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ZeStriderOfDunedain

Ze Strider

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joined 2022 September 06 04:34:38 UTC

Maybe it was the weather, but that night I found her very alluring.


				
User ID: 812


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
ZeStriderOfDunedain


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Ze Strider

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 04:34:38 UTC
				


				
					

					
Maybe it was the weather, but that night I found her very alluring.



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 812


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah this is the Right's "It's not happening, oh it is happening and it's GOOD" moment. Every new detail we learn makes it painfully evident that there's a severe blind spot in Trump's cognitive abilities to model second and third order consequences. This is worse than Iraq. I don't know what is going to happen after the midterms and October elections in Israel. We're not going to realise the fullest consequences of this war until 4-5 years later. Iran is definitely building a bomb, so I suspect Israel will keep striking them indefinitely, with or without US help.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ha I wish (almost!)


I'm mostly speaking secondhand, years of noticing recurring patterns in real life and fictional relationships that appeared healthy but looking back, really wasn't. Typically, there is some level of mutual initial attraction and maybe even care. But the femme fatale operates on her own internal logic. She's deliberately ambiguous, discloses very little, presses all the right buttons to disarm him, encourages him to do her bidding, and withdraws... but not completely! She enjoys her power in the dynamic. On the other hand, the guy is reorganising everything around her rhythms. Waiting for reply texts and reading meaning into every small gesture and before you know it, he's lost his confidence and initiative around her. She gaslights him at every moment she can, threatens him, constantly reminds him of all the things she's done for him, refuses to acknowledge his qualities unless it is calculated and given precisely when needed to drive in another command, or jab at his intellect. He becomes almost childlike, and that dependency leaves him vulnerable. He begins subconsciously seeking her permission to have an opinion or even think for himself. He might tell himself it's a challenge and not slow poisoning. He pretends he's emotionally detached when really he's over-tolerating. He'll see the door yet feel obligated to choose her over and over again. He refuses to see the trauma building up from the mismatched levels of attachment and when he does, he's reorganised his entire personality so thoroughly that no one (including himself) can recognise him anymore, nor who he used to be.


But because none of the signs are immediately evident to an outsider, they'll simply think she's wearing the pants and he's laidback.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Real life femme fatales just chew you up and spit you out with a sort of effortless finality, rather than the theatrical Hollywood BDSM violence. The emotional disorientation of her "victim" IMO is far more damaging than the contrived (kinky) physical force. She's a master manipulator and enjoys immense social advantage over the man, so he loses his confidence and intensity around her, and bends to her whims out of fear of backlash. Emotional abuse is simply not as visibly obvious as physical violence.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I can't imagine any evo-psych explanation for this that makes any sense at all




When Rihanna dropped one of the biggest tracks in her career in 2011 and EDM was sonically reaching its peak, I was too young to see what a toxic relationship the MV was about.




It's like you're screaming,
and no one can hear.
You almost feel ashamed.
That someone could be that important,
that without them, you feel like nothing.
No one will ever understand how much it hurts.
You feel hopeless, like nothing can save you.
And when it's over, and it's gone,
you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back.
So that you could have the good.




In the midst of that unholy symphony of emotional turmoil, tears, and self destruction, it's the search for those brief moments of euphoria that really keeps one going. The song makes me feel so empty in a way most mainstream billboard top 100s never do. Can't say I've been there myself, but it does give me a glimpse of what it feels like. Unfortunately, we're never stopping anyone from making bad calls and trying to intervene excessively probably makes it worse and gives them incentive to rebel.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You might be onto something there! Millennials are still seen as youngish people in the media, lots of millennial aged men and women in Hollywood who were childhood crushes for a lot of zoomers growing up are still seen as desirable. And big productions usually cast somewhat seasoned actors and actresses for main roles, which would put them in the 30+ age bracket. Which makes me think that male preference for strictly younger women is not quite as universal as women usually preferring older men.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Emotional intelligence" certainly seems to be a $4 doublespeak for "my way or the highway".


Closely related: how society "intellectualises" female gaze and sexual interest as more sophisticated than its more primal and unfiltered male counterpart, hence justifying policing of female sexualisation in media.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Something something misogyny of gamers and Star Wars nerds. You can make a much stronger case for anti-men sentiment in female dominated kdrama/kpop fandoms, as (unironically pro-4B) radfems frequent these spaces and gatekeep like crazy. But it's just a case of women by default having more social capital than men on average.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Somewhat OT but there seems to be lot more males in gen z with an older woman fetish at least online, in spite of the metaphorical "wall". I saw a Chinese woman talking about this, she links this to directness and better socialisation of older gals, which makes sense but I suspect there's more to it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Idk if it's tragic or funny that /r/okaybuddyliterallyme was swearing up and down that they were just exiled depressed introverts but NOT incels, repeating the script "I'M the one to blame" verbatim. Admirable if genuine, but it's reddit so I default assume it's just performative accountability to retain a single crumb of ingroup social acceptance. But there is negligible difference in social/sexual success between self declared incels and whatever Ryan Gosling posters fashion themselves as.


This is why I endorse that Chinese dating discourse from the last thread, those gals were brutally honest!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
W is literally one of the rare presidents from the last 100 years who really doesn't have any defenders on either side of the aisle. He clearly doesn't have a home in the current GOP, and nobody on the left is ever going to bat to defend his presidency. And honestly, after that infamous freudian slip in 2022, it's safe to say that W himself shares that sentiment. And while Presidents like Grant, Truman, Carter, and even HW have seen historical reassessments boost the ranking of their presidencies to various degrees, that's never happened for W. Those guys were hurt by making unpopular decisions at the time that were somewhat justifiable in the long run, but the Iraq war looks like a bigger and bigger mistake with each year that passes. And Trump seems to be headed down a worse trajectory, there's at least that W was probably just a passenger in his own presidency while Cheney and Rumsfeld were behind the wheel.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


a battered wife is unhappy with her husband's temporary alcoholised and violent state but will still tell the cops to piss off if they come to investigate reports that he sexually abuses their child.




Yeeep. Harsh but all that NATO infrastructure, dollar clearing, intel pipelines, and post-WW2 habit make outright defection feel so much costlier than staying. They signal public unhappiness to war wary domestic audiences while operational alignment cracks on as usual. The real question is future power dynamics in the middle east. Let's say Trump withdraws today and pretends shit never happened. The past month has dramatically altered the timeline. We're told the UAE is joining to open up the strait. Israel's "moderate" Yair Lapid backed the attacks on Tehran's oil fields. Iran is absolutely pursuing a nuke now. Does anybody remember Gaza? Where do we go from here?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Internal diversity. It's just us weirdos and freaks. But wouldn't it be a more interesting space where left leaning users participate while being held to the same moderation and quality standards so they engage without the usual social shaming dialogue (accusations of bigotry, bad faith, or moral failure)? Let the discussions move beyond status games and purity spirals toward actual arguments. I want the leftists in the conversation. Darwin was one of the few prolific leftist posters around here, though a ragebaiter admittedly. Been two years since he ditched this site and retreated to reddit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not quite sure that Chinese women are especially more materialistic than women elsewhere, but they do seem strikingly unashamed about voicing it openly and without the usual western layers of therapeutic language and performative empathy.




But you’re pursuing me, which means that in your eyes, I’m a match for your looks. My God, just thinking about it gives me a vague urge to kill someone. I beg you to stop liking me. Your pursuit has deeply hurt my self-esteem.




Posted without context, this would get instantly dismissed as bitter incel fanfic in most online spaces. Yet here it is, raw and unfiltered from Chinese dating discourse. No vague "I'm just not feeling it," no soft landing about "personality" or "timing." Just a direct ledger of perceived market value, and going straight to the jugular where the suitor's interest itself devalues the woman's in her own eyes.


But I find the honesty refreshing in its brutal contempt for pretense.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not calling you anything personally, nor am I implying you engage in that sort of behaviour. I'm largely indifferent to someone's personal prejudices, be it antisemite, anti-Muslim, anti-Indian, anti-apache helicopter. I'm just echoing Amadan's sentiment that this particular discourse, unless heavily moderated, has an extremely high propensity to collapse into a kind of zero-nuance intellectual junk food, where a single reductive heuristic is made to bear explanatory weight for an otherwise complex world. Take Tucker Carlson for instance, he constantly implies that Israel and Israel alone wanted this war to happen, as if Trump did not have any agency here or that the war doesn't reflect his own ideological commitments independent of Israeli/Jewish influence. It's rhetorically potent and emotionally satisfying, but it obscures more than it clarifies. At that point, it turns into a self fulfilling prophecy and even Jewish moderates grow understandably suspicious of any non-Jewish criticism of Israel, reading it through the lens of prior experience rather than in isolation. In turn, those most immersed in that discourse often do tend to display broadly negative priors, which reinforces the cycle. Kinda how black activists who fixate monolithically on institutional racism and slavery probably do signal anti-white proclivities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because the move from critiquing institutions like the ADL or AIPAC to gesturing at “Jews” as a coherent bloc with aligned interests is where the analysis tends to degrade. It collapses a wide range of individuals, incentives, and internal disagreements into a kind of ethnic shorthand that explains too much and therefore explains very little. At that point, it begins to resemble the exact pattern Amadan is pointing to when he talks about criticism of Israel bleeding into garden variety joo poasting. I'm not particularly sensitive to charges of antisemitism but it just makes the conversation tiring.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Bro stole the words out of my brain.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Again, there was two years of digging through everything they could get their hands on. Yes, the deleted messages and encrypted apps leave some gaps, but the team still pieced together a pretty clear picture that didn't show campaign level conspiracy or coordination with Russia. It's more like the parent searched the whole house, questioned friends, checked call logs, and even found some flirty texts, but nothing that actually proved the daughter was sneaking out for secret hookups.




They could have just released the files as they promised to do multiple times before and during the election season.






It is perfectly reasonable to wonder why they pivoted so hard, and that reason is pretty likely related to either people in the admin itself or a powerful third party who they wish to protect.




The actual contents of the files are ancillary to the volatility of an international public primed for outrage.


American elites are a pedo cabal, the Epstein files is the grand unifying conspiracy that explains the world, and old Jeff was a Mossad linked predaphile blackmail kingpin puppeteering America towards Greater Israel. Any mention of sexual activity on Little Saint James island is evidence of minor sexual abuse. Absence of details means the real tapes have been scrubbed a long time ago. Exoneration means elite capture, silence is cover-up, and deviant Jews are overseeing the network.


That is the popular narrative. And it is epistemically bulletproof.


Best case scenario is we revisit this fiasco with a little more lucidity once it's ancient history.




The strategy is to not enter the burning building to begin with if you don't have a plan to get out.




Not the first, not the last ladder climber to yank his own rug just to make his rival trip. Recent events should be the most glaring exhibition of a consistent blind spot in Trump’s capacity for modeling downstream second and third order consequences.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Never. The objective of Russiagate has always been to attack Trump, his legitimacy as POTUS 45, and erode public confidence in his administration. I don't know if an Iran war was always inevitable independent of Trump, but Trump has most certainly accelerated the timeline.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The Mueller report explicitly concluded it "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities," despite the Trump Tower meeting, WikiLeaks interest, etc. There was no smoking gun of active collusion, even after the most exhaustive investigation since Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance. There is a boring explanation to Trump 1.0's aggressive actions (like trying to have Mueller fired via McGahn); rather than an attempt to hide some deeper conspiracy, it was understandable frustration and defensiveness in response to what they (Trump and MAGA) view as an overreaching, politically motivated investigation that ultimately found no criminal coordination despite two years of scrutiny.




Epstein files continues to suggest something deeper




I'm apparently the only "Epstein skeptic" here, I discussed it in an earlier CW thread. Regardless, there could be a deceptively simple explanation here as well: there is simply no exit strategy here. The "files" are a raw doc dump of anything tangentially related to Epstein. Analogously, any tangential mention of Trump (and other individuals) that's not quite incriminating but still supremely humiliating can and will be used to impugn him as a child rapist. But Trump himself lit the fuse with the "pedo cabal" hysteria, and he probably did not expect it to blow up under his own arse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But the ratio feels disrespectful to listeners who aren't already invested fans willing to sift through hours of filler for 15 good minutes. The meandering is the main event, loaded with Rogan specific easter eggs that his guest had clearly rehearsed for. I'll take the press junket thing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't speak for where the usual TheMotte user stands on these things, this place attracts and tolerates people with well outside the overton window takes without being brigaded by downvotes and redditor insults, as long as they can do so with some sort of rigour and charity.


That said, when I rail against "feminism" as a mind virus, I'm targeting the existing, mainstream, culturally dominant version: the 3rd wave plus progressive bundle that dominates media, academia, HR, policy advocacy, and campus and corporate norms. The version that rarely, if ever, distances itself from female favouring asymmetries (family courts, affirmative action, distortionist history, #BelieveAllWomen defaults, benevolent sexism as privilege, etc.) and almost never features prominent mainstream voices aggressively holding women accountable for exploiting them or calling out female hypergamy, entitlement, invasion of male spaces or bad behaviour as systemic problems rather than individual flaws.


Also, earlier waves of feminism heavily baked in original sin dialectics (men as inherent oppressors, patriarchy as omnipresent original sin women are born into resisting), while lounging off of the comforts of the modern world (which allows for systemic equality between the sexes and offers vocations that women can fill without being bogged down by physical disadvantages), which itself was built upon and continues to be sustained by (mostly) male physical labour. And radfem roots (still influential in TERF corners and academia) strategically seek to halt the progression wheel short of full gender abolition so biological females retain sex based privileges indefinitely. At least the 3rd wave goes the whole 9 yards, with a little more nuanced understanding of systems and not blaming individual men.


But no feminist school consistently critiques female privilege, enforces symmetric accountability, or disavows the bundle of progressive stances that tilt the field toward women in culture war flashpoints. There is no feminist aligned with the mainstream calling out the harmful propaganda pushed by multimillion dollar shows (I'm speculating) like Netflix's "Adolescence", nor the blatant falsehoods associated with its messaging (implied or blatant) that run against actual hard data. I don't take issue with women earning or owning property, but it does not function as a buffet where you only pick what you like. It's a package deal, it comes with all the policy and CW outcomes that disadvantage men. That is why I'll never side with feminists, even when I agree with them.


I'm on my bus home so apologies if this comes across as a brain dump, but I hope my point was sufficiently cohesive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Female sexual success is default assumed, that is why virginity is valued in women. It is a choice. A modestly attractive woman can easily gain sexual access to her looksmatch. Male sexual success is not default. It requires social proof, status, dominance, or standout traits to access desirable women. And of course, "success" implies that the women the man is having sex with are at least somewhat desirable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


as getting attention from girls is the single most important form of status among their peers




Indeed, and I can somewhat understand the sentiment behind attempting to dismantle attached status to male sexual success. But this gives "progressives talking about sex instead of having it". I'd wager it's the conception error that underpins the conviction that conventionally gendered preferences and behaviours in young boys and girls are byproducts of external socialisation, and therefore, can be overturned. Since female sexual success carries no comparable status premium within the culture, the instinct is once again to refashion men in the image of the female ideal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For sure, the misogyny is largely amplified by the streisand effect. Even those who unironically push #notallmen are falling into the rhetorical trap of auditioning for women's social approval by "speaking up and calling out their bros". I don't disagree with the sentiment, it's basic human decency after all and both men and women should do it. But I do object to posturing for social capital via feminism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Oh I think that. Social media has dramatically hastened the senescence and unraveling of society when organic bonds, cohesion and shared reality were already in a state of entropy. I'll happily freeze the clock to the late 90s if this timeline was inevitable.