Open Thread

Open Thread #378: Misc.

Aaron "Sleazy" Elias

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54 thoughts on “Open Thread #378: Misc.”

  1. Aaron,
    Have you heard of following house music called Klubbheads – Kickin Hard?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZd0ScVgMak

    Klubbheads – Kickin Hard was popular during the late 90s among the L.A. youth subculture called “rebels”. It was a subculture that involved dancing to hard house music. Mark V and Poogie Bear, DJ Irene were among the most popular DJs in the subculture.

    Reply

    1. I am not sure whether I have heard this track before but some of the samples used in it I am familiar with. This is not the kind of music I would listen to at home or in the car but I can certainly see it working well in a club, ideally one that is the size of a big warehouse.

  2. What are your favourite classical composers in the 20th century? I am listening to Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony. I find it a beautifully haunting symphony. I have listened to some classical pieces of John Williams, the composer for film music, but his pieces do not struck a chord with me.

    I remember Sleazy or someone else mentions that by the end of the last century, musicians fail to produce original classical pieces.

    This piece is film music that steeps in classical tradition. That’s the best I can find and have came to know.

    Why there are no longer any worthy classical music pieces today?

    Reply

    1. There is the far-right hypothesis that a meddling tribe took over the major Western music academies and installed their own, for instance Arnold Schönberg. By doing so, they managed to put an end to classical music. A similar far-right hypothesis is that the same happened in the visual arts as well, but these are just utterly ludicrous speculations. Probably only a bigot would prefer Beethoven to the genius Arnold Schönberg, or Rembrandt to a revolutionary luminary such as Mark Rothko.

      Shostakovich is arguably the most important composer of the 20th century. I am familiar with film music, but I find it shallow. On a side note, in the past a small number of women I met wanted to impress me with how cultured they are by putting on some crappy Hollywood film music such as the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Probably the best modern composers work in the Japanese film and video game industries. The Dragon Quest IV soundtrack (Koichi Sugiyama) is pretty good. It is not Beethoven but it surely ranks above anything Hollywood composers have ever produced:

      Other big names are Joe Hisaishi and Nobuo Uematsu.

    1. I was not aware that YouTube allows such content so they probably realize that having some men among their user base is economically viable. In the past, YouTube shut down the channels of a lot of e-thots. Let’s see if this one survives. The content she produces seems to be made for TikTok, though.

  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7ovp7kO8Ps

    I think you guys will find this video just as interesting as I did. Here I thought our physical evolution was mostly about fending off (and hunting) animal predators, but it turns out there’s decent evidence to support a good amount of our physical development is for the purpose of fighting other men/human beings.

    Reply

    2. Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense. Clearly, those who proactively kill others are going to be, in general, evolutionarily more successful than those who are only able to fend of predators. There are also simple corner cases such as a surplus of predators, which will entail a war of attrition that cannot be won.

    1. According to the study, this is all due to statistical bias. Of course, women are at least as good as men. I chuckled when I read that not even female doctors give better ratings to their female colleagues.

    2. I’ve had some extremely incompetent female doctors in my life who didn’t even know the basics of their field. When I have to explain to a female psychiatrist what exactly the binding affinities (Ki in nMol) of various medical substances stand for and the female doctors don’t grasp the concept, it leaves me speechless and sad. That’s first semester of medical studies.

      That’s like an engineer not knowing that pressure is measured in Pascal or N/m² and that the unit of energy is Nm or J.

      I even had one young female doctor (general practitioner) who told me that high TSH means hyperthyroidism and low TSH equals hypothyroidism. It’s the other way around.

    3. I like how when men are shown to be superior to women, they scramble for excuses.

      When some metric indicates female superiority, they scramble for justifications.

      The pro-woman, anti-man bias is pretty clear.

    4. I’ve heard for like 25 years that the majority of med students in the US are women. Yeh, STUDENTS. Do they finish? Almost every doctor I deal with is a man. Asian men, but still. Affirmative action probably accounts for the high volume of female med students, because they know the chicks are unlikely to finish.

    5. A lot of the probably finish their degree but many may never work in their profession. Instead, they only get a medical degree as a means to an end, i.e. marrying a doctor. In Germany and Sweden, where education is essentially free, there is even the phenomenon that some women study medicine as some kind of social-status marker. They like telling others that they study medicine or that they are working as a doctor. Yet, even if they chose to get a job, they often only work part time. Thus, they cause enormous cost to society as they took a spot via “positive discrimination” that otherwise a man could have taken who would have worked regular hours. Women disappearing for years from the workforce due to maternity leave is a related issue.

  7. I wonder whether German migration and asylum politics gets the curve. There has definitely been some movement in the discussion, but the Greens and SPD are still blocking it and with Merz you don’t really know where you stand either…

    I am of the opinion that it is almost too late for that. The damage has already been done and demographics are working in favor of “our” doctors and engineers.

    Reply

    1. I am currently reading the book “Remigration” by Martin Sellner. According to his analysis, the point of no return for Germany will only be reached in the year 2045 and before that, there is enormous potential for political counter action as the impact and frequency of “ethnic shocks” is ever-increasing. Of course, this is just a scenario. It could just as well happen that Scholz decided to let ten million Somalis into the country.

      Sweden was in a much worse position than Germany, and they are recovering quite nicely. Last year, there even was negative migration, for the first time in decades.

    2. Interesting development in Sweden. As I don’t follow much of Swedish politics, I would appreciate it if you could write a more detailed commentary on this. Only if you have the time and inclination, of course.

      However, using the examples of Lebanon and Yugoslavia, there is definitely a point that must not be crossed.

    1. This is a great meme! Jordan Peterson is a pretty fucked up guy. In hindsight, this explains quite well why he was built up by the mainstream. It’s a humiliation ritual to present a wreck like this guy as some kind of messiah figure who can help fatherless men navigate the challenges of life.

    2. Funny out

      JP is a tool.
      I hate his accent.
      He ‘over – cawmplicates’everything,
      That Hubermann Lab guy is similar .
      both stretch 10 mins of useful info into 2 hours full of nerdy psych or neuro jargon. Same as the PUAs used to do.

  9. https://youtu.be/p73UfUvlRBI?si=IU99fqMBWRiB2JRv

    His advice is not wrong per se but it’s more like a long version of “just suck it up”. I’m not telling people to quit jobs right away if they really need money but if it’s something you absolutely can’t stand anymore, just call it a day and call your boss an asshole, if you think he/she deserves it, some people need a reality-check sometimes for their brains to work normally. Making a plan for future is fine, but most people don’t work for some famous or big corporate, their jobs are easier to find. And even if you’re a pretty competent guy/girl of an average/big company, always remember your self-worth, you may not choose to be rude but you can politely refuse to be treated badly.

    With Jordan Peterson, I often have the feeling that he is defending the prevailing order. Peterson often makes statements such as: “All bosses are justified in their positions because they are competent and have migrated up the hierarchies of competence, and if employees are bullied by their bosses, it’s the employees’ own fault for not understanding the burden of being a boss” or some similar bullshit.

    I don’t understand how he comes to such statements. The world is not perfect, there is corruption, nepotism and psychopaths/sociopaths in the corridors of power.

    I also wonder how Peterson can possibly know how things work in the free economy. He has been a tenured professor in the public sector since his college studies.

    Reply

    1. In Jordan “Benzos” Peterson’s world everything is your fault because the world just responds to your actions. The only exceptions are the Jews. You have to understand, goy, if no woman wants to date you, it is absolutely your fault so you need to grow taller, make more money, climb the status hierarchy. However, if Jews get expelled, it is only due to the odious behavior of the host nations.

      EDIT: I attempted to watch this video but I had to stop before Peterson had finished his first sentence.

    2. Jordan “Pull yourself up by your Bootstraps” Peterson is just another unoriginal idiot parroting the “Hard work is the miracle cure-all” as far as I’m concerned. As if real life is a motherfucking Disney movie..

      I want to address what Jocko said in the first moments of this video though. (I have no desire to watch the video in full either.) About how “you have to play the game” sometimes to get to your goal. I have encountered idiots on the other parts of the internet with the same naive “Just World Fallacy” (I can’t believe people like this actually exist…) view. Apparently every depressed person lamenting about their circumstances is just a “weak whiner”.

      I have told them that I am not just a “whiner” (I wasn’t actually whining, but simply having a philosophical discussion before somebody threw that accusation at me), but that I’ve actually managed to grab unto success despite having been put in unfair circumstances in the past. You know how I managed to do so? Lets just say its by applying a little bit of this:

      http://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/2019/08/be-villain-in-your-story.html

      You wouldn’t fucking believe the responses I got. I didn’t even specify what I did. (I didn’t hurt anybody just to be clear, unless we’re talking about the bullies in my high school years. and cheating a corrupt/broken system to prevent it from ruining your life isn’t really “being a villain” if you ask me, but for the sake of this discussion, lets pretend it is), but apparently I’m still a “loser” for having done what needs to be done to take care of a problem that might well have continued to consumed my entire life had I not done so.

      if I’m branded a “loser” for having done the things I’ve done to circumvent the unfair system to live the much better life I live today, so be it. as if I give a rat’s ass what some internet strangers think. These are probably the same kind of morons that would brand you a coward for pulling a gun against 5 violent gangsters who have cornered you instead of just going kung fu commando on them with your bare hands like Batman would. 🤦‍♂️

      I don’t know if these people are genuinely this naive, or if this is a manifestation of sour grapes via the crab mentality. (or maybe just plain ol trolling, I hope…) Whatever it was, I soon realized I had to leave or else risk letting my brain rot staying in that space.

  10. Watching Cobra Kai as I saw it mentioned here. Jesus, when am I gonna stop watching stupid shows?

    SPOILERS

    I knew they’d eventually stoop to the level of idiocy necessary to have that Demetri dork banging the hot blonde.

    Reply

  11. Why didn’t you guys respond to my recent long post about season 6😞

    It’s ok, I forgive you ;). Yeah the show started with great promise, but then fizzled out. I’m only watching the last season because I’m too invested at this point.

    I actually liked season 3 and it had great potential. It should have humanized John Creese as a Vietnam veteran who was bullied himself. That would have made the series much more interesting.

    The writers of Cobra Kai are Jews. The same writers of the Harold and Kumar series. Where the white male characters are stereotyped as brainless bullies. And the Korean, Indian, and their Jew friends ( all pot heads) are glamorized as too intelligent for society. This explains their depiction of in Cobra Kai the nerd getting the hot chick. It’s every Jewish film makers wet dream, and can be seen in many movies. These Hollywood Jews won’t accept that their wives only want them for their money. Not their “talent” personality, intelligence etc.

    I’m starting to think that we were trolled by the first two seasons. I liked the third one too. It humanized Vietnam vet John Creese. If they would have continued that the show would have been much more interesting. But no, it devolved into good guy/bad guy, white hat, black hat bull shit.

    The writers are Jews. They made the Harold and Kumar movies, which depict white men as ignorant bully Meatheads. The Korean, the Indian, and their Jew friends (all pot heads) are all glamorized as being too intelligent for society. That’s why in Cobra Kai the hot girl falls for the nerd. This is a common theme in Hollywood. It’s every Jewish film makers wet dream.

    Reply

    2. Also, sorry for repeating myself. When I first tried to write the post I thought part of my post was deleted.

    3. No problem. Your observations are correct. Before Hollywood went fully woke there was a phase during which they promoted, er, not traditionally handsome men getting all the attractive women.

    4. I haven’t watched season 6. I’m on season 4. I will eventually watch season 6 because I make horrible decisions. I watched all of Suits for god’s sake. Suits! There was soooooo much to complain about, and yet, I kept watching it. I swear I’m going to give this crap up eventually

    5. I tried watching Suits but gave up around halfway through the first episode, not season. I concluded that this is not a TV show for me.

    7. I really enjoyed watching The Sopranos, but that was about twenty years ago, so I am not sure if it holds. Boardwalk Empire is a show I could not get into.

    8. @Pickernanny same. I prefer the Probibition era ones personally. Ever seen Once Upon A Time In America? Not a perfect film, but it happens to be my personal favorite movie besides its flaws.

      I thought the first 2 seasons of Boardwalk were outstanding. I thought the Sopranos was strong throughout. I could give Sopranos a rewatch.

    9. I haven’t finished Boardwalk, but I hear that it was cancelled and the final season is kind of rushed. The ending of The Sopranos, though controversial, I thought was pretty intelligent.

      Spoilers ahead:

      The last thing Tony sees, after the bell tolls, is black. We witness Tony’s POV as he watches numerous customers stroll into the restaurant, including the infamous two black guys that were always said to have “did it”, as well as a sketchy character in a members only jacket who soon heads into the bathroom adjacent from Tony’s right flank (think The Godfather restaurant scene). The randoms are then followed by Tony’s wife, son, and finally his daughter, Meadow. However, once he looks up for the final time to see what would be his daughter, he only sees black indicating that the guy in the members only jacket shot and killed Tony in that instance, though it is never explicitly communicated to the viewer.

      This also works really well in my opinion because in the beginning of the long and final season, Tony almost dies from a gunshot wound where he intubated and unconscious for a couple episodes. This way, we get some sort of resolution as to how Tony’s friends and family would react to his death, as he narrowly survives his injuries. I think few series have ever been able to replicate The Sopranos. I remember Game of Thrones was shaping up to be to Gen Y what The Sopranos was to Gen X, but the last two seasons or so of GoT was fumbled badly.

    10. I also favor the interpretation that Tony is going to get killed at the end of The Sopranos. Certainly, writing the ending of this TV show was not an enviable task. He was too beloved a character to have him murdered on screen. Also, there needed to be some kind of conclusion, and it couldn’t be that Tony enjoyed a meal with his family at a restaurant and lived happily ever after. Besides, a lot of characters got killed in The Sopranos. It is the way of life in the mafia, at least as depicted on screen. Tony being exempt of that would be a bit odd.

    11. Massive agree on GoT. It was abysmal. First season was the strongest I thought. I thought I had a low attention span. So many people complained that that season 1 was too slow. I didn’t feel that way at all.

    12. Pickernanny, interesting bit about Tony dying. I didn’t take it that way when I saw it. I just took it as Tony has engineered his life in a way that he will only know paranoia, and he will never be able to trust anyone again. I thought him dying was open-ended, but I didn’t catch the nod to the Godfather, which certainly points in that direction.

    13. More Spoilers:

      I think even several of the cast members of The Sopranos have stated that Tony dies in their opinion. And really, after his second in command and basically everybody except Paulie dies, there’s really no way he could continue on effectively as the boss of New Jersey. This is especially true considering how many enemies he had made with the New York gangs. Also, by the end of the season Tony has figuratively lost all of his humanity and has succumb to a life of psychopathic debauchery. There are no redeeming qualities within him at this point, so it only makes sense for him to die imo.

      Another interesting point facet of the show is that during the pilot episode we see Tony during his first therapy session, where he is disenchanted with the present with heavily romanticized notions of what the mob used to be. He’s depressed that he’s come into this thing during the decline, that the heydays are well behind the lifestyle. However, this has come full circle by the end of the show as he has had to deal with all these old heads emerging from prison after 20 years sentences and what not. He finds it very difficult to deal with these people effectively as the boss of New Jersey, and becomes extremely jaded, resentful and bitter by the end of the show. It finally climaxes with an all out war with the old generation boss of New York for which he narrowly survives, only to presumably be murdered anyway in a never ending cycle of hits and executions. Movies like The Godfather which glorify the mob lifestyle to some extent neglect the fact that what we’re really dealing with were criminal factions filled with murdering psychopaths.

      Also, it’s pretty fun to watch Tony try and juggle family life with his chaotic career life, and watching them bleed into each other and seeing Tony’s descent further and further into hell.

    14. I remember reading that David Chase (the creator of the Sopranos) said that it’s an open-ended question whether Tony dies in the final episode or not, but with the life he has chosen, if it’s not that day then it will be another day. There will be no happy ending for Tony Soprano.

    15. He actually more or less confirmed it I just found:

      “Because the scene I had in my mind was not that scene. Nor did I think of cutting to black. I had a scene in which Tony comes back from a meeting in New York in his car. At the beginning of every show, he came from New York into New Jersey, and the last scene could be him coming from New Jersey back into New York for a meeting at which he was going to be killed. Yeah. But I think I had this notion—I was driving on Ocean Park Boulevard near the airport and I saw a little restaurant. It was kind of like a shack that served breakfast. And for some reason I thought, “Tony should get it in a place like that.” Why? I don’t know. That was, like, two years before.”

    16. Pickernanny, I don’t agree that’s confirmation. He’s talking about an ending he considered, not the one he went with. The one he went with is still up for interpretation. That said, there is still a lot that points to him dying.

      I don’t think the show made any pretense of his ability to continue as the NJ mob boss. Weren’t he and his family going into witness protection at the end of the film?

      Also, did anyone else think that Tony having more morality/sentimentality for a horse than human life was a jab at psycho leftists?

    17. It’s more of a read between the lines kind of thing.

      Now that you mention it I do think the Feds were about to stick him with some charge. And it’s very likely he would have flipped and taken a plea bargain or gone into witness protection. All the more reason to have him killed if you ask me.

    1. I tried rewatching 1 a year or so back and wasn’t able to get into it. Early on in the movie the emperor shows favor to a general, portrayed by Russell Crowe, to become next in line ahead of the emperor’s own son. The emperor is somehow wise and just while his son is a complete psycho. Kind of just made me roll my eyes and turn the movie off. I wasn’t able to suspend my disbelief for some reason.

    2. I thought that subplot where his former soldiers who served under him (is “subordinates” the word in a military context?) was pointless. What’s the point of introducing the subplot if it was just going to fail with the protagonist remaining exactly where he was before? What did it reveal about his character? What did it add? I honestly think it would have been the same, albeit more efficient, film if they just cut that bit altogether.

    4. His former subordinates still loyal to him attempt to bust him out of captivity, but it fails. Adds nothing to the story or his character.

    5. @Pickernanny: The emperor Marcus Aurelius being wise and just while his son Commodus is a complete psycho reflects the official histories. Marcus Aurelius is famous for being one of the few “good” emperors of Rome and a big proponent of stoic philosophy. Not a weak or soft man either, but a capable military leader.

      As for Commodus, all historical sources agree that he was a megalomaniac, blood thirsty narcissist. He did indeed participate personally in long, ostentatious gladiatorial games, and his officials were forced to watch lest they be punished. Legend has it that some officials pretended to faint so that they would be carried out of the Colosseum and thus escape Commodus’ endless bloody spectacles. Commodus was actually killed by a wrestler by the way, not a gladiator. But close enough.

      As for the plot point in the movie where Maximus’ former subordinates attempt to bust him out of captivity but fail, it subverts the viewer’s expectations and gives an emotional chock. The gladiators gave their lives so that Maximus could escape and lead a rebellion against Commodus, but instead of such a triumph (succesful escape) followed by new hope (a rebel army to fight Commodus’ forces) the story reaches a low point and everything seems hopeless.

      Compare this to Christ being betrayed by Judas in the garden of Gethsemane and suffering the Via Dolorosa. This low point for Christ is followed by a triumph on the cross where he dies and becomes the savior of humanity, one capable of giving eternal life. The lowest point must come before the highest. Indeed Maximus is chained up and stabbed in the side (like Christ) before being martyred in the Colosseum, but he also kills Commodus and frees Rome from the tyrant.

      In a similar plot point in Braveheart the protagonist William Wallace is betrayed by Scottish nobles, and then he is also martyred and has a triumph. Though Wallace does not kill the English king in combat, his stoic defiance and cry of “Freedom!” is witnessed by Robert the Bruce, who is inspired to take over as leader of the Scottish freedom fighters and lead them to victory over the English.

    6. I was not aware that there was a trailer. It is pretty horrible: black good guy, evil white guy, unattractive white woman, amateurish CGI. The trailer currently has 10 million views and a mere 25k likes. Let us see how well this movie performs at the box office.

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