oats_son
1d ago
I suppose a more accurate statement would be that "tribalism is the default state of humanity". I was indeed including cultural divisions in my original statement.
Race is, of course, real. Taking a microscope within very similar populations and pointing out how similar they are doesn't erase the distinctions between more disparate groups.
Do you think dog breeds are a social construct?
oats_son
1d ago
Good post. I am not sure what causes EverythingIsFine to argue this out. It feels like a steelman of the "race isn't real" thing I see on reddit, but there's only so much you can do with something that's totally false on the face of it.
You may have difficulty determining the difference between a bred-for-competition German Shepherd and a bred-for-work German Shepherd, but that doesn't mean there's no difference between a New Guinea Singing Dog and a dingo. They can interbreed, sure, but there are significant differences. Distinguishing Koreans from Japanese or Frenchmen from Englishmen isn't particularly enlightening to me, but the broader you get, the more that distinguishing between races makes sense to me. I would also agree that culture is a significant factor, too.
oats_son
2d ago
Millions of white Americans are obese, welfare-dependent, high school dropouts who don't hold a candle to a Mexican day laborer, let alone the millions of educated and net-positive tax contributing immigrants whose hard-earned money is used to pay for SNAP so Harold can buy more Doritos.
How do you think this sounds with a different ethnic group? Are you sure you aren't tainted by racism?
If you listen to the progressives, everything is tainted by racism. Everyone except white liberals views everything through a lens of race, and even they do too, they just are polite enough to say that they don't. For black people, it's negative outcomes that they get handed through the system. For Asians and other minorities, it's perceptions about their ability at math or other minor things. I think, as time goes on and the two separate Overton windows continue to get further away from each other, you will see more and more blatant acknowledgement of things from the perspective of race, as this is something that the progressive left and the "dissident right" share a viewpoint on. Racism is, after all, the default state of humanity. It is natural, in that groups with differences will have disparate outcomes simply because they're different, and they are viewed differently because they are different.
oats_son
2d ago
I do think the standard is different for Japan, because Japan was founded in a different way than America was. Japan is pretty much by definition formed by Japanese people from its inception before the international concept of nations existed. America did not exist in that way.
I will note that this makes the cosmopolitan-ization of the western European states more sad. They used to be basically exclusively white, now they aren't, every single one of them has been globalized and diversified and I don't really know what it means to be French anymore. At least the shithole central European states haven't been touched in this way.
oats_son
2d ago
Chinese and Vietnamese, no, I like Asian immigrants in general. I also consider Hispanics American good enough. There were just way too many of them coming in and straining the social services a lot and undercutting wages.
Arab or black or Indian, yes, probably, depending on how they turn out. Arabs are insular enough that there's a good chance their kids do not integrate, same for Indians, and black people have their own terrible culture that they're usually unfortunate enough to fall into even if they're born outside it.
oats_son
2d ago
I will eat the bullet and admit that people of different ethnicities tend to make me uncomfortable in large supply. I like that knowing that the people around me are like me in substantial ways. I have nothing against Chinese or Vietnamese who speak English as a second language, but I don't get the impression that I could speak to them as freely as a white person, if at all, and I think that my social missteps would be more harshly looked upon. Since humans communicate to each other, even as strangers, this has certain effects. For instance, at Sam's Club yesterday, I was asked if I was in line by another shopper, and I explained that I thought I was, but I evidently wasn't, and that furthermore, the line was too long for me to consider it worthwhile. I would not feel so free to give such an explanation to someone significantly different from me ethnically. Also, our definitions of "normal" are quite different. I don't think a practicing Muslim Arab would consider me normal, and I certainly wouldn't consider them normal, either. The details I have heard about immigration in Canada makes me think that even good liberals are generally bothered by vast quantities of foreigners in their country.
oats_son
2d ago
Haha, I wonder what the statistics are on edging vs no edging for samples. There's clearly a whole branch of gross biology studies that haven't been done. I'm something of a goonscientist myself!
I know that weightlifting increases testosterone, but not sure about success in general.
oats_son
2d ago
Hey, Costco shopper! I am very dissatisfied with Sam's Club. They didn't have pork butt yesterday, and their pork loin was 40 cents more expensive than the wholesale store and 40 cents more expensive than their own website said it was. Are you satisfied with Costco meat prices? If only I had one near me. Please tell me more about Costco. What do you like about it? When you see the inside of Costco, are you blinded by its majesty? Paralyzed? Dumbstruck?
oats_son
2d ago
That's awesome. I've wondered if purposeful inducement of twins or identical twins would be possible, considering the usefulness of twin studies, and this seems like it's sorta-close to that. Good for her, imagine the family reunions 20 or 40 years down the line.
oats_son
2d ago
I am glad that you painstakingly offered the experience of this procedure you did. I always wondered what it was like to donate sperm, and I bet that's somewhat similar. I would have thought you'd have to do it on site or something. Did you wait a week or a few days from your last "emission" so that it would be a larger quantity? Well, good job, anyway. I thought you both were over 35 and already parents or happily not-parents or something.
I think female infertility would be a serious blow to a relationship. The way I see it in my mind's eye is that sperm is cheap, so if yours didn't work, you could just go get Chad DNA from a sperm bank or something. Chad DNA has its own benefits, because I would want my kids to be successful and having good genetics like tallness or lack of mental or physical illnesses are very helpful, but some people really want their kids to be "theirs". Personally, I would just want something to dedicate myself to that doesn't have any baggage like a preexisting child would. I guess I'm not evolutionarily correct, though the thought of my hypothetical wife cheating on me is still horrifying. On the other hand, female infertility leaves you in the same position that The Gays are in: either hundreds of thousands of dollars paying for another uterus, or tens of thousands of dollars for decent adoption, or a few thousand dollars for an adoption of a subpar kid or foster-to-adopt.
oats_son
3d ago
I agree, Western Europe is a disaster. But that is cold comfort, because if anything, I see Europe as just a sneak peak of what America will be someday. That may be backwards. It is Europe that has been aping us, after all. And, as you say, there are important differences, like our immigrants being a better fit.
oats_son
3d ago
Part of this tendency, surely, is that the scale of things is totally incomprehensible to the human brain. I don't know what 50 million dead people at the hands of Vladimir Chudin looks like. I don't know what 700 thousand pounds of steel produced resulting in an ungodly amount of GDP per capita looks like, or how it's even possible at such large quantities. Maybe the rest of society can catch fire but the 700 thousand pounds of steel being produced every year keeps the entire thing afloat. There's just too much of the picture that not only can you not see, but is impossible for you to see.
oats_son
3d ago
South Korea is an extreme example and bringing it up likely weakened the point. I don't mind the idea of things changing to be a more stable equilibrium, but if we're on a cliff, it would make me feel a lot better to know if it's a short drop or a long drop.
oats_son
3d ago
I like this post. Yes, the future flatlining and being the same trend forever is unrealistic. My points are more that I don't see any mechanism for some of those issues getting better. Also, you'll hopefully understand that just because humanity already has went through civil wars and starving poverty, that I regardless won't be particularly enthused if it happens again.
oats_son
3d ago
Meh. I think that everyone likes feeling "sensible". That doesn't mean much, if everyone does feel like they're sensible. Being a centrist doesn't make you more sensible. It just makes you more palatable to more people. It also lets you get away with not actually giving your own viewpoint on what will happen, I guess. Comfortably distanced forum poster, you did a bad job responding to my post!
oats_son
3d ago
I'm a doomer on the U.S., and I want to know what you guys think, in general, will be the trend for the next decade or further on. Here's my theory for how all this ends:
- Politically, conflict theory has totally won. Extremists from both parties keep trying to outdo each other. This can lead to outright civil war or government breakdown down the line. Democracies all around the globe host more and more unhappy populations that, no matter which politicians they vote in, never seem to get what they want, leading them to vote in more and more strange and radical candidates.
- Government spending will never recede. Too many groups need to stay satisfied with their welfare, otherwise the party that cuts them will never win an election again. This will lead to an eventual collapse, someday, with more and more economic pain as time goes on and as less productive people exist to support the invalids and growing number of leeches.
- Dating sucks and gender relations are likely going to get worse as the social media experiment continues, to South Korea levels. It can only get worse from here.
- As someone mentioned downthread, I could easily see status becoming harder and harder to get, as the players in the game optimize towards the most awful way to live: constant striving in every arena. Anyone left playing the game is a tiger mom. This is the one I'm least sure about, but it could change rapidly as economic circumstances shift.
- I have no idea if the country will fail slow or fast, but it will likely decline in the next decade by a noticeable amount.
My friend is more of an optimist. Here's his theory on the first one:
- Eventually, one party is going to realize their extremists never win races. They elect a moderate. Things normalize, politically.
Unfortunately, I didn't quiz him on all the rest of it. But now, somehow, it is making me wonder about the outlook of most of the Mottizens. I certainly see the doomer take on things pretty often.
I see a factoid sometimes that says conservatives are happier with their lives than liberals. Maybe that's a factor of rural living, maybe that's a factor of less thinking about serious issues, and less reading. I am pretty sure that conservatives on this site, on average, do not live in rural areas and, on average, think a lot more about serious issues, and read more. So maybe some bad, anecdotal science testing on The Motte is in order.
Are you a doomer, or a "bloomer"? What are some factors that lead you to your conclusion that the country is trending downwards or upwards? Please explain yourself, and please fight it out with everyone who thinks you're wrong.
oats_son
3d ago
No, that can happen to any game. Call of Duty 1 and Insurgency, for example, everyone knows the spawns and the approximate travel times, so have fun eating a rocket or grenade within 5 seconds of spawning and running out.
oats_son
3d ago
Hey, I want to say I like your posts a lot and I read all of them. They are well thought out and have the stats to back them up and I agree with them. That said, this comment in particular has struck me: what is anyone here supposed to do about it? Convincing people that you're right is cool and all, but I genuinely don't see any way to work towards the social outcome you want from here. Are there people here in favor of policies that make the problem worse? Do they act on it? This is kind of similar to the problem I see with democracy: the population might want something, but none of the politicians that get elected give the population what they want. Even if you could convince many people, are you seriously suggesting taking off any gimmes for women from the budget? That's not possible even for things that a whole lot more people want gone, like Medicare or food stamps. All that to say, I think you should stop worrying so much and become a doomer, like me! I guess I still worry, anyway, so I'm doing it wrong.
oats_son
4d ago
The whole post was written pretty facetiously, so it was easy for me to classify that as a joke. I understand, though, if you can't see it that way because of some report forcing your hand or something. The Jewposters may have battered the gate enough at this point that you are quick to sound the alarm. I hope it doesn't result in a soft "no more Jew jokes" rule.
oats_son
6d ago
For me personally, Akira was like Fallout 1 in a lot of ways due to its ultra brutal ultra sci-fi setting. The real problem with Akira for me is that it is a little directionless, and gets a lot worse once the final part of it begins. I preferred the scenes before Tetsuo started duking it out with the entire city. Also I really liked the colonel character. Overall, it felt like a lot was happening and the animation was amazing, you could tell that a lot of effort was put into each shot and that nothing before or after Akira will ever look like it.
GitS, on the other hand, had a ton of still shots where people were monologuing, and I hated those. Nothing they were saying felt interesting in any way, and even if it was interesting, how is that the correct format to say it in, shot after shot of people talking long-windedly like it's a Dostoyevsky novel? That goes for when the protagonist is getting briefed for the mission, for when the android thing is talking to the scientists, and for when the minimally augmented guy is talking to the rest of the crew. I can't say I felt any real tension during any part of the film, either. And everyone praised the animation, but I can't really say I ever felt like it was particularly exceptional.
oats_son
6d ago
I think you might be right on Cowboy Bebop, though I still like it because I grew up with it. It wasn't until I watched Samurai Champloo as an adult that I realized that Cowboy Bebop was as you say, because I found that Samurai Champloo was superficial in the same ways that Cowboy Bebop was, though Samurai Champloo's case was more severe, I think.
I definitely agree with you on Ghost in the Shell, the movie. I watched it and just could not understand at all how it was so popular and influential as a 90s anime movie. Akira was way better.
oats_son
10d ago
Yes, actually 4 is the one I remember the most because of the stairs part. Sorry, that's just awesome. I did also like the top-down thing because I quite like Hotline Miami. I have now defaulted to assuming most of the things shown in John Wick are not true to life, so the Dragon's Breath stuff doesn't bother me much.
Frankly, I will probably see about every John Wick related film for the foreseeable future, because my family likes to see it, and I still think the action is decent enough. Far above pretty much anything else, anyway. My real preference is for high stakes, high lethality stuff, like the hotel shootout in No Country or the crazy car chase scene in The French Connection.
oats_son
10d ago
I am happy to see this same take I have expressed in the wild, though you feel stronger than I do. I think the first one was definitely the strongest, with everything afterwards having some Marvel-like quality about them, but still with pretty decent action scenes, usually with some stupid gimmick.
It's too bad you hated them enough to stop watching them. I wanted to ask what you thought about the flamethrower fight in Ballerina. I thought it was dumb as hell, but everyone around me and everyone online said that it was awesome. It had a bunch of other problems, too, if you ask me.
Sorry for the late reply, but I think the founding principles of America vs Japan are way different. America has a ton of stuff about equality and freedom in its founding document. The natural outcome there is the liberation of the slaves. Japan had no such thing. Also, Japan, like the rest of the Old World, was a way older thing, so the historical standard is stronger.
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