CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
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CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
1yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
1yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
1yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
2yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
1yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
3mo ago
JD's phrasing is exactly how an underling should disagree with his boss before a final decision is made. I've used similar phrasing before, even to my boss's face and it is entirely appropriately to do so in private (sausage factory) communications.
It isn't disrespectful, it provides an alternative point of view ('have you considered these ramifications..?') and he was very clear that he would support the consensus decision. This is exactly the type of thinking you want in committees like this.
Consider the alternative; pure Yes-manning. Would a leader want a sycophant in his camp? Ok, Trump might, but not in a position like VP. If Vance was like that behind the scenes, trump would not respect him and not delegate power to his VP in the way that Vance has been assigned this administration.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
3mo ago
The Manosphere hasn't been a thing for quite sometime. It's like referring to Suffragettes rather than Feminists. Once it became clear that the term had outlived it's usefulness, individuals splintered into a decentralized ether of male self interest and self development.
Adolescence is just another focus for the usual groups to assign blame for anything and everything to white boys men. Red pill knowledge is framed as something that causes murder, hate and involuntary celibacy. If only boys behaved more like.. well, girls, then we wouldn't have this problem. Lets force boys in schools to watch this series so they can feel even more demonized. I'm sure that this won't have the complete opposite effect of that which the Karens would wish.
I'd better stop here. I've been noticing misandry against men in Western culture for quite sometime, but now it looks like boys are targets too, which makes me a bit upset.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
2yr 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'.
I actually appreciate the first game's inclusion of homosexuality in that manner because it was realistic for the setting and you needed to build a relationship with him (platonic) to get that information out of him. By realistic, I mean that in that time to be homosexual meant that escaping to a convent was a way to avoid execution as a sodomite.
What I don't appreciate is the dumpster fire trying to insinuate that sharing a bath (spa) with your friend in the first game is low key homo-eroticism.
There's this theory that men in the past were actually more comfortable being physically close in a fraternal/platonic way because the potential of homosexuality in the act was unthinkable. It makes sense to me that now homosexuality is ever present, modern men must telegraph their heterosexuality and avoid anything that could allude to homosexuality. This has cut off so much of male/male platonic affection that it's a tragedy.
Edit: There's a 'how are you enjoying the game?' post in the Friday Fun Thread if you guys are playing.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
6mo ago
There are downstream effects that go beyond the financial loss. Basically not enforcing laws for petty crimes can encourage lawbreakers to escalate to more serious crimes. More police means more natural surveillance and deterrence for opportunistic lawbreakers.
You may as well ask 'why pay for any police to enforce any crime that doesn't directly recoup cash into the cities coffers?'
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
1yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
2yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
2mo ago
Correct human mating rituals are covertly initiated by the female. She signals interest or, at the very least, availability. But she does so in a plausibly deniable way. He then perceives the hint, and decides if he wants to pick it up. If he does not, she avoids embarrassment because she can pretend there was no hint. If he does, he can approach with confidence because he has been invited. That's how it actually works. But for this to work, young men need to know how to pick up a hint. And young girls need to know how to drop one.
This was probably the most important lesson I gained from the PUA community (replace 'aerial combat' with pick up and fighter pilots with 'PUA'). Not just the words of it, but the experience of it in repetition to truly grok it.
Learning what Indicators of Interest looked like was critical. In generations past there was all sorts of weird things girls could do to show interest, like dropping a handkerchief, but luckily most can be done with nothing at all and are just as relevant today.
Eye contact was pretty much rule zero for getting a warm opener when approaching a woman. There were a lot of other minor behaviours to notice, like a girl standing in proximity or brushing past you, but at the end of the day, eye contact was always the go-to. What was funny is that I think some girls would instinctively look at you in a particular war and be genuinely surprised when you approached them, but would still be warm. And that 'particular way' is difficult to explain, but I think many people know it when they see it. Some girls knew exactly what they were doing ("took you long enough") and others really believed 'it just happened'.
There's something twisted about the whole 'We want you to know how to approach women. No not like that. You aren't meant to learn, you're just meant to know.' thing.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
8mo ago
Well, he certainly got the timing right.
I'm pretty amazed at Trump's campaign to be honest. Recruiting Elon Musk, RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard and now finally getting Rogan onside (debatable as it's not an endorsement, but the outcome is the same as if it was).
And these are real investments into Trump's success, not just your usual 'celebrity endorses politician' article that is quickly forgotten. I never thought I'd see Elon (awkwardly, as is his way) holding townhalls around the country to promote a politician.
Overall, this is a really interesting election year that is probably only overshadowed by 2016 for craziness.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
1yr ago
It can be worth it to look into the history of tattoos. For some it's an unfalsifiable high cost symbol of permanent allegiance to a group or culture. People like to belong and they're willing to pay the price.
That said, I think Gandalf got it right and so I'm against tattoos for myself:
“For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!'
I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
I liked white better,' I said.
White!' he sneered. 'It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.'
In which case it is no longer white,' said I. 'And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.'”
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
1yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
1yr 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
No one is coming. It's just you.
11mo ago
The only scenario in which it would perhaps go the boy's way is if he was hot, in which case he doesn't need to do that to attract girls anyway.
I found friendzone advice is often better reframed as 'Things I would like a man I already find attractive to do'.
I watched the whole thing. The first hour was a bit hard to get through due to Trump being Trump and 'weaving' some long monologues or rehashing the same tired material we've heard before.
After that though, there were quite a few pieces that I found interesting.
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I really liked when Trump would bring up something that he was clearly knowledgeable about such as regulations and their effects on businesses. His explanation about how environmental consultants (and some lawyers) are incentivized to drag out Environmental Impact Statements and the like, reflects what I've seen about some of this in the real world.
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He seemed to be pro-nuclear and particularly pushing for Small Modular Reactors over (more complex) Large Nuclear Reactors.
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He's clearly got a Principal level understanding of the building industry. Actually it was his aside into how building commissioners would ask him to tear something down if it wasn't built to spec that did this (as well as how he stopped himself going into detail about modern construction materials like reinforced concrete). All this knowledge is great when you want new infrastructure to be built. He can sniff out bullshit when people tell him what can and can't be done.
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I found it amazing that Trump was really nonplussed when Rogan emphatically described how the media and deep state elements had unfairly crucified him. He reacted like he'd been told the sky is blue. He really must just have that baked into his world view by now.
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He really doesn't care about aliens. At all. He seemed to find them so boring it was palpable, while Rogan was wild eyed talking about them.
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It was hilarious how they pretended they haven't been trash talking each other in the past. Bridges have been mended it seems.
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The message is the medium. I mean that in the sense that Trumps ability to do an unscripted 3hr conversation will stand well in comparison to Harris who couldn't do Rogan due to 'scheduling conflicts'.
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I don't know how many new voters this will win over. To be honest I can't see a lot of normies making it through the full 3 hours. The bite sized clips of the interesting parts (JRE clips) will likely be a lot more influential.
After the McDonalds something-burger (heh), this podcast and Kamala's recent lackluster performance, I'm predicting a Trump win at around 55-60% certainty.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
11mo ago
Create a program to fine business owners $3k per illegally employed person. Then use that money to fund deportations and a snitching program where you get a $500 payment if someone is successfully fined under the program.
All of a sudden there would be a mad push to check greencards and legal workers snitching out their illegal coworkers.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
2mo ago
5 and 7 are about building accessibility. If they conflate 'wanting your building to have wheelchair access' with 'I support DEI', they are being willfully dishonest.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
8mo ago
Nate Silver on the Selzer Poll:
Releasing this poll took an incredible amount of guts because — let me state this as carefully as I can — if you had to play the odds, this time Selzer will probably be wrong.
I'm not believing late in the game polls that show large swings out of nowhere. There's been a few influencers that have wisely said 'don't believe anything you see in the news in the last few days before the election.'
Edit: Nate didn't have much good to say about the Emerson poll either.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
8mo ago
Apologies if this has already been covered, but is everyone aware that Trump is recording an interview with Joe Rogan this Friday?
There's bound to be some zingers to fill the news cycle coming out during an interview this big. We have no idea if the questions are vetted, but Rogan is normally pretty adamant about having freeform interviews where he can ask anything.
Some other points:
- Rogan historically has been anti-Trump and Trump has been anti-Rogan. In July 2022, Rogan said "I've had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once—I've said no every time. I don't want to help him. I'm not interested in helping him,". Trump for his part has been taking swipes at Rogan as recently as August.
- Their views on each other have seemingly softened over the past 6 months, with many podcasters recently asking Trump if he'd go on Rogan and him being lukewarm in his response (as compared to negative). Rogan has been evasive about any Trump interview for years, but has been pretty vocal about the mainstream media being coordinated to criticise Trump in the wake of the first assassination attempt.
- Musk hinted the interview would happen a couple of weeks ago.
- There's rumours Harris will also have an interview with Rogan. I can't see her performing well with Rogan's target audience (around 80% male, around 56% under 35yo) as everything she has done is moderated and controlled. That wouldn't work with Rogan's format.
I really think that the deal for this interview was sealed anytime in the last couple of months and its timing was coordinated for maximum effect. You couldn't drop this interview at a better time to affect the election.
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.
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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