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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   976 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for July 23, 2025

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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I hit 15k in MathAcademy today. It feels nice, beyond that, not much. I am trying to stick to a schedule so that I can do my sabbatical well. Life's not ideal, I am still grateful to be where I am, as long as I get the work ethic I desire, I do not have much to complain about. I am nearly a quarter of the way through with object oriented python which is my first intermediate programming book. If I can do it by next week, I will be super happy!

I hit 15k this week, too. I finished up Math for Machine Learning, and it looks like it covered about 60% each of Linear Algebra and Stats, and 30% of Multivariable Calculus, so now I'm going back and finishing up the remainder of those courses while I wait for them to finish up Machine Learning I.

Congrats, I will do Math for ML after I finish Discrete Math, I am on Methods of Proof for now. The main bottleneck for being a good deep learning practitioner is programming, according to Howard. I am down to 45 XP daily, will do some more math via other sources in that time.

How did you start MathAcademy? Where did you learn about them?

I started watching Gurren Lagann a few days back, and it was nothing like what I'd expected.

I knew very little about it. It had mechs, presumably some very big ones, and I think I'd read that by the end, they were slinging galaxies and universes as weapons (or is that a different franchise?).

Well..

Episode 5 had the main character being anally fisted by a toddler. A sentence I didn't expect to ever write, but here I am.

I thought the series would be relatively serious. Far from it. This is quintessential shonen slop. It does the opposite of taking itself seriously.

So many annoying tropes:

  • Powering up with the sheer human will

  • Nobody fights seriously, it's all half-assed

  • Simon, one of the main characters, is literally retarded. He is congenitally incapable of making good decisions.

Not quite as annoying is the sheer amount of fan-service. This is a profoundly horny show, and distactingly so. I'm a red-blooded young man, but I'm going through a dry spell of several months, the longest in over a decade, and it's hard to focus when there are voluptuous tits out on display. Nice tits though, very tasteful. Alas, I prefer sex to have some kind of resolution, the way typical anime does it is akin to paying for a strip show. Who wants to get a boner while being unable to do anything about it?

I'm not sure the series has any redeeming qualities, but I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet. But if continues frustrating me to this extent, I'll have to see if Macross or Gundam are any better.

I'm yet another huge fan of Gurren Lagann, but I won't defend it. Given why you didn't like the 1st few episodes, I doubt that you'll enjoy the rest of it. The whole series is based almost purely around the power of hotbloodedness and sheer force of will allowing you to overcome anything, and that aspect of it only escalates as it goes on, until it spirals completely out of control by the end. The reason I'm a fan of the show (and the 2nd movie, which I consider the superior version of the climax and ending) is that the show leans into this theme so incredibly well that, through sheer force of will, it makes the absurdity and stupidity work.

through sheer force of will, it makes the absurdity and stupidity work.

One might say it rejects common sense to make the impossible possible.

I feel compelled to defend TTGL: it was one of the first anime series that I ever watched, so there’s no doubt that that colors my perception of it, particularly since it’s been years since I last rewatched it. But the show that I remember has quite a bit more going on than you’ve seen in the first few episodes.

I think that a big part of the problem is the attitude that one has when going in and watching the series; I’ve met big anime fans in real life who bounced off of it for this reason too, expecting well-choreographed tactical fights with a deeply-thought-out power system like many modern battle shounen series instead of GIGA DRILL BREAKER ad infinitum. But to me, that’s like watching a performance of Romeo and Juliet and asking “Why didn’t Shakespeare go into more detail about the political chaos of Renaissance Italy instead of this stupid love story?” TTGL operates on vibes rather than carefully engineered magic systems, and that’s the level that the show is best appreciated at.

More specifically, the way I think of TTGL is this. If you (I) watch it when you’re young, you love it because of the epic fights and the horniness and the increasing power levels and “humans fighting to evolve against those who want to keep them down”. If you watch it a few years later, further into your teenage years, and that awkward time isn’t treating you particularly well, then watching a show about “believing in the you who believes in yourself” and “doing the impossible” might be exactly what you need, even if your own travails involve precisely zero giant robots. But then if you watch it yet again as an adult, you realize: hey, maybe kid me was on to something, and the “humans fighting to evolve against those who want to keep them down” plotline has a lot more real-world relevance than teenager me, who figured that it was just a metaphor for depression or something, thought.

This fundamental thematic conflict in the series, which becomes particularly apparent in the second half (and particularly towards the end at that), could be boiled down to “growth vs. degrowth”: at what point does technological and economic progress need to be stopped entirely, lest humanity collectively shoot ourselves in the face? How much of our own humanity and dignity should we sacrifice in order to prevent this? [1] I’d say that these are questions that’ve gained particular relevance (in public discourse) in recent years, both with climate change and now (more recently) with AI. Without getting into spoiler territory here, one thing that I found TTGL to do extremely well was to “aestheticize” these questions and translate them from an abstract debate about policy into something that “feels” important on a direct, gut level. The show take a rather refreshingly techno-optimist stance on these questions (which made me reconsider some of my own personal aesthetic attitudes towards them—more on that later), but still provides an appropriately healthy level of nuance (which is most strongly made clear in the series’s controversial ending that large numbers of its Internet fanbase refuse to understand).

Now, as I write this, I realize that “being made to feel certain questions strongly” does not make an anime series high art. What I wrote here unfortunately reminds me of some image collage I’d seen created by a One Piece fan, which insisted something like “One Piece is not a childish anime! It deals with themes like poverty and racism!” It’s clear that whoever made that image had a horrifically stunted aesthetic sense, one that hadn’t developed past the 7th-grade English class stage of “good art = deals with ‘themes’ that can be summed up in one word”. And yet here I am, going and saying “TTGL is a good series because it deals with ‘themes’ like ‘growth vs. degrowth’”—alright, that’s great, but why should I care if a show “deals with themes”? And if I tried to rebut by saying “well, maybe it changed my opinion towards those themes”, then that would only reflect badly on me: I don’t particularly consider myself a Rationalist, but I know well enough Not to Generalize From Fictional Evidence.

But if there is a nugget of value to be salvaged from the assertion that “TTGL is a good series because it addresses the question of ‘growth vs. degrowth’”, it would be this: TTGL presents an aesthetic of (responsible) techno-optimism which is compelling, in the sense that it helps me to understand why it would feel good to live in a techno-optimist world. Even though techno-optimism can be considered, like many isms, as a set of policy prescriptions or economic attitudes, man cannot live by policy prescriptions alone; there has to be some sort of narrative that structures how he will relate to the society formed by that set of policy prescriptions.

For example, you could take two different people living in the same society in the same (or similar) material circumstances, who nevertheless have polar opposite instinctual emotional attitudes towards that society. One guy sees that OpenAI and DeepMind have created AIs that placed 1st on the International Math Olympiad and thinks “Holy shit! We’re living in the future and the future is so cool! I can’t wait to see what humans—and soon, robots—are gonna invent next!” The other guy thinks “Holy shit we’re all going to either be replaced or killed, it’s so over.” Now, if you’re in a position where you can affect policy (be it at the political level or at the market level), there is an asymmetry between these positions: executing the policies associated with the wrong one (whichever it may be) could spell mass disaster. But if you’re just some guy—then these are just different ways of relating to the world, on an emotional level that most directly shapes your own life.

So if a piece of art (or a TV anime series) gets you to relate to the world in a different way at the personal level, even if only provisionally, then I’d say that that’s a point in its favor: it was able to enrich your collection of mental attitudes towards the world [2]. And since TTGL did that for me, to some extent, I have to say that I found it to be a good series.

Now here’s the part where I apologize for this massive rambling text dump. Forgive me; I ended up getting way too carried away. Anyway, I’ve never watched Gundam or Macross, but from what I understand, there’s quite the convoluted viewing order for those franchises, so be aware of that before you jump in.

[1] Only writing this now do I realize that this too is an expression of the lingering trauma from the atomic bombs in the Japanese psyche. It’s not quite as obvious as in e.g. “Giant Robo”, but in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense.

[2] Of course, there are some “attitudes towards the world” that are just harmful and not suitable for most humans who want to live a good life. E.g. regularly watching cartel snuff videos probably doesn’t foster attitudes conducive to eudaemonia. But I don’t think that TTGL belongs in that category.

good art = deals with ‘themes’ that can be summed up in one word

Oh no, my actual #1 pet peeve from English class rears its ugly head again! (I can still hear a particularly passionate teacher of mine desperately trying to explain that a theme actually needs to say something, like a sentence, it can't just be a word)

Aside from your nice impromptu mini-essay, I will say that for whatever reason, the "first anime" someone watches, for most people, ends up desensitizing you more than you'd think to whatever flavor of strange anime logic it employs (ask me how I know, or rather, maybe don't). Also, sometimes it's just fun to have an anime that doesn't take itself too seriously, although the exact line is sometimes a little hard to discern: Eminence in Shadow for example is a terrifically fun time, poking fun at the tropes, but also... takes its responsibility to represent the tropes seriously enough that it becomes part of the attraction, thus coming a bit full circle? Almost like a stupider cousin of the thing where a too-sharp parody is mistaken for the real thing, a la Fight Club's take on fragile masculinity. Actually, now I really want a Motte thread on the movie to see that in action. A Motte Movie club night would be hilarious.

Well, that's a spirited defense of the series. I feel that I owe you enough to power through the rest of it. I'll also report it as an AAQC, because it deserves it.

I'm more than happy to admit that I might be the wrong target audience for the show, I did say that I went into it with very little on the way of pre-existing knowledge, just that it involved big ass robots and ludicrous power-scaling, which are aspects I was perfectly happy to indulge.

(A yet to be disclosed aspect is that I was seeking to perform a bit of field research. In my own novel, there's a weeb superhero who is really into mechs, and in-universe, loves TTGL. I felt I owed it to the character to watch it for myself, at the very least, it lets me write better satire and throw in more puns.)

even if your own travails involve precisely zero giant robots

Let's not rule that out! I don't know about my travails, but I do know I intend to travel in a big-ass robot this weekend. It's called a plane haha.

Holy shit! We’re living in the future and the future is so cool! I can’t wait to see what humans—and soon, robots—are gonna invent next!” The other guy thinks “Holy shit we’re all going to either be replaced or killed, it’s so over.”

Funnily enough, I entertain both positions. I don't know if I'm a bog-standard techno-optimist, but I do think that progress in AI can lead to amazing things, I just have grave concern that it could directly or indirectly kill us or screw things over.

Glad to hear you appreciated my ramblings (although now I feel responsible if you end up not liking the series…)

I don't know about my travails, but I do know I intend to travel in a big-ass robot this weekend. It's called a plane haha.

Heh, nice one.

Funnily enough, I entertain both positions.

I think that this is a pretty natural feeling. Even on LessWrong where the biggest doomers congregate, I’ll often see those very same doomers idly musing about whether X architectural improvement or Y change to the training procedure of language models might remove Z limitation. (If you want specific examples of this, I’m afraid I can’t provide, but I do remember seeing this.) This can, of course, be justified as “world modeling”: it’s important to think about things so that we’re better able to estimate timelines and prepare for the future.

But if I may be permitted to engage in some bulverism: I think that deep down, it’s just fun to do this. It’s fun to see a problem and try to solve it. It’s fun to push past some limitation that you were previously chafing at. Humans are natural hill-climbers: we’ll follow the local gradient upwards, even if the hill we’re climbing is actually Mt. Doom. (Now I’m tempted to start going on about again about how “humans just want to evolve and go further than they were the day before” is another core theme of the series—but I’ll stop myself here.)

Of course, I do recognize that your techno-optimism is grounded in more practical, utilitarian, moral reasoning than merely Werner Von Braun-style “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down” thinking. But at the very least, I personally feel its pull quite a bit (even though my primary disposition is more to fear an immanent eschaton, be it utopia or Doom).

And this, this is why I have no interest in anime.

This is like replying to a negative review of Harry Potter with "this is why I have no interest in literature".

Interesting take. I don't presume anyone wants a full breakdown of my personal lack of interest in most anime, and my comment was meant to be humorous. If it struck you as dumb instead, erase one off the board for my wit.

I don't presume anyone wants a full breakdown of my personal lack of interest in most anime

I do

I feel like that's a slight over-reaction. Anime is a rather all-encompassing term, it would be like saying, that's why I don't like movies, or music, because a single example wasn't to my taste. There's really good stuff out there, like Attack on Titan, Made in Abyss etc.

Of course, you live/lived in Japan, so you might be going off more than one example.

My youngest boy was watching Attack on Titan the other day. I was watching in horror as what I assumed was the hero was... eaten. This continued several times until I asked what was up, not wanting to be that dad who just lets his kids watch anything. Apparently my older boy had seen the entire series, and explained to me various spoiler things I won't reveal, but in general I was left with a rather empty desolate feeling and wondered where the hell I had been when my oldest (now 16) had been bingeing the series. I'd probably also have watched it back when younger, but the arc of that story is not exactly an upper.

Attack on Titan can be loosely understood as a kind of mix between Game of Thrones, where the cast is vulnerable to sudden death (sense of foreboding and unpredictable world), Inception or the Matrix, where the action scenes are unique, tense, and cool (flying through the air with powered grappling hooks and swords is not a concept you'll see anywhere else), and Lost, where there's a compelling mystery underneath everything that's going on (and like Lost, arguably has a bit of a let-down of an ending, although not that bad).

But yeah, not for everyone. Maybe The Walking Dead would be another analogy, though the thrills and horrors of that series are a little more performative in my opinion.

I feel like it's a show I'd have watched when younger, and I understand their interest in it. My wife's stereotype of me is that I like dark depressing films that require thought. This isn't wrong, but it's hardly the only genre I am interested in. I expect they (my sons) have some of my traits, but also Boys.

My wife's stereotype of me is that I like dark depressing films that require thought. This isn't wrong, but it's hardly the only genre I am interested in.

So...something like Grave of the Fireflies or Haibane Renmei might be more up your alley?

I still stand by the claim that AOT is very good! I would expect that, past the age of 5, no red-blooded boy would be negatively affected by any of the themes of the story. Jurassic Park has many a person being eaten by titanic dinosaurs, and it's a fan favorite in that age group.

At 16? If he can't handle it, you need to roll him up in bubble-wrap to avoid the risk to his glass bones. He'll be fine, and you should watch it yourself.

As I said the 16 year old had already seen the full series.

I have watched a whole bunch of anime off the recommendations of friends and unfortunately have to concur with @George_E_Hale: Anime in general sucks. Yes, even the classics. Even the ones which are known for their stories and themes.

I will admit to having a soft spot for Ghibli movies. Those are the exception, not the norm.

Bebop and GitS are not good, they have immaculate vibes but that’s about it. I think they’re mostly carried by nostalgia. If you thought that was the best anime had to offer then I wouldn’t blame you for writing it off.

Most of my absolute favorite Japanese stories come from VNs and JRPGs rather than anime/manga. Although I do think there are some great anime-original stories. But if you like Ghibli movies I may not be the best person to give you recommendations, based on the alignment of our tastes. The only Ghibli movie I think is really great is Mononoke.

Ha, Mononoke is one of the Ghibli movies I think is just okay. Different strokes I suppose.

I did watch Death Note too, which you recommended in the original anime thread; I didn't like that either (granted, I did prefer it to Bebop and GitS). Not because of the reasons offered up that it was "too disturbing and amoral", far from it, I quite like things that lean in that direction, rather it felt like there was a lot of missed potential with the characters.

This is true for Light in particular. He was painted as a hubristic megalomaniac who was in large part motivated by a desire to acquire power; it would have been much more entertaining had he been given a legible and consistent moral code which just happened to conflict with that of L. As it was, Light felt one-dimensional and it seemed more like you were supposed to be disgusted by him more than you were supposed to understand him. Which isn't good, considering how much time you spend with this character throughout the show's runtime. I even felt it cheapened the dynamic between him and L, which could have been so much more dynamic and interesting had their differing philosophies and moralities ever been given a chance to clash.

Also, to be blunt, every time Misa Amane appeared on screen I felt like strangling her to death. She was just so aggressively annoying to me.

Maybe I missed something, but Light was not motivated by just a desire for power, and especially at first the idea seems to be that he only wants the Death Note to kill criminals, but really doesn’t go after anyone else unless they’re trying to catch him or he needs to confuse L. It seems a bit more like the Death Note sort of takes over after a while in the sense that power goes to his head. I read Light mostly as a tragic story of huberis in which the power to destroy human life becomes the power to play God and remake everything into your vision of Justice.

L never came off that well in the story for me. It was just a guy who loved the mystery and found the whole thing to be a fascinating game. He had no moral reason to want to stop Light. He just wanted to catch Kira because it was a difficult case to solve.

Agreed that initially he does not start out like that. However as you say the Death Note starts taking over after a fairly short time, and turns him into someone who is portrayed as pretty straightforwardly evil. It makes for a less interesting character, in my opinion. I felt like the whole corruption arc was dealt with far better in Breaking Bad, in that Walt becomes less of a cartoon villain and even in the end once he's been fully Heisenberged is still willing to give up his wealth to save Hank, in spite of all his faults. Light on the other hand quickly becomes quite irredeemable rather early on.

L never came off that well in the story for me. It was just a guy who loved the mystery and found the whole thing to be a fascinating game. He had no moral reason to want to stop Light. He just wanted to catch Kira because it was a difficult case to solve.

I mean, correct; L does not have a strong moral inclination. Maybe I worded that poorly, it's just that I would have found their game of cat and mouse far more interesting and multilayered had they had any other deeper reason to participate outside of "I want to play god"/"I find solving mysteries fun". You could have given the audience an impression of their differing outlooks, shown how that informs their behaviour in real life and with other people, and once the show actually puts Light and L in the same room together there could have been an interesting demonstration of what happens when each of their ideals are challenged by that of the other. That's something I would really have wanted to see from the show, it feels like wasted potential that it did not materialise.

Bebop and GitS are not good, they have immaculate vibes but that’s about it. I think they’re mostly carried by nostalgia.

The hell is this, the Terrible Take Tuesday thread? Cowboy Bebop and GitS are not just good, they are excellent. The plot in Cowboy Bebop isn't that special (though that isn't what it's about), but overall both are great series.

The hell is this, the Terrible Take Tuesday thread? Cowboy Bebop and GitS are not just good, they are excellent.

Seconded.

The plot in Cowboy Bebop isn't that special (though that isn't what it's about), but overall both are great series.

The overarching plot of Cowboy Bebop is mediocre. The individual mini-plots that make up each episode are great.

That's fair. The episode stories are generally quite good.

I have another criticism of them in the link here if you would like to respond. Cowboy Bebop does not only have a substandard plot; it lacks any semblance of worldbuilding and logical consistency.

Honky Tonk Women, the episode I singled out as one of the worst of the early episodes in this regard? The entire plot relies on Spike going to that specific casino, at the same time the trade is happening, sitting down at the right table, looking very similar to the guy who is supposed to make the deal, deciding to keep one chip, bumping into the guy who was meant to make the deal and then accidentally swapping chips with him. What really gets me about this is not just the insane coincidence, it's also the fact that later in the episode Gordon offers to pay Spike for the chip and they make an attempt at swapping it again, but this time they don't faff around with any of that casino bullshit; they decide to stand on the surface of a spaceship to make the swap. It's unclear why they didn't just choose to do this in the first place, since it seems much easier to not be noticed all the way out in the wasteland of space and you don't have to cover up the transaction in a crowded venue under layers upon layers of byzantine obfuscation.

There's also the question of why they even got Faye in to facilitate this transaction as well, seeing that she's an outsider. Supposedly this is because of her quasi-mystical skill at cards, but... the guy wasn't even meant to bet the chip in the first place, he was just meant to tip her with it, so the skill that supposedly makes her a good fit for this job is not actually very useful. Then at the end Spike and Jet decide the tech hidden in the poker chip is too dangerous and decide to lose it by betting it on roulette at another casino, when it would just have been much easier and far safer to, I dunno, throw it into the sun? Smash it with a hammer? Would it not be trivially easy to destroy?

I found myself zoning out during the episodes as a result; I did so because the plot makes about the same amount of sense regardless of whether you actually pay attention or not. In addition, characters are often shallow, and the episode-to-episode emotional beats feel completely unearned because they are often trying to rush out a dramatic emotional conclusion without the appropriate space to do so. It's just very much carried by its aesthetic and style, and to me, that's not quite enough to make a show entertaining.

Then there's GitS. There's a lot of talking in that film, but I find it barely even has enough to chew on to discuss at length - the overarching plot is that an AI called the Puppet Master has been created by Section 6, it becomes sentient and demands political asylum while posing a small number of very ill-defined philosophical musings about what constitutes a mind even, and then spontaneously decides for itself that the purpose of any living organism is to reproduce and hybridise itself with other lifeforms. It's not clear why it would want this or how it has arrived at that judgement. It tries to make a poor analogy to the merits of sexual reproduction in biology by stating that a single computer virus could destroy all of its copies, but that doesn't work here; all of its copies would be modifiable and endlessly updatable in a way that the human brain currently isn't. There's also a serious lack of legibility in how the Puppet Master even thinks; you never get a good model of how its cognition works. It just comes up with wants and needs on the fly without any foreshadowing, which means the plot gets unpredictably dragged all over the place by some inscrutable god.

I was left with a profound feeling of "okay, I guess" after the film ended.

With all due respect, man, it sounds to me like you want a philosophy course, not a story. Going into the kinds of details you are demanding would be boring. I neither need nor want a meticulously thought out explanation of how the Puppet Master thinks (nor anything else you mentioned), that would just make the story a slog that very few people would want to watch/read.

The movie was already boring! There were like, two fight/chase scenes that didn't have any tension plus some politican getting vaporized at the start of the movie and then a bunch of weird not-very-interesting philosophizing on what a person is or random political intrigue, in both cases several minutes of people just talking. Screw that noise! GitS sucks!

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They are well-made, but hardly well-written. CB can get away with in because it's just honest pulp, but GitS, like anything written by its author, is horribly pretentious yet superficial slop on the plot and characters side.

I disagree, I think both are very well written.

Ghibli is amazing, and they're all so different. I've no qualms with Ghibli.

The human (and nonhuman) will (and horny) bits don't go away, though they do get much more serious and have a lot more character and plot meaning under them. The so-shonen-it-hurts and moron protagonist(s) parts are trying to set up a matter that drives the denouement of episode 8, and doesn't really pay off in spades until 11, but I can understand if that's way too much for whatever that payoff would be, and using slop to eventually criticize the concept is still using slop.

I'm a big fan, but it's definitely got its low points and is a big investment.

But if continues frustrating me to this extent, I'll have to see if Macross or Gundam are any better.

It's definitely not a real robot show, or even more grounded super robot show. 08th MS Team is probably a better bet if that's what you're looking for (or, if you want something that's a light-hearted comedy instead of occasionally going full South Park, Dai-Guard).

they were slinging galaxies and universes as weapons (or is that a different franchise?)

The show only goes up to a single (spare) universe being used as a weapon; the movie significantly more, but yeah, it's this franchise.

and using slop to eventually criticize the concept is still using slop.

This reminds me of early Sorokin. His first works all used the same template: they started out as workmanlike and uninspiring Socialist realist prose, but then, when you least expected it, there would be a whiplash-causing genre twist and the story would devolve into a scatological surrealist nightmare.

Literary critics raved about him, but I always felt kinda cheated: at the end of the day you got me to read some crappy Soc-real fiction and the gross-out punchline was amusing just the first couple of times. At least /u/shittymorph writes just a couple of paragraphs before the punchline.

Later Sorokin got better, writing actual framing stories. When the caterpillar scene happens in the middle of alt-history political satire it's much easier to accept it as a well-timed mood breaker.

Without spoiling anything, the series takes a turn like 12 episodes in and I suspect it is the second half which people remember it for very fondly. I myself bailed not that long after the point you are (episode 6 or 7?), then gave it another shot years later, but still couldn't get into it. If you really want to give it a full try, though, I would say watch that far and see if it changes for you.

Spoilers ahoy: basically I found the only redeeming feature of that series to be Kamina. Simon is a whiny little bitch, the plot isn't all that interesting, I don't care about anime mech fights, and Yoko is amusing but her best feature (besides her boobs) is being a foil for Kamina. Then they killed off Kamina! So literally the only thing I enjoyed about the show was gone, and I bailed. Later I tried to watch further based on encouragement from a friend who said that Simon grows and becomes the new Kamina, but... he kinda doesn't. He stops being a whiny little bitch for sure, but he didn't (as far as I got) become as interesting or as fun as Kamina was. So overall, not a great anime imo. The first 6-7 episodes are excellent, but after that... meh.

I understand liking the Kamina-centric beginning, but more than the deranged crescendo of stakes in the second half?

Yeah. I tried, but it just didn't click with me.

Late last year I posted a comment here asking how I could convince my girlfriend to start eating more. Now, I'm posting an update.

Frankly I was annoyed by some of the replies to my previous post that said I should "enjoy my slim girlfriend", or that implied that I was making more of a problem out of it than it actually was. She actually lost more weight and now weighs 98 lbs. It took several months of patient intervention for me to convince her that yes, I do actually want her to gain weight, and yes, I absolutely would still think she was pretty if she weighed 120 lbs. Recently she finally caved and went to her doctor for a formal medical opinion, and he backed me up on this by telling her that she was at risk of osteoporosis and anemia if she didn't change her diet and gain weight. My cause has also seen some support from her older sister, a very intelligent woman whom she trusts a lot, telling her that she needs to start eating more red meat. So in theory, at least, I've been able to convince her that her ordinary diet and habits aren't healthy or sustainable.

The problem, at least as I see it, is that even with this realization it's been hard for her to break her habits. We go out to brunch and she still eats her little vegan salads. I tell her she should add some chicken or other protein to the salads and she declines. She still consults the app on her phone that counts all her calories for the day. It's hard for me to figure out what the line is between pushing her to be healthier for her own sake, and being outright controlling over her lifestyle. Do I just put my foot down and confront her, pushing her to be serious about her health?

Maybe a bit "deceptive" but, Do you cook at home? It's quite easy to sneak in calories by using extra fat. And you will have to just a little bit more, it won't be noticeable. You can sneak in half a stick of butter into a pasta sauce without it being "greasy" if you do it right.

Speaking as a man who was once described as "manorexic", who genuinely believed I was a fat blob when in reality I was just a regular guy with some muscles, I'm not entirely sure how you deal with this specific case, but I certainly have experience dealing with and eventually overcoming comparable issues so maybe you'll be able to extract some value from that.

I will say, a previous comment seems to have hit a number of salient points, that this occured at a point in my life when I felt I had very little control and that the extremes I went to in pursuing my fitness and diet goals were an attempt to regain control over some aspect of my life. It later turned out I was trying to ignore/brute force a whole bunch of issues and that this really wasn't sustainable long term. As soon as I was removed from the stressors and able to accept the issues I was facing, I was actually recalibrate mentally, that burning need to reshape my body evaporated and now I have a much healthier approach to fitness in general.

Another big factor for me was the content I consumed and the websites I frequented online. I spent a lot of time in bodybuilding and weight lifting forums and it definitely distorted my idea of what was normal.

All of that said, I think it would be great if you could get your girlfriend into fitness in general and weightlifting in particular. While it is possible to go too far and harm yourself, it's a hell of a lot harder than it is with simply starving yourself. The thing that will really help to shift that mindset I think will be her watching female fitness influencers and getting her into that whole eco-system, one where women are striving to be more than just skinny, but actually fit and healthy. The company you keep does influence you and your outlook on life and to our monkey brains, influencers and social media types are company. Also it might help to explain that looking attractive is not simply a question of bodyfat percentages, but also what is underneath the fat. The video I linked earlier actually has a decent breakdown of bf% versus muscle mass for men and what that looks like.

Oh and it would probably be a good idea to one day figure out the source of the problem, I'd seriously recommend looking up things like what female autism looks like and just trying to explore things of that nature. It can seem somewhat orthogonal to the problem at hand, but the mind is a funny thing.

Try getting really good at cooking and the slightest bit hurt whenever you slave away over some delicious medium calorie dish and she only grazes at it?

I'm not being facetious. This is how several cultures handle forcing people to eat more. Shame is a powerful tool, and there are far more effective forms of it than shaming people for their personal failings. Handling cooking for a home grants one a great deal of power over the health of the family, for good or ill.

Damn, I'm sad to hear this. This is one of those times when I had really hoped that I was wrong about what was going on.

The problem, at least as I see it, is that even with this realization it's been hard for her to break her habits. We go out to brunch and she still eats her little vegan salads. I tell her she should add some chicken or other protein to the salads and she declines. She still consults the app on her phone that counts all her calories for the day. It's hard for me to figure out what the line is between pushing her to be healthier for her own sake, and being outright controlling over her lifestyle. Do I just put my foot down and confront her, pushing her to be serious about her health?

Here's the thing about all of this. You can't really control her behavior, and trying to do so is just going to be crazymaking for the both of you. It's her problem to deal with, and hardcore eating disorders are things that have to be managed, not problems that can be solved. It seems like you're really worried about her (and rightly so!) but the last thing you want to do in this situation is to behave in a pushy, controlling, or confrontational way. The most likely result of that kind of behavior is further withdrawal and further entrenchment of the eating disordered thinking--it just feeds the disease. Instead, I'd encourage you to see yourself as her ally, her first line of love and support, and think about your relationship with her on those same terms, which is to say that the more you can love, accept, and support her as she is, the more she'll be able to positively use her own strength constructively in her own life. You can still express your concerns or worry when she asks for feedback (which I'd recommend that you do as gently as you possibly can!) but otherwise those feelings are yours to deal with as well as you possibly can. You can check out The Secret Language of Eating Disorders by Peggy Claude-Pierre, it offers great insight into the minds of the eating disordered.

I said in my earlier reply that it's a long road, she needs a lot of people in her corner, and she needs to choose to work on this herself, yadda yadda yadda, and I'm afraid all of that is still true. Is that something you can live with? Think about what's best for you in this situation without any regard for whether or not she's going to be able to change her eating habits. Can you still love this girl and be happy even if she's always going to be controlling about her eating and even if she stays underweight? If the answer to those questions is a yes, then I'd encourage you to start with accepting that this is likely to be a chronic issue for the duration of your relationship with her, and I'd also encourage you to seek out and find support for those of us that love our eating disordered partners and spouses. There's bound to be lots of heartache and many bumps in the road, and the better you can do with keeping your own metaphorical oxygen mask secure, the better your relationship with her will fare.

Regardless, I still wish you well!

Have you seen the SSC post on anorexia?

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/26/anorexia-and-metabolic-set-point/

You should get her a gym membership and spike a lot of the food you guys eat with olive oil. These two should help her get a higher appetite and also sneak in extra calories. This is a terrible spot to be in. Being thin is not healthy. Confront her, you are her boyfriend.

The current beauty standard is a historic anomaly that should be discarded. The aspirational body type for a girl today is slowly changing, and it's a good sign. She may need counselling. Props to you for intervening. Put your foot down.

The current beauty standard is a historic anomaly that should be discarded.

Isn't pro-ana a thing of the 10's or even 00's? There are more overweight and obese girls in the first-world countries than there are dangerously underweight ones. 120 pounds is a perfect weight to be at.

I agree that a gym membership is a good idea. Especially if @CriticalDuty can gawk at the girls there in a way that looks like he's trying to hide it from his GF, but is still obvious to her. Show her what the most attractive body type looks like.

The ideal body has higher than average amounts of proportional muscle mass alongside slightly lower fat percentage. The same levels of fat look markedly different as muscle mass means less adiposity. Greek sculptures were not super lean. Ditto for women, the ones people find hot have higher muscle mass, allowing them to have way better fat distribution.

Are there any doctors involved here? I mean there are lots of things that could be causing this and not all of them are her trying to stay slim. Maybe she has a form of sensory issue that makes eating unfamiliar food unpleasant. She might have some sort of digestive issues. She might have a blockage somewhere that makes eating a lot of food unpleasant. If there are mental blocks, she needs a professional of some sort so she can sort out her feelings about her weight.

Do I just put my foot down and confront her, pushing her to be serious about her health?

This could horribly backfire, depending on what's underlying her behavior. I helped someone get over a very serious eating disorder, a very long time ago, and one thing that quickly became clear in that case was that the disorder had developed and been reinforced primarily because it provided a feeling of power and control in a life that had been very heavily controlled by others. Part of the solution was to logically explain just how self-destructive the disorder was, but a bigger part was to improve the level of and awareness of more wholesome ways to assert self-control, and to aid in that self-control in a way that made me seem like an ally rather than just another oppressive external source of control. I fear even the "logically explain" bit might have been counterproductive if I wasn't the sort of nerd who mostly interacts with the sorts of nerds that that kind of thing actually works on.

That all sounds ridiculously vague, partly because I'm trying to be respectful of privacy, but partly because your girlfriend may have a completely different underlying problem, and I don't want to give the impression that I'm recommending a particular fix rather than just a search for a deeper problem.

I also feel like it's cruel but necessary to point out that there may be no fix. A BMI of 16.3-and-decreasing is getting into the range typically associated with anorexia. Anorexia gets called "the most lethal mental disorder" because even when it's professionally diagnosed it's not always professionally remediable. Don't blame yourself if it turns out that you can't figure out a remedy here either. Getting her doctor and sister on the case may have been the best you could do, and encouraging and supporting them may be the best you can do now.

one thing that quickly became clear in that case was that the disorder had developed and been reinforced primarily because it provided a feeling of power and control in a life that had been very heavily controlled by others. Part of the solution was to logically explain just how self-destructive the disorder was, but a bigger part was to improve the level of and awareness of more wholesome ways to assert self-control, and to aid in that self-control in a way that made me seem like an ally rather than just another oppressive external source of control

I don't suppose you could elaborate on that? I know someone who I suspect may be in a similar situation, but it's not an eating disorder.

I'd rather not elaborate further somewhere that could be web searched some day; I'll message you privately.

It may be worth evaluating whether it's a fear thing, a social thing, or a genuine lack of hunger; all are problems, but they'll have different solutions.

You're treating it like it's a social thing (habits, how others see her, so on), so assuming that's the case, I'd caution that it's usually more effective to work within existing habits than around them. Try to negotiate a slightly higher calorie intake, or add a protein requirement (even if vegan proteins), or have one meal once a week away from the cell phone, rather than get rid of the calorie-counter app entirely. Suggest vitamin or macronutrient supplements rather than changing what's on the dining room table. That'll not only avoid problems with being controlling; it should also make it easier to acclimatize toward.

Regardless of approach, be aware that sustained significant increases in calorie intake (or most macronutrients) aren't much easier to actually do than decreases.

I mean, at the end of the day, she's only your girlfriend and it's none of your business. I can't pretend to know your relationship, but imagine if you will she came to you and started taking a deadly serious and negatively slanted interest in something you did? Pathologized how much you played video games, or arguing with people on the internet, or watched porn? If you don't actually do any of those things, replace it with something you do do.

snigger do do.

I guess my point is, even if you are right, you're still just a boyfriend. Probably the latest of many, others of whom never had a problem with this before. This is more of a fight for her family and doctor to wage.

That said, my wife had some eating disorder adjacent behavior that didn't stop until we decided to have kids. After putting a baby in her 6 years ago they haven't re-emerged even slightly.

Not that I'm suggesting you rush anything.

This is a very pro-anomie sort of take. If my video game playing was eclipsing all my other recreation time, or my porn watching was impacting my sex life, or arguing with people on the internet was filling me with bile, I'd want the people in my life to bring that shit up. It's 2025. 'Just a boyfriend' isn't a thing. The title doesn't mean they're family, but it is definitely not a sign they're not serious and heading in the direction of either a lifelong relationship or proper marriage.

I donno, I think I did alright respecting personal boundaries and using a lighter touch. She got better, and we got married and had a kid didn't we?

I find this comment bizarre. They've been going out at least a year, and probably considerably longer considering this was brought up as a concern a year ago. At what point would you suggest that a concern for another person's mental and physical wellbeing becomes one's "business"?

I'd also suggest a girlfriend would not be out of her lane to have concerns about any of the examples you mention (porn, gaming, the insanity of constant online argument). There are of course various ways to bring these things up, some much more strident and ineffective than others.

You are free to have your views of course but I disagree.

7 months ago, but who's counting?

I donno man, everyone is different. Some people have a very "There's no ring on this finger, it's none of your business" attitude, some people have a "My last relationship was 5 years and we've only been together 7 months, who are you to get all up in my business" attitude, some people are moved in and married inside a year, for others a year is still well within scoping this other person out and how long and how serious the relationship is has been more of a slow climb of a smooth gradient than an on/off switch. More over, CriticalDuty might not even be on the same page about the level of concern and commitment (and control) that is appropriate at this point in the relationship.

But like I said, I can't presume to know their relationship, it was just a perspective I hadn't seen yet, so I thought it was worth giving.

Ask her how she arrived at the calorie goal in the app (on what basis the target was set).

Summer fitness has been interesting. I was pretty excited to return home to my local gym after my second semester in college but was sorely disappointed. They changed the machines, it's way smaller than my college's gym, and the extra 15 minutes it takes to drive there really became an inconvenience. I went a few times with friends but haven't touched a barbell in a month and half now. Luckily, the scuffed pullup bar in our barn is still functional, so I've been doing 50-75 reps a day. I'll do 15 with strict form, then two sets of ten more relaxed ones, one with a wide grip and one without locking out my arms at the bottom. Doing this 2-3x a day only takes a total of around 30 minutes and its been great for my mental health. I'm probably resting too long between sets and certainly not pushing myself to failure but I've seen an increase in strength and my form is getting much better.

My calisthenics goal this summer is to do a front lever, which I'm finding incredibly difficult. Like I can do 15 pullups without breaking a sweat, but I can barely get my legs parallel to the ground. Once I got serious about the pullup routine I've been adding torso/leg raises to the start and while I'm seeing some improvement it's really tough. I watched a youtube video where a calisthenics guy recommended tucking your legs and focusing on your torso before working your legs out, and thats the routine I've roughly been following. I think the main think holding me back right now is core and back strength, each day it's 50/50 which gives out first.

Aesthetically, it took about a month to burn off the fat that finals seasons had added. My abs are pretty good and the wide grip pullups have finally built my deltoids in a way I never had before. These changes are probably also a result of my facial structure/body shifting away from teen and towards adult more generally. I'm pretty lean right now with no sign of stopping, the first month of the summer was pretty bad with lots of boba/fatty mexican food but the start of a summer fling made me lock in and I've pretty much cut out sweets. By the end of next month (when school restarts) if I stay on track I'll be in the best aesthetic shape of my life. The aforementioned summer fling also increased my self confidence by a lot, which will probably make me somewhat more outgoing back at school. It's nice to know people actually find you attractive.

One of my friends back at college is one of those people who is genetically inclined to run. I'm not, but I'm hoping when I get back to school I'll pick it up again. I ran every other day last fall semester, and I don't think I'll be able to do that with my workload but something like 2x a week would be nice. The consequences of bad cardio scare me. Going back to the college gym will be interesting. I know my "gym buddy" has been pretty consistent so far this summer, so we'll see how much his bench/squat outstrip mine, and how fast it'll take for me to catch back up.

Biggest tip I have for running is to slow down unless you're deliberately trying to do a workout session. This will allow you to burn more fat from cardio, enjoy the run more, and is easier on your bones and joints.

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