roche
6mo ago
The overall feeling was, social media is equivalent to TV. Back in the 90s, fuss was made over the shocking statistic that Americans spend 6-8 hours per night watching TV, with the tone of "Clearly this is horrible and will have drastic consequences on us". 30 years later, Gen Y are doing completely fine. With this stuff, it's not about a deleterious effect psychologically so much as the opportunity cost of what you could be doing instead. I don't imagine most humans have ever spent "dead time" AKA energy-depleted time in a productive way. Rather, they'll just opt for the easiest road to stimulation which is casual socializing. Is it good that humans had to socialize in the past to stay entertained? Most likely, yeah.
Our society was built on a web of super laid-back socializing, because everyone was naturally bored as hell without other people. The anxiety problem among zoomers is probably a direct result of this laid-back environment going away. Because a lot of us only start socializing once we're needy, once we have a void to be filled like loneliness or whatever. If we grow up casually shooting the shit, it really makes a big difference to social adjustment.
roche
6mo ago
From April 14th to April 20th, I quit using social media, forums, and any sort of online discussion space to see what would happen. The result is... nothing. Just a sense of under-stimulation which gave a nice opportunity to try out some hobbies. Ultimately when I have some energy, I'm gonna do chores or socialize or art, and social media is just for "dead time" when you run out of energy. It seems common sense that social media affects us a lot, but honestly I'm not so sure.
roche
7mo ago
If downers like alcohol bring out the "real you", then uppers like adderall and coke bring out the "fake you". The real you genuinely just wants to laze around and play games, so even if it hurts being a depressive P.o.S., there's always catharsis in the fact you're doing what your brain wants you to do. And if you drank some booze instead of popping an adderall, you'd go, "Work? Who gives a fuck about work! I'm just gonna drink myself into a coma and die in a couple years" etc. Even if it's wrong, that is how you actually feel about things, and adderall doesn't solve that so much as cover it up.
Can you pop adderall every day to stay productive? Sure. Build a career from that if you want. But the underlying problem remains. Stop taking adderall and all the problems come back. So will you take it every day until you retire...? This drug which stifles your creativity, which makes things feel somehow phony?
When we feel extremely sad or whatever, there's a massive wave of catharsis which makes us feel oddly satisfied and complete. And every time a depressed person boots up League of Legends at 2 AM and sips another cup of coffee, there's a mini wave of catharsis. It's his version of what happy people get when they do happy people crap like take a stroll through nature. You take that away from him, and he doesn't really have anything.
roche
7mo ago
Rationalist hubris is believing politics can be understood 100% rationally. Only to the degree you can place yourself in the heads of the emotionally-driven other will you understand what's going on. It was strange to me you got laughed off/brushed aside so often in the podcast, because your low res filter is much closer to how average Americans engage with politics than this abstract-1000-moving-parts-strict-heuristics-analysis-machine the ratsphere attempts to lug everywhere.
roche
7mo ago
Keeping on those placebos afterwards is somewhere between neutral if they otherwise keep their behavior the same, to severely negative if they e.g. think prayer is more powerful than medicine
It seems like you've never been around an intelligent religious person before. "Thinking prayer is more powerful than medicine" is not a problem that comes up. These people are essentially like you and me, except they have resolute moral standards and a shocking tolerance for hardship. Call it a placebo all you want, but don't allow yourself to forget: The crucial part of the "placebo" is that it actually works.
roche
7mo ago
About a week ago, I read some of the Old Testament for the first time since childhood. One idea which stuck out to me is that if you took this setting and removed God from the equation, none of this would make sense. I'm not talking about blatantly mystical things like the Great Flood or Eden, but rather the full world in which the Old Testament takes place -- a world of constant cruelty set against the endless desert sands and mysterious starry skies, and ancient genealogies with white-beareded men who appear as old as the world itself. Maybe God didn't strike down Sodom and Gomorrah, but city-wide destruction and mass rape and incest were evidently common in the ancient world, and you can feel this need to rationalize the ancient world and make it less tragic is a very strong theme in the Old Testament. Without God, it's something like a living nightmare.
When life gets really bad, we open up to religion in surprising ways. Best analogy is like... we're all houses built on shitty foundations. Sometimes a storm comes and chips at our eaves, but we repair it and we're fine. It's not until your entire house tumbles down that you can replace the foundation for a better one. Religion generally takes hold in moments of immense weakness, and makes us far stronger for the remainder of life. Zoomer tradcaths really are just larping because they haven't had that moment yet. It can only be a LARP until that happens, IMO. Faith isn't really irrational so much as sub-rational.
roche
7mo ago
theory of forms
In a metaphysical sense, no. W/r/t consciousness, sure. Our brain 100% works in terms of forms and fetishes are the easiest/roughest example.
roche
7mo ago
Can I request some career advice?
2 years of college, computer engineering degree, but I haven't attended since 2022. That same year I had an internship working with cloud suite software. College itself was a waste of time though and made me slowly dislike computing, I'd prefer not to go back if possible. They say some college + internship is more or less enough to find employment, but I'll need to pick up some skills, and I'm not sure what to aim for. All I really desire is a varied set of work that's not customer-facing. You guys know the market better than I do, so any advice/suggestions is much appreciated!
roche
7mo ago
The Irish long had a reputation as ignorant, drunken, violent idiots. The Catholic Church gets a lot of stick for trying to play Victorian respectability games and impose a moral agenda on the country, but it would have been ten times worse if we had been permitted, caressed, and encouraged by American and British middle class to upper class liberals that "Poor dears, you can't help yourselves, this is your culture, go ahead and live like that, don't even bother 'acting Anglo' by trying to get sober, get a job, and not fight in the streets".
Sure, I agree with all the points you make. That's how it should work. But the dynamic we've (unfortunately) evolved into is a very unhealthy, unrealistic one that works like so: Americans who are not white males or asian males are actively being held back by those in power. There is a glass ceiling put in place via systemic discrimination, and this ceiling is the only thing preventing black men, hispanic men, white women, etc. from making exactly as much money and holding exactly as much power (as a group) as white men and asian men. As the actual, genuine glass ceilings that limit these so-called marginalized groups continue to disappear, this ideology loses its ground and becomes axiomatic: The glass ceilings are disappearing, yet marginalized groups still underperform, which is proof they're being systemically oppressed because all groups are equal. It actually means the racism and sexism must be even worse than we expected, because all those barriers were removed and yet these groups are still underperforming. This is the source of all the systemic racism stuff, it's like dark matter -- it must exist somewhere or the theory falls apart.
Equality of birth is one massive concession, man. We have conceded so, so much to these people and they still aren't happy. Imagine what happens if we say screw it and affirm HBD: total chaos. No, that's never going to happen. What might happen is something suggested up-thread; something like reparations based on HBD, where we start handing out cash to "marginalized groups" on the basis of their assumed oppression, but really it functions as a "sorry you're not smart enough for the white collar world" type thing.
Any idea what might have been going on?
You reached the threshold to enter a positive feedback loop. You explained this yourself:
And things are starting to compound. The fact that I can get dates with desirable women is doing wonders for my confidence and self-esteem, which makes me more willing to put myself out there in other ways, which I expect will make me more attractive which will lead to more dating success, and so on.
The moment of lucidity comes down to pure luck, e.g. your gut microbiome temporarily aligning in just the right way. You were probably close to this threshold for a long time and never realized it, but that's super common. A lot of people in dire straits are a hair's breadth away from some positive feedback loop that would fix their lives, but they don't know how to pass the threshold. That's not to blame them; you need a period of initial success to enter the loop, which can be extremely hard to come across.
roche
7mo ago
For motivation, can you give an example of one of the goals that have worked for you?
Getting back to work. Blogging is another great avenue, but there is the following problem...
It's a revolving door of motivation. A single spark lasts 1-2 days, but by day 3 that drive is basically gone and no longer provides energy for action, so you must either augment it or abandon it completely for another goal. In practice, this has meant daydreaming of killer blogposts, starting the research to fill them out, and then giving up by day 3 because the spark is no longer actionable. At which point you drop the project; rinse, repeat.
There is no way to prolong the initial spark, really; you have to augment the desire. This takes daydreaming. If you want to ex. read the Bible you may need to cycle through dozens of distinct motivations, but that doesn't matter so long as it gets done. I'm a beginner to this process so the explanation is pretty bad. Hopefully later this year I'll be able to explain better.
roche
7mo ago
Equality isn't a simple fact based on evidence. It's an ideological cornerstone. Sure, HBD isn't claiming some people are inferior to others in some kind of holistic sense -- what you lose in some area, you usually gain in others. But intelligence IS the golden stat for success, more than ever before. If you're unintelligent, charisma can make up for that. If you have neither, good luck.
The way our current ideology works is that anyone who's failing can blame those in charge for holding them down, it's a consolation. There is no way we can fly directly in the face of that.
roche
7mo ago
I get what you mean. The problem is your average Joe will never see it that way. This is ideology we are talking about, its function is borderline spiritual. Only one standard deviation means nothing to the masses, this would be interpreted as an open declaration of war.
roche
7mo ago
The whole founding myth of our society is egalitarian. There is no world where one race is acknowledged as genetically inferior to another, where said race does not then see it justified to commit any number of terrible acts to tip the scales back in their favor. If HBD is accepted, violent crime often becomes the most logical decision since thanks to genetics you're better equipped for that than most normal work, unless you've got a knack for sports or something. You tell an entire people, "Sorry, you're not smart enough for tech or law. Have you tried the Foot Locker?" they're going to say screw it and flip the system.
There is no "changing the culture". Either we keep the equality myth, or we go back to segregation. There is no theoretical America where the "inferior" believe they are inferior and still continue to politely play along with our scheme. This entire myth from the start has been a willful concession. We need it to function.
roche
7mo ago
I do wonder if part of the nightmare that is modern courtship stems from wildly incompatible personality types getting involved.
If you lived in a village of people very similar to you, it seems far more likely you'd find a great match.
roche
7mo ago
For years now, I've considered myself borderline unemployable due to a combo of ADHD and zero motivation. Yet miraculously, I've discovered a routine that addresses both problems and appears to "just work" with zero drugs.
For ADHD, hyper-stimulate yourself all the time. Get a fan, put on a spotify playlist, drink some coffee, get a foot bath, fiddle with some object. Do all of this at the same time and work becomes orders of magnitude easier.
For motivation, design a hyper-specific goal and come up with plans to achieve it. This should be something difficult which takes a lot of thought and planning. You need to constantly renew your motivation by thinking of this goal, and should it ever run out, you need a new one ASAP. Staying motivated requires near daily progress so it can be pretty demanding, but if your goal is something intellectual, that's great since you can think about it wherever. Either way, make sure there's a lot of planning/thought involved since that's what spikes the motivation centers in our brain. You'll also lean into harder and more ambitious tasks over time, since simple one-off successes no longer become rewarding.
@FaibleEstimeDeSoi Yeah, I get you man. I started a Youtube channel up a couple years ago, and it received a nice number of views + recurring commenters. I could easily do it again, but even if it exploded and received a hundred thousand views, it wouldn't feel worth it. Because the whole point is the excitement, the novelty, planning it out, doing something that might not work. When you know it's easy and safe it's not fun anymore.
roche
7mo ago
A materialist view can end up anywhere it pleases. We place comfort at the fore and abscond from reality? Our lives become mediocre and empty. You don't need fancy logic to create values here. Just look around.
roche
7mo ago
You're touching on a concept that was summed up nicely in Beiser's Weltschmerz -- the problem of evil. The fact is, from a materialist lens all suffering is inexcusable. All discomfort is tragedy. When something bad happens in 20XX, we consider it a suboptimal move like we're chess engines analyzing life and trying to build the perfect path. The result is ennui. A game developer once said, "Give players the means, and they will optimize the fun out of the game". The same applies to life. Your favorite art was influenced by experiences that were almost certainly terrible. There is no Lord of the Rings without the second World War, yet if any of us were asked, "Does LOTR justify the war? Does Remarque justify the war?" none of us could answer in the affirmative. We bemoan the artificiality of the current world, but when presented with opportunities to really experience adventure, us conscientious adults shirk back in fear.
Look, the secular world view doesn't have to be this way. But when you place "comfort" as your guiding star, that's what happens. You become a chess player. You are a Hamlet in a world fashioned by Quixotes. You sit, you stand, you stare at your watch. There is nothing else to do. Hamlet is apparently terrified of death, yet he does nothing the entire play but make droll, apathetic remarks to people he doesn't care about. Is such an existence really worth protecting? Even before the old king's death, do you really imagine he lived well? No. Death was never the issue for him. Hamlet is terrified of life.
The one good thing Hamlet ever did was forced on him by complete chance. The real Hamlets of the world never have that moment. Parenthood is the one test of our ability to value something beyond ourselves. It's 2024, and everyone is failing. We're all Hamlets, and the world is dying.
roche
7mo ago
Let's Talk About Us
"The Motte is not intended, nor is it fit, to Do Something."
Interesting comment chain.
This place as a nest of civil discussion ironically does more than any heated reactionary flame could. I'm waiting for more people to wake up to the fact these emotional spasms against progressivism never work -- they just swing the pendulum back even harder, so now you've got the guards and camera watching you like you're Hannibal Lecter. You know raw power isn't going to cut it, you know every site is monitored, so what's even the point? At best, you sacrifice your one good asset to win a single battle, and lose the war.
They say Great Man Theory is bullshit; I doubt it. Napoleon wanted to become Alexander, so he lived and breathed strategy. He constantly read, and in conversation he'd ask people to rank generals all the time and compare their merits, memorizing all the famous battles. When you're trying to turn the tide of history, that's what it takes: analysis. You need to understand people, institutions, and ideas. Most importantly: Why progressivism? "Propaganda" is not the answer; it can only play on desires that are already there. The point is only when you understand why this stuff appeals to the average Joe and Jane is there any hope for you, because only then can you begin to conceive of its replacement. Not to exhort anyone to try and become the next Napoleon, that's probably impossible. Just saying, that's the only real point of optimism (among other total ass pull scenarios, this still ranks pretty high).
roche
7mo ago
Yeah, it is pessimistic -- maybe overly so, since it's drawing on personal experience. I grew up lower-middle class, and all my friends' families were trapped in these clearly unhappy situations which ended in divorce (against the background of 2008), and the whole lifestyle that our parents aimed for simply didn't pan out. I knew one family who were smarter than average, and conservative, and they weathered the storm & they're still close today. The rest of them? Divorces. Kid goes off to college, never talks to his parents anymore. Kid moves in with his grandma, gets involved in a bad crowd, it goes downhill. These are middle class families that won't replicate.
Conversely, the upper-middle class families I saw in that same time weathered the storm far better. They had failure states too, like dead bedrooms or emotional distance, yet they never lost the basic ability to function as a family. What the lower half has can't properly be called family. It's like a Mr. Potato head doll -- I knew an anxious white woman living with 2 sketchy middle eastern men, I knew an autistic teen with a single mom dating some guy that was never around, I knew a half-filipino kid who never saw his white father, teen with single mom who moved to Florida and ended up on worldstar, house of 5+ black kids getting raised by a single grandma. It is so on-the-nose, you'd call me out if this were fictional, but all of this is real. Normal American suburb in the 2000's.
Only two families in my neighborhood turned out well. One was the trad set I mentioned earlier. The other was a short kid who moved into a much nicer suburb by high school, and lived in a big house when I last saw him. So far as I know, both are doing great to this day. The rest? Not so well. Hopefully that explains where I'm coming from.
roche
7mo ago
It sucks, but at least we see it coming. Things will probably get rocky in the coming years. Not in the sense of violence, so much as a mass realization of what's happening accompanied by a quick scramble for whatever gains are in sight, overwhelming some systems. America's still an easy country to get ahead in with a bit of brains, but I suggest we get where we want to be soon, because that can always change. Of course... maybe nothing happens. It would still be wrong to ignore the weird vibes in the air. I'm not the doomsaying type, but those vibes are there.
Does anyone else here have random, fledgling thoughts on the culture that are too vague for the CW thread? Maybe we should have a thread for them.
(This post is almost definitely too long for here, my bad)
Like today, I was on Youtube and ended up watching video diaries from Japan. Out of nowhere, this 5-second clip of a girl spreading butter on toast sparks something in my brain, and fuses together an enormous amount of things into one simple realization: Being a kid in Japan must be absolutely incredible. Of course it's amazing everywhere, but in Japan it's simply better.
To explain why, I want to set up a quick and dirty dichotomy: Active and passive. These are roughly your classic A- and B-Type personalities. The A-Type is energetic, strong-willed, risk-prone, grabs life by the horns, and tries to wrangle reality into becoming what he wants. Your B-Type is lethargic, unambitious, risk-averse, and will only make drastic moves in the face of extreme pressure. Internal vs. External locus of control, you've all heard this before.
Generally, childhood sucks for the active kids and it's amazing for the passive kids. The active kid is always moaning about how everyone talks down to him, he can't buy liquor, too young for gym, too young to drive, etc. The passive kid meanwhile never really complains about this stuff. He'll sit in his room playing Grand Theft Auto and be stimulated out of his mind, in total bliss. What he doesn't realize is this is potentially the peak of his life. Once he reaches adulthood, the days of carefree living are over, and yet he doesn't care for anything "adult" so his quality of life simply declines. The active kid though may become an entrepreneur, or an athlete, or what-have-you. Could he totally crash and burn pursuing whatever dream he has? Yeah. But at least he has a chance to peak.
Japan is interesting. It's a nation with powerful impetus towards living a passive life, having no dreams, and joining some company. And yet ironically, this passive lifestyle is somehow or another going to hell. Job security? Dwindling. Family? Good luck. Home ownership? You're stuck in some cramped box in a metropolis. To say nothing of the economy! Japanese people treat aging like a 100% death sentence, because for their life path it simply is, man. What does an old man possibly have to look forward to in that scheme? Playing pachinko all day?
It's happening here too. 30-somethings who watch anime all day; no wife, no cool hobby, not even a dog. These guys are either going to evolve into active men or they're going to be absolutely crushed by the next few decades. "They should get a job." They already have jobs -- that's the point. Living like their parents did simply doesn't work anymore. There is, unironically, no happy normal anymore. To be happy in 2024, you need to be a shark. In 2002, this joke was great because obviously you can just be a normal dude. Now? The minimum for "comfy and secure" is getting a tech job, which is borderline shark behavior. C'est la vie.
P.S. I posit some kind of axis whereby societies trim down on our freedoms to the benefit of a "passive" lifestyle, e.g. "nanny state", but that none of this matters if the bedrock for a passive (read: trad) lifestyle is dead and gone, and your nation's men just sit indoors and watch anime all the time.
I'm certain more time wouldn't change things for me. Maybe you're different.
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