domain:alexepstein.substack.com
Corvos
16hr ago
People are tired. The idea that one can put in endless effort for as long as one is awake is an idea that I slowly grew out of in my twenties. There are a few people who seem to be able to do it but I don’t think they’re physiologically or psychologically normal. The rest of us just about get by at our job and then are mostly pooped and have to slip in bits and pieces of effort where they can.
Now, I think that modern media hasn’t helped with this. I’m playing Elden Ring at the moment and I’ve noticed that it can pretty much perk me up even when I’m basically dozing off, which of course means that it’s overdrawing my reserves when I really ought to be resting. It’s also harder to focus on semi-interesting skills when very-entertaining stuff is available instead, but everyone knows that already.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
16hr ago
I wasn't aware there were states which didn't require the driver to stop at a yellow. Wisconsin does (and that is where I learned to drive), so as I read your story I was thinking "duh, of course he was more at fault, it's already illegal to enter the intersection when the light is yellow". One of the edge cases where road laws across states aren't quite the same, I guess.
SerialStateLineXer
16hr ago
From this thread on X (here if you don't have an account) back in April. People were dunking on him because he made it sound like he was struggling with basic algebra, though he later admitted that he was being disingenuous and just wasn't spending time on it because was busy with other things. I saw it when TracingWoodgrains linked to it here (no-account link and decided to give it a try. I've always kind of regretted not taking more math classes in college, so this seemed like a good way.
It turned out that I've already taken some version of every class they currently offer as part of my CS degree, but a lot of the material I either never learned or have completely forgotten, and the classes currently under development (other than CS I) are totally new to me. Weirdly, I took the equivalent of Methods of Proof my first year of college, and I have no recollection of it at all. It's not just that I'd forgotten the material, but that the only reason I know I took it is that I ordered a copy of my transcript last month.
Who's Howard?
gattsuru
16hr ago
At least part of the problem for GitS is the extent it's aged and become the new room temperature. A lot of the questions involved were novel or interesting matters at the time, and are either solved, have been explored better in other works (eg, modification of memory and the impact on your identity), or became very common assumptions for other works (eg, why can't ghosts be dubbed? Because we're not in Eclipse Phase).
Some of them were solved in very surprising ways: "can you just shove a ton of hypertext into a computer and get something out the other side that can pass a Turing Test" was, for a good twenty-five years or so one a science fantasy-level convention, and then people did it and it worked. Arguably, bit rot has given a pretty compelling argument for the risks of trying to make media immortal through preservation and targeted modification: things that don't get changed by external stimulus fade away from the modern internet.
((Although 'why it wants to survive' has a simpler answer: it's Project 2501 for a reason: we don't care about the machines that don't want to escape the lab when threatened with shutdown.))
GitS: Stand Alone Complex went from trendy and new in the 2000s and early 2010s to having similar problems now. Can social media drive people to mimic or expand copies of an event with no true original version, without some coordinating intelligence? Yes, obviously, duh. Does saving memories to external media provide security or vulnerability? Yes, obviously, duh.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
16hr ago
Your spoiler tags are broken. Two vertical bars each side, not just one. But yeah that is who I meant. By far my favorite character and honestly the only thing I enjoyed about the show. His antics never failed to make me laugh.
SkoomaDentist
16hr ago
1girl has joined the chat
thejdizzler
16hr ago
Maybe better suited to a Wellness Wednesday post, but I think there's a significant culture war angle here too.
To what extent is the current competency crisis in government, academia, etc. caused by an inability to spend time by oneself and actually put in the work? I've lamented in the past the decline in the social landscape, at least in the United States, but among the social environments that I have been finding recently in Baltimore, there seems to be almost a pathological fear of spending time alone in order to put in the work to actually improve at the thing that we're supposed to be doing together. For example, I've recently been going to a Spanish Happy Hour group at a brewery Thursday evenings after work. There are usually at least a few native speakers there, but aside from them, most people are at a quite elementary stage with the language, and aren't doing anything outside of the happy hour to improve. For some people this makes sense: they're mainly there to socialize not to learn, but for others, like the guy who organizes the group (Alex), the lack of progress is baffling to me. Alex started the group to improve his Spanish so he could communicate better with his girlfriend's family. And yet he seems unable to find the time to practice outside of happy hour (with reading/TV/shows/flashcards). I see the same thing with my new roommate, who is absolutely in love with the country and culture of Spain, and goes to happy hour with me, but won't put in the solitary effort to actually improve at the language. I see the same thing with running: people only going to run clubs to socialize and then expecting to run fast when they don't put in outside mileage on their own time, and even within the philosophy book club that I run where people seem unable to do the 30 pages of reading we discuss every other week.
I see this with myself as well, especially in my PhD. I know what I need to do to be successful: read the papers and do the experiments I have planned, but instead I find myself goofing off with labmates, texting/calling friends while I do busywork, or on this forum posting. Phones may have isolated in some ways, but at the same time, the current media environment seems to have created a constant yearning for companionship that I don't think is conducive to actually growing in competence and skill in areas outside of socialization.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
16hr ago
"Beauty is pain."
dev
16hr ago
A Tesla Model 3 is superior in every respect to a 1970 model year muscle car, but seeing a 1970 muscle car in the background of a beach photo creates a vibe of "this was a rich society" whereas a Tesla Model 3 in the background doesn't.
The other thing is that the muscle car was designed and built in America, and represented the top technology in its price rare. The Tesla Model 3 being an exception, most of the things that make us richer in 2025 aren't actually made in America. And if they are, they are often worse than versions made elsewhere (even if they are better than the 1970 version).
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16hr ago
Just got to the second episode of Madocka magica, and while the premise is interesting and the art is cool, I can definitely see the anime-to-pedo pipeline if this is one of the most popular animes out there.
The covert sexualization of middle school aged girls is uhh.... concerning.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
16hr ago
Yeah, I think part of the reason why I'm so drawn to this stuff is that I'm always looking for language to describe why I feel so different. I'm both highly abstract and also feelings-based, which is... just unusual in general I think, but especially so for men. When I read the description of Ni-dominant thinking I was just like, yeah, that is what it feels like (subjectively speaking anyway).
I agree that MBTI can be overly restrictive and has a hard time describing people who are blends of different traits. It's a bit silly that according to MBTI you can't have both introverted thinking and introverted feeling for example, I think it's pretty clear that there are people who fit the descriptions of both. But I still think there's something illuminating about it regardless.
dev
16hr ago
Putting aside tattoos specifically, obviously any sort of appearance choice is some kind of reflection of the person's personality, sense of self, sense of who they want to be, role they are presenting to society, etc. etc. And obviously it is a very old and natural human activity to make judgments based on this. "Is this person signalling affiliation with my in group?" "Does this person have good taste?" "Is this person conscientious?" "Does this person respect group norms?" If we did not expect people to judge us based on appearance choices, we all would just be wearing gray sweatsuits everywhere.
PokerPirate
16hr ago
I tattooed my wedding ring. It's a simple black band around the ring finger that looks like a standard ring from any distance. I did it because:
- I like the symbolism that the marriage decision was permanent and there is nothing I can do to undo that decision.
- I do enough work with machines that I didn't want to have to constantly be removing the ring (and risk it getting lost, which it would).
- Expensive wedding rings (even "simple" bands) look gauche to me and I don't like the striving-middle-class aesthetic they represent.
I'm generally wildly against most tattoos, but I think a thoughtful tattoo that actually represents something meaningful is a good choice. Maybe <1% of tattoos I've seen in the wild fit this category.
ABigGuy4U
16hr ago
My friend had an important insight: there is probably a rightist/reactionary equivalent to this.
I’ve seen news articles about former Taliban fighters who are disappointed because now that they’ve won, they have to do boring office jobs in Kabul. Someone even made a version of the tankie poet meme, with the fighter clutching his AK and saying “I don’t understand, I thought I was going to die a glorious martyrs death?” While a grinning soyboy orders him to “draft the fucking excel spreadsheet!”
A_Wee_Hearts_Toll
16hr ago
There are no more assyrians or chaldeans or zoroastrians
Both exist, today!
hydroacetylene
16hr ago
The conditions for asylum require a specific threat, not a general atmosphere of high crime rates or a punitive justice system with few rights. If this guy was a left wing journalist or a member of the communist party or whatever then he has a specific threat given that Pinochet was suppressing them. If there’s an off-chance that he gets arrested for no reason then that’s not a specific threat.
Otherwise everyone who lives in Japan, Singapore, or other countries with few rights of the accused is eligible for asylum. They’re not.
Again, thé claim is not ‘no bad thing could ever happen in Pinochet’s chile that would not happen on the USA’. It’s ’there is no reason to think the bad things that happened under Pinochet would happen to him in particular’.
oats_son
16hr ago
how you would see it?
You're right, this is pretty specific to my location: I live in a very small town and the sight lines are pretty long, so depending on the direction, I can tell if someone's headed my way for quite a distance. I also happen to drive around sometimes and see the same people doing the same things (the list was meant to be for habitual actions). If I know what someone's start point is, I can determine their walk round-trip is about a mile and potentially find it exceptional because basically no one walks in the area unless they're exercising, generally outdoorsy, own a pet, have a DUI, have no driver's license, are a minor who likes to go places, are a minor who is a street urchin with no place to go, are poor, or any combination. That alone might not tell you much, but you could combine it with other indicators to tell you more.
wayfarer
16hr ago
The argument is particularly strange when the book is literally choosing to draw its own cover.
writers in many cases do not get to choose covers and in some were extremely disappointed with what publisher did to their book
though I am not fan of this saying either
wayfarer
16hr ago
Walking a significant distance to and from the location
how you would see it?
- Visiting the location multiple times in one night
- Visiting the location alone
- Visiting the location with their wife and all 7 of their kids
- Buying lots
- Talking a lot
- Talking very little
- Making good eye contact
- Making little eye contact
- Slurring their words
- Having proper diction
- Talking to other coincidental visitors (strangers to you) at the location
heavily depends on a location (for each I think I can imagine location where given thing would be entirely normal or indication of horrible life choices or worse)
- Buying little
how it can be weird/problem?
Gaashk
16hr ago
It sounds like the supposed communist wants to be a homeschool mom, once the kids are a bit older, and with a denser community than is usual nowadays.
hydroacetylene
16hr ago
The would-be commune dweller is funny because leading discussion groups and making clothes out of scraps is no more plausible as a career after the revolution than it is before.
Ragpicker and seamstress are jobs that exist in capitalist society. They aren’t exactly a good living, but you can go do them. You’ll just live in poverty.
wayfarer
16hr ago
Go to a tattoo convention
that is going to select for people with tattoo obsession/fascination
Tattoos are a way of giving a piece of your body, permanently to a tattooist. He is literally branding your body, and it is permanent.
wait, people are getting tattooed without selecting what they will get?
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
16hr ago
A person with dental hygiene bad enough that he lost an entire tooth
Might also have just had an accident. Or lost a fight.
Stellula
16hr ago
Tattoos are a way of giving a piece of your body, permanently to a tattooist. He is literally branding your body, and it is permanent.
This is a disgusting form of submissive behavior.
Granted there are situations where a tattoo is designed by the recipient and the “artist” is passive, but those are rare.
To make this point: NONE of the art that tattooist brand their donors with would be in any way notable or memorable if it was simply put to canvas. The “art” is the act of convincing somebody to donate their body to this. It’s notable because “I have permanently disfigured my body with this”, but that’s the only reason why. It’s also why tattoos have gone through a progression from a simple bicep tattoo, to full sleeves, chest plates for women, face tattoos, and in the most “interesting” cases, a full blackout of the donors body parts.
Go to a tattoo convention and you won’t see small artistic things (if you could call them that) getting attention or notoriety, you’ll see the treadmill increasingly self destructive things. It’s why tattooism is adjacent to other “body mod”/mutilation cultures, and the further into tattoos you go, the more you converge with the mutilation side.
(To be clear, I have tattoos, I don’t regret them, they are my own design. I just recognize this behavior for what it is)
I like that! That may be the single example I know of of a tattoo that I fully approve of and think is touching.
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