crushedoranges
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User ID: 111
crushedoranges
1d ago
You are mistaken: the currency of economics is homo economicus, the idealized man-laborer/manager in the shape of a spherical cow. It is human beings who are the primary agents of subjective value, who give meaning and purpose to capital and the commodities it produces.
You make the mistake of looking at the top of the pyramid: and seeing that they are all old, and conflating that with power. Experience and expertise count for much but the simple fact of biological death ensures that transition of power is inevitable. Institutions, by necessity, are constantly replacing their principal agents.
Which leads back to the original premise: any organization that fails to appeal to the young (and young men in particular) will be swiftly made irrelevant. Feminists are only successful insomuch as they are able to appeal to the resources of powerful men (in the suffragette era) or abstractly through the mechanisms of taxation and policy (now.) Old, infertile women have no power over young men and must sway their younger, more beautiful counterparts to have any political power at all.
crushedoranges
1d ago
That was my take as well: Hillary Clinton is a ghoulish power-seeker, but a competent one. If she won, she'd be a continuation of the Democratic technocrat rule.
If Kamala wins, America gets to experience its own 'time of troubles.'
crushedoranges
2d ago
Older men have only the authority vested into them in their ability to lead younger men: either in the personal level in tribal and medieval context, or in the ideological and abstract state apparatus in the current era. Young men are the currency of science, warfare, and economics. No vigorous movement has succeeded without them.
crushedoranges
7d ago
Walz is a Elmer Fudd, as the NRA types would put it. (You can hear a groyper shout 'cuck' from the nosebleed seats.) The essential part of the critique is that if he was to be put up against the feminine imperative, made to apologize, he would give in and grovel. If he was in the Illiad, he'd be in the appendices (and be excluded from all of the abridged versions.)
The only way to be a white male in the Current Year democratic party is to be a castrato, a non-entity, and that's what he is: a non-entity.
I am of the opinion that the reason why Western cuisine sucks is that one is not allowed to enjoy it: that the foods one gravitates to when in a hurry are the ones most laden in sugars and fats and carbs. Satiety, in my opinion, is a function of digestion.
If you are making the effort to curb it, you're already ahead of the pack. You are probably one or two dietary/lifestyle changes away from maintaining at two hundred pounds (which still isn't great, but better than the median American.)
If you're prone to snacking, I can heartily recommend a popcorn machine (which, with the addition of popcorn salts, makes for a better snack than other fare.) Granted, if you slather butter and oils over it it defeats the point, but it's just an example of a thing you can do.
crushedoranges
14d ago
Uh, yes? (This feels like such an obvious answer that it feels like a trick question.)
Chinese workers have gained 35 pounds since 1983, if you check out the latest statistics. So yes, western affluence has made them fatter. As for the British, I attribute it to the general decline of cultural shaming and the rise in quality and the low price of convenience food.
But we're getting off topic.
A lot of this seems to be the lose weight/maintenance mindsets, which I do not deny does not exist, but the rule is fundamentally the same. "Must I perpetually maintain my consumption below my output, for the rest of my life?" Yes! It sucks!
But just because it's hard doesn't change the fact that fundamentally, weight gain is happening because they're eating too much relative to basal metabolism + activity. Set point theory is the kind of just-so theorizing that people laugh at evo psych for doing. It smacks of what FA activists call 'intuitive eating', ascribing all of the agency to one's body instead of willful volition. But the body can be terribly stupid. For an addict, it is almost a surety. Even if a set point did exist, it should be - in every case - overridden by what the brain knows to be a healthy and safe weight.
The human body should not be a democratic institution.
crushedoranges
14d ago
Whether or not a calorie-restricting diet in the long run works out is completely immaterial. You submit a false dichotomy. You will start losing weight if you calorie restrict below your consumption. You will gain it if it is the opposite. There is no such thing as CICO advocacy insomuch as it is an iron law of biology of which we all must obey, regardless of our intellectual pretensions.
Are humans a special sort of animal? Does not every other animal gorge themselves in times of plenty and starve in times of lack? What is the set point of a pig? A dog? A horse? As a species, we have engineered ourselves a constant state of endless plenty, which allows us to indulge in the incredibly silly idea that eating has nothing to do with weight loss.
Because the truest set point - engraved in the very laws of thermodynamics - is zero.
crushedoranges
14d ago
I think I owe you a apology.
I threw out a lot of hot flak into a sensitive topic and your reply was too heartfelt not to make a response.
We should all try to overcome our vices. It is truly a struggle that never ends.
I wish you the best of luck in overcoming yours.
And although I don't think I've quite changed my mind, I will endeavor to be more understanding in the future.
For the offense I've given you, I'm sorry.
crushedoranges
14d ago
A little, yeah! Being a slave to bodily appetites is both unattractive and a perceived failure of my own character. It feels greatly satisfying to have a physical reminder of it.
Now, granted, I don't want to starve myself to death either. I have a epicurian taste for food. But I also want a long lifetime to enjoy such things, so the short-term discomforts will be worth the long term pleasures.
crushedoranges
14d ago
I'm going to have to go through the 'keep off that weight' dietary and lifestyle change phase eventually. I won't lie, that will probably be even more difficult than the fasting phase I'm doing right now.
But I both want and need to do it. And I hope I get through it.
crushedoranges
14d ago
Just because it's trivially true doesn't make it not a fact. Eating less will make you lose weight (or at the very least, slow down the rate of which you gain it.) You need a great deal of education to come to a different conclusion.
I'm reminded of the midwit bell curve, where the genius and the idiot agree.
crushedoranges
15d ago
We wouldn't watch a show called '160 lb people eat healthy food in regular amounts', now, would we? :P
I believe what the West gets wrong is that it attempts to shift the pride of superiority to obviously inadequate people (and eliminate any pesky shame that came along with it.) But that fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of such emotions. You should feel pride in doing something good (and shame when you do something bad.) When you give pride to the weak-willed and shame the strong you upset the incentive structure of society and chaos ensues.
Or, to put it simply, false modesty benefits no one, and false pride harms everyone. To do otherwise to spare feelings is no good.
crushedoranges
15d ago
And here's where I have a fundamentally different worldview than yours. There's a turn of phrase... 'makes you feel superior'. That would be incorrect.
That would imply that it is a subjective, egotistic feeling rather than objective fact.
There's nothing wrong with judging people better or worse than others. That may be a mortal sin to a progressive, liberal worldview, but to me it is simply the basis of any ideology that makes meritocratic judgement of worth. If you're a fat person because you were sexually abused or have some sort of mental illness or what have you... that's a sad story, but in the end, you're still being pushed off the bridge into the path of the runaway trolley.
I probably would not survive in the governing ethics of which I prefer... and that's fine with me. But that's probably too personal to debate on, so I'll chalk this one up to a disagreement of values.
crushedoranges
15d ago
If the threat of their imminent approaching deaths isn't enough to establish even a modicum of self control they're not really human beings, but automata who have lost their will to live. But it doesn't matter, in any case: because although they claim to have no self autonomy, they are very good at wheedling out benefits and favors from the people around them. It all smacks of bullshit in the end.
The number of people who weigh more than 600lbs is a vanishingly small number. It's not like in the Jersey Shore, where fake tanned sluts and himbos compete to be the stupidest on camera. Being very fat is comorbid with something very wrong with you and it's a pathology that is rapidly spreading in the Western world. They don't need to pick out the crazies and the exhibitionists: they just need to turn on the cameras and watch them do their distorted routines.
crushedoranges
15d ago
It is reality TV. I'm not contesting that.
But they sound exactly the same way really fat people I've talked to in real life. They behave in exactly the same way, just to an exaggerated extreme. They have the same excuses, the same denial, the same willful ignorance that will lead them - eventually - to an early grave.
One of them is my own mother.
But suppose that there really is a obese person who is well-informed, conscientious, and intelligent. Knowing that what they are doing themselves - that their diet is harmful - and then doing it anyway is no credit to them, no more than that same hypothetical person who was all that, and a heroin addict. In fact, it makes it worse.
crushedoranges
15d ago
And for most people, that borderline is a wake-up call, yes.
I personally suffer from depression. Being fat didn't help with that. But for some people they look in a mirror and they think to themselves "I'm already fat, I might as well let myself go all the way" and that leads to all the pathologies of personality I just mentioned.
Right now, I'm going through a water fast, and it's difficult and uncomfortable. Losing weight is, in general, difficult and uncomfortable. The avoidance of discomfort and the pursuit of pleasure is the Western zeitgeist and I'd be damned if I let down my ubermenschian will to power by obeying the fickle whims of a decadent body.
crushedoranges
15d ago
Me personally having mental illness makes me profoundly unsympathetic to others in that regard. I admit it is a personal flaw that I judge such people without the characteristic liberal softness: I have seen too many people get away with baldly unsympathetic behaviour because of trauma and I never feel more sympathy when it is brought up.
Even with the caprice of reality TV, the shit they do boggles the mind. (Stranger than fiction comes to mind.) And the food addictions on display (even when they know they are being observed and filmed, like in Secret Eaters) are so shameless, it is depicting the real thing, baldly and unsympathetically.
crushedoranges
15d ago
I recently (and by recently, I mean two weeks ago) started water fasting, and to displace the constant feelings of food cravings I started watching food-related videos, most notably: TLC's 600lb Life. It is extraordinarily trashy TV, but illuminating.
Before I describe the negative observations, here's the positive ones: A) All of the successful patients had a good attitude to begin with (they wanted to lose the weight, and were willing to commit) B) They followed the doctor's instructions (important.) C) They had friends and family who were supportive and were generally affable individuals to begin with (likeable!)
As a representative slice of the people who get really, really fat, they're about 5% of the population. The rest that follows is the generalizations of everyone else.
Now. For the hot takes:
THE OBESE ARE IGNORANT
Do you remember the much-maligned food pyramid from your health classes, the one that put way too many grain carbs at the bottom? At the very least, it puts vegetables on the second tier, and fast food at the very tippy top. And these people don't even know that. The very concept of CICO they stubbornly defy. They don't seem to know anything about basic nutrition that even a kid would know. And it's not like they're getting fat off good cuisine, either. (A fat gourmand with a diverse palette would be, at the very least, a good friend to have to ask for recommendations.) They're just eating fast-food slop paid by their welfare checks. And speaking of...
THE OBESE ARE ENTITLED
There is a certain childlike narcissism that accompanies each and every one of these patients, that demands the world bend around them: that they should be fed, bathed, and cared after without giving anything back in return. They frequently manipulate their family members and spouses to look after them, hand and foot, even their children. They're rude and throw tantrums, and their ignorance only strengthens their stubbornness. (They even disagree with their own doctor, a man they're self-selected to seek out!) They continue their bad eating habits - even in the hospital itself! - and have food snuck in for them to eat. This inevitably leads to...
THE OBESE ARE STUPID
In wrestling, where the tiers are segmented by weight class, in order to hit the weight limits, athletes often go to extraordinarily lengths to temporarily lose 5-10 pounds before weigh-in to get as much of an advantage as they can. In the show, in order to qualify for bariatric surgery, patients need to lose a certain amount of weight so that it is safe for them to go into surgery. Now, admittedly, going to 1200 calorie diet when you're used to 10k+ is pretty hard, but even going to 5,000 - twice the amount of a healthy adult - would guarantee weight loss without significant dietary changes, other than portions.
Do they do this? Of course not.
In fact, I'm pretty sure they don't even weigh themselves beforehand. It's always a surprise and a shock when - surprise of surprises - that eating the same amount as you did before would maintain it. (In fact, some of them even gained weight.) The tantrums, the lies, the threats - all are laid bare before the uncaring measure of the livestock scale.
Of course they don't get the surgery. And they're always left wondering why, the poor buggers.
So, in conclusion, I have come into belief that you should judge people for being obese. Not to say that all fat people are ignorant, entitled, and stupid. But they definitely have at least one of these traits, and should be avoided at all costs.
crushedoranges
16d ago
Did yah call ya mothar? She gets so worried sick about you, and you nevaaaah call!
Did ya turn off the stove before you left the house?
crushedoranges
17d ago
Clumsily. (Like krogans.)
crushedoranges
19d ago
I really don't want to get into definitional arguments, because they don't get anywhere.
I am using their terminology. You can argue it as much as you want that it is vague and nebulous, but it doesn't matter, because it describes a real subset of people that do exist that push policy and active goals. I don't have to go back to the Kievan Rus to explain it. What am I, Putin?
Don't dive into generalities. I am addressing a very specific movement (the woke, the intersectionalists, the crt) who can be described as cultural marxists. I am intentionally limiting the scope of the discussion here because there is where an argument can actually be had.
But if you want to continue down this path, please, provide your definitions of these things.
crushedoranges
19d ago
Sovereign is he who defines the exception, or so it is said.
Then what is, exactly, the strength of the person who is allowed to make the definitions?
Let me short-circuit the definitional arguments: imagine that we are gesturing at a horse... and I call it a horse. No, some obnoxious college activist emerges, it is a four-legged ruminant ungulate!
Okay, I concede. It's a four-legged ruminant ungulate (bad). We take a step forward on the euphemistic threadmill.
You horrible, horrible person! The college activist says. It's actually an equine monodactyl animal of herding!
And so on. At no point is the discussion is allowed to proceed beyond what identifying the horse is.
Cultural Marxism is identifiably so because it uses the oppressor/oppressed dynamic but replaces the class structure with a whole assortment of intersectional replacements. No, it is not orthodox Marxism. But it very succinctly describes what it is. You are falling for a psy-op, a plausible smokescreen of academic confusion. Strip out decades of cold warrior rhetoric and it is still an accurate description of what they're trying to get at.
There is no distinction between cultural and economic marxism in the end because it all leads to redistribution of wealth from oppressor to oppressed. If you don't recognize that basic fact, you don't really want to fight the SJWs at all: merely moderate their excesses.
crushedoranges
21d ago
His name is 4chan.
crushedoranges
22d ago
Well, of course it is.
But your non-participation only entitles and empowers a potential Caesar, who similarly believes that the systems and institutions are a corrupt sham and shell. And when you go to hide behind said institutions, suddenly made aware of its values, it will collapse upon itself. You will be left naked and trembling before a new, populist God.
Unless, of course, that is your desired end goal.
I don't see the difference. It feels like salami-slicing to me. You could say this about Bernie Sanders. 'Anyone who disagrees with the integrity of the process is a rebel and an anarchist' is a just-so explanation. 'It's different when we do it' is partisan hypocrisy.
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