Pongalh
3d ago
I think it's a sign that most westerners are fundamentally unprepared to defend their societies from aggression and stagnation.
Huh? What does Iran have to do with any of the problems afflicting Americans domestically? Sex recession, unaffordable homes, the meaning crisis, woke more broadly? This is just another foreign policy distraction because it's the only thing elite American conservatives have to address their own meaning crisis.
Pongalh
9d ago
Yep. I wrote an article for a website called Topix ~2012 that was very respectfully written, claiming single motherhood was deleterious for children. The focus of the piece was almost entirely ON THE CHILDREN. Putting their welfare first. But it was rejected for "punching down" at single mothers.
Pongalh
9d ago
I remember that. What was unconscionable was the father and his young wife getting it on Bill (or Ted's) room!
Pongalh
9d ago
It's depressing how easy it is to run circles around so many arguments I've heard from women I've dated. But it doesn't strengthen the relationship, i.e. she treats as dispassionate sport and maybe learns something. It just creates bad vibes and results in a breakup. But I can't be with a dullard either, who isn't interested in ideas and arguing, no matter how nice or well-composed or healthy she is. It's a bummer.
Pongalh
9d ago
Interesting. But it seems that younger women are complaining of age gaps more than older women. That's my anecdotal observation.
Pongalh
12d ago
That's pretty cool! I've subscribed. Do likewise if you don't mind: @champagnebulge1
Pongalh
15d ago
Tangential a bit but I set Bad Bunny's performance to what is imo superior reggaeton: the short-lived genre of "acid reggaeton"/"aciton." Chile > Puerto Rico.
https://x.com/DainFitzgerald/status/2022019554441146867
Music by the incredible Uwe Schmidt, or Atom TM.
Pongalh
19d ago
I actually did look into something along these fairly superficial lines a while back. Allow me to be tangential. Did you know dermatologists, cosmetic surgeons and optometrists are the best-looking doctors? General practitioners and iirc pediatricians are the most meh. This from a Gemini Deep Research effort that looked at LinkedIn headshots and assumed thinness, JFK Jr. hair, square jaws, symmetrical faces and such = attractive.
Just thought I'd throw this out there.
Pongalh
1mo ago
I'd be more afraid of being demoralized - and less dramatically, constantly annoyed and frustrated - than killed and maimed, as a cop. The engagement with parts of the public most of us can just walk away from. I'd be eager to take a desk job as soon as possible, actually.
Pongalh
1mo ago
"Ah yes, another one of those elaborate Jewish deceptions..."
The reply said Israel, not Jews. And I've heard that Iran is on the verge of nukes for decades as well.
Pongalh
1mo ago
I'm actually a paying subscriber to that channel. And one other. A dollar a month. Beats a Substack subscription on cost.
But it's a low status thing to admit to watching (much less paying for), even as it gives you a more realistic view as to what police are dealing with, at least relative to getting your information from scripted dramas and non-profit org stats and prog talking points. My more educated, higher income left-leaning friends will watch every last show on Apple TV before they waste their time on that "crime porn."
Pongalh
1mo ago
Right. Seemed a non-sequitur to go from that post to "guess you're cool with police tyranny." To steelman Amadan, that is exactly what you'd do if you're intelligent about politics and sensitive to the implications of its arguments. To strawman, it's a hysterically paranoid progressive reflex.
I like that Peterson point. I sometimes feel my niche or role in the conversational eco-system is to provide antibodies for the left, as the right is already vigilantly watched (in this sense, being correct in absolute sense is less important than providing some balance). I think Matt Taibbi made a similar point about why he's journalistically more fixated on areas of rule not under Republican control.
Pongalh
1mo ago
Pongalh
1mo ago
That's a great point! I'm whipping one up on Gemini now. Good's likeness isn't so, well, good, so far.
Pongalh
1mo ago
I want to pay someone to make a huge mural of Good and Babbit hugging each other in heaven, just to see the reaction. It's also just a warm and de-escalating thing to do. (I mean, in theory.)
Pongalh
1mo ago
I do find it interesting that violent civil disruption abroad is winked at and generates sympathy from the right domestically (whereas the left mostly ignores it, be it Venezuelans or Iranians), but violent civil disruption domestically engenders the opposite feeling from the same set.
Pongalh
1mo ago
Same feeling. I've always known Minneapolis as lily white Scandinavia in the heart of America. My cousins moved there in 1990 and lived there until 1994. I remember the joy of a white Christmas in 91 getting a Super Nintendo, suburban neighborhoods with no fences (which I thought was weird, coming from Cali) and the fun of a summertime skateboarding and hanging out at the Mall of America watching Naked Gun 33 1/3 among other even more throwaway flicks from that year.
To see it as lefty violence - or violence that triggers the left - I'd have never guessed was coming. For something like that I'd have said LA, hands down. Given the recent riots.
Pongalh
1mo ago
Actually, the fact she was being recorded by her partner surely blows that idea out of the water
Pongalh
1mo ago
Defenders of Good seem to think she was part of the protest. That would be wild if not.
Pongalh
1mo ago
It's not what I remember the argument being here. I recall people here saying an equally shitty form of argument coming to pro-trans conclusions wouldn't have gotten a zero. In any case, in both cases the goal posts are moved away or toward the solidity or veracity of the argument made and away or toward "but given procedural conditions and norms that surround the argument-making, she's being singled out."
Right. That's the part I fear. In theory the single elderly can keep each other company, run errands for each other, etc. I'd sign up for some kind of mutual aid society of that type.
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