titivate
5d ago
In fact, this doc comes across as a rhyme to the 1933 anti-china exposé. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_That_Are_Dark
Suppose your tastes change fairly consistently, or you have poor long term memory, or you've an elven lifespan. How would you approach flavor of the year fascinations? You read a book, watch a movie, travel to a new place. You evaluate, catalogue, and collect experiences and memorabilia. Maybe you write notes, scrapbook, keep top 10 lists, create customized setups suited exactly to you, and so on. But, in a few years, you'll have inherited someone else's belongings. Baggage, filled with clothes that no longer fit you, nor spark any feelings of nostalgia.
So what do you do? With the films that no longer move you, the playlists you won't put on again? Archive them away like your parents did with your drawings from second grade art class? Build a mini museum into your man-cave, a shrine dedicated to reminding yourself who you once were? Or make a clean break with the past, get rid of that outdated junk, and appreciate that you still have whims to give?
titivate
13d ago
One day in high school, we had a random assembly during classes. It seemed pretty insignificant at the time. Someone was giving a talk about some humanitarian crisis going on in the middle east, some country I wasn't even aware of. It was kind of weird and I didn't really get the point. One thing the speaker, an ex-soldier if I recall, kept reiterating was "we're just like you, we watch the same movies, listen to the same music," and so on.
After we shuffled back to class, I distinctively remember someone asking the (history) teacher about the context and they mumbled something about how the speaker wasn't exactly both sides of the story. When I asked what he meant, he clammed up and I forgot all about the day until many years later.
Now it seems like a fever dream. I polled a couple of HS friends and only one of them remembers it. Did anyone else experience zionist PR speeches at their secondary school?
Tell me about your favorite mods or most interesting fan projects you know. A while back when I was prepping for a roadtrip, I looked into emulator options and games to play during in-between time. Pokemon, was of course, on that list, but since I hadn't played pokemon for over 10 years, and wasn't interested in going thru the grind loop again, I started digging around the ROMhack scene. Most mods were of the usual, outdated, poorly documented, sort. There were only 2-3 polished and highly rated ones but they didn't really grab my interest. But one recently released ROMhack stood out, with its ambitiously vast scope of changes and the author's unwavering dedication. Pokemon Sweltering Sun, a hack based on Ultra Sun (2017, for the 3DS), that in the author's own words, tries:
To have every single Pokemon be fun and viable to use for the entirety of the game... thanks to new moves, abilities and so much more.
By every single pokemon, he means every single pokemon, and to wit, has uploaded a 488 video playlist, covering all 800+ pokemon (the hack adds all mons from gen 1-7), explaining each redesign thought process. There's also a neat spreadsheet pokedex with all the changes for "easy" reference (and it will cause your browser to lag). As a modder, I can tell you that is not normally, This very very insane. It is one thing to make an ambitious mod, it is two things to be super disciplined about clean documentation, and it is three things to have so much sustained passion, because in the process off writing this, I noticed the mad lad has still been pumping out content and just announced a brand new romhack project.
titivate
29d ago
I got tricked by an ssc post into picking up a copy of An African in Greenland. I like historical travel diaries, but instead of the implied premise:
African with conservative tribal upbringing is suddenly inspired to go to Greenland and records his interactions with an equally undeveloped group
I'm realizing it's actually:
French educated teenager runs away from home, spends 10-odd years sojourning across Africa/Europe, and in his late 20s tours Greenland and meets a bunch of rezzed out natives. Somebody convinces him to publish a book 10 years later about his experiences.
It's written in the historical present tense and everything is padded like a YA fiction book. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
titivate
1mo ago
If tiktok is forced to sell, that would legitimize China's stance against facebook and google years ago, which wasn't a ban either. The million dollar question is how much American soft power will the move cost? What will be the new equilibrium on foreign-aligned social media in all the other countries once the dust settles?
My point was disproportionate punishment for minor transgressions results in a pro-social society, not specifically violence, not homogeneity. Like recently there was that principal that lost his 130k pension because he stole $5 worth of coffee in Japan. I brought up Singapore because it is also an engineered rule-obeying society despite its obvious heterogeneity, and they mete out all sorts of "draconian" punishments. And another example is 1600s Taiwan, where the locals were observed by the Qing to be extremely Japan-like despite the mix of chinese settlers and aboriginals because it had been previously ruled for decades by a Ming warlord who would do stuff like cut peoples arms off if they chopped down certain bamboo.
titivate
1mo ago
Japanese homogeneity
It's not homogeneity that keeps the japanese in line. It's carryover from the days of samurai, when peasants would be killed on the spot for minor transgressions. Just look at singapore.
titivate
4mo ago
At least one of the replies below asking for examples were posted after the score was already revealed.
titivate
4mo ago
Why are people ignoring the blatant example of this parent post sitting at -22 as the case in point?
Finally getting covid recently crystallized some of my thoughts on disagreeability. Small tasks feel like huge endeavors, what tasted good before now tastes weird, small shocks take forever to recover from, nausea is the new neutral, everyday has its own signature of shittiness, and I have absolutely no patience to humor or indulge anybody. I used to be able to volunteer and do the high energy positive wholesome thing when working with kids. Now you might as well ask me to do a triple back flip. It wasn't acute sickness that took away that ability though, it was more like an accumulation of chronic illness symptoms that never disappeared completely. I am in utter awe of spritely middle aged men, who bounce back like rubber balls, but if you don't have that golden retriever personality, contorting yourself into a poor imitation is just too tiring, man. I have my hands full just managing myself here.
titivate
6mo ago
It seems to me the ball is still in Israel's court, and they're fumbling. The longer time goes on without a highly visible and high Δp response, the more appetizing they appear to sharks. It's not about 4d chess, it's about sending a message.
titivate
6mo ago
some player who does reactions.
Why would 12yos perceive someone who does reaction videos as being cool?
titivate
6mo ago
Yes I see it here too, so came the thought that coming up with some shorthand names to acknowledge what was happening would appear more toothless.
titivate
6mo ago
What would you call the following dilemma and options:
Someone presents an argument, to which another responds with a counter-argument that is tangential or slightly off-target. The OP must decide to either 1) legitimize the counterargument by engaging, and run the risk of entering an unproductive dialogic detour, or 2) attempt to steer the conversation back to the original argument but risk appearing dismissive or uncooperative.
titivate
7mo ago
I'm glad you brought up gundam to compare with 40k because despite gundam having the clearly better designed robot toys, 40k runs circles around gundam in every other aspect. The fact that there's no definitive gundam series and only a score of unrelated kids anime that range from bad to okay (I haven't watched but reviews and spoilers indicate none of the shows get more complex than navel-gazing on the pilot vs robot relationship) aligns with my view. The franchise begins and ends with the robot, and there's probably halo spin off novels or fanfiction with more ambitious scope than gundam writing. Maybe all the hardcore fan talent is being tied up by highly detailed model building, which would be very stereotypical.
titivate
7mo ago
Well compare nerds with nerds. What are the premier otaku-traps in Japanese fiction? Fate? Eva? Time has not been kind to those franchises. Gwern's review recording his disenchantment with later Eva summed it up nicely, and Fate these days is a waifu gacha game before all else. Western nerd franchises like 40k or mtg or game of thrones take themselves more seriously. I believe even in pokemon, it was the western fandom that developed the competitive scene and made nuzlocke (where pokemon being beaten = perma-death) playthrus a thing. You wouldn't think it with their famous otaku and people who spend decades mastering a craft, but Japanese nerd fandoms are surprisingly casual. It's not that western appetite for gritty realism is more high-brow per se, but that does retard the rate franchises are dumbed down.
titivate
7mo ago
Those are fine points for pre-modernity but these days Japan is more or less secular and one of the most west-adjacent countries you can get. And moreover, not only were they the West's most diligent student, but they were high tech much earlier, and a co-founder of several genres like cyberpunk and arguably spaghetti westerns. The purpose of bringing up the 3-body franchise was to allude to the subverted expectation of it being written by a chinese author, instead, who are even less likely to ape Western genres. Meanwhile the japanese made ghost in the shell which asks a question and that was that. The japanese smartphone industry went thru a similar divergent trajectory. Anyways to your point about lack of historical continuity for Japan to be writing modern science fiction, I respond then there is no reason for Murakami either.
But this is getting away from my primary confusion, which is regardless of the path Japanese cultural output takes, you would expect a smarter audience to yield more intellectual works than a handful of "really makes you think" or otaku-bait stories. I'm still looking but all I see is a trend toward lowest common denominator twitter comics and animated avatar personalities.
titivate
7mo ago
What I'm trying to scratch at is why a big country of ostensibly smart people who are industrious and diligent in everything they pursue, with a large publishing market and average age of 48, so easily satiated with low ceiling entertainment? Are they so burnt out they want nothing more than to read light novels on the train, wage-slave the day away, pick up some takeout from 7-11, put on the latest CGDCT anime and veg out? I don't find that explanation satisfactory because the same applies to their neighbors. Some say they are not living to their full potential because of linguistic determinism. It could also be kawaii culture* that dictates everything must be dumbed down and stylized for aesthetics, which explains why their actors are so bad compared to korean ones. But if they're so smart, why do they willingly submit to the self-infantilization, wouldn't they be bored of it already?
*On a side note I think American culture definitely veers in the opposite way resulting in every tom, dick and harry to enthusiastically offer his original thoughts, before aping what he heard on a podcast one time. But fraudulent intellectualism at least provides enough pushback to prevent the 1000th isekai power fantasy from being written.
titivate
7mo ago
I'm not sure how to word this, but I have a poor impression of Japanese people's intellect that contradicts their reported mean IQ, which is supposed to be among the highest. Trying to find counterexamples among translated works seems futile, it's all swill for the masses. Even the old stuff, like the tale of genji, or esoteric buddhist writings, don't seem worth diving into. There seems to be no demand for heavier intellectual content beyond cheap existentialism. For instance, the 3-body problem would have never been published in Japan. Am I the only one puzzled by their stunted level of content production? I get reminded of this contradiction every time I read comments from Japanese people on quora or elsewhere. Maybe something is lost in translation, but they commonly come across as substantially and consistently dumber than other ESLs.
titivate
9mo ago
It's a subsequent development to the API change protest and subreddit blackout. Subs will reopen but maliciously comply. I'm not clear how John Oliver became the face of it, he may have been chosen for lolsorandom reasons.
titivate
9mo ago
John Oliver becoming an icon of the resistance and being posted everywhere is the latest "most reddit thing" to happen, but I have to admit I'm surprised because it's spreading to places I didn't expect. I previously attributed flash mob meme activism to the anglo white male demographic, but it's happening even in subs like BestofRedditorUpdates, a repost sub of AITA and the like, with a predominantly female base, likely even moreso than its parent. They held a poll whether to convert the sub to a John Oliver shit posting sub, and the yeas outnumber the nays almost 5:1. Am I the only one surprised by this?
titivate
10mo ago
Anybody sleep in a hammock? I always wanted to give it a go, and pulled the trigger on a hammock stand deal I couldn't pass up. Now I'm just waiting for the hammock itself to arrive, right in time for the hot summer nights.
This one isn't even in the oven yet, but I've been thinking on and off about the prepping and bug out communities. Frankly, I'm disgusted and think they're rotten to the core, so full of snake-oil salesmen and LARPers that it's better to reinvent the wheel on your own. Every wannabe has a loadout video, nobody actually walks the literal walk the pack is intended for. Somehow, this is acceptable despite the hiking club being right next door.
There's a survival show called Alone, where 10 people are assigned their own plot of wilderness to survive the coming winter until only one remains. Contestants are allowed 10 items from a list of pre-approved gear, and as you might imagine, there has been a lot of improvement on the understanding of the meta-game over 10 seasons. I'd love to see a similar show simulating emergency, expose the /k/ommandos dreaming of rucking 50lbs and urban fighting and sleeping in a mylar bivy in the midwest, while another simply zips home on a kick scooter within a few hours.
But I don't have much of a thesis, everyone's needs will be different, and no one can really be certain what will work before shtf. It's more of a mental exercise and excuse to practice DIY skills at this point.
Well, there's no section dedicated to the positive reviews from Nazis on the Mein Kampf article either.
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