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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   27863 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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Well ultimately one's reaction to OP's story rests partially on how much you take his description at face value.

Normal doesn't imply "good", and wanting to be greater than "normal" is good.

He's not doing worthy intellectual things like dropping meandering essays about utilons and degeneracy

Much of the most "worthy" intellectual, as judged by mainstream thought, were convoluted essays about obscure topics! That is more worthy than smoking pot and consuming food. The sneer about 'utilons' is weird given utilitarianism is a significant part of philosophy, with a major proponent described as "One of the most influential thinkers of classical liberalism"!

entitle you to look down on people living ordinary lives without being questioned

Should we just look away from the filth? Should we lead the flock of civilization to become 380lb tokers, typing away at some job to pay for the munchies? Is criticizing that entitled?

The best experiences, or highest duties, one can find aren't found in banging other 300lb girls, eating takeout, or smoking pot, they're found in complex, often adversarial intellectual, artistic, political, economic, etc acts / projects / explorations. Any time someone goes a bit from the former to the latter is good, any time the reverse is bad - both for them and everyone else (leaving capability/contingency/selection aside).

writing crank essays doesn't automatically make you an intellectual

It's just a bad sneer if "meandering essays about utilons [or] degeneracy" are things genuinely worthy intellectuals have done.

The average slob posting pseudointellectual drivel on the web is doing nothing of any more consequence or import than jerking off and playing Minecraft

Taking this at face value - I could say both are bad, both should be trying to do more consequential or interesting work. I don't think that's your argument though.

Writing essays on stuff can be useful - even if you're wrong, learning to argue your point might eventually lead you to figure out why it's wrong. Maybe you come across another argument that wakes you from Kant's "dogmatic slumber". Probably neither happen, but it's better practice for things of consequence than smoking pot and jerking off.

The idea that a guy is wasting his life by playing guitar and getting laid

Again, much of that exposition was the "before: when things were better" part. console games, working, cooking, learning work-related stuff, playing guitar, hitting on girls, hanging out with friends, building random contraptions as a hobby. This wasn't even mostly a putdown. Playing guitar shittily and having sex with a few random people isn't much, but there's clearly a path from there to greater things that isn't there with "yo dude weed".

This just sounds like someone trying to justify their hobby

Both scott and moldbug's big blogs started as discussing stuff on the internet, posting comments, and small blogs. The big hits are valuable, and it's useful for many people to try to get there, even if only a small few do anything useful with it. This isn't true of video games, or even competitive sports, nothing significant is gained when the top .0001% of competitive game/sports players filter to the top and win their competitions.

Also, something that 'justifies a hobby' can still be true. You're stating / assuming the thing being contested (is posting about politics and ideas useful), and then saying "you just believe as a justification for ", without proving it. Why should that be convincing?

There are lots of things to do more useful than toking and fapping, but none of them need justifications this thin and abstract

I think a look at the history of mathematics or philosophy thoroughly disproves this. A lot of worthwhile activities had justifications much, much more abstract.

So now he's toking down while crashed in Bumfuckistan, who cares? Maybe everyone else here is a bodybuilder who writes symphonies or something, but don't try to tell me that something as trifling as your personal flavor of "being an internet goblin having long-winded arguments over bullshit" makes you enlightened.

how is me claiming i'm enlightened relevant here? And where, or when, did I claim that? We started with "lazing around smoking weed is bad", and then you brought up "but discussing politics is just as bad, so you can't criticize weed" (... how does that make it less bad?), and then "you're trying to show your superiority / enlightenment by lording your writing over the poor weed-smokers" (but you brought up the writing!). Is any attempt to stop someone from wasting their time, or thinking it's dumb they do that, necessarily wrong because of psychoanalytic contortions?

Again, much of that exposition was the "before: when things were better" part. console games, working, cooking, learning work-related stuff, playing guitar, hitting on girls, hanging out with friends, building random contraptions as a hobby. This wasn't even mostly a putdown. Playing guitar shittily and having sex with a few random people isn't much, but there's clearly a path from there to greater things that isn't there with "yo dude weed".

Thanks.

Normal doesn't imply "good", and wanting to be greater than "normal" is good.

Is this like the town where all the children are above average?

All children are improving their math scores, knowledge, etc as they learn and grow - for any given cohort, most are near or below average, but the cohort's average grows. And it's also good that a few have much more than the average.

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