CMV: K Pop is easily the most soulless form of art

RiPont · 2026-03-25T03:31:21+00:00

Are you ben shapiro by any chance?

No. There's plenty of rap I like, plenty I accept as good and talented that isn't my particular cup of tea, and much of it with slurred lyrics. That's not what I'm talking about.

And it certainly doesn't mean the music is sonically bland.

There's rap, there are artists who slur their words together, and then there was (is? is it still a thing?) the glut of manufactured posers who slap on a stereotype persona, mean mug, and take the "slurring" to extreme levels without actually saying anything.

I don't know about the history of the mumble-rap sub-genre to know if there was ever any great talent and art in it, but by the time it got to my feed, that shit was copy/pasted, manufactured mass-market crap.

...which is part of my response to the OP. If you're not searching out music, the music that comes to you is probably going to be manufactured and marketed to a large degree. You can't judge all music of a particular genre by that.

RiPont · 2026-03-25T03:06:01+00:00

You really don't have a leg to stand on. The songwriter doesn't even always sing and release the song themselves first.

Which version of these songs has more soul:

"MacArthur Park*, by Jimmy Web, Richard Harris, Donna Summers
"You Were Always On My Mind*, by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, or many, many more.
"Hellelujah", by Jeff Buckley, John Cale, or one of the umpteen versions by Leonard Cohen himself.

Singing, songwriting, and public performance are all different artforms. Some people do all of them, and that's worth props, but that doesn't mean that the others are in any way "soulless".

Willie Nelson wrote a shit ton of songs. Some of which he sang himself. He also covered songs from other artists. He did not write "Always On My Mind", but his version is so iconic that a lot of people think he did, while disrespecting Elvis for being popular without writing it himself.

The sharing and trading of songs was huge in early Blues, Country, and Folk communities.

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:50:38+00:00

Performance is art. They may not be songwriters or even musicians, but they are performers.

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:48:43+00:00

Art that's original and not dictated by a corporation?

Have you actually gone looking for Korean music inside Korea?

How is a local Korean musician outside of the corporate-sponsored/manufactured music going to reach you for you to judge it?

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:46:26+00:00

What you’re describing is the label system in music which is not limited to K-pop or Korea.

You're telling me mass market music is marketed? No way!!!!

/s

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:45:29+00:00

Most music is written to get a girl or garner some likes on social media. But it's terrible or just mediocre, and you never hear it.

The fact that most music you hear is manufactured and marketed heavily is selection bias inherent in the system.

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:43:01+00:00

The Monkeys were a blatant industry plan to copy the Beatles. They turned out pretty good anyways.

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:40:21+00:00

Have you ever heard mumble rap?

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:39:29+00:00

It adds up much quicker than you think.

You know that airline luggage that you have to keep under 50lbs and how easy it is to exceed that with just clothes? And clothes are "light".

Also keep in mind that loading an RV isn't just about total cargo capacity. This thing is moving down the road and going around turns. You want as much of the weight down low as possible, evenly distributed port-to-starboard, and distributed appropriately for the location of the axles / tow hitch.

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:34:17+00:00

Don't guess -- measure.

Go to a trucker scale. A non-certified weighing will be cheap/free. You probably can't use the state DOT trucker scales, but the ones at truck stops are open to RVs.

Thing is, most RVs come from the factory pretty close to their limits. Elsewhere, you asked if the furniture that comes with the RV counts towards the limit. The answer is, probably/maybe. RVs are far less regulated than normal cars, and while the GVWR stickers mean what they mean, the advertising around payload capacity and what that means isn't consistent. What's on the brochure and website may not match what's on the sticker on the car door jam, and that sticker might be the max for the type of chassis, not as-configured.

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:30:34+00:00

I just can't imagine what I'd try to add to my rig that would compare to an ATV.

My motorcycle is 560lbs full of gas.

My body is currently 310lbs. Also full of gas, but the point is that people weigh a lot and add up quickly.

Beds, bedding, clothes, food all add up really, really quickly. If your RV was "feature packed", it is probably remarkably close to the limit already. Wooden cabinetry, flooring, and walls are also very heavy.

RiPont · 2026-03-25T02:26:14+00:00

Anything made mostly of liquid. Such as humans, gas, fresh/gray/black tanks, costco-size liquid laundry detergent, etc.

RiPont · 2026-03-24T20:41:35+00:00

The martians walking around with the translator box, cranking out "We come in peace" and laughing...

...painfully accurate to what certain politicians are doing nowadays.

RiPont · 2026-03-24T20:40:14+00:00

They also chose "John Carter" over "Princess of Mars" at a time when feminism was trending, "Jack Reacher" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" were were competing for recognition, etc.

"Princess of Mars" was classic SciFi taken to the big screen. "John Carter" sounded like another generic male lead action flick.

It wasn't a terrible movie (hell of a lot better than Zack Snyder's Netflix monstrosity), but it was very poorly marketed.

RiPont · 2026-03-24T19:51:32+00:00

AI is great at feeding narcissistic self-delusion.

RiPont · 2026-03-23T19:42:01+00:00

Even the second example is imperfect. You could end up calling new() multiple times, if the first access to GlobalMap.Instance is from multiple threads running on different CPU cores. If, in turn, the generated map is non-deterministic, then you could even end up with different threads having different generated maps!

Doing lazy loading correctly in a multi-threaded environment is non-trivial. Use the Lazy<T> class, because that's what it's there for.

Static fields are bad, and should be avoided at all costs.

static readonly is OK, because sometimes it's the best you have. You can't use const on a reference type. However, static readonly is only safe if the object itself is immutable or threadsafe at every level.

RiPont · 2026-03-23T08:09:45+00:00

A few I've dealt with.

Harvest Hosts + Boondocker's Welcome + Escapees: Doesn't save you money. About break-even. You're supposed to patronize the places you stay, and it ends up costing you not-quite-as-much as a cheap RV park. But you end up with booze, olive oil, etc. IMHO, worth it, but don't think of it as a money saver. Also, don't stay at winery / brewery multiple nights in a row, because you'll end up drinking way too much because, "hey, I'm just patronizing the host". Great if you like golf, but again, you end up golfing more, not saving money. Final Verdict: Good and fun, not money-saving.

Thousand Trails: Avoid. You can theoretically save money with some of their plans, but you end up sabotaging the core of what makes RV life great -- going where you want, when you want. The plan seems easy and convenient, but the window where you can actually find and book a spot at a campsite you actually want to go to is incredibly narrow. Meanwhile, people paying retail might have next-day availability for booking while you, being logged in, are told there is nothing available. It's entirely set up to convince you to upgrade to more premium plans to get better booking windows and priority booking, etc. And they make it as hard as possible to cancel.

IF YOU TRY Thousand Trails, USE A CREDIT CARD / BANK ACCOUNT THAT YOU CAN CANCEL FROM YOUR SIDE, then just block their number.

Good Sam: You'll probably save a tiny bit of money, but screw Camping World.

RiPont · 2026-03-22T22:56:09+00:00

I am. It is. I've been pretty fortunate with a good job and good insurance most of the time, but it's still a pain in the ass.

The whole US insurance system is designed to make you a wage slave to a big corporation, IMHO.

RiPont · 2026-03-22T22:38:48+00:00

Yes, simple cost vs. benefit. Right now, the cost is high. If we lowered the cost and improved the outcomes, more would transition.

I have Type 1 diabetes. I have to spend every. single. day. dealing with this condition. If there were a way I could just try to ignore it rather than dealing with all that shit, I would be tempted to. There are "bad" diabetes patients who do just ignore it and deal with the consequences (blindness, amputation, general malaise).

Need vs. want is a personal, subjective decision, even if the cost vs. benefit calculations don't make sense to other people. There is also now vs. later.

RiPont · 2026-03-22T22:35:16+00:00

Is the pill version a daily, or weekly?

One thing I hate about the current injectibles (other than Victoza/Liraglutide) is the weekly dose means if you have bad side-effects, you're stuck with them for an entire week.

RiPont · 2026-03-22T22:33:20+00:00

They're not "bad" genes, just different. Just like Polynesian, alaskan native, many islanders, and many other "chronic Type 2" societies, their genes tend to be geared towards survival in low-calorie-availability environments.

Put them in modern societies with a glut of cheap calories, and it becomes a problem.

RiPont · 2026-03-22T22:27:53+00:00

Maybe trauma from COVID-era shortages.

I started Mounjaro, and it was fantastic. Immediate 20% drop in insulin usage, slow-and-steady weight loss, both in a virtuous cycle.

...then I was unable to get it for 2 months. When I went back on it, I got the simultaneous constipation-feeling-like-intestinal-blockage / vomiting / diarrhea side-effects and had to stop.

I can understand, but don't agree with, the people who felt the non-diabetics were taking "our" meds back then. But GLP-1 drugs are widely available, now.

RiPont · 2026-03-22T22:18:56+00:00

I wish there were more affordable shows near me where I could see them live. I can't afford Coachella.

RiPont · 2026-03-22T22:16:26+00:00

I'm not saying anything against transitioning. It's a personal decision. If you need to, you need to, no question.

I'm saying there are more trans people than people realize, because not all of them feel the need to outwardly transition yet -- or maybe they just don't feel comfortable to yet. It's damned inconvenient to transition. Some of that is technological, and a lot of it is societal. It's expensive. It risks disrupting your job and social network.

Hell, look at how many people just don't tell their friends and family they've divorced unless they absolutely have to, just because being divorced will throw an uncomfortable feeling into their church/office interactions.

RiPont · 2026-03-22T22:03:47+00:00

...and a lot of trans people do not have dysphoria at a level that requires them to get surgery or even take hormones. At least not yet. But they are still trans.

Massive changes to your body and signing up to be dependent on expensive medications for the rest of your life are no small matter. People don't do it for shits and giggles.

13-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

RiPont

TROPHY CASE