domain:tracingwoodgrains.com
FlailingAce
11hr ago
Congrats! I got interested in the financial independence/retire early (FIRE) movement after I left college (because I really didn't enjoy my job). I'm much less strict about it these days since I'm married and have a new career I love - for instance, we just purchased an unnecessarily large dream house - but I'm still looking to retire in the next ten years or so.
the last several years my investments have appreciated more than my yearly income
tantalizing close
My man you have already arrived. A while ago in fact! Relevant post from my favorite FIRE blogger.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
12hr ago
Not exactly a question, but definitely small-scale (or niche) and probably not a good topic for the main thread:
Pope Leo has granted an exemption for a parish in Texas to continue the Traditional Latin Mass
Early this year, the Diocese of Charlotte, NC issued, then delayed, a reduction in the number of locations for the TLM. The open secret is that the Vatican probably told the Bishop "slow your roll, guy!"
Is this enough evidence, now, to develop some cautious optimism about restrictions on the TLM easing?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12hr ago
Interesting. I keep a picture in my head of how everyone looks. Probably wrong but I'll never know.
faceh
12hr ago
Define "Substantial."
The majority of retirees fit that criteria, and most of them make it through life just fine without becoming a target.
Like, the very idea you should forgo a wife and kids in order to avoid being targeted for having a modest amount of money sounds absolutely insane to me? That just doesn't happen.
No, I'm agreeing. I'm pointing out how going FULL Hermit mode is really the only way to mitigate certain risks created by having people you care about enough that you'd pay lots of money to avoid them getting hurt.
Realize that in several countries, kidnapping for ransom is a big business.
You should not live in such countries if your goal is to keep your 'fuck you' money. This is not an excuse not to have a family, just a vector by which you might get fucked in spite of having the fuck you money.
phailyoor
12hr ago
Yes I agree. Shame on the government forces that allowed open air drug markets in major US city centers, released drug dealers over and over again after arrest, and turned a blind eye to public drug consumption in the middle of the sidewalk and at bus stops.
phailyoor
12hr ago
Yes, I understand the distinction, but the issue is that I may want to mention that activist organization without mentioning the idea that is conveyed by the words in the name of that organization. That idea may be unrelated entirely to the relevant actions of that organization, yet by writing the words in the name of the organization, you have brought that unrelated idea into the discussion, whether you or the other readers want to or not.
Of course, this doesn't directly address the issue of saying the name of a certain individual who was linked to the 2020 riots. That argument is somewhat more complex.
Turniper
12hr ago
I don't really think that's true though. It's not a substantial risk factor. Acting rich is far more likely to make you a target than merely prudently investing a modest amount of wealth. The majority of retirees fit that criteria, and most of them make it through life just fine without becoming a target. Like, the very idea you should forgo a wife and kids in order to avoid being targeted for having a modest amount of money sounds absolutely insane to me? That just doesn't happen.
phailyoor
12hr ago
The names "Human Rights Campaign, "Justice Democrats" or "Freedom Caucus" don't convey any message at all, beyond possibly giving an inaccurate idea of what the organization does. You can't say "human rights campaign is false." It doesn't say anything in particular about human rights or campaigning.
On the other hand, the words in the name of the organization do have a direct plain meaning. A meaning that is direct and can be argued. It's certainly possible to argue that "[words in the name of the organization] is false" or "[words in the name of the organization] is true."
WandererintheWilderness
12hr ago
For what it's worth, speaking as one of the most left-wing people here: I found it very interesting, I believe you wrote it in good faith, and I have a lot of sympathy for you, so I'm glad you did go to the effort of writing it.
(Of course, it doesn't convince me. The impression I get is that the universe has played a cruel trick on you - that you've been tremendously unlucky over an extended period of time, Cardiologists and Chinese Robbers-style, and this has inevitably and understandably skewed your intuitions in a very deep way. If I had a chronic heart condition, and got "treated" by three or four of Scott's anecdotally-psychopathic cardiologists in a row through pure luck of the draw… yeah, I might wind up with a deep-seated intuition that there's got to be something to the inherent rottenness of the profession, no matter how eloquently people tried to talk me out of it. Confirmation bias giving undue salience in my eyes to the ordinary feelings of ordinary cardiologists would do the rest.)
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
12hr ago
You probably know he's hugely popular
Yeah, I definitely wanted this to be my bridge back into the genre, and had heard a lot of great things about it. I agree that the characterizations are dicey at times and that much of the dialogue writing is awful. I find the cosmology interesting, though, and I admit I’m a sucker for the “here’s a list of factions with distinct personality traits and iconography, sort yourself into the one that you’d be a part of” trope.
WhiningCoil
12hr ago
Overall my life has been awesome and not filled with much tragedy.
That's the part of it that is hard to communicate. At no part in my story was I the direct victim in any of this, beyond getting beat up by the illegals many years older than me who were placed in a middle school classroom likely based on education level, the county not yet having an ESL program. A mistake that was relatively quickly corrected. This might have been 1996? According to some census data I found the county was only 7% Hispanic then, compared to it's 25% now. Whites declined from 75% to 35%.
The problem isn't personally having illegals hit and run you personally on the road (that was several friends of mine), or murder your family (that was my coworker's brother), or take hostages and burn your house down (that was a row of houses or two behind mine). It's how it feels to see civilization fraying at the edges all around you, chaos growing stronger every day, and the high trust society you grew up in collapsing into a low trust hell hole of all against all. You came from a world where things like this didn't happen, period. A 40 point swing in demographics later, and suddenly it's normal. It's like that "First they came for the..." poem, only instead of methodical Nazi's eliminating problematic groups, it's just raw 3rd world barbarism and high time preference imposing it's consequences all around you, and occasionally picking off someone around you. And for whatever reason, people just keep their head in the sand. They roll to disbelieve, or they pretend this is fine. To notice at all places you on the fringe.
WandererintheWilderness
12hr ago
Reminds me very much of Scott's misophonia essay.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
12hr ago
You probably know he's hugely popular, and I'll admit I've read quite a few of his books because he's got a pleasant and entertaining style, but in my opinion he's very overrated. However, if you like the series (SA is his "flagship" magnum opus), he (unlike GRRM and Patrick Rothfuss and Scott Lynch) will probably actually finish it.
And he'll also write like five other books per year along the way.
birb_cromble
12hr ago
Yes. I am satisfied, mostly because you're not trying to cram me into a WC-shaped hole.
WandererintheWilderness
12hr ago
museums literally being torn up like an SNL sketch of Great Replacement Theory
Most of this sounds wild to me too, but I have no difficulty believing that bit. I don't think it's got much to do with immigration - even a connection to wokeness-writ-large seems strained - but memorials to otherwise-non-historically-relevant individuals being lost to renovations because nobody gave a shit is a story I've heard many times. My old college absolutely broke a sweet old nonagenarian's heart when they reorganized which departments got what buildings, and, in the process, failed to carry over the naming of one of the humanities dept.'s main lecture halls after his long-dead wife, who'd been a lecturer there herself. It wasn't anything to do with her being cancelled, it wasn't anything personal at all. There was just no procedure for carrying the tributes over, and no one cared enough to make one even with the old guy protesting to anyone who'd listen.
zPvQINBQvfFR
12hr ago
Ok, I trust you and concede that the guy was in fact harassed by police during normal working hours.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
12hr ago
What I did say is that, in my experience, crimes get weirder as illegal immigrant migrant labor increases in small communities
Okay. I believe that. Are you satisfied?
phailyoor
12hr ago
it’s not like you are going to have any crime at a grocery store operated on a military base.
You would be surprised.
WandererintheWilderness
12hr ago
because I thought bloody meat was gross, and consequently I did not enjoy steak any more than I did chicken
Dunno about that "consequently". I prefer my steak well done, and a nice well-done steak is one of my favorite foods.
deluxev2
12hr ago
I think mostly it is just cheap, and thus every cheap thing that needs sugar has it in it. Some people say that they can taste the difference but chemically it becomes identical if there is enough water/acid so I doubt the effect is the corn syrup.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
12hr ago
I have not read any of his other stuff (I read a lot of fantasy literature in middle school and high school, but took a very long break from the genre) so I have no preconceived notions.
OliveTapenade
12hr ago
There's even the movement to stop saying pro-choice (among pro-choicers) and instead say pro-abortion.
Among pro-choicers themselves? I remember in the past once, wanting to avoid biased labels, talking about 'anti-abortion and pro-abortion activists', and the latter angrily telling me that this was incredibly biased of me, and they're not 'pro-abortion', nobody is in favour of abortions as such, but rather they are in favour of a woman's right to choose. I thought that remained the general position, and that outside of a few relatively radical voices, very few people actually try to present themselves as liking abortion as such.
In practice today I mostly just use 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice', and when people quibble those labels ("They're not pro-life! They're just pro-birth! Look, they oppose the welfare state and support capital punishment!" and similar), I tend to assume the quibblers are just trying to pick fights and are not worth engaging with in good faith.
BurdensomeCount
—Your em dash is showing...
12hr ago
No, which is why he was only talked to by the police and warned, then booked for a magistrate's court hearing and fined rather than anything else.
If you want to see an example of a case where real punishment gets meted out by the Crown court see here from last week.
The defendent got 15 months in prison for his antics, but that was because he explicitly posted on Twitter "Go on Rotherham, burn any hotels wi them scruffy bastards in it" (talking about refugee hotels) and linked to far right materials very soon after the country was on edge due to the Southport murders (committed by a born British citizen).
Those actions could have potentially spurred on a real human tragedy costing an order of magnitude more lives than the Southport murders themselves.
A lot of really really unhealthy eating amounts to "not thinking about eating." Just eating whatever.
The moment you start thinking about anything relating to eating, it's a huge upgrade over not thinking.
You can get just as fat off cane sugar as hfcs, but if you refuse to eat hfcs you'll at least reject a few things at the 7-11, and sometimes you won't eat something you would have otherwise eaten.
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