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Ok, but on an individual level, don’t you want a solution that works for you, not someone to validate your feelings?
Assumes that there is a solution that works for your individual situation. I know that for me, personally, there's no fixing my problems — I'm a defective sub-human with no reason to live, and should probably spare myself the decades of pointless misery that lie ahead and just gas (helium) myself now.
Look, this is worth nothing, and I am no therapist, but I feel like a cry for help should get some kind of answer. I don't know you or your life situation. I don't doubt it's shitty for you to feel like this. But "defective subhuman" sounds pretty dramatic and very unlikely, and as for "decades of pointless misery," there are some things that are outside your control and some things that are not, and very people are truly fated to "decades of pointless misery" for reasons entirely outside their control.
I won't go further since I am not diagnosing you or trying to probe more into your "problems." If you just wanted someone to hear you, I hear you. If you want solutions, they exist.
[Citation needed].
I've been on psych meds and getting therapy since 2004.
Edit:
I've posted on my situation repeatedly here on the Motte (and the subreddit before that, and SSC before that), if you search through my post history.
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He‘s always been like this. @Capital_Room , take some happy pills, for god‘s sake. @self_made_human what do you recommend?
This is me on "happy pills." I've been on multiple psych meds, including antidepressants, since my first suicide attempt back in 2004.
They‘re not working, are they? More dakka, I want you drooling. And try shrooms and more illegal psychedelic drugs like the doctor ordered.
What part of "illegal" (and can't afford, and wouldn't know how to get) and "schizophrenic" (psychedelics and hallucinogens are known to make it much worse) are unclear to you?
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I could have sworn that I'd previously and seriously advised him to see a psychiatrist or therapist IRL. It certainly can't hurt. I'm not supposed to diagnose him with clinical depression, but let's just say it rhymes.
Alas, I don't know of any actual happy pills, but a small helping of magic mushrooms did wonders for me.
(This is excluding the possibility that his life and personal circumstances are utterly FUBAR, which happens more often than I'd like. But what can I do about that? I'm a shrink, not a miracle worker.)
I've been seeing therapists, and on psych meds, since 2004. This is me with those.
I've talked about them on this forum before, if you're willing to search through my posting history to find them.
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I want to know that society isn't going to collapse because nobody was willing to be a little mean to women, mostly.
After decades of giving women more and more benefits, why wouldn't the solution entail withdrawing some of them? And if we try that and it doesn't really help, at least we can say we tried.
Let it be known that I was expressing these same sorts of concerns back when I was with my Ex (I can drag up my posts on the Reddit Motte from like 5 years back to prove it), and I would still express these concerns if I got a new stable relationship.
I can see possible solutions to my personal problem, I sure do wish that certain other people would stop actively making it harder, though.
But I would really, REALLY like to avoid what seem to be eminently predictable outcomes of ignoring the larger issue.
Hey, I want to say I like your posts a lot and I read all of them. They are well thought out and have the stats to back them up and I agree with them. That said, this comment in particular has struck me: what is anyone here supposed to do about it? Convincing people that you're right is cool and all, but I genuinely don't see any way to work towards the social outcome you want from here. Are there people here in favor of policies that make the problem worse? Do they act on it? This is kind of similar to the problem I see with democracy: the population might want something, but none of the politicians that get elected give the population what they want. Even if you could convince many people, are you seriously suggesting taking off any gimmes for women from the budget? That's not possible even for things that a whole lot more people want gone, like Medicare or food stamps. All that to say, I think you should stop worrying so much and become a doomer, like me! I guess I still worry, anyway, so I'm doing it wrong.
My first hope is that someone has some countervailing argument or data that actually shows its not so bleak as it seems.
I want to understand the problem well enough to know if I'm not seeing something, or I'm seeing something that's not actually there.
Nobody has brought that forth that I've seen.
And finally, if nobody is going to implement a solution... fine. But the status quo will not hold!
What is going to happen in, say, 10 years when a majority of men aren't married, don't have kids, and are being expected to keep on working and upholding a society that doesn't give them anything in return?
I suspect a combination of:
A) Men voting for some RADICAL policies that REALLY DO start stripping women's rights away, because they have ceased to give a shit about women's opinions;
B) Men lashing out in more violent ways (both in lone wolf ways and maybe organized) because there's no rewards for good behavior;
C) Men just dropping out and refusing to do the basic work that keeps civilization afloat. If they refuse to become cops, soldiers, garbagemen, construction workers, but stay in their room jerking off or playing video games, then things start breaking down. And in this case, we will have fewer people to protect us from the violent guys.
I do not see a scenario where men continue to just keep eating the shit sandwich AND contributing to the society that is force feeding it to them.
The crazy thing is that I'm still pretty optimistic at my core. Despair is not in my nature. But I also REFUSE to lie about reality as I see it.
And I get a certain amount of joy from arguing someone into the ground and, if not forcing them to admit defeat, at least getting them to stop spouting stuff that I know to be false or inaccurate.
Everyone's entitled to their point of view in here, after all, but I'm happy to interrogate their view, and be interrogated in return.
I do. If they didn't lash out while they were younger and hot-blooded, why would they do it in older, lower-T age? And it's not like all of them are going to have the fuck you money to just drop out of productive labor.
Why would they continue to work on 'productive' labor when there is no actual purpose to doing so?
I mean that literally, why would they do more than the bare minimum, enough to keep their electricity and internet on?
Why would they do any job that carries any amount of risk or requires excess hours of their time?
And, of course, why wouldn't they just vote for the most radical political candidates in the meantime?
Its prevalent enough in Japan already that they have a term for it: Herbivore men..
Consider that there are two types of 'fuck you' money.
Being filthy rich so that you can afford to lose a bunch of it.
And being so dirt poor that you have nothing to lose and thus don't care about losing.
The only real suckers in this scenario are the guys stuck in the middle class doing most of the productive work and paying taxes whilst receiving very few benefits back.
I would consider that they might like being dirt poor and maidenless even less than being maidenless yet having other creature comforts. Especially if/when the state catches on and removes the social safety nets that currently make being dirt poor more tolerable than it had been at olden times.
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Side note, my highest aspiration these days is to earn enough unrealized capital gains to retire, and live off the 0% tax rate on the first $100,000-ish I realize a year. Even after that it's only 15% up to $500,000. Fuck paying into this system that hates me and my family.
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