faceh
16d ago
And I'm suggesting that it wouldn't really matter.
The riots in 2020 were triggered by one guy dying under sketchy circumstances.
If Trump didn't give them am impetus, I think they'd find one.
It's not particularly surprising for Trump to run on a mass deportation platform... then make a big deal about fulfilling that promise.
After observing for years, its my conclusion that literally everything she does, from the weird polls to the bemoaning her inability to find a husband (who would tolerate her OnlyFans), to the gangbangs is just her way of selling her services, targeting a very particular niche: grown up tech nerds who find themselves suddenly very wealthy.
If you engage with her in ANY way, you are entering her sales funnel.
This wouldn't be so bad except she likewise bends all attention around any issue or event to be about her. Even this action has made it so people aren't discussing whether her critics are right, now its all about her disappearance from the public eye.
My prediction is she makes a very ostentatious return to social media inside a month, probably setting up some big event she will promote, and then continues on as usual.
faceh
18d ago
Yeah.
Remember we're talking about a multi-millionaire who runs in extremely wealthy tech circles, and has hundreds of people who would run to her defense and aid at a moment's notice.
Unnecessary cruelty for cruelty's sake is bad, but my sympathy is limited in the same way it is for any wealthy celebrity who seeks the limelight.
I'm old enough to remember the chest-thumping that happened when Trump dropped a MOAB on ISIS (we do love our acronyms, don't we folks?).
Also when he iced Soleimani.
And when they spent like a week celebrating that dog that helped kill an ISIS leader.
He damn well knows that inflicting a black eye on international opponents without getting your own people killed plays well.
Even OBAMA knew this, hence the fanfare around taking out Bin Laden.
And he's also making a number of his opponents run cover for Iran directly.
Smartphones.
Then Social Media...
Then algorithmically curated feeds.
I think the last one is where the breaking actually happened. But I say this as someone who remembers original Facebook where you just got a feed of stuff your friends posted, in chronological order, without the site itself trying to guess what you would find most engaging/catering to your worst impulses directly.
You generally used the smartphone to send messages directly to friends, not have things mediated through an app that aggressively wanted to steal your attention.
Yeah you'd get in political arguments, but it'd be with actual friends and generally the temperature was kept below a boiling point. The algo introduced you to ever more distant strangers, who held ever more extremist opinions, and did its best to keep you in a happy little echo chamber where you had your ego stroked THEN were randomly introduced to an unknown wrong-opinion-haver to unload on.
Its not a new insight that ragebait and outgroup bashing are the most effective way to hijack human attention.
But now, that's how literally every single media platform works. There is no countervailing force whatsoever. Even sites that became popular for featuring cute and 'funny' content have bought in.
To say that I am appalled with where this once-promising tech has taken us would be an understatement.
faceh
5d ago
There's an inherent problem with the political landscape right now continually asking sacrifices of young men but being very short on the rewards that are promised to them.
Nobody in power seems to want to acknowledge what these men actually want out of society and, by contrast, what they're actually getting.
I think this problem is going to become unavoidably salient as the Boomers die off and a lot of guys enter their 30's unmarried and with few prospects on starting a family.
The side that at least wants the men to stop watching porn and to start a family might come around to realize that this requires addressing those men's concerns and shifting cultural incentives.
The Dems are intrinsically unable to address mens' concerns.
So yeah, maybe they walk away from the Boomer evangelical coalition, but they ain't walking into the arms of the lefties.
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.
I'll just link to the comment I made on @Dirty_DemSoc 's "WHY BOTHER" post. Since its relevant to the protests AND the assassinations.
Quote:
And yet we know that democratic elections don't completely avert violence, or else Mexico's most recent election wouldn't have been so damn bloody. Turns out that violence is also a way to influence outcomes in a democracy, when you don't expect the votes to go your way 'organically.' So there's a bit of a feedback loop.
Right now we're in a phase where a minority faction is fomenting chaos for want of being able to achieve their goals via electoral process.
In a sense, this is ALSO one faction that is demonstrating that it has motivated, competent shooters on its side, so if something real DID pop off they are at least capable of carrying out deadly violence. The capacity for this violence is no longer just theoretical.
Of course the basic motives will be more complex than that, but the goal of having mass protests is ALSO to demonstrate "we are numerous, we are organized, and we could turn violent if things don't change in our favor!"
But we had a spate of lefty-coded assassination/killing attempts going back at least to Trump's earshot, and THAT trend is a bit scarier because the people of his tribe either ignore it (tacitly approving, I'd say), line up in support like with Luigi, or actually denounce it and try to lower the temperature and root out the radicals among them who are willing to get froggy.
Anything other than the last option will mean MORE attempts going forward. I'm waiting with a TON of consternation for the first FPV drone-based assassination that succeeds.
PLEASE try lowering the temperature, Dems.
faceh
16d ago
Yes, black bag the illegals in the dead of night and try to suppress news coverage of the "dissappearances."
Quiet, stealthy operation.
Do you believe the left would sit quietly by for such tactics?
faceh
20d ago
And the spot that has bugged me for a while now: how much AI/digital assistance is really crossing the arbitrary line you've drawn?
Can you use AI to generate the original concept and then spend a couple hours touching up from there, so the final result is just as much your effort as anything?
Can you sketch out the basic details and then feed it to the AI and basically have it 'paint by numbers' to complete the project?
Can you have the AI spit out 50 separate images, and YOU spend the time cropping, superimposing, rotating, adjusting and compositing them all together for the end result?
Make the rule on what is 'unacceptable' AI art and the tech can run RIGHT up to that line precisely to the pixel... then stick a single tiny digital toe over it, daring your to complain.
That is what makes the tech amazing/dangerous: whatever rules you make for it, the AI itself can be used to circumvent said rules.
It seems underappreciated that regardless of how much or how little he was actually involved in raising them, every single one of Trump's kids have seemingly turned out well-adjusted (especially controlling for being raised with absurd wealth), irrespective of their birth mother.
Often enough major politicians' or business magnates' children can turn into embarrassing thorns in their side, maybe going to the press with stories of neglect or outright abuse, of being two-faced and dishonest. Or just being badly behaved and unworthy to fill their parents' shoes. (I'm constantly reminded of Tom Hanks' son Chet as a reminder for how far the apple can fall.)
Somehow he got five kids to adulthood (Barron's got a ways to go but just look at the guy) and no major blowouts, four of the five with kids of their own now.
The first couple steps to having any kind of Dynasty is raising your kids right and making sure they go on to expand the brood themselves so you have a diverse portfolio of possible heirs (tongue in cheek). It'd be worth trying to figure out what the Trumpian secret sauce is.
So I ask again- why bother? Is the time for talking over?
Its a good question, although it appears I've come about to it from the opposite direction you have.
The factor that has gotten me to just about throw in the towel on the entire concept of political discourse is watching for four years while one side kept pointing out that Joe Biden was very probably demented in the most medically literal sense of the term, and the other side, the full weight of every mainstream/respectable media and academic outlet claimed this was a nutty conspiracy.
Then the presidential debate happened.
And now, having the exact same parties who maintained that he was just fine and dandy are doing the rounds on book tours and media interviews claiming "SOME (completely unidentifiable) PARTICULAR PERSONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE MISLED EVERYBODY ABOUT BIDEN'S MENTAL ACUITY." No way, really? Somehow they seemed quite eager to be misled in this way.
And now that we've admitted to being misled, are we casting blame anywhere? Why... no. Its all just a completely amorphous conspiracy comprised of nobody in particular. Oh well. What a weird chapter in history that we can now close while suffering no consequences whatsoever.
Just a perfect encapsulation of the problem: an enforced narrative that nobody is permitted to question, a breaking point where the narrative CANNOT be maintained in the face of unavoidable reality. A brief period of panicked denial... then distraction... and finally a very carefully constructed withdrawal that absolves anyone of blame and pretends the whole issue was just an honest mistake with little or no malicious motivation whatsoever.
How does one fight such a keenly evolved, utterly remorseless memetic entity, where its self-preservation is dependent solely on how many skulls it can lodge itself in as deeply as possible.
I admire its purity. Such a perfectly enclosed epistemic environment, policed by the most advanced egregore wranglers that history has ever produced.
Regardless of how logically sound and carefully researched my arguments are (and I really DO spend a lot of time researching my arguments) it cannot compete with an endless stream of repeated thought terminating cliches and carefully curated facts and stats that grant the pretense of knowledge but deny someone any real understanding of cause and effect.
And now we can add sycophantic LLMs to the mix, which can be curated to at least try to maintain a given narrative and write pleasingly-worded missives that either dodge the real question of what is 'true' or can lead you just far enough along the path towards truth to make you feel informed... then pull you off in a different direction, forgetting to take the last few steps and actually change your mind.
As the kids say, "We're fuckin' cooked."
Of course, I'm so rabidly averse to violent conflict as a first, or second, or even third resort that I am (perhaps irrationally so) very willing to seek peaceful, cooperative resolution options right up until the very moment somebody flicks a fist in my direction.
And my current solution has been to insulate myself from the attack vectors of that memetic entity. Adblock on. No cable tv. No influencers. Don't read the articles, don't listen to the podcast, don't watch the movie written by the hollywood leftist. Maybe read the books but definitely don't try to discuss the book on reddit. Do not give the hostile egregore full write access to your brain.
I live in one of the reddest areas of a red (formerly purple) state, and have manipulated enough about my immediate environment that the chances of the culture war frontlines ever reaching me are virtually nil. This comes at some level of personal cost, but I've placed such a high value on maintaining my sanity that I GLADLY pay it.
And so I sit here wondering WHY I still pop onto themotte to do a little bit of sparring, keeping my debate skills honed, when even around here the odds of any given argument or set of arguments moving the needle on someone's personal beliefs seem slim.
One of the arguments in favor of democratic modes of government is that it allows peaceful transition of power because elections are viable proxies for battles/military force.
Quoth Federalist No. 10:
The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.
That is, the side that manages to pull 51% or more of the population that is engaged enough to vote can reasonably claim "if there was to be a physical war our side, being more numerous, is more likely to win it. In lieu of fighting that would be ruinous to both sides, you will accept our rule for a few years, we will rule with a certain amount of respect/deference, and then we can run another simulation to see if anythings changed."
Of course, it seems like the Dems/lefties haven't managed to process how they got trounced in the last election, even with some thumbs on the scale, and what this implies about their popularity in the country. So they "convulse the society" and "clog the administration" (how many national injunctions are we at?), but are 'unable to execute and mask its violence under... the Constitution.'
And yet we know that democratic elections don't completely avert violence, or else Mexico's most recent election wouldn't have been so damn bloody. Turns out that violence is also a way to influence outcomes in a democracy, when you don't expect the votes to go your way 'organically.' So there's a bit of a feedback loop.
So in a sense, the current upwelling of conflict doesn't read to me as a real instigation to war, but more just a disadvantaged minority faction pressing the 'foment chaos' button as a means of gumming up the works for the majority and maybe influencing outcomes, at least locally, towards their favor.
No, I'm not drawing a moral equivalence between drug cartels and ICE protestors, or even rioters. Just pointing out how these actions are closer to the "open violent conflict" end of the spectrum than the "free discourse and exchange of ideas as means of persuasion" that was idealized by, e.g., the Federalist Papers and that we try to maintain on this forum.
So what are we doing here? What's the point? Why bother?
I'd posit that everyone is in the continual stage of trying to size up the field and gauge the relative power of each tribe so as to determine if it is possible to make any decisive attacks or maneuvers that will lead to one group's victory and ascension to unquestioned rule over the cultural landscape. And the literal landscape, too.
Which faction has the best tacticians? The most guns? The most tightly organized units? The most efficient logistics? The most loyal/zealous footsoldiers? Which is favored by God? (love that scene, perfect illustration of this point about sizing up the force your opponent can bring to bear), which side has their Oppenheimer, their Feynman, their Von Neumann who can build superweapons, memetic or otherwise?
And as long as we're mostly convinced that the aggregate combat strength of each side is approximately at enough parity that the conflict would lead to uncapped casualties, including complete obliteration (which, in the age of nuclear MAD is a real possibility!), then even a conflict that you win is just not worth entering in the first place.
I'd argue that the more kinetic version of this is what led to the openly aggressive conflict with Israel and Palestine... and Israel and Iran, more recently. Israel knows it can pound Palestine into a fine powder if left to do it... but they can't ignore the various potential interlopers who might enter the fray. And so occasionally swatting Iran across the nose is a nice reminder to the rest to keep the claws sheathed.
Its why the Pakistan India thing didn't truly spiral out of control, neither side had a path to victory that wouldn't OBVIOUSLY leave both sides in ruins.
This little site is just one facet of a glittering jewel that is human social network, whose topology is beyond the comprehension of any individual human, but maybe if enough of us enlightened apes discuss our various perspectives and unique insights (we have those, right?) then the collective hivemind can manage to ascertain enough of the rough shape to determine if any particular faction has an egregious edge in power.
Because let me admit, about two years or so ago I would have told you that the Blue Tribe was close to locking insurmountable advantages which it could leverage to maintain complete control, and I was mentally gearing up to have to shoot at [redacted] agents in a last ditch effort to not be assimilated.
And now, though, now it looks like the ballgame is way closer than I anticipated, and I am now more uncertain than before about the current trajectory of U.S. political power. I guess Red Tribe is currently at bat, and they're trying to load up the bases, but really, really counting on some kind of grand slam to put them far ahead before, presumably, blue tribe grabs the levers of power again.
So I keep coming back here, hoping someone will hit on the observation or connect some dots that will help me foresee the unforeseeable and align myself with the right people (or, failing that, align myself AGAINST the right people) to ensure my longer term success and survival.
Some might actually be intending to get froggy if the tide is shown to turn in their favor, and are quietly trying to sense who might fight back, who might ally with them, who might look the other way. Maybe they want moral justification for doing some really nasty thing to the hated opposition. I don't know. But I think we're all at least idly, casually interested in figuring out the shape of the conflict and the ebb and flow of the battle and then making whatever use of that information we can.
And where else can we go for an actual clearheaded view of things?
faceh
18d ago
Yeah. I was going to say, negative feelings are less likely to arise when an attractive woman won't sleep with you because she is flat out waiting for marriage.
It's when she is clearly having sex with other dudes but for some reason rejecting it with you when the feelings of inadequacy and the male sexual competition drive speak the loudest.
A woman who opts partially out of the sexual marketplace, and dresses and behaves accordingly, is still going to stir feelings in men, but easier to rein those feelings in when its just known that NOBODY is getting the prize, so rejection isn't specific to you.
If there's one thing I have always and forever refused to do, its falsify my personality or my preferences.
I won't give something a 'like' on any social media site unless it is actually content I would genuinely prefer to see more of. I hand out dislikes liberally when it is even an option when I encounter things I would really rather never see again.
I will adjust my rhetoric to account for an audience's tolerances for controversy (call it 'discretion' or 'professionalism'), but I won't shift the message itself.
I have literally never stated a position on an issue that I wasn't prepared to at least half-heartedly defend. I try to state my positions on any issue with as much clarity and precision as can be mustered with the English language.
And I do hope my reward is that whatever AI-Algorithm God arises will not have to guess at my preferences and utility function and will thus be able to give me an experience that is very closely optimized for the things that I truly enjoy, and not just the things I pretended to enjoy to fit in or to trick onlookers into thinking I am at all different than what I am. If the GodGPT looks across the entire history of my internet usage, and sees what type of youtube content I liked, the type of subreddits I subscribed to, the arguments I got into, the songs I played, the films I rated highly (and low), the type of people I interacted with, going back for decades now, I think it'll have an easy time figuring out what type of world to stick me in to win my hedonic approval.
Like, many actors seem to get very frustrated when they get pigeonholed into playing a single popular role for years and years on end, or typecast into the same types of roles over the whole career. Imagine how bad it would be for a nigh-omnipotent computer deity to feed you up horrible slop content for the rest of your life because you kept pretending to like [popular thing] for so long that your entire digital footprint suggested that it was your favorite type of content ever. The role you played has become your life.
I'd push back because yes, the kids start drawing attention, but mom, as the arbiter of who gets to interact with the baby, also gets a lot of attention and, if the child appears to be doing well, accolades for raising them.
So to the non-narcissists who don't mind sharing the spotlight, this is a boon.
Indeed, this is probably the only way a woman can keep herself centered in attention in her thirties and forties, short of being a literal celebrity.
faceh
26d ago
I've seen variations of this path happen to people who are in the second layer of my orbit (i.e. usually not my CLOSE friends). At first it appears like the the varnish of a happy, complete life is simply peeled off to reveal the dysfunction beneath, but after seeing it often enough, it really turns out that they just wanted out of what could have been a complete, happy life, and they're basically bailing out of a situation that was otherwise quite tolerable.
Call it Trump Derangement syndrome or whatever, but I'd say its just Trump or the Conservative/Right Wing boogeyman acting as a nexus point for their internal turmoil and persistent sense of pending doom, it feels better to externalize all that negative emotion to an outgroup.
What is more unique now is how ubiquitous and all-consuming the fear-driving stimuli is. THAT part, being fully inundated in an information environment that exacerbates and amplifies thought processes that would otherwise possibly remain mere undercurrents is what leads so many to have these aggressive and apparently 'sudden' breaks from whatever friends and groups they had previously maintained.
I've watched the pattern unfold enough times now that I am confident I can recognize the earlier stages of it and predict with some accuracy where things will end up after a brief observation period.
If the woman is already at the point where she feels comfortable disrespecting the man in public view, and/or is falling in with some of the lefty activist causes, its likely terminal.
It goes towards a point I made a while back, though.
Scared, anxious people are easier to control. You create a population of neurotic, particularly fearful citizens and scream in their ear, nearly 24/7, through every media outlet possible, about how much danger they're in, and then you offer them the outlet for all that pent up anxiety: vote for [Candidate!] or [Policy!] and you can finally be safe!
Except it won't help, they cannot be mollified. But if the policy fails or is never implemented, they can continue to blame it all on the same boogeyman.
Thus, the incentive to fix or moderate this issue simply isn't there. Scared people are politically useful. All the more so if you isolate them from their sane, well-meaning friends and family.
faceh
6d ago
While I think there are real concerns about what happens to the GOP Post-Trump, yeah, the Dem's issues are structural and the alliances they've forged by being maximally divisive on sex, on race, on religion, on class, and on age too, I guess, mean there's no way to please each of these disparate groups.
In fact, the post-Trump era might be harder on the Dems because opposition to Trump was like the one thing that united them!
Dems can't run another stodgy White Guy for President. I mean, they can, Biden proved that the party can get everyone in line and on task if needed, but it is impossible to imagine the guy who has the political juice to win the primaries at this point.
Likewise, Dem leadership is ossified and they've hamstrung any new blood from acquiring much power. AOC is popular but she's also been ground down by the party machine. Pelosi et al. will grip the reins of power right up until their dying breath. Trump, by elevating Vance, is giving the 'new Generation' a generous toehold on power which they can use to climb up.
David Hogg was stupid about it, but he had the right idea that there needs to be enough of a shakeup that young upstarts can compete for influence in the party and identify talented candidates. Kinda how Obama got into power (which, ironically, was probably what prompted the party to lock down that issue so Hillary could win next time).
On top of that, I don't see any possible way the Dems can attract young male voters back. They've gone way too far out on the "men are inherently evil" limb. Can't reel that back in without pissing off the unmarried white female demographic that is their backbone. But any guy who looks and sees how they force any popular young Democrat male through a struggle session, like with Harry Sisson, will balk at anything they say. There's NOTHING to offer them.
Whomever they nominate, it'll either annoy their base, or it'll alienate the median voter.
And all this is before we talk about how the extreme progressive wings are demanding concessions constantly.
faceh
14d 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.
Yes.
My point is he records everything and has a clear counterparty rather than just spitting predictions with no skin in the game and crowing that he was right when a few of them land.
But Fuentes ain't predicting black swans either. "Israel and Iran will try to hurt each other" is a generally reliable prediction at its base.
And once you've been given the information "Hamas just killed a bunch of Israeli Civilians, in Israel" there's a few straightforward guesses from there RE: Israeli response.
I'll say there's zero chance I would have correctly predicted the Pager operation, even in the broad "Mossad wipes out Hezbollah's entire command in a single attack" strokes.
But "Hezbollah gets decimated by Israeli espionage" is not a wild, out there guess by any means.
If Fuentes was specific enough to say "The U.S. drops bunker busters on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities" as a likely outcome I'd start to give him credit.
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.
Its interesting how the past approximately 10 years of diplomacy in that arena has led to this being possible.
There was some Salami-slicing going on during Trump 1 thanks to the Abraham accords, a number of major Arab countries brought into the Western orbit and shown the benefits of being onside and chilling out about Israel. I have my misgivings about their reliability as 'allies' (something something scorpion and frog) but clearly they have the ability to sit on their hands when told to.
Then Russia got itself entangled in a conflict that keeps it from offering much in the way of support/deterrence.
Then Syria's government fell.
Probably a few other things I'm forgetting, but it all ultimately left Iran with no major buddies to lean on (China, I suppose) and thus the immediate consequences of going it 'alone' against its western adversaries.
Which is what made it safe enough for Israel to pulverize their defense systems from several angles.
Which made it safe enough for the U.S. to commit a huge portion of its strategic stealth bombers to the operation with assurances they'd all make it back, and presuming they had the firepower needed to do the job, could expect to actually cripple Iran this time.
I dunno how far in advance this stuff was planned and anticipated but I think this pretty much answers the "why didn't we do this 40/30/10 years ago" question. Too many uncontrolled variables, much higher risk.
Nothing's ever over. If I were Iran and I had some breathing room I'd probably be offering China near Carte-Blanche to give me some nuke tech. That strategy doesn't usually work in, say, Civilization VI but hey, the U.S. is vastly far ahead on the Science Victory, Cultural Victory, and Space Race Victory tracks, so options for both me and China are limited.
I'd vaguely fear Iran deciding to go full 'blaze of glory' mode and activate any and all contingencies and proxy parties it has abroad and just fire off 90% of its remaining missile stockpiles into Israel and daring the U.S. to put boots on the ground again.
But I don't see that as being the rational response and even if they don't come to the bargaining table, they're probably better off waiting to see if any other conflagration points pop off that might distract U.S. attention.
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
15d ago
But your hunting club has norms, not to mention careers and families that they would potentially sacrifice if they had to go hot.
I think the demonstrated WILLINGNESS to start killing is the factor we're seeing here.
Not clear that your hunting club would actually start killing unless REALLY pushed.
Have to snort if THAT is how this is phrased.
The guy gets to "set the timetable" with their "implicit threat of walking away."
That's generally not how negotiations are framed. A woman has just as much power to walk away, and just as much power to define/set a timetable... assuming she's capable of keeping to her own commitments. "Look, I'll have sex with you by the 5th date if and only if we are exclusive and you've spent ~$400 on me by then" is a valid way to filter out fuckboys... if the guy can reasonably expect that she will keep such a promise.
And a guy is going to walk away only when he doesn't value the sex that highly and/or has multiple other women he can try to hook up with, which devalues sex with any given one of them. There really ISN'T an imbalance in bargaining power here! There's just women who aren't able to state their position and then enforce it, so they don't even attempt to bargain.
From the perspective of virtually every guy who ISN'T trying to solely extract sex, the woman is the one setting EVERY timetable, and even if he does have the power to walk away, he know he can't/won't cajole her into sex unless and until SHE really wants it, he wouldn't even dream of trying to force the issue.
There was a time in my life when I figured that religious rules against premarital sex were at worst arbitrary and at best outdated given modern contraceptives.
Now, I have to accept that they're an ingenious way to create a Schelling Point where both men and women can be truly sure that they'll be getting the thing they're hoping for, and, much like closing on a house, every material part of the transaction will occur at approximately the same time so nobody can duck out of the bargain before coughing up their side of it.
That is, since it is clear many women are susceptible to being manipulated, and some large subset of men are hardcore manipulators, don't set up a complex set of unwritten rules that can be exploited and that women barely understand. Just tell everyone "no sex until marriage" and don't allow any bend whatsoever. That's a rule that everyone CAN follow and can be policed more directly. Men who want sex... get married. Women who want commitment... get married. Don't agonize over how many dates or how long you have to be with them before giving it up, and don't let guys make implicit promises they fully intend to break.
Maybe it is arbitrary, but no less arbitrary than any other boundary you could set, and a hell of a lot easier/more intuitive to enforce.
In a slightly saner world, Willy would probably be dead. One of these girls' fathers or brothers would have confronted him by now and beaten some sense into him or just put him out of our misery.
But noooooooooo instead the sociopaths are allowed free reign so long as they don't run completely afoul of the law because we've left the sexual marketplace to be regulated solely by social shame and rumor-mongering and removed any implicit threat of violence. And Sociopaths aren't effected by social shame.
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