domain:kvetch.substack.com
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
2hr ago
I don't think there are many commonly used modern definition of feminism that directly involves policing other women's choices regarding their own appearances
The term is "internalized misogyny" or "the Patriarchy." It's very common, though it's never framed (overtly) as being the women's fault. But the implication is often that they are defecting, selling out for male approval.
Yes. Anything that can be spun as controversial means no revelation. Even something like bankruptcy can be spun as a cumulative problem that [current mayor] merely had set on their plate. Lag time also plays a role. Costs may only become become apparent after a term is over and he's off to Congress or wherever. Barring an Escape from New York level of catastrophe, then one should expect to fight free stuff in the immediate future forever regardless of results.
As an alternative to the expectation voters learn -- which voters are bad at -- they are pretty good at forgetting. They'll forget the last time it didn't work out, they'll forget why, but if a party wins enough times they might forget about bad ideas. Win so hard, so often, that the bad ideas become foreign. Then there is less voter recognition which creates an additional hurdle for advocates. NYC can still partly do this by embarrassing Mamdani in the general.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2hr ago
It's very funny - if these weren't the guys also steering the direction of the global economy and society which affects all the rest of us, and they've got the tastes and inclinations of when they were seventeen and that hot girl in high school didn't even look twice at them. Now Jeff is living the dream of having that hot girl finally on his arm and in his bed.
No. Besides marrying the quite attractive MacKenzie Scott Tuttle at 29, he dated a girl named Ursula Werner at 17. You can sneer at Bezos for embodying revenge-of-the-nerds fantasies, but you'll have no factual backing for it. (Same goes for Musk, BTW)
daguerrean
2hr ago
There's an active 4chan thread right now where guys are swapping stories about how much they love NEET girls. As in, "whoa, you're telling me she hasn't had a job since college, AND she never leaves her room, AND she has severe social anxiety? Now that's what I'm talkin' about, I want that". You'll have to take my word for it that they really are fetishizing the status of NEET-ness itself. And they can do this with anything, rich or poor women, fat or skinny, smart or dumb, socially successful or an anxious wreck, it don't matter. Could you imagine any woman saying "you know I really just want an unemployed loser, that's what really gets me going"? If there are any such women, they're a rare breed indeed.
I think this is actually sort of analogous to women allegedly preferring "dad bods". I don't think any woman genuinely finds a dad bod more sexually thrilling in isolation, but for a woman self-conscious about her own weight the idea of a man that lives at the gym and eats a stricter diet than a supermodel just sounds intimidating and miserable. I think 4chan NEETs are not necessarily attracted to a NEET girl so much as they just imagine that she will be attainable and have low standards in men and make their own failure less humiliating.
My understanding is that women are in more unanimous agreement about the attractiveness of various features. For example, tall is considered more attractive than short by probably 99% of women. It's just that women place less emphasis on attractiveness relative to social status/dominance, confidence and so forth. Men are more varied in their physical tastes, a nontrivial percentage of men seem to genuinely prefer mega-obese women not merely as a compromise of necessity but as their first choice. But irrespective of their physical preferences, physical looks are regarded as much more important.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
The blacks are a sideshow in the great replacement, more spectators than anything else- the AADOS share of society is actually slowly shrinking and black immigration is barely enough to keep the percentage of black population from dropping.
The demographic story of the USA is white anglos being replaced with hispanics, and this is 1) not a done deal and way overstated in effect and 2) while hispanics are lower performing it's not clear that that's 100% genetic, and assimilation over time is far more likely.
sockpuppet2
2hr ago
I don't have a FB account, either, and I don't regret not joining more social media sites/apps.
sockpuppet2
2hr ago
'WWSD' rifle
Oh! Yeah, that were cool.
Brutality matches (which I will note have changed the competitive shooting landscape significantly).
How, other than dropping shotguns?
sockpuppet2
2hr ago
So... Medicaid isn't funding abortions at Planned Parenthood? (In addition to what you wrote, my understanding is that Medicaid payments are so low, they're below-cost for many things, so the motivation to accept it is often that some other government funding is conditioned on Medicaid participation.)
CanofWorms
2hr ago
Listening to Nickel Boys on audiobook and am reading The Fixer.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2hr ago
Male sexuality is a lot simpler than female sexuality. Jeff could have destroyed his marriage for a nubile twenty-something with naturally big assets, but he went for tawdry 'sexy' with the trout pout and plastic boobs
I have to be careful to distinguish here between how much of my experience is idiosyncratic and how much of it can generalize, because I find the Sanchez woman to be rather repulsive, but evidently there are many men who do not.
If you listen to TRP/manosphere content, you'll frequently here them say "men have the biggest variety of preferences, men can fall in love with anything, but women only want one thing (and that thing is Chad)". This is one of their favorite talking points, they repeat it quite often. And women often react with incredulity when they hear this, and they claim that reality is in fact that exact opposite. "What? All men just want a 'hot' woman. But my hubby, he's got a bit of a potbelly and he isn't the tallest, but he's got a great smile and a heart of gold, so I love him all the same. Obviously women's preferences are more varied and less superficial."
I think the key to resolving the dilemma is that, although the secondary and tertiary traits can vary greatly, there are certain key traits that, if absent in a man, will make it very hard for a woman to be romantically attracted to him. As far as my observations can confirm anyway. Although, pinning down exactly what these traits are is a bit difficult. It's not stability per se, nor is it social dominance per se, nor is it social adeptness per se, but rather it's more like an abstract distilled commonality that forms a part of all these traits. We might call it "agency", or projecting a sense of "in-control-ness", if not over his external environment then at least over himself. If a man can't demonstrate at least a minimal amount of "put-together-ness", then he's not going to have much luck with women.
What the TRP guys are correctly intuiting is that men have no such minimal criteria. In spite of the fact that there are clear patterns, at the end of the day they really can go for absolutely anything. There's an active 4chan thread right now where guys are swapping stories about how much they love NEET girls. As in, "whoa, you're telling me she hasn't had a job since college, AND she never leaves her room, AND she has severe social anxiety? Now that's what I'm talkin' about, I want that". You'll have to take my word for it that they really are fetishizing the status of NEET-ness itself. And they can do this with anything, rich or poor women, fat or skinny, smart or dumb, socially successful or an anxious wreck, it don't matter. Could you imagine any woman saying "you know I really just want an unemployed loser, that's what really gets me going"? If there are any such women, they're a rare breed indeed.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
It tells us that accusations of antisemitism aren't enough to decide dem primaries. It doesn't tell us that racism isn't still a potent political accusation.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
The second half of the 20th century. Expansion of the welfare state and government programs are attacked as socialist.
Both sides are to blame here. Socialists were, and still are, marketing their economic system as "let's do what Denmark did".
Lizzardspawn
2hr ago
In a free market the better product wins. In the last couple of decades the better marketed product wins. Which is not optimal for customers
when did our definition of socialism become so drowned-down?
The second half of the 20th century. Expansion of the welfare state and government programs are attacked as socialist. The meaning gets diluted through the 90's after the Cold War. In the 2000s-2010s the meaning continues to change rapidly as progressives claim much of socialism for themselves.
Is FoxNews blocking the term DemSoc from taking off in the US?
I doubt it. Mamdani has not, as far as I know, gone to any great lengths to explain what a democratic socialist is or why he is not a socialist. Did Bernie even bother with this in his 2016 bid? That kind of distinction does nothing for Mamdani's campaign. The public does not have that demand for accuracy or nuance if it actually matters or is real. Plus, I suspect the well off progressive base of NYC quite likes voting for a socialist more than they do not-really-a-socialist. A diffuse contempt for capitalism is a popular meme that can be harnessed. No reason to put a damper on that for the sake of centuries old ideological accuracy.
I think if you're going to demand consistency here, then you should do so consistently. Are these capitalist policies he is proposing?
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
This might be another Anna-Nicole Smith case, in the end.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Have we considered that he's in love? IDK, seems like the most plausible reason to me.
In general men on the internet have this level of paranoia about marriage that needs to be pushed back on as much as the 'OMG all men are rapists and abusers' tiktok feminism demoralizing women.
aldomilyar
2hr ago
Yeah. If the results were marked objectively it'd be one thing, but combination of the media and some thinktanks declaring a resounding success on the topic will just perpetuate more silliness.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
Brandon Johnson in Chicago
I've been meaning to read up on him. Sounds like he's a total fucking disaster.
My general vibe is Chicago has been on a pretty good hot streak of terrible mayors.
Jazzhands
2hr ago
To be clear, you think it is unfair to apply the label "socialist" to a guy who spoke at the Democratic Socialists of America about the "end goal of seizing the means of production"?
HereAndGone
2hr ago
Oh, this is the new Gilded Age. New money and self-made men, and breaking into the upper classes (elite or not, hard to tell) by sheer shedloads of wonga. It's very funny - if these weren't the guys also steering the direction of the global economy and society which affects all the rest of us, and they've got the tastes and inclinations of when they were seventeen and that hot girl in high school didn't even look twice at them. Now Jeff is living the dream of having that hot girl finally on his arm and in his bed.
Forty years too late, maybe, but he went through a transformation in his early fifties so he can afford to buy more than a sports car to fit his new buff image, and the hottie girlfriend and megayacht is all part of that.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
He's at least said for the grocery stores that if they don't work they don't work, and he'll walk away
They won't work, so we'll see if he actually walks away
voters-eliot-azure
patently unbiased
2hr ago
Close enough to socialism.
I guess this is the issue lol. Point-by-point, why none of this is particularly radical in most societies that people don't consider "socialist":
rent freeze
Rent freezes are controversial cart-before-the-horse band-aid solution to a problem that may or may not be caused NIMBYism. The proposed rent freeze is for rent-stabilized tenants, a specific class of asset. So hopefully you weren't trying to paint this as a city-wide rent freeze, which would never pass anyway. But also not specifically socialist, at all. Very much no means of production being seized.
state built housing
Hardly uniquely socialist. They used to be called "projects". Also controversial because it tends to have extremely high per-unit costs vs. market rent ROI, but that may or may not be attributable to not being able to just build housing, and more to needing to be state-of-the-art energy efficient, fully ADA compliant, up-to-code, etc. etc.
Better than "company towns" imo.
free public transport
Another exaggeration. The free part is for buses only. As someone who's taken a lot of public transit in many different cities, buses are frequently used by more blue collar / "barista" type workers, whereas light rail is more often used by professionals. It's a pragmatically progressive (in the sense of: tax those who can afford it) solution to the problem of rising fare prices, imo.
Also: no one bats an eye about free public roads. Damage to roads is quadratic to the weight of the load: we all subsidize the trailer truck shipping industry with our gas prices and taxes that build our roads. This lowers prices at every checkout, at the cost of an anemic rail system.
state owned grocery stores
Obviously an experimental / pilot project. Curious to see if there's a nice food distribution middle ground between "soup kitchen" and "Whole Foods" that a city government can occupy. An ideal implementation of this looks more like a 7-days-a-week farmer's market to me than a crumbling Aldi with yellowed fluorescent lights and grimey 90s tiles.
free childcare
Are grade school, middle school, and high school not "free childcare"?
The most ambitious and least achievable point in his agenda. To someone completely removed from the situation, I think expanding pre-K and early childhood programs is the more pragmatic way to go about effecting change - but that doesn't pop on a web page meant to excite people about an election campaign.
all of this paid by wishful thinking and unicorn dust.
Along with everything else the government has spent money on. At least these things are attempting to have a positive impact on working class families as opposed to ammunition for a genocide on the other side of the world.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
"socialism" = "liberal policies I dislike, the more I dislike them, the more socialist they are"
"Far right" = "conservative groups I dislike, the more I dislike them, the more far right they are"
"Neoliberalism" = "things about capitalism I dislike, the more I dislike them, the more neoliberal they are"
Western political discourse is stupid and getting stupider, because we are becoming stupider
Things I'd want when building my home;
Storm shutters you can lock from inside. You'll have to deal with both Hurricanes and severe weather. Thank me later. They can also act as a way to block out direct sunlight and cut down on heat reaching your interiors.
Propane generator wired into your electrical system.
Extensive foam insulation to save on cooling and heating.
If you want any sound-deadening put into interior walls, think about it now.
Personal preference, but I'd be installing wainscoting on the interior walls to help with potential issues with flooding(you have checked the flood maps before hand, right?), and they look neat.
Be very critical when picking your kitchen sink and outlet. Make sure you pick one with minimal back-splash, or just say 'fuck it' and get one that looks more apt in an industrial kitchen. (A friend of mine has a family that did catering and they did this. It's wonderful.)
Consider putting up wood/plywood on walls that may have drainage and/or seweage pipes for easy, later access as needed, rather than having to rip down sheetrock.
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