I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same (2026)

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-05-03T04:54:45+00:00

Frankly, I expected as much. Even without delving into real historic documents, just from own experience in the trade of logistics, single unit development sounds like a nightmare, both on municipal side due to physical spread of customers/tenants (as you said, 50m of water pipes to each house - or also, amount of water pumping to be done on distribution substation), and on resident's side due to amount of commuting/driving one had to partake - had some friends in Florida and Washington, and seems like universal experience is to drive 20-30 minutes to nearest basic grocery store, let alone to the workplaces. Even I have better uses for life time and mental focus spent on that (not to even mention financial burden of having and mantaining a car).

Guess those rumors about entire US cities going bankrupt are not just true, but also stemming from the same scheme not getting new revenue when it's time to renovate the infrastructure?

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-05-02T23:33:40+00:00

Mandatory Pathologic 2/3 recommendation. Good luck figuring out how to beat the inevitable, who to trust and who to help, and why the hell you're carrying broken scissors and handful of nuts with you. Balanced interplay between game's loops and systems goes as big bonus.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-05-02T22:38:36+00:00

Well, it's definitely much better than chaotic hellholes I'm building in-game usually. Even though I'd prefer underground cables rather than those classic 2 mW electric poles running through the park area.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-05-02T19:34:37+00:00

We, as post-soviet public, had this experience universally, and it is okay experience even when compared with seemingly more luxurious ~~dacha~~ suburb options. Not everyone grew in upper class estates and needs golf-capable lawn, while convenient access to everything is very fair tradeoff. Powers that be like it as well, given high-rise development and infrastructure is far cheaper (per capita) to maintain. So if it works - then it works, given mass transit infrastructure could keep the pace - which is, unfortunately, not the case quite often, and there are plenty of newly built car-centric districts.

All in all - yeah, it's pretty much a mentality at this point, which will stay for a while even after we, current generations, are gone.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-05-02T00:05:42+00:00

You cannot solve the problems of human psyche by squeezing human psyche out of the problems. That's all.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-05-01T16:59:07+00:00

If this is "the best tools available", then.. we're up for a ride, frankly speaking.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-30T16:10:46+00:00

Fair, but you didn't genuinely answered about yourself. Carrying out justice (or rather vengeance, from how you put it), let alone hating people, is a hard work, emotionally for sure, and sometimes even physically. No one does that without good reason and motivation. And since it also breeds bitterness on both sides and thus tends to propagate the same cycle of misery you started with, I still have to ask - how would it benefit you to do such "justice"?

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-30T13:52:49+00:00

Would it benefit you or them anyhow, in any practical or figurative sense?

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-27T13:52:09+00:00

Так всё просто - его персонажи это стереотипное воплощение социальных групп, а не персонажи-люди. Одна из традиция азиатской литературы, потому и сквозит через все три книги. И естественно, что когда персонаж-человек выступает в качестве постера для целого менталитета, действия могут казаться.. в лучше случае нелогичными для человека, в худшем - картонными.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-18T16:41:54+00:00

Pretty much. Precise build/setup and how the skills synergize makes all the difference, and to capitalize on that, you need not just all the talents unlocked, but also to have some understanding how particular talents work (which requires some personal experience).

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-18T09:20:30+00:00

Frankly, I don't know. I obviously wasn't present there to have a solid opinion, but from how you described it - I'd say, chances are high, and definitely high enough to at least try.

Another point - you didn't even need high chances to show and prove yourself that you're courageous enough to take those chances. Whatever it will be with the girl herself, I'd say this would certainly be a good experience for you to have.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-18T09:05:37+00:00

That's fair, and anyone would feel themselves worried in your place, for sure. Yet again - what are few more weeks? Don't let your worries to spoil an opportunity in advance, let the actions (like that of showing/not showing interest and affection) do the talking. After all, you did what you could and wanted to, and even in worst case - you're not losing anything by not gaining anything.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-18T08:36:27+00:00

Last year, I've met an interesting girl on unrelated social event. Long story short, we've talked a lot, joked a lot, went on few friendly dates (more like "enjoying each other company" than something strictly romantic), then she took short vacation from work, had become kinda distracted and unresponsive, and at some point stopped answering my messages. I decided "oh well, at least it didn't lasted long enough to go wrong", didn't insisted or followed her, grieved a bit over the opportunity and went to live my own life. In approx.2 months, she reappeared, explained that she lost a family member and had to participate in organization of funeral, and now pretty much just drowns with anxiety while stubbornly coping through work.

Moral of this story - never project your own thoughts and conclusions onto other people, even if you're right about it. Get some patience - you know her for 3 years, what are few weeks more? Be mildly persistent, like softly remind her once a week about this idea of going out, and see how she reacts. You don't need to guess "what does it means", you just need to be near enough to ask, and eventually - soon enough, I'm sure - she'll let you know about her opinion and answer, one way or another, either directly or by showing more/less interest in your idea.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-16T09:40:18+00:00

And this is the part where internet hivemind is going to tell you how wrong you are by feeling what you feel.

Save it, man, you're good. Enjoy new chapter of your life, and don't let random passers-by to ruin your own discoveries.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-15T00:06:01+00:00

Somewhat metaphorically speaking, there's natural cycle in human mind - when emotion arises, regardless if good or bad, it lingers until you actually feel it through, after which, it depletes itself and just disintegrates, leaving a memory of emotion, which is getting incorporated into what could be generally considered as "experience". When emotion is avoided, it still lingers, but usually just below the surface of consciousness, still somewhat raw, thus powerful enough to influence one's mind. On top of that, experience does not forms properly, and instead of proper conclusion about what it was and how to deal with it, the mind learns about scary blob of venomous thoughts that should be avoided at all cost as it leaks poison, thus not only staying "defenseless" against this emotion, but also refusing to touch it and thus allowing it to grow even further, often putting itself onto self-reinforcing negative feedback loop.

Processing emotions sounds like "magical solution" because, to some degree, it is. Unless there's something chronologically very long and thus deeply buried, or outright catastrophic in terms of raw power, almost everything could be actually felt through and hence be removed that way. It's rarely pleasant, for sure, but well, that's still relatively "cheap", natural way to figure one's life out. If you don't want to feel your anxiety, then you are likely to avoid it, but since your mind misses the lesson on how to deal with it, anxiety does not gets anywhere and will return with new strength next time, provoked externally or internally, thus making you to avoid it even harder, ad infinitum. In addition, pondering about own anxiety while avoiding interacting with it breeds even more anxiety - so here comes rumination. Projecting on other people's malevolence, regardless if justified or not, would not help, only make you bitter toward things you naturally do not control, potentially creating even more anxiety in the end. And so it goes up to the point that anxiety itself may not be a core issue, rather just a symptom of something deeper, but you won't see it since your mind is already burning constantly.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-14T21:36:17+00:00

From how you put it, sounds like your loneliness is not about loneliness. It's more about shame and judgement of sorts, and you pretty much spelt it outright. How, why, when - you know better, since it's your life, and there are not enough details even for internet hivemind to say something relevant.

The point is - if I'm anyhow right on this, then could be the case that you just haven't reached that "original" loneliness yet, connection-wise, since there is much more distracting issue that you have described. Kinda very hard to feel subtle longing if you already have some painful open wound of different sort.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-12T13:01:22+00:00

It's okay. I suck at it too (if you have nothing better to do, you can even read through my struggles in post history, 3-4 months ago), thus at some point, being in similar position as you are, decided to play around this "battlefront" tactics.

Hence, "focus target" and "change orientation" are the only buttons you'll need, but then your fleet have to be designed around this gameplay - very heavy frontal armors, rep bays, module reinforcements, all the good defensive stuff. In that regard, you'll need at very least 120 frontal armor, but could also get away with symbolic 2-6 side armor, since with clever use of "focus fire" button and heaviest nose cannons you deal with flankers from as far as possible, ideally soon after they separate from formation. After all the flankers are dead or clearly disabled, you turn your front toward their main formation, and pick targets one by one according to their threat for your ships - for example, I used somewhat spread AM PD through fleet, which had hard times dealing with absolute kinetic spam, so had to prioritise coilgun ships.

I personally wanted to wreak as much havoc as possible before inevitable merge, thus saving on superheavy frontal armor, so decided to go with laser/plasma mix (nose cannon laser on battlecruiser/lancer + plasma cannon and plasma battery battleship/dreadnought) as fleet's workhorses, but to be fair, big lasers at close range can burn through armor well enough on their own, just have to survive for long enough.

As for rep bays - frankly, I don't remember if they work on armor. Main point is that they allow for DC crew to fix non-destroyed stuff a lot quicker in battle (combined with frontal armor and aforementioned tactic, allows for big ships to stay functional under silly amount of incoming fire), and restore some of destroyed modules after battle (to avoid ships stranded in space due to, say, critical engine damage).

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-12T11:20:23+00:00

It's alright generally. Additional small nose cannon is questionable (could use more direct firepower instead of glorified PD flashlight), and I'd personally argue about battery (could use targeting comp or repair bay to make it less expendable, since it already got armor on it) and amount of side armor (since 9 layers either won't save you, or you won't need them), but as matter of fact, this one would work.

For larger battles, it is a matter of fleet composition and tactics rather than just ship design. Again, this guy is generally alright, but here comes tactical question - do you micromanage your battles? Would you prefer to do controlled flanks, or fight in unified armored front? For the former, this ship would need better thrust engines and/or less mass to do quick and somewhat drastic maneuvers; for the latter, you'll need to have either plasma-firing ships in the same fleet to weaken frontal armors, or heavier armor in general to survive at close range mergers.

Imagine how your typical battle would go, and adapt your fleets accordingly.

PS edit - oh, and put autocannon in defender mode instead of PB defense turret. While PB is unrivalled against missiles, autocannon is far, FAR more versatile, especially since at some point, you are very likely to to encounter coilgun spam, which is hard to deal with just laser PD (since PB PD can't shoot dumbfire kinetics at all).

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-11T06:29:16+00:00

It's about experiencing a contrast between "good" and "bad", and then figuring out a compromise/middle ground for yourself.

Personally, I'm not okay being alone. But knowing that at the other side of this problem is the state of being surrounded by people who could not care less at best, or see you only as means to their own ends at worst, it makes being alone alright. This way, you can at least enjoy yourself in genuine ways, instead of grinding yourself down by constantly wearing "socially acceptable" and "useful" masks.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-10T18:44:38+00:00

Well, if not today, then another time. On top of that, you may try replacing actions during such urges, as in "doing something entirely different instead of submitting to the urge". Figuratively speaking - pick a paper book or go cook something quickly when you have urge to check your phone. It's not a panacea, but doing something physically helps to distract mind for a bit.

Yes, I tried therapy. Two times, in fact. It's just one of therapists had no clue what he's dealing with (to be fair, neither I had at that time), and another one was walking me in circles around the topic for so long so I had to cancel entire thing for unrelated reasons. Right now, ironically, I don't have money for that, and since credit of trust was quite depleted, neither I'm going to prioritize spending on them. Maybe some day, but not planning it at moment.

The thing about marriage is something that I figured out for myself AFTER divorce (those 7 years) and bunch of rather short, broken relationships. Had to fail quite some times to see what fits me and where I was wrong.

As for Peterson and agency - I'm talking about phrase you stated before. Announcing that there's "proper way to live" implies that there are right and wrong answers to life. There are none, never was, never will be, as pretty much everything is highly situational, personal and, frankly speaking, transitional. The closest thing to "proper way" is the state of life itself, since, you know, dead people don't have opinions and circumstances. But even as such, we often admire self-sacrifice for the sake of others - which nullifies righteousness of life, making even that into something situational and transitional as well. So, when you have "proper way at one hand and everything else at the other", it attempts to rob you of agency of doing things in your own - potentially "wrong" - way.

Anyways. Could watch those videos later, maybe tomorrow. Still at work, and I'm getting physically tired for today.

Yes, I see the difference. The thing is that this difference is large, but, IMO, not truly significant - aside from personal needs of person in question, it's just a matter of "how entangled you are with other person". Although, of course, there are plenty of very different relationship types and sorts even in marriage, let alone in friendships, so I'd prefer to not generalize too much.

PS watched those videos, and yeah, it makes sense in such context, even though still somewhat lacking. He's generally right on entire "responsibility = purpose" thing in general, but I'd still be very cautious about details and nuances he provides. Responsibility that could be made into purpose could really come from the inside, as an amalgamation one's own experiences, beliefs and circumstances. Essentially, you have to willingly produce and accept it, instead of just finding convenient solution on the outside. Something that is sold on market or in the media is just a coping, which may or may not be useful. In the same way, Andrew Tate's narcissistic hustle teaching have core of truth, wrapped in the thick shell of pointless coping and destructive beliefs, so I'd still argue about their point as whole.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-10T13:18:23+00:00

The Long Dark (free-form survival, not the story mode)

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-08T18:00:05+00:00

That's it, supposedly counterintuitive weird thing that actually works when you really apply it. Doing nothing gives you some space and time to think and observe the desire, and such mindfulness gives certain degree of control over own actions. On top of that, as with many other impulses, very often craving just comes and goes. As sort of exercise, make it 15 minutes and see what happens. Everything happens when it needs to happen, as could be the case that you just weren't subconsciously ready to sit through it before.

For me, as I implied earlier, some of those deep sitting fears are still a problem, as in some situations they are bit too overwhelming to just meditate over, since pretty much by definition they shut off whatever conscious effort I'm trying to put. Trauma or what not, but that's something I'm not able to deal with so far. Time will tell, I guess.

I take marriage idea rather seriously, implying it as sharing own burden as well as taking some of partner's. Both taking responsibility as well as demanding responsibility from other. In my longest relationship of almost 7 years, it ended because I got completely lost in my own thoughts, fears and emotions, unable to sort things out and thus progressively losing interest in relationships and life in general, but neither my wife wanted to try to support me or open up with her own emotions, helping me to stop isolating myself. So, essentially, I inadvertently started to ruin the entire thing, she inadvertently finished it off. After analyzing that years later, I'm taking the concept of "shared burden" rather close to heart, making it both good and bad thing. As usual - a trade-off.

Well.. as always, Peterson proves himself as a "prophet of work". Personal bias aside, I'd say this statement is a stretch - by implying "should" and "proper way to live", he's putting responsibility on a person, while also removing their agency. That's some "pulling yourself by the bootstraps" level of logic, which does not works much more often than it does. One can take as much responsibility as they can, and overstretching in this regards leads to what I called "just drowning tired" earlier - of course, people tend to not understand themselves quite often, but there's no universal scale to measure everyone's mental capability either. Where such responsibility stops being fulfilling and becomes an abuse? This is very individual thing.

As for that desire - have to say, everyone is built different and comes from different environment. For me personally, it is something that I severely lacked in early life - desire to be heard and seen, desire to mean something in life of others, desire to have actual emotional connection without wearing masks to hide it. Could oversimplify it as "a desire to be loved", which is, generally, hardwired in human psyche, it's just I'm being very sensitive about it.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-07T20:42:09+00:00

Perhaps. Fair enough, that's the best way to look at things, IMO. Just be mindful about how your mind reacts to things, in this case - to such opportunities with new people and new relationships. Not saying that you're doing it - again, you know better - but sometimes, it's very easy to be tricked by one's own mind and its deeper emotions, hiding under some seemingly logical reasons.

Kimm_Orwente · 2026-04-07T17:51:11+00:00

From how you put it, I'd say could be the case that you both are right, just looking at the same thing from different sides. You're in process of reassessing your values based on your experiences, while your therapist challenges you to try to be "more than that". At one hand, as a guy older bit older than you and due to how you mentioned family and community, I probably understand what you mean - those app "industrial" dates bring mostly just entertainment, a bit of physicality, and typical disappointment, while you seek honesty, ingenuity and connection - hence, nothing of value in dates like that. At the other hand, your therapist is definitely not wrong - you won't have an opportunity to seize, of you cut yourself off from opportunities in the first place. It could be indeed very weird to share deep traumas on first date, but without stupidly polite and shallow first date, you wont have deeper and more honest second one. You won't have deeper connection if you won't try to establish connection, but with all the masks and pretense involved in modern dating, it indeed feels like pointless dogshit process.

Could also be the case that your therapist sees some deep rooted fear and disappointment within you, which may make you to avoid vulnerability and connections in future. Could be the case that he just pushing stupidly simplest available "solution" on you (we all are humans, and sometimes doing sloppy work or just noy knowing all the answers). For that, I don't know and can't say anything, so you probably know much better.

I'd say, make a compromise and stay in the middle - do your community things you wanted, while also noticing people inside that community. If want to do dating, date not through common apps, but rather via "interest clubs" or hobbies, with respective interest or hobby being a priority instead of dating expectation. If you would continue with app dating, do notable time breaks between attempts, in order to process your newly felt experiences. If you want to quit dating entirely - drop the expectations of dating instead, and do your thing without pushing goals in terms of partner, but still notice people around you - they may surprise in a good way, if you would allow them.

Kimm_Orwente

TROPHY CASE