FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
And every gimmick hungry yob
Digging gold from rock n roll
Grabs the mic to tell us
he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this
And it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns
Will later join the church
User ID: 195
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
7hr ago
You frequently see his quotes on life thrown around as deepities, to the point that copypasta of them is a meme on twitter. Both Kitchen Confidential and No Reservations have a strong element of lifestyle-porn to them, imagine living that way like this fun interesting guy!
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
8hr ago
I do think that a philosopher ought righty to be judged by his death. As Solon tells us, judge no man happy until his death. Similarly, we ought to judge no man wise unless we approve of his death. It seems relevant when discussing Foucault, and especially his work on human sexuality, that he dies of AIDS. The question of what one thinks of Socrates is mostly a question of what one thinks of the Hemlock, and of course there's Empedocles. Similarly, I admire David Foster Wallace's writing, but when people cite his philosophical insights from This is Water
By way of example, let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there’s no food at home. You haven’t had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It’s the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it’s the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it’s pretty much the last place you want to be but you can’t just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren’t enough check-out lanes open even though it’s the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can’t take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.
I think it's relevant to note that DFW hanged himself. Is that kind of radical empathy perhaps beautiful and perhaps true and perhaps admirable? Sure. But can you live with it? DFW couldn't, could he? Does this imply that this kind of effort to constantly consider the circumstances of everyone around you might be overwhelming, that in fact we need to degrade others to meaningless NPCs in order to survive the world we live in? Sure it would be nice to live in a world where we consider the circumstances of everyone in traffic with us and have empathy for them, but does that make living in a world with traffic impossible?
I think it's relevant to note that Bourdain hanged himself when considering his lifestyle and his life advice. I loved Kitchen Confidential, it's an upper-end beach read, and No Reservations was a great cable content show, a little higher brow than your typical cooking show but ultimately within the same format and the same relaxing emotional range.
But when one assesses the philosophical depth of his malattributed and oft-memed deepities, we should consider that Anthony Bourdain hanged himself, and that maybe that way of living doesn't actually work if it's most famous adherent wound up tying that knot. Willful suicide*, the negation of life, seems to undermine any idea of one knowing the way to the Good Life. And clearly there are a lot of people who still admire and seek to imitate Bourdain, when you consider that there's an active subreddit for him years after his autopsy. So it's relevant to talk about why he shouldn't be uncritically admired.
There's a flip side to this where people want to hate on Bourdain and say he wasn't that talented or that interesting, I've even seen accusations that he was a bad cook and a nepo baby in publishing, but I think that goes too far. He was a pretty good media celebrity, as they go. And I think there's something to enjoying oysters fresh off the beach. But we have to consider where it all ends up.
*I should note that the word "willful" is necessary, instrumental suicide like Socrates or other ancients choosing suicide as a particular form of death sentence, or the proverbial secret agent biting down on a cyanide molar to avoid torture, or a soldier jumping on a grenade, may meet the technical definition of self-killing, but they're rather different implications philosophically.
((As an aside, while I think it's valid to question someone's moral fiber or entire life philosophy as a result of their suicide, I don't think we should over-attribute someone's suicide to particular circumstances or the actions of other individuals. For every bad thing that happens to anyone that kills themselves, there are a dozen people who had the same thing happen and are still here. It's hardly common for an unfaithful model/actress gf to drive men to suicide. I knew people who killed themselves after divorce, but I know more people who didn't. I don't think you can really drive someone to suicide, some people kill themselves and some people don't in any given circumstance.))
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
You could look at mixed marriage statistics.
Which would show you that foreign born Indians marry non-Indian Americans at about a 15% rate, weighted towards more men marrying-out than women.
Contemporary surveys from 1910 of Italian American immigrants at the beginning of the last century show about an 8:1 frequency of Italians marrying other Italians versus marrying out.
I'm looking but so far I can't find rates of Catholic out-marriage at the time, which would be a closer mirror really, as the vast majority of Indian/Pakistani friends of mine dated white in high school and college, but married brown for religious/cultural reasons. Similar to Jews, though I doubt that's a comforting comparison to many ethno-rightists.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Belgium is big mad.
Have there been statements by the Belgian team that they don't care and they'll win anyway? Maybe it's just not being reported, but playing under protest because Balogun is on the pitch is big loser energy.
The result here might be irregular, but it isn't unfair because it shouldn't have a serious impact on the outcome of the game.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I think it gets less censure because of the helmets. I just don't see the same degree of facial acting during NFL games, so it's less distasteful.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Agreed that it's an issue. My bete noire is the Mahomes style fake going out of bounds so they defender has to stop his momentum to avoid a RTP, then sneak back in for more yards. Or the late slide to pick up an extra yard. It'll need to be regulated at some point.
I just don't think it's nearly as common or nearly as distasteful as the display you see in soccer, or in the NBA at this point.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I think I can judge who is an American and who isn't through years of interaction. Intermarriage as a test is just delegating that same judgment to the cast of 90 Day Fiance. I trust myself more.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Ok, but realize that even accepting your point, mischlings are a lagging indicator of assimilation by a generation or two. A person assimilates, is accepted, and then marries a native and produces a mixed-child.
And anyway, do we really want to make young women the sole arbiters of assimilation?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I like the three point game. My problem is with the meta-game of load-management and cap-acrobatics and tanking.
The problems I see are that a) the game is easier in every aspect and phase the taller you are, b) there aren't enough tall people with that talent level in the world to staff 30 competitive teams, c) there are 30 NBA teams, d) who play 82 games a year, which e) don't really matter to the final season outcome that everyone cares about.
Solve those five and the three point game will be much less of a problem.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I'm not sure professional Basketball is ultimately salvageable as a sport. It would require major surgery, altering rules in ways that would make the modern sport illegible to the classic sport.
What do you see as wrong with QB play?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
It was a shitty, stupid call, but shitty stupid calls are a tradition within international soccer that is being threatened by the American Way.
It's one of the major cultural differences between American big-4 sports and international soccer, and has been for years, along with showing pain on the field*. American sports thrive on precision and accuracy, soccer on a vague sense of spirit. In the NFL and NBA the clock is precise to the millisecond, in soccer the game ends when the ref thinks we're at a pretty good spot to end it. In American sports out of bounds is fought down to the inch and moment the ball or the player is out of bounds play stops, in soccer out of bounds is just kinda casual.
Soccer is very like boxing, in that corrupt or fixed matches are part of the lore in a way that is inextricable from the history of the sport. Reading a big Muhammed Ali bio, basically every one of his championship fights had some accusations of corruption or fixing or tomato can or pepper-on-the-gloves antics by somebody. Maradona is one the inner circle best, and also illegally scored in the World Cup and everyone knows it and it's just a joke. Once you accept that it is part of the history, the thought of actually getting calls right would be change, and there's nothing old-head hardcore fans hate more than change.
*My solution to diving, which I find distasteful and unaesthetic: harshly penalize extravagantly showing pain on the field, regardless of whether there was a foul or not. Soccer players aren't inherently more effeminate than any other athletes, they're just trained and socialized to show pain, where other athletes are trained and socialized to shrug it off. The "don't be a bitch" rule will fix the problem.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
7d ago
...It really doesn't? At best your point would be that their parents or grandparents didn't assimilate.
And at any rate, I don't buy into the blood-purity ideal of America, so we're both sort of begging the question, if you think assimilation is functionally impossible and I think it's common.
Indian engineers and businessmen are completely integrated into my community. They join Boy Scout troops, they run for local schoolboards and serve on local charities.
Their kids win Valedictorian in the high school, and dominate the varsity tennis squad, but they also skive off on senior skip day and throw house parties and join the marching band and try and fail to lose their virginities on prom night.
My Indian neighbors futz about their lawns and wash their cars in their driveways and get season tickets to the minor league baseball team.
Hell, one of my most firmly held Indian stereotypes was broken last year when a group of Sikhs massively overpaid for a piece of real estate at an auction, due to lack of research, to the point of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on the deal.
There's just no difference.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
8d ago
Second or third generation Indians have mostly already assimilated in my neck of the woods.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
8d ago
Nobody* thinks that migrants drowning in poorly built boats is a good thing, we disagree about the solution.
*lizardman constant aside
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
8d ago
Marxism's root is in Christianity, Wokeness is Christianity that has evolved to the point of opposing itself. The current ideological justification for tolerance of "sodomy and bigamy" is built off of Christian ethics. Christianity lies at the root of all Western, and therefore world, culture.
((FWIW I also think that high level studies at any ideological bent should include Kapital, if you can't understand why the majority of intelligent Europeans between 1860 and 1960 were admirers of Marx then it's a problem with you or your education))
Not in the slightest.
I remember telling otherwise intelligent kids at a selective private college that Jesus was Jewish, and they were confused.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
8d ago
At some point European liberals and handwringers need to realize that their generosity is the problem. When immigrants drown on boats crossing the med, that's the fault of the policies in Europe. When coyotes, or whatever they call them in Europe, take boats full of women and children and abandon them with no fuel in the middle of the high sea, they are doing it because they know they'll be rescued. If the Europeans want to prevent people from drowning in the med, they need to stop accepting them and rescuing them.
They're like a parent who keeps supporting their drug-addict son. Giving him money enables his lifestyle, if he didn't have the support he'd have to get his life in line.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
9d ago
The problem with personal experiences is that a major part of what we get out of an interaction is what preconceived notions we went into the interaction with. If you have a contempt for East Asians and a personal belief that they are fundamentally alien from you and different, then you probably won't end up bros, no.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
9d ago
I've long thought that an AP-Theology course would be a great idea at the high school level. An easy dunk of a 5 for well educated religious kids who know their bible, helps non-religious kids learn about the world, helps sell Conservatives on public education. Just an easy all around win.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
12d ago
It does a show a rather concerning inability to exercise control over strategically important bodies of water.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
12d ago
Runoff from the vast area of lawn that drains into the reflecting pool.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
12d ago
"He didn't have the choke on me. I could still breathe in little gasps! I just tapped out because of the choke."
Trump himself has said, when justifying the peace deal:
“We run out of reserves at about four weeks,” Trump said in France while at the Group of Seven summit, discussing the recent memorandum of understanding with Iran. “You know, there are reserves all over the world, and we would really run out, and there’ll be a time when you wouldn’t be able to get it.” He said it would be “bedlam” if the oil ran out. “What this does is it allows the ships to go,” he said of the Iran deal. “If we keep bombing, those ships won’t be going.”
And again:
"I didn't want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened," Trump told reporters in the lakeside resort of Evian-les-Bains. The Republican president said he did not want to be like Herbert Hoover, who was U.S. president in October 1929 when the stock market crashed, triggering what became known as the Great Depression. "All I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship," Trump said. "Every time we said something negative, like, guess what, we're not going to be able to settle, it would go down very big."
Trump himself has made one of the clearest statements he's made about the war, saying that the strait of Hormuz was insufficiently open. We can get pedantic about what exactly "closed" means or whether we just needed gutsier ship captains if you want, but I don't think that really matters in assessing the success of "America" or "Trump & Hegseth" as strategic actors. Trump stated directly: the restrictions placed on the strait of Hormuz worked to force Trump to make a deal.
A general or an admiral can claim a "stabbed in the back theory" that "we didn't lose we left" that "we won the war on the battlefield and the politicians lost it at the negotiating table" or that "the civilians followed the traitors at home and didn't support the war enough."
A politician, a POTUS, can't claim that, because rallying public support is kind of his whole job. Coordinating with international insurance companies is within his purview. The home front is his war. Trump can't whine that we were winning the war if it wasn't for public opinion and the markets, public opinion and the markets is his job. The buck stops here. He needs to go to war with the public he has, not the public he wishes he had.
Trump and Hegseth made the specific decision not to attempt to build a public case for going to war with Iran, not to coordinate with international partners, not to plan ahead for the business consequences of the war. They chose speed and surprise over those things. That turned out to be a bad decision.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
12d ago
That's the beauty of Pro/Rel, everyone has a peer to look up to and a peer to look down on. The clubs that are in danger of relegation have near-peer clubs around them that are a league below them, so just by scoring enough draws to stay in the top flight (or 2nd etc) you've achieved superiority to someone. Where in America a last place team is just a last place team. This is helped in Europe by density, the biggest distance in the EPL is less than the distance between Philly and Pittsburgh, which are in-state rivals in the USA, so no one is ever really bereft of top flight football (which is why pro/rel wouldn't work in the USA). This is also why I support instituting a modified version of the Gold System for draft picks.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
12d ago
Balogun was benched.
Bosnia would be an embarrassment:
Point out where I said we should judge philosophers only by their deaths.
I admire both Bourdain's and DFW's works, and would say I admire their life philosophies and think there is something to be drawn from them. I would also say that it's relevant, if not dispositive, to consider how they died when considering their advice on how to live.
This is an exceedingly common line of thought that goes back to at least Victor Hugo, that of the man so obsessed with moral purity with no outlet for his human vices and desires, who eventually snaps and does something evil or self destructive. This is just applying the same standard we apply to a puritan Christian to a liberal icon.
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