weigh more or are more active, it's faster. If you weigh less or are less active, it's slower.
aiislove
2mo ago
Is anyone else considering leaving the US or moving to a secluded area for the 2024 election season? The 2020 and 2016 election seasons had such a negative impact on my mental health that I don't want to stay where I am for the election next year and since I can afford to avoid it I think I will. I will probably also block myself from reading the news and themotte and most social media as well when I'm away. But I can't remember when things really start to amp up where politics becomes unavoidable- the election is held in November, but what time of the year do things start to get ridiculous? I'd like to be gone for all of September through the beginning of November at least but I can't remember if the entire summer in an election year is bad or not. Maybe I'll just wait it out and leave as soon as it gets unavoidable but I fear by then it'll be too late and I'll be too annoyed and I'll chicken out and stay longer than I need to.
aiislove
2mo ago
I went snorkeling in Hawaii and the guy I was airbnbing with told me I didn't have to worry about sharks and I didn't feel like fact checking him (or freaking myself out) so I just took his word for it. I did get stung by a spider fish in Portugal and it hurt so bad I felt like I got my foot slammed in a car door, but it stopped hurting surprisingly quickly after soaking it in hot water.
aiislove
2mo ago
- Extroversion: 54
- Emotional Stability: 30
- Agreeableness: 7
- Conscientiousness: 92
- Intellect/imagination: 84
I am not surprised by my results. Half the time I'm an introvert and half the time I'm an extrovert. When I'm an extrovert I immediately piss people off thanks to my low agreeableness so I go back to being an introvert. My conscientiousness is high because I can't stand messy/dirty environments or people who self sabotage so I try to avoid bad habits as much as possible.
aiislove
2mo ago
The sound really irritates me, I'm gay and she's not that pretty so I'm not that interested, I really really want to eat the sandwich, the glove pull and smack weren't really satisfying to me, I don't like how the tall skinny rectangle looks on my fat wide computer screen, I don't drink alcohol so the beer doesn't do it for me but I really want the sandwich (still)
aiislove
2mo ago
I've messed around a bit with controlnet, but it's usually not people/poses I have issues with but the style of imagery. Like most models are trained on tons of anime and deviantart/pixiv style artwork and I am always going for a really specific style (like, say, Fujifilm documentary style photography from a specific year) so I'm always adding tons of tags in the negative to try to get away from the irrelevant styles in the training set that it wants to keep spitting out. Training my own LORAs with imagery I pick out has given me better results w this but I've just started doing that the other day so I'm still figuring it out
aiislove
2mo ago
Yeah. As someone who has been using stable diffusion/ai art generation nearly every day for quite a while, your box metaphor is pretty good. I feel like I keep hitting the walls of what's possible with it, and augmenting the capabilities of the AI take a lot of time and tweaking and technical skill that I'm lacking. It's also like it's so easy to get 90% of what I want from the AI but it can take ages and ages to get 100% what I want and even then it involves some old fashioned photoshop tweaking post generation most of the time. I ran into the same issue with chatgpt stuff too but my skills are more in visual arts than in language arts so I hit the walls faster with chatbots as I'm less able to coax out useful stuff with chat than I can with image generation.
Well, I leave my laptop out to keep my space when I go to the bathroom too and I'm in the US. Not NYC, god forbid, but still....
But speaking of Japan, I was once waiting for a very chic department store to open at like 9 am with a handful of other tourists in Tokyo when I saw a (very small female) store employee standing outside, shuffling something around right outside the door. I looked over and she must have had thousands and thousands of dollars in yen in an envelope. I have no idea what she was doing or how often she does this, but I was shocked to see it and she barely winced seeing me (a foreign man) looking at her wad of cash. High trust society indeed.
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