domain:archive.ph
vorpa-glavo
26m ago
I'm perfectly happy to accept the official narrative, if investigators say that it wasn't arson.
However, we live in an era where the internet has created so many different epistemic bubbles that question whatever the experts and authorities say, on both the right and left. On one hand, I think this can be a healthy thing. If you're a woman in the 1940's, and the medical authorities are telling your husband that he should get you a lobotomy to deal with your various issues, is it better to be married to a sheep who follows everything the authorities say, or a contrarian who maybe rubs some people the wrong way but whose questioning of authority leads him to rejecting lobotomies (maybe without any good evidence or reason for his actual rejection)?
I agree that objective facts matter. It is my hope that all people will embrace the idea that even if deferring to experts and authorities is often a necessary shortcut for getting by in the world for most people in most circumstances, you should be prepared to do your own research and have the independent conscience to depart from the crowd if that is what your reason or character tells you to do. On the other hand, sometimes you're going to lose to reality, and it will turn out the experts were right all along.
But it's all about humanity not putting all of its eggs into one basket. It is positively good for humanity as a whole if a small portion of us become Amish, or reject modernity for religious or ideological reasons, or join cults, or have their children die of diseases we have reliable vaccines for, because the diversity of practices maximizes the odds that there will be at least one group of humans available to inherit the ashes after the sheep do something so stupid and destructive that it kills billions of humans, or leaves most of humanity infertile, or does anything that almost wipes out the whole species.
There should be room for normie rule-followers, of course. They're the salt of the Earth, and society would be intolerable and impossible without them, no matter what shape society takes. But I think we should feel grateful for the insurance policy that groups that are often easily mocked or not taken seriously because they depart so far from consensus reality provide.
All this to say, I think it is completely fair to mock lefties that are so caught in their epistemic bubble that they can't conceive of the idea that fires just happen, and there's no need to invent an arson conspiracy with corresponding government conspiracy. Probably, they are just wrong, and they're just departing from objective, consensus reality for no good reason. But that's also not the worst trait a group can exhibit.
zoink
33m ago
I don't think the imbalance for leftists in the justice system should be all the surprising. It's been decades of leftist having literal terrorists with tenure. Marxist and Communists with tenure outnumber Nazis and Fascists by about... what? 100x? 1,000x? 100,000x? All while calling the most milk toast Republicans like Romney fascists.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
39m ago
I'm sympathetic to your argument, but even if porn is disgusting that doesn't mean one should show disgust for the young men who watch it. You need to show them compassion to get them to change, not go "ewww" as so many tend to do.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
40m ago
That's already happened. If you go to his subreddit, it's full of people who do nothing but hate him, like Joe Rogan. I think Reddit is a pretty good barometer as to one's current bona fides in the Democrat party.
This is the problem, right?
Maybe? Democrat messaging is really, really, really, abysamally, unfathomably bad. It is so bad that getting back at the people responsible for terrible Democrat messaging is a substantive policy position of the Republicans.
I mean, just look at this shit. Marginal improvements won't fix this, but a complete paragidm shift might.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
42m ago
You would think that gay men would have a better grasp of straight men, of the internal theory of mind of their fellows. But that doesn't happen. Why?
daguerrean
48m ago
The slightest glimpse into real violence leaves a lasting negative taste in one's mouth (unless you're a psychopath). That's why well adjusted men don't make violent threats easily.
I think it is most likely those that have engaged in violence are most likely to make threats and follow through to engage in more violence, I’m basically talking about the low IQ criminal underclass. I don’t think experiencing violence turns them into prudent philosophers on the subject. And of course I’m as effete and faggy as they come, but am horrified by the prospect of political violence in any direction.
Cirrus
50m ago
Looking at the DNC leadership page, Jason Rae is gay. Stuart Appelbaum and Chuck Schumer are Jews. Only Ken Martin and Chris Korge appear to be straight, white men.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
55m ago
You, personally, have an assuredly principled line in the sand -- or a consideration of factors -- that allows you to move abacus beads on the appropriate exchange-pogrom language scale. I agree that this is not pogrom language. I don't think the gap is as wide on this reportedly accidental, unprompted exchanged, but my point was the accurate placement on the pogrom scale is not so important to the politics.
We The People transcended opprobrium. The Motte is not supposed to partake in the enlightenment, so in that regard you deserve kudos for working on the details. There is a lot of grievance bleeding in. Voters, not party, will get the chance to decide how much such things matter anyway. That's probably for the best or worst.
Throwaway05
1hr ago
They were hunting down and putting J6 people in jail YEARS later.
Meanwhile seems to have been no particular effort at all to hunt down BLM rioters except for some of the worst in a few states.
Absolutely crazy gap in effort.
Throwaway05
1hr ago
I have some family and friends who work in DC as part of national Democrat political strategy.
They are comically far left, woke, and every extreme stereotype.
Outright caricatures who literally run out of the room if you push back against their political positions in the most mild way.
faul_sname
Fuck around once, find out once. Do it again, now it's science.
1hr ago
Truth social is over thataway if you would like somewhere you can post without worrying about discourse norms.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1hr ago
In particular, I would argue that outside your odd lizardman, none of the smarter MAGA people believe the narrative. I think it highly unlikely that Charlie Kirk thought, in his heart of hearts, that Biden was committing treason for which his countrymen would sent him to the gallows if they knew about it. But the narrative played really well with the idiots, so he spread it.
...How closely have you been following the revelations about Russiagate/Crossfire Hurricane/Hillary's email server/Biden's Corruption/Hunter's Laptop over the last year? My working understanding of that mess (and it seems to me there's a fair amount of evidence that it is a coherent, single mess) is that we now have solid evidence that Obama, Hillary and Biden worked together to suborn the national security apparatus and turn it into both a political weapon against their political enemies, as well as a shield to their own serious malfeasance. As with, say, Watergate, but amusingly never ever with any Democrat scandal, the initial crimes seem vastly overshadowed by the institutional corruption used to cover them, which at this point appear to have run so deep and for so long that they put the viability of our political system itself into question.
More generally, there's this amusing pattern I see, where people are very willing to discuss things under a frame where Trump and MAGA are fascistic white supremacists who must be stopped by any means necessary, as we did here for years, and are also willing to discuss things under a frame where actually there's no difference between the parties, everyone's corrupt so none of the details really matter, but certainly are not willing to discuss under the frame where, no, actually it's the democrats who are uniquely, intolerably bad. Maybe it's just bias speaking, but it seems to me that this excluded third option is going to get harder and harder to exclude the more evidence accumulates. And while within the context of debate and one's own mind denial might be an invincible shield, it's less effective in the real world if sufficient numbers of the public simply stop being willing to cooperate with your tribe in any way ever again.
UwU
1hr ago
Let me first say what he did was wrong and I support him exiting the race and resigning from any public office he currently holds. I hate politicians like him.
But I don't really care that partisans on the motte are pearl clutching. If Trump said similar things in a leaked private chat, like calling Kamala's kids little communists or whatever, or he'd shoot Hilary twice, you think that would move the needle at all? Nope. We are far beyond that point.
ThenElection
1hr ago
I would say hot and frumpy women both attack and defend men, without a strong trend. The bigger difference is that men don't value the defenses offered by the frumpy women, while they excuse the attacks of the hot women. So the frumpy women get more of the blame for misandry, while the hot women remain simped for.
faul_sname
Fuck around once, find out once. Do it again, now it's science.
1hr ago
A Democrat Trump would have to run roughshod through his own party, goring their oxen, while overwhelming any party resistance.
Yeah, that sure does look like the likely outcome of a Democrat Trump equivalent. I expect a nominally Democrat Trump would be at least as bad for the country as the nominally Republican one we have now, I'd guess even worse.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
1hr ago
A saw a twitter post responding to some leftwinger who was failing to comprehend why people cared that Charlie Kirk was murdered. The clapback went something like "Imagine this happened to someone you actually feel empathy for, like a black rapist".
A core part of the problem that @WhiningCoil was posting about downthread is that if the Democrat Party as a whole got the Biblical choice to spare my white/Jewish teenage daughter, or the non-white career criminal who would otherwise rape and kill her, I would bet they'd save the criminal. Maybe that's a false perspective based on their fringe. The odds are definitely not 10-0, but maybe it's below 5-5, maybe 2-8.
But with the Republicans it's 0-10, no matter the race or Islamicity of the criminal. Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent, and some people have been openly reveling in cruelty for 5+ years.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
1hr ago
There are many video compilations arguing otherwise. I actually think it's at least partially causal - the less attractive women can get a septum piercing and a few other disfigurements and start openly hating men as a way of protecting the ego.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1hr ago
Democrats don't want you dead, because the democrats asking for your head don't have any understanding of violence.
I live in the bluest of blue America, and I've heard a few people express glee at the idea of Trump's death. It comes from the oddest of places. The nicest boomer white ladies, the tiniest granola girlies, men so feminine they couldn't hurt a bee. (Literally. I recently happened to be a +1 for a friends event where they tried to resuscitate a bee. Safe to say, I held my tongue the entire afternoon. Wonderful people and not an ounce of violence in their body). Look at Jay Jones, he's the lowest testosterone black man I've seen in my life. What a woman dressed as a man would look like.
My point is, they shout about killing Trump because they are unable to imagine the act of killing, punching or drawing blood. Even when they express this emotion, it's usually with a glint of mischief rather than anger. They're not just angry at him. They are also indulging the kid inside of them that never got to say the word 'fuck'. It's no surprise that many of the left-wing terrorists have grown up in dysfunctional conservative families or are gamers. These communities have a clearer relationship with violence as children, having coopted vanilla progressivism at a later age.
They are angry at Trump. But not in a "bullied kids shoots up a school" way. But in a, "I cry in every therapy session" way.
I like to believe I am well adjusted. But, I had my fair share of fighting violent bullies in school. Once in a while you push someone too hard and they fall on their head or you misplace a punch and you see a man in true pain. In a "my actions could have caused real harm and I'm lucky I missed" sort of way. Life flashes in front of your face. It snaps you out of anger, and leaves you with a pit in your stomach. The slightest glimpse into real violence leaves a lasting negative taste in one's mouth (unless you're a psychopath). That's why well adjusted men don't make violent threats easily. The mental return damage of living with hurting someone is not worth it. It isn't a good feeling.
You need not be worried about the ones making threats. Not this group. Now, if demographics with a relationship with violence start saying the same things.......then, call in the national guard.
quiet_NaN
1hr ago
Some among them, surely. The Qanon true believers who think he is fighting a secret war against the adrenochrome-addicted establishment.
Still, my model of the median Trump voter is that they know that Trump is bullshitting all day long and corrupt AF. But the establishment hating him so much makes it all worth it.
In particular, I would argue that outside your odd lizardman, none of the smarter MAGA people believe the narrative. I think it highly unlikely that Charlie Kirk thought, in his heart of hearts, that Biden was committing treason for which his countrymen would sent him to the gallows if they knew about it. But the narrative played really well with the idiots, so he spread it.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1hr ago
The worst offender for an American university name has to be Colgate, to me Colgate is what I brush my teeth with...
It is, in fact, the same Colgate family.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1hr ago
Direct advocacy of violence goes well beyond what "stochastic terrorism" was supposed to be. The idea of stochastic terrorism is basically that saying bad things about people -- not advocacy of violence, just that the people were terrible in some way -- might make crazies kill them.
Grant_us_eyes
1hr ago
I've begun to actively loathe twitter, because so many good source of information are now trapped in twisted, labyrinthian multi-threaded posts that are a bitch and a half to store offline.
Anyways, here's a good thread that breaks down the entire charlottesville debacle. Take away from that what you want, but I personally feel this was yet another case of a political lynching.
Oh, and one of the protesters blatantly admitted to brandishing rifle at the guy earlier.
I'm speaking of young men aged 18-35. My opinions are colored by personal anecdotes from deep-blue cities.
I haven't met a non-communist straight man who has 'volunteered for the democrats' or 'worked on the campaign'. On the other hand, I know multiple women and LGBT men who have done so. I am the eldest of a family of male cousins. The college aged (18-25) cousins only express positive emotions about democrats when around women their age (reasons obvious).
I could be in an echo chamber. But, it sure feels like the truth.
I was not aware of this. Good rule. I went back and looked at the numbers. Now seems as good as time as any to be a young man in democratic party. A healthy number (~50%) of the young democratic leaders (major mayors, house reps, senators) are under 45 men. Try as I may, the real numbers don't match my intuitions.
I still have my suspicions. But, I stand corrected.
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