force

Is a loaded term. They are not making anyone who is physically or mentally unable in any way to do it. They are compensating those who do do it. (Yes, the pay is bad.) They get ample vacation time. There are many ways to postpone it or to replace it with some other form of public service. Many (most?) Koreans see it as their civic duty. It’s not so different from paying taxes or attending public school. Are those things slavery? We live in a society…

Conscription is slavery.

Hardly. They’re paid. There are exemptions for medical conditions and other things (I think medical students get exempted, and some choose to serve with the police, instead.) It’s not a perfect system by any stretch, but it’s not slavery.

That said, I’m against it overall. There are more and more rich kids “mysteriously” getting exempted. You’re expected to join by the age of 22, which interrupts university for many. And, it promotes a huge boy’s club where they learn to smoke and drink and preserve the patriarchy. It’s created a large gender divide where many young men are upset women are finally starting to get something closer to equal treatment (still not equal by any means) in the workplace here, but men are still expected to serve their time while women finish their higher educations and get a head start in the workplace. Honestly, if they’re going to have mandatory military service, they should just make it mandatory for women, too.

Science fiction is going to age poorly. A lot of it is already hilariously dated. Look at most of Star Trek. They’re flying at FTL speeds through space with artificial gravity, teleportation, lifelike androids, and replicator technology, but their screens absolutely suck. More and more of those inconsistencies are going to add up over the centuries and make things ridiculous after a while.

The number of new things that people enjoy dwindles with age. Just about everyone agrees that the music that was being made when they were teenagers is the epitome of the art. Are you going to be able to enjoy anything when you’re 2563 years old?

The older you get, the faster time apparently moves. Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, on some days, even “The year 2000!!” still feels like it should be the future to me. I can’t imagine what even a few centuries would do to this phenomenon, let alone a millennium or megaannum (I had to look that word up.)

On the upside, presuming I’m the only immortal, I’ll be the only person currently alive to see if they actually finish that performance of Organ²/ASLSP in Halberstadt.

Say what you will about the chaebols running the country and the rampant corruption, Korean roadworkers are incredibly fast and efficient. There’s never some guy standing around doing nothing.

In the 90s, “gay” had become a catch-all term for “thing I think is stupid”. I’ve heard LGBTQ people intentionally unironically use the term in this manner.

At 198cm (6’6") and 111kg (245lbs) BMI states that I’m on the high end of “overweight”. My waist is 96cm (38"), which makes my RFM “average”. I like that better.

It’s not so bad. They were these pre-cooked things you were intended to just chuck in a deep-fryer for a few minutes. “High Liner” brand. A Canadian staple since 1899. Haha!

It’s common practice in Korea. They sell ramyeon (Korean ramen) as snack food in bags like you’d get a bag of chips in NA.

I ate frozen fish sticks when I was a kid. Just took em out of the freezer and gnawed on them.

Kimchi and cream cheese on crackers is good, too.

Mine still exists, but no one posts there much. Including me. https://lemm.ee/c/synthesizers

Not for science fiction literature, guitar pedals, and synthesizers which was primarily what I went to Reddit for in the first place. There was some effort to get those communities going here back during the mass migration here from Reddit, but they’ve never really thrived. It sucks, but I’m not going back. I take a peek at r/synthesizers on occasion, and really it’s just a gaggle of self-promoting synthtubers and umpteen iterations of “what should I buy?”.

I finished Battlefield Earth.

The thing is, I remember enjoying it. I mean, it wasn’t literature, but it was a lot of dumb fun.

A lot of people say Star Wars is a blatant rip off of Dune. Yeah, only Lucas skipped just about everything that made Dune relevant.

I like to include profanity in all my comments for spiciness.

Grainstorm

It’s a ridiculously versatile granular sampler synthesizer. Obviously not for everyone, but it’s super fun to just make weird soundscapes with. Even with just your phone mic.

YouTube and Street Fighter tournaments. The instant one is over, BOOM, “How XXXX won XXXX tournment!!” videos are everywhere. Or, the top comment on a video is “Great Job XXXX!” It sucks when you never have a chance to watch these things live.

I too choose this guy’s dead wife.

Often, all this music software is used in solitude

Beethoven composed in solitude, too.

Yes, there’s something about a live performance that can’t exactly be reproduced jamming with yourself in your bedroom, but that doesn’t mean that great music can’t come out of both processes.

Beato is definitely channeling a little “git offa mah lawwn!” vibes. The reason we don’t get any more Led Zeppelins or Pink Floyds or whichever brand of classic rock he worships at the altar of isn’t because there aren’t talented musicians making music. It’s because the circumstances that those artists thrived under no longer exist, and likely never will again.

Synthesizers and music technology in general.

I could write an essay or two about how much has changed in the past fifty years. Most of it for the better.