aiislove
1yr ago
I have learned so much about gay men through looking at straight men, I believe we are wired broadly the same but with some small points of difference. I offered my perspective because if I can learn things from straight people then perhaps straight people can learn something from my experiences as well. I don't think you can fully understand gay men without understanding straight men and vice versa.
aiislove
1yr ago
I've studied German, Spanish, Japanese and French in school and in immersion (as in, visiting the countries where they're spoken and living for a few months in each.) I agree with you that German is the easiest for English speakers to learn (though Spanish is not very hard either.) Also agree with Japanese being a rather practical language and pronunciation is very easy. I got lost on the kanji too though.
aiislove
1yr ago
where your products appear is pay-to-play, has been for years.
Can you expand on this? Are you referring only to paid ads/amazon AMS? Because of course that's pay to play, but if you're saying that general product listings are also "pay-to-play"..... what? How? I'm an amazon seller myself, is there a secret scheme somewhere I'm unaware of that will help my items get boosted in the algorithm that I can pay for aside from the kosher AMS route?
aiislove
1yr ago
social contagion as a result of peer pressure.
I think you're right. I noticed during covid that the mechanism by which this happens is never a positive one: it's never people independently standing up for their beliefs that they independently believe are positive, but rather, it is borne out of an indignation that their peers aren't being held to the same repressive standards that they're being held to.
Progressivism is a social contagion due to a crabs-in-the-bucket mechanism. It spreads because people are irritated that they can't get away with being racist or sexist or utilize their own privilege to benefit themselves and are thus driven to disempower everyone around them in the same exact way.
aiislove
1yr ago
I thought up my username in a few seconds, it's just a pun on "ai" meaning love in Japanese, plus I like making AI generated art, not because I want to use AI to game social interactions. I'm not a transhumanist.
You can always turn the difficulty dial to whatever you want.
That's not the problem, the problem is that there will be people using the difficulty dial to begin with, and that I will have to make the decision not to turn the difficulty dial, and we'll all have to live with the effects of there being a difficulty dial...... It's just a mess and I'm ready to live in the woods without it all. Using a dial to make yourself popular is the definition of cringe in my opinion, it is so pathetic, I'd rather be unpopular than using a transhumanist means to buy friends.
aiislove
1yr ago
even if people in polls say they'd still "like" to be in a relationship or have sex, revealed preference suggests they often care less about it than in previous generations.
I blame this on a huge lack of self esteem which stems from increased narcissistic traits in the general population, especially among rich developed countries. I don't think less people want relationships, more people are afraid of rejection because they lack self esteem and so are less likely to put themselves in a position to get a relationship. At least that's based on my experiences.
Any thoughts on the "Chinese spy balloons"? I just did a search for "balloon" on here and couldn't find any discussion of it. Was wondering if anyone had any theories or points to share on the situation
aiislove
1yr ago
France modernized post WW2.
Wait.... Really? By what measurements? I always imagined they were as modern as the US or England prior to WWII and I'm surprised to hear that they weren't.
aiislove
1yr ago
That was my understanding as well. If that's the case I don't understand why everyone in Asia isn't getting sick all the time because I see massive amounts of food sitting in the room temperature sweet spot for bacterial growth all day long
aiislove
1yr ago
SoftWhiteUnderbelly
This one is really cool, thanks for telling us about it. I love the show Intervention and this channel reminds me of like raw footage from the interview portions of that show which is cool.
IsaacArthur. A man with an amusing accent (Virginia?)
It sounds to me like he has a bit of a speech or hearing disability, the one man I know who speaks similarly to him is from California but I think he grew up in a very poor household and didn't have speech therapy but most people who would speak this way as adults have had their speech corrected. I only listened to a few minutes of him speaking though so I'm not sure.
primitive technologies
Yup, the guy I was talking about is the one @JhanicManifold linked to. Primitive Technology.
Link it up. I love watching craft and Japanese woodwork videos.
Incredible braided cord: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uXF_-eXRnUo
Handmade fans: https://youtube.com/watch?v=olIUslC6mv0
Also everything else on that channel is great: https://youtube.com/@aoyamasquare/videos
Good video on Japanese carpentry: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rMtSc2MJLcw
And not quite as relevant but I'm obsessed with this Japanese fruit sandwich making video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=eatQ9-79zGU
aiislove
1yr ago
I like to get some fresh air and a change of scenery on the weekends. Take a long walk at a park. I usually avoid shopping and restaurants on the weekends because they're always packed with people, so I like to do those things on weekdays. I prefer parks that are large enough to avoid too many people. If the weather isn't nice for walking, I'll take a long drive in my car.
aiislove
1yr ago
Interesting post. It reminds me of the concept of reaction formation.
aiislove
1yr ago
The two episodes with Rene Girard on the podcast called Entitled Opinions are really good. He goes over memetic desire as well as his concept of scapegoating. I found everything he had to say very interesting and I listened to the two episodes two years ago but still think of them often.
The first episode: https://entitledopinions.stanford.edu/ren-girard-why-we-want-what-we-want
The second episode: https://entitledopinions.stanford.edu/ren-girard-ritual-sacrifice-and-scapegoat
aiislove
1yr ago
I empathize with the article. I think what we're seeing is an increasing atomization among middle class and affluent whites in the USA while tribal identity politics emerges at the same time. Middle and upper class whites are retreating from the social sphere, and from each other, while the interests of niche groups of people are beginning to take precedence on the national stage. I think the article isn't incorrect, but that it is only telling one half of the story: that the atomized nature of mainstream US culture is accelerating while also losing prominence to the groups that don't have the luxury to isolate.
The 2021 documentary "Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Adam Curtis lays out a theory on individualism being a fluke of the 20th century which I'm inclined to agree with. I suspect white America will continue to atomize and recede socially and this "social recession" will end when whites begin to be outnumbered by other minority groups with stronger community ties.
aiislove
1yr ago
I've been DNing since early this year and part of it was to try and figure out if migrating seasonally would work for me. I hate hot weather so I went somewhere in northern continental Europe in July to see if it would be nice, without realizing the length of days is ridiculous. Sun would rise at 6am and set at 10pm. I can't stand the sun either. So I'm trying to figure out where the best place to spend May to September- I always assumed far north to avoid heat, but not with that sun. Southern hemisphere, I guess, but I'm not a huge fan of most of the countries there, and none of them get cold, snowy winters like I'm used to in North America as far as I'm aware. I'm looking forward to the next few months of cold weather in East Asia now.
I have never played either of those games but I just google image searched both of them and I disagree.
https://www.beamdog.com/media/images/1-PC-English.height-1100.jpg
I prefer the above to these:
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/MDMeCbXyQ2EXMjpE25yw3D-1200-80.jpg
The BG3 shots are chaotic and messy and at a random crappy angle. The BG2 shots are organized and clean and easy to look at. I am a designer and prefer the former.
Broadly I don't really like the art styles of either of these games but I have the same opinion of, for example, FF7-8-9 vs FF15/16, or Persona1/2 vs Persona 3/4/5
I am not saying that prerendered background are like, technically better in terms of computer power or technology or something, I'm saying that 3d environments that have random camera angles are less aesthetically appealing than a fixed angle view arranged by an artist.
aiislove
5mo ago
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.
aiislove
5mo 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
7mo 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
7mo 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
7mo 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
7mo 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.
I have only read a handful of Yarvin's essays so I can't answer any of your questions as an interpretive response to his work. But in my opinion and experience, to answer this question specifically, the use of anyone knowing Truth is so that you can defend yourself against Power and have an advantage over any power that wants to harm you by defining truth in a way that's different from the material underlying Truth. You may not be able to move Power but you can move yourself. The freedom to understand the actual Truth is empowering in the face of Power.
Watching Power assert its own version of Truth over and over for the past few years has been Orwellian and the only solace I've found is in trying to find people spouting a version of Truth that feels more correct to me (like what I find on this forum.)
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