haroldbkny
1yr ago
Likewise to @Amadan, I don't concretely know what "y'alled" means, but I'm assuming that you mean to express surprise that it's still acceptable to say "hysterical" given its origin.
I'll say, you're not allowed to say "hysterical" in the circles I run in without getting at least a remark about how we shouldn't use gendered and/or historically sexist/misogynistic language.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
These are the biggest things I've seen them be afraid about:
- women's reproductive health
- immigrants getting deported
- tariffs messing with the economy, and in some cases their actual jobs
- losing health insurance and getting stuck with large bills
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I wrote last week about how my circle was reacting poorly to the Trump win, but also how their reaction wasn't as bad as 2016. My latest update is, it's still pretty bad, probably worse than it was last week, but still not quite as bad as 2016. But I'm starting to get that feeling again like I'm the crazy one, simply on the basis that everyone I know in meatspace seems to think a complete disaster has befallen us. Furthermore, I think I need to retract my previous statement that my exposure to this strong sentiment is because I went to a very leftist college. I'm now seeing a lot more of this from people who I know outside of that school.
I have a number of people posting multiple times per day about some kind of issue du jour, ranging from high school boys chanting the Nick Fuentes thing, to screeds about how people will (literally) die due to Trump being in charge, for whatever reasons. And I spent the weekend with family and friends who wouldn't stop talking about it, also. It was a lot of signaling and complaining and without any real acknowledgement that over half of the country voted for Trump, including huge gains in lots of minority groups, and that maybe that means something.
So far, from a personal standpoint, this is not off to a good start, and I worry this next four years will be as personally trying as the previous four, with regards to my ability to keep my cool and not feel like a crazy person when surrounded by those in my life and their insistent attitude about Trump. Personally this is starting to make me want future Democrat wins, but not because I believe in the Democrats. If the dems win, my life mostly stays the same. If the Republicans win, my life gets worse just because people around me can't deal with it. But I also can't bring myself to really take these people's fears seriously, since I do feel like this chicken little routine happens every time a Republican gets elected (from my limited experience), without the Republicans even doing anything that bad.
Are other people also seeing an escalating level of this sentiment? It seems maybe like the anti Trump machine had some rusty gears and a slow start, but it's starting to get going again.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Trump's flagrant interview
I didn't watch the interview, as I've been keeping my eyes away from election politics as much as I could for the past 4 years. I'm curious though, what was flagrant about it. And it sounds like you liked that it was flagrant? Why is that?
Also, reply to @Rov_Scam here.
I am unaware of any iconic interview.
That might have been true in the past, but there's been so much change recently. Podcasts are a whole new world, Joe Rogan is a whole new level of long-form interview viewership, and Trump is a candidate ripe for this new world. I wouldn't think it's out of the question that in this particular case, the willingness to do those interviews, in the sort of way Trump would do it, really makes him more relatable in a way that a large portion of the American populace wants to see in a candidate, and it hurt Kamala that she wouldn't put herself on the line in the same way.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I only hope that this time around there's much less of the "not quite lying, but fudging the truth to such a degree that it makes me feel like I'm going crazy". Examples of this include the media acting like Trump installing his own staff into the white house was unprecedented and all ran shock stories about how Trump just fired everyone (even though that happens every presidency), and also when they said that Trump made rape a preexisting condition. The media whipped everyone into a frenzy about everything Trump did, even the most anodyne stuff, and spun it all in the worst possible light. Even if Trump isn't more effective this time, I just hope that people are sick of the media BS and that they do not start doing this sort of dishonest tactic again.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I mean they will end up dealing with Trump the same way they have dealt with him in the past, as outlined by Scott in his recent post. They'll work within the system to change institutions over to their monoculture, stifling all opposition while still maintaining a veneer that they're not doing anything bad. This may include more drawn out trials to say that Trump's win, or even his candidacy, is completely invalid. But they won't go January 6th on the situation and try to handle it in any sort of immediate sense. It's always the long game.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Seems like you just contradicted yourself. The president has nothing to do with the economy, but Trump is going to print money and make the economy worse?
Yeah, probably. I don't doubt that what I'm seeing is non-representative. I think the most key demographic for my case is that I went to one of the most leftist schools in the country. A lot of my acquaintances I'm seeing this from (but not all) are from there. Those people are truly in bubbles within bubbles, and they're the sort of leftists who call each other out constantly for not being leftist enough or in the right way. They are probably most immune to receiving the memo that politics is less cool these days like @2rafa mentioned.
Maybe I also overstated when I said
My facebook is filled with lament and horror, the kind of which I had mostly not seen recently applied to Trump by media and most acquaintances
Yes, there's been a very large uptick in it today and yesterday. There's a lot of it on my facebook, even by people who haven't seemed very political lately. But thinking back, it is really really restrained compared to what I saw back when Trump was first elected. You would have thought everyone's family was just recently killed, based on the reactions back in 2016. I think @2rafa is correct, it's much more limited than it used to be. I'm guessing the outwardly-facing reactions will just be a mostly temporary thing, for most people.
Edit: though, one of my acquaintances did just actually post that she feels today like she did the day her dad died, because she is afraid for her well-being as a "gender nonconforming disabled person".
My facebook is filled with lament and horror, the kind of which I had mostly not seen recently applied to Trump by media and most acquaintances. There is much discussion about people "losing rights" moving forward. I kind of thought people had started to get over their TDS. I really hope this is just a temporary relapse, and not an indication of a return to 2016 to 2020 levels of leftist obstructionism for the next four years.
One more based leftist friend has this to say:
Maybe we've learned that in the face of terrible inflation, saying "that's actually a good thing" or "that's not actually happening" isn't a good way to go.
I think this take is very correct, and has a lot to do with why Trump won. If there's one issue I care about a lot on a less rational level, it's the fact that my spending power is significantly decreased, and I blame the current administration, rationally or not, for not making things better. I worry about what's going to happen to me and my family for the rest of our lives. Will we be able to retire? Will we be able to afford good schooling? Will we be able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle?
However, I also wanted to ask people here if this is rational. Did Biden do much to make this the economy so terrible? Or was it inevitable, or even did Trump cause it? It seems these are the most likely causes:
- the massive printing of stimulus money during Covid
- the obstruction of supply chains during Covid
- something about the Russian-Ukraine war
- natural economic forces over time, returning to normal levels after a strong economic boom in the 2010s
I think the consensus on this forum in the past has been that 1 was the true cause, and 3 was really just a red herring. If that's the case, does Trump deserve to be the one people turn to for relief? Or did he cause it to begin with during his last year as president? Is he actually going to make anything better now?
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Agreed. Not to mention, absolutely anyone in her position would get swept up by visions of grandeur, and start to really want it badly. I mean, she probably really thought she had a good chance of going down in the history books as the first female president (the sort of representation I'm sure she cares a great deal about), but now it seems rather that she'll be relegated to being the second woman who failed to become the president.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
You're probably about 2/3 of the age of most Mottezians, from what I recall the last time a bunch of people mentioned their ages.
I also think it's important to remember the lesson Scott tried to drive home here, that absolutely no one heeded: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/07/tuesday-shouldnt-change-the-narrative/
Back in 2016, I believe Scott was right, and yet, immediately EVERYONE's narrative shifted to "Trump beat Hilary because of <whatever reason: racism, sexism, Trump was better then her, people liked him, people disliked her, etc>". I think Scott's lesson is probably right here as well, but already no one is acting that way. On this very thread, we have many people saying Harris's win is inevitable because leftists control institutions, or Trump's win is inevitable because Harris is less likable or more stupid than Biden or Hilary ever were. Once one of them wins tomorrow, everyone will be frantically updating their priors accordingly, in order to make their world make sense. But should they really, or are they just overfitting to noise?
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Gay Rites Are Civil Rites is not anywhere near one of his most viral or famous articles, though, is it? That's what makes me think the most like he might not just have found the article in passing.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I don't think so. I don't pay him but I can comment on his posts.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I like this post. Would you be willing to post it on the ACX comments section? I would like to hear what Scott himself would have to say to this. I'd also be curious what he'd say in response to most of the comments here, as well.
I don't necessarily think your inverse is fully analogous. We are not necessarily talking just about women who happen to like it during and afterwards, but women who specifically wanted to be raped because they really enjoy or believe they will enjoy that experience. My point is that if she actually does actively want it, then I'm not sure if it's definitionally rape, which I always was told meant forced and unwanted sex.
Furthermore, as another thought experiment that goes beyond just a definitional dispute, I believe someone who really wants to have an encounter like that will be acting differently and giving off different signals, so it's not entirely clear to me if a man who takes the bait is really a rapist, or someone who's on some level playing along with the game she is setting forth. Some of the dispute likely comes down to whether we believe that all consent is truly verbally communicated, or if there are levels of communication that go beyond that.
Definitional question: if the victim enjoys it, is it even rape? Note: I'm not taking about if the woman feels pleasure or orgasms from it, but if she actively thought it was a good experience and she was glad for it.
I used to joke with my wife and ask her "can I rape you?" When she would say no, or roll her eyes, I would say "fine, I'm not going to rape you if you don't want me to".
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I'm interested in this topic. One thing I've found for myself again and again is that having a generalized concept of knowledge, with a wide variety of subjects at my disposal, has improved my general ability to both pick up new skills and excel at them. Maybe that's not enough to offset the skill that comes from early specialization in an individual, not sure. But maybe there's value to the field as a whole from having creative thinkers who can take concepts from one area and apply them to another. I don't think you have to look too far to find example stories where people who are newcomers to a field or to a company are able to point out key problems with it, and change things for the better. Or even to find example stories about automaton-like humans who were trained from birth to perform music who have nothing to write about.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Yet is there any doubt that if Hirst had released these paintings as a collection of PNG files, nobody would have been impressed?
I would agree with you except one thing... What about NFTs?
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I wouldn't ask you to dox yourself, but I'd be very interested to hear it!
Hah, that's really interesting, and I didn't know there was such opposition. Even though I doubt it could result in is being a mute species, truly, I have no clue why it's so important to me to be a competent musician. Why did I, and do I continue to, invest so much time and money in training for a career they I can never even hope to break even on? Maybe these days it's a sunk cost issue for me, and I'm also clinging to music as tied to my identity. And maybe at the start it was me simply not knowing any better, and assuming that a career making music would be easier then a more normal career, before I learned the opposite is true.
Also, there's a bunch of signaling involved. Parents want to signal that their children are talented, so they send them for music lessons. And I when I got older, I wanted to signal that about myself.
Also, somewhere mixed in there is a genuine love of creation and desire to express myself, as well.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Let's explore this more. Do you feel the same way about how most clothes needed to be produced by a tailor, but now they're mass produced for orders of magnitude less money?
What about how bread used to be produced by bakers, but now you can get bread in the store, once again for orders of magnitude less?
I don't know if there's a wrong answer here, but there is a pattern of "these things used to cost way more, but now there are cheaper options that have taken away part of the everyday-niche these things used to do by making it way cheaper. You can still buy the original product that is way more expensive, but the more expensive original versions have been relegated to luxury status."
The AI art we have right now seems to me to be more akin to waves on the beach just so happening to etch very detailed pictures into the sand by random chance; this to me is lacking the principle features that make art interesting (communication between conscious subjects; wondering at what kind of subjectivity could have lead to the present work).
I agree with you on this, but I probably feel differently from you from here onwards. Okay, so we have developed the technology for waves on the beach to produce aesthetically pleasing patterns that we can use as a really cheap source for many things that we currently use art for today. We will have cheap pleasing images for our books, advertisement, and maybe even in art museums, but these images will lack most meaning behind them of what an artist would otherwise have been trying to express.
I'm kind of okay with this state of affairs. It's just changing the place art has in our society, vs cheap pretty things. Once again I feel it's comparable to live musicians being replaced by CDs.
Edit: also note that I am a trained musician who really values live performance. I believe in the power of improvisation and connecting with an audience. I would have loved to make a living performing live music... But I can't and a lot of that is that the monetary value of live music isn't worth that much to consumers, because people can mostly just use recorded music instead, for their use cases. Unfortunately that's simply the way of the world and I needed to accept it and move on.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I do feel a little bad for artists. I mean, if you had a decent side hustle charging $50 to draw D&D characters, or a more lucrative side hustle drawing furry porn, AI is going to replace you.
Me too, but I don't really know what is to be done about it.
I agree with your assessment, it probably is all about money and fear of replacement at the end of the day. But it really is coming for all of us. What are all of us going to do? I merely hope that either we have time to learn new trades that won't get replaced again within our lifetimes, or I hope we will enter a post scarcity society where AI has made everything so cheap that money is meaningless.
I'm a pretty firm believer that the only thing that keeps life so good for so many people is that technological progress keeps making things cheaper and better. And really, I don't even know if I can say that I think that efforts to stop technology through the use of social stigma are bad. Instead I just feel like they're simply doomed to failure. People are going to follow the money. Maybe nuclear power is the one big exception I know of.
Oy. I do that at work all the time. I'm actually afraid to say "you guys" anymore.
More options
Context Copy link