faceh
1d ago
Well, are we starting with grappling or does the woman have to take him down?
I guess I can clarify, if 'dirty' tactics like eye gouges and groin strikes are on the table, then size isn't an insurmountable factor.
Problem is a dude can win literally by just dropping all his weight on her and holding her down.
faceh
1d ago
Yep, but it is worth asking what problem Jiu Jitsu solves and how common that problem is.
Arguably the way its practiced has so many constraints that in practice it fails if any of those constraints are violated.
If you're fighting a guy who boxes, is not wearing a gi, on a concrete surface, and he may be carrying a weapon, I dunno if its reliable.
Excellent conditioning though.
That said, wrestling (specifically Sambo) seems to dominate everything in a 1 v 1 context.
faceh
1d ago
And a "real" fight is chaotic so there's an irreducible element of chance involved.
The secret to winning fights is mostly "bring more guys, with better discipline."
The coach is not based enough to flat out announce the single best way to improve your running performance is to lose weight.
Interesting but not surprising.
What's really funny is now GLP-1 drugs have made it a simple matter of adhering to an injection schedule, so these difficult conversations need not happen. Someone just loses a bunch of weight out of 'nowhere' and their life quality and performance improves, everyone cheers, and then nobody has to acknowledge that being fat just sucks in about every way no matter what you do.
Martials arts well, as they say "weight classes exist for a reason." There's a bit more dimensionality to it, but simply put you will never EVER find a woman who can beat a man in her weight class without the guy being severely handicapped.
faceh
1d ago
There is an ongoing theory that BJJ is fake in the sense it doesn't work against someone unwilling to engage in BJJ with you. Although I think that only counts with regard to the sport aspect.
faceh
1d ago
That era was a mistake in a number of ways
Not clear to me, looking WAY back in hindsight, how it could have gone differently, though.
Like, I can see how the 2000's could have gone differently if, for example
A) 9/11 never happened. Or
B) Our response to 9/11 was more measured but also reaffirmed our national commitment to not letting other countries fuck with us.
But things like the 2008 financial crisis seem baked into the cake given the incentives involved.
Not sure how to interpret the 1960's in terms of 'the forces of history.' Mistakes were made but seemingly made from a bit of ignorance and irrational exuberance and as you say, the guys trying to keep things sane must have looked like real spoilsports.
And with that you saw an attendant shift in the social values of the population with the abundant wealth that was following in.
Well yeah I can actually sort of understand the logic there actually.
"Hey we've got this brand new drug that heightens sensory experiences but has seemingly zero side effects! Miraculous! And all these extremely talented musicians innovating genres with meaningful messages! And contraceptives so we can have the pleasure of sex without the risk! Truly this is an age of wonders, we can surely solve the world's problems if we just unite around something we all have in common!"
Then sprinkle some marxism in there. Can't forget to mention Jonestown where a bunch of self-professed Marxist-Communists got froggy and killed themselves along with a bunch of kids. That was later in the game, though.
Oh, and the Manson murders. 1969-1971 really killed any presumption of 'innocence' in this culture, didn't it?
The extra layer of weird spirituality that permeated much of the hippie era was a bit harder for me to understand. Lot of cults in that time period.
Whatever mindsets of the 60's has been repeated in the current era, it seems to be a firmly secular movement this time around, although most here can point out how "wokeism" is just a secular religion.
faceh
1d ago
but I think it's still a more arduous obligation than what the average man in the west will be called upon to do in their lifetime.
You might need to recalibrate your perception the sort of work the average dude has to complete in his life, and the pains they will suffer as a result of them.
Looking at the top, call it 20% of guys and assuming they represent all men is the EXACT issue that leads to intersex resentment, I think.
And just as modern society has relieved a lot of the risks that men are otherwise expected to deal with... it has also made the entire childbearing process less painful and FAR, FAR less risky for women.
(thanks to men)
So this sentiment doesn't move me an inch, although I'm on record with saying that bearing and raising children SHOULD accord a woman high status!
In reading some accounts of the culture of the '60s and '70s, it seems like there were a LOT of true believers who genuinely thought that free love, LSD, and rock music was going to save the world and fix everything. And a lot of opportunists who saw how they could exploit this sentiment.
And as the quote implies, turns out there are some downsides to each of those things. The drugs in fact ended up killing a lot of the musicians.
To hear some tell it, the Altamont Free Concert was the day (four months after Woodstock, the apotheosis of the era) that dream died/the illusion popped.
"Wow, turns out getting people hopped up on drugs at a free concert with a Biker Gang (paid in beer) running security DOESN'T result in a peaceful, money-free utopia." And like a number of recent culture issues, the death of a black guy was the precipitating incident.
Richard Nixon was... more right than wrong about hippies.
For my part I think it was fully doomed when the Corporations Co-opted their sentiment to sell sugar water. Note this was the same year John Lennon released "Imagine."
faceh
1d ago
Yeah, the one they'd specifically been antagonizing for a couple decades and thus was actually geared for repelling them.
faceh
1d ago
Yeeup.
To take a direct example, Europe has gotten so far from the era where they had to worry about Russian/Soviet Invasion that they don't even maintain the basic military capacity to defend their own shores if there was ever a 'serious' outbreak of war.
This was brought into Stark relief with the Ukraine war, but they still seem to work on the assumption that the U.S. will backstop things.
That's the reason Martial Arts has been able to resist infiltration, the traditions are strong and they DEMAND seriousness of effort.
You can't easily fake the 'seriousness of the effort' anymore. McDojos are still a thing, but thanks to the rise of MMA, there's an 'objective' measure of what works and what doesn't. "Oh you have trained in an ancient, secret style of martial arts passed down by a tribe of Eskimos for centuries? Cool. Take an amateur MMA fight and let us see how you do."
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is RIDICULOUSLY popular still. I literally drive past FOUR separate BJJ gyms on the way to my gym. Where I train Krav Maga and Boxing, but also offers BJJ.
You CANNOT fake BJJ ability.
So in short, you can't be an entryist in the MMA world without actually getting good at martial arts. And if you get good at martial arts, why would you want to then destroy your own hobby?
Likewise, there's not really any one central organization to infiltrate to overthrow everything. Even if a lefty ascended to the top of, say, the Gracie Family, there's a dozen other competing orgs that will just branch off if you try to turn it into another lefty political org.
And of course, the difference between the sexes cannot be papered over. "Girls are just as good at fighting as boys" blows up instantly when you see that a teenage boy can demolish all but the very-best trained women in a 'serious' sparring session.
So in short, its hard for politics to infect martial arts, you can't fake the skills, and it shows many lefty shibboleths to be flat out lies.
And its fun. So I expect it'll remain 'safe' from infiltration for a long time.
faceh
1d ago
Man. Same way.
I've gotten to the point where I can justify a fling with a particular sort of partner who is clearly never going to be able to commit to someone, as a means of physically satiating the desire.
But I have to be so emotionally distant about it that it is simply unfulfilling.
Repeated sexual intercourse with someone you genuinely care for and know their ins and outs and exactly how they respond... its better in ways that you wouldn't even realize if you've only ever had short-term partners.
"Intimacy" is poorly understood and seemingly underrated as part of the experience. Of course, sometimes you just want the dopamine hit that comes with banging someone hot.
faceh
1d ago
Had an interesting thought.
"Consequence-Free Sex" is a great sales pitch on its face.
But then you notice that some of the 'consequences' of sex are in fact good, desireable, and constructive, and throwing those out is really losing something important.
So women thought they were getting all the pleasure without the risk of pregnancy, STDs, emotional investment, or risk of abuse... and didn't notice that this was costing them a lot of the emotionally fulfilling aspects of it.
faceh
1d ago
A real question, culturally, do men want the responsibilities, or just the perks?
Bit of a trick in this one. What are 'male responsibilities?'
I'd posit:
- Go out hunting and bring back meat for the tribe.
- If a rival tribe attacks, take up arms and repel them, with deadly force if needed.
- If natural disaster strikes, rescue as many as possible and protect from as much damage as possible.
- Do the heavy lifting to build things/rebuild after disaster.
Almost any role men are expected to perform in society is one of these or a subset of these. Killing a spider in the house? 1. Tracking down and capturing a criminal? Blend of 1 and 2. Change the oil in the car? 4.
1 has been obviated by modern tech, and we prefer it that way.
4 is still a thing, but has been rendered pretty low status overall.
2 has been a nonissue in most places, especially the U.S., for a long time, and we prefer it that way.
3 DEFINITELY still happens, and we have systems in place to ensure it happens, but we have managed to mitigate much of the risk. And we prefer it that way.
But at any given time, if the need arises, men CAN be called upon to fulfill these responsibilities, to the death, if needed.
So the fact that most men haven't been called on to fight a war, kill a mammoth, or go down with a ship while the women and children escape doesn't change the fact that they could be called to do this at any time. And indeed, many of them spend a lot of time preparing themselves to jump into action even as the actual chances of needing to do so go down, since the impact of such events is still deadly and widespread.
So there's a disconnect. "Men don't live up to their responsibilities anymore" really means "men have managed to arrange a society that is mostly peaceful, robust against disaster, and produces more food than we know what to do with." And ignores "they also maintain readiness to take action to preserve this society if it is threatened" factor.
And this means mens' responsibilities are kind of invisible most of the time. So others (especially women) just assume men are getting all the perks whilst doing none of the work to earn them. Which might even be true... until its not.
This also explains why Firemen, Police Officers, and Soldiers still get some automatic cachet with women, since they signal themselves as a man who has actively sought out the male responsibility. Even though each of those jobs has only gotten safer/cushier over time for the reasons outlined above.
I do think its 'cheating' to suggest that women are excused from their obligations on the grounds that men aren't living up to their own standards, when the womens' obligations are relatively painless but very visible on a social level, and men's responsibilities are harder to perceive but extract a drastically higher cost when drawn upon.
So what seems to be the issue is that men DO maintain certain responsibilities... but thanks to successfully creating a highly advanced civilization, they've made it much less likely that they'll be publicly expected to perform those responsibilities at scale.
And yes, there are probably a lot of men who would reject the call to fight off an invader, track down a violent criminal, dive into floodwaters to save a child, or even to lift heavy equipment in the hot sun to construct a building.
And those that refuse those responsibility should, I say, be fairly ostracized.
But that's not really the question. As a man, I ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY want/accept these responsibilities.
With that said... I ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY want to minimize the chances of being called on to fulfill these responsibilities, by maintaining a civilization that is robust against such risks.
So bit of a contradiction there. "Yes, give me all the perks of maledom, and I will do my best to ensure that I am not called on to fulfill the responsibilities if I can help it."
But the problem I do keep hitting on, if you remove incentives for men to fulfill their responsibilities, and enough of them drop out of that role, its increasingly likely that the civilization they maintain will start to crumble.
Hmm.
Let me suggest for conversation's sake that there's no reason PK failed that isn't explained by the same reasons that every other male-centric organization was either infiltrated or undermined in this period.
My contention is that martials arts might be the sole remaining bastion of pure, healthy masculinity left in Western Society. I become more certain of this every passing year.
All else has been skinsuited or crushed. The UFC is the only sports league left that doesn't even try to cater to women or push LGBT causes, and it revels in its appeal to the dudebro.
So perhaps the failure of PK was they simply had no 'martial' aspect or even any competitive spirits to it to keep men engaged and deter entryism.
I'm not saying they were hiding it.
The process was definitely transparent in that they will straight up tell you how many they brought in.
I just note that somehow, the Sub-Saharan Immigrant population was about 1.3 million in 2010, and is listed at 2.5 million in 2024, so almost doubling.
Do I have to point out who the sitting Presidents were during the majority of that time period?
And the included map shows that a huge number of them were indeed dropped off in Minnesota, to the point they're around 3% of the population in the Minneapolis area.
The part that hasn't become so transparent until lately is exactly how much aid these folks were receiving, and, likewise, how much fraud and crime many were involved in.
If the Minnesotans start to disapprove of this situation, what's their recourse, precisely?
faceh
2d ago
I've watched (from some distance) a scenario where a young woman gets knocked up by a guy she's living with, leave him, give the baby up for adoption, then finds another guy, gets knocked up, leaves him while pregnant and travels for a bit, gives the baby up for adoption, and then again just finds a guy to live with.
Insanely corrosive way of going through life.
But she can somehow always find a guy willing to put a roof over her head.
faceh
2d ago
I don't think they voted for them all to be slammed down into the same jurisdictions granting them instant majorities and almost zero demand to truly assimilate.
Hell, if they had been spread around the country rather than specifically creating ethnic enclaves with outsized political power, I would find it less objectionable.
From my personal perspective, the fact that every bit of meaningful news coming out of Minnesota is related to migrants behaving badly or the Politicians doing insanely self-destructive stuff has been ridiculously radicalizing on the immigration question.
Before, the literal only thing I 'knew' about Minnesota was the Movie FARGO and the accents. Never been there, but the people I meet from that area are unfailingly polite and stable if a little weird to my southern sensibilities.
I viewed it as a quaint little slice of Midwestern rural charm. A bit of cultural crossover between the U.S. and Canada, maybe.
I've since learned that for NGOs and the Obama and Biden administration, it was viewed as "Free Real Estate."
And if you asked me to define the precise polar opposite of the Minnesotan cultural archetype, I'd probably say "Somalia".
So naturally a whole bunch of Somalians with zero cultural connection and from an area with a completely incongruous environment got shoved into Minnesotan towns and given every single piece of governmental assistance possible to try to ease their transition... and now the full implications of that are unavoidable. The existence of Ihlan Omar alone is enough for me to balk.
All the more so because as far as I can tell the Minnesotans were never asked, nor do they currently have much of a say. That is what really makes the situation feel 'unfair' if you ask me. The FedGov, through cooperation with NGOs (funded by FedGov) can instantly and irretrievably change the entire character of a given town without technically violating anyone's rights or needing their direct approval.
We've seen how well off communities react to this (Remember Desantis' Martha's Vineyard stunt), but these towns probably have little political clout and not much wealth to speak of.
faceh
4d ago
The seeming abruptness of Anakin's turn can be attributed in part to the Second Movie being as jumbled as it was.
In AotC, that's where he first demonstrates he's not really in control of his emotions.
Nevermind the issue of why he only JUST NOW tried to help his mother, at least this clearly demonstrated his 'trigger point' of losing a loved one. And of course, after losing his mother, it explains why he gets fanatical about protecting Padme from everything. The beginning of the Third film also showed him giving in to emotion under Palpatine's influence.
All of this was inartfully done. Anakin's rampage against the sand people realllllly should have been part of the climax of the second film (like the Vader/Luke encounter in Ep V) but instead it was that horrendous arena battle, and the slaughter was like the halfway point?
So he turn was foreshadowed but you'd be forgiven for downplaying that earlier incident in the grand scheme.
With Daenarys I dont' think there was any previous "losing control" moment They had Cersei murder her friend in front of her in the previous episode but that would only explain her rage against Cersei.
I dunno, if the goal all along was for Daeny to be a mad queen, she can't be mostly unphased by the experiences she has up until then.
faceh
4d ago
I've come across plenty of cases where "couple splits up, guy takes up with new partner, who if she isn't already pregnant soon becomes pregnant, guy is too involved with new family to do much about kids he's left with former partner".
Yeah, and WITHOUT marriage involved there's a common lower-class outcome of "guy knocks up 3 or more baby mommas, is involved in none of their lives, owes huge amounts of child support."
The alternative outcomes of a woman having no children whatsoever OR just having a child out of wedlock is generally not preferable!
My point is that even in the case where the woman is abandoned with a child in spite of being married, there are ample government and non-government social programs that will ensure she at least has a roof over her head, food, and protection from harm. IF she chooses to have a kid, a basic standard of living for said child is all but guaranteed.
Leaving out confounding factors like drug use or pure psychological illness, there is virtually no scenario where a woman is left destitute and to her own devices. Clearly it happens, there are a lot of homeless women out there, but in terms of risk calculation, for a 'normal' woman it is negligible.
And the one thing that reliably ensures a woman's happiness over the course of her entire life is generally "marriage to a decent guy and raising kids who love her." That's it. Nothing else provides the same level of consistent upside over the course of decades. And accepting the risk that a guy might eventually abandon her is the price of getting there.
If many women are too anxious or indecisive to take that initial risk, some additional social pressure to push them along would actually be beneficial overall.
faceh
4d ago
It's the most tit-for-tat political retaliation ever.
Yep.
Completely irrespective of ideal political norms or even the optics of it, I have to respect how precisely targeted and proportional it is.
Comey basically signed off on a witch hunt that he knew was baseless. And it wasted two to three years of the first Trump presidency.
Given that issue, and the irregularities around the 2020 election, I'd almost just shrug it off if Trump wanted a third term.
He shouldn't get one, and not just because of the rules. But the bureaucracy effectively vetoing a President's agenda for years (with congress' tacit approval, granted) is a worse problem than a President winning an election for a third time.
That's my conclusion.
Rough as it sounds, the evidence is that giving women what they've said they wanted is becoming an albatross and we've sacrificed a lot of theoretical children on the altar of a false god. That's a melodramatic way to say "TFR has cratered", of course.
When I say "pressure women to actually settle" I DO NOT mean "force them to accept men they find unworthy, bar them from academia, mandate pregnancies, etc. etc.".
I literally just mean "Stop granting uncapped, unrestricted optionality that is subsidized mainly by the males they're refusing to settle for."
Women have been handed the unrestricted ability to pursue academic degrees, careers, travel, sex with anyone they want (and nobody they don't), raise kids or don't (irrespective of getting pregnant! She can abort if she wants, or adopt if she wants), imbibe whatever illicit substances she wants, associate with whomever she wants, and in many cases, inflict social ostracization and legal consequences on anyone she can gin up plausible enough allegations of abuse or sex pestism against.
In the case of attractive women, it isn't exaggeration to say that if she wants anything, literally anything, she just needs to broadcast that desire to the world (trivial thanks to social media) and it is all but certain someone will run out of the ether to give it to her.
The one thing that they don't get guaranteed for them in this life is "commitment from a high value male."
Which, irony of ironies, is basically the one specific thing they're actually wired to want. The very basis for all the intrasexual competition, the 'hypergamy,' the makeup, the social climbing, the degree-getting. Almost all else (except child-rearing) is arguably secondary to that evolutionary drive to lock down the male with the highest status in her vicinity.
So all that optionality and many of them are just cut off from the thing that nature programmed them to actually covet. Whoops.
My concern now is that between the women themselves who are wont to give up this optionality, the cohort of men who are wont to ever upset women, and the small cohort of men who are massively benefiting from the status quo (until it all crashes), there's no way to muster any political will to even adjust the current policy reality.
We've basically got some sub-majority portion of men, including the hardcore trads and the incel brigade, who would possibly be on board with any platform that includes "possibly telling women 'no, you can't have that.'" So as some on here have been saying, it seems like a "coup-complete" issue.
In a 1 v. 1 scenario, I would no-shit bet on a guy with a knife who sort of knows what he's doing vs. the guy with a gun.
We've tested this under pressure. Unless the gunman gets a shot off that actually incapacitates the other guy instantly, once the distance closes a blade does more damage more quickly and reliably. If its already close quarters, good luck actually deploying the weapon and getting a shot off under pressure.
And if the gun jams or slips from your grasp or the other guy manages to take it, you're screwed.
You're almost better off using it as a bludgeon.
There's dozens of bodycam videos out there of a cop getting jumped by knife-wielding attacker and they almost always get cut before the attacker is neutralized. And oftentimes the only reason the attacker is neutralized is because another cop shoots them in time.
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