aiislove
2yr ago
I used to want to be part of the blue tribe but after seeing how they treated the red tribe since around 2008 I just don't anymore. The condescension and classism is so hideous. How can you see people who you feel culturally superior to and have contempt toward them rather than compassion and empathy for their condition? Yes, walmart is a hideous place, but god so is Baltimore. The red tribe likes big trucks and guns because they're tiny scared people in a big scary country. If you're taking the bait and seeing them as some Jan 6 insurrectionist threat rather than people with decades of subpar education under a semi hostile cultural millieu that confuses them and your response is "ew, no thanks" then I think that view is morally repugnant and I don't want to take part.
aiislove
2yr ago
Great post.
But do people in the current year seriously understand AA as investment?
I have never heard AA framed as an investment before but now that I think about it it's actually a great framing. Growing up around lower to middle class white people in the midwest everyone I knew hated AA and resented it but if I'd been around in the 60s and thought of it as an investment for society I might have actually supported it. It's appealing: Why not give better opportunities to 15% of the population? Shouldn't we invest in those people, to make peace with them and so they can have a greater contribution to our society? It sounds great on paper.
Of course the situation as it works out just reinforces the importance of telling the truth about things.
aiislove
2yr ago
Can you speak more plainly? What are the other popular theories you're talking about?
aiislove
2yr ago
We need to invest much more into understanding the genetics of human intelligence and developing technology for polygenic gene therapy.
I was totally with you until this paragraph. No we don't. "Fixing" the IQs and abilities of the races flies in the face of nature and history and humanity. Let Asians be smarter. Let black people be better at running. Let everyone be the way nature/God intended them. I don't imagine creepy futurist scientific interventions will be any better than today's misguided progressive interventions, for example distribution of genetic intervention is unlikely to be evenly distributed in the near future.
aiislove
2yr ago
Yesterday I almost replied to this comment and said that doing all that has gotten me where I am today, but I thought about it over night and even as I slept and realized you're totally right. The problem is that I feel like I'm not working toward anything valuable, and I'm not challenging myself enough. Yesterday I was tempted to fall back into my self destructive habits and I didn't know why but I realized it's because I'm not holding myself to a high enough standard and it was irritating to me. Now I just need to think of some new goals to strive toward.
aiislove
2yr ago
Yes, 2rafa is right. But I have a background in art/design so I mostly sell things I design myself. I don't want to dox myself or give away too many secrets so I want to be vague but at the same time I think most of the posters here could do the same thing I've done and succeed. It is relatively easy as long as you've got the time to put into it and are willing to work for very little reward in the beginning. Building my online businesses isn't too much different than building one in the real world but there's less moving parts physically with ecommerce so it's good for me as someone who would be sitting around on my computer anyway
aiislove
2yr 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?
aiislove
2yr ago
Basically, when I was growing up and into college, I was addicted to really tedious video games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, and resource management simulation games. I would play them for hours and hours, making the most efficient and aesthetically pleasing farm or town or whatever that I could. When I was finishing college I thought I should just take all the time I waste in video games and apply that to business. So I just started selling things online and micromanaging everything about the businesses as if they were video games. Every dollar that came in would give me the same rush as doing something good in a game. Addiction also runs in my family so I basically just hacked that part of my brain to put it to work in a way that worked for me. It took a long time to get to where I am now and it's a very competitive field but now that I've built things up I can literally die tomorrow and keep making enough to live on for years to come. Anyone can do it but you've got to dedicate a lot of time with very little reward in the beginning for a huge reward down the road. I would never want to work a regular high stress job like everyone I know does at this point but it does lead to irritating situations where I've got a ton of free time and feel guilted by society to use it more wisely than I really need to.
aiislove
2yr ago
The poem comforts me somewhat in that I can sense my boredom and restlessness are as old as time.
aiislove
2yr ago
Thanks for your response. I think I will try to seek out a more niche community of people who might be aligned with my interests.
I have considered working a real job just to kill time but I'm not sure what I could do. I've been self employed ever since I graduated college other than just a bit of interning and freelance work so I don't think I'm very attractive to employers. I have a pretty strong dislike of authority figures (stems from the irritation I felt toward my ineffective parents growing up I believe) so working for someone I don't respect would be a huge issue for me but I do like the idea of doing some work to give my day to day life more variety and purpose.
aiislove
2yr ago
Yep, I can confirm your assessment in the first two paragraphs. I'm very bored of worldly pleasures and want to seek greater fulfillment. What do you mean by diligent meditation? Do you sit in a room with no distractions and just think? That's what I imagine meditation is. Do you reflect on deeper questions? I'm curious to know more about it and why it helped you out to be more satisfied with life because it doesn't sound super exciting but I'm open to exploring it as well.
aiislove
2yr ago
What do you guys do when you feel stuck in a rut? It feels like all I think about is food, sex and money and it's really irritating. I'm constantly preoccupied with what I'm going to eat for my next meal, how I'm next going to get laid and how I'm going to make more money. I don't like spending time on activities that are nonproductive so I try to avoid video games. I spend a few hours every day on my computer but it's kind of a half work half mindless visual processing thing. I make money passively so I don't have to really work more than an hour or two a week but I usually end up spending a few hours more developing ideas and doing work that's not really necessary. I have a lot of free time but I spend a lot of it organizing stuff in my house and cooking. I am dating a bit but I don't really like any of the guys I'm talking to for anything long term so it feels like a dead end there. I also don't really generally like people and would rather spend time alone, I feel like these convos always go to "go to church" or "join a community" but it just sounds irritating to me.
When I used to feel this way I would just take walks outside or drive around or do chores around the house but I have done all of those to death. I have walked every path within an hour of my house, driven everywhere in my state and done many chores. I traveled for over a year and it was great but now that I'm stuck at home again the inanity of daily life is driving me crazy.
aiislove
2yr ago
I wasn't familiar with the Four Sights before your comment but I just read the wikipedia entry and it does seem like a good parallel to the Barbie movie. Barbie's shock at the things she sees and experiences make her look ridiculous, even if she is changed by the experience of seeing them. We're not meant to empathize with her character's initial state, only once she sees the suffering of others does she become more human.
I'm not sure where a discussion of realism fits into a film that features both tiny girls replaying the 2001 monolith scene and multiple extended musical numbers.
Well, metaphors point to reality. Realism is the main theme of the movie as it's contrasted with the artificial Barbie dream world. The mom and daughter pair are the most apparent representation of reality in the film as they have to deal with the realities of humanity while Barbie gets to ignore them all in her perfect dream world. Extended musical numbers can be used to express great truths about reality even in their artifice. Effective art can mirror and illuminate reality rather than abstract or distract from it.
aiislove
2yr ago
I guess I made the mistake of conflating wokism with luxury beliefs in my comment. It would probably be more accurate to interpret Barbie as someone with luxury beliefs and the Latino daughter in the "real world" of the movie as woke. Barbie's luxury beliefs echo and reinforce wokeness in a way, she believes the daughter will agree with whatever she has to say but the girl rejects and attacks her as a fascist and Barbie is hurt by the reality of interacting with the real world beliefs of this girl.
I see where your argument is coming from but I don't think the point of the harassment Barbie faces is to punch down at the "incessant sexual harassment of the lower classes" like the woke/luxury believers would argue about, it's depicted to make Barbie and Ken look ridiculous and out of touch with norms of reality, like that the construction workers aren't all women or the president isn't a black lady or whatever, and that she can't parade around in a miniskirt as a sexy blonde because people will catcall you and cops (or anyone else) might make lewd remarks toward you. I don't see that as a ridiculously woke statement, they're not saying we should all have the freedom to run around with our tits out without consequence, the point is that if you disregard the norms and customs of people around you they will feel empowered to disregard the norms and customs toward you as well. The mom and daughter characters weren't victims of sexual harassment, only Barbie was.
aiislove
2yr ago
The point of Barbie being "sexually harassed" five minutes after arriving in the real world is to illustrate that her luxury beliefs and wokeism is delusional. The Barbie dream world represents everyone who lives in a woke simulacra of the real world where the horrors of reality are shielded from their view. The point of the harassment isn't to portray the dangers of sexual assault, it is to illustrate the dangers of living in a fantasy world when other people are exposed to real horrors every day. Barbie brought the sexual harassment onto herself by dressing in a sexualized way and not anticipating the realities of interacting with people who aren't in on the luxury beliefs that Barbie got to hold previously.
aiislove
2yr ago
The first topic reminds me of a ridiculous story from sixth grade. Someone told me this kid in my class had a gay cousin, and since I was gay I asked this kid if his cousin was gay. He got mad at me for implying that his cousin was gay, and then complained to my science teacher, who I was sure was a lesbian because she was a soccer coach and I saw her buying wine with women at the grocery store multiple times. My lesbian science teacher scolded me for asking this kid if his cousin was gay, even though I was just asking because I was gay and wanted a gay friend. (Granted I probably didn't ask with a very polite tone.) Either way, the kid I asked was more homophobic than I was, since he was offended that I'd imply his cousin was gay, whereas was just asking for a gay friend, and it ended with me getting scolded by a lesbian teacher for homophobia instead of the kid who was actually homophobic.... anyway I'm just relating this to try to illustrate how the "homophobic public offense" law is terrible and will lead only to ridiculous outcomes. Am I allowed to be homophobic as a homosexual? If not then I can only see this law being worse for me as a homosexual who interacts with homosexuals all the time and happens to do things that can probably be framed as homophobic if they need to be, compared with someone who knows no homosexuals and runs little risk of doing homophobic things unless a lesbian cop shows up at their door...
I like the song you are asking about. As a rich man north of Richmond I empathize with him and people like him more than most of the people in my class FWIW. Rich people lording their power over the poor is really bad and every time I see it I cringe. I thought about writing out a response to this piece in the NY Times but don't have much to add. The rich are increasingly divorced from the realities of the poor. All everyone with a college degree has been doing since 2008 is throwing poor white people under the bus, pointing at Trump voters as racist hicks while trying to differentiate themselves in increasingly extravagant ways. I think (hope) this has basically run its course, even the Barbie movie seems to be illustrating the horrors of "going high" while everyone else is struggling in the gutters.
aiislove
2yr ago
I think everyone knows about innate differences in intelligence. Growing up everyone knew advanced classes in school are mostly white and Asian and very few blacks. The school I went to in the suburbs had few blacks and none of them were in advanced classes while all the Asian kids were. I can guarantee you I'm not the only person who noticed this, even in elementary school I think everyone knew that Asians are smarter and blacks are less smart. If you think no one has this figured out I don't know what to tell you.
aiislove
2yr ago
The mainstream right [...] don't believe in group differences
I have read this take so many times on this forum and every time I read it I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone. Where did you grow up?? I grew up in the midwest in a non major city and group differences were so obvious and apparent and openly talked about my entire life that I don't understand how you think half the country doesn't believe in them. The mainstream right absolutely believes that group differences exist, I would estimate that the most mainstream portion of them believe that the differences shouldn't matter and we should try to broadly accept the differences if not correct for them, and the bulk of the rest believe that the differences shouldn't matter, but do, and that trying to do anything to correct it is a fool's errand at best and a recipe for harrison bergeron style dystopia at worst. I don't think this is an extreme online position at all, I can imagine anyone in my grandfather's generation saying it implicitly to friends and family and anyone in my father's generation understanding it but perhaps not saying it.
aiislove
2yr 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
2yr ago
Thanks for sharing your experiences, I can relate to a lot of it. Speaking as an overweight but formerly obese person, I don't think that people in general really hate fat people that much. They hate the idea of themselves being fat, and may resent fat people for getting away with being fat when they wouldn't be able to live with themselves for being fat, but I think that generally people are as accepting of fat people as they are of dwarves or the mentally challenged or some exotic ethnic minority or whatever. Fat people probably hate ourselves more than the average person hates us.
aiislove
2yr ago
Have you tried the Reese’s pumpkins or eggs? They sell the pumpkins at Halloween and the pumpkins at Easter. They are like crack to me. They are ten times better than regular Reese’s cups and I already love those.
I think the maximum weight you can gain in a day is fixed [2 lb]
Is that true? A quick google tells me a pound is 3500 calories, so you’d have to eat 7,000 calories above your resting calorie intake to gain 2 pounds, which is a lot of food and probably an unpleasant feeling but not impossible. I used to eat 5,000 calories a day without thinking about it back when I was binge eating regularly and I’m not the tallest guy, im sure people could hit over 9,000 (lol) if they tried, though I don’t know if your body would start overriding the CICO thing at that point (maybe what you were implying?)
Sort of a grim answer to your question but I guess eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted was a childhood dream that I used to do, but I became very fat and my life revolves around food and I felt very pathetic. I am able to maintain a healthy weight now (though I still struggle with temptation every day)
Actually a lot of the dreams I had as a kid I do try to play out but with sanity and moderation- like I wanted to live in Japan so I recently stayed there for 3 months, I wanted to live in a castle so I stayed in one for a few weeks, things like that, which are fun and a nice way to honor your “inner child” in psych lingo
I’ve had acne since my teens as well, the one thing that cleared it up completely was a round of antibiotics. My skin looked amazing for a few weeks but staying on antibiotics long term is a bad idea. Do you have body acne by any chance? You only mention your nose but I’ve had back, chest and face acne in conjunction with extremely dry/dandruff scalp/beard and eyebrows even, which I realized was all related to a fungal acne issue. I bought a bottle of nizoral (ketoconazole) shampoo and it works really well on the acne and dandruff, every few weeks or months it will come back and I just use some nizoral and it goes away again. Maybe give that a try. I have also noticed huge differences in my acne based on my diet, sometimes I go weeks without eating any bread (only eating rice and potatoes/sweet potatoes for carbs) and my skin will be doing great then I’ll have some bread and suddenly the acne is back. Sugar seems to make it worse as well.
Edit: Consistency is also really important. I used to have much worse skin when I would shower randomly at different times of the day and switch up the products I used on my face all the time. Now I wash my face twice a day at the same times of day and with the exact same products (cleanser, not face wash, because face washes are drying and I have dry skin which also contributes to acne) followed by a moisturizer. Every time I have to use a different product my face will break out again, so try to be as consistent as possible.
aiislove
2yr 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
Do you think that painting people as obese walmart shoppers who dislike the things that you like is a good display of empathy and compassion? Can you see how I might interpret your opinions as being rooted in condescension and classism?
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