Friday, June 25, 2021

Musings on Last Psych

Because I'm excessively intelligent, it is excessively rare that I don't get everything that can be gotten in the first reading. Last Psychiatrist is an exception. Damn that guy is sharp. 

Last time I read that piece I just didn't get it.
Although, at least, I am disciplined. I think you can learn to be disciplined too. My discipline warned me: I didn't quite get it. I was aware there was something I was missing. 

Maybe LastPsych could write more clearly, but that would take all the fun out of it. What if, for a change, I don't want to be spoonfed, like a squalling, entitled baby? What if I want to read something that can (must) be read into? If LastPsych had written more plainly, I would have no options at all. 

Stuff like Ulysses doesn't work. Sure it must be read into, but there's a big difference: James Joyce was utterly full of shit, and Alone is almost never wrong. I have my own ass, thanks. If I want shit I can produce it myself. 

Ironically, the cure for being in the spoon-feeding demographic is to endlessly ask why, like a toddler. Or perhaps that's not ironic? Levels of childishness. Toddlers can, at least, handle the final step of plate-to-mouth. Obviously squalling, entitled babbies need to pass through toddlerhood before they can get anywhere. 

(Because of anglicization, Americans don't have families. Everyone needs a parent to be raised, so Americans get arrested at infanthood. For once, it's not because of Fascism.) 

Hypothesis 1: wearing makeup makes you feel good.
Why? Why does it make you feel good? Why does that thing feel good?

Hypothesis 2: wearing makeup is for attracting men.
Why? Why does it...yeah okay you kind of already know the answer.
Why though? Why would this be unpalatable? Is it bad to attract men or something? "Having a husband is immoral." Well, to certain envious spinsters... 

Yet, it must be the case that makeup gets worn, because actually women want husband-providers. Thus there must be some reason makeup gets worn anyway... 

"if he said, "ugh, you should put on some makeup, doll yourself up a little bit" but women say this to other women all the time-- especially at work."
She's actually doing her a favour, since other woman in fact wants to wear makeup. But she's a woman, so she forgets. Sometimes she needs an excuse, since women can't safely take responsibility. Not only makeup, but the correct makeup. How is she to know what's correct unless she is corrected?

Surely some women don't want to wear makeup? Well, not really. Women and peasants don't have opinions, aside from the basic Darwininan imperatives such as get-pregnant. There's a hack, though: one of the Darwinian imperatives is [fit in]. Women and Asians are radically conformist. Thus everyone must wear makeup or everyone must not wear makeup. The latter is wrong, so the winning move is the former. 

"your leisure time is spent justifying a behavior you can't not do.  "But I wasn't looking for those articles, I just stumbled on them."  Exactly."
Women and peasants don't have leisure time. They're always pursuing Darwinian imperatives because there isn't anything else there to pursue. They try to fit in, but harder, to relax. Relax just means none of their Darwinian imperatives are currently in conflict, so they don't need willpower or the terrifying responsibility of prioritizing one imperative over another.
This isn't something an aristocrat like Alone can appreciate naturally. He actively seeks out more responsibility and the skiving instincts of the peasant simply don't compute. (Among other differences.) At least, until someone informs him of the discrepancy.

"The choice to wear makeup is no choice at all, I know you think you came to it on your own but you live in America, you don't make free choices here, freedom is a brand."
More precisely, in America everyone is a peasant. Even, or rather especially, if they're not a peasant. Fascists gonna Fasc. Even if you introduced the custom of allowing aristos to decline, all that would happen is that the Fascists would demand everyone pretend to be a declining aristo. Only options are all makeup or no makeup. 

"Of course it's a "good thing" that women are Senators in as much as not allowing them to be Senators is the bad thing"
Oops. America will be saved when Alone-tier Americans can not only admit that disallowing women to be Senators might be a good thing, but doesn't even find it "unpalatable." (Also, ban male Senators.) 

"Easy, HuffPo, I know it's not causal"
Alone makes mistakes. The difference is: it's still good enough. Reading the article will tell you relevant things you didn't already know. Even if you fall into the traps you'll make a net gain.
Plus he's not lying. Honest error, not mendacious politicking.
Apparently this is some kind of Herculean achievement.
Or perhaps it's an internet dynamic. Alone was good. Alone stopped writing for the internet. This is not a coincidence. Perhaps Alone writing for the internet at all was a weird aberration. 

"but from ground up to top down, and top down works in a very specific way: it concedes the trappings of power while it retains the actual power."
Yes. Exactly.

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