domain:aerosociety.com
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1d ago
Can you explain? Because I've seen pictures of Durarara and it is most certainly a comic. It's panels of artwork with text bubbles and the like, just like manga. I can't tell a difference between the two, which is why I asked.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
No, but if a political system screws people like me or literally kills them, then I do not endorse it.
Well, that depends on how broadly or narrowly, and on which axes, you define "people like me." Because, with respect to my own political preferences, it "screws people like me" if you define that on terms like "people too disabled to work," but not if you define on terms like "Red Tribe Alaskans."
the_Culture_is_great
1d ago
I don't care about the judgment of trailer trash - I care about the judgment of the "normal" people (which OP is presenting himself as) in each location.
I think the normal person in "methed up area" will have a harsher opinion on tattoos than a "normal" person in a large city. A couple of reasons:
- rural areas tend to be older and more conservative
- cities have more distinct subcultures that are both not-trash (to the typical PMC) and have frequent tattoos (e.g. LGBT folks are much more likely to be tattooed, and are not judged harshly by the PMC)
- the types of tattoos you'll see on people in the city are likely different, and on average will be more tasteful to PMC eyes
- more PMC people will know of "respectable" people who have a small tattoo that disappears under their white collar every day - there are fewer white collar "respectable" jobs in rural areas
I don't think the exact nature of judgement between cities and rural areas is central to my point though. My point is really just that local cultures differences exist, and so you can't make a blanket "Anyone who gets a tattoo is comfortable with associating themselves in this way".
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Well, I appreciate the honesty, but why would anyone join you on it?
Well, because probably the majority of people with similar views would benefit from it, for one — indeed, I've had fellow reactionaries argue that the mere fact of my disability means I "don't belong" on the right, despite our shared views; and that, per Spandrell's Bioleninism, my "only place" in politics is "on the Left, voting Dem in exchange for gibs" until the Reaction comes and disposes of subhumans like me.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
can anyone explain to me the difference between manga and light novels? They seem the same, as they are both comics
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1d ago
I suppose I should add my own anime recommendations to the list. In no particular order:
K-On: 10/10
This is a series about high school girls who are in a rock band together. The personalities range from "very responsible" to "complete moron slacker", and a lot of the enjoyment comes from seeing how the different girls interact and handle the situations that come up. There is essentially zero plot to this show, which would normally bother me as a plot-centric person, but somehow works here. The closest to a plot is a general sense of the girls moving through their young lives - figuring out where to go to college, having to face the pain of saying goodbye to friends when they graduate, that sort of thing. It took me a bit to get into it as you need to get to know the characters some to fully enjoy it, but once I did it was a blast. Also one of the few shows to ever make me cry, which it somehow does every single time I watch one episode in particular.
As an aside - there's one part which I always found kind of bizarre, where the girls are on the beach and one of them feels embarrassed because she has bigger breasts than everyone else. @George_E_Hale, do you know if that's an actual thing for Japanese girls? I know you have boys and not girls, but thought you might have some insight. It was odd to me because as far as I know, American girls feel self-conscious if they have small breasts, not large ones. But maybe it's different over there, IDK.
Fullmetal Alchemist: 7/10
Note I don't mean Brotherhood here. I've seen that and rate it quite highly (9 or 10), but figured I would focus on the first anime adaptation. Overall it's not as good as Brotherhood, because about halfway through the series they caught up to the manga and had to figure out their own ending. Questions like the origin of the Homunculi and the nature of the alchemy gate play out very differently in this show. I generally prefer the manga author's vision (as seen in Brotherhood) for those plot elements, but this was still good. There are also various parts of the manga that were only adapted into this show, as Brotherhood chose to skip material that was in the first show unless it was critical to the plot. So that is another reason to watch the show, more fun adventures with the characters that you don't get otherwise.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 9/10 first season, 8/10 second season
While the movie is good (as I argued in the WW thread this week), the show is better. Rather than trying to adapt the Puppet Master story again, the team wisely chose to write their own original story for this. Each season is divided into episodes which are self-contained plots, and episodes which are part of the story arc for that season. This structure works very well for the series, as it means they don't have to stretch the story arc too thin. It also means they can poke into more corners of the world even if they aren't strictly relevant to the main story. Overall I really enjoy the look at day to day operations for Section 9, and getting to know the characters better than you can with a 2-hour movie. It also has my favorite take on the GitS art style, and great music. Season 1 is overall stronger than 2, but both are good and worth watching.
Durarara: 7/10
Based on a light novel (side note: can anyone explain to me the difference between manga and light novels? They seem the same, as they are both comics), this series follows a huge cast of characters as they deal with gang warfare and paranormal activity in their corner of Tokyo. And when I say huge cast, I mean it. There are probably 20-30 characters in this story, all of whom get a decent amount of screen time over the course of the two seasons. The plot gets kind of messy and overly complicated at times, but it's a very fun show and the characters are a treat. There are real gems like Celty (a dullahan, as in the Irish mythical creature), who has lost her head and is working as a courier in the city while she tries to find it. Or Izaya, an info broker who loves to stir up shit just so he can see how people react, because he gets bored otherwise (and who is arguably the villain of the series, to the extent it has one). Or Simon, a black Russian who has landed in Tokyo running a sushi restaurant, and who is freakishly strong (he can throw refrigerators), but who is a devoted pacifist. And a lot more. The plot lets this one down at times, but it's still great fun and the music slaps.
Food Wars: 7/10
This show is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. It's about a culinary school where disputes are settled with dramatic cooking duels, where everyone gets together in the school gym to see whose honor will prevail based on the votes of the judges. It's about a world where people's clothes fall off (mostly girls) when they taste food that is good enough, or people will imagine themselves being forcibly penetrated by squid tentacles as they eat a particularly nasty squid dish. It is not remotely serious or in good taste. But that's exactly why I love it. They go so over the top with the ridiculous premise that it loops back around from "stupid" to "actually hilarious" just by virtue of how hard they commit to the bit. Very fanservice-y, don't watch this one on public transport or anything. You also cannot try to take it seriously, you have to just enjoy it for the farce it is. Special props to the animators for making the food the star of the show, they know that a show focused on dramatic cooking needs to have delicious looking food and they deliver. Some of the recipes actually seem like they would work pretty well in real life, which supposedly is because the manga author worked with an actual chef to develop them and would even include recipes in each issue. I do think the show goes on one or two seasons too long, but it's great fun despite that.
Delicious In Dungeon: undetermined, not yet finished
This show is about a group of adventures who are too poor to afford provisions, so they plan to cook and eat monsters they find in the dungeon. I really wanted to watch this based on the premise alone, it sounded funny and I once DMed for a D&D campaign where my players did a very similar thing. What surprised and delighted me was that it turns out there's a plot, and it's pretty good (so far). I don't want to say much more than that, because for me discovering that was part of the joy. It's also incomplete, so it might not stay good. But possibly the highest praise I can give is this: the story gets so good that I seriously considered buying the manga just to see what happens next faster, and I hate reading manga. The fact that I was that eager for more speaks volumes, to me. I would definitely watch it, but can't really rate it just yet.
I'm a bit confused on where to get into Gundam
IMO:
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Of the three core Universal Century series: The original Mobile Suit Gundam has intolerably bad animation; Zeta Gundam is peak; and Gundam ZZ insults the viewer by failing to become good until almost literally the halfway point (episode 23 of 47). But starting with Zeta Gundam while having zero knowledge of the background provided in MSG probably would be a bad idea. I dunno, maybe watch the MSG compilation movies, or play the MSG campaign in an emulated Dynasty Warriors Gundam game (which is how I got into the franchise, sans emulation).
-
Gundam X is pretty good.
-
G Gundam and Build Fighters aren't really the same genre as the rest of the franchise, but still are quite fun. (The other Build Fighters and Build Divers series are not nearly as fun, IMO.)
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It's been a while since I tried watching Gundam Wing, Turn A Gundam ,Gundam SEED, and Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans, but IIRC I didn't like them much.
Gaashk
1d ago
I've heard of the Big 5 being used in management, but mostly as a hiring screen, to try not to hire people who are too low in conscientiousness. Which is of course a zero sum game, so not useful for society at large.
Corvos
1d ago
I tried to make this, combining smartwatch data on heart rates and variability to detect energy levels and combining it with an LLM to generate useable recommendations.
It was surprisingly difficult for multiple reasons: your heart doesn’t differentiate between ‘low stress’ and ‘depressed heart rate because you’re recovering from a massive exertion’, or ‘high stress’ vs ‘happy drinking with friends’.
Then it was even harder to do anything with the data. Obviously LLMs don’t integrate with anything meaningful without lots of extra work and the moment you get into health they just start relying on the teams of feel-good bullshit in their training set. No, I would not like to do an hour of yoga followed by a gratitude exercise.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
I just think that saying "I can fire you for violating my values but you cannot fire me for violating yours" is not a sustainable situation.
Why not? There's plenty of expressions around this — like "rank hath its privileges," or "quod licet Jovi non licet bovi". A samurai could cut down a Japanese peasant who insulted him, but if the peasant was insulted by the samurai instead, said peasant had to just take it. Or consider, say, the Ottoman Empire in its heyday, and what would happen if a Christian or Jew publicly proclaimed something Islam considers blasphemous, versus if a Muslim publicly proclaimed something Christianity or Judaism consider blasphemous.
In fact, that latter pretty much describes why the situation actually is sustainable: because really it's "I can fire you for violating my values because my values are aligned with the Official Religion, but you cannot fire me for violating yours because your values are contrary to the Official Religion."
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
1d ago
But even so, this is a very small population of any first world economy. What percentage are we talking about? Maybe 10% at the high end of all adults over 25 are unable or unwilling to work. When AGI replaces humans like automobiles replaced horses, it will be 99% who serve no purpose other than pets of one form or another. Our track record when an animal is not useful to us is absolutely horrifying— at best the herd dog becomes a pet and the horse becomes a pet that is used for tricking or pleasure riding, and the population of both of those shrinks by quite a bit. For animals that cannot be domesticated or that humans don’t fins attractive enough to turn into pets, the vast majority end up on the endangered species list. That’s been the record of how humans deal with living things they don’t find useful. I don’t know how rational it is to expect that humans will suddenly start caring about several billion people globally who are only useful as cute little legacy humans that maybe entertain the elites for a time.
Gaashk
1d ago
I tried looking into Enneagram for a while (recommended by a Five, I think), but just couldn't. It seemed like everything that might have been interesting was not just paywalled, but sold as "retreats" and "experiences." I came out type nine, and I think it had super generic advice one would get from a generic check-up, like getting more exercise, which seemed actually worse than a horoscope.
faceh
1d ago
That's one of the reasons I prefer using TheMotte in general vs. most other sites. Aside from the Quokka popup, it doesn't actively try to drag out your time spent on the site, or use dark patterns to keep you engaged.
And of course it isn't centered around ragebait or fueled by whomever can get the most replies and attention (some might disagree).
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Leftists hate Jews for being perceived as right-wing (economically and socially) oppressors.
Ironically, most of the American Jews (excluding Hassids and similar groups) are in deep love with the Left and especially the Left's economical and social doctrines. Not all, I'd say but the majority, especially the prominent Jews that show up on TV.
Many black men (famously Kanye) and poor whites fit this bill.
Kanye though is not poor and hardly unsuccessful. While black antisemitism has long and sordid history (which mostly resides on the "convenient proxy for oppression" part) I don't think alt-right antisemitism comes from that angle. Rather, it comes from resentment with the general power structure setup in American society, which many people, especially on the right, are feeling, and instead of doing proper intellectual work of figuring out where that comes from, reaching for the ages-old convenient explanation. Of course if shit's going wrong, it must be the Jews! It's always the Jews! Everybody knows that! And of course, the thing I mentioned above - many American Jews being in deep love with the left, even while the Left hates them - doesn't help since it automatically codes them as "the enemy".
If the new Israeli leader lacks big-dick-energy, the incels will mark him as effeminate and move over to their next source of resentment.
There's always "Mossad". Mossad has a ton of big dick energy, and you can blame them for literally anything - after all, not having any evidence just proves how cunning they are, you didn't expect the Mossad to leave any evidence, are you stupid or what?!
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
The international laws of warfare are somewhat vague about blockades sinking cargo vessels carrying materiel in times of war: it's something the Allies did their fair share of too. Even if you include them, it's on the order of 10k deaths, and still weights poorly against the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, and I think the point still stands.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1d ago
I will randomly watch anime that my wife is into, and recently started watching "Twin Star Exorcists" My review: if I saw this in middle school I would have been soooooo into this. As a grown man it's pretty cringe, but in a funny way. It is a catalogue of Shonen tropes.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
Slice of life isn't quite my style, though I think I watched an odd episode of Azumanga Daioh and liked it.
I'm a bit confused on where to get into Gundam, I've heard that the different series can be very different, and I'm looking for a good mecha anime in the first place.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
1d ago
The One in Christ of traditional mystical Christianity isn’t monistic in the sense that flesh and spirit are one, or in perfect harmony, as even the mystic needs to “crucify his flesh” and “make no provision for the flesh”; if anything, the mystics see an even greater battle between the sinful urges of the flesh and the righteous joys of the spirit (& Heaven).
weighting your fear or death heavier than your nicotine cravings
Of course pleasure is weighed against pleasure, but humans are not as innately reasonable as they are innately animal. A smoker seeing a cigarette is immediately compelled to it, sometimes without a chance to have a second thought. “Longterm consequences” is a mental construct created after a long period of practicing (effectively). Humans aren’t designed to plot out in their mind how they will feel in five years if they continue to smoke and then imagine it saliently with excellent theory of mind and then decide to ignore the urge to have the sugar because they remember this mental image they developed. That is an artificial activity that comes with training / acculturation, whereas simply smoking or drinking or eating a cheeseburger is natural.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
I really want to like Jojo, believe me. I think I've tried watching the first episode at least thrice and bounced off it. Maybe that's just on me, since the reviews are raving. I do intent to give it a fairer examination at some point.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
Come to the UK, our local rap scene probably samples gunshots from right outside the studio.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1d ago
Academic and high-class psychologists use Big Five, your average crunchy psychotherapist on the street is more likely to use the Enneagram.
I got about 8k my first month, 4k the next, and have really slowed down the last two months as I hit stuff that's new/completely forgotten. A couple times in the past two months I've had to go back and spend a day or two just doing some uncredited reviews of things I'd forgotten. Reviews are undertuned and don't come often enough, IMO.
The first month was just a review of high school math, so I speed ran it.
How did your graduate without passing math classes?
Throwaway05
1d ago
I think that's mostly a skill issue lol. Most managers are bad, most conversations with patients are low skill and meant to check a box before moving to the next thing. If it's not a tool in your toolbox it isn't necessarily worth making it one, but I have seen MBTI used to great effect in a way that you can't with say the Big 5.
Going to take a bit of a different angle than most people: yes, agriculture is a highly intelligent system, one that outperforms all of humans, sophisticated numerical models, LLMs, and chimps in its niche.
It has its actuators (trucks, etc), and it has its neurons (individual humans and collections of humans). And a learning signal: prices (or, as a TD signal, profit). As a system, it manages to do things nothing else is capable of: no human or computer is smart enough to process all the information needed for it to succeed in its niche, and the individual humans are not organizing production and consumption so much as synapsing to other neurons based on the signals the system provides.
Asking if a combine is intelligent is like asking if a voltage differential across a membrane is intelligent. No, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
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