WhatDoYouMeanPodcast

Suffer with me, comrade.

It has the conclusion of Wano in it.

https://x.com/dailyportgas/status/1845388148085489753

I've been pontificating about it to myself for long enough to form it into that question. When I think of someone virulently MCS, the content is almost always their perception of others as lessers - NPCs, background characters, or fodder. They are the hero and they could cut through a horde of others and they're frustrated by rules and regulations that say they can't. But I might be so bold as to say that their problem isn't that they see themselves as special, but that they see themselves as exceptional.

The problem is that they're rude to service workers, upset when people step in front of their camera, or judge the choices of others (especially for the effect it has on you e.g. opining during a marriage ceremony). Therefore my thesis of special vs exceptional is that if you are filming yourself on a busy street but you don't obstruct people nor react to people walking through the shot, you're not hurting anyone. You can take up space, but you should be polite while doing it to be someone who cohabitates this one world. You can think yourself a person with a hidden demon within them who must prove themselves to be the best and be monstrously disappointed when you finish second all the while being a weird anime person, but cheating, misrepresenting yourself to others, or expecting others to help you is where you cross the line.

So all that being said, perhaps it's not a problem to think yourself in a unique position to solve a problem no one else has - perchance help people along the way. After all, no one else is you nor has anyone ever been nor will anyone ever be. The world is a collection of individuals. You can think you're cool, smart, mysterious, kind, forgiving, or hang your hat on some other piece of personal esteem and be a great friend, peer, and comrade. On a tangential note, I like how in prominent MMA promotions, after someone is declared the victor, the camera begins to focus on them and their celebration instead of zooming in on someone who is visibly very frustrated by their loss.

You neednt even wrap your brain around the boundless scale of everyone's genius in some aspect nor make yourself less by reminding yourself of it when you think highly of yourself - it is a lesson to learn if you're belittling others.

I'd really like your input and opinions on the matter.

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” ― Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

My hobbies sound fun. Food tastes delicious. Energy is running through me. We're so fucking back. Lets fucking go!

I thought this was still worth posting:

I've lifted on and off since high school. I hit my 1/2/3/4 and beyond and continue to maintain my membership in the 1000lb club. My clean and jerk was higher than Arnold's ever was because I never learned I wasn't supposed to be able to do it. I did team sports and XC in high school. I primarily focus on combat sports these days. People seethe when I get their head in the clinch in muay thai. All this to say that I have a really good working relationship with my fitness. I don't think anybody ever quite hit the nail on the head when it comes to the downsides of body building as a primary pursuit as this guy, Braden Wellman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BhlgWZz7_w

Bodybuilding is a silly and selfish thing to put the glut of your focus into. ESPECIALLY if you don't like it. Vanity is not fulfillment. The reality of vanity is bringing your own cake to birthday parties (with no allergies), declining going out with friends because of your sleep schedule, you can't track your macros at the local pub, alcohol inhibits muscle growth, or white knuckling through shit sleep for an early workout. "I'm sorry your mother is mad at me, babe. I know that this food is something you've eaten for generations for celebrations, but I'm having chicken and rice again instead." Couple that with the Instagram game (which absolutely trickles down into your fitness forum) with photoshop, steroids, anglefraud, perfect lighting, etc. and it effects you.

There's nothing quite as ubiquitous as lifting as a means of finding affection. You could probably nick a couple rightoids from the gym for leftist causes if you explained alienation & atomization in an engaging way. They probably think socialism is when the government pays for Ozempic and takes 30% of your gains to give to people who watch Desperate Housewives. If you put dedicated gym goers in a society that isn't plagued by forever wars, where their extended family doesn't have 5 vets with PTSD, 8 people who can't afford healthcare, an upbringing defined by their parents' work stress and instead had a walkable city, nutritious food, and things to do, I bet 85% of them will find something else to focus on other than maintaining <10%BF.

Could many of us stand to be more active? We're on an internet forum, there's no doubt! It would not only be good for the body, but for the mind. But would there be diminishing returns? Not only would there be, it could leave you worse off than when you started if you obsess over it. Hiking is a beautiful thing that doesn't give you an aesthetic body. Traditional martial arts have a rich history and lore, but doesn't help you in the street fight they're always droning on and on about. Combat sports are the most fun thing I've ever done, but I get hit in the head, my joints hurt, and it's not anabolic. Yoga could help you with a bad back or a lack of mindfulness. Aerial sports/pole dancing will attract their ire despite being badass and thrilling. Regular dancing is the most consistent anti-depressant activity[1], but invaded by those same people trying to get female affection while they learn how to talk to a woman for 4 minutes for their progressive overload. Triathalons are. Swords are fucking sick whether it's fencing, kendo, HEMA, or LARPing.

The fash are obsessed with aesthetics. It's no wonder they'd be willing to do all the legwork it takes to be the one that stands above the others (for their body). That's their whole shtick. The difference is that I don't look down on someone for going to the party, eating a slice of cake, finding someone cute, falling in love by accident, and realizing it doesn't work 3 years later. I think for every 1 person who has truly made something special out of their life with aesthetics, there are 9 other people who scrubbed away magic and social fulfillment from their living. I think, for many people, they'd be better off really engaging with themselves and interrogating why what they have and who they are isn't enough. Maybe they'd realize that aesthetics aren't everything and a better future is possible.

TL;DR: Exercise is only as useful as it is liberating. If you like bodybuilding, you should continue, but if the sacrifice isn't worth it, then you'd make a rational decision to avoid it, likely in exchange for a different type of physical activity.

[1]https://www.leafie.co.uk/news/dancing-best-exercise-treating-depression-study/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM9h4p91oow

Rener and Ryron Gracie are back at it again. A little context, the Gracie family are the people who helped put the UFC on the map. They're the ones who spearheaded the move to bring Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to America (and are oft credited with its creation). Rener and Ryron are a few generations removed from the invention of the art, but have really made their place in the world as entrepreneurs - especially when it comes to BJJ. Sometimes they have things like a sackpack that's also a hoodie or a pillow that doesn't let your head droop for airplanes.

You conventionally find them teaching Gracie Survival Tactics, which is marketed especially for s. It's grappling for things like taking someone out of a car or how to get handcuffs on someone if they're resisting. They will talk about it's appeal for healthcare workers, especially for those with dementia or acute psychosis. But the main thrust of what they mean to contribute to the conversation is the position "here's how we can do what we do more humanely." If you are quickly compelled with joint locks and head positioning into compliance, then I think it's hard to argue that there would be less trauma and less bad will towards the police. Sometimes bad things happen because an inexperienced cop panics (Philando Castile's fatal run in with the police comes to mind but you can easily and readily disagree with me on this specific instance). Rener Gracie, of course, is not going to address topics like covering for cops that hurt people, bloated police budgets, whether they help deter crime, racism, overpolicing everywhere because of a study where one time they put more cops in a hotspot and it cleared up, etc.

And here they are, back at it again, with the SafeWrap system. First, it's dumb that they're trying to copyright it in my opinion, but that's illustrative of the attitude and not really my bag to talk about. My bag, as a brown belt in BJJ, is that I like that giftwrap that the person on the upper body takes. It's a massively effective grip to the point that it centralizes my technique. Anytime I'm passed their hips, I'm either looking to submit them right there or provoke them to give me that grip. For example, I'll put both hands on one of their wrists so they need to bring their other hand across to defend it, but turning to get that other hand through exposes their back and lets me grab their top arm and pull it across their face. It allows me to go from being on top of them to controlling their back which is bigly bad for their chances of winning. I could also conjecture with a decent degree of confidence that the person controlling the feet is doing a great job of preventing them from getting back on their knees. That's the place where they can get some traction and start frustrating your efforts. There's a specific movement I just adore where they try to build up onto their elbow and I grab their elbow out from under them and they land onto their pinned arm.

All that is to say that the SafeWrap technically works and it's a specific application of submission wrestling that is admittedly clever. Its effectiveness as a restraint isn't a criticism worth levying in my estimation. I even think, if someone needed to be restrained, which can happen even under communism, it is probably good for deescalation. But, of course, when it's a tool for police to use, alarm bells go off in my head. I sure would be happy if every cop were the antagonist of an adventure novel. It's like how voting normalizes an inherently oppressive system, it feels like that for a carceral state. It's not like you should use something else when someone needs to be restrained, but it feels dirty if there's no talk about who needs to be restrained. If somebody gets restrained like this because they allegedly used a counterfeit bill, it prevents George Floyd's fate, it's less ridiculous than suffocating them, but it's not not-ridiculous.

What do you all think? Look effective for protests? Should I go ahead and get certified and give away free training to lefties? My friends and I have been in class thinking about how to make fists against the face and neck extra shitty (no gi ezekiels, wrist against the nose, mid thumb knuckle right below the jaw, etc.) so we could add that if you're feeling saucy

I think there's a lot of cultural motivation to be some kind of great person - be it because of the great man theory of history or the economic glorification of the captains of industry. However, as communists, our theories of history and economics don't have any love lost for this analysis of the world. We recognize that without labor, not a single gear would turn. So, in my mind, success as a society doesn't rely on the prophetic vision of someone unbound by the constraints of societal pressures, but by iterative improvements and experiments put forward by groups of people who could stand to be liberated from under the economic heel of serving treats and proliferating the MIC. In this paradigm, the person who does push forward the big discovery/gadget is congratulated and venerated, but the cultural zeitgeist shouldn't be centered around that moment of discovery, but instead around highlighting the group and their efforts. Think of watching a Summoning Salt video instead of just the WR speedrun. If I can characterize my desire as wanting to be part of a culture that celebrates the collaborative more than wanting to be exalted as the person who accomplishes something, I can say that I don't "lack motivation" because I don't yearn to be celebrated.

I also struggle to see myself in chosen ones - I don't write the MCs of my novels as inherently special, but rather people who have to rise to the occasion. I hear that media that depicts hordes of zombies (post-apocalyptic has never resonated with me) springs from the same core philosophy. I would much rather hear about someone who is weird because they had to panic and push through a crowd of normal people than someone who is normal who had to run their truck through a horde of zombies. When I think of what I want for myself, the conversation is never to cultivate what makes me special to live up to my potential, it's always about doing something cool because the opportunity exists for those who would take it.

For example, with my black belt coming up in BJJ (in likely <year), I find a lot of joy in reflecting about how I took detours to learn about striking, wrestling, and judo while I've never had a genuine interest in my tournament results which have, as a result, been lackluster. For me, I grew up hearing people say that nobody's cut from a different cloth and how "you're a fucking sick (oops, can't show that word on a Christian forum) if you want to be." I went into BJJ because I wanted to believe that anyone could walk in off the street and, with the proper attitude, opportunity, will, and work become a black belt. I don't know that it ever crossed my mind that among the public, I was specially engineered to get that belt because of some characteristic about myself. On the contrary, my enormous gag reflex, gentle demeanor, and sensitive skin would imply that I am particularly imperfect for BJJ. Sometimes it's hard to go into a group of practicing MMA athletes as a weekly manga reader with no competitive ambition and believe "yep, I can hang with you shirtless people with tattoos and muscles!" even if I was invited by the coach. I think in my darkest moments I worried that inherent characteristics about myself made me too bad of a person to be able to accomplish the goal or that my accomplishments would be given out of pity. Even then, when it came to digging myself out of that hole, the act of showing up and being part of that community and touching ~~grass~~ mat helped bring me out of that funk when people showed me love instead of hating me for being me.

So, I guess sometimes I feel like I'm missing some fire or edge because I'm not striving to stand out. I do have accomplishments that stand out - I don't like to list them in public because it feels boastful. But if we just look at BJJ - while it's hard to get accurate data, a safe assumption is that <1% of people who walk in the door to do BJJ make it to brown belt. If the exclusivity were the goal, I feel like I should feel some other emotion about it. That maybe I should lean into it and make it into some complex about what a precise and superior fighter I am. I earnestly, when I'm being honest and sincere, don't toil in the hopes of being more than someone else. Deep down in there I'm hoping that an attractive person I'm attracted to goes "oh you really like that thing that I like too! Let's talk about it for hours" and magically I like talking to them for hours. Likewise, being really helpful and working on my own terms has 1,000,000x more resonance to me than being really rich (marble countertops, consuming luxury slop, having exclusive seating/priority, etc.). But with a resume of cool shit that I've done it's like shouldn't I want to pursue something until it's amazing? Shouldn't I be one track minded towards a goal? I seem to be floating listlessly and a goal might shake that up. Am I just coping?

Do you feel the same way? Without great man theory, imperial core chauvinism, and ~~unenlightened~~ non-liberating education do you still strive to be special and stand out? Do you want to be outstanding - the person who finally discovers and invents the thing? Do you have any guidance for me?

I'm undecided until I see them.

Disco Elysium who??

https://www.butajape.com/comic/one-big-mario-party/

Run it back you coward. 3 more days in Termina, 30 new masks, 3 new transformations, 6 new dungeons.The woke media won't admit it'd be GotY even if they recycled the assets because they want to keep making AAA games.

it's relevant to AI

Relevantly

Kasparov is chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and chairs its International Council. In 2017, he founded the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), an American political organisation promoting and defending liberal democracy in the U.S. and abroad. He serves as chairman of the group. Kasparov is also a security ambassador for the software company Avast.[14]

In 2021, Kasparov promoted a series of 32 NFTs that detailed important moments in his career. The top four sold for more than $11,000.[197][198]

I would say that he's a trying his best. And I believe I could stand to learn something from somebody who was so outstanding at his craft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP8xt8o4_5Q

Why did I write this?

Everything was so fucking expensive. They also put in those refrigerators where it has the ads and they're just as fucking awful and weird as the pictures would have you believe. Also, the big cctv showing you as you go down the aisle and check out are fucked. At self check out you can no longer mute it so it has to talk to you. Finally, they hired security to stand at the entrance of the store which is gross. edit: Some stuff was also locked in a cabinet

The devil is in that store. I'm so fucking pissed.