youvegottohelpyourself - Tumblr blog

[youvegottohelpyourself]

Location, Location, Location...

On a certain corner of Twitter you will often see Tweets like these, where the merits of a city are discussed, most especially in relation to other cities. I always found these kinds of tweets off the mark, there are hardly any differences between even London and Shanghai, much less two American cities (this guy is also wrong about cafes). The whole thing reeks of narcissism and status signaling, as if people are hyping a place up to use the city itself as a fashion statement. After all, it hardly takes any effort to move to a place. Much easier to move to Bushwick and “drift through cafés at night” LARPing as a “bohemian” than to actually do the work of cultivating artistic knowledge or talent.

With the invention of the car and airplane, people have been free to move across the country at the drop of a hat. Much of the population of any given place consists of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation transplants from other areas—not to mention, immigrants from other countries. These transplants have over time, diluted and made extinct the varied regional cultures across the US. There is really no longer such a thing as a “Virginian” as there may have been in the 1800s—all local identities and cultures have long been subsumed into that of “American.” The printing press, radio, television, and internet have lead to even more extreme levels of homogenization. What you will find, whether in New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, is that people consume the same media and are subject to the same social pressures as those elsewhere across the country. As I’m sure you’re aware, most people are not really individuals, but status maximizing robots that mirror the tastes and views of high status people and institutions. As those tastes and views are the same no matter where you are, the general population consists of carbon copies of various archetypes with small variations between them and a very small handful of true individuals.

Global brands like Starbucks and McDonald’s have displaced older and more historical retail stores, leading to the same stores and brands in every city. Architecture too, consists of the same steel skyscraper abominations, with maybe, a smattering of a few decaying historical buildings. Even the layout of the city itself is shared between cities, with most being some variation of a grid pattern. Perhaps the only differentiating factor left is the geography of the location itself, such as rivers or mountains. Though really, what is the difference, from our perspective as a city dweller between the Thames and the Potomac? Any city with a river is interchangeable with any other that shares a river.

Although it pains me to say, because I loathe to reduce everything to just numbers, where you live really just boils down to a few key statistics such as average temperature/humidity, population size, cost of living, demographic makeup, crime rate, and available jobs. Some cities may have a quirk, like New York being big or San Jose being full of tech workers, but these are just quirks and do little to meaningfully differentiate the city beyond that one trait. The quality of life and people you meet are really going to be the same as any other place with similar statistics. Any real regional differences in areas have long since evaporated and only exist in the overactive imaginations of Twitter posters.

There is another aspect to the Tweet above that really bothered me, the “be a bohemian” comment. In the current year, the artist is little more than an identity to adopt for status signaling. Real artistic talent, and indeed even knowledge of the arts, has been, along with everything else, on a slow decline since the late 19th century. One does not “become a bohemian” by adopting the signs of a bohemian—drinking coffee in some trendy café in a trendy neighborhood does not make you a bohemian any more than putting on a space suit makes you an astronaut. It is actually impossible to be a bohemian, because the Bohemians, like the beatnik, hippie, hipster, and other related artistic movements are completely dead. You are just LARPing, adopting superficial aspects of some long gone group to craft a fake identity. If you want to channel the spirit of the bohemian, you must be something new entirely.

Fascination with cities or the hottest Brooklyn neighborhoods is a sure sign that you are not, in fact, channeling the spirit of the Bohemian and are instead just a narcissistic poser. This preoccupation with location and physical space is the old mindset of the old world. What distinguishes our age from that of other ages? What is new and exciting about our world? It is undoubtedly the invention of the internet, and so any real artistic movement is likely going to be location agnostic and internet focused. Yet, the internet too, is becoming old news and dying. Given the noted state of decline in just about everything, it’s entirely possible that in the end the internet spawns nothing of note. Still, I’m not holding my breath for “sock_dem” and others caught in this most ancient mindset.

[youvegottohelpyourself]

The New Nobles

I went to Manhattan for a weekend with my sister, and despite all of the sights of the city I think the most memorable thing was her interactions with the residents. There really aren’t many homeless people where my sister is from, and seeing so many of them in one place was perhaps in some twisted sense, another tourist attraction.

My sister, wanting to help, or maybe more cynically, to show off that she is a good person, offers to buy an elderly homeless woman she comes across a meal. The homeless woman graciously accepts her offer, and so my sister wanders off and finds one of the many ethnic food trucks around Manhattan and purchases a sandwich. Returning, we offer the sandwich to the response:

”I don’t want that! Those dirty foreigners touched it!” ”There’s a cafe down there, can you get one from there instead?”

My sister, a bit shocked by this blatant display of prejudice from this most choosy beggar, profusely apologizes, and tries to get out of the situation. With some effort, she manages to calm the woman down and walk away, instead choosing to eat the sandwich herself.

A bit later, we seek out a convenience store to buy something to drink and come across a 7/11. Standing in the alcove of the very narrow doorway, blocking our entrance is a disheveled middle aged man, loudly watching TikTok videos on his phone. “Excuse me, sir!” The man, still staring at his phone and standing in the doorway, leans against the wall and pulls the door open for us. “Wow, isn’t he nice? People are so nice up here!” We grab a few drinks, pay, and check out. The man still standing in the middle of the door, sees us, and pulls the door open again.

My sister pleased at this most basic pleasantry “thank you sir!” and in an act of kindness makes the mistake of asking the man a question: “Are you doing all right, sir? Can I help you out with anything?” Offended at this, the man starts to get a bit angry “What do you mean am I doing alright? Of course I’m doing all right!” This is met with more profuse apologies and attempts at calming the now, aggressive man down. Not liking where this whole thing was going I begin to walk away, hoping that she’ll get the message and follow along. Unfortunately she’s taking a bit so I have to go walk back and extract her from the situation. She turns to me, bewildered:

“I don’t understand… I just asked him if he was doing alright and he got super angry at me.”

I explain to her that she could have unintentionally come across as insulting, despite her good intentions, by implying the man looked like he was homeless or poor.

”Well people don’t normally hang out around stores like that if they’re not homeless right?”

”Yeah, you’re right, not normally… let’s just move on.”

In our final incident of the day, after a lot of walking around we needed to find a place to sit and rest for a while. Overlooking Central Park we found a large paved opening on the side of the road with a few benches. In the corner was an elderly homeless woman, but we weren’t very picky so it didn’t bother us. Now, although I or my sister didn’t see anything, evidently, this woman was relieving herself in the corner, basically pissing on the ground. Ignoring me, the woman confronts my sister.

”You know you’re very rude, I was going to the bathroom and you just sat down near me, I need my privacy you know.”

My sister, once again… starts to apologize but the woman quickly walks away. I’m a bit annoyed at this and tell her she didn’t have to apologize, telling her that what the woman did was not okay.

”No, no, plenty of people do that it’s normal…” she says, barely convinced of her own words.

What struck me about these three situations were that despite how clearly in the wrong the other people were, my sister genuinely apologized to all of them as if she did something wrong. This is all really, quite obvious but bears stating, so forgive me:

If you are homeless starving on the street, and refuse a meal for arbitrary reasons, the other person does not owe you an apology. You are not entitled to whatever meal you please, the classic adage “beggars can’t be choosers” applies.

You shouldn’t be standing in the middle of doorways blocking entry or exit, doing so is obstructive and makes you a general nuisance to the people around you. It doesn’t matter if you open doors for people, it doesn’t make you a nice guy, a real nice guy would just get out of the way. While it may be condescending to have someone offer to “help you out” when you don’t need it, it’s not a reason to get violent and aggressive with someone and a genuine apology should suffice to resolve the situation.

It is absurd to demand “privacy” when pissing in public, in one of the busiest cities in the world, outside of a major tourist attraction, Central Park. You shouldn’t be pissing on the street in the first place, it’s disgusting and unsanitary.

A common theme between these incidents is the entitlement of those involved. I am entitled to the sandwich I want, I am entitled to stand in the middle of a doorway, I am entitled to piss in public. You have a problem with this? It’s you that’s in the wrong - it’s my right. Yes, entitlement is the perfect word, there is an expectation to be treated like a titled person—a noble. It’s worth noting that all three people in these stories were black (but you knew that already, didn’t you?) and all spoke AAVE (I modified the wording for readability). I know my sister, and I know that she doesn’t say to a white person that opens the door for her, “sir.” Sir, that’s an apt choice of words isn’t it? It’s because she, like every other white liberal, treats black people as if they are nobles, because in modern day America, that is de facto what they are.

Blacks are completely immune from criticism of the peasants, or white people. To do so would be “racist” after all. Things have gotten so bad that we have people being let out of jail after randomly stabbing someone, or having their charges dropped entirely for heinous crimes like murder. A certain subset of blacks know this, and know that they can get away with whatever they want, so act in completely anti-social ways like those described above.

There is another element to this as well, the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” When a kid puts in a good earnest effort in an adult activity, like say, writing a story, a teacher may overenthusiastically congratulate them:

”The knight killed the Dragon with his sword. The princess kissed him. They lived happily ever after. The end.”

“Oh Timmy, this is really good! High fiiiive Timmy! Good joooob!”

We all know the kid didn’t really do a good job, they just did a good job for a kid. This is how white liberals treat black people, like they are children. The man opening the door for us wasn’t really nice. He was, maybe, “nice for a black person.” “Woooow good job Tyrone thanks so much for holding the door open!” This is a basic courtesy, it’s not worth commending or commenting on beyond a simple thank you. But for a black guy? It’s outstanding!

[youvegottohelpyourself]

The Hypocrisy of the Dissident "Right"

In my travels across the internet, I’ve come across the /snow/ board on lolcow.farm, a rumormongering hub where petty and spiteful women e-stalk an assortment of characters. Normally, gossip doesn’t really interest me, but one long running thread in particular caught my eye, “Post-Leftcows.” Now, the “post-left” is another group of people I don’t really care about, in fact I go out of my way to not mention them, because, being a bunch of fame whores, mentioning them even disparagingly is giving them exactly what they want and most definitely do not deserve. However, I will go on the record of calling them and their entire sphere a bunch of posers and talentless hacks. Anyway, what interested me about this thread was that “Moldbug” and “dissident right” were mentioned.

In the past, Moldbug would have been a guiding star for me intellectually, but I have since become much less fond of him for various reasons. Still, for all of his faults, Moldbug is a person worth paying attention to, so if something is going on with him I want to know. Unfortunately for me, there’s not much information about him in the thread, but the general dissident right is touched upon. I have a lot of problems with the dissident right, and that is because the dissident right’s most prominent leaders are not actually right wing despite professing right wing beliefs. The defining feature of the right, in my view as a rightist, is that the right aligns itself with reality and has integrity, a consistent set of beliefs. This is opposed to the left which cares more about not violating taboos and maintaining their social status than truth. The left as opposed to the right, frequently engages in hypocrisy almost as a matter of course. Not to say that what is viewed as "the right" today, like the Republican Party (which is hardly right wing) has integrity, because they obviously do not. I speak of the true right which has been dead for at least a century. I'm of the view that there is no real right wing today, aside from a few individuals.

Anyway, operating mostly on Twitter, the dissident right has spread its influence by courting the conservative masses and converting them to its cause. This was primarily done through unbearably trite tweets in which the hypocrisies and double standards of the left were called out over and over again. This worked for quite a while, but in the year 2023 it's quite obvious to all that leftists are hypocritical, so this recruiting strategy has hit the end of its natural life. The strategy is a bit different today. The idea seems to be to court the growing incel demographic (which statistically is actually leftist) and so, every major account now engages in nonstop, comically lopsided misogyny that makes even me, someone on the right, think that they are going too far.

Both of these developments are… quite annoying to me, as the entire intellectual basis of the dissident right movement was reactionary thought which emphasized an elitist aristocratic approach, one that certainly precludes “converting” people to a cause. This focus on quantity coincides more with democracy than monarchy or aristocracy, thus in my view, is a major turn towards leftism. It is actually probably a bit worse than this, as I suspect this shift is not entirely based on a changing ideology but also, just pure greed. Every single major account in the sphere has a grift, whether it be a podcast, book, or substack, so the more followers they accrue the more dollars added to their bank accounts each month.

While I do detest grifting hacks, the biggest problem is the hypocrisy. The entire sphere is full of people whose actions severely conflict with their professed beliefs, the list of hypocrisies is large, we will just focus on one group. A few key beliefs associated with the dissident right:

- That race is real and rooted in biology. - The “white” race, consisting of a collection of European races such as the English, the French, and the Germans is being disprivileged in their ancestral homelands, potentially becoming ethnic minorities in their own countries. - Family formation and marriage are integral for the survival of civilization. - There has been a gradual decline in morality and virtue, most notably sexual morality.

A particularly striking example of one whose actions conflict with the stated beliefs above is Delicious Tacos. Tacos is a sexpat whoremonger and extreme sexual degenerate. His name itself derives from his love of South American women and their “delicious tacos,” though he is also partial to Southeast Asians. Despite being in his 40s, Tacos is unmarried with no children to his name, though I suppose it’s possible he has a few mongrels running around Thailand unbeknownst to him. There are a litany of problems with Tacos, mostly relating to his comments about sexuality, but he has other questionable beliefs. It would really take too much time to cover them, perhaps check the lolcow threads? He has written a novel, essentially autofiction, that is relentlessly shilled on Twitter that I have not read and refuse to read (why read Tacos when I can read Dante?) I assume he is at least a good writer - though it is possible he is just mediocre, like most in the sphere. It is through this book that his presence is justified, if it is justified at all. “He’s an artist! Nobody is perfect!” I may be able to grant that to someone like Sam Hyde, another degenerate pervert, one with a clear—and not astroturfed—genius. Is Tacos really some great artist? His book is just a lurid collection of tales of his own sexual degeneracy. Is this what passes for art today?

I think anyone with a brain can see why someone like Delicious Tacos being such an important figure and above reproach in a “right wing” movement makes absolutely no sense at all. In a proper right wing society, people like him would be anathema to have around and yet today he is one of its leaders. If you view the “dissident right” as just a collection of racist/misogynist leftists it makes sense. Tacos is part of the “ingroup” the special group of grifters who run the show. To attack him is forbidden. His actions don’t matter so long as he mouths the right beliefs and sucks up to the right people.

In the end the only thing that matters are actions. Anyone can repeat a few slogans and say the right things. As mentioned above, I am on the right, I am concerned with the reality of the situation, not about how it might be perceived to attack certain figures. Words are not reality, actions are. This movement has long since been gutted by sociopaths who are right wing in name only, and cynically use their genuinely frustrated and demoralized followers as grifting fuel.

[youvegottohelpyourself]

Blind Optimization

In this tweet John Carmack, “King of the Nerds” demonstrates a key error of the tech enthusiast mindset, the desire to “optimize” and “minmax” every aspect of life. No thought is given to what the repercussions of such optimizations may be as optimization is considered a good in and of itself. Consider what would actually happen if this were to be done. There are a minority of readers that for whatever reason, “get stuck” at a certain point, so in order to help them out you change things to cater to their tastes and abilities, and now more people can “pass” than before. Does this sound familiar to you? It should, as this is really just another popular argument with the terms switched around.

When standards of education are lowered to accommodate poor performing students at the expense of high performing ones, the tech bro cries out in pain (they’re very good at taking tests you see.) Yet when put in the position of the struggling reader they immediately want the bar lowered to cater to them. This makes sense as techbros don’t read. “Um, there’s no “alpha” in reading, ROI is too low, books are for midwits. I’ll read a summary of the most important points.” Anyway, the result of such a policy is a watering down of the book, an erasure of artistic intent, and general homogenization to cater to the lowest common denominator.

For example, consider the works of Shakespeare. It turns out that reading the archaic English of Shakespeare is quite difficult for the uninitiated. Perhaps Carmack might suggest that we allow an AI “translate” Shakespeare into modern English so it is more accessible to the casual reader. This simplification of language would kill part of what makes Shakespeare unique and worth reading in the first place.

The desire for optimization is really just another manifestation of the cardinal sin of the tech enthusiast’s mindset, that of “quantity > quality.” More people are reading our books now! That must be a good thing right? It doesn’t even cross Carmack’s mind that not all readers are equal and that while you might have lost 1000 fewer readers in total, those you did lose were the best among them. Carmack's approach is entirely incorrect, it should actually be the opposite. There should be more people getting “stuck,” and if anything you should be writing to the tastes of those that don't get stuck. But hey, while we’re at it why stop with “getting stuck”? Let’s try to increase, rather than maintain our readership! The most popular selling books of the modern era include 50 Shades of Gray and Harry Potter, so we should take some notes.

“Well Mr. Carmack, our AI model says that reader engagement is quite low at this point… it recommends we should throw in an S&M sex scene?”

“Genius! We can follow it up with an epic wizard duel…”

”Uh sir, isn’t this a historical novel about the Battle of the Alamo…?”