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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   33344 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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My thoughts point by point:

Men are vastly more likely to be victims of the worst kind of violent crime: murder. In the US, 82% of total homicide victims are male, 18% are female. Women probably endure more sexual violence, but men definitely endure more violence overall given the 4:1 murder ratio.

Fair. Though if you aren't involved in criminal activity, your odds of being murdered drop dramatically.

Men do the overwhelming majority of the nasty, dangerous work, such as roofing in the summer, oil rig operation, management of sewers, garbage collection, etc.

True, but the vast majority of men in first world countries don't do work like this. I don't think it says much about the experience of the average man. A lot of very dangerous, hard work is also quite well-paying.

Men are much more likely to be homeless (70%:30%) or imprisoned (93%:7%). I think this speaks to the greater competitiveness of the male world: If a man fails in life, he's judged a complete fuckup, and ends up a homeless low-status loser. If a woman fails, she can almost always just get married.

Basically no one who isn't severely mentally ill and/or addicted to hard drugs ends up homeless long-term. It's not like the majority, or even a significant minority, of men are living on the knife's edge of homelessness.

Men are much more likely to kill themselves

I'm not sure how this really relates to the concept of a "minimum deal." Unlike most of the other things on this list, suicide can't just happen to you as a result of extrapersonal factors. If you don't want to die by suicide, just don't kill yourself.

And no, I'm not persuaded that childcare is harder than conventional employment.)

'Conventional employment' is a pretty broad term. Would I rather take care of children than fight in Ukraine or mine coal? Yeah, probably. Would I rather take care of children than work in an air-conditioned office or as a cashier? No way. Childcare sucks, even if some things suck even worse.

The law heavily favors women in child custody and child support disputes, and the institution of alimony transfers far more male wealth to women than female wealth to men.

True, but ameliorated by the fact that a huge number of men don't even bother to contest custody, and that alimony payment is in fact very rare. The vast majority of divorces don't end in alimony settlements. The whole horror story where your wife divorces you and takes all your stuff so she can fuck chad is much less common than the internet would have you believe.

Men are much more likely to die in combat; in fact, during serious military conflicts, they face military slavery (“the draft”).

True, but the draft hasn't been a factor in half a century and IMO is unlikely to be one for the foreseeable future. Any American who gets killed in battle these days quite literally signed up for it.

Our culture automatically cares more about female suffering and wellbeing than male suffering: "The ship is sinking! Save the women and children first!"

Maybe (though I have posted previously on here about how I think the narrative of 'if you're a man nobody gives a shit about you, your existence is a lonely void' is quite overblown). That said, fair to point out that "women and children first" was not an old maritime law but a rather recent innovation at the time the Titanic sank. Through most of history, women and children have had much worse survival rates in sinkings because, well, the rule was 'every man for himself' and the men could swim.

The dating market is more competitive for men than for women; women are far more selective than men about sex partners. Imagine an attractive person of the opposite sex walking up to you on a college campus and saying, “Hi, I’ve been noticing you around town lately, and I fnd you very attractive. Would you have sex with me?” How would you respond? If you are like 100 percent of the women in one study, you would give an emphatic no. You might be ofended, insulted, or just plain puzzled by the request. But if you are like the men in that study, the odds are good that you would say yes— as did 75 percent of those men (Clarke & Hatfeld, 1989). As a man, you would most likely be flattered by the request.

I have great news for you: you too can have sex on demand. Simply download tinder onto your phone, set your preferences to 'men,' and start swiping. I guarantee you within a few hours tops you can have a hook-up arranged with an extremely attractive man. "But I don't want to have sex with men!" you cry. Well...

Women are more likely to be superficially treated as mere "sex objects" by men. That said, men are more likely to be superficially treated as mere "success objects" by women.

This seems like a wash even on your framing. But it does remind me of what I think is one of the sillier mansophere/PUA/redpill/whatever it's called now, slogans, which goes something like "women are loved for who they are, men are loved for what they can provide." Silly because it implies there's some kind of core essence of 'you' separate from your character and actions (what you can provide), and because what "women are loved for who they are" really means is "women are loved for their looks" which doesn't sound nearly as nice. Moreover this is usually said said in such a way to make women out to be the shallower sex, but when it really comes down to it I think loving someone because they make a lot of money or are a famous musician or something is less shallow than loving someone because they're hot (even if both are kind of shallow by the standards of storybook 'true love.') At least the former qualities are reflections of character.

Modern technology has greatly minimized the pain of childbirth, but has it equally lightened the burden on men's shoulders?

Absolutely. I think the majority of men in the first world today would probably drop dead if they had to do the work their grandfathers did, let alone those grandfathers' grandfathers. I know I would. People, especially people who romanticize pre-industrial society, really have a tendency to underestimate how brutal and treacherous life was just a little over a century ago (and much more recently in some places, and still is in less developed parts of the world).

There are ways that life is easier for men. You have already listed female advantages. For men, it's mostly the fact that people take you more seriously, and that men tend to be physically much stronger than women. Those two factors divide into a lot of different smaller sub-advantages in social and daily life. Personally I think walking around knowing that about 75% of the population is physically stronger than me and there wouldn't be much I could do about it if one of them chose to do me harm would be very psychologically distressing, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with that, and no amount of cultural messaging will fix that particular problem.

As for your "minimum deal" for women being "just get married," again, imagine that your alternative to being homeless and killing yourself (though again, you can avoid the latter by just not killing yourself) was getting married to a man (and yes, you have to have sex with him). Would that be a great deal? Would you be happy to have that option?

Basically no one who isn't severely mentally ill and/or addicted to hard drugs ends up homeless long-term. It's not like the majority, or even a significant minority, of men are living on the knife's edge of homelessness.

Any man without a greatly above average social network is one bad tax mistake away from homelessness.

I wouldn't say I have a greatly above average social network, but even if I somehow managed to bankrupt myself, at the very least my parents would let me move in with them...

And then the IRS would start digging into your parents finances to see if anything belonging to them could be construed as belonging to you... which they would then take. Your parents might not be too hot on that idea.

I guess it's like whatever TVTrope it is where people who know things about science or history or biology are more annoyed by movies that don't even try to get it right than normies, but the sheer ignorance people post here about how federal agencies work regularly astounds me.

The IRS is actually one of the more reasonable agencies. They are subject to a lot of oversight (auditors can get in big trouble even for accidentally mistyping someone's name and pulling up the wrong file), and they go out of their way to work with people who aren't being intentionally criminal. They don't go after people on whims, people who make innocent (even if really stupid) mistakes are generally able to work out repayment terms, and even for tax frauds, the IRS doesn't even have enough resources to go "digging into" the finances of everyone related to their target just for spite and punitiveness. This scenario you have conjured in which they seize all your assets and garnish your wages forever so you are forced to live in poverty, and then try to take your parents' house, because you "made one bad tax mistake" - do you have some particular example in mind of this happening, or did you make it up?

The IRS used to be known for doing obviously cruel things, which they did on purpose because they wanted to be seen as obviously cruel so people would pay their taxes. I've heard that's no longer policy for some time now. But they still want their money, they'll still go after you like a Terminator until they get it, and they absolutely will go after people they think might be helping a delinquent taxpayer hide assets from them. The scenario I described -- owing more than you ever actually had -- was a common one during the dot-com bust. They don't garnish your wages forever -- I believe the limit is 10 years -- but they do take everything you have and garnish your wages down to what they consider subsistence levels.

The IRS used to be known for doing obviously cruel things, which they did on purpose because they wanted to be seen as obviously cruel so people would pay their taxes.

When was this era of capricious cruelty? Because it's not within my lifetime or yours.

But they still want their money, they'll still go after you like a Terminator until they get it,

Yes, if you evade taxes, they will pursue what you owe. This is called enforcement. I don't know that the IRS is particularly more "Terminator-like" than any other enforcement agency. There are two possibilities here:

  1. You think they are pursuing people for things that shouldn't be enforced. Your complain is with Congress - they make tax law. (The IRS has been advocating for simpler tax codes for decades. It's not the IRS that wants a tax code system so byzantine that the average person needs help from software and/or tax preparation services and still runs a risk of making an expensive mistake. Guess whose interests are served by that?)

  2. You think they shouldn't pursue tax cheats. So... don't enforce the law, because you think taxes are bad? Again, take it up with Congress.

and they absolutely will go after people they think might be helping a delinquent taxpayer hide assets from them.

Yes, if you are playing shell games with friends and relatives to try to hide your assets, they will go after you (and the people you're using). That's called tax evasion.

None of this remotely resembles the scenario you described where "Poor average guy somehow accidentally finds out he owes more taxes than his total net worth and the IRS impoverishes him and then goes after his parents." That sounds like the story a dedicated tax evader might tell that should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Again, got any actual examples?

The scenario I described -- owing more than you ever actually had -- was a common one during the dot-com bust

I'm not familiar with how many actual cases of this there might have been. It's possible to have massive paper capital gains which you then owe taxes on, immediately prior to a bust, so while I am not a tax accountant myself, I can envision hypothetical scenarios where a heavily leveraged person might end up owing "more taxes than he ever actually had." Color me skeptical, however, that this was common or that it didn't involve some financial shenanigans on the part of the alleged victim.

They don't garnish your wages forever -- I believe the limit is 10 years -- but they do take everything you have and garnish your wages down to what they consider subsistence levels.

The IRS helpfully posts this information on their website. You can be garnished until either you pay off what you owe or the levy is released, and it's calculated based on standard deductions and the number of dependents. I don't know precise numbers and it's certainly possible that if you owe a lot of money (which almost always is the result of doing a lot of tax evasion), you will be heavily garnished, though hardly down to "subsistence levels." Generally speaking, the upper end of what they will garnish is more like 50%, and that's after deducting what they consider necessary for you and your dependents (not as "subsistence level").

You are just repeating J. Edgar Hoover-era just-so stories.

When was this era of capricious cruelty? Because it's not within my lifetime or yours.

It's within mine. It hit its nadir when the IRS decided to raid a co-op nursery school and refuse to release the children to their parents until they signed a form agreeing to be responsible for a share of the taxes. I think this was in the 1980s but it might have been the 1970s. But even without that sort of thing, the casual impersonal cruelty of the juggernaut is quite sufficient.

None of this remotely resembles the scenario you described where "Poor average guy somehow accidentally finds out he owes more taxes than his total net worth and the IRS impoverishes him and then goes after his parents."

I never said he was an average guy. Several people have assumed that because they have even less sympathy for a man who this might happen to (e.g. a dot-com bust principal or early employee) than to an average guy.

It's possible to have massive paper capital gains which you then owe taxes on, immediately prior to a bust, so while I am not a tax accountant myself, I can envision hypothetical scenarios where a heavily leveraged person might end up owing "more taxes than he ever actually had."

No leverage is required.

Color me skeptical, however, that this was common or that it didn't involve some financial shenanigans on the part of the alleged victim.

And this is just-worlding.

It's within mine. It hit its nadir when the IRS decided to raid a co-op nursery school and refuse to release the children to their parents until they signed a form agreeing to be responsible for a share of the taxes. I think this was in the 1980s but it might have been the 1970s. But even without that sort of thing, the casual impersonal cruelty of the juggernaut is quite sufficient.

I'm pretty sure I am at least as old as you. I'm not usually one to do the obnoxious "cite?" thing, but you're going to have to give me a link, because that story doesn't ring any bells and I'm highly skeptical that it's an entirely accurate description of the case.

I never said he was an average guy. Several people have assumed that because they have even less sympathy for a man who this might happen to (e.g. a dot-com bust principal or early employee) than to an average guy.

Okay, so give me an actual example of a rich guy this happened to, as you described it.

No leverage is required.

Then explain to me how it works. Seriously. I'll bet you cannot describe the mechanism by which someone literally owes more than they ever had. Capital gains taxes are only applied once you actually sell something. There has been discussion recently about taxing "unrealized capital gains," but that has not happened yet.

And this is just-worlding.

No, it's how the actual world works. You picked the wrong topic to play argument-by-vibes with me today, my friend. But go ahead, prove me wrong with some concrete examples.

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