AstralMateus
3mo ago
- Most of them have been doxxed and are, indeed, biological women.
- "Female vtubers are secretly 400lbs neckbeards with a voice changer" is a dumb normie meme that has pretty much never turned out to be true. Voice changers are obvious pretty immediately, as are most MtF voices.
So it would be pretty reasonable to trust that they are women.
AstralMateus
3mo ago
(seriously, you can't tell me that as a man you can look at things like this and don't feel a faint warmth in your chest)
Ironically, I think Pragmata and what I've seen of the discourse may have once again confirmed to me that I'm not well-suited to being a parent. Looking at Diana, I feel nothing at all, other than slight annoyance at some of her antics. I'm not some deranged child-free lunatic raving about "crotch goblins" every other hour of the day, nor am I an anti-pedo crusader looking for nonces under my bed, but I honestly don't think I've ever seen a child below the age of like 10, fictional or otherwise, behaving like a child would, whom I didn't find mildly unpleasant and annoying.
AstralMateus
6mo ago
I think you put a bit too much stock into the TSE thing. A good number of people online are Just Like That, you don't need to psyop them. I don't deny that there is a social contagion element to it ("Nerd communities devastated by HRT", etc.), but it's not the only thing that originally attracted people to trans-adjacent stuff. MtF TSE got off the ground because there were initially people who created the ecosystem – they did not want to be men, fulfill the male role or abide by the male social engagement etiquette, so they went and created pleasant spaces with norms of support and positivity, sort of "LARP as a woman you want to see in the world" clubs, where weirdos could be free from those male social codes, which later attracted others who also wanted in on that, as those were much nicer than default male-coded spaces, at least to a certain type of person, and eventually the whole thing reached escape velocity and TSE we know and are ambivalent about emerged, although not without many twists and turns that changed the original idea.
To illustrate with a bit of personal history, way back in the day I started hanging out in a few chatrooms full of people who mostly went by female nicknames and addressed themselves as female online, while being unmistakably male offline and not really denying that fact. This was in the early 2010s, in the non-English-speaking parts of the internet, long before TSE was a thing. Some of them came from MMOs, some from imageboards, others from different internet places still. Yet these people had similarities – most of them were autistic, heavily into anime, extremely online and probably experienced some degree of AGP. They didn't like or fit in with male social norms and culture of the time (despite ostensibly being mediocre men, whom the culture revolved around), so each LARPed as an anime girl archetype they enjoyed. They wanted to act cutesy, ditzy, haughty, flirty, et cetera, whatever is the opposite of the standard male MO. Color is a good way to describe it, the regulars indeed wanted to be colorful and emotionally expressive rather than stable and stoic. They didn't act like real women, but they acted out idealized female stereotypes instead. It wasn't a political thing, and politics would rarely be discussed, certainly not identity politics. Most everyone tried their best to act how their ideal of themselves as a woman would act, because they enjoyed it, and that's who they wanted to embody. Those were very nice places to be part of, certainly much nicer than the current trans-adjacent spaces. I believe all of the regulars there would press the button with zero hesitation, and not because some nefarious TSE made them do it.
(I've kept contact with many of them since, half of these individuals have transitioned, and if we were in the US, the number would probably be closer to 80%)
AstralMateus
6mo ago
So, unsurprisingly, my estimate for the magic button pressing would have been 1%.
The current share of transsexuals among the US population seems to be >1%, and with a button that makes transitioning much easier and more "complete", we should probably expect those numbers to rise rather than fall.
AstralMateus
6mo ago
One of the minor weekly dramas in my corner of X, the everything app, had to do with this tweet by Flesh Simulator, where he states that
"if there was a “magically become a girl” button, a solid 25% of men would probably press it. Of that 25%, 95% of them are basically still fine with living as a man and don’t experience any noticeable gender dysphoria even though they would press the button immediately. The issue with “egg cracking” and convincing people to transition is that, because of the nature of transitioning, that 5% dysphoria rate turns into effectively 100%"
(Flesh Simultor is a somewhat popular youtuber who specializes in talking about existing conspiracy theories and seems to be one of the few actually heterodox leftists, combining stuff like rabid support for socialized healthcare and the Palestinian cause with reluctant support for ICE even after the MN shootings, but that is not directly relevant to the current micro-drama)
In response he got hundreds of quote tweets and replies from people who called the 25% estimate comically unrealistic, mixed with MTF-run accounts suggesting that he is a "repressor" (someone who, in trans slang, feels gender dysphoria, but chooses not to transition due to various fears) because, again, no way a normal cis man would think that 25% of fellow men would press the "magically change one's sex" button. That seemingly caused FleshSim to backpedal a bit, stating that his estimate assumed that the button could be used to change your sex back, but my impression is that the original tweet was supposed to mean a one-way ticket to womanhood.
I was very surprised by that reaction to the tweet, because I'd give around the same estimate. My impression always was that if a "magically change biological sex" button was on the menu, the world, or at least the developed parts of it, would be at a 35:65 M:F split within a year or so. Basically, the real world would turn into what you see in most MMOs – almost all women would stay women, but a significant minority of men would choose to become women as well.
Now, I'm far from unbiased here, given that, I, for one, would absolutely press such a button. While I have no plans of transitioning IRL and belong to the 95% that are "still fine" living as the sex I was born as, my post history has me admitting to being a weeby sperg who does not feel much of a connection to his IRL body and physical reality and spends most of my time on the computer, so me choosing to press the button is probably not exactly surprising. But still, I just fail to see FleshSim's 25% conjecture as particularly outlandish. Surely, the quote tweets are all just signalling, and the share of people who'd press the button's gotta be at least in the double-digits, right?
So I ask you, minds of The Motte, what's your best guess about the percentages of men and women that would press the magical "change biological sex" button (for the purposes of the experiment, the button, due to being magical, also solves minor accompanying issues such as getting the new legal name on documents, etc.) if it was freely available?
AstralMateus
8mo ago
Probably better suited for the wellness thread, but w/e.
Are any of you pathologically secretive/have problems with feeling excessive amounts of shame? Or, even better, have you been secretive beyond what is necessary in the past and then managed to move past that stop being that way?
In real life I’m a pathologically secretive kind of guy. My phone’s wallpapers are always set to the default image. I never wear graphic T-shirts or any piece of clothing that could be considered a statement. The walls of my apartment are mostly plain. I’ve always been this way – I remember how I’d always pause my games as a kid when parents came into the living room where I was playing on the family TV. I wasn’t even playing anything particularly embarrassing at the time, it was more often than not FIFA or some racing game, something completely normal for a schoolboy to be playing! I just always had the weird connection “personal = embarrassing = has to stay hidden” in my head, even about the most innocuous things. I don’t think there was any kind of inciting incident that led to me ending up this way either – my mom, who I lived with, was not particularly strict, I wasn’t getting bullied at school and did not experience any particular serious trauma that I can think of.
I suppose it’s a function of lots and lots of internalized shame, social anxiety and low self-esteem, as I’m, and have always been into a lot of things that are niche and kind of embarassing (think of a generic weeby neckbeard's interests and that's me). I can’t bring myself to outright lie to others or myself by constructing a fake socially approved identity, but I also diligently hide my power level, so the result is that I come off as a very plain, unremarkable if somewhat awkward dude. Although it goes beyond hobby stuff – I remember having trouble doing anything on my laptop during class in college, unless I was sitting in the corner at the very back of the class, where no one could see my screen. Some dudes in that classroom were pretty openly playing League, and here I was, struggling to open the file containing the essay I was working on for another subject.
This approach to life probably helped me avoid my fair share of public embarrassment, but it hasn’t won me many close friends either. By now, I’ve come to consider it much more of a liability than an asset. I feel terrible even playing video games in front of my girlfriend, who also enjoys them, in my own home, for Pete’s sake, and that’s definitely not a great way to live.
So, if any of any you Mottizens have experienced something similar, how did you move past it? Or does it still haunt you to this day?
AstralMateus
10mo ago
Avant-garde art.
I'm a chronic philistine that Just Doesn't Get It, and looking at most of high-brow art made after the turn of the 20th century fills me with a sense of not just indifference, but mild rage.
Every time I step into a modern art gallery or watch an artsy movie I feel like I've become the main character of The Truman Show, with the people making that stuff, critiquing it and respectfully looking at it all engaged in a giant, elaborate troll aimed at convincing me that any of those works are actually good.
I'm not proud of this trait, and I've tried reading up on art, but I just can't reject the evidence of my eyes and ears. I simply can't see it. I'd rather look at anything else – modern imitations of classicist paintings, Kinkade, AI art of big-ttited anime girls – on the wall of that art gallery than a Picasso. Because all of those look much better to my eye than any of Picasso's work.
I imagine that's how a child who got a taste of beer from his dad at a family gathering feels.
AstralMateus
10mo ago
Solidly upper-middle by birth and culturally, lower-middle by income. Every male parent and grandparent was pretty successful, and held an advanced degree and/or a position of responsibility.
Downwardly mobile due to complete lack of work ethic, little ambition and no natural affinity for the subjects that allow people similar to me in terms of personality to get ahead in life (computer science, engineering).
AstralMateus
11mo ago
I happen to visit a left-leaning gaming forum, and the response (almost 8000 posts in the thread since yesterday) is nothing short of gleeful, with even the moderate voices ("he was a terrible person and will not be missed, but violence is never the answer") getting shouted down and dogpiled.
Another haunt of mine, reddit's /r/neoliberal is not quite as overtly giddy, but the median response seems to be ~"he fucked around and found out, shouldn't have attacked trans people".
I don't think it's just a few crazies on bluesky this time around.
AstralMateus
11mo ago
Then a different society will take our place and try something different, because evidently not every nation even wants to adopt freedom as a value, so it's rather unlinkely this will affect all humans.
And for an actual hot take: I find so many modern people having "survival of the human race by any means necessary" as a terminal value and highest ideal quite objectionable. This is the mentality of a cockroach, not a higher being. Higher beings have ideals, not just biological instincts.
A devoted Christian 500 years ago would believe that "if our civilization falls into terminal sin, the Lord will smite all of our cities like He did Sodom and Gomorrah, and He would be correct in doing so". And that, in my eyes, would make them unquestionably spiritually superior to most of us, moderns, willing to sell everything, up to and including our souls, for the survival of "the human race" (usually refers to us personally or at least the social groups we belong to).
Because this attitude is what it means to really believe in something.
AstralMateus
11mo ago
My own preference is for the Wild West of the Old Internet, with all the good and bad that went into it.
However, I understand that some types of content are extremely distateful to most people, making my view pretty unpopular, and a reasonable carveout can be negotiated by people who believe in freedom of speech, but who, unlike me, a random internet poster, need votes to get elected.
I don't think principles are an all-or-nothing thing, they're more of a rule of thumb "this is what should be done, unless there's an extremely good reason to do otherwise". For example, I would not regard a card-carrying NRA member, who still feels leery about the idea of a felon being able to buy a machine gun at the nearest corner store with no questions asked, as an unprincipled traitor to his position as a pro-2A activist.
AstralMateus
11mo ago
This issue (freedom to speak, share and view anything, including seedy content, on the internet, regardless of what the state thinks of it – and "payment processors" are the government by another name, considering the existing interlinkages and their monopolistic market share) in particular both infuriates me like no other, and somehow makes me understand and even sympathize with libs' thinking on immigration.
I absolutely think that having porn widely available is probably bad for society on net if we view it in consequentialist terms. Not even from the "think of the children" standpoint, its detrimental for most adults too. It is a vice that has practical consequences, and probably contributed declining fertility, deteriorating relations between the sexes and all kinds of other social malaises. And still, knowing all that, I would oppose restrictions on it on freedom of speech grounds, because a if a society degenerates and fails because it can't handle that type of freedom, then it morally deserved to fail all along, and should crash and burn accordingly.
I would imagine that's how the smarter ideologically committed proponents of freedom of movement feel about importing infinity migrants.
Adults are trained to keep their annoying behaviours to theselves for the most part, so unless you engage with them on a personal level, they tend to be fairly, if superficially, pleasant. The ones that are not did not internalize the basic rules of behavior and are usually neurodivergent in some way.
I have a strong preference for the appearance of orderliness and fake niceness of adults over the very real-and-honest running around while screaming and not minding their surroundings in public, which children specialize in. I can see on an intellectual level why some may find it charming, but personally I simply dislike "kids being kids".
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