faceh
10d ago
There seems to be a rapid shutdown mode where the body calls it quits and nothing can reverse this.
My rough model is that you can do a lot of interventions that will improve general health, and if you can stave off cancer you WILL live longer on average... but once some major subsystem in the body starts to go, the knock-on effects will lead to rapid deterioration across the board. A complex system will run smoothly until something important fails... then you see a rapid cascade of failures which looks like 'sudden' onset of death.
I.e., maybe you have the skin, liver, heart, and lungs of a 50 year old, but if your kidneys give out then that will barely matter, it'll all start to go unless you do a drastic intervention. Which subsystem fails is somewhat of a diceroll.
So yeah, you can gain a few extra healthy years on average via good habits and preventative care, but its still a question of which of your internal organs will be the first to betray you.
I am actually a little bit unsettled that certain interventions that do seem to preserve youthfulness, such as sleeping a lot, avoiding the sun (and other radiation), reducing your metabolism/body temp, and consuming the blood of virgins really resembles vampire behavior.
faceh
10d ago
Jesse Singal is a little more... earnest than the others but you begin to notice that he critiques the left but never actually takes the obvious implications of all those critiques.
faceh
10d ago
Johnson is notable insofar as he spent his 20s and 30s sacrificing his health to make a bunch of money. And now he's burning that money to regain health and youth and is, through absurd amounts of effort, at least partially successful.
The other current respectable Anti-aging Guru Dr. David Sinclair, also looks younger than his actual age (55).
Which lends credence to the claim that his interventions improve SOMETHING.
BUT I kind of hate that we live in an era where makeup, plastic surgery, and other cosmetic technologies are mature enough that it is easy to fake youthfulness so we can't rely on our own eyes to judge.
I do wonder at the fact that various Hollywood Stars (Keanu, Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, to name a few) can stay active and fit well past the age that normally people start falling apart slowly.
Hmmm...
I think that there's a group of 'public intellectuals' that includes Hanania, Matt Yglesias, Noah Smith, Jesse Singal, and a few others, who have crammed themselves into a microniche of the influencer ecosystem where they play the same ragebait game as everyone else, but have the wherewithal to couch it in enough rhetorical flourish and data that they can maintain reputation as 'serious' intellectuals who are worth listening to even among the more respectable circles of discourse. They're basically squeezed in right beneath The Atlantic but above, say, Vice covering angles that are a bit too speculative for real news but never so lowbrow that they can't be discussed in polite company.
Their persona is basically "haha I agree with 95% of what [ideology] says, but on these specific issues I vehemently disagree and will vigorously bang the drum of dissent, bet you never expected that!" (Being FAIR, Ben Shapiro was also like this, but he's made the big time so he doesn't have to rely on this any more)
Hanania is very much a right-leaning mirror of Yglesias. He has high verbal IQ and is versed in the esoteric and counterintuitive arguments that were born from the neoreactionary movement, but makes himself out to be the moderate and rational alternative to said neoreactionaries.
I also think he doesn't have much interesting to say. His shtick seems to be "here's some piece of data or a study result that seems to contradict a particular right wing narrative, I hereby declare that narrative debunked!" Here's an example. "Haha, I found some data that vaguely disagrees with your point! How's it feel to be WRONG?" Then he gets dunked on but he achieved his goal of gaining attention.
And he isolates that data from almost any and all surrounding context so that the interlocutor is forced to introduce the necessary informational context which he can either ignore, or attack narrowly "that doesn't refute MY data!" even though the whole issue is HIS data, in context, doesn't really refute anything. Or, if he wishes, put on a layer of irony and claim he wasn't making his claim seriously anyway, you rube.
In short, they all like to pull 'micro' motte-baileys where they never make any serious claim that can be pinned down and destroyed, they stick their toe in the Bailey enough to garner some outrage but no so far that they can't defend the claim with some artful rhetoric.
I think their grift mode is to state some superficially fallacious contrarian argument, then claim that they'll address all critiques and counterarguments in their longer substack essay, which once you pay to access it and read it, you realize it is just a wordier version of the same arguments but then they have your money.
So they're just selling newsletters via particularly skilled trolling, if you will.
Side note, just to add to my earlier gripes about Noah Smith, here's him botching another prediction/analysis about topics he really doesn't grasp.
faceh
10d ago
It still suffers from the problem of not having much you can do with it aside store it for the long term.
And ultimately that's why I'm pulling out, I got other things I want to do with the money.
faceh
10d ago
I had money on Ted Cruz winning, and I otherwise decided to let things ride, which has paid off too thus far.
But I'm also selling off the last of my Crypto holdings for the time being because I STRONGLY suspect the current leap is overoptimistic, and it'll correct by or before January. For reference, I originally bought a (small) position in Bitcoin in 2014.
Ultimately yeah. I avoid reacting to any one event. But there are still times when I wish I had been bolder on certain moves.
faceh
10d ago
I'm KICKING myself that I didn't think to slide more money into $TSLA in the leadup to the election.
It was obvious that a Trump win would benefit Elon directly and bounce Tesla higher. It's up over 40% since the election.
My policy right now is I'm giving EVERYONE a week-long pass/reprieve where they can grieve and/or celebrate. So one more day.
After that, anyone still acting unhinged OR still spiking the football rather than working on their goals for the future is getting muted. If they antagonize me directly, they're getting blocked, at least for a while.
I did learn from the past 8 years that my own personal mental health is better preserved when I'm not exposed too much to the screeching insanity from either side. Hence why I spend my time here rather than Reddit.
I've already started the process of muting all the most intolerable of the pundits and influencers. They will keep doing their shtick regardless, and its no longer amusing to have to hear the same doomsday prognostications, or useless chest-thumping. These are not serious people.
My goal for the next four years: Just fucking build stuff. The uncertainty of the election is gone, the Red Tribe is ascendant, the left is going to act in a very predictable way going forward. No reason to let them alter my plans and actions one iota.
faceh
11d ago
It would be a bit funny if they design a machine that is provably a 1:1 simulation of a human brain, switch it on, and get an error message to the effect of "Cannot Execute Commands: This unit is not ensouled."
LLMs aren't going to replace humans because the set of all data is miniscule to the set of all potential patterns in the world.
I mean, you can say LLMs aren't going to replace humans...but the 'potential patterns in the world' are all reducible to data in one way or another.
So some Machine trained on language AND physics data AND biology AND etc. etc. is still a potential contender, no?
faceh
13d ago
Literally as I read this comment I am listening to a reggae-fied cover of the Gorillaz song Punk.
The "Laika come Home" Album is pretty damn good.
I've also spent a good portion of this year searching up Metal or Hard rock covers of popular older songs and finding that this has been a burgeoning area/genre, and there is a lot to choose from!
Mostly for my gym playlist. But there's covers of songs like Running up that Hill and "Lose Yourself" that are just GREAT MUSIC on their own merits, because they are remade by talented artists who can maintain the basic structure of the original but give it a distinct feel and play around with the architecture. That is to say, not just slapping on a new paint job.
Feels like this is an ample vein to mine, to get distinct sound out of well-known songs by converting them to a differing genre.
I'm reminded of how The Animals created a massive hit out of their cover of a folk song "The House of the Rising Sun" back in 1964.
Writing 'new' songs is probably overrated, since you're just adding a few footnotes to an insanely large library of material. But talented artists don't need to be entirely novel to make great works! Fork off an existing property, make it their own, and it could be a hit too.
Also, I genuinely believe that we've mostly 'tapped out' the possible genres of songs that can actually become popular, there doesn't seem to be much room left for any distinctly novel style of music that has heretofore been untapped. I'd blame the rise of electronic music for rapidly squeezing out the entire space of 'sounds it is possible to produce' and so even if we haven't tapped the entirety of all musicspace we're going to have a harder time finding ones that have mass appeal.
faceh
16d ago
A) A lot of people moving here/retirees from Blue states that increase the Republican voteshare.
B) Desantis is a terrifyingly competent governor, from day 1. Even Dems notice that he keeps the state in tiptop shape.
C) As part of B), Desantis cleaned up the problem counties when it came to voting, which probably eliminated whatever fraud there was.
I explain here.
faceh
16d ago
As a Floridian, I could have warned him.
Its not just that the Dems are outnumbered now, they're UTTERLY DEMORALIZED so even if they show up in polls, they might not bother voting.
faceh
16d ago
If there was a broad-scale strategic mistake the left made, 'letting' the GOP turn trans issues into the most central culture war flashpoint has to be it.
faceh
16d ago
Jesus Christ its insane.
"Wow I heard an insightful point on [podcast or 1 hour documentary]"
"Where can I find it?"
"Somewhere around the 45 minute mark, and then they go on a tangent about cat-squirrel hybrids for a bit, then they come back to the point."
In the current era we should be able to cite to any given piece of written/typed data nigh instantly, instead the content has evolved to make it more resistant to easy search.
faceh
16d ago
(4) Ann Harris Bennett, the Tax Assessor for Harris County, TX, apparently has not gone to work since 2020. She is "in charge of voter registration and tax collection."
A woman with the middle name Harris, in Harris County, in an election year with a major candidate named Harris...
What.
Sort of.
I expect the left to QUADRUPLE down on the rhetoric against while males as the source of all evil. The states where Dems have control will probably pass some more laws to entrench current gender divides and further tilt the legal playing field towards females and minorities. They may think they've still got the numbers to win later with the migrant influx.
A very low confidence prediction is we might see active sortition of single females moving out of 'red' areas to blue areas as an act of protest.
I think the main thing will be coming from the Cathedral wanting vengeance, and if they can't take it out on Trump while Trump is in office, then regular cishet males may have to do. Males in positions of authority could come under direct attack to try and replace them with more favorable options.
Finally, expect the media to heighten female 'suspicion' of males. "Ladies, statistically speaking your husband/boyfriend probably voted for Trump, you better be careful around him!" Testable prediction: Increase in divorces between couples that lean liberal in the next year or so.
In short, in the near term certain trends will probably get worse as women process the social and cultural implications of the event. They've got to figure out how to align themselves going forward, and it is POSSIBLE that more of them will align themselves with the right if it looks like the right is ascendant.
On the flip side, I don't know how males will act in a world where it is clear that they're still politically relevant, even if they hold very little cultural power. May be they become bolder about demanding respect, maybe we actually get rumblings of a return to traditional/patriarchal norms. Very unclear.
faceh
16d ago
Seriously. Nothing about improving their social status or helping them start families or boosting their career prospects.
All about (secretly) cast your ballot for Harris and you can maintain your masculinity AND help out women. Also we have no good definition of 'masculinity'.
Not even an acknowledgment of male-centric struggles.
I do not think most endorsements really move the needle.
But if there's anything that might goose male (especially white male) turnout just a bit, the combination of the Alpha Male Stoner in Chief and the King of the Space Geeks might do it. And that's not nothing.
This is almost literally an example of Jocks and Nerds setting aside their differences to support the same guy.
Side note, I have been consistently impressed that the Harris campaign has consistently failed in any real attempt to reach out to male voters by addressing what they care about. Every ad actually aimed at male voters has been basically "do it for the women in your life." I think the fallout if Trump wins and its CLEARLY the male turnout that pushed him over the edge is probably underrated.
faceh
17d ago
Sometimes they are!
https://www.atf.gov/news/press-releases/fort-worth-manufacturer-charged-glock-switch-case
Its a particular brand of futile though because 3D printers render it trivial to make them on demand.
faceh
17d ago
Fine, 15, 20, I'm just saying, if somebody is consistently flouting the law to thousands of viewers, it isn't surprising the state is going to get involved.
The judgment call is making sure the intervention is proportional, I guess.
faceh
17d ago
I'll clarify that in this case "well-documented" means "the guy was literally an influencer and published his videos to millions upon millions of views."
So in a sense, this is like if some person kept posting videos of themselves speeding at 10 mph over the limit and posting them for all to see. If the state ignores that they're almost condoning the behavior.
ALLEGEDLY it helps clear out toxins, heavy metals, and other 'forever' chemicals that the body can't otherwise process.
I believe it.
Also supposed to help with blood pressure, which anecdotally seems to be the case for me (I give blood, sometimes double red, on a very regular basis).
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