domain:philippelemoine.com
erwgv3g34
10m ago
The trans youth issue bothers me. Girls sports, underage irreversible surgeries, and marketing to kids all get under my skin. Adults don’t really bother me
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
15m ago
I think it’s relevant in the same sense most Cathedral media is important — it’s to inform you of what the establishment wants you to believe. And thus if you’re trying to outwardly fit in so you can stay out of the Eye of Sauron, knowing what the establishment thinks and wants outward compliance with is useful.
I think the lack of big “everyone must watch this” stuff is not the sign of a dying twitch. It’s the complete domination of the thought life. Keep in mind that the modern HR departments and trust/safety systems are enforcement mechanisms and because of the way that most of us are locked into a single career path dependent on other people for employment we have an informal Social Credit system. If you run afoul of the stuff HR enforces, you can get black listed essentially. So you no longer need to create great, compelling propaganda about stuff you’re supposed to think because those who question will be unjobbed as a cautionary tale for others. I suspect there are a lot of dissidents in offices who are secretly heretics but know better than to say so publicly.
It’s been a truism for decades that coming out as a conservative is more of a risk than coming out as gay. No one gets fired for being too gay. You can be too conservative.
Rosencrantz2
22m ago
But maybe what's actually funny is your troll act?
cartman
24m ago
Okay fair enough. I will say for the record that I am a new poster (jumped in for the discussion after election day as you noted) but have lurked reading every so often for at least a few months so I'm not unfamiliar with the forum as a whole.
I somewhat disagree with the characterization of my behaviour as 'just asking questions', but I understand how it appears that way. I do have a habit of questioning people to poke at underlying disagreements, and I can acknowledge that sometimes I do this too much or with somewhat inflammatory rhetoric, but it is usually with a goal relevant to the discussion in mind.
In this particular case, the questions regarding moderation were genuine. If there's something in the forum's history thats relevant to my moderation I wanted to know it. I did receive a message from another poster yesterday, that in hindsight, makes me think they also suspected me of being a specific different user evading a ban.
I want to stress again at the end here that my picking apart of this moderation may come across as being in bad faith, but I am genuinely attempting to understand the rules of engagement and how I would have to change my rhetoric in order to consistently participate. If I engaged less now, I might misunderstand something else down the road. The impression I get is that my familiarity with the forum is suspicious and also my asking questions is suspicious, but I felt that not asking questions would make it more likely that I was banned in the future for a reason I did not fully understand.
In any case, I will endeavour to make future posts acceptable.
Botond173
27m ago
Point taken, but that's not really what I had in mind. Can we say with certainty that Taylor's endorsement was an important net gain for the Dems? Did it actually matter that much?
Botond173
28m ago
Roughly half a year ago there was a discussion here on the cultural legacy and (then) recent renewed interest and negative portrayal of the Woodstock ’99 music festival in the mainstream media. I haven’t seen the two documentaries in question but I’ve heard commentaries on them, and they agreed that much of the sneering and hostility present in their narratives is actually directed at the nu-metal genre in general, and the antics of Fred Durst in particular. I was sort of surprised that nobody mentioned this in the discussion. Anyway, it certainly doesn’t surprise me that much that they’d contextualize the whole incident in that way, as nu-metal is generally seen as an embarrassing and pathetic cringefest which was a plague upon pop music at the turn of the Millennium, thankfully one that largely disappeared after a few years as quickly as it appeared. And it was roughly at the zenith of its popularity when this festival took place, which was dominated by nu-metal bands.
When I’ve heard these commentaries I started looking for more on Youtube as my interest was piqued. Back when the BBC Learning TV channel existed it ran a rather good one-hour documentary on the incident but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find it. (I saw one or two other short documentaries from the same period i.e. 2000/2001.) I do recall, however, finding some news report which featured a segment from an interview with Sheryl Crow, who also performed at the festival and had a rather bad experience. I saw this YT clip about two years ago and can’t find it again unfortunately. To paraphrase from memory, she argued that the reason she found the whole scandal repulsive was that the white male nu-metal fans who committed numerous acts of arson, vandalism, rape, harassment etc. were mostly from functioning middle-class homes in the suburbs, objectively privileged by global standards, yet were constantly angry and destructive and couldn’t even put it in words why. She basically accused them of toxic masculinity even though I don’t recall her using that exact expression, but I wasn’t surprised anyway because she came across as the average lipstick feminist.
Leaving the subject of the festival aside, I wonder how nu-metal will be viewed in the context of the culture war. It appears to me that as a phenomenon it was a canary in a coalmine, providing an outlet for the angst of the young white (mostly) male members of a social class that was turning into the precariat under a system of late-stage capitalism, whose average quality of life was about to start collapsing. (Rising rates of mortality, alcoholism, illegitimacy, fatherlessness, unemployment, opioid addiction, prescription pill abuse etc.)
naraburns
nihil supernum
34m ago
I mean, if guys had a Shaving Club, I'd imagine some women with PCOS might benefit from showing up. If the club is really about shaving, that shouldn't be a problem, should it?
This is a remarkably terrible analogy. Consider instead a support group for sufferers and survivors of prostate cancer. Having a bunch of women show up to talk about their experiences with cervical cancer would not really fit the discussion prompt, even though there would be some obvious overlap in experience of, say, chemotherapy or medical malpractice or whatever.
The article didn't say anything about language policing or otherwise acting rudely. It's just upset that there's women at the shaving club.
No, it's upset that there are Men at the Women's club. It's upset that an organization dedicated to the advancement of women's health is being co-opted for the advancement of men's preferences and desires.
Presumably learning more about male lactation would help the mission of infant health and breastfeeding: either it turns out to work and we have a cool new option, or it turns out to be a bad idea and now we can articulate specific concerns and help people understand why it's a bad idea.
I am doubtful that you will ever find anyone who is able to do the actual science without their political biases fucking it up. But if you could, like, okay? That has nothing to do with this case; if you want to make this argument, do the actual science first, instead of doing the activism first by filling women's spaces with men.
2rafa
36m ago
Quite possible, I live in one of the nice but not elite areas of zone 2.
Are we talking like Islington / Maida Vale / Clapham tier, here?
Yeah, it’s interesting, natives are highly concentrated in the outer suburbs, the richest are strongly concentrated in Chelsea / Fulham / the immediate vicinity of The Surprise, with another large group slightly north around Holland Park / Notting Hill, and to some extent in Hampstead and leafier parts of North London (along with Jews and Indians).
Here in Mayfair there are almost no natives, it is predominantly Arabs, some Russians, Africans and Chinese (although the latter prefer Nine Elms / Battersea Power Station / South Bank Apartment buildings), and moderately large contingents of wealthy Americans, Italians and French (although in general French and Scandinavians prefer Marylebone), mostly young (men) who work in hedge funds or PE nearby. Marylebone also seems to have a lot of rich Aussies along with many Americans and a few Brits here and there, mostly older.
MaximumCuddles
39m ago
I generally find Babylon bee funny but that one’s a bit of a stinker fr
5434a
39m ago
Seemed to me that there were many more significant sections written almost entirely in dialogue. Easily one of the most dialogue heavy books I've read.
It was a welcome relief toward the second half to read something like "he continued explaining the reason for his frustration until they arrived at the house". Felt like Austen herself was starting to show signs of getting tired of listening to her characters by that point.
Forty-Bot
44m ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/polandball/comments/1gogaq0/fair_and_balanced/
who said the left couldn't meme
To the extent that there are breastfeeding trans women willing to participate in a study, then yes, someone should do the study. Not necessarily LLL.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
45m ago
If you can only provide one example, that's hardly supporting your case. If anything, that suggests the opposite: this is so incredibly rare that it made the news.
Originally you said it doesn't happen, and the reason why authorities do it, is because the child is denied medical care. At the very least I'd expect you acknowledge that it happens sometimes given the evidence. The reason this was such a big story was it's particularly egregious nature (the double sex-trafficking part), but there were other stories of custody disputes based on nothing more than pronouns / identity affirmation. It was almost enshrined in law in California but for a veto.
The medical community, the scientific community, and the community of people who have actually undergone the process all recommend it, so I'm not sure on what grounds you would claim that it's not a valid medical treatment.
This is false. Anybody that made a comprehensive review of evidence came to the conclusion that the evidence is of poor quality. This includes WPATH, which commissioned several systematic reviews, and refused to publish them when the evidence didn't say what they wanted to say it.
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
47m ago
If a kid is in horrible pain, and their parent refuses to do anything about it, and the kid is actively looking to escape? Yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable to remove the kid.
Here's the problem - it's very much debatable whether this "horrible pain" is actually something requiring medical treatment. I know you think it does. We are all familiar with the rhetoric that gender dysphoria is so real and urgent and painful that not allowing the child to transition is likely to lead to suicide, and akin to refusing to let a child receive treatment for schizophrenia. So you frame it as, essentially, parents letting their children die because of their bigoted religious beliefs. But this is almost never the case. Parents almost always treat a child being "trans" as a psychological issue, a child in distress who needs help - but you will not accept that "help" could be anything other than affirming their entity and even allowing them to begin medically transitioning, when there is good reason to think help should actually be helping them work through their gender dysphoria (if it is really gender dysphoria), becoming comfortable in their bodies, and perhaps choose to transition when they are an adult if they still feel that's what they need. Can you at least acknowledge that this is a reasonable, loving, and non-abusive response, even if you think it's not the correct one?
If a kid is terrified their parents will find out about them getting a tooth fixed, wouldn't you be a bit concerned about how the parents are treating that kid? Would you really feel guilty for sneaking your son's best friend to the dentist to help him deal with a cavity that's been getting worse for years?
Again with the "terrified." I'm sure there are children in abusive households who still face abuse, or being thrown out on the streets, if they are revealed to be gay or trans. This happens and those are extreme cases that may require state intervention, as with any other abuse. But almost all the cases I have seen are not of trans kids with parents who will reject and abandon them for being trans, but parents who simply don't agree with putting their kids on hormones, wearing binders, planning to get surgery, etc. Refusing to change the pronouns they use for their son or daughter might upset the child, but it's not abuse!
If you can point me to an epidemic of kids getting abducted against their will, I'd probably change my tune.
I don't agree with @WhiningCoil's framing of hordes of children being abducted by the state, but I would ask you in return, do you have any numbers regarding parents who are actually abusive and neglectful of their trans children, such that state intervention is required? Do you think schools should socially transition children secretly if the child says their parents won't go along?
But I get the sense that most of the kids in question are quite happy with the decision. I haven't seen anything that suggests they're particularly prone to regretting it later, either.
You "get the sense" that most of the kids are quite happy with the decision, but this seems to be vibes and personal bias. I think the actual level of regret is very hard to evaluate. I'm sure you hate Jesse Singhal, but I have yet to see a trans activist who can actually dispute his numbers and his deep dives into studies on the subject.
naraburns
nihil supernum
47m ago
First of all, am I being moderated for the tone/content of my posts or for ban evasion as a suspected alt?
We moderate on tone, not content. Your post was uncharitable and antagonistic.
I'm assuming from your comment that there was a previous user on this forum who used to engage similarly to me
More like "a never ending stream of users," actually. Bad faith posters who use "just asking questions" rhetoric to troll the forum are a dime a dozen; in the parlance of the age, "ya basic," sorry. "New" users who jump in on election day and seem immediately comfortable navigating various community norms are suspicious enough. Following up by "just asking questions" rules lawyering in response to moderation dramatically increases my suspicion that you are a repeat customer. We've had hundreds of new users over the years, and to put it mildly--you do not fit the profile.
But it's not impossible, so... here we are.
Until this comment I had not received any mod feedback.
We can't moderate every comment, and queue approval should not be taken as a sign of endorsement, beyond perhaps "this isn't obviously spam." Moderation is qualitative and adaptive; we usually mod comments directly, but sometimes we have to take into account a pattern of commenting instead. This is a reputation economy; post lots of good stuff that isn't rage bait, then occasional rage bait will get a shrug.
If not, does this comment act as a warning that all of my previous posts were unacceptable?
Many of your previous posts are bad. But the goal is not to try to get away with being just enough of an asshole that you are allowed to continue being an asshole. Rhetorical brinkmanship is bad. At a glance, your comments with negative karma scores should probably be taken as a sign, to you, that you did something wrong. (This isn't always the case--some substantive positions just get downvoted, which is annoying--but if you can't spot the difference, I don't know what to tell you.)
For some examples, this comment, if I had seen it when you posted it, would probably have gotten you a short ban. This comment's "citation needed" snark honestly tempts me to ban you now.
Be charitable. Be kind. If someone else is breaking the rules, report that instead of breaking the rules in response. The more closely I look at your profile, the more I am inclined to permaban you rather than go through the motions with what appears to be a (so far) consistently garbage level of engagement. If you really would like to continue posting under this account, knock it off.
Removing obstacles from a path is not "putting them on a path". Do you object to roads, because they put criminals on the path towards bank robbery?
It sounds like arguing semantics to me. If one hand the public health administration is removing obstacles, and on the other the education system is telling kids they might be "born in the wrong body" if they don't fit into a given mold, and than hide the information about the child's transition from parents, that sounds like it all adds up to putting children on a path to transition.
Which "mutilations" had the minimum age requirements changed? What are the new requirements?
The following recommendations are made regarding the requirements for gender affirming medical and surgical treatment:
(...)
F. The adolescent has reached Tanner 2 stage of puberty for pubertal suppression. G. The adolescent is the following age for each treatment:
- 14 years and above for hormone treatment (estrogens or androgens), unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame.
- 15 years and above for chest masculinization; unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame.
- 16 years and above for breast augmentation, facial surgery (including rhinoplasty, tracheal shave, and genioplasty) as part of gender affirming treatment; unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame.
- 17 and above for metoidioplasty, orchidectomy, vaginoplasty, and hysterectomy and fronto-orbital remodeling as part of gender affirming treatment unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame.
- 18 years or above for phalloplasty, unless there are significant, compelling reasons to take an individualized approach, considering the factors unique to the adolescent treatment frame"
H. The adolescent had at least 12 months of gender affirming hormone therapy, or longer if required to achieve the desired surgical result for gender-affirming procedures including, Breast augmentation, Orchiectomy, Vaginoplasty, Hysterectomy, Phalloplasty metoidioplasty and facial surgery as part of gender affirming treatment unless hormone therapy is either not desired or is medically contraindicated.
6.12.f- The adolescent has reached Tanner stage 2 of puberty for pubertal suppression to be initiated.
6.12.g- The adolescent had at least 12 months of gender-affirming hormone therapy or longer, if required, to achieve the desired surgical result for gender-affirming procedures, including breast augmentation, orchiectomy, vaginoplasty, hysterectomy, phalloplasty, metoidioplasty, and facial surgery as part of gender-affirming treatment unless hormone therapy is either not desired or is medically contraindicated.
There's also points A-E, but everything about minimum ages has been removed.
Edit: I think they mention the 18 years for phalloplasty when they elaborate on the chapter.
HorthyMiklosKatonaja
1hr ago
A disproportionate percentage of Reddit powermods are trans, so of course dissent from trans-worship is not going to be welcome there.
NunoSempere
1hr ago
What says The Motte?
This makes a lot of sense to me, particularly on the Ukraine side. On the Russian side, I'm not so sure, and in particularly I'm not so sure that both sides will share an understanding of what is a reasonable compromise.
Place: Place, Japan
So, I'm currently planning a holiday in South Korea over the Christmas period, and when researching places it's common to come across posts on social media asking whether SK or Japan is a better place to visit. The outcome is always the same: regardless of the comparison, Japan is virtually always touted as the best destination in East Asia. Note - I don't want this to be any kind of anti-Japanese post, since I actually quite enjoy Japanese food, culture, etc quite a bit, and see how it would be attractive to a tourist. However, I'm not quite certain why it is that Japan gets hyped up to this degree, compared to other Asian countries.
I am a very archaeology and history-focused person, so keep this in mind when reading this post.
The arguments many travellers make in favour of the pro-Japan position primarily rely on historical significance: there's the characterisation of Japan as being a uniquely cultural place, filled with ancient historical shrines, palaces and temples that can't be found elsewhere in East Asia - Korea in specific is considered to be generally devoid of meaningful culture as compared to Japan due to the history of destruction in the country from the Imjin War onwards. But once you've looked further into this Japan begins to look more and more like any other East Asian country: it certainly wasn't unscathed by the war, and because many of its buildings are wooden it's been repeatedly ravaged by fires, bombs and so on that have destroyed many of its cultural sites, most of which have been rebuilt repeatedly over time.
Here are a handful of examples:
Senso-ji. This is one of the most significant temples in Tokyo and a major tourist site. It was destroyed during the extensive WW2 firebombing in 1945, and the buildings still standing today are reconstructions dating to about 1951-1973. These buildings are undoubtedly amazing, but certainly not old - the famous pagoda is younger than Nicholas Cage.
Osaka Castle + Nagoya Castle + any number of other "historical" castles in Japan. These are probably some of the most egregious examples, considering that they're unashamed ferroconcrete reconstructions of the original castles. Osaka was destroyed in the Boshin War in 1868 and Nagoya was destroyed in WW2 in 1945 - the reconstructions hail from 1931 - 1959, with the insides being tourist-trap museums complete with lifts and other modern amenities.
Kinkaku-ji. Probably the most obvious and recent example of a reconstruction in Kyoto - this reconstruction was built in 1955 after a schizophrenic, suicidal monk burned the original structure down, and now it draws so many tourists that it's definitely suffering from overtourism. You can hardly see the temple for the most part, because of the throngs of tourists lining up to get even the slightest glimpse of the (admittedly very beautiful) golden pavilion.
Nijo Castle. Let me be clear, this palace is incredible. The Ninomaru Goten Palace is wonderful and truly historic. While I bet it's been thoroughly Ship-Of-Theseused over the years due to the need for constant renovations and upkeep, it is a structure that's persisted continuously over the years and its construction was fully completed in 1626. Many of the other structures in Nijo Castle, however, are not like this - the actual Honmaru Goten Palace was burned to the ground in the 1700s, and the current structure standing there today is actually another palace carted from another site from the Kyoto Imperial Palace.
Kyoto. Yes, Kyoto. This is attacking a steelman, since Kyoto is the historic city of Japan, but even that's not an ancient city - 90% of the city was burned to the ground during the Great Fire of 1788, and as a result in the bounds of the old city there are not more than 10 to 12 buildings pre-dating 1788. Of course, this doesn't mean the city isn't historically or culturally significant - but as a result most of Kyoto is not older than the Edo period.
There are many more examples I could offer - Kiyomizu-dera is a temple with ancient heritage but which had to be rebuilt in 1633, To-ji Temple was rebuilt in 1644, and so on. I'm sure you can find some truly old structures in Japan - the opulent Golden Hall of Chuson-ji comes to mind, a structure that was built in the 11th century and remains extant up to this day. But as a general rule, most of the structures in Japan are generally... not that old.
This is, of course, not how the Japanese view it. As Douglas Adams notes on his visit to Kinkaku-ji: “I remembered once, in Japan, having been to see the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto and being mildly surprised at quite how well it had weathered the passage of time since it was first built in the fourteenth century. I was told it hadn’t weathered well at all, and had in fact been burnt to the ground twice in this century. “So it isn’t the original building?” I had asked my Japanese guide. “But yes, of course it is,” he insisted, rather surprised at my question. “But it’s burnt down?” “Yes.” “Twice.” “Many times.” “And rebuilt.” “Of course. It is an important and historic building.” “With completely new materials.” “But of course. It was burnt down.” “So how can it be the same building?” “It is always the same building.” I had to admit to myself that this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view, it merely started from an unexpected premise. The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building. The intention of the original builders is what survives. The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary. To be overly concerned with the original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.”
It is a not-uncommon East Asian view that buildings can be demolished and rebuilt and still be considered the same structure, as long as it sits on the same site and serves the same purpose. Many believe that changes to the structure are really just another step in its evolution, and this is perfectly okay - the Japanese answer to the Ship of Theseus is in fact "yes, it's the same ship". Ise Shrine, for example, is in fact ceremoniously demolishing and rebuilding the structure in an event called Shikinen Sengu. But this kind of leads to a bit of weird, unintentionally misleading marketing, where buildings that are barely older than the 20th century get marketed as "ancient", which leads a Westerner to think that the actual extant building in fact does date back to the 5th century when in fact it's newer than some New York buildings.
The historicity of South Korean buildings, in this light, seems not that different to that of Japanese ones. Here are a couple of notable examples:
Changdeokgung. This Joseon palace was finished in 1412, but multiple wars and fires have resulted in a wildly differing age distribution among the structures of the palace. All of it was destroyed during the Imjin War in 1592, except Geumcheongyo Bridge which dates back to 1411. The palace was restored in 1609, and the oldest proper building (the Donhwamun Gate) can be traced back to this date. Other structures date from 1804 into the 20th century, though the reconstruction generally seems to have been fairly authentic. The secret garden, located north of the palace complex itself, is generally quite old - the buildings and gardens have sustained their original forms from around the end of the Joseon Dynasty.
Jongmyo Shrine. This is a Joseon-era Confucian shrine housing the spirit tablets of Joseon monarchs, initially built in 1394 but (unfortunately) burned down during the Imjin War. The spirit tablets were saved by hiding them in a commoner's house, and the current reconstruction dates all the way back to 1601. Note: This shrine is old enough that its reconstruction is as old as the aforementioned Ninomaru Palace in Japan.
Haeinsa Temple. This remarkable place houses the Tripitaka Koreana, a series of 81,258 wooden printing blocks with text inscribed on it that form one of the most complete Buddhist texts ever, and they are 750 years old. The buildings themselves were first established in 802 AD, but most of it was destroyed by fire in 1818 and rebuilt shortly after. The Janggyeong-panjeon (the storage hall housing the Koreana), however, is very old, and while it's not known exactly how old it is it's possibly ancient, having survived both the fire and the highly destructive Imjin War.
Seokguram Grotto. This is an artificial grotto facing the East Sea with a gigantic statue of Seokgamoni-bul (the Historical Buddha) inside it. Its construction dates all the way back to 742, at the height of the Unified Silla kingdom. The structure fell into ruin over the years, and while there were some repairs over the Joseon period, disrepair continued because of their suppression of Buddhism. During the Japanese colonial period, there were attempts to repair the Buddhist sites around Gyeongju (including Seokguram) as an attempt to establish a sort of pan-Asian buddhism to unite their colonies and distinguish themselves from the Joseon Dynasty they had taken over from, and their photos here in 1922 suggest that the statue of Seokgamoni-bul inside is ancient.
I could go into more, but this post is already long enough with the histories of random East Asian artefacts, so I'll move on. Maybe it's the amount of historical sites in each country that are informing people's evaluations. But I don't see South Korea as having less in this regard either, at least not if you look a little bit. There are historic tombs and burial mounds all over the country, including in Seoul, Gyeongju and so on. The Namsan mountain south of Gyeongju alone has over 100 ancient buddhist sites, many of them are spectacular like the Chilburam buddha sculptures (8th century) or the Sambulsa statue triad (7th century). There is just so much to find once you dig a bit deeper beyond the Instagram-friendly sites.
Choosing SK as a point of comparison is also making it harder for me. Comparing Japan with the big granddaddy of East Asia, China, makes proving my point that Japan isn't the be-all-end-all of East Asia trivially easy: there's the ancient walled city of Pingyao that looks like something out of a fantasy, the Mogao cave temples, etc, so many truly epic sites there it's really hard to know where to start. The Cultural Revolution, try as it might, couldn't erase everything; China was a huge stable empire for most of its history and its historical sites are appropriately spectacular.
Note I'm not bashing Japan, again I quite like it and think it's a very nice place to visit. It's just always baffled me the amount of esteem it receives over... well, pretty much any other travel destination. Perhaps it really just is that it was a big cultural and tech exporter during the 20th century, and that's kind of rippled through our cultural consciousness and resulted in Japan being The Place To Be.
NunoSempere
1hr ago
Lol, this makes sense :)
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
Were fertility rates higher before because it was easier to raise children (to some required standard) then?
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1hr ago
Protest in Hyderabad against Punjab's construction of more canals on the Indus river.
This particular bit of news almost gave me an aneurysm haha.
We've got our own Punjab in India. And a city called Hyderabad, on the opposite sides of the country. And I was wondering if I had slept through some geography lessons because I didn't think the Indus (despite the name) passed through India.
I was scratching my head at the idea of why people would bother protesting something that had absolutely no bearing on them, until I actually opened the link and found out it was the Pakistanis this time.
mrvanillasky
1hr ago
Listened to some more music from the past. Pendulum recently uploaded their cover of the taylor swift song anti-hero. Electronic music peaked in the early 2010s given how little new stuff we have coming out that is any different.
More music is being made today, but somehow it sounds less creative and generally worse. I am not old and feel like my dad when I say this. My dad famously only listens to music pre-90s since and he was my age in the 90s lol. Art forms peak and decline, electronic music might be this way.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1hr ago
How the hell do people have kids??
I'm a rather pronatal person. I very much would like 2 kids at the bare minimum, 3 if I can wrangle it. Not today, or next year, but starting hopefully in my early 30s.
That being said, I find the prospect of having kids in the West deeply anxiety inducing. How do people manage while being in nuclear families? Where do they get the time and energy?
If I did have kids back in India, I'd have the immense relief of parents willing to lend financial and physical assistance rearing them, and happily. Domestic help to boot. Schooling and education costs nowhere near as bad as in the West. Even if you don't have the family to help out nearby, parenting is definitely easier for a professional couple.
When I look at the comparative difficulty in the West, I find it not particularly surprising how fertility rates have plummeted. I'm all for it in theory, but deeply daunted in practise myself. Especially assuming my prospective partner is a working professional.
FWIW, the last 1-2 years has been a nightmare of overtourism. I've been living and traveling here for over a decade and it's never been this bad in Tokyo. So maybe visit somewhere else and come back after the boom is over. Don't worry, the yen is probably permanently ruined so it'll stay cheap.
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