faceh
6hr ago
Now I am wondering what the equivalent to the church service is for these folks.
Protest marches, for one, but surely they don't have weekly sermons in the equivalent of a chapel.
Women are more religious than men,
Ironically men are attending church more than women now, the previous trend is just barely inverted.
Which suggests women have indeed found a replacement outlet for their religious tendencies. Things are getting janky.
But yeah, to the extent women are saying this, its ultimately just a shit-test or its them asserting high standards so they can pretend they're more selective.
Nope.
The situation has given women more options, which has led to them being more selective.
For the young folks, there's a general recession in sex and in Relationships, which is especially pointed amongst men. Its baked in, young men who don't get experience dating while young will just have a harder time getting dates going forward.
"Women are easier than ever" only holds true for the subset of men that women find attractive on a basic physical level.
Dating Apps, for instance, heavily favor women and the small subset of men who are getting laid left and right and, likewise, have no incentive to settle or commit. Which just makes the women they interact with bitter.
This is supported by virtually every statistic you can find on the matter. You can't self-improve your way out of a game that is rigged against you.
Its harder for everyone else across the board.
but chances you’ll get off on pussy 10x more if you give it a shot.
Men don't just want pussy, they want a meaningful, committed relationship within which they can start a family.
This advice is just not going to work for the vast majority of young men, no matter how much it is repeated.
Now what?
faceh
7hr ago
There's some largish subset of Gen-Z women who are claiming that in their daily lives, they almost never see 'hot' men out and about, and the vast majority of the men they do see are hopelessly ugly, don't take care of themselves, and are just horribly unattractive, meanwhile they also claim that most of the women they see are gorgeous, well-put-together, and otherwise "hot" and thus deserve better partners than they've got.
"Chopped" is apparently slang for "rough-looking."
And they further suggest that this is why men are lonely and undateable, since they aren't doing any interesting hobbies, aren't putting effort into dressing well or taking care of their appearance, and are generally "failing" to do the things that would make them attractive to women. And the implicit point in all of this is that the woman speaking is in fact hot and desirable and thus entitled to be as selective as she wants.
The reason its only videos is because that's how Gen Z communicates, which is why this might escape the notice of the older generations.
And of course, the added irony that this is taking place during "Men's Mental Health Month."
faceh
7hr ago
What is the objective of this male general strike?
To keep more of our money, I'd say.
Any other effects would be completely incidental. If society isn't offering any net benefits in exchange for the money paid into it, then it is quite morally defensible to stop paying in.
That was like 30% of the justifications put forth in the Declaration of Independence.
Why would any man who’s a productive member of society rally behind this?
Why would any man want to continue to support a productive society that treats him like an expendable worker bee and doesn't even guarantee that he'll at least have the CHANCE to pass on his genes?
That's what the OP is getting at, directly. What's the point? Why stand by and be exploited?
Any blue or white collar male worker needs the police, firefighters, agricultural workers etc just as much as any woman, and can count on disability and unemployment benefits if things go poorly (maybe less so in the US, but that’s another issue).
There's a question their net contributions, clearly. Division of labor is good. But someone who is putting in more than they're getting out has direct reasons to question the arrangment.
Anybody who says "we don't need firefighters, we can fight our own fires!" and/or denigrates the role of firefighters is being stupid and discriminatory.
But anyone who says "we don't need men, we can take care of ourselves" is implicitly saying "we don't need firefighters, solders, builders, police officers, etc. etc. etc."
Its an even more fundamentally delusional worldview.
And it should be acceptable to call that out, no?
You’re just doing the same old identity politics as the feminists you’re complaining about, just flipped.
Yes.
So why is it so easy/reflexive to attack when men do it, but its impossible to find anyone serious suggesting that maybe women should lower their expectations a bit.
Yep.
I think men find it more tolerable to compete for the hand of the 'fair maiden' who is making everyone play the game to win her affections, than to have to face the reality that the maiden isn't so fair after all and they were burning efforts trying to get her to pay heed, meanwhile she's banging Sir Lancelot on the side and was never actually considering his proposal.
Rejection is less likely to convert to resentment when a man is at least 'in the running' for a woman's affections. When he's one of twenty dudes, 4 of which have already banged her, and another 10 have her nudes, its like... what is the point?
A guy being tested by a woman, rising to the occasion, passing the test and earning her hand in marriage is a pretty solid cause - effect /action - reward path. Humans are persistence hunters after all.
But a guy putting in effort, getting rejection, then seeing that the Chad (whom he KNOWS has got four other women on rotation) get the prize with much less investment, well, that's going to sting, it feels personal, even if it isn't.
And of course worst is when the women CONCEALS her other paramores (as they are wont to do) so its only AFTER one man has put in tons of effort that he realizes he could have just used standard pickup artist tricks on her and gotten the sex without the emotional distress.
Having an easily legible, mutually agreeable path for successful courtship solves for all the uncertainty and makes it so much less stressful on men and women, but we've fucking THROWN OUT the rulebook.
faceh
20hr ago
Yeah.
Fixing it doesn't depend SOLELY on reining in female promiscuity (although that's a major factor), we would need to PUNISH male promiscuity, or at least the brand of it where a guy exploits a woman's naivete and leaves her more cynical and closed off than before, because he pays no cost for it.
I'd suggest execution, but the nice compromise solution would be castration.
faceh
20hr ago
I've made the point before that women are a potent political force, but an incompetent military one
If your political coalition is dependent on tons of addled females voting for them to maintain its support, it is ALSO dependent on NEVER allowing the other side to bring organized violence against them since those same females would fold instantly.
If things get heated for real, the side that wins will absolutely positively NOT be the one that is depending on women voting for them.
So its a question of who has enough motivated men to 'force' the issue.
faceh
1d ago
Where is this all coming from? Is it rejection? I get rejected a lot, who cares? Do a lot of men not share my love of women?
Must've missed my screed about the current state of Western Women a couple weeks back.
That's a bit tricky though.
You turned him down, even after he invested in a gift, and he kept pursuing. And I don't know what if any signals he was reading that led him to think it would succeed.
Meanwhile, the advice that men would get, both from most women and men, is you have to move on after a rejection, because continuing on is 'creepy,' or is 'simping' (ESPECIALLY the gift-giving), or maybe even straight up stalking or harassment. How many rejections is a man supposed to 'ignore'? How much should he invest before it becomes throwing good money after bad?
There is no good answer. And there's the risk of a woman actively exploiting this tendency in men to pump as much money and effort from him as possible.
This pursuit model of the man slowly, politely grinding down a woman's barriers and making increasingly enticing offers for her time and affection is one that I personally prefer. But it just doesn't work very well when women have many available options, and to continually pursue one who has already rejected you just reads as 'desperation' which is a turnoff on its own.
Simply put, why would a guy put himself through that without some reasonable expectation of success?
faceh
1d ago
My brother is pretty much the dropout guy. Rents a room in a friend's house, makes very little money through various gigs (and some less-legal stuff), but has no space to host or otherwise have people over at a whim.
But he's so damn affable and charismatic that he never lacks for invites to go and do interesting stuff. The dude took a day trip down to Key West yesterday (didn't even invite me) and a couple days before that he was hanging out with some guy who, no joke, is building a large reptile zoo facility on his property.
I don't envy him, per se, but I don't get invited out nearly as much as he does. I have to do the hard hosting work. And someone has to.
There's also the aspect that he'll have to clean the mess all up afterwards or hire some maid to do so, and that his social circle will come to expect him to keep throwing cool parties.
Thankfully my friends are pretty tidy guests, and don't tend to expect me to host. Hell, they seem nervous even asking.
faceh
1d ago
I've psyopped myself into believing that the general task of continuing human civilization and seeding the galaxy with intelligent life is important (I've taken the Muskpill, if you like). So having and raising kids, avoiding existential risks, and generally trying to push society forward technologically are goals that I find give me a sense of purpose.
And there's something to be excited about there. No matter what it is you like about living on planet earth, EVERYTHING ELSE is out there in space, if you can just find a way to get there. Every human could have their own planet to shape to their preferences, eventually.
But I've also got to recognize that most people don't have an inherent appreciation for space exploration nor any expectation that space exploration will improve their lives.
And as AI and VR tech gets better, the majesty of outer space is going to have to compete with just plugging into the infinite experience machine that will make you feel whatever emotion you want to feel and allow you to have endless new experiences customized to your liking... without ever leaving home!
Me, I like living in (what I perceive to be) baseline reality too much. There's still so much goofy stuff to discover, and we haven't even unlocked the truly interesting stuff on the tech tree.
faceh
1d ago
Agreed.
Which also changes the dynamics of what a war looks like. How can an inferior power ever hope to gain enough edge to deter an opponent from attacking when said opponent can just attack unilaterally with impunity to bring down any attempt at a functional deterrence.
The Taliban showed that its possible to outlast an opponent who seeks to occupy your lands. But if we don't care about occupying but are happy to just kneecap them if they try to build a nuke, or a missile stockpile, or bioweapons, there ain't much they can do but sponsor low level terrorism against our civilians.
It would, I'd argue, make it so that you HAVE to make friends with the biggest kid on your block and hope there's enough deterrent effect there. Which is looking like the only kids big enough to matter are the U.S. and China.
women no longer need men for physical or economic security [when careers and the state will provide]
I'm really liking the discussion here but I'm going to call this point out.
Its true on the face of it. Society is set up so no woman need be entirely reliant on any particular man.
But its really just because they can outsource the duties normally handled by a spouse to other specialized MEN in their community, as needed. Men can be hired on a gig basis.
If she's physically threatened, she calls the police. Who are mostly male.
If there's a natural disaster, fire, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, avalanche, etc. etc., the first responders/rescuers are largely male. DITTO for the guys rebuilding infrastructure in the aftermath, and who will be shipping emergency supplies in.
If she needs something at her abode fixed, her car repaired, heavy furniture moved... SAME THING. It'll be a man doing it.
And for economic security, well, the various programs that allow women to have shelters, welfare, food stamps, and other support, even if they're a unmarried, drug addicted, unemployed mother... are largely paid for on the back of taxes extracted from other men.
Its male labor all the way down. No, not every male, or maybe not even a majority, but the only reason women can even afford to express open spite towards male behavior is because men have built the prerequisite conditions for them to do so safely.
Its been shunted into the background somewhat, but oh boy do women still ABSOLUTELY NEED MEN to enjoy any standard of living and and ongoing safety from most physical dangers.
Men created and maintain the internet, too, and various apps, and that's now the preferred vector for women to complain about how useless and ugly men are. This is a supreme, SUPREME irony. Google "Chopped Man Epidemic" for a vantablackpill. Women who couldn't manage to set up a basic LAN are tearing into the exact type of men who make it possible for them to publish this stuff to the masses in the first place.
The current delusion (I will call it what it is) shared by many women that because they can work a job and provide for their own independent living means they don't need men at all is the symptom and somewhat the cause of the current gender discourse. And trying to point this out is very much taboo in polite society.
In short, I'm actually pondering whether we should organize any and all single men with decent-paying jobs into a unified income tax strike. Just refuse to pay taxes and see how society reacts to this simple act of peaceful rebellion. If men aren't needed, if women are capable of getting along without them, then things should putter along okay anyway.
faceh
1d ago
Its a terrible shame that wearable exo-suit tech is so far behind the curve compared to quadcopters.
What are your best predictions for how future warfare will develop?
Cheap missile spam backed by cheap drone spam that may be followed with armor and infantry on the ground with active air support if needed.
At least, that's what Anduril is clearly banking on. They're making missiles that are also drones.
The technical issue of holding territory if you manage to capture it is still hard to solve.
But I imagine the opening stages of a non-nuclear war between peer powers looks like a scaled up version of what happened to Iran. Missile swarm exchanges targeting enemy Command and Control and defensive systems, coupled with cyberattacks and other sabotage to maximize penetration.
And of course, if you can smuggle a ton of drones into the target country in advance and set them up near vulnerable targets you're able to leverage the carnage even further.
Knock out the defenses in the first wave, then successive waves will be all the more destructive and you can diversify targets. Seems like it soon becomes an all-or-nothing exchange b/c if you can kill off their ability to launch retaliating strikes, you can just keep on striking without fear.
Then drones of various sizes to reconnoiter and identify pockets of potential resistance, and start softening up the troops who actually stay at their posts. I don't know how you maintain morale for human infantry when the chain of command is tossed into chaos and they can see the writing on the wall when the FPV drones start buzzing in for the kill.
Add on the extra consideration that you can fit missile launchers and drone swarms on shipping containers and suddenly the task of predicting where the strikes will originate from is more difficult.
Civilian ships are potential launching points for missiles and drones, so it might legitimately become doctrine to attack any cargo ships inside your air defense's envelope just in case they could be used to retaliate.
Hell, the scariest thing I can imagine is using missiles coordinated with drone swarms to penetrate armored facilities so the drones can sweep through and murder everyone inside.
And yeah, I would not want to be a head of state or military leader of one of the belligerent countries, when poking my head out of my deep mountain bunker could be instantly fatal. Traveling by air would be right the fuck out, and any attempt to move over land is inherently exposing me to missiles or drone salvos.
I see comments mentioning that decapitation strikes have been a feature of warfare for eons, but we're seeing the ability to reach out and touch someone from absurd distances, and DEFINITELY the ability to coordinate the simultaneous strike much more effectively. And redundancy. Want to be SURE a guy is dead? Fire more missiles, then have drones on cleanup duty.
Safest place for a leader to be would probably be on a silent nuclear-powered submarine deep enough underwater to avoid depth charges.
Except... oh shit.
I take it back, the safest place for the leader to be will be on the fucking MOON while the conflict is active.
faceh
2d ago
You got it.
Anarcho-Tyranny is the inevitable result when you half-ass the police state and try to pick and choose who really feels its weight. ESPECIALLY when that police state is what you get in lieu of a high-trust society where a light touch is all that is needed to maintain order.
I love that Simpson's joke: "I thought you said the law was powerless?" "Powerless to help you, not punish you."
"We let these guys get away with everything because it's too expensive to stop them. But we detain YOU instantly because we know you'll cooperate like a good citizen."
From the perspective of the average citizen, seeing immigration laws enforced probably just reads as finally bringing the incentives in line. Even if there is no real 'crisis' pending from illegal immigration (I can see arguments both ways), its just known that illegals are able to skirt the law in ways that your average citizen would never get away with, and we've learned there are a lot of NGOs and 'hidden' government programs that apparently confer direct advantages on immigrants (both legal and illegal) which are pulled from the taxpayer's pocket.
Unfortunately I've seen a lot of libertarian-leaning righties become much more sympathetic to the argument "if there's going to be a boots on necks regardless of what we do, I guess we'll just have to be the boot" when, e.g. a citizen can be punished for virtually any form of discrimination against a minority group, and said minorities will be treated with kid gloves for actual property destruction.
faceh
2d ago
There's a decent argument that this adds friction for actual citizens as well that is generally a deadweight loss that you'd prefer to avoid. Banks being on the hook if they allow illegals to maintain accounts means they get VERY aggressive about verifying identities.
And the authoritarian concern that these systems can be very easily modified to target any other group.
It does indeed require a police-state lite to ensure you get them all.
From a pure technology standpoint, though, it should really be pretty cheap to enforce this in most places that aren't actively resisting.
I mean, incentives rule everything around me.
The fact that new border encounters have dropped to almost nil tells you the story.
If it was generally known that you could easily hop the border into the U.S., get handed enough resources to subsist on for a while, get paying work, and possibly even qualify for some charitable or governmental programs to bolster you, and the chances of being abruptly snatched up and chucked back to your country of origin was small (if only b/c the courts are hopelessly backed up), then the risk/reward ratio is pretty low.
If the risk of getting deported doubles or triples, then it becomes less worth it. If the programs and institutions that previously promised support for you are shut down or become hostile, then it is even less worthwhile.
If a huge portion of the population of the host country are actively and happily declaring how they want you removed, it would really make the risk quite unappealing.
I'm sure the calculus is different for those already here, especially if they've been here a while and managed to tie up much of their wealth in the U.S., but if the prospect of keeping your head down for ~4 years seems unpalatable, then unwinding the entanglements you have and returning home significantly wealthier than when you left could also be enticing.
Although add in the complication of Sanctuary cities making it seem possible to stick around and slightly reducing the risk of being caught.
faceh
2d ago
I will say that one of my favorite fictional tropes ever is when a small group of people who each have a particular skill/expertise that is world-class in their field get together and coordinate an insanely precise, unprecedented yet completely plausible set of actions and circumstances long enough to achieve a very particular effect, and such effect sort of has the appearance of magic because your average Joe or team of average Joes has no clue on how to replicate it.
That is, all the years of research and development of skill are implied in each character's backstory, and now they just have to apply those to the plot's problem in a unique way, which may only takes weeks or days or minutes, so maintains the 'fun.'
Michael Crichton novels often use that sort of trope, and more recently, Daniel Suarez.
I put RI in the same category as Worm or Wheel of Time: I admire it, I'm glad to have read it, and while 'low status'...But it desperately needs to be about 30% its wordcount.
I'm having a hard time finishing out Worm because of this. Specifically, I realized I do NOT need a whole chapter of Taylor's internal monologue as she ruminates on/processes the last set of horrifically traumatic events. I enjoy almost every other aspect of the story and writing, but this is what pads it out. Skipping those sections usually doesn't deny you critical info, either.
Like we get the point. Humans pretty much suck, most humans with powers suck, being a 'villain' is apparently the only way to do good as it lets you break rules that need to be broken. You can try to justify your behavior or just admit that you're doing what makes you feel better and/or indulging your worst impulses.
Great, now we didn't really need a mile's worth of internal angst written out to achieve a couple inches of character development.
Actually that may be a notable problem with ANY long running piece of fiction, from One Piece to The Walking Dead (TV show).
The main characters are constantly having life-altering experiences and thus should be experiencing rapid personal change, but they also have to remain stable enough over the course of the story that their arc doesn't feel rushed, and reaches the 'satisfying' endpoint. Also if you alter a character's personality too much fans might revolt.
And most writers seem to err pretty heavily on the side of stability. Which means they have to pace the character development out over dozens of chapters. Some, I guess, resist the impulse to have said characters ruminate constantly on their experiences despite it not altering their thinking much.
faceh
2d ago
What's funny is that back when the chapters were being released live, people used to complain when it got far afield of "Harry Potter pokes holes in or abuses the laws of magic", as many seemed to genuinely expect that the series would end with Harry discovering the source of all magic and using that to become God or somesuch.
Also, the reveal of Quirrell's true identity caught a lot of people off guard.
There's maybe a fair critique there, the series starts to get REALLY BIG in the scope of its ideas when you're past the midpoint, and brings in a lot of characters and implies a LOT going on... then as it comes in for a landing the plot has a laser focus on the few main characters. And then the somewhat unfortunate message, which is all but outright stated in the last couple chapters is: "Only about a dozen people in the WHOLE WORLD are capable of making any real difference in the grand scheme of things."
So people who came in hoping for Harry to break everything were let down... and yet there's literally no doubt at the end of the book that Harry is the most important person in history™. Which isn't a knock against the plot, but looking back its pretty on-the-nose as to how EY and perhaps other rationalists view themselves.
Ditto Luigi Mangione.
Not everyone on the left was celebrating the guy, but virtually nobody was shushing the ones who were, and nobody took up the "please don't murder CEOs" cause.
Hah, there's definitely some parallels to Televangelists there.
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