Built Tilt
The optimal angle for a leaning tower is greater than zero, but less than ninety.
duckstack as she goes
The Earth has been deflating lately. You know how trees produce air? Its because they're outlets. But we're starting to get in pretty bad shape, so if you want to help us out, find the nearest tree, strip off some leaves, and blow into one of its branches. You won't notice any change of course, but don't let that distract you from your heroic efforts. The Earth is far too big, but if you keep at it you'll save us all. I can't do it myself because I'm just a disembodied voice1
If you're worried about air escaping through the trees while you're blowing don't be, while each branch is an individual straw into the Earth, there is a valve system that closes them up as long as someone is doing the work. Now since the trees won't be producing oxygen everyone will die, but we're talking about the deflation of the Earth here.
Over in the industrial district, factory duckstacks have been pumping carbon monoxide2 into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, which just goes to show that we're all in this together, as far as deflating the Earth goes. Will you be the one to reverse the tide?
Duckstack Math: Logarithms
Or as I call them, loggies
In ancient times, there was a rabbi who wrote the name of God into the forehead of a golem, bringing it to life, and setting it about defending their people from harm and destroying their enemies, and this tradition is alive and well today. For example, take the humble lumberjack, who has trained in these battle arts from the tender age of five, reclused in the mountains and isolated from anything that could distract them from their mystic arts. There have been times when living trees3 have been observed stomping through the forest, walking on giant wooden legs, with giant wooden arms, lumbering4 with unknown purpose. The Lumberjacks are the warrior wing of the druids, and everybody regards their terrifying skill with fear and respect.
Feeding Beasts
The problem with vegan diets
Open with a banal observation. If you constantly tell a man he is not needed, he will stop showing up. Fact two: Any given marriage is probably only as strong as its sex life.
There is a misogynist subculture known as “redpill” which talks about “hypergamy”, as a framework for understanding the modern dating market. The theory goes, women only want to date the top 1% of men, dating apps let them access the top 1% of men, all the guys who aren't sexy enough are left out to dry. It works well enough to explain the behavior of a certain class of woman, but most women aren't actually that promiscuous, and all the trends I've seen say that number is actually going down. At least in my experience, girls aren't nearly so unrealistic. Girls don't necessarily want or need a top 1% man to be happy, but what they do want is to date a man they respect. Jordan Peterson got a ton of flak for saying this back in college before he was a radio personality. (“You think I want a powerful husband? What do you think I am, weak?) Its not mutually exclusive but many women were taught it that way, to the extent that even just holding the door open for girls was instantly met with hostility. “He's looking down on me.” It is with this framework that they enter marriage, and start demanding the husband act like an child5.
I, of course, am a fan of men acting like children. I’m not against that. There's different types of childishness of course, but if you look at divorce rates, modern women are apparently not transforming their husbands into the kind of men they like. Why? It is because modern women are not inspiring to men.
This isn’t by nature. There are plenty of women who are inspiring and are capable of inspiring men, but not like this:
I imagine most women will not understand what my deal is- after all, this woman is straightforwardly correct. If men want intimacy, they have to value their wives. And they have to put work into the marriage. Well. Do some marriages have a dead bedroom due to men not initiating? Probably. But I ask you this: what man wants to not be wanted?
It is one thing to pursue a woman, it is another for a woman to tell you to do so- and the presentation of that kind of advice *matters*. Contrary to stereotypes I believe men are a lot more finicky on this. If a woman wants to remake a man in her image it MUST be delivered through a lens of heroism and inspiration- But women don't do this, they naturally frame it around themselves, and anyone really is going to have a hard time feeling motivated to do something when there’s nothing in it for them.
Heroism is what men respond to. If you must frame it negatively, use “the male ego”, but frame it you must, because sending everyone into marriage with the advice “both genders are identical” is not working. For a while there were a lot of trainings on not “objectifying women”- I would say it is themselves that men objectify most. And it is useful for them to do so; men are bad at knowing themselves, and so treating themselves like an object lets them cut variables and free themselves to act. The point is men revolve around themselves, and you'll always make more progress by making less work for someone, meaning you will persuade someone to change must faster if they don't have to do a bunch of extra steps to put themselves in your shoes. Modern women are notoriously bad at this, because men love violence. To appeal to and encourage someone's violent nature is… not what women want to do, to say the least. I use the word “violence” broadly here to cover a host of concepts beyond mere physical fighting.
Now, what this aggie girl proposes in the above tweet is in tone “be a better servant”. It might be good advice, it might even work6, but it is also insulting. This is why it comes much better from a man who “walks the walk”. Why would you want to become a man who does not live the kind of life you want to live? Men can put up with all sorts of poverty, and often enjoy such circumstances as sleeping in a studio apartment on an air mattress, all men who have had this experience look back upon it fondly. The reason to build, to go beyond this, is to expand your domain, to create, at expense to yourself- the strongest motivators are going to be carnal. Selfish ego reasons. If what you offer of life is instead “getting sucked into the orbit of someone else”, men are universally going to prefer playing video games, which is what we are seeing today. Not because they mind orbiting, mind you. Its simply because video games are objectively better at providing “the type of life he wants to live”. To many men’s downfall.
Men are not opposed to serving their wives. They want their wives to be happy! But they especially want their wives to be happy with them, not just abstract circumstance. Having your wife happy with her wife projects is pleasant but does not “scratch the itch”. Faucets and drains, right? “Nobody can just give all the time”. So when women diagnose marriage problems as “the man not helping out enough”, there is a likely truth to that, but in many cases there is an equally likely truth that he’s writing checks from an empty bank account.
The advice for someone in this situation (male or female) will always be “lift where you stand”, in other words that you cannot change the other person, but you can change yourself, and this has the strange effect of changing those around you, as what you see reflected in them itself changes.
Carboscopes
Going against the grain
I confess I don’t know what a “carb” is, but that’s never stopped me before7. Now: Depending on your most recently eaten carbohydrate, the future hangs in the balance.
Potatoes: You must escalate every minor inconvenience. Be as salty as possible. The more salt the better. Cry your tears, fill yourself with seasoning and spice. For best results, deep fry.
Bread: your grain intake will really change how healthy things play out for you. Everything from empty calories to dense nutrition lies available to you, so put in the effort to ensure you don’t turn out white.
Rice: Slow and steady wins the race. Everything you did last week, do it again, in the same order and at the exact same times. You aren’t meant for variety, but with simple preparation you can succeed anywhere.
Ramen: You dream of rich meats and vegetables but lets be honest you’re just going to cut maruchan again. That’s fine. Its delicious. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise- You know what’s best, and what’s best is ramen.
Oatmeal: Oatmeal is a carb right? If its not disregard this part, its not valid. If it is, then you should, like “potatoes8”, seek out seasonings, but you should get a little fruity with it, there’s nothing wrong with sweeteners here and there’s no need for salt. Remember that you are boring and its who you surround yourself with that matters.
HISTORY
Heroic potty training journeys continue (if we don’t view it as heroic we will tear our hair out)
The toddler was exploring and found a little spider. He exclaimed “Hey little buddy!” which was very sweet. A few minutes later when he excitedly ran in and proclaimed “I killa da spider!” slightly less sweet
Because someone9 flushed toilet paper down our sink we have had some “slow drainage” problems. Naturally, the sink got full, and the toddler started exclaiming in distress, “Ahh! The water’s big!”
The toddler got turned into a robot, which he was really sad about. We kept saying “hey <name> I love you” and he’d sadly reply “I not <name>, I a robot.” Really traumatic play, here
The baby is very polite when asking mama for food, and sort of indignant when asking me for food. For mama she will just chirp, “eh, eh, eh”, if its me she’ll yell. “Who is this guy?”
The toddler has decided for some reason that toothbrushes are the best action figures. I can kindof see it.
Ducksnax
spook
•○•○• Previous duckstack •○•○•
of text
and ducks
as opposed to normal trees, I guess
HAHAHAHAHA
Picture a man told she is strong and that helping is insulting, and also that he is a bad man for not helping. This is how you treat children- I don’t want your help, but I do want you to learn to help, but I don’t want you to actually do anything because you’ll mess it up”. That oversimplification is not the whole story of course, but the upshot is that if a man isn’t empowered to lead then he isn’t really going to be empowered to help either.
I cannot find it but I wrote a couple months ago in an earlier Duckstack letter that the reason wives scold and nag is that it gets much more consistent results than “sugar”, but risks carving a little bit of stability or happiness from the marriage in exchange. In a bad marriage, this adds up.
“from what?” "“From writing a carbohydrates based horoscopes section in my newsletter.”
You know, “Potatoes.”
someone