teleoplexy
4d ago
Russia is not some magical land of freedom.
Glad that we agree)
And guess what public officials did to a handcrafted fairytale playground someone built for everybody in the neighborhood? Yep, you guess it, demolished it to avoid liability.
In this hypothetical, I think it's much easier to rouse your neighbours to defend a working slide than to rouse the bureaucrats to fix it.
- NL is spinning a yarn to entertain the viewers first and foremost, the rambling is supposed to be entertaining, not a representation of how he communicates with the outside world.
- You are right to question his intentions. It might be an exaggerated account of events to entertain the viewers.
- He can definitely afford $15k + installation.
- I inferred that if he wants to fix it, then its reasonably fixable. So the discussion is about fixing it, not installing a new one, which is why I'm skeptical about the necessity to drill and the overall costs you mention.
- I really doubt that the corruption was mentioned as anything more than a joke - feel free to correct me on this though.
All that said, I don't doubt that budgeting and building and maintenance and commitment are the meat and bones of the problem. I take issue with needing to prove commitment in a roundabout way, rather than a direct way. If it really is how you describe it and not an issue of distributing funds equally between neighbourhoods, you still need to infer the intent of a bureaucrat, translate the invitation to donate as an invitation to a game in which you prove your commitment. If I were in NL's situation, I would miss this entirely. Frankly, I don't want to play the courtship game with a bureaucrat, I want to do stuff that is pro-social.
teleoplexy
5d ago
Picture of me egressing out of my apartment window: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/The_Falling_Man.jpg
teleoplexy
5d ago
why not be a man instead
I agree
Unbuckle
I refuse the notion that unbuckling makes me more manly. Getting rid of the Watchers doesn't mean upping my chances to die. If anything, I think of my family and doing a responsible thing for them.
I'm a fan of a minor celebrity from Vancouver, a Twitch streamer Northernlion (NL). He goes on "arcs" and in a recent one he can't get a slide fixed in his neighbourhood. Long story short, he is fond of his memories as a kid, how he played on a playground with his friends. They had a slide and how much fun was had with that slide. Now, he also wants his daughter to have memories like this, but alas, the slide has been broken since 2019 (more? less? I refuse to rewatch the video). He calls up a local low-level bureaucrat to offer a solution: he can pay for the repairs.
A low-level bureaucrat gives him a run-around for weeks and after he alludes to being somewhat popular, the bureaucrat goes, "🤑🤑🤑" (NL is at the very least upper-upper-middle class, but he is no Mr. Beast), the fateful call is scheduled. The call goes roughly like this: if we accepted donations like the one you suggest, there would be an imbalance between neighbourhoods. Richer neighbourhoods would have better amenities and poorer neighbourhoods would remain slideless. But you can pay to install a bench with your name somewhere in who-the-fuck-knows-where. We'll take your money, but you can't tell us what to do with it.
NL then laments: the kid is already four, her "going down the slide" days are almost over as it is (unless she's going to smoke and drink there with friends when she's twelve. Although a broken slide would be suitable for that as is), so this whole slide thing is kinda urgent.
One chatter suggests that maybe one could FIX THE SLIDE, and I am elated, but a parry comes swiftly (don't we all have this second nature in common?): "I would be taking on the liability if someone hurts themselves". Suggestions in YouTube comment section involved calling up an elected official (a higher level bureaucrat).
As of today, I strongly suspect that the slide isn't fixed.
Remember those commercials, where it's a bright morning, a single house in the middle of a green field, mountains in background, dewdrops serenely resting on blades of grass and a beautiful girl swings a window open to let a fresh breeze into the domicile and the curtains soar like sails, everything's sparkling clean, then she presents you some cleaning product? Well, I can't remember such a commercial, but I can imagine it so vividly it feels real to me.
I can't be that girl for two reasons: firstly, I'm not a girl, secondly, my window can't open more than... care to take a guess? It's 10 cm/4 in. I can't open a window in my rental apartment because there's a window opening control device (WOCD) installed on it that prevents me from opening it wide open.
All new buildings in British Columbia are mandated to have those devices installed when the window is 90 cm/3 ft from the ground. When I learned about this, I started to suspect that there's a fenestration industry conspiracy: there's no reason that I can fathom other than profit, why those devices would be mandated. Did a shadow fenestrator cabal collude with the governments of Canada, the UK, Australia, Boston, NYC to implement such rules? Did they push the newfangled window devices in every single new build? Which led me to my current predicament?
It's much simpler, much more prosaic. I haven't seen any evidence of conspiracy (not ruling out anything, anonymous fenestrator tips are welcome): some kids fell out of the windows and thus, a new safety rule was born, added to the BC Building code at paragraph 9.8.8.1 "Required Guards". Its brilliant Sentence 4, reproduced here in full:
Except as provided in Sentence (5), openable windows in buildings of residential occupancy shall be protected by a) a guard, or b) a mechanism that can only be released with the use of tools or special knowledge to control the free swinging or sliding operation of the openable part of the window so as to limit any clear unobstructed opening to not more than 100 mm measured either vertically or horizontally.
Isn't this wonderful? Now our kids are more safe! You can sleep tight: your toddler will not fall out of the window. By the way, how many kids did fall out? Oh, in the UK it's 2 per year.... Tragic? Yes. But...
I'm from Russia and in line with our, as the saying goes (I consider it a lie) "broad Russian soul" they also install windows that swing open broadly, all the way inside. Khruschevkas have them, new builds have them. So in Russia, I could be that cleaning product girl in almost any damn building, or at least I'm half way there - just need a way to become a girl. I could swing a window open and let a warm summer morning wash all over me.
Back in the day, I've seen news about people, sometimes even children falling out of windows, but somehow Russians (and most of the world) decided that the issue was related to parental negligence or indifference, rather than the design of the windows.
"Well, if you are so confident you are safe, take the WOCD off". Yup. Here's my thought process: I can't take them off because I would be accepting responsibility for anyone who falls out. I'd be liable in case something happens. Even to my own child perhaps. I wouldn't want her to fall out of the window, or any of her friends. Or my adult friends. And, anyway, let's say I take them off. Strata would instantly notice my tiny North American windows (there's not much to swing open anyway) swung open all the way. Like - it would be noticeable from the street, akin to a chad-virgin meme:
- My neighbours' virgin windows: 10 cm, no airflow, people inside slowly dying from CO2 poisoning
- My chad window: swung open to 90°, curtains SOARING due to a draft the strength of a jet engine.
I don't really want to antagonize my strata's busybodies who will send a stupid email to my landlord, who will in turn forward it to me:
Dear tenant of Unit 404, we noticed that all of your windows have simultaneously "malfunctioned" in exactly the same way bla bla bla bla. We understand that 100 mm might seem insufficient for adequate ventilation, but rest assured, the Building Code Technical Committee has determined this is plenty of airflow for human survival. Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Please be advised: you have 14 days to remedy this situation. Failure to comply will result in a $200 fine (first offense). Bla bla bla bla
Ugh... Feels like I'm rubbing salt into my imaginary wound in my pride.
I said to my wife "I'm taking off the safety restrictors" and she had the exact same reaction:
- What if someone falls out? We'd be liable!
- The strata would notice
What the hell is going on?
Let's quickly acknowledge something: both mine and NL's problems can be solved without anyone's involvement at all:
- He doesn't disclose the nature of the slide's defect due to opsec concerns, but going by his reaction to the suggestion of doing it yourself I'd bet that he could just go and fix the slide. The office he called to complain about it wouldn't notice for years, if ever.
- I, on my part, do own a screwdriver and realistically I doubt the scenario I described above would ever come to pass.
Neither of us have an insurmountable problem on our hands, I'd argue that the problems are pretty trivial and nobody cares if we make our lives a bit more comfortable, even if we circumvent all of the bureaucracy but the first thing both of us thought about was: there's a process, there are rules, there's a big brother who watches the safety in our society and it is paramount everybody's safe and I don't want to be liable for anything that happens. Ever.
This thought process that both of us went through is a far more interesting phenomenon to me than a default libertarian argument of "government should get its hands away from my business". It should, but if it does, there's no guarantee anything changes in our heads.
We teach kids to think like this: here The Last Psychiatrist describes how we deal with bullies at schools nowadays. In essence, in the name of safety, we inadvertently brainwash away all of the righteous, moral, community-oriented instincts before they can flourish. He vividly paints how a girl is instructed to stay away from a bully instead of standing up for your peers: do not speak up, stay in your lane so you don't get hurt. Someone else will deal with the bully.
If there is any value you do want to encourage in kids, it's looking out for each other. The girl had it; the boy who tried to snag Devastator also had it. Those were reflexes, they didn't plan this out over morning waffles, but whatever was going on at home and in their heads lead them to have, and to follow, those impulses.
But the school fostered the reverse value: "don't get involved, take care of yourself, let the Watchers handle it. That's their job." Note that the school didn't inadvertently teach her not to look out for others, it specifically instructed her not to look out for others. "We'll handle it."
Now, in what I described with NL's slide, with my window WOCD devices, we don't need the Watchers present. They're already in the back of my mind, telling me that this is done in the name of safety, that they'll get their way anyway. When the Watchers don't want to or can't do something due to a lack of money or staff, well, in this situation all of the parties are completely impotent. Slides sit there completely unfixed. Windows stay safely restricted by safety restrictors.
"We'll handle it" is everywhere:
- How do bug tickets get picked up in big companies? They don't get picked up easily. The default assumption is that someone else will be responsible for prioritizing the bugs and fixing the issue. Maybe your boss will take a look and assign it, maybe that one crazy teammate who says "if you find a bug, you should fix it" will do it, and anyway, your average programmer is not really well versed in this domain to do it. People routinely rely on the third party to tell them what to do. Slightly relevant article on how people in software limit themselves.
- Liberals "believing in Science," getting the Watchers to tell them what's correct rather than diving into issues and figuring out something by yourself. The Watchers have to tell you what's right and it's impossible to make your own conclusions. The Watchers are credentialed and knowledgeable, the papers are available for you to read because The Watchers wouldn't publish something false. The science is settled - I know it because I believe in
the Watchersthe Science. - Gun laws and "the police aren't there to protect you from criminals, they're there to protect criminals from you".
- Identity being something that has to be affirmed by a third party. "I'm only real if I'm validated."
Fundamentally, we have less opportunities to exercise agency anymore and that shapes one's mind in a weird way. It embeds the Watchers in the back of your mind when they are not there physically. I think how we bring up kids is partially at fault, but the bureaucratization of the society is equally damaging. School is Not Enough by Simon Sarris addresses the first part. The whole body of work of TLP addresses the second part. Maybe I'm coming around to some of the Hlynka's arguments.
How do we make kids have more agency?
How do we make adults with more agency?
How do we go back to the society Alexis de Tocquevillle's observed?
When Alexis de Tocqueville compiled his reports on America for a French readership, he recalled that "In America, there is nothing the human will despairs of attaining through the free action of the combined powers of individuals." Yankee agency became an object of fascination for him: "Should an obstacle appear on the public highway and the passage of traffic is halted," Tocqueville told his readers, then "neighbors at once form a group to consider the matter; from this improvised assembly an executive authority appears to remedy the inconvenience before anyone has thought of the possibility of some other authority already in existence before the one they have just formed." This marked a deep contrast with the French countryside Tocqueville knew best, where the locals left most affairs to the authorities.
teleoplexy
1mo ago
Not the OP, but it's insane to me in a way that I can understand, unlike The Reptile, whom I don't understand.
teleoplexy
1mo 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
1mo 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
2mo 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
2mo 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
2mo 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
2mo 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
3mo 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
4mo 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
6mo 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
6mo 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
7mo 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
7mo ago
The solution is skin in the game. The person making the decisions needs to be personally impacted by outcomes.
teleoplexy
7mo ago
Not surprised about this at all 😬
More options
Context Copy link