CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
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User ID: 333
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7mo ago
But the things that seem obvious to us aren't always obvious to people until they've been taught, especially in a culture where we obsessively shield young people from all sexual topics so they have no idea what they're doing. There really is a role for education there, as one among many avenues.
Why don't we teach young women 'please never send mixed signals to men about your sexual interest as ambiguous coquettishness muddies the water around consent'? Why is it 'No means no and if you don't have a yes, it's a no' in the face of all observed human mating practices? All the responsibility for miscommunication around consent is placed onto the shoulders of men by the groups advocating 'education'.
To be fair, I do think there should be some education about consent in the basic Sex Ed taught in schools, but it shouldn't be the ideologically captured garbage that is pushed now (eg 'enthusiastic consent' or its rape). There are consequences to not having any nuance around this delicate subject. As it stands there are a certain amount of sensitive empathic young boys who will take the narrative at face value, twisting their sexuality into a pretzel in order to never violate a girls consent, or even make her uncomfortable by making a pass. This is a recipe for involuntary celibacy and dissatisfaction on both sides.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7mo ago
Continuing on with The Motte's theme of the week, the Australian Federal Government has given the online dating industry a year to implement a 'voluntary' code of conduct in the face of 'online sexual violence' or presumably face regulation.
This ultimatum seems to be motivated by “An investigation by the Australian Institute of Criminology last year found three-quarters of online daters had been subject to some kind of online sexual violence in the past five years.”
Finding the referenced report 'Dating App Facilitated Sexual Violence' (their term, not mine) seems to include amongst other acts:
- Pressured the respondent to give them information about their location or their schedule
- Continued to contact the respondent even after they told them they were not interested in having a relationship with them
- Pressured the respondent verbally to perform unwanted sexual acts (eg making promises, lying, repeatedly asking or insisting etc)
- Sent the respondent an unwanted sexually explicit message
- Sent the respondent an unwanted sexually explicit photo or video of themselves
- Pressured the respondent to meet them in person when they did not want to
Australia, is usually a follower of countries like Canada and the UK when it comes to these sorts of policies, but it does occasionally become the first mover when there is the chance of getting a cheap political win (and to seem like it is doing something in the face of more serious issues such as the housing crisis).
The linked news article is kind of buried down the state news media's front page and references the federal government's karen social services minister who has previously worked on 'cyber safety' committees. There is a fair chance this is a complete nothing burger that will blow over and is just the govt making noises rather than actually intending to follow through, but time will tell.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
It's just standard internal vs external Locus of Control.
It doesn't matter what your politics or background is. An external locus of control is poisonous and will result in worse outcomes over your lifetime.
This concept gets obfuscated with people trolling 'just pull yourself up by your bootstraps' when there are clearly external factors preventing success. Even in those cases when the deck is stacked against you, you are better off doing what you can with what you have rather than just giving up and succumbing to Learned Helplessness.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
5mo ago
On the back of prior discussions about forced 'voluntary' reporting of sleep apnea diagnoses in the State of Maryland in order to qualify for a drivers license, I'd like to draw attention to something similar happening with autism diagnoses in Queensland, Australia. Last year there was an update to the Assessing Fitness to Drive standards to list autism as a medical condition deemed to have an impact on driving.
“As a result, psychologists say people are now cancelling their autism assessment appointments because they fear the legal and financial consequences of not disclosing their condition — while others argue the new standards are "discriminatory" and unfairly target people with autism on the basis of their diagnosis, not their driving ability. “
...
“While the 2022 Assessing Fitness to Drive (AFTD) standards apply across the country, a Queensland law called Jet's law, introduced in 2008, requires drivers to disclose any medical condition that is likely to affect their ability to drive safely — and in some cases obtain a medical certificate to prove they are fit to drive.”
...
“According to the state's Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR), autism was added to the list of reportable health conditions in 2012. Drivers who fail to obtain the medical clearance face a maximum A$9,288 fine and possible loss of licence.”
There's a fair bit more in the article that goes on about a few individual cases, but the gist of it seems to be that in the state of Queensland you need to provide medical clearance to drive from your doctor to the TMR (DMV) if you wish to apply/maintain your license once you are dignosed with autism. Most other Australian states seem to have a more reasonable 'you are legally required to report any ongoing condition that effects your ability to drive' standard.
In Queensland it seems like the above stated “Jet's Law” came about when someone with epilepsy had a fit resulting in a car crash that killed a baby and left his brother in a wheelchair for life. So this law was created To Do Something that then through bureaucratic ignorance has expanded to include other conditions such as autism as the Assessing Fitness to Drive standards were used as a list to determine what these conditions were. And then people have possibly decided to stop being diagnosed rather than deal with the hassle/stigma of reporting.
This is just so banal and unjust that someone diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum would then have to report that straight to the government or risk being fined thousands of dollars and stripped of their ability to drive. Luckily there is some pushback with a guy in the above link apparently filing a case with Queensland's Human Rights Commission, but still, it shouldn't have gotten this far.
Edit: fixed formatting
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
1yr ago
'The reason you're failing with women is because of your negative attitude' is a pretty common trope response to any discussion men have around about structural problems with dating in modern society. As is women taking critiques about female behaviour in the dating world as a personal affront.
Men having mask off discussions like in this thread do not (for the most part) bring negative attitudes to their interactions with women. Quite the opposite, their acceptance of the modern dating environment acts as a pressure release for any resentment they feel towards women.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
9mo ago
Yes, the failure of many men was in not screening the mothers of their children for acceptable behaviour before knocking them up.
After doing a bit of reading it seems that Jonah Hill actually just dated the surfer girl for a year, stated his boundaries after observing unwanted behaviour, and they broke up for that reason (good for him). He then moved onto his current partner with whom he now has a child.
I don't blame Jonah for saying what he said in the way he said it. He said 'if you need to do these things, happy to support you, but I'm not the partner for you'. He was probably mildly insecure, but if stating those insecurities as boundaries is classified as abuse in a relationship then I would say 80%+ of women are guilty too (and a large percentage of men). I doubt he was talking about staying away from 'any friend he hadn't pre-approved of' (additional link with more texts giving context). From the additional texts it seems likely he was talking about guys hitting on her while she was surfing and her not extricating herself from the situation. She was 25 when they were dating, so pretty fair if she didn't know how to handle overly flirtatious men yet.
In contrast Keke's partner kind of brought it on himself by criticising her behaviour on Twitter. I don't know what he was thinking I think posting private relationship discussions publicly pretty much destroys your own reputation as someone safe to date by a large percentage of the population.
You shouldn't need to tell your partner what is acceptable behaviour regarding other men. Trying to change people is a recipe for disaster. Even if wild players/playettes change their behaviour in the early phase of a relationship (perhaps due to limerance or pair bonding), they're likely to eventually revert back to their old ways. As the old PUA saw goes 'you can't turn a ho into a housewife'.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
8mo ago
It's being used as a rhetorical attack to discredit Jefferson and Poison the Well. "Jefferson was racist, ergo a bad person and all of his works are now discredited." It's not a truth finding expedition being made in good faith, but rhetorical culture war.
"Why won't my opponent concede when he knows I'm using rhetoric?" isn't really a fair question.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
1yr ago
I believe 'poor mail order bride' will be conflated with 'professional agentic SE Asian wife' for the same reason that 'possible sex trafficked victim' is conflated with escorts. Its gatekeeping of women's power in controlling men through their sexuality. If men are shamed into not accessing foreign wives then it keeps the value of western women sky high.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
6mo ago
I’m paraphrasing, that there are mentally ill or damaged women who will make those kinds of accusations, and the only thing a young guy can do is not have sex with damaged or mentally ill women.
Strangely enough, this license isn't given to male rapists to portray them as 'damaged or mentally ill'. No, rapists are completely culpable. Actually the men around them are culpable for the act too.
If she’s an upset, needy person and you [expletive] her and then the rumor starts going around school, she might need to, for the defense of her reputation, say, “He raped me.”
This is literal apologia for a false rape accusation; "she might need to". Ok if she needs to commit a crime to protect her reputation, seems like she gets a pass.
I'm being a bit trite here and I know this conversation is framed towards actions that men can take to protect themselves. I'm actually a fan of internal loci of control and would give similar advice to young men. My issue here is just that this attitude is clearly unidirectional and feminists in the majority would never give practical advice like this towards women to keep themselves safe from rapists. Including avoiding spending time with 'damaged or mentally ill' attractive men.
Everything about the exchange in the article is to preserve hypoagency to be used as a shield by women if necessary. Someone else has already coined this term, but this sort of 'Schrodinger's Agency' where women can be agentic or not according to whether it suits them in the particular circumstances (even applied or withdrawn retroactively) is one of Feminism's great Motte and Baileys.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
6mo ago
My views largely align with yours. I wish Australia had true freedom of speech backed in our Constitution. Alas, looks like I'll have to settle for your rules applied fairly your rules selectively applied to benefit you.
This is a great example of selective enforcement and Who Whom. White nationalists would never be allowed to undertake the same protest. Particularly without filing a 'Form 1' with NSW Police (or Notice of Intention to Hold a Public Assembly) as was the case with the Pro-Palestinian rally.
Beyond this, this type of ethnic tension is endemic in multi-cultural societies. As I said recently regarding the Sikh assassination in Canada, political agitators who cannot leave their old countries' grudges at the door when emigrating to the West should fail the character test and be denied citizenship.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7mo ago
The Motte isn't unique in this, but it's one of the forums where people either first come across heterodox concepts or a place where people can grapple with those ideas in plain sight of people that can correct their faulty reasoning. I expect The Motte will continue to rehash discussion around identity politics, social justice, the jewish question and the like for as long as the forum lasts.
After participating in the early Manosphere, I hear some of its most refined arguments still being spouted in a repackaged format by slick influencers such as Chris Williamson and Andrew Tate. But for a 20 year old without that background who is feeling his way past The Narrative and looking for alternatives I can see that those concepts are evergreen in their appeal. I continue to come across young men socially who are desperately looking for someone they can discuss red pill and anti-feminist theory with, without committing social seppuku. So it goes.
To add some more context to this post, there is currently a huge flare up in the modding community with Nexusmods (one of the largest modding communities and hosting sites) banning 'anti-woke' mods for some of the recent AAA releases of Starfield and Baldurs Gate 3. Besides the example of the BG 3 mod above, a recently banned Starfield mod involved the removal of pronouns during character creation.
Based on the past banning of a mod for Spiderman Remastered (involving the replacement of LGBT pride flags with American flags), Nexusmods' justification for banning anti-woke mods is as follows:
"We aren't the authority on what users can and cannot mod. Us removing a mod only means it cannot be found at Nexus Mods, nothing more, nothing less. We also note that we are not the only site that has removed this mod from their platform. As a private business, we have a right to choose what content we do and do not want to host on our platform. Respect this right the same way you want respect for your rights."
Starfield Steam discussion forum is currently a raging dumpster fire of trolling, woke and anti-woke commentary.
/r/kotakuinaction, one of the residual anti-woke communities still around after gamergate, has a lot of discussion about the forced inclusion of diversity in gaming issue and seems to 'follow the money' of forced diversity in modern games into the prevalence of ESG scores attracting investors.
Edit: Large discussion thread of this issue in the Starfield Steam forum here.
if Canada really wants to pick a fight with an otherwise neutral/positively inclined major nation.
The framing of this that Canada is the one starting things is poor form. I'm surprised considering your desire to emigrate to greener pastures to not consider the consequences of events like this.
In Australia, we occasionally have these sorts of flare ups of major nations with a large emigre population violating our sovereignty because, basically fuck you that's why. The calculus of the meddler is ostensibly 'well they aren't a major security or economic partner so who cares. What are they going to do?'
Nothing gets people from multicultural countries who are neutral on large immigration to turn anti-immigrant faster than immigrants' mother countries exerting their will in our home. Recent local examples of this involve China sending police officers to police chinese immigrants in Australia, framing it as a benign outreach service used for issuing drivers licenses and the like. Except without having a fixed address. Or notifying the Australian Government..
I despise Trudeau, but he's speaking to the local population and absolutely if push comes to shove he will tell India to fuck off in diplomatic speak, because to do otherwise would be political suicide. Middle powers cannot sanction effectively as independents, but there are often diplomatic blocs to exert influence precisely to stop this sort of casual disregard for civil unrest in targeted nations.
Edit: A couple of words for clarity.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7mo ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something solve a problem, when his salary depends on his not understanding solving it."
I agree with your basic premise. If I'm being charitable I believe that many in the grievance industry are probably mostly unconscious of the fact that this is one of their motivators. Other complications in some cases may be the personal drive to re-enact some past trauma. In other words, I'll make a partial allowance for mistake theory here.
That said (conflict theorist hat on), I believe there are absolutely some cultural parasites that are very aware that they are sociopathically burning the commons' social cohesion and trust (Assibayah?) in order to make a living. Empathy exploitation is being weaponised to this end and sadly western cultures don't currently have enough anti-bodies to this type of grift.
I can see some cases where ethnic diversity would genuinely help in gaining access to new markets.
I know a Chinese Malaysian girl who came to Australia 10 years ago. Reasonably proficient in English, but fluent in Mandarin and Malay. She has an understanding of business hustle that is far beyond what many people from the local Australian culture have (which is based on going to uni and getting a good career; as compared to starting your own business.)
Because of this, she has years of experience in sourcing manufacturing direct from Chinese factories and an understanding of the tastes and predilections of consumers in Malaysia. Australian born executives in the major retailer that shes contracted to had no idea how to directly commission products, or organise drop shipping from factories in China. She also has a better understanding of the scalability of eCommerce platforms in larger markets (Australia is a small market at ~25 million people compared to many countries in Asia. There are big profits to be made if you posture yourself correctly, but who knows how to do that when the culture and language are so different?)
tldr; People from other countries and ethnic backgrounds can have knowledge that is unavailable in a homogeneous society.
But would this apply to women, LGBT, people with a disability etc? Probably not beyond their tastes and needs as consumers/users. And would it work at scale? Would more than 1 person from Malaysia be able to provide more information? Would a person from Nigeria be able to provide the same value with knowledge of African markets and customs?
Edit: added a bit more info.
My issue isn't that the lead women had trash personalities. I'm actually really happy when #currentyear writes women and minorities as bad people. The issue is largely that the lead characters seemed to be badly written male characters that were gender swapped.
Also the 'murderer(s)' breaks suspension of disbelief. It's just a badly written detective show that some bright executive thought it would be a good idea to bolt the franchise's name onto.
Edit:
But what has happened is that many critics, podcasters, even Issa Lopez, the director, are blaming the backlash on sexism and misogyny.
This was a forgone conclusion. The finale thread on /r/TrueDetective has a few comments (cough) predicting this deflection.
This is pre-emptive risk management and generally good security governance.
Protests can spring out of the air with little warning, so they are educating staff before they arrive at work one day and come across protestors blocking the entry of their facility. It may never happen, but if it does they are minimising the risk to their staff (and also possible compensation claims for not doing everything they reasonably can to provide a safe workspace)
Large organisations often have security advisors (either internal or consulting on retainer) that serve as early warning for this kind of thing.
Edit: If you ever find yourself confronting protestors, that advice is pretty good. Don't engage or talk to them; a career protestor has likely been arrested before and has little reputation to lose, unlike yourself. They can do all sorts of dirty tricks like spit on you and then have their friends record your reaction for a nice little propaganda video to go up on Twitter/Youtube. Talking to protestors without media training and authorisation from the organisation can embarrass the company and lead to consequences for you. Basically any interaction in a situation like that would possibly be recorded, (edited in the worst possible way) and signal boosted on social media. The play book for issue motivated groups has been refined and shared since the 60's.
In the worst case, just turn around and go home. Email your boss that you couldn't make it to work due to the protest. They will be happy for you to work from home or even just take the day off. Chances are you'd find an email directing you to do this anyway if you checked your inbox.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
10mo ago
It's just hypoagency at play. Women aren't considered as responsible as men. This is how you end up with craziness like 'No jail for women' and the like.
Also Feminism is one of the big original Motte and Bailey ideologies. 'Feminism is the radical idea that men and women have equal rights' in theory vs being a pro-advocacy group for women in practice.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
10mo ago
In many cases, we've already helped teams reopen with no action beyond a conversation.
The language used in this media piece is just * Chef's Kiss *.
I think many users will be against the quisling mods who usurp power. I don't think it will be enough for most people to abandon the site, but there will be a small exodus continuing the site's slow decline.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
6mo ago
ABC (the Australian one) has a votemap by electorate. Unsurprisingly, electorates with the highest aboriginal population roughly correlate with an increased NO vote.
Heavy YES votes were concentrated in progressive areas, particularly those with low aboriginal populations (such as in inner Melbourne and Tasmania).
As discussed, there is muted sniping that this is somehow a racist result, rather than people voting against any group being given special privileges above other citizens, or against deliberately ill defined powers and the likelihood of additional spending being given to first nation people.
Aboriginals have been allocated additional resources and spending for multiple generations and still face huge disparities in quality of life and success (insert standard HBD argument here). Australia already has a federal ministerial portfolio to address their needs. Of course after all of this focus being met with little success, progressives wish to pour even more money into the pit by backdoor means such as through the voice to parliament. Thankfully it didn't pass the sniff test and Australians (for all of their cultural flaws) seem to still have working bullshit detectors. For now.
The response and escalation of this whole thing is completely disproportionate and seems to be part of the recent 'Violence against Women' moral panic.
Frankly I find it pretty disgusting that the politicians and media have used this to get some easy free points at the expense of minors. Meanwhile kids are running around stabbing people and it doesn't draw the same level of vitriol that these boys did for their poor choice of category names for their ranking system.
Edit: Two of the boys have now been expelled. Can't really blame the principal once it exploded in national media, but I think this should have been a suspension at worst.
Can anybody enlighten me why people aren't more curious, why they're happy for children to be groomed into lifelong medicalisation, with their life choices pre-emptively narrowed before they even understand what consent means?
People in the West are generally conditioned to be rule followers who defer to authority. This indoctrination starts as soon as children go to school where they are punished for minor infractions in their behaviour. Squabbles with other students that reach the stage of bullying are meant to be resolved by the authority figure (which of course often ends up in just punishing both parties). In many cases, socialisation is a foundation of western civilization, and in many cases allows for the development of behaviours that will lead to higher education, being a good citizen and having good life outcomes for the recipient. The same pathways however, can be programmed too deeply leading to oversocialisation, a lack of independent thought and even a lack of agency.
There is a significant amount of deprogramming needed for oversocialised people before they can undertake truly independent thought and action in the face of the current zeitgeist. To stand against the tide of the government, experts, friends and family requires a certain mental framework that takes time to cultivate unless you were resistant to the socialisation process.
I remember in my early 20's being fairly progressive and it actually being emotionally painful to hold beliefs that weren't in line with social expectations. I didn't really have a guide, but started trying to grapple with what I believed were 'difficult and unpleasant truths' in a difficult and painful process that eventually allowed me to vomit up a lot of progressive beliefs that weren't in line with reality. I lost deep friendships because of this change even though I was actually doing most of the process by stealth, and pragmatically just masking up to 'hide my power level'.
After seeing how much pain I went through to get to where I am, I can completely understand why many people would have aversion to challenging their socially acceptable beliefs. To be more specific, complete acceptance and encouragement of the self-identification of their children and trust in the 'experts' advice (child psychologists encouraging transition) is currently the socially acceptable belief among 'educated' progressives.
I can't really think of a good counter-body to all this except mentor/guardianship which encourages critical thinking and independent thought during a child's formative years. Don't allow oversocialisation to take root in your kids.
Edit: Added a couple of links.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
6mo ago
And it's not appropriate to celebrate those who opposed us in war.
There are many examples in the world of veneration of an "honored enemy". Turkey hosts thousands of descendants of failed invaders every year at Gallipoli. 'Celebration' isn't the correct term to be used. Respect for a worthy adversary who believed in their cause is more appropriate.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
7mo ago
"Im seeing a guy" felt like a small death.
Back when I was doing this sort of thing, I was genuinely happy to get this sort of response from a girl. Particularly when it was after a great conversation and connection that was pretty unfalsifiable in terms of being genuine. I felt that I had been acknowledged as a man and as being attractive. Her being unavailable was irrelevant. Really encouraging.
I had the same feeling when I was involved in a long term relationship and had a similar conversation with a single bridesmaid at a wedding. I was in a different country at the time. Same great conversation and acknowledgment of each other as attractive and I was upfront about being in a relationship. No hard feelings at all on either side.
Don't let this sort of response get you down at all. It's not the same sort of 'rejection'.
The old Feminist trope of 'just teach men not to rape' has been around for years and is a clear non-starter. I used to get really wound up about this (along with lots of other feminist arguments), but now I see it as potentially anchoring a negotiation for additional resources to be spent on women's safety. Not that I find the argument fair or compelling in any way shape or form.
It's another example of feminism exploiting hyperagency/hypoagency when it suits their needs. In this case the argument is that women have no agency around whether they are victims of crime or not and men (as a group) are 100% responsible for the rapes that happen in the world. Men are presumed to have so much agency here that they are responsible for the crimes of other men. You can see this with statements like 'its up to men to stop rape' and dedicated organisations built around this concept.
I'm libertarian leaning and have a strong valuation of agency and an internal locus of control. I despise those that are emotionally manipulative and try to get others to shoulder their personal responsibilities (including the responsibility for personal security). It's probably a large part of why I despise Feminism as an ideology.
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