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1. A significant part of why I havenât been able to be a part of any real ingroup: I think most groups usually have some truth at the heart of it, and also tend to deny some other truth(s). The former makes me seek out deplorable folk, the latter tends to get me excommunicated
2. At my core I am somewhat sociopathic and nihilistic. I donât think life is sacred. I think most of social life is an elaborate game of charisma and PR. I _try_ to be somewhat ethical and sincere, but I think thatâs mostly because the people I like most also seem to be that way
3. My personal views on gender are derivative - ie it doesnât matter what I think, it matters what everyone else thinks. So I think itâs particularly important for men to be physically strong, to be economically useful, smart and sensitive
4. Cultural appropriation is overly-broad terminology that doesnât properly describe the problem it tries to discuss, and this is annoyingly counter-productive because then people talk past each other instead of acknowledging&addressing minority/native/immigrant grievances
5. Re: gay marriage - I think marriage itself is a silly and outdated institution. My wife & I got married because the paper let us buy a house. Non-cishet people shouldnât be deprived of the legal benefits of marriage. But marriage itself is dumb. I play along for social reasons
6. Breastfeeding - itâs utterly ridiculous that this is a controversial issue anywhere in the world. Breasts literally exist for the purpose of feeding babies. If you have a problem with this you need a good spanking. Let moms feed their kids
7. Pineapples on pizzas. If you donât like it, donât eat it. Simple. Done. Why does this take up any bandwidth anywhere? Who invented this bullshit controversy? They too need a spanking. Eat whatever you want. Unfriend anybody who has a problem with this
8. âPolitical correctnessâ has become another almost meaningless phrase. Itâs true that some people are rather tediously pedantic - but thatâs not nearly as tiresome as shitty comedians wasting everyoneâs time complaining about how theyâre not allowed to be offensive anymore
9. I find it baffling that so many people have unwanted pregnancies from unprotected sex. I make sure to be a kind and supportive friend to anybody going through that, ofc. Itâs like drunk driving or playing with a loaded gun. Why would you do it. Just jerk off, problem solved
10. I donât think thereâs anything wrong with being effeminate or âunmanlyâ. But itâs fascinating to me how there are men who subscribe to such âtraditionalâ views, AND whine about feminism. Shouldnât such manly men toughen up and deal with life, rather than bitch and moan? đ¤
11. Whenever I see someone complaining about the job market and external factors beyond their control, I want to shake them hard and tell them that, while the world should be more just, their time would be best spent improving their own employability. Put your own mask on 1st etc
12. Some nitpicking is useful, but a lot of it is trash. As a general rule I am distrustful of anybody who nitpicks others liberally without having a body of work that others might nitpick in turn. An order of magnitude more so if anonymous
13. A lot of criticism is trash thatâs written to show off how smart the critic is. The best reviews, even negative ones, are written by people who obviously have a love for music, theatre, movies, etc. You can feel it. Trash critics are negative externalities + should be ignored
14. I have very little patience for makers who spend lots of time complaining about âlack of supportâ. Some frustration is understandable but your complaints should be dwarfed by the volume and excellence of your work. Nobody owes you their eyeballs; earn it
15. I think censorship is overblown as a threat to art. Censorship is a constraint. Get creative! Be subtle! Write satire! Work with it, integrate it into your work. What you choose to leave out, and how you do that, can speak volumes. Artists find a way to get their point across
16. I strongly believe that almost everything that exists should have someoneâs name on it. I love that Steve Jobs got the original Mac team to sign the case. People should be proud of what they put into the world. If nobody wants to put their name on it, it shouldnât exist. https://t.co/bzhEqSD0Dh
17. I hate it when people post non-contributing comments that clutter up a public space and make it impossible to read. A politicianâs FB page is an opportunity, with the right moderation, for genuine civic engagement. (All hidden comments should be accessible via âShow trashâ)
19. If Googleâs latest developments are legit, soon bots will be more interesting and fun to talk to than a subset of people. I kinda look forward to the mess this is going to cause, which feels a little naughty to admit
20. While Iâve tried to be more respectful of peopleâs privacy and agency etc over the years, I still fundamentally believe that practically all of it is going to get steamrollered by new tech in the coming years, decades. Our social norms will shift as a result
21. Recap eg of #1 â I am simultaneously a nihilist and a bleeding heart hippie. I accidentally end up blaspheming in every ingroup church. In many ways I think humanity is cruel in the ways we try to avoid suffering. There are worse things than death
22. When a baby is abandoned to die, I feel quite a bit bad for the baby, but I think I might actually feel worse for the (usually teenaged) mother https://t.co/NlHwPLhfNl
23. Re: suicide. You were brought to this party without your consent. if you wanna leave, you should be able to leave. Everybody guilt-tripping you about leaving is like FB saying "your friends will miss you if you delete your account!" https://t.co/kOqOBisNFq
(Content warning: talking about suicide, if you have suicidal thoughts I am morally obligated to ask you to seek help, Google for helplines - itâs a leading cause of death and suffering, often a permanent solution to a temporary problem, please take care of yourself & each other)
24. People say things like "oh think about all the suffering you will cause the people you leave behind"â but that's also a sort of meta-guilt-trip. The suffering is a function of other people's expectations of how you're supposed to behave (ie, DO NOT DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT)
25. there are 2 thoughts that convince me not to ragequit and delete my account a. the red washing down the bathtub can't change the color of the sea â ie nobody will remember or care. there are more creative, fun ways to express your disdain b. I haven't seen tomorrow's memes https://t.co/IknR4RwzEF
26. I think shitty families are possibly the most under-discussed, under-acknowledged source of misery and trauma in the world, and I think it's ridiculous that lots of people I've talked to have nobody to discuss that with
27. You know how social media means that everybody is projecting an inaccurate image for everyone else? There's something similar re: how women are portrayed in the mediaâ usually an extension of the fantasies of male writers. I honestly think its a crime against humanity
28. I think ultimately people spend time debating the issue of pineapples on pizzas because it's a distraction for discussing actual issues that they should personally be dealing with. It's like playing games on your phone to avoid your todo list which is scary and unpleasant
29. Heterodoxy is just orthodoxy inverted; declaring yourself a contrarian just means aligning yourself with all the other predictable contrarians aligned in the same vector. You could make a point about being orthogonal, but eventually that term becomes meaningless too
(Any time thereâs a label that starts getting fashionable, itâll get flooded with bad imitators who use it as a substitute for thinking. Roughly akin to how todayâs hot new startup becomes tomorrowâs corporate bureaucracy. Itâs an inescapable part of the cycle of trash)
30. I honestly think virtue-signalling is a very interesting phenomenon and Iâd love to see somebody study it in a non-judgemental, dispassionate way. Eg Iâd love to read a non-satirical, good-hearted guide to becoming better at signalling virtue. Would be illuminating and fun!
31. In my alternate universe, yelling at service staff would be punishable by torture. Iâm tired of pretending we have to be measured and âreasonableâ about this. (It would be done with impeccable service, of course.) https://t.co/A3c65m5CXU
32. Also punishable by torture: - asking indie creators to work for free, then insulting them when they refuse - insulting/threatening anybody who rejects your romantic/sexual advances - playing devilâs advocate https://t.co/kkxVZq3yfs
33. I generally get turned off by anything that sounds like this, even if it makes some amount of sense. People are so eager to draw these chalk circles on the ground and insist that everybody belong in one or another https://t.co/toCvxyGSmO
34. âIdentity politicsâ is another stupid phrase. Itâs so stupid I get turned off from reading up about what itâs supposed to signify. All politics is personal, identities are personal, so... what politics isnât identity politics? (I have a feeling Iâm going to regret this one)
35. While weâre at it, ârightâ, âleftâ, âliberalâ and âconservativeâ are all stupid words. Hell, words like âsocialismâ, âlibertarianâ, âdemocracyâ and ârepublicâ are all stupid words. Itâs not the wordsâ fault but peopleâs blundering usage of them. We are truly godless heathens
38. Everything is stupid https://t.co/LkN6q3E9AI
39. Several of the previous tweets (eg views on marriage, suicide, etc) involve me saying "I play along for social reasons". I think that's a nuanced thing about contrarianism that over-eager contrarians don't get: if you're just being abrasive for its own sake, you get shut out
39b. You could say that a lot of my development over the years has really been about infiltrating social groups, learning their norms, appreciating their values, then play-acting as "One Of Us" better than 80% of them. This gives me access to a lot more info than if I insult them
40. I am equally capable of role-playing as: - a feminist - a communist - a redpiller - a SJW - a globalist - a model minority - pro-Trump - anti-Trump - pro-tech - tech critic - etc It's not hard to manipulate people (but you forget what you look like, as a faceless one)
41. In every case, it's easier to be an asshole than to be nourishing. This is still true when you pick a team that seems to have the moral high ground. It's also possible to pick a team that *doesn't* have the moral high ground + be nourishing and supportive. I do this for fun
42. "It's taking me a lot of time to process precisely which thoughts are useful to express, and how to best express them." This is a game of dogwhistles â I'm trying to signal my interestingness to interesting people without saying something I'd regret https://t.co/53xzTp34fP
43. entitled consumers are trash https://t.co/DFeBnsy8YZ