Fruck
Lacks all conviction
Fruck is just this guy, you know?
User ID: 889
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
14hr ago
Hey, I don't know if you remember me, I hung out around here six months ago and then flounced off after a poorly received post (in my defence at the time I was disassociating hard due to the election, and what I saw at the time as insane behaviour from my (blue tribe) circle of friends and family but I'll own up to it, I handled it poorly.) At the time you gave me advice that I took to heart, it was a great post I thought on a lot, to the point where for a few weeks my personal mantra was 'all the best teachers are dead'. I really can't thank you enough for that post, it sent me down multiple rabbit holes which I have found hugely helpful and I do believe if I hadn't read it I would be incarcerated in some fashion by now.
If all I wanted to do was thank you I would have just pmed you, but I always pay attention when I notice synchronicity, so when I read this post (I've been lurking since just before the election) I knew I had to log in and say something. Because while I loved Juvenal and Gracian, the author whose insight helped me the most wasn't one you listed - it was none other than Siddhartha Gautama. I have been devouring books on Buddhism for the past six months, it utterly blows my mind how smart and insightful the Dhammapada is. Like you I have no interest in Buddhist dogma, and in reality I've spent most of my time trying to jam sutras into my default pseudo-Christian perspective (they actually go together quite well in my opinion but I understand why Buddhists and Christians don't like hearing that), but it has had a huge influence on my outlook.
I ended up reaching a similar conclusion to you, although I think I picked a different resolution. See my conclusion was that enlightenment is functionally identical to insanity. You can not attain it until you let go of everything - including the ability to understand and be understood. That is the most difficult thing in the world to give up, because you can't do it deliberately - just the act of trying itself is failing. And the idea of going insane isn't particularly appealing to most people either. Once it happens you realise you were making a big deal about very little, but it's like virginity, once it's gone you can never really get it back.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
Is that what I do, relentlessly mock people? I am asking genuinely. Also you have never thanked me for an argument.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
I would have appreciated the pile in earlier, I don't know why anyone would think I wasn't expecting pushback, if everyone agreed with me there wouldn't be a problem because everyone would have also decided to make an effort to understand every post they reply to at the start of the year.
But I have learned my lesson now. I was picking on people and no I don't get to find out how I should just shut up already. This is fine.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
On the third hand though what other choice is there? Make your own America? You fight until you are no longer physically capable of fighting, even if the odds are stacked against you. You will surely have a better chance of ousting the deep state as a president, even a hated one, than as a rich civilian.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
Damn chum, if this is your average level of response I would love it if you joined in more. Surreal is an excellent way of putting it, although I see it more as a reaction to the society of the spectacle, like monks retreating to their cloisters to argue about dancing angels.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
I can get thoughtless good faith responses from reddit or Facebook or a million billion other places.
Your actions here, simply put, come across like you were setting out to pick on people from the beginning.
Really? Which ones? The action where I mentioned being a fan of two of the posters who misunderstood? The action where I said I don't think people are actually less intelligent, but behaving less intelligently? The action where I said the problem is people are retreating from their humanity out of fear and complacency? Or is it just the action in the op where I impugned people's intelligence?
I genuinely can't see it. I expected people to be upset with me, but I didn't expect this level of upset, with cjets mantra of mod vengeance and so on - it genuinely looks to me like narcissistic injury (as in identity injuring, not implying narcissism). The conflict I was expecting was for people to bring up examples of times I have been guilty of using semantics and passive aggression to avoid actually engaging, because they absolutely exist. Is any critical comment a gotcha now? Can we not just say "yeah that was dumb, we need to get our act together" Not to mention if I brought it up without an example it would have been immediately dismissed as a strawman.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
For clarity, acting as if I think something which even the people arguing with me about it down thread agree nobody ever thinks is ironic stupidity?
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
I understand you are trying to employ empathy for people who work crappy jobs - you wouldn't want to work a job for a hundred hours and get $200 out of it, so you understand why they don't do that. But the correct response should be to encourage them to find another job, not give them a pass on the job they signed up for. Nobody forced them to be critics, and they get paid so poorly because that's what they are willing to work for. Note also that if they enjoy the game, they are likely to play it for a hundred hours after the review for free.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
To add on re Jcvd, the most prominent film of his I recall is JVCD, that meta film where he plays a loser version of himself directing his thousand yard stare at his own miserable life as essentially an international joke because of his old action films.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
It was the Friday fun thread. I don't want anyone to feel bad in the Friday fun thread. This is not a speak plainly issue because the joke was only, in my eyes, a clear cut example of the issue of surface level engagement. It was in itself not a big deal, but it both made me think of a problem I had seen more and more and appeared to be a perfect example of it.
I made a mistake in this Wellness post. I forgot how highly smart people value their intelligence, and so my claim that I no longer felt stupid here is all anyone can focus on and has caused great injury. I am sorry. You should probably mod me. Threatening to shut down analogies and metaphors on the speak plainly rule is absurd.
I mean over the past few months. What it feels like to me, is that everyone is afraid of a) looking stupid and b) getting modded, so they pull back, and like @f3zinker said only engage with the barest surface reading of the posts. And so every second thread devolves into arguments over semantics - I'm half afraid someone's going to pull me up here and show me three threads in a row with no semantics, like that means anything. I'll get dinged for not "speaking plainly".
I don't want to go anywhere, I had hoped I could maybe wake people up to the fact that it kind of looks like we're all retreating into autism to avoid our humanity.
Edit: accidentally hit post. To continue: I have professed my love for this community many times, and I always try to encourage good writing when I see it in posts, I think there's only one or two users who encourage others more than I do in fact. I haven't been here as long as you, but it is special to me too. Like I said, I don't know how to fix the problem.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
Am I wrong about the average age here? The joke was that I was afraid this kid would watch a movie and suddenly flip his entire worldview, a premise that was mocked mercilessly when I was growing up, because "everyone knows" that nobody is influenced by just one thing, everything is a confluence of the innumerable stories everyone hears all day every day. That doesn't mean media doesn't have an influence on people, of course it does! But nobody becomes a nihilist after watching fight club one time, just like nobody becomes a libertarian after reading atlas shrugged and nobody becomes a mass shooter after playing doom - there are a thousand other stops along the way there, and if it looks like an immediate turn that is because prior stories predisposed the person to absorb that influence.
I chose the words "a single piece of media reshaped someone's entire worldview." very carefully, to avoid this exact tangent.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
I was sincere about wanting movie recommendations. The joke was in the premise. That's the set up. Furthermore the pretending to be retarded meme is about someone doing something stupid in earnest then claiming it was a joke to escape ridicule. It is not doing something you think is too outlandish to take seriously and then having to disappointedly explain that you were joking. How much further do you need this broken down?
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
I think that's part of the problem - all of the "teachers" that interest me have been run off the internet or into some corner I don't know about. I don't even know where to look anymore.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
I mean they technically don't change someone's "entire worldview" because that's not really possible
...
And yeah, I know, everything changes slowly and maybe the piece of media was just a "straw that broke the camel's back"
Come on man.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
Thanks for this, it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
For fucks sake you have catch 22 flair, how do you not understand the concept of farce?
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
Also, some of the people who you say 'took the bait' are some of the best posters, so I don't really think it's strong evidence of anything.
I agree, like I said it brought to mind a trend in have been noticing. Pasha is very insightful and orthoxerox is one of my favourite posters. The problem isn't that the level of intelligence has dropped, or I guess it is, but it's not that motters have lower intelligence, it's that nobody thinks for three seconds about anything unless it's their hobby-horse. Like @f3zinker, @ThisIsSin and @bolido_sentimental said, the engagement has turned superficial.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
Hey Wellness Wednesday, I've completely lost faith in the motte this week. See I've used "I think I fucked up my niece/nephew by playing a single song/tv show/movie" as a premise about a dozen times over the course of my life, and the only time it was taken seriously was with a group of college freshmen. Everyone else immediately understood that it was a premise, because you would have to be totally disconnected from reality to think a single piece of media reshaped someone's entire worldview. 100% disconnected, Being There disconnected.
But the thing is, I know the motte isn't full of freshmen, it's full of gen xers and millenials. And yet posting here was the second time my ridiculous premise was taken seriously. I used to make jokes 10 times as convoluted on /r/cwr and everyone got them, and when I'd do one on the motte I'd get accused of going for cheap laughs!
So it brought to mind a lot of other things I have noticed over the past few months, which can be summed up like this - I no longer believe I am stupider than the average motter. But, and this is the important part - I still know I'm a fucking idiot. Half of the cwr threads might as well be written by markov bots these days, there are still quite a few insightful comments every week, but so much of the rest is just rote bullshit. Just everyone talking down to each other, using passive aggressive laziness to evade the modhats - but not even making it entertaining, it's just talking points vs talking points.
I want to feel stupid again. I want to have to bring my a-game again. I don't know how to make that happen.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
9mo ago
I would be keen to read that if you still have the draft.
It would be easier and better for your psyche if, instead of getting upset at the idea of PAs having less status than doctors, you just dropped the stigma you currently associate with the working class.
The anonymity of the internet equalises the doctor, the cashier and the executive - online all their opinions are considered equally merited. And this has mostly wonderful effects imo, but one negative is that the wealthy express their opinions on working class jobs the way they think about them - calling them worthless jobs or saying the only people fit to push a broom or work at a supermarket are 70 iq or they're jobs for drug addicts - and they're right to an extent, they aren't as skilled as professional work, and don't require as much discipline or intelligence, and can indeed be performed by drug addicts (just like medicine and corpo blah blah blah).
But this has given the zeitgeist the impression that these jobs are worthless and as a result nobody wants to do them any more. They don't take pride in doing them and resent them. And so you get passive aggression at the deli and half missing fast food delivered cold, and people getting ticked off when their respectable friends are labelled working class. But there is plenty of pride in doing any job well and more importantly there is no shame in it. A janitor who takes pride in doing his job well is infinitely more respectable than a doctor who reads webmd at people in between smoke breaks.
Who cares if Rafa or I think your sister in law isn't in the same league as a doctor? You know her, is she the kind of person to fuck over someone's life through ignorance or is she going to do her best at all times? It's that spirit that is admirable, not her position in the pecking order.
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