Conspiratorial Love

Conspiratorial love between a man and a woman is when the two people move in together and spend each evening exchanging all manner of ways they would make the world a better place if only they were made King (or Queen) of the universe.

Their ideals never leave the closed doors of their home. At work, they remain cowards, instead of taking a stand with their income and livelyhood on the line.

I first coined this term around late 2014. I don't want to get into the details here, but I concluded that men around me were using their romantic relationships as dumping grounds for all of their daytime grievances. I remember talking about this with one of my friends over email. I haven't shared the term with anyone else until now.

How does one know what human nature is without putting it to the test? Only after you've tested it can you walk around with the excuse that humanity is critically flawed, and that this fact is not your concern anymore. Humanity failed your test.

Or maybe it passed your test. What do I know?

Am I Falling out of Love with Emacs?

Do I need emacs? Why did I like it so much? Isn't it usually simpler and more portable to just use the command line, instead of an emacs key binding?

Why do I need emacs to do indentation for me when I can use the tab key perfectly fine in Textastic.

Emacs is so complicated that you can't even use the tab key to indent your code. It won't let you. It'll autoformat code according to its internal rules for the current language. Formatting a .tsx file in emacs is impossible (granted, TSX is probably too complicated for us to be using in the first place).

I guess emacs is cool if you're sending lisp snippets into an interpreter. But I don't find that I miss it. It's easy to guess how I feel about tools like Resharper at this point.

Introverted Nerds at Bars

I was watching this YouTube video once where it said that if you are an introverted nerd, you should not bother going out to a bar to try to find a romantic interest. That was deemed to be not the element of such a person.

I forced myself to go to bars and clubs for a period of time. I'd go and I'd try to talk to people, including pretty girls. I'd try to get the phone number of a girl if I thought she was pretty. This never really went anywhere and after about a year and a half I dropped the practice.

While I was doing it, it felt like a job to me. At the end of it, when I'd see a woman standing there, I couldn't come up with a sincere reason for why I was starting a conversation with her.

I remember one time, I started talking to this couple about Japanese history. I was reading about it, and thought I'd talk about what I was doing with my time. It was very strange. I felt like I was being a buzzkill given the environment.

I remember one time, at a strip club, I intentionally talked to one stripper about how I would buy Brita water filters and use that to obtain drinking water. She took up the conversation and replied with how she obtained drinking water via water bottles, and I felt immediately bad for having creating the topic.

I guess when I talk to people I feel obligated to be discussing a grand mission.

When I was finishing college, I did consulting for a psychology department. I was programming a small visual experiment for them. It leveraged OpenGL and just rendered a couple of rectangular slabs in different placements. I overheard the grad students talking about their professor. They said he would talk about psychology all the time. I thought that surely, a well-rounded man should know how to "cut loose" and just have fun when work is done for the week.

I don't really worry about whether I am a social person or not.

ChatGPT and Animals

I understand that we have a private sector free market, and that ChatGPT offers promises of heightened efficiency in such a competitive environment. But it distracts us from the fact that our careers are exercises in artistry and showmanship.

Most of us fear freezing to death on a rainy day, out in the cold, due to having no job and being homeless. But if our philosophy breaks, I don't think we really give a shit how we die.

This is what people overlook when they get excited about things like ChatGPT. We are not just here to make life as comfortable as possible as fast as possible. We are here to distinguish ourselves from the animals. And showmanship, showmanship of a person (not a computer) is how we do that.

The Waymo cars are way more interesting than ChatGPT because they take care of a mindless task that is driving. But software that automates business needs is not mindless. It is cool.

Mike’s Guide to Talking to People

First off, you should probably read some books, study assigned vocabulary, and write some essays. Oh what's that, you too went to school? Terrific. You're way ahead of me.

I hope you're making it count. Learning to communicate is an exercise in cultivating taste. Not all of the idioms in use are healthy to be using. Only by educating yourself and living life can you learn the types of language that are vulgar, and the types that are suitable for use with dear friends. If you just imitate whatever you see on television or whatever you hear from trendy TikTok videos, you're probably going to learn vulgar habits. So tread carefully.

The first thing I'll say, as a part of what I'm adding by writing this blog post, is that you are not supposed to tell other people when you are having a bad time. This is particularly true when you are talking to someone you do not know well. Not everyone is going through a rough patch, but when you are, you are only allowed to bring it up with someone if they have demonstrated an interest in your day-to-day well-being. If an acquaintance says to you that they hope you are doing well, that does not count as the type of interest that I'm saying is required. Someone has to have a track record in showing interest in your daily well-being for you to erupt with bitching and moaning in their presence.

Emergencies do not count as an exception to this rule. Even if you're bleeding to death, your bet is on 911, not on people who haven't shown they care about you.

The second rule I'm introducing is that you can only bring up a topic with someone if you know they are interested in it. If you're talking to someone who doesn't give a fuck about playing the guitar, you're not supposed to talk about your guitar lessons out of the blue with that person. If that person likes baseball and you watched a baseball game, then you may use that as topic fodder. You have to talk about things that other people are interested in. Otherwise you're being needy.

The third rule is that you are not supposed to talk too much. You're supposed to make a statement or two, and then wait for whoever you're talking to to respond to those statements. This rule becomes violatable if you have a very close friend and you're in the middle of heavy discussion with that person. But for relationships where the friendship is light or possibly not even established yet, you are supposed to not talk too much before giving the other person a chance to respond (or introduce subject matter of their own).

This third rule has a corollary, which is that you're not supposed to talk to someone day after day. It is extremely unlikely that you have interesting things to say every day. You're supposed to let life events occur and react to them by yourself. After you've done this for a week, you can cherry-pick whatever parts of your week you think might be of interest your friend, and then you can unload your news on them.

The way to violate the third rule is to play your friends off each other. If you've reached a lull in the ongoing dialogue with Alice, but then you hear something from Bob that reminds you of something Alice said, you can piggyback on your memory of Bob and reengage Alice, citing the event outside your dialogue with her. You don't even need to depend on friends for such types of memories. Acquaintances or even strangers can supply them. These "outside events" are what propell you beyond a lull in the conversation with your friend, so that you're not just comiserating with your friend. Your friend wants to hear that you're fighting to survive, not that you're hiding. Outside events are evidence of such.

The fourth rule is that you are supposed to respond to electronic, written communication immediately, unless you are preoccupied with work. By immediately, I mean within a day. This is difficult for certain entire categories of people. If you can't reply immediately to emails or texts, and you're the type of person who aspires toward self-improvement, then I'd recommend trying to figure out why electronic communication causes you anxiety, or why you are so ignorant of your own motivations that you need days to prepare a response to a friend's email.

An exception to this fourth rule is lengthy emails. I don't just mean when someone is abusing your time and rambling. I mean when you are engaged in a deep discussion over email with someone. You can take your time with those.

The fourth rule doesn't really apply to group chats.

The fifth rule is that you are not supposed to confront someone about their bad behavior unless you are unsure as to what class of person they are. I hate to break it to you but humans discard their equality as they age. They do stupid tragic shit that causes them to permanently lose their innocence. If you think someone is a first class person, you can gently ask them probing questions to see why they are behaving in a way that makes no sense. This is unnecessary when people telegraph their class to you by acting like douchebags. But when you're unsure, you can probe.

The sixth rule is that your day job does not count as conversation subject matter. Not even if someone works in the same line of work as you. If such a person wants to talk to you about your day at work, they can join your company and attend meetings with you. A career is sacred. But when we are off the clock, leave work at the office.

A straightforward exception to rule six is office drama. Bullshit is always interesting subject matter among friends.

The seventh rule is that you have to give your friends a relaxation period away from you after each time you tax their emotions. Sometimes we have difficult conversations with our friends. If you know you’ve just put a loved one through a difficult conversation, prohibit yourself from introducing further subject matter with them for a week. This will give them time to recover, and it’ll impress them.

I now introduce a guideline. It is not as strong as a rule. When building trust with someone over electronic, written communication, you want to try to be the last person to have spoken in an exchange. This way, it looks like you’re being ignored, and are thus the one who has to go do something new in order for the conversation to be picked up again. This action puts your friend or loved one on the “high ground” and thus in a position of smug comfort. When you do this, you’re ensuring that they do not feel ignored. Sometimes this is as simple as typing “okay”.

Go get ‘em.

Work as Entertainment

I conjecture that entertainment is like a leak. If conventional sources of it become unattractive, then you will begin to find things that once were boring or scary, entertaining.

If you're smart, that includes software development. Which has a lot of pain points.

I say entertainment but it's really something else. It's the something that used to motivate me to build things with legos. It's a cross of ambition and curiosity. If you decide that you want to be a computer science person, it means you're (mostly likely) not going to be an authority on matters of physics, biology, history, or art.

You won't seek entertainment in the name of procrastination. You will be able to overcome procrastination in the name of ambition and curiosity. The pain of software development will become tolerable, even something you combat by introducing controls on complexity. The fear of math will fade.

There are some who can say that watching TV or reading fiction is an exercise of their mind. But this isn't what a computer scientist would say, in the course of their career. The act of construction is their act of the mind.

Entertainment is supposed to be healthy but I think I have allies would who argue that it's often garbage. It's fine to seek achievement in the workplace instead of low-brow entertainment. I know not everyone has the privilege of having an easy choice between those two alternatives. I hope those people find entertainment that speaks to them.

Attached to Good Video Games

What is unfortunate about good video games (games that are honorable to play) is that you don't get paid to play them. You have to go work at your day job, and then make time for your video game. You (probably) don't get to spend time with loved ones in the video game. It's a tax on your time.

What do you have to show for it? You gain a type of street-credibility with others who play the game. The fandom of a game maintains a certain literacy with the game's rules and lore. You are not a "normie" when you converse with others who know these facets of the game. For over 99% of video game players, this is the only reward you can acquire by playing the game. Sure, many video games are entertaining or thought-provoking. But no one thinks a session of entertainment is something to brag about. Not in the way they think being courageous during gameplay is something to brag about.

That this is the only reward our society can provide is sad.

I disagree that people play videos games simply to have fun. I believe they play video games to earn the high regard of their peers. I think this honor is implicitly recognized by others who don't spend time playing video games. At least, it can be. I understand that there is a whole sector of society that still holds contempt for young adults who invest a lot of their time into a video game. But, among adults who pride themselves on intelligence, there is a recognition of the pride that video game players can build for themselves.

What I am saying also explains the drama that comes along with exercising your choice of which game to play. Some games are held in higher regard than others. All games are supposed to provide an opportunity for a player to show that they are honorable, but not all games provide this opportunity to equal extent.

The three video games I logged the most hours in were Unreal Tournament, Starcraft I & II, and World of Warcraft.

A Lower Bound on Friendship

Friends meet with you in isolation. When I say isolation, I mean that you and the other person meet without anyone else around listening in on the conversation. Going to a restaurant and being waited on counts as such a meeting. Going out with a 3rd person violates the rule I'm stating, and it does not count as a telltale sign of friendship.

Communicating over the Internet or text via DM counts as meeting with someone in isolation. But, not all people who talk to you over DM are your friends. At the same time, any person who wants to be called your friend should, at a minimum, be willing to converse with you in isolation. If they will not do this, they are not your friend.

Reading nonfiction counts as socializing. When you read nonfiction, you are opening yourself up to disquieting knowledge. You are making yourself vulnerable to anxiety that may result from what you've read. If partying at the club counts as socializing, reading nonfiction better also count as the same. If going hiking with a group counts as socializing, reading nonfiction better also count as the same.

Listening to music does not count as socializing.

Watching the Discovery channel technically counts as socializing but it’s very lazy of you.

I don’t have any friends but I socialize all the time.

One’s Worldview

I used to get into positions where I would disagree with some popular decription of reality, and I'd make my own alternative. We all do, I suppose.

When I was attending my Catholic high school, we took a world religions class. In it, they said that a religion was an ultimate description of reality. There are lots of descriptions of reality that are pragmatic, and that need not be so grand. They are still the building blocks of language that we use to tell others what we are doing with our lives. We use such language to tell others about dramatic events that overtake us. Sometimes we may just state a platitude, such as "every day above ground is a good day." Other times we may describe a conflict: "my boss shows up at work and tries to make everyone else as miserable as he is." So there, we used the word "miserable". We are taking it for granted that some people go through life in a state of misery. This assumption is tacit in our description of our boss.

Years ago when I was reading content in the manosphere, I came across what was known there as "your frame." A major component (if not the chief component) of the manosphere's message was simply an articulation of the technique used to attract a woman (or even women). It was thought over there that you had to bring a woman into your frame. Your frame was your way of describing reality. It was your way of stating the rules of reality. Your way of describing recurring phenomena in one's life. If you could make a woman adopt your frame, it was predicted that you had made significant progress in your effort to attract her.

I never use the term "frame" when I am describing my experiences to myself. This post is not about how to attract a woman. It is, in part, a survey of where I have seen others talk about life's recurring events.

During the French Revolution and Robespierre's reign, there was a woman named Catherine Théot who claimed to be Robespierre's mother (and also the mother of God). She was a medium who was making prophesies concerning the future of France, but apart from some followers, she was widely thought to be insane. I bring her up because she claimed to be on Robespierre's side. Her lack of credibility hurt Robespierre's reputation. The Committee of Public Safety decided to arrested her, and soon after, Robespierre was overthrown. Was Robespierre's political language strong enough to protect himself against her problematic position? Could the populace and Convention attendees hold his language as distinct and above her apparent insanity?

I am a strong believer in the idea that life needs to be explained. I've struggled to explain it to myself throughout my years. Sometimes I have adopted the language I've encountered while reading books. Sometimes I've adopted the language I've encountered while watching interviews on late night TV shows. There are inescapable consequences that follow from how you cast your life's events into the stone of verbalized memory. I can name two scary propositions of this difficult-to-avoid action.

The first is that you will be aging, and young or impressionable people will decide that they look up to you. They will imitate you and your language as they hear you using it. Suddenly you will be leading a small group of people down whatever road you were (at one time) going down alone. You will then be responsible for how sturdy your ship on life's waters is. Is your language really going to protect those who are emulating you? Is your language strict and strong enough to prevent others from twisting your words into the territory of wild inaccuracy? Will your followers, if unhappy, have you to blaim for supplying them with inadequate terminology and faulty definitions?

The second is that there will be people who disagree with you explicitly, and they will inform you of this. You are then left in isolation. Are you still comfortable in this isolation? Do you still feel happy and content without that person's closer friendship?

You build a world. When you look around, are you happy with the world you've built?

This is arguably a special case of the saying "you made your bed, now lie in it." But I'm not talking about endeavours you undertook to gain certain acquaintances, professional titles, or material belongings. I'm only talking about the way you chose to articulate how life made you feel. I'm talking about the language you used to explain life to yourself, to explain your behavior to your friends. I'm just talking about the narrative you hold by your side day-in and day-out, the narrative of what you see yourself and others doing on this earth.

Do you like this home you've built? Is your language trustworthy? This is an honesty check. It covers your influence on others, but also whether you are content in the world you live in regardless of how your friends and family feel about your language.

I have been forced to consider the reliability of my version of the truth of things.

And American Dad Takes the Lead

As usual, I will be extrapolating points after having watched a handful of YouTube clips (on account of being way too cheap to purchase full episodes of TV shows).

Today I ask the question: how did American Dad grow to surpass South Park and Family Guy as my favorite animated comedy? I should be more specific. I really like the character Roger. Family Guy fell to pieces over time. It became this show where all of the characters find slick ways to dump hate of society into the show's scenes. And that's about where it became too mean for me. But Roger is really interested in creating personas and just acting for acting's sake. He finds his calling in make-believe and the Smiths get into tug-of-wars with him while he does this. It's nice to see someone who is trying to be happy.

South Park hasn't really been the same since around season 14. Once in awhile it'll put out a good episode or two but I haven't seen it reach its old peaks since around that season. There was a somewhat recent episode where Butters and Eric were working at an ice cream shop. It seemed extremely cliché. We've seen Eric torture Butters a thousands times at this point. But that's what Matt and Trey were putting out.

There was a time in my life when I thought Family Guy was awesome. As I got older, the show either became really mean or I started to perceive it as such. That's a whole genre of comedy for some people: being mean. I don't bother with clips of it on YouTube anymore.

Stewie and Roger are related characters. Stewie is a half-closeted gay person and Roger's sexual orientation is kind of irrelevant since he is an alien, but he sure has a playful way of talking. But where Stewie's humor comes from feeling superior to others and even getting angry with others, Roger just cares about building his characters and his make-believe world. He's happy and Stewie is persistently, grossly unhappy.

I don't want to watch Family Guy throw temper tantrums anymore than I want to watch South Park just be gross. American Dad chooses to be playful. So I prefer it to the other two shows now.

One-Man YouTube Shows

I remember this scene in the movie Waiting for Guffman, at the end, where Parker Posey is in NYC either teaching a class or doing her own one-woman-show. We're supposed to feel (as with many scenes by this creative team) superior to her, or at least feel sorry for her.

Or, you can take this scene a test to the viewer, to see if the viewer will acknowledge that low-budget entertainment is still legimate entertainment.

But doing a show by yourself is quite difficult. When I think of the type of content on YouTube that I find myself gravitating toward, it's from big budget entertainment companies at least 75% of the time, if not more. If we take ProZD as a counterexample to this, he is still a rigorously tested actor. We're lucky that he takes the time to post content on YouTube. He's so exceptional.

Emma Chamberlain is another freak of nature who has managed to create content that others want to see, all by herself. She was just editing videos by herself for a long time before she got picked up by other mass media entities.

I don't watch either of these creators that often (due in part because at least ProZD rarely releases content). I feel like one-man shows on YouTube, or even one-man nonfiction channels, are really low in their ambition and class. The nonfiction channels, to me, rise no higher than content intended for high schoolers. I don't feel like I'm being informed of anything when I watch them. At least that's the way it was. I've stopped watching nonfiction YouTubers for the most part.

I mostly watch clips from The Office or Parks and Recreation. And I listen to KPop or watch KPop music videos. So YouTube is like just another mass media company for me, like NBC or CBS. The possibility of encountering a rebel on the platform who speaks to me in defiance of mass media norms is gone, because I'm not tuning in to YouTubers anymore.

This post is me realizing that this is a predictable outcome. Making essays by yourself is hard.