domain:archive.ph
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4hr ago
Just finished Spring Snow. I'd seen it recommended a few different places (maybe here, maybe HN). I've never been a weeb, but I've visited Japan -- it's a beautiful and very interesting country -- and I can appreciate why Mishima is seen as such a prominent Japanese writer of the 20th century. Some of the vibe was to be expected, like the very Japanese aesthetics, and the tension between Japanese traditions and incoming Western norms during the Meiji era.
That said, I was intrigued at the following author blurb at the back of the book:
In 1970, at the age of forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) -- a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.
I felt I had to read a bit more to understand this. Wikipedia tells the story slightly differently:
[Mishima] was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, ultranationalist, and the leader of an attempted coup d'état that culminated in his seppuku (ritual suicide).
Well, that escalated quickly. Having read that article, it's interesting to see how story beats from the author's life: "After briefly considering marriage with Michiko Shōda, who later married Crown Prince Akihito and became Empress Michiko" sounds a lot like the story of the novel.
Looking for something shorter and more sci-fi, I've picked up Asimov's The End of Eternity, which I think someone recommended a while back. I might consider continuing the Fertility series at some point, though.
Lizzardspawn
5hr ago
Do you think that if Mamdani's supporters or detractors miss the chance to nickname him MadMani will be one of the greatest missed puns?
philosoraptor
5hr ago
Flip 1 and 2, and reverse the order of 4-6 (for one thing the whole structure surely pushes against individualism), and you might have the beginnings of something. But your #2 is clearly #1 and it's not close.
It could be explained idealogically, but there's a simpler answer that also explains "why did Mississippi fail so hard for so long then?" and "why is Mississippi the standout and not all the red states?"
That explanation is human nature. It's the idea trap
People don't like change so they're opposed to mixing things up even if it's better. People don't like to admit they made a mistake, so they keep treading down the same path out of denial. These changes were largely pushed by Carey Wright, an educator and superintendent with little connection to the terrible education decisions made by her state level predecessors. Mississippi has been bad for so long that many of the original people who made it bad don't have much influence anymore and this allows more political pressure to try something else without tons of people in power having to swallow their pride. The main meat of Mississippi's reputation comes from the late 20th century, some of the issues as far back as the 70s!
Some of the states like California are now stuck here. Superintendents, principals and education heads who simply can not admit they made a major mistake. They all huddle together unable to swallow their pride, convinced that it must not have been a mistake at all then and something else must be going on.
It's why you see things like, antivax parents whose kids die of preventable diseases doubling down in the community. One way says "oh god I killed my kid" placing a lot of moral shame and guilt on them, the other way says "I did nothing wrong", and people pick the latter. An abuse victim often goes further into the relationship. Many of the UFO believers double down when the prophecy doesn't happen. It's a hit to our ego to admit fault, especially mistakes that can't be rectified.
Many of those with the highest levels of belief, commitment and social support became more committed to their beliefs, began to court publicity in a way they had not before, and developed various rationalizations for the absence of the flood.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
5hr ago
Is there even still any ongoing technical development of the Motte?
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
5hr ago
Since 2019 January, I found Scot via econlib which I found when I was trying to see if there even was a thing as a Marxist economist, Scott was the only smart anti sjw dude I found and got myself in these spaces.
pigeonburger
6hr ago
I find it useful to practice languages. I used to speak spanish but lack of usage means I'm not confident enough to speak it now, but LLMs are infinitely patient conversation partners that will not overly correct me (and shoot my confidence) during the conversation, but can afterwards give me pointers.
MachineElfPaladin
6hr ago
I was just using it because you'd brought up "why not pick 4" - and, as demonstrated it's perfectly valid to pick 4! It would work fine. It's just that multiplying and dividing by 2 is usually easier for people, so that's what erwgv used.
thrownaway24e89172
Death is the inevitable and only true freedom
6hr ago
I've seen people of both sexes put up with shit I really wouldn't have; being down bad is quite the drug.
Unfortunately so are low self-esteem ("this is the best I could ever hope for") and self-harm ("I deserve this abuse"), particularly in people who don't show it publicly.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
6hr ago
Thanks! I'll have to look into those other books once I finish the current one.
ace
7hr ago
17 years. Summer and fall of 2008, I was searching for explanations of quantum mechanics because the textbook and everyone else's explanations were so goddamn confused, incomplete, and self-contradictory. Found Big-Yud's Quantum Physics sequence, which felt like the first time finding someone who had sane, coherent opinions on the matter. From there an easy step to the rest of the sequences, LW, and SSC.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
7hr ago
Whoops. Comment updated.
Magusoflight
7hr ago
I've never felt unable to identify what emotion I was feeling; I do it easily and often!
Then you must be wrong that you don’t get a physical sensation. You aren’t a machine that can reduce emotions to thoughts. Thoughts aren’t emotions, and according to a lot of neurophysiological literature, emotions are primary and thoughts are secondary processes. You are picking up on a cue somewhere in yourself, but maybe you don’t understand what physical sensations it is you’re picking up on. Now, are thoughts connected to emotions? Yes in the same way behaviours are. But you wouldn’t mistake crying for sadness, because someone could be pretending to cry, or crying from happiness or laughter. A negative thought can induce a sad feeling, and a sad feeling can induce a negative thought, but you must lack a certain psychological mindedness to therefore mistake thoughts for feelings
Magusoflight
7hr ago
I agree we over accommodate people with learning issues or whatnot, but it probably is to some extent bad for you to not be able to identify what emotion your “feeling”. Alexithymia is a useful word for a kind of state, but maybe I’m misinterpreting what they mean by “feeling with thoughts”
Dean
Flairless
7hr ago
Ruinous! Posting functions should trend towards forgiving so as to encourage contribution from would-be or marginal posters. Locking people into mistakes that demand more clarifications might be tedious.
Or locking people into bad temper posting which runs afoul the rules, but which they might think better of after seeing it posted.
hydroacetylene
7hr ago
Being smitten is a hell of a drug.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8hr ago
To be honest, I don't actually recall any instances in which someone we knew to be a previously permabanned member came back, was identified, but was behaving well enough that the mods decided not to ban the new account for ban evasion. Possibly it happened before I became a mod, but as far as I know, it's kind of like the case of "We'd consider it if a permabanned member petitioned us to unban him": to date an entirely theoretical policy.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8hr ago
His grievance was that we talk about things instead of planning to murder our enemies and burn it all to the ground.
He got a timeout for his screed, but he's not banned currently.
Quoting this because this was what was present and being responded to before your edit.
No. In order for the mission to be fucking accomplished, you have to accomplish the fucking mission, which is to reform sufficiently to go unnoticed.
Heavens no. The Mission fucking Accomplished paradigm was established precisely to defend not banning recognized ban evaders who were noticed, but weren't breaking the rules on decorum to the degree to warrant another ban on those grounds. It was the returnees compliance with the decorum, not their ability to not be detected, which was the accomplishment. Were it the later, the defense of non-moderation wouldn't have had to be made in the first place.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8hr ago
He hates Christianity because Christianity places importance on concepts like "mercy" and "forgiveness" and not hating, which he despises. I don't think it's much more complicated than that, and certainly not theologically deeper.
09milk
8hr ago
I second this approach of thinking, at the end, the goal of school is to pump out students actually capable of reading and understanding. Pumping out illiterate students contradict the function of school, school is NOT day care facility and we should not treat them as such
A school pumping out illiterate students should do worst on stats, State A's school (0.7/year) in @odd_primes's example is a worst school than State B's school (0.6/year), even though State B's school has less effective teachers
Just like a company, the administration stucture matters, it might increase or decrease the overall profitability of the company, and State B's school's administration makes their school more functional at their goal, depite less effective teachers
Lorian_Aristedes
8hr ago
Good luck with Less Than Zero, I felt dead inside for a week afterwards.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
8hr ago
The Reverse of the Medal. I will do a badly written synopsis later once I get into it.
I read Enemies and Neighbours by Ian Black last year and found it expansive and informative. A mild pro-Palestinian bias becomes more apparent towards the end of the book, and the fact it only goes up to 2017 (when it was published) means it is now 8 years out of date, are drawbacks but I found it to be an engaging, relatively balanced and detailed account of how modern Gaza became the mess it is now.
More options
Context Copy link