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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4451 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 19, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What's your take?

My take is that I've never seen so comically insane of an instance of Goodhart's Law (When the measure becomess the target, it ceases to be a meaningful measure).

Having values you are willing to die for is getting badly translated into Being willing to die for something gives it/you value. Dude you are way off base, and you should take it as a sign of your ultimate disappointment and disillusionment that everyone EVERYONE has told you so, and you stubbornly refuse to adjust your perspective even a little.

I approve of setting goals and taking on endurance challenges etc, so I have no reason to talk you out of that, generally. But you cannot allow yourself to go do something until you've cleared yourself as mentally competent enough to take on the risk. So here is a quick sobriety test:

1. You do fully understand that completing the Hock will not make you not awkward? It won't directly or indirectly help awkwardness at all.

In fact, I would bet it will make you feel slightly more awkward in social settings because it will be another point of distance between your inner self and those around you. "These people have never been through what I have been through" will become a resentment crutch, when you realize it did nothing to directly affect your social awkardness.

2. Do you understand that it will make you only slightly more attractive to women? Slighlty and in a very limited way, which will be quickly undone and reversed if you try to milk it.

Let me unpack that. I recall you said previously that you used to do competitive downhill skiing in high school. I'd put the Hock at objectively 30% as attactrive as that, but with the compensating benefits of recency. (If, you're say, under 35, I imagine the skiing will remain more interesting). Thriving in a competitive social and physical environment is far more interesting to women than pursing a loner hobby.

For another comparison, it will register as about as attractive as if you've recently completed a marathon. Maybe slightly more if the "I put my life on hold for 3 months" registers as financial secuirty. So, I'd say about as interesting as recently completing a marathon during a trip to Europe.

Now here's why I say it is limited and will be quickly undone, and listen closely because it has everything to do with the awkwardness issue: To present it attractively, you can only bring it up briefly once or twice, and should mostly act uninterested in talking about it, like it wasn't that interesting, so mundane for your life that you're amused she's even interested. Basically, if you harp on it in any way like you have here, you'll be repelling the ladies like youre name is Pepper Spray. Thus there is a hard and very low cap with the usefulness of this bit of 'proof of value' that can be used with any given woman. (Unless she is herself an autistic survivalist, which is fine. Maybe even seek those out after this)

If you in anyway try to: Go into long details about the trip, get too enthusiastic, present any philosophical musings, bring it up regularly, make it obvious that your sense of identity or self-worth is connected to this, call yourself a Hockist etc, you will be flagged (unfairly or not) as weird and unattractive by the average woman.

EDIT: By way of analogy, overall I feel like you're a guy trying to prove he isn't autistic and directionless by... building a giant model trainset in the basement. The harder you go all out on this, the more counter-productive it's going to be.

Don't get me wrong, a giant train set sounds fun and cool, and I endorse it. Just be clear about what it is and isn't going to accomplish for you.

Having values you are willing to die for is getting badly translated into Being willing to die for something gives it/you value.

  1. Human life has value: the economists put it at around $10 million per head, if we're talking about Americans.

  2. Things are worth what we sacrifice to get them.

Therefore it seems self-evident that a thing has value because someone is willing to die for it: that person, even if he's a deranged lunatic, has staked his life on that thing. The value of it has been upped to "one deranged lunatic" from whatever it was before.

Also, I know damn well that the Hock is dumb and that people becoming aware that I've completed the Hock is not going to do much for me. I think that the Hock is going to irreversibly alter my character and personality, though, and that's what I'm after. I'll carry myself differently (I hope) after surviving the Hock...

Therefore it seems self-evident that a thing has value because someone is willing to die for it: that person, even if he's a deranged lunatic, has staked his life on that thing. The value of it has been upped to "one deranged lunatic" from whatever it was before.

Correct, but note that deranged lunatics or careless idiots who win a Darwin Award are not worth the full 10 million. Those 10 million are a human living a productive life for as long as possible. And even then the transfer of value may not be successful; the manner of the dying may have more impact on the value of the final product than the nominal value of the man who died.

Therefore it seems self-evident that a thing has value because someone is willing to die for it: that person, even if he's a deranged lunatic, has staked his life on that thing. The value of it has been upped to "one deranged lunatic" from whatever it was before.

You're just wrong here. Compare: I love my dog, therefore, I would risk my life for him. to I don't love this dog, but I wish I did. If I risk my life for him, it will make it so. you have causality backwards. In the latter scenario, you are de-valuing your life down to what you value your dog. Not the other way around.

Human life has value: the economists put it at around $10 million per head, if we're talking about Americans.

This bit is a nonsequitor. Risking your life for something without value, doesn't give it $10m in value.

Between 2008-21, 379 people were killed during the act of taking a selfie. The combined value of these selfies is not $3.79 billion. If you were to somehow to collect all of them and try to auction them off, I'd be impressed if you made a few hundred bucks.

If you read this story of a man who fell out of a moving train while trying to lean out to take a selfie and think "God, what a fucking idiot - what a stupid, pointless way to die", then try to understand that that is exactly how we all feel about you.

That's the wrong way to think about it. You'd have to instead multiply it by the risk they took, or consider the value of all such risky selfies.

According to Skookum's logic, if you die for something, that thing therefore has value equal to a human life. Following this logic, a selfie of some random nobody is worth nothing - unless they die in the act of taking it, in which case it's worth $10 million.

Therefore it seems self-evident that a thing has value because someone is willing to die for it

A carjacker getting shot dead while trying to lift a lemon from a parking lot doesn't mean it'll go on auction for a cool $10 million.

You do fully understand that completing the Hock will not make you not awkward? It won't directly or indirectly help awkwardness at all.

It will potentially make me more conscientious: the attitude that lets me survive the Hock might let me pay a shitload of attention in social situations so I don't miss anything.

Do you understand that it will make you only slightly more attractive to women? Slightly and in a very limited way, which will be quickly undone and reversed if you try to milk it.

Yes. The Hock is going to freeze most or all of the hypocrisy off of me, but not much of the awkwardness. I'll probably be less neurotic.

It will potentially make me more conscientious: the attitude that lets me survive the Hock might let me pay a shitload of attention in social situations so I don't miss anything.

There is no reason to think it will do anything like this. if you want to become more conscientious, go do something extremely social for 3 months. Go be a missionary in Uganda.

If not net 0, the Hock will make you more detached and withdrawn in social situations. Consider the soldier who comes home from war, and has trouble adjusting back into civilian life. If not nothing at all, you're going to mostly experience a wall between you and others.

Imagine you're at some social event, say some meet-up at a bar. You're standing there, drink in hand, watching everyone else, seemingly mingling effortlessly. Why not you, dammit. You're hyper-conscientious about your own milling around, you try to stand next to others talking to eachother, but feel unsure where and how to jump in naturally. Damn you feel awkward. Still! What's more, now you feel resentful, angry even at the frivolty of it.

3 months ago, you were struggling to get a match lit with your half-frost bitten hands. It was a race against the cold and wind, and you were losing. Once that fire was roaring, your body was still in freezing agony sore all over, but hell, the relief and triumph was simultaneously better and worse than anything you'd ever known.

Back to the room. Fuck these people. You survived that night, and so many other after it. Something significant, something none of these people will ever know. What are they talking about now, some twitter drama? So shallow, they have no idea. Your triumph would humble them if only, anyone cared to ask. If only there was a way into the conversation... fuck it, these people have nothing in common with you. You've been through so much.

This is the optimistic way of it playing out.

Survivormanning alone in the woods will not address social competence in any kind of a positive way or provide any useful frame for engaging social scenarios more healthfully.

Yes. The Hock is going to freeze most or all of the hypocrisy off of me,

I don't know what this means, so I'll reiterate. In small, very temperate doses, it will make you slightly more attractive to women, but not anywhere near proportional to the effort you are putting in.

I'll end by granting you that on some deep level, it's quite possible this will improve your self-possesion and perspective in a way that will manifest much deeper into a relationship in a much more nuanced way. But these effects will not appear (and may appear counterproductively) on a group-level or in initial and high level interactions.

Again to the soldier analogy. The things he learned and survived in the hellishness of war may make him a demonstrably better father, with deeper values and worldly detachment. But those are mostly going to come at the cost of social grease and 'gracefullness' and connectedness to the people around him.

I suppose if he does go ahead with this (hopefully in a shortened version that is better planned) it will indeed do a lot to change what he worries about; as you say, getting twisted into knots over a silly conversation at a routine party will be less of a thing when compared with "I nearly froze to death that time and had to save myself". So that may work to reduce social awkwardness because the stakes will be, by comparison, so trivial. Not caring about "am I coming across as too needy?" may indeed help him over a lot of social barriers.

But he has to be alive to do that, and so far this trip is sounding like an elaborate form of suicide. Taking risks because there's no way to reduce all risk is one thing, taking risks because you want risks that are literally life-or-death in order to achieve some psychic transformation is quite different.

The Hock is basically a homebrew form of psychological chemotherapy. Its aim is, among other things, to kill the neuroticism before it kills the human. Of course, chemotherapy administered and brewed by random jackasses is best described as 'risky as all hell'.

Hmm. Let me say something about my reasoning.

When I was 11, I feared [redacted] happening to me - a fate which most of you on the Motte would agree is a terrible one. I believed that skill at public speaking and rhetoric could reduce my odds of suffering this fate, so I practiced diligently in front of a mirror. I did this for a few years.

I was never nervous about any presentation I ever gave after that. Why would I be? Blow a school presentation, and what's the worst that happens? I get a C? If I'm really unlucky, a fistfight with some asshole bully that's probably going to leave no more than bruises? Laughable. I also became an excellent public speaker - better than say 99 percent of high school or college students. Any time there was a speech or presentation that needed to be given, my classmates and the faculty would agree that I was the best in say my classroom of 25, and by a pretty decent margin.

I had just been training in earnest for a goddamn rhetoric Hock, and it had benefits in other areas - such as being genuinely confident and unafraid when presenting and public speaking. Also it made me a decent if overwrought writer. Why fear being rejected or making a fool of yourself, when you've just stared death by avalanche or hypothermia or wild animals in the face day after day?

As far as frivolity: that is the point. The Hock is just pointless Twitter drama writ large and played out in the Alaskan wilderness.

I do have a question for you - have you ever survived any kind of life and death shit like war or something like that? I haven't, and I'm sorry if the question is offensive. If it is, it's probably offensive for its trite meaninglessness and dumbass attempt to ask about shit that you have to be there to know anything about.

Why fear being rejected or making a fool of yourself, when you've just stared death by avalanche or hypothermia or wild animals in the face day after day?

Because it won't make you fearless, it will make you resentful that it didn't work.

Notice in your "presentation Hock" comparison, the thing that made you not fear public speaking was practicing for public speaking? There is no analogy skill transfer between wilderness survival -> improving social awkwardness. You are comparing practicing something that directly improves the thing it applies to, to doing something completely unrelated in hopes that it will reframe you into being better at it. IT WON'T WORK the way you are hoping.

I do beleive that if you went and worked as a mission in a 3rd world scenario, surrounded by others, it would, in fact improve your socialization.

The Hock is just pointless Twitter drama writ large and played out in the Alaskan wilderness.

So three days into your Twitter drama you get yourself killed and your remains are not found until the summer thaw, if ever. If you are the only person in your world, that's fine. But if you have family or any one else involved with you, be that work or life, it's shitty for them.

What's [redacted]?

I do have a question for you - have you ever survived any kind of life and death shit like war or something like that?

I dunno about the guy you’re replying to, but I have and I agree with him. You can read the rest of my advice in replies to your ‘hock’ posting.

I don't know what this means

Skookum has explained to me at length his theory that women suffer greatly as a result of voluntarily being in relationships with socially awkward men who aren't especially good-looking, to the point of believing there's a 1 in 20 chance that a woman in a relationship with such a man suffers more than a woman in a relationship with a man who literally beats her up (yes, really). He hence thinks it's hypocritical of him to ask a woman to suffer for his benefit without him having suffered a comparable degree beforehand. Completing his stupid hike is his way of demonstrating his willingness to undergo pointless suffering for nobody's benefit.

If this chain of reasoning makes no sense to you, that makes two of us.

1 in 20 chance that a woman in a relationship with such a man suffers more than a woman in a relationship with a man who literally beats her up (yes, really).

No. I said I was like 95% certain that a woman in a relationship with such a man suffers much less than a woman in a relationship with a man who literally beats her up. The other 5 percent is basically some devil's advocate stuff like "maybe he is so incompetent socially that he makes her isolated and miserable, and that's worse than being beat up" or some stuff like that. It most definitely can be very charitably considered a stretch; I'm simply leaving the option open that there is some very non-obvious way that Awkward Andy is a worse partner than that Henry guy from Radicalizing the Romanceless. Personally, I'm stumped, Andy's got to be better as a partner than Henry and Henry's just a fucking con man to Andy's crap marketing. However, I was sort of hoping that someone here would come up with some eloquent argument for how Awkward Andy sucks rotting donkey balls as a partner in a way that is very much not obvious at first glance. I can't think of it, to be honest, although admit to perhaps being unable to grok just how Awkward Andy might suck in some sort of weird illegible way that ultimately cashes out to worse than being in an ER with a black eye and broken arm courtesy of Henry.

Really struggling to see how what you just said differs in any way from my gloss of your position.

It's a subtle difference: you'd said something like "1 in 20 women in a relationship with Awkward Andy are as bad off or worse than those being beat by Henry"; I'm saying "Dude, Henry sucks and is a terrible partner, but I'm open to the possibility that Andy sucks donkey balls in some weird way and is just as bad. Although exactly how has me fucking stumped."

I explicitly didn't say "1 in 20 women in a relationship with Awkward Andy are as bad off or worse than those being beat by Henry"; I said:

to the point of believing there's a 1 in 20 chance that a woman in a relationship with such a man suffers more than a woman in a relationship with a man who literally beats her up

Which means exactly the same thing as what you just said.

You can throw around the phrase "extremely non-obvious" as much as you like, it doesn't change the fact that what you're arguing is grotesque. You're so myopically mired in self-pity that you actually think there's even the remotest chance that a woman would rather be in a relationship with a man who beats her up than you. You shouldn't be "open to the possibility": it's preposterous and a grave insult to every victim of domestic abuse in history.

When you qualify as a doctor, I pity the poor women you'll have to treat whose shitty boyfriends land them in the ER. Knowing you, you'll be too busy asking them "but was he handsome tho??" to set their jaws properly.

You're so myopically mired in self-pity that you actually think there's even the remotest chance that a woman would rather be in a relationship with a man who beats her up than you. You shouldn't be "open to the possibility": it's preposterous and a grave insult to every victim of domestic abuse in history.

I have no disagreements about how pathologically self-pitying SkookumTree is in his comments, but I don't think the rest follows. The revealed preference of many a woman is to be in a relationship with a man who beats her up rather than with someone who's awkward to the level of what SkookumTree believes he is. It's possible to discuss if those are her "true" preferences and what she would "truly" rather do, and there's room for such factors, but I think the pudding they actually choose to eat is where the proof is.

Personally, I think this sort of thinking stems from a sort of "Just World Hypothesis" when it comes to romance, particularly that moral qualities that society in general sees as good in a man also translate to romantic success, and as such, if a man has romantic success despite having negative moral qualities such as beating his gf/wife, then there must be something that corrupted and manipulated the women who keep volunteering to be his gf/wife. When I think the more straightforward and also more correct explanation is just that there's only coincidental overlap between these two categories, and women, like all people in many contexts, often tend to be prefer things that are unhealthy for them over things that are healthy for them, if those unhealthy things provide other benefits that the healthy things don't.

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Hmm.

I do know a guy who said he'd no shit rather be beaten by asshole parents than have rather manipulative parents that are in many ways disconnected from reality and full of shit as well as pathologically controlling, but generally well-meaning. Yes, that IS just one guy...but that guy was a real dude. What I am arguing IS grotesque, and I think that the chance is fucking small but present. Also, you don't think I could set jaws competently? Damn, thought 'spergs were s'posed to be at least decent at engineer shit.

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maybe he is so incompetent socially that he makes her isolated and miserable, and that's worse than being beat up

This doesn’t happen; women can manage their own social relationships just fine.

Thriving in social situations is arguably not about "paying a shitload of attention so you don't miss anything." In fact a rapt focused interest is very commonly off-putting, especially if you start asking questions.

I'll be honest here, I don't think anything anyone says in this forum is going to cause you to change your tune regarding this topic (You) and it's possibly an unconscious way for you to draw attentive concern your way in a kind of internetty, 2023 way.

If your declarations regarding this planned trip contained questions or queries of advice on specifics (if anyone has experience cold-weather camping, best ideas for lightweight cooking gear, knowledge of knives or ropes or fire or best campsite practices in icy terrain etc. etc etc.) I would be more compelled to follow the outcome.

As it is this seems so half-assed and ill-conceived as to make Chris McCandless seem like Sir Edmund Hillary by comparison. It's like the kid who says he will tunnel to China over the weekend, just you wait.

This is not a dare. Far from it. And despite your suspicion that you've invested so many internet hours talking about this that surely now you'll have to do it, I would say literally everyone (at risk of "speaking for the group") would commend you if you decided to immediately drop this plan and never mention it again.

Edit ok maybe not @Southkraut

Hmm. My questions are rather obscure, but someone might be able to give me some advice here. I do have them - I've just been asking them on different forums. I've been putting off writing to people that have completed the Brooks Range Wilderness Ski Classic - I need to get on that, thanks for reminding me.

  1. What type of snow is commonly found in the Brooks Range in Northern Alaska? I've heard that it was generally homogenous depth hoar or sugar snow, but don't know for sure. If it is depth hoar, is it possible to pile a lot of it up, pack it down with skis, and build a snow cave or quinzee out of it? For what it's worth, I built more than a few of these as a kid.

  2. How common are avalanches in that area, given the snow conditions? I am guessing not uncommon; most of the trip will be on the flat but there is going to be a mountain/pass crossing involved.

  3. How likely are bear encounters in Arctic Village or Sagwon in February? I know that bears should be hibernating at that time, and polar bears rarely travel that far south.

  4. River travel: I've read that travel on the Sheenjek River is dangerous when it is 10 below zero, but safe when it is 40 below. Much of the water in the Sheenjek River comes from upwelling groundwater, and this erodes any ice that forms. Are other rivers in this region of Alaska fueled by upwelling groundwater and similarly dangerous? If they are - how do you tell that you're on a river (vs. flat ground) and how do you balance this hazard vs. avalanche hazard?

  5. Generally speaking, is the avalanche danger any greater or less in March in this region than it is in February?

I suppose that I might also want to post about some items I'm interested in purchasing. Namely, men's medium or large 8000-meter expedition grade down pants and a sleeping bag rated to 40 degrees below zero. Also, a Primus OmniLite stove pump. I wouldn't exactly suspect any of y'all have this kind of esoteric and specialized shit just laying around.

I hope that I'm at least at Chris McCandless tier here.

  1. It's probably pretty compact for skiing on, with various layers due to wind or melt events. Don't consider snow caves, take a tent. (also note bene that the above is a perfect description of snow that is likely to (unpredictably) slide off in refrigerator-sized chunks from any slope > 30 degrees or so)

  2. Based on Google Earth there will be more like two passes, and there's maybe sort of a plateau there -- if you don't already know which passes are passable, you will probably not find out until you are past the point of no return (avalanches, see above -- they can run a lot further than you probably think)

  3. Unlikely

  4. It probably won't matter much -- if you are in a potentially hazardous avalance area travelling next to the river, you will also be there when you are on the river. You are by yourself -- any avalanche you are involved in will probably kill you DRT

  5. Depends on the weather

  6. Add a tent and some boots that fit to your list

Yeah. I doubt that Mottizens are looking to unload one- or two- person mountaineering grade tents...but I might be wrong.

As far as avalanches: there are relatively broad valleys as much as a mile or two wide with meandering rivers there. The mountains are a couple of thousand feet above the valley. I am no avalanche expert, but I am not sure that I'd be likely to trigger an avalanche over half a mile away that can endanger me...while traveling on flat ground. Of course, there are also narrow valleys as well. Ridge travel is a possibility, too - but I really need to seek out some local advice, which I'll be doing by writing to people living in the village of Anaktuvuk Pass. They've got to be riding around on snowmobiles and have some level of local knowledge and metis about travel in avalanche terrain...

Wind slabs are a concern, especially with the sugar snow/depth hoar I might encounter, but melt events seem very unlikely when temperatures haven't been higher than 10 above for months.

As far as avalanches: there are relatively broad valleys as much as a mile or two wide with meandering rivers there.

There are but those are probably not the ones that you are going to need to travel in if you are planning to cross the mountains. A class three (moderate) avalanche can indeed self trigger and run over half a mile; you are not going to want to be travelling on ridges. (especially if you are pulling a sledge)

Local info would be good, but probably people don't snowmobile around up there for fun; it's pretty remote for backcountry skiing, but those are the people you'd want to talk to -- I'd be very surprised if they told you it was safe to cross the range by yourself. (or without a transceiver in a group)

I took this trip into the northern reaches of the Brooks Range because I wanted my perspectives to be challenged, to reexamine long held anxieties, and to explore a rare wildness. This experience was a dialogue about how to be at home in the world: an openness to fear, a grasp of limitations, and an attentive spirit. It is the language of humility.

Above are the words of a woman who hiked in the Brooks Range, in June of presumably 2014 or 15. You can read all that here.. Maybe you already have.

Here's a reddit post and this person also went in June.

Another blogpost (1 of 3) where the blogger was in the BR, but in summer time, back in 2009.

Here is a Sierra Club trip where they take you through there (not currently accepting reservations) and has a writeup on it. I bet they also go in June.

Here is a site of a bunch of women and trans folks who went in August of this year. No cis-men were allowed. Yes, you read that right. I have no idea how it went for them.

Finally here is a hardcore dude who claims to have traversed 1000 miles solo through the Range. In...wait for it...June.

I think there is a theme here, and it isn't February. Maybe you've read all these, or more, I don't know. Maybe get in touch with some of them (perhaps not the person who did not want to hike with "cis-males.")

I am not encouraging you. I am trying to help inform you before you start buying things.

What other forums do you post on?

Oh no, I'll also commend him for dropping it, but only if he's candid about it. It takes some spine to admit that you've been a bonehead for months on end, and that it was necessary to change your ways.

If he just quietly turns back at the airport, disappears for a while, then comes back with an alt, I'll be disappointed.

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