aiislove
8mo ago
I don't know what self-sourcing means but I just googled it and it says "the ability to take care of ourselves" which I would define as power- the power to have self defense over anyone trying not to let you take care of yourself. So your response essentially boils down to "no guns aren't about power, it's about self sufficiency" which is ultimately downstream of power so I'm not sure what you are objecting to
aiislove
1yr ago
Your haughty affectation is a defense mechanism to protect yourself from having to see the ugliness in your heart and the uncharitableness you approach the world with. I don't know if you are rich or poor but regardless you display no sense of noblesse oblige and have no class. You can delude yourself into thinking you've made peace with your hard-heartedness but at some point you will face a very human obstacle and the flimsy affectations you are relying on will crumble and you'll be left with a cold heart that offers no warmth for yourself or the situations you face.
It’s useful for me to hear from people who are genuinely appalled by my views.
Are you engaging with my views on an emotional level or are you protecting yourself by holding them at an analytical distance to try to perfect your artificially constructed worldview?
maladaptive at the level of “seeing like a state” and trying to actually build a great civilization.
Can you tell me your secret to being so above the rest of the wretched of the earth that you can operate on some theoretical transhumanist plane of great civilization in spite of your own humanity?
aiislove
11mo ago
Do you think that tik tok's particularly strong boosting of local content, especially compared with other social media platforms, is possibly tied to a desire by the platform to deepen partisan and regional divides across the US?
There is also something dark in the way the algorithm is great at boosting content that shows us exactly what we desire in the most degrading way. For example I'm socially anxious and insecure about my masculinity so my feed was overrun with hypermasculine extremely affable men to a ridiculous degree. I have never had that experience with any other social media platform. I haven't used the app in over a year but there was something about it that always struck me as more toxic than any other. It is almost like the mirror of Erised, the magic device that shows us our deepest desires but never gives them to us. I found it completely maddening.
aiislove
1yr ago
This is kind of a pithy observation rather than anything else and I don't have the will to write a full effortpost on it but wondered if anyone had any thoughts on a pattern I've noticed often.
In political debates, it often seems that criticism from one side levied at the other side is often a better critique of the side making the critique than the target of the attack.
For example, the left seem to be convinced that America is a hair's breadth away from being sucked into a religious authoritarianism by the right. But it seems that the right today is extremely libertarian and not particularly religious, indeed, the opposite of a religious authoritarian state. But I believe the fervor of leftism and the shutting down of free speech by the left is essentially a sort of religious authoritarianism, much more than anything I see existing on the right.
Similarly, the right tend to characterize the left as being morally failed and corrupt and generally against the traditional family structure. But in my opinion, the left are extremely consistent in their morals and it is the right who have strayed farther from their own traditional morals and proven themselves corrupt in various ways while also having their own traditional family structures degrade far more than the left has experienced. (I don't know how I can prove this except to say that anecdotally my red tribe family and communities I've been around are having far more family problems compared with the blue tribe people I have experience with.)
I see this as a sort of psychological projection, where both sides are too myopically focused on their own experiences to see that the problems they think the other side have are actually the problems they themselves are experiencing and then project it onto the opposing party.
Koreans are more attractive because the beauty standards of Korea are more strict and conformist than Japanese beauty standards. Korean men aim for a butch/masculine military inspired appearance with short hairstyles and Korean women keep their hair black and makeup and clothes very simple. Japanese men and women are far more likely to use hair bleach and have ridiculous hairstyles as well as adopt more Western inspired individualistic fashions. Korea is much more conformist, in Seoul everyone on the train wears the same 3 colors (black, beige and gray) whereas in Japan everyone wears some random bullshit that they believe suits their personality. When I was in Seoul for a few months I would see really handsome Korean men just about every day whereas I would see a really handsome Japanese man in Japan much less frequently, maybe once a week or less. Likewise I would see an extremely beautiful Korean girl just about every day in Korea whereas extremely beautiful women in Japan are harder to find (I also attribute this to Japanese modesty and, possibly, covid malaise because I somewhat remember more beautiful Japanese women when I was there in 2017 but this could be a change in my personal perception)
Also mainstream Japanese are like 10 percent Jomon and 90 percent Yayoi, I don't think Koreans have Jomon ancestry but I'm too lazy to look up the stats right now so I could be wrong
Also, Japanese people have really a diverse range of skin tones and body hairiness levels from very pale to quite dark and completely hairless to fairly hairy. Koreans are broadly much paler and almost entirely hairless.
The Korean diet is also significantly healthier than the Japanese diet which I suspect contributes to the difference in health/general appearance between the two countries. (People I talk to often don't believe me when I say this but I have spent time in like 20 countries at this point and Japan is by far the most difficult country to eat healthy in, meat and vegetables are still expensive and hard to come by and usually deep fried and battered and very fatty cuts, it's also the only country I can't find a rotisserie chicken in and many of the food standards in the country seem weirdly stuck in the showa era)
aiislove
8mo ago
Fat people don’t particularly like looking at or being with other fat people either.
Surely you've heard of gay bears? We love each other. Yes we'd probably all rather be 250 pounds of muscle than fat but we'd still rather be 250 pounds of fat than 90 pounds of twink...
aiislove
9mo ago
Boston actually has a higher percentage of black residents than NYC now.
Having been to both and having spent a lot of time in the latter I find this so so so hard to believe. I believe you could find statistics backing this up but then I wonder about the accuracy of the statistics. Also I understand what you're saying about working/middle class neighborhoods in like Queens and much of Brooklyn being nice to live in but parts of Brooklyn are pretty horrible and the Bronx and most of the area above Central Park really are pretty bad in my opinion
aiislove
10mo ago
your average modern day HBD-informed racist's idea that White people are superior on account of their cognitive capacity and affinity for civilized behavior; that they basically deserve higher status for some contingent merits.
I don't think this is what HBD racists are saying. And if they are saying this, it is because they are trying to distract themselves from the underlying issue, which is that smaller weaker people are afraid on a physical material level of bigger stronger people who are more prone to aggression and violence. Whites and Asians don't "deserve" higher status on contingent merits because they're smarter, whites and Asians "deserve" higher status in society because when you get in the woods the strongest man wins. It's better to try to live in a world where we can have nicer things than simply a brute force competition, all the time, because then you don't have society, you just have the horror of nature which is the very thing society is trying to protect us from to begin with.
aiislove
11mo ago
I've deleted and re-downloaded the app a handful of times and every time I do I get tons of local content and videos that seem to highlight things people are insecure about- for example, one video I saw was something like "my [rich] mom's insane skincare collection," (playing on people's class anxieties and appearance anxieties,) videos of really hot local people with lots of followers (playing on people's social anxieties), I can imagine other people get tons of social justice related type content that plays on people's anxieties around race and such. It just seems to boost content that shows what people find themselves lacking. It's kind of Girardian in how it shows memetic desire of others in one platform. So it seems like it's already designed to figure out what you want and then give you a simulacra of that thing.
Of course I'm not blameless as I chose to follow and interact with the accounts that show me what I want, but I suspect most people would be even worse at resisting the bait than I was.
aiislove
11mo ago
The eye adjusts to certain color combinations. Colors that looked right in the 80s look wrong today and vice versa. This also goes for silhouette. The more something "wrong" is repeated the more it begins to look "right" until it becomes "passé" (unless it never reaches that stage, different things work in different cycles and on different timelines. Fashion is extremely complicated and trying to explain it like it's math is like dancing about architecture.)
aiislove
1yr ago
But the other possible reaction is to say: what the fuck are you so proud of? Shouldn’t your standards be a little higher?
Have you ever been confronted with seeing true poverty in your life? This paragraph reads like pure horror to me. I have seen people who live in tents at the edge of the sea, people with massive tumors on their legs, people with horrible facial skin discolorations living in cardboard under bridges, people living more terrible lives than I can imagine and it would absolutely break my heart if I had to live near them or have them in my family. If people from poor countries find solace in patriotism, and your response is "maybe you should want more for your life," your response is gut wrenchingly immature and morally repulsive, in my opinion. I'm not trying to attack you but your comment makes me feel dread.
My heart absolutely breaks every time I see someone struggling with poverty, I feel so guilty that I have so much and they have so little. Your comment reads like someone who has so much privilege and has no perspective on how much they have to lose that their only response is to beg for more. It is the epitome of entitlement and immaturity and really reveals a lack of self respect. You believe that asking for more makes you look like you're deserving of more, but it really makes you look like you aren't happy with what you've been given and people will be hesitant to help you out when you're so ungrateful for what you have.
why should I feel “patriotic” towards it? Because I could have it worse? Because at least America is a better place to live than Senegal? Isn’t it okay for me to set my sights a bit higher than “not maximally terrible”?
You can set your sights higher but you will have such little sympathy from people who have less than you have if you show such little acknowledgment of what you do have. It is really to your detriment at the end of the day.
Sorry if this post is harsh, your posts rub me the wrong way to such a degree because I used to share so many of your rather haughty views ten years ago but have realized how maladaptive they are in the past few years and it kind of hurts my brain to see them repeated like this.
aiislove
1yr ago
Yes, I have noticed all of this and it drives me absolutely insane. I think it points to a massive lack of respect from blue tribe people toward the history and culture and people who they see as beneath them (red tribe people.) Blue tribe people in America, being or mainly associating with recent immigrants and rootless cosmopolitan types, see themselves as outsiders of older generations of Americans who live in "flyover" country. They are hostile toward the culture they live next to because they don't want to be seen as associating with them and also don't have a sense of class or respect for those people. Parts of my family have lived in the US for centuries, I have no ancestors who immigrated more recently than the late 19th century, and I generally despise people whose parents or grandparents were born abroad showing up to the US and disrespecting middle Americans. I love traveling all over the world and would never ever show up to a country and disrespect the people who live there to the degree that it's normalized in American society and I hate to see that accepted and normalized. I wish people like me would stick up for our dignity more, but it's so outside the realm of the overton window that pushing back against it either confuses blue tribe people or makes you look like a racist or some other outgroup weirdo they feel comfortable denigrating.
Also blue tribe people are rewarded and seen as being brave when they denigrate the US, because they are operating within the framework that believes the US is a problematic oppressor state and so to bash the country that is letting them be a nightmare is good, actually because it helps BIPOC people or whomever.
Sorry if this post is too boo outgroup, I could come up with a more charitable narrative of blue tribe views if I had to, but I have the feeling that the blue tribe views are already well known enough that they don't need to be explained whereas the indignity of the red tribe view deserves more elucidation.
aiislove
1yr ago
the actual innate mental capacity – largely unawakened – of any given individual.
Traveling to poor countries really drove this home for me. I was wildly impressed by the talent and drive and flexibility of people in Thailand, for example, compared to people in rich countries, despite the vastly greater resources that people in rich countries have access to. I was so impressed by the intelligence that people applied to every day jobs and felt really sad that people in America have all the resources in the world but apply so little of themselves to their everyday lives. Every day life in poor countries has to feel so much more empowering and rewarding than every day life in rich countries, where we're not as vulnerable to catastrophe on an every day basis as in poor countries.
Regarding the rest of the JRR Tolkien quote, I'm not surprised he or any other teacher liked these "dull" students: being around dumb people makes you feel smart. I'm sure it was very gratifying to him to educate dull students, rather than more educated ones who could challenge his intelligence in any way. Granted I have a very cynical and negative view of educators and education generally. (Speaking charitably, though, I do think that it's a noble thing to want to educate people and share your knowledge with others.)
I love Veckatimest. Thanks for posting these, I enjoy reading them when you post them.
You might have already said this in another post and sorry if so, but about how many times have you listened to each album on your list? Are there ones that you've only listened to once or twice, or have you listened to each of them at least a handful of times?
aiislove
1yr ago
Sorry to hear you're feeling that way. Sounds like a miserable way to live. I don't know much about you or what you're into and this might not work for you. But personally I would ask myself what I really want. And listen to yourself truthfully and honestly, write about it in a private journal where no one else will ever read it. Come up with the most outlandish things that you can think of. And then ask yourself if it's possible to do it. Or see if you can take a day pretending to do that thing and live that life you wish you were living, instead of this spectator life you're living now. I went through many years of my life feeling disgusted with myself and my situation, but finally being able to lead myself out of it by being honest with myself about what I want, and having the dignity and self respect to provide it for myself, helped me be able to feel more in control of my own life and I'm much happier now than I used to be. Have the courage to stick up for yourself and not be bullied by the way you think others want you to live your life.
aiislove
1yr ago
I am a gay man with a degree in fashion design who has spent most of my life obsessed with clothing. In the end the only two things that matter for a man are neatness and confidence. If you look sloppy, it doesn't matter how much confidence you have, people will write you off. If you appear to have no confidence, it doesn't matter how neat you look, people can tell you don't like yourself, and others won't like you either. You don't need a guide, in fact the more concerned with fashion you are the worse you are at it, which is the terrible truth I've arrived at. Pick out flattering styles that function and make you look put together that will earn you respect from the people you want to impress, but don't overdo it. It's a tricky balance, but err on the side of thinking too little rather than thinking too much. I apologize if these maxims are too vague, but if you're looking for specifics you've already lost the plot. (Don't get hung up on 2 button vs. 3 button jackets or the width of your tie or anything else. Invest in a functioning wardrobe and then wear it with the confidence that you know you've made good decisions.)
A few features I like from the reddit RES suite that I'd love to see here:
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Hide child comments button (clicking this hides all of the responses to a comment)
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Clicking the body of a comment and then typing "a" to upvote or "z" to downvote
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Tracking your personal upvotes/downvotes of each individual user (for example, next to a username it will have +1 if I've upvoted them once or -12 if I've downvoted 12 of their posts/comments)
Edit: I just figured out how the lines on the left of posts work to collapse threads so disregard my first suggestion above.
aiislove
4mo ago
I have noticed that nearly every AI I try is bad at making centaurs. The centaurs that the AI produces are almost always just horses, or sometimes a man riding a horse. I suspect it's because the AI is overcorrecting for unlikely results (there are no actual photographs of half man half horses in training data since they don't exist) so the AI doesn't want to produce a half horse half man hybrid creature.
They also tend to make mermaids have two tails (a la the starbucks logo) rather than one tail like everyone imagines.
aiislove
6mo ago
Who do you (you plural, anyone can answer) think the Girardian scapegoat will be? Is it impossible to predict?
aiislove
7mo 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
7mo 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
8mo ago
Well, I've never been one to take an easy path. What is it about seeking wisdom with others that makes it easier than seeking wisdom alone?
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.
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.
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