Moderates and the Truth

Often enough one hears from moderates and those who think they are wise, that the truth is always somewhere in between.

Bullshit.

It's an attempt to sound clever, to sound like maybe they don't have everything right, but you certainly don't either.

The simple answer: the truth is.

Now.

The truth is often far more complex than we can process with many facets, value judgements, and factors that interact in many ways. The truth of poverty is that there are those who, due to advances in technology and changes in manufacturing, or sickness, or something, are screwed, and will need, through no fault of their own, charity of some form. There are also those who are lazy, who given the opportunity to work, will not. One example is asking a street corner beggar if he's willing to work for a meal instead of begging for change. The ones scamming you, getting a few bucks for booze or doing far better than they present themselves, will tell you to fuck off. The ones in need who are willing to do their share will say yes, and will be grateful because you let them do something to earn the charity.

This is much like the arguments of post-modernism that there are an infinite number of ways to look at something, so they then further conflate it with the claim that none of them are privileged, or better than the others.

Bullshit.

I've discussed elsewhere that categories for things, like "music", "fantasy", or "science fiction" can be fuzzy, such that two things can legitimately claim that label and share few if any common points.

Yet, a book is not an ocean liner. The things we call "books", unless we arbitrarily label anything and everything a "book" because we do not care to communicate ideas to people without developing a new vocabulary, share a set of features readily and quickly discernable from those shared by boats, ships, or ocean liners.

Thus with truth. Sometimes, both parties are completely wrong. But if you drew a Venn diagram, the truth won't necessarily be between the two circles. It may be, much like the left-right definition used by the political left where Nazis - creatures of the left -  are on the right, and libertarians are outside the bounds of their political scale. Or it may be completely tangental.

Or it may be that one side is, within a reasonable approximation, correct.

Moderates like to say this bullshit a lot, and like to believe that by being in between, at neither extreme, that they are more correct (and smarter than everyone else).

The world doesn't care. A book is not a ship. Or an airplane.

Even More Dunkirk, and Molyneux

As always, Stefan has some interesting thoughts, though this is less a review than a discussion of some of the meta-politics.

Commitment, and Computers

Stefan Molyneux recently posted on commitment, which turned a common paradign, one that I've intermittently laughed at, on it's head.

Give it a listen. I'll be back later with some more thoughts on it.

Also worth watching, on a completely different tack:

A Little Bit of Jeffro

Since Jeffro often posts odd thoughts to Google+ and not just to his own (less and less frequently posted) blog or the Castalia House blog, so odd bits of wisdom often slip in that don't show up elsewhere.

That's fine, but one thing came up that should be seen by other people, so...

Jeffro, after looking back at the last month of his working on fitness:

* My fitness philosophy: get your butt to the gym... three days a week... for 45 minute workouts... even if it's just to sit on the curb to smoke a cigarette during that time. Just do that much and everything else will take care of itself.

* There a lot of noise to sift through on this topic, a lot of well meaning people will steer you towards injury so take responsibility for everything, go slow, and pay attention to your body. My first instinct was to do three sets of ten as hard as I could stand it. I am certain that would have eventually wrecked me had I stuck to it. I dialed back to 2 sets of twenty set at right where I could handle it... and that kept me on the weight machines without noticeable risk (for the moment.) I tried changing it up to 2 sets of twenty, 1 set of 10, 1 set of 3... increasing the weights each time. But for my frame, my age, and my level of unfitness, this "get in there and max out" mentality just doesn't seem to be an option.

* The idea that I am "training" as opposed to "dieting" is a significant reframe. For one... dieting is for women and for womanly reasons. Training is inherently more comprehensive and more visionary. An entirely different tone overtakes the conversation when you open with "no thank you, I'm training" than when you say "no thank you, I'm on a diet." The former person is going after something. The latter... he was put under time out because he couldn't behave.

* My mental models of what is happening and why develop as I continue. Eating right is part of the workout. Resting is part of the workout. Taking time to go to the doctor is part of the workout. Brainstorming about fitness with people is part of the workout.

* One month of working out has had enough noticable impact on my appearance that continuing the habit is a no-brainer. I am not beach body ready, but having a more defined physique makes me look better in a t-shirt. No, there are plenty of athletic guys that I will never catch up to. But when I see lanky guys slouching on the bus, that defeated posture, that vibe that the give off of having let themselves go...? It's a stark contrast. I give off a much more active vibe. I feel better. I go out more, talk to more people, do more things. It's like... I'm in some kind of arena that these other guys won't touch. No one will tell them what they're missing out on and how easy it would be for them to have it.

* That said... I know why I didn't do this earlier. Injuries put an end to every fitness kick I've gone on previously. I went further and did more this time than any time previously, but I still needed solid direction and sound medical support in order to maintain this round. So you've got a gym membership, you're looking at buying a new bike, you're paying for red meat and spending time cooking, and then you want to throw doctor's bills into the mix, too...? The much vaunted "humility" that so many people want to lay at my door would exert itself strenuously against this. "Look, focusing on appearance is vanity." "Why go to the gym when I could just dig a few post holes?" "Oh, look... I'm not worth the expense. Here... you all take this slice of the budget and go do that other thing instead."

* What is the mindset at the root of that? Well that's where it gets scary, because I see it now for what it is. It is this reflexive tendency to insist on sitting in the back of the bus. To let everyone else go ahead of me, not out of a sense of chivalry but out of some kind of shame. It's a weird attempt to make a virtue of sitting out of the game of life rather than jumping into it and making a play. That's why success at fitness now makes me so angry. It's just not that hard. The payoffs are immediate and fun and energizing. But the thing that was holding me back for decades...? It was something in my head. Nice sounding lies. I don't know who to blame for it, really. But I absolutely hate it. The waste makes me furious.

* And yes, when I think of all the young guys struggling with any sort of strain of depression... it does make me angry that they will be handed some kind of drugs without ever being told to go invest in themselves. Such a disaster. Such a waste. 

Among other things, I think the focus on "training" vs "dieting" is, shile seemingly small and subtle, trivial even, nevertheless profound.

One is working toward something, the other is denying yourself. It goes hand in hand with what Jordan Peterson has said about establishing a narrative or purpose that makes the suffering worthwhile.

On a smaller note, our successors are getting red-pilled:

My son got a report on this from someone that was there. Kid says Trump said the media would lie about he was going to say. He comes back home, checks the news and... boom. Kid's mind is blown. Everything Trump said came true. This event red pilled a lot of young kids who were (for the Left) the worst group of people that could possibly be red pilled. This will bear fruit. A good chunk of these kids know that "Fake News" is absolutely an accurate characterization of the media.

Related to this:

No Spoilers?

Bradford Walker discusses using spoilers as a method to avoid wasting time on crap.

In many cases, the summaries are sufficiently thorough that I can discuss the work in question with people who've consumed it and not miss a beat. (This is a reliable tell regarding the work in question, and often of its fandom.) Letting others talk has done far more to tell me that I was right to go with the spoiler and skip it than to convince me otherwise. Using spoilers as a screen allows me to avoid most of the crap.

At first I was surprised by the title, but realized that dammit, I do the same thing, almost.

I don't go out of my way to find spoilers unless the trailers and marketing have social justice/message fic "tells", but I certainly don't go out of my way to avoid them. Good movies, stories, and shows bear rereading or watching (say, The Usual Suspects) even after you know the "surprise" twist. "Twists" in social justice crap almost always involve exactly what one would think even if the exact method or lines of dialog are open to different verbiage.

As Walker implied, the works in question aren't really that imaginative, and the stories and themes are far more repetitive than anything Ms Grundy or the church ladies would impose.

The most egregious example being an episode of L&O:SJW (more commonly known as the longest running fantasy series "SVU") where on seeing the trailer I predicted a) this would be the one time a guy was falsely accused of rape (because he's black), they wouldn't punish the women, and the old white guy who was his manager / whatever would somehow turn out to be the bad guy. How did I know? Repeat after me... because if there's a straight white guy he's somehow responsible for everything, and if it looks like there's a black bad guy, he's not.

But I'd argue that Dune, while Excellent, is overrated, and I'd instead put Mote in Gods Eye (I know, I know, YMMV)