Here is a list of all my public writings and videos (from before February 2025).
If you want to do a dialogue with me, but I didn’t check your name, just send me a message instead. Ask for what you want!
Here is a list of all my public writings and videos (from before February 2025).
If you want to do a dialogue with me, but I didn’t check your name, just send me a message instead. Ask for what you want!
It is indeed rude to ask your hosts to make you something special to accommodate your diet. That’s why I don’t do it. This is part of how I try to not be a problem for other people. If I’m not expecting vegetarian options, I just eat in advance and then nibble on the bread or something. I did this around Anglos even back when I ate a normal diet, because Anglos often serve so little food.
My East Asian family doesn’t see it as an affront (though I can’t speak for everyone—especially not anyone under the age of 18). To the contrary, it’s a source of common ground between me and my vegetarian Pure Land Buddhist Taiwanese great aunt. It’s just about getting the right framing. East Asians understand that Buddhists often eat a vegan diet.
I guess I should qualify my statement, since this post is about surplusses based on value-added business like manufacturing and technology. A trade surplus based on resource extraction is not necessarily a source of long-term wealth.
I agree with the statement “The notion that bilateral trade deficits are per se detrimental to the respective national economies is overwhelmingly rejected by trade experts and economists.”, by the way. The key word is “bilateral”. Consider the China-Australia example I used in my original post. China has a bilateral trade deficit with Australia, but that’s misleading because China imports raw material from Australia and exports manufactured goods to many other nations. In this way, China’s bilateral trade deficit with Australia is one component of a net trade surplus. once you account for all the other countries China trade with.
That sounds like it would be interesting to visit.
Yes. This is sufficiently well-established and uncontroversial, that I don’t feel the need to dig through the specific examples.
Bullet trains are nice, but I feel they make more sense for connecting cities. Generally-speaking, the best direction to expand cities is to build upward and downward.
Yeah, I started wearing a suit in specific contexts after many months of careful consideration. It’s not random at all. Everything about it is carefully considered, from the number of buttons on my jacket to the color of my shoes.
I mostly wear it around artists. Artists basically never wear suits where I live, but they really appreciate them because ① artists are particularly sensitive to aesthetic fundamentals and ② artists like creative clothing.
Being polarizing is way better than being neutral for meeting people and making friends.
This is really important. If I meet 100 people and make 1 really good friend, then it doesn’t matter whether the other 99 like me or not. Being polarizing helps filter for the small number of people I want to talk to.
It’s can also be fun to play into American stereotypes overseas. It’s not everyday that a Czechian gets to meet an authentic American cowboy. I much prefer that look to the generic sloppy baseball cap + T-shirt.
A waistcoat is my favorite attire for social dancing.
Denji is indeed a caricature of himself, both diagetically and metaphorically. I believe this is a deliberate metatextual self-reference to how popular Chainsaw Man has gotten in the real world.
I think what makes Chainsaw Man great is that the characters are dangerous, insane, and relatable. What really sold me on Asa Mitaka’s story was Asa’s conversation with Yuko about the murder. Asa’s story has strengths and weaknesses compared to Denji’s. I much prefer that over a retread of the original Chainsaw Man story.
I feel the whole aquarium arc was genius, especially the ending. But to understand it on all the different levels requires knowing that the beginning of the aquarium date, where Asa lectures about fish, is a riff on the aquarium date scene from Rent-A-Girlfriend.
Just a blazer is a more conventional solution to this problem. Personally, I like how unified it looks to use a matching fabric for blazer and pants.
What do you mean Chainsaw Man 2? Do you mean Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc? I’ve only watched the regular anime season, plus read the English translation of the manga. I’m loving Asa Mitaka’s story.
Japan is different from the USA and Europe because they have two sartorial lineages: a native one and a Western one. While it’s not possible to counter-signal with a suit in Japan, I feel the equivalent would be to wear traditional clothing like a samue or jinbei, which have their own set of challenges.
That Onion article is savage. It’s hard to imagine any culture and circumstance where wearing a business suit ironically would work. That said, I did successfully wear a suit ironically once. It was part of a running joke someone else started.
I haven’t watched How I Met Your Mother, so I’m afraid that reference is lost on me. The only sitcom I’ve watched is Little Mosque on the Prairie, which is about a community of Canadian Muslims.
Magicians don’t pick locks on stage.
The locks are all fake. The test of skill is convincing you they’re real.
Except when the locks are totally real and the magician just bypasses them.
That’s a good point. I’ve changed it to “wokking”.
+1 to Taleb’s Extremistan vs Mediocristan model
I solve this problem by telling jokes and expressing opinions so far outside the Overton Window they’d get me stoned to death by the general public. After setting the honesty baseline that high, it would be bizarre for my friends to fudge their food preferences.