Quantumfreakonomics
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Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few days. The short answer is, no, Republicans are not shamelessly sexually humiliating their opponents enough to win the election. The long answer is, it’s not enough simply to sexually humiliate one’s opponents, one must imply that one’s opponents have something to gain from giving up or switching sides. The subtext of the “these guys are just weird” campaign is that if you young man simply stop trying to police women’s sexual behavior, you too can get laid. Consider the following:
This woman is a “gender and society” columnist at the Washington Post. The message is clear; submit to power [ours] and you will get pussy. What is the Republican message to young women? Become based or you will grow into a childless cat lady? That could work, but it is inherently a multi-step argument. Frankly, conservative media just isn’t good enough to get across a message that complex.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
This one paragraph explains more about the American political situation than a thousand thinkpieces.
New slogan- Trump/Vance 2024: Stop Changing the Fucking Flags.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I have no idea how serious they are about enforcement, though.
Given that I can't remember any media frenzies about students being disciplined for having gay sex, I can conclude that the level of enforcement is somewhere between zero and zero.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Politics · Trending
#TamponTim
178K posts
God damn it.
I get what they're going for here. Trans is unpopular and weird. Tim Walz signed a law that all school bathrooms (including boy's rooms) have to have tampons available. Totally weird right?
The problem is that no one cares about girls using the boys room. People do care about boys using the girl's room, but that's not what is evoked by the imagery being used. This plays right into the narrative that Republicans are obsessed with controling the female reproductive system.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
“Generic Democrat” and “Generic Republican” almost always beat named candidates in polls. Right now Kamala is running as Generic Democrat, and it’s working. There are probably things Trump could do to take the shine off and put the ball in her court, but his campaign is MIA. What are they even doing? Where are the ads? Where are the memes?
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Can anyone give me the rundown on Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Curtis Yarvin seems to think they were obviously right, and that it was the shameless media pile-on that pulled the term “swiftboating” out of the air and discredited them off of nothing.
I was too young back then to follow this stuff, so I have legitimately o clue who’s right.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I don’t see what’s bad faith about it if he honestly believes what he is saying. Count posted a basic argument in favor of anti-populist forced racial integration. It’s not a great argument; it can be attacked pretty easily, but it is structurally sound. It’s not a fringe opinion either. Lots of people believe the things that Count is saying for the reasons that Count gives.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I disagree with a ban for this.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
This is just how equity markets are. Sometimes they drop 10% for no apparent reason. It’s part of the risk premium.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I'm not sure I have ever seen English-speaking white people looting like this. It's quite disturbing to watch actually.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I mean, people always knew this, but they didn't intuitively grasp the implications. The new electoral meta might be waiting until a favorable pseudo-event happens and then literally hiding in a bunker until the election.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
The pivot to Kamala is looking to be among the greatest political manuvers of the last century. Trump's lead is now entirely gone. Are there any generally applicable lessons here? It seems plausible that primaries are counterproductive, but other than an idiosyncraticly unpopular incumbant stepping aside, I don't know how else to reliably replicate the magic.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Israel has set the bar for bad prisoner exchange deals so low that this feels like a glorious victory in comparison.
You don’t have to win every trade when you’re already way ahead.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
Lots of stratotankers in the air on flightradar24. Something is happening.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I'm no expert, and there are apparently many more disorders of sexual development than I was previously aware of, but the XY thing is the only thing that makes sense. It's not like Algeria does karyotypes on newborn infants before asigning sex at birth. They just look at what's between the legs.
There are likely legal reasons that the IBA can't release the specifics of the test (medical privacy laws are a bitch), but they seem to be hinting as much as possible that this was in fact a DNA test.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
It was not-so-subtly implied.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
If schools instilled the fear of growing up to be childless and dying alone with the same vigor that they instill the fear of not going to college and working at McDonald’s one’s whole life, I suspect there would be more families started.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
“Note to unattached liberal women above 40: you are ugly hags who have lost your chance with men and all your eggs have dried up and nobody will ever value you anymore, you should either beg for some fat alcoholic guy to take you in since that’s the only man you can get, or resign yourself to being a cat lady growing old with nothing to do but dwell on your regrets and what could have been.”
This bit seemed both out of place and oddly unremarked upon. How low does the total fertility rate have to go before this level of shaming becomes prosocial?
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I don't think you can just play the "who is weirder" game. As aesthetically revolting as alphabet people can be, it doesn't push the same disgust buttons as, "these are the people want to be inside you," does to young women.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
2014-Era Neckbeard Shaming is BACK
"These Guys are Just Weird" is the new ad from pro-Kamala super PAC Won't Pac Down. You really do have to watch it to viscerally understand the impact. I am not gifted enough with words to give it justice. It's not clear if this ad will ever air on tv (seems a bit racy for that), but the internet is where modern elections are won or lost.
As grossly offensive as I find the ad, I cannot deny being impressed. Just a few days ago I pointed out that Democrats need better messaging if they want to persuade voters. This kind of appeal to base instinct is exactly what wins elections. The ethos of "when they go low, we go high," sure sounds good at dinner parties, but it likely cost Dems the 2016 election. In some sense, I truly think they were afraid of the sheer effectiveness of Willie Horton. It took Trump to scare them enough to pull out the stops.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I am surprised that you had trouble understanding the economic gap between men and women. Women dominate the economic sectors of health-care and education (especially administration). These are also the two sectors being pumped-up by government-subsidized demand. Of course they won’t vote for the gravy train to end. The male computer engineering graduates aren’t the ones who are expected to default on student loans. It’s the female psychology majors.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
If this data isn't normalized for geographic location (on the neighborhood/zip code level) or income, then all it tells you is that stupid people live in poor areas.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
What do you think is the base rate of dudes in Vance's demographic having ever fucked a couch? I suspect it is a lot higher than you would expect.
Quantumfreakonomics
1yr ago
I just turned on NBC this morning hoping to watch some olympics and the first thing I see is some chick's hospital selfies. I had to switch to USA network showing badmitton to get some action.
I think “DEI candidate” could have been an effective attack. Unfortunately Trump decided to go with “she’s not really black,” which sort of accepts the premise that being black is a notably positive attribute.
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