problem_redditor
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User ID: 1083
problem_redditor
14d ago
No worries, I imagined that would probably be the case - it is just a forum after all and I'm not a super consistent poster, especially not lately. Mostly I just come up with a very long essay-style post every now and then on a hobbyhorse of mine, and then I drop out. Just got curious and thought I might ask.
I'd say that summary of my preferences is largely accurate, though it's not a long or obscure web novel actually. It's a piece of fiction I think most people here are familiar with.
In most cases I definitely would not have enjoyed them as much, no. Even I would say it would likely have taken away from the product - I do agree with you that AI art for the most part isn't inspiring to me, and there's a lot of noticeable artifacting in AI generations. Used as is, it's very immersion-breaking.
However, I'm not so sure it's likely to stay that way, and even in its current incarnation I can see very many use-cases for it. As an example there are many highly pixelated/low fidelity/dithered indie games which rely on the style precisely because of its simplicity, and it's not that difficult to selectively crop and edit AI image outputs in such a way where it's not recognisable as AI. You're still going to need to do a lot of work to make it look good and fit within the game's intended aesthetic, for sure, but it cuts down on time significantly when you're comparing against doing it by hand. Producing novel textures for 3d models are yet another possible situation where it could be quite helpful, I imagine. Its output usually isn't good enough to just use verbatim, but it can help speed up the process of game development and that's where I think its true utility lies at the moment.
I would note that feminist treatment of women as perpetual children and men as perpetual adults is highly selective and inconsistent. They'll selectively absolve the woman of all responsibility and place all fault on the man when these poor darlings are "pumped and dumped" and taken advantage of and supposedly manipulated into sex acts that get retroactively interpreted as predatory once the outcomes of the sex don't result in what they want. They will put out pieces of special pleading explaining how women's special circumstances justifies them being treated more lightly when dealing with them in multiple contexts, sexual, professional, criminal and so on. The same people who pull such shenanigans will generally not acknowledge that women's lack of agency and unique delicateness should ever affect how they get treated when they are in the running for leadership roles or positions which require one to take on a huge amount of responsibility. There is no consistency here, it's all "Who, whom".
The even more irritating thing is that much of these same beliefs are also sincerely held by social conservatives (including many users in this space), who tend to typecast women as "potential victims" and men as "potential problems"; they view women through a lens of what others can do for them and men through a lens of what they can do for others. They are exceptionally paternalistic towards women, have a tendency to place all responsibility and blame upon men, and will virtually only recognise "innate sex differences" in ways which justify special and preferential treatment for women. The acknowledgement that men and women are not the same only ever gets used in one direction, and this hypocrisy seems to be common in mainstream political thought on gender.
I've been mooching around Sydney as of late trying to find some lesser-known historic heritage sites in the city that are nonetheless impressive. So, nothing obvious like the Queen Victoria Building, St. Mary's Cathedral and so on. Two of the historic buildings I visited recently surprised me.
1: Yiu Ming Temple. This is a traditional village temple in Alexandria built by settlers from Guangdong circa 1908. It's rather surprising to me that this even exists in Sydney; what makes it even more surreal is that the temple's hidden behind a large brick wall and a row of shops. So it's isolated in a small cranny blocked off from the rest of the city, and stepping past the gate into that weird little back street feels like entering a little pocket of Asia. It even smells exactly like Asia (probably due to all the incense being burned). Highly trippy visit, actually. I've heard there's an even older one that dates back to the 19th century in Glebe, I may pay that temple a visit sometime.
2: The Cathedral of the Annunciation of Our Lady. I visited this one today. It was initially built from 1848-1855 in Redfern as an Anglican place of worship, but was later sold to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia and reconsecrated as a Greek Orthodox church. It's really unassuming on the outside and seems like your typical brick church, but the interior is jaw-dropping. Rows of chandeliers hang from the ceiling, the altar is adorned with an insane amount of golden finery and the ceiling is covered in frescoes. It doesn't seem to be well known - it was completely empty when I visited, yet it's probably one of my favourite historic sites I've visited in Sydney and in my estimation it's even comparable to many churches in Europe in its architectural beauty.
Here are photos of each of the sites (I know the resolution isn't always fantastic, my phone is a potato, deal with it).
It's been a hard week, and I've been feeling a bit homesick about the country I grew up in - Malaysia. Having been born there, I didn't see it as anything particularly special, and I didn't use to understand why people would willingly go to these countries, but now I do. And I started writing about it, and it grew into a whole essay, so here you go.
I lived there for sixteen years of my life, and after having seen many other parts of the world I can confidently say there's really no other place like it. Maritime Southeast Asia is a ridiculously colourful and culturally heterogenous place, with Malaysia being no exception, and this seems to rear its head in virtually every part of society. Even the groups stemming from prehistoric Malaysia are stupidly multiethnic, with the famous current day Orang Asli hunter-gatherer population being highly heterogenous and having populated Peninsular Malaysia in distinct waves of migration. The Malay ethnic group itself is subdivided into many ethnolinguistic subgroups and the first time a coherent Malay identity arose was only during the 15th century Sultanate of Malacca, which introduced many aspects of modern-day Malay culture and syncretised the Old Malay language with Arabic and Persian influences, merging them with its original Austronesian roots. All while this was happening the first Chinese properly immigrated to the Malay peninsula, in a period of good relations between Ming China and the Sultanate of Malacca. Some of them settled down and intermarried with Malays, and an extant syncretic ethnic group and culture called Peranakans originated from this process. Minangkabau from Indonesia also came to the peninsula over the years, forming large permanent communities in many states. Tamil traders settled in the capital city of Malacca, forming yet another hybrid group called the Chetti Melakans who speak a Malay patois with many Tamil loanwords, and Malacca slowly became one of the most important cities for trade, welcoming people from many corners of the globe.
The Portuguese arrived in the 1500s and occupied Malacca as a possession of the Portuguese East Indies, attempting to snatch up this crucial choke point in order to get the upper hand over Venice. They, too, ended up forming a longstanding syncretic community in Malacca called the Kristang, a group with primarily Portuguese and Malay ancestry and which developed their own minority creole language still spoken today. Portugal also encouraged the immigration of mixed-race Catholic converts from India, and still others made it to Malacca from Portuguese colonies in Brazil, East Timor, Africa, and Macau. Then the Dutch captured Malacca and employed a lot of Malaccan Chinese, whom they found industrious, to construct Dutch buildings. The flow of Chinese and Indian immigration continued throughout the colonial period, and peaked during British colonisation specifically. British officers made their first incursion into Malaysia with the 1786 settlement of Georgetown and slowly expanded into the rest of the peninsula, and as they did so millions of Chinese immigrated to work in pepper cultivation and tin mining. By the 19th century, nearly five million Chinese had immigrated, and stable communities quickly formed. Tamil Indians were employed in plantations through the Kangani system, and their population boomed. Chinese populations took a hit during Japanese colonisation and specifically during Sook Ching, when they conducted organised mass killings of Malaysian Chinese men (an event that had wide-reaching effects, including on my own family; Japanese officials called up the brother of my great-grandfather for interrogation and no one ever saw him again), but regardless these populations remain very prominent up into the modern day.
Got all of that? Good, I've explained maybe 5% of the whole story and there are very many more cultural shifts and migrations to cover, but that would require an entire history book to fully explain. In any case, the sheer amount of cultural variety that exists here shows up very prominently in the language and cuisine and urban landscape. "Melting pot" doesn't even begin to describe it. Virtually everyone in Malaysia is multilingual, and it's not uncommon for their sentences to consist of a schizophrenic blur of Malay and Cantonese and Hokkien and Tamil and English. They're not even necessarily speaking formally recognised creoles, they're just finding the best word from every local language to convey what they mean and seamlessly blending different syntax rules as they go. Even aspects of life as mundane as public holidays have been profoundly affected by this - the list of holidays has become mindbogglingly long, just so every major ethnoreligious group's holy days can be accounted for. The religions themselves have also begun to syncretise and form strange little micro-cultures of their own; for example Chinese communities on the peninsula have long worshipped local Malay-Muslim guardian spirits collectively called Datuk Kong, and you can see little red shrines dedicated to them all around Malaysia. When Chinese devotees pray to them, they customarily abstain from consuming pork or alcohol on that day, and offerings also exclude those things as a gesture of deference to the Malay origin of these deities.
The historic port towns of the straits, Georgetown and Malacca, are particularly good examples of this cosmopolitanism. They play host to a gaudy and eclectic soup of different cultural traditions, featuring everything from Dutch colonial squares that now host open-air markets operated by ethnic Chinese and Malays and Indians, to stately British government buildings and Anglican churches nestled amongst rows and rows of vibrant Wes Anderson-esque Peranakan shophouses, to fragrant, incense-filled Taoist-Buddhist-Confucian temples located just down the street from Islamic mosques and Hindu temples, to waterside heritage mansions with a fine view of traditional stilt clan villages built into the waters of the strait, and so on. Sometimes you find really unexpected things in the urban sprawl, like a polyglot letterpress printing house in Malacca that happens to be one of the oldest in the world, or an unassuming heritage home in Georgetown where Sun Yat-Sen made his plans to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, or a colourful 1850s working temple in the suburbs of Penang filled with free-roaming pit vipers that are believed to be the reincarnated disciples of a deified monk. These straits cities are unpretentious places in a perennial state of glorious decay, swamped with humidity, buffeted by monsoons and assaulted with swarms of flies and mosquitoes, but the urban fabric blends an unimaginable number of disparate traditions together in a way that feels completely natural. Outdoor markets are everywhere, and they're packed to the brim with a mindboggling array of foods that borrow influences from varied parts of the globe. There's Chinese-Malaysian fare like char kway teow and bak kut teh (respectively: wok-fried flat rice noodle and herbal pork ribs soup), there's Malay delicacies ranging from ikan pari bakar to nasi lemak to air bandung (spicy grilled stingray, rice cooked in pandan leaf with homemade sambal, and rose syrup milk), there's weird hybrid cuisines like Peranakan cuisine that offer up dishes such as asam laksa, otak-otak, cendol (tamarind and mackerel noodle soup, spiced fish cakes wrapped in banana leaf, pandan jelly shaved ice), and more. Maritime Southeast Asia features a syncretism you don't really find anywhere else and it's simultaneously overwhelming and kind of magical at the same time. You think it’s bewildering reading about it? Try living there. If you ever get the chance to visit, I recommend it and think an outsider would have a great time in spite of all the obvious third world-ness. Malaysia's a lot of things, but it's never boring.
That's the good side of multiculturalism - in fact, it's multiculturalism at its very best, seeing all of these different traditions and value systems bump up against each other and interact in interesting ways. The darker side is that multiculturalism is typically not a terminal value for most ethnic groups; it is superseded by many other group-based considerations and affiliations in spite of all the syncretism, and the "melting pot" contains all these fine little gradations of difference which quickly resolve into large-scale tribal groups once you look a little deeper. And it's necessary to note here that people are typically not actively expressing prejudice towards each other in broad daylight, in fact they live with each other quite frictionlessly in day-to-day life, but all of that finely tuned ethnic tolerance is reliant on - how do I say this - peace treaties and other such understandings negotiated between the various ethnic groups that maintain the cosmopolitan state of affairs. Not all of their terms are good or even remotely reasonable. These treaties have failed before, and when they fail, people die. Hell, Singapore was ejected from the federation in no small part because of racial politics, and all the way back at the founding of Malaya as an independent nation, the cracks in this multicultural vision were already beginning to show. Malaysia possesses one of the longest-standing and most egregious examples of racial affirmative action I've encountered, established to placate ethnic Malays after tribal conflict escalated to the point where they massacred a good number of Malaysian Chinese in Kuala Lumpur for eroding their traditional majority in Parliament and supporting the principle of colour-blindness and also just doing too well economically, with bodies disposed of in unmarked graves near leper colonies and thrown into rivers. Any vaunted dream of a melting pot without ethnic conflict was just that - a dream, and it's part of the reason I left in the first place. But I can't help but look back at all of the good stuff and feel a little bit wistful about it all. The culture is fascinating, the food is among the best you'll find in the world, and there's a buzziness and vibrancy to it that's honestly infectious.
There's probably many people who think of Malaysia as some kind of irrelevant backwater, but it's actually surprisingly developed for a Southeast Asian country. For a good couple decades the country has been charging headlong into economic modernity, and the level of infrastructure you can find in parts of Kuala Lumpur might be surprising for the average outsider. Frankly, that's not without its discontents - there's a strong nostalgia for an older, sweeter, more innocent Malaysia, one where the cities were quieter and more traditional, one where people regularly lived in kampungs and cycled through groves of primary rainforest just to visit other nearby villages. It's like the Malaysian analogue to the 80's nostalgia in the West, except possibly even more potent; my dad has regaled me with stories from his childhood about a much more rural Penang, a beautiful mix of reality and fantasy where he could ride his bike down to the beach without seeing a single modern condominium and follow isolated, traffic-free trails into the hinterlands of the island where monkeys and chickens freely roamed. Cartoonists like Lat who paint intimate pictures of childhood in a Malaysian kampung are highly popular within the country, and strike something buried deep in the heart of national consciousness that seems to yearn for the good old days, filled with stilt houses and cycle rickshaws and other icons of Old Malaysia. This idyllic image of a Malaysia that once was has become a source of national identity, as much as their melting-pot cities are, and many spots in the city now attempt to foster that traditional vibe. But the constant cultural shapeshifting hasn't stopped, and it won't any time soon.
I'm actually considering going back someday just to see all the stuff I missed when I was living there. It's a bit strange thinking about all the things you don't notice about your own home country when you grow up there, realising that you've only come to appreciate them when you're gone.
The anecdotes aren’t necessarily something you should rely on, and it’s a mistake to draw your conclusions on that basis alone. Men are harassed more across the board, but the methods through which one would seek to piss off the sexes differ. Women aren’t usually targeted just for being women, but bringing up their femaleness is a sure-fire way to set women off (especially in gaming where they are fairly uncommon), and so it gets used sometimes as a vector of attack when the target is female. But you can’t conflate that with “women are targeted for being women”. Who woulda thunk it, being touchy about your identity group also means it can be used by people to attack you for any reason.
I've found that the belief that “women are targeted for being women” is usually not soluble to any kind of argument, evidence or really anything at all. It's a Truth that supersedes reasoning, acquired almost entirely from a mix of personal biases + social osmosis (which is a self-reinforcing collective phenomenon arising from many examples of individual bias). Look how the discourse around street violence has proceeded with the presumption of women-as-most-at-risk when nothing could be further from the truth. Women are always justified in their endless self-victimisation, even when they are not, and for some reason no one ever sees anything wrong when they insert themselves into majority male spaces and demand the entire culture change to fit them because it makes them feel unsafe. This is the kind of thing that makes me firmly in favour of enforced male spaces, ideally with strict "no girls allowed" policies or alternatively severe gatekeeping based on unambiguously masculine standards of behaviour - every space that attracts a significant amount of women always gets hectored and lectured and eventually adapts to cater to their level of comfort.
Perhaps I'm missing something but are you talking about Insite? Because that was the first such sanctioned facility in all of North America, and AIUI how that went was somewhat different: Insite was started in 2003 as part of a three-year pilot study, with a special exception to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act applying to it so it could function as a safe injection site. The exception was slated to expire in 2006, but it was granted yet another three-year extension so more research could be conducted. Health minister Tony Clement eventually stated there was a lack of health benefits and denied it yet another extension, meaning Insite would close, but a constitutional challenge was brought by the operators and proponents of the facility.
The case eventually reached the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that the benefits for already-existing users were clear and that failing to extend the exception would violate the rights of its clients as outlined by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically the Section 7 rights to not be deprived of life, liberty or security in accord with the “principles of fundamental justice”. Note that the Court did not establish a positive right to safe injection sites, but did make it so that once InSite was established, depriving its users of that benefit would be a violation of their s7 rights. Because of that ruling, BC is now obligated to continue exempting Insite.
Case in question is Canada (AG) v PHS Community Services Society.
I would say they're not mirror images; namely, that 19th century patriarchal paternalism was far more consistent and reciprocal than things are today. Sure, men were the heads of the household with some legal power like owning the property that came into the marriage and being able to enter into contracts, but that came with a corresponding responsibility - husbands had a legal responsibility to support their wives and any children born out of the marriage, and what was considered "necessaries" for a wife (and kids) was dependent on socioeconomic status. So a rich man could not simply leave his wife in rags, feed her gruel and claim she was technically being supported. The courts would not accept this.
The next thing to note is that the husband, along with taking ownership of all of his wife's property, also took responsibility for all of her debts before marriage. Husbands continued to be responsible for all family debts contracted after marriage as well. A wife could also buy necessaries on her husband's credit (this was called the law of agency), and had the ability to act as her husband's agent. This is important because it means all debt contracted on behalf of the family's maintenance (whether made by the husband or the wife) was held to be the husband's debt. And defaulting on the debt meant he could go to jail. In the 18th/19th centuries, the vast majority of imprisoned debtors in England and Wales were men (all estimates of the sex ratios of imprisoned debtors are over 90% male), and it is likely that coverture was a very big reason why.
Now? The male end of the responsibility is still being socially upheld under a veneer of female helplessness and victimisation, and at the same time, women are equally as capable as men and all of that agitprop distinctly non-agentic framing that emphasises their need for special protections shouldn't impact your evaluations of their suitability for leadership positions that require one to exercise agency. You don't want to be a misogynist, do you?
I think the point that Hitler has an unjustifiably outsized reputation as the face of evil isn't unsubstantiated, but a far better example of a communist regime that far outstripped Hitler in terms of proportional body count would probably be Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge at large, who killed approx 25% of their population (among working-age men, the primary targets of the genocide, this figure rises to an astonishing 50-70%; very smart choice to absolutely decimate your main worker base in a primarily subsistence agrarian economy) while having power for less time than the Nazi Party.
They also grabbed infants by their legs and smashed their heads against chankiri trees to stop them from taking revenge after their parents had been killed, practiced Unit 731-like human experimentation including vivisecting people alive and injecting coconut juice into victims' veins, etc. It’s almost comical how exaggeratedly evil they were, and all these factors taken together probably makes them a very strong candidate as the worst regime in history. In this light, the fact that communism has a better reputation than fascism in the current day is beyond ridiculous - McCarthy, ironically enough, really did a great job inoculating them from criticism.
EDIT: Additional, unrelated thought: The Khmer Rouge were highly influenced by French communist schools of thought; many members of the party studied at the Sorbonne. I always wonder how the intelligentsia who promulgated such ideas managed to live with themselves upon seeing the fallout. Frankly, imagining myself in such a situation makes me viscerally understand the appeal of seppuku as a practice.
problem_redditor
18d ago
the distinction I'm making is between repurposing existing art (signing a premade card) and outsourcing it to a computer (someone else signs the card for you). I don't think these are directly analagous.
I would agree signing a premade card and someone else signing the card for you is not the same, and that the former is preferable. I don't believe this analogy, however, is appropriate for the situation of repurposing existing art vs outsourcing it to a computer.
In the former case, there is more effort involved in signing the card than there is in getting somebody else to sign it for you, and in addition signing a card yourself is indeed more personalised and you have more control over the output. In the latter case involving AI, it's not clear there is more effort invested when one takes preexisting art as opposed to prompt engineering so a generative model can spit out the correct output, and it's also not clear that the person taking preexisting art has exercised more personal control over the output than the AI-user. If anything, it's the opposite since the AI artist has a more fine-tuned set of controls over the output.
problem_redditor
1mo ago
I definitely wouldn't say they deserve to be constantly browbeaten and driven into self-hatred, and it's true they have issued official apologies over the years. I'm not the largest fan of inherited guilt myself, and wouldn't want to subject the Japanese to that. But it would kind of help their perceptions of sincerity if they didn't enshrine the Martyrs of Showa in Yasukuni Shrine, and if multiple heads of state and government officials didn't ceremonially visit it (granted, visitation is spotty, certain Japanese PMs have made efforts to distance themselves from it).
Consider if Germany had maintained an official shrine in which Nazi war-criminals were worshipped, and if large groups of members of the Bundestag had visited that shrine over the years. Would people have believed the original official apology to have been sincere under those circumstances? I'm aware the PM has no say in who the shrine venerates due to the separation of church and state in Japan, but when they're torn between their sense of nationalism vs. wanting to distance themselves from their actions in WW2, they're likely to select the former.
problem_redditor
14d ago
Perhaps I'm not prominent enough on this forum for you to have formulated a model of my preferences and/or personality, but now I have the inexplicable urge to ask you what you think my favourite novel is and see how close you actually get.
I think this is what you're looking for, and no it's not Jonathan Haidt's work. Here's a prior summary I wrote of the findings while TheMotte was still on Reddit: "It used data from voter registration data for faculty members to determine the Democrat to Republican (D:R) ratio of an array of social science fields, namely economics, history, communications, law and psychology. Out of a sample of 7,243 professors, 2,120 were not registered, 1,145 were not affiliated, 3,623 were Democrat, and only 314 were Republican. That's a D:R ratio of 11.5:1. Of the five fields, economics was the most mixed, with a D:R ratio of 4.5:1 (which fits pretty well with my perception of economics). History was by far the most skewed, with a whopping D:R ratio of 33.5:1." Note 60% of history and journalism departments, 45% of psychology departments, and 20% of economics departments have not even a single registered Republican in them. Granted there were a significant portion of people that were not registered as either Democrat or Republican and it's not beyond the realm of possibility there are some hidden conservatives in there, but still a failure to find even one registered Republican professor in such a large percentage of departments is really bad and rather shocking.
There is, however, also a paper Haidt participated in that reviewed a lot of evidence of bias against conservatives in academia (specifically social psychology) though. The rundown of the findings is basically that in social psychology 82% of people identify as leftist, 9% are moderate, and only 6% are conservative. Only 18% of respondents within academia state they would not discriminate against conservatives; 82% admit they would be at least a little bit biased against a conservative candidate. This is only capturing what they are explicitly willing to state; the actual prevalence of bias against conservatives is probably higher.
almost all Ugandan women and girls (95%) had experienced physical or sexual violence, or both, by partners or non-partners since the age of 15
Sorry for hijacking your thread, but I'm always confused when I see the use and misuse of these types of violence against women and girls sources to prove things about patriarchy. Firstly, you're citing a UN Women-funded source, which is an organisation that is known to be hilariously politically biased, and secondly because it's only providing statistics for women. In countries like Uganda, statistics that "95% of [X population] have experienced violence since the age of 15" aren't gonna be hard to find because these countries are dangerous places in general, and presenting them without any comparative data for the relative rates for other groups really don't prove anything about the level of Male Dominance in the country.
Furthermore, in the VAWG source you're using:
"Appendix table 3.3a shows that overall, more than half of the women (56%), have experienced both physical and sexual violence or either physical or sexual violence perpetuated by their partners. Physical violence was relatively higher (45%) compared to sexual violence (36%)."
But,
"Sometimes husbands/partners perpetrate violence as a response/copying strategy to their wives’ behavior. In the VAWG survey, women were themselves asked if they ever initiated physical violence against their husbands/ partners under any circumstances within the 12 months preceding the survey. Figure 3.10 indicates that of the women who had reported violence in the past one year only 14% had never initiated physical violence against their partners, while 62% had done so once or twice, 20% had initiated several times and four percent initiated most of the time."
Going just off their self-reports, which you would expect to be comparatively favourable to the women doing the self-reporting, 86% of the women who were abused were violent to their partner themselves at some point during the past year. In other words, most partner violence captured in the survey is actually likely to be mutual abuse of some form, not unilateral male-on-female, and this should be ringing some bells in your head that the women-only statistics you're being presented do not represent the whole picture. They have also said they had a questionnaire on violence against men at some point, but for some strange, unfathomable reason the statistics on violence against men are not presented here whatsoever.
Also note that hundreds upon hundreds of studies demonstrate that women are as likely or more likely to perpetrate partner violence than men, and many of these studies demonstrate that gender symmetry in partner violence persists as a finding even when you look internationally. "almost one-third of the female as well as male students physically assaulted a dating partner in the previous 12 months, and ... the most frequent pattern was bidirectional, i.e., both were violent, followed by “female-only” violence. Violence by only the male partner was the least frequent pattern according to both male and female participants." This is consistent with results from Jordan, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, and so on, all "patriarchal" countries by WEIRD definitions. Israeli women are more likely to escalate aggression, both verbal and physical, in a partner context than men are. This is a finding that has been repeatedly supported: "Women’s escalatory tendencies toward their spouses (M 52.36, SD 5.86) were found to be higher than were men’s escalatory tendencies toward their spouses (M 51.87, SD 5.69)." So to not study male partner-violence victimisation in Uganda before concluding the presence of male dominance is questionable, but from a brief review there seems to be quite few Uganda-specific studies that are conducted in a way which allows direct comparison of partner violence victimisation between the sexes. Though that's not surprising.
Funnily enough, the focus on VAWG in that report, if anything, suggests to me that people might be more sensitive to violence against women and girls than they are men and boys.
24% of women in 2022 reported that their husband or partner had multiple sexual partners while in 2023 ... 34% of men reported having sex with a person who was neither their wife or lived with them.
This source re infidelity has the very same issue - the quote you've provided here "24% of women in 2022 reported that their husband or partner had multiple sexual partners while in 2023 ... 34% of men reported having sex with a person who was neither their wife or lived with them" doesn't provide any countersources for women, and in addition while it's not hard to imagine that male infidelity might be more tolerated in cultures that allow polygyny, there are also other sides to the bargain in these cultures which often aren't represented properly.
For example, Baumeister's view on the differential penalties regarding adultery attempts to nuance this view. Looking at differential penalities for adultery (which he asserts was common throughout history), his perspective is that sex is a female resource that women gatekeep, and men give women resources in exchange for sex. In line with this view, the woman's contribution to the marriage is sex, and the man's contribution to the marriage is resources. Thus female infidelity is more of a violation of the social contract than male infidelity is.
Baumeister goes on to summarise the results of a cross-cultural study of marital dissolution by Betzig. "[W]hen only one gender’s infidelity was sufficient grounds for divorce, it was far more often the woman’s (54 cultures) than the man’s (2 cultures). ... These patterns reflect the assumption that sex is something the woman provides the man rather than vice versa. ... In contrast, women but not men were permitted to divorce a partner on the grounds of failing to provide other resources, including money, housing, food, and clothing. (The only exception was that in one culture, failure to provide food was a cause for a man to divorce his wife.) Thus, the woman’s obligation to provide sex appears balanced against the man’s obligation to provide resources for support."
His perspective is that there are reciprocalities in traditional marriage that have been ignored, and that authors rarely cite male obligation (the greater obligation of men to provide resources in the marriage, which is his main contribution to the woman) in order to balance their analysis of the sexual double standard (the greater obligation of women to provide sex and to not give away her main contribution to the man). By erasing half the story, it's very easy to paint a picture of oppression of women, and most people generally do not adequately address the larger social context in which this supposed "double standard" often operates in.
Finally, I would like to note that polygyny isn't all beneficial to men either. What polygyny does do is create a very large reproductive skew among men, and it's impossible to argue that male reproduction is not effectively controlled too in highly polygynous systems. In fact I'd go as far as to say a polygynous society controls the reproduction of unsuccessful men and not the reproduction of women, since it allows successful men to deprive their male competitors of opportunities. In their paper "Why Monogamy?" Kanazawa and Still propose a female power theory of marriage practices, hypothesising that polygyny arises when women have more power in a society with high inequalities of wealth among men. Using data obtained from political science and sociology indexes, they demonstrated that societies with more resource inequality among men were more polygynous. Additionally, they found that, controlling for economic development and sex ratio, when there is greater resource equality among men, societies with more female power and choice have more monogamy; but when there are greater resource inequalities, higher levels of female power are accompanied by higher levels of polygyny. Accordingly, the incidence of polygyny may indicate female choice rather than male choice and cannot be assumed to benefit men over women.
Sorry again - I just feel like Western commentators, in general, badly misunderstand other countries on this front.
EDIT: fixed a number
Top level posts really should have more effort put into them, but yeah it also squares with my own experience. The most fervent liberals I have seen in real life are the white boomers/Gen Xers in my organisation, who are so intent on their commitment to progressive ideology that they will wax lyrical about representation in their organisation and complain about how Trump is a slippery slope towards dictatorship every two weeks in front of the entire office (as a matter of fact, at the time of writing this I have just got off work after being forced to sit through one such diatribe).
Their viewpoints are so ridiculously canalised they can't even entertain how anybody in the organisation could ever possibly disagree with them on good-faith grounds. To them, it's just Being A Good Person, and the fact that the majority of America voted for Literally Hitler isn't something they can reconcile. They need a form of validation to cushion their own sense of self, and the establishment news media is there to provide them a comforting blanket that can shield them from the ugly realisation that they failed to win hearts and minds, that they are out of touch with what matters to the majority of people.
It's the tail-end of summer in Australia, and the weather in Sydney has cooled down significantly from the January highs. During this time of year, I start doing something I don't bother to attempt in the sweltering summer heat: I walk around my neighbourhood. This is something I do whenever I feel stuck or trapped in some way. Usually I do it at night, under the cover of darkness - hardly anybody is around at that time, and there's a refreshing crispness to the night air once the transition into the shoulder seasons begins.
In the daytime, walking in Sydney almost feels fatiguing to me, with the crowds and the harsh, direct sunlight. The city is another universe entirely once the sun goes down, after the streets empty out and the shops close. In fact, the shopfronts and offices look far more enticing to me when they're not trying to look inviting - instead of bustling supermarkets and convenience stores, there are darkened halls filled with rows and rows of vacant aisles, instead of offices there are these yawning chambers filled with desks and blacked-out computers, still lit, tantalisingly evocative in their emptiness. Often, I look through these big glass panes, wishing I could enter so I could sit silently in these dim rooms and hallways. Places like that evoke a deep longing and emptiness, and despite the fact that it's not a feeling people seem to seek out I can't help but be drawn to them sometimes.
Doing these walks at night is also a heightened experience, at least compared with walking during the day. I think part of the reason for this is because they're fairly unsettling, which doesn't sound desirable, but that discomfort is something that throws the whole experience into stark relief and helps clear the mind; the apprehension of immediate physical threat often shakes one out of that sense of mundanity and complacency that bleeds into everyday life. Fear of the dark has been imprinted into every single inch of our neural circuitry, and most of our hominid ancestors were certainly not apex predators; for much of our evolutionary history an isolated individual would have been easy pickings for sabre-toothed cats and Pachycrocuta hyenas. Even in an urban environment every single dark corner and rustle in the bushes triggers a fear response, and I find the heightened sensations almost addictive in a way.
Sometimes, the fear is caused by an actual threat. Statistically speaking my neighbourhood is relatively safe, but there are points where walking around at night has gotten dicey; probably the most unsettling experience I've had was a time when I ran into a group of people - one woman, two men - who seemed a little... off. As soon as they saw me, the woman walked right up to me, and began to ask me a barrage of questions. At first the questions were innocuous, she'd ask "Why are you out this late? What are you doing out here?", but they quickly escalated. Eventually I was being asked "What's in your bag? Do you have a gun in there?", all while the the two men were slowly advancing from the back. I turned around and began to walk away, and heard them following me. I felt almost giddy once I escaped into the safety of my apartment building.
There's a specific spot in my neighbourhood I stop at virtually every time I go on night walks. One of the apartment buildings near me has a recess which extends upwards for about twelve floors or so, and when you stand inside there and and look up, you can see towering walls of glass and concrete on all sides, all glowing with warm light. The sky, from here, seems almost as if it's receding into the distance; it's a small keyhole of blackness that looks impossibly distant from this vantage point. I wouldn't say it's a remotely good or even competent piece of architecture, the building is quite alienating, but I keep returning partially because it doesn't seem like something that should exist - it almost feels like a scene from a Gmod map transplanted straight into my neighbourhood. It doesn't feel like a real place.
These walks put me in strange moods. Sometimes I get the urge to follow in the footsteps of a Holden Ringer or Anton Nootenboom and walk in one direction, with just a backpack or trolley for my belongings, and only stopping to sleep or to rest. It would be so easy for me to walk west, and in a very short span of time, I'd exit my neighbourhood and cross into the suburbs. Eventually I'd leave the Sydney urban sprawl entirely, travel across the spectacular mountains and canyons and eucalypt forests of the Great Dividing Range, and enter the sprawling western plains. These lush farms would give way to cattle ranches, and the ground would slowly turn ruddy under my feet, red earth stretching far into the distance as storms gathered on the horizon. And I would keep walking, right into the charred centre of the continent, past dunes and mesas and large swaths of beautiful jump-up country, and when the towns eventually became too dispersed for me to feasibly travel them I'd divert my route southwards, to more populated areas of the country, until I could walk west again. I'd walk, and walk, and walk, until I wore myself out, until there was no more ground to cover, until I finally reached the sparkling shores of the Indian Ocean.
Often I think about - and romanticise - the lives of premodern merchants travelling the sea routes of the Maritime Silk Road. Unlike its overland counterpart, where merchants usually traded in a singular local area they specialised in and goods travelled the whole length of the Silk Road only by changing hands many times, a merchant travelling the Maritime Silk Road could travel a very long section of the trade route in one go. It connected societies as disparate as Persia, Java and China, and at its most northerly extent the route went all the way to Korea and Japan. Undoubtedly this was an unenviable and dangerous job, and they'd be vulnerable to a whole litany of risks ranging from storms to piracy during these long, lonely months spent at sea. But there is something exceptionally evocative about a life spent moving around constantly; much of your contact with the world would be the ocean, and your fragmented contact with human societies would consist of these brief vignettes of far-flung lands with cultures and traditions completely alien to yours. You'd be placeless, constantly moving, seeing things most people would never get to experience in one lifetime.
Such an experience is increasingly less common nowadays. The convenience of modern travel makes it easier to get around, but in an odd way, it also makes the world smaller and less interesting. Yes, the world has slowly become more homogenised due to how interconnected everything is, but part of it is also inherent to the mode of travel we use now. Travelling from Colombo to Guangzhou no longer requires you to sail into Southeast Asia and navigate around the Straits of Malacca, stopping at port towns all the while to restock and refuel; instead now you have the opportunity to travel straight from point A to point B, missing everything in between and depriving you of many valuable experiences you wouldn't have otherwise sought out yourself. I enjoy having the ability to shortcut between destinations as much as the next person, but I also deeply feel that something has been lost; it's a specific type of experience that many premodern couriers and merchants would have had, but is alien even to many modern travellers. The endless wastes in between your destinations are worth seeing to some extent, even if just to give you a visceral appreciation of how big and empty much of the world actually is, and sometimes there are things of value to be found in them.
I think there's a deep-seated need in me to roam, and as strange as it sounds, taking walks late at night satisfies that specific brand of wanderlust just a little bit. You're taking in a view of your city that isn't necessarily meant to be experienced by people, and you're not doing anything or going anywhere; you're walking just for its own sake. The very fact that there's not that much to do at all recontextualises your environment and makes it the sight in and of itself, and granted you don't always find something truly interesting, but when you do it pops even more because of the context in which you found it.
Perhaps, over the weekend, I'll take the train to the CBD in the early hours of the morning, and just walk around.
Well, my job as a tax accountant continues to depress the shit out of me and I want to complain about it. Still burned out, still exhausted, the works. Can't bring myself to concentrate or focus on anything for a particularly long period of time. Pretty sure I'm making more mistakes and taking longer than I otherwise would.
During the month I had to rescue a client running a failing business who couldn't pay some of their accumulated tax debts and had a history of defaults on their monthly payment plans meant to pay off that debt, last time I called the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) they had previously denied the client another payment plan leaving them effectively stranded with no feasible way to pay off the debt in short order. The tax office contacted us regarding possible legal action during the month and I had to handle the negotiations with the ATO, eventually I got them to establish a new payment plan for the client and even managed to negotiate a fairly low monthly payment instalment.
How do you bargain with the tax office when they hold all the cards? The answer is that you don't have to; you only have to bargain with the tax office representative on the other end of the phone. I called to negotiate a payment plan at 4:00 PM, they picked up at 4:20 PM, and at that point they were very intent on handling my call and not stretching the entire affair beyond close of business. I had some other strategies up my sleeve to deploy if necessary, for example if they pushed back I was gonna say “sorry let me retrieve that for you” every time they asked for info, and then leave them in silence for 5 minutes so I could prolong the call way beyond 5:00 PM. But they agreed to my terms much more willingly than I was expecting.
In my firm we have a monthly wrap-up presentation where we can nominate people who performed well during the month for a token firm award. Guess how many nominations I got for establishing a payment plan for the firm's single most debt-riddled client? Zero. It's not a very serious thing, the "award" offers no material benefits, but it would be nice to have any kind of reminder that my efforts were appreciated every now and then. Welp, just a signal to try even less hard next time.
Right now I've got a trip to Vietnam planned in the second half of April. This is the only thing I'm looking forward to at the moment.
This is more like one person's opinion than a matter of fact
More like an (admittedly exaggerated for effect) statement of general public evaluation, supported by multiple studies of preference linked within the post itself.
the WTC facade, composed of tridents situated above the square aqueduct-like arches of the foyer, was an example of visually pleasing modern architecture. it does not always have to be bad.
I don't like the WTC. That being said I realise it does not always have to be bad, and there's even a piece of modern architecture I actually do like in my own city - the Sydney Opera House. Unfortunately I also understand that most of what people have constructed does not live up to this standard in the slightest, most of it falls far short of even the most pedestrian traditional buildings, and even with the Opera House I find it works better as an isolated structure rather than an overarching aesthetic for most of the city.
Sure, and the reason why AI generation in specific is a unique violation of the social ritual is because of an innate, knee-jerk ick people get with AI that they don't with most anything else. It's not down to some evaluation of output quality or even effort invested. There's a distinct reason why the "moat" has been arbitrarily established here and at no other point.
those elements were just the icing on the cake of its nonsensical plot, illogical characters, bizarre dialogue and its creator's misogynistic, narcissistic worldview
I see this crop up every now and then in discussions about the film, and this evaluation of The Room isn't particularly coherent unless you consider virtually all movies that depict women behaving badly and doing things like "lying to hurt people" as misogynistic. Yes, Lisa is obviously the antagonist and is portrayed in a bad light, having an irredeemable female villain isn't enough to declare a film as advocating hatred of women. Is Gone Girl misogynistic? In addition, many films involve a female protagonist taking revenge on the man/men who victimised her (The Invisible Man, I Spit On Your Grave, etc, to name a few); people seem to have zero problems with those despite these films having far more negative portrayals of men than any kind of "problematic" female portrayal.
It's a terrible film, but its "misogyny" is not one of the reasons why.
South Korea Travelogue
It's always weird trying to talk about a destination you think is both overlooked and absolutely fantastic. Part of you wants to keep the destination to yourself, prevent anyone else from travelling there and crowding the locations, and yet another part wants to scream from the rooftops about how the destination in question is being criminally slept on and how everyone should experience it at least once. This time, the latter impulse wins out, so here goes: I travelled to South Korea with my sister over Christmas break and it has been one of my favourite travel experiences of my life. And I've travelled a lot. It took us by complete surprise what a delight it was to travel there.
Seoul was one of the only major cities I have ever enjoyed travelling to. I don't usually enjoy cities, but Seoul was surprisingly quiet and relaxed and had a whole lot of character I didn't expect. Many neighbourhoods are full of sleepy little cafes and teahouses and restaurants, and they look so enticing you can't help but pop in for a look. And it's well worth it doing that. One time we ducked into a small, unassuming teahouse, and ended up drinking omija tea in a cosy tearoom all to ourselves. Yet another time we did this, we found a traditional foods store where we did a makgeolli tasting (probably one of my favourite alcoholic drinks of all time, to be honest). Places like Ikseon-dong and Bukchon are extremely charming and feature many modern buildings in the traditional Korean hanok style, and I recommend visiting those.
In addition, logistically speaking, Seoul is easy. The train and bus system is very well connected in the city, and it's easy to make your way everywhere you want with minimal effort. Some aspects of getting around can be annoying, such as the fact that many ATMs don't seem to be able to work with foreign cards, so it's not uncommon to go ATM-shopping for a bit before you're finally able to withdraw any amount of money. You often need cash to top up your transport (T-money) cards in Korea; you can top up your balance in convenience stores all around the country, but these only accept cash for top-up. In general, though, Seoul shouldn't pose many problems.
For the history and architecture buff, Seoul is a goldmine. Historical buildings can be found all over the city, particularly in Jongno District, and a lot of them are hardly visited by tourists. On our first day in Seoul we stumbled across Unhyeongung (a Joseon royal residence dating back to the 14th century) on our way to another destination, and were floored at how beautiful and quiet the site was despite its central location in the city. We spent 30 whole minutes just exploring the tranquil grounds of the residence and the little museum connected to it.
Even more intoxicating was Changdeokgung, a proper Joseon palace and the most authentic example of a royal palace in Seoul, having been rebuilt in 1610 after the highly destructive Japanese invasions of Korea that saw every Joseon royal palace destroyed. In spite of the importance of the site, again, there was barely anybody there. We had the whole site almost entirely to ourselves, and we could appreciate the palace courtyards virtually in complete silence. The whole palace is intricately painted in vibrant dancheong colours, and every part of it is breathtaking, but the most decorated and my favourite part of the palace has to be the Injeongjeon, the throne room of Changdeokgung. From top to toe, the throne room is covered in murals and carvings and other beautiful ornamentation. It was seriously stunning, to the point that I'm convinced I could stand and look into the room for hours on end examining every corner.
Also on the Changdeokgung grounds is the Huwon Secret Garden, a garden that was used as a place of leisure for the members of the royal family. It's intimate and naturalistic and filled with beautifully landscaped pagodas and ponds (the area around Buyongji pond, in particular, is exquisite). I highly recommend doing this if you're at Changdeokgung - you have to pay for a tour to get in, but once in you can actually choose between following your tour guide and also exploring on your own. You are also allowed to wander around after your tour ends, which was what we did and what I recommend anyone else also coming here does. The gardens also harbour resident cats, which is, in fact, the result of a single Joseon king (King Sukjong) who was so fanatical about cats that he kept these animals beside him and petted them while conducting state affairs.
Even if you're coming in winter like we did, I highly recommend it - the gardens are still incredibly beautiful, especially if you arrive in early to mid December when there's still some autumn colours on the trees. Also, there are other royal palaces in Seoul we visited during our trip - specifically Gyeongbokgung and Deoksugung, but out of all of them, I recommend Changdeokgung the most. It's extremely quiet for such an important historical site, especially if you travel off-peak, and it's very worth your time.
Our next major non-palace historical site, visited on the second day in Seoul, was Jogyesa Temple, situated conveniently in between the two major palaces of the Joseon Dynasty. We were fairly surprised to find that the decoration and painting on Korean Buddhist temples are even more ornate than that of their palaces (due to their Confucian ideals, Joseon held that the king should set an example for the people and not inappropriately flaunt their wealth). When we arrived, there was a ceremony going on, and inside the temple we could hear loud chanting and banging of drums. The amount of energy coming from this temple was absolutely electrifying, and yet again, tourists were absent - everyone who had visited alongside us seemed to have gone to pray, and they were standing in front of the temple with strings of prayer beads clutched in their hands and their heads bowed.
Near Deoksugung Palace, we visited yet another relatively unknown site: Hwangudan Altar, a sacrificial altar for the Joseon Dynasty, built by King Gojong in 1897 upon his ascendancy to the throne and his establishment of the Empire of Korea. He performed the Rite of Heaven at this site, the first time a Korean monarch had done so in centuries. During Japanese colonial rule, much of the site was demolished, but the Hwanggungu - the octagonal three-story pagoda which stood on the site - still stands, surrounded by high-rises. You can even still see the drums for sacrificial rites there beside the pagoda. I highly recommend pairing this with a visit to Deoksugung Palace, it's extremely surreal to see this piece of historical architecture surrounded by modern buildings, with nobody around - many of Seoul's residents themselves don't even seem to know it's there.
On our second and final night in Seoul, we saw a lantern festival at Cheonggyecheon, the 10-km long rehabilitated stream that runs through the city. A whole parade of lanterns, made out of traditional lantern paper and placed in the water, lit up the whole stream in red and yellow. These lanterns were modern ones, designed and placed so as to recreate a Joseon royal procession, and despite the fact that the festival was busy it was still a very good experience.
Next day we went to Seogwipo, on the south of Jeju Island. While the town itself is significantly less well-kept than Seoul, it's still a lovely place to visit in winter - the whole island is filled with blooming camellias this time of year, and you can see rows of these flame-red trees lining the streets and alleyways of the island. Tangerines seem to grow everywhere, on roadsides and in farms and every nook and cranny you can imagine. And these tangerines are the best tangerines you'll ever taste in your life. Some varieties are sweet and mild, others are tangy and strong, every single one is delicious.
While Jeju is a great destination to travel to - don't get me wrong, it is beautiful - do note that some of the big tourist sites are a bit commercialised and it's a bit difficult if you don't have a car (we can't drive, so this option was closed to us). Buses on Jeju are somewhat few and far between especially in rural areas, and you can find yourself having to wait a bit especially if you want to travel to particularly remote parts of the island. If you're doing Jeju, I'd imagine the best way is to rent a car and drive yourself to every destination or perhaps get a taxi app like KakaoT so you can go directly to all the sites, instead of having to wait 40 minutes for bus 220 to arrive so you can begin to travel to your destination.
The coastline is spectacular at many points, and since the entire island is one big shield volcano extending down to the ocean floor, black sand beaches and rugged volcanic cliffs can be found encircling the island. Some notable places we visited include Jusangjeolli, a columnar basalt formation plunging straight into the ocean, Oedolgae, a volcanic basalt pillar standing tall near the coast, and Seongsan Ilchulbong, a heavily eroded tuff cone which is a popular place to see the sun rise on Jeju. Oedolgae and Seongsan are particularly scenic and I highly recommend them, especially in winter when Seongsan Ilchulbong is relatively uncrowded.
One of the most memorable experiences I had in Jeju was walking up to a small snowy hermitage (Jonjaam) on the upper slopes of Mount Hallasan. We walked along a forested path for about a kilometre or so, and ended up stumbling upon a colourful gate covered in fluffy white powdered snow. A few hundred metres up from there, a whole series of small shrine halls emerged from the icy forest, painted in traditional Korean dancheong colours and almost entirely smothered in snow. A traditional and ancient Buddhist stupa, made out of Jeju volcanic rock, lay at the very back of the temple grounds. We removed our shoes and escaped the cold by darting into the main temple hall, and inside was a colourful little chamber, with a number of people inside praying to a figure of Buddha.
Later that day we took a bus to Samseonghyeol, a shrine dedicated to a folk myth about the founding of the Tamna Kingdom. Tamna was a sovereign state that existed on the island of Jeju from ancient times up to its absorption by the Joseon Dynasty in 1404, though for much of its history it was a tributary state to many other larger Korean kingdoms. There's no record of how it was founded, but the folktale holds that it was created by three divine founders that emerged from the ground in the 24th century BC, and the holes they supposedly arose from are still preserved in Samseonghyeol. The site is pretty diminutive in and of itself, but it's guarded by dol hareubang statues and situated in a small, enchanting forest, and an array of Joseon-era shrine halls surround the site. Memorial services are still held here, commemorating the founding of the island. I can attest that walking here at dusk felt like being in a scene from Pan's Labyrinth. It was pretty magical. If you're already in Jeju city, I recommend seeing this.
Seogwipo is surrounded by waterfalls, the most famous being Jeongbang and Cheonjiyeon. Jeongbang is part of the Yeongjusipgeong, the ten scenic wonders of Jeju Island. It empties straight into the ocean, with a storied history and many legends relating to it. Probably the darkest bit of history relating to the site is that it was a place where civilians were executed during the 1948 Jeju uprising, with their bodies disposed of over the waterfall. Jeongbang, however, is fairly crowded at times, and of the two, I much prefer Cheonjiyeon, which was much quieter and surrounded by a lush subtropical forest and a small stream filled with huge ducks. While walking to the site, you can also see a little cave which Paleolithic humans on Jeju used as a settlement. Much more interesting and pleasant, in my opinion.
In Seogwipo proper, we found that the Seogwipo Maeil Olle Market was one of the most interesting places to explore. It's a charming local market in the centre of the city, and the middle of the street is lined with little benches set beside a stream so you can eat whatever you buy in situ. You can find a lot of fresh tangerines and persimmons from there, as well as a lot of famous market stores selling various food items like bakery items and fresh mandu dumplings. Jesong Bakery sells a heavenly black pork bun - I could eat that for days on end, it's highly recommended. There is also a five-day market in Seogwipo (and Jeju) which opens once every five days, based on a traditional Joseon-era model, but unfortunately the one in Seogwipo wasn't open when we visited. But it's very nice to see that in spite of how modernised South Korea is, these Joseon traditions still continue up into the modern day.
The final region we visited in Korea - and my absolute favourite - was Gyeongju. This city used to be the capital of the Silla Dynasty, an ancient Korean state whose history extends back into 57 BC and who once ruled the entire Korean peninsula until its breakup in the late 8th century and its surrender to Goryeo in 935. If in Seoul there was the very distinct possibility of stumbling upon historical sites, in Gyeongju you literally can't miss it even if you try. The city is filled to the brim with the tombs of ancient Silla kings and their shrines, and you can see these gigantic tumuli and beautiful painted shrine halls juxtaposed against streets filled with modern cafes built in the traditional hanok style. There's also a large amount of archeological sites in the eastern historic district of the town, and you can wander through the site on your own seeing the moats and gardens of ancient palaces (now reconstructed), the ruins of pagodas from ancient temples, and even the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia. Hell, even Gyeongju's KTX train station has a stone chamber tomb on the site. I am not joking.
One of the most interesting places in the entire region lies just outside of Gyeongju, called the Five Royal Tombs. The Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms) states that these are the tombs of the original founders of the Silla Kingdom, specifically the first Silla king Park Hyeokgeose and his queen consort Aryeong, its second king Namhae, its third king Yuri, and its fifth king Pasa. That history is now impossible to substantiate and it may be that the site was built later during the 6th century to honour and commemorate the old kings of Silla, but exploring this place was a great experience - the tombs on the site are surrounded by a peaceful little forest, and the shrines and steles on the site are beautiful. There's even a small, intimate bamboo forest near the shrines which we walked through, it's an experience that's very quiet and tranquil. We strolled in the site for a while, taking in the atmosphere, and we were rewarded with a sighting of a deer. The ever-so-popular Arashiyama forest doesn't have anything on this.
Gyeongju is also filled with spectacular Buddhist temples, the most important ones being Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Hermitage. Bulguksa is historically significant as the site where the oldest extant woodblock print in the world was found - this discovery was only made in 1966, when the Pure Light Dharani Sutra was found during repairs of Seokgatap Pagoda. Historical significance aside, though, this is just a great temple to visit. Even the temple grounds themselves, absent the temple, are gorgeous. Before we even caught a glimpse of the temple proper we had already passed through gates painted with elaborate dancheong, and saw a small but impressive Korean temple garden out front, complete with landscaped ponds and a small bridge. But it's the front facade of the temple that's most impressive - it's large and imposing and adorned with an array of stairs and balconies. A variety of colourful lanterns were hung up inside the corridors of the temples and out in front of the shrine halls, and when the sun shone through them they cast ever-changing patterns of colours on the ground. Entering the shrine halls revealed many Buddhist statues and murals on the inside, about as intricate as the throne room of Changdeokgung. Again, you could admire this place for hours.
Further up the mountain that Bulguksa is on (Mount Tohamsan) there's the nearby Seokguram Hermitage. The path to the hermitage is lined with more lanterns, and there's a small bell tower which you can pay a fee to ring (we did). The hermitage on the outside is small and unassuming, but it's actually just the entryway into an expansive 8th century grotto which contains a large statue of Seokgamoni-bul (The Historical Buddha) calling the Earth to witness, surrounded by detailed reliefs of devas, bodhisattvas and disciples. We couldn't actually enter the grotto, due to concerns about preservation visitors can only view it through a glass pane, but it in no way takes away from the beauty of the site - we were still able to get close and see just how impressive the Buddha inside is.
One of my most favourite unknown and completely untouristed places around Gyeongju is Mount Namsan, a sacred site for the Silla Dynasty which contains many ancient carvings, sculptures and statues many of which are so old that they predate Charlemagne. We visited the west side of Namsan first, taking a route up the mountain that started from Sambulsa Temple and descended via the Samneung valley. There's a large number of Buddhist sculptures and carvings on this route through the mountains, such as the Stone Standing Buddha Triad in Bae-dong, the Stone Seated Buddha in Samneunggye Valley, the Two Line-Carved Buddha Triads, a headless statue of Mireuk-bul (Future Buddha) and a relief of Gwanseeum-bosal (Bodhisattva of Compassion). There's even a bunch of royal tombs at the base of the mountain and a charming little working hermitage, Sangseonam, up in the peaks. Visiting the west side of Namsan is an embarassment of riches.
The east side of Namsan contains some of the most spectacular single sculptures on the mountain. We first visited the Stone Seated Buddha of Mireuk-gol Valley, which is a single Buddha statue dating to the Later Silla period, backed by a nimbus adorned with heavenly carvings of flowers and vines. It's an impressively detailed sculpture, surrounded by a small temple and the forests of Mount Namsan. Next up were the Rock-Carved Buddhas in Tapgok Valley, a stunning 9-metre tall rock covered from top to toe with carvings of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, heavenly deities and pagodas on every side - the south face in particular was particularly impressive, with a standing sculpture of a Buddha carved straight out from the rock and a triad of reliefs to its right. The last sculpture we visited on the east side of Namsan was the Rock-Carved Seated Buddha in Bulgok Valley, a humble Buddha sculpture inset into a rock with a small candle placed in front of it. I have to say it felt extremely surreal and dreamlike to see these ancient carvings and statues in situ - empires have risen and fallen since then, and yet these statues are still there sitting quietly in the forests and valleys.
On our final day in Gyeongju, we visited Yangdong Folk Village, a Joseon folk village from the 15th century filled with picturesque hanoks and village shrines. It's fairly isolated - you have to take a long bus ride from Gyeongju that passes through farms and mountain ranges - but that also means it's been able to maintain a good amount of cultural preservation. The town is populated by the descendants of its original founders, and the hanok houses of the village date back to early Joseon; they've adopted some modern technology but they still maintain the traditional clan structure and still practice the rituals and folk customs of the yangban, the traditional Joseon upper class. There was, again, hardly anybody there when we visited, and most of the people we saw in the village were not tourists, but villagers, working the farms, hanging up their laundry, and so on. It was serene and extremely quiet, and the village was most definitely not a manicured tourist site; there was limited tourist infrastructure, and it had a distinctly lived-in and slightly messy feel to it that made walking around feel all the more voyeuristic. The fact that we were strolling into people's courtyards and houses was made all the more apparent because of this, and despite the beauty of the architecture it barely even felt like a destination - it felt like a place where people just lived day-to-day. Despite the fact that Korea is often seen as a hyper-modern society, this is a fairly recent development; even now there's a weird, intangible feeling that old Korea still lurks behind every corner, and nowhere was the feeling stronger than it was in this living echo of the Joseon Dynasty, nestled deep in the mountains.
People stated on travel forums that two days was plenty for Gyeongju and that there was really not that much to do, but I'd wager they were unaware of how much there was to see in and around the town (to be fair, none of it is well-marketed to international tourists, you have to do some serious sleuthing to find them). For our part, we spent four nights and three days in Gyeongju and felt it was not enough - we sought out sights from 9am to 9pm every single day, and still we missed so much. We didn't have time to visit many sites, such as the grotto of Sinseonsa Temple, Chilburam Hermitage and its Buddhist carvings, Oksanseowon Confucian Academy, Golgulsa Temple's cave shrines and bas-reliefs, Girimsa Temple and its beautiful Vairocana Buddha triad as well as its statue of Avalokitesvara, the underwater tomb of King Munmu, and so on. Even if we'd spent a whole week there, we would not have seen everything - there are literally over a hundred ancient historical sites in the mountains around Gyeongju, and if you enjoy history and archaeology more than doing Cool And Buzzy Tourist Things, they're worth visiting.
These are not all the places we visited in Korea, but adding them all would take too long, so I'll start wrapping things up here. A few final notes on Korea: Aside from the very strong Miyazaki vibes much of the sights in the country have, there's a lot more to note that I haven't had the opportunity to expound on too much. Firstly - this is just a piece of advice - if you ever want to go to Korea get Naver Maps and the Kakao taxi app. Google Maps alone is insufficient for getting around SK, and can't give you very accurate directions or bus/train times. Secondly, the food is fantastic - do try the black pork barbecue, braised cutlassfish and Udo peanut makgeolli in Jeju, as well as the ark shell bibimbap and hwangnam-ppang in Gyeongju. Finally, Korean people in general are ridiculously nice. We've had more random acts of kindness towards us in this holiday than in any other combined, and the people there are sometimes comically direct but they will go out of their way to help you. The second we touched down in Incheon airport and had trouble finding the airport bus, some random Korean guy saw us struggling and helped us find it. Bus drivers have gone out of their way to help us find the right bus routes for our destinations. Just really fantastic.
Lots of people on travel forums who have travelled to both countries seem to think Korea is a worse Japan, but my sister has visited Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka before and preferred her experience in Korea by miles - found it far more tranquil, untouristed and comfortable than Japan. But that's the end of my rambling about Korea - I think it's worth every traveller's time, and it's no skin off my nose if people don't go since it means I have it all to myself for the foreseeable future, but damn it's a great destination.
So, let me see if I'm understanding this situation right:
Per a 2021 article by Axios, Harris was "appointed by Biden as border czar." Their wording: "Why it matters: The number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border has reached crisis levels. Harris, appointed by Biden as border czar, said she would be looking at the "root causes" that drive migration." Yet another 2021 article by Axios says this very same thing, saying that Harris was "put in charge of the border crisis" and calling her border czar.
So Axios in 2021 (and many other such media outlets) call Harris "border czar" when they think it might make Harris look good and bolster her importance. Axios then conveniently disavows this label and issues a correction to their own article only three years later, in 2024, once it's discovered that the situation at the southern border might not reflect well on Harris now that she is running against Trump. Note both the second article calling Harris border czar and the one saying she was never border czar were written by the very same journalist. One moment it's Huzzah, Harris is border czar and the next it's You guys, Harris was never border czar, the Republicans just made that up, and we have always been at war with Eastasia. Democrats have already produced internal memos telling their people how to fall in line on this issue.
My understanding of this whole situation is that this is one of the things that are technically true, but that these pedantic fact-checks are obviously partisan and misleading (and designed to lead you to a different conclusion than it actually warrants). Yes, the term "border czar" doesn't exist, and so technically Harris cannot have been border czar. But "czar" is an unofficial term that is generically used to describe people in positions of power like this, going back to the Bush era. Clearly the media thought it was an appropriate term in 2021, but not in 2024, and the fact that they're now going back and "recontextualising" their previous articles based on whether or not it's politically convenient is an extremely bad look.
It is correct that her role was not to literally manage everything regarding border policy, and she was not directly in charge of the border. She did, however, have a responsibility to try and stem the core cause of the border crisis, engage in diplomacy to do so, and to work with these countries to enforce borders, something that she also admits to in this tweet. If she really did what she was tasked to do, she should be able to confidently reply that she offered solutions to these problems that weren't taken up, not to claim that she holds zero responsibility on one of the few issues she was asked to assist with. As Biden himself states:
"In addition to that, there’s about five other major things she’s handling, but I’ve asked her, the VP, today — because she’s the most qualified person to do it — to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border."
"[T]he Vice President has agreed — among the multiple other things that I have her leading — and I appreciate it — agreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept re- — the returnees, and enhance migration enforcement at their borders — at their borders."
This entire thing just seems like one of these comically exaggerated Ministry-of-Truth-esque things that happen often in election cycles, the last one being the total 180 on Biden, where before the debate they were proclaiming that Biden was in the best shape ever and that all the alt-media outlets talking about his mental decline were just conspiracy theorists, then right after that shitshow of a debate that they couldn't BandAid over, all of a sudden the calls to resign started up and it turned out his party had been silent about his decline for years despite knowing about it.
I dunno, I actually have a very high regard for Koreans and their mindset. This is just an anecdote but I did visit South Korea a while back and left with a very positive opinion of the people there - in fact they're the loveliest people I've ever met in any country, the hospitality they showed us travellers was just overwhelming. So many of the locals there actually went out of their way to help us and make our experience better, I wasn't expecting it at all. They weren't too hung up on social propriety like the Japanese sometimes are and they didn't help in a way where they were just politely showing service to foreigners, they did so as if they actually wanted to make sure we were safe and comfortable. It may well be my fondest travel experience, and part of the reason why is that it just felt so genuinely welcoming.
Regarding the Japanese and their "belief in Japan", I'm not exactly sure this is a positive - I get the sense they do so by ignoring all the warts and all in their own country out of a sense of nationalism, somewhat similar to how Chinese nationalists do so. This is exemplified in their treatment of WW2, where much of the country prefers to ignore it in stark contrast to other Axis powers like Germany. Koreans seem to be more self-critical and this is reflected in their media, but I think in some ways this is a good thing.
I would also add the Joseon Dynasty to that list, seeing that it lasted for 505 years (1392 to 1897) and was probably the most technocratic, bureaucratic state in East Asia with a lot of checks on royal power. Kings were expected to answer to the public whenever a disaster occurred, issuing formal requests for critique, and early on in Joseon history an oral petition system for grievances was established - a drum was placed in front of the royal palace to be struck if someone had a complaint, and this allowed ordinary illiterate citizens to personally appeal to the king once other forms of redress had failed. The lowest class (nobi) were allowed maternity and paternity leave, and there was even a society for the disabled, the myeongtongsi. There was a system of three offices specifically meant to police the kings and the officials for corruption and inefficiency, and often they gained more power than the monarchy itself. A lot of technology and advancement was invented during Joseon as well, the most famous of those being Hangul, but "[i]n the first half of the 15th century, around 62 major accomplishments were made in various scientific fields. Of these, 29 came from Korea alone compared to 5 from China and 28 from the rest of the world". It certainly fits the definition of a Korean golden age.
With regards to China, you're missing out on the obvious Zhou Dynasty, which lasted for a mind-boggling 790 years (1046 BC to 256 BC) with an impressive level of imperial continuity. Though this depends on how you define "golden age" since the Zhou kings had lost much power by the Warring States period.
EDIT: added more
Well, I've lived in both equatorial Malaysia and subtropical/temperate Australia. Despite growing up around the equator I could never stand the heat and mugginess; my preference is 15-18C, clear skies with some clouds, light breeze. The shoulder seasons in Australia are actually ideal for this.
Personally, I enjoy climates where it doesn't rain often either. Rain is annoying, it stops up infrastructure and makes everything slushy. Petrichor smells like shit too.
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