teleoplexy
25d ago
In the first post you say that you are posting a book here and the submission statement is pretty vague. I'd appreciate if you could put something more concrete forward - why do you think anyone should read this?
I did, more or less, once upon a time, and the only reason I'm back is because I managed to throttle it down to about 2% of what I originally wanted to say.
Like one point specifically? Or out of all of the things you want to say, you voice only 2%? I'd love to hear you elaborate - what are you filtering? Why? If you think it's going to get you banned I'd be happy to receive a bullet list in a DM, if you have enough spare time to type it out
teleoplexy
26d ago
I've seen it - liked it a lot. I was wary of it too, and specifically I'm seeing how the "Dear subhuman scum" crowd who cheered for Don't Look Up loves it and it pisses me off just because I don't want to be associated with them in any way. It uses our modern political background to explore kooky characters and their psycho-sexual relations, which is what PTA is really interested in. I'd even dare say in parts he criticizes the resistance libs too, although it's much more subtle than Eddington, for example. If you want to dig deeper, beyond political, there's stuff to chew on - or at least I certainly found something.
teleoplexy
1mo ago
Silksong Act 2 for me. Love the game so far, exactly what I wanted from "more Hollow Knight". Last Judge was fairly easy for me, good telegraphs and I was able to heal in between attacks.
teleoplexy
1mo ago
Is the Comandante C40 supposed to be pretty expensive despite being a manual grinder?
Yes, but it has great burrs, which is why I bought it. You can easily get away with cheaper options that are electric - recs in the thread are solid.
How important is the gooseneck type of spout on the kettle if you intend on going the pour over/Chemex route?
Not at all, it’s just more convenient to pour with a gooseneck. I got pretty good with a regular kettle before I got a gooseneck
What equipment do you recommend for home brewing?
If you are on a shoe-string budget I recommend investing in a decent grinder - I second the recs in the thread. If you don't mind hand grinders, they can offer a better set of burrs for the price. My friend recently got Fellow Ode 2 and it's pretty good. My setup for pour-over is Comandante C40 hand grinder, Hario V60, Hario filters, Fellow gooseneck kettle. I find V60 to be the least annoying method to brew in the morning.
What are good reasons for taking coffee seriously?
It's fun! If you like conducting experiments and tweaking dials to get some subjectively better results, getting into coffee would be good for you.
How much subjectively experienced variety is there in terms of bean types?
A lot, but you'd have to buy from your local roasters or specialty coffee shops. Most of the stuff you can get at a grocery store is roasted way too dark and this is why most people think coffee === bitter. At your local roaster the dark roast is very likely going to be lighter than medium-light you can buy at a grocery store.
So if we are thinking about specialty coffee beans, there's a lot of variety. Start experimenting and comparing. Get beans from different countries, get beans that are processed differently (washed/natural/honey), get different bean varieties. My current favourite beans are medium-roasted Brazil.
teleoplexy
1mo ago
mocking
I mean that as non-confrontationally as possible, as good faith as possible: you might want examine your biases if you take my literal statement of
I just don’t see it, the collapse of the Western civilization, or the climate change wiping us out, or capitalism turning into “Neo-feudalism” and enslaving us all or white replacement. There are problems, but none of them induce the doom and gloom in me that ultimately summons the revolutionary zeal.
as laughing at anyone. I'm not, I'm not here on The Motte to sneer. I'm saying that I don't see those problems as world/civilization ending, something that justifies, in the words of whoever that Dread Jim guy is, killing people in droves, normies and gays, apparently including normie myself. I say in the quote above, literally, that there ARE some problems in the society.
It's the most milquetoast disagreement that I could've voiced and you treat it as mocking you (or the right in general) - this level of defensiveness is remarkable in and of itself.
Let me rephrase my point in the most productive way:
I've spent time with real-life Maoists and they speak in exactly the same language. Their in-group communication where they don't have to justify their priors to each other looks remarkably similar. "The civilization will inevitably collapse due to [insert cause], this is why we need a violent revolution now. We need to kill [these groups of people] during the revolution." Maoists, in my experience, reinforced their positions to each other and then they "go to the people" to gather ideas and refine their theories. What they often found out is that normies (like me) are resistant to them because their purported solution to the problem is violent revolution.
That's all there is to my the observation - I sincerely apologize if you find it disagreeable.
teleoplexy
1mo ago
How many people are having kids?
Anecdotally, a surprising amount, a lot. The majority of my coworkers approaching 30s, myself included.
What's wrong with writing a blog post sometimes?
It’s just funny to see those grand declarations and nothing else. Speaking to the in-group only, reinforcing the feeling of doom within the in-group, exactly the same way the leftists do it. I’m probably much closer to “a normie” nowadays, so the internal rhetoric feels jarring, detached from the reality of my own life to a tremendous degree.
Im rarely exposed to “extreme far radical right” but when I am, I inevitably feel like I’m back in my early 20s reading some Marxist drivel. It requires me to completely buy into the premise of the civilization collapsing, that we are going to be replaced, that everything currently is so bad, that we require some drastic civilization-altering action, nothing short of complete revolution to survive, where we’ll kill landlords/poofs, enslave women/peasants, etc.
I just don’t see it, the collapse of the Western civilization, or the climate change wiping us out, or capitalism turning into “Neo-feudalism” and enslaving us all or white replacement. There are problems, but none of them induce the doom and gloom in me that ultimately summons the revolutionary zeal. My life’s pretty good! People around me are living normal lives, with the usual ups and downs, but nobody’s miserable to the extent the workers in UK were during the Industrial Revolution.
I say the same thing both to the suburban Maoists and to the fascists: if you see it, go do something about it instead of writing yet another blog post.
teleoplexy
2mo ago
Admins constricting the Overton window are one thing, but the real value here is that you can speak without being shoved into a box by the other commenters the moment you open your mouth:
- Question the consensus on trans issues? You’re a cuckservative bigot, maybe even a Russian shill.
- Criticize Hamas or Palestine? Hasbara.
- Say a conservative policy is good? You must want to kill all liberals.
I’m exaggerating, but only slightly. If there’s another space where people don’t instantly go for your throat the moment they spot "outgroup", I’d love to know. The Motte lets me post long comments that people actually read and respond to. Here, charity is the norm. On Reddit, it’s a punishable offense from all sides. Twitter is just a cesspool. Substack is dividing the community even more.
teleoplexy
3mo ago
Do you use LLMs when writing? If so, what percentage of your novel has been written by LLMs?
Not the same guy, but
Why do you get out of bed in the morning?
I just do. "Meaning" focuses on me, me, me. It presupposes that if I believe something about the outside world, it will change the inner me, grant me motivation; the outside world would somehow be worth experiencing and interacting with. It puts me at the centre of the universe, but I'm not the main character on this planet. The world will still be there and I will still be there regardless of what I think.
What's true, though, is that your actions create meaning, not your thoughts about the meaning. You do stuff first, then you gain meaning, which is a roundabout way of saying that having connections to the world creates responsibility, which in turn creates meaning. Kids, for example, give you plenty of responsibility. You get up for them regardless of what you think about the meaning. Vice versa, living empty lives devoid of responsibility leads to thoughts about meaning.
Why do you want to build something?
I need something, so I want something, so I do something about it (which is the easiest way to want). I can also just want something, without external necessity, based on my life experience.
- I need more money, so that I can create a better future for my kids, so I started a business.
- I need a bigger house so that I can fit more kids into it. So I need more money, etc...
- People I hired need to have a livelihood, so business needs to succeed, so I work hard to provide for them and for me.
There's no greater meaning to it. I want something, so I do something. If your wants have to be created by a meaning, you haven't been taught to want properly.
teleoplexy
5mo ago
slightly offtopic - I was writing a response to this video (which I don't recommend watching), but the response can be succintly summarized as:
drastically misinterprets [an outgroup point] and responds to the persons' hallucinated point rather than the plain words they said.
teleoplexy
5mo ago
Hell yeah, I'll be heading out to smell some of those tomorrow. Thanks!
Might be a fun experiment: any advice on rounding out my collection? This is what I have now
- Serge Lutens Ecrin de fumee. It’s very warm spicy, tobacco, sweet. Usually saving it for winter months
- Comme de Garçon Avignon. I have no idea what I thought when I bought it. It smells like church. I love the smell but I can’t really wear it without being self conscious, so it just sits there. My instinct is to dress up with it
- Mancera Red Tobacco. I think it’s warm, but like fresh-warm, almost herbal, which doesn’t really make sense. That’s my summer and spring go-to and I love it.
I also took a note to smell all of your recommendations some time
teleoplexy
6mo ago
To join the choir, initially I read the comment as being about culture, not violence. Entirely undeserved, in my opinion. It's not a quality comment as it doesn't speak plainly, but you inferred the worst possible meaning from it.
teleoplexy
6mo ago
The solution is skin in the game. The person making the decisions needs to be personally impacted by outcomes.
teleoplexy
6mo ago
teleoplexy
6mo ago
Yes, it's something like the Finland solution that Scott talks about in his article. It works in a lot of places, but (without knowing the specific countries you are talking about), Finland has:
- Cold winters as a deterrent. You can't live on a street, just like in Russia.
- Institutionalization without needing consent.
- Good system of reintegration.
In Canada I want us to move the needle towards safeguarding citizens even a little bit, so proposing the most expensive solutions that require a lot of funding and good will from the public seems like kicking the problem down the road because Canadians neither want to fund, nor do the politicians have the good will.
If you are talking about something else, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on how you think this was achieved without the oppressive way of dealing with the problem.
teleoplexy
6mo ago
I'm jealous that I didn't come up with this - it was right there, really.
teleoplexy
6mo ago
To me the difference is imminently obvious:
- I can't start beating up or threatening people I find unpleasant. Dangerous? Threatening me with a polearm? Yes. Unpleasant? No. Most of the Vancouver's homeless are unpleasant, but as others pointed out, they are more of a nuissance. I just don't see the utility of a gun when someone is shitting on a sidewalk.
- Police, on the other hand, have the authority to stop the shittening, the Methland invasions but their most important power is to shape the society in a way, where people will think twice before shooting up in the first place.
The catch is that the nuiscance stage is only the beginning of backsliding. Police has the unique opportunity to stop the freefall into the nightmare stage. You think about dealing with the nightmare stage, where crime is through the roof and you need to defend yourself, I think about how we can prevent it.
teleoplexy
6mo ago
Oh certainly, other cities have it bad too and I didn't intend to present Vancouver as a uniquely bad locus of dark forces. Certainly no dismembered people in fhish tanks. It's just that Vancouver suddenly became medieval, I found it strange, funny, worthy of weaving the narrative around.
I don't want to seem as I backtrack from the original statement - I think the situation in Vancouver is worse than it's ever been in Moscow and I'm baffled that nobody is working towards improvement. Moreover, people accept it as status quo, turn a blind eye to it, which is reflected in your mindset of "only some fent zombies". The correct amount of fent zombies, according to my impossibly high foreigner standards is "none".
With that out of the way, The Halberd + Medieval Weapons Locker struck a chord in my brain: did we Vancouverites somehow found ourselves in medieval times? And that's how idea the post was born. Am I worried for my life every time I go downtown? No, it's fine most of the time and the problem really is localized to East Hastings, Granville, Chinatown. I found it weird to have 3 cool meth-related incidents in one year around where I have lunch sometimes, far outside of those isolated areas. Do other cities have it worse? Absolutely.
Vancouver overall is beautiful and I do love living here, I wouldn't stay if I didn't love it here. The positives absolutely outweigh the negatives.
teleoplexy
6mo ago
I'm flattered! It's also probably the quickest turnaround on AAQC that I've seen. Still up and active in this week's thread.
Not the OP, but it's insane to me in a way that I can understand, unlike The Reptile, whom I don't understand.
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