faceh
11hr ago
There will inevitably be gaffes in which the author is being interviewed about what their latest book is about, and it will become glaringly obvious that the author doesn't know what it's about, because they haven't read it, never mind written it.
Hah, easily solved by simply having any interviews of the author be completely AI-Generated videos as well.
Or the author will be approached by a fan at a convention who'll ask them to sign a copy of a book published under their name, and the author won't have even heard of this book.
This one's trickier, but I speculate that the studio/publisher might have an artist/actor/author whose whole body of work is AI, but they hire somebody to pretend to "be" the artist/actor/author for all in-person appearances.
faceh
1d ago
I would point out that the actual shocker here is that this democratizes the slop production. The labels need not be involved in this process at all.
As far as I can tell, "Breaking Rust" is just some person with a Suno subscription who used Distrokid to put the music on all the streaming services, and it ended up being used in some popular tiktok videos. Maybe they did some additional guerilla marketing or something, I dunno.
I've actually done it myself, to vastly less (read: zero) success, just to see how simple the process is.
As far as I know, it was exceedingly rare for an indie artist to make it to the big time while producing music in their garage alone, they needed the studio systems for, if nothing else, distribution/radio access.
It became semi-common in the streaming era for an artist to upload to e.g. bandcamp or soundcloud and get some traction there before they signed with a label.
This current case seems different from even that.
faceh
1d ago
There is a genuine question, is this simply a logical outgrowth of Autotune and modern DAW?
And does the existence of The Gorillaz estoppel any complaints about the artist not technically existing?
And of course, we've had Hatsune Miku for YEEEEAAARS now.
faceh
2d ago
Hey guys, remember a month and a half ago I pointed out that AI-Generated Music had fully crossed the uncanny valley?
I specifically claimed:
I think that if we did a double-blind test with randomly chosen people listening to AI songs vs. decently skilled indie artists, 80+% of them wouldn't reliably catch which were AI and which weren't, if we curated the AI stuff just a bit.
GUESS WHAT.
I do think this either proves that the average country music fan has little taste, or AI music is as good or better than the average country musician.
Damning with faint praise, perhaps, but this absolutely still feels like we've officially entered a new state of play for the music industry.
Related enough to add some commentary.
I can say what I honestly wish I saw more in movies and shows these days:
Competent teams of people coordinating their unique skillsets in interesting ways, where the success or failure of the whole venture depends on everyone fulfilling their role with precision.
That guy is the polyglot, that one there is the martial arts expert, she's got a PhD level understanding of volatile chemicals, and this last dude trains seagulls to steal jewelry from tourists. A rich benefactor is paying us to deliver a donor heart to a hidden village in China to be transplanted into a sick child for unknown reasons.
Ocean's 11 is maybe the ur-example here. "We want to complete an extremely specific set of tasks for the possibility of a singular, massive payoff if everything goes well, and possible ruin if any piece of the plan fails." Maybe Mission Impossible is a better standard example, but the later movies really lean towards "everyone is omnicompetent at whatever talent the plot requires." I still like them, though.
Despite what cynics say, I think the "team of people overcoming massive odds through sheer skill" is a winning trope, and for good reason. I think that's TRULY what makes heist movies appealing.
I also suspect, for example, Star Trek, USED To be about this to a large degree! Everyone on the ship has their specialization and their duties. And as long as they had a competent Kirk, Picard, Janeway, to get everyone to do their job correctly and align their objectives, this was enough to achieve victory against unknown opponents and strange phenomena.
I gather that Modern Trek has discarded much of that framework in favor of more emotional drama and angsty grit.
There was definitely some kind of trend of "swiss army knife" heroes in the 2000's. They spoke every language (or could learn them overnight), they had combat skills, hacking skills, engineering skills, charismatic and witty personalities. Often they were really good at chess. Basically, Mary Sues, with better writing.
Tony Stark being able to build an advanced exosuit in a cave with a bunch of scraps sort of deal. Batman in the comics, for damn sure.
And yes, it has become absurdly obvious that human beings with broad skillsets that are all at least two standard deviations above the average really do not exist. There are grifters who make money presenting themselves as this sort of person (and pay me $100/month I can teach you, too!) but is not anyone out there who can infiltrate the CIA and assassinate a high ranking official then hack the database to erase their own existence, all by their lonesome (or with a handful of supporting cast). Anyone that MIGHT be able to do that probably works for the CIA already.
Humans can specialize very well. But only in like two, maybe three things at most. Scott's review of "Raising a Genius" touched on this. If you're genetically predisposed and trained from near birth at a given talent, you can become world-class at that thing! But the time spent on that training probably precludes being exceptional at much else, for the same reason.
Elon Musk probably can't throw a decent punch. The world's best martial artists are likely piss-poor programmers. Genius-level intellect does not, in fact, guarantee massive financial success. Although it helps. And that's leaving aside the "fooled by randomness" aspect where sometimes, seeming outliers kind of just bungled into their own success.
Nothing wrong with imagining the existence of such people in fiction. I'm a huge fan of the Jason Bourne series myself. But they're probably better categorized as 'modern mythology' than anything else. And this trope is getting WAY less credible in a world that, as you say, becomes more complex to navigate on a yearly, maybe monthly basis.
faceh
3d ago
They've kind of amped up the variety of everything. More ship types, more planet types (also, the planets can have orbits and shifting phase lanes now!), more potential 'paths' you can take when optimizing fleet capabilities and strategic approaches.
The latest DLC added a completely new ship type that is basically a "SuperCapital" that is more affordable than a Titan so it can come online a little earlier.
The TEC Primacy version is interesting in that its modular and you can choose its weapon loadout specifically. So its still kind of 'hero-ish' but you can directly adapt it to the situation at hand as you go.
I've also played games against friends where they sort of eschew capital ships altogether and just build tons of a particular type of unit and that can work if you're not prepared for the sheer number of ships they bring to bear. Although I doubt that's the most efficient use of fleet supply.
The downside is that Capital Ships have items that can be added to kit them out for more specific purposes, and these items have to be researched then individually added to each ship... and replaced if they're expendable. And there's no 'templates' for automatically adding the same loadout to a new ship. So it adds to the Tech tree clutter and requires extra attention to a detail that probably could be automated.
Makes you not want to lose capital ships even if the situation might call for it.
So there's no way to set just general "strategic stance" to automate much of the management of the empire and fleet production. But it is more viable to manage your economy and planet and ship production from the general empire management screen, and only get involved with your fleet's actions in the most pivotal battles.
faceh
3d ago
With TEC, I think you can afford to overproduce anything you might need. If you think you need missiles, build MORE missile frigates than you think you need. If you need strikecraft, build MORE carriers than you think you need, and use the extra strikecraft items on your Capital ships to make even more.
Literally, just think of your fleets as 'units' and the ships as the HP, and your factories as 'healers.' Replace losses as quickly as you can. Don't bemoan losses as inherently bad if you're trading damage at approximately an equal rate.
And of course use Garrisons to bolster your "HP."
If you've got the resources pouring in, you should NEVER have idle factories, especially as enclave. Oh, and build more factories than you think you need, too.
Once you're finally running up against the supply limit, then it pays to get more strategic. There are ships that are more 'efficient' uses of supply than others.
If you've got the exotics, don't be afraid to scuttle your frigates to free up supply, even making a fleet ENTIRELY out of capital ships if you want.
There's a strategy of "Rollin' Kols" which is to send in nothing but Kol battleships with Experimental Beam upgrades and just obliterate any given target in the gravity well.
Man, I'm still struggling with optimal fleet composition for TEC myself.
You can delve into like full-on spreadsheet mania with it, but I genuinely think the number of possible combinations ultimately makes it impossible to really calculate once the game hits a certain size.
One reason I like TEC is that by midgame if your economy is running well, you can spit out whatever ships are needed to deal with the current threat very quickly, so you're replacing lost ships and optimizing your composition on the fly. "Oh shit that's a lot of strikecraft, better send some Flak Frigates in."
You want your fleet's pierce to be able to overwhelm their fleet's durability. Here's the basic rundown. You can sort of kind of ignore the "supply" number if you can tell at a glance that the ships they've sent in don't have the requisite pierce to focus down your ships' health given your ships' durability. That is, even if you were to start losing, you can likely retreat and not take too many losses since their effective DPS is low.
If they've got a lot of durable ships in their fleet, you gotta bring as much pierce as possible.
If there's any stats in the game worth memorizing, its the durability rating of each ship. I mentally have them sorted into buckets of "High, Medium, Low" durability so I don't have to do actual math in my head.
So I'll share my basic approach.
I like to have a wall of higher durability ships as the 'core' of my fleet. I tend to rely on Carriers in the early game, which is to say I have them sit back and send strikecraft in to do the dirty work, so I just want to have a physical shield to keep the enemies at bay.
Then I have to make some decisions, based on what it appears the enemies are fielding. If I'm dealing with strikecraft, the aforementioned flak frigates. If they've got high DPS capital ships, I will probably produce a TON of Corvettes since those help keep the Caps occupied and not killing my more valuable ships (note: doesn't work as well on human players). If they're fielding tough ships with a lot of support: Missiles. Lots of missiles.
Then pick your own caps based on whether you're being more aggressive or defensive. Or, if you like, if you're focusing on killing as much as you can as fast as you can, or if you need survivability (i.e. you're sending a fleet deep into enemy territory and it needs a lot of repair capabilities).
Then add in ship items for your capital ships based on what the enemy is likely to throw at them.
The one big 'insight' I've had that I THINK was fully intended by the Devs was that they have made the default supply cap pretty strict to prevent overuse of "Ball of doom" fleets that can just overwhelm anything, and require harder decisions about where to send your forces, knowing that you also can't hold a lot in reserve.
But in exchange, they've added numerous ways to augment fleet power that doesn't hit the supply cap. Like using influence points to call in NPC factions on your side, or the TEC Enclave's ridiculous(ly fun) garrison system.
So its actually kinda smart to divide up your forces between more than one fleet, and keep them mobile, so you don't have all your valuable supply caught in the wrong spot at the wrong time. And if you notice your opponent has a singular large fleet, you can both prepare to face it by setting up heavy defenses in bottleneck areas, or you can try to harass behind their lines and force them to keep said large fleet on the defensive. Calling in pirate raids on their planets basically demands they send a large force to counter it. Pirate raids are pretty damned expensive in influence, however, so timing is important.
So I think the Devs want players to try different tactics than "make the biggest fleet and dive at the enemy's homeworld."
I've been experimenting with setting up two fleets early on. "Hammer" fleet and "Anvil" fleet.
Anvil is made up of the high durability ships, and is intended to be the first one that encounters the enemy, and is able to stand there and slug it out for long enough for Hammer Fleet to arrive, which is the high DPS, high pierce fleet that can start whittling them down faster, HOPEFULLY while they're distracted with Anvil fleet.
If we get overwhelmed, I can order Hammer to retreat while Anvil covers for it. If we start winning, I can push Anvil forward to take more territory/cut off retreat while Hammer finishes the job.
It's been interesting to keep things managed this way. It feels like this more flexible approach is rewarded so I do think I've uncovered aspects of the game's design that the Devs intentionally added but didn't call attention to directly.
But its still great fun to build up a fleet as large as you can make it, built around what you expect the enemy to field, then smashing large fleets into each other and seeing what happens.
DEFINITELY learn how to get your ships to focus fire on high-value targets, though. They tend to do sub-optimal targeting on their own.
faceh
4d ago
I mean, I played the first game in the series for over 10 years.
When I say that the Second has improved on the first in almost every conceivable way, I want to establish that it had a high bar to clear.
This seems like a major flaw if I can't tell which one I'm getting into ahead of time.
Generally you can tell from the game settings at the outset. The Size of the map is the primary determinant as to how quickly you'll come into contact with the opponent, and whether there's even enough resources to build an economy or if you just hop straight to fighting.
And you can set the game speed higher for ship movement, tech research, and resource accumulation to ensure things end quickly, or lower those speeds to stretch the game out and force a more strategic match.
The largest maps start to feel like playing Stellaris but with just the space battles and economics and less of the tiddly empire management.
And there is a contingent of players who seem to not really want to play competitively at all but instead just set up the largest fleet battles possible then just sit back and watch them play out.
As mentioned there's a steepish learning curve for the tech tree alone, knowing what to research and when is a critical factor and the game will NOT hold your hand to show you which path is ideal.
So it is a bit much to ask of someone who isn't familiar with it to start playing with you right off rip.
faceh
4d ago
I'm playing Sins of a Solar Empire 2, still.
In my general opinion it is shaping up to be a masterpiece of the 4x/RTS genre.
3 different factions, each with two subfactions. Each faction has different specialties and the sub factions tend to be focused on either aggression or defensive strategy. So you have ample options for choosing your preferred playstyle for a given match.
Each Faction/Subfaction has an array of ship types and a decent selection of capital ships, and a dizzying number of techs to research to boost those ships' performance. And each faction has very different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to economy.
And the devs are set to release a new fourth faction, as well as the LONG-anticipated campaign mode, which will finally answer one of the core questions of the lore from the original game.
Finally, the true core combat mechanic being battles between "Fleets", and the fact that EVERY projectile a ship fires is actually simulated in 3D space, and some surprisingly complex damage calculation means there's some extra strategic depth in which ships you've chosen to compose your fleet(s) and which techs you've chosen to optimize their performance.
This means its not quite a "Rock-Paper-Shotgun-Laser-Nuke" situation where every attack has a direct counter and you just keep leveling your units until you win. It is possible for a giant deathball fleet to lose to a smaller force if the smaller force is optimized precisely enough to defend against the ship types its facing. And there's several mechanics to allow you to quickly augment your fleet's strength at opportune moments.
The upshot is that the outcome of battles can be relatively unpredictable, and you do NOT need a higher APM to micromanage your way to victory if you are successful at scouting out the opponent and predicting and countering their strategy. Although high APM helps. And in any situation with 3 or more players, the exact mix of factions and ships being thrown around can force a complete mid-match re-evaluation of said strategy. Finally crushing the guy who was pumping out dozens of cheap ships to harass you feels great until the third guy rolls up with a wall of heavy cruisers backed by support ships to start wrecking your infrastructure.
My one main fault with it is at present is the unwieldy and un-intuitive state of tech tree which makes it hard to learn for new players and kind of 'forces' a certain playstyle on you until you can get enough research to unlock the techs you actually want/need.
Yet the variable scale of the game means you can play a quick 30 minute-1 hour match where the later techs aren't even needed, or you can do a 6+ hour epic with hundreds of planets and multiple star systems that ends with planet-killer railguns, Hundreds of ships duking it out at once and beastly Titan warships that can delete whole fleets in short order.
Anyway, its a very fun game, and I'd host some sessions for Mottizens who would be interested. Its sadly not as popular as it truly deserves.
I don't now what to tell you, dawg.
Women surpassed men in college enrollment sometime in the 80's.
Since then they've racked up more student debt than the men.
Which isn't surprising because they choose degrees that pay less.
And once they've graduated they have far heightened standards for potential mates.
So we have multiple pressures against women settling down with a 'good' man all stemming from the same place.
Which ends with them hitting middle age and lamenting the lack of options.
In sum, many women spend four years or so getting a degree they'll barely use, taking on debt they won't pay back anytime soon, have their personal standards raised too high to accept a partner, and get VERY VERY upset when life doesn't turn out the way they wanted on the back end of that.
And all of that might be not be notable if it weren't for the fact that the women themselves have just become less content with their status. What does it mean when you give a group of people MORE concessions and they express greater displeasure?
Good luck finding an upside in all that. I don't even have to bring up the TFR issue to make this point, but the correlation obviously exists. Hard to see how this has contributed to human flourishing.
At some point the critics look like they have a real, correct argument.
Make whatever value judgment of the situation you like, the stats say what they say, and it supports the view that sending women to college en masse has made them LESS likely to end up satisfied with their life than otherwise.
I don't find these driveby attempts at derision bothersome at all, but I do find the complete inability to engage with the accurate observation of the facts on the ground to be... suspicious.
faceh
4d ago
One still has to grapple with the fact that the women who are now less satisfied with their lives, and having less children, and voting for policies that tend to disrupt productive economic activity in favor of redistribution.
So they are ultimately selecting against the continued maintenance of an advanced civilization.
And advanced civilization appears to be a prerequisite for women having anything resembling equality with men.
If that's the case, then its simply not a sustainable equilibrium, and the ultimate collapse is going to be way worse for future women's interests.
faceh
5d ago
There's some interesting research showing that Lesbian marriages are more likely to end in divorce than heterosexual ones, and male-male marriages divorce less often.
I dunno, if women are even less able to sustain a relationship if their partner is a woman, it indicates that they're not very good at being a 'partner' at all.
And its still very odd gotten less satisified with life even as they have more rights than before
I suggest you're missing some critical factor.
And no this isn't a calling for women to be reduced to chattel. My whole perspective is that the spouses differing roles are complementary, but across the board the male will tend to be the one best-equipped to make decisions for the family as a whole.
Its pointing out that your thesis isn't very explanatory of why women are LESS happy despite MORE concessions than ever, and why women who DO find men to lead them tend to be less neurotic and more happy.
This doesn't necessarily determine how EVERY marriage should be run, of course.
According to this 2020 survey only 31% of US men are single.
I beg you to look at the actual stats broken out by age and notice that your own source says 41% of 18-29 year old men are single.
And that was 2020.
More recent stats suggest Its around 6-in-10 young men now.
Combine that with a rise in sexlessness.
So they're not even hooking up as much!
And there's also good data to suggest that its more women deciding not to settle than men's standards being too high.
Which is to say, pressuring men to settle won't help much.
faceh
5d ago
That works pretty well if we're talking about one-on-one encounters. In fact I endorse it.
But organized violence as a group is FAR AND AWAY a male specialty.
Hence why I said
So expect a LOT of political capital to be expended on efforts to keep males from coordinating enough to actually fight back in any meaningful way.
If we ever got to a breakdown of order severe enough that men are banding up in militias, warbands, gangs, whatever, the advantage will turn extremely against women in general.
The short version of that is that the Democratic policies are based on strong appeals to emotions, be it general anxiety, sympathy, or outright fear of vaguely specified catastrophes happening in the future.
Women are generally more susceptible to pure emotional appeals:
The study also shows that females respond more strongly to negative emotional appeals than males, while there is no significant difference in how males and females responded to positive emotional or rational ad appeals.
(I plucked this study at random, but there are MANY like it.)
Women also tend to be conform more to 'public' pressure. than men so it'd be unsurprising they'd follow each other's lead and cluster around the same parties/candidates if they think all the other girls are doing so.
THUS if you build your coalition largely around those groups that respond most strongly to emotional rhetoric, it will end up having an outsize amount of women in it.
Simple as.
The slightly longer version:
Women are just way more neurotic now.
So many of them are in a constant state of anxiety.
(Fun research I read recently: there's been a noticeable rise in young females' "Solo" alcohol consumption.)
This all means they are extra sensitive to fear-based messaging.
Which political actors are keen on exploiting. Make your voters believe that the sky is falling, the climate is overheating, the KKK is about to arise and re-instate segregation, children are dying en masse in some random country, that measles is making a comeback, whatever.
Make your voters believe the other party/tribe is the reason for these occurrence, or at least the main obstacle stopping them from fixing them.
And then propose that the crisis can be fixed (and your anxieties relieved) by voting the 'correct' way. And now you've got a motivated, easily controlled, almost fanatical voter based to mobilize around election time.
But, of course, voting never actually fixes the anxiety issue, because the source of the anxiety wasn't actually what they said it was. So you can exploit those anxious tendencies indefinitely.
Which is why liberals, especially 'extreme' liberals, have much, much higher rates of mental illness diagnoses than moderates and conservatives.
So the political message is simple. "You should be afraid. You should fear [external thing]. Republicans are causing [external thing]. Vote for us to make [external thing] go away."
Add in that Women have more student loan debt than men.
Add in that Women Consume more healthcare and spend more on prescription drugs.
Add in that Women are by and large more likely to be receiving welfare benefits from the state although THAT is strongly mediated by race (scroll down and click the "Filter by Characteristics - Individuals" tab).
And you can see why they would tend to cluster towards the party that promises to forgive student debt, make healthcare free, and preserve or increase various welfare benefits.
So it all seems pretty straightforward.
Notice that the women who buck this trend are the married ones. They're happier, less mentally ill (not less stressed necessarily), and more likely to vote Republican.
But there are fewer women getting married, so whichever way the causal arrow points, its not too surprising there's a large pool of single women that are more likely to vote Democrat.
So in conclusion:
There's one party that caters to the most insecure, anxious, fearful and conformist subsets of the population.
And there's an increasing pool of insecure, anxious, fearful, relatively conformist women for them to cater to.
2 + 2 = 4.
I wonder why those uppity females are not rushing out to marry men who think they should have the right to beat and rape them just like the Good Old Days when the choice was between economic destitution or making concessions regarding marriage.
Odd thing to say, when its becoming increasingly evident that married women are happier on average than unmarried ones. And that this has been true FOR a long time.
Oh, also side note. Single Women are more likely to be victimized by rape and homicide than ones in a commited relationship too. So if fear of violent men is a factor, you're making women WORSE off by discouraging marriage.
Maybe... just maybe... women have been lied to about the allegedly rapey, abusey, slavery-lite portrayal of marriage in the past?
Is it possible that this entire debate has been framed around an abject falsehood?
As we can see, the only evidence presented to rebut the idea that marriage is a good deal for women is a derisive dismissal of men as a gender as if the ONLY thing they can do to keep a woman is literally lock them up barefoot and pregnant, there's no POSSIBLE way they could entice them to stick around otherwise.
Don't we want women to choose to be wives and mothers, instead of "well if it's sex for meat, then at least let me not be tied to one provider"?
Of course. But that requires there to be an incentive to choose and pressure to make a choice and stick with it. Rather than the current zeitgeist of "take as long as you need, keep your standards as high as possible, there's no (social) penalty to remaining single, and if you don't get married don't worry the state will make sure you're basically comfortable anyway." In a world where all pressure to settle has been removed AND women are being told that marriage is a huge imposition on their freedom and happiness, "I wonder why those uppity females are not rushing out to marry men" when literally no person with authority anywhere is telling them to do so.
One thing I always find amusing is the conceit that women shouldn't have to depend on men...
But if they are now completely dependent on an uncaring corporate entity for their healthcare, housing, social life, and income, THAT is somehow the mark of 'independence.'
Explain to me how being tied down to a job with a (most likely male) boss who places constant demands on your time and labor but can also fire you at any time is AT ALL inherently better than being tied to an individual male that has at least publicly stated his own intentions to remain loyal to you up until death.
And of course a corporation can never give them kids.
Its actually an absurd sort of logic that women are safer and more comfortable in a corporate workplace than at home with children. Especially when female happiness has been on a constant decline for the last fifty years. They are not satisfied despite all changes in their favor, despite having 'better' jobs, fewer obligations, and fewer kids.
But hey.
Anyhow, this is just what I mean, bringing up men's issues and framing them in ANY way that might pose ANY inconvenience on women as part of the solution invites absolute antipathy. This is why women's issues are just easier to discuss seriously, since nobody loses their mind if you suggest imposing more costs on men to help out women.
Which is basically what we've been doing to an increasing degree for 50 straight years.
faceh
6d ago
To work at its best, marriage should be a partnership. "This happens because I say so" can only work where "I say so" is reasonable and not "I've decided to take out loans, mortgage the house, and put all our savings into this sure thing a guy told me about, and if you don't like it, here's a black eye for you".
I simply suggest this is not a common scenario, at least not in the relatively recent past.
And even if it were, it would require a strong male-lad society to police and punish such actors anyway. There's no scenario where "women can veto any given decision and husband has no authority to limit her" leads to overall superior outcomes.
The current experiment where women are allowed almost unfettered decision-making within a marriage hasn't really worked better for anyone, by most accounts.
I would like to see that happen, but I'm dubious for a couple of reasons.
I think "we live in a globalized world and everyone is aggressively sorted according to their skills and IQ" covers a lot of the issue.
If you're a low-productivity worker, then you're competing against cheap labor from around the globe. If you're a high-skill, high productivity worker you can still do well, but you have to go where the opportunities are. And then you'll be most likely locked into a high-stakes, high competitiveness industry with little margin for error and high demands on your time and performance. Which you will be compensated for, but which can he lost in short order if you screw up.
NOBODY seems to have a viable plan to 'ensure' the creation of stable, high-paying jobs which don't demand endless hours of work and/or take a massive toll on one's health.
But there's a LOT we could be doing to make it easier to create more jobs in the U.S. and lower the overall cost of living.
faceh
6d ago
What makes you think it would be "across the spectrum"?
Such guys will have grievances against politicians of almost all stripes, and will probably start going after targets of opportunity if they don't have strong ideological motivations.
First, you don't have to catch all of them to have a deterrent effect (just look at case closure rates for various crimes in the US).
Deterrent effect relies on guys being afraid of prison and/or death.
What my position presupposes is: What if they aren't. What if they see no path forward that leads to them being, e.g. happily married in a solid career in a safe neighborhood and a bright future for their kids.
Some % of them will accept their lot. The rest, what can anyone threaten them with to 'de-radicalize' them.
it wouldn't work the other way around.
Wanna bet.
Between them and women, your "based pro-male" politician's supporters will be hopelessly outnumbered. Women are wonderful, men are expendable.
Don't forget gay guys. I think that between the liberal females, the lefty dudes, the gays that simply don't have share their concerns, the sociopathic lotharios who just want to get laid, and the tradcons that cannot ever speak ill of women, it is a loose but generally united coalition that says male-oriented political concerns are generally beneath notice.
But the pool of males that is the subject of the problem is almost the exact same pool which performs almost all the important economic activity in this country.
faceh
6d ago
He didn't just die. He was murdered.
By a dude.
This is perhaps the one big thing that could break if too many guys check out of the system.
Outbreaks of targeted violence on political figures across the spectrum, and as mentioned above, insufficient police capacity to catch and stop all of them.
Don't think that guys aren't noticing how positively many women responded to Luigi Mangione offing a CEO.
Vance is married with a daughter. If he does it he'll stop when his daughter is old enough to understand.
That really seems to be the big test. There are a lot of wifeguys and girldads out there who might feel sympathetic to the plight of young males, but are inherently unable to utter words that they imagine might upset said wives or daughters and thus can never really be the leader such guys might seek.
Vance so far hasn't seemed to have had that issue, he's at least willing to openly hope for his own wife's conversion to Christianity.
faceh
6d ago
"To the disaffected, lonely men listening now, I promise I will stop the flow of tax dollars out of your pockets to programs that disproportionately benefit single mothers and childless girlbosses.
I will aggressively punish institutionalized discrimination against males at every level, and seek removal of any gender or other quotas that undermine meritocratic promotion or allow your salary to be undercut and your career derailed.
I will create large tax credit incentives for men who get married, hold down a job, and are raising children, and promote strong, male-led households where he can be the primary breadwinner without needing a second job or for the wife to work full time."
Or if you want a really simple one: "Men, I'm going to close off all non-skilled immigration except for attractive, fertile young women, and due to the looming crisis of declining birthrates we will issue emergency visas and expedited citizenship paths to any such women who get married and bear at least 2 kids."
Basically actually propose solutions, viable or not, that address the actual anxieties and misgivings that men have been expressing, and make them feel like they've got some investment in the movement.
Note that there is no real mainstream political figure, ANYWHERE, in ANY country that is able to make these sort of statements. Which has led to the current issue. Women's issues are central in the Overton Window, its impossible to even elevate male concerns to the point where they're discussed seriously.
And what makes you think such a figure — with a minority of democratic support, and strong institutional opposition — wouldn't just end up shut out and shut down?
By whom. They keep trying to do that to Andrew Tate, he still has a voice and following.
Charlie Kirk was talking about these sort of issues until he died.
Matt Walsh brings these issues up too and he's still got a large following.
The only option they'd have is arresting them and that'd probably not work out for them unless the person in question was actually trying to get seriously militant/violent.
And if this person is J.D. Vance, how the hell do you expect them to 'shut out' the sitting Vice President of the United States.
Its sort of already happening.
But no real demands are being made so there's no clear way to end the standoff.
But consider, does India inspire this level of Patriotism?
I think not.
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