100ProofTollBooth
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User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
I hadn't thought of it until your comment, but this is another argument in favor of deeply held personal belief in a transcendent value system.
Yes, I'm talking about Christianity. Or, more inclusively any sort of tradition rooted religion.
Back to the main point - I think it's close to common knowledge that everyone develops a sense of identity throughout their life. Failing to do so, in fact, is recognized not only as a major developmental failure, but potentially a mental illness. What you anchor that identity in is incredibly important.
With the fall of religiosity and the rise of secular humanism, I'd say it's a safe assumption to make that people are now anchoring more and more of their identities in politics and culture. These aren't inherently bad things on which to build an identity. The problem is they can and will change. The above post makes this clear. For a long time, being a "good progressive" meant militant support for drug legalization. That happened and it failed. So ... which part of the identity gives? The past-identity that was pro-legalization, or the now-identity that is using evidence to update beliefs? Either way, it's a loss, because you'd have to point to your identity at some point in time and go "I was wrong." This is destabilizing even for the most ... stable person.
How does religion solve this? Religiously informed beliefs are, at their core, transcendental. They are most important in an after-life situation and can neither be confirmed nor disproved in this life in this world. That's a sort of summation of the notion of faith in general. From an identity perspective, this lets believers commit themselves to something they known will never change because it never "was" in the same sense that material things are. I'd be remiss not to tag @TheDag at this point given his post on materialism from earlier today.
The summation here is straightforward; castle made of sand, shifting foundations et cetera. Build "who you are" (whatever that means) on things that are, frankly, eternal. I've seen people who have rooted their identity in seemingly "forever" things have some nasty reality checks; military dudes ("I'll always be a Marine!"), career A-types ("Nobody can take away the fact I was the youngest VP in corporate history!"), and even family ("My sister and I will always be close").
100ProofTollBooth
2mo ago
I'll meet you half way.
I think you're right in that there does appear to be a double standard on Carroll's allegations (which a jury denied) and Trump's ability to say whatever he wants (at whatever volume he wants) about it. I'm not an expert enough in defamation to say where the line is.
But I still stand by my "own-goal" analogy because either a lot or all of this (past the first jury trial, to be specific) could've been avoided if Trump just STFUs and relies on milquetoast cliches - "The justice system functioned and I abide by the verdict." He keep creating new opportunities for potential attacks. The fact that these attacks are/may be politically motivated is irrelevant because (a) He keeps creating the opportunities and (b) It is impossible for him not to know how much certain groups have made it their existential purpose to hunt him through the courts. When you mix egotism with a martyrdom complex, you get a lot of frivolous legal activity.
To refer back to the One True Gospel, The Wire;
"Keep it boring, String, keep it real fuckin' boring" - Prop Joe
And, from the Prophet Lil Wayne;
"Real G's move in silence like lasagna"
100ProofTollBooth
17d ago
I'm with her
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
What good does it do to have an answer to "What do you want the world to be like 100 years after you die," if it doesn't give you an actionable goal?
You will start to move towards better things that may reveal not only a single, but multiple goals. The pursuit of truth isn't a single path. There are many branches to it and finding the one or the several that best accommodate you is an important part of the process. It's what some of us would call "discernment." If you're waiting around to discover not only (1) THE big goal and (2) a perfectly linear prescriptive algorithm to accomplish it ... you're waiting for revelation. If so, prepare for even more doubt and feelings of existential dread.
What does it matter to have such a picture, if there's nothing you can do to affect whether or not it comes to pass?
Sorry to be trite, but; have faith.
Or maybe you just can't see any such actions.
There you go!
As long as it takes until what, exactly?
Exactly.
100ProofTollBooth
2mo ago
I don't let it make me support policies that aren't supported by statistics
I think you might want to take a little peek at the theory of black swan events. "Stats say this crazy man only has a 1% chance of ending my life. No need to worry!"
or utilitarianism.
You mean the philosophy that leads to eugenics and "global optimization via local genocide." Fuck outta here with that nonsense.
'toxic masculinity' and 'the patriarchy hurts men too'.
Spoke too soon. Fuck outta here with THAT nonsense.
@Mods: I'll self-penalize here with a one day self-ban for this "boo outgroup." I should've not engaged. But I failed.
100ProofTollBooth
4mo ago
at the ripe old age of 5
Show off!
I found out what sex was and fervently desired it well before I was at the legal age to have it.
Did you, though? In America, we have this weird legal duality wherein sex isn't illegal so long as you and the partner are both below the age of majority or both above. Normal caveats about state by state variation and allowances for 17/18 or 365 days age difference limits.
I'm not sure I can think of another activity like this. What is something else that's legal to do with other minors, but not when crossing the minor-age of majority threshold?
To be CRYSTAL clear: I am totally in favor of maintaining these age of majority laws and am zero percent consent-only in sexual ethics. The Trans movement, beyond its anti-scientific stance, has insane flirtations with the "minor attracted persons" predators.
100ProofTollBooth
9mo ago
"...contribute significantly to the rural character..."
"...the stewardship many feel for their communities."
This reads like the preamble to some hardcore NIMBY organizations' charter. Amorphous phrases that point to "character", "community" and (unelected) "stewardship" don't trump personal property rights. They're not even in the same neighborhood.
And when is the "character" of a place set in stone? This is straight up No True Scotsman 101. This is such a literal trope the Simpson have a hallmark episode about it. The only constant is change and no person or group gets to self-appoint as "arbiter of the good character of a place and community." That's a well paved road to localized authoritarianism.
I definitely code traditionalist conservative, but trampling on individual and property rights "to make sure we keep the Main Street Habdashery up for another 100 years" is the same as when progressives want to outlaw parental choice in schools so that "we can end bigotry forever by forcing Ibram X. Kendi book reports."
100ProofTollBooth
27d ago
I will read the rest of your post if you can confirm that you’ve understood why you are incorrect per the above
I'm far too dumb to do that.
It’s not always possible to drive with an open cup of water in your car, depending on cupholders and road conditions
Is this why my pants are wet?
100ProofTollBooth
3mo ago
How do you envision a proof of a moral/ethical principle as valid or invalid to actually proceed?
The hard requirement is that there's some sort of moral absolute from/to which to trace validity. Moral relativism is chaotic meaninglessness. You can't "prove" anything from chaos.
More generally, however, I'm not sure that I see much value in wholly secular moral / ethic philosophy. I see it failing in one of two directions. Either (a) You get into a sort of recursive set of definitions. This is the Sam Harris issue as he tries to define "good" morals as "those things that help to realize human flourishing." Okay, well, what does "flourishing" mean? And what if two people, or groups, use it to mean different things? The other failure mode (b) is when you do create an internally coherent rubric that seeks to maximize some sort of measurable norm. Enter utilitarianism and, eventually, effective altruism (Singer et al). You can concoct some sort of scheme that lets you say things like "in order to maximize the happiness function, in aggregate, of all humanity .... it's totally alright to unalive the following criteria of already existing humans ..."
Furthermore, secular moral philosophy seems to me to be amazingly epistemically arrogant. The complex system of systems of 7 billion people (with different languages, cultures, etc.) is on its face impossible to model with any accuracy, let alone to make normative recommendations for. But, the EA types have revealed themselves to be bad at the smart thinkin'. When you start to worship the Chubby Behemoth, you can update your priors all you want, but dividing by zero was probably when it all went sideways.
100ProofTollBooth
2mo ago
And it was worth it. LED lights with good CRIs are better in every way that matters when compared to incandescents.
If I believe that incandescents are "better" in a "way" that you believe does not matter, is it alright for me to own and operate one?
100ProofTollBooth
1yr ago
Just wanted to say this is a legit AF post.
(Some of the other comments in this thread are straight wild. I can't tell if they're LARPing, triple-nested irony or finewine shitposting, or just ChatGPT hallucinations.)
TLDR on how heterosexual women choose mates can be reduced to "social proof." This isn't all encompassing, but it's the single most important factor. The more you can put yourself in an environment with demonstrable social proof the better. I've written about this before, sorry for the self-link.
I think a lot of guys screw up the first date by making it far too 1-on-1 and not somehow building in that social proof. In my experience, there is a very simple way to get reliable massive social proof without having to stress on logistics or complex arrangements:
Become a regular at a bar.
A couple ground rules. 1. The bar has to be a pretty fancy cocktail bar or hipster style joint. Think rough wood paneling, low lighting, and a bearded gent who knows too much about agave plants behind the bar. 2. You don't become a regular by showing up a few times on your own and getting hammered and tipping heavy.
Here's how you become a regular:
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You have to spend time (and money) going in on off hours and figuring out which bartender works on core date nights (Thur, Fri, Sat). The economics of bars being what they are, it's pretty rare for even the "Prime Time" bartenders to not work at least one afternoon shift. I find luck on Sundays and Tuesdays the most. You go in right after work (or as early as about 4pm if you can work remote or have the flexibility). Sit at the bar, get the menu etc. etc.
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Have a personality and interesting things to talk about. I know this can be very difficult. Here are some tips - start out by asking their recommendation for a drink / cocktail. They're going to recommend something that's pretty inoffensive (usually a slight modification to a basic manhattan, martini, or old fashioned and their various tequila cousins). If they ask what you like, have an answer ready. When they make it, compliment it and find a road to go down. What does that mean? Don't say "oh, it's fruity!" or "oh, yeah, I like that!" Those are dead ends. Make an observation, and then make an extending comment on that observation; "There's some smokiness in there ... what's another drink where there's more of that (or) what can complement smokiness (or) do people like that smokiness." Oh, goodness, you've just started a conversation. Remember when I said that you should look for a fancy spot where the guy behind the bar knows a lot about agave / bourbon or whatever? This is because if you can differentiate your comment on the drink enough, you can get that guy to shoulder the conversation for the next 30 minutes by letting him go on and on about .... whatever. Listen, ask leading questions, offer light opinions ("I never really liked whiskey because I think it has a bad aftertaste" is fine "GIN IS FOR PUSSIES" is not). Just ... talk.
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Ask the guy when he's on again (meaning, when he's working again). Show back up, do the same thing. You'll know you've made a (good) impression if they start saying "What's up, dude?" after you've walked in but before you've sat down. You'll know you're really in if they start to make you custom drinks without prompting to see what your reaction is.
3a. I wouldn't recommend this step if you haven't done this kind of thing before, but I just recently did it at a new bar I've been checking out and it was a lot of fun. If the bartender works an off evening (Tuesday/Wednesday night for instance) and you can afford the day off / hangover the next day - go in and just get hammered. Because it's an off night, it should be slow and they're likely to drink a little bit with you, comp a couple rounds, and open up the conversation topics a little more. This is kind of a "stars have to align" move, but, if you can pull it off, it's awesome.
After regularly (you know, like a regular) showing up to this bartenders shifts for three - four weeks, AND maintaining a good rolling conversation, you're set. Now back to dates and where the fun comes in.
You setup the date to meet at the bar for casual drinks. That's not hard and it's seems a little basic however She'll do the research on the bar and find out that, at the least, it's a trendy cocktail bar and she's not going to some horrible sports / dive bar with awful bathrooms and warm beer. But the magic happens when the two of you walk in and your partner in crime, the bartender, says, "What's up, TollBooth?!" and means it. You'll probably get a better seat at the bar than what the host/hostess would default to. Bartenders interact with and watch people for a living so he'll understand it's a date right off the bat. You're golden. From here, just have a normal conversation with your date and enjoy things like the following, ranked in order of most to least likely:
- Off menu drinks (that aren't anything special, but the "off menu"-ness makes them appear so)
- Unordered (but free) appetizers or deserts
- Unsolicited comments about how funny / wild / smart / "different" you are from the bartender to your date
- Totally made up stories the bartender tells to wingman you
- Even more outlandish lies like "Yeah, last time TollBooth was in here, I ended up serving him like four drinks that these girls were buying him, it was crazy."
You have to remember that at these craft cocktail places, the over-knowledgeable bartender is running the show in the eyes of the patrons (it's actually still probably either the head chef or just the GM who's really doing it, but, whatever). So, in the eyes of your date, the most "important dude" in the building is now pumping you up like a hype man. Your date will feel like she's in the center of the attention of the place without feeling like there's a spotlight on her. She gets to feel self-satisfied that she's snagged the most popular dude. What's more, because the bartender is going to make sure service is snappy, it can even come across like you've got some sort of special pull and the dinner is somehow just better than it could be anywhere else. She'll be telling her friends about it and just drink in their envy. Your friendly bartender will also act as a constant refrain point for the conversation if you hit a weird silent phase and run out of things to say. "Rodrigo is such a cool dude," can be said again and again to restart the conversation, and it's also a subtle cue of "remember my social proof."
After the date, you do what you want. After many years of operating out of the cut-and-dry bachelor dating playbook, I don't try to move towards sex. I don't care. I want to see if I've actually captured durable attention (which is the most fought over commodity nowadays, right?) and, more importantly, if I enjoyed the conversation, feel some chemistry and compatibility, and genuinely want to see her again. Maybe a quick kiss or something and then it's part ways / separate Ubers.
Even more than dates, this works well for (casual) work dinners or happy hours. Although I'm a little hesitant to recommend it for client / sales meetings because some people get the wrong idea and think you're an alcoholic who shows up there everyday.
Some closing thoughts:
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Why is the bartender actually doing this for you? One, by showing up regularly for a few weeks and many shifts before the date, you are spending some money and signalling you'll probably keep doing it. This is a transaction to an extent. The larger point, however, is that you made good conversation. 80% of bartender conversation is them listening to people talk about themselves and their own lives, or having to navigate petty small talk on sports, politics, and pop culture. And they're on their feet for 8 - 10 (or more hours). If you can break that monotony, they're going to love you.
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Tip heavy always. This is a business.
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Throughout this write-up, I've used "he" as the pronoun for the bartender and obviously assumed the bartender is male. That's the harder scenario.
You can do all of this with a female bartender too and, if you do, your date is guaranteed to end in fireworks.
100ProofTollBooth
3mo ago
American conservatives aren’t serious people.
Baby boomer self-described "conservatives" drawing social security and sometimes maybe going to an evangelical church .... are not serious people.
The next generation of conservatives is bringing the motherfucking ruckus especially when compared to their liberal / progressive peers. Mike Gallagher has more foreign policy bonafides than anyone on the Republican campaign trail right now. He is just one of a literal generation of multi-tour combat veterans. He isn't 40 yet (or maybe he's just 40). The fastest growing subset of American Catholics - and traditional Catholics at that - are millenials. Even though I'm not a fan, Look at the subscriber growth of Catholic Joe Rogan. Even the weirdo dissident right online community flows pretty easily to Rogan-Tate-Huber-Jocko LiftBro territory.
The point is, after 2024-2028, I think you'll see the emergence of an American Conservatism that codes strongly and obviously towards traditional male patterns of socialization. The "machismo" of Trump will become laughable compared to basic and common actual badass credentials of, say, Congressman eye patch pirate SEAL. The "family values" double speak of evangelicals working on their second divorce will be trampled by NunCore chicks. Even if the numbers are quite less compared to median pop-culture Americans, I'm not super worried as that later cohort is largely and quickly dropping out of society. The "RETVRN" people are weird and sort of goofy - but I think they might be durable.
Long term, I'm jacked to the TITS! about American conservatism because millenial liberalism / progressive is already a circular firing squad of bewildering self-contradiction.
I just hope the Boomers don't immolate the entire nation before we get there.
100ProofTollBooth
1yr ago
Agree that Men are no less likely to rewrite their own perspective on their own memories. I think a lot of this is linked to the need for internal self-consistency. If someone express traditionally conservative morals, yet acted in a very not conservative way earlier in life, it makes sense they would write it off as a "wild time" in their life, with a likely follow on of "but I grew up / got more mature etc." What's more, I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with this. Learning from experience and changing your views based on that experience is sort of how humans work. I'd rather someone used to be kind of an asshole and then got over it versus continuing to be an asshole but somehow "consistent" in their values?
The sex difference I see (incoming: anecdata) is that female self-revision seems to frequently remove any personal agency let alone fault. It's not that Alice chose a bunch of Bad Boy Bobs in her 20s because she wanted fun and thrills and, hey, turns out Bad Boy Bob was in fact a Bad Guy. Instead it's (ancedatally) more often "Bob turned out to be such an asshole who could've known that a guy with prison time, no job, and a stolen motorcycle wasn't a sweetheart!"
Whereas, with my male friends, I hear a lot of "Yeah, she did sleep with three other dudes but .... she was a stripper and I knew that so .... what're you going to do."
All this being said, I don't chalk it up to innate brain differences between men and women. Ideas and culture matter. Contemporary feminism is rooted in hyper-liberation theory and maximal individual freedom of expression without any consideration of personal responsibility, let alone behaviors that strengthen societal bonds. Women are told that sexual libertinism earlier in life is a profound way of expressing themselves. How can there be any self-critical examination of mate selection criteria and interpersonal trust if the whole point is to just do it!
"Well, aren't young men fed the idea that they can have fun in their 20s going out to bars and bedding dozens of women as well?" Sure, but, as has been pointed out many, many other times on The Motte, it's fundamentally harder for all but the top .1% of men to get sex on demand. Secondly, and more broadly applicable, how many Bro-movies have some variation of "don't stick your dick in crazy?" Is "fuck boi" not a term in common usage in a derogatory manner? As underdeveloped as these ideas may be, at least there is some concept of future repercussions of reckless personal decision making (bonus: hasn't "Man up" been used by both TradCon folks as well as all but the most insane gender-dismantling leftists?)
Young people in society will always have higher degress of openness and risk taking. We need this for society to continue to function. The balance that tradition and positive elder role models play is to create the acceptable outer bounds of those behaviors to create a hard check on catastrophic (both personal and societal) consequences of those decisions. I think current feminism has done a lot to blow up even the outermost of those boundaries. The current result, and future prospects, were excellently summed up in @FiveHourMarathon's quality post from this March
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Couldn't agree more.
What is off handedly dismissed as "domestic female labor" is really "the construction and maintenance of basic pro-social behavior patterns that enable society to function."
Outsourcing those duties to the state has been a disaster. This is as obvious a fact as one can summon. The state does not care about you and never has. The level of involvement and personal sacrifice necessary for humans to raise their young is bananas. No other mammal comes close. It requires an emotional bond that is nearly transcendent. Some of us would call this a "holy" connection and duty.
But others would say "just add water" to make the family.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Mostly pretty young women crying very loudly.
Or their male counterparts who vociferously swear allegiance to whatever is the object of that crying or, on the other political extreme, high volume chauvinists who trade content and persuasion for volume and repetition. #I'm-With-The-Orange-Man-All-Women
100ProofTollBooth
2mo ago
I’ve read enough PUA material and know enough high body count guys that I feel like I know how they think.
Let's remember that there is online PUA (un)reality and actual physical world PUA/high body count guy reality.
Online PUAs go hard into things like "last minute resistance" and "anti-slut defense." These are absolutely rapey and awful. And they're pretty much theoretical rationalizations and analysis created by soy boys LARPing as "PUAs" (any online subculture that has lots of acronyms is often populated by the same basic template nerds with various extra skins and other DLC attached.)
Actual, real life "PUA" types experience consent in absolutely black and white scenarios like "has she leaned over and asked me to f**k her? Is she actively unfastening my belt? Has she already gone ahead and leaned in for the kiss herself?" Real life PUAs look at a grey zone not just as a potential risk, but as a failure at the application of their skills. The idea isn't to jump her bones as she is perhaps just beginning to imagine an encounter, but to push the pre-physical seduction to such an extent that she is actively soliciting it in no uncertain terms - and will look back on it with genuine happiness. The parallel between real world PUA stuff and corporate sales is undeniable; don't sell them, make them want to buy the thing so bad they're shoving money at you. And make them happy to see you when you come back for a second time around (am I talking about sales or sex here .... I don't even know anymore).
Real life seduction / PUA / whatever you want to call it is about the challenge of generating real and powerful desire. It's not about weaseling into a grey area to be the sex-bandito who's in and out in a flash.
This is also why lots of (again, "real") PUAs leave that subculture - they want to level up to the next stage of generating real, powerful, and enduring desire over a long term relationship.
Because that is incredibly hard. And supremely worthwhile.
100ProofTollBooth
3mo ago
This is nightmare fuel for me.
I've heard you can get "bulletproof" prenups in the "his/hers/ours" vein. But then I hear horror stories about how because of one slip up in where a certain check went, all of a sudden all accounts have equal claim.
Question: Are there any states that don't have in effect common law marriage for long term cohabitation. If I had my druthers, I'd like to be long term monogamous but with ZERO POSSIBLE involvement from the state.
100ProofTollBooth
3mo ago
and some moral frameworks attribute little or no moral value to beings that have never achieved sapience, regardless of their status as humans or as probable future sapients.
How do you objectively measure "sapience"?
If it is discrete, what's the dividing line?
If is is continuous, this leads to the conclusion that the "less sapient" are less human than the more sapient.
If this is your position, exactly where is the cutoff point for disenfranchising already living humans from their right to remain alive?
If you can identify that point, where is the point (necessarily further upstream) wherein we disenfranchise humans in a democracy from being able to vote because of their substandard sapience?
tl;dr Eugenics and explicit genetic tyranny all the way down.
100ProofTollBooth
8mo ago
Why should smart people move away from small towns, especially now that the Internet has come?
That's a fair enough point for the current generation. I have no idea how you would mean to apply that to the generations that grew up in rural America (especially Appalachia) before .... 2000? "Go get an education and come back" was also not reasonable because local economies often lacked the professional infrastructure to support (let alone attract) degree holders.
As for geographic consistency, their kin died for that ground within two or three centuries of folk memory.
Quiet part out loud, bro. You emphasized "died" instead of "fought for." Fatalism.
And what's the salience of the piece of land on which the dying occurred? Before the Civil War, a lot of sons of Appalachia died in all kinds of strange spots west of the Ohio, South of the Rio Grande, and elsewhere. Grandpa lost friends in France and Germany ... not a whole lot of country songs about the Ardennes. World War 2 veterans are remembered for the dedication to American values and a conflict against evil, imperialism, subjugation. That promotes a more generative outlook on the possibilities post-combat than the immutable fact of location and time of death.
I can, however, sympathize with Barney Google and Snuffy Smith over in the holler by the crick.
I don't know if this is an attempt at humor or not.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Religious faith is believing things not based on evidence.
I respectfully disagree. This is a common strawman of "faith". Allow me to offer a better definition;
Faith is believing in something that can neither be proven nor disproven with existing methods.
Religious faith applies this to transcendental concepts.
Now, of course, making decisions and casting judgments based wholly on religious faith creates problems, especially in a pluralistic democracy. That's a different discussion. I'm scoping my comments only to a beginning definition of "faith."
The keen among you might realize that this definition of faith covers things that aren't explicitly religious. "Gut feelings", "intuition" and the like. I happen to agree with you. In fact, I believe that all humans must exercise some level and version of small-f "faith" in order to function. A purely rational optimization pattern of thought would make it impossible to get out of bed in the morning ("which foot should I put on the floor first, should I wait another 7 minutes to get up to optimize my post REM wakefulness, is there too much or too little light in the room")
Blind faith - believing in something despite contradictory evidence or simply never even allowing that evidence to enter into your calculations - is bad and exists in myriad domains outside of religious faith. Currently, there's a lot of it in politics. It's a common human cognitive failing based on confirmation bias and the need for belief-decision-identity consistency.
True faith (and True Faith) is a demanding epistemic situation. You have to hold multiple things in your head at once;
- I believe X
- I cannot prove X
- X cannot be disproven
- Y, which may directly contradict X, is also a possibility, but I deem it less probable than X
- Points 2 and 3 may or may not also apply to Y, and Z, and A, and B
- I choose to retain my belief in X, knowing that points 2 - 5 still apply and may, in fact, apply infinitely regressively.
Faith is not for the feeble of mind yet must only be held with a poverty of spirit (read: poverty of passion).
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Wow, yeah, that's quite the look for the daughter of Dr. Kermit Make Your Bed.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
if I knew that someone expressed the degree of contempt for my wife that OP is expressing towards Alice, I wouldn't just want to defriend them, I would want to beat the shit out of them in the process.
"I would respond to someone's principled, albeit harsh, verbal condemnation with physical violence." I'm really not sure that's the kind of argument you want to advocate.
Trying to bridge interpersonal gaps can certainly be a good thing, but being friends with a guy that has contempt for you is just going full quokka.
I don't read OP's comment as having contempt for Bob. He has a sincerely held belief that marrying Alice is a bad move based on his sincerely held values regarding prostitution and promiscuity. He's try his best to articulate that to his friend, Bob. This seems, in fact, like the opposite of contempt. Contempt would probably take the form of a quiet chuckle followed by, "You do you, man" on the part of OP.
Slippery slopes are greased by the shrugging nonchalance of the agnostic and conformist.
100ProofTollBooth
2mo ago
Genuine question - have you ever been in a fight or other violent situation that escalated suddenly? Not like a shoving match that turned into a sort of wrestling match with a few frat boy haymakers thrown in. A real unexpected fight. Maybe someone tried to mug you.
Because even though I haven't personally seen a schizophrenic on the subway get to the point of committing attempted murder, I routinely saw the near potential for it. As in, being fully aware that that smelly weird dude could be hammering on some passer-by within 5 seconds. Why/how? My own personal experience with violence.
As a good research exercise, go watch some videos on the "Police Activity" channel on YouTube. Choose any that involve a shooting. These showcase just how quickly a "calm scene" can turn into dozens of shots fired. This will also show the utter lunacy of ideas around "warning shots" or "deescalation" by cops.
A friend has a good metaphor about human (esp male) latent violence - it's like a garage door spring. 99% of the time, it's this utterly forgettable thing that you are completely unaware of even as you are very close to it. In the rare situation in which it makes itself known, it is incredibly fast and violent (garage door springs can fucking end you).
But that explosive lethal potential is always there. But you don't see it, do you? Isn't that exactly what @HlynkaCG said?
"Which is more important in an internal combustion engine? Oxygen or the flammable substance?"
It's diet and exercise. You have to have both. Together.
These pills won't make people healthier. They will make people feel better about themselves. They aren't weight loss drugs, they're NextGen antidepressants. Metabolic syndrome often does not present as visible obesity. Major stomach and liver issues can go undetected for years. People will start taking these drugs and remain at a lower body weight. Then, one day, they die suddenly and any autopsy performed with reveal superfluous amounts of visceral fat, a leaking stomach, and a liver close to non-function.
Physical fitness is, among many other things, an information feedback loop. If you are in bad shape, you have been making poor health decisions. Sometimes, this can be unavoidable (late nights during crunch time at work or school, what have you). But, mostly, it's a clear indication that you're making poor, poor choices. Using something that covers up the effects of these choices does nothing to alter that decision process. I'd wager that habitual users of Wegovy etc. probably will also habitually (ab)use other substances - alcohol, narcotics, sugar, social media. This is not a road to health.
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