Open Thread

Open Thread #6

The Open Thread is a forum for readers of my blog. It is an opportunity to leave comments and start discussions that do not fit under an existing post or which would derail ongoing debates.

A new Open Thread will be posted whenever it seems suitable. There is no fixed time interval and no set number of posts.

Every Open Thread is easily accessible via the “Open Thread” category on this blog.

53 thoughts on “Open Thread #6

      1. @Aaron: in that case, may I request that you upload here the very last post you made in the other blog. It didn’t last long before the maintenance started and I couldn’t read it.

    1. Alek,just wanted to share this post I found on reddit:

      https://www.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/12di17b/its_possible_guys_went_20m59140_to_195_lbs_in_a/

      Do you feel this guy here is at the point where’s made enough gains (maybe even reached diminishing returns) for his physique to be a benefit in dating? I feel he is. His lifts are rather modest (My Deadlift is actually a little heavier and my Squat is not that far away from his. My Bench however NEEDS a lot of catching up to do. haha),but perhaps that’s because I’m letting minmaxers dictate my expectations. Like you need to have 300+lbs Squat and Deadlift to truly get a respectable physique,haha.

      He does show otherwise that even not getting to that kind of point may well have sufficient returns.

      1. I would argue that this guy was more attractive in the “before” picture as he was lean and toned. Now he is bulky and chubby. He would need to lose a bit of that belly fat. With clothes on, though, he surely looks better now.

      2. To me he looks weak in the first picture. I couldn’t imagine him being attractive to women unless he had above-average height to compensate. In the second picture he has more muscle and some fat, but not to the point of being unathletic. Plenty of fighters have similar physiques.

      3. I believe the studies say a skinny dude beats a buff dude. Only a ripped dude beats a skinny dude. I didn’t go into it so deeply that I’d be able to tell if it applies to this situation, like what is the exact definition of a skinny guy, and a non-ripped but muscled guy. Intuition tells me they’re similar, but yeah, it’s not a huge improvement in terms of getting female attention. Though it can be if he acted weak in the skinny-mode.

      4. Correction: I overstated it, not ripped, just athletic. Think 11-15% bodyfat and muscled, like most actual athletes. The guy in this after pic is like 20% bodyfat with muscle. Skinny guys are seen as more attractive than muscle with 20% bodyfat. So if he leans down to like 12-15% he’ll be more attractive than his skinny before. Right now I’d say it’s like “maybe more attractive, maybe the same, depends on how he looks in clothes, his attitude etc” but definitely not a clear win.

      5. I just approved your comment. It is a bit odd that it went to the spam folder. There is a setting that only comments with multiple links go to spam. In your case, it seems that the “algorithm” (it’s really just a database flagging non-mainstream approved sources) was a bit overeager as I see nothing in this article that is off. Perhaps the mainstream does not like the word “testosterone”.

      6. I’ll be honest, I think the discussion about being too skinny is just absurd. It’s like talking about the dangers of being too wealthy, it’s like discussing the issues that come with being a billionaire. You’re not going to be a billionaire, nor will you get below 8% bodyfat and maintain it.

        When we talk about skinny guys we’re talking about naturally skinny guys, not anorexic (underweight) guys. Naturally skinny guys however at around 11-13%, that’s what male models are at as well. You linked to an article discussing the horrors of being 3% bodyfat. Really?

        Yes, the male fashion model look is more attractive than being 20% bodyfat with some muscle. Talking about insanely unhealthy disordered low levels of bodyfat doesn’t change that.

      7. I think that chick’s butt looks more symmetrical and the thighs look pretty good on the right, but her upper arms and back start to get into tranny territory.

      8. I mean, honestly Alek, I’m open to your point of view. Super good chance you know way more about what you’re talking about than I do. Hell, I’ll even concede that when I was much skinnier I did better than I’m doing now. I don’t know if that’s why lol, but that would sure be a kick in the dick to think that all the work I’ve put into beefing up has just been counter-intuitive. If I wanted I could cut easily cute down to like 10-12% body fat. I’m not exaggerating at all when I say this. I’ve always been this way. Just super low appetite naturally and high metabolism. I definitely don’t have massive amounts of muscle mass though, but was blessed with wide shoulders.

      9. You have to take into account financial motives in the “fitness” industry. The fact is that if you take a skinny guy and get him to gain muscle, he’ll bang a lot more bitches. Facts.

        However, gaining muscle is hard. So it’s lot easier to sell skinny guys on “bulking”, where it’s a mixture of fat and muscle, and have them conflate that with becoming more muscular (i.e. think it’s the same as getting that actual sexy-to-women look, which is a muscled 12%).

        Bulking an easy way to produce fake results quickly in clients, which is why it became the defacto thing to sell to skinny clients.

      10. Honestly Alek I never really knew that, but that’s really insightful. It would seem then that for skinny guys building muscle is a slow and steady process. With so-called bulking you could gain more weight more quickly and see the numbers on the scale go up and feel ecstatic. However, most of that weight probably isn’t muscle or even glycogen/water, but rather just fat being deposited all over the body.

      11. Dunno if you ever got into this discussion Alek,but I get the impression that,if we’re lifting for the primary purpose getting female attention (Obviously not the only one of course. working out in general is good for your health,I’ve already seen quite the improvement in my QoL even despite not having finished my weight loss yet),we will actually never need to move past simple beginner weight training programs. And for significantly overweight guys like me,my “physical development” journey might actually already finish (I don’t need to be in a caloric surplus to gain muscle because my body will use the fat stores as an energy source to make hypertrophy happen,so long as I’m eating sufficient protein) by the time fat loss is done.

        Am I more or less correct? I think you’ve said somewhere that you never actually had to move into the more complex intermediate weight training programs? I’ve only read a bit about them,but its definitely quite a bit more complication (you have to worry about “periodization” and such) in addition to the fact that you will likely spend more time in the gym doing them as a result of more workouts to do and higher volume.

        I was surprised though to hear you guys say that reddit guy’s beginning physique may actually have already been good enough. His lifts at that time would have been nowhere near what is written,which seems to back up my hypothesis above.

      12. It’s like that in every similar field. The experts in the field are minmaxers obsessed with ever more complicated minutaue detail that makes less and less difference.

  1. First time I’ve ever witnessed your main blog in maintenance,Aaron. I presume you’ve done this before though. haha.

    Do you have an opinion on the topic of Spanking kids? (Physical punishment in general,I mean) A necessary evil from time to time as a disciplinary measure?

    The folks who subscribe to Evidence-based parenting seem to almost all be unanimously against it. I have a feeling though that for the absolute worst case scenarios,it might be the only thing that will turn the situation around (nobody likes to talk about this though). But I do agree with the idea that its not a good choice of a primary instrument for disciplinary action.

    I voiced my thoughts in this old reddit comment of mine:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/uhd96g/how_many_of_you_have_played_with_the_gracie_games/izrkqpe/?context=999

    ____________
    We both agree here. If you really,truly MUST resort to spanking…it must be done without anger or emotion. No screaming or yelling (and especially no emotional abuse). Just a harsh look of disapproval before the painful force to the buttocks. Followed by a stern and proper “sit down” to talk.

    That’s not me saying spanking should undeniably be used as punishment. BUT IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO IT,this is the proper way I imagine it should be done.

    Its a complicated subject really. I myself do not know where I side in this debate. I honestly do not feel forced exercise (like forced push ups) for example should be used as punishment because,again,you don’t want to create a negative association with an activity that is actually supposed to be beneficial for you. If you only had two choices as methods as punishment,I feel you’re better just spanking instead of trying to force exercise.

    Maybe some form of community service work like having to spend an entire day cleaning the entire house or washing building windows,sweeping streets,or what have you is a nice alternative. After all,this is how criminals are sometimes punished rather than prison time,right? Community service work.

    I don’t claim to be an expert in this topic though. It just sounds like a good idea to me.
    __________

    1. I am against spanking children. There is the argument that sometimes children are so out of line that you have no other choice, but if your kid is a little devil, then surely the problem is partly due to the parents because they never set any boundaries at all. Of course, there is also a genetic aspect, i.e. if one or both of the parents have no impulse control then you cannot expect their children to behave much better. Thankfully, I can sidestep this issue because such people would not read my blog.

  2. San Francisco is so unsafe that even tech millionaires end up getting stabbed to death randomly:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/crypto-tech-exec-murdered-san-francisco-stabbing
    This probably will not change anything. Only when a significant amount of Democrat politicians keel over in front of their murderers, whispering, “But I’m on your side” with their dying breath, state-controlled media may start wondering aloud if there are problems in California.

  3. This 21 year old chick I started talking to a couple weeks ago (I keep texting interactions to a minimum and try to just maneuver them into dates) actually came up with the idea for us to get together for an outdoor activity. I agreed, set up a definite time and place to meet up, and she responded with basically, “teehee 🙂 okay.” Then, when the time came she just went ghost mode (I just cut contact when this happens because it’s the only good move to make, I think). How often does it happen that chicks that are showering you with positive signals just go cold? What’s the psychology here (she briefly mentioned recently breaking up with some guy and that the relationship was “particularly awful”, and asked about my previous relationship)? I feel like it’s some sort of test to see if a guy will react negatively, because she’s used to getting certain reactions from guys. Either way, I get that it’s a waste of my time and unless she comes back and just straight up offers to just come to me (come to my place for a “movie”, she doesn’t deserve a date at this point and can’t be relied upon to actually show up anyway) then I shouldn’t pursue her further. Btw, I’ve never in my life had so many seemingly interested chicks being this wishy washy, so I’m not sure if it’s something I’m doing or saying, or just how Zoomer chicks are.

    1. She probable got back with her ex. I’ve had a few of those cases over the years, in a sample that isn’t large whatsoever. It’s the best bet when a warm chick goes cold all of a sudden, and also if she recently “broke up”.

      1. Yes, but I had the same thing happen right before this with a 22 year old who’s fiance (same age as her approximately) had literally died of an aneurysm (cough vaxx cough) a few months prior to when we started talking. So, it seems to be happening regardless of whether there is some ex in the background. Plus chicks will just sleep with some other guy while their ex is being a shit head anyway.

      2. Or she didnt even break up with the ex, perhaps she was testing the waters while considering cheating.

    2. The zoomer generation is incredibly fickle. This is such a big problem that there are now trainings on “managing generation Z”. NAZALT withstanding, I think it is not a particularly controversial claim that the people in this cohort are less reliable, less determined, yet also more entitled. Your best bet is probably to not bother with any dates at all and instead try to get her to come over instead. At the very least, you are not wasting any time because she stood you up.

      1. Aaron, this was actually really insightful. I just needed somebody to say it to fully realize it. I’m thinking back to my earlier days when all I ever did was just go straight for sex in a casual way. It worked much better with those millennials anyway, so why wouldn’t it work with arguably a more degenerate generation? I think my conversion rate is so bad right now even though I’m technically better on paper now than before, because of some subconscious mindset that I want a girlfriend or something. The consequence of that is that I’ll find a chick that seems like a good catch and then attempt to take her seriously. This has proven to be a fool’s errand. My realization is that it’s probably much more likely that I’ll convert these chicks if I’m just trying to have fun with them. Besides, once they’ve been banged out really good a couple times they’ll do all the heavy lifting in regards to wanting you to take them seriously anyway, i.e. go to see a waterfall. I can maybe see the benefit in trying to go for coffee with someone you’ve just met, but once that falls through just invite chicks over whenever convenient for you as anything else is becoming a time drain. Hell, I might just skip the coffee step from here on out and just see what happens. Now that I think of it, I can’t think of a single time in my earlier days where a girl that wanted to be with me started out dating first. We always just hooked up at my place, her place, a public place or even a friend’s place.

    3. I have had some cases as well, but its not only zoomers.

      It mostly happens on Tinder, so my guess is they are interacting with several guys simultaneously and moving the conversation along until they finally decide in the last minute.

      If you are talking to too many people on dating apps, ghosting seems to become the norm.

  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzJKQVitqao

    Putting aside the whole “creep shaming ” shit,I really have to wonder what on earth do people mean when they say “he had no game”.

    May I ask what exactly the dude does wrong here? He hit on her,and got rejected. That’s it. PUA is looked down upon in the mainstream,but its as if the commenters are acting that if he approached in a different way (“indirect game”?),things would have ended up differently. We know the truth is different.

    But maybe he really did something wrong that I can’t spot,so I ask you guys here.

    1. There was nothing creepy about this guy. If he wants to get laid, he needs to approach women, and if had he looked like Henry Cavill, her commentary would have had a much different tone.

  5. I saw the avicii documentary recently. The documentary is interesting especially in the context of avicii’s later suicide.

    Avicii was a very talented and hard working person. He then became depressed because he was excessively touring and took drugs/alcohol as he did not have the character to perform in front of crowds. So why did he do that?

    first, a decadent lifestyle of partying and drinking and fucking is fun. Second, he did not want to “disappoint” people. Third, he had a greedy manager who manipulated him.

    I think the parallel to European, especially Swedish, society is quite clear. Europe is decaying because of excessive decadence, not wanting to “disappoint the world” and a greedy elite.

    Finally, low skilled, mass immigration is also hurting Europe. I do not think that avicii’s downfall can be linked to low skilled, mass immigration. However, it is interesting that avicii’s manager is non-European. Also it seems like (though I’m not 100% sure) that the doctor who prescribed Avicii opioids against pancreatitis is non-European, too. Those two clearly contributed to avicii’s downfall.

    1. Was his doctor practicing in Sweden? I once had the doubtful pleasure of getting a non-European GP. The guy seemed genuinely clueless. I asked about a particular skin issue and the least I would have expected is him looking at it with a magnifying glass or at least more closely. Instead, he said, “is nothing, is nothing” and was unable to understand, let alone answer any follow-up question I had. If you told me that this was a random guy from the street who was LARPing as a doctor, I would have believed it right away. I could be worse. In the UK, those “doctors and engineers” rip off the head of the baby during delivery.

      It is important to point out that Sweden is quite generous when it comes to acknowledging foreign degrees. Probably they don’t even check if documents are forgeries. After all, they are not particularly picky when it comes to non-European passports either, so much so that it angered legitimately employed foreigners in the country as they had to jump through a lot of hoops to get a work-related residence permit.

      1. This video is horrible to watch. Noteworthy are two aspects. First, he blindly trusts his doctor, despite his doubts and, second, that the US system seems to be focussed on medicating people. Painkillers and anti-depressants would make a good case studies for the perversions of our times. Often, there is a clear underlying issue for why people are in pain or unhappy but instead of fixing that, they get told to take pills. Of course, the medical system benefits from this, so they are only acting in their own best interest.

      2. Thanks Aaron.
        Another interesting fact about avicii. When he first played some of his new songs like “wake me up”, he got crazily booed by the crowd in the US. Why? Because that song has country elements and country is bad because it’s white racist music. This booing of course further contributed to his depression and performance anxiety…
        So add wokeness as another factor that killed him

  6. The Electric Underground has spoken on REmake 4. There are some very light spoilers and gameplay footage, but I would probably watch it anyway. His conclusion: RE4 remake is a massive downgrade from the original, and it’s ridiculous that not a single mainstream reviewer has had the balls to critique the game from a negative perspective.

    1. Thanks for the feedback on Mark_MSX’s review. I will check it out. On a somewhat related note, today I finished my play-through of Devil May Cry 5. On “normal” the game is far too easy. I will write my thoughts down in a separate post. In short, despite its many flaws, it is, by and large, a really fun game. I’d rate it an 8/10.

    2. How did you end up feeling about V when you realized he was just Vergil’s remaining humanity clinging onto life?

      1. I had to shake my head. V is a superfluous character and the stages you have to play using him are absolutely braindead as it is enough to just hammer the two attack buttons for his guardian animals. Surely, the story of DMC 5 could have been written without V at all. The second best option would have been to use him as an NPC. Also, V does not remind me of Vergil at all, so I would have appreciated an explanation of how Vergils human remains turned into some emo who walks around the battlefield reading poetry.

    3. I just finished watching this video. He makes some very good points. More shockingly, some of the glaring issues he draws attention to, such as enemies being able to grab you from a distance or the fluff the designers added — “not a legitimate artistic effort”, as Mark put it — I don’t recall hearing about in any mainstream source. I still intend to play it sometime, perhaps even already later this year. By the way, it seems there is a patch for OG RE4 that adds fast weapons select.

      1. He makes a point about the remake just not feeling as good as the original. I can attest to this. No doubt, sometimes you pull off some crazy shit and you feel pretty good about it. However, let me give an example of how the game can frustrate you.

        In the castle section there is this Zealot priest that wears a red robe and demonic-looking goat mask. His whole purpose is to run away from you and chant incantations that cause a number of normie Zealots to transform into their more dangerous plagas versions each time he does this. Generally, you’re being swarmed by lots of enemies when he is around so taking him out is difficult already. The thing that “feels bad” about all of this is that the incantation will actually stun lock Leon, because he has a parasite within him. You can have the perfect shot lined up and be ready to take the thing out with a well placed rifle shot to the head, and then suddenly Leon falters and drops his aim for about a second or two. There are many things in the game that just cause you to feel disempowered like this. In REmake 2, I’d argue this is kind of the point. Though, I can certainly see how that formula does not translate over as well to RE4’s old school fanbase.

        Some of the critiques I made about the game via the other blog made it into Marx’s review. Such as the game being like Japanese The Last of Us and the cut content and lame side quests. I’m not near as critical of the game as he is personally, though.

      2. Btw, Synthetic Man’s review just dropped with the title “Finally, A Good Remake”. It is probably pretty spoiler rich. I will check it out. I watched a bit of his stream already, though. I got the impression that he enjoyed the game, but the amount of nitpicks he made throughout began to really add up. His first one being, “Emo Leon…already a downgrade.”

  7. Out of curiosity,Aaron. Have you had relationships (Not ONS lays,actual relationships. Whether serious or just a long term FWB) in the past that you wish you could undo?

    I ask because I just recently read a comment that amused me in a subreddit I just discovered. its called r/SingleAndHappy. We’ve kinda spoken before about how many incels and blackpillers out there view relationships as if they are all sunshine and rainbows. Honestly,even when I was completely inexperienced,I’ve seen relationship problems among my relatives and people I personally knew,so even in the beginning,I knew it wasn’t as if relationships didn’t come with downsides. Either these incels legit have almost no actual contact with people (actually plausible) or they’re too blinded by the thirst to actually notice the arguments. lol.

    1. I have had a few relationships that were not really worth my time. Even a supposedly simple fuck-buddy relationship quickly gets to the point where you may put more time into it than you are comfortable with. This normally happens at the turning point where the girl wants to convert you to a boyfriend and starts deviating from the original script, which consisted of her coming over and hopping on your dick. Also, I would say that the average guy for whom today’s empowered women settle for has a really bad time. They may think at first that they have won some kind of prize but within a few years they will realize what a crappy deal they have gotten.

  8. I have heard over a conversation today between a family member of mine and a woman who was married to a Canadian. She was pregnant of his child, but my family member said she doubted it. That chick planned to divorce his husband because she might get more income from being single mom.

    I was completely disgusted.

    1. This is not at all surprising. In fact, I have come across calculations that show that the welfare state incentivizes single motherhood, i.e. single mothers indeed get more money from the state than a married couple living on welfare. You can bet that this is not a coincidence.

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