bolido_sentimental
No bio...
User ID: 205
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
Can someone explain to me: engagement rings, wedding rings, and wedding bands?
In the normal course of events, how many total rings are involved? Which ones are meant to have big gems on them, and which ones aren't?
Are there some sort of trends in what they're made of, what gems are common to use, etc.? (I've only ever heard of diamond, but I really don't know.)
I guess following on from that: is it really a common action to do the one-knee, surprise, "Will you marry me?" thing? Would you or did you do this? If you are the recipient of a wedding proposal, how would you want that to happen?
bolido_sentimental
3mo ago
What is the right way to consume poetry?
I would like to achieve a greater understanding of poetry and the canon of great poets; and I have many books of those in my house. But I'm not really clear on how people read poems, I guess. Like, with a novel, I sit down and read for as long as I feel like. Maybe a whole hour in a row or whatever. With poetry, the length is not on the same scale, and you're not typically following a plot or a narrative or anything. Poetry enjoyers, any insight you can provide would be appreciated.
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
This is a question which has been asked here before, as well as in similar places, but more ideas are always welcome.
Through career progression and timely company changes, next week I will be starting a job at which I will earn far more money than I ever expected to make at any point in my life. My cost of living has not scaled with this at all. Something on the order of 15-20% of my income will amply cover all my needs. The rest is just gravy.
With this being the case: what are some ways in which I can use a surplus of money to improve my life?
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
This is fascinating. I wonder what the scope or reach of this movement is. I'd never heard of it.
bolido_sentimental
10mo ago
A major implication of this is that, even if you are able to provide perfect equality of opportunity, groups will still have different outcomes because of their differing inherent ability. As a result, for example, cognitively-demanding (and high-status, high-compensation) professions will never reflect the distribution of groups in society; instead they would be occupied mostly by members of groups with higher ability. The alternative to this is to weigh the scales: to hire based on some attribute other than merit alone, which many find to be unfair.
And these "good" professions are just one example - you would expect to see this phenomenon in every area of human endeavor where ability comes into play.
bolido_sentimental
10mo ago
Right, what you're describing here are major elements of the pro-HBD position. Most people on this forum, including myself, agree with you about this.
Be sure to consider as well the nature of the opposing viewpoint. Many people strongly value what they consider as fairness. The idea that some people are disadvantaged in life, through no fault of their own but only through an accident of their birth, strikes them as being unfair. I agree that it is unfair, though it's unfair on a sort of cosmic level, not in a way that should affect who becomes a neurosurgeon for instance.
But there is a worthwhile question to consider in it, one which I think Freddie DeBoer touches on at times: if there is a group of people who are natively less intelligent, does that mean they are destined to have worse lives? Is it right that they should have worse lives? It is important to bear in mind that intelligence is not equal to humanity. I can understand why, when you see one group of people having lives which appear to be worse in many areas, one would feel called upon to try and help that situation and correct it. But as you can see in the real world, when this desire is also motivated by false premises, it can lead to injustice too.
bolido_sentimental
7mo ago
Does anyone have experience with "fear of childbirth"?
I've met several women in the last few years who have indicated that they don't intend to have children, and have cited this as the primary reason why - a dread of the actual physical process of childbearing and giving birth. This isn't something I remember hearing or reading about prior to the last few years. Is this an emergent phenomenon, or one which is increasing? Or is it just one which was never inside my bubble? Is it transient, or treatable? Do women commonly try to cure or overcome it, or is it perhaps a cover for other reasons?
I don't mean this question judgmentally. Everyone has the right to use their body as they think best. Just trying to gain insight.
bolido_sentimental
8mo ago
Does anyone have advice about how to restart your creativity or imagination? This is a strange question, I know.
When I was a bit younger, I was a very keen creative writer. I always carried a notebook with me, and usually within a couple of months I'd have filled it up with ideas and would need to get a new one. I always had some short story or longer project in progress, and if I finished or got stuck with one, it was never long before I had a new idea to work on. As I've aged into my mid-30s, and settled into a steady career and routine, I feel like this has slowed down immensely. Recently I realized that I'd carried the same notebook for over a year, and it still wasn't full. I try to fill my life with new stimuli, but somehow it is as though these don't want to congeal into new writing ideas. It's not so much a question of putting time into it exactly - I have time in which I can do things like this. But if I sit down and just try to force it, I end up getting bored, frustrated, and distracted, and walk away to do something else.
Is this a normal side effect of aging and life becoming more stable and boring? If this has happened to you, did you find any effective countermeasure?
bolido_sentimental
5mo ago
Can you describe how these instructions are given to you? Does your manager tell you this directly? Are these commands issued to your whole team from somewhere else?
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
How are you finding the cardio? It sounds like you and I have both similar exercise histories, and almost exactly the same weight lol.
I have really been considering following a similar plan to you; I just find it hard to make myself do cardio because it bores me. But it sounds like between that and diet you're having success that would make it worthwhile.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
What does your after-work routine look like? I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut in the way I spend my time. Curious what other people do.
bolido_sentimental
5mo ago
Can you provide more information about what, exactly, is bad with regards to your skin? Is it specifically bad acne of some kind?
bolido_sentimental
9mo ago
Strongly doubt it occurs to them. Almost definitionally, people in underclasses work in jobs that do not ask for resumes. I did a lot of those jobs when I was younger, and met a lot of people who, I am pretty sure, went their whole lives and will die having never made a resume.
This is one non-HBD reason that is often given for why big gaps persist across generations. Those people never meet or interact with anyone who can model the actions that result in middle- or higher class lives.
Yeah, I already know that. It has been many years since I saw a weight loss thread on the Internet that did not contain that advice. It's true information, I don't dispute it.
I need to do cardio for my general physical well-being. Plus I like to play sports that involve running, and doing cardio will improve my performance and endurance.
I did NaNoWriMo for about ten years, and was the organizer of it in my city for two. When I started as a 20-year-old, I had no idea what it took to write a novel. By the end of my time doing it, I had "won" multiple times and knew that I could sustain big projects as long as it took to finish.
NaNoWriMo, as an exercise, is one of the best things I've ever done for my creative life. There's just no substitute for getting words on paper. 90% of it may be trash, but the 10% where you're really feeling it and it turns out well, it's extremely fulfilling and motivating.
I eventually concluded I had gotten all I could out of it. The community aspect of it is effectively moribund now. In 2020 and 2021, NaNoWriMo HQ forbade official in-person meetings, regardless of whatever local Covid regulations were. Additionally as you can imagine, as a San Francisco-based organization, their official messaging has become extremely woke in recent years. NaNoWriMo is the prime personal example from my own life of entryists making something much worse than it was at inception. Still, every city is different and you may meet some interesting people. A core aspect of NaNoWriMo is "write-ins," where you gather with other WriMos and grind out word count in a coffee shop or something. It's a nice accountability feature.
bolido_sentimental
10mo ago
What are you guys doing on Juneteenth? I have a random day off. Trying to decide if I want to go for a drive to some random town an hour away. I have no idea if there's anything there - probably there isn't. But it would be neat to find out.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
That's probably what I need to do, honestly.
Any suggestions for where to start?
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
I've often felt that a significant part of the defeat of the Big 3 was just mind-share. I daily a Buick from the 2010s, and it has met my needs in every way. I've never had to put it in the shop beyond tires, fluid changes etc. It's a great car in general. But by the 2010s, the battle was already lost - there was no car that Americans could put out that would displace Toyota and Honda in the minds of the American public.
On Reddit, if cars are mentioned in any thread, you will never see a recommendation other than Toyota or Honda. It is 100% lockstep. Even if you could get 90% of the reliability from an old Ford Taurus at 50% of the cost, the hive mind has decided. I do get that - I've ridden in a Pontiac Le Mans. I've driven a Plymouth Volare. They fucked up for decades. But I hated it when the Big 3 bailed out of the sedan space, just because there are far fewer options now; and by the end, the cars were quite good.
The way it worked for me was like this:
- You go to your local staffing agency in the nearby strip mall. Every town I've ever lived in has several of them.
- You fill out some forms they give you, which include what type of work you can do. For me this was just, "labor."
- They call you in a day or two and say "XYZ Corp. needs some material handlers starting this Tuesday. They're paying $14.50 an hour and there's mandatory overtime. The shift is 2:30 to 11:00 PM. Stop by here before then and we'll give you your badge and show you the safety video."
- You go and do that, and then on Tuesday you start working at XYZ Corp.
Depending on the company, they might hire you on to their own paper after 90 days or 6 months or whatever. Or you might stay on the staffing agency's paper indefinitely. I supported myself all through my early 20s doing jobs like this.
The actual work consisted of such tasks as:
- Taking boxes from a conveyor belt and loading them into a truck.
- Unloading things, from a truck, and placing them onto a conveyor belt.
- Taking objects from a conveyor belt, and putting them into boxes.
- Inspecting bottles of mouthwash on an assembly line, and doing weighing and cap tests once an hour.
- Digging holes.
- Watching a moving belt of electronics recycling stuff and picking out trash.
- Assembling books-on-tape packages.
- Loading big metal components (I genuinely don't know what they were) into this machine that would put a liquid coating on them.
I met many people whose entire working lives consisted of these jobs. I almost was one myself. I remember reading Slate Star Codex on my phone in the break rooms of these places, lol. There was never a resume involved. A lot of times these dudes also knew about casual work on the side. I still remember my buddy Luis, who every Saturday morning at like 5:00 AM would send me a text that was just an address and a work task. "8737 Maple Avenue. Fence posts. Eighty dollars." He would always be pissed off at me at our next actual work shift if I didn't show up.
I do concede that if, when you're at that level of the economic ladder, you decide to go and work for, e.g., Kroger or T.J. Maxx or some other significant corporation, yes, they may ask you for a resume. I actually remember consciously thinking about what the options were: you could work in a call center, you could go do fast food, you could work retail, or you could take a factory/labor job. I hated talking to people in a "customer service" kind of way, so for me the choice was always obvious.
My hobbies that involve spending money are primarily:
-
Hunting for old golf clubs at thrift stores and flea markets. Less than $100 a month. (I couldn't even explain why I do this. I just get the urge.)
-
Driving around and taking pictures of stuff. Well less than $100 a month (just gas and snacks really).
-
Reading; buying books at the used bookstore up the street. $50 max a month.
-
Working out at the Y. About $45 a month in membership.
-
Occasionally drinking at bars, breweries, etc. Probably not more than $100 a month on average, but months with special occasions do pop up and drive this up.
-
Video games... I don't really play a ton, and usually when I do, it's one game for a long time. Like $25 a month tops.
That's pretty much it. I'd have to do something really unusual to even hit 10% of my budget. I guess the key is that I like to cook and prefer to cook, so I go out to eat only 1-2 times a month. Other hobbies I have just don't cost anything. I play guitar but I like the guitar I've got; I like to work on my garden but that's free. I take a lot of long walks, that's free; I write, that's free. My friends and I hang out at each other's houses a lot, or else we do stuff that's like, "Let's go and look at x. Hmmm, that's a cool x."
bolido_sentimental
10mo ago
Finished The Big Short today. Remarkable how much it all resembled a game of musical chairs - no one wanted to be the one left holding the bag at the end. Also a great example of "people won't understand something if their job depends on not understanding it." I didn't see much in there to make me think that something similar couldn't easily happen again.
bolido_sentimental
3mo ago
This event really made me realize how much time I spend lurking on the Motte. I should do something else with my time.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
I drive the American brother of the Vauxhall Astra and I really like it. It's been a dead reliable car with all the features you describe. Mine is a 2014. I've driven it for five years now and have never needed to do maintenance beyond what's in the owner's manual. (Except one time I had to replace a shock absorber because I hit a pothole very hard. That's not the car's fault.)
bolido_sentimental
3mo ago
I've wanted to be a father for a very long time. I could imagine my kids, but for a very long time I couldn't picture the woman who would want to have mine. After I bought a house, I couldn't find a local woman who wanted my children.
How did you eventually resolve this?
Following on from this, I recently read this essay by N.S. Lyons, arguing that what the Right has to do is to, effectively, create a parallel society. Many of the commenters inferred that the most obvious way to do this is to use the church networks that already exist, albeit in many places weakened by years of people falling away.
I had that same realization some time ago, presumably like many other people. So I finally became an actual member of a local church within the last year, and have been getting more and more involved in its affairs. The idea is that, in addition to our religious practice, this will be our mutual support network: in a world where the state is against us, and nearly all large organizations are against us, we will at least have our little local group of people that are for us and for each other. Obviously, you can blackpill your way into finding this to be hopeless as well; but I can already confirm that at least right now, so far, it's a lot better than trying to face everything alone.
More options
Context Copy link