deebosong

No need to take any pot shots at this trash in terms of aesthetic efficacy in earnest, if y'all know what I mean. But as an experiment, it's interesting. There seems to be an odd consistency to all of them, which reveals a kind of internal logic & coherence of sorts that courses throughout any iteration.

Aesthetically, where can you place these? I feel like the late David Lynch could have used some tropes in his unnerving, unsettling dream sequences (a la the intro dream in "Mulholland Drive" where people are so cheery and upbeat that it feels viscerally disturbing).

That's the consistent feeling that I'm left with watching each one, is just a deep, deep unsettled and uneasy feeling. A scowl on my face the whole time trying to make through each one.

I did crack up seeing a martini glass presented to the camera, then float in place on it's own and the presenter resumes holding it with his other hand.

Everything else made me nauseous.

I like what you're saying.

There's a quote in The Wire, when an ex-cop becomes a teacher in some of the toughest schools. The principal says to the new teacher about to be thrown into the gauntlet, "You need soft eyes."

Feels similar to what you're pointing out.

The real treasure was the weak ties we made along the way.

Jokes aside I do agree with you! The little things actually build up to the big things. Trying to insist on the big things via big-things-methods, that somehow forego the little things that comprise it all, will ironically have you miss the actual big thing. (Which might not be what you're pointing at... but I am!)

To your point, I've come across many who conflate the 2.

Wisdom seems like making good choices for long-term positive outcomes, where there are no rulebooks, lots of uncertainty, and the incentives thrown in your face to act in one direction are only a tiny fraction of the whole picture.

Intelligence seems like an aptitude to grasp concepts that lend itself to wielding a specific thing to a certain utilitarian end.

I'm sure others have said it better than me. But the folks I've met who are obviously intelligent seem to lack the ability to understand the consequences of their choices, and have already predetermined they're not only justified in their myopia, but somehow assume/ presume social support from everyone around them no matter how short-sighted their ideas are that come with obvious negative consequences if you look even one-step beyond their immediate outcomes.

Something like that. All to support your point.

In relationships, offloading personal responsibility onto someone else (aka blaming another person for your choices and behaviors and thoughts and actions) is something like projection, blame-shifting, codependency.

This makes any healthy relationship impossible, as no one can be responsible for someone else's decisions and actions.

Many emotionally immature folks appeal to this and use guilt and shame to get another person to believe they are responsible for someone else's emotions & choices. It's textbook toxic.

Reminds me of crypto. A lotta tokens. A lotta gambling. Very little supplanting of crypto from fiat. Very few use-cases that revolutionize society, etc.

My take is:

Toxic positivity is just as bad as toxic negativity.

Cynicism seems to fall under toxic negativity, in that it presumes negative intent before even finding out if it's true.

I think the article suggests being willing to find out, and take a stand towards choosing to influence your immediate circle to be allies, comrades, amongst fellow "soldiers in the trenches together," rather than just assuming everyone's in it for themselves and therefore there's no point in giving effort to be human towards one another.

I do like what the author says at the end, that even if our influence may seem tiny and insignificant, that it has impact if we notice.

I do think cynicism can be cancerous. I don't equate cynicism with a realistic assessment of an actually bad situation (which is where toxic positivity will want to bypass, brush it under the rug, stick their head in the sand, etc.).

Respect.

I'm gonna start using "shitlit" from hereon out.

And also, there are people I respect who said they read 100+ books a year, and that you should, too. But while others in my circles were eager to jump on the train, for me, I thought it would be performative, and be about having read said 100+ books than digesting any of it. And what more, I recall that I best retain info via reading if I have skin in the game, rather than feeling like reading makes me appear more approvable to others.

All that is to say, it's good to hear from someone who reads a ton that a lot of your reading is kinda junk stuff (even if 150+ books a year is still a crazy metric – and as a tangent, people who ride bikes a ton say that a lot of their miles they rack up are junk miles, so I'm sure there's an equivalent of shitlit in any pursuit/ hobby/ interest/ endeavor).

Just make up new titles.

Super Senior. Super Senior II. Hyper Senior II Turbo. Super Senior: Ultra Instinct.

My world is richer for reading this. I absolutely can see it. Like Redline meets Cowboy Bebop. Both can be b-side vignettes in a larger futuristic SNES world. Not so sure about Star Fox being in the mix, but not entirely out of the question either. But F-Zero & Metroid is a wonderful pairing.

This is frickin hilarious. Your awe and wonder at it, your wife's repulsion, and your eulogy hahaha

I side with this school of thought.

Just call the emotions what they are, accept them in the form of not dressing them up and putting some spin on them to make people feel better about themselves (and ultimately dance around the actual emotion, via forms of denial, bypassing, etc.). And once you accept them for the simple, unadorned, and sometimes unflattering things that they are, you can then process them, and decide via understanding the root causes, contexts, and triggers, to then map out decision trees for how to respond to those feelings and emotions as the best course of action.

And like you mentioned, if you don't address the actual emotions and try to pretty them up, you're gonna leak out the actual emotions sideways, and cause unnecessary strain to those around you, and ultimately place your burden of being responsible for your emotions on others, and most likely throw up a big stink (in the form of projection, more denial, more bypassing, etc.).

Emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and responsibility are very difficult but necessary things, and they often times are unflattering. But like also many other things, there's no shortcuts to learning how to manage and deal with them in real situations with real stakes.

Your boss sounds like they have an extremely rigid view of what emotions are and aren't "correct" in any given setting. Sounds controlling, and lacking a fundamental understanding of reality, people, and basic empathy.

I don't think all bosses are like this, but the ones who express these views in critical junctures that reveal their character and world views as such, I think it's safe to say that they indeed are intellectually and developmentally blunted (of the emotional intelligence, interpersonal relationship, and leadership dynamics variety) in a manner that can cause legitimate harm to anyone under their authority and has to take orders from them.

Your corn-based pain amuses me, cretin. I'll deign some packets of cane sugar to alleviate your pathetic woes.

(Honestly, HFCS prob has wreaked legit havoc via the "death by 1000 papercuts" method.)

Because it's awesome and fun to do. And rare copies will exist for a select few to share to select parties who would absolutely love to experience the contraband underground work.

Never knew about these crucial behind-the-scenes talks. Really interesting to know. Thank you!

To piggyback off of this with a call-to-action against the realities you point out, I think it's absolutely valuable and worth it to go after the aesthetic things that you like even for subjective reasons, and even if prevailing trends say otherwise, at the expense of falling outside the confines of conformity for the sake of pseudo-safety.

Safety in numbers is a thing, but when it comes to art & design & aesthetics, it utterly kills courage, and things are done out of fear of rejection or disapproval, which makes the end product feel bland, uninspired, forgettable, and will be dated in a few years. Might as well just explore what is interesting to you and not worry about public reception. But then that's tied into many other things like fear of rejection, fear of sticking out, fear of failure, etc., that may need to be unearthed and explored in oneself – which is utterly worthwhile and necessary to do, and by staving it off you only do yourself and others a massive disservice and continue to operate in fear.

But yeah I'm making blanket statements that needs context, etc.

For real.

The adherence to this technique needs to be total and absolute, but the situation has to call for an ever-escalating frequency of interruptions from family, work, the government, neighbors, etc.

We need some sketch comedians to get on this!

Make it into an e-sports competition.

But rather than try to hype it up like fighting game tournaments, have it be somewhat milder in aesthetics and tone, for the type of crowd it might draw. Like "Best in Show" or "Great British Bake Off" or what have you.

I'm in the "creative" field (aka, visual time-based arts, so to speak, but honestly, it's "work," and in the same vein, every other job is teeming with much-needed creativity that often doesn't get translated to visual arts, but that's an aside). But this is how I approach my work as well. All that is to say, I really appreciate this post, and it's very validating to whatever I've experienced in the "creative" visual arts field. Which to me kinda points to larger meta patterns that emerge from work in general.

While I was wrestling with personal greed with the crypto mania as a laymen (and I try not to write the whole thing off as bad), his writings were very helpful to get me to see what was drawing me in and what also wasn't sitting well with me about the mass hysteria around it.

I'd be very, very curious to hear viable alternatives to ad supported models, that aren't based on how major companies have been doing it for the past 20 years (or longer?), where they make it free, then sneak in subscriptions, then over time, start increasing subscription costs.

I feel like it's not just the companies, but consumers/ audiences don't want to pay for most internet services unless it's something like infrastructure services where it somehow viscerally seems "sensible" and "right" to do so.

I can relate.

Might not be exactly this, but it makes me feel similar to why people hate advertising. Which I believe is, people don't like feeling lied-to, and everyone knows that marketers are trying to get in your head to manipulate you into manufacturing desire or stoking insecurity, all for the purposes of getting you to buy their products.

I think people like organic word-of-mouth, but on the flipside, hate when they find out that someone was a paid shill to posture as an average consumer, but are an industry plant to trick and deceive us all lol.

But to your point about why it feels icky and unsettling for publications & media companies to just straight-up use AI to write articles... seems kinda similar. Many of us are already skeptical that journalists & reporters are being censored and manipulated into writing with an agenda. But these types of AI-generated articles feels a few degrees more dehumanizing and Machiavellian. Like, the humanity aspect can all be aped so well, that we can just manipulate the masses and assuage their needs for a sense of connection without having any souls behind it whatsoever, because the masses are viewed as a bunch of manipulable "things" to simply extract things from (like attention).

I don't like it either, and for me it seems like it's those reasons. It feels so... gross and heartless.

There's a saying I heard, which goes a little something like:

"You can't use a coping mechanism to heal from an issue/ wound/ trauma. It's basically just replacing one addiction for another."

I'm paraphrasing. But I agree with that statement (which isn't to say that healing is an easy or simple process).

To elaborate further on the ideological angle:

I've seen folks mention that it's about "the future" in a hand-wavy, abstract, nebulous sense. But their actions demonstrate profiteering, opportunism, and the greater-fool theory in action. Basically, for me, it seemed like all the ideology was intellectual cover (aka rationalizing) for plain ole greed, so they don't have to admit to themselves and others that it has nothing to do with the betterment of humanity and the future, and they just want to get rich quickly. To call it greed would be somewhat unbecoming, and the ideological arguments sounded good enough to assuage any psychological conflicts in oneself.

Might not be a generous interpretation, but if the ideology were indeed at the core of it, I feel like other areas of their lives would reflect said ideologies.

For the record, greed was at the core of my own interest in crypto when I was looking into it, so I could be projecting. Or it could be that said people and myself both experienced this as the driving force behind our interest in crypto as laymen.

Wow appreciate it! This really helps.

The SP404mkii sounds like a powerhouse and amazing value in comparison to the EP-133 now lol.

But I'm def not anywhere near being able to take advantage of either to their full capacity.

Thank you again.

Dang that's good to know. No worries if not, but would you mind giving a broad breakdown between the two?

OK I'm commenting twice and have no affiliations to TE or The Kount.

But apparently, The Kount made a buncha sounds for this thing.

https://twitter.com/THEK0UNT/status/1727365475976216610

I'm not that good at making beats, don't have deep knowledge on tech specs, or even have good creative workflow (I'm a very enthusiastic dabbler). But The Kount's free sample packs are so good (IMHO), and the beats he makes are certified bangers (he uploads 1 min vids of them on Twitter/ IG/ YouTube). Just wanted to highlight this as well and makes me happy to know.

Can't help but feel it's their gameplan. And I try to remain non-reactive, but I thought it was smart.

That toy car looked ridiculous, but not completely out of line with their shenanigans in the past. So it seemed somewhat "in character."

And then to immediately follow-up with a way more useful, beautiful, functional, cool and interesting product that's "only" $50 more expensive – with all the anchoring price point tactics and such dialed-in – and is like, 3x less than their OP-1 was (maybe even more), and "only" 2-3x more expensive than their higher-end pocket operators that essentially have similar functions... Then I do think they know exactly what they're doing.

All that being said, it absolutelye worked on someone like me and I bought one lol. I was so, so ready to be offended and be presented with more egregiously expensive-but-useless doodads. But $300 for a slick sampler... That's really not bad at all. Considering the Roland 404 is $200 more, and some other audio gadgets I bought with less functions are in the $200 range.

Banksy (I'm neither for nor against him) said something similar (or is said to have said something similar):

“The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”

All that is to say, it ain't only in tech! And I take this kind of waste – of vainglorious pursuits via manipulation of image-maintenance and resource-mongering for purposes of self-aggrandizing optics (rather than actual collective advancement and good) – is not unique to just advertising and tech, but is prevalent everywhere, throughout history, etc. And only rarely do we see managers & bosses & leaders & corporations & workers come together for actual good.