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Nerdy men were the first to get access to internet pornography, and for a while it was associated with them. Now guys in the slums of Nigeria are watching it on smartphones. Nerds were the first to have access to online conspiracy content. Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams! Muh Magic Bullet! Now the same conspiracy stuff is hitting young women. From an NYT report about a women's conference:
Women are more hostile to COVID vaccination, perhaps reflecting a female urge to make politics revolve around their bodies.
Many people here have been asking about my politics: it's actually remarkably simple: I want the old America back where children were born within marriage, didn't try to change their gender, and got all the vaccines their pediatrician recommended.
To Rightists with daughters reading this: are you concerned that they might encounter "natural family planning" on the internet and really f*** up their life?
The NYT article is far more interesting than what you've excerpted here. I recommend everyone actually read it.
Modern society does indeed seem very fucked up, so I'm sympathetic to these young women wanting something different. On the other hand, I've seen firsthand that the "trad" lifestyle does not always work out. Men are often just as unequipped as women to start and raise a family in their early 20s.
The grass is always greener on the other side; as always, the trick is finding the reasonable middle ground.
I'm always a little arrested by this observation, particularly when it is offered as if in refutation of something. Have you seen a lifestyle that does always work out? If not, then surely this is no objection at all!
It seems rather to me that the trick is accepting that whatever your problems are, they are your problems, not someone else's--and are substantially the result of your own actions. Whether your own actions are, in turn, the result of some biological or cultural impetus, is a purely academic question. You can't just opt to take the good parts of trad life while never facing any possible negative results.
(Alain de Botton's Atheism 2.0 TED talk is a benighted classic for this very reason; he thinks we should find a way to incorporate all the good bits of religion into our lives, while keeping all the ridiculous nonsense at bay. It's not a terrible thought, but not only has that not worked out, I would argue that Wokism accomplished exactly the opposite--incorporating some of the worst ridiculousness of religion, without bringing along any of the tangible benefits.)
Thank you for your comments. They are very thoughtful.
"Does not always work out" was an inarticulate and convenient shorthand for this basic idea I was getting at: both young men and women should be judicious and careful in adopting a "trad" lifestyle solely because it presents an alternative to modern day degeneracy. A young woman, let alone a teenager, shouldn't expect to LARP herself into marital bliss by emulating a TikToker.
Completely agree, and that's why some level of moderation and humility is required before venturing into unchartered territory.
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