fartVader
1yr ago
In a different sense. Climbing is exactly that. Instead of adding workout to games, they gamified workouts.
It took the boring act of excersizing and gamified it. Each boulder is like a platformer level where you have to execute a set of moves and exersize becomes an accesory to allow you to execute the coolest moves.
No wonder tech nerds love climbing. It is computer games in workout format. (The wierd hipster in me lowkeys hates how all tech people love climbing. For once i thought id picked up a non tech hobby, only for every tech person to simulaneously pick it up around the exact time I got into it. We are all truly, a hivemind)
To answer your actual question, the quest 2 did what youre asking for.
In death : unchained and especiall thrill of the fight are amazing workouts. Thrill of the fight is up there with fullfield soccer as one sport that pretty knocks the wind out of me within 20 minutes.
fartVader
1yr ago
For a while now, I have been irked by the 'bothsidesism' around South Asian communities, or honestly what is hindu vs muslim discourse in English media (Indian or Western).
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The division of India eventually saw the formation of 3 nations : India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh were continuously persecuted, as the Hindu communities in either country sought refuge in India. On the other hand, Indian law protects muslims with rights that exceed those of the resident majority hindus. The percentage of muslims in India keeps rising and even the idea of equal-laws-for-all (uniform civil code, equal regulation of all religious institutions) are abandoned by both the Congress and the so-called-fascist BJP.
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Somehow, lobbying for issues of muslim concern is not considered Islamist, but lobbying for hindu concerns is actively considered far-right-hindu-extremist.
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Hindus, when they've immigrated to foreign nations, have quickly integrated, become major contributors to the economy and haven't had a single instance of religious terrorism while there. On the other hand, irrespective of the peacefulness of the median muslim, marginal muslims have certainly contributed to terrorism, violence and ghettoization within foreign nations. Even in India, Muslims (and communists) constitute nearly 100% of terrorist attacks within the borders. (2 directional sectarian riots have occured, but they become incredibly hard to decipher chicken-n-egg questions)
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Hindus do not proselytize, do not go around calling other religions blasphemers or heathen and reject tests of religious purity.
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There are 3 majority Hindu majority nations and all 3 are true secular democracies. Each country at its worst, is still more liberal and religiously open-minded than any large muslim country in the world. (RIP Kemal Ataturk's Turkey)
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India has a 'no first use' nuclear policy while Pakistan has a 'first use' nuclear policy.
I could go on and on.............
Hindus has time and again shown to have different sociological group traits than muslim immigrants from the subcontinent. Bodesideism here is visibly incorrect, and the greater emphasis on hindu violence is even more so. This is a big part of why Indians dislike the term South Asian. The differences between Hindu and Muslim communities in the subcontinent are salient. The differences between Indians (likely coded hindu) and Pakistani/Bangladeshi (surely coded muslim) are therefore salient too.
yet I hope also that all those here who consider themselves to have a more clear-eyed understanding of masculinity than the progressive orthodoxy can recognise that the anger of listless young men who seek a flag to rally around is a trait shared by every swathe of humanity that lives under modernity.
Spend long enough down that train of through, and you'd realize that Nehru truly was the first woke-liberal leader the world had ever seen. (and the resulting fallout is a very clear indication of why ideologically blinded woke leaders are terrible in roles that require pragmatism)
I predict that the housing market will experience a fall of at least Edited to "about" 20% within the next 6 months. I have about a 90% certainty in this.
I used to be sure about this, but I am not so sure anymore. 20% is a fairly small change given that prices are up 2x-ish in some urban areas over the last 5 years. But generally, I do not see a housing crash coming because:
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The increase in demand for housing is fairly organic. Young people want to buy houses.
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The supply cannot keep up with demand due to NIMBY policies disallowing building and the sorry state of public transit, which further discourages densification. (even the 'good' performers like NYC/Boston are struggling on transit lately)
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It is hard to default on low interest rate mortgages. Especially now that they aren't subprime.
The way I see it, a housing crash will require massive population shifts away from dense urban areas, and that simply does not seem to be the trend right now. We might see tech hubs suffering, with startup stocks being in the dumpster and a general move towards T2 cities like Austin/Atlanta away from the major hubs of SF/Seattle. Interestingly, NYC is seeing more of an internal readjustment as businesses move to other boroughs (LIC & Jersey City*) instead of moving out of the Metro area.
America's urban housing market seems inflated, but it has been fairly cheap when compared to Canada, London or Indian markets I know about (Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi). For ex: my family's 800 sqft 2 bed apartment in Mumbai costs $600,000 while the average wage in the area is around $15k/yr. I know the Indian equivalent of 'Harvard grads' who have no idea how they'll be able to afford an apartment in the city. Canada has gone completely bonkers. Compared to global markets, the American urban market is surprisingly 'sane'.
So the questions are, what kept the American urban costs so 'reasonable' for so long (white flight? or just plain availability of space); and why would you expect the American housing costs to go back to being 'anomalously affordable' as we come out on the other side of this boom-bust cycle ?
Also, if the relatively insulated economy of the US with its affordable housing prices sees a crash, what's going to happen to Canada? (Maybe we'll find out if there is truth to the Chinese investors story)
My total-market 401k balance did not change in 2022 despite maxing out everything. If that does not say recession, then I do not know what does.
I am partly & selfishly hoping for a massive housing crash, because all my money is in stocks and I lost a ton of money, so I hope everyone else does as well. Everytime stocks crash and houses stay up, you see a massive wealth transfer from renting young professionals to the older homeowners.
fartVader
1yr ago
Canonically, the start of Kalyug is supposed to cooincide with the death of Krishna. This puts it around 3000BCE (give or take 2000 BCE).
So all of recorded human history and indo-european civilization as we know it occur during the kalyuga.
Wierd question, but how do you fully move on from a breakup ?
It's been 5 months since i broke up with my gf of 2 years and i still find myself agonizing about it every once in a while.
We broke up on good terms, it was an amazing relationship and honestly we were just not in the same place in life. (Figuratively and geographically). I want to be able to look back at that time in my life fondly, but also move onto something new without feeling much baggage. Time has healed a bit and i have generally been looking forward, but it feels all too slow.
More experienced people int he sub, how have you dealt with this before ?
fartVader
1yr ago
Yeah, the hard part is that it was an amiable breakup. Over our entire 2 years relationship, we never fought once, so it hard for me to go full cold turkey.
We have avoided chatting to help both of us move on. But, we have exchanged chats once or twice in the last 6 months, one of which was a rather embarrassing rant on my part. (Nothing I'd regretful or hateful though)
We decided not to block each other on social media, but I also don't obsess over it or interact with her through social media and vice versa.
some unsavory reality you may have been previously blind to, this can douse the embers pretty thoroughly.
Ah man, I'd hope not. The entire relationship was built on us being 2 people without a poker face. We've broken up, but I'd suck to have 2 happy years of my life yanked away by something truly evil. I mean, a big part of why I even fell for her was because she'd win a 'nicest person on planet earth' award if there was one, and I was the cynical devil's advocate to keep her collateral guilt in check,
Meeting another woman/girl.
Yeah, that's what I'm tending towards. I've met a few people, but it lacks the same enthusiasm as the last time.
There is a 'me' problem at the bottom of it all. I was the one who initiated the breakup, in part due to commitment issues, unwillingness to do long-distance and a mid-life crisis.
So I am in this conundrum where casual intimacy just never feels as rewarding as a real relationship, but my life circumstances keep me from being able to reciprocate the expectations that come with a real relationship.
This is the intuitive, frustrating, simple, and complete answer.
Yep yep yep yep. It's never easy huh.
fartVader
1yr ago
It should doable in 2-3 years with ease, if someone cared enough.
The technology might already be there. There simply isn't enough money to want to do it.
There is also the fact that some of it might be impossible. The physics of an anime only make sense in 5-6 fps. If you try to scale it up, a human might be just as unable to do it as a machine.
Most ML models today match the absolute best human beings, because they are ones who label it. So, if a human can't do it, a machine will surely be unable to do it.
But, it should be totally possible to build something that looks plausible without artefacts for anime that has physical consistency to it.
fartVader
1yr ago
I'm stepping into a tangent off the 2nd shitty sketch, but do you agree with the "middle school bullied kid = loser" paradigm ?
I'm sure plenty of Motte-folks got bullied through school. So did I. I have my reasonable theories on why it happened to me. But, I don't agree with the "loser" paradigm. In my school, losers were ignored, quickly formed their own group and then stopped interacting with the rest of the class.
What was your 'bullying' journey like and what do you think put you in the cross hairs?
fartVader
1yr ago
The only reason reddit was so good for so many years was the complete incompetence of the people running it. The Reddit leadership was so bad, that they failed at every pro-monetization move they tried and the website continued having that 2010-eque charm.
The people who run Reddit do not understand Reddit.
We have already seen Tumblr be run into the ground by idiots. From the looks of it, Reddit is fast headed downhill too.
Can you imagine seeing Twitter's shakeup coming from 6 months away, and still having nothing ready to welcome what would've been a massive influx of people looking for a new social media home ?
If you are going to ruin a product, at least do it while laughing your way to the bank. Reddit somehow manages to stay broke and worsen the product.
fartVader
1yr ago
I get your point, but Chapelle and Kanye were the undisputable godfather-GOAT(generation?) of their respective genres in terms of combining popularity with critical success. Also, I don't think Steph is seen as a 'black' basketball player.
Black entertainers have a deep bench
And you'll find that these sort of opinions are pervasive throughout that bench. The biggest speak out, because they are the most immune (as much as you can be) to repercussions.
fartVader
1yr ago
Americans are, as a general rule, dressed and groomed like slobs by European standards (not to mention high frequency of obesity)
If there is one place where this isn't true then that's NYC. People are insanely well dressed and fit. Both the rich and the poor.
you additionally have a lot of hobos and crazies, behaving erratically and generally presenting disgusting sight.
Yep
NYC is disgusting. The subway is dirty, and it smells bad. The sidewalks are dirty with the effluents of the trash bags left right outside, without even putting them in any kind of bins or container
Yep. My first thought when I arrived in NYC was that it feels like home. (my 3rd world city in India)
fartVader
1yr ago
How is it so hard to find the Normies ? A good 70% of people I run into have no idea about politics and are too busy with their 1-2 "things" to find any extra time for it.
Hyper-online people who socialize through hyper online activities will find hyper online communities. Yes, you are more likely to run into polarized people in sociology-liberal arts circles, D&D/board game parlors or non-fiction book clubs. But, make friends through offline activities pick-up-sports or music or hikers and they tend to be normier and less online than the former group.
One thing I'd suggest is to develop a thick skin against people who watch CNN once a day or read google-news every morning or listen to NYT daily as their source of information. They have surface level knowledge of issues and surface level takes. No need to dwell on them too much. It is not like they will talk about it for more than 5 minutes, because that's as much as they know about it. Take in from one ear and let it out from another. Like hanging out with your grandparents. "LALALALA, grand-mom I didn't hear you tell me that I should stay out of the sun because if I become black, then no-one will want to be with me." You choose to love them despite those little quirks.
Try becoming friends with first generation immigrants. They usually have a lot for sympathy for those who feel outsiders in a culture, and are more tolerant towards opinions that diverge from the liberal consensus. First gen immigrants are also delighted to have a token American in their group, as they learn a lot about how to integrate through the eyes of the American.
I'd also suggest living with roommates who want to build a community. People are more tolerant towards non-consensus views of a roommate who has built good by living alongside them for months, than a random acquaintance they meet at the bar. Also, it takes zero effort to access your community. They are literally next door.
I like hiking for a similar reason. Your acquaintance is suddenly also your emergency contact. They pass you water if you run out and sun screen if you forget it. Builds good will. Then take the fact that you have 5-10 hours of alone time to talk about topics with nuance and your opinions get to stand by themselves, unencumbered by highly-polarizing elevator pitches.
fartVader
1yr ago
Yep. As a child, I was like : "Cats are independent and selfish, they're barely even a pet.....meh."
As an adult, I'm like : "Cats are independent and selfish, and they barely even need to be taken care of like a pet.......woah that's great."
fartVader
1yr ago
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Saffron or Vanilla beans - everyone wants it, no one buys it for themselves
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Scalp massager
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Theragun or the theracane - amazing for muscle relief
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Vitamix / Instapot / LeCreuset dutch oven - expensive but BIFL stuff
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Coffee / spice grinder
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a (Kashmiri) Cashmere wool scarf
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Anything merino wool
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Saxx undies.
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Electric toothbrush
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A large microplane grater
fartVader
1yr ago
If you have enough money to be a private investor, consider buying grey market stocks (equity-zen) in up-and-coming transformers driven companies. Obviously, this is highly risky, so don't put in any money you can't afford to lose. But it is a good place to put your 'high risk' investments. I'd say better than Crypto, weed stocks, self-driving or anything in the ARK portfolio.
Look out for tasks that previously could not be done before, and replace humans in a very clear manner. This keeps the unit-economics stable. Try to get some series-A / Series-B area stock and hope one of them works out.
Note: Stock picking is never a good idea. So if you're asking this question on a forum, then you probably just want to hold a broad based index + some bias onto major SNP500 players such Microsoft/Apple or anything normal-PE-ratio company that seems to have a good foot in the door.
fartVader
1yr ago
Risky investments perform terribly most of the time. Im saying exactly what it looks like.
Take the money you are willing to throw away, and waste it on grey market private company stocks instead of all the other 'risky' options that have been in the dumps. (As would be expected in such market conditions). The strong guarantees I can give about stock market returns all have low ceilings.
If you want reliable gains, then index funds.
I'm having a Gell-Mann Amnesia moment here. I generally respect the comments I read on TheMotte until someone comments on matters outside theMotte's general demographic reach, and the commentary comes across as somewhere between shallow and misguided.
I personally think that RRR is the best and most important blockbuster movie India has made in the last 10 years (since 3 idiots). It has sent a cultural Tsunami through the nation and I believe it will be remembered as the movie that started a sea change in India cinema.
Hilariously, I and my brother had an hour long discussion today morning about how some of the smartest western commentators start sounding like bumbling fools once they start commenting on any culture or religion outside the Abrahamic sphere of influence.
Let's start with the very first comment.
surprise hit
RRR was Rajmouli's (director) 3rd major film after his 2 Bahubali films. They were the 2 highest grossing Indian movies at their time of release. RRR was expected to be his magnum opus, and the last thing you can call it is a 'surprise hit'.
awful-looking
I find this to be grossly untrue, most people in both the west and India seem to disagree with me on this one.
But this bit is the subjective, so I won't contest you on it.
absurdly stupid and awful-looking surprise hit movie of 2022, the Tollywood epic RRR. While slogging through this 3-hour parade of xenophobic melodrama, incoherent action, and kindergarten-level sentiment
I don't have a week to write an entire thesis on how wrong you are. But, RRR to me, is genius of the highest order. It is a layered movie with at least half a dozen meta levels behind it. While the base movie is entertaining at face value, most discerning viewers realize that it operates entirely in the realm of metaphor.
The first thing you need to understand about RRR, is that it might be the first major Indian blockbuster that situates itself entirely within the context of India. Bollywood is notorious for making sure their movies fit into western aesthetic and cultural sensibilities, ending up as at best shallow imitations of western media and at worst creating completely out of touch pander-fests.
India is a civilizational nation with a completely different way of looking at life. From legends, founding myths, core national values to political divides. Movies subvert and play to the expectations of the target audience (non-westernized Indian). So when a movie caters to an audience that is so disconnected from those set in different civilizational contexts (Americans), those outside the target audience are at a high risk of misunderstanding the movie entirely.
I don't think it is possible for me to convey why you are wrong about everything when it comes to RRR. I apologize. I have neither the time nor the space for it. But, do know, that you did not get the movie.
xenophobic melodrama
Do Europeans not understand the deep resentment held by people from ex-colonies towards their (erstwhile) ex-colonizers? Irrespective of revisionist opinions about the good done by colonialism (most of which I find somewhere between laughable and nauseating), the people that live in ex-colonies despise those that occupied their lands.
The blood of the Congolese boils at statues of Leopold II and Indians resent seeing Churchill being hailed as a the hero of the west in the same manner that Jews forth at the mouth when someone begins praising Hitler.
“Anti-Colonialism” and “Open Borders.”
These terms have very different meanings in an Indian context.
India has always been accommodating of immigrants, and has culturally advocated for ghettoized integration. India has been a historic refuge for persecuted Parsis, 3 waves of Jews, Tibetan Buddhists and has preserved millennium-old unique sub-sects of Islam and Christianity. The first Indian movie stars were jewish, the current movie stars are muslim and the richest indians are parsi. The 85% hindu majority treats hinduism in the same manner : practice whichever subsect of hinduism you want, just don't fuck with the way my family does things.
This is unlike the west, where the melting pot ensures that there is 1 pot (winning culture) and the only way to change it is to edit massively by melting a lot of people into it or completely replacing it through conflict. India has always rejected the this idea of mono-everything (theism or culture) and your friction doesn't register in the same manner for Indians.
There is a reason Indian Hindus mostly only run into issues with actively proselytizing subcommunities of various faiths. (Missionaries, Love Jihad, forced conversions, exodus, hard-communists)
confounds Western culture-warring
Nope, if anything, the movie is created with a deliberate ignorance towards the western culture war. To RRR, the west might as well not exist post-independence.
noble indigenous revolutionaries against the cartooniest of all racist villains
YES !!!!!!! There is a reason I call it the best sequel to Rocky 4.
Guess what, all great blockbusters are exactly like this at face value.
Sharks, TRex, Communists, Nazis....every major blockbuster of note has a simple villain at face value.
strident rallying cry against gun control
I am sorry. But this kind of mindless "what does it mean in a western context" is exactly the kind of misunderstanding that I am talking about. Gun Control is not an issue in India and it never will be an issue in India. The guns are entirely metaphorical in this setting. A 100% of Indians agree that gun control is great.
The movie pits itself primarily against the founding myth of independent India, one that every Indian knows cover-to-cover. One interpretation is that the guns stand for Rajamouli's blatant rejection of India's traditional power structures and myth creators which stake their identity on non-violence. It rejects the monopoly held by the Congress, Bollywood, North India, Gandhi and Nehru on India's cultural identity and its narratives. The movie similarly rejects western aesthetics, western sensibilities of movie structure and western dog-whistles in favor of what is most obvious and natural to the target audience : the Indians. The 2nd bit is very important. It does not subvert for subversions sake. It subverts to enfranchise what feels most natural and intuitive to the people it was made for in the first place.
Another meta interpretation of the movie has to do with the unspoken rule in pre-RRR Indian cinema that Hindu stories cannot be told. RRR toes the line by borrowing aesthetics, moments and sometimes direct messages from Hindu epics (esp Ramayana) while still never explicitly breaking that rule.
Lastly, the movie alludes to decolonizing of the Indian mind. Decoloniality is a revived phrase that is distinct from anti-colonialism. This ties into redefining what it means to watch a movie in an Indian context vs a colonial (western) context. You are meant to dance, celebrate, be loud and indulge. RRR is unapologetic about indulging in its best/worst instincts in a manner that no other Indian blockbuster has done before. This bit directly ties into idea behind decolonialization of mindsets.
kills an immigrant (or, in this exact case, any white person)
The movie literally has an entire subplot about the MC dating a white woman to clearly indicate that 'not all white people are bad'. Hard to miss honestly.
Your comment portrays a weird persecution complex. I know conservative white men might find American urban liberal circles to be suffocating. But, in the rest of the world, white people still enjoy a shit ton of privilege. Most 3rd world families view dating white people as 'dating-up'. They are given a shit ton of attention, people defer to their opinion just because they speak English natively and pine for their approval. White monkey jobs exist as a distilled $ value on white privilege.
p.s: this probably needs proof reading. Just know that your opinion on RRR is wrong and bad.
p.p.s: say what you want about the movie, the songs are bangers and the dance numbers are incredible.
I wish I had a good answer for this. A lot of Indian Literature runs into a problem where the only ones who are interested in translating it to English are English speaking white people or practically-white Indians. So you run into a Heisenberg's uncertainty moment, where the act of translating it makes it lose what made it special in the first place.
There are very few sources that I can blindly trust to do a good job of representing Indian baseline assumptions well, and is further compounded by me not having read any of those books. Let me go to some of my more 'grounded' Indian friends and see if I can find something.
I haven't read this book(finding the raga) but it comes highly recommended from a source I deeply trust and does a great job of outlining the core differences between Indian and western music. (and through it art and aesthetics at large)
2 more books from my more cultured friend:
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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39295271-a-day-in-the-life (fiction - but more recommended)
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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50840378-truck-de-india (non fiction)
What ??
Recommending Chetan Bhagat is like recommending Stephanie Meyers to understand American culture. (edit - which might not be a bad thing?)
He is a bad writer and a bad intellectual.
It is decent schlock , but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone..
It's alright.
fartVader
1yr ago
IMO, the issues that Chetan Bhagat touches on, don't need as much context about India though. They are fairly straight forward and easily understood even when read from a western lens.
That being said, you make a good point. I'll admit, my reaction to seeing Chetan Bhagat being recommended was kind of knee jerk.
It is especially rich of me, given that I just called RRR the best Indian movie since 3 idiots (a movie loosely based on a Chetan Bhagat book). Also, say what you want about him, he does capture the angst of your average 18-25 yr Indian male pretty well. 2 states was fairly relatable too.
Still not my first recommendation, but I will retrack my earlier kneejerk reaction. Chetan Bhagat is alright.
fartVader
1yr ago
If the USA wants you publicly prosecuted, you shall be publicly prosecuted. The only places you can run to are - Cuba, China & Russia. China wants nothing to do with people like him, and Cuba & Russia might not be much better than the poshest prison cell you can afford.
fartVader
1yr ago
Let me clarify. Being an incredibly visible refugee in Russia mid-war might not be much better than the poshest prison cell you can afford.
I can imagine a Snowden style house-arrest.
Any one and everyone you love will probably never be able to see you again. At least prisons have visitation.
Russia will be all too happy to use you as a pawn in a bigger negotiation, which opens you up to prisoner trades and assassination.
Love the thought-provoking take, even if it isn't something I fully agree on. I see some similarities between them.
Both Wokeism and the Neo-EA (AGI-fearmongers) movement run against one of the fundamental observed truths of the universe : "Predicting/Shaping the far-future is a futile exercise". I'd add a corollary to that : "Greedy optimization is the only form of optimization that works". Or in 1 word : "Humility".
Greedy optimization through small short term actions and observable outcomes is depressingly slow. But, it forces you to reconcile with the difference in expectations and actual outcomes. The difference is captured by a lack of understanding of the very underlying systems that these solutions aim to fix.
This is where both Wokeism and Neo-EA run into issues. Wokeism's "All of society needs to buy in into unresearched social change in lock step" demands change that requires generations to observe positive outcomes for, while negative side-effects are disregarded through "real wokeism wouldn't have these issues" or "a few negatives today will far outweigh the benefits that are to come in the promised future" kind of comments.
Neo-EA similarly demands that an entire industry should dedicate its efforts to AI-safety without any non-rhetorical research that proves the arrival of AGI, which they insist is definitely around the corner. They insist that a definite event is around the horizon by extrapolating from the present, a practice that has time-and-again failed at predicting the future. (Planes will keep getting smaller until flying cars are here, CPUs will grow at 2x/yr, Democracy is inevitable, and more things that never happened)
Both are impossible to criticize, in that same way that a startup that doesn't exist is impossible to criticize. Your analogies to religions and pseudo religions (Communism) are spot on. "Everything will make sense during the inevitable judgement day / when we have achieved true communism / when we have achieved equity / when AGI is finally here.". They are all the same thing.
For a movement so rooted in math, you'd think that they would have the humility to not look for a closed-form-solution to what is likely a non-convex problem. Small steps, gradient descent and slow progress is the only thing that sort-of-works.
There is certain irony to me suggesting that the only solution that has ever worked well for human systems is the exact algorithm being used to train massive AI models. So maybe the AGI-fearmongers have a point after all /s? .
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