sonya
1yr ago
You mean "cue," btw. Unless this is one of those British-versus-American English things and I'm unaware.
sonya
1yr ago
Nerd-sniped: You don't need to tumble Monero, that's the whole point! Tumbling is built in.
sonya
1yr ago
Mental health as typically conceived hinges on whether your mindset impairs your day-to-day functioning. So by that metric, the answer to this is resoundingly yes:
can someone who is convinced that a man 2000 years was literally god incarnate and rose from the dead really be called mentally healthy?
I bet you've heard the phrase "living well is the best revenge." I think it's also the best argument. There are so many ideas, or larger schemas, that are alluring in abstract. See: every teenager's politics. But far fewer paradigms are actually effective in practice. (Granted, which ones work does vary somewhat based on the local circumstances / environment.)
Living out one's ideals is a costly signal of sincerity, and achieving success and happiness by doing so is the least refutable argument. This is a big reason why religion is so persistent despite sounding batshit crazy from the outside — and I say this as a religious person. The philosophy makes sense once you fit yourself inside of it, but the incentive to attempt that in the first place, despite the context of a secular overculture, is that religious people are more likely to thrive.
Anyway, my question is, why don't more culture warriors pursue this path, of exemplifying why their chosen philosophy is good? Am I wrong that it's the most convincing way to advocate for one's ideals? Or maybe everyone is indeed trying to do this, and most just don't seem very effective from my particular vantage point / vis-a-vis my conception of the good life? Perhaps it's a selection effect where people who deeply care about what everyone else is doing are less likely to be happy, point blank, so anyone discernible as a culture warrior is already precluded from "living well is the best argument" unless they learn to give less of a shit in general.
Edit: Apologies for not responding individually, this ended up getting more responses than I expected. But I appreciate you all and am pondering your points!
sonya
1yr ago
I get that you're nodding to general perceptions regarding who "counts" as Christian but the caveats bug me.
She's shown to have pre-marital sex and considers posing nude at one point so she is admittedly a bit of a stretch.
You don't have to be personally / socially conservative to be Christian! If we use the Nicene Creed as an orthodox litmus test, being a Christian is defined by what you believe, not how you conduct yourself. (This is not to say that I don't personally think Christians, including myself, should strive to meet certain behavioral standards. But there is a lot of disagreement about what those standards should be precisely. And pretty widespread acknowledgement that most of us aren't going to live up to the ideal all or even most of the time.)
implied he found religion after a life of dirty deeds, so your mileage may vary here.
So did St. Paul!
sonya
1yr ago
Institute for Justice, which is on a crusade against stupid occupational licensing requirements.
sonya
1yr ago
I worked in privacy tech for a couple years, and the other two examples du jour are abuse victims and LGBTQ+
sonya
1yr ago
I believe that my trans friends should be able to browse the internet without seeing content they deem hateful/disturbing (like harry potter content).
To me this seems like the error. Rather, it is your friends' responsibility to avoid content they find offensive, and when they do encounter it, control themselves like adults and promptly move on to look at stuff they do like without losing their shit. This is the strategy I employ.
sonya
1yr ago
DSL = Data Secrets Lox, another discussion forum in the same cultural sphere.
sonya
1yr ago
Corgiville Fair is a treasure!
sonya
1yr ago
Advice from former avid vaper: Just quit, it's easier than moderating. Also cheaper!
sonya
1yr ago
Mentally ill people rummaging through garbage early in the morning or other problems occur even in expensive areas.
Not in the suburbs! I know OP was focused on city living, but still, I want to put a good word in for my preferred environment. Source: I live in a suburb, not even a particularly expensive one (by Bay Area standards anyway), and it's blissfully isolated from all manner of city problems, including a wide swathe of undesirables undertaking undesirable behavior. One perk of the car-centric setup is that you need to minimally have your shit together to own a car, and it wouldn't be practical to live here without one. (For whatever reason the hooligans who steal vehicles don't penetrate here often — perhaps it's not a particularly lucrative environment for thievery?)
sonya
1yr ago
Idk where you live, but as far as I know, almost everywhere has a building code, at least in the US. I suppose a sufficiently rural area might offer more leeway.
sonya
1yr ago
If they can just coerce me to only do what they will allow, then owning property becomes completely useless.
But like, they can. Nonetheless, people choose to own property, because it still affords greater freedom to do [whatever] than renting. The set of things you're allowed to do when you're renting is smaller than the set of things you're allowed to do as a landowner / homeowner. This remains true even though the latter set does not contain "literally anything conceivable."
Just empirically, people are not allowed to use their land however they like. There are innumerable restrictions, which is basically what this whole fight is about — which possible set of restrictions is optimal. The answer to that varies based on one's vantage point. "Do whatever you want" is not on the table because we live in a society, etc. It would be cool if Ancapistan existed but it doesn't because it's game-theoretically untenable.
Why do we have to be so soft on homeowners?
Because there are a lot of them and they vote in their own interests, and otherwise advocate for themselves, to a greater extent than opposing demographics. Insofar as this changes, preferential treatment of homeowners will also change.
I assume you already know this so possibly I'm being obtuse about what you were actually asking, or it was a rhetorical question?
We don't extend this level of hand-holding and thought about compensating business owners or owners of large amounts of stocks. Those things can rapidly lose their value as well and consist of a large part of individuals assets.
This isn't strictly true, for example there are assets you can't buy unless you're an accredited investor.
sonya
1yr ago
Mine is more of a newsletter with a website — but I suppose most are these days. Here it is: https://www.sonyasupposedly.com/
I like the hosting platform Ghost a lot, but Substack is probably better if you don't have an established audience yet.
sonya
1yr ago
The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch — it's a little too comprehensive for my taste, and thus a bit of a slog, but interesting enough that I'm going to finish it. Broad theme: Once the universal hold of European Catholicism is broken, various polities discover through successive rounds of bloodshed that it's no longer practical to have One True State Religion.
sonya
1yr ago
I comment very sporadically for this reason — effortposting takes too much time and, well, effort! Even when I do comment, it's usually just a brief thought. The Motte is an entertainment + procrastination venue for me, and my substantive effort is reserved for things like my actual job or personal creative projects. I do try to contribute by promoting the community elsewhere on occasion.
Is it just a matter of exercising my writers-muscles?
In general yes, the way to get better at anything is to practice. I work as a writer and I've gotten a lot faster over the years (though I'm still not particularly fast, nor prolific, in the overall distribution of writers).
Is it my method of commenting, is there some more efficient way to comment? Do other people put hours into posts with any amount of substance? [...] Is most everything on here peoples' first edit?
It varies. Some people are indeed investing hours into their posts and going through multiple rounds of edits. Others have the enviable combination of logorrhea and natural eloquence.
sonya
2yr ago
I'm sorry, what an awful experience 🤮 I haven't been in that exact situation but some like it. It is upsetting to be disrespected in such a violating manner and to feel vulnerable to perverts while out and about. I don't have any advice, just commiseration.
sonya
2yr ago
I've been there, it's frustrating. I didn't figure out any "one weird trick" personally, I just gradually got better at forcing myself to buckle down. I still procrastinate a lot but I do also get done what I need to get done. Shorter-term deadlines where I'm accountable to a colleague are helpful. If someone is relying on me to do X at N time, I'm much more motivated than if it's a "finish this eventually" situation.
This service is often recommended, probably worth a try: https://www.focusmate.com/
The point is signaling political affiliation to other Westerners.
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