banned
/r/SwipeHelper is great for teaching you how to get around bans, you should also immediately add every women you've gone out with/exchanged numbers with in the last few years to your block list once you get unbanned ofc
What's the motivation behind doing so?
stuckinbathroom
6mo ago
I’m not banned from CMB and fully intend to use it if/when I get back to dating apps.
I’ve used CMB in the past, and in fact met my first serious girlfriend on it back in the mid-2010s, but was having significantly greater success with Hinge prior to the ban.
In my experience, CMB is more popular among fobs (of whom there are lots, especially Chinese and Indians) but I’m more interested in women who were born and raised in the West, or at least moved here at a young-ish age (high school, perhaps college at the latest)
If you have good insight- figure out why you aren't successful. If you are moderately attractive you should be drowning in women at that wealth level. Are you fatter than you want to admit? Fashion style not making it obvious you are bringing in money? No rizz?
Not fat, but not especially good looking either. Like I said, pretty average bespectacled brown dude.
I don’t have that many opportunities to meet single women IRL: my hobbies and social circles are pretty male-dominated and the attractive women in them are already taken; plus work keeps me pretty busy.
I don’t have flashy, expensive tastes, nor does my fashion sense immediately indicate that I have lots of money, although I definitely don’t dress like a slob.
I do think my day game/night game “rizz” has taken a hit over the past few years, as dating has increasingly moved online; it’s honestly quite rare now to find a girl by herself, without AirPods, in a public place where it would be appropriate to cold-approach. But my rizz is definitely not terrible: I really was having decent success on Hinge (multiple dates per week, getting to sex with a new girl about once every 1-2 months) before I got banned. And that was before I started lifting!
In short, my lack of success is due to being banned from Hinge (the best dating app I have ever used), plus online dating having largely taken over all of dating, to the exclusion of meeting women IRL through activities or mutual friends. This, I think, is especially true when it comes to women who are my type (well-educated Asian-Americans), as they tend not to just hang out in bars or whatever waiting for guys to approach them; if they’re in the dating scene at all, it’s through apps.
campfire
6mo ago
/r/SwipeHelper is great for teaching you how to get around bans, you should also immediately add every women you've gone out with/exchanged numbers with in the last few years to your block list once you get unbanned ofc
I have other advice but I have to ask if you're willing to relocate somewhere with a market more favorable to you. I also think the Asian fetish is something you should get over. One way it holds you back is that the major cities with lots of Asian women in America also have the worst sex ratios for men.
I hope you don't mind my asking - how did you get banned from Hinge?
Also, are contact lenses an option, rather than Lasik?
lagrangian
6mo ago
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Lasik is great, independently of the rest of it. I did PRK despite qualifying for Lasik, because it's better and how bad could the pain be for a week or two? Excruciating, as it turns out, but worth it to not have a flap in my eye
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How'd you get banned from Hinge?
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Could you literally hire someone to be your full time dating assistant/coach/fashion coordinator?
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My career is going well enough that I would definitely be willing to spend ~$50,000 in a single night if it would guarantee me sex
Well that one's definitely doable. In all seriousness, maybe a sugar baby? In addition to achieving the proximal goal, it could help you build confidence.
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If you don't have a trainer, get one. Ideally get one who doubles as good practice interacting with women, if a lack thereof is part of your problem.
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If your company is hiring remote employees, uh, DM me (faanger)
2D3D
6mo ago
Looks like Gatwick had no arrests made. I know several authorities globally have used Aeroscope to catch and fine violators for flying near aerodromes, and it is a common enough occurrence that it even showed up in the Aeroscope marketing briefly. Aeroscope was stupidly cheap at less than 10000 US dollars, and had better detection rates than all other much more expensive drone detection systems (typically 30-250000 per unit) that were in the market when Aeroscope was first introduced. That and its low setup cost meant that DJI sold thousands of units all over the world, and would have sold even more until the US DOD banned DJI drones from its inventory due to national security concerns, partially from the prospect that field units using DJI A3 controllers would be detected by aeroscopes obtained by hostile actors. DJI shut down aeroscope in 2023 and a successor is reportedly in the works, but in the meantime anyone flying a DJI drone is near certain to be detected by a system. How the system operators in turn respond to that information is another (very very very funny) problem.
stuckinbathroom
6mo ago
Gentlemen (and ladies), it is with great pleasure to inform you that it is Wellness Wednesday, and with mild displeasure to inform you that I am once again asking for your dating/romance advice.
I previously asked for suggestions on how to deal with being banned from Hinge. Quick recap of my situation:
- Early 30s American male of South Asian descent, living in the NYC area
- Looks are not great, not terrible (
3.6 roentgenexactly average height for an American male, somewhat nebbish-looking due to glasses) - Elite undergrad and grad degrees
- Making very good money (low 7 figures) in finance
- Interested in mid-late 20s Anglophones of East Asian descent, of similar class and educational background
Since my previous post, I have started going to the gym 3 times a week. I can already see some improvements in my physique. On the social side, I've started reconnecting with friends more, going to more parties, karaoke nights, etc. and I've become a "regular" at a couple of good date spots. I've been off dating apps the whole time. In the past 6 months, I met 2 prospects IRL and got 1-2 dates with each, but was rejected both times thereafter.
Honestly, I want to try meeting folks IRL for a little while longer. I've forgotten how interesting "day game" can be, since I've been using dating apps for so many years. If nothing materializes by March or so, I might go back to using apps.
To that end, there are 4 things I'm curious about:
Location, Location, Location
I lived in Manhattan for 5-10 years but moved out of the city for tax reasons around the time of the pandemic. It's still a convenient 20 minute commute to get to Lower Manhattan, but perhaps I'd be more attractive to women, or have more opportunities to meet them, if I actually lived in (a desirable neighborhood of) Manhattan.
I really don't have a great sense of how important this is; as I said, I left Manhattan around the pandemic, so it's not clear whether my relative lack of success in meeting women IRL is due to leaving the city, pandemic-era cultural shifts, becoming less attractive, or something else entirely.
Clubs
I know nothing about the nightclub scene in NYC and to be honest I don't really see the appeal of being surrounded by strangers in a dark, sweaty room where it's too loud to even have a decent conversation. But there is one aspect of clubbing that, in theory, intrigues me: a literal market where dollars can be exchanged for status and sex. To what extent is that a thing?
My career is going well enough that I would definitely be willing to spend ~$50,000 in a single night if it would guarantee me sex and/or a 50+% shot at a long-term relationship with an attractive woman who is my type (see above). My gut sense is that it can't just be as simple as spending a ton of money at a club, at least not with my average-to-below average looks. I am also aware that the kind of women who would make a good long-term partners are, shall we say, unlikely to be hanging around clubs and putting out for anyone who spends enough dough; however, I would be fine settling for hookups/casual sex with good-looking women whom I encounter in such situations while I search for a higher-quality partner elsewhere.
How much benefit in terms of sex, dates, and relationships can be purchased in the NYC club scene? And operationally, how does this work; do you just book a table/bottle service and then the employees bring girls to your table? I am totally clueless here.
Drugs and Augmentation
I cannot in good conscience write a post in a rat-adjacent community without throwing a bone to the transhumanist crowd:
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Testosterone/anabolic steroids. I don't believe I have a testosterone deficiency or anything, but T or steroids could give a boost to my physique, height (slightly), and confidence. Has anyone completely turned their dating life around using these? Curious to hear about your experiences.
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Laser eye surgery. As mentioned above, I wear glasses. Probably this detracts from my attractiveness somewhat, though it's hard to tell how much (FWIW, multiple women have told me [during glasses-off pillow talk] that I have beautiful eyes and eyelashes). There's also the benefit of having better vision than I currently do, and without the mild inconvenience of carrying glasses everywhere to boot.
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Limb-lengthening surgery. Could make me a couple inches taller, but I'd still be under 6'. Worse, I think my friends and family would find it really weird if I did this. Honestly I am just including this one for the sake of completeness; there is very little chance that I'd actually go through with it, unless someone can convince me that the results are so life-changingly good that the expense, loss of QoL during the long recovery period, risk of complications, and mild social stigma are all worth it.
Matchmakers/Outsourcing
I am aware that soliciting a matchmaker rather contravenes my stated preference to swear off dating apps for a little while longer. Nonetheless, I am fascinated by the ads I sometimes see for so-called "elite" matchmaking services. They always set off my bullshit detector, but I suppose there is a chance that they really do work as advertised. Do quality women actually use these services? What's their success rate like?
In all honesty, though, more than a matchmaker, I would be perfectly happy to pay for a service that constructs profiles for me on all the major dating apps, takes my preferences into account, and then goes through the long grind of swiping for me so that I don't have to. Literally just an API where my photos go in, and matches with attractive women come out. How is this not a startup yet? Call it "Cyrano", slap a cool logo on it, and you'll be rolling in VC cash.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
6mo ago
Which makes me wonder how long until some asshole tiktok prank becomes smashing that button as many times a day as possible until gas stations across the country have to start locking them up. Which then leads to more avoidable accidents at gas stations.
By law, they can't lock them up. In a blue state we'll just get op-eds and politicos opining about how this is why we need to ban gasoline cars and go to all electric. There IS a solution to this particular class of problems, but it's banned. Basically the "railroad bull" solution -- swift and painful punishment for the assholes that do it.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
6mo ago
There are some fairly highly ranked red state public schools that are probably less-left-leaning than most given the leverage state elected officials have over the institutions: Texas and Florida have both explicitly banned school-sponsored DEI initiatives. At least Texas A&M has a bit of a reputation for conservativism, and at least in the past when I've talked to lefties from Colorado they treat Colorado Springs as a very red part of the state because of the Air Force Academy there, but that may be a bit out of date at that point.
I'd bet any heavily-Greek school is "conservative" in at least a change-averse, slightly-social-conservative fashion that might not map to politica, but I don't have direct experience there. And this isn't to say that these schools are necessarily right-of-center, but more right-leaning than most universities.
We factor in posters' history as well as the individual post. This is not new, and you know this. One bad post probably gets a warning. The latest in a long string of bad posts probably gets a ban.
Looking forward to seeing how far back in my post history you'll go to find something "unrelated" to ban me for in revenge.
I have never done anything like this. To anyone. You know this, and yet you never adjust your priors when the things you keep saying will happen never happen. Almost as if you don't really believe the things you say.
You're also being dishonest about "You're a moron," which is further proof that your complaints are entirely based on a desire to see people you like be allowed to say anything, no matter how inflammatory or insulting,and people you don't like get banned.
you're a moron
No mod action
This guy is going way too hard
Banned for two weeks.
Thanks, there wouldn't be nearly as many funny jokes around here without your "moderation."
Looking forward to seeing how far back in my post history you'll go to find something "unrelated" to ban me for in revenge.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6mo ago
Frankly, I'm still giggling that after years of redditors claiming themotte users would do spree killings, the first rat murderer came right out of /r/GeorgistFuckCarsAnticapitalismTEDtalks, and got the most uncritical support from the same people who were faking performing hysteria over "violent right wing extremism" in 2020. They went straight from claiming the motte needed to be banned before nybbler shot up a synagogue to fedposting about shooting up a board meeting, with zero cognitive dissonance.
Noticed theschism has been pointedly avoiding discussing it
The ACA is a complicated mess, I've heard to described in a million ways but probably my fav was "a poison pill that came with an antidote...but we didn't take the antidote.
Some of the stuff was expensive but ultimately the right call (like removing lifetime limits). Some of the stuff was expensive but actually likely efficient in the long run (forcing everyone to get EMRs/EHRs).
Yeah Epic made a ton of money along the way but its improved the doctor and patient experience (although the former don't always feel that way) and simplified billing greatly.
....but it was hugely expensive. And any time someone throws regulation in on healthcare it has a whole bunch of unforeseen side effects (and foreseen and lobbied for and abused side effects). Not that other regulation is too much better.
One thing we've seen from this stuff is the death of private practice - private practices are more nimble efficient, provide care more cheaply* and are more likely to do things like charity care, down billing and all kinds of other prosocial nonsense. Basically anything you hate about healthcare is probably something your doctor is forced to do because they are an employee.
Physicians were also banned from owning hospitals relatively recently, this was for a good reason - they were abusing that power in kickback schemes and other nonsense. However the replacement is business people, they are shit ton worse because they don't understand healthcare at all and can't make good decisions, and are just as interested in kickback schemes and so on but are much better at them because they are good at business.
Both of the above were massive own goals which probably made things significantly more expensive and didn't deliver the gains they were supposed to.
*granted some of the cheapness is generated by the environment allowing them to exist.
Edit: I thought I remembered the funding for EHRs coming from the ACA but fact checking myself I'm less sure.
4nji2
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
6mo ago
Which is paradoxical as the UK NHS effectively banned the practice of transing kids.
Puberty blockers for under-18s banned indefinitely, published just three hours ago. Strange to see a country as culturally close to the US as the UK, to deviate so greatly from the policies of the Metropolis. Maybe Arjin is right, and that transexualism, unlike other minority sexual ideologies, will not achieve permanent victory.
WhiningCoil
6mo ago
Maybe you know, but how much chronic illness does the UK wrestle with compared to the US? About the same?
A while ago I went down this rabbit hole about how to combat childhood obesity, and the scourge of associated diseases it causes, assorted advocates are recommending Ozempic as a first line of defense instead of diet and exercise. Because psychopaths are employing HAAS or woke -ISM language to imply diet and exercise is unfair, but Ozempic for toddlers is "equity".
So I sit and I ask myself, does a NHS in the American context make this worse or better? My gut reaction is worse. These people have wormed their way into every level of government policy crafting in a way that has proven (as yet) impossible to uproot. I can't shake the feeling that if we had an American NHS they'd be reporting parents to child services for feeding their kids vegetables instead of pills.
Or take trans kids, an issue I am 1000% against. By and large it's fiat accompli as medical licensing boards have been weaponized, and if even ideologically critical doctors don't toe the "affirm affirm affirm" party line, they lose the livelihood they went into massive college debt and sacrificed over a decade of their life to achieve. All the same, does this get better or worse with an American NHS? My gut is it gets worse. Which is paradoxical as the UK NHS effectively banned the practice of transing kids. But my read on the beliefs of the PMC that would be in charge of an American NHS say the outcome would be the complete opposite.
Because it actually matters what people make up an institution. And presently, I wouldn't trust the federally employed PMC to manage my health. As the groundswell of support for RFK Jr shows, they've done a shit job in their already limited capacity the last 50 years.
Maybe in 4 years, or however long it takes to restore trust in institutions and non-partisan science, my thoughts on this will change. I want to believe things will be different this time around. But I am also prepared for disappointment.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
6mo ago
Stealing a comment in a subthread from @Samizdata that I liked a lot:
I posted this in the Weekly Culture War Roundup, but I think I got filtered out as a new user. I’ve deleted and reposted, so apologies if you’re seeing this twice!
There’s a recurring juxtaposition of views on /r/parenting that I find interesting. For context, the parenting subreddit, like most of Reddit’s forums, skews left-wing. There are periodic posts where parents try to determine what to do after their child engages in some kind of undesirable behavior. The typical suspects are drugs and alcohol, with most of the posts looking similar to this one.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1fc70nm/appropriate_stance_on_alcoholdrugs/
This parent is worried about their 17-year-old daughter, who admitted to turning off her Life360 before going to a house party and having several drinks. Most commenters recommend clemency, with the top comment saying:
“Honestly, I think you are going to have to let go a little bit or she might go crazy after she gets out yalls house. All of her behavior was appropriate for a 17 year old. I was doing these things at 17. Almost all of my high school and the high school down the road were doing these things. And worse…. The way you go forwards is going to determine whether you are in her adult life.”
There’s a significant attitude of “Teens are going to engage in risky behaviors no matter what, your punishments and restrictions will have zero deterrent effect, and the best course of action is some kind of harm reduction.”
In contrast, there are periodic posts with parents hand-wringing about their son “being radicalized” by YouTube. This is a fairly typical example:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1dqk7fs/son_caught_the_andrew_tate_bug/
Some of comments just suggest alternative influencers to watch, but many are out for blood, one saying:
“If I caught my kid looking at extremist material it would be a two prong 'congrats you just lost ALL media privileges' and a 'instant therapy or else'.”
If it’s not clear, I think both of these approaches are wrong-headed. Andrew Tate, while execrable, is reasonably widespread and popular among teenage boys. I don’t think treating him as an irresistible gateway drug to the alt-right is useful or true; most of the teens that watch him manage to do so without falling down some rabbit hole of extremism.
In contrast, I think even moderate drinking or drug use is fairly risky for developing brains, and I think the laissez-faire attitude towards it is dangerous.
When I search my own heart, I come to the exact opposite conclusion of the /r/parenting hivemind, both in practical and moral terms. Even if I banned my kids from watching or listening to a particular influencer, and set up bulletproof content blockers on every device in our house, it seems pretty futile; they’re around other teens with smartphones 30-40 hours a week while they’re at school. Surely there will be plenty of opportunities to watch whatever they want on a friend’s phone?
In contrast, I honestly think reasonable restrictions on a teen, like curfews, are more likely to curtail behaviors like drinking and drug use. I know that some teens can get around these restrictions, but these are the kind of obstacles that legitimately stymied me when I was a semi-wayward teen. Maybe I wasn’t a sufficiently motivated delinquent, I don’t know.
But the bottom line is: Isn’t it kind of convenient that my moral inclinations and my opinions of the practical difficulties of implementing a ban line up so well for different activities?
It’s easy to practice gentle, permissive parenting with a nonchalant “Teens will only rebel harder against strict rules” attitude when your child isn’t actually doing something you have strong feelings against.
So, my question for the forum would be: how do you balance letting your child(ren) make their own mistakes and take the consequences in a controlled environment, even when you disagree with their choices? When do you step in?
ThisIsSin
Cainanites and Abelists
6mo ago
how do you balance letting your child(ren) make their own mistakes and take the consequences in a controlled environment, even when you disagree with their choices? When do you step in?
Well, that depends. Do I lack the time, the energy, the intelligence, or the personality to bother to connect with my kids (even for rational reasons)? Did I forget how I was like at that age, or am I forgetting on purpose? If I do, I'm just going to do the parental equivalent of copy-pasting code from StackOverflow or GPT-4 and hope for the best. This is a programming exercise, after all, humans are just meat-based neural networks.
It also matters who's giving the advice. So
“If I caught my kid looking at extremist material it would be a two prong 'congrats you just lost ALL media privileges' and a 'instant therapy or else'.”
is obviously a progressive woman (less often, a man) who hates her sons (or hates her sons because they do not sufficiently hate themselves, for the perceived sake of someone else's daughters) because her peer group told her to.
This is also the kind of woman who, by genetics, is not only more likely to have teenagers that rebel against her (and have peer group influence dominate her sons just as her peer group clearly does to her right now), but to take that extremely personally.
This advice should, obviously, be ignored by those parents who are not progressive, are not women, and who are not susceptible to peer pressure to anywhere near that same degree. (The fact that "opinion discarded" isn't obvious to some parents is a personality/risk management thing.) All of which are why you have no problem thinking this is wrong, and not trying to stamp out the possibility By Any Means Necessary.
In contrast, I think even moderate drinking or drug use is fairly risky for developing brains, and I think the laissez-faire attitude towards it is dangerous.
I think the laissez-faire attitude towards propagating stupid memes like "developing brains" is more dangerous than moderate drinking or drug use if you're not a parent given to those things in the first place.
Of course, the problem with moderate drinking or drug use is an obvious one- you're their boss, and it's very awkward to go far into more vulnerable states of consciousness with someone in a position of power! That's why it has to be done with peers, and depending on where that occurs, that's the dangerous part (especially if they have a reason to go full Rumspringa on you). Bars would actually be one of the safer options for this, but that's the one place they're banned from due to that infinite parental/societal wisdom.
Isn’t it kind of convenient that my moral inclinations and my opinions of the practical difficulties of implementing a ban line up so well for different activities?
Parents are generally just as stupid and selfish as their children; conversely, children are generally as wise and self-controlled as their parents.
News at 11.
Samizdata
6mo ago
I posted this in the Weekly Culture War Roundup, but I think I got filtered out as a new user. I’ve deleted and reposted, so apologies if you’re seeing this twice!
There’s a recurring juxtaposition of views on /r/parenting that I find interesting. For context, the parenting subreddit, like most of Reddit’s forums, skews left-wing. There are periodic posts where parents try to determine what to do after their child engages in some kind of undesirable behavior. The typical suspects are drugs and alcohol, with most of the posts looking similar to this one.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1fc70nm/appropriate_stance_on_alcoholdrugs/
This parent is worried about their 17-year-old daughter, who admitted to turning off her Life360 before going to a house party and having several drinks. Most commenters recommend clemency, with the top comment saying:
“Honestly, I think you are going to have to let go a little bit or she might go crazy after she gets out yalls house. All of her behavior was appropriate for a 17 year old. I was doing these things at 17. Almost all of my high school and the high school down the road were doing these things. And worse…. The way you go forwards is going to determine whether you are in her adult life.”
There’s a significant attitude of “Teens are going to engage in risky behaviors no matter what, your punishments and restrictions will have zero deterrent effect, and the best course of action is some kind of harm reduction.”
In contrast, there are periodic posts with parents hand-wringing about their son “being radicalized” by YouTube. This is a fairly typical example:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1dqk7fs/son_caught_the_andrew_tate_bug/
Some of comments just suggest alternative influencers to watch, but many are out for blood, one saying:
“If I caught my kid looking at extremist material it would be a two prong 'congrats you just lost ALL media privileges' and a 'instant therapy or else'.”
If it’s not clear, I think both of these approaches are wrong-headed. Andrew Tate, while execrable, is reasonably widespread and popular among teenage boys. I don’t think treating him as an irresistible gateway drug to the alt-right is useful or true; most of the teens that watch him manage to do so without falling down some rabbit hole of extremism.
In contrast, I think even moderate drinking or drug use is fairly risky for developing brains, and I think the laissez-faire attitude towards it is dangerous.
When I search my own heart, I come to the exact opposite conclusion of the /r/parenting hivemind, both in practical and moral terms. Even if I banned my kids from watching or listening to a particular influencer, and set up bulletproof content blockers on every device in our house, it seems pretty futile; they’re around other teens with smartphones 30-40 hours a week while they’re at school. Surely there will be plenty of opportunities to watch whatever they want on a friend’s phone?
In contrast, I honestly think reasonable restrictions on a teen, like curfews, are more likely to curtail behaviors like drinking and drug use. I know that some teens can get around these restrictions, but these are the kind of obstacles that legitimately stymied me when I was a semi-wayward teen. Maybe I wasn’t a sufficiently motivated delinquent, I don’t know.
But the bottom line is: Isn’t it kind of convenient that my moral inclinations and my opinions of the practical difficulties of implementing a ban line up so well for different activities?
It’s easy to practice gentle, permissive parenting with a nonchalant “Teens will only rebel harder against strict rules” attitude when your child isn’t actually doing something you have strong feelings against.
So, my question for the forum would be: how do you balance letting your child(ren) make their own mistakes and take the consequences in a controlled environment, even when you disagree with their choices? When do you step in?
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
6mo ago
The problem of course being that modern Global Liberals have long since lost the will to do what was done in Japan even if it would work. The project was basically taking a feudalist society turned Empire with no real history of democratic institutions and zero concept of the idea of human rights and rebirth a new country and a nearly completely new culture from the ashes of what the culture of Japan was before Nagasaki.
They took over everything, confiscated weapons larger than a kitchen knife, banned large swathes of Japanese culture (shogi was nearly banned because it was a war-game. It survived because those defending it managed to convince the occupation forces that Shogi is democratic because even a pawn can become a king). The school system was fully controlled for a generation.
Compare that to the occupation of Afghanistan. We didn’t even try to curb the worst parts of Islam, we didn’t ban weapons. We certainly didn’t impose a modern, Western educational system on Afghanistan. Basically, they could keep everything backwards about Islamic culture.
hydroacetylene
6mo ago
Uh, FDR did a lot of stuff like that. He may not have banned Der Stürmer but he wouldn’t have been stopped from it by constitutional concerns.
I should do an effortpost on it since I've been religiously consuming economic takes on it for months now from both the left and the right.
But the short version is that France has been living above its means for a long time, that political will has never managed to lower spending and that we're so tax happy that there's no more juice to squeeze.
German style fiscal discipline is politically untenable in France, but French style dirigisme is banned by the EU. So the continuous policy of every government has been to pretend to be center-right and do potemkin reindustrialization whilst all of the actual business left the country and they grew the deficit.
And now we're at the stage where interest on debt is very large, and France barely managed to escape its bond notation being downgraded to a level that percludes safe investment funds from touching it (a now forgeone conclusion given the political instability). So it's going to become much harder to borrow, and nobody has the political will to seriously cut into the budget.
Hence how this government has fallen in fact: their budget was mostly tax increase (in the highest taxed country in the world) which is the reason stated by the RN for their key support to the censorship.
The usual next step for countries in this state is for the IMF to come in with your creditors and force you to cut things out of the budget and sell assets. The escape from that fate is to get bailed out by a friendly country, which in this case would have to be Germany, but Germany too is broke right now.
NunoSempere
6mo ago
Pretty quiet week for me, but then again I'm focused on events that could escalate. The South Korea martial law declaration was poorly executed (compare with the 1981 Spanish coup), and overall I thought it wasn't a big deal. Maybe I'm just desensitized. As the Lebanon front closes a new front emerged in Syria, which seems like a bigger deal (because it's a bigger country), but nothing decisive has happened there yet.
Russia moved some assets outside Syria, perhaps suggesting that it will not reinforce Assad.
United Healthcare CEO assassinated
Meta plans to build $10B spanning undersea internet cable for its exclusive use.
Hezbollah fires the first missiles since ceasefire
Estonia launches large-scale NATO exercises near border with Russia, together with France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Latvia. I like Estonia and consider them competent.
Catholic bishop attacked and robbed in Sudan, by the RSF. Meanwhile the pope calls for peace
Marburg virus has been spreading a bit. I previously was vaguely paying attention to it, but now it's come up often enough that I'm more actively tracking it.
UK orders 5M doses of H5 vaccine
China state news point out how the US has repeatedly promised and failed to provide security to Africa.
Pakistan army kills some jihadist insurgents
The South Korea military law declaration seems like a nothingburger.
Flu-like disease kills 143 in Congo.
French prime minister resigns. Unclear if Macron (President) will hang on to power.
Meanwhile, Senegal and Chad asked France troops to leave. France presence in Africa has declined a lot over the last few years.
China banned exports of various raw materials to the US.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
6mo ago
There's a lot of detail that hasn't percolated into the Western press yet, but I've been watching the videos, and they are wild. Here's a rough timeline:
- 10:23 President announces martial law. Some percentage of civilians immediately head to the National Assembly, many of them coming out of bars.
- 10:?? Police cordon off the National Assembly, barricade the compound's gates.
- 11:00 Martial law command (military) announces that political activities are banned, public assemblies are banned, broadcasts are to be subject to censorship, people may be arrested without cause.
- Also, doctors are ordered to return to work within 48 hours (they walked off last year). I'm happy this is now within the Overton Window.
- Some number of civilians and most Assemblymen jump the National Assembly fence.
- 11:02 The opposition leader livestreams himself making the jump.
- 12:?? Special forces land helecopters on the football pitch of the National Assemby.
- Opposition newscasters and personalities flee their homes and offices. Video of special forces assembling on the street in front of the homes of opposition newscasters and personalities.
- 12:15? Special forces (armed only with simunition) in shoving matches with drunk civilians over the entrance to the National Assembly. Some actual servicemen appear apologetic, but orders are orders.
- 12:30? Special forces lose the shoving match with civilians, break a window to get in.
- 12:40? Special forces repelled by Assemblypeople with fire extinguishers and makeshift barricades. Military didn't look very motivated.
- 12:45? National Assembly convenes.
- 12:45 A friend gets a text from their employer not to come into work tomorrow.
- 01:01 190 votes (unanimous) for a formal request to disband martial law. 18 members of the President's party crossed the aisle.
- 01:10 Military starts to withdraw. Protestors start chanting "arrest Yoon".
Korea was so close to losing its democracy. If the fence were a few meters taller, if the soldiers had arrived 30 minutes earlier, if they had been given live ammo, or if they had followed orders with intent instead of half-assing the arrests they were told to perform, the Assembly would not have been able to reach quorum.
Going forward, President Yoon is fucked. 200 votes are required for impeachment, and it looks like the requisite 8 representatives from the President's party are already pledged. The Constitutional Court needs to try the case, and with three empty seats they do not have enough members to do so, but no doubt the National Assembly will now nominate the one more justice to have a 2/3 majority for the impeachment trial.
There's a lot of wondering how Yoon got elected, but his opponent in the last election (the Opposition Leader who livestreamed jumping the fence) had ties to organized crime and several of his opponents died under mysterious circumstances. The opposition leader has since been found guilty of a number of crimes, but enjoys immunity as a member of parliament.
Finally, it is interesting to contrast this attempted coup to Jan 6th. It tells us what Jan 6th would have looked like if Trump had been actually malicious and motivated to perform a coup: military would have been storming Congress, not directionless protestors. The President would have been in a bunker, not holding a rally. Congress would have been barricading the hallways to maintain their quorum, not retreating to saferooms and giving up the chamber. The military would have been arresting opposition leaders and shutting down broadcasts, rather than totally absent from the Capitol area.
I'm going to write taking the rest of what you said at face value (by which I mean that you are a very well educated, successful and therefore likely hardworking and intelligent individual).
The above quote is a loser attitude. I don't mean you are a loser, far from it. You are demoralized because you aren't getting lucky and luck is required because that's what you need with the way you aren't embracing every opportunity.
If someone was trying to break into your field (7 figs in early thirties???) would you tell them to just passively apply to jobs or take low end jobs and not excel? Fuck no.
You gotta hustle. And we have reason to believe you can hustle in other domains in your life - you gotta apply those lessons here. Dating is going to involve a lot of discomfort, it's easy to justify avoiding discomfort but that is what it is and what you gotta overcome. Some of the other posters here complaining about dating have bigger concerns - but you, your fundamentals are extremely "attractive" and you are living in a place with a shit ton of women meeting your needs.
That means you are probably doing something wrong or you aren't doing enough. That is good news! It means you can do something different, and/or do more. It's going to be uncomfortable but dealing with that is a core skill in dating and in business.
Okay an example - you got banned from match apps. Why? Someone probably reported you or something, likely multiple someones (does that mean you did anything wrong? no, women on the apps be crazy). Is there a way to appeal this ban normally? No. Do you likely know someone on LinkedIn who knows someone who works there? Given your background very possible. You can cold message someone and be like "hey I work in NYC and I'm interested in whaling on this shit but I'm banned for no apparent reason..." Is this likely to work? Maybe not. Could it work? Yes absolutely. I was having a serious redacted issued with major tech company and I contacted person I knew for redacted reason and they got someone to fix it. If you have the professional network you can use it. Even if you don't have a connection you can leverage if you have a built up LI you can probably just cold message a few people. If you don't have a built up LinkedIn you are probably not networking enough, that will help you at work but those networking skills can also be leveraged to pick up women, especially if you are looking for a specific type (meet a guy who hangs out with ABGs? ....become friends with him and you'll meet ABGs IRL).
Likewise make a CMB. Now. Do not stall, if you stall that stall will last a long time. Make it and start using it now, maybe you don't find anyone with the qualities you want but dating is a skill and like any skill it has to be practiced, it is also a numbers game so you gotta get on it if you want it to work.
More discomfort - pick up some new hobbies that have women. Depending on how male-dominated your current hobbies are that could end up being great for you for reasons other than dating, but if what you are doing right now isn't working (and it clearly isn't) you gotta start doing something else!
I think you also have to be careful with how dialed into your type you are. That's instantly going to make things more challenging for you, but if that's still the only thing you want I think you are missing out on some of the stereotypes - FOBs might be not hanging out in bars, but ABGs are big into the clubbing and rave scene, are all over certain kinds of bars, you can approach while they are doing some dumbass trendy thing in K-town etc.
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