Botond173
8d ago
Trump has been very vocal about how Zelensky needs to stop using the targeting data that the US supplies them.
I'm guessing there is an evident question to be asked here.
Botond173
8d ago
Liberals don't advocate for de-jure open borders. But they believe that everyone who just walks up to the border should be able to make an asylum claim. And what do you know, liberals also believe that they should all be allowed to live and work while waiting for their claim to be processed, and of course they also believe that only an evil nazi racist would deny their totally valid claims.
Don't we have recent lived experience of this not actually being applicable when the refugees happen to be Boers?
Botond173
8d ago
Because they view the Ukraine war as an existential threat to the end of history and they liberal world order.
It rather seems that they did away with the ‘End of History’ thesis already and no longer believe that the process of globalization can continue in they way they generally imagined (well, fantasized) that it would. I think this should, in turn, reinforce the perception that they have recently (around 2014 or so) adopted a rather pessimist worldview. They are now treating Russia, China, North Korea, India and their ‘puppets’ as an enemy bloc that is to be sanctioned and cordoned off from the rest of the world that has inexorably and thankfully transitioned to liberal globalism.
And they aren't saying they should fight a war just they they should arm themselves to protect themselves and their families as Russia has shown itself to be a threat. A very conservative message if you think about it
I argue there are aspects to Western foreign policy regarding Ukraine that should at least make it rather questionable to conservatives. The most obvious one is that it’s happening in the context of a long-term policy of eastward NATO expansion (with a bunch of consequences of its own) which I think US conservatives should at least be skeptical about. The second is that whenever liberals emphasize the supposedly huge cultural differences between Ukraine and Russia the always focus on the wonderful globohomo-ness of the former; this should at least make conservatives think twice about the whole affair. The third I can think of is that the more cynical liberal-adjacent talking heads seem willing to admit that it’s not for the prosperity and well-being of the Ukrainian people that the war should be escalated but to weaken Russia which in turn is supposed to have fantastic benefits in the future or something. Again, obvious grounds for skepticism, I think. Four: conservatives should ponder what exactly the long-term goal of Atlanticist policy regarding Ukraine in particular was after 2004 or so and especially after 2014.
Now some might rightly point out that these are foundations of sand and I agree the democratic establishment is on borrowed time and I agree but it is still a massive juggernaut and I'm not confident it will be overturned in the next presidential politics.
I’m guessing you’re referring to the gerontocratic nature of the Dem leadership?
Botond173
9d ago
of all the people that are actively living and dying in misery at our hands
I'm assuming this is meant to refer to victims of global warming and colonialism?
Botond173
9d ago
I'd like to contrast two opinions that were posted here a while back to hopefully make a larger point.
Below there are arguments from @Southkraut posted in this chain of discussion:
By the right wing in a political spectrum that has shifted so far left that even the most tepid immigration control measures are considered the extreme of permissible politics. I'm sorry, but no, this movement to the right in no way proves that the left is not in firm control. Their electoral setbacks are, in the greater scheme of things, temporary and minor, while their social and demographic victories are permanent and far-reaching. Yes they overreached, did too much too quickly and alienated voters that way, but the left needing to spend some time without control of this or that executive or legislative and seeing a small fraction of their accomplishments rolled back is not proof of the lasting ascendancy of the right.
Even if this should be the full awakening of the natives to their intentional replacement and the imminent grab for power of the right over all the governments of Europe and even the end of all immigration, the demographic damage is done. The left can afford to let go of the reins of states for a while, or maybe even altogether. It won't change the fate of the continent at this point.
Yes we currently have an upswing of right-wing sentiment as the leftist strangelhold on public discourse slackens, but that's because the leftists, in their time of triumph, overreached somewhat while already on the finishing line. But it's only a stumble; they can and most likely will recover, and if the footrace metaphor holds, then this stumble makes no difference because the right is crawling along far behind with its legs hacked off and bleeding out.
The left has already won. The takeover happened, and it held, and still holds. All public institutions all over Europe are firmly in the hands of leftist partisans. All the predominant narratives that public discourse rests on are shaped by leftist framing. And above all, greatest accomplishment and final victory of the left, demographics are a done deal. The natives are on an inescapable track towards becoming minorities in their own countries, and foreigners will become the majority in Europe within this century. There is no fixing this, and there is no suriviving it for the right.
And below is a comment by @MaiqTheTrue:
My thoughts are that this stems directly from their view of the world. To them America and the West are a dystopian nightmare.
White Guilt, and present militarism
In Liberal circles, white people, and particularly white Americans, are racist, militaristic, and colonial. They also perceive that none of it is changing even a little bit. We support Israel which is racist and genocidal, we hold down minorities, and enrich ourselves at the expense of the non-whites of the world. And they see it as nobody aside from them actually caring.
Environment
Liberals believe that Earth will be literally uninhabitable within their lifetime. The air will be choked with pollution, the rivers poisoned, global warming creating deserts and rain forests and making things too hot. Nobody wants to do enough to fix it, and quite often want to go in the other direction. They see that nobody aside from them cares.
Capitalism
The rich run the world for the rich and everyone else suffers. Poverty is common, and all the things that should be free are instead not free. College costs too much. Health care costs too much. And again, none of this is noticed by anyone else, so nothing will change.
Trump
You might not notice, but we elected Literally Hitler in November. He’s going to build work camps. He’s going to round people up and either imprison them or deport them. The Handmaid’s Tale is going to happen. Again, nobody notices or cares and worse, half the country likes it. Which proves that white people are evil.
All of this is a profoundly negative world view. Dystopian even. Everything is terrible, and at best going to stay terrible forever, and very likely to get worse. If this is how you really see the world, obviously that’s going to give you anxiety and depression, especially if you’re hanging around others who share this view, and have few or no outside interests.
As far as I'm concerned one can also add "Sexism" and "Social media" to that list. (We can certainly say, for example, that the Blue Tribe mainly blames supposedly harmful social media trends - basically the fatal lack of external censorship and repression - for Trump's election victories in 2016 and 2024 and for Brexit as well.) And as far as the anti-anti-Zionist liberals are concerned, their attitude towards anti-Semitism is the same. Either way, this summary does strike me as spot on. Whenever I encounter members of the Blue Tribe online or even offline it's undoubtedly this pessimistic, doomerist, resentful, even elegiac vibe I'm getting most of the time, especially from single women. And this seems to have been a cultural trend since Gamergate. In contrast, I think the victories of modern liberalism have mainly stemmed from its image of representing not an ideology but the consensus among cool and smart people promoting the vision of a better tomorrow, basically someone like your cool and cheerful wine-drinking, pot-smoking aunt/uncle. It was this vibe that helped them gain electoral victories as well and now this vibe is completely dead. Now we're at a point where the political parties in the EU representing Blue Tribe normies are basically campaigning with the message to having to fight yet another great Eastern European war in the very near future which is supposedly necessary to avert some even bigger disaster or something.
I'd argue that it's actually the profound pessimism of Blue Tribe messaging and its political consequences that Southkraut's pessimism is not taking into account.
Botond173
9d ago
I reckon she was also recorded coughing up some sort of suspicious green phlegm.
Botond173
10d ago
My Dress-Up Darling and Komi Can't Communicate did come across to me as more female-oriented than not.
Botond173
11d ago
I disagree and think 2rafa is on point here. It's generally not effectiveness that elicits rage in the cultural war but the utilization of symbolism i.e. attacking symbols one way or another. This particular decision about making the execution public acts as ragebait without providing one ounce of political utility to Trump. It's not that one should abandon effectiveness out of courtesy but that political measures are to be effective whether they induce rage or not.
Botond173
11d ago
I am specially fond of Nagatoro; my heart melted when I read chapter 114. I was so proud of Senpai for finally having the courage to ask Nagatoro to pose nude for him; it's a very beautiful scene that is the culmination of six years of character and relationship development.
According to the same subreddit his evolution progressed even further since then.
On a different note I'm not that sure all of the series you mentioned are aimed at (young) men.
Botond173
12d ago
Granted that you're right, it seems one of two phenomena is at work here, or a mixture of both: the attitudes of the female cosplayer subculture are themselves changing, or there is a process of E-thot entryism taking place there.
Botond173
13d ago
Is it maybe a plausible explanation that it's the female character designs themselves in games and anime series that are generally skimpier than before?
Botond173
13d ago
men were more interested in the (fantasy) world shown to them by the likes of Hugh Hefner. There's probably a 2rafa-style argument to be made here, something-something sexual revolution
Isn't it commonly accepted wisdom that men predominantly respond to visual stimulation as opposed to women?
Botond173
13d ago
Botond173
13d ago
the first public execution in America since 1937
This got me intrigued because I could swear I remember learning it ages ago from some book that the last public execution in the US took place in 1936. I looked around on the internet and it seems most sources also confirm the latter date. Roscoe Jackson's case went down the memory hole apparently. Wikipedia claims that Rainey Bethea's hanging in Kentucky was botched and generated a big media circus which in turn prompted the legislature to end public executions. It should be noted for context that Bethea was convicted of rape and the law they repealed in 1938 specifically stated that executions for convicted rapists be conducted by hanging in the county seat where they raped their victims.
I wonder if you've run into the phenomenon of "slash" fiction (widely available on the web, mostly non-commercial, and sometimes in violation of copyright laws)? Slash involves taking male buddies from popular fiction -- Kirk/Spock, Holmes/Watson, Starsky/Hutch (hence the "slash") -- and writing stories in which, in the course of their adventures, they find out that they're more than just good friends, and wind up having graphic sex together. "Slash" is about 100% written and read by women -- some lesbian but most straight. In fact it follows romance novel formulas very closely. One member of the buddy pair is more sensitive and feminine -- physically a man, emotionally a woman -- while the other is a conventional romance hero. With Kirk/Spock, it's Kirk who's the sensitive one and Spock who's the cold, emotionally distant hero who discovers his true feelings at the end. Part of the appeal is that the guys end up having sex not because they're gay, but because True Love conquers all.
I think that most men are secretly (or openly) afraid that women don't like sex and only view it as a bargaining chip to get what they want out of males (companionship, emotional and physical support, or babies). Women are afraid that men only want them for sex and thus view emotional support of females mainly as a chore that they perform in order to get sex, or in order to have her give him children (in other ways, the same way men worry about women and sex). Girl-on-girl porn "proves" that women want sex, because if they didn't, why would lesbians bother having sex with each other, instead of just cuddling all the time? Similarly, if gay men get all "girly" around each other and think about love, commitment, and relationships, then that "proves" that men are interested in such things - because if they were just ploys to get sex, gay men would have no reason to do these things amongst each other, because they can easily get sex from each other. So heterohomophilia (a term I coined for heterosexual fascination with homosexuals of the opposite sex) is, I think, as much about dealing with insecurity as anything else.
Steve Sailer quoting two of his readers on this subject back in 2006
Botond173
15d ago
I don't think I'm overestimating it among female college students. I think the clear cultural messages have been conveyed to them for a long time that a) slut-shaming is done by angry and bitter men b) any male complaints about or negative reactions to female sexual behavior are fundamentally loser-coded and are to be dismissed. So I'm guessing she assumed that the fratboys were behind her getting disinvited from the party and it fueled her anger.
Botond173
15d ago
It's probably no coincidence that the three groups of women with the general reputation of being down for performative/desire sex are young women (so not yet interested in long-term commitment), recently divorced women (done with the whole concept of long-term commitment, at least for the time being) and cougars (who basically left the mating/relationship marketplace altogether).
Botond173
15d ago
Isn't the whole point of the existence of sororities to insert themselves in situations such as this?
Botond173
15d ago
It makes sense. Women obviously have no innate conception of the effect of T on the sex drive and what it can compel them to do.
The Finns sued for peace two times between 1940 and 1944 in their conflict with the USSR. Did they make the wrong choice then?
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