mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
Future apocalypse survivor
User ID: 3273
Kashmir and the eternal motte and bailey of the soyjeet mind
Yesterday, terrorists, muslim terrorists, killed innocent tourists in Kashmir. They asked people their names, checked if they were circumcised or not, to ensure that the people killed were Hindu. The reaction to this news has been predictable. The right wing or the boomer wing wants more state control and will be fine with 24/7 mandatory survellance of every cell phone whilst the online soy left is back to its motte and bailey games. You can check places like /r/librandu, /r/kashmiri and /r/vaushv for takes there where people cannot openly celebrate it, so they have to resort to calling religions bad. "Religions are bad, we must all be atheists". This is thinly veiled, though I am not coming out of my hiatus to link to an unfortunate tragedy or point out logical fallacies.
Kashmir has been unstable since its independence due to being run by a tiny Hindu population and a large Muslim underclass. Indian independence meant that the feudal states would be disbanded and democratic elections would replace the ruling class. This meant death for Kashmiris. The place was on the brink of collapse, only saved by Jamwals, a nearby Rajput clan, literally buying it from the Brits and allowing Kashmiri Pandits breathing space. Both groups are upper caste, the highest two varnas and made up nearly all of the Hindu population of a muslim place.
This bit of history is important to understand recent attacks. Kashmir, at one time, was a place with quite a few Buddhists. Kashmir Shaivism, the local religious sect of Hinduism, was not on bad terms, and plenty did convert, unfortunately post post-Islamic invasions, you saw Muslim populations rise via conversions. The higher caste Hindus there, the Brahmins, the Kashmiri Pandits, were facing active persecution, and the religion itself was nearly dead. Until the State was established.
Jamwals were mercenaries from the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, and very likely descendants of the same stock as me, as once claimed by the current King. Shaivism and the Kashmiri Pandits were saved, but things would get worse. The largest displacement started in 1991 with the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Srinagar and since then, they have been living in various parts of the nation, unable to ever go back to Srinagar.
The underclass actively resented the ruling class. Unlike Buddhists, muslims did not like Hinduism and seeing a minority that is responsible for every single thing good about your culture that can whip you at any time did not sit well with them. 1947 offered a break with Pakistan, a nation formed simply to support the rights of Mujeets (muslim pajeets) and quasi socialists like the INC, led by a kashmiri pandit in Nehru being squarely against the Dogra Dynasty. The problem India now faces is that the people who were displaced can never return unless you allows Kashmir to escape the laws of India.
The Indian state is a nanny state, whilst Americans can own guns and even hunt, anything beyond a knife will get you felony charges. Given that the state runs on explicit bioleninism, this meant that Islamic ghettos here become no-go zones. Police officers do not enter these ghettos, and you would find azaan playing in the background in most Indian cities simply because people live in secluded places. Kashmir today is that ghetto, but instead of 5-10 percent of the population, it's closer to 99.
India can never allow its citizens the right to own guns and rule a piece of land with any amount of sovereignty, this act actively delegitimises the state. Having a place next to you where people lead better lives with actual freedom would raise questions no one wants to answer. Kashmir will keep getting worse, the area will get more militarised, the mujeet youth will take up anti hindu activities more as they get less options for the future due to economic collapse and Indian state will intrude furhter into the lives of ordinary citizens.
My own biases are quite apparent. I came to this place a broken man. I was 20, and I was sure that my life would collapse sometime soon. I was able to change my ways this year due to my discovery of Kashmir Shaivism(not a Kashmiri btw). My family itself has personal ties or at least used to have ties with the Dogra Dynasty's current head and also the muslim ruling class and their last popular chief minister, whom I will not name for privacy concerns. The locals will always hate the Hindus, the leftists here do that too, they are just too cowardly to admit that they do too. Motte and Bailey was my favourite slatestarcodex post, helps explain a lot of what I grew up seeing.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
20d ago
It is amazing if you have friends over, also it costs more here than in the UK I guess but a fun experience regardless.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
23d ago
But if you consume it right away, you're good. I posted the recipe, it's cheaper to make it than buy in Indian I guess, I don't buy liquor so dunno how expensive what even is.
Still worth making, use a good recipe. Condensed milk, cream, but of chocolate, instant coffee, various extracts. Works well.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
25d ago
I dislike it. Sparkling wine and agave based beverages shouldn't have to resort to wierd names despite being better, cheaper and widely available in many cases.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
25d ago
Blend a tin of condensed milk (400 gms) with two cups of heavy cream, two tablespoons of chocolate syrup, two small teaspoons of instant coffee, dash of vanilla extract, maybe almond extract if you feel experimental and blend it well. Make sure all ingredients are extremely cold. After that pour in half a liter of whiskey.
You can also blend in fruits like mangoes or strawberries. Some blend in chocolate. Never tried these, I stick to the vanilla stuff.
Keep it in the fridge, won't last for more than a few days, week if you're lucky, dairy ages badly. Serve it on really tiny pieces of ice. Best enjoyed with a girl (plural is better) around you in a hottub.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
25d ago
Really wholesome situation. I like sparkling wines since they can be quite cheap and still be great.
Does a quarter of a bottle get either of you buzzed in the slightest or is it mostly for the taste? Great list, saving it.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
26d ago
That explains why you see both being used side by side.
How helpful is it to have these trademarks for things though? Beyond the benefits that people in the geographical region of champagne
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
26d ago
Toddies are great even without liquor. I had it once with some Danish tourists in during polo and ended up drinking 5 glasses. Warm milk with brandy? What's that like
Beer here in India is terrible. The best sparkling beverage I've had has to be shoju or whatever the sparkling Korean flavored liquor is?
I had a few of those on the night I met those two Danish chicks that later unfortunately passed away in Laos. There were some people in our group and we downed that and some whiskey in front of the liquor shop in Pai. Sweet memory.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
26d ago
Literally me. I never liked the bitter taste, so I drink for the effect, if it cane be sweet, it'll be sweet.
One exception would be tequilas or agaves (for copyright reasons) where they taste pretty good with just some water or clubs soda.
Sugars in liquor fuck you up so if I do pick up liquor, I'll have to either stick to that or use artificial sweeteners in my beverages.
One wierd thing I really enjoyed but never could try again was a popcorn margarita or some beverage made with popcorn syrup, best tasting thing I had that year.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
27d ago
Some drinks are that way. My grandfather liked this white Jamaican rum that you just can't find nowadays no matter what.
The west has a great drinking culture in terms of availability.
Are there any cocktails that you make at home regularly or would recommend I try making. Irish cream is the only one I can make since it's quite simple.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
27d ago
I'm unsure how quickly software devs would be obsolete, though I'll still try to become a good one as fast as possible.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
27d ago
Yeah, I'm currently a little tipsy, I don't drink regularly at all and since I take Concerta, it's not a good idea.
I had some mojitos which had vodka and a few glasses of red wine. Played some graduation. Fun day.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
27d ago
It's Friday and spring turning into summer soon. Grandads turning 92 today and it's quite fun.
Which brings me to Kanye West. I recently went through his album graduation and it's the single best piece of hip hop I've heard, I dislike rap music in general but he's quite good.
Also likely to get drunk tonight. What is the liquor of choice for mottizens? Here are some things I enjoy though I rarely drink
- Sparkling Wine
- Shoju, the sparkling flavorful Korean thing
- Irish Cream, I usually make it at home, thought about adding fruit to it
In other news, Zvi recently wrote a piece praising the new gemini models, my friend who Co works with me works at a well run startup and he got fed up when all the paid llms he used couldn't generate decent python code, he tried gemini and it failed just as hard. I really like Zvi but I do feel that there's a little unwarranted hype behind models.
Every other month I hear smart successful people tell me that the new model will change the world and make devs obsolete, yet they still struggle with a lot of stuff.
I apologise, lemme find the link
edit - cannot find it
I am on a coworking space daily, 6 days a week. Helps a lot, I also track my screen time publicly, post my stuff done there daily. I cannot find where you mentioned me though
I am alive, I have blocked youtube, twitter, Instagram (deactivated my account back in October), Reddit and everything distracting from my laptop and my phone. My co-working idea from 2023 finally took off, I co work with two other people, one being my mentor, the other being an extremely competent friend of my age who si may age.
Progress so far
I am nearly done with Math Foundations 3 which is MathAcademy's final pre-university module that also covers calculus right before Multi variable calc. I will head on to Logic and proofs followed by Discrete Math. Math for ML will follow these two. In the meantime, I will do some math that I learnt in Math Foundations 1, 2 and 3 from a rigorous textbook so that I have a decent level of mastery and fluency with regard to math. I ultimately want to be a really good research ML engineer.
My mathacademy total xp is now close to 11k, every xp is worth a minute or more, it feels trivial compared to people who do real STEM stuff at a high enough level but I know how hard differential equations, sub topics in integration was. It seems laughably easy once I have done it but I can never appreciate myself for doing any of it. Its way beyond what I ever did, I just dont like myself enough to say anything nice, not being whiny, I dont want to be known as the guy who considered basic math literacy to be a milestone. I hit 180 or 3 hours in an airport and one time in a fucking train with a pinhole light, without even having a seat to sit properly on. The same guy who could not study for a decade, pissed away his chances at grad school, flunked two classes was able to do something that. I do respect myself for that though, quite a bit.
I dropped Clojure and front end, opting to double down on Python instead. I do Boot.devs material; I finished their OOPs course a few minutes ago. I will do the Python workbook and aim to finish that in three weeks while doing my daily three hours of math and an hour of Boot.dev. I will still need money since I wont be able to afford meds after july but I will find some ways around that, my sabbatical will last at least 4-6 more months.
My life is boring in ways. I wake up, work out (three days), meditate, study, and sleep. My phone time is much lower since I track it and would be zero if I were not a massive coombrained person. Which is why I also nuked all the images I had of girls from my past life. That stuff will not help me live now.
If I am late in posting updates, know that I am in a better place than what I started in. 6 years ago I posted here and on slatestarcodex as a delusional cram school kid who was shit scared of failing his high school equivalent exams and never getting to a uni. It took me half a decade but I am at least on an ok track now. My co working mates are genuinely very good engineers and they do celebrate my progress but I cannot feel nice.
Maybe I will in some time. My time here has always been great, this is not a goodbye post, I will post, I am just not going to be as regular but I will update. People here saw me go through life and I think they deserve to read the good parts too.
Routines
Working out first thing in the morning kickstarts my concerta. I feel relief climbing out of the dingy pajeet gym I work out, the stairs connecting the basement to the ground, lit up with the sun. My mind feels clear after I meditate, I feel zero friction when I work. The day feels amazing, my only issue is sleeping on time, I must sleep by 11 daily and did that zero fucking times in all these months. It pisses me off and makes my bi onthly therapy session feel like a waste since she wants me to sleep by 11 every day to help fix my circadian rhythm. 1:30 am right now, fuck. Sleeping full 8 hours should do wonders for my life.
Birthdays
My grandad turns 92 this Saturday. We are throwing a party and it reminded me of my more recent Wednesday update about nostalgia. I remember watching movies with my cousins in late March, playing Holi and all four of us (the two of them and my younger brother) being there for grandads birthdays. We get the front yard done and throw a large get-together. This year, neither of them are turning up for his birthday, thier mom, my aunt is since she can't miss her dad's birthday but I do feel a little bad about it. You cannot go back, still for a moment, I wish they came. We even had a golden week where we saw holi, grandads birthday and a literal movie shoot happen in the same week. They shot a movie in our front yard since I live in a large old-fashioned house, ones built for feudal lords of the day. Remembering it makes me smile. We spent the entire night playing FIFA, saw a lot of decent movies and I got introduced to electronic music via Swedish House Mafias albums. Not the best music but I still mosty listen to electronic music, much better kind though.
Oneitis
The girl I was into out of my betaness and low status is now just another girl. A friend of mine recently told me about bumping into her in a nightclub in Delhi where she was coked out of her mind, chatting up everyone whilst looking fatter. In that moment I felt sad for her. Every girl I have ever always ends up worse once I lose my rose-tinted glasses and she seems the same honestly. Doing substances in a bar with your friends and going back home to your parents, working a dead-end job where you only make enough to live paycheck to paycheck because you have a lifestyle to afford (do not blame her here tbh, the Indian economy is the culprit). For the first time, I felt a lot of pity for her. I was 21, 4 years ago exactly when I posted about how she was sleeping around with other guys, being super emotional about it instead of manning up and just meeting her. Me from the past would not believe that I genuinely don't like her at all now.
Why post
Moreover, I am coming to terms with the fact that things have changed, the people I knew in the past, are well in the past and they should stay there. I am still unemployed, unskilled, skinny and living with my parents but I am better each day. Every day I try my hardest to be better, or at least try harder at trying my hardest. I am in the top 5 percent of both math academy and boot.dev, much higher in mathacademy, maybe top 5-10 people all time in terms of weekly volume done.
I just hope that I can continue my progress and that everyone around me is alive, happy and healthy to see me do well. I came to this place at a very difficult time in my life, everyone here helped me be who I am in a very literal sense. Strength training, meditation, pua, a pursuit of mastery, and the belief that I can do better, are things I picked up along the way. Some kind souls still read my life's updates and my new arc of being a guy who learns math and backend engineering to eventually do cutting-edge ML stuff is not all that exciting.
My bad days are about 4 hours and at about hour 8, I can no longer work, though I suspect with enough practice, I can stretch that to 12 but that will take a while. Working on hard things, learning this stuff, meditating, working out, all of it is extremely humbling. Every single session makes me aware of just how far behind I am from where I wish to be. The bright side is that each time, I get better. Many in life just mentally check out and live in deluded fantasy lands where they are too smart to do anything, only to wake up at 40 and realise that they have failed at life. There are days when my brain just gives out and it is satisfying in a way. Every time I drag myself out of the gym having struggled with benching less than 135, I get closer to benching 225 or dipping and chinning half that as long as I don't get injured and don't miss a session. 225 is not unreasonable in a year given I am quite untrained.
Coda
Life is not something that happens to me, I have some control over it. Everyone I know besides a few is out of shape, sad, not earning as much as they wished to, and living in total denial of reality. That was me too, for the longest time. @Standard_Order once told em to seek sun and steel, and chase natural happiness, I get what he meant now.
My posting history makes me cringe, a lot. Why would someone like me post about his life on a place dedicated to culture war discussion, why even would the people there help and how on earth did I not get banned years ago? I posted earlier because I had nothing going on in my life, the attention I got online helped soothe that, and now I am making some progress, which makes me care less about it, hence the abstinence from twitter.
Thank you, to everyone on the motte, to all the people I befriended here, everyone who cared enough to help me. Remember, mrvanillasky is going to get better. May the gods help me, may they help us all.
Hari Om!
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1mo ago
I saw her comment a few weeks ago too about laundromats. Haven't seen what she writes on CW stuff since I've been inactive internet usage.
My favorite threads are Friday ones besides the CW.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1mo ago
Will check em out. People here don't have much in terms of understanding with regards to complex issues like emotional support so I want to help him out.
Interventions -
A close friend of mine who is doing his masters at a decent uni here has been doing pretty poorly and a whole bunch of us, his friends want to hold an intervention for him where we can convince him to start being honest with us and help him fix his life. I was able to get mine on track, so any suggestions as to how to do it would be appreciated.
Spring -
I'll meet some friends again at the golf club or maybe at their house. I look forward to the weekends now that I'm tired after working. It doesn't need much, The weather here is ideal as it's 30-35 degrees Celsius so you can sit out in the open and see all the trees come to life. It sounds strange but glass bottles of coke and just soaking in the weather go well if it's nice out.
Gaming -
Which reminds me, I fired up Quake Live after my last comment and had a k/d of 1/20, it's a dead game and I'm terrible at fps but it's so fun. Everything is fast-paced. I'm tempted to pick up video games again but it's hard just to play one match or play for just half an hour.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1mo ago
My favorite was gow2, I just did not like it as much story wise since greek gods are still gods, so I never recomemnd that game lol. I would say that I really liked the combat there which is why devil may cry and Metal gear rising tempt me.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1mo ago
Dark Souls is worth checking out, but I have been told it is super hard and frustrating. I have heard that they are making half life 3, I really wish valve never stopped, Half Life 2 was one of my favorite campaigns ever.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1mo ago
My only point of disagreement is with movies. Literature sure peaked a few centuries ago but the oslo trilogy or drive or many other post 2000s movies are just amazing. The Dune and John Wick franchises are better than movies of the past in the same genre because they do benefit from the higher budget and better tech.
As for games, perhaps like hacking, the more people did it, the worse it got even at the top levels. This is a statement my friends who are good hackers make, I am unqualified for now.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1mo ago
I was shocked by how clunky Far Cry 3 felt since I grew up playing arena shooters a little bit. PS2 saw some of the best games a console has seen. Console shooters, sandbox titles larping as RPGs became worse with each generation.
Quake Live feels like a different world compared to Valorant.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1mo ago
I relate with what you say a lot since you are not much older than me and saw a fairly similar place growing up. Gaming is still unaffordable for most Indians, the same way a normal healthy diet, peace or anything good is. My dad, due to being a young professor at a top engineering uni (he is a humanities prof) caught on to computers, so we always had a slightly underpowered PC at our house where I could play pirated games in.
Today, I have a turbulent life, I cannot bring myself to game since I am unable to do anything but be a vegetable after a productive game and want to git gud, get a job and migrate out before the year ends.
More than just the energy, gaming is not as popular in my circles as it once was. People go out to cafes or unsuccessfully try to woo girls far more than playing video games since sexual liberation, much more of a thing now, even for early teens, phones and Instagram make it much worse. My gaming itch died when my dad refused to update our PC when I was 16 since I wanted to play doom but he realised that I needed to do my exams better so killing the gamer inside me indirectly helped me do better with the JEE.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
1mo ago
I made various comments about the comparisons for AAA games then vs now. I will say that peak game enjoyment was somewhere between late 2000s and early 2010s, but peak advances were made in late 90s to early 2000s.
Games are better, but by miniscule amounts, the gameplay jumps that you had do not exist and the slight improvements are not as fun for me. Gaming was much better when it was smaller, studios spending the same time and money on a game, the way marvel does on movies, gives you marvel movie like games.
Math and CS
I finally hit 12k on mathacademy, my mentor sent me a book, "the courage to be disliked" as a gift for hitting 12k. It seems trivial to me at least, 200 hours of math, could I not have done all this faster? is this even worth celebrating? But I know that it took me a lot of effort. I nearly flunked out of my uni in my first year as I did not remember any math at all and it fucked my grades and confidence permanently, I now know more than any of my classmates did since you barely get taught much beyond high school. My progress CS wise has been kinda alright, I realised that boot.dev does not have enough programming volume, so I will do a bunch of books and projects alongside it to be better. I partake in atcoder weekly contests. I never go beyond the first question but the sight of a contest would scare me. As far as I can remember, even when I picked up soccer, i was always very afriad of stuff, what if someone passes the ball to me, as a result I never got better and had to play with kids a year down after my first year, which is why I quit.
I went on exercim and I could solve the problems there with some ease. This is not a lot, but I could not see myself doing anything in my own head, ever. I list this out because I truly do appreciate that I have gotten better. The programming concepts I plateaued on and could never get past seem easy now.
My workouts are doing ok, too. I add a rep to every single exercise every week. I work out three days a week, all three days have different exercises, and I have been able to progress so far. I do not miss days and try to do some rehab work on my off days. Yesterday, after I got back home, I felt some pain in my right shoulder. Is my slap tear back? I was super concerned and went to the physio. He called me a pussy, laughed and told me to consider smoking weed as a joke and come back when I am stronger. I felt relieved.
Spiritual practise
This is the major update. @TowardsPanna once suggested that I meditate for longer durations. I had my first experience, shaktipata, on the 14th of Feb. Well, yesterday, after I hit 12k, I sat for my session. Every time I felt that I was going to get distracted, I relaxed my attention and somehow became more attentive. By the end, I felt extremely sensitive, my alarm went off, and my mind was blank. I was undergoing my second spiritual experience. My senses were in overdrive, I felt a sense of equanimity for the world. All my worries felt pointless, it's difficult to describe any of this with words. All the accounts people write about this are very real. The world seemed divine. I then had my injury scare, which did wreck my evening, but until then, I was super happy. I discovered Kashmir Shaivism via my mentor, too. The recent attacks in Kashmir also happened yesterday, though I stopped feeling bad since I know the government will never fix issues there.
Overall, I am doing better, slightly. The math stuff is not for direct jobs. When I started, I was too distracted to even read textbooks properly. mathacademy, more than math, instilled basic discipline and a belief that with proper drilling, I could, in fact, learn more. My parents do not know any of this, and the most I can do is post my small incremental steps here. I also started 10 mg of melatonin at night, it does not do much but hey, this place did start from a psychiatrist's blog, so I had to mention it.
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