Read on Twitter
1 like = 1 weird, uncomfortable or off-brand thought
I have been thinking for like 30 minutes and I have no idea what to say here
1. A significant part of why I haven’t been able to be a part of any real ingroup: I think most groups usually have some truth at the heart of it, and also tend to deny some other truth(s). The former makes me seek out deplorable folk, the latter tends to get me excommunicated
2. At my core I am somewhat sociopathic and nihilistic. I don’t think life is sacred. I think most of social life is an elaborate game of charisma and PR. I _try_ to be somewhat ethical and sincere, but I think that’s mostly because the people I like most also seem to be that way
3. My personal views on gender are derivative - ie it doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what everyone else thinks. So I think it’s particularly important for men to be physically strong, to be economically useful, smart and sensitive
4. Cultural appropriation is overly-broad terminology that doesn’t properly describe the problem it tries to discuss, and this is annoyingly counter-productive because then people talk past each other instead of acknowledging&addressing minority/native/immigrant grievances
5. Re: gay marriage - I think marriage itself is a silly and outdated institution. My wife & I got married because the paper let us buy a house. Non-cishet people shouldn’t be deprived of the legal benefits of marriage. But marriage itself is dumb. I play along for social reasons
6. Breastfeeding - it’s utterly ridiculous that this is a controversial issue anywhere in the world. Breasts literally exist for the purpose of feeding babies. If you have a problem with this you need a good spanking. Let moms feed their kids
7. Pineapples on pizzas. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it. Simple. Done. Why does this take up any bandwidth anywhere? Who invented this bullshit controversy? They too need a spanking. Eat whatever you want. Unfriend anybody who has a problem with this
8. “Political correctness” has become another almost meaningless phrase. It’s true that some people are rather tediously pedantic - but that’s not nearly as tiresome as shitty comedians wasting everyone’s time complaining about how they’re not allowed to be offensive anymore
9. I find it baffling that so many people have unwanted pregnancies from unprotected sex. I make sure to be a kind and supportive friend to anybody going through that, ofc. It’s like drunk driving or playing with a loaded gun. Why would you do it. Just jerk off, problem solved
10. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being effeminate or “unmanly”. But it’s fascinating to me how there are men who subscribe to such “traditional” views, AND whine about feminism. Shouldn’t such manly men toughen up and deal with life, rather than bitch and moan? 
11. Whenever I see someone complaining about the job market and external factors beyond their control, I want to shake them hard and tell them that, while the world should be more just, their time would be best spent improving their own employability. Put your own mask on 1st etc
12. Some nitpicking is useful, but a lot of it is trash. As a general rule I am distrustful of anybody who nitpicks others liberally without having a body of work that others might nitpick in turn. An order of magnitude more so if anonymous
13. A lot of criticism is trash that’s written to show off how smart the critic is. The best reviews, even negative ones, are written by people who obviously have a love for music, theatre, movies, etc. You can feel it. Trash critics are negative externalities + should be ignored
14. I have very little patience for makers who spend lots of time complaining about “lack of support”. Some frustration is understandable but your complaints should be dwarfed by the volume and excellence of your work. Nobody owes you their eyeballs; earn it
15. I think censorship is overblown as a threat to art. Censorship is a constraint. Get creative! Be subtle! Write satire! Work with it, integrate it into your work. What you choose to leave out, and how you do that, can speak volumes. Artists find a way to get their point across
16. I strongly believe that almost everything that exists should have someone’s name on it. I love that Steve Jobs got the original Mac team to sign the case. People should be proud of what they put into the world. If nobody wants to put their name on it, it shouldn’t exist.
17. I hate it when people post non-contributing comments that clutter up a public space and make it impossible to read. A politician’s FB page is an opportunity, with the right moderation, for genuine civic engagement. (All hidden comments should be accessible via “Show trash”)
18. I love Kanye, despite the dumb shit he’s said from time to time. I think he’s a real artist. Time will tell. But I’d bet on him. Hopefully he still has a long life and career ahead of him
19. If Google’s latest developments are legit, soon bots will be more interesting and fun to talk to than a subset of people. I kinda look forward to the mess this is going to cause, which feels a little naughty to admit
20. While I’ve tried to be more respectful of people’s privacy and agency etc over the years, I still fundamentally believe that practically all of it is going to get steamrollered by new tech in the coming years, decades. Our social norms will shift as a result
21. Recap eg of #1 – I am simultaneously a nihilist and a bleeding heart hippie. I accidentally end up blaspheming in every ingroup church. In many ways I think humanity is cruel in the ways we try to avoid suffering. There are worse things than death
22. When a baby is abandoned to die, I feel quite a bit bad for the baby, but I think I might actually feel worse for the (usually teenaged) mother
23. Re: suicide. You were brought to this party without your consent. if you wanna leave, you should be able to leave. Everybody guilt-tripping you about leaving is like FB saying "your friends will miss you if you delete your account!" https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/994015396805033985
24. People say things like "oh think about all the suffering you will cause the people you leave behind"– but that's also a sort of meta-guilt-trip. The suffering is a function of other people's expectations of how you're supposed to behave (ie, DO NOT DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT)
25. there are 2 thoughts that convince me not to ragequit and delete my account
a. the red washing down the bathtub can't change the color of the sea – ie nobody will remember or care. there are more creative, fun ways to express your disdain
b. I haven't seen tomorrow's memes
a. the red washing down the bathtub can't change the color of the sea – ie nobody will remember or care. there are more creative, fun ways to express your disdain
b. I haven't seen tomorrow's memes
26. I think shitty families are possibly the most under-discussed, under-acknowledged source of misery and trauma in the world, and I think it's ridiculous that lots of people I've talked to have nobody to discuss that with
27. You know how social media means that everybody is projecting an inaccurate image for everyone else? There's something similar re: how women are portrayed in the media– usually an extension of the fantasies of male writers. I honestly think its a crime against humanity
28. I think ultimately people spend time debating the issue of pineapples on pizzas because it's a distraction for discussing actual issues that they should personally be dealing with. It's like playing games on your phone to avoid your todo list which is scary and unpleasant
29. Heterodoxy is just orthodoxy inverted; declaring yourself a contrarian just means aligning yourself with all the other predictable contrarians aligned in the same vector. You could make a point about being orthogonal, but eventually that term becomes meaningless too
(Any time there’s a label that starts getting fashionable, it’ll get flooded with bad imitators who use it as a substitute for thinking. Roughly akin to how today’s hot new startup becomes tomorrow’s corporate bureaucracy. It’s an inescapable part of the cycle of trash)
30. I honestly think virtue-signalling is a very interesting phenomenon and I’d love to see somebody study it in a non-judgemental, dispassionate way. Eg I’d love to read a non-satirical, good-hearted guide to becoming better at signalling virtue. Would be illuminating and fun!
31. In my alternate universe, yelling at service staff would be punishable by torture. I’m tired of pretending we have to be measured and “reasonable” about this. (It would be done with impeccable service, of course.)
32. Also punishable by torture:
- asking indie creators to work for free, then insulting them when they refuse
- insulting/threatening anybody who rejects your romantic/sexual advances
- playing devil’s advocate
- asking indie creators to work for free, then insulting them when they refuse
- insulting/threatening anybody who rejects your romantic/sexual advances
- playing devil’s advocate
33. I generally get turned off by anything that sounds like this, even if it makes some amount of sense. People are so eager to draw these chalk circles on the ground and insist that everybody belong in one or another https://twitter.com/clairlemon/status/995067365992812544?s=21
34. “Identity politics” is another stupid phrase. It’s so stupid I get turned off from reading up about what it’s supposed to signify. All politics is personal, identities are personal, so... what politics isn’t identity politics? (I have a feeling I’m going to regret this one)
35. While we’re at it, “right”, “left”, “liberal” and “conservative” are all stupid words. Hell, words like “socialism”, “libertarian”, “democracy” and “republic” are all stupid words. It’s not the words’ fault but people’s blundering usage of them. We are truly godless heathens
36. Neoliberalism is another stupid phrase. People are so unimaginatively bad at naming things (and persistent in subjecting others to their incompetence)
37. Nicki Minaj‘s verse in Monster is one of the best things ever written by anybody ever
38. Everything is stupid https://twitter.com/noironyintended/status/994592769330032645?s=21
39. Several of the previous tweets (eg views on marriage, suicide, etc) involve me saying "I play along for social reasons". I think that's a nuanced thing about contrarianism that over-eager contrarians don't get: if you're just being abrasive for its own sake, you get shut out
39b. You could say that a lot of my development over the years has really been about infiltrating social groups, learning their norms, appreciating their values, then play-acting as "One Of Us" better than 80% of them. This gives me access to a lot more info than if I insult them
40. I am equally capable of role-playing as:
- a feminist
- a communist
- a redpiller
- a SJW
- a globalist
- a model minority
- pro-Trump
- anti-Trump
- pro-tech
- tech critic
- etc
It's not hard to manipulate people (but you forget what you look like, as a faceless one)
- a feminist
- a communist
- a redpiller
- a SJW
- a globalist
- a model minority
- pro-Trump
- anti-Trump
- pro-tech
- tech critic
- etc
It's not hard to manipulate people (but you forget what you look like, as a faceless one)
41. In every case, it's easier to be an asshole than to be nourishing. This is still true when you pick a team that seems to have the moral high ground.
It's also possible to pick a team that *doesn't* have the moral high ground + be nourishing and supportive. I do this for fun
It's also possible to pick a team that *doesn't* have the moral high ground + be nourishing and supportive. I do this for fun
42. "It's taking me a lot of time to process precisely which thoughts are useful to express, and how to best express them." This is a game of dogwhistles – I'm trying to signal my interestingness to interesting people without saying something I'd regret https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/994519384461791233
43. entitled consumers are trash https://twitter.com/lingerie_addict/status/995408451214938114
44. I miss you
45. I don’t bother with podcasts because my imagination is generally more interesting
46. I am easily in my own top 5 favourite twitter accounts
47. This is a polite way to say “people suck” https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1044880239158022144?s=21
48. So much of social life is about figuring out polite ways to say “excuse me what the fuck” https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1061172013383831553?s=21
49. I sometimes find myself envying the lady behind The Real Singapore, a hateful, xenophobic website that made US$360,000 in ad revenue. She spent less than a year in jail for it. Sounds like a good deal to me Modern day heist story
Modern day heist story
50. If I made that kind of money I could pay off my house, spend my year in jail reading and writing, then assuage my conscience and rehabilitate my public image by doing pro-social work afterwards. People will forgive you. See also: Bill Gates
51. Most of us are suckers. I am one of us. I think I maintain a “will I, won’t I” attitude towards becoming a non-sucker because it’s a lot of work and technically kinda boring. I am too lazy to become a non-sucker 
what a sucker
what a sucker
52. I’m convinced that you’d only need about 5-6 focused and motivated individuals to powerfully dominate Singapore’s media cycle. If I were retired I think I would consider doing this as an act of public service
(I don’t know if you could do the same for any other nation-state. Singapore is small enough that local news is national news. There is a huge gap in the market for an ambitious blogger. I’d be happy to mentor anybody who fits this description)
53. It is astounding how few people have any real, interesting ambition. “Make a lot of money” by itself does not count
54. Status games can actually be quite fun - they only really suck when you can’t escape them, or you’re stuck in a certain configuration or context
55. Sex is overrated. Great sex is great and/but it’s a lot of work, & not what most people really care about. Most people care about what they think most other people care about. Sex as a cultural/memetic schelling point for desire is extremely boring. Choose your own adventure
56. The statement “most people really care about” is complicated because few people “really care about” very much at all. The entire pursuit is beaten out of most of us as kids. We venerate and worship the survivors as geniuses, which is a disservice to everyone and everything
57. Lots of people seem to struggle with the fact that all of life is political. Probably because at some point we created political classes; decided to offload the personal work of peopling to a few individuals so the rest of us could stop worrying about it. What did we expect
58. It is wild that basically anybody can make a new human. In the context of modern capitalistic civilisation this is extremely unsettling when you really, really think about it.
I’m NOT saying you should need a license, because regulation brings a whole new set of problems...
I’m NOT saying you should need a license, because regulation brings a whole new set of problems...
59. The point, really, is that we are all constantly failing each other all the time
60. I wonder if we invent little shames to distract ourselves from the big one (see previous tweet)
61. There is something profoundly *sick* about how systemic problems are atomized into personal failings
62. Joining a street gang makes perfect sense if you’re a disenfranchised youth
63. When parents chastize one kid for joining a gang and praise another for joining the police or military, they’re really just revealing a preference for the bigger gang (which also makes perfect sense)
(Lol, it’s like joining a startup vs Google)
64. Most of life is theatre and/or drag and it would be a lot more chill if we could be honest about this. Unfortunately this will probably never happen. My true religion, your silly superstition, etc
65. Smart assholes know how to pretend that they were ignorant, clueless or incompetent, and they know how to pick victims that people don’t believe. There is no easy solution to this sickening problem
66. The challenge of life, if you’re the inquiring sort, is to learn to laugh at your stillborn dreams and naive expectations, and to somehow have a sense of joy while you’re dragged mercilessly towards the cosmic incinerator amidst unending injustice
67. life *is* pretty funny
68. One big cosmic fart joke. THE Absolute Unit of the greatest of all farts. We should really call it The Big Fart but we are cowards who are scared to laugh
69: nice
