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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24315 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026

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We Won

On Sunday Morning, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on ABC's This Week and proclaimed, "Woke 1 was crazy". The immediate context was AOC defending Wisconsin DSA governor candidate Francesca Hong, and so a lot of people are clowning on her for handwaving away everything that happened in 2015-2022. To the extent that this is about who you should vote for in the Wisconsin governor's race, I agree with the criticism, but I want to take a step back and appreciate how far we've come.

Think back to remember how it felt in the dark days of 2020 and 2021. It was far from clear that the reign of terror would ever end. Every week another subreddit or Twitter poster was banned. Facebook was removing posts supporting Kyle Rittenhouse as a policy. "Abolish the Police" was treated as a serious (if aspirational) policy proposal. Above everything else, the worst part was the psychological damage, the feeling that the entire world was going insane; that it was just you and a few guys from a Harry Potter fanfiction forum spinoff who were capable of the miniscule amount of critical thinking required to know that removing Aunt Jemima's face from bottles of pancake syrup did absoutely nothing to help black people.

The fact that even the left-wing of the Democratic Party is campaigning on health care, tax policy, and Palestine instead of racial humiliation is a big deal. There is a temptation to equate "woke" (more specifically "woke 1") with generic liberal Democrat stuff, but that's not really true. Conversely, it becomes easy to overlook some of Trump's greatest accomplishments. Turning DEI and Critical Race Theory into curse words and ending affirmative action were huge. People said it couldn't be done, and then they were done so fast that everyone forgot by the midterms.

As an aside: I never understood the people calling AOC unattractive, and still don't. I find the "Zendaya is ugly" thing easier to understand (not that I consider her unattractive either).

I find the "Zendaya is ugly" thing easier to understand

Well I don't! I have literally never watched a movie or show featuring Zendaya, but pretty much every time I see her in the media in passing, I think something to the effect of "wow, she's remarkably attractive even accounting for her social role that selects rigorously for attractiveness". And she's not all that close to my type, either! She's just clearly a very well-optimized something.

Personality is an important component of attractiveness, especially in the case of someone that wears (or appears to wear) their personality so openly on their face.

I suppose that’s a fair example of personality de-glamming the package.

Look at her mannerisms and overall presentation: tightly pulled-back hair and wears a coat, the overall style broadcasts “girlboss.” A lot of men, especially conservative men, find that combination either deeply unappealing or actively off-putting. And she's basically the mascot of woke polticis, which actively celebrates those traits, treats male preference as something to be overridden or mocked, and works hard to render any criticism of them low-status and socially costly. It’s a mismatch between desirable and celebrated preferences, backed by a status hierarchy that insists the mismatch is your problem.

She's still attractive in a girl next door kind of way, but that is the only vibe that would make her appealing. She's not hot enough that her girlbossing becomes tolerable.

And it cuts both ways, just look at the many dating threads here. You see the same recurring theme vis-a-vis female attraction, the asymmetric tolerance levels for misogyny displayed by incels vs hot Chadonis.

As an aside: I never understood the people calling AOC unattractive, and still don't. I find the "Zendaya is ugly" thing easier to understand (not that I consider her unattractive either).

New to the scene AOC was pretty good looking, particularly for a politician. Easily could have qualified as a Shakira back up dancer.

Putting on some lbs AOC was good looking for what people speculated was a pregnant mid 30s woman. Since she was not pregnant this lost all the potential charm.

Current AOC is nothing interesting. She's above average for 37 or whatever her age is, but not hot, certainly seemingly not a good long term girl to court unless you are a pervy old guy who wants to lab inseminate one trophy son. Shes now officially on team catlady even if she always was without us knowing.

Personal theory: AOC (or her handlers have her) dresses down deliberately to make her look worse than she actually is, because alot of women tend to disfavor women that look better than they do.

Zendaya is still ugly, though.

and/or because men take a woman less seriously if she's hot.

I'm a little skeptical of this, mostly because I've never seen it in action.

I have, however, much to my shock, seen examples where women in a pre-established group reacted in a surprisingly vitriolic manner to someone who's much more attractive suddenly popping up out of nowhere.

I'm a little skeptical of this, mostly because I've never seen it in action.

I've very skeptical of this, but I think what would make sense, given AOC's other stated beliefs, is that she genuinely drank the Kool-Aid in believing the messaging that men take hot women less seriously and thus adjusted her behavior. Though I'd personally guess that, if any of this was intentional, it wasn't consciously so.

Slightly horsefaced, and some angles in photos can be very unflattering. Also she tends to wear her hair tightly pulled back and that is not flattering since it draws your facial skin and muscles taut as well (see the joke about council facelift).

She's objectively above average (for the US, at least), but her face is less attractive that the rest of the package. She has the eyes of a Starfield NPC.

Zendaya is just "girl pretty".

Everyone’s got different tastes and thus everyone has their own “average”. I’m really only into whites and Asians so they’re both starting with a significant handicap.

AOC is like, kinda cute, maybe. She’s not UNattractive.

Zendaya on the other hand is about as sexually attractive to me as a bowl of fruit. I think “girl pretty” might just be a way for women to sabotage and confuse each other.

I'll just come out and say it, then: I believe that Zendaya, in most of her appearances, looks like a man. And I'm assuming you're straight, so naturally that doesn't map as attractive.

I think “girl pretty” might just be a way for women to sabotage and confuse each other.

Most "girl pretty" outside the Asian sphere of influences make female faces more masculine, not less. By the way, did you ever notice that white tomboy women seem to have more feminine-looking faces than average?

I believe the reason for this is to signal the capacity for social aggression just as normal masculine traits stereotypically attractive to women signal the capacity for physical aggression. That's why models are cast that way, that's why the angry librarian glasses and angry-eyebrow jobs exist, and perhaps it's why white women are so obsessed with black women (I don't think that strong-man-Chad-jawed-homoeroticism is limited to men; I think this is just how [normal] women express it).

[It may be the case that, for tomboys in particular, their internal keep-yourself-alive compass points at 'to get stronger, you should get better at the physical aggression side of things'. Kind of sounds like a transgender thing to me, but what do I know. Same with femboys that want to get better at the social aggression side of things, for that matter.]

Furthermore, I think that to be normie-straight, you have to be attracted to the signals of how the opposite sex displays its power or worth. (I also think that men who don't tacitly understand this are doomed to have a hard time in relationships- it's just as much a mismatch as being in a gay marriage would be for most of the same underlying personality reasons (re: @aiislove's push-down-pull-up model of successful relationships being less viable when you're a mirror of each other rather than a compliment).

I'm sure you've noticed this on anime porn sites, by the way- 80% of it seems to be hyperinflation with no attention paid to the face (or the face actively looks male) because of this. The other 20% has faces that are far more palatable, but notice that 'cute' is not a valid search term unless it is combined with 'funny', and that combination yields 80% of the results (in that block of 20%).

Since you tagged me and we're all talking about whether Zendaya is hot or not I'll go too

I'll just come out and say it, then: I believe that Zendaya, in most of her appearances, looks like a man.

I went and saw Dune 2 without having ever seen Dune 1 or reading the books because I thought it would be fun to experience something out of context (much like the fun of traveling places where no one speaks english. Or going to museums and never reading the placards. You can just make up your own stories!) Anyway, the whole time I was just thinking how Zendaya has a very masculine face and how attractive she would be if she were a man. I kept wishing she had a chubby younger brother with a buzz cut, he would be just my type. By media standards she looks pretty good but I can imagine that she's the type of person when you see in real life looks strikingly beautiful.

Most "girl pretty" outside the Asian sphere of influences make female faces more masculine, not less.

I think I understand what you're getting at, although it has varied over the years a bit. Not exactly a shortage of angular-jawed models and actresses, especially a decade back. But I'm not sure if I understand what direction you're trying to describe as "more feminine".

Most "girl pretty" outside the Asian sphere of influences make female faces more masculine, not less.

Pretty much, yeah. Unfortunately.

I'm sure you've noticed this on anime porn sites, by the way- 80% of it seems to be hyperinflation with no attention paid to the face (or the face actively looks male) because of this.

…what?

Are you saying that anime women look like men?

Are you saying that anime women look like men?

A good chunk of them do (it's less bad than any other Western media or RL but it's still at times present) but it's simply most obvious in the hentai repositories.

To be fair, most of my repertoire at this point is CGDCT from the late '00s-early '10s so I might be a little biased; and I think I'm overextending the connection in normal Asian media (because half the reason I'm more focused on that area is because they know how to draw women well).

This is just completely and utterly incorrect. I’ll refrain from linking to any specific hentai examples but you’re free to browse the /h/ and /e/ boards on 4chan for a representative sample.

That's, uh, part of where my observation that they look like men comes from (they're not all like that, but some of them definitely are; 4chan also has better taste than average than some mostly-random aggregator).

I can accept that maybe it's just due to being bad at faces more generally, but the second-order of that then leads me to ask why, implying it's not the primary draw for the image. (It's also just considering the face, not the other characteristics; obviously you can usually see them in the picture.)

Are you saying that anime women look like men?

A good chunk of them do

From what I understand, they're meant to look like cats (not really).

A cat is fine, too.

They do indeed all have snouts to some degree; interestingly, the longer [and pointier] the snout, the more masculine the character (exhibit A: Deltarune; exhibit B: the rest of e621 lmao).

It might just be a neoteny thing (which, again, places where the women appear to have a better cultural relationship with the men tend to express/emphasize more often; the worse it is, the more socially-offensive the look women tend to take on) though.

I’m really only into whites and Asians

Insert obligatory argument over whether Hispanics can be counted as white.

Is there some argument against the "some are, some aren't; depends on ancestry" position other than the "race doesn't exist" SJ-adjacent one?

AOC is obviously not supermajority-white-and-Asian, so it's not surprising that someone only attracted to whites/Asians has reduced attraction to her.

I was just making a half-joking reference to the US federal government's recent race/ethnicity reshuffling.

I personally can't see much difference between indigenous Americans and heavily tanned Europeans, so all Hispanics look basically white to me. But that obviously is my problem, not Primaprimaprima's.

I personally can't see much difference between indigenous Americans and heavily tanned Europeans, so all Hispanics look basically white to me.

Just curious, where did you grow up?

If someone said they couldn’t see any difference between Slavs and Germanics I could forgive them. I especially understand not being able to tell Japanese and Chinese and Koreans apart, since I can’t really do that either, although I’m told that people from those countries have little issue with it. But not being able to tell the difference between South American mestizos and Europeans (even heavily tanned Europeans) is just wild to me. Like, bordering on willfully obtuse.

Korean women seem, on the average, curvier than Japanese women (who are definitely too skinny for me.)

Just curious, where did you grow up?

I am a nigger of Caribbean descent (so technically not in the narrowest definition of "American descendants of slaves") who has lived in New J*rsey all his life (plus college in western Pennsylvania).

Not being able to tell the difference between South American mestizos and Europeans (even heavily tanned Europeans) is just wild to me. Like, bordering on willfully obtuse.

Look at prominent Bolivian Evo Morales as one example. Is he darker than a default European? Yes, obviously. But, other than that moderately darker skin, does he really look that different from, say, Jay Leno? IMO, no. In comparison, East Asians have wildly different eyes, South Asians have skin dark enough that no white could ever tan to match them, and blacks have both super-dark skin and wildly different hair.

Again, this is all my personal opinion. But to me indigenous Americans seem very similar to whites.

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I especially understand not being able to tell Japanese and Chinese and Koreans apart, since I can’t really do that either, although I’m told that people from those countries have little issue with it.

I haven't lived in Korea for too long for my experience to matter, but my experience with Korean relatives who live (and only ever lived) in Korea is that this is a lie we like to spread out to the rest of the world because it makes us feel superior. We have less issue, but it's a stretch to say that the issue is little.

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AOC has African blood as well, or at least she claims to and it seems likely from looking at her. (So do a decent chunk of Hispanics.)

Native Americans are definitely far more closely related to whites and Asians than any of those are to Africans, Austronesians or Australian aboriginals (they're of North Asian descent), and I agree it can be hard to tell apart a white+NA Hispanic from a pure white.

My vascular system doesn’t count them as white, if you catch my drift.

AOC has crazy eyes and big teeth, so she's definitely not supermodel material, but she definitely looks better than Zendaya.

AOC is an attractive woman even on a normal scale, not even the DC scale. But there are definitely pics of her not at her best. Zendaya is also attractive (though not a Hollywood-scale 10), but for some reason has top Hollywood talent uglying her up for movies.

I'm willing to bet Zendaya is easy to work with, she's talented enough, and fills diversity requirements. I would submit she's both good and hot in Challengers.

There's only 6-9 young (ish) actors who can carry movies promotionally. It's the same reason Tom Holland and Pattinson are also in the big films this year (much to The Odyssey's detriment in the former's case). It's arguably even lighter on the female side because they're usually the supporting actor in the big action blockbusters that people usually get a name off. It doesn't always transfer (e.g. Brie Larson's career arguably got worse after making a billion dollars on Captain Marvel, though that was partly her fault)

The Drama proved that people would go to see Zendaya.

But yes, being in the Key and Peele racial goldilocks zone where you can play multiple ethnicities also helps.

In everything I've seen her in (granted I've only seen two or three of her movies), she gave the weakest performance by far. Challengers, despite being the best performance of hers that I've seen, was no exception.

Zendaya to me looks like an actress who was discovered and elevated by some Hollywood pederast, because her body for sure is akin to that of a slender teenage boy who's someone's f*cktoy. As another commenter noted: lacking in femininity. And with a sort of meh face. It's not that she's ugly per se, it's that she doesn't match the beautiful starlets of yesteryear.

AOC seems to be somewhat of a butterface and usually has an expression of a crazy person. It's true though that she has good body shape.

Attractiveness seems to have decoupled from castability around the time Harvey Weinstein got arrested.

I think we've had this discussion here more than once before, but there's a general failure of theory of mind between men with "tits and ass, more is better" preferences towards female physique and those with "thin and elegant, strong but fragile" ones, with each suspecting the other of preference falsification or being somehow fundamentally defective.

Men also aren't the people deciding. The bigger failure of mind-reading is across sexes.

Zendaya has a large female fanbase. She isn't a star that's primarily loved for her appeal to men.

The (straight) female fans she has don't want to fuck her, and at least a significant part of their fandom is about her styling on the red carpet and her fashion choices - having the model-like frame helps her here . This obviously matters less to the guy watching the movie but it is a part of her appeal.

Is there any sort of objective data on this?

I'm so looped out of the modern state of film that I had to google to even find out what she looks like, but she doesn't look less attractive to me than the median highly praised by men film star from back when I actually watched films, like, say, Keira Knightley. On a forum like this, opinions are doubly suspect; people's political opinions influence their aesthetic ones more than they tend to realise, and so I would expect many of the same people saying "slender teenage boy lacking in femininity" towards someone who apparently has a reputation for being a diversity casting prop to be gushing about her cuteness if she were a based and redpilled MAGA princess instead.

Is there any sort of objective data on this?

Which bit? That her fanbase is female? Or that she's not considered a sex symbol by men? I doubt there's much evidence, unless you get a PostTrak subscription:

Broken out, men over and under 25 showed up at 30% apiece while women under 25 were next at 21%, followed by women over 25 at 18%. Diversity demos are 36% Caucasian, 28% Hispanic and Latino, 20% Black, 10% Asian American and 6% Native American and other. The 18-34 set reps 63% of Brand New Day‘s moviegoers versus No Way Home‘s 68%. Over 35 demo grew with Brand New Day at 21% versus No Way Home‘s 15%.

Of those who went, 58% told PostTrak that it was part of a franchise they love, 47% said it looked fun and entertaining, 41% went for the cast as a whole, 39% went for Holland and 29% went for Zendaya.

Can't really drill in to see how much of the male audience came for her. Same with The Drama: much more female-led movie, lots of Gen Z, which I'd attribute to her, but Pattinson is also there and he played a heartthrob (though I think his time is past: Twilight was released in 2008)

On a forum like this, opinions are doubly suspect; people's political opinions influence their aesthetic ones more than they tend to realise,

There's obviously a political (and racial) thing. And a general contrarian thing.

But her choices also play a role. In her own generation Sydney Sweeney is way more of a male sex symbol because she caters to the male gaze much more. Zendaya legitimately looks hotter to me on the red carpet than in her main roles which makes sense given she's meant to be an awkward high schooler in one,a drug addicted high schooler in another and warrior/r/atheist mod in the third.

AOC is hot. She might even not be on the Latina that blimps up with age phenotype. If AOC was in Brickell no one would notice her, but in the general population she’s top 5-10% attractiveness.

One thing I asked myself is Bill Gates attractive? Honestly seems like a stupid question, but I was looking at his daughter Phoebe Gates who’s in the news for doing fraud. And she’s hot. I’d like marry her in a second even without the money. So Bill Gates can’t create that right?

I came up with 2 theories both which are likely partially true. Bill Gates is ugly for a famous person but attractive compared to the average person. Movie Stars etc who are in the news (or even politicians and executives) likely do have strong selection effect for attractiveness. So he’s ugly in that grouping, but within a random population distribution the top 10-20%.

Men are notoriously known for being ugly compared to women. The average female finds like 1-5% of the male population as hot while men find like 20-30% of the female population as hot.

And probably something something about having money so nicer clothes and personal trainers etc.

One thing I asked myself is Bill Gates attractive? Honestly seems like a stupid question, but I was looking at his daughter Phoebe Gates who’s in the news for doing fraud. And she’s hot.

Is she hot or is she young, thin and rich? As I've gotten older, I'm 28, I've realized all a woman has to do to look good at 18-25 is to not be fat and know how to do her makeup. After 25, it slowly starts getting harder, youtful look is gone, aging genetics kick in, years of bad habits start to slowly add up.

Looking at photos of her she's pretty, but not super-super attractive. She must take after her mom since Bill, God love him, is not blessed in the facial department (and so all the stories that got out about him being a playa were even more incredible; it goes to show that fame and wealth can make up for a lot).

Young Melinda was pretty, too, but again not the most stunning. Bill seems to have married within the range of attractiveness available to him, they look like a normal couple (never mind that some time down the line he'd be running after women who worked for him).

Plus she's the daughter of a very wealthy man, so premium health care, nutrition, and possibly (who can say?) subtle cosmetic procedures were all easily available to her.

Bill Gates is ugly for a famous person but attractive compared to the average person.

????

He is not attractive compared to the average person.

Yeah, he's average compared to the average person.

Young Bill wasn't a hideous uggo, but he might as well have had "nerd" tattooed on his forehead, for that is how he looked. He needed every advantage wealth, fame, and intelligence (ahem) could give him.

Not extraordinary, but certainly within the upper half of the distribution, and likely significantly.

https://www.c64-wiki.de/images/b/b4/BillGates1980.jpg https://youtube.com/watch?v=zZrgVG2k8vU&t=158

Good jaw, okay charisma. You have to subtract out the goofy 80s clothing and haircut that makes him look too much like a Bad Luck Brian loser. Look at the face itself. Again, not a model, but not below average for sure, by a good margin.

Not being fat counts for so much.

Honestly, give him a haircut and a change of clothes and he'd look like an indie rock singer the Coachella set would be swooning over.

I agree, he looks like 80s Ed Sheeran.

Phoebe Gates who’s in the news for doing fraud. And she’s hot. I’d like marry her in a second even without the money.

She's not hot. She looks like she was born Phoebus Gates and didn't get on puberty blockers in time.

I'll take the minority view here and say that I don't think AOC is attractive beyond being a young-ish woman who isn't overweight. She has an oddly shaped face and nose.

I don't think AOC is attractive beyond being a young-ish woman who isn't overweight.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Indeed, youngish women who aren’t overweight are attractive by default, assuming no other glaring flaws.

She has an oddly shaped face and nose.

Fortunately she has two other things that are appetizingly shaped to compensate.

She does look horse-faced sometimes when her teeth are seen, but when her mouth is closed her face looks reasonably pretty to me.

Phoebe is pretty hot. Passing resemblance to Ivana Miličević. Looks like she takes after her mum more than her dad.

You're right that famous people tend, to a greater or lesser extent, to be selected for their looks (obviously true of actors and models, less obviously true in the case of successful politicians). Bill Gates is unusual in being a genuine household name who became famous for reasons wholly unrelated to his physical appearance. In that regard he's more akin to a writer or a director, and I wouldn't say he's significantly less attractive than e.g. Stephen King or James Cameron.

Stephen King looks like a weird alien, James Cameron is a decent looking guy though.

Stephen King looks like a weird alien

As a young man, he could pass for Christopher Reeve's less attractive older brother.

The resemblance is uncanny!

Counter-example: https://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/02sxPa7XL-de_rFH_.jpg

Gonna have to hard disagree with you on that one: https://preview.redd.it/a-young-stephen-king-v0-nkrp1vonkb6d1.jpeg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=9de52388e8d8c9162ac39a5256edf5a14914bf98

Counter-example: https://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/02sxPa7XL-de_rFH_.jpg

I never understood the people calling AOC unattractive, and still don't.

It's the same phenomenon as calling Elon Musk "stupid," which is basically dogma in some parts of the country, including where I live. People, even educated, intelligent people who went to academic institutions purportedly meant specifically to disabuse people of that notion, really love the idea that people they disagree with also have other negative characteristics that realistically ought to have minimal - if any - correlation with conformity to one's own personal set of ethics or ideals. So damn physical reality, since I don't like AOC/Musk, then s/he is unattractive/stupid. To be fair, the latter set of people often openly admit to rejecting empiricism as a tool of oppression by White Supremacists, so they're living up to their stated principles there.

As an aside, I'm apparently in a tiny minority in considering Zendaya not only attractive, but one of the most attractive women in Hollywood right now, but also I do find the "Zendaya is ugly" thing not hard to understand. She has bodily and facial features which are not what I'd consider screaming in femininity.

Several months ago, I noted the peculiar irony that many progressives believe that there are multiple different kinds of intelligence which are orthogonal to one another, such that deficiency in mathematical or verbal reasoning doesn't necessarily imply deficiency in artistic expression or physical domains.

This demographic is probably the demographic most likely to say something to the effect that "Elon Musk has stupid political opinions, therefore he can't possibly be a talented engineer and must have earned his wealth illegitimately".

I'm not sure how "notable" these "peculiar ironies" are anymore, sadly. When one of the core, underlying principles that animate everyone in your movement is "logic, reasoning, and empiricism are inventions by cis/white/male/etc. people whose only function and purpose is to oppress minorities," then it follows that holding opinions that are logically contradictory is no vice. In fact, it's pretty easy to argue that it's a virtue, for how it "challenges" the norms of current "hegemony" of "white supremacy/patriarchy" and "queers" reasoning by lionizing "other ways of knowing" over crufty oppressive things like "logic."

Oh, come on. Nine sets of scare quotes to say this movement is unusually prone to contradiction?

Show me a coalition which has national reach and I’ll show you a contradictory mess.

Oh, come on. Nine sets of scare quotes to say this movement is unusually prone to contradiction?

That's not what I said, nor is it even adjacent to what I said. Every movement - down to a movement of one individual - has internal contradictions. Usually enough to call it a "mess." Not every movement - certainly not every individual - believes in the fundamental principle that logic, reasoning, and valuing empirical evidence are arbitrary bullshit that ought to be discarded if they're not useful for attaining what one considers "justice." What makes "wokes" distinct from many (not all - though most similarly national/international-level movements) movements is that it specifically flouts logical thinking and doesn't see logical contradictions as something to resolve or to address at all. This is, somewhat ironically enough (though not really), quite Trumpian, in the belief that what is true right now isn't contingent on being consistent with other things that one has stated as being true, a sort of lack of object permanence.

Mea culpa. Nine sets of scare quotes to say that this movement is inherently averse to consistency, with no comparisons to similar movements.

I think this is still awfully uncharitable. “Alternative ways of knowing” have next to zero impact on the vast majority of progressive politics. People can and do argue any number of progressive policies—police, borders, reparations—on the boring ol’ grounds of facts and logic. That doesn’t change when some jackass decides to mock mathematics for being too white.

“Alternative ways of knowing” have next to zero impact on the vast majority of progressive politics.

I'm not sure how one could even quantify this to enough of an extent to support such a statement. Perhaps you could come up with a way of measuring things such that this is true, but you'd have to be counting the stuff they have in common with virtually every other movement - akin to how humans, chimps, and mice share like 90%+ of the same DNA or something - because whatever sets apart progressive policies pushed by the typical/powerful modern progressive from bog-standard liberal is certainly mostly a consequence of "alternative ways of knowing." I.e. personal revelation, which is never called that but rather often "lived experience," based on the idea that we can judge the veracity of someone's claims about reality based purely on their identity, which is what holds up all of the stuff about "white/male/cis/etc. privilege," which itself holds up almost all of the specific policies that the typical/powerful modern progressive pushes for.

People can and do argue any number of progressive policies—police, borders, reparations—on the boring ol’ grounds of facts and logic. That doesn’t change when some jackass decides to mock mathematics for being too white.

Correct. I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment, though. Some progressives still exist who are still committed to facts and logic. Sadly, they have about a homeopathic level of impact and influence in modern progressive politics. I fantasize that many of us exist, and that we're just cowards who try not to be noticed lest we be cut down, but that's probably just typical mind fallacy + wishful thinking.

Elon Musk is clearly very smart and he's also such a retard. Both can be true at once lol.

My friends frequently describe me as the "stupidest smart person they know" , so I relate to this

I'm not humble bragging or comparing myself to Elon, I doubt I have his level of engineering IQ or grind, I just observe he says stupid shit that makes it harder for him to achieve his goals a lot

My friends frequently describe me as the "stupidest smart person they know" , so I relate to this lol

Ha! Back when I was in middle school or so, I said something to my friend (wish I remembered what) that prompted him to crack up and say “you know, I can never tell if you’re the smartest dumb person or the dumbest smart person I know.”

I suspect this website attracts a type.

What has Musks actually done that is stupid? Twitter posting? A lot of us credit his Twitter posting and fixing Twitter for saving Western Society for atleast a few years.

I think this shows your bias much more than evidence of Musks stupid actions.

  1. Picking a fight with the guys who saved those kids in the Thai cave. He looked vicious and petty for punching down and had nothing to gain had he won.
  2. That whole Path of Exile thing. Video games are low status, and faking talent at them in the most cartoonish obvious way is even lower.
  3. Not testing his metal ball vs cyber truck window demonstration.
  4. Funding Secured.
  5. Dogecoin.
  6. His insistence that he is a founder of Tesla a company he wasn't even involved with for it's first year.

the guys who saved those kids in the Thai cave

Calling the guy he picked a fight with (Vernon Unsworth) one of "the guys who saved those kids" is a bit of a stretch; he was the first diver at the cave when the kids were reported missing, and he was smart enough to advise calling the British Cave Rescue Council (4/18 of the divers who brought the kids out, 2/2 of the divers who found the kids) rather than making a stupid immediate attempt at solo heroism himself, but after that his reported contributions to the rescue were sticking around as one of 80-odd available-but-unused divers on site and belittling Musk's team's submarine work.

He looked vicious and petty for punching down and had nothing to gain had he won.

If someone punches you first, you can punch back, and Unsworth punched first. If someone punches you along with your employees who are working overtime to try to help save children, you definitely should punch back. Musk's submarine idea might not have helped, but trying to make more options available was a good thing; that's why Unsworth and the other 80-ish divers who didn't end up going on rescue missions were still there too.

This incident still counts as one of Musk's stupid actions, of course. Calling someone a pedophile just for being a frequent tourist in Thailand is viciously stupid in general, is immorally stupid when you're in the middle of trying to cooperate with other Thai visitors and citizens toward an important goal, and is inexcusably stupid when your primary interaction with your insult's target is entirely based around the real reason why they're a frequent tourist in Thailand. But Unsworth definitely had some insults coming; Musk just sucked badly at picking one.

3 and 6 are defensible.

The story with 3 is that they tested it too much just to be sure. They’d done it something like 10 times in the back and damaged it.

As for 6, I’ve seen this situation before and I don’t know about Tesla, but a company at founding can be just a nominal address, or at least a few guys making pamphlets and phone calls. If someone joins at a very early stage when they really have nothing and takes the company to success, it seems fair to call them a founder even if they didn’t own stock on the first day the company existed.

3 is defensible but stupid in a different way, test obsessively, but on a spare item not the demonstration one.

  1. In my book corporate founders sign the charter. Somone else may domineer the thing and be the person associated with the company but no one who isnt there at day one, is a founder. They can be the person who made it what it is today, or the largest contributor, or the dominant figure, but not founder. Words should mean something.

I wouldnt consider Patrick Henry to be a founder of the US either. Important contributor sure or leader of the revolutuon and very worthy of respect, but not a founder.

Similarly, I wouldn't call Andy Grove a founder of Intel. Even though he joined on day one seved as COO from its inauguration, and probably contributed as much as anyone to its most successful state.

I’ll give you (1) is dumb. Some of these are just having fun. (6) I believe it’s fair for him to call himself the founder of Tesla. He came in before they built anything and were just an idea.

The PoE stuff linked below.

Everything about Doge?

Constantly lying about Tesla stuff.

Idk man, if you genuinely think that every single thing Elon has done is actually a 4d chess move then we're just gonna yell at each other.

Like I can go google/AI "dumb stuff Elon has done or said that didn't help his stayed goals and preferences" and cobble together a list and then you can pick them all apart. But that seems silly.

I don't even dislike Elon, I think making electric cars cool and making rockets cheap are fantastic achievements that earned him his place in history. But my god he's retarded sometimes.

Why did he do the sperg salute?

Ok so like I said you are just showing your bias.

Doge was a policy win. We gutted US AID, likely reduced low IQ population growth, and defunded a lot of the funding for the left. It achieved less than he hoped but it was 100% a policy win.

“Lying about Tesla stuff”

  • that form of motivation for employees works. Setting big goals recruits talent and pushes your team harder. That’s another win.

I really regret not putting

inb4 you start picking apart things in my comment

In my original post, have a nice day sir, we don't need to bicker over Mr Musk

Smart people can and do do very stupid things, sometimes quite often, to such an extent that they have a reputation for it. One could accurately say, e.g. Musk behaves very stupidly when it comes to certain things such as politics or ideology, and that he has a pattern of doing so. But to claim that he's stupid means something else, and it's to ignore all the other pieces of evidence around him. And, ironically, accurately noting his intelligence is a greater moral condemnation from anyone who confidently disagrees with his politics or ideals, because, unlike a stupid person, a smart person has no excuse for not reaching the correct conclusions.

Thank you for clarifying my frustration with Musk: it's annoyance at someone who I have colloquially called a "moron," but unlike a true idiot has plentiful cognitive capacity to know better - unless, of course, he likes the internet drama his braggart-persona creates and his apparent emotional investment in e.g. probably faked video game achievements is just another amusement for him; doesn't seem plausible to me, but I could be typical-minding as a wallflower.

Musk is not stupid, but he often acts foolishly. Even a very skilled driver may drive recklessly.

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