11/11/24 - Because going into a factory means you give up on being a person.
Question: “Why do photographers hate photographing guys?”
A compilation of answers: “What am I supposed to photograph? They have no costuming. They’re stubborn when it comes to posing. And they’re absolutely confident they’re all hot as super models despite no makeup.”
“Because they all think we can just quickly snap some shots and be done. They don’t care about costuming or staging. If they want something cool, they’ll just drag me to a construction site wearing old man clothes and make me start shooting. Gives me a migraine.”
“Can’t find male models. Every single male model I come across says that he’s “pretty hot”. Then I click into their front page and go silent. I’ve only photographed one male model so far.”
“Cause they’re ugly.”
“Cause they’re ugly.”
“Cause they’re ugly.’
“Cause they’re ugly.”
“Ugly, greasy, pretentious.”
“Cause they’re ugly.”
“They hate makeup, but they don’t look like celebrities either.”
“Well, maybe not hate. It’s just the environment. They don’t know how it works, and the barrier to entry is high, and if you search for male makeup tutorials, you’ll just find a bunch of gay makeup. And once you’re done putting it on, everyone around you will make fun of you. The worst is that the people making fun of you might want to put on makeup themselves. This kind of mindset is kind of interesting, like, “society will force you to suppress yourself.” This is why being woke and liberated is so valuable.”
“It’s not just this. They don’t do any kind of skincare or even shave their beard before makeup (unless they have a decorative, well-trimmed beard to begin with). Sometimes, they haven’t even wiped away the sand in their eyes, or washed their face. They come to the makeup artist with a greasy ass face and when the makeup doesn’t turn out well, they never blame themselves. They never want to pay for the makeup they’re using and even want the makeup artist to do their entire style without paying a cent.”
“Cause they’re ugly and confident.”
“Cause they’re ugly.”
“Cause they’re ugly and uncooperative.”
“I stay away from anyone who calls themselves “pretty hot”. They’re all ugly in their own unique way.”
“Cause they’re ugly and they don’t listen.”
“Because you can’t sleep with the men you photograph, unless you’re gay.”
Question: “Why can’t tacticians be leaders themselves?”
A compilation of answer: “What you think a tactician does:
Leader: Sir, how am I supposed to solve this problem?
Advisor: Obvious inequation, pick C.
Exam: You have answered correctly and gained 5 points.
How tacticians actually work:
Leader: Sir, how am I supposed to solve this problem?
Advisor: You can pick A, B, C, or D. If you pick A, you have a 50% chance of getting full marks, 40% chance of getting half the marks, and 10% chance not getting any points. If you pick B, you have a 70% chance of getting full marks and a 30% chance of not getting any points. If you pick C, you have a 90% chance of getting full marks and a 10% chance of being disqualified from the exam. I don’t know why you’d pick D, except that other geniuses before have picked C and they got a pretty good final score.
Exam: You may only make one choice. Please make an answer within 10 seconds. You will be disqualified if you have not answered within the time limit. 10, 9, 8…”
“Because tacticians don’t actually run anything, because they need a large amount of free time to sort through materials and think through problems. But you can’t do that as the leader. You have to go socialise with all your underlings and get to know your team’s thought process and mental state.”
“Because the point of a “Leader” isn’t in tactics or decisions, but having a political base. If you don’t understand what a political base is, then there’s no point in explaining anything to you.”
“The core abilities of a tactician: I have three potential solutions to this, depending on which way you want to go. The core abilities of a leader: Let’s do it this way. I’ll take responsibility if anything goes wrong.”
“This is why the teachers to Emperors can’t be Emperors themselves, despite being able to teach them what an Emperor is supposed to do. The speech Liu Bang gave in history explained this logic perfectly clearly (this is why teachers tell you to read more classics and spend less time on webnovels). “When it comes to taking control of a situation from within my tent and deciding on victories from thousands of miles away, I am not as good as Zifang. When it comes to uniting a million strong army and winning every battle and taking every city, I am not as good as Han Xin. When it comes to stabilising the country, comforting the people, maintaining supplies, ensuring the flow of food, I am not as good as Xiao He. All three of these people are extraordinary. If I can make use of them, I can take the world.”
What’s important to a leader is the ability to make decisions, take risks, take action, and personal charisma, and these are things most tacticians don’t have.
Basically, it’s just a difference of personality. When Xiang Yu threatened to cook Liu Bang’s dad, Liu Bang told him outright, “We are sworn brothers, so he is your father too. Once you’re done cooking, split me a bowl.” But when Cao Cao kidnapped Xu Zhe’s mother, he just obeyed him from that point and never made anything of himself. That’s the difference between a leader and a tactician.
Some people are good at schemes but lack resolve. They come up with great ideas but don’t have the willpower and determination to actually put it into action. The more ideas someone has, the more they overthink, and the more they overthink, the more they hesitate, and the more they hesitate, the less decisive they are.”
“It’s really hard to make decisions. Like, if the enemy army that’s been standing off with you for the longest time suddenly retreated last night for whatever reason, do you send scouts after them? If you send scouts, you might miss the window of opportunity and let them escape. If you don’t send scouts, you could be walking right into an ambush. If you make the right choice, you’ll go down in history as a hero and be adored by the generations. If you make the wrong decision, you’ll go down in history as a fool and be made fun of for thousands of years.
And your 100,000 men are waiting for your decision.”
“Because tacticians have a way out that leaders don’t, so people would rather be tacticians and make some money, and not be a leader and have a chance at owning the world if they win or losing everything if they fail. Being a leader is high risk, high reward, and being a tactician is lower risk, lower reward. How would you choose?
Lu Xu and Sun Quan have a very famous exchange that clearly explains the relationship between tacticians and leaders.
It was during the Three Kingdoms period, where everyone was fighting to take over the world. At the time, Boss Cao was in the lead, fully prepared to unite China. The only two opponents left were Imperial Uncle Liu and Sun Quan. Confronting his directly is likely to end in a loss, so Sun Quan called a meeting of all his trusted advisors. At this time, Zhou Yu was out on a trip, so everyone talked it out and the conclusion was, “Let’s just surrender.”
As a great tactician Lu Xu waited until Sun Quan had to go to the bathroom to teach him a lesson. Lu Xu said, “Everyone can surrender. Even I can surrender. But you can’t. If we surrender, we can get a job with Boss Cao. If we do a good job, we could be state governor and still be wealthy and comfortable. But what can you do if you surrender? What do you think Boss Cao would let you do? You’ll just get an eternal non-compete clause and get disappeared. Think about it.”
The result wasn’t disappointing. When Sun Quan and Liu Bei really were pushed into a corner, the battle of Chibi pushed Cao Cao back to the North and created the Three Kingdoms situation.
See? Tacticians have a way out. Even if you wanted to make him leader, he probably wouldn’t do it.”
A compilation of the reasons why young people are working in the manufacturing industry anymore:
“Let’s put it this way, if a sweatshop paid 6K a month and delivery takeout pays 5K a month, I’d choose delivery takeout every time.”
“Background info, I’m 22 years old this year, and I’ve worked for 3 years in the manufacturing industry. I have hearing damage, shadows in my lungs (I don’t smoke)—there’s a reason these two organs are called the two great protectors of civil engineers. This is a picture of my work uniform after one shift in the summer.
Who would want to go? You barely get any money, and you’ve got no time, and you get yelled at every day. Fuck off. During my yearly break, I went to the service industry and aside from working longer hours, they get better pay and benefits than the manufacturing industry, and their job is easier to do. Why aren’t people willing? Have you thought that it might be your own fault?”
“It’s hell on earth. I assembled cars in a nationally-funded corporation. Before, we worked 12 hour shifts. Now that we’re getting less sales, they’ve fired 2/3rd of all the workers, and the remaining people are working 13-14 hours shifts and doing much harder labour.”
“The company I work at has a fully-automated production line. The workers just have to resolve issues if something screws up. But every year, from the operators to the mechanics, there is a 100% turnaround rate. With Chinese manufacturing the way it is, it’s basically running Industrialisation 4.0 equipment with Industrialisation 1.0 management philosophy. A lot of the best performing industries are running their factories like medieval cottage manufacturing. You think Japan’s manufacturing is doing well? The reason they’re so obsessed with zen artisanship is because Japanese young people aren’t going into the factory either and they’ve lost so much knowledge. All I can say is that the East Asian cultural circle is a magical place.”
“I’ve visited a lot of factories. Ignoring everything else, just the constant noise makes me feel awful after a day. And I feel like most of these factories exist outside of labour laws. Forget 8 hours a day. Two day weekends don’t exist in this field at all. And everyone seems used to it, like this is just how factories work.”
“It’s so hard to find any jobs that obeys labour laws in the manufacturing industry. They never treat people like people. Who would want to work there? All the people saying that young people these days are snowflakes, you go work 12-14 hours a day, 6 days a week, and I bet you that you would’ve fucked right off within 3 months too. Makes me mad every time I see people saying that young people these days can’t handle suffering.”
“Aside from young people’s employment views taking on a fundamental shift, and aside from how the employment environment is completely different these days and young people have more choices, the main reason is that the flaws of the manufacturing industry is so obvious.
Firstly, the work environment in manufacturing is very boring and mind-numbing. Aside from the deafening noise the workers have to deal with every day, you’re also facing an unchanging production line every day. You stand there for a whole day, doing incredibly boring and repetitive work. Which lively and vibrant youth can handle this kind of environment? Most people leave after a week.
Secondly, the work in the manufacturing industry is very repetitive and mechanical and workers never have a chance to learn or grow. Even if someone worked their job for 8-10 years, they’d still be an entry-level employee once they left, and they’d have to start over at any other job. Young people can’t settle for this kind of job that’s going to be unchanging for the rest of their life. And they wouldn’t want to work it.”
“Because going into a factory means you give up on being a person. In a factory, employees are much cheaper than machines. Not just in terms of their wages, but also in terms of their lives.”
“I work in food production. I don’t know if anyone has paid attention or not. I don’t know about small production lines, but for large-scale production, the processing of raw ingredients is highly automated and once the machine turns out, it’ll produce for several months on end. And after those months, once you shut the machine off and start cleaning it, you can imagine what all the accumulated scum is going to smell like. The sour, rotten smell hits you in the face from 10m away. You’re too embarrassed to walk anywhere near a crowd. I had a coworker who tried to call for a cab after ward, and the taxi driver refused to let him on even if he paid extra to have the cab cleaned afterwards, because we had to clean the pipes that day and we smelled too bad. And my coworker quit the very next day. Even if the job he works now is much more stressful, he never thought about coming back. I feel like people are the bottom of the manufacturing industry have no dignity at all.”