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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   19815 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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I'd like to see some feasible measure developed that can 'quantify' the benefits and harms of social media use and THEN we can craft policies that regulate the issue, just like we do with cigarettes, toxic waste, and like we USED to do with gambling. My general prescription is that we should add friction to the vices.

The funny thing is, I agree with you. But from reading your comment history, your misogyny (and trust me, I do not use that word lightly) makes me distrust anything you say.

Like, if the problem is the phones, you should be talking about the phones, not about how women are awful.

I do concede that maybe you're not like this in real life. I talk about HBD on here occasionally, but I spend approximately 0% of my time in real life talking about it for obvious reasons. Maybe you have deep, fulfiling relationships with women in real life. Maybe you're married with kids?

But to quote a recent article on Astralcodexten:

The pain facing both men and women is evidence of a wounded society, and you cannot heal an injury by only stitching half of it

If you want to fix the world, you're not gonna do it by attacking half of the population, even if the media is unfair when it writes about men.

The funny thing is, I agree with you. But from reading your comment history, your misogyny (and trust me, I do not use that word lightly) makes me distrust anything you say.

I can assure you this matters little to me. Like not at all. This is anti-persuasive. You're like the third or fourth person on here alleging misogyny on my part, yet my posts get upvotes so it seems I'm being persuasive to someone. I'll re-up my point:

Look, I'll make this clear, as that is the spirit of this whole forum: I do not care about being an edgelord, I do not care if you are offended, or if you are flattered. I care about being correct. Edgelords end up being correct in some cases because they can speak on matters that polite people will carefully ignore. Being correct is not a necessary condition for being an edgelord, however. If my being (mostly) correct makes you think I'm an edgelord, whatever. I hold a ton of other opinions that are 'edgy' to some crowds but very normal in others. I'm not trying to shock or offend anyone.

If you want to change my opinion, present better data. As I said:

And EVERY TIME I ENGAGE WITH SOMEONE WHO THINKS I'M WRONG, they utterly fail to undermine or effectively attack any pillar on which I've formed this belief.

I've been begging for counterexamples for years. I WANT to be proven 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!

You do not provide any, so I will continue to assume you don't have any, which is because they do not exist.

If you want to fix the world, you're not gonna do it by attacking half of the population, even if the media is unfair when it writes about men.

Which half is getting attacked in the mainstream.

Please, tell me which one it is. This seems like a causal factor that itself has to be addressed.

This is like 90% of my point.

If we're not willing to give men actionable advice and assistance this doesn't get solved. Piling pressure them is not helping, as evidenced by EVERYTHING GETTING WORSE for them.

Like, if the problem is the phones, you should be talking about the phones, not about how women are awful.

Oh look I've been talking about the phones too.

I DARE you to find a single place where I've said "women are awful" or anything that is an actual synonym to those terms.

This is like saying I think kids are awful because I think they shouldn't be allowed to drive semi-trucks. C'mon man.

I do concede that maybe you're not like this in real life.

This seems obvious. If I could argue about this stuff easily in real life this place wouldn't have much use, would it?

Perhaps the fact that discussion of these sorts of objectively verifiable facts is verboten is why the status quo persists? Maybe?

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