omfalos
Nonexistent good post history.
User ID: 222
omfalos
6mo ago
The Arab League needs to follow Sri Lanka's example for the sake of peace. 🕊️
omfalos
5mo ago
Israel needs to find a way to make Palestinians wealthier so they lose interest in fighting. The only bomb that can pacify a restive population is a money bomb.
omfalos
6mo ago
100,000,000 Africans will immigrate to the United States. I'm calling it now.
omfalos
1yr ago
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/all-the-nerds-are-dead
For the last decade, mass culture has been nerd culture, and a nerd is someone who likes things that aren’t good. This is not to say that everyone who likes things that aren’t good is a nerd. Fast food is bad food: cheap, tasteless, unhealthy, and unsatisfying. But if you grew up eating frozen burgers as an occasional treat, and you still find it nice to sometimes stumble drunk into a McDonald’s late at night and wolf down a Big Mac—because it reminds you of something, because it’s the sign for a certain vanished pleasure—then you are not necessarily a nerd. But imagine a person who collects the boxes from every McDonald’s order he’s ever made, who’s yapping with excitement about the new McDonald’s partially hydrogenated soybean-canola oil blend, who can’t wait for them to release the McBento in Japan so he can watch video reviews all day, and who acts incredibly smug every time McDonald’s posts its quarterly earnings and they’re growing faster than Burger King’s. You know exactly what this person looks like. A total failure of an adult human being. Fat clammy hands; eyes popping in innocent wonder at every new disc of machine-extruded beef derivatives. An unbearable, ungodly enthusiasm. Does he actually like eating the stuff? Maybe not. It hardly matters. His enjoyment is perverse, abstracted far beyond any ordinary pleasure. It signifies nothing. This person is a nerd.
I found this essay on hipster culture and nerd culture to be interesting and enjoyable to read. I'm linking it because it seems relevant to some of the topics discussed here. It raises questions about what effect AI will have on art and cultural production.
omfalos
7mo ago
Try searching for "Misleading Liberal Democrat Bar Graphs" and you'll find a bunch of examples. It's become an internet meme.
omfalos
4mo ago
I made a post on here about a year ago proposing a sort of elaborate version of how state legislatures could appoint national representatives.
https://www.themotte.org/post/167/smallscale-question-sunday-for-november-6/27482?context=8#context
The term right wing refers to the seating arrangement within a legislature. Creating a corporation whose board members are appointed by the right half of a legislature is the quintessential example of right wing patronage. This is a pedantic point to make, but I couldn't resist. I know what you really mean.
omfalos
3mo ago
I tried rephrasing my question for ChatGPT, and it gave me a pretty close answer:
"What is the name of the logical fallacy where you believe other people think the same way you do?"
ChatGPT: "The logical fallacy you're referring to is called the 'false consensus effect.' This occurs when someone believes that their opinions, beliefs, or preferences are more common or widely shared than they actually are. It involves an overestimation of the extent to which others agree with one's own views."
omfalos
6mo ago
If you really have an idea nobody else has thought of, you should hop to it before somebody else beats you to the punch! Good luck!!!
omfalos
1yr ago
Siberians, Mongolians and Inuits can be handwaved away by saying nomadic pastoralism cancels out the benefits of living in a cold climate.
omfalos
1yr ago
The different races in LOTR roughly correspond to different European nationalities. Hobbits are British. Elves are either Finnish or they represent Christian clergymen. Dwarves are Jewish. Men of Rohan are German. Men of Gondor are Italian. Orcs are Hunnic, Hungarian or Turkic.
omfalos
1yr ago
The voting age should be lowered to at birth, with parents given the right to vote on behalf of their children before their age of majority.
omfalos
1yr ago
Having children should be made a prerequisite for graduate degrees, professional licenses and public sector employment.
omfalos
6mo ago
Human beings have an instinct that makes them lash out violently against oppression, real or perceived. If it were possible to eliminate this instinct through genetic engineering, would it be worthwhile to do so? Would the Palestinians be better off if they were engineered to feel less emotional in response to discrimination and ethnic cleansing?
omfalos
9mo ago
I was going to see the movie in theaters, but after hearing Richard Hanania denounce the film as feminist propaganda, I watched the camrip instead. I regret watching the camrip. I would have enjoyed seeing it in theaters much better. It is not feminist propaganda to the extent Hanania makes it out to be. The filmmakers leave their movie open to interpretation and don't force any specific interpretation on the audience.
omfalos
1yr ago
Do you have a dark yellow shirt or a red-orange shirt with a color ambiguous whether or not it is orange? If I were you I would wear a dark yellow shirt and tell people (truthfully) that it is the closest thing to orange I have in my wardrobe.
I have an idea for a way to secure government funding for right wing art patronage. Most governments have broadcasting corporations like the BBC, CBC and ABC. The USA has one called the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The CPB is governed by a nine-member board of directors. Board members are selected by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
My idea is to split the CPB into two corporations called PBC1 and PBC2 which will be controlled by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party respectively. The boards of directors will be selected by the party leaders in the House of Representatives and confirmed by their party caucuses. Annual funding of PBC1 and PBC2 will be proportional to the number of seats held by each party in the House of Representatives.
omfalos
7mo ago
Politicians should follow election platforms blindly without regard to changing circumstances like enchanted broomsticks from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" until an election gives them the opportunity to adopt a new platform.
Thanks for that. I enjoyed some of the comments, but I feel Scott got hung up on Kriss' use of the word nerd instead of geek or fan. Kriss responded to Scott to clarify that he is primarily describing a person who likes things for reasons orthogonal to quality. Scott interpreted this to mean a person who pretends to like things to achieve social status. I disagree with that interpretation. I think what Kriss is describing is a soy boy. Soy boys do not compete to achieve higher social status. The very concept of competing for status is painful and anxiety-inducing to soy boys. Soy boys are extremely emotionally sensitive and oversocialized. They want to live in a bubble where social status and superior artistic quality do not exist. They like things for the sake of liking them as a pure expression of positivity and agreeableness. That type of person definitely exists, and they fit with the quotes from Warhol and Baudrillard about liking-machines that respond the same way to every input given to them. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is pertinent because it serves up content in a way optimized for consumption by such liking-machines, who use it to socially bond with other liking-machines over shared positive vibes.
omfalos
1yr ago
How about this for a mascot?
https://www.deviantart.com/klaatu81/art/Cartoon-Chess-Pieces-596793102
omfalos
3mo ago
What is the name of the fallacy where one claims religious authorities don't believe in their own doctrines and are motivated by desire for power?
omfalos
1yr ago
Maybe I'm tone-deaf, or maybe we just have different taste. I enjoyed the essay because of the author's colorful prose, and I thought it raised interesting questions about art and culture. I didn't think the purpose of the essay was to attack any specific group of people, despite the fact that it is written in the style of an attack. I'm sort of a Quokka in that I perceive these sorts of essays charitably as being directed against abstract ideals rather than being targeted against specific people.
Ban anonymous browsing of the internet. Publicly broadcast all internet users' media consumption habits.
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