This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The identity of the man who choked Jordan Neely on the NYC subway has been made public.
The man now gets to become the center of a media firestorm, and will certainly be subjected to credible threats, to say nothing of the likelihood that the activists in charge of Manhattan’s criminal justice system will indict him. If he ever gets to live a normal life again, it certainly won’t be in New York, and probably not in any urban blue-heavy environment in this country. Future prospective employers will know him as the guy who murdered a defenseless man and beloved Michael Jackson impersonator who was experiencing homelessness and needed help. This will be how he’ll be perceived by a substantial number of important people who will have the power to determine important things about the future of his life, regardless of any legal outcomes for him, favorable or otherwise.
I told the story previously of how I was assaulted on public transit by a mentally-ill black lowlife, and how I was very close to being severely injured and nobody in the vicinity would have been able nor willing to stop it from happening. (Sorry, the comment search functions both here and on Reddit are terrible, such that it would be too much work for me to track down that comment thread.) Since posting that story, a very similar situation happened to me yet again - with a predictably similar antagonist - and once again, I was sickened and humiliated not only by the actions of the schizophrenic loser who accosted me, and by my relative inability to effectively defend myself if the guy had started attacking me, but also by the inaction of the other grown men standing nearby. Without telling the whole story, I ended up in that position because I attempted to stop the lunatic from harassing a different guy, and then that guy stood around and watched the assailant menace me and did not intervene in any way.
I have fantasized about doing exactly what Daniel Penny - the NYC subway hero - did. Except for in my fantasies, I didn’t unintentionally end the man’s life due to a tragic and unforeseen accident; I just kicked the absolute shit out of him, taking him by surprise and beating him within an inch of his life, or stabbing him before he could get a hand in me. These fantasies are just that: unrealistic power fantasies, the stuff I would do if I were a much stronger, taller, more physically-powerful, more experienced with interpersonal violence than I actually am. I’ve never been in a proper fistfight, and even if I knew how to properly defend myself, in both this situation and the previous one, I allowed the guy to close distance on me and get into an advantageous position, such that they had me right where they wanted me.
I’ve stewed and ideated about what I could have done differently, why I’m a grown man who let myself be treated like a pathetic plaything by individuals who are my social and biological inferiors in every imaginable way except for that I’m diminutive and even-tempered while they’re large, high-testosterone, and well-acquainted with violence because it’s literally the only tool in their toolbox.
I’ve also thought about what would have been the consequences for me if somehow I really had been able to put these guys in their place and seriously injure or kill them. I’ve imagined being at trial - a highly-publicized media shitstorm of a trial, given the demographics involved - and having to answer questions that are designed to get me to hang myself with their rope. I’ve thought about what would happen if they found my posts on The Motte. If they asked me, “Are you glad that Mr. Schizo is dead?” How could I credibly answer “no, this is a terrible tragedy, I never wanted to take someone’s life” when I’ve got a backlog of posts here saying explicitly that I believe that schizophrenic street criminals’ lives have no value whatsoever and that the world would be better if all of them were summarily rounded up and sent to gulags or executed? If they were to ask me “did you do this because Mr. Schizo is black”, no matter how sincerely I would answer “no, it’s because he was attacking me”, how can I be confident that they won’t drag up all my posts here and paint me as a “hate criminal”?
I have no idea how racially-aware Daniel Penny is. I have no clue if he has similar opinions about the scourge of worthless criminal crazies and what to do about them, and I have no reason to assume that his lawyers are lying when they say that he’s devastated that Jordan Neely died, that Mr. Penny never wanted nor foresaw this outcome, etc. It’s very easy for me to say “I’m glad Jordan Neely is dead, you did the world a favor, this was a wonderful thing you did and you shouldn’t feel an ounce of guilt or sadness about it”, but in the actual event that I did what Mr. Penny did, I probably would be pretty shaken-up about it. For most people, taking a life - especially when you hadn’t planned to - is probably pretty psychologically destabilizing, even if it was totally necessary and justified.
Still, though, what if Penny thinks the same way I do about the homeless population? What if he truly does believe, as I do, that Jordan Neely was human garbage who had no redeeming value, and that his death is a great boon to the entire population of NYC? He can’t say that in court, even if it’s true. He would be pilloried and convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison. His only legal hope is to vociferously insist that Neely’s death is a tragedy, that he would never have done what he did if he could have foreseen that it would result in a death, that he is 100% innocent of the crime of racial consciousness or animus toward the experiencing-homelessness population. His future depends on his ability to persuasively perform colorblind egalitarian liberalism, regardless of whether or not he believes in it or not.
Outside of the edgy dissident-right spaces I frequent, every other commentator, even putatively conservative ones, are doing the expected throat-clearing about how Neely’s death is a tragedy, that we all wish he “could have gotten the help he needed”, etc. If anyone believes, as I do, that the first step to saving our civilization is for tens of thousands of people to pull a Daniel Penny on their local subway-screaming bum, they’re sure not saying it out loud. The veil of self-censorship and paying homage to liberal pieties will persist no matter what happens to Daniel Penny, and nobody will get the public catharsis of hearing a powerful or important person say out loud that Jordan Neely’s death was a good thing and we need more of it. Those who do say something like that out loud better hope and pray that they’re never thrust into a courtroom and asked to defend those opinions under oath; the defense stand is no place for hard-nosed honesty, and neither is our society.
Amusingly enough, there is a sentiment in much of the alt right, from the likes of Vox Day and even our own @KulakRevolt, that is basically "Yup, if you're small and weak, suck it up and endure whatever your more powerful superiors choose to inflict upon you. It sucks to suck."
Your power fantasies are just that, the revenge fantasies of every bullied nerd ever, the copes of someone telling himself he's smarter and better and "biologically superior" to the jocks picking on him.
Now, I say this not out of a lack of sympathy for your experience (I am hardly a Batman or Punisher myself), or even disagreement with your central point (that it's terrible that we allow schizophrenic homeless losers to threaten people because we don't have the political will to do something about them, especially when they're black). But to point out that basically, you're not complaining that it's bad for the strong to dominate the weak. You're just complaining that the current social order doesn't put you among the strong.
This is a gross mischaracterization.
I have always said "Yup, if you're small and weak, suck it up and endure whatever your more powerful superiors choose to inflict upon you. It sucks to suck. SO become strong, figure out your more powerful enemies weaknesses, and achieve victory so you can inflict 10-fold violence upon them in VENGEANCE"
My Gospel is one of hatred and violence. Not resignation.
More options
Context Copy link
This was more antagonistic than it needed to be.
More options
Context Copy link
I'm not super familiar with the alt right but I don't know if your characterization is what I'd agree with... Speaking as a white american with lots of red tribe relatives (not alt right, I know, so maybe it's not the same) but basically they're all scared and know they're weak compared with black and brown people (don't know how else to say it), their ideology is not "if you're small and weak suck it up" but rather "I know I'm small and weak and so will try to make myself more able to defend myself and try to stop being as small and weak so I buy guns and defend myself and hopefully become more powerful than minorities even though if we were all naked in the forest my family and I would be fucking screwed"
I'm guessing the alt right operates on this same idea on some level.
More options
Context Copy link
Is the alt-right position on strong-versus-weak prescriptive or descriptive? Is it that the strong should dominate the weak, or merely that they do?
I'm asking because I do not know the alt-right very well.
More options
Context Copy link
The irony is that the alt right is itself small and weak, and has had to endure whatever its more powerful superiors have chosen to inflict upon it.
Is the irony that this proves their point? I don't see the alt right as seeing themselves as weak, if anything they see themselves as victims of more aggressive populations but maybe I'm conflating the alt right with the rural whites I know personally
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'd like to point out that in a lawless world of all-against-all OP would probably win a fight against any insane pauper, no matter how burly or experienced with violence. All he would need to do is buy a gun and shoot anyone who tries to get close to him. The homeless man probably can't afford a gun and ammunition.
The advantage of people who are good at one-on-one violence is artificial. It's created by a society that punishes people who win fights by inflicting deadly injury, but doesn't punish people who harass with low-level violence and intimidation.
In every previous era of our species, the military state of the art favored social deadly force over antisocial harassment. Two hundred years ago that dancer would have been sent to a prison or workhouse to die a miserable death. Five hundred years ago he would have been hanged. Two thousand years ago he would have been enslaved by the state and worked to death in a silver mine. Ten thousand years ago a gang of 4-10 men would have encountered him, perceived him as a threat, and thrown rocks at him until he died.
This man's ability to have any power at all in a public setting has nothing to do with his strength and everything to do with our mercy.
I like the division of labor, and to a great degree the monopolization of violence by the state too. I like that I can trust other people to build my house, to make my shoes and to brew my beer, much better than it would be done if I did it myself. So, I'm ok with the state delivering the necessary violence to keep the peace by means of professionally trained men and not by myself having to do it (of course, there are exceptional situations where it's not applicable). The tragedy of the woke society is that it keeps the separation of powers where the citizens delegate keeping of peace to the state, but reneges on the promise of peace being kept, telling the citizens that due to past and present sins (mainly having to do with their skin color) they do not actually deserve any peace. This looks a lot like fraud. If I paid for shoes, I want good shoes, not crudely made wooden blocks and a lecture about how slaves two centuries ago had it worse. If we as a society agreed to have the police, I want it to deliver the peace. Unfortunately, more frequently than not it doesn't happen. And, even more unfortunately, the inhabitants of these places - numerous, often educated and wealthy people - seem to be unwilling to do anything to change it (often willing to do much to make it worse). I'm not sure how to fix this situation and whether the fix is possible at all.
More options
Context Copy link
Absolutely true.
I also feel similar to the OP. The difference is that I’m a large, very muscular and physically dominant male. I’m an amateur boxer & powerlifter and have been in a few situations where I’ve had to use the skills I’ve developed in adverse conditions.
I’ve lived and worked principally in two cities in my life. Both very blue. One very wealthy and safe but with the growing problems that are discussed here frequently. We will call it city A. Other city much less wealthy, much rougher and with a longer history of violence. Let’s call that city B. Both cities are relatively close tk each other.
Over the last ten years the homeless in city A have gotten increasingly violent, brazen and deranged. They started setting up camps in broad daylight, in the middle of public streets. often the most violently mentally will walk the streets at day and terrify people.
The homeless in city b, while numerous, are largely the same as they’ve even been. They mostly keep to themselves, sometimes annoy tourists, but they are rarely threatening.
While city B has a reputation for violence, I feel much more comfortable there. I once expressed this to a group of people from city A, who were a bit shocked and amused. They asked me why. I told them their homeless are crazy, aggressive and out of control. They asked me why I thought that. I paused for a moment, and said ”If homeless people act like in city B, I think people just beat the shit out of them.”.
I myself had an illustrative example of this personally. Late at night in city A, where I was working, a homeless man locked eyes with me and then took a shit right in front of me.
After the momentary disgust wore off, the rage at this blatant antisocial act set in. I look up, see a security camera staring right at me, looked back at the homeless man, gave him a death stare, and moved on.
I think there are a lot of people feeling like Bernie Goetz out there, but with our growing panopticon and our fully deranged racial politics, that juice is just not worth the squeeze.
so what, you wanted to rage out on some loser who was street shitting, but the all seeing eye prevented you from... what exactly? The guy wasn't shitting on your property, and while it's gross it isn't exactly some rando's wheelhouse to defend the streets from shit.
From where i'm standing i'd rather live in a place where vigilantism is more harshly policed than shitting without a toilet. Vile as it may be, a pile of shit can be safely sidestepped whereas angry men with spurious reasoning can't always be. Obviously in the OP case with the marine, the street shitter WAS the violent man with questionable mental faculties, but without the loud violent shouting a street shitter isn't a good cause for someone to start fantasizing about violence IMO.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Our system -- or at least the NYC system -- is worse than that. It not only allows physically strong violent criminals to dominate weak people. It requires that physically strong decent people allow physically strong violent criminals to dominate weak people. And to a large extent it requires that physically strong decent people allow even weaker violent criminals to dominate them. Because if you fight and lose you go to the hospital; if you fight and win you go to jail. Any indignity or harm visited upon you that is less bad than spending time at Central Booking, it is a no-brainer to just accept. If it's worse than time at Central Booking but less bad than time at Riker's Island, you're very probably better off just accepting it.
The theory, of course, is that this is a civilized society and the police will handle it. But if nobody's hurt badly, the police and the system will do nothing. If someone is hurt, the response won't be enough to deter the behavior; this guy had over 40 arrests. So this is government as dog-in-the-manger; they're sitting on the option of violence, but they won't do anything with it.
The stuff about the sanctity of life, "let the police handle it", "it's not worth killing someone over" sounds great in the ivory tower, somewhat less great underground.
More options
Context Copy link
The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must? Not to talk for either of the aforementioned 'alt right' guys mentioned, but that sentiment is generally uttered as a description, not a prescription. And what generally follows is some opining on what should be done given we recognize it as true. So I'm not sure what your contention with that truth would be considering we just witnessed a black hobo who had enjoyed being 'strong' in the NYC subway arena get challenged and taken out by someone who is now facing the consequences for not recognizing the true strength of the black hobo, which lies in the social realm some very 'fine' jews and Americans have constructed for everyone to enjoy.
For instance, considering where the prescriptive part of the 'might makes right' philosophy comes into play, when it's me and my neurotypical non-assaulting homies on the subway vs the 'schizophrenic crime commitment squad' then I don't think we are drawing any lines in the sand that are too morally complex. With full recognition that I am not a black hobo, so I'm obviously taking my own side here, what exactly is the alternative? Wait for another Asian grandma to be pushed on the tracks? Live under the tyranny of the self proclaimed king of the subway car, who psychologically torments you for his own enjoyment? You can do that, and it is in fact being enforced as we speak. But since no one sane likes that, who should be strong?
In fact it surprises me to hear you point this out since it's a very popular argument for the types of people who dislike the 'alt right' types to go to when the 'alt right' types make their group preferences known. Which generally goes something like: ''ethnic group' commits a lot of crime, we should do something about that' Followed by the retort of: 'Why are you hating 'ethnic group'? If you don't like them because they commit too much crime, shouldn't you just hate criminals instead?'
But apparently, if you do hate the criminal, you are just a pathetic dweeb with a power fantasy? So therefor RIP Asian granny, the black hobo will now sing you the song of his people as he pushes you onto the train tracks? I don't get it.
It seems to me you are just calling Hoffmeister25 low status so therefor he shouldn't dare voice his feelings on the matter.
I'm getting to this post second, even though I modded a downthread comment of yours. I'll mostly just reiterate my ending point. When you make every other topic about jewish people you are waging the culture war. You probably need to take a personal break from that topic or risk escalating bans.
More options
Context Copy link
Is there anything you don't blame on Jews?
This is a willful misreading. I agree with pretty much everyone that a schizophrenic homeless career criminal getting his ticket punched after harassing one too many people is no tragedy. My objection is to making it a racial grievance (which includes sideswipes at Da Joos). But I also think there are reasons we should not be eager to embrace vigilante justice, and my observation that you cannot control which end of the pointy stick you'll be on was quite straightforward.
Your power fantasies are just that, the revenge fantasies of every bullied nerd ever, the copes of someone telling himself he's smarter and better and "biologically superior" to the jocks picking on him.
I can't read this statement to mean anything else. Maybe I'm retarded. Or maybe I'm just not a bullied nerd so I can identify with a lot of fantasizing, coping and seething due to perceived injustice without framing those fantasies through stereotypical jew Hollywood movie tropes about insecurities and the 'revenge of the nerds against the jocks'.
I didn't say you found it a tragedy or in any other way sympathetic. My point was that you are not answering the question pertaining to 'might makes right'. Either the schizos rule the subway or someone else. The police won't do anything about it, so what's the less wrong angle here? Sit in silence as yet another Asian granny goes on the rails? Your observation on being careful of the pointy sticks has long become irrelevant. There are pointy sticks. Now what do we do about them? Not in the abstract, not in theory. We know where schizo supremacy leads. Are we so certain that if otherwise law abiding citizens stand up for themselves against this tyranny without getting crushed by the system that we will have worse outcomes? I sincerely doubt it.
There are Jewish people that use this forum, and writing about "jew Hollywood" is too antagonistic and boo-outgroup to be thrown out as an undefended sentence. And before you go on a rant, this statement is equally applicable to your post:
There are [group] people that use this forum, and writing about "[group] Hollywood" is too antagonistic and boo-outgroup to be thrown out as an undefended sentence.
You are allowed to not like other groups, we don't moderate on beliefs. But trying to carry the flag for that cause in every other discussion is waging the culture war. You are waging the culture war here, and we don't like that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is a very fair point and I absolutely don’t deny that a healthy civilization embraces hierarchy and allows the strong and the virtuous to impose their will upon the weak and the degenerate. My complaint here is that the structures of society that cultivate virtue and coordinate the actions of the strong in order to direct their actions toward the benefit and protection of the weak have broken down; in their absence, the strong are instead incentivized to act privately and purely for their own individual self-interest, and the weak are preyed upon instead of protected.
I am someone with a lot to offer society, but only if society creates the conditions that allow me to not need to engage in interpersonal violence in order to function. I have little to no interest in the libertarian ethos of self-reliance and rugged manly individualism; I acknowledge that this is good and healthy for certain people, and I want there to be outlets for them to express and experience that lifestyle, but count me among the people who thrive under precisely the “bug-man” strictures that such people are chafing against.
I do want and need the state to have my back and protect me; I would prefer the state not to be a nanny state, but rather a daddy state, where we send men who look like Daniel Penny to take out the trash, rather than sending nurturing female social workers to coddle and enable the Jordan Neelys of the world. I want the strong to be on my side, and to enact violence against the “weak” - in this case, the morally weak and the useless - on my behalf and in the service of a society that benefits both the Virtuous Strong and the Useful Weak.
Deep down in places we don't talk about at parties, we want him on that subway. We need him on that subway.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think this leans in the right direction from the previous poster but perhaps too far. They think that they already are "the strong" it's just for some peculiar political eddy the weak are given limited local situations where they can exercise a limited kind of crude power. It's difficult to model homeless schitzos as actually powerful rather than circumstantially able to exercise power because the State doesn't equally enforce the rules on everyone.
True enough. But "A homeless black guy harassed me, this is why I wish we could go all Turner Diaries" is the direction I see.
Outrage at being bullied and essentially rendered helpless by a criminal psychopath in public is understandable, but all the stuff about "large, high-testosterone, social and biological inferiors" is just racial seething.
The guy was gutter trash, same as any number of whites I've known.
More options
Context Copy link
I’m not saying he’s my social and biological inferior because he’s black. He’s my social inferior because he’s a destructive parasite, incapable of contributing positively to society, constantly taking from those around him; he’s my biological inferior because he’s schizophrenic. His brain is incurably defective, and that condition is heritable and makes him a danger to others.
I don’t know how you got The Turner Diaries out of anything I’ve said; I do not advocate mass violence against non-criminal black individuals, and never have. We have hundreds of thousands of white bums, schizos, and scumbags in this country, and I advocate precisely the same treatment for them.
Yeah, me and my family are non-white so I have a pretty direct material interest in opposing the advances of white nationalism.
But this is like the “predator bro handshake meme” if I’ve ever seen one in real life. All the people I know who are most hardline about this type of stuff are Latino, Asian & African immigrants. Which really shouldn’t surprise anyone, seeing as they are the ones actually suffering the consequences of the urban decay brought on by violent, mentally ill homeless.
And they know the results of Anarcho-Tyranny as they come from so many similar places; doubtful they want their refuge to turn into the same as they knew.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Schizophrenia can't be cured (yet) but it certainly can be managed in many (perhaps a majority) of cases.
I think you're making a lot of assumptions and leaps of logic here.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I definitely agree, and I am also baffled sometimes that more of the smart types with those opinions don't just start hitting the gym. Healthy body, healthy mind and being muscular has all sorts of advantages with practically no drawback besides a couple hours a week during which you can get your motte posting in.
I don't disagree with the advice in general, but specifically here, being physically fit can also lead you to a false sense of security.
There's a reason every single 'street fight' guru tells you to run away every single time if you can. Even if you are in shape, even if you know how to fight, you are potentially one moment away from a knife in an artery, just to name a single life ending risk out of a thousand.
Sure, but even insane and belligerent people are more careful around big people.
Deterring fights by being physically imposing (or at least not being the inverse) is a useful complement to running away if a fight actually happens.
To both you and @aqouta , I feel like you are missing the point. You are still helpless sitting in the subway car whilst some maniac, hopefully I guess, molests someone else. 'Feeling like you could take them' is, again, just a false sense of security. Hoping that they will see you alone because you believe you look swole is, again, just a false sense of security. The actual problem, the schizo in the subway car, is still there. Feeling confident about your chances of not being the unlucky one to catch his attention, knife or a bullet is completely irrelevant to the actual problem.
Not saying this applies to either of you, but it feels like there is this sentiment dominating this thread of conversation that hinges on the idea that physically fit or fight capable people don't have power fantasies, or don't feel the constraints of society around them when faced with potentially physical altercations. They do. But the more smart or experienced of them usually recognize that choking out the schizo on the subway is a very risky thing. Not just in the moment but every moment after that. You kick the schizos ass and then what? Wait for him to find you on your regular commute? Ah, the schizo lunatic is holding a grudge against me, what a great spot to be in.
I can't stress enough, again, the feeling of security you get from having a high opinion of yourself is always liable to be false. You might be helping yourself improve your chances if you ever are unlucky enough get into a bad spot, but you are not getting away from all the other things that weigh everyone down anyways. Not to sound to bellicose but it's literally a cope.
Sure but that was not my point. My point was that being physically imposing causes people to not fuck with you, even insane and violent people. This isn't about my confidence, it's about theirs. It's about whether they feel that they could take me.
Me being large confers an advantage to me but as you state it's smaller than one might imagine and any individual violent encounter carries an unacceptably large risk. Making people not wanting to start altercations is therefore useful, regardless of whether their assessment of your capacity to defend yourself is accurate or not.
Its not that I can kick the shit out of the schitzo lunatic because I am large, it's that I don't have to because I am.
More options
Context Copy link
We've moved a good distance from where I originally, as an aside, expressed how I thought it was strange that many smart people do not see the obvious boons of becoming strong. Only a small facet of those boons is being mostly left alone by crazy people. I was very much not saying "just get buff and there is no problem, lol" so much as "this is another example of why I think everyone should make themselves more fit. There is a sense, and one I saw somewhat in the OP that raw strength is beneath a sense of personal excellence that I find wrongheaded.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Right, I wasn't meaning to imply being strong to actually get into fights with bums, but even crazy bums tend to leave the bigger guys alone. At least this is my experience from going from a slightly chubby nerd to a fairly buff man over ~6 years in Chicago.
This matches my observation, which is one reason that I question just how crazy the bums are. I mean, sure, they obviously have self-destructive personalities, are frequently addicted to narcotics, and have extremely poor impulse control, but I think people are entirely too willing to accept the idea that this is about schizophrenia or that the gentleman in the subway was "having a mental health crisis". Maybe he's just, in the colloquial sense, a complete asshole. If a given belligerent vagrant is suffering more from just being a complete asshole than being mentally ill, I would expect them to exercise some degree of discretion when picking targets to harass for fun and profit, which seems more consistent with what I actually see. There's a continuum here as well as significant group overlap between those groups.
I agree that a lot of the cases of random attacks are just stupidity (sometimes drug-induced, sometimes not) interacting with being an asshole / wanting to fight, but I don't think the 'avoiding big people' is good evidence against it. "Don't directly challenge large enemies" is a fairly old instinct that almost every living thing that moves has, if despite meth mania you have enough instincts left to perceive where other people are and fight them, you probably have enough left to avoid 6'4 270lb powerlifter bubba
More options
Context Copy link
Even animals recognize big and imposing as something to steer clear of, so I'm not sure it's evidence against being mentally unwell that they prefer to pick on women, old people, and small people.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's no good hitting the gym if you go to Riker's for popping the overly aggressive homeless beggar (for the sake of argument we'll say he was hitting or shoving you, but ineffectively) right in the nose. The law says you have to walk away or take it, not respond.
It has been my experience that crazy people do not fuck with buff dudes, or at least do so significantly less than others.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I go to the gym 4-5 times a week, but the results I get have not yet given me the physical tools I would need to contend with a large schizophrenic man with a nearly boundless capacity for brutal violence. I’ve thought about starting a regime of steroids, testosterone supplements, etc. in order to help me see better results, but I’m concerned about what the knock-on effects would be on the other parts of my life.
Within around 3 years of starting a 5 day a week schedule you should be visibly stronger than most people. No real need for steroids unless you're very time sensitive.
That's unnecessarily hardcore imo.
Going 3 times a week consistently for 3 years is more than enough, if you actually apply yourself when you're in the gym. A lot of people seem to just amble around and don't increase the weight sufficiently.
This is almost-certainly part of my problem.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link