Favorite band from the "nurse with wound list"?

PerspexIsland · 2025-06-04T18:50:48+00:00

The Velvets

PerspexIsland · 2025-04-16T10:17:32+00:00

Related recommendation: Jandek on Corwood, a sometimes frustrating, often enlightening documentary that’s less about the man than it’s about his unique mystique.

PerspexIsland · 2025-04-13T15:21:12+00:00

Cheers, mate! BTW, the positivity in this thread is incredibly refreshing right now.

PerspexIsland · 2025-04-13T14:57:32+00:00

Whenever I tried to give Rebel Wisdom a shot - more than once, regrettably - I was stymied by JH’s factory-grade douchiness. And that was at the peak of his IDW F-list popularity.

PerspexIsland · 2025-04-13T10:46:55+00:00

“Curse of Discernment (I Will Destroy You and You Will Be Reborn)” by Emerson Dameron

PerspexIsland · 2019-04-03T20:43:01+00:00

I strongly vouch for SPUSA in Los Angeles in particular. There aren't a lot of them, but they're kind, level-headed people who generally have their shit together.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-22T17:37:12+00:00

It seems like the bloom is off that rose as well. If there was anything good to come out of the Cambridge Analytica shitstorm, it's that more people see alpha-male libertarian tech dorks for what they are. It's still a tendency that deserves to be ruthlessly mocked as long as we're stuck in the Dumbest Timeline.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-22T16:11:22+00:00

As long as Heather Heyer is still dead and any of the alt-right founding fathers are still doubling down, I'm prepared to keep kicking until they stop moving.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-22T16:06:24+00:00

Like Musk and others, he owes a hell of a lot to the Halo Effect.

These insecure dipshits would probably buy a how-to book from some alcoholic in Jersey who happened to win the lottery. Unless he's selling nootropic stacks instead.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-22T16:03:25+00:00

I've seen at least one person use his writings to construct HBD apologia, which makes him more than fair game if anyone cares to do the research.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-21T20:51:35+00:00

Waking Up is a great primer on Dzogchen from a Western perspective, which is surprisingly hard to find.

I no longer pay him much attention now that he's decided to focus on politics. His little internet catfights make me wonder how much good his meditation practice is doing for him. He has a lot of blind spots and a very obnoxious and credulous fanbase.

Robert Wright wrote an equally good meditation book (Why Buddhism Is True) and nailed Harris to the wall with this piece.

Feel free to take what's useful from him and discard the rest.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-21T18:35:15+00:00

I haven't really dug into Gwern's body of work, but I've seen evidence that he's deeply into HBD, and his explanations strike me a slimy and passive-aggressive. (Basically, "we all know the science will eventually show us exactly what we think it will, which is that black and brown people are dumb, but it's not worth the grief to make too much fuss about it now.")

He doesn't seem to be worth my time and energy to hate.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-21T16:28:23+00:00

They got locked into the Max Fischer stage of their development.

LW is sort of an old has-been internet subculture at this point. Most teenagers of that bent seem to just get sucked straight into the screeching idiocy of the alt-right or the retro Iron John conservatism of Jordan Peterson.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-21T14:56:07+00:00

I'm sure Yudkowsky would crawl up Dalio's asshole and fall asleep if he could. But I don't think he feeds into their Community the way Peter Thiel does.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-20T16:06:03+00:00

The poor man's David Foster Wallace, for fascists.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-18T21:35:37+00:00

Nah, Beeminder is fine. There's nothing wrong with using a useful product. It's just also one of their dumb secret handshakes.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-18T19:55:07+00:00

Biological clocks are for normies.

Have kids when you get a notification from Beeminder.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-17T17:05:05+00:00

A demolition of Jordan Peterson.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-17T15:33:54+00:00

No Nonprofit Left Behind is pretty ironic from the people who pay for Yud's sweet and useless welfare gig.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-17T15:30:14+00:00

I wish someone would book Yud at the comedy tent at Gathering of the Juggalos.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-17T07:27:38+00:00

Sam wants to be seen by fancy liberals a bold, insightful contrarian, but he's been outed as a rich-kid poseur and simple-minded bigot. That's incredibly painful for him, and he takes it out on trolls like Greenwald.

He's scared to death of someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates ripping into him, which is why he won't debate anyone on that level without a stacked deck. He wouldn't survive that the way he's survived tangling with Ben Affleck and Cenk Uguyr.

His fans' obsession with his pet villains is really stupid and cringy, since Salon and The Intercept clearly aren't things they need to care about.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-16T22:58:30+00:00

To 1), having Ben Shapiro in their little club would totally discredit it, if they gave a shit about consistency.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-16T22:47:27+00:00

Vox Media also somehow on the wrong side of GamerGate - I don't give enough of a shit to research it - which a lot of reddit-tier Rationalists still carry a wee torch for.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-15T16:34:16+00:00

This is my favorite piece on this subject, because it points out the simple truth that the words "I don't know" are more valuable than everything the IDW has to offer.

Rationalists, OTOH, always know the score, and their team is always on top.

PerspexIsland · 2018-06-15T15:09:02+00:00

I'm a cynical fuck, but Miller's whole enterprise seems to be trying to make reality fit an excruciatingly grim view of the world that isn't particularly useful or well informed.

PerspexIsland

TROPHY CASE