re: romanticism

insert idyllic scenes of paris

a foreign language, foreign ppl, vacationers, life-maxxers (think LA) who actually bother with their appearance (makeup, dress - as opposed to in SF) - everyone here looks put tgt, no matter what age, what gender.

everything is familiar in the physical sense that a chair is still a chair a tree is still a tree, but slightly different.

• the tree feels french, the chair feels french
• the limes dont have a throttle to hold down. it's ebikes in the original sense, not gliders.
• fragments of signage and conversation that i know the meaning of - the rest incomprehensible, but simultaneously multilingual signs and conversations in chinese/english.

things r different enough that you have to think twice. they knock you out of your automatic system 1 responses. and this escalation of mundane things such as "where to park my lime? oh i can only park in designated lots" is refreshing.

we romanticize when our current situation is worse (or, hypothetical situation is better - but in the hypothetical realm, anything and everything can be better) and our mind finds refuge in made up scenarios.

we long for novelty, for change. new things excite us, and we see a better version of ourselves from this new stimuli.

travel is a low form of novelty. it doesnt require any conscientious effort. u just need to be able to afford the plane ticket.

for higher forms of novelty, they require sustained dis-novelty before the next level of novelty unlocks.

this is in essence just delayed vs instant gratification.

travel is as low a level of novelty as scrolling reels. food is somewhere in btw.

reels are algorithmic novelty. it is guaranteed to always be novel.

the cost for one new reel is less than traveling to somewhere new. the difference in ratio btw the cost and reward results in different diminishing return curves. that plus the novelty extent of novelty make it so that u can continuously have reels be in ur life but u cant do the same for travel, partly bc there r only so many places in the world.

romanticism is equivalent to introspection. they r both largely unproductive when done passively. u can however exploit them by moving them to the extremes. and by law of eschatological convergence + shoot for the stars land on the moon, u will get very far.

foreign things have higher status. foreign hoes >> hoes. foreign cars >> cars. ABGs >> BBGs. bc they r novel, bc u r unfamiliar w them, the novelty is mysterious, and ur mind fills in the gaps.

but this is vain - we will come back to this.

re: 白富美 white rich beautiful

there's an endemic of baddies in china. white, rich (富二代, daddy's money), pretty.

then, per the halo effect, society self selects for looks. beauty is downstream of wealth. wealth cultivates beauty. repeat.

that's the naive interpretation - if u think ab it a bit more, and focus it on women, u get this:

the twin turbine

the money flattens out, and the standards drift right with it

and the values pull apart

1. beauty
   • all women want to look pretty, so they make themselves prettier to the extent that their economics permit
2. wealth
   • society as a whole progresses forward (the standard deviation grows larger at a faster exponential rate, permanent underclass, elite overpopulation)
   • the prettier women get richer (halo effect)
3. american
   • usa is the global hegemony
   • as u get richer, u inevitably become more americanized, bc that's where the money/opportunity lay
   • as such u start getting indoctrinated into western thought (proliferation of western thought from american soft culture/hard power)
     • independent thought
     • westernized values
     • unrealistic expectations or the modern equivalent of the american dream, exacerbated by social media, social comparison, mimesis
4. feminism
   • the most viral form of thought terrorism that plagues american society

rinse and repeat.

chinese baddies r bad, in both senses of the word. they r pretty. simultaneously, their values r twisted, spoiled in the sense of not hard working, vain, hedonistic. it has gotten to a point where if u say u r from shanghai, ppl instantly associate these bad qualities ab you.

now this is only my viewpoint. if u r a chinese baddie (hmu) or the male equivalent (pls dont hmu), take no offense

im just saying that ppl w diff 价值观 (views and values, in terms of work, life, marriage, child rearing philosophies) can't get along sustainably.

spoiled ppl can only wed spoiled ppl, bc thats the world view that they were reared into. one is only compatible with oneself. so we r looking for ourselves in a partner, the same bgs. thats why all parents more or less have the same bg.

perhaps abg is acronym for "absent background" - for how lame they all are (sry, pls hmu)

then there's another pandemic, that is downstream of this twin turbine - demographic collapse: as countries become more and more developed (richer, prettier, more american, more feminist), their birth rate approaches 0.

re: 面子 (respect)

wdycwopt - what do u care what other ppl think - richard feynman

at the british museum, there was this chinese baddie and she was translating from chinese to english a phrase. she was standing 5 ft away from a museum worker (far away enough to not be conspicuous in front of them). she memorized the phrase, hugged her phone close to her chest (hiding her shameful action), then approached them and asked the phrase.

wtf do u care what other ppl think. why cant u just show the translation to them. why do u have to act as if u r sophisticated and can speak english. wdycwopt?

this is an inconsequential person, taking up 0.0000000001% of ur life not even, and u spend so much effort fighting for respect. it's not even worth it.

not very economical.

for a society as capitalist, as technologically minded, and as operationally efficient as china. it's ppl r not very.

it's patterns such as the above that make me despise the chinese population.

re: friends with benefits

a lot of ppl want to travel the world when asked what they would rather be doing

but if they understood what they were getting themselves into, they wouldn't take it up on the offer. traveling the world, eating good food, enjoying leisure are all equivalent forms of doing nothing. idleness. some say that through doing this you can experience and learn about culture. but without work, culture is nothing. that's a bad framing. without a goal, culture is nothing. and culture can never be the goal. bc culture has no output.

culture only exists to the extent that their civilization was great. where greatness is measured by output, by influence. this is a circular definition: only in great civilizations can culture proliferate from the concentration of capital, but culture is inherently comprised of outputs (art, music, literature) - and going to a place (travel) to absorb this output is input, not output.

it boils down to the meaning of life. what is the meaning of life? to do smth meaningful. to do. action. movement. growth.

what is travel filled with? inaction. the common framing / reason ppl travel is to escape something, or put more mildly, to spend time doing something that isn't what they usually do. ppl travel to get away from something, which is usually work.

traveling / leisure is no better than passive nihilism.

some say that this is exactly what big corporate / govt want you to think and to be the good little cog in the machine that u r. but two things can be true at the same time. this is no coincidence.

if u can't imagine urself doing the work that u r currently doing for the rest of your life, then you aren't doing the right work.

well maybe not travel then - what ab other things? a common example naysayers bring up is spending time with family/friends. similarly waste of time bc u are not progressing towards your goals. u don't move anywhere. it's stagnation.

there is an exception to the rule. there always is. but there is only one. if u r doing work. (not necessarily doing work but a business relationship needs to exist)

this all purports a utilitarian perspective, which some say is depressing. but this is the underlying reality. cheer up, befriend ur business partners.

cut off your day-ones the moment you become better than them, which means that they had a higher y-intercept, you had a higher slope, and u outgrew them. there is no point in staying loyal to ur day-ones if they r worse than u. u should only stay loyal to the ppl who r better than u, or with whom u r doing business w.

there is no pure friendship. there is always some underlying transaction.

however, cutting off your day-ones in the metaphorical sense: simply stop soliciting them and keep the relationship barely functional. functional to the point where they can still provide value for u when the occasion arises.

friends with benefits in quite the literal sense. this is the operating truth that underlies everything. whether u like it or not.

by extension - family members with benefits.

for example, as a baby, u cant do much without the help of ur parents - they r getting u closer to ur goal. around the age of 18-20, ur world view has already been formed enough s.t. u r having thoughts independent of the ones ur parents put into u. since ur birth, it has been a diminishing return curve for the value from spend w ur parents.

it's time for the hatchling to leave the nest.

this is why the 潮州 (cháo zhōu) family line is so successful, coined the "jews of china". their entire family and child rearing philosophy is based on business, and as such, them as a subsection of the chinese society were able to become extremely successful and influential.

then comes the obvious next question - ABGs (abgs).

i've long known that abgs r terrible ppl, but there is an exception, only one: an abg w benefits. an abg cofounder (hmu). but these r exceedingly rare. being an abg is sheep-like behavior, a founder is often the opposite. the overlap is minuscule.

this thought came from my travels. there were lots of fine abgs. but that's all they were. they r here fucking around sight seeing. can't take anyone who sight sees seriously. beauty is vain.

now that i've been to france/germany/uk, i hate them all. there is nothing there. it's a food desert. it's full of lame ppl coming and seeing eiffel tower and posing and taking photos. i will never ever come back unless business. before coming, i had this extremely rosy picture of paris, and europe as a whole. now i absolutely hate this region.

dont meet ur heroes go to the places that u want to go.