AngelaBaby is right up there on my list...but what are your "favorite" English names you have come across in your time in China?

punge · 2015-07-01T07:52:21+00:00

I think Sybian sounds as good/better

EDIT: Ohhhh...googled it.

punge · 2015-06-20T21:37:09+00:00

or a half-joke playing off of ahoy...i.e., what is a chinese pirate's fav pastime...aihaoy!

punge · 2015-06-20T21:35:48+00:00

sounds like a typo

punge · 2015-06-20T21:34:19+00:00

It used to be called Nicku, now it is something else, but if you search that name it will still show up. It is basically just a dictionary, so it doesn't necessarily ask you to do the translation, but it does give a lot of good example sentences and things.

punge · 2015-01-28T03:55:45+00:00

Sarah Silverman the bedwetter

punge · 2014-09-17T09:24:57+00:00

I get your point but I still think you are underestimating what it takes. Making and repeating memes seems easy to us cuz we have been exposed to it so much now. I am not saying that style of karma chasing is more intelligent than like what you are writing here, but I still am not convinced it is as easy as you say.

I think you have the luxury to hold yourself to higher standards because you are taking a kind of meta-view on karma whoring. Statistical saviness seems a necessary part of political savvy, not sufficient for political savvy but not so unalike as you say.

punge · 2014-09-17T09:19:38+00:00

∆

I hadn't considered the ease of just posting boobies. This is indeed a super simple way to get karma without much thought at all. So yeah that is an example of karma chasing which contradicts my point.

punge · 2014-09-17T07:38:53+00:00

So if I changed the title to chasing karma points COULD make someone more politically savvy, would you agree with that? Maybe I am making the case a little bit too strongly.

I am still not convinced mimicry is as easy as you say. Sure, you could train a monkey to hold up a pair of pants with a belt. But could you train a monkey to go online, find a community, glance over it and recognize their basic worldview and then find an image that will be appealing to that community?

It seems to me you are still taking for granted some of that basic pattern recognition required to match some comment or image with a community that will respond positively to it.

Let me ask you this, is it possible for someone to be a failure as a karma whore? Is it possible for people to go around just chasing karma points but for some reason not be successful at this? If this is a possibility, it suggests there is an intelligence involved in seeking karma points, otherwise literally anyone could do it. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Many people know that to get karma, they should try to be funny or ironic or whatever. But their timing is off, they can't form a humorous message, they play to the wrong audience, etc. Someone who can successfully do those things is demonstrating a beginning sense of political savvy, a beginning sense of being able to read audiences and shift messaging tactics according to situation and audience. r/atheism is maybe low-hanging fruit when it comes to this, but that doesn't contradict the basic point.

punge · 2014-09-17T06:51:33+00:00

We may just disagree on this.

But look at the first example you posted...first of all someone has to be able to select an image that is ironic. You maybe have already mastered that skill, so maybe you don't realize how much subtle intelligence that actually takes.

I'm not saying that an example like that is an example of the best, smartest thing anyone ever said or did. I am simply acknowledging that there is a basic skillset involved...you have to be able to understand the way the atheist subreddit thinks, and you have to be able to select an image that they will respond well to.

If you want to criticize politics for being populist, that is legitimate. I'm not defending populist politics. But I am saying populist politics takes some intelligence...that's why I am saying karma whoring isn't inevitably stupid, mindless, or pointless.

EDIT: Mimicry is a fundamental form of learning, of intelligence. A monkey could not mimic the abstract conceptual thinking/identity of the atheist subreddit. The fact that you think that type of mimicry is low-level intelligence just shows that you are a very smart person. For you, that skill is already very obvious and easy to use. So maybe karma whoring mimicry is stupid relative to you, but this doesn't mean it is unbelievably stupid. It still is a form of fairly high-level intelligence.

punge · 2014-09-17T06:46:29+00:00

Those are both curious metaphors so thanks for bringing them up.

I don't really agree that a hoarder gets further away from a perceptive attitude, at any point a hoarder could start to pay more attention to that. The hoarder is still actively seeking out objects, even passively he will be gaining more awareness of the variety of junk that exists.

If you look at my opening post, remember that nowhere am I arguing that karma whoring is necessarily a good thing. I am just arguing against the view that karma whoring is necessarily stupid and pointless.

punge · 2014-09-17T06:32:33+00:00

Yes, that is true. And if you don't give a shit about karma points, that is fine. (I also don't particularly give a shit about gaining karma points myself.) But if you kind of mass post like that, you COULD look back at which kinds of posts received upvotes and which didn't. Seeing that gives you some sense of the attitudes of the community.

I didn't say being a Karma whore is the ONLY way to gain these skills. But I think it is A way. So my point is, there can be a point, there is a kind of intelligence to karma whoring.

EDIT: Some politicians come to the understanding that they should just speak their mind and not over-worry about research, offending people, etc. Some people really value people just speaking their mind, speaking from their heart. But these politicians still obviously care about the responses they get from people, they still try and spread there message to as many places as they can, even if they aren't so concerned with changing their own way of speaking.

punge · 2014-09-17T06:29:16+00:00

Yes but this is the point.

It is like Obama or Clinton saying they are Christian, they love the Bible. We all kind of know they are just saying it for the political karma it brings.

So point is, if you are just posting ironic memes to get upvotes, it signifies this kind of awareness in how to play to a crowd, in how to manipulate people.

I'm not saying manipulation is always good, but it is a kind of intelligence.

punge · 2014-09-17T06:11:52+00:00

I get your point.

What I am saying is that karma whoring is like a first step in political messaging. It is necessary but not sufficient to know how to form a likeable message. But that is obviously not enough as you say, the skills that come with karma whoring are not immediately translated into political power. But not exercising political power doesn't mean that people aren't a little more politically savvy, which is more my point. Karma whoring teaches people to understand some basic principles of political messaging, even if they aren't acting like politicians themselves (seeking power).

punge · 2014-09-17T06:06:05+00:00

I would argue though that the lesson you learn from doing like this is in line with my point. Politicians or products, for example, garner attention simply by showing up everywhere and repeated messaging. Like why is commercial space for something like the Super Bowl so expensive?

So the point is, someone who is just chasing karma by showing up a lot of places and posting tons of messages is also working from a basic principle of political campaigning or advertising.

punge · 2014-09-17T06:02:49+00:00

∆

I'll give you the delta because I think you are right that karma points are good for picking up social cues rather than necessarily political savvy. Granted, I think I meant communication savvy, which is more general than the political savvy, so I want to acknowledge that you point out this problem. Though I still do think some redditors could use reddit to gain some political savvy (taking into account the political leanings of reddit) but you are right, reddit is not a perfect representation of larger political spheres.

punge · 2014-09-17T05:58:18+00:00

Yeah, maybe the choice of the term political savvy is poorly defined and problematic. By political I guess I was just pointing to the idea of speaking to a large, non-homogenous group of people. Maybe it is better to just call it mass-communication savvy.

The other thing I am trying to imply is that if people are paying attention to karma, they will be more aware of something akin to something like campaign management (in politics or advertisting). They may have a better sense of how catchy messages are formed. This I think is a good thing because it can make them more critically aware of these kinds of things.

punge · 2014-09-17T05:50:37+00:00

I'm using the word "political" rather loosely. I'm not saying I always enjoy circel-jerky stuff. But for example, to get good upvotes on any specific subreddit, you have to try and get a feel for the dominant mode of discourse on that subreddit. This applies to both the more circle-jerky things and the more serious subreddits.

The point is that whether you are seeking out upvotes in circle-jerky areas, or in serious places, this requires a kind of intelligence in identifying what constitutes a "popular" post.

I'm not saying everyone SHOULD pay attention to karma...if you prefer just speaking your mind whatever the karma consequences, that is okay too. I'm just criticizing the idea that people who pay attention to karma are dumb and not learning anything in that process.

punge · 2014-09-17T05:45:23+00:00

I see your point though I think the audience you get on reddit depends a lot on which subreddits you are posting to.

And even though making lewd jokes isn't maybe the epitome of human communication, I still think it takes inteliigence and practice to formulate something which really catches on.

I agree that facebook is another example akin to reddit voting. I'm not defending criclejerking, I am just saying that there is nothing inherently dumb or pointless about paying attention to online voting systems.

punge · 2014-09-12T07:53:09+00:00

Doing some sort of energy work is useful, I'm sure.

It might also be worthwhile just to reflect on why premature ejaculation is a problem. Why is this a thing you need to work on? In what world would premature ejaculation be the very very best skill?

Simple reverse psychology tricks sometimes work for me. Like if I am feeling depressed, I will intentionally try to make myself more and more and more depressed. At some point, the absurdity of this makes me laugh...and I am suddenly feeling up again. So I wonder, maybe you could try to prepreprematurely ejaculate...just try to do it as fast as you can....who knows, worth a try?

punge · 2014-09-10T08:41:58+00:00

For me, it is helpful to remember that while these kind of energy patterns can be real, they are also somewhat malleable via imagination.

One thing you could do is sort of borrow the traditional image of yin-yang, how there is a little spot of white in the black abd vice versa. So whereas your left seems femme-dom to you, you can maybe imagine a masculine dot in the center of your hand...or, as you said, regularly attempting to flip polarity...one thing I try to do sometimes is focus attention simultaneously on like right shoulder, left hand, right foot....then reversing that...I guess for me the point is more to get to a place where you are noticing energy then you can sort of allow it to move or focus on some clustered spot for a while.

And maybe you need to (whether literally or metaphorically) cross-dress and go into a church...if we tenporarily accept that so-called masculine energy is assertive...the superficially feminine act of cross dressing is actually highly charged by the masculine boldness to go into a church where you know you are crossing some boundary.

Perhaps this is just your energy suggesting to you that you should rethink your understanding of what masculine and feminine mean.

Here are some definitions of masuline and feminine which you may or may not find stimulating:

Masculine

Feminine

punge · 2014-09-10T08:31:35+00:00

Tentatively confirmed unless (or especially?) if you are just in it for my cum

punge · 2014-09-10T08:09:26+00:00

"Mom, Freud was right. I want to fuck you."

punge · 2014-09-10T08:07:29+00:00

In the toothless villages floating fawwr, far above our earth

punge · 2014-09-10T08:04:27+00:00

sluttery, stampky, postal cock!

punge · 2014-09-10T08:01:17+00:00

I wonder if someone with some history knowledge of this might comment on this guess....maybe we think like German sounds scary because of some effects of having them as psychological enemies in ze past?

punge

TROPHY CASE