burkeboi
1d ago
Have there been any studies on if transwomen/trans-identifying-males who are into women vs men vs both are statistically more violent? I have encountered many trans people in my life. I've even seen an african american male chad have a harem of white transwomen he kept as his 'slaves'. Anecdotally, it seems transwomen who are into women are more interested in violence, as well as traditionally masculine activities, in general. I bet it's an even smaller subset of transwomen where the group of school shooters are drawn.
burkeboi
1d ago
I think the 'more women have more negative experiences with men' and "women's empowerment" factors are often correlated in modern society. One thing that women's empowerment, both the active ideology and industrialization reducing sex rules, results in is men and women directly competing. In the past, they generally had different spheres while today they interact, both as cooperators and competitors, in far more domains. Women's empowerment, both from issues with the sexual revolution and from directly competing with men, causes more calls for even more women's empowerment as a result of direct competition and negative experiences with men. It's less 'women have it better/worse' and more 'there is more surface area now for women to conflict with men than in the past'.
burkeboi
2d ago
And it all leaves the fundamental, core problem. Men have no stake in the continued maintenance of their future if they don't expect to be able to form a family. Why would they throw in their lot with their home country at that point? What's their buy-in?
It seems to me that modern society, and this goes beyond just issues of sex, works by honestly demanding very little of people. I hate taxes as much as the next guy, but I'm a pampered tech worker who works in a climate controlled office. When it comes down to it, I live a very comfy life even if I'm taxed a lot and culturally disparaged. The closest thing I've done to sacrificing my comfortable life is having a kid, and even then I still either work in a climate controlled office or live in a climate controlled house. I'm still comfy. The men and women who become NEETs are in a similar boat. The middle class too. Not much is demanded of most people.
It remains to be seen how modern western society would function in a crisis that does demand broad sacrifice from its people. We are not currently in that state.
burkeboi
2d ago
If you look at a lot of historical feminists, especially the ones further out from the overton window of the time, you often see them abused either by a male partner or a relative. If more women feel maltreated either by male family members or by the romantic/sexual partners, then I think that would drive them to more radical pro-woman identity politics. Given the correlation of divorce and sexual abuse as well as the numerous points women make about the, generally sub-abuse but often criminal, harms they suffer in hookup culture I can very well see a case where women now have more meaningful negative experiences with men than they did in the past.
Writing this, I think it's also important to note that women aren't a monolith and, generally mediated by class, they will have different experiences with men. Underclass women have always had a horrible time almost by definition. I suspect a difference now is that working class on up to even PMC women have a lot more negative experiences with men than in the past, especially if you look at sub-criminal stuff like many hookup culture complaints. If women's collective experience with men is worse than it was in the past, it makes sense they would be more pro-female anti-male.
All this being said, it's a question of margins. I'm Gen Z, and my wife and I voted Trump. There is always a diversity of views and experiences.
burkeboi
2d ago
The dominant strategy for almost any politician, or really any social movement, is to criticize a lot but do nothing so as to avoid accountability. Even if the US gets its strategic goals, which is not a given, all the average American feels is the immediate economic disruption so it'll feel like a loss. Especially if that hypothetical American consumes news hostile to Trump. Actually stopping or hindering Trump gives the republicans a dolchstosslegende they can use to marginally gain back some voters. In terms of pure politics, and even if your goal is maximum blue tribe policies, not interfering with the Iran war is dominant strategy for now.
burkeboi
2d ago
Mexico at #11 right behind the Nordics is interesting. I don't know enough about Mexico to guess how they rank so high.
This does not surprise me. Outside of having a sunny and generally happy physical climate, Mexicans (in general) culturally accept a huge amount of flaws in the world and have consequently low expectations that they generally can meet. Additionally, you have the factor of parts of Mexico being pre-industrial poor and those people moving to modern cities which lets them run ahead of the hedonic treadmill for a while. Low expectations plus a modern, industrial economy seems to be a recipe for optimism. Post WW2 Europe and USA were similar cases of low expectations from war and depression meeting a growing industrial economy.
burkeboi
2d ago
<De Maistre Hat>The authority of marriage collapsed before the no-fault was the law. Before no-fault was the law, people would get around the fault rules by perjuring themselves. Only through the organic growth of successful subcultures will no-fault divorce once again be the social norm. </De Maistre Hat>
burkeboi
4d ago
That's not necessarily true. To say "I'm principally concerned with the wellbeing of a subset of the population of state" isn't the same as saying "I only wish to have a state with this subset of the population." The historical US was a perfect example of this; huge numbers of Americans cared principally about the wellbeing of their subculture and acted to secure their interests, but most were not interested in making their subculture the consensus culture of the US.
burkeboi
7d ago
To expand upon the sanctions point: they are useful in dissuading countries from attempting to obtain nukes since they do cause economic damage. If a country, for whatever reason, is dead set on getting a nuke then the sanctions would not stop them or meaningfully slow them down.
All that being said, this war seems to make it clear that the JCPOA was probably the best deal the US could've gotten without being willing to use more force than any US government could politically muster. It seems to get a better deal involves the US being willing to use more force than it's actually willing to.
burkeboi
7d ago
For almost all societies, there was always some form of welfare for the poor. The amount varied, but the only time I can think of when a society either showed complete indifference or actual facilitation of harming the poor was when the poor was an outgroup. St. Domingue being an example.
burkeboi
7d ago
I'd add to this that there really weren't that many completely infirm/economically useless people back then either. Without modern medicine, even assuming you got past childhood mortality, there were very few people who would've made it to their 60s since a lot of things we handle nowadays, such as early heart disease or infectious disease, would've just been fatal back then. In addition to that, while there was always some degree of welfare in states, the destitute likely would die within a decade due to their weakened constitutions.
It's a good problem to have that tons of people who would've been dead in the past are alive thanks to modern economics and medicine. That being said, their continued living does necessitate a societal negotiation on how resources are distributed.
burkeboi
13d ago
Southern Blacks don't decide elections anymore. NC and GA have lost importance. Dems don't need either state to reach 270. PA, MI and WI are the most important swing states now.
It's not just southern blacks; it's blacks in general. While their percent is smaller in northern states, without their solid black support, the Democrats cease to be competitive. Look at Wisconsin, for instance: the 2020 margin for Biden was 0.5% . From wikipedia, the black population of Wisconsin is 6-7%. If they vote 85-95% Dem, and their voting population is roughly their state population, then their presence turns an R+5 victory into a D+0.5 victory. It's the same story in many other Northern states.
I was curious about how crucial the black electorate is democrats in the north. I asked ChatGPT to crunch the numbers on the non-black electorate in 2020, and it calculated that, in regards to the northern states:
Biden still wins the non-Black electorate in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Maine. He loses the non-Black electorate in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
That's 2020. In 2024, even states like Illinois start to be competitive without the black vote. While I don't think Pete is going to make blacks a republican or neutral constituency, blacks are a necessary part of any Democratic coalition if they hope to win.
burkeboi
14d ago
By that definition, I agree with your predictions. That being said, I'm not sure they will get rid of the filibuster; it's just too useful for politicians since it lets them avoid so much accountability.
burkeboi
14d ago
I'm a bogglehead, so I agree with the approach that in the end, the market will increase. My argument is there likely will be a debt crisis that will cause pain in the future. The pain it causes will be less than the benefits of market growth, however.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that it is entirely possible that behind the scenes information alters the calculus such that most, if not all presidents would have jumped in on this one.
I agree with that. If Iran was within a year of getting nukes, proactively attacking would be within the Overton window. It probably would have been the consensus or near consensus.
It's not popular to consider, but if Iran actually went ahead with nuclearization or was reaching a break point with missile/drone production...both of those essentially "require" intervention if we are to keep with our foreign policy goals.These things are part of the "official" stated reason for the war and are quite possibly actually accurate, even if many Americans aren't happy for them. The underlying motivation might be something like "we have to go now or Iran will be able to destroy Israel and we can't do anything about it. You might be okay with destroying Israel but the U.S. government isn't (at least for now).
While Israeli interests do push the US in a more hawkish direction, I actually think Israel is not the biggest consideration here. If Iran gets nukes, that sets off a chain reaction of nuclear proliferation and really changes how not just people in the Middle East, but quite likely outside the Middle East interact with both nukes and Iranian power. The Saudis will get nukes 0.5 seconds after the Iranians get them. Iran actually having nukes likely just flips the table in very hard to predict ways. That scenario is complicated enough, and calculating the force need to stop it and/or how much force is worth it quickly gets into complex territory.
Once the territory gets that complex, I'd say reasonable and informed minds can disagree and one can really only tell if a war is ultimately a good idea or bad idea in retrospect. While the current war so far, in both motive and conduct, seems like a bad idea to me I wouldn't be surprised if in a year in hindsight it turns out "yeah, it was a necessary if imperfect action."
Additionally Trump and likely any replacement Republican president would be tempted to pull the trigger if it was a near thing and not yet profoundly dire due to a fear of ending up like Biden (in the sense of permitting Russia to attack Ukraine).
I don't think you can say the US meaningfully "permitted" Russia to attack Ukraine. There is a lot of intermediate actions between doing nothing and starting WW3 over Putin's invasion, and the US has consistently aided Ukraine and injured Russia through that aid. If the goal is to discourage violating other nation's territory, the US has definitely shown that it will seriously hurt non-allied nations that do that. I'm not sure any other US president would've acted too differently to what Biden's Administration did since doing nothing encourages territorial revisionism, which destroys the nice pax-Americana we want to keep, and WW3 is too costly for a non-NATO ally.
EDIT: To be honest, I'm also not 100% confident how much AIPAC and pro-Israel sentiment really changes US policy. The Cold War US friendship with Israel, which as Suez showed was not 100% agreement, was mostly utilitarian against the pro-Soviet Arab Socialists. The US was allied to the Arab monarchies for the same reason. Especially given that the Arab monarchies are de facto Allies of Israel, I'm not sure how much US policy would change if every Evangelical and Israel lobbyist suddenly got Thanos snapped away. There are good non-sentimental reasons the US allies with who it allies with.
burkeboi
14d ago
The US has seemingly defied every prediction of its debt being unsustainable. GDP keeps going up,so the debt is inflated away. Those who keep predicting collapse or other crisis keep being wrong.
Looking historically, sovereign debt crises generally are less "things get gradually worse" and more "the fundamentals get worse without affecting day to day operations too much, then a crisis hits and immediate consequences are felt." Generally its multiple different factors gradually building up until you get a polycrisis that makes the debt unresolvable. Will this be the time the bears are right? Looking at their previous predictions, probably not. Without course correction, or a spanner in the works like AGI, will the US in the medium term face a debt crisis? I think quite likely.
burkeboi
14d ago
Ultimately, that's the rub. The greater the return, the greater the risk, and there isn't a reliable way to make high return investments without the risk. Only 10% of the best who best know the market on the planet reliable do better than them over a 20 year window, and most of those folks do worse the 20 years after that statistically. There is no non-luck way to hit a jackpot.
burkeboi
14d ago
It's 6 months before the mid-terms and polls imply a blue wave. In 2018, He had higher approval ratings, a thriving economy and no war....yet he got knocked down by a blue wave.
I semi-dispute this. From what I recall, 2018 was a clear democratic victory but not a blue wave. I suspect that at this point the country is too polarized to have Wave elections at this point. Democrats and Republican were both excited over recent victories that, by Cold War standards, would be considered quite close.
2028 will be very hard to predict. The next (likely Democrat) President will either need to be a great uniter or a technocrat policy wonk.
It seems the trajectory, at least for my lifetime and most of the past 40 years, has been steadily declining quality on both sides matched by increasing venom and promises of injury to the outgroup. I see no mechanism for the Democrats, or the Republicans, to buck that trend any time soon.
burkeboi
14d ago
One of the big reasons I joined recently was to try and recalibrate my understanding of Trump, and really US foreign policy in general. I really did not predict Iran, I used to be a proponent of "Donald the semi-dove", so I clearly needed to update my models.
One political change that I think is overlooked is that the Blob of 2010s and 2020s is a lot different than the blob of the early 2000s. The blob learned from the Iraq war, and pivoted towards either minor interventions, such as Syria and Libya, or just a supporting role, such as Ukraine. Afghanistan certainly was a black mark, but they didn't start anything major after Iraq. They even resisted going into Iran during the later part of Bush II and backed the JCPOA. Once you take into account the Blob's moderation on this issue, they go from "out of touch warmonger" to "interventionist, but within the public Overton Window".
It does reality is the inverse of how many people thought of it from 2015-now: Trump is more aggressive, for better or for worse, than the Blob.
burkeboi
15d ago
They were back together in a month. They would break up and get back together a dozen or so times over the next five years. They had a kid, a lawsuit over custody and child support. Then they got back together, had another kid, got married. Then they separated, got back together, lasted a few more years before getting divorced and what does my genius friend do?
I haven't been able to find data on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some types of cluster B disorders increased fertility. Obviously the selection effect in the past couldn't have been too harsh, given those disorders exist today. Also the phenomenon of BPD women being attractive if a poor choice. I have a distant family member with a similar story, except she aborted her 4 pregnancies.
burkeboi
15d ago
The experience of tons of nations going from capitalism -> communism and communism -> capitalism is that the old boss, more often than not, is the new boss as well. Bad bosses aren't really a solved problem, assuming it even is a solvable problem.
burkeboi
15d ago
Anyway, the problem here is that different thirsts for a person might be mutually-exclusively satisfied by different strategies. She wants several mutually-exclusive things, because the pareto-optimal reproduction strategy has to sort of multithread and jump to whichever option is advantageous at the moment.
I think this is the key point. Women (men as well) want multiple, often conflicting things in relationships. An easy example is a dominant guy who takes what he wants but who also puts her interests first. While maybe not theoretically impossible, in practice dominance and agreeability and conflicting traits, so you have to compromise on both if you only get to pick one man.
I also happen to know that women are substantially more likely to orgasm with partners who beat them than with those who don't, though I hesitate to mention it because the data is not publicly-available and I have no real way to substantiate the claim. But once you start paying attention, the pattern is pretty clear.
Whether the same man who is violent or not violent is more viscerally arousing to most women may be an open academic question. I'm unsure if it's a practical question however; as mentioned above, we pick our partners based on balancing tons of mutually contradictory desires. At least in my PMC/middle class bubble, charismatic but decent guys or 'assholes' who are within the normal realm of behavior, so generally normal guys who are less agreeable, rule the roost. It seems this may just a bubble effect though; everything I read about the underclass suggests thugmaxxing is the most effective strategy.
Overall, IME being a socially dominant man, which entails being moderately disagreeable, seems to be the dominant strategy. Being that type of guy will often get you called an jerk, since 'jerk' often just means 'you didn't give me what I want'. I think the notion that 'women desire a cruel man' does have some truth, but it's balanced by other concerns as well.
While I agree Islam is less conducive to wellbeing than Catholicism, you could make the same argument that the unique cultural and historical conditions of France/Belgium was why they kept up with NW Europe while the rest of the Catholic countries were varying degrees of poor relative to Protestant Europe.
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