domain:noahpinion.blog
FtttG
12m ago
The second biggest problem with Unsong is that Scott has disease of MCU writer; he cannot stop making jokes, even during serious moments, which completely ruins the dramatic tension.
Yes, thank you, you put it into words. No accident that the protagonist names his laptop after the Buffy the Vampire Slayer desktop that adorns it, so much of the dialogue has that "quippy" quality I find so grating. "Wouldn't it be funny if Christian archangels communicated like annoying teenagers on Tumblr?" Not especially, Scott, no.
In about 10 years of shitposting on the internet about politics, I have come to the same conclusion. Pre-2020 clownworld, most of my writing was a mix of snark and observation with some anger, and everything since 2020 clownworld has been almost entirely anger. I have not changed anyone's mind on anything, and nor has anyone changed my mind on anything. Changes of opinion came entirely from reflection in my own time when I was alone, and certainly could not have occurred in the hyper-confrontational thunderdome that is the internet. At best, it was an outlet for my inner need to akshually when I see peace being valued over truth, and at worst a complete and total waste of my time.
Ultimately, the way to impose your will on others in a post industrial society is to form a sufficiently motivated group and use infiltration or intimidation to take over important insitutions and then use those institutions enact your desire. Arguing on the internet is worse even than voting. Voting at least exposes the flaw the system and makes it clear to those aggreived that voting cannot get what they want.
FistfullOfCrows
21m ago
I haven’t considered myself a Christian for a long time. The idea that you can appeal to some supreme being to intervene in your daily struggles - and that he’d actually do something about it - strikes me as deeply arrogant. It feels like narcissism.
Another reason I stepped away from Christianity is the growing sense that, as an institution, it’s far more invested in preserving its own status and influence than in any genuine truth. Most of the people at its core seem more concerned with hierarchy and control than with the transcendental.
I need my gods to be beyond the petty politics of old men in robes. The closest I’ve come to something I could follow are movements like the Bogomils/Cathars/Manichaeans, yet I don't think if there is a god he'd be particularly interested in my own personal needs.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
24m ago
I think we coddle everyone too much. Schools are literally afraid to flunk kids, parents don’t make them do chores, and so unless they play competitive sports, Theres just no push toward “you need to actually do stuff to be successful. Add in the push toward hedonism and consumer culture, and people have absurdly low work ethics and high expectations.
wayfarer
39m ago
I would ask Gaashk out, but she would probably stab me
sounds like sort of deniable asking out, AKA flirting
He did not in fact ask me out
I am pretty sure that it was an attempt
is still single and complaining about it on Facebook
well, clearly their strategy is not going well but it mirrors more common complaint about woman sending utterly unclear signal and expecting man to spot it and interpret as interest and act on it this one was quite clear though
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
42m ago
My general impression is that women seek plausible deniability (sometimes to the point of sabotaging their communication to men), but they want men to be direct with them (insert Darth Plagueis meme here), at least within the bounds of decorum. i.e. women want you to ask them on a date directly, not to talk about how you want to have sex with them if it goes well.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
43m ago
I would guess that many Orthodox converts in US sincerely go for Orthodoxy instead of Catholicism because they've looked into the history and other such things and sincerely concluded that it is Orthodoxy that is the original church and Catholicism the innovating offshoot. (Locally, in Finland, Catholicism isn't even much of an option for many, since it's an even-tinier and more foreign a minority than Orthodoxy.)
Tree
45m ago
Maybe. It’s fair to say there is some inferential distance between us. Anyway, my contention was not that the NYT will outright refuse to report on every black crime or report a black perp as a white perp, but that they are desperate for any mitigating circumstances and alternative narratives they can spin concerning black crime. To the point of concocting a story about 38 people doing nothing when a rape-murder was in progress.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
48m ago
your only option is people who are incentivised to lie to you: priests, gamer girls, masculinity influencers, MeToo journalists, etc.
I'm confused, how do you figure priests are incentivized to lie to people about how to find dates? I wouldn't go to a priest for marriage advice (for obvious reasons), but plenty of priests dated (and yes, even had sex - priests are sinners too) before joining the clergy. For example, the pastor of my parish is a pretty young guy who was engaged before he decided he was being called to the priesthood, so he could probably give decent advice about attracting women (if you're in Brazil where he's from).
wayfarer
53m ago
Which other government systems you claim to be overall better? What you care about?
Currently the best plausible candidate is China, but note that they made so great progress because Mao-shaped disaster caused them to start from low base. So overall it looks like a poor example to me - "it will manage to dig out of hole they caused themselves".
If your government system causes 15 to 55 million dead via one of the largest man-made disaster in human history then "we managed to dig out of that damage in few decades" is not enough to balance it.
Pasha
Defend Kebab
1hr ago
Yes they obviously thought about it quite hard and the solution is to bribe and blackmail enough American politicians (with child rape) to get the American military to complete the job.
“Best” is a meaningful term because Israelis don’t have the means to actually destroy the facilities themselves. If they would, this would change the strategic picture massively.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
I'm also pretty sure you can admit that Iran specifically is already in its second, leaning into third, generation of participants.
I'll be happy to admit that. What I have trouble admitting is that the US was just minding it's business all this time, and became target of all this hatred while being completely innocent of any wrongdoing, or that they made much of an effort to normalize relations (there was Obama, but his deal got cancelled).
The senior leaders select for, and remove on a basis of a lack of, commitment to the Cause. Even the nominally elected representatives are pre-screened at the candidate selection level, and the non-elected power centers are even more deliberately managed.
That does not strike me as much different from how things are done in the west. Every public service throughout the western world, including intelligence and the military, as well as the entire education sector that hands out the credentials to serve there, is awash in Critical Theory. They send workers to mandatory courses where they get up to speed with the latest doctrines, and boot out anyone that objects. Trump may have tried to clean up the house, but there's only so much you can do in less than half a year, and even if he did it's beside the point. While I'm somewhat skeptical that people who go through periodic 2-minute-hate sessions about racist-sexist-homophobic-patriarchies are going to have a particularly rational approach to the world in general, the bigger issue is the water we swim in - the wisdom and legitmacy of western liberalism - no one who disbelieves it is getting hired for these jobs.
This selection structure is in turn enforced by an institution that would lose its perks and privileges if the hostilities were to end.
That is an argument I can accept, indeed sometimes an external threat helps to keep the population in line, and gives the regime it's purpose and legitimacy. Is it really as bad as you say? Sadly, I don't know and am not aware of a source of information that would let me confirm or deny this.
They were, but your question was not that question.
It was asked it the context of the other question. I understood "the Iranian regime keeps saying 'death to America'" as a supporting argument for why they do indeed have a blood feud, so I questioned the premise of the argument.
You quoted the section about believing someone who declares themselves an enemy, as opposed to Nybbler's characterization of a blood feud.
For brevity!
Your response questioned why to believe a self-declaration of enemyship by comparing it to any other political slogan, as opposed to any other kind of conflict. Your basis of argument specifically ignorred the sort of validating actions (that would give slogans credibility) that is the understood background context of the US-Iranian feud.
Correct, because Nybbler's argument was about their words, not their actions (as for the actions, I don't think they justify calling the conflict a "blood feud", rather than any other run-of-the mill conflict, but this is more a response to you then to him).
I wouldn't.
Partly because even irreconciliable feuds can be reconciled, because 'irreconciliable' is a judgement of the involved people's character, not an objective fact of nature. People's characters change with time and context, such that things that were impossible for them at one point are imminently possible at another.
That's kinda true, but only in the way that feel-good statements like "nothing is impossible" are true. There are actual blood feuds, in history, and perhaps even now. Tribal hatreds so strong that even if you force the two sides to the negotiating table, they'll be right back at each other's throats the moment you turn your back to them.
Reconciliation is usually by the descendants (future generations) rather than the initiators (the current Iranian leadership generation), and the more degrees of separation the better.
Again, no. History is full of conflicts that were ended by the very same people who initiated them. Sometimes it's a stalemate and the sides get tired of fighting, sometimes one side decides to cut losses, and the other the juice ain't worth the squeeze, and these conflicts don't necessarily result in lasting grudges.
Given that Nybbler's argument uses blood feud in the way Phailoor was using it- namely as Phailoor's short-hand for a conflict that is (as he put it) mostly a response to the US and which would end if the US stopped acting- and that Nybbler's point was far more about 'believe what they say' than 'there is a blood feud specifically because they say there is'- I also wouldn't read into blood feud as any sort of specific concept by either of them.
I never got a response from Nybbler in what he understood by the term. If the contention here is that Iran would remain irrationally hostile no matter how conciliatory the US was, or that they would be rationally hostile in order to maintain the legitimacy among their population, that's something that can be discussed, but needs a different argument than "believe what they say".
Lizzardspawn
1hr ago
What are your experiences with the latest google search auto summary AI. I find it hilariously bad - usually the summary is opposite of what i am looking for/the truth.
Lizzardspawn
1hr ago
If they stop being stupid, by virtue of that they'd also stop trying to invest so much money in destroying a tiny country which would gladly forget they exist if only they'd let them
Smart and rational are different beasts.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1hr ago
Oddly I spent the better part of my considerable commute time this morning reading several of your old posts debunking materialism. I saved them.
@rae if I am correct is a trans woman. Now I don't know to what degree masturbatory practice is consistent among biological males of whatever stripe, but one might assume the "ideal partner" as it was put might be considerably more difficult to locate. A good man is hard to find, etc. Or the other way round as the case may be.
I can't sit in judgment of masturbation as an act, but I would certainly caution any young man against relying on it, and chaturbate or whatever, as any sort of long term answer to the yearning for companionship. For that matter one doesn't have to look far in my part of the world to find men who seek solace in hostesses, call girls, or various other professional services, and I don't see any of them smiling broadly on a regular basis. And finally, I would suggest orgasm itself outside of some Tantric whatnot isn't particularly long-lasting, post nut tristesse is real, and, perhaps sentimentally, ultimately nothing beats (cough) the dozens of micro-interactions that are just spending time with someone you love (or are attracted to), completely outside the context of the boudoir.
After 20 years of marriage the dynamic changes somewhat, but the thesis still holds.
jkf
1hr ago
It has the added benefit of ironically warding off accusations that I should go to the gym more.
I mean -- how much do you press anyways? I wouldn't actually get anywhere near 300 these days, but certainly well into fattie territory unless you also only like really tall girls. My current spouse I could have lifted when I was like 14, and she's pretty average height and weight.
LateMechanic
1hr ago
At work I use C++ Builder / RAD Studio which makes for ridiculously quick & easy creation of native Windows apps for most any level of UI sophistication, using the VCL windows-wrapper library. Or they have a different library which supports cross-platform native from one codebase. And other than c++, their other language for the same product is Delphi, which I think may be more popular particularly among hobbyists. I'm not a fan of software getting more bloated and laggy in general, so I definitely appreciate the native snappiness.
Most people don't even know these still exist from back in the 90s, when they were Borland turbo pascal & c++ builder, after microsoft poached all those borland engineers to go on to make c# and .net. So it's not exactly the best career choice, if that's your angle. But they are still keeping up with the times, and made a free community version of the otherwise expensive IDE.
Corvos
1hr ago
I wonder if it’s basically shared knowledge. The thing about dating is that nobody will tell you how it works. If you’re lucky in your social circle, you and your friends figure it out in your late teens and pool your shared knowledge and experience. If not, your only option is people who are incentivised to lie to you: priests, gamer girls, masculinity influencers, MeToo journalists, etc.
For various reasons, all these people tell you what they want you to believe, not what’s true. For high-conscientiousness men especially this is a killer.
People flock to those like themselves, so you have all-male groups who collectively have no idea how to get dates and have male hobbies as an alternative, versus mixed groups like yours who all date constantly.
I think that might explain what you see.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1hr ago
I doubt I'm all that far off the heterosexual baseline, and I'd say it's a pretty reasonable description for the porn life as well. After a while it approaches wireheading. You want to feel [GOOD], and these actions allow you to turn on the [GOOD] feeling and sustain it for arbitrary amounts of time. Orgasm is nice and all, but it really isn't the point, the point is, as a book put it once, surcease. Your larger mind, your worries and anxieties, the tension and frustrations of the day, vague unknowns of the future and sharp hurts of the past, all of that flattens right out to smooth, gratified pseudo-flow-state, a delightful little mental loop through desire and satisfaction that's always there when you need it. And all it costs you is time, discipline, investment, human connection...
Corvos
2hr ago
Isn’t that asking someone out? Or at least heavily indicating a desire to do so?
My understanding is that both parties provide plausible deniability whilst looking for positive indications. So the reply might be a laugh and a change of subject for no and a smile + ‘you’ll never know unless you try’ for yes. Am I totally off here? Paging @TitaniumButterfly here also.
Nobody teaches you how to do this stuff, unless you’re lucky and have generous male friends who know better than you do.
Botond173
2hr ago
One big difference is that a rich guy can throw cool parties and have lots of people come to hang out at his house.
That'll be a great advantage to him as long as he's strongly an extrovert. There's also the aspect that he'll have to clean the mess all up afterwards or hire some maid to do so, and that his social circle will come to expect him to keep throwing cool parties.
he's pretty much forced to always go to other people's houses for social interaction
If he lives in a community where third places don't exist at all, then yes.
This is all well and good, but what stake do you put in your non-materialistic beliefs? How much does the Word of God guiding you trade off against anything an agnostic in your position would do?
The answer is "a considerable one"; I've completely changed most aspects of my life, in many cases entirely reversing my previous preferences or habits.
I don't want to be a Redditor about it, but I don't see the point of modern Christianity.
There is no point to "modern" Christianity. You are correct that many people claiming to be Christian are "cultural christians" for whom it is a fashion or a pose. On the other hand, there are also a lot of Christians like myself who are not partaking of "modern" Christianity but rather the old sort, and for whom it is an actual way of life. For us it appears to me that the benefits are as they always have been: considerable. It seems to me that the contrast grows increasingly stark as Modernity unspools itself into our collective society; the dating and relationship threads here on the Motte are as good an example as any.
Christians have gone from waging holy war against the heathens to missionary expeditions seeking conversions to "interfaith dialogue", from hanging homosexuals and other sinners to socially ostracizing them them to... IDK, frowning concernedly?
If we return to Deus Vult and the sword, will that satisfy you in some way? When Christians were serving in significant numbers in the recent middle east wars, and often saw those wars as a crusade, did that lend the faith more credibility?
We will continue on as we have before. Sometimes that will involve building, and sometimes that will involve fighting. We have done plenty of both, and will do plenty more of both in the future.
ThisIsSin
Cainanites and Abelists
2hr ago
people will be able to pop a meaning of life pill every morning to motivate themselves
Nicotine and dextroamphetamine have been around for quite some time, but the delivery method for the former has been bad for a long time and the withdrawl symptoms are absurdly bad, and the latter still requires a prescription for whatever reason.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2hr ago
there is no future for me
This sounds foreboding and if I were less American I wouldn't ask you about it, but I am still rather very American and often poorly mannered, so what do you mean by this?
Can you really blame them, Christianity as an institution has been speedrunning blasphemies upon blasphemies with a straight face for centuries, from the absorption of the Trinitanism cult nonsense (god being three beings yet one), the constant Idolatry (Icons, Crosses, holy trinkets, holly sites) the base and mundane nonsense (The Pope says trans rights). It's all so tiresome.
I know people NEED a certain flare of the mystical made physically manifest, even if just to have something to do during communal rituals, but this doesn't ameliorate how stupidly worldly and mundane it all is.
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