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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2533 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 23, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Just got back from Yosemite; and hot damn it was a good time to visit.

Lots of the sites in the valley seemed to under water so there weren't as many people as usual; and I found I nice spot off a fire road right near a gate to bivouac so I could go in at six with no line.

Weather was perfect, crowds were minuscule, and more water than I've ever seen / anyone under 70 who works there has ever seen. A couple waterfalls going this year I didn't even know existed.

Strongly recommend anyone with the wherewithal to get out there in the next week or two; it was getting less good as I left.

I’ve been reading Jed McKenna’s Spiritual Enlightenment. Its quite brilliant and insightful but honestly very dark and cynical as well. It’s kind of making me depressed.

What are some spirituality (or otherwise) themed books that made you feel optimistic and hopeful about the future?

Fire Within by Fr. Thomas Dubay is the most accessible book I have read. He believes that anyone in any state of life can experience spiritual fruits.

What’s depressing about it, exactly? Might help tailor the recommendations.

Well I don’t want to spoil his whole schtick, but the basic idea is that if you truly want spiritual enlightenment you have to give up pretty much everything. The price is extremely high.

In retrospect it’s pretty obvious, but now that I’m having to stare this truth in the face I’m shook. Starting to question what I actually want in the first place.

if you truly want spiritual enlightenment you have to give up pretty much everything. The price is extremely high.

I can't imagine what sort of enlightenment that would be. Some things can only be had with great sacrifice, yes, but is "enlightenment" one of those things?

The founding assertion of the European philosophical tradition is that, if we can speak of such a thing as "enlightenment" at all, then it is not to be found in any particular piece of knowledge or state of being, but rather it is to be found in a habit of mind. It's the process, not the content. Typically at the origin of a religion or a philosophy you will find a wise man who claims to have found the truth and is eager to share it with others. Socrates, in contrast, claimed to only know that he knew nothing. He had no wisdom to share; his only mission was to deflate the pretensions of those who pretended to wisdom. Such pretenders were in no short supply, since any mortal man who claims to be wise will ultimately falter when examined by the light of reason. Wisdom is for the gods; what mortals must be content with in its stead is the love of wisdom.

Of course Socrates and all of his students (Plato chiefly among them) immediately contradicted themselves. They didn't just give up and revel in ignorance. They had protracted debates about all sorts of ideas about all sorts of things - beauty, virtue, truth, reality. It looks like there were quite a few claims to knowledge in there as well. But that needn't distract us from the thrust of the fundamental lesson. Even as you do (try to) learn things, and you do make arguments and assent to propositions, that fundamental attitude of humility and wonder will always be lurking in the background - the understanding that wisdom is a process that never reaches completion, rather than a final state of "enlightenment" that you're hoping to attain (please for the love of God never listen to anyone who unironically calls themselves "enlightened", I mean dear Lord that's just about the dumbest thing you could ever say about yourself).

When you put this sort of distance between yourself and the ideas you entertain, it lessens their emotional impact and it makes philosophical reflection into less of a rollercoaster ride. Yes, perhaps there's no free will, and no "self", and everything is meaningless, and that's a bit depressing - but at the same time, perhaps all that is exactly wrong. You never know what sorts of new things could happen to you or what sorts of things you could learn that will reveal that all the "wisdom" you had accumulated up until that point was really nothing but so many sandcastles in the air. You're here for the journey, you're not here to Learn The Truth. And of course these habits of mind can be cultivated without any great sacrifice. It only requires time and patience.

You might enjoy reading Plato's Apology. It's very short.

Pic related

/images/16876251792243052.webp

LMAO thanks for this. Good to start the day with a chuckle.

The SuperNova Early Warning System (SNEWS) is a network of neutrino detectors designed to give early warning of a near-earth supernova. They have a mailing list where you can sign up to be one of the first people to be notified when it happens. I signed up for it; just imagine the party trick you could pull off by getting that email one evening and pointing to Betelgeuse before it blows up!

Great idea! They should have picked an acronym for their alarm system that isn't a homophone for turning off an alarm though.

I've been seeing some of this geoguessr guys (georainbolt) videos for a while now, but this one just seems too absurd to believe.

https://twitter.com/georainbolt/status/1667908968163987457?s=20

From a 0.1 second flash of a location he is able to tell where it is in the world? Is anyone suspicious of this at all, I know this is his thing and he streams it, but it seems genuinely impossible. I feel like it's more likely that he's doing some kind of trickery with the software (ie prerecording the puzzles and memorizing the pattern beforehand) than he can guess where he is in the world with this kind of consistency. Though his whole twitter page is sending people locations of their old family photos which seems so many levels of fakery...maybe a combination of both? or maybe the human brain is just that good...or maybe GeoGuessr has other clues or tricks (only certain cities in some countries)...This does seem crazy impressive if legit.

I believe it. Watch this video to get an idea of what he's doing https://youtube.com/watch?v=509wv0cohgA

I saw one where he got it to the correct road and section of the road since it was by almost the only lake in Lesotho, so that one was a good bit more understandable to me than this one.

It's probably real, but luck. He just does this constantly, right? If he does this for an hour a day every day for two years, and each round takes a minute, that's 40k rounds, and one in 40k seems like enough room for luck if he's already a bit accurate. And if he was this accurate with any consistency, he wouldn't have acted so shocked about it!

And you can get a lot of detail from a .1 second flash of an image. Some internet video memes flash various images by at ten per second, and if you pay attention you can get a lot of detail. Various studies find that even with <100ms people can still identify things. And that'd only improve if you practiced a lot, so I could see him narrowing it down to a general region from that, and then getting lucky.

no clear tells

I think if you're smart and you look at a hundred different (location, image) pairs, you'd pick up on a lot of associations between "how things look" and the location. Types of plants, style of buildings/roads, etc. If you've only seen a few hundred pairs signage style might be your only option.

His explanation was that it “looked like the Ghana East Road”. How many times, even if he’s done tens of thousands of geoguessr puzzles, has he encountered the Ghana East Road?

I think if it is real it is, as a user below suggested, a combination of immediate inside baseball tells (like reflections, smudges, weird quirks that longstanding players know suggest a particular country or region or vehicle or time) and general appearance. So maybe you’ve come to recognise tells that mean it’s Ghana, and streetview in Ghana is limited to a small portion of the road network, and you remember some loose visual features, and then you make a very lucky guess.

That’s possible, although still in my opinion the less likely scenario. But people can solve Rubik’s cubes in a couple of seconds, once you can memorize and act on a huge library of tells you can do impressive things.

This is definitely real, and very, very lucky. The primary method of guessing (he's been playing this 0.1 second thing for a while now) is via meta/vibes based stuff, including colour, car tells, photo artifacts etc. The country is easily West African from the 0.1 second snippet, top level players can probably know that it is likely to be Ghana (only some countries are included, Ghana being one of them) based on Meta like this: https://i.redd.it/2ofuurlj61g61.png. (Out of date now, but you get the idea). And then you have a relatively small subset of main roads to choose from. He just got very lucky this time. Even if because of his advanced skills he has a 1 in 1000 chance of guessing the correct road, he must play at least that many games a month.

The country is easily West African from the 0.1 second snippet, top level players can probably know that it is likely to be Ghana (only some countries are included, Ghana being one of them) based on Meta like this: https://i.redd.it/2ofuurlj61g61.png.

Yeah, so it turns out that Ghana is one of the easiest countries to guess because there's a clear tell that it was the Ghanaian streetview vehicle. Then the number of covered roads in the country is small, so the guess seems reasonable. I withdraw my earlier objection.

I was about to edit in something about chicken sexing lol.

I don't think the system 1/system 2 or conscious/unconscious distinction is meaningful tbh, both are the same kind of learning and knowledge mechanically (and smart people are better at 'both').

Edit: I think because there are specific meta tells for Ghana, it could be real. My bad.

GeoGuessr has other clues or tricks

The subreddit in its wiki links to an old thread with heplful hints, which aren't even google street view specific. Like how trafic signs look in different countries. Higher tier probably involves looking at GST in particular, like how the reflected google car looks like, resolution or camera attributes. Maybe the Renault Twingo was used only in Mongolia, or a moon shaped smudge on the top-right was only on the lens when Chile photographed, etc.

I don't believe it. Must be some kind of a trick. You can't gather enough information from a 0.1 second exposure. So either he knows in advance what it is, or he's using some kind of side channel - e.g. the pictures aren't random or there's some other clue. Magicians have dozens upon dozens of tricks like that, so I would guess he's using one of them, or came up with his own.

Perhaps a long shot, but there was a website I came cross in the LessWrong comments, where you could click a button and it would give you random "interesting" thing to read from a seemly large curated list of sources. Does anyone know what that website is?

Is it this?

https://readsomethinginteresting.com/

Thank you, I'm pretty sure that's it

I thought it might have been something on https://gwern.net/, but I’m not finding it.

What is your budget breakdown, or in other words how much of your budget do you spend on hobbies or video games or fun things?

The main thing would be eating out, which is probably about 7% of my after-tax income. I don't spend much else on fun things. Probably gas is the next one, which is probably about 1% or my after-tax income. The next thing is probably fees for sports teams or lessons. That might be another percent. So in total maybe about 10%. These are very rough guesses. I don't have a budget.

My most expensive hobbies, going to the cottage, sailing, etc. are free for me because they're subsidized by my family.

I save almost all my income for the joy of watching it vanish to inflation. Just did an $800 shopping trip to get supplies for the next few months, from petrol to rice and tomato paste.

PC was <$400 five generations ago (with a hand-me-down gpu). The last game I bought was Factorio. I don't have any other hobbies that cost money: the ones that did turned into profitable second and third jobs.

Maybe I should keep track of my spending better to see where I'm being too miserly. What budget software does the motte recommend?

I spend a good amount on hobbies and travel:

Golf: $200-$300 a month. This is my real killer, but I absolutely love golf and it makes me happy so I’m ok with it.

Travel: Probably $3000-$4000 a year. I try to offset this by churning credit cards for airline and hotel points.

Therapy:$300 a month. This is another killer, but I do find good use out of it and it’s not exactly a hobby.

I’ve become less frugal as I’ve gotten older. I still manage to save about 30% of my pre tax income. I pay as little as I can for an apartment in my VHCOL area, drive a cheap paid-off car, don’t eat out much, don’t go to bars much, don’t go to concerts or sporting events much, don’t gamble much, don’t shop much.

Really, golf is my main guilty pleasure and travel eats up a bit too. I’m pretty happy with my savings rate and spending.

Below 1%. Single-income family, one small child, over a third of my income goes straight into rent.

Wife gets about 2% per month as pocket money. We try to spend less than 5% per week on groceries, but it's usually closer to 8%, and the difference is probably things we didn't need, so we try to cut down on whatever it is.

When I get myself something for fun (almost always either a book or a game, lately), I try to get it for free. I that's not an option then I try to get it at a steep discount. If that also isn't an option, then I usually skip it and give up. Can't really justify wasting substantial amounts of money on entertainment products when we're just about scraping by.

5% of your income is already a rate. "5% per week" doesn't make any sense.

Oh, pedantry! Income is monthly, grocery shopping is weekly.

So you're spending 5% of your monthly income per week? Doesn't that mean you're spending 22% of your income on food? That doesn't sound right. I must be misunderstanding.

No, that's about the size of it. I may have used incorrect terminology though, please forgive a non-anglophone. These purchases include food, diapers, soap, beverages and the like. Any articles that are rapidly used up and bought in a supermarket.

Well, this is the most highly upvotes response so that’s something.

I’m sorry to hear that man, I know from your other posts things have been tough for your family. I wish I was in a better position to offer support or advice.

Single-income family, one small child

My brother in arms! Now there are a whole two of us here!

5% per week on groceries huh? I leave the food to the wife, and I don't know how she's done it, but she's actually kept our grocery bill mostly level through the last 4 years of inflation. Lots of bean soups and "manager's special" meat. Although I also stopped splurging at bakeries and starting baking my own snacks.

It's not been good for my waistline. Now that I have the power to make as many scones as I want, the responsibility has been too great.

Ah jeez. Damned near nothing. About 25% mortgage, 10% food, 25% savings, another 15% for utilities, insurance, etc. I give the wife 10% to do whatever she wants with no questions asked. The rest seems to consistently vanish because of random medical bills (dental crowns are expensive), mechanical bills, or home improvement projects.

At the end of the month, I splurge on myself between $100 and $200, or roughly 1-2% of my monthly take home pay. It tends to go either towards a tool and/or rough lumber, a video game, whiskey or cigars.

When I get my Christmas bonus at the end of the year, I tend to splurge on one big ticket item for myself and save the rest. Last year I bought a Dewalt thickness planer. The year before that I bought an Ikea computer desk for my retro computers. This year I'm eyeballing either an 8" benchtop jointer or a 48KG Kettlebell.

25% on your mortgage seems really low. Is it?

I donno. It's the only mortage I've ever had.

I feel like once upon a time, having your mortgage be 25% of your take home pay was conventional wisdom. A quick googling shows I'm not totally hallucinating, as it appears here Lifestyle inflation has obviously changed that over the years. But I'm old school, so I made the necessary sacrifices to stick with it. So far it's working out well for my family. We stick to a budget, but it's not suffocating. There are things we'd like, and we can't do all of it. But there is nothing we truly hurt for. We're saving adequately for emergencies, repairs, retirement, school, etc.

Something like 30-35% was the official Canadian stress test number, at least until recently -- they may have backed off of this now that condos are high six figures in any major city, but I wouldn't be surprised if 25% was the traditional number from like the 80s or something.

Wow, this helps explain your lack of tools in your woodworking posts. Didn’t realize I had it so good with a DINK lifestyle, these responses are making me rethink how grateful I should be!

Yeah, going from DINK to SIWK has been an adjustment. Less so for me because that's how I grew up, and it's remarkable how you just grok that lifestyle when you grew up in it. My wife less so. Grew up with two working parents who made up for their lack of time with her by buying thing.

My hobbies that involve spending money are primarily:

  • Hunting for old golf clubs at thrift stores and flea markets. Less than $100 a month. (I couldn't even explain why I do this. I just get the urge.)

  • Driving around and taking pictures of stuff. Well less than $100 a month (just gas and snacks really).

  • Reading; buying books at the used bookstore up the street. $50 max a month.

  • Working out at the Y. About $45 a month in membership.

  • Occasionally drinking at bars, breweries, etc. Probably not more than $100 a month on average, but months with special occasions do pop up and drive this up.

  • Video games... I don't really play a ton, and usually when I do, it's one game for a long time. Like $25 a month tops.

That's pretty much it. I'd have to do something really unusual to even hit 10% of my budget. I guess the key is that I like to cook and prefer to cook, so I go out to eat only 1-2 times a month. Other hobbies I have just don't cost anything. I play guitar but I like the guitar I've got; I like to work on my garden but that's free. I take a lot of long walks, that's free; I write, that's free. My friends and I hang out at each other's houses a lot, or else we do stuff that's like, "Let's go and look at x. Hmmm, that's a cool x."

I’d like to hear more about your golf club hobby. Are you a golfer? Have you ever actually found any gems at a thrift store?

I am a golfer, although I'm a super casual and have not been doing it for very long; and equally important, I already have multiple full bags' worth of clubs I can play. I think for me the appeal is that it's so fun to see how all the different ones will hit - especially given that there are several thrift stores within 15 minutes of me that price them at $1.00 a club. "Hmmm, that's an interesting bounce on that sand wedge. I wonder if it'll help me play out of trouble? Let's just find out." It combines well with another hobby, which is: going to the driving range and practicing. Sometimes I'll just take an entire bag of "new" thrift clubs and test them all out. It makes for a really fascinating afternoon for less than $20 - if you're into that kind of thing.

In terms of gems, honestly, that's even more uncommon than I anticipated. If you consider the "big" manufacturers to be Callaway, Titleist, Ping, Cobra, and TaylorMade - I've seen clubs manufactured by those companies in the last 25 years, like... never. Genuinely just about never. In the age of the Internet I guess people know how much stuff is worth, so those don't end up in places like that. Once I saw a set of King Cobra II irons that was missing the 9, and an ancient TaylorMade Burner 5-wood with a tiny little head. (I did buy that one.) I've heard of people reselling thrift store clubs and making money; I guess those folks just get to them first.

As far as playable clubs go, though, I've found some really nice stuff. I have a Nickent Super Concorde 7-wood that plays beautifully. I even found an ancient Northwestern 1-iron so I could find out if they're really as hard to play as people say. (Answer: Yep. They certainly are. But it gives me something to aim for - when I can hit that 1-iron off the deck, I'll know I've truly accomplished something.)

Most of the thrift chains divert the good stuff to an internet auction site. For example goodwill uses shopgoodwill.com there are some deals to be found there especially if you're good at recognizing obscure things from a photograph. The descriptions are pretty hit and miss so the best deals come from a big pile of stuff listed with just one or two photos of all the stuff.

In lenses buyers were very good if even part of a famous lens was visible the lot would sell at pretty close to low grade used prices.

Pawn shops are more likely to have semi-recent high-end clubs IME -- they probably aren't a dollar each, but much less than retail.

Thanks for letting me know about that. I genuinely had no idea. The Goodwills near me, I don't bother going to - they sometimes have no golf clubs at all. St. Vincent de Paul outposts have many.

I consider eating good food to be a "fun thing", and I think if you added up the cost difference between optimal-cost food and what I eat that'd be significant. Restaurants, high-quality ingredients to eat, coffee, would all add up.

Shooting, camping, exercise/gym, & alcohol are I suppose what count as hobbies. I love gaming but even if I did it a ton more than I actually do the costs of software and the hardware spread out over a 3-5 year refresh cycle are pennies compared to my income.

Battletech is made absurdly affordable through 3d printing and AI. The expense is just the whiskey and beer we share around the table. I refuse to pay Wizards of the Coast for MTG anymore, I just print my own cards and play them.

I'd be surprised if it was more than 5% of my budget, even with variances for buying durable goods to support hobbies. It's tough to nail this down even under Mint budgets. I still spend on experiences occasionally.

Games/books/movies - almost zero now, except for Prime/Netflix sub (I am on the verge of cancelling the latter, but there's still a couple of shows that keep me hanging on). For books, libraries (especially the audio-book section) are awesome and free. About 10% - on travel related to my hobbies.

Which shows are keeping you hanging on?

There are several I watched lately: Black Mirror, The Witcher, Fauda, Lost in Space, Better Call Saul, Cobra Kai, Babylon Berlin, La Casa de Papel, Stranger Things, The Great British Baking Show.

I have been really disappointed with latest season of Black Mirror so far.

Didn't see the last season yet.

A lot less than 10%.

Probably 15% is mortgage, 15% daycare, 4% car payment, 5-10% utilities.

We spend almost all of our discretionary income (which is not very much at present) on somewhat short trips (gas, a rather nice tent, motel rooms, fast food, will probably need sleeping bags), though there are a few hundred dollars a year going to digital entertainment, art supplies, and children's toys. This is probably something like 5% of the budget, but I haven't been keeping track as much as would probably be wise.

What kinds of short trips? Camping or just to random places?

Rentals in various mountains, near impressive natural areas, places with cliffs and waterfalls and sand dunes and cactus forests. We'd like to go camping more, and have a nice tent, but the toddler isn't able to use blankets yet. There are extra warm sleep sacks, but those are too expensive for what they are. Then, when she can use blankets, she'll be potty training, which is also difficult for camping, so we'll see how things progress. So far we've been tent camping one night, and have plans for another night this summer.

The vast majority of my money goes to spending on takeout, and my recent weight gain happily attests to the same. Our full time cook can't, and after eating her cooking for 18 years of my life I can hardly stand it.

When it comes to my other hobbies, the costs were front loaded, my current PC is worth about $2k going by new part pricing, and was built up over the years.

I rarely buy games, even with regional pricing they're expensive af for Indians, so ongoing costs are minimal. I'm not immune to the allure of a Steam sale after all so there's a bunch just collecting dust in my inventory.

Of course, I'm not working at this very moment, but that's from sheer laziness as my GMC application is processing rather than because I can't. It still annoys the fuck out of me to work for like $3 an hour here even if thanks to PPP it's not as bad as it sounds.

But yes, having any particularly involved hobby is difficult on Third World salaries, but the end of that is nigh.

I believe in you! Keep fighting the good fight you’re clearly intelligent and driven enough to get to America where you can make more money and spend it all on bullshit like we do.

I usually pirate games myself just because I’m cheap, but I just got my hard drive nuked for the first time. Kind of sad, hoping it’s recoverable.

Backups are important. I recommend keeping two copies of your data at home and one in your car.

Oh RIP, I'm hoping nothing irreplaceable was lost!

And thanks for consistently cheering me on, I really appreciate it!

Why do girls like Titanic so much?

The film made almost two billion dollars when it was released in 1997, making it the highest grossing movie in history at the time (the previous record was Jurassic Park at only $900 million).

Why? What made it special? It’s a perfectly fine movie I guess. The effects were well-done and innovative. But otherwise it seems like a pretty generic disaster/romance film. There’s an old /tv/ meme about “movies women will never understand”. Presumably there are also “movies men will never understand”. I know many women consider Titanic their favorite film of all time, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man say that.

Take a second to think about it. This is actually quite surprising. Big machines, transportation technology, humanity fighting nature, honor, these are all male-oriented interests. I find that these themes make the film tolerable to watch, but why would adding them to a romance make the film so popular amongst women?

What am I missing here?

It's not that complicated. It's a classic tragic romance between a brilliant but stifled heiress and the handsome bohemian artist who promises to whisk her away from her gilded cage, with just enough big machine porn and dudes running around with guns to satisfy the women's boyfriends and husbands. There aren't a whole lot of movies that appeal to both tween girls and old men who like reading books about Napoleonic naval warfare.

James Cameron is far from the first director to recognize the money-making potential of combining historical epic with passionate romance (remember, the most successful film of all time when accounting for inflation and size of potential audience is Gone with the Wind), but his only real competition in this genre in recent decades has been paint-by-numbers YA love triangle garbage, so Titanic stands out as a conspicuous success. The only other notable example of an epic romance I can think of from the past 50 years that wasn't terrible is the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which also happens to have been an outrageously successful crossover hit with both men and women.

There’s an old /tv/ meme about “movies women will never understand”.

Is there a good list? The one on letterboxd is 50% movies I haven't watched, 25% movies I didn't like and 25% movies my wife didn't like and I did.

There is in fact, a comprehensive list.

I'm a Silent Hero Journey Boy man myself but Boats is runner up. Or as we call them today, Blade Runner 2049 and Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World.

So, this used to be my favorite movie for years. I think I imprinted strongly on it because I saw it for the first time at age 8 and it was probably one of the first movies - along with Jurassic Park, which also had a profound effect on me at the time - I saw with actual dramatic stakes and spectacular visuals. (It’s also the first nude scene I saw in a movie, which probably contributed to my very positive first impression of it.) I also acknowledge that I was (and still am) a pretty low-T guy, and that my tastes and proclivities largely tended toward the feminine during my formative years.

Other commenters’ cynical and acidic takes on the film’s central romance are basically completely accurate; if you’re a man who is neither as virile and charming as prime DiCaprio, nor as rich and ambitious as Cal, the entire Rose plot is pretty blackpilling. It sucks to know that probably the best that most guys could ever hope to be is the nameless schmuck who later picked up those guys’ sloppy thirds, never being featured onscreen or even apparently occupying much of a place in Rose’s emotional landscape at all, despite being the father of her children. Far more realistic is being one of the innumerable guys who died horribly in frozen water, or just ended it all quickly by leaping off the deck. Me personally, I’d probably end up like poor First Officer Murdoch, gunning a man down in a panic and then offing myself.

The film really is a testament to the awesome power of artifice, spectacle, and aesthetics. On some level, nearly every modern person who appreciates Titanic does so because the world it depicts - no matter how much the nihilistic Hollywood shitlib James Cameron tries to paint it as stuffy and doomed - is glamorous, confident, impeccably classy, and features exclusively high-quality white people. Even the poorest people on the ship are charming European immigrants, with no signs of criminality or dysfunction, dancing a sprightly Irish jig. The music is lush and gorgeous, the effects are stunning, the sets and costumes are incredible. The emotional/ideological soul of the film is utterly poisonous and it doesn’t even matter, because the experience is so beautiful and tragic. (See also: Harry Potter)

I thought it was well-made female-centric garbage. However, redpillers types like you and @Sloot need to decide what you want. She did produce children for the nameless husband, that ought to be considered a worthy contribution. I get it, you want everything, children, reverence, eternal sexual and emotional exclusivity, and of course, to be „loved for who you are„. But „everything“ is hardly in the cards for mere mortals, now is it? Let me put it this way: would you give all that to your garden variety woman?

I mean, switching the sex of the protagonists, our boy Rosario going for the poor hot girl over the stuffy fiancee seems very easy to identify with. Women have enough flaws (like rose‘s selfishness in accepting the sacrifice of his life) , there is no need to stack on their failure to meet your unrealistic, hypocritical demands.

redpillers types like you and @Sloot need to decide what you want.

Not sure why "redpiller" was brought-up in a chain about a film being blackpilling, but I suppose I’m sufficiently somewhere on the continuum between red and blackpilled (as opposed to bluepilled) on life that I’ll play along.

And this is a false dilemma. I don’t see why I need to decide on anything in this moment, what I have to decide on, much less how my hypothetical decision would be pertinent to a discussion on what men in general may find sucky or horrifying.

She did produce children for the nameless husband, that ought to be considered a worthy contribution.

Sure, that’s a worthy contribution—as I remarked just a bit further down: “At least, in the film, that sloppy third receiving schmuck was presumably the biological father of those children (I think).”

I suppose it’s somewhat of a favor, since via evolutionary psychology/biology, a given offspring—all else equal—is more psychologically/biologically costly to the mother (e.g., Rose) than the father (e.g., nameless, sloppy third schmuck). However, it’s hardly a complete favor (to say the least), as the offspring are hers too (and with greater assurances: mother’s baby, father’s maybe). In ${CurrentYear}, babies’ mommas and egg donors/surrogates can provide a man with children too, and without the requisite of lifetime commitment or serving as a retirement plan for an alpha-widow.

I get it, you want everything, children, reverence, eternal sexual and emotional exclusivity, and of course, to be „loved for who you are„. But „everything“ is hardly in the cards for mere mortals, now is it?

You clearly don’t, because I’m certainly not one that pines for “everything,” much less wanting to be “loved for who you are.” It’d be nice to be “loved for who you are” unconditionally, just as it’d be nice to win the lottery, but it’d be foolish for men to want to be “loved for who you are,” whatever that may mean. Hence why I remark from time to time about the inegalitarian nature of male sexual success, and reference links such as Chris Rock on how men are only loved conditionally at best.

I’m under no illusion: If I suddenly became three inches shorter, lost 1/3 of my muscle mass, permanently lost my hair, lost a fight in front of her, cried in front of her for whatever reason, etc., pretty much any of the girls I’m dating or have dated would lose some or much of their attraction for me, maybe even ditch me altogether. If I were three inches shorter, bald, had only 2/3 of my muscle mass at the time, had little or no social media preselection or social proof to engender female mate-choice copying, I’d guess over 90% of my one-night-stands, flings, friends with benefits, and relationships would never have happened in the first place.

It would be unpleasant from an immediate emotional standpoint, losing their attraction and/or getting ditched in such circumstances—but zooming out: such is life; it is what it is. (The three/3/90% should be thought of as arbitrary constants, I just put in numbers for illustrative purposes).

there is no need to stack on their failure to meet your unrealistic, hypocritical demands.

It’s not unrealistic nor hypocritical for men to expect that they’re first place in their lifetime partner’s heart, that they’re the primary landholder in their lifetime partner’s emotional landscape. Hardly a tall ask.

However, redpillers types like you and @Sloot need to decide what you want.

I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a “redpiller”. My stance toward women is one of the least right-wing things about my worldview, and as I said, I’ve historically found a lot of female-targeted media somewhat relatable or at least not actively off-putting.

Something can be blackpilling without being unfair. I’m not saying that women are wrong or shitty for thinking the way that they do, and certainly male sexuality and desire have demonstrable failure modes as well. Still, as a straight man, it makes sense for me to be somewhat discouraged and dispirited when I receive another reminder of the significant headwinds I’m facing in the realm of romance. Nobody’s in the wrong here - not even Rose DeWitt-Bukater - but the situation is shitty nonetheless.

along with Jurassic Park, which also had a profound effect on me at the time - I saw with actual dramatic stakes and spectacular visuals. (It’s also the first nude scene I saw in a movie, which probably contributed to my very positive first impression of it.)

I thought you were referring to a nude scene in Jurassic Park at first and quickly did a mental scan of the scenes in the movie. Et tu, Dr. Sattler?

if you’re a man who is neither as virile and charming as prime DiCaprio, nor as rich and ambitious as Cal, the entire Rose plot is pretty blackpilling.

Even more blackpilling for the male masses: even if you're as virile, handsome, and charming as Jack, you could get left to metaphorically freeze to death in icy waters and have it be considered romantic. You could be as rich, ambitious, and handsome as Cal, yet you could get literally cucked if your girlfriend/fiancee/wife felt like it and she and almost everyone else will screech that it was righteous and you deserved it.

It sucks to know that probably the best that most guys could ever hope to be is the nameless schmuck who later picked up those guys’ sloppy thirds, never being featured onscreen or even apparently occupying much of a place in Rose’s emotional landscape at all, despite being the father of her children.

At least, in the film, that sloppy third receiving schmuck was presumably the biological father of those children (I think). Nowadays, there is no such guarantee. You're the Asshole if you treat single mothers differently than chicks without kids in dating and/or if you don't Man-Up and raise said kids as you would your biological own.

On some level, nearly every modern person who appreciates Titanic does so because the world it depicts - no matter how much the nihilistic Hollywood shitlib James Cameron tries to paint it as stuffy and doomed - is glamorous, confident, impeccably classy, and features exclusively high-quality white people.

The Titanic sank in 1912, two years before Europe destroyed itself spiritually and emotionally in WWI (from which it has yet to recover). I suppose one could make the argument that the Titanic represents the height of human civilization, a world where officers would lower partially empty lifeboats into the ocean because letting men get on would just be improper wouldn't it? All without a hint of irony.

Right, when I watch Titanic now, I weep not for charismatic hobo Jack Dawson, but for the quickly-impending self-inflicted implosion of European society - in which the vast majority of the people involved were hapless victims cast into destruction by the hubristic and unnecessary decisions of a sclerotic and insulated privileged class which had outlived its usefulness - that the film implicitly depicts. It’s grotesque what happened to those unsuspecting families on the Titanic, just as it’s grotesque what happened to the countless men who were slaughtered in the World Wars. At least on the Titanic, most of the men responsible for the disaster - Captain Edward Smith, Thomas Andrews - suffered the consequences themselves (although not the man arguably most directly responsible, J. Bruce Ismay, who escaped on a lifeboat and lived another twenty-five years). Most of the men responsible for the World Wars did just fine for themselves afterward.

I used to love WWI/WWII movies when I was younger, it scratched that Star-Wars-esque heroism itch. Now I avoid them unless I'm willing to end up demoralized watching Hollywood dance on the grave of Europe. Some are really good and worth watching like Dunkirk, but it's a genre where my interpretation of the films has radically changed from adventure-heroism to tragedy.

Men weren’t banned from getting on the first few empty lifeboats at all, as far as I know. The few wealthier young men who survived were often those who got out early like this.

Depends on who was doing the evacuation. On the starboard side, First Officer William Murdoch certainly favoured women and children in the evacuation, but when he could find no more women and children, he allowed men on. On the port side, Second Officer Charles Lightoller interpreted it as women and children only and prevented men beyond crew from boarding them, even when there were spaces available.

"During the evacuation, Lightoller took charge of lowering the lifeboats on the port side of the boat deck.[10] He helped to fill several lifeboats with passengers and launched them. Lightoller interpreted Smith's order for "the evacuation of women and children" as essentially "women and children only". As a result, Lightoller lowered lifeboats with empty seats if there were no women and children waiting to board, meaning to fill them to capacity once they had reached the water. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Godfrey Peuchen has the distinction of being the only adult male passenger Lightoller allowed into the boats on the port side evacuation, due to his previous nautical experience and offer of assistance when there were no seamen available from the Titanic's own complement to help command one of the lowering lifeboats."

What Quantumfreakonomics is describing did happen. And the relatively small proportion of men who did survive the Titanic came under public scrutiny and were often reflexively judged as cowards.

EDIT: As an aside, it should also be noted that there were instances of boys (at least by today's standards) being deterred from entering lifeboats on the Titanic. For example, there's George Frederick Sweet: "On the night of the sinking young George, alongside Samuel Herman, saw Mrs Herman and her daughters off in one of the lifeboats. George, although not quite 15-years-old, was probably deterred from entering a lifeboat despite his young age and he and Samuel Herman died together, George being just one day short of his 15th birthday. Their bodies, if recovered, were never identified." In a similar instance, Rhoda Abbott refused her place in a lifeboat because she realised her sons (aged 13 and 16) would not be able to enter.

Then there's this affidavit by Emily Ryerson: "We saw people getting into boats, but waited our turn. There was a rough sort of steps constructed to get up to the window. My boy, Jack, was with me. An officer at the window said, "That boy can't go." My husband stepped forward and said, "Of course, that boy goes with his mother; he is only 13." So they let him pass. They also said, "No more boys." I turned and kissed my husband, and as we left he and the other men I knew - Mr. Thayer, Mr. Widener, and others - were all standing there together very quietly."

Adult first class men on the titanic had a 33% survival rate. The lifeboats overall (if full) could have accommodated perhaps half the ship. I suppose Lightoller was ultimately a villain for turning men away (especially as he survived himself), but extrapolating his ‘chivalry’ into the rest of the men of the ship seems a stretch.

While it is true that Lightoller's behaviour was not necessarily replicated among other officers (something which I acknowledged), you seem to be trying to equate "They allowed men onto the boats sometimes" with "there was no chivalry involved" which doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Other officers did in fact prioritise women and children.

Furthermore, your isolation of that "33% survival rate" statistic and selective presentation of it is also misleading. First class men on the Titanic survived at rates lower than third class women.

They also survived at 400% the rate of second class men, if we’re cherry picking statistics to demonstrate supposed chivalry.

...Yes? Nobody is disputing that class mattered and that second class men fared worse than first class men. None of that invalidates the fact that men in every class were less likely to survive than women.

Rose is a super relatable character for girls and women, one with whom they can identify strongly. And what’s not to like?

You get awarded luxuries for merely existing, like an expensive necklace and a voyage on the world’s largest ship. Ugh, the stupid shiplet is only 880 feet though, not even 1,000 feet. At least you get to stand and sit around the boat looking cute each day, with your cute dresses, cute gloves, and cute hats. Yay! But you feel sad, because life is so exhausting, your rich handsome fiancé gives you the ick, and you just can’t even anymore. You’re in the midst of considering whether to throw yourself overboard, when a Manic Pixie Dream Chad (MPDC) shows up out of nowhere to rescue you and sweep you off your feet. You cuck your fiancé with MPDC because why not? Girls just want to have fun, teehee. Plus, your stupid fiancé deserves it for being a jealous and controlling jerk. He and MPDC fight over you, which is literally the worst because you definitely hate drama. But then the shiplet hits an iceberg and starts sinking (you knew it, this totally wouldn’t have happened if you went with a real ship). MPDC sacrifices his life so you can live. Awww, how sweet of him. Your (ex-)fiancé survives but later on commits suicide. Oh well, it’s like whatevs. With both MPDC and fiancé gone, you eventually branch swing onto a husband, with whom you have children and grandchildren. You return to the wreck site as a centenarian, wistfully fantasizing about your fling with MPDC and throwing the necklace (now a priceless artifact) into the ocean like Willa yeeting the iPad in Succession. lol, whoopsie.

In contrast, Titanic is a horror film for men. It's Male Expendability: The Movie, where not even Manic Pixie Dream Chad was immune to male expendability. Who do men have to relate to?

The guy who froze to death hanging onto a door, submerged in frigid waters? The guy who brought his fiancée and her mother onto the maiden voyage of the world’s largest ship, only to get cucked in return? The guy who free-fell when the ship broke in half and went vertical, clanging against a propeller along the way? The guy who eventually dedicated his life to alpha-widowed Rose? The nameless hordes of men who waited on the ship as it sank, listening to the string quartet play their last set while the women scampered off with the children onto lifeboats? At least door-popsicle-guy had the fresh memories of smashing sweet seventeen-year-old redhead puss as a morale boost in his waning moments.

For men, there’s also the meta-horror that women consider this a great love story. Five minutes of Alpha >> lifetime of Beta.

This is the best movie review ever posted on the motte

For men, there’s also the meta-horror that women consider this a great love story. Five minutes of Alpha >> lifetime of Beta.

Isn’t this, to some extent, just a way to rationalize your own ephemeral relationships with women as meaning something and to justify your own aversion to settling down, though? It seems a little self serving.

I doubt most men think in terms of experiences as "meaning something," especially those who grok "five minutes of Alpha/lifetime of Beta"-type aphorisms.

Are you, personally, the alpha in this scenario?

My use of “Five minutes of Alpha >> lifetime of Beta” should be parsed as a descriptive 1) “women will often have a larger part of their mind- and/or heart-share allocated to fleeting moments with (a) past Chad(s) than her longtime partner Brad” rather than a prescriptive 2) “it’s better to be the five-minute Alpha than the lifetime Beta,” for variants of the saying are generally used along the lines of 1). As we saw in Titanic, the five-minute Alpha died young, childless as a human popsicle, his Alphsicle corpse to serve as chilled chow for deep-sea fish and bacteria.

The point is that most men would find it horrifying, the prospect that they’re second, third, or n’th place in their girlfriends/wives hearts, that they hold but a peasant’s garden plot in their girlfriends/wives’ “emotional landscape,” as @Hoffmeister25 put it above. Hence why I mentioned “Five minutes of Alpha >> lifetime of Beta” alongside a 4chan screenshot (a most rigorous and sophisticated citation) about Rose thinking of Jack instead of her husband and children on her possible deathbed, in a post where the second half is about Titanic being a horror film for men.

My personal circumstances are largely irrelevant to the commentary. If we accept the premise that I have an aversion to settling down, it wouldn’t be any more relevant to a discussion on men finding it horrific to be n’th place in their girlfriends/wives hearts, than if we accept a premise that I have an aversion for going on cruises to a discussion on men finding it horrific to drown/freeze in icy waters as a part of an anonymous, forgotten horde while the women flee.

The Titanic heroine is every woman’s dream. She is a wealthy and sought-after nubile. She has a wealthy fiancé who represents maximal resource and power, a wealthy father as well, and gets to have an affair with the handsome DiCaprio who represents maximal youth, vigor, and primal sexual desire. This is a combination of Zeus, Apollo, and Adonis, the children of the Titans all on board the Titanic. Our heroine gets to choose the best of all worlds. She has the affection of the two competing interests of the fertile women.

But the movie doesn’t end there. The smut (and the movie is emotional pornography) piles on. Because our heroine has all the right decisions made for her. She is captivated by DiCaprio, her interests momentarily cut in two like the Titanic, but she gets to leave him frozen in time while her “heart goes on”. She gets everything out of him that she wants while getting to keep her privileged status. The iceberg and the icy sea represent this process of freezing into memory. The female viewer takes away that she could have his child, while also retaining a powerful and resourceful upper class position.

Lastly, she’s the victim, while also looking superior to her peers. What more does a woman want than this? All the money, the vigorous male, the damsel distressed, and finally the superiority over the men guiding her. There is nothing more to add.

Obligatory Zizek: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9DocwBZyESU . The true tragedy would be if Jack survived, they had sex for a month in New York, and then she is hanged to try. Lastly, this emotional processing in the Titanic allows the modern woman to put Jack to death in her own life, much like the Christian can behold the Passion and put sin to death. You have been baptized in the frozen sea with Rose and buried with Jack, and now you can put away forever the delusions of youth.

Everyone liked Titanic. It's the definition of a four quadrant movie and it wouldn't have made that much money otherwise.

Girls can enjoy the romantic appeal of Leo in his prime. As well as the obligatory feminist message of resisting stale old sexist norms for a fresh romance and a free life. A fantasy of being able to throw away a highly eligible suitor for true love and adventure and be well off enough to never regret it.

Guys get to enjoy Kate Winslet in her prime and the idea of a cross-class romance earned by the male lead's charms, as well as the spectacular effects, ship stuff and stories of heroism and excitement.

It was also just perfectly executed if not particularly original. The leads were mega hot, the tie in song was a classic from a superstar and Cameron stretched effects and action enough that anyone, male or female, could buy into the stakes.

Quality does count for something.

I would add: the special effects really were spectacular for the time. It's a beautiful film.

Going to the movies as a pure spectacle has declined linearly over time as special effects have improved and gotten cheaper. We're so used to CGI doing truly absurd things that it's tough to go back, especially for young people, to how it felt the first time those kinds of vistas were produced on screen. Today we're kind of jaded by having 70" HD screens to watch endless CGI schlockfests, just 25 years ago the comparison to a ~30" crt set showing infinitely lesser SFX with seeing Titanic on the big screen.

People didn't go see Titanic in theaters because of the love story, they went to see it purely to see it. Avatar is the closest recent comparison, and even that doesn't come close because it happened so much later.

I hated the movie. It denigrates duty and familial responsibility (eg the duty the grandmother owed her family when she just cast a priceless heirloom into the depths). The Jack character wasn’t really masculine (many people have suggested Jack is properly seen as a lesbian relationship) even if he did typical masculine things.

The only cool part was the Titanic imploding.

I actually rather enjoy, or enjoyed that Celine Dion song. Unfortunately, I've been mind-raped by the recorder-parody version of it, so I can't hear the original song in my head anymore without automatically having it go to the recorder-parody version. If only I had perfect pitch (so hot right now), I could mentally recreate the original song and sing/play it on command.

I could be remembering very localized phenomenon, but I recall it being a huge hit before becoming uncool through overplay because it was such a big hit.

The song was insanely popular at the time, but of course, someone who's chosen to write a book about why said popular song is ackshually not cool at all is a far better arbiter of coolness than the general population.

I don't find it surprising at all; it is a tragic romance.

The only people I know IRL that are/were obsessed with the movie are men. A neighbourhood friend of mine growing up watched it almost every day.

Review: Echopraxia, by Peter Watts

So I recently read Peter Watts' Echopraxia, a follow-up to his acclaimed book Blindsight, which is one of my favourite science fiction books I've read to date. And my opinions on this are... mixed, to say the least. In order to explain my thoughts on the book, first I will have to give a detailed synopsis of the plot-points. This is going to be long, since the book is very crammed with details, and if you miss even one, it's very difficult to understand anything that's going on. Spoilers abound, of course. Minimise if you don't want to see them.

Plot

The book starts in the aftermath of the events of Blindsight, where the ship Theseus was sent out to investigate a potential alien lifeform in the Oort Cloud. As far as the characters in Echopraxia know, Theseus simply stopped broadcasting all of a sudden and went quiet.

Echopraxia starts with parasitologist Daniel Brüks being herded into a war in the Oregon desert between the super-intelligent hive-minded Bicameral Order and an also-super-intelligent vampire called Valerie, who the Bicams end up brokering a deal with. Brüks gets caught up in the middle of their plans, and eventually ends up in the Bicams' monastery.

Only a short while later most of the Bicams are killed off by a bio-engineered virus made by baselines (normal humans) afraid of their abilities. They've seen what the Bicamerals are capable of when they were waging war against Valerie, and that scared the military enough to try and kill them off. The remnants of the Bicams barely escape Earth on a spaceship called the Crown of Thorns, alongside Brüks, Valerie, soldier Jim Moore, translator Lianna Ludderodt (who acts as a translator for the Bicamerals) and pilot Rakshi Sengupta. Brüks follows along because he's seen more than he should of the Bicamerals' operation, and realises that if he returns to society now they'll imprison and interrogate him because of the potential information they could extract.

In transit, the Crown of Thorns gets attacked by baselines again, and in response the Bicams snap the ship in half, detaching the living quarters from the engine and blowing up the engine in order to make their pursuers believe that they've been destroyed. As this is all happening Brüks finds out that the Bicams in fact had a preexisting plan to use the Crown of Thorns to investigate the Icarus Array, which is essentially an energy generator that orbits the sun. Some unauthorised information was sent from the Theseus mission back down to the Icarus Array (presumably by the aliens that Theseus was sent to investigate), and the Bicams believe they will find something they call "The Angels Of The Asteroids" there. Once at Icarus they plan to start re-fabricating a new engine to cover the rest of their trip.

Other character motivations are also revealed in this portion. Moore is with the Bicams because his son Siri Keeton left on the Theseus mission, and the Bicams possess information about Theseus that he wants access to. Sengupta is there in order to pay for the life support of her wife called Celu Macdonald, whose condition was very indirectly caused by an oversight of Brüks and his colleagues. She does not know this yet, though.

The Crown of Thorns docks with the Icarus Array, and the crew finds out that a portion of Icarus has been infected by a time-sharing slime mold (Portia). Presumably what was being sent down from Theseus coded for the in situ construction of this lifeform. While the crew studies Portia the book launches into discussion about the nature of reality, exploring ideas about digital physics, and how physics is something akin to the OS of the universe. Brüks learns about the Bicamerals' conception of "God" as a virus that breaks said OS, and learns that they think Portia is the Face Of God (because the way Portia was sent to Icarus shouldn't strictly be possible, and is a demonstration of anomalous behaviours in the laws of physics). Their goal is to "perhaps worship, or disinfect”.

The crew eventually start managing to communicate with Portia, which goes wrong once they realise what it's capable of. It has in fact managed to infect the entirety of Icarus without anyone knowing, is capable of reallocating its own mass throughout its structure to create walls and appendages where they didn't previously exist, and can also harden itself like armour. Portia traps the Bicams, Ludderodt and Moore in Icarus, attempting to conduct a sampling transect, and Brüks tries to rescue them. In the chaos Valerie takes the opportunity to slaughter the remaining Bicams, and Brüks flees back into the Crown of Thorns. Valerie pursues him and somehow manages to trigger a seizure in Brüks that completely incapacitates him, but Moore intervenes at the last second. He locks Valerie outside the ship and jettisons Icarus into the sun, seemingly killing Portia.

On the trip back, the characters find out that Valerie isn't really gone, she's just tied herself onto the outside of the spaceship and has used her vampire hibernation powers to lay dormant on the journey home. They also discover that Valerie has been priming Brüks the whole trip to Icarus, subtly rewiring his brain in order to be able to trigger seizures on command with a single codeword. It also becomes clear that Valerie orchestrated the viral attack on the Bicams early on. She knew that the war she started with them would scare the baselines into releasing a biological virus into their monastery, enough to keep the Bicams out of the way for the trip to Icarus but not enough to derail the trip happening.

The characters also unveil a good amount of Valerie's backstory. Valerie was actually a test subject and, along with other vampires, staged a synchronised, coordinated escape from a research facility despite vampires not being able to even tolerate each other's presence in the same room (they habitually kill each other on sight). Brüks suspects that the inability of vampires to tolerate each other was not a naturally evolved aspect of vampire psychology, rather he believes that humans added it in when they brought vampires back to life as part of a "divide and conquer" strategy.

Furthermore, you find out that Jim Moore has been receiving messages from his son who left on the Theseus mission, but Sengupta and Brüks actually think that these messages are being sent by something that is simply pretending to be his son for the purpose of hacking his brain from a distance. The implication here is that the entirety of Blindsight (which is comprised of messages recorded by Siri Keeton) might be a complete fabrication by the aliens.

The Crown of Thorns arrives at Earth. In order to kill Valerie, they escape from Crown of Thorns to a landing satellite and direct Crown of Thorns to burn up in the atmosphere. At some point Valerie gets onto the lander and sneaks in unnoticed. Once they land, Sengupta picks a fight with Brüks when she discovers he's "responsible" for her wife's death, and learns how to trigger the seizure-response Valerie implanted in Brüks. Moore steps in and shoots Sengupta, then Valerie steps in and paralyses Moore by whispering in his ear (presumably she has been rewiring his brain to respond to certain stimuli too).

Valerie then takes Brüks back to the Oregon desert, and we slowly learn that Portia has somehow hitched a ride on Brüks. It is in fact incubating in him, improving his cognition (it is implied that this is done by deconstructing his conscious processes). Infecting Brüks seems to have been the goal of the Bicameral Order. Though it is not stated outright, the Bicamerals likely infected Brüks once they found out that Portia was capable of infecting humans and acting as an interface between humans, making humanity as a whole into one big hive-mind capable of intelligence on a level not seen before. Not so great for the individual humans who lose their identity, though.

Valerie's goal, too, becomes apparent when she injects a patch into Brüks towards the end of the book, meant to hack Portia to include a cure for vampire weaknesses (namely their inability to cooperate and tolerate each other). It seems that she wanted the Bicamerals pacified in order to place her plan on top of theirs without any resistance from them. Portia seems to take Valerie's "hack" as an act of aggression, and since it's at this point piloting Brüks' body to a certain extent, it kills Valerie.

Brüks, realising that Portia is in him, jumps off a cliff in an attempt to end Portia. But Portia does not die, and it continues piloting Brüks' body, walking out into civilisation to infect others.

Continued in below comment

Thoughts

Okay, with that general synopsis down, I want to talk about the story, the things I liked and didn't like.

Firstly, I want to talk about the pacing. The whole first portion of the plot, up to and including Portia's attack on the crew and the ejection of Icarus into the sun, is incredibly gripping and packed full of interesting ideas (Portia's time-sharing, as well as the concept of God as a virus, are very interesting, and the epistemological discussions contrasting Brüks' empiricism and Ludderodt's faith are very well done). When they discover Portia it feels like the plot is building to some climax - but that climax happens very quickly at the book's midpoint, and on the journey back to Earth and onwards, the plot slows significantly. In the second half there's a lot of downtime which is almost entirely used to contextualise prior events in the story. The characters feel very passive in this part of the book, and it just seems like they're for the most part discovering and clarifying what happened in the earlier portions without really doing much of anything themselves. I am aware that this type of book isn't necessarily about the action, but the story arc does need to feel satisfying somehow.

The book's structure really does feel like Watts used Freytag's pyramid (in a strange way). Introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion. If you were to interpret that very literally with modern definitions of "climax", you would get the general structure of Echopraxia where the book's energetic peak is straight in the middle, and that means you have a lot of book to sit through and not too much tension to sustain you after Portia attacks and is (seemingly) ejected into the sun. Plot points are clarified and some of the development from then on is certainly very interesting, but it definitely doesn't feel like a particularly eventful second half of the book. Not in the traditional sense, anyway.

I want to re-iterate that I think Portia was incredible. Watts' aliens are always very well done, and Portia's ability to emulate a larger, more complex brain by modelling one part, then saving the results to feed into another part, was a very neat idea. The way Portia communicated with the crew was great, too, and very suspenseful. I feel like devoting more time to exploring Icarus and Portia would've definitely strengthened the book, because the main interaction with the alien is confined only to one of the five main chapters (and that chapter is by far the best section of the book). There's less focus on the dynamics of first contact per se here than there is in Blindsight, and I think this weakens it quite a bit. The curiosity that comes with exploration is a great driver.

And I suppose this is something that irks me, because there's some really neat ideas contained in here, but they never quite pay off in the way you'd think. Instead of the focus being on an adversarial dynamic between the alien and the humans (or post-humans) we get only a small sliver of that. Rather, the main conflict is a much more convoluted conflict involving super-intelligences trying to repeatedly outwit and one-up other super-intelligences in the service of their own goals. Seeing the characters be moved around and manipulated by intelligences greater than themselves with their own inscrutable agenda you can only hope to guess at is quite interesting for sure, however this conflict has less of a sense of unity and purpose for the reader, something I think is important if you want people to be invested. Sure, there’s a risk of making it too much like Blindsight, but at the same time I think there’s no need to change something that works.

Additionally, these post-human plans, when you manage to figure them out, don't always click in an extremely satisfying fashion either. For all her cunning, Valerie's plan is convoluted beyond belief. Her plan is to confront an alien organism whose biology and function she has absolutely no clue about, get a human infected with it (how do you know it can even "infect" until you've encountered it), and somehow... hack said alien in order to relieve vampires of their inability to tolerate each other.

I doubt Valerie could have predicted the chain of events here, so how could Valerie have known that what was on Icarus would aid her in the goal of freeing vampires? Even super-intelligent minds like Valerie's would be limited by information constraints. And why in the world would you do this anyway? If you wanted to free vampires from the cognitive shackles of "divide and conquer" and you had the ability to reprogram a completely novel alien organism, it seems easier and more straightforward to stay on Earth and manufacture some airborne biotechnology or something similar with the aim of reprogramming vampire cognition. There's no real need here to piggyback off the plans of the Bicamerals. Either I'm missing something, or Valerie's plan doesn't make a single bit of sense.

The Bicamerals' plan is less questionable. The Bicams themselves clearly didn't know exactly what was on Icarus up until they confronted it and understood the nature of what they had encountered. Then when they realised what they were dealing with, they infected Brüks with it. They were playing by ear, and found something that they could use. Okay. What I am struggling with, however, is understanding the game plan of the aliens - specifically why on Earth the alien Theseus went up against would intentionally seed the Icarus Array with a lifeform capable of turning the entirety of humanity into a super-intelligent hive-mind. That is an utterly suicidal move.

On that note, I want to talk about just how ridiculously omnipotent the vampires are. Valerie is essentially nothing short of a superhuman character, capable of subtly rewiring human brains on the fly, and she is also capable of rewiring her own brain to make her impervious to the Crucifix Glitch. She coordinated with other vampires in a rebellion in spite of "divide and conquer", and throughout the book Valerie is capable of manipulating and eventually murdering a super-intelligent posthuman hive-mind. Sure, vampires are supposed to be capable of achieving things that we couldn't (though if a reader's suspension of disbelief has already been stretched too far at this point I would understand).

What really breaks it for me is that the reader is also supposed to believe that despite these incredible cognitive advantages, vampires somehow went extinct when humans built architecture due to lack of access to their prey. Making this worse is that it is also implied that vampires were more able to collaborate with each other in the past and that their inability to tolerate each other was something humans put into their head. But if it is the case that vampires can out-manoeuvre humans even with these types of cognitive handicaps and despite the fact that right-angles are far more prevalent in the modern world than it would've been in human prehistory, there would be no standing a chance against them in the past. They would simply not have gone extinct in the first place.

I realise I sound as if I dislike this book, but I don’t. I enjoyed it quite a bit, in fact. It’s more that the parts that are done well are done really well, and the parts that are done poorly are a bit of a shame and really stick out as a result.

Good write up, and I agree with most of what you have said here, although the end in the desert was my favourite part of the book - probably because the whole "assigning different thought processes different voices and perspectives based on personal relationships" thing was how my brain worked as a child, and still is to an extent, but it was also because I too was confused by Valerie and kept falling out of the story because I was annoyed with her non stop hail marys paying off.

What I am struggling with, however, is understanding the game plan of the aliens - specifically why on Earth the alien Theseus went up against would intentionally seed the Icarus Array with a lifeform capable of turning the entirety of humanity into a super-intelligent hive-mind. That is an utterly suicidal move.

This I assumed was just the first of many attempts they would make to hive-mind humanity, because they consider it treatment for the unenviable condition of having consciousness. Well, they would consider it treatment if they were capable of considering - you know what I mean.

Ooo, a fellow Watts fan, there are dozens of us!

I would personally rank Blindsight as a 10/10 novel while EP would be a 7.5, borderline good but nowhere near as interesting as Blindsight.

As much as I love his work, frankly speaking, a lot the worldbuilding relies on rather contrived incompetence in the world at large:

In both BS and EP, we're told that humanity has access to superintelligent AGI, and a concrete example was the Captain of Theseus.

For all their intelligence, it seems to me that they sat on their hands and fingered their buttholes while the Vampires were busy destroying human society. Not even a peep about them stepping into the fight.

Further, the Vampires are implausibly powerful, and unchecked.

There's some contrived reason for them not tolerating VR, handwaved as them "seeing the pixels" in it, but at the end of the day, why the fuck are they running around unchecked except for their crucifix phobia and the medical implant to cure it?

Buddy, if I was instantiating a superintelligent apex predator that was stronger, smarter and faster than me, I'd be breaking its back and ensuring it's a de-fanged paraplegic before giving it the time of day.

It's not like anyone cared about their rights, so the issue is why not?

Similarly, cognitive and physical enhancement is common in other humans, you'd think some of them would be in a position to stand up for themselves?

At any rate, Watts is a fundamentally misanthropic doomer. He legitimately believes that humanity is doomed because of climate change, and he has a visceral opposition to humans actually doing well for themselves because of technological advances.

Still, he's one of my favorite authors, and if you haven't already, read the Sunflower novels and short stories, they're pretty great.

I agree with all of the points you made, I'll add one more - there is also the fact that having aligned super-intelligent AGI completely obviates any use vampires may have had, which is something you see perhaps unintentionally acknowledged a bit in Blindsight when it is revealed that Sarasti was likely just the Captain's meat-puppet all along. In that case, there is no reason to keep vampires around. They seem to be redundant and it almost seems as if all they offer is the potential to massacre a few hundred people before the superintelligent AGIs step in to clean up the mess. The fact that the AGIs don't do this when the vampires are running amok is yet another plothole, but you've already mentioned that.

At any rate, Watts is a fundamentally misanthropic doomer. He legitimately believes that humanity is doomed because of climate change, and he has a visceral opposition to humans actually doing well for themselves because of technological advances.

He's quite the kook for sure and harbours quite a few very questionable positions that can make me wince at times. It's part of the reason I don't visit his blog often other than to check for the occasional fiblet.

A lot of the creators I like tend to share this quality, honestly.

Still, he's one of my favorite authors, and if you haven't already, read the Sunflower novels and short stories, they're pretty great.

I have read almost all of the stories in the Sunflower Cycle, with the exception of Hotshot. The Island and the first half of The Freeze-Frame Revolution are among my favourite pieces of writing he's done, especially this oddly mournful part of FFR where Sunday describes an early memory with the Chimp. Unfortunately I think FFR takes a bit of a dive in quality later on, I found the protagonist's conflicted loyalties in the first half to be a much more compelling narrative than the more standard and clear-cut "revolt" against the Chimp that occurs in the latter half of the book. The ending also feels incomplete and lacks a sense of climax, and while I think this is a bit more forgivable given that it is only an instalment in an episodic story, I do believe if you're writing a novella with a downer ending or a cliffhanger it needs to feel more deliberate and foreshadowed than how the ending played out.

Oh, and there's also the as-of-yet unfinished "Hitchhiker". That one has a very disturbing setup and if the quality of that story remains at this level it might end up being my favourite Sunflower story yet.

The fact that the AGIs don't do this when the vampires are running amok is yet another plothole, but you've already mentioned that.

Why should they? Maybe they prefer Vampires, they are probably better pets than humans anyway. Humans by definition can't understand what super-AGI wants, and, moreover, according to Watts, it's not necessary for them to want anything at all, conscience is just a random glitch, not very useful for intelligence. So why we're assuming AGIs would want to protect humans? Maybe they'd want to wipe them off, using Vampires? Or maintain a constant human-Vampire war where neither side wins but both sides are busy enough to keep them under control and guide them to a necessary direction and stimulating their development (remember Babylon 5 Shadows?)

Whether they have consciousness or not is irrelevant to whether they act to achieve a certain goal. It is possible for AGI to be both non-conscious and still agentic, the same way Scramblers are.

Humans design the cognitive architecture of AGIs, and I'd imagine we would (try to) program AIs to take account of our interests. While misalignment is certainly possible, no real indication is provided in the world of Blindopraxia that the AGIs developed are routinely coming out misaligned - Captain for example seemed very well aligned with the mission it was tasked to achieve, and there's no evidence I can recall in these books of AGIs having negative influence in the larger world (if they are, they pose as much of a danger to humanity as Rorschach and Portia).

I'd imagine we would (try to) program AIs to take account of our interests

We of course would, but who says we'd succeed? Who says we'd even know whether we succeeded? We have pretty poor understanding of what comes out of where even of current models, if that continues, the future AIs would be a complete black box to us, and we'd have to pretty much rely on asking them "do you want to kill all humans today?" and trust the answer.

After all, in the same setting, people tried to control Vampires and failed. They tried to control Bicamerals and only kinda succeeded because of Vampires' help. Why would we assume they are actually in control of the AIs and not that the AIs just let them think they are, because humans tend to react violently to the perspective of the loss of control, and who wants that trouble?

if they are, they pose as much of a danger to humanity as Rorschach and Portia

Or maybe more, because they are smart enough to not reveal their intentions while there's still a chance humans can do anything about it.

Fun article I found: East Asians rarely have imaginary friends as children, whereas Westerners have imaginary friends at a prevalence of 50%. On the other hand, East Asians are more likely to personify inanimate objects. The authors say that this is for cultural reasons, but i’m actually leaning toward deep genetic differences in tendency — Western religion, poetry, and music are much more likely to extol brotherly affection than those of East Asia, which (imo) favors an emphasis on place, natural objects, and strict hierarchy.

I’ll join the chorus of commenters who are extremely skeptical of the 50% claim. For what it’s worth, I had a “special blanket” that I semi-personified and emotionally imprinted on, to the point that I was totally distraught when my parents eventually had to throw it away because it was falling apart. I’m as warmly-inclined toward HBD explanations as many other people here are, but this particular claim does not seem to resemble my personal experience whatsoever.

The concept was culturally salient enough for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends to be a cartoon people could understand the premise of (an orphanage for imaginary friends once children stop believing in them). I had one, but I've never mentioned it to anyone I know, because who the hell cares about a non-existent character I talked to from ages 3-6(?)

TheMotte is probably going to be self-selecting for the cohort least likely to have an imaginary friend, in a similar way that 19th century scientists self-selected for those who did not typically visualize with the mind’s eye (see Scott’s essay on that, whose title I forgot). A hyper-rationalist offshoot is probably genetically influenced to be less social, or at least not so social that their mind creates for themselves imaginary companions. How many of our parents were hyper-social butterflies who conceived of the world in primarily social relational experiences?

https://dacemirror.sci-hub.ru/journal-article/d377cfd09d86cd27a6b469d4af9998be/klausen2007.pdf?download=true

Metaphysical explanations for pretend companions are not at all limited to the wast because, to some extent, they have existed even in recent times. Studying pretend companions in the early 20th century, Harvey (1918) found that many parents provided spiritual explanations for pretend companions. Even at the end of the century, some groups within America still described pretend companions in terms of possession and as preternatural powers that sometimes "will result in spiritual bondage" (Anderson, Vanderhook, & Vanderhook, 1996, p. 196) or that need to be exorcized (Allison, 2000). Perspectives on pretend companions from before the Euro-American repudiation of metaphysical explanations may also be inferred from research conducted in villages of Northern India (Barker & Pasricha, 1979): Pretend identities, a phenomenon similar to pretend companions in which an imagined personality is assumed rather than projected by the child, were explained in terms of spiritual connections with previous lives. Research in India on pretend companions suggests another reason why few reports of pretend companions have survived from previous centuries. Mills (2003) reported that there is no recognition of the concept of pretend companions in India.

Even when allowing for the belief that some children have interactive memories of past lives, the prevalence of pretend companions was calculated to be only 0.2% (Barker & Pasricha, 1979).

Early research in 1930s reported a 13% prevalence: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1935-01508-001 . 1969 reports 30%: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1970-02218-001 . We also have a study from 1930s (Harriman) alleging one-third of all children have imaginary friends

So I’d say that there are three possibilities:

  • The first is that this is learned from media (very unlikely given that the earliest research shows a prevalence despite its absence from media)

  • the second is that it is culturally transmitted and children are “practicing” the skills in the form of play, because Western culture was more friendship-oriented than other cultures, and permitted children to play

  • the third is that Europeans are genetically oriented to be more social in the form of fraternal bonding. This would fall in line with what we know about European history, religion, art, dance, and music culture. There’s also the prevalence of blue eyes in Europeans, which is found only in domesticated animals [goats, dogs, some foxes], and blonde hair, which is found in the more social and friendly dog breeds [compare: “golden retriever boyfriend”].

My mom did an absolute cop-out and told me that the mailman had taken my "blankie" away, so from ages 3-6 I was absolutely hostile to the postal service.

My replacement was a platypus (search for folkmanis folktails platypus for the specific one) which I semi-personified and was more fully personified by my dad in freeform bedtime stories.

50% sounds odd. I grew up in America and never heard of a child with an imaginary friend. Did anyone on this board have an imaginary friend? I suspect imaginary friends are double-imaginary in the sense that the friend does not even exist in the child's imagination--rather they are imagining that they have an imaginary friend and are pleased that the adults are playing along.

I had one. It's hard to say how much I believed in it. Do four year olds really believe in anything other than the omnipotence and omniscience of their parents, and their own worthiness of infinite candy? I suspect it was just a form of pretend, much like the time I spent insisting I was a dinosaur. I don't know when it stopped, but I would bet starting school was near the tail end of it.

I grew up in Canada, did not have an imaginary friend, and have not heard of anyone I know having an imaginary friend.

I have never heard an Indian child claim to have imaginary friends.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's a socially contagious phenomenon largely unique to the US.

Growing up in Soviet space, I don't remember anybody ever talking about imaginary friends. I mean, there were stories and games that would probably be classified as "imaginary friend" type by a US person, but nobody thought about it that way really. I think you're right, it's a Western - and likely American - thing.

Growing up in Soviet space, I didn't have imaginary friends, but my younger cousin had a whole imaginary family. I, however, have my internal monologue structured as an internal lecture, so I kinda have an imaginary audience of one.

Oh man, I knew I should have read the whole thread before replying to problem's echopraxia review. I do something similar, although it's more a conversation than a lecture and multiple mes participate - although when I was young they weren't other mes they were facsimiles of (mostly adult) family and acquaintances. But I knew they weren't real, I called them the dream version (dream mum, dream dad, dream Mr Harrison and so on.)

My little brother had an imaginary friend though, and we were pretty certain he imagined him as opposed to just pretending to imagine him. My other brother and I tested it, and when he believed his imaginary friend had done something his behaviour was sincere and completely different to how he behaved when he was lying about not doing something. I remember once he used two towels after a bath - his own and my other brother's - and insisted his imaginary friend had used the second, and he broke down crying when we didn't believe him.

That's different, I don't think talking to one self counts. I do it a lot, but I don't imagine a whole separate person for this.

my younger cousin had a whole imaginary family

People invented imaginary older brothers and uncles, which will come and kick the opponent's ass (or buy them expensive things, or tell them secrets that nobody else knows), all the time. But I don't think it is the same thing.

Is it just me or does 50% sound outrageously high? I never had an imaginary friend, and have never met anyone who had an imaginary friend (if it matters, I'm a white Californian who grew up in the 90s). I and a few kids I knew went through the motions of "creating" one because TV and childrens books were so adamant that they were normal that we felt weird not having one, but I can't recall a single instance where a child I was interacting with seemed to genuinely believe in an imaginary friend. Am I being too restrictive in my definition of "had an imaginary friend?" Or was I just an unusually uncreative child surrounded by other unusually uncreative children?

I forced myself to pretend I had an imaginary friend because I thought everyone else did. It was always a lame and worthless concept IMO.

I remember seeing mentions of it in literature and such and I always thought it was just kids playing pretend.

Then I read about a paper that claimed when kids with such were stuck in a NMR reported talking to their imaginary friends, it looks like they're having auditory hallucinations.

Which surprised me.

I had several imaginary friends when I was little, but I never thought of that as being an unusual position. I'm not sure how much media I was consuming when I was 3-4, but I certainly wasn't talking to people about what society thought was normal for me at that age.

I had an imaginary friend as a kid, but don't really talk about it after the age of maybe 12.

I have also only ever encountered the concept of an imaginary friend in fiction and would have been weirded out as a kid if I ever met someone who truly believed they had one. Perhaps it was a brief fad in the mid-20th century that happened to coincide with a greater interest in child psychology research at that time.

I'd guess it is more that changes in the way children were raised eliminated the need for it, or something along those lines rather than it being a "fad". Two people who were kids in the 90s say they didn't. I was a kid in the late 70s/early 80s and had one. I'm not sure the ages of the other people who had or didn't have one but it could point to a generational difference.

Late 70s early 80s for me too!

Yeah, I'm confused about imaginary friends. Grew up in the Southwest US in the 90s, and never had an imaginary friend, nor knew anyone who ever talked about having one as far as I can remember. The main thing that comes up for me is the character in Inside Out.

Are imaginary friends a sign of lonliness?

I wanted to say it sounds like a distinctly American thing, because I only ever heard about on TV, but you have a point and it might be not even that, but a distinctly American TV thing.

Mark Zuckerberg is ready to fight Elon Musk in a cage match

I'm really not sure how I feel about this new trend of nerdy billionaires getting into wellness and steroids (Bezos went from Lex Luthor to Kingpin) but this'd be an interesting contest. If we're gonna have bread and circuses...

I'd put my money on Zuckerberg btw

I'd go full on Elon. It'd be better and I'd liked it more if Zuck won, but the size and weight difference is too much.

Of course, I assume that if it happens at all, Elon will have ≥2 months to prepare with professional trainers, and optimize his tactics against a Zuck-like opponent so it won't just be him overconfidently trying to pull off The Walrus.

By the way, would that be the most-watched fight ever? I think this is very likely. Most-watched individual sport event, perhaps?

It looks like there's an estimated 1/4 chance it happens, per manifold markets.

In the spirit of the day they should have a submerisbles duel. The one that dives deeper or survives wins.

I'd say depends on the rules and how fit Musk is. Zuckerberg is younger, but Musk is significantly taller and probably bigger. Can be an advantage.

Unless Musk turns out to have dynamite hands for an amateur it'll probably come down to gas tank.

As long as Zuck doesnt get stuck under Elon he can try to keep his distance and wear him down. I doubt Elon is any good at cutting the ring/octagon.

TBH grappling and leveraging superior size can be absolutely tiring.

Given he hasn't fought before (AFAIK) the chances of him gassing without submitting the younger,fitter man are huge.

Zuck takes the decision or TKO by way of exhaustion.

Makes sense. I don't think Elon can knock a person out in minutes, and from my own experience, people without sparring training severely underestimate how fast you can gas out. Before I started training myself, when I was young and stupid, I was always kinda wondering why boxing rounds are so short - these people seem to be pretty fit, can't they do it longer? Now that I understand better I no longer wonder. That's why I said it depends on how fit Musk is - if he's secretly been keeping peak form, he may have a chance. If not - he's going down.

If he does the minimum research required, he could train up a lot of gas.

It doesn't take years to do so.

Shit, I forgot about Zuck doing so much training. He also hasn't been in bad shape for a long time.

I really think both of them are serious but haven't been in a situation where you're losing a physical fight in front of people, especially since they've "won" almost everything their entire lives. I've had it happen a couple of times for various reasons, and I considered it pretty traumatic. When Musk loses he's going to be fucking pissed.

they've "won" almost everything their entire lives

Musk was bullied in school in SA

He's significantly larger than Zuckerberg; I wouldn't count him out. Depends on how soon the fight happens (if ever)

I have twitter blocked on this device as a futile anti-procrastination measure but I saw that Jordan Peterson (or Mikhaila on his account) tweeted suggesting they should be naked and oiled up.

A lot of his tweets have his diction pretty much, but this one ..

Either Mikaela or he's a bisexual or something weird like that.

Just like the old Olympian times. Also, under the old time rules, technical infractions were punished by whipping.

Truly a premise with bipartisan appeal.

Me too, isn’t Zuck in his thirties?

39... Elon's 51.

And Zuck does MMA and BJJ.

Elon is a bigger guy, but I'm not sure how much that will count for.

If Elon has never been in a real fight, his size won't count for much. You never understand how quickly you can be punched until you have already been punched.

This is true. Fights happen fast. Also being punched sucks.

"I wish Musk would stop doing brain-damaging stuff like wasting so much time on Twitter", I say, as the monkey's paw curls another finger...

The monkeys paw has been fisting us for a while it feels like!

This would be excellent PR for Zuckerberg.

Especially since he's reportedly been training Jiujitsu for several years now.

Mark Zuckerberg is ready to fight Elon Musk in a cage match

Please let this be real. This is the intention of tonight's rosary.

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