urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
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User ID: 226
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
For most men the immediate response is crickets and zero interest (assuming introverted nerdy type) which then requires considerable personal development to grind through. For the women, the result tends to be getting played a few times and then pivoting hard to PVP mode or just opting out.
Well… yeah? I’m not completely sure where you’re disagreeing, that’s my point… many women get played and conclude “all men are like that” and many men are left with either women in PvP mode or no traction at all, and they conclude that “all women are like that.”
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
For all its problems on the student side, Western universities are still on top when it comes to research quality. I tend to think of our universities as top-tier research institutions glued precipitously to crappy status-stratified indoctrination centers and finishing schools. I mean, I can't tell you how many professors my peers had at university who very clearly hated teaching (particularly undergraduates). Chinese students come to the West to study because, unlike most local students, they're motivated to actually participate in research and aren't repelled by disagreeable professors.
The goal of the Chinese is a) to participate in the status system of Western universities and therefore enhance the prestige of China (even if they believe it's not as meritocratic as it should be, they still want in on that sweet status while it's for the taking) and b) to bring knowledge and expertise from the West to China.
Their geopolitcal strategy is to use Western institutions to springboard Chinese research. I have a friend who works for a technology firm out of a non-Western country, that has satellite locations in the US placed in strategic locations specifically to pull away talent from American R&D divisions and enhance their homegrown research. My belief is that Chinese students at American universities are there for very similar reasons. And that's particularly why a lot of the geopolitical debates concern Chinese students who study at American instutions and return home.
I have no doubt the eventual goal of the Chinese is to make their own universities better than Harvard or Yale, and presumably a combination of Han supremacism, Confucianism, and Communist ideology motivates their belief that they'll come out on top.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
· Edited 9mo ago
My takeaway from the discussion a year ago you linked is not that we're fucked. It's that things are bad, but bad in a way that's contingent on cultural factors that could absolutely change, even if it's hard.
I particularly liked @SpoonOfSugar's comment:
Both men and women are open to long-term committed relationships only if they get a great deal. People who marry often think that they both got lucky in the sense that they self-rate as a 6 but rate their partner as a 9. Of course this doesn't happen all that often.
This checks out to me. The most successful relationships in my life have been ones where explicitly, repeatedly, both my partner and I demonstrated that we thought higher of the other than we thought of ourselves. In other words, we both thought we were punching above our weight. But I question whether this not happening very often is a permanent fixture of human mating or whether there's something going on specifically in the 21st century. It used to be that people could see "Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt."
I also liked @Forgotpassword's comment:
I feel like a huge amount of [men playing the field] is the sheer grind required to 'ascend' and the rejection along the way, especially in the modern dating app sphere. IMO the majority of both gender rock up with more-or-less good intentions, but it only takes a little bit of exposure to the current culture to reach a state of Fuck You.
I genuinely believe the core of the problem is the prevalence of online dating, which transforms dating from a personal test of compatibility into a meat market where women are overloaded by offers of cheap sex. This distorts people's perceptions of their actual attractiveness while also incentivizing sociopathic behavior. Women are incentivized to offer early sex to high-quality men (because they won't give them the time of day otherwise), and high-quality men are incentivized to avoid commitment (because they already got the milk(shake) for free) and proceed to avoid committing to them.
So then these unfortunate women's barometers for men's attractiveness are set on 'high' and they don't find more average partners attractive or interesting, which means, like a pornsick man, they can't bring themselves to find happiness with a suitable partner and they become disgusted and revolted by how "all men [who I am still capable of seeing as a sexual being] are like that."
And these are the women the unfortunate men on online dating have to try and woo, and because they don't see the men as attractive or valuable they make excessive, deranged, and unrealistic demands of them, and the men find themselves unable to find happiness with a suitable partner and become disgusted and revolted by how "all women [who haven't already found a suitable partner and are still on online dating after years] are like that."
With online dating taking over, we've also eliminated the other cultural opportunities where people meet spouses by labeling them sexual harrassment or stigmatizing them. The decline in voluntary associations has also played a role.
I can't tell you how many stories I have in my family of the average guy marrying the girl next door. When your dating circle is limited, and tied to your fixed community, you connect with people, and consider your potential partners part of your sphere of concern. You care about even the people you reject.
To fix dating, we need to rebuild communities. I realize that's basically the "draw the rest of the owl" argument. But we need to draw the rest of the freaking owl. I don't know how we do that, I don't know how we get people to talk to each other again, I don't know how we make people see others as part of their sphere of concern, I don't know how we do it. But we have to do it. Deus vult, deus vult, deus vult.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
It's not just about IQ. I know plenty of smart people -- people smarter than me -- who couldn't finish college, because they kept on sleeping through class and missing deadlines. It's about IQ, and conscientousness, and either having low neuroticism or enough coping mechanisms to maneuver through the neuroticism you have, and being pro-social. Heck, conscientiousness might be more important than IQ for most things.
though one wonders why less "woke"/diverse nations don't simply institute IQ tests
They do! We're talking about South Korea's fierce competition down below. And East Asian Confucianist competition is nothing more than an elaborate proxy for IQ, conscientiousness... and all of the aforesaid traits.
It needs to be grueling and competitive, because we know of no other way to test for industriousness other than actually putting people to work and seeing who sticks to deadlines and persists and who doesn't. There is no lab test we can do to measure that value, everything in the short term reduces to IQ. But for employment, it's the long term we care about.
The only other way we have to measure that part of people's personality is by straight up asking them -- "Do you keep deadlines?" "Is it important for you to work?" "Are you lazy?" -- and the second we try to measure a property by self-report and tie it to outcomes anyone with an above-room-temperature IQ will start simply lying.
College is just the West's version of Confucian examinations. Only the actual competition comes in secondary school, before anyone submits an application to any university, and we don't publicize the fact beforehand so most of the population doesn't realize how much their petty high school activities and extracurriculars will define the course of their life. And unlike the Confucian system, it's explicitly designed to favor children of the elite, while letting in some token minorities so the college brochures don't look 'too white.' China can point to the Western university and say, "not only is this fundamentally less valid as a measurement than our traditional form of examination, but it is an affront to our socialist value of equality." And I'm sure they do. A lot.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
I definitely agree that a lot of white-collar jobs don't actually require higher education -- just some interpersonal skills and Microsoft Office expertise. IMO very few non-technical fields actually require the level of education provided by 4-year degrees. Very little of it is retained, anyway, particularly if it isn't being used.
Ultimately what I believe is going on is that employers are using college education as a proxy for conscientiousness and IQ, whether consciously or unconsciously. You want to hire people for your office positions who are genuinely better employees than fry cooks. And testing directly for the desired traits is either illegal or too gauche. You try convincing Linda the HR lady you want to ignore qualifications and hire based on IQ tests. So college performance becomes the acceptable proxy, and it includes the relevant payoffs to interest groups like under-represented minorities and women that are the cost of doing business.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) was a far-right survivalist anti-government militia which advocated Christian Identity and was active in the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s. Christian Identity is an interpretation of Christianity which advocates the belief that only Celtic and Germanic peoples, such as the Anglo-Saxon, Nordic nations, or people of the Aryan race and people of kindred blood, are the descendants of the ancient Israelites and are therefore God's "chosen people".
What the fuck is it with random groups claiming to be descendents of the Hebrews with no evidence beyond neener-neener-neener?
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
How many people really need to spend four years (and an increasingly large amount of money) on a degree, if we're being honest?
Increasingly, anyone who wants to do anything better-compensated or more-dignified than working at McDonald's or stocking shelves at Walmart. But that's only if we exclude trade apprenticeships or 2-year technical degrees, which I'd count under "college."
But the road to success for non-college-educated has eroded.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
Yeah, this election has brought out the worst in the left the way 2016 brought out the worst in the right. The growth of the ‘weird’ meme is just… weird. I said it when the ad came out and I’m saying it now: I don’t understand why the attack is landing, and why conservatives aren’t content to just laugh it off for the dumbassery it is.
But also, it’s just bullying. It’s puerile. And unlike Trump’s puerile bullying, it’s directed at the masses, at a large group of faceless people, not public figures. It has more “47%” or “bitter clingers” or “basket of deplorables” energy than “Ted Cruz’s wife is ugly” energy. I don’t like a lot of the bullying Trump does, but other than his views on illegal immigrants (which even Scott defended as more balanced than was reported), I don’t remember him bullying the masses.
Is this all about Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comment, which wasn’t even made during the campaign? Did this piss off the childless cat ladies so much they went scorched earth?
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
If the IT guys establish a dictatorship, the revolution will run on Azure. I'm sorry.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
Honestly, given her unhinged behavior during that fight... I think this is just an insane person. Please nobody stick their dick in crazy. I don't care if you think you can fix her. You can't.
There are definitely super far-right women who exist, even far-right Jewish women, but I just can't see them dressing like she does, or acting as she does, or showing the power level the way she does, or having pink hair. Can anyone imagine 2rafa holding up a cardboard sign?
But maybe if they're "fascist" in the "antisocial personality disorder biker gang prison tat" way, but I don't consider them to be far-right in any way other than pure oppositionalism. Which maybe does describe fascism to a greater degree than other forms of the far right.
My diagnosis is "personality disorder" and "literally insane." But we're way past the point where this is a social experiment, no one doing an experiment starts shouting slurs unless they mean it or aren't in their right mind. But if it is a social experiment... it failed massively, none of the leftists she thought would apparently be in favor of gassing the Jews felt anything but hatred for her.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
· Edited 9mo ago
there’s plenty of eg, nurses and IT guys who are on the other side
There are also plenty of nurses and IT guys on the red team, certainly more than doctors and software engineers. My top-of-head prediction was 60-40 one way or another. I did look it up though, “IT support technician” was much more Democratic than I thought (75%) though “Vice President of Information Technology” almost perfectly fit my 60-40 split in favor of the Dems. This might be class effects, but I think it’s just age effects.
But I’d challenge that this means 70% of IT guys are woke. IT guys are ground zero of grey tribe. If they’re liberals, they’re tits-and-beer liberals. A huge chunk are libertarians. And the Republicans are split between normie men who tinker in their garage and insane crazy reactionaries who want to overthrow democracy and institute a monarchy. (Presumably using group policy objects.) I’m sure there’s a progressive chunk but they’re less loud. IT is too low-status and too weird for anything as boringly white-collar as that.
Basically, IT guys are The Motte.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
Shoehorning every issue into “freedom” requires some downright Orwellian twists. Abrogating the constitutional freedom of the right to bear arms is inverted to “freedom to live without gun violence”. A massive regulatory state creating arcane rules for everything from flow of showerheads to the powertrains of vehicles becomes “the freedom to live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis”. I think the framing probably works for people on that side of those issues though.
I mean, isn't this just the difference between positive rights and negative rights, a major difference between the left and the right? Negative rights talk about a right to do that can't be taken away, Positive rights talk about a right to have that must be provided.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
I may not be an expert on HPE corporate culture, but I seriously doubt that they start negotiations by letting the other party glimpse some undeniable evidence of murders they have committed.
If flairs could be this long, this should be your flair.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
· Edited 9mo ago
The primary demographic I'm referring to are PMC Males who have pride flags next to their twitter handle, a COEXIST bumps sticker on their subaru, and have never been part of an organized sport in their lives. These are men who gain sexual access to women by hyper flattering their cultural and social biases. They often get friend zoned. They make awful husbands and say things like, "My wife's boyfriend drives a truck life that!"
We agree about a lot of things, even on this issue, but this is just intense boo outgroup without any useful content. "The men who disagree with me are liars, cheaters, and weaklings who women hate, they have to play pretend to get laid, they make awful husbands and they're cucks," is barely distinct from "The men who disagree with me are liars, cheaters, and weaklings who women hate, they have to play pretend to get laid, they make awful husbands and they're misogynists," which is precisely the way that the left talks about incels.
I don't disagree that there are some lefty men who dissemble or exaggerate their progressive opinions to appeal to progressive women. But there are, of course, righty men who dissemble or exaggerate their religiosity to appeal to devout women. That was particularly true when religion was more important in society, as wokeness is now.
Playing the game of "find new and creative ways to call the opposition sexually-revolting losers" is particularly ironic when the topic of discussion is the demonization of lonely men, as it is with the incel policies.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
Yeah, the idea that one can judge the fraction of the workforce that’s single and lonely based on who goes to trendy bars after work is ludicrous. Like determining what fraction of the population is religious based on a D&D campaign. (But jokes on all of us, my friends who play D&D — I don’t — are Baptists.)
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
Then there’s my girlfriend, who watches TikTok ripoffs like Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. But then again, she identifies as a granny in a young woman’s body.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
· Edited 9mo ago
My concern is that society is now insanely hyper-individualized with focus on direct personal success. It's one of those things that so endemic it's almost hard to notice (fish in water sort of thing) and then, once one does notice, its ubiquity is mind boggling.
This is my biggest problem with anglosphere society, and I believe it's rooted in the broader sense of individualism and freedom that people often praise in America. I wonder very frequently whether these are actually the factors that have made America wealthy, or if it's actually just the privileged economic and military position of the country due to the World Wars. Individualism and freedom are destructive to community and purpose. Say what you will about the socialist realists, but at least they had an ethos!
There was a scene in The Crown where they dramatized what they thought might have been the conversation between Queen Elizabeth and (then the) Duke of Edinburgh Philip. This conversation took place after some alleged infidelity on the part of Philip, which the dramatization was incredibly coy about. Not sure what the reality looked like, but I'm specifically talking about the dramatization and would make the same point even if the story were entirely fictional. It went like this:
Eliz. I think we both agree, it can't go on like this. So I thought we might take this opportunity, without children, without distraction, to lay our cards on the table, and talk frankly, for once, about what needs to change to make this marriage work. I realize this marriage has turned out to be something quite different to what we both imagined.
Phil. Understatement.
Eliz. And that we find ourselves in a...
Phil. Prison.
Eliz. A situation. Which is unique. The exit route which is open to everyone else...
Phil. Divorce.
Eliz. Yes, divorce. It's not an option for us. Ever. So, what would make it easier on you? To be in, not out. What will it take?
Phil. You're asking my price?
Eliz. I'm asking, what will it take?
Without endorsing (fictionalized) Philip's misconduct that got them into this situation, I'd say there's a real kernel of value in this -- if you see your marriage as indissoluble, you begin to see fixing your marriage as a task you must collaborate on and compromise in order to accomplish. Obviously this requires that both parties are actually discussing in good faith, want to fix the marraige, and anyone who has done wrong is willing to make amends; in situations where there is no remorse, no respect, and no resolution, there must be dissolution. If the ring won't fit, you two must split. If they're both out to plunder, let it be torn asunder.
But I firmly believe there are far fewer of those than most people, in our "divorce is adult breakup" age, believe. And the reasons for ending such a significant long-term relationship, on the part of both men and women, are often incredibly petty. Marital therapy often serves not to let both partners release their goblins and find a path forward, but for one partner to ally with a sympathetic authority figure in order to bully the other into submission. And that's not a marriage, it's a sublimated cuck(old)(queen) fantasy.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
· Edited 9mo ago
A point I would make is that trad and modern male gender roles aren't a rejection of each other: they're largely the same, at least in terms of what women find attractive for a suitable partner. Here, it's the man pays. Even feminists have taken to justifying the norm with references to the pay gap/cost of makeup/dating risk.
Certainly there are many women who insist on men paying for dates using this formula, but I believe the sort of women who make references to the pay gap/cost of makeup/dating risk as reasons for men to pay for everything on dates are too self-oriented and men who have self-respect should not date them. I say the same for men who complain about paying for dates, excepting situtations in which the sorts of dates women are expecting are genuinely excessive -- particularly when it's excessive for their social class. Worthwhile women do not whine about men not paying for dates, and worthwhile men do not whine about paying for them.
Men and women who care about each other should each pay a portion towards their dates in accordance with their ability to pay and interest in a particular subject. Going to a woman's favorite restaurant on her birthday? Maybe treat her to it. Going to see Cheesy Romantic Comedy 8? Maybe she should buy his ticket. Watching Action Sci-Fi 11? He should buy. But ultimately if you're breaking your relationship down into a list of debts that must be transactionally repaid, your relationship is worth shit, and you should either make it worth more than that or end it. Love pays debts, owing nothing; forgives debts, losing nothing.
As a more moderate socialcon, I'm a strong proponent of partnership-based relationships, where the people in them view each other as fundamentally teammates in facing the highs and the lows of life -- you know, "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer." @ProfQuirrell had a wonderful description of how such a partnership should operate. (And I hope his marriage is better than his namesake's partnership with his, um, other half.)
My view would be that men and women need to contribute towards their relationship in meaningful ways. That can be they both pitch in monetarily, that can be one tends to pay and the other tends to the garden, that can be one cooks and the other sweeps the floor, that can be one works a 9-5 and the other watches the kids. It depends on the couple, their strengths and their needs.
Obviously this is a bit of conservatism being liberalism driving the speed limit. But we're at a point where even the normal and healthy give-and-take that characterizes healthy human relationships is missing from people's expectations. And that's wrong, terribly wrong, horrifically wrong, daemonically wrong. We crossed a line that isn't just non-traditional, it's actively destructive.
Find someone who doesn't see you as a piggy bank or a cum depository. If you can't do that, you're either dating too 'high' or dating in the wrong place. Kind, caring, warm people exist. But the unfortunate thing for people dating later in life is this group is usually taken early, because their standards are realistic and their approach to relationships invites commitment.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
· Edited 9mo ago
I'm not familiar with the canon law nor am I at this time a practicing Catholic, but from glancing online the radical sanation path might make a lot of sense.
You know much more about your wife's concerns than I do. But speaking as someone from a protestant background -- any sort of formal submission to Catholic authority, even on a matter about which there is agreement, can be very, very scary. I mean, I hope you and your wife both meant your vows to be for life, considering foreseeable possibilities, in accordance with the divine teaching. Do you think she's more concerned about signing a document that says she's signing on to Catholic teaching, or more concerned about making a pledge that she interprets as closing her off from a divorce should you do something radical, which of course you would never do, like have an affair?
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
Yeah, definitely. I post only here and on a few other obscure hobby forums, and I avoid all other social media.
Plus, any time I post a very thoughtful analysis of something on a hobby forum, I get very little engagement because my kind of analytical dissection isn't really what most people are looking for from their social media. I can't post clapback tweets, I can't do it, so the motte is the only place online that tolerates my kind of lengthy diatribes. Fortunately I have a few people in real life who seem to appreciate having those kinds of discussions with me.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
I regretted the comment, and I’m not interested in furthering that particular line of discussion, as I don’t think anything fruitful will come of it.
urquan
Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
9mo ago
I suspect the mainstream media would loudly proclaim that the causes are corporate greed and republican obstructionism in congress.
Yep, in other words the powers that be. Obama being president didn’t stop riots related to police shootings. All that needs to happen for a riot to break out is for the potential rioters to perceive that the unstoppable powers that be caused their problems. And in your hypothetical, the media has gladly provided such an explanation: “corporate greed and republican obstructionism in congress!”
I'd love to believe that my fellow travelers are amazing at tolerance, but I honestly believe it's the second one. For educated people, progressivism is the default. If you're going to be educated and not progressive, you need to develop your ideas and hone your beliefs, because everything and everyone around you is going to try and push you into being a progressive. If you're a young, educated conservative -- or even a moderate -- it means you're already not the kind of person who allows the Overton window to set your political beliefs. You arrived, or maintained, your conclusions in spite of the social consensus. You're a maverick.
There are definitely circles where the polarity is reversed, but for the most part you have to seek them out.
But also political liberals are more likely to report mental health problems like depression and I can't help but believe that part of it is just that political conservatives are more comfortable in their skin than progressives. And that progressives have a lot of intense fear about what conservatives might do that is shaped by an overall negative impression of the world. Which is food for thought -- progressives are often described as the bright cheery optimistic idealists, and conservatives the dark brooding fearful X-phobes... but I think the reality is much more complicated.
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