Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
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User ID: 1864
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
Yeah, I knew asking Jiro to be arsed to write more than two sentences was a pretty monumental ask. You shouldn't be so pessimistic though! Hope springs eternal and all that.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
Happy to, conditional on:
- You bothering to write more than lazy, snarky, single sentence replies to minimize the asymmetry of effort between us.
- Define outgroup.
- Define good faith.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
It's true, although if Asmongold hops on the stage at the RNC and says "The more pain and terror inflicted in the process, the greater the psychic wound sustained on the collective consciousness of these illegals and all others interested in following them, the better" to thunderous applause then is deplatforming really the answer to our problems?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
So no I don't think that the other side of immigration is doing anything in good faith.
As evidence that your outgroup is acting in bad faith, you bring up legislation from 40 years ago. 2/3rds of those voters are probably dead, while the majority of voters today (myself included) weren't alive or were far too young to vote for your compromise. Your imagined voter who supported amnesty in the 80s knowing that we'd be in the situation we are today as part of some dastardly bad-faith plan to bring in more illegal immigrants is nonexistent.
"But Chris!" you say, scurrying back to your bailey, "I didn't mean voters today are acting in bad faith because of legislation from 40 years ago, I'm saying they push compromises in bad faith knowing that they're meaningless and we'll be back where we started 40 years from now! How could you not parse that from my two sentence effortpost that I worked on meticulously to avoid any ambiguity?"
To which I say, you aren't offering any evidence that these compromises are offered in bad faith, you're pretending to read the minds of your outgroup and ascribe the worst possible impulses to them. I believe that the majority of Americans support a middle path, flanked by people like the one I replied to and open borders folks. Biden, the media, and a majority of voters all knew the administration had a problem with immigration leading up to the election which is why they tried to craft a compromise to address it. You won't get a mea culpa, but it was pretty obvious throughout the summer that the status quo was unsustainable.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
13d ago
The following is a nakedly partisan take, but that's because you asked for a poll of opinions. These are my sincerely held beliefs; there's no room for anyone to argue me out of them, but I'm not expecting anyone to share it, either: there is simply no good faith left at all in my heart. my political opponents, and they will never operate in good faith. There is no negotiation in existential conflict. There is only the will and the power to act.
'You see Charlie, these liberals are trying to assassinate my character. And I can't change their mind. I won't change my mind, because I don't have to. Because I'm an American. I won't change my mind on anything, regardless of the facts that are set out before me. I'm dug in. And I'll never change.' For your viewing pleasure - one of my favorite clips, and not even for that quote.
Every time I read one of these pathetic tough guy screeds, my first thought is to laugh at the absolute lack of self-awareness. 'Reee, my outgroup is full of animals who would never compromise or act in good faith! This justifies me never acting in good faith either. I can't wait for my fellow citizens to get mown down by the stasi for disagreeing with me!'
My second thought is to reply, 'Say it louder, and into the microphone, please.' Seriously. Go hop on Fox News and give an interview about how you want to shoot protestors and cruelty is the point and God praise Donald Trump. Write your angry, impotent screeds and spread them as widely as possible - under your real name if you can. There's really nothing better for democratic electoral odds than platforming people like you.
Or, and I hold little hope for a week-old-probably-troll account, you could dig yourself out of your sad little internet radicalization hole and stop holding so much hate in your heart. I guarantee your life would be better for it.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
14d ago
'I hate it,' quoth the hater.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
14d ago
I haven't seen you around for a bit and am happy you're still here.
I've been here the whole time. Lurking is just my natural state. This is the only forum I've participated in across thirty odd years on the internet.
What's your personal solution to this problem?
It's always been easy on a personal level. I have some innate affinity for and take pleasure from responsibility, returning the shopping cart, and working towards the flourishing of family/community/nation/humanity in that order. I appreciate that this is not a generalizable solution, although it's one I wish we could evangelize.
If one's moral framework is entirely built around one's own pleasure and benefit (or limbic gratification as you say), then sure, none of the above matter and anything I say will fall on deaf ears. There's no logical argument I can provide to convince you that I'm right. But frankly, not calling your parents or raising your children or treating your wife well or reading books or staying fit is, for lack of a better term, a bitch move, no? At the risk of typical-minding after already admitting I'm weird, I think nearly every man has this urge or understands what I mean when I say that.
Both sides of the aisle generally agree that the left fails to provide role models for men. Someone needs to wrest the banner of self-improvement, fitness, hygiene, stoicism, etc. from the Tates of the world and divorce it from the more toxic aspects of masculinity.
They just need a better physique and more charisma than I can muster.
Carrying on, one of my major frustrations in modern discourse is that there doesn't seem to be much individual reflection on what the point of life (or anything) even is, let alone widespread agreement. "Gratifying the human limbic system" seems to be what we're settling on and that puts us squarely in OP's dilemma.
The time is ripe for the birth of a new religion. Gather thy flocks, and adapt thy sermons to tiktok.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
14d ago
You started your post with:
Why Should I Care? To provide some context, I've been in a bit of a malaise for the last few days, having had a rough week at work, and I get into a spiral of fantasizing about quitting my job when the thought hits me - why, exactly, do I even care about the job? Why do I actually care about contributing to society?
You followed up with 20 different ways society fails men, whom you depict as passive victims in your narrative. None of these actually answer the question you started with - okay, in the past men could be decidedly average and the church would still furnish them with a doe-eyed virgin and 20 acres of land on their 18th birthday. Even if you and all the NEETs lived in that world, what's the point of getting married? Of having children, raising them well, working to feed yourself? Why do you bother to call your elderly parents?
If your answers were orgasms, economic utility, economic utility, not starving and I don't talk to my parents on a regular basis then your problems run a lot deeper than dating market hard and my life is pointless because the state won't let me starve. If you don't want to do your job then don't, but quitting to pick pineapples isn't going to make you any happier until you find something larger than your own ego and physical pleasure to live for.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
14d ago
Welcome back.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
18d ago
If what you're doing deserves to be treated with dignity and without antagonism, you should not be shamed! In fact, it will probably be very difficult to shame you if you actually know that you're conducting yourself in a dignified fashion and feel strongly that the people who suggest otherwise are in the wrong.
I doubt this very much. Someone immigrating from a country where women are expected to bare their breasts in public would be readily shamed walking around downtown NYC. Conversely, I've met women in the Peace Corps who ended up in countries where they were shamed for wearing shirts and went with the flow, despite their discomfort. A hedge fund manager would be shamed mercilessly were he transplanted to a trailer park in a suit with a briefcase full of whatever they put in their briefcases, and a trailer park bro would be shamed for driving his ATV around Martha's vineyard. Self-righteousness won't get you very far if you're literally being ostracized by every person you meet.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
23d ago
I wasn't talking of Canadian perceptions. Are you playing for pity now with this ridiculous «nuh-uh»? Yes it was.
Your link is showing data from 2020. Your initial argument was:
How have the last 20 years been for them? Are they famed for their Deep State? I rest my case.
So, despite 15 years of supposed collapse it is still one of the most popular countries for people to emigrate to. Clearly, even taking your arguments at face value, they aren't coming here because the country is 'well-run,' or because the deep state is (in)competent. Your entire argument is internally incoherent.
But Canadians were endlessly preening about their moral superiority and greater civility and safety, too, much to the consternation of Americans.
None of which have anything to do with the government, or how well the state is run? The people believe that they are better than the stupid uncultured Americans, while the Canadian government widely (and correctly) recognized as an inefficient nightmare that completes everything massively overbudget and years behind schedule. This has been true for decades.
You want to prove me stupid and ignorant on every turn
Stupid no, ignorant in same cases, but a massively overblown ego always. Which makes you say stupid things, in a way that's fun to read.
If you think otherwise, make some concrete predictions for the next few years based on your grand narratives, and let's see what happens.
Now even first generation immigrants flee south for better opportunities
Brain drain to America has again been a problem for decades, and the trends are dead flat prior to the pandemic. Meanwhile, US emigration to Canada increased in the same timeframe you're discussing.
the government barely has popular mandate,
In the last 25 years there have been more minority governments than majority. Nothing has changed.
there's increasingly not-jokey talk about Alberta accepting American annexation.
Are you aware of two prior actual referendums for a province to separate from the dominion, the second of which failed to pass by a hair? A province that was much more valuable to the country at the time, and that still has a larger fraction of national GDP? The second of which was supposedly during your 'well-run' state period? Yet you talk about Albertan annexation by the US when 2/3rds of the province opposes independence, let alone US annexation. Do you just write this based on reddit vibes or something? Come on man, it's all nonsense. I'm out.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
24d ago
Canada used to be seen as a “nicer America”, an uncontroversially well-running state.
No, it didn't. Or if it was, it was by ignorant people living half a world away teaching your high school geography class. This is so far from Canadians' self-conception that at least on this point, I can confidently say that you have no idea what you're talking about.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
24d ago
If either or both of them dedicate significant resources to striking at each other, then that will confirm that the breach is serious in nature, and that will bode extremely ill for my faction.
...why? I mean, firstly, 'significant resources' is load-bearing here in a way that's difficult to falsify. Secondly, I recoil at the use of 'my faction' (where's the guy who was trying to address the address the hate in his heart with his pastor, or something like that?) but I guess that ship has sailed. Thirdly, what does it matter to you whether Trump cancels Elon's contracts or Elon doesn't show up for republicans next election? Your coalition is the same, the people who vote for guns and the people who vote for abortion and the people who vote for whatever else will turn out in 2028.
Either way, I'll go way out on a limb and predict that the presidency goes D in 2028, without knowing who either candidate will be. In the grand scheme of things, Elon-Trump beef is irrelevant.
this would be evidence that our leadership is fundamentally dysfunctional, and I would expect that to manifest in other ways in relatively short order.
Again, why? Obviously your leadership is fundamentally dysfunctional - how can you read what Elon and Trump are tweeting at each other and conclude anything else? Would you ever behave that way, let alone behave that way if you were representing a nation? They're just dysfunctional in ways that you or your 'faction' approves of.
What updates beyond this would you recommend?
You should probably update on at least the stability of Elon. Whether the drug of choice is ketamine or culture war, something degraded significantly in the last couple years, and I say that as a papa Elon fanboy.
I'd say you should probably update on Trump as well, but I expect you already think he's bonkers and love him anyways or you'll never change your opinion, so that's probably not a worthwhile conversation.
thinly-veiled
Was this meant to link to a pop song? If so, the reference went over my head.
Where do you expect the thinly-veiled minecraft references to be directed?
From Trump supporters, towards Elon.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
24d ago
It'll probably prompt Rightists to make thinly veiled comments, if it keeps going. About minecraft.
You often talk about worldview, predictions, updating, etc. Do you have an update to your worldview based on this thread?
Indeed. I can forgive you for this one instance, though.
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