domain:cafeamericainmag.com
Botond173
26m ago
Your post reads like the blame lies somewhere with 'attractive' men not committing to the women who want them. But chances are there are simply not enough 'attractive' men for these women.
I’d say women in the past generally understood that they can elicit long-term commitment from the men they identified as desirable partners, and that this isn’t achieved by merely offering up their orifices for use. This knowledge is mostly lost at this point, which incentivizes women to fruitlessly try out-slutting one another in order to pander to the whims of the top men. In fact, even the simple idea that young women should learn how to become eligible long-term partners if they want a happy relationship is largely forgotten.
Sun Tzu said to be subtle to the point of formlessness. I feel like the current developments in terms of drones are simply taking that old advice seriously. Instead of having a small number of very expensive assets concentrated in one geographic position for ease of communication and handling and to leverage overlapping areas of influence (phalanx, encamped Roman legion, turtle ships, line formation, star fort, grand battery, battleship, tank brigade, transport convoy, carrier group, bomber wing), we're taking another step towards uniquitous, distributed, affordable and flexibly deployed assets (skirmishers in general, zealot sicarii, flying columns, organic artillery, guerilla tactics, a rifle behind each blade of grass, minefields, man-portable anti-tank and anti-air weapons, nuclear triad). The means of destruction are to be omnipresent, always available, always replaceable, and as unpredictable as possible. The entire theater of war is to be flooded with them to the point where you're no longer able to seek out and destroy a discrete enemy at all, or able to hold and lay claim to a specific place, because the enemy is not obliged to present any vulnerabilities in order to attack and all places are equally undesirable to occupy.
Historically the limit on such technologies has been that you need one at least one human to actually be the weapon, wield the weapon, or direct the weapon. The weapon would not be able to go places where humans cannot go (at least not without using vehicles, which makes the weapon a lot larger, more detectable, less flexible and less affordable), cannot be deployed in numbers greater than the number of available and qualified humans, and will never be cheaper than the price of one qualified human + the technology involved, and will be at least as detectable as the human wielding it.
With sufficiently advanced drones, those constraints go out of the window. All of a sudden your weapon can be arbitrarily small, arbitrarily cheap, arbitrarily numerous and arbitrarily dispersed. We're sill at the early stages of what will one day be swarms of millions of miniscule drones mapping out the contested space, being eyes and ears for hundreds of thousands of anti-personnel drones, backed up with tens of thousands of anti-armor drones. They will fly close to the ground if not crawl outright, utilize cover and concealement, infest all your nooks and crannies, be so cheap as to be freely replaceable, operate completely autonomously, and if they find you they'll shoot you with an embarassingly small zip-gun right in the dick.
At least that's the way things are headed right now. As so often, attack precedes defense. Maybe there are low-hanging fruits for countermeasures - some kind of electromagnetic weapon that prevents drones from functioning in a large area but that doesn't affect humans. And then, since we've already tasted the forbidden fruit, you can bet someone will develop organic circuitry. Maybe human soldiers will huddle in fortified bases surrounded by miles of completely denuded flat country, protected by some kind of automated RADAR and LASER system that zaps anything that moves their way. But honestly, it's wishful thinking either way.
More realistically, the countermeasure to infinite omnipresent autonomous drone swarms will be infinite omnipresent autonomous drone swarms of our own. It's practically guaranteed. I'd be willing to take bets on this if I had money to spare. I don't feel like there's any more to explain here because it seems so very obvious. With autonomous drones, we will have uncoupled warfare from the human frame and mind. The current human-controlled drone phase is just a clumsy first step towards honest-to-god man-made horrors beyond all possibility of comprehension. From that point on it will barely matter whether the drones kill us with jury-rigged mortar shells or by dropping polonium in our coffee cups or by buzzing near our ears until we go insane or by shooting a tiny laser from the horizon that neatly severs our neck arteries. It will not matter much wether they're built in a dozen factories, in a million living rooms, or self-replicating right here and now. Either way, us humans will be obsolete as combatants.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
29m ago
Assuming that the advertisers know what they are doing, the Economist readership is about as highbrow as you can get. If you ignore the filler (i.e. the articles) and focus on the paid-for content (i.e. the ads) there are far more yachts, Rolexes etc. in the Economist than in Tatler.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
31m ago
It's worth noting that a 90th percentile liar can lie much more effectively in high-context communications than in text. I agree that people are more inclined to trust a notorious lying liar who is a familiar face and can perform authenticity on camera, but they shouldn't be.
functor
38m ago
The differnece between the anglosphere and continental Europe is the first past the post system.
In Germany there are young leftists and rightists. Old right leaning people vote CDU, young right leaning people vote AfD. Old leftists vote social democrat, young leftists vote Green. The first past the post system makes it hard for new parties to form and makes it hard to replace the local established politician. The issue is that boomers and their establishment policies are not exciting young people anywhere. Keir Starmer and whoever is leading the Tories this week don't appeal to the young.
For a system to last young people have to be able out maneuver the old. First past the post makes this hard.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
42m ago
Apparently, the UKGBNI is set to completely decriminalize abortion in England and Wales when performed by the woman (not when performed by a doctor). According to Reuters and BBC, under existing law abortion by a doctor is legal up to 24 weeks and a woman can perform an abortion on herself with prescribed pills up to 10 weeks. In contrast, the new law—approved by 73 percent of the House of Commons—appears to permit abortion right up to the point of birth when it is performed by the woman.
Text of the law (on pages 108–109 of the PDF; part of a much larger bill):
Tonia Antoniazzi, NC1
To move the following Clause—
Removal of women from the criminal law related to abortion
For the purposes of the law related to abortion, including sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy.
Member's explanatory statement
This new clause would disapply existing criminal law related to abortion from women acting in relation to her own pregnancy at any gestation, removing the threat of investigation, arrest, prosecution, or imprisonment. It would not change any law regarding the provision of abortion services within a healthcare setting, including but not limited to the time limit, telemedicine, the grounds for abortion, or the requirement for two doctors’ approval.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
46m ago
Just so I understand, are you saying that the Democratic Party of the United States is a criminal organisation which is sufficiently dangerous compared to, say, the Black Panthers or the Mafia that the US Department of Homeland Security (or Stasi, to use the original German) needs to break precedent and introduce the first secret police force in the history of the United States?
2rafa
59m ago
Problem was that they started actually believing all of the universal spread of liberal democracy stuff because the Cold War involved an ideological component that 19th century European colonialism didn’t (“spreading Christian civilization” was a post-hoc thing). That meant that which side was supported was often determined more ideologically than it had been under the British or French, who were regularly willing to screw over fellow Christians, liberal reformers, or other more ideologically aligned factions if their opponents had better will to power.
FistfullOfCrows
1hr ago
I'd appreciate some name drops, I'm now intrigued to gawk at the shitshow
FistfullOfCrows
1hr ago
X/Bluesky I feel like you are underselling how dedicated that push was though. The fact it isn't higher than 2%, after every progressive I know or follow swore they were leaving for bluesky, is blowing my mind.
It shouldn't, the leftist media mandated memeplex was always paper thin. They had the news and institutions but they didn't have the base. I saw it first hand in the various shitstorms like Gamergate and the kerfufles around Trump's first election. The viewcounts and updoots alone were lopsided by a factor of 100 and more. Online, where the kids and young adults were the numbers were staggering.
Browser
1hr ago
Yeah but you'd expect conservatives to trend older inherently as standing for vested interest and conservatism.
The Mamdani craze is because progressives, especially in Manhattan, cannot help themselves when it comes to electing DSA types who want to defund the police.
Amusingly, black people saved NYC by electing Adams who arrested the Floyd crime wave by allowing the NYPD to do their jobs. Now, because memories are short, the libs again forget what it’s like to live in a society without the rule of law. Crime rises, progressives get pragmatic, crime falls, progressives become idealistic, crime rises, etc.
The win state for big American cities is to elect a slightly grizzled, probably somewhat corrupt older black male cop who is technically a democrat but too compromised by big business to pursue dumb ‘justice reform’ policies.
phailyoor
1hr ago
If you want to strictly go into the weeds, a Dem president could probably "legally" just choose not to patrol 90% of the border and just send the agents to sit around somewhere else.
And I bet if that was the only way to let illegals in, they would do it.
phailyoor
1hr ago
Here we go again with cheerleading Biden's poison pilled bill for the millionth time. Sure, maybe we need some kind of immigration bill, but that one wasn't it, it's dead, and maybe you can just stop talking about it.
Many posters here have brought up legitimate concerns with the old bill, which you have ignored every time. Amd every chance you get you want to shill that bill like it's the best thing since sliced bread. Like all those arguments about it never happened.
ccc
1hr ago
You seem to be conflating the Tea Party and MAGA. They're not the same thing. Plenty of people were involved in both movements. That's just politics.
MAGA doesn't care about deficits. They're about to sign a $2.6T omnibus bill. Take a guess how much of that is going towards capacity for deportations.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
2hr ago
Google "Chopped Man Epidemic" for a vantablackpill.
I did, and 100% of the links are videos. I tried watching one of the less-terrible-looking videos, and it was still terrible; it started with a "preview" reel that was clearly just there to inculcate feelings of "WTF is going on" in order to maximise watchtime.
Could you summarise for people who don't feel like dipping their brains in the brain-hacking engagement-optimisation industry?
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
The cruelty is the point, illegals know this is a dog and ponny show and as soon as the dems get a man back in office it's going to be game on again. My only concern is Trump will not be able to change that outlook, to make the country unappealing as possible for illegal immigration.
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
s long as they are unmasked and wearing uniforms, or unmasked, plainclothed and are obligated to give their full name and badge/ID upon request, I'd have no problem with it.
Riiiight, so they can be more easily doxed and their families threatened. Have the black bagging crew wear full face masks if they want, make it a uniform. I'm thinking the classic theater smiley/frowny face, but in black. Ooooh, and the ones who catch rapists and disappear them will wear white smiley masks.
Hell, I'm absolutely fine with ICE camping out children at school, then picking up their parents when they go to complain. Actually, have the teachers and administrative staff liable for knowingly having illegal children and illegal's children in their classes. Make it a felony, throw everyone involved in jail when an actual illegal immigrant child is caught attending school.
Shirayuki
2hr ago
Great posts, it does sound like you're having a rough time of it and hopefully it gets better for you.
a ton of this is driven by them shopping on behalf of their families
Thanks, I didn't know that was how it's calculated; I think the broader point still stands though, e.g if a guy eats bachelor chow by himself but his girlfriend enjoys cooking big elaborate meals, it's true that he's the one eating but it's also consumption that wouldn't have happened without the girlfriend being in the picture.
I think "revealed preference" totally falls apart when constraints and other limitations are placed on behavior
People cannot express their true preferences when their choices are limited by exogenous factors.
This just kind of depends how you define "revealed preference"; it would be silly to say a prisoner's revealed preference is to to stay in prison because he hasn't broken out, obviously he's there because he's forced to and similarly there are real economic constraints on people that perhaps prevent them from having more children then they would have in an ideal world.
In your case though, I think the other posters are correct in the sense that your revealed preference is to value a host of other things over more children; you could value having them more but don't want to [for very understandable reasons!]. This isn't to mean that you don't want children or that it's irrational or morally wrong that you don't want to downgrade your quality of life, but I think framing it in this way is helpful in understanding the shitty incentives that are increasingly driving society.
I'm not familiar with Canada so don't have any practical advice unfortunately, but good luck whatever you and your girlfriend end up deciding, hope it goes well for you both.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
They're brittle and tend to shatter rather than undergo painful reforms.
What do you call Chile, Singapore, South Korea, or Taiwan, if not "undergoing painful reforms"?
Hybrid regimes like those in the Sahel or Central America
Calling them "hybrid" sounds like cope to avoid accountability for the failures of the system.
The biggest threat to democracies is rarely a big civil war, but rather descending into Orbanism.
The biggest threat to democracies is getting locked into a path constant deterioration that can't be plausibly changed through voting, like South Africa.
ulyssessword
3hr ago
But the hallmark of authoritarianism is to expand the definition of "undesirable" to include your political opponents -
What's it a hallmark of when the definition of "undesirable" excludes literal criminals, classified based on their criminality (not as an incidental feature like MLK)?
I agree with your concern over the lack of process (are those people actually illegal immigrants? Are we sure?), but the intended targets are appropriate targets for persecution.
Rov_Scam
3hr ago
Where are the 30-something conservatives? If you look at the US House members in their 30s, there are 21 Democrats and 14 Republicans. There are only two people under 40 in the Senate, one Democrat and one Republican. Considering that of the 435 members of the House, 400 of them are 40 or older, I think the correct answer is that there just aren't that many people in their 30s involved in politics.
They've been weirdly successful for a crowd that's supposed to have been "dead and irrelevant" for close to a decade.
Yes, the popular narrative amongst blue and grey tribers is that the Tea Party was killed and eaten by "establishment" republicans and that the populists are stupid for even trying, but the last 12 years of electoral results, cabinet nominations, etc... tell a different story. If anything the opposite is the case, the establishment as represented by people like Bush, Cheney, Romney, French, Brooks, Et Al. have been utterly routed. They have been exiled to the wilderness while Tea-Party luminaries are getting to dictate national policy
BinaryHobo
hauling up the data on the Xerox line
3hr ago
Is an orange apple any part orange? There are many subcategories of orange, but is an apple which has been colored orange in any of them?
I was referring to orange the color alone, not the fruit. Insisting it's an orange would, in fact, be linguistic trickery.
But that's not the part of your comment I disagree with. I disagree with your assertion that the category of "trans women" implies a particular belief of the user of that term. Especially the one you've put forward. I think it's a bad argument.
I don't have a particular problem with your further arguments. They're much better than your original one, you should have lead with them. In fact, I vehemently agree with this part:
Changing the words does not change the underlying reality of what they're describing
Are you serious?
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