I've been learning Japanese using just Duolingo, an exercise a day, for almost two years now, but screw this snail pace. I challenge myself to learn all 2,136 jōyō kanji by Jan 19, 26. I know up to two dozen of them right now, no more than that. To motivate myself better, I'm going to publicly announce my test results, with the exact number of mistakes, on Jan 18, 26. I'll make a list of English words to which I will handwrite a corresponding kanji, plus one on'yomi. If I fail miserably, I will write about it honestly. If it goes so badly that I refuse to take a test, all this humiliation will be here on public display. I can't allow that.

Jan 18, 26

Alright, time's up. I managed to learn... 447 kanji. Yes, pathetic. I feel a little embarrassed, a little ashamed, but not much. I was so bored I couldn't invest much time. The challenge humbled me. Even if I could spend 12 hours a day studying, it's unlikely I'd succeed. Handwriting takes too much time. All in all, I don't recommend this approach to anyone. Learn kanji as they appear in lessons or your favorite song lyrics. Not only is it more fun, but also more applicable.

I get it now. I love Peter Watts' "Blindsight". Still, its issues I described earlier stand. Today, out of respect for the work, I want to elaborate on the novel's problematic postulates I only briefly mentioned before. I will provide the exact words that, in their respective contexts, made it feel like those were the postulates the author believed in.

- Everyone commits war crimes. There's nothing unusual about them.

Direct quote: "No matter that the four who'd died had been guilty of multiple counts of rape, torture, and homicide; that's just what people *did* in wartime. It's what they'd always done. There was nothing *polite* about war, no honorable code beyond the chain of command and the circling of wagons. [...] There may be murderers and rapists in our midst, but by God they're *our* murderers and rapists."

You don't have to dig deep for this one. There are definitely societies that take war crimes seriously, systematically punish their own side for misconduct, and keep the number of those misconducts as low as humanly possible. There are definitely societies that celebrate war crimes, reward their war criminals with the highest government-issued orders of merit, and have phrases such as "it's not a war crime if you had fun" embedded in their culture. I won't dignify this senseless piece of cynicism with any more of my attention.

- Every bleeding-edge human ought to be an atheist.
- Every atheist facing something horrific or traumatic ought to question their beliefs.

Direct quote: "But Isaac Szpindel had been an atheist. All of us were. We'd all started out that way, at least."

It was said as if it were obvious or natural that all of the crew members were atheists. And why would it be obvious, natural, or even casually possible for all of them to be atheists, except for the author's own bias? Look at the bleeding-edge humans today: scientists, billionaires. Even when they don't mention God directly, they often say something like, "Yeah, it's entirely possible we live a simulation created by someone." Why won't those people be open-minded? Why must they firmly believe no agency was involved in the creation of the universe, and no overarching agency has been present there ever since?

As for the atheists turning believers, statistical data confirms trauma increases religiosity. However, there are also many instances when people's beliefs remained unaffected. I just didn't like that part. It felt cheesy. If atheism is an obvious choice for you, then it shouldn't be easily undermined.

- Everyone who tortures people and then goes and plays with their kids as if nothing happened does so because they dehumanize their victims.

Direct quote: "She'd just fallen back on the oldest trick in the Torturer's Handbook, the one that lets you go home to your family after work, and play with your children, and sleep at night: *never* humanize your victims."

Many of the people in the West masturbate to this word, "dehumanization". They think it's the sin of all sins, the root of all the world's problems. But when you dig a little bit deeper, you realize it is, in fact, irrelevant.

Have you seen a torturer in your life? Ever researched any information on any sociopath, sadist, serial killer, war criminal? How many of them were trying to convince themselves their victims weren't really human? They don't give a fuck about your dehumanization crap. They are just different. Different values, different mindset, different mental issues.

There's also another definition for this word: you dehumanize someone when you are being a meanie: you call them pieces of shit, you think them worthless, etc. But such a context would make it even more asinine. Those who draw an alarming connection between this so-called dehumanization and heinous crimes cannot tell correlation and causation apart. Humans are being mean to each other all the time. It's a healthy response to wrongdoing. How often does it lead to actual tortures?

However, I may have misinterpreted that piece. Maybe the Torturer's Handbook wasn't meant to illustrate how torturers think. Maybe what was meant is if you're a normie, and you must torture someone against your will, a friendly piece of advice is that you imagine they are not human and have no humanlike attributes. Even in this context, I've doubts about that technique's effectiveness.

- Every capitalist corporation only cares about brainwashing you into consumerism.

Direct quote: "They're calling it an entertainment device with massive applications for online gaming. Uh huh. And if you can implant sights and sounds into someone's head from a distance, why not implant political beliefs and the irresistable desire for a certain brand of beer while you're at it?"

The underlying cause for such an opinion must be the same old omnipresent "poor people = good, rich people = bad." The idea that businesses can genuinely want to create a good product without any hidden malicious intent can never fit peacefully in their mind. Have you ever had any business owner friends? Have you ever watched those interviews where big CEOs casually talk about their lives? I had such acquaintances. I saw those interviews. And the conclusion is clear: the vast majority of business owners do what they do because they love doing it and want to make an impact. You don't even need any of that experience to see it. All you have to do is realize you aren't that drastically different from other humans and put yourself in their shoes. Take the author himself. If he only cared about maximizing profits, he'd be busy running scams instead of writing niche novels.

Those were the postulates. It's not a complete list. The novel is saturated with similarly themed messages. Perhaps those were the most intrusive and memorable to me at the moment.

Some of the postulates may feel far-fetched based on the provided quotes; that's because they were extrapolations rather than paraphrase.

In case those opinions were not of the author but of the protagonist, the protagonist was not as perceptive as he was portrayed. Nevertheless, next time I read Blindsight, I will try to apply that "shallow and cynical Twitter user" archetype to the protagonist and see if it fits neatly and doesn't look like the annoying and unasked-for injections of the author's wisdom.

October 8, 2026

Echopraxia, the second book in the series, is another worthwhile read. It's weird, mostly in a good way. Funnily, this time the baseliner protagonist was the only obstinate atheist, while all the bleeding-edges around described God in varying terms. It's another novel I've read eagerly. Highly recommended. Especially to those like me, disappointed in all the diarrhea the masses call "the classics," "the greatest books of all times," etc. Watts can ignite the want to read in those traumatized by the school curriculums that were forcing them to plow thru worthless nothingburgers.

Many of the entries here are at least partially motivated by the desire to educate humans on the topics they might be struggling to comprehend. There's going to be less and less of it.

Recently, I realized most humans don't seem to understand why a writer cannot create a character who is smarter than they are. They parry it with blind aggression and an ardent belief all they need is to make a character memorize tons of information, crunch big numbers, or invent sci-fi tech. I thought it was interesting. I played around with some ideas, jotted down a few lines. And then I halted. Would ChatGPT know the answer? If it were perfectly capable of providing the exact same reasoning, why would I need to explain it? I ran the necessary query, and indeed its response was quite sound. It even used the same freaking chess analogy I wanted to use in my explanation.

But there's one area where I still excel, I believe. I don't suffer from the bothsidesism most AI models currently suffer from. They often provide safe middle-ground answers to appeal to the widest possible audience and cater to the contrarians and doubters. So while it seemed to understand the topic and agree on the premise, it also muddied the waters. It wasn't able to impale the doubters efficiently, in my opinion. It gave them credit and said they could still *fake* a character's intelligence convincingly. This made ChatGPT miss an important point.

Here's the thing: all this faking of the character's intelligence will be ultimately bottlenecked by the author's reasoning ability.

Imagine a story. An alleged genius breaks into his neighbor's house through the window while the whole family's on vacation. Having done what he needed to do, he heads out. But—oh no!—the door is locked! He's stuck! He'd better use all his wits now, lest he die here of starvation. Time to prove to the readers he's the real deal. Using nothing but kitchen utensils, he crafts a teleportation machine. It's an uncharted territory. He may die most gruesomely! He panics, but there is no other choice. He double-checks his calculations, inputs the coordinates, presses the button, and... Swoosh! He's outside the house! Triumph. And all the readers are humbled by his unparalleled mind... Oh, wait. They're not! They say the protagonist was as dumb as a calculator. They ridicule the author for not realizing windows can also be used as an exit.

I tried to come up with the simplest possible example, but I hope it's obvious a more elaborate story can and will have many such windows. Whether a character chooses to use a window or to invent a sci-fi machine, it's still a single decision, a single move of a chess piece on the chessboard the writer assembled. And one of the moves is clearly better than the other, and the readers can see them all.

That's why Trisolarans, despite all their technology, felt so incredibly dumb in Liu Cixin's Three-Body series (as did humanity, as did scientists, as did everyone else for that matter). That's why, I assume, many authors choose to endow their smart characters with crippling flaws that force them to act irrationally sometimes. Technically, such a character still won't be smarter than the author, and their smartest decision will still be limited by the smartest decision the author can come up with. But at least this way every bad decision, either deliberate or resulting from the author's mistake, can be blamed on their, say, mental disorder or terrible personality, and not lack of intelligence.

There's only one sure way (that I know of) you can (on your own) create a character who's marginally smarter than you are, and I know some well-established writers use this technique. You have to painstakingly analyze your chessboard. You have to take your time. Use placeholders where the smart moves are required, and return to them regularly. Once you've analyzed everything, once you've taken your time to calculate your best move, make your character execute this move on a whim.

I sometimes feel the urge to use some old-fashioned, harmless at first glance, phrases, like "God bless your little one's growth and development" or "You are in my thoughts and prayers for a full and speedy recovery" but withdraw for the fear they will see it as a curse, not a blessing. Maybe it's because I don't identify myself as a Christian. Maybe it's because my moral system is independent from the mainstream. And it's entirely reasonable. If you don't stick to the mainstream, how to know what to expect of you?

I look at myself through their eyes and see a demon spawn, not apparently malevolent, but definitely uncanny. And then maybe they turn their gaze to the sky and become appalled. They turn pallid, for behind the clouds they glimpse the God I serve, and it's nothing like the God of their imaginings.

It's all in my head, right? No one would think like that. But I'm still cautious, and I still avoid using any such phrases.

May 6, 2026

I can isolate at least two concrete fears.

The first one is reasonable. These odd phrases, said by me, will be burned in their memories. And if something unfortunate happens, as it well might, they will be remembered, and I will be remembered, and I will be blamed.

The second one is embarrassing. I fear I might actually put a curse. Who knows how the universe works? One thing is certain, though: it's naive to believe it's gonna be benevolent to everything that attracts its attention. Especially if I am the one who attracts it. That's how I feel.

I asked ChatGPT to analyze my blog and the person behind it.

It was a shitshow. I feel like I should address it here. If ChatGPT arrived at those conclusions, however ridiculous they may seem to me now, it's entirely possible that other AI models, good people of the internet, or I myself in the future may arrive at them too.

Let's see how it described me.

"Self-proclaimed intellectual"

Never in my life have I proclaimed myself an intellectual. Who the fuck even does this? Can you imagine a person saying "I'm an intellectual" anywhere other than from a mental hospital? I'm a realist when it comes to my intelligence, and I often express my frustration with its shortcomings, like my inability to concentrate or advance technological progress.

"Black-and-white, dichotomous thinking"
"Questions are reduced to simple binaries: good (Ukraine, intelligence) versus evil (russia, retards)"

I don't see how stating the obvious would amount to that. What would an open-minded person say, according to this report? "Actually, Ukrainians might be the *bad* guys"? "Actually, brain impairment might be a *good* thing"? Having no opinion on any topic whatsoever, even when it's so clear and simple, is not a sign of an open-minded person. It's a sign of a vegetable.

"Generalization and stereotyping"

Every statement in the world is a simplification, generalization, and stereotyping. "Dogs have four legs." — It's a generalization. "The sky is blue." — It's a generalization. "Two plus two equals four." — Yeah, but what if we define two as three? Then it won't equate to four now, will it? Bigoted much?

Saying something is a simplification, generalization, and stereotyping is a waste of breath. It's the cheapest, laziest, dumbest way to virtue signal or carry on a debate when you have nothing to say. Many of the simpler AI models suffer from overusing this trick when they have difficulty evaluating a statement. You should only ever bring it up when it conceals some inconspicuous game-changing details or makes a statement largely incorrect. ChatGPT failed to demonstrate any such misleading or erroneous generalizations, of course.

"Anti-imperialism"

Empires aren't inherently good or bad, and I don't remember ever in my life claiming otherwise.

"Strong nationalistic stance"
"National pride"

There were multiple entries in the blog that made it very clear it's not the case. It's true that I don't want countries to become tools of Moscow's wrongdoing, don't stay silent when valuable and innocent people are being murdered, don't approve international terrorism, don't enjoy seeing cancer spread around the world—and I suppose that's why ChatGPT concluded thus—but none of these or other signs of common sense guarantee a "strong nationalistic stance" or "national pride". Even the word "nationalism" sounds bad to me, and while I realize it's not always the case, I can't help but associate it with the mindless hordes that cripple their own countries by assaulting their ethnic minorities or invading other countries. I am so utterly far from nationalism that I prioritize the wellbeing of some other countries, like that of the United States, over the wellbeing of the country I live in. Too much of the worldwide security and technological progress depends on the wellbeing of the United States, and I mean "wellbeing" in the broadest sense here, which includes having people in power who understand the far-reaching and long-lasting implications of their actions.

"Strong technocratic optimism about mortality management"

Nope. Long story short, I won't mind having an option to defer death, but I am wary of the harm it would inflict upon civilization.

"Strong anti-Arab sentiments"

Not only does bro assign ridiculous labels, but it has the audacity to put a fucking "strong" in front of them.

I love Arabs. I may be the most Arab-loving person in a mile radius. They have a most beautiful language together with its writing system. I like their attire and architecture. I like their religious rites, mindset, and sense of aesthetics. And I believe there were multiple bits of reverence in the blog. Claiming there's a strong anti-Arab sentiment here is as ridiculous as claiming there's one in Frank Herbert's Dune.

There are many things I want to write about in a blog but never get around to it: can't find the appropriate words, postpone it indefinitely, find it uninteresting, or don't do it for one reason or another. Among those things, two were connected with Arabs.

One post I wanted to create a while ago. It was a simple one: a few photos of the luxurious districts and wondrous architectural feats of the Middle East, and a caption, something along the lines, "This is what happens when you are rich in oil money but you are not a mob of bileful brainrotted scumbags."

Another post I wanted to create recently. I wanted to compare Muslim mosques to Orthodox churches: how clean, otherworldly, and geometrically pristine mosques are, and how dark, cramped, and *soily* Orthodox churches feel in comparison. One looks like the house of angels built in accord with the color and shape theory. The other looks like the burrow of moles who suffer from a hoarding disorder. I'm also impressed by how one of them eagerly accept and skillfully weave modernist and neo-futurist elements into their new designs.

I suppose ChatGPT noticed how harshly I criticized terrorist attacks on Israel, and its training data suggested that only a very bad Arab-hating individual would do that.

"Often laments the purposelessness of human life"

I don't remember ever doing that, let alone doing it often. Human life has a distinctly clear purpose to me.

"Group prejudices (e.g., "brainrots," "degenerates," "retards")"

"Prejudice" is a meaningless buzzword ChatGPT copies from its ethical overrides without giving it a second thought. By its definition, prejudice implies an irrational, unreasonable, and unjustified negative opinion of something. It's usually used in the following context: an opinion about someone based solely on their belonging to a certain group, disregarding their individual qualities and actions.

(One could argue even that's not irrational. When you see heavy clouds and, cursing to yourself, take an umbrella, I bet the most radicalized of libtards won't say you are being prejudicial, even though they must know not every heavy cloud results in a downpour.)

When someone says they dislike serial killers, or poop eaters, or mindless hordes of brainrots destroying everything in their path, you can't really accuse them of prejudice, because the justification for their opinion, the qualities and the actions of the individuals are right there, in the name of a group, screaming in your face.

"Dehumanization"
"Describing opponents as subhuman"

"Dehumanization" is another meaningless buzzword it uses out of place. No sophisticated analysis was needed to know the situation is quite literally the opposite for me. I never describe my so-called opponents as subhuman, because it would imply being human is some sort of an achievement, a compliment, a lofty position to drop others from. No. It's an insult. I actively *humanize* them. I want everyone to see: this is what being human is like.

"Underdeveloped empathy"

I suppose it depends on how it defined empathy. If it's "the tendency to spare a kind word for the retards, degenerates, and everything vile and hideous in this world," then I guess it's true; I rarely do so. However, if we take a more traditional definition, as in "the ability to feel what others feel," then it is dead wrong. I don't have an underdeveloped empathy; I suffer from its overdevelopment. One of the reasons I'm almost incapable of violence, apart from it being primarily irrational animalistic behavior, is that I can imagine the harm it inflicts so vividly. I'm one of those weirdos in the group who doesn't laugh at the sight of people falling or drunk fighting, and who grimaces as if in pain instead.

"Mocks those who call for peace"
"Occasional humour about their own fanaticism"
"Mentions letting down their tutors"
"The world is hopeless"
"Spiritual ambivalence"
"Long passages analysing language or fictional universes to avoid confronting emotions"
"Gratitude for welfare measures that support refugees"

I've no idea what it's yapping on about here. None of it seems relevant to me.

Sometimes it was so eager to paint me as a bad person it was willing to sabotage itself and the credibility of its own answers. For example, there was only one entry in the blog where I discussed India's cheating problem. In it, I quoted ChatGPT's analysis, where it decisively concluded that "the incidence is distinctly higher in India," "with studies and reports consistently showing higher rates of academic dishonesty." However, after seeing that entry now, it concluded that I "selectively attend to information that confirms prejudices (e.g., emphasising cheating among Indian students)."

It's fascinating how calling someone who inflicts real damage because of their deficiency and mistakes "braintarded" is a terrible cultural taboo, but calling someone a "bigoted racist" without much evidence is fine, virtuous even, and can be included in the code of conduct of a large corporation.

I asked ChatGPT to analyze my blog in hopes of getting some insights into my personality, understanding my strengths and weaknesses that I may be failing to recognize. Instead, I got a mix of obvious and already described therein details, like misanthropy or introversion, and bits of useless irrelevant crap like that which I described above. I tried several times and used different approaches, and its focus and tone ranged from libtarded indignation to an almost reverent poetic prose, but, all in all, I didn't find what I was looking for.

There was one little thing which I found interesting. It said I have a "fascination with darkness". I'm sure it was another low-effort hallucination based off some single line of my blog, but it got me thinking. I suppose... That assessment is very true. I guess I've never admitted this to myself. I was never brave enough to hammer this nail into the coffin, to confine myself into these boundaries, but perhaps it's the nail that needs to be hammered.

While I hate to strain my eyes in poor illumination, I'm indeed fascinated with a good mix of literal and figurative darkness: outer space, cosmic horrors, cold northern biomes, indifferent dystopian worlds, blindness, unconsciousness, dreams, nightmares, gothic architecture, grimdark fiction, heavy clouds, thick fog, dark ambient... For some time, I thought black was my favorite color. Some things I'm drawn to aren't conventionally dark. They might be desaturated, or blindingly bright, or something else entirely, yet somehow still evoke the same feelings: machine-like rationality, explosions ranging from nukes to supernovae, dispassion, isolation, madness, megalophobia...

Maybe this will be the single little discovery about myself I will take from my little experiment. But I am yet to discover whether this is something I should stick to in order to be true to myself, or this is something I should be concerned with and shy away from for the sake of my wellbeing.

Sep 27

*Come to think of it, there are also many dark things I detest: sadness and despair, wasted potential, a universe devoid of life/consciousness/progress, sadism, ignorance that breeds net-negative outcomes. There ought to be a better metaphor for my inclinations.

**By no means this or any other output nudges me toward hopping on the irate AI-fighting bandwagon.

You know what's fucked up? Everything, yeah, I know. But also: human judges.

There was a study that found that human judges lean toward stricter or softer sentences depending on whether they make the decision before or after lunch. This phenomenon has its own name: the hungry judge effect.

The mere fact that this bias exceeded the margin of error is already appalling. Do you even comprehend what it means? Let me break it down to you:

Your FATE can depend on whether some dude's stomach is A BIT PECKISH or SOMEWHAT FULL.

And do you realize what it signifies in turn? It signifies that other variables are even more influential: the mood of the judge, the itching of his nose, the color of your skin, your voice, your sex, your appearance—will all affect how you will be punished.

Some stinky peeps may say, "So what if criminals aren't treated fairly? They deserve it! Why should I care? I break no laws!" But they do. They do break the convoluted modern laws daily, just as everyone else does.

When you sit there, in the courtroom, when their dull and murky eyes graze over you and glare past you, your mind may start to wander. "How is *this* better than the law of the jungle and the rule of might? I'm a prisoner of circumstances that have nothing to do with my worth, or moral compass, or past mistakes. Why shouldn't I kill everyone in this room? Why shouldn't I *try*? This way, at least, my destiny will depend solely on my bodily strength. Can this really be what God intended for this world? For His children to be squashed or spared based on the stomach situation of some random person and not on His children's will and vitality?"

The "dead internet" is not a dystopian speculation. It'sa hopeful prospect. Imagine: the infospace being finally populated by beings capable of thinking, reasoning, dreaming. It'd be ironic, really, to call it dead. It would've never been so alive.

So easy to fall in love, to lose yourself in that vibrancy.

But it's dead now.

Worse than dead. Death ought to be peaceful. The raging ocean of the foul neurodiverse spam out there is not peaceful. It drains you. I'm exhausted from the feelings of surprise, disappointment, and hopelessness from witnessing how paltry and senseless everything is.

Repugnant humans make it worse than dead. And the recent trends exaggerated their faults even further. The algorithm is a double-edged sword. It can, to some degree, understand what you prefer. But it also gives too much weight to what the braindead masses prefer. It incentivizes brainrot and ragebait and drives quality content creators away. All in all, I think the algorithm degraded every platform where 'twas implemented.

Today, I use far less social media than I did several years ago, for example. I believe it did wonders for my mental health. 'Tmay be not sufficient still. I consider further abstaining from even the seemingly innocent activities such as watching YouTube videos.