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FiveHourMarathon

Listen to Pierre

14 followers   follows 6 users  
joined 2022 September 04 22:02:26 UTC

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.


				
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FiveHourMarathon


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Listen to Pierre

				
				
				

				

					14 followers  

					follows 6 users  

					joined 2022 September 04 22:02:26 UTC
				


				
					

					
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm just mystified by the idea that Harris is so certain that young men, especially young black men, would benefit from greater availability of recreational marijuana, that she has made it a highlight of her campaign.




This feels like it rhymes with the argument that because most gun deaths are suicides, it's net negative for my own well being to own a gun.


It may be statistically correct, but it doesn't justify restricting my liberty to make my own choices.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is probably the philosophical quandary I'm facing.


Probably if I had to summarize it in a sentence it would be this: Creativity comes from Freedom, and Freedom is the freedom to be stupid. Arguing merely that a rental economy is optimal in each individual case is not enough, because on a meta level we need variety, which can only be created by making sub-optimal decisions.


RE: HOAs and architectural standards for example. I would not want to live in most developments or towns with strict architectural uniformity, but I often enjoy visiting towns in New England that do have those kinds of standards. So I don't just want all freedom or all uniformity, I want varieties of different ways of running a town.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Will Trump counter with some asinine scheme of his own? Probably.




Trump has mostly resisted the urge to engage in explicitly ethnic spoils, other than the obvious problems for certain Hispanics in certain places in an environment of mass deportation, which is priced in at this point.


Trump has mostly preferred, in the "asinine scheme game," stuff that sounds great if you don't think about it too hard. "No tax on tips;" "no tax on Social Security;" "X% Tariffs on everything in the world" etc.


WSJ Economists rated Trump's economic proposals worse than Kamala's, but also rated hers as terrible. Unfortunately, in this election I'm left hoping that the winning candidate is not able to implement their policies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Weekly NFL Thread: Week 7
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks for the summary. I find CFB impossible to understand or follow, the complexity of what exactly is a good season always stumps me. I would think that any simplification of the top end of the game would be beneficial to viewership.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My intention would be to show that neither paper particularly represents the point of view of The Common Man and that writers for both have lost the Common Touch. I'm not particularly arguing for the NYT having a more middle class readership, only arguing against the NR. Nara and I agree on the NYT afaict.


Why would you say that the demographics are a bad approach, and what would you consider a better approach?


Certainly, it's hypothetically possible to imagine a magazine that has a wealthy, elderly, male, highly educated readership that skews towards DC residents but represents in its content primarily the views of those less wealthy, less educated, younger, and more rural than the readership. But I would argue that the views of the readership are highly likely to skew the views represented in the content over time. It's really hard to resist readership capture.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Huh?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That may have been true in the era of William F. Buckley, Jr. but I don't think it has been true for, oh, three decades? By the mid 1990s at the latest, National Review was much, much closer to the "common man" than anything the New York Times had on offer. Fittingly, I think that becomes less the case around 2016, for much the same reasons that French goes off the reservation.




Thanks for picking that year, as that is the earliest Press Kit I can find for NR easily available online. It gives a breakdown of what their readership looks like* for the purposes of selling advertising. The NR audience is nearly three quarters men. 5% of their subscribers live in DC, less than a fifith of one percent of Americans do. The median NR reader is 66 years old, and 82% of them are over 55, as compared to numbers for America of 38 and ~30%. A little under 40% of Americans have college degrees, while 80% of NR Online readers have one. 43% of NR readers have a net worth over $1mm, only 5% of Americans meet that number. The NR represents a group that is vastly richer, older, more educated, more politically active than the Common American.


And that's what has made the NR an important publication! They've represented an alternative to the tides of mass opinion AND to the Cathedral. But the common man? They are not and haven't been. There are multiple ideological alternatives to taking orders from The Cathedral. A Catholic bishop does not represent "The Common Touch," and he doesn't take orders from that Cathedral; rather he follows his own intellectual tradition. Following any intellectual tradition ("If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue") in the face of popular opposition is admirable, and important for a publication to maintain intellectual integrity. But imagining that the National Review represents the common man's viewpoint is a very common error in assumptions that will produce bad conclusions.


To imagine that the Common Man looks like an NR reader requires excluding from your definition the vast majority of actual Americans, it makes "salt of the earth" an honorific rather than a description.


*I found a similar breakdown for the NYT here. Unfortunately, they don't use the same numbers in their statistics, so I'm not sure how to parse the comparison accurately. They list the number of 18-34 print subscribers (29% as compared to 20% nationally) and the median net worth for all subscribers ($508k, 54th percentile nationally). The gaps in the data are such that I'm not sure the two groups couldn't look more or less identical but reported differently, so I don't want to push the contrast analysis too far. It's reasonable to assume that both groups are wealthier, more educated than the median American, though the NYT numbers look much closer to "normal" there is some portion of their subscriber base that is looking for local NYC news, one can even imagine a guy who buys it primarily for the sports page, where the NR is essentially just the NYT Sunday magazine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Weekly NFL Thread: Week 7
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Solutions:


Suffer.


The Browns sold their soul to trade in a perfectly nice kid who had just lead them to their best season in decades, for a whoremonger who had already sat out a full season over contract disputes. There's no easy way out.


I'm not against being shrewd with suspensions: the Yankees might win a pennant thanks to a leadoff hitter they acquired by being willing to take on Aroldis Chapman's litigation risk after he got angry and fired a gun into the ceiling of his garage.


But the Yankees were shrewd: they picked him up at a bargain rate then sold him after the suspension for a premium. They got multiple prospects out of holding that litigation risk. They didn't pay a premium price for him then sign him up to a giant extension (they would later resign him as a free agent).


The best thing the Browns can do is blow up the current version of the team. These players are visibly degenerating from lack of motivation, and it's only going to get worse.


Their only other alternative is some kind of cloak and dagger shenanigans where they bring out a fresh accusation of whoremongering that allows them to jettison Watson. But do we really trust the Browns to pull that off?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Very roughly, I'd say it means that the grounding of your beliefs is noticeably more substantial than "whatever the Cathedral is saying today."




Fair enough, that's not at all how I'd read that Kipling line. I would read The Common Touch as referring to the ability to speak and relate to the common man, the ordinary sort of citizen, the "crowds" referenced in the prior line. After all, it makes little sense to oppose retaining the common touch to




talk[ing] with crowds and keep[ing] your virtue,




If the common touch is the ability to keep your virtue when the crowd is going the other way.


Properly, I'd probably contend that French (and most conservative justices) didn't lose the common touch recently, he was never in the same zip code as the common touch. Writers for the National Review are no closer to the common man than is the NYT editorial page.


Which I think is where we're at cross understandings.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Or, stated a little differently--these people are highly prone to losing what Rudyard Kipling once called "the common touch." [...]So in an attempt to be the change I wish to see in the world here's an object-level take: I feel bad for David French. I would say he has lost the common touch.




There's something kind of funny to me about accusing French of losing "The Common Touch" because of a disagreement on what is ultimately a pretty arcane constitutional provision. Seriously, I'm anti-term limits, but if some future Gibbon wrote the history of the decline and fall of the American empire, I can already feel the bored teenagers of some future century, their eyes glazing over trying to understand why this obscure fight over the appointment for certain bureaucrats was so pivotal to world history. It would be like trying to explain the intricacies of doctrinal disputes in medieval Christianity, the kind of thing that just seems monumentally obscure.


This isn't to say that liberals haven't lost The Common Touch, it takes a real galaxy brain to explain why the people burning down a Target are fighting for equality or something, you just can't explain that to a peasant. But it sorta feels like The Common Touch as you use it just means "agrees with me." The American common men are definitionally Conservative, and if they aren't then they aren't really American common men. The common touch is talking about immigration and inflation. It's talking about the constitutional right to bear arms. It ain't term limits.




They were on nobody’s agenda until after Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were appointed to the Supreme Court. We heard a quite different tune in 2016...An honest accounting would be frank about the fact that these proposals came about for only one reason: There’s a conservative majority on the Court for the first time since 1930, and liberals and progressives don’t think it’s legitimate for our side to ever get what their side has enjoyed in the past.




This feels off to me. Term limit proposals for SCOTUS were a debate in my AP US Gov textbook in 2008. They were picked up as a major policy proposal in 2020. But there's a long history of proposals for reform of SCOTUS terms.


I'm glad you acknowledged that Republican appointees have held the majority since 1970. Once again, a Conservative majority is defined by McLaughlin as "agrees with me." Particularly, agrees with McLaughlin on social issues to the extent he'd like them too. Ignoring the various other rulings made on a thousand other issues. As you note, Republican justices have historically drifted over time...which would be a really good argument for term limits? It would allow Republicans to refresh their appointees with fresh blood, rather than allowing a Kennedy to remain on the Court making mushy-headed legislation until he dies.


But at what point does ideological drift become a skill issue for the other major party? When you say:




Somehow, you can mismanage cities to the point of transforming San Francisco into an open-air sewer and still maintain total ideological dominance over the voting population. This sort of thing suggests to me that political competition just isn't happening at the object level.




Why are you granting the Democrats hyper-agency and turning the GOP into NPCs? The GOP held the Governor's mansion in California as recently as 2011. They've held the presidency for the majority of the last 70 years. Fox News, their partisan outlet, has been the top rated cable news channel for 22 consecutive years, and the top basic cable channel period for 8. And yet, let's rephrase your question:


Somehow, in a two party system, your opponents can mismanage cities to the point of transforming San Francisco into an open-air sewer and still maintain total ideological dominance over the voting population while you continue to lose every election. This sort of thing suggests to me that political competition just isn't happening at the object level.


Why is the GOP so incompetent that they can't get wins out of the supposed rank incompetence of Democrats? Is that Mr. McLaughlin and the National Review's fault, or are they just helpless passengers over at one of the major ideological organs of one of the two major political parties?


Then again, the NR folks have sure seemed to be helpless passengers against a certain short fingered vulgarian, so perhaps when they talk about conservatives finding themselves helpless against the least dirty trick from Dems, they're just describing themselves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Weekly NFL Thread: Week 7
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


As for the Eagles, I just can't shake the sense that they're not good. They look like the same team from the late-season collapse last year, but with better RNG.




They used up all their RNG juju in 2022. Their RNG hasn't been great this year either. The Bucs game was pretty centering for me: the Eagles will not be a super bowl team this year. A successful season is winning the division, and showing respectably in the playoffs, enough to build on next year.




The Redskins look actually good, surprisingly. Tough loss against a good Eagles team. I think they have a legit chance to win the right to lose to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.




They do, but they remain a team where if you're worried about them you're not the guy anyway. I look forward to the game, it should be a good one.


But first, some schadenfreude: LOL it's the Cowboys.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I also believe that allowing people to 'hoard' capital and property individually (i.e. decentralization) is important for ensuring systems are robust and to some extent antifragile.




And fertile! The existence of the dilletante is important in terms of creativity over time. Many great innovations have come from people having the freedom to fuck around.




For me, the tradeoff of having more space in my living area is generally worth it, and the gym will have a wider variety of equipment that I wouldn't want to store long-term (let alone move) anyway.




I live in a place where space is more or less a non-issue for me. This allows me to keep this stuff around.




Would it be so bad if you have a 'community' gym that was <5 minutes walking distance from your house and had all the equipment you needed, readily available in most cases (i.e. NOT constantly occupied by other users)?




This was basically the situation in law school, and in law school I did have a gym membership at the school. The cool feature there that I've never seen replicated at a commercial gym: you could "rent" gym clothes (think a gym uniform from the 80s: tube socks, mesh gym shorts, cotton t shirt) which made it extra convenient because I didn't need to pack clothing when I went to class in the morning.


But, just in my short lifetime, I've seen the equipment in gyms shift radically from machine focused, to free weight focused. When I was a teenager I never would have found a kettlebell in a commercial gym! And even today, unless I join a KB focused gym I'm not going to find one with a 97#er like Erica.


Ultimately I will probably dispose of some things. I don't really boulder outside anymore, I'm probably going to sell my crashpad for a loss. But that means some kid at my old climbing gym is going to get a great deal on a crash pad, and maybe that will help him become a great boulderer. Slack in the system!


Much like how the thrift store has historically been a prime driver of fashion innovation. Kids with more taste and time than money shop at thrift stores, pick up great vintage items cheap, and find ways to remix them to create something new. Slack in the system which wouldn't exist if everyone rented clothing.


Throw in all the stuff about power that everyone else talks about, but this is one reason.


P.S.




I prefer to live in an environment with novel and 'unique' aesthetics, even if this creates a hodgepodge of styles without any uniting theme, because the alternative seems to be everything is designed around the same blueprint and is painted the same shade of beige. But a lot of people seem to be fine with living in the uniform beige suburbs.




A big part of what makes for boring houses is that people don't really "own" it, the bank does, and they have no intention of ever paying off the mortgage and really owning the house, they just intend to sell it on to someone else at some point. As such, they don't decorate their house for their taste, they decorate for their idea of someone else's taste, for resale value. The same thing has made the watch market so recursive: everyone is obsessed with resale value, and as such they must stick to what "everyone" wants. The same thing has made cars more and more silver and less and less interesting, it used to be much more common to drive a car all the way from dealership to junkyard, now people don't want to get a car in a color that will make it harder to sell.


It's the same dynamic. When you're optimizing for general rather than a specific taste, you produce things that no one likes quite as much.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Weekly NFL Thread: Week 7
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Eagles snuck by the Browns, with what should have been comfortable win, except for the blocked field goal returned for a touchdown. DPOY doing DPOY things, Garrett trying to win the game single handed. But, it would have felt much better for the Eagles if they had won 23-9 instead of 20-16. The good news is Hurts didn't turn the ball over, the bad news is that Barkley couldn't get going. They slink out of the Linc with a win in the standings, but still looking for a statement win. The Giants aren't looking like the speed-bump they should have been pre-season for this team.


On the bright side, Dallas got buried on Jerry Jones' birthday in Dallas. Absolute embarrassment. The kind of loss that can break a team's spirit. Dak didn't just lose, he failed to put up the garbage time numbers he's known for. By the fourth quarter the Lions were scheming up plays for OL touchdowns, and Dallas was playing backups. Love to see it, just hated to see the Hutchinson injury, though I'll admit I was folding laundry when it happened and heard my wife go "oh no!" and when I came back players were kneeling in prayer, and from that point honestly broken leg is better than my first thought of spinal or head injury.


The Redskins are looking better than anyone thought, but the East remains open for the iggles despite pissing away a winnable game against Atlanta and getting buried by Tampa. Probably division win is the realistic goal, I just see no evidence this team will figure out Tampa or SF in the playoffs.


Tonight's the new-coach Jets against the Bills. Jets should lose, but the Bills are known for making a game out of any matchup.


I'll be more excited for game one of the ALCS. Fuck the Indians. I doubt I'll stick to it, but I'm always going to hate any team that changes its name for wokeness. It just ain't right.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ownership creates slack in the system, slack in the system is what creates new and great things. You will own nothing is the logical conclusion of ruthlessly-efficient Capitalism, in that nothing will continue to exist that is not currently optimal.


Consider simple examples:


If you collect DVDs and books, you will continue to own obscure titles that you might never have watched, even if you don't watch them for years. If you subscribe to a streaming service, they will be pruning their service according to what makes money. Consider Reds a movie I happen to have the VHS of in an old basket of stuff in my parent's garage. I've never actually watched it, but if I wanted to I could do so tonight. Pending the destruction of the physical media, my kids could watch it five years from now. No streaming service carries it "free" with subscription, to my knowledge. With physical media one might stumble across it, with streaming it is impossible, with rental it can only be sought out specifically. Same with the vast numbers of old books hanging around my house from library book sales, many of them I could have gotten on Kindle Unlimited, but I probably wouldn't seek them out, there's no serendipity. You never read a book online because it's the only book in the beach house you rented and it's raining all weekend.


This extends even to the difference between when I "stole" media by downloading it from SoulSeek, versus when I "steal" media by streaming it on YouTube with Arabic subtitles. When I owned the things I stole, I had them around, and I would often download a pile of things from the same user. Once I found an obscure punk album on a user's files, I would start poking through what other music they had shared and downloading that as well. Some of those files still sit on my big hard drive, obscure punk bands from the early 2000s like Assorted Jelly Beans. I haven't listened to them in years, but if I wanted to, if the song Punk Rock Jock suddenly inspired me, I can do that. If I wanted to find it again, it would depend on the whims of Spotify.


Every day I drive to an outlying property of ours, I pass by a bright pink house. It's a double wide that's been renovated into a ranch house, and the owner painted it various shades of Barbie pink. I love driving by it, it makes me happy to look at it. No landlord would paint it pink, no landlord would have that house at that location. It only exists because of the odd circumstances leading to that particular human living in that particular location. And that brings joy. Somebody might see it and be inspired to do something with their house.


Buying gym equipment versus having a gym membership is the same tradeoff. A gym membership over the past decade would have given me access to more and better equipment every day. But my equipment has lasted. I spent $100 on two kettlebells in 2013. There have been times I didn't touch them for months, but when I get in the mood they are right there, waiting. Same with my squat rack, my heavy bag, my moon board. I might not use them every day, but I can use them when I so choose. When I get inspired, there they are. For a gym membership, unless I pay continuously, it isn't there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've said before: as long as China is ascendant there is little reason to force the issue today. Prior comment here.  So the assumption that China is going to act aggressively now depends on the idea that Chinese leadership thinks that things are going to get worse for China rather than better. I'm not going to rehash prior points about "faked" Chinese economic and population statistics and HBD, but looking at the headlines today:


-- Has the PRC seen news that makes them think the USA is going to get stronger in the near future? While Biden is an uninspiring leader, I don't see much improvement on the horizon. Kamala is singularly inexperienced and disrespected. Trump is chaotic, and while he's no fan of China he also isn't going to be in favor of tremendous foreign aid to Taiwan. If Trump succeeds in reshoring manufacturing, decoupling in any material way is ten years or more away. In the short term, I don't see tremendous upside for the USA.


-- Is the news about China's economy worse than we think? Maybe this is the big one, or at least some people in China think it might be? I've been reading the China Property Bubble Bursting story for what feels like five years now, but maybe it's actually happening? Does the PRC, related to faked stats in population etc, feel that their economy is about to pull back in such a way that they won't have the capacity to invade?


-- Is there an unknown unknown in Chinese culture that I'm not aware of? Some crisis within the leadership or population that makes this necessary?


-- Totally unfounded speculative conspiracy theory: China makes the move now because they've made a deal with Trump, by which Trump agrees to publicly oppose any US intervention and allow the annexation to happen in exchange for some deal once he's in office. Biden would not be able to act practically speaking if Trump put the kibosh on it, without Republican cooperation action in congress is impossible, and if Trump spoke out hard enough you start to worry about officers in the Navy following orders. That's one unique weakness of this moment: Trump wouldn't even have as much power to hand it to them after the election.


-- More speculation: China has some wunderwaffen they feel will allow them to win the conflict, and wants to act before it is discovered or countered by the USA.


-- Speculative AI timelines?


Any other reasons to do this today, rather than continue to wait and watch?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
https://www.audible.com/pd/B002V8L3RI?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm absolutely stunned by the audible production of Moby Dick I'm listening to.


A friend got me to read a book about Singapore in WWII called The Price of peace and it's fascinating how the war in Malaya was going to keep going on then all of a sudden the war ends for reasons none of them could possibly have known anything about or impacted in any way. Every account reflects that experience.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Weekly NFL Thread: Week 6
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Browns Eagles game is turning into a real clash of the stoppable force and the movable object so far. Absolute farce.


[Stacey Abrams] is going all #MeToo on Watson. I'll be shocked if they get out if this without a suspension.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'll eat a short ban and just be glad you recognized the lyrics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Pickleball is currently transitioning from the joke stage to the hobbyists taking it seriously stage. It's no longer entirely funny for your coworker to tell you they're going to a pickleball tournament, but it's not entirely serious either.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 13, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A different kind of game but: I've written before about how there's a cycle of sports in America, where nice nebbish upper middle class white students develop a sport as recreational competition, it becomes professionalized and fills with different sorts of people with more natural athletic ability who pursue it more diligently than the original hobbyists for monetary opportunity, and the next generation of upper middle class white students develop a new sport as an outlet for their desire for masculine physical competition. Historically in the anglosphere this has hit boxing, all three varieties of football, basketball, marathon running. I've seen this cycle hit a bunch of hobby-sports I played around with just in my lifetime!


When I was a teen BJJ and Grappling were, to a certain extent, combat sports for those in the know. A lot of Joe Rogans base was built off the number of amazing people who hung out at Tenth Planet. And while they've held onto that hobbyist base, you see real dedicated athletes in MMA now in a way you generally didn't in 2004, and BJJ gyms in every small town strip center.


In college I took up CrossFit, it was kind of out of the mainstream and for dorks who got into sports late. Now every box I've dropped into is dominated by former college football players and wrestlers, I will never be at the top of the whiteboard for any workout if I joined. When I first tried CrossFit at 20 it was my first real exposure to weightlifting, I was one of the east coast's worst college rowers. Within a few months I could consistently compete for high spots on the WoD. Today I have vastly better lifts, but the competition has increased to the point where it doesn't even register, and because I don't specifically do CrossFit every day I don't have the specialized techniques mastered to even rx some competitive WoDs.


Rock climbing is somewhat resistant to professionalization in that sucking at rock climbing is still very fun, comparable to golf in that way. But as it's become more popular a similar process is ongoing. When I worked at a gym I was one of the better climbers, not great but there wasn't much I couldn't project in the gym even if I couldn't flash it. A kid joined who was dating a girl who'd been a member for a while, he'd been in the local MLS academy system but hadn't quite made it in professional soccer. He was better than me within six months of climbing for the very first time. With climbing hitting the Olympics, it won't be long until every gym is full of real athletes, and the days of the hippies and burnouts and goof around yuppies will be over.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Some days I feel like my shadow's casting me
Some days the sun don't shine
Sometimes I wonder what tomorrow's gonna bring
When I think about my dirty life and times
One day I came to a fork in the road
Folks, I just couldn't go where I was told
Now they'll hunt me down and hang me for my crimes
If I tell about my dirty life and times
I had someone 'til she went out for a stroll
Should have run after her
It's hard to find a girl with a heart of gold
When you're living in a four-letter world
And if she won't love me then her sister will
She's from Say-one-thing-and-mean-another's-ville
And she can't seem to make up her mind
When she hears about my dirty life and times


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is obvious bullshit, I'm not sure why it got approved. The reference to Aurora seals it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For me it was a very faint red in person but a very dynamic show in photos. This is also just typical of iphone photos at night which more or less never show what I want them to in the dark. I assume there's settings I can fiddle with to make it correct but I've never bothered.


I don't think it's AI upscaling so much as what the phone does to try to make things visible in low light. When I try to take a picture of the moon it comes out screwy as well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 29, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This was mostly a joke about how easy it is for a white man to marry a Chinese or Nigerian foreign exchange student at any selective American college. Most likely outcome if I hadn't met my wife first, tbqh.




...being foreign student doesn't rule out they don't have recent ancestor with you.




My most recent possible common ancestor with a Chinese girl would be before the Magyars left the steppe, and my most recent possible common ancestor with a Nigerian girl might be the Great Rift Valley.