Capital_Room's profile

Capital_Room rather dementor-like 5d ago

One of the better ones defines marriage as an institute primarily aimed to form families and raise children.

To which the inevitable reply is that, okay, then where's the law banning infertile people from marrying? Because on the axis of "family formation," there's no difference between them and the gays, is there? To ban gays from marrying on the grounds they cannot produce children, but not similarly ban straight couples who cannot produce children, would clearly be anti-gay discrimination.

Now, I have my own secular, philosophical argument against this, complete with toy analogy, that I've posted here before, about teleology in an imperfect, entropic universe. (But I'll admit that sort of Aristotelian thinking is pretty far from most mainstream thought.)

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 5d ago

I'm curious if his actions would qualify as such under that absurd "affirmative consent" framework of a few years ago.

See my reply above. And if this is your definition of "reasonable person," then there are a whole lot of unreasonable people out there.

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 5d ago

He brought a girl over of her own will, she got cold feet while he was stripping off his clothes, but she didn't say so.

Which means he transgressed by ignoring or not noticing her "cold feet," and thus failed to get affirmative consent. From Wikipedia:

This is the approach endorsed by colleges and universities in the U.S.,[62] who describe consent as an "affirmative, unambiguous, and conscious decision by each participant to engage in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity."

From the University of Sydney, in Australia (so this isn't just an American thing):

If it's not an enthusiastic yes, it's a no

…

If you’re engaging in romantic or sexual activity, you need consent every time. Consent must be informed, voluntary and active, meaning that, through an expression of clear physical and verbal actions, a person has indicated permission to engage in romantic or sexual activity. It is critical that you pay attention to and respect the other people’s verbal and physical signals of agreement, and you should expect others to do the same.

…

The Commonwealth Consent Policy Framework: Promoting Healthy Sexual Relationships and Consent Among Young People (669 KB) establishes a clear, consistent and evidence-based definition of consent, with five core concepts underpinning the messaging.

…

Affirmative and communicated

Consent is clearly communicated, and sexual partners are actively checking for consent verbally and non-verbally.

Consent is never implied or assumed. Silence, freezing, the absence of a ‘no’, appearing disengaged or a lack of any apparent discomfort, hesitation or resistance, does not imply consent.

[Bold emphasis added]

(And you can read more on the Australian Government's new national consent framework, introduced January 2024, here.)

And from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN, the US's largest anti-sexual violence organization, operators of the National Sexual Assault Hotline.):

Consent isn’t just a one-time check-in. It’s an ongoing conversation. You need consent every time, for every type of activity. Just because someone said yes in the past doesn’t mean they’re saying yes now. Just because someone agreed to one thing doesn’t mean they’re okay with everything.

…

How to Practice Consent

Ask, “Is this okay?” before moving forward

Listen and respond to your partner’s words and body language

Respect a “no”—even if it’s said quietly, indirectly, or nonverbally

Check in as things progress; don’t assume it’s fine to keep going

You also have the right to change your mind. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, even in the middle of an activity. If something doesn’t feel right, you can speak up—or use nonverbal signals like freezing, pulling away, or going silent. Partners should watch for these signs and stop immediately if anything seems off.

Enthusiastic consent means seeking out a clear, positive “yes”—not just the absence of “no.” This model encourages partners to look for active participation, mutual excitement, and ongoing check-ins throughout an intimate experience.

…

What Consent Is Not

Understanding what doesn’t count as consent is just as important. These are red flags that show consent is not present:

…

Taking silence or lack of resistance as agreement

Consent should never be assumed. It must be given clearly, freely, and enthusiastically.

[Bold in original]

Note the "partners should watch for these signs and stop immediately if anything seems off" part. Our male character clearly didn't do that. She did not give unambiguous, enthusiastic, and ongoing consent.

Barring the most partisan of gender warriors, nobody would consider that coercive.

Only if you consider "the most partisan of gender warriors" to include (but not limited to) most universities in the Anglosphere, the Australian government, institutions like RAINN (which have non-trivial sway over the American legal system's approaches to these issues), nearly the entirety of Tumblr (IME), and a growing fraction of Western youth among at least the upper-middle-class, maybe.

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 5d ago

Sure there is; you need only look north.

I have no idea to whom you are referring; could you please speak more plainly?

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 5d ago

It depends on your exact definitions and which axes you care about.

Isn't the axis in question diversity vs. homogeneity?

Race mixing (and cultural exchange more generally) involves Group A becoming more like Group B (and vice versa).

So it reduces diversity, moving things in the direction of homogeneity.

Ethnic cleansing interrupts and reverses that process, keeping the original group(s) the same.

So it (theoretically) prevents the process of homogenization — that is, when the ethnic group being "cleansed" from the area survives the process, and doesn't just end up being assimilated by whatever population(s) they end up living with after their expulsion.

What is the operation that increases diversity? Which makes Group A become less like Group B, and vice versa? And further, gives rise to Groups C, and D, and E, and makes all these groups more distinct, culturally and genetically? What, in this age of globalization, can truly make humanity more diverse?

(Other than space colonization, that is? Contolism — the real way to increase diversity.)

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

because it seemed to me like it would be a waste to spend my limited time worrying about my death

It's not so much my death I'm worrying about — again, there are times I consider hastening it to the present — but the utter purposelessness and futility of my existence. Why live another 30 (miserable) years, when there's just no point to any of it? When no matter how much longer I live, it won't amount to anything?

perhaps a similar approach of trying to focus on the good things

What good things?

and enjoy them

That would require that I enjoy something. I don't. Nothing brings me enjoyment. Every moment I continue to draw breath is misery… and it will always be this way. I will never be happy. There will never be even a moment of joy between now and my death, only pain.

So why keep going, if not for some purpose? For some reason to keep going through this miserable existence, instead of just ending my suffering now? But I don't have one that I have any hope of pursuing.

(And don't recommend meds or therapy. This is me on meds, and I'm seeing a therapist pretty regularly.)

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

So are you an Anglophile?

Not especially, particularly given the state of the British Monarchy since, well, the "Glorious Revolution," really. (I'd argue, in particular, that the whole point of bringing in Georg Ludwig of Hanover, thanks to the Act of Settlement, was to prevent there from being a real monarch — note how Walpole emerged then.)

How did you come about to becoming a monarchist?

Lots of various things. My entire time in public education was an endless fight with administrators, which left we with a deep and abiding hatred of bureaucracy. Later, reading Max Weber had me understanding that bureaucracy is a product of Weberian rationalization, which is itself a core component of modernity and the "Enlightenment." A couple incidents in junior high disillusioned me as to America's pretensions to equality and classlessness, as well as the entire idea of "rule of law."

I went to college in Southern California, where I met real Blue Tribers (who weren't just rich teenagers poorly aping their parents politics), and realized that they weren't a bunch of naïve-but-well-intentioned over-optimistic utopians a la Sowell's Conflict of Visions and Pinker's Blank Slate, but a different tribe, one very, very hostile to my own.

I was raised with the lower-class "redneck" American suspicion of government. (Yes, I know this sounds paradoxical; just bear with me.) With Reagan's bit about the nine most terrifying words. With an understanding that Barney Frank's "government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together" is utter nonsense. Government is not "us." Government is them. Government is the IRS, the EPA, the ATF.

I was given a version of "the talk," about being as polite and deferential to the cops as possible, because every one of them is a Michael Tritter, a petty tyrant who will readily abuse his powers to utterly destroy your life should he feel even the slightest hint of you failing to respect his authoritah. That when seconds count, the police are minutes (or in rural Alaska, hours) away. And yet, at the same time, "back the blue," as it were, because they're still a necessary evil, preferable to the criminal scum they suppress. (Cue the crude metaphor from "Team America.")

Government is the Sheriff of Nottingham, robbing you of much of your harvest for some asshole living up in a castle, because he was born to the right family, and occasionally grabbing your sons to go get killed fighting some other asshole in some other castle — and that's what it will always be. Our illusions that it is otherwise in "our democracy", that it could ever be otherwise, are just that: illusions.

And yes, I read Yarvin back in his Moldbug days. But it was not so much his arguments (I have plenty to say about his proposed solutions to our problems; and how his so-called "monarchy" of a CEO appointed by a shadowy cabal of anonymous "shareholders" to maximize the metaphorical gold extracted from the peasantry, with cryptographic locks on their troops' weapons, and so on, is unworthy of the term), as those of the various prior thinkers he referenced, from Carlyle to Hoppe. (I'm glad I went down the "libertarian to monarchist pipeline" — not that I was ever a libertarian, really — given that at least two other people I went to grade school with (and who were rather libertarian in high school) went down the "libertarian to fascist pipeline" instead, and are now pretty much 1488/GTKRWN types.)

TL;DR: my 40+ years on this earth have taught me that democracy is a sham, the American experiment has failed, liberalism is based on a false anthropology, the entire "Enlightenment" project (which is falsely given credit for science and technology that it does not deserve) was a terrible mistake, and that if we are to have the slightest hope of ever expanding beyond this small, fragile (doomed) rock, we're going to have to radically overhaul Western civilization in ways that involve looking heavily at the pre-Enlightenment world. (Along with, I think, some elements of Confucianism, particularly Xunzi's variety of it.)

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

hile the scars from lifting leave you swole.

Again, assuming you don't horribly injure yourself in the process (such as by trying to squat over 300 lbs with bad knees).

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago · Edited 6d ago

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.

"Such guys" will be very rare, basically for all the reasons Tyler Cowen gives in Average is Over for why nobody will overthrow the dystopian future he foresees, despite 80% of the population being utterly immiserated peasants crammed into favelas and subsisting on beans: aging population, ever-improving electronic distractions, ever-broader applications of psychiatric meds (and weed), ever-more omnipresent surveillance and increasingly-autonomous police drones. Then add obesity and lack of fitness on top of that. Most guys with grievances will mostly just numb themselves with video games and porn. I hear AI girlfriends are getting better every day.

Deterrent effect relies on guys being afraid of prison and/or death.

And our society is still well-off enough that very few men will ever end up being that fearless — and I say that as someone with frequent suicidal ideation. Aside from being about to turn 44, I'm pretty much part of the very group you're talking about. And even then, I'm still quite afraid of prison (much more than death).

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.

Nothing. Whether they see that "path forward" or not makes no difference, because they can't do anything about it. They're powerless. They'll keep on doing what they do, because they won't be given any choice in the matter.

Some % of them will accept their lot.

I suppose > 99.999% is still "some %."

The rest, what can anyone threaten them with to 'de-radicalize' them.

Punishment. Escalating punishment. If punishment isn't deterring them, then increase until it does. Impose increasingly torturous consequences.

Wanna bet.

I don't really have money to spare with which to bet, and even if I did, how would we set up terms? You win if, within some period of time, there's a right-wing assassin who proves as popular with the ladies as Luigi, and if not (either no such assassins, or insufficient popularity), I win? How would we define "right-wing assassin" to mirror Luigi — as opposed to, say, "random schizo"? And how would we measure popularity with the ladies?

Edit: That said, I stand by that position, and I'll add this Substack rant from Kulak. As he notes about the Left:

The most senior of your ideologues might get arrested for a few years, then come out only to get millions in donations... If they go away for a decade you can give them tenure at one of your institutes as a reward....

And if they actually do something and die or are captured in the attempt like Sacco and Vanzetti, or the Rosenberg, or Che Guevera, or Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht... You can just celebrate them as martyrs to the cause and immortalize their names no matter how traitorous and guilty they are by the standards of the mainstream justice system or indeed any sane person… And insist that they were actually “innocent” against all evidence if openly endorsing their crimes might not be quite palatable in the social circumstance.

You can just give professorships to the children of your allies who were executed as traitors.... The Rosenbergs’ sons got Tenure in payment for their parents service.

You can just say they were completely innocent and didn't do nothin’ and then also worship them as icons and martyrs of the coming revolution they totally didn’t contribute anything to…

But, he noted, both in that article and over on Twitter, this is only on the left. Over on the right, anyone who resorts to Mangione-style violence is instantly denounced and disowned by everyone, their very memory spat upon by their entire side, even their own parents.

The adoration you see for Luigi is a purely left-wing phenomenon. It only happens on the left, can only happen on the left, and will only ever happen on the left. The right does not do it, and never will.[/edit]

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.

And it's never going away.

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.

So what? They're going to keep providing that economic activity, whether it provides them with a "path forward" to marriage and kids or not, because if enough of them stop providing as to make a difference, they will be forced to start again. And if the force is insufficient, then more will be applied. Where there's a whip, there is a way, and the beatings will continue until morale improves.

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

The inverse operation is ethnic cleansing,

How is ethnic cleansing the inverse of race mixing? After all, don't both, if carried to their full conclusion, result in the territory in question going from two ethnic groups to one?

As you sort of note at the end of your comment, the true inverse operation is ethnogenesis. But how much can that really happen in our modern, ever more mobile, ever more interconnected world?

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago · Edited 6d ago

All of this requires access to a weight set.

Edit: not to mention that in my case, it would probably destroy my knees.

Edit 2:

with any luck you'll be in so much pain you won't have any spare capacity to worry about anything else.

Isn't using physical pain as a distraction from emotional pain the idea behind cutting, and other forms of self-harm?

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

Outbreaks of targeted violence on political figures across the spectrum

What makes you think it would be "across the spectrum"?

and as mentioned above, insufficient police capacity to catch and stop all of them.

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). Second, that just becomes reason to prioritize the "more dangerous" would-be assassins — by which, of course, I mean those targeting left-wing politicians. (Right-wing politicians? Well, don't you know we have a police shortage? Shame we just can't do anything to protect them from these assassins, who are probably all fellow right-wingers, don'tchaknow.)

Don't think that guys aren't noticing how positively many women responded to Luigi Mangione offing a CEO.

Because he's a leftist with a leftist motive for the murder; it wouldn't work the other way around.

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.

Exactly. Between them and women, your "based pro-male" politician's supporters will be hopelessly outnumbered. Women are wonderful, men are expendable.

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 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."

And when this program fails to get them enough votes, because the men who approve of such are outnumbered by the mix of:

women
men who are more moved by "women's tears" than the plight of fellow men
patronage clients of the Establishment (see the recent EBT issue)
elite institutions
anyone else who thinks they have more to lose than to gain from the above

Assuming, that is, that such a person is even allowed in the race to begin with.

Note that there is no real mainstream political figure, ANYWHERE, in ANY country that is able to make these sort of statements.

Have you considered that maybe there's a reason for that? That, first, it might not play as well with voters as you think; and second, even if it could, that maybe the Establishment have tools at their disposal to ensure that any person who would make these sort of statements is totally prevented from ever becoming a "real mainstream political figure"?

By whom.

The Cathedral/Deep State/Swamp. The Ruling Elites who actually decide everything, regardless of what the voters in the sham that is "democracy" think.

They keep trying to do that to Andrew Tate, he still has a voice and following.

And is he running for office? How much electoral sway does that "following" have?

Charlie Kirk was talking about these sort of issues until he died.

And where did it get him?

Matt Walsh brings these issues up too and he's still got a large following.

Same questions as Tate.

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.

First, no, there are other options. Just do like in Europe and engage in "defensive democracy" — make sure both party establishments know not to let such a person ever get on the ballot. Second, I think arresting them would work just fine. First, because it'd be easy to develop any number of pretexts for doing so that the media can "sell" to enough of the public. Second, because what would it not "working out for them" even look like?

And if this person is J.D. Vance

It almost certainly won't be.

how the hell do you expect them to 'shut out' the sitting Vice President of the United States.

In rough order of escalation? Get the GOP to nominate someone else instead. Defeat his campaign with lawfare a la Ted Stevens. Find a legal excuse to remove him from the ballot. Rig the election. Assassination by "lone gunman." Imprison or execute him after he's convicted in Nuremberg-style trials alongside the rest of the "Fascist Trump regime" as part of the start of the campaign to "denazify" America.

Democracy is fake, electoral politics is all kayfabe, the will of the electorate means nothing, us peasant masses are entirely powerless.

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

So, my birthday is tomorrow. Any advice for fighting the "birthday blues"? Particularly around feelings of having wasted one's life, being an utter failure as a human being, and yet likely still having so many more (pointless, futile) years ahead to suffer through?

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

I think we see a political figure arise who notices and exploits the disconnect between the political priorities of the government and the actual political grievances expressed by a majority of men.

Exploits it how, exactly? 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?

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

What are the Ukrainian people afraid of, being conquered by Russia? I mean I understand the process of being conquered is violent and deadly, but post surrender, what are they afraid of?

Well, assuming a friend of mine accurately recounted the views his Ukrainian expat friend expressed to him, having their menfolk killed and their women raped by the vile Tatar hordes, and thus having their pure Slavic bloodlines tainted, as unlike them, the Russians aren't really part of the West, but are the degenerate mongrel halfbreed descendants of Genghis Khan's Asiatic hordes.

If they stuck with Western Europe their Jewish President will just adopt a program of flooding them with 3rd worlders as "Replacement Migration" and they'd be ethnically cleansed inside 50 years anyways.

Well then, you might be heartened to hear that while said expat argues that Putin and his orcish army are the biggest threat to the Ukrainian people, the second biggest threat to the Ukrainian people is Zelenskyy, who was installed by International Jewry to punish and destroy the Ukrainian people in vengeance for the Khmelnytsky uprising back in 1648-1657.

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago

You can vote your faith. Most actual theologies are also complete moral prescriptions. Would it be unfair to say that a secular humanist can't vote their morality?

This might be your view on "separation of church and state." But I've encountered quite a lot of people, over more than 20 years, who disagree. Who argue that no, you can't vote your faith; or, at least if you do, that vote can't be allowed to influence the laws and government, because if it did, that would violate the separation of church and state, because said separation means the government is forbidden for doing anything that originates in religious belief.

I remember it being quite prevalent in the debates about gay marriage. Arguments that since all arguments in opposition to gay marriage are religious in origin, letting them influence the law in any way whatsoever violates separation of church and state. I also remember that when people, in response to these claims that "there are no secular arguments against gay marriage," would present such secular arguments, their interlocutor would note that the people presenting these secular arguments were not atheists, but some form of religious believer. Thus, they argued, the secular argument was, to borrow a phrase, "not their true objection," but a pretextual argument for what was still ultimately religiously-motivated, and thus still barred from influencing the law.

So, it's not just that you have to find non-religious reasons for your preferred policies, it's that sincere religious belief playing any role in them puts them on the "church" side of the divide, to be kept completely away from the state. While, in contrast, your secular humanist can vote their morality, because their morality doesn't involve religion, and thus is perfectly fine being pursued by the state.

Yes, it's all very much an example of the metaphorical 'secularism going from neutral referee in the competition between religions to being a player on the field' transition.

(And, once again, I find myself recommending Winnifred Fallers Sullivan's The Impossibility of Religious Freedom, particularly her conclusion that the only way to make First Amendment religious freedom "work" is by basically reducing it to freedom of conscience plus freedom of worship — you can believe whatever you want about the supernatural, and attend whatever church/synagogue/temple/mosque/etc. you want… but you 'leave it behind at the church door,' as it were, and must behave in accord with broad secular norms outside that.)

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Capital_Room rather dementor-like 6d ago · Edited 6d ago

If you have your own schools, you can disseminate your culture and values more readily to your own children while increasing their retention to the faith, and you can ensure they aren’t reading things that are bad for them. If you have your own town, you can invest in it longterm because you know no one will take it from you, and you’ll actually love the inhabitants; this means a return to traditional architecture and beautiful design. If you have your own feasts and rituals, then you can stave off the ~~demons~~ ~~malevolent spirits~~ socially-infectious vibes that lead the youth down bad paths, eg binge-drinking and gambling and nihilism, while promoting the good path [cf “you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons”]. If you have your own dress code, you will be saving boys endless distraction and girls ~5 hours of thought on their appearance a week (at least!).

And if a hostile state forbids you your own schools, your own towns? If they pronounce your suppression of your youths' "freedom" to go down those bad paths "oppressive" and "abusive"? Or the same with your dress code (which also provides them a nice, visible identifier for targeting your group)?

But, you might say, Christianity survived as minorities under Roman persecution. I acknowledge that, and I first counter with Tokugawa Japan. Then I note (as people often argue whenever I, or other monarchists, compare the level of intrusiveness in daily life of modern democratic governments versus that of monarchies past) that technological and economic progress have been greatly expanding state capacity for centuries at least, that even the most "free" modern states intrude more into daily life of the average citizen than Rome ever could, and thus, any modern state has tools of repression at their disposal that the Romans could only dream of. And the trends in things like drone technology and LLM processing of omnipresent surveillance data make it look to become even worse in the near future.

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