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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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Can you date folks with different politics?

I watch this stream yesterday and i find it quite interesting. Im actually kinda in this situation now, i took a girl on a date, she made it obvious she was a progressive. I often dont share my own views on these things in real life, due to how toxic these conversations can be, so i just try to listen and empathize with where the person is coming from. Though im planning to open my mouth a little more about things on the 2nd go round, as to not give a misleading representation of who i am.

Whats interesting is that the streamer in question distinct "politics" from "human rights", she gives a pretty weak example with Roe V Wade. However i think the distinction between "politics" and "human rights" is shaky to begin with. No one really agrees on what human rights even are, per her roe example, gun control (constitutional arguably, but still) being another one, & there are still societies/people that arent accepting of LGBT although thats been on the decline over some decades. My guess is she is taking this to mean, "you probably shouldnt date a nazi", which is perfectly fine. But there arent a lot of those guys around in this day and age. For myself, i dont really believe any idea is above criticism, so i dont see how having a different idea of what constitutes human rights is much different from just having different politics.

According to pew research, most people, (myself included) are fine with dating people across the political aisle {note that many people wouldnt date a trump voter, but many would date a republican, but i suspect many people might view trump as a fundamentally immoral individual, and thus that makes him distinct from just mere disagreement}. I also find that peoples political beliefs arent good measures of how moral they are in real life. There are many progressives ive seen who were cheaters, liars, lazy, ect & conservatives who were kind hearted, hard working, & loving ect (& vice versa). But i want to know what you guys think.

I wouldn’t take anything they say about not dating Trump voters too seriously. Incels have done enough chadfishing experiments to show that you can say or believe whatever you want so long as they are attracted to you

Now as far as my personal experience goes, my sample size is very small consisting only of my wife and a handful of people I have dated. But I have never found political differences to be a hindrance. I have only encountered a couple people in my life whose political beliefs were based on anything more than emulating their social peers. So generally in my experience you date a girl and she will come to adopt all your beliefs because you will become the focus of her social life.

I'm a reasonably good looking guy and I've told assorted leftist chicks my views pretty early. They seemed confused (I don't drive a pickup truck or anything they associated with bad trump voters) but it didn't stop most of them from banging me.

The trick is to not act like Ben Shapiro. The most I ever did was troll them for entertainment, e.g. "we should build a wall and make Brooklyn great again, keep the migrants seeking a better life out" in response to a comment about keeping out gentrifiers.

What are "your views" that you tell them? Would you be able to off-handedly mention if the topic comes up, "Yeah, I think Ben Shapiro is basically right" and also not act like Ben Shapiro?

Your comment about Brooklyn doesn't really strike me as "supports trump" or problematic on the object-level. The reason someone would get mad at that trolling is if she thinks gentrification is too sacred to be joked about. Most people don't feel that way, and if they do a little bit, they would probably swallow (haha) their mild discomfort as a form of settling.

Things I've admitted to thinking:

  • Trump seems pretty ok.

  • "I have sexdar. It's like gaydar, but I can predict pronouns with >99% accuracy!" Admittedly the trans thing was just starting but wasn't so crazy as it is now

  • Women aren't in tech cause they don't want to be.

  • Assorted environmental things

  • Poor people have it good in America and their problems are mostly self inflicted

  • I don't vote, no one should. (This was to a girl who was in some voting encouragement NGO.)

But again, I'm not arguing these points. I'm trolling, entertaining myself and exerting playful intellectual dominance. You can have a prediction contest, but the first bet involves the loser buying the next round of drinks and the second bet puts her at risk of losing clothing.

Would you be able to off-handedly mention if the topic comes up, "Yeah, I think Ben Shapiro is basically right" and also not act like Ben Shapiro?

"It's so sad, Ben Shapiro is 100% right on everything yet he'll never know the love of a woman." If you aren't saying it with a smirk, don't say it.

I also can't stress enough that an important part of the delivery is being >6'1", benching your bodyweight and having flat abs.

No, almost none of this requires being especially attractive. "Trump seems pretty ok" is the riskiest one here, do you ever caveat it, or what's the context? I can easily get away with the rest of these.

I also would have predicted that the only way for you to call Ben Shapiro right would be to dunk on him. This is unsurprising, since most people ignore the literal and logical implications of words and go straight for the emotivism. If your claim is heard and understood as merely "Fuck Ben Shapiro" then it doesn't imply anything interesting about what you believe.

I mean actually, seriously, can you profess, "Graduating high school, getting a job, and avoiding kids out of wedlock is just how you win at life"? Because that implies certain beliefs about the agency of a person, for example, many people would say discrimination or other factors come into play regardless of doing those. Or, they'll say that discrimination or other factors prevent some people from doing those, and so Ben Shapiro is wrong insofar as his prescriptions are incomplete.

It sounds like what you're saying is, "if you're hot you can troll with inflammatory-sounding things that creatively shit on the right." I attest I do that regularly at progressive women, because it shows wit and intelligence (and a disdain for the right). So I doubt this really is an instance of the halo effect.

"Trump seems pretty ok" is the riskiest one here, do you ever caveat it, or what's the context?

One context I can remember was something about how I'm tired of hearing how evil candidate Trump is on every single TV at the gym. "But isn't he so evil?" "I dunno, he seems cool whenever they let him talk. What's evil?" "He's racist." "No he isn't, he's out there defending American Indians from white ladies like Pocahontas trying to steal their AA slots."

I also would have predicted that the only way for you to call Ben Shapiro right would be to dunk on him. This is unsurprising, since most people ignore the literal and logical implications of words and go straight for the emotivism. If your claim is heard and understood as merely "Fuck Ben Shapiro" then it doesn't imply anything interesting about what you believe.

I also believe "fuck Ben Shapiro". He's a wanker who creates a bad impression of conservatives by being a youtube version of internet nerds. He's right on the little bits I've seen him say, but also I haven't paid much attention cause he's annoying.

It sounds like what you're saying is, "if you're hot you can troll with inflammatory-sounding things that creatively shit on the right."

No, I shit on Ben Shapiro specifically because you asked about him specifically after I described him as a person not to emulate.

Most of the trolling I do (or did, less relevant now) is not negative about the right at all. It's more about highlighting the inconsistencies of the left.

I thought you meant "do not emulate Shapiro's style" which is what I took "act like Ben Shapiro" to mean. I asked about emulating Shapiro's position while not emulating his style and the only way to do that is emulate his position while denigrating him. I also do this, as a defense mechanism because there are consequences otherwise.

The bit about Pocahontas is riskier, and I'll give you more credit for that. If I was motivated to pick that apart too, I would say you seem to be capitalizing on "50 Stalins ambiguity." It feels like your trolls would just say things like, "Pride Month and Woke Race Representation is so annoying; companies are so insincere." Like the Pocahontas example that implicitly assumes AA and diversity is good, you attack the excess of the Left, but not really from a Rightist perspective.

These are all very safe positions, I say stuff like this because it does show intellectual dominance (was that an edit?).

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