Day: December 22, 2024, 7:47 PM

No Hum Ho Hum

Chill WTF

I assign that face 0.0 because it does not look like a real human at all.

Anyway, supermodels aren’t what the vast majority of straight men find the most attractive. I thought Aella would know this? Supermodels are picked for being unusual-looking and statuesque as much as being hot qua hot. And “hottest women in the world” lists are nearly all assembled by women and gay men. Straight men have little to no input and so those lists do not match male preferences in the least. How does Aella not realize these things, as smart as she is?

Scarlett Johansson in her 20s would be an an example of what most men1 would claim as the pinnacle of female attractiveness and though she’s very beautiful, her physique and even face do not look like the typical supermodel’s.

And there’s a reason for that.

  1. My tastes differ.

Head Cracks

Chill Regular-ass Post

That’s part of it, but not the major reason. Most don’t intervene because the crackhead is unpredictable and has far less to lose than anyone who will step in. A meth fiend will shank you because it amuses them. Or because they think you are Bigfoot.

They are manic stabby dream crack fiend. And a stab or two is all it takes to really ruin you life. Hence, it doesn’t pay to intervene for most.

Kaos

Chill Regular-ass Post

I took this moral alignment test and got about what I expected, Chaotic Neutral:

I know these aren’t all that scientific. However, this does describe me pretty exactly. In fact, if I had to write a description of myself (particularly of my relation to groups; I’ve made nearly identical statements on this blog) it’s pretty darn close to what I’d say.

I think it’s a misunderstanding to claim that to us “good and evil are irrelevant” — it’s just that we do not allow anyone else to define what good and evil is. For us, it is immanent.

“Chaotic Neutral people are often extremely difficult to deal with.” You don’t say….

Chill Links

Social Security measure passes Senate, sending it to Biden.

The Ghosts in the Machine. Spotify’s plot against musicians. Fuck Spotify and fuck you if you use it.

The Global Hunt for Putin’s ‘Sleeper Agents.’

Women show fewer manipulative traits in gender-equal countries. In less equal societies, women score higher on Machiavellianism, possibly due to greater reliance on manipulative strategies to navigate challenging environments.

A new psychological study has shown that when people know they are under surveillance it generates an automatic response of heightened awareness of being watched, with implications for public mental health.

How Did We End Up with Such a Bad Health-Care System?

Bait-and-Switch. Scummy stuff like this seems more common these days.

Health insurers limit coverage of prosthetic limbs, questioning their medical necessity.

Chill Quote

Skinner became convinced that this principle explained human behavior almost in its entirety. You believe that you are free, and that you make choices, and you have a complex human mind that is selecting what to pay attention to -but it’s all a myth. You and your sense of focus are simply the sum total of all the reinforcements you have experienced in your life. Human beings, he believed, have no minds —not in the sense that you are a person with free will making your own choices. You can be reprogrammed in any way that a clever designer wants. Years later, the designers of Instagram asked: If we reinforce our users for taking selfies — if we give them hearts and likes — will they start to do it obsessively, just like the pigeon will obsessively hold out its left wing to get extra seed? They took Skinner’s core techniques, and applied them to a billion people.

Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari