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ratboygenius

i came here to be alone

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joined 2023 January 22 04:21:20 UTC

Use your mind! Create new memories! Interact! Don't just add it to a library of forgotten photographs! - Megatron


				
User ID: 2120


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
ratboygenius


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
i came here to be alone

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2023 January 22 04:21:20 UTC
				


				
					

					
Use your mind! Create new memories! Interact! Don't just add it to a library of forgotten photographs! - Megatron



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 2120


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Friday Fun Thread for January 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Frankly his best option in that exact moment on the stand would've been to concede the point and say something along the lines of "sure, I can see now how you can relate this to yourself", and deliver it with that characteristic Aussie dryness. It would've scored him some points with those in his inner circle and would've served as a less obviously thin response. It may have led to further examination along that dimension but unless Australian law deviates further from English common-law than my impression of it, it shouldn't be something the prosecutor can really dive deep on.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I read for the first time in 2022 the Three Body problem trilogy as well as the fanfiction Redemption of Time, the Inhibitors trilogy, the Hyperion Cantos, and the first two Ian Banks' Culture novels. I've also been very slowly working through my omnibus of the Princes of Amber series (serial?), which is enjoyable but a bit too pulpy for my taste.


Me and my close circle of friends also started a book club to help motivate us to cover works of literature and quality fiction that our schooling or upbringing had never shown us, so we read King Lear, and Child of God by the inimitable Cormac McCarthy amongst others. I was the one to tap out ultimately however, Frankenstein broke me. I cannot possibly envision a realistic future where I can power past the first 50 pages or so, it's some of the most eye-strainingly tedious writing I've ever slogged through, and I read most of Galt's screed in Atlas Shrugged. Maybe I just got filtered.


ETA: I also did a substantial bit of rereading but that was mostly retreading things I've read many times before, primarily Blindsight twice last year, once in January and again in September. I also read Worm for the 10th time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Easily some of the best scifi I've ever read, and if you're referring to the trilogy as a whole then the third books journey through the fourth dimension was some of the most surreal, in a good way, writing I have ever read. I agree wrt to Blindsight, after reading it the first time I felt the same way I felt after reading (the og) meditations on moloch, like a paradigm shift.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[META] Something Shiny and Two Things Boring
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've just signed up after lurking for a good while, please forgive me if I'm a little out of the loop and this has already been addressed or explained. Is there a reason why I'm automatically upvoting my own comments? It seems like kind of an odd feature for the community (if anything I would think you should, by default, upvote the comment or top level post you're responding to) plus I feel a little self conscious looking at the little highlight showing the implied numerical value of how proud I am of myself(1). I'd be very curious to see if anyone else has/had any feelings whatsoever about it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[META] Something Shiny and Two Things Boring
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thank you, and greyenlightenment too! I have never and would never make an account on reddit and probably not hn either, so I guess this is one of those little shibboleths that you wouldn't even think about if you were familiar with those kinds of message boards. It still seems odd to me like laughing at your own joke before anyone else does, but if that's the industry standard I'm not complaining. Learn something new every day.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[META] Something Shiny and Two Things Boring
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As valuable as it would be for the simulation narrative if I were the original article, no, I am not Ryan. Just a long time fan of his work, before he became a staple on /f/


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[META] Something Shiny and Two Things Boring
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I stumbled across Scott with Meditations on Moloch back in 2014, slithered down the rabbit hole, lurked the CW thread in its different iterations ever since, following this particular group of people (as opposed to the various branches and offshoots ie. schism, CWR). I've never been on board with Rationality™, but I found Scott's writing sometimes excellent and often thought provoking and I enjoyed reading the kinds of discussions that happen here. As I mentioned above but could've made more clear, I wouldn't want to participate in discussions like these on any type of social media that obviously and consistently works an behalf of the assorted intelligence agencies. Not making an account here immediately after the off-site move was a function of my personal laziness and also not really wanting to participate. I happen to have a large amount of free time at the moment however, and have been meaning to practice my ability to write well.


I don't know that I could be considered the modal new user for the site.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Call for Submissions: TheMotte Intuition Effortpost Competition
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can the winner nominate the Motte as their charity of choice? A common cause of death I've seen with small communities like these has been money, whether it's in short supply leading to increasingly frequent outages, or the owner/operator has to start funneling their own cash into the site leading either to a growing sense of disgust/aversion to this project they've been saddled with, or worse they get an inflated sense of importance and grow more tyrannical with each check cut to the host. Not that I believe that's a likely outcome for this place, I think Zorba's hands are about as good as it gets in this particular field.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Call for Submissions: TheMotte Intuition Effortpost Competition
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nice.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Every devout Christian is going to say they love Christianity; they just hate those heathen apostate Baptists or papists or Eastern Orthodox. Most nations have an ethnically rooted "state" religion, even it isn't one officially, so for most places I would imagine you'd find that approval of Christianity would mirror closely the approval of whichever sect prevails in that locale. Few places have the diversity of cohabiting beliefs that the USA has, and Mormons in particular are pretty universally reviled or at least discounted by most major Christian religious institutions, since they have fundamental dogmatic disagreements that most other Christians consider fundamental tenets to true belief. Additionally LDS and its offshoots as well as JW have, in my experience, the most vituperative exbelievers of any (US at least) semi-mainstream religions. Whether that's for good cause or not is left as an exercise to the reader.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Endlessly fascinating to me how hard the internet has accelerated the life cycle for nostalgia, I've noticed myself pining for the good ol' days of the internet with newgrounds, YTMND, SA, 4chan or even what YouTube used to be. These things disappeared or underwent fundamental changes to them not so long ago (a similar timeframe to paying off a car loan or meeting, courting and marrying a stranger) and yet everybody who remembers the internet before Facebook (at least those I've spoken with) all seem to share a similar sentiment. My favorite quote that encapsulates this was from a post from 2014 on one of 4chan's now-defunct text boards saying "2012 was so long ago, was i even alive back then. who knows."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My feelings towards Russia carry a number of ambiguities, but I will say I feel a definite sense of approval toward its existence as the global cultural counterweight to America, even after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Describing it as Samizdat in the form of a modern cultural "black market" (at least for westerners) is an interesting framing and lines up nicely with a lot of my more nebulous ideas of where the global powers sit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Most Americans haven't read Hemingway, many haven't read Kipling, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find in most environments someone who would be able to tell you the title of more than one of Conrad's books (I only know two off the top of my head but the second is due to my naughty sense of humor, not because I'm well read). Your degree of familiarity with these subjects is likely unusual even if you want to roll in the highly educated. Most modern westerners (Americans specifically, speaking anecdotally and with a fuzzy understanding of the numerous studies done on literacy here) simply don't read and when they do they pick YA lit or the latest in ex-SOG power fantasies. I genuinely believe you might be typical-minding the motives of your outgroup. Even if I'm completely wrong about that I would remind you of the admonition of TLP, "If you're watching it, it's for you" as well as Scott's addendum "It's bad on purpose to make you click".


Engagement with minor egregor-level organizations or corporations makes you legible to them and opens you up as a source of sustenance to these entities. Don't feed the (metaphysical) trolls, they live on the psychic plane and should be forced to come out and visit you in the waking nightmare of life if they want to eat your joy for breakfast.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Further viewing for anyone who cares about the phenomenal acceleration of nostalgia as much as I do. ALERT! YouTube link! (also contains what can be considered a very annoying pop song)


Go ahead and read the comments below; from what I can tell these are actual children, or at the very least young adults, waxing poetic on the halcyon days of their youth. This, to me, is just incredible. Literally! Imagine if you had told just about anyone across history that the unblooded youth of society would reminisce over their shared childhood, before they had even stepped into adult society proper. Maybe my priors on this are skewed by my neophyte-tier Cynicism and a knee-jerk tribal desire for RETVRN, but I can't help but wonder if this is something very, very new.


A fascinating topic to me, and one I don't have the requisite familiarity or ability to trawl through academic literature on this subject, or even know if there's been anything published that would cover this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Prioritizing for cultural impact/relevance would have my list looking something like this:


    

  1. 

    The Dirty Dozen
    

    2. 

  2. 

    The Matrix
    

    3. 

  3. 

    Full Metal Jacket
    

    4. 

  4. 

    Apollo 13
    

    5. 

  5. 

    Terminator 2: Judgement Day
    

    6. 

  6. 

    Who Framed Roger Rabbit
    

    7. 

  7. 

    Mary Poppins
    

    8. 

  8. 

    The Great Race
    

    9. 

  9. 

    Good Will Hunting
    

    10. 

  10. 

    Any of Steven Seagal's earliest works, Above the Law or maybe Marked for Death (this can also be swapped for Death Wish)
    

    11. 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's certainly a market for nostalgia, I won't deny that - I will say you've perhaps glanced at the decade and not the precise date. Happy Days is for sure a bit of a prick to my balloon, but That 70's Show aired originally in 98, nearly thirty years after the 70's began. Even drawing the time frame in as close as possible, you're comparing a show ostensibly set 18 years and some change before its air date, to a condensed nostalgia trip featuring a song that came out 12 years ago (peaked in popularity around 7-10 years ago) paired with clips from kids shows that aired up until three years ago. My more pressing point is about the audience's self declared ages (found in the comment section, a hoary place where few tread). There are easily dozens of remarks from individuals providing identifying information on their ages. A highly updooted comment explicitly states that nostalgia for this song, these clips means you experienced the best Gen Z had to offer.


While television programs and Online Content™ are admittedly apples and oranges, it's more the turnaround that has me impressed. Your last point is well taken too, part of my fascination with this video (not necessarily this one though I love it for its QED power, a cursory search for similarly themed videos will turn up comparable results, courtesy of the wackily overtuned algo) is the response it evoked in me. It almost grabbed me for a moment before my brain caught up with my reaction, started placing each reference next to the metaphorical calendar and immediately noticed that things weren't adding up.


Anything that tries to catch me on that sort of level without my permission is met with automatic suspicion so I'm not certain this isn't me reading signals from the noise, or if maybe this means they grew up on recycled content from the previous generation. Either way it seems off to me, to canonize your own past before you've even found yourself properly settled in the present.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Vengeance (2022)
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This was one of those movies that I gave a good deal of side eye to when I saw the trailer, but I might have to give it a shot after your review. The way you've described it made it sound like a mishmash of Barbarians characters and Under the Silver Lake's style, which sounds pleasant enough. It's been choppy waters for film the past few years, anything fresh that I can give a shot is welcome.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks, I hate it.


More seriously though, what is this meant to convey? That asparagus is high class? This might be wildly pedantic but IME that's very much not the case - I live in a rural area with a lot of ditches not near cropland or irrigation systems. As a result there's a rather vibrant scene every summer for about two weeks where wild asparagus is freely available to anyone who feels like pulling over to the side of the road and walking down into the tall grass to snap off a pound or two (or twenty) of the stuff. It has a very similar vibe to people who go mushroom hunting after a good rain, something that could be considered "outdoorsy" or "being in tune with nature". In practice I've found that it's more people who are already farming/gardening/hunting/fishing, drive their F-150 three blocks to the town gas station for their Marb lights, started working when they were sixteen and held down a job somewhere doing something ever since.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hey, fair enough. To me that recipe just looks like a tweaked carrot cake with ferns instead of root vegetables, sounds kind of gross but I might give it a shot.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Seeing Ilforte call Yud a "bloviating chuunibyo" was the precise moment I fell in love with themotte over SSC.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				It's So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I love Freddie, in the same way that I love my more mindkilled friends. He's clearly a sweet, genuine dude with a desire to improve both himself and what he feels is his community. Like those who I know personally that have loyally turned themselves in as tinder for the Culture War, his grip has slipped on timing, scale and scope. The internet or technological advancement didn't (and can't) change things in this manner, these things at their most fundamental are force multipliers. This was a purely social shift.


The timing is off too, which begs the question: is there a more appropriate explanation for the change in values and cultural temperature in America, around the turn of the century? We were coming off the post-Cold War cultural windfall, rejoicing in our new lease on life. No more forever wars in places we'd never heard of, no more paranoia towards our actors and neighbors, no more looming threat of nuclear Armageddon. What was this significant event, that pushed us one direction over the others? Some readers may have already clocked what I'm talking about. 9/11 broke the collective mind of America.


We were like a smug toddler yanking the cat's tail, utterly convinced of our moral superiority and basic goodness. We're the city on the hill! Don't you understand we're the most tolerant? Human rights and freedom are our guiding principles! That's why we've been attacked! Are you suggesting something? (I am ignoring the obvious lies that were peddled around the events leading up to and during the hijacking, I don't believe any particular conspiracy is more likely than the official narrative but I don't think they're any more likely to be false, and have the benefit of being formed in the absence of the truth meaning at least it isn't dissembling)


What started as the unremarked-upon regime feng shui in the Middle East began to be taken personally by the unwashed goat herders, and sure enough they organized the bloodiest attack on American soil in living memory (all of this being enabled by actors and assets that we had armed, trained and put into place a few years earlier). We were scratched, like the people whose job it is to anticipate these things could've (read: good chance they had, in this particular case) predicted. No need to check we had our story straight, as a people America threw a fit (not to say that the slaughter of innocents regardless of allegiance should be given a placid response) and the hysteria never relented. We just got used to it.


This, along with the panoply of other factors that weigh in on large-scale features like culture, has unmoored the preeminent world power from reailty. Now we act confused as NGOs, LLCs, nonprofits, legal structures and the more numinous elements of sociological terraforming begin crossing finish lines with speed, rather than finesse.


In my opinion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
fat black woman
and
horse-faced lesbian activist
and
noodle-armed kid with low testosterone


are all both unnecessarily antagonistic and call-outy, superfluous to what I believe to be your intended point. Even if you feel that this might be a shot at your own ingroup, there's always https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/, entirely about how your ingroup might not be what you think it is. If I felt strongly that I fell into one of those three examples I, personally, would be seething at your post and wouldn't engage with anything you had written.


That said, I'm very curious as to what you meant when you wrote


the poison pill at the heart of the project
 I can't find the original article from a cursory google search, but I'm reminded of Fred Reed's (I believe it was him) screed on Liberalism as a movement sowing the seeds of its own destruction, as high-asabiyyah "un-Enlightened" cultures integrate into egalitarian ones. Is this what you meant?

				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				[META] Something Shiny and Two Things Boring
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
https://www.themotte.org/post/383/wellness-wednesday-for-february-22-2023/68713?context=8#context


First of all, I hope this poster has read https://www.themotte.org/post/195/what-to-do-when-you-get


Second of all, I'd like to express my disappointment in nearly every response I've seen them receive. The fact that their question, which appears to have been made in total good faith, is still getting dogpiled and drive by downvotes is vicariously embarrassing. This isn't a culture war issue. It's a person in the life advice thread asking for life advice on interpersonal relationships as it pertains to their trans friends concerns over a tendentious CW item. prof xi o isn't even stating a position, only that they have trans friends and like Harry Potter (apparently this justifies an accusation of trolling, to the tune of a 45 [edit: 30, my back of the skull hangover sums aren't great] updoot difference. An uncharitable read might see some of the responses from prof xi o as sealioning. Cool. Take your uncharitable reading and keep it under wraps). If I was feeling extreme, I might posit being told you shouldn't be friends with my outgroup is not a valuable remark.


If I want to dunk on wingcucks I can go to arr drama. If I want to dunk on globohomo I can go to /pol/. If I want to dunk on chuds I'll join Hasan's discord. If I want to dunk on MAGAts I'll head over to /r/news. If I want to dunk on libtards I'll join the Mug Club. This is it, as far as I know, for frank and civil discussion between people, whose only commonality on themotte are their shared, seemingly intractable differences. This is unbelievably important to me, because there exists a reality where I am wrong. There is a chance that you too are wrong. Having a place where I can be presented with the absolute best argument against my pet philosophy (and those of others) is valuable, and it's valuable because it can if nothing else, diminish the evil I do as I navigate a confusing and confused world.


Overt forum-wide bias of any particular flavor or stripe, in my opinion, is the most pressing threat to the long term health of this site. Please don't fuck it up for everyone.


P.S. I will be appropriately embarrassed if the OP turns out to be another d*rwin, until that point try leaving the internet at the door and treating everyone as if they are, in fact, sincere.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				It's So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I remember the 90's fondly, but I can understand finding the aggressive Dutch angles, howling FM radio bumpers peppered in across media and the practice of over cranked footage from a camera zooming into a person's face to be an off-putting aesthetic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't use any type of warez to cover myself (besides a VPN where good hygiene is advisable), due in part to sloth and also a lack of wherewithal. My justification for this is probably cope, but my layman's view is that, these days, unless you have a pretty comprehensive suite of software and are unrelentingly fastidious with your choice of hardware/setup, any government entity or motivated individual/group who wants to find you will.


As a result I try to keep myself clean with burner emails, use a new handle for every new platform (and password, which should go without saying. That said I know an embarrassing number of people who use the same pass for everything, up to and including using their ATM card's PIN for their phone) I find myself on and semi regularly (1-3 years) change up the primary screen names and PFPs I use. My last trick and the one I use the least because it discomfits me some is lying consistently about minor identifying details. The consistency of it is important as the purpose is to generate a false positive that'll show up in the kinds of datasets you were demonstrating in your previous post.


Gwern's incredible analysis on Death Note was the primary inspiration for these practices, not that I'm familiar with opsec/digital fingerprints or anywhere near important enough for someone to look for me. The idea is to just throw enough obstacles in the way that, contingent upon an amateur getting ants in the pants over my presence online, I have time to scrub what I can from the 'net (not much, in practice more than you think, so long as you aren't notorious or prolific, as you said). Then I can move my daily business over to a set of cutouts made a while back that I keep the credentials for in my safe.


I'm not anonymized from serious players but I can't play at that level anyway, so fuck it. If things get that far I'll have bigger fish to fry than that time my teenaged self wrote the n-word on a BBS for a kids show fifteen years ago. Would love it for someone with actual expertise in this field to chime in, maybe let me know how if my prophylactics are stupid or not.