thejdizzler
16d ago
My roommate gave it to me for Christmas last year! I will let you know what I think after I've read it: I'll likely make a post on here and on my blog.
thejdizzler
16d ago
Have that book and am working my way through it slowly!
thejdizzler
16d ago
For me it started when I was broken up with in the summer by a girl who was just not interested in me sexually. This did not make me feel good: not being desired sexually has always been a weak point in my otherwise pretty self-confident/self-assured persona. This left me pretty vulnerable to falling down the PornHub sales funnel of a star I liked. The experience made me feel pretty good in the moment: the women/bots are fairly good at making you feel wanted sexually, although if you look at it from the outside it's absurd because they have so little information about you (maybe a photo and a dozen messages). Afterwards I pretty much immediately regretted it: I deleted my account seconds after satisfying myself. Of course I didn't forget that the high was much better than regular porn, so whenever I felt particularly bad about myself I would relapse. I have, however, been completely clean since shortly after the New Year.
In terms of my moneys worth, if one thinks about it like a drug, it's not a terrible deal. These women's pages are usually around ~$5/month, but you end up paying extra for better content when you're interacting with them. I probably spent about $20/session, which is a lot, but not worse than what you would have to spend on alcohol or stronger drugs (weed I think is much cheaper).
I don't generally have problems with addictions in other areas of my life. I've never felt the need to drink more than a beer or two, and always need months or years long breaks between using weed or LSD. But sliding down the OnlyFans rabbit hole was a wake up call that maybe I do have some kind of masturbation/pornography addiction. The OnlyFans stuff really is a step up in degeneracy as you point out, but the whole edifice is rotten and needs to be knocked down. I'd like to stop caring so much about if women desire me or not (which is something I frankly can't control, and judging from statistics, is something that most men have to face). I also would be completely turned off by similar behavior from the opposite sex (gooning to romance novels), so before bitching more about how I don't have a girlfriend/am not married I should genuinely try to fight this addiction, which maybe means going to stuff like AA meetings.
Anyway thanks for reading all this.
thejdizzler
16d ago
New Year's Goals Planning on doing these updates every week to keep myself accountable
- Work: Finished a figure this week. Instituted a Cold Turkey block on texting/whatsapp/distracting websites (including theMotte) that has been a huge help for productivity. Raw hours still not there.
- Fitness: hit 8.5 hours last week and will be at 9 this week. Build up from here will be much slower. Still haven't been able to fully kick my cold, but NetiPot has been helping a lot.
- Intellectual stuff. Feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the books I'm wanting to read +making sure I get in Spanish and Italian immersion. Just got be disciplined about hitting my minimums and not multitasking.
- On track for this month financially! Cat sitting to earn a bit of extra money.
- This week has been bad for porn and masturbation. I'll come out and say it that I was really disregulated last year. Masturbating every day and sometimes even paying for OnlyFans despite knowing that this was terrible for me and that I was probably talking with a bot. I've luckily stopped doing that, but still have a long way to go.
- Tarot continues to go well.
- Screen time is hovering around 2 hours on my phone but is down on my computer after I implemented two rules: the block on distractions during work hours and no browsing while eating.
thejdizzler
18d ago
About a quarter of the way through Deathly Hallows in Italian and loving it. Finished Half Blood Prince two weeks ago and while I love many aspects of that book, the last third is super rushed.
Also starting on Spinoza's Ethics and am reading a Spanish Historical fiction novel called Aquitania about Eleanor of Aquitaine.
thejdizzler
22d ago
Vegan (or vegetarian/pescetarian, basically don't care too much as long as they don't demand we cook meat for dinner every night), environmentalist, tolerant of many religions, not woke. Of course #4 doesn't go with 1,2,3 and unfortunately I can't stand woke because it usually means there can be no compromise in the relationship. Hence the compromising.
thejdizzler
23d ago
I feel you on the romantic front. I'm a little more self-confident than you, but have found dating to be absolutely soul crushing. I need time to get to know a woman before I am attracted to them but by the time I do that it's the friend zone for me. I'm not a shut-in: I have social activities almost every night (dancing, run clubs, language happy hour, hanging out), I've continually compromised on my standards (veganism, environmentalism, religion, wokeness) and still nothing seems to work out, although tons of women seem to want to be friends with me.
thejdizzler
23d ago
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Work: Have been working since Monday and feeling on the upswing. Raw hours still aren't there, but I think I will get there much faster than expected. No longer feel stressed, but rather excited!
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Fitness: hit 7 hours last week, and am track for 9 this week.
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Intellectual stuff. First blog post of the year is up and I finished Harry Potter 6 in Italian!
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Finances. Lots of unexpected subscriptions this month, but planning ahead for the Boston marathon has saved me a bunch on travel.
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Haven't looked at porn or had sex, but have masturbated two times. These have both been because of times and situations that exposed me to softcore porn (instagram) at times when my willpower was low (early in the morning/late at night).
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Tarot is going well, breath work hasn't happened yet.
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Phone screen time is down under 2 hours again!
thejdizzler
23d ago
Any tips on getting over a cold? Have had this chest cough/sore throat/congestion since Christmas Day that I cannot seem to kick. Think I got it on the Madrid Metro.
thejdizzler
23d ago
Because prediction markets are basically gambling and always have been. The stock market at least represents productive assets (or used to) that can be used to raise capital for firms and provide value to investors in terms of growth or dividends. There is no asset in a prediction market, just betting on a certain outcome. Same shit with sports betting or casino gambling. It's shitty, unproductive behavior, but for some reason the rationalist community endorses it because it helps to provide more quantitative information as to the mood of the population towards a specific topic.
thejdizzler
27d ago
Good luck with your century! I think you'll find very doable and perhaps pleasant if you pick a good day and fuel well!
thejdizzler
28d ago
Great post!
thejdizzler
29d ago
Thanks man. Been thinking about this proverb wrong the whole time.
I've seen this realization hit one of my older female cousins: she's 43 now. Absolutely desperate for a boyfriend/husband because she really wants children. Wealth isn't a problem because my uncle and aunt are loaded, but she just can't seem to find anyone who works long term. She's been continually lowering her standards, in all the wrong ways, for the past 10 years, and I think is slowly coming to the realization that she's never going to find someone. I have a lot of sympathy for her: she got screwed over by a Kiwi expat who had another girlfriend back home that she probably would have married, and her sister (my favorite cousin who actually shares my birth date, but not my birth year) has been happily married to her highschool sweetheart for 15 years (and has never dated another man). Both have got to sting. Yet it's been absolutely tragic to see the vicious combination of parental and internal standards make it impossible for her to settle down.
Long-term this is only going to end with either an internal reversal of the feminist position (unlikely but possible, I see some signs of this in the corners of YouTube), or the forcible return of strict marriage laws probably through Islam in Europe and Evangelical christianity in USA. In the meantime, I don't think there's much we can do personally other than try to be realistic about our own standards (selecting for traits that actually matter in a marriage) and not simping.
I'm in the 20-29 age cohort and it's a wasteland for a lot of men. When I used to go to church every single guy in the young adult group was either married or completely single (and this ratio was something like 10:1 in favor of single-men). And this was a Catholic Church where people are supposed to getting married early. At work it is similar, although in my family things seem to be better (my sister and all my female cousins have long-term boyfriends who are certainly not chad, although my sister's boyfriend is 6' 4").
I tend to agree with you that many of the put "women back in a box" solutions are pretty unworkable. Although stable, happy marriage might be far preferable on long time horizons, dating an average person as another average person is much less exciting than freedom and independence. I see this in myself with dating: why would I go out to a bar or another coffee date, when reading/exercising/friend activities are so much more exciting and less stressful. It's probably even worse for young women, who are constantly bombarded with attention and opportunities.
I don't find the political speculation to be particularly useful, but perhaps we can glean some personal self-improvement type stuff from all of this. I think both men and women could be better about selecting for traits that actually would matter in a marriage. Stability, kindness, physical fitness, etc., rather than raw sex appeal or charisma. That kind of selection is something that you as an individual can control (and advise your friends about). For men I think this means desexualizing your brain (no more porn and masturbation), and under no circumstances simping. Seeing women as human beings like you not only helps you to evaluate them more accurately, but also makes them more attracted to you. For women, I think I would recommend something similar: stop consuming fantasy romance slop.
thejdizzler
30d ago
I think doing the whole kitten-caboodle will be easier for me, as fapping tends to make me quite lustful.
I would ask her out probably and stop being celibate after a few months if we get along really well. I think it's a bad idea for me to have sex with a woman too quickly in a relationship. I've gotten trapped in relationships before because I'm too addicted to the sex and feel like I owe it to the woman because I've already slept with her.
thejdizzler
30d ago
By celibate I mean no masturbation, porn, or sex with women (or with men I guess too, but I'm not into that). I think this will also probably be easier with no dating as well, but I'm not sure if I want to commit to that.
thejdizzler
30d ago
Would you mind linking to your blog? (EDIT: nvm found it in your bio)
Let's keep each other accountable on porn/masturbation!
thejdizzler
30d ago
New Year's goals/resolutions.
- Work: I had a huge surge of success right before I left for break, so I'm feeling optimistic about finishing my PhD this year. I probably won't graduate until May 2027 still, but I hope to have all the experiments done by the end of this year.
- Fitness: Every year I keep saying I'm going to try high volume training and never actually do. I plan to build up to 15-20 hours a week of training, 1-2 of those being mobility work, 2-4 being in the gym and the rest some form of aerobic exercise (swim, bike, run, row).
- Intellectual stuff: I want to focus on improving my Italian this year, and having a more professional approach to writing on substack (drafting and proofreading posts before I publish them).
- Finances: I have a system I'm happy with set up for investing (1/3 bonds, 1/3 index funds, 1/3 speculation, in retirement account it's more like 1/6 bonds, 2/3 index funds, 1/6 speculation), but need to work on budgeting this year. My sister (who lives in the UK) earns about the same as me, but is able to travel almost every month because she budgets better than me (she spends the money I would invest on travel). For me this means probably reducing sport related expenses (less races, not getting injured and having to go to PT), reducing travel, and limiting eating out to once a week.
- Dating: I think I'm going to be celibate for 2026 and put my energy into other areas of life.
- Spirituality: Will continue to practice tarot with my ex-roommate over zoom, and want to get into a breath work practice.
- Health: After reading This is Natto, I'm way less concerned with trying to optimize my health, which I think paradoxically will make my health much better. I will continue to track HRV and RHR for training purposes, but otherwise just listen to my body.
- Community: My tarot draw for 2026 was the three of cups, which is the card of fellowship/community. I want to cook for a friend at least twice a month this year, and hold a social gathering and my house or a third space at least once a month.
- Via negativa: All of these goals are going to require time to complete. Some of this is going to come from not tossing and turning in my bed trying to get extra sleep. The rest is probably going to have to come from reducing digital distractions. I'd like to reduce my phone screen time to less than an hour a day by the end of the year. I'm going to do this by adding micro anti-habits every month. The first of these is to batch respond to texts only twice a day in the morning and the evening and otherwise not respond.
thejdizzler
1mo ago
Nominated for AAQC!
thejdizzler
1mo ago
ouch yea I didn't do enough research! This is a problem for 2026!
thejdizzler
1mo ago
Just want to thank @TowardsPanna for the recommendation to read This is Natto. Completely changed my relationship to sleep and wakefulness and I've been sleeping much better since.
The big shift has been one of mindset. Rather than obsessively think about numbers, I just give myself ample opportunity to sleep, remove all trackers/watches from the room and sleep and wake up when my body feels like it. If I wake up in the middle of the night or "too early", no biggie, I just do stuff I want to do until sleepiness returns or I think it's time to just get up.
thejdizzler
1mo ago
I've just bought an index fund that's supposed to track copper futures. CPER is the ticker name. I believe it is a basket of futures up to a year out.
He is in a lot of ways! Definitely making a much more honest effort to thread the needle between Christianity and esoteric practices than I am (I have basically given up on the Christianity part, which is laziness). However, he's also very dysfunctional in a lot of other ways: he doesn't have a whole lot of agency so he ends up stuck in ruts/patterns that he doesn't like but can't get out of.
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