Yarco

Hey fellow Canadian writer. I watched a few of your Youtube videos you posted here in the past and enjoyed them. That being said, I think we have completely antithetical views when it comes to writing, so I don't know how helpful I will be here or if we'll agree on anything. I would normally try to talk you out of going the traditional publishing route right off the bat. But after reading your entire "Stop Creating Content And Start Creating Art" I think that's going to be a losing battle so I won't bother saying too much. I'll just say that there are a lot of errors and misconceptions in your post about how self-publishing works and many other things. I'm tempted to create an entire rebuttal titled "Stop Creating Art And Start Creating Content" hahaha. But for now I'll just outline one... the idea that on a whim tomorrow you could publish "anything in that e-book, even terrible, unedited content." Amazon has pretty strict guidelines on how books need to be edited, formatted, and even the content in them. I've had multiple books de-listed by them, so I don't think it's quite the West West you're imagining. It's good you're aware that there's a limit to how much an agent or publisher will do for you. But I don't think you realize just how little they will do for the cut they take, how much most writers hate their agents and publishers, how they might try to change your artistic vision, etc. If you want to talk about capitalism and corruption run amok, it's the publishing industry, and self-publishing is the way to take back sovereignty of your writing. I take issue with this and kinda feel like you're lying to yourself at some level. "I don't want fame or money, I just want to be able to write for a living." That's what fame and money gets you -- those two things are inextricably linked. You're never going to quit your job and focus on your craft without them. It's a necessary evil. Anyway let's talk about the blog. Without SEO, nobody is going to read your blog. Essays (rants) by definition can't be optimized for SEO. They don't answer a question or search query. Who is going to look for the kind of content on your blog? What specifically are they going to type into Google and see your blog come up? Yes you need to pick a niche. The people who want to read your dating advice aren't going to want to read your writing advice. You also can't ever really make an anthology out of a variety of topics like this, except after you're famous maybe people will buy them just because your name is on them. If the plan is to leverage your blog readers to sell more books, I don't see how that will work with this strategy either. Are people reading about Mastery going to want to buy high-fantasy novels? Or is the blog an entirely separate thing? Everything is so muddied and inter-mingled in your post that I'm left confused at how to even respond.

Yes with a couple caveats 1. Trading is not investing 2. You need to learn tried-and-true investing strategies from more academic sources like Investopedia. Not from Youtubers with paid Discord groups. Everything has risk but true investing is never a "rich or go broke" scenario. Don't think you can "make money" in the sense you can create a job out of it. You can preserve and grow wealth in the long term. It will require hundreds of hours of study. If you want to trade, don't get into investing because that's how you will go broke. You just want the adrenaline thrill.... then set aside $20/month limit for yourself and go to the casino instead Investing is boring and methodical and it takes months or years to see results. If you're having fun or it's thrilling to you, you're trading and need to stop. If you're saving for retirement then it's better to hire a pro or invest in your company's plan than nothing. But for the average person I wouldn't let someone take a huge fee for the little bit of money I have after paying taxes on it.

Assuming Trump doesn't become president again, how does him getting held accountable affect your life in any way? Besides you get 30 seconds of glee at seeing bad man get his comeuppance. The "Does devilry always face some kind of punishment in the end?" thread already covered this, now you're just getting obsessive about it. It's unhealthy and you're only damaging yourself. Just forget about Trump and let the legal system sort it out if it's going to. If you worry all day about something you can't control or affect, you'll drive yourself insane. Focus on what you CAN control. Even if Trump goes to prison for life, so what? You don't think DeSantis will pop up in his place and be just as bad? Trump is just the head on the hydra of something. If you chop the Trump head off, 2 more will pop up.

If God is really all-loving then he'll overlook all the degenerate shit I've done and let me in regardless. If heaven is an infinity of mandatory worship, I think I'll enjoy a free life and take hell instead. I like the atheist Matt Dillahunty's take on this -- God is the equivalent of an abusive parent who threatens to lock you in the basement and torture you if you don't behave or tell them you love them. That makes God immoral, and I'm not going to negotiate with a terrorist just to avoid eternal suffering, so fuck God. Generally though I think that the closer you get to death, the more pascal's wager seems appealing. If you live to 80 then you can start to sincerely repent and you don't have much to lose. You got to live your life how you wanted and then you can just take it all back at the last moment. Only problem is if you die suddenly in a car accident or something before you reach that point.

Nah dude I'm going out white-knuckling the metal bedrails and scared shitless and begging for just one more day. I don't think it's possible for me to ever reach that level of acceptance.

Sounds like you're just going through addiction withdrawal. Social media is addictive just like a drug, especially after years of use. One of the most important things is that you have to fill that extra 1 - 4 hours per day with something else, or you'll drive yourself crazy. The time that uses the most willpower is when you're bored and going back to social media seems like the perfect solution or time-filler.

Approx 5% of the population are sociopaths and 1% are psychopaths. 5% are narcissists that can probably convince themselves they haven't done anything wrong. That's more than 1 in 10 people who won't feel the weight of their devilry at all. If the only real form of karma is guilt in your own mind, then yeah, we have a bit of a problem. 1 in 10 people you interact with is capable of stabbing you in the back and laughing about it. Real villains don't always get their comeuppance like in the movies. An unsettling number get away with their crimes and transgressions scot-free.

Personally I find this is a byproduct of seclusion and not talking to people or going out enough. If I don't leave my house for like a week, I'll become hyper-aware and hyper-sensitive to all the little mannerisms of people and read way too deep into little accidental things that probably didn't mean anything, like you did with the delivery guy. If you walk past hundreds of people a day or are forced to interact with dozens of people a day, your brain doesn't have time to over-analyze all the little micro stuff. You get numb to it and it just becomes background noise again. You can try going and walking around a mall for an hour or so a week to start trying to desensitize yourself. I don't really get how the delivery guy thing ties into the idea of being unlovable though. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a delivery guy to love (or even like) you. It's just a 1 minute business transaction then neither of you will see or think about the other again. The healthy reaction is to be completely ambivalent in that type of situation. At the same time I kinda get it though. I'll put nicer clothes on when I'm expecting a delivery and worry what they think of me from our interaction, when really they see 100 people a day and don't give a crap. If you feel unlovable with family, friends, or anyone you have an ongoing relationship with, then that's different.

Haha welcome to Thailand. A place where basically the average person can experience the same excess of power that only a multi-millionaire or billionaire can achieve within the US. You basically just found a cheat code for reality. You can look for the hottest Thai girl you can find and probably get her to fuck you for 1,000 - 5,000 baht. Magic mushroom shakes on demand. Super low cost of living. It's like in a video game if you put infinite money or god mode on. Now that you can wave money around to get whatever you want, your ethics and morality will really be put to the test. You'll see how spiritual of a person you really are. When you CAN do anything you want, will you? (If you fuck around too much, karma will probably get the best of you and sort you back out eventually. Whether you get scammed or wake up in a bathtub without your kidneys or what.) Comes with other downsides too. Now if you find a gf/bf you'll never truly know if they really love you or they're just after the money and immigration.

There are a ton of variables to consider. Depends what country you're in, each has a different cost of living. Then within each country, the cost of living will vary hugely depending if you're living in a city or rural. Even city-to-city. Then you basically need to think of all the must-haves and nice-to-haves in your life to figure out the kind of quality of life you want to have, and what it all adds up to. Mortgage, property tax, water, electricity, gas, hot water heater rental, phone, internet, car + insurance + maintenance + gas, groceries, clothes + shoes, animal food/litter, home insurance, cleaning supplies, gifts for holidays, dentist/medicine/massage, entertainment, meals out, emergency fund.... on and on. Most importantly, inflation. Right now for $100k you can live a comfortable middle-class city life and pretty much buy whatever little toys and gadgets you want without thinking about it. But what you can get today for $100,000/yr would've only costed $35,000/yr in 1982. In 2068 you'll need at least $270,000/yr to live the equivalent of a $100k/yr lifestyle today. If you plan on having kids then you have to add at least an extra $200k per kid (in 2022 money) to raise them to 18.

I'd argue this is only an example of making a small corner of the internet unmoderated. When you create a tiny corner of the internet without rules, it creates a vacuum that sucks all the radicals into it. If you unmoderated the entire internet, it's too big to create a vacuum. All of those undesirables get scattered across the whole internet and actually become a lot more manageable. Unless their views are either persuasive or true enough to convince others to join them, large amounts of regular people aren't going to get turned into undesirables. I think it's easier for people to curate and moderate their own feeds. We've all got that crazy uncle on Facebook. You just click the 3 little dots next to their post and block, unfollow, or hide their content. There isn't a social media platform today that doesn't allow you to easily block stuff you don't want to see. And most of them have algorithms so you won't get served that kind of content again.

This is true at some stage, but it eventually comes back around full circle. A truly good writer can think in big words if they have to. But they can also dumb themselves down and explain complicated or technical subjects using simple easy-to-understand language. This is particularly important when writing for the web. I use tools like Hemingway App to help craft most of my writing to be understandable at a 5th or 6th grade reading level. If you role-play the arrogant know-it-all for too long, you actually become one. The big words may stump people through frustration, but people are rarely impressed by them . A good writer can own you in a debate without big words. I agree with you that reading books will not help build writing skill though.

Python if you want to make desktop programs or automate your job. The problem I found is that after all the tutorials are done, you need to be able to create problems for yourself to solve. If you aren't good at finding inefficiencies in your life to automate or make more efficient via coding, I don't know if you'll get much use out of any kind of coding really. C# if you want to create games.

Hellhole is completely subjective. Things could be infinitely better, but they could also be infinitely worse. (Unless you want to go meta and say that which exists is all that exists and ever can exist) I think God's intentions (if they exist) are beyond human comprehension. Anything that many levels removed from us is going to look illogical from our perspective. Imagine if you were an ant, and a human construction crew came in and removed all the topsoil and vegetation for as far as the eye can see, ripping up your entire colony (in your perspective, your entire universe.) To create a new human housing subdivision. As an ant your mind can't rationalize human intentions, why they're doing it for their greater good, how destroying the entire natural world could possibly lead to a preferable or positive outcome overall. Now imagine that level of abstraction and incomprehension times infinity.

I have my desired outcomes that I can work toward and try to persuade others of, but still be pragmatic enough to realize that it's looking like a losing battle at this point. If there isn't a populist movement at least as strong as Trump in the next US election or two, I think a combination of increased censorship and more people becoming Stage Green will make it exponentially harder to have any kind of right wing policies after that. And it seems like the US influences every other country's position to a degree (ie. I don't know if Brexit would've happened without the background of Trump.) Hard to say which way things will go. If you asked me at any point in my adult life where I thought the world would be in 5 or 10 years, I don't think I would've ever been able to accurately predict it. Sometimes things have turned out way more extreme than I could've foreseen, other times it's a complete nothing, and even more frequently some issue I wouldn't have ever considered will pop up. But the macro trend seems to be everything becoming more progressive over time. It's also not necessarily as black-and-white as me just wanting all the right wing policies. On the Political Compass test I'm actually slightly bottom-left of center. There are a number of things I'd like to see socialized, but only after some existing problems are cleared up under a right-wing system first. You're also seeing an extreme caricature of my beliefs here most of the time, because that's the kind of pushback that I think largely spiritual liberal people here need to be challenged with. I have a tendency to take the opposite position of whatever the majority belief is and play devil's advocate a lot. If I was on a right-wing forum I'd probably be doing the exact opposite. I'm not an unchanging monolith either. I actually swung far to the left around 2019 for a couple years and was pretty prominent in a group helping to deradicalize racists and nazis. I went through a phase where I forced myself to stop watching all right-wing content, everything from actual nazis to as innocuous as Jordan Peterson. I replaced my media consumption almost entirely with stuff like Contrapoints, Thought Slime, Peter Coffin, PhilosophyTube, Noncompete, etc. But eventually had a big ego backlash and swung back to the right, plus I just find the left annoying and the right more fun to be around. Eventually I think I'm going to have to become a leftist again and fully integrate everything. If I could, I would really like to have a worldview that doesn't require me to be a racist/bigot/homophobe/etc. But whether I'm so indoctrinated/propagandized or whatever, that provides too consistent and useful of a worldview to give up just yet. Like I said above, I also have a bit of an anti-establishment / anti-groupthink streak. So I'm always going to root for the underdogs... or at least when someone tells me I have to do something, or only one solution is the right way, I'm probably going to rebel and do the opposite. Anyway enough about me

On a long enough timeline (within a couple generations) many things you listed above are almost a certainty. Just depends on your definition of the future. Within 4 or 8 years, or your parent's lifetime, probably not.

Pretty much what's been said above. They aren't called public opinion polls because they accurately reflect public opinion. You can phrase the same general idea two different ways and get two extremely different results. Most of these polls are misinformation designed to sway public opinion. You're giving people way too much credit. 50% of the population has an IQ below 100.

Okay then lol. I'll believe it when I see it. Is there such a thing as an acceptable / non-excessive amount of right-wing ideology we are allowed to express here? I can't tell where the limit is or have an idea of what is or isn't actionable under this new guideline, as I've never seen a right-wing position or topic that wasn't frowned upon here. Anti-abortion? Saying literally anything positive about Trump? Being mildly anti-immigration? Any form of Nationalism (pride in your country)? If you are looking to create a left-wing-only echo chamber, that's fine, you don't have an obligation to be unbiased. Just be honest and tell right-wingers like myself upfront we simply aren't welcome instead of finding some arbitrary reason later to de-person us from this section. At the very least this seems like a setting that could be done behind-the-scenes instead of labelling people as outcasts and pariahs any time they post in other areas of the forum. "Why should I take your opinion on XYZ seriously? You're a Member Apolitical so obviously you lack any kind of judgement and reasoning abilities". You just inadvertently created a forum caste system. If this post is already subversive enough to get me labeled Apolitical then I guess hit me with it and let's get it over with instead of dancing on eggshells. Looking forward to chatting with my fellow BASED Members Apolitical. I'll wear it as a badge of honor.

Having a sexual preference is not a form of bigotry. You are entitled to like what you like and decline sexual offers. If someone guilts or forces you into sex, it's rape no matter who they are. If you aren't attracted to redheads, that doesn't make you redhead-phobic. If you aren't attracted to obese people, that doesn't make you fat-phobic. If you aren't attracted to women with penises, that doesn't make you trans-phobic. The woman in the opening quote was blackmailed and raped by her coworkers, that's it.

My main annoyance is how much airtime and coverage and conversation it got. It should've just been ignored entirely. People wonder why society is fucked, it's because you feed it with this dipshit looky-loo attitude and focus on the dumbest low-consciousness lowbrow stuff. Same with the Johnny Depp / Amber Heard thing. I'm intentionally ignoring the entire thing and refuse to watch or read about it, but it's annoying me just how hard it is to avoid. I'm getting courtroom video footage constantly getting suggested to me on Youtube. Where was the courtroom footage of the Derek Chauvin trial? Where was the courtroom footage of the James Fields trial? Did you even hear that James Fields was on trial? What are the chances we're going to get to see the trial of Darrell Brooks for the Waukesha Christmas parade attack? How come we can see a domestic abuse case of celebrities or whatever the fuck it even is, but we can't see terrorists stand trial? Why can't we stop ourselves from getting sucked into nonsense for one goddamn news cycle, and turning a high consciousness forum into a fucking tabloid magazine.

Depends on the company, depends on the health condition, depends on the boss, depends on where you live. Minor physical ailments are probably okay to discuss. If you've got carpal tunnel or lower back problems, most companies are happy to get you an ergonomic keyboard or a better chair to accommodate. If you have diabetes that's totally managed but you need to inject yourself with insulin a couple times a day almost any workplace would accommodate it, and you should let them know so they don't think you're doing drugs. If you have a severe or life-threatening allergy that's worth disclosing. If the health problems are going to impact your ability to do your job in any significant way or make you less efficient, it probably won't go over as well and you'll need to be strategic about it. If it doesn't affect your job and no one would know unless you told them, I wouldn't talk about it. Mental health stuff especially is still taboo in most places. Even if the workplace puts on a façade of supporting and promoting mental health, normally they're full of crap when it comes down to it. If you've got depression, etc you pretty much need to come in with a doctor note and tell them what you need if you're legally entitled to it, don't ask or try to bargain. I know one person who has received special accommodation for PTSD and anxiety - getting her own private office in a mostly open-concept building, how her desk is laid out so people can't come up behind her, letting people know not to come up behind her and surprise her or try to hug her without asking (yes it happens in workplaces way more than you'd expect lol). Her boss is understanding on the rare occasion she does have a full-blown panic attack. But she works at an above-average company with an above-average manager in terms of understanding and accommodation. Lots of places would probably just fire you if you're even slightly a burden in terms of anxiety, bipolar, any kind of mood disorder. If you happen to have a union, talk to the union about it before your employer.

Because taking part in a revolution is inherently risky. Look at January 6th protestors -- many are now facing felonies and are going to be imprisoned for years. Ashli Babbitt lost her life for taking part. Same thing (deaths and arrests) have even happened to BLM protestors. Injury, imprisonment, or death are real risks of taking part in a political upheaval. If you live in a 1st world country, you might have grievances and are angry about the direction your country is going. But at the end of the day you still have it pretty good. Your fridge is stocked with food, you can go home and watch Netflix for hours a night. That's a lot to risk or give up. Do you hate what politicians are saying enough to risk going and getting your head stomped in? We are the boiling frog. Politicians and world leaders are experts at knowing how to slowly crank the temperature up, just slowly enough that they can boil us without us jumping out of the pot first. Last few years they've maybe just accelerated it a bit too fast, hopefully they're smart enough to tone it back down and placate the masses for a bit. If you live in a 2nd or 3rd world country you have less to lose so the chances of revolution are greater. So you're going to have to wait for the US to basically collapse to an extent before people become that desperate.

In most places there's no other option, you have 2 - 4 parties to choose from that are roughly the same. People live busy lives, suffering and tired, barely scraping by. They don't have time to get involved deeply with the political process or run for office themselves, or even attend schoolboard meetings to improve their own kid's lives. They don't have time to protest or write to their representatives (and it feels completely futile anyway.) National politics doesn't have a significant enough impact on most people's lives to give them enough incentive to be more invested in it. The difference between electing a conservative or liberal might be a 5% change in your taxes, or some minor societal change. Politicians lie and you're just as likely to not get what you voted for, even if your desired party wins. Even in your preferred political party, there's still no way that the leader can actually be the most qualified or competent person. In America, arguably still the most powerful country on Earth.... How can people like Biden, Trump, George Bush, Bill Clinton really be the absolute best we have to elect to our top position out of 300+ million people? The same is true of congressmen, senators, all levels of government. There is too much obvious corruption at work to change the status quo, when unqualified people keep getting elected across the board. In that situation, what can you do, besides either voting for the lesser of two evils or not voting at all? Personally I think one solution is going ultra-local. Forget about national and state-level politics. You can even ignore city politics to a large degree. Start off by building good relationships with your neighbors and immediate community. Do what you can to independently start building yourself up, because there is no guarantee that any politician will be able to help you. Make friends, barter and trade with each other outside of the financial system entirely, make people in your immediate area more self-sufficient and self-reliant. Work together to create a safe and cohesive neighborhood. Then you can be an example and start building outward.

Nowadays with most people struggling paycheck-to-paycheck or already deeply in debt, just having $30k saved up is a pretty substantial achievement. But in the grand scheme of things, it isn't much. It's good to have something to start with, but it's a minor amount on your overall wealth-building journey. First if you plan to have any kind of public-facing job, working in sales, going to interviews, running your own business, are still dating / looking for a partner... I would invest in your wardrobe a bit first. Instead of buying a lot of mediocre clothes, buy just a few quality outfits that will look great and last a long time. Just buying decent outfits isn't enough though unless they fit you perfectly off the rack. Pay an extra $50 per shirt or pair of pants for maybe 5 different sets of clothes. $500 worth of tailoring will give you a week's worth of clothes that look 10x better on you because they'll fit perfectly and really make you stand out as a high-quality person. If there is something specific you want to learn or master, I'd invest up to $1,000 in a couple courses. You spend 1/3 of your life sleeping, so if you have any kind of back problems or your current bed isn't comfortable, I'd get a decent mattress. Getting good quality sleep is critical to being your peak self. That's like $1,500. If you need eye or dental care, get that done. If you use a manual toothbrush, buy an electric one. Probably $2,000 on the high end to get a new pair of designer glasses, multiple cavities filled, etc. If there's anything else in your life that is costing you a lot of time or causing lots of frustration, and there's a way you can spend money to make the problem go away, do that. Even if we say you spend $10k on all the stuff above and whatever else you need, then you still have $20k to invest. With that savings I'd put the majority of it into an ETF that tracks the entire market like the S&P500 or NASDAQ. It's like investing in over 3,000 companies all at once which really spreads your risk out but will still earn you 7 - 10% per year on average. Up to 5% you can put into highly speculative assets like crypto. I would only invest in Bitcoin or Ethereum, no altcoins or NFTs. I don't have the stomach for buying rental properties and dealing with tenants, but that seems like one of the objectively best ways to really build wealth and financial independence. The first rental or two you need to get somewhat lucky and not get a bad non-paying tenant. But then by the time you build up to owning a dozen properties or an entire apartment building, the risk is way more spread out. You probably want to have more like $100k+ in savings before you start looking at real estate though. If you are pretty much ready to settle down and live in the same city for the next 10+ years, I would at least buy a home for yourself. I bought my house for $250k in 2017 and today it's worth probably $650k. One of the best investments I've made, and absolutely necessary if I ever want to trade up to something better. If I had rented all this time, I'd probably be priced out of the housing market entirely now. As a slight caveat -- I have a strong hunch that we will see a pretty big market correction sometime in the next couple of years. In the stock market, the housing market, pretty much everything. So if you feel the same, you might actually want to just keep your money in cash on the sidelines and wait to buy into everything at a 30%+ discount while everybody else is panicking. Although there is a saying "time in the market beats timing the market." People have been predicting a recession for 5+ years and if you had waited all that time you would've really missed out on a lot of gains. In the long-term, even if today is the peak and you buy and we go into a recession, you'll still be ahead 20 years from now vs not investing at all. But realize you'll probably be shitting your pants to see 1/3rd of your wealth evaporate overnight too if you invest at the wrong time, so maybe you want to keep a decent amount in cash and dollar-cost average in a little bit over several years.

If you wanna fuck escorts just do it because it feels good. There's no need to rationalize some higher spiritual meaning to make it okay. Never used one. But if I was going to do it, I'd pay extra and get a really premium one, like $1,000 for a couple hours, and do that a couple of times per year instead of getting a cheap one multiple times a week or month. Less risk of disease, and if I had to put a spiritual perspective on it, they are probably coming from far less of a place of desperation and negative emotions.