domain:epistle.us
KingOfTheBailey
32m ago
It might be stronger in recent years, where pushing "the message" became much more of a thing in entertainment, but the anti-mutant Senator Kelly was created in 1980 and appeared in the 1990s X-Men animated series. (Because you've listed X-Men alongside BvS, Marvel, etc., I'm guessing you're thinking more of the 2000s Fox movies, or possibly the recent X-Men '97.)
2rafa
1hr ago
Yeah, great post. If you want a hot, relatively chaste, young, smart right-leaning woman, that’s not impossible, but you better be the equivalent of that as a man, namely a successful, attractive, charming, relatively young guy who probably has similar values, which in the case of chastity is likely some kind of religious conservatism. Young Mormon men seem to have no issue marrying chaste(ish) pretty blondes who will vote for Romney and deliver 3-4 children, because that’s their milieu. Too often some chubby suburban secular engineer whose primary hobbies are video games and online political discussion thinks he deserves the same.
Hot young people are in no short supply, and some substantial subsection of that group (assuming nothing truly weird or ambitious) likely meets anyone’s individual extra standards. But you have to make sure you’re part of that group, and you’re where the young people are (NYC, SF, LA, etc) and that you have things to offer that they want, too.
A 35 year old average looking guy of average means probably isn’t going to marry a 23 year old conservative trad virgin. If that’s the blackpill @faceh was talking about then, sure, it’s real. But at that point the unlikelihood of winning the lottery is a blackpill, and so is a peasant girl realizing she’s unlikely to marry the prince. If you’re in your thirties as a man you have to accept you missed the first wave of pairings (and arguably the second) and likely (unless extremely hot or successful) have to make do with women for whom the same is true. That’s no great injustice.
How many are single, heterosexual, haven't had kids already, are not grossly overweight, are not riddled with mental disorders, don't have a huge bodycount or any Onlyfans, and are actually interested in having and raising kids in a committed, monogamous relationship.
If you’re middle class, live in the downtown core (rather than fat suburbs) of a major coastal city and are under 30 and dating under 30 year old women then…yeah, there are a pretty large number of these women, tens or hundreds of thousands of them depending on where you are. Certainly enough not to ‘give up’.
I'm asking for a quantification of how many women out there are actually likely to pass the filter.
The honest answer is "I have no clue" we're talking about people's intimate relationships, and I just don't have that much insight into them. But going by what I was able to see, the odds are pretty good, like, in the neighborhood of 100%. I've seen a militant feminist bending over backwards for a 5/10, mildly successful autist who just fell out of love with her, and ended up breaking up, I've seen another psy-op herself into tolerating infidelity / polyamory / wtf it they were calling it, I've seen successful "I can fix her" stories. Now, I'm not saying ~100% of women are marriage material, but I just haven't seen a case where the "gynosupremacy" was the reason for a relationship to fall apart.
somedude
1hr ago
Even Reddit normies are getting sick of being beaten over the head with the message, and are getting updoots for saying so.
https://old.reddit.com/r/television/comments/1dewmxw/the_boys_season_4_premiere_discussion/?sort=top
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1hr ago
The first rule of reddit since around 2018 has been that if the post is a matter of opinion and is massively upvoted, it's probably an ill-conceived and kneejerk adherence to the most stereotypical, un-nuanced progressive norms. If the same is true but it is a matter of fact, the upvoted post may or may not be true but will have no sourced links as support. Reddit has lost all credibility for me except niche DIY subs or anything related to anything practical, where bad advice is usually immediately called out as such.
2rafa
1hr ago
I'm continually surprised at how little dirt they've managed to pull up on him. In NYC real estate work I'd assumed he had at least a few skeletons in the closet/at the bottom of the harbor.
Most of the NYC real estate dirt existed for decades in the open because it was NY tabloid fodder, like destroying the Bonwit Teller statues, various lawsuits from tenants of the usual slumlord type, the rape allegation by an ex wife etc. Trump was famous enough that anything juicy was saleable already and so had mostly already been printed. The stuff that wasn’t was more minor, like Access Hollywood. He wouldn’t have had anyone killed, he dealt with the mafia through the unions like all NY real estate developers, and they handle their own business.
2rafa
1hr ago
Agree, if Maples did come out and say she had one Trump would simply deny he had anything to do with it, say it was “a shame” and move on, it wouldn’t hurt him.
You, the invoker of IQ, need to prove the numbers work as numbers and aren't better being left as philosophical concepts or practical examples, or point to something well established that does.
Funny, I don't think I do. What I think is that we have a testable metric which at the population level correlates reliably and meaningfully with both racial groupings and life outcomes, that this fact has substantial explanatory power, and that these correlations will persist regardless of what you think of that metric.
What I think is that fifty or sixty years of failed racial uplift will in due time turn into seventy, and then eighty, and then ninety, a hundred, so on and so forth indefinitely, barring the apocalypse or some sort of massive sci-fi technological intervention. I think that when you and I are both dead from old age, the exact same group will still be hopelessly behind, and someone somewhere will still be doing this exact same tap dance.
They'll still be just as eager to repeat how racial categories can have fuzzy boundaries, still ever so philosophically uncertain of the value of IQ as a metric. But that uncertainty will never allow them to raise a proportionately equal share of brain surgeons, or what have you, from the population at the bottom of the ranking.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
Sure, I wouldn't want ancestry rules applied in a professional context, but I think there should also be some amount of loyalty to your fellow countrymen. I don't have a strong opinion over how much precisely that would be. The way I see it, countries should follow a general "[insert country here] first" framework, and people with deep roots should have relative priority over newcomers. Though even the latter I wouldn't want to go too far, so it won't turn into a dick-measuring contest over who's ancestors were here the longest.
Forgotpassword
2hr ago
Shameless plug for something I run but https://shuffle.com/sports/novelties/politics/france/french2024 we were first up with markets and been surprisingly heavy betting on it. Super heavy RN action. No US/UK/AUS.
crushedoranges
2hr ago
Yes (although it's long finished.) I feel a little embarassed to shill my own stuff, but I'm currently writing fun science fiction. Fun in that 'there are as many cute girls as I can feasibly fit into the suspension of disbelief.
Don't judge me.
TIRM
2hr ago
Yes. Whedon said the list of required character vs character fights or interactions was so large it took up all of the run time for The Avengers. To the point where he had no time to conclude the story and simply decided that all the aliens would fall over dead at the end to instantly wrap things up. Which he thinks is a bad ending, but he had no choice given the constraints.
sarker
Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
3hr ago
I can't really identify people as British from their singing, personally.
FD4280
3hr ago
Blah. Thanks for the correction. I stopped at two when grad school got really busy, planned to get back to it... guess that's out.
edmund-nelson
3hr ago
Oh War and Peace is great but was a terrible movie precisely because so much of the book does not translate to the big screen.
I watched some drone footage of Russians fighting drones and it's a really depressing scene, lots of footage of drones flying not seeing anything then transmission ends via shotgun blast. (you often see the shotgun shells just before impact).
I can imagine at some point a video game where you are using drones shotguns and artillery to fight your opponent with drones shotguns and artillery in a trench, maybe even some Rifles and machine guns placed in for more trench warfare. Clearly you being the player would have to control drones, but small drones dropping mortar round after mortar round would be a fun game maybe idk.
Glassnoser
3hr ago
Wouldn't you have known he was British when you heard his voice?
Glassnoser
3hr ago
Do you mean higher than it used to be?
ChickenOverlord
3hr ago
LotGH is far above the average for stories when it comes to caring about the plot and world making sense, but even then it has a few things that seem poorly explained/motivated. Off the top of my head:
Everyone's insistence of following Commodore Fork's invasion plan regardless of how retarded it was
Trunicht's motivation for letting the child emperor live in alliance territory and form a government in exile
Almost everything surrounding the Reuental Revolt, though I feel like the author was starting to run out of steam at that point
ChickenOverlord
4hr ago
Translations of the first two books were ok (not amazing). They changed translators for book 3 onwards and they were pretty awful, it would have been almost impossible for me to follow if I hadn't already seen the anime.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
4hr ago
Chaos in French Politics
After a heavy defeat in the European elections, French President Emmanuel Macron has used his constitutional power to dissolve the French National Assembly and call a snap election.
The significance of this move cannot be overstated. Dissoudre is not something you do lightly, it's a very risky move that can easily have unforeseen consequences.
The last invocation of that power in 1997 by Jacques Chirac had devastating effects. Chirac, who was President alongside a right wing majority that he couldn't properly control sought to get a more presidential majority and in the end the left wing formed the Gauche Plurielle coalition led by Lionel Jospin, won a majority in the election and got Jospin appointed Prime Minister.
Many are speculating about Macron's motives. Not least because he has a reputation as a schemer.
Some see it as a trap laid for whoever wins the necessarily narrow majority. Historically Jospin's own cohabitation government would end up being so unpopular that he wouldn't make it to the second round of the presidential election following his tenure and would retire for public life altogether. Macron has had to rule with a very narrow majority since his own election and he may be ceding power to the left or right blocks which he knows are disunited to lay the groundwork for the next presidential elections.
Others even speculate this may be part of a complex scheme to allow him a third term beyond the two consecutive ones allowed by the constitution, as he would resign and then come back.
Whatever his motives were, he has succeeded in plunging the entire spectrum of French politics into unmitigated chaos. The elections are on the 30th of June and everyone is scrambling to ally and/or betray each other in most dramatic (and French) a fashion.
The Rassemblement National at the gates of power
The clear winner of French seats these European elections, Marine Le Pen's RN has never been so close to power.
This is the culmination of a decade of "dédiabolisation": efforts by her and her party to to become more respectable and erase the stigma of her infamous father and his ex-SS friends.
The broad appeal of the RN has surprised many. It is no longer a reactionary old man's party but has voters in pretty much all social stratas of French society. Young and old, poor and rich, everywhere the RN is now a force to be reckoned with.
The reasons are only now being admitted by French intellectuals who refused to see them for years and recently were even acknowledged by Macron himself: a broad rejection of France's policy on public safety and immigration.
This broad appeal is perhaps best represented by the RN's current party leader and would-be Prime Minister, Jordan Bardella. A 28 years old of Italian, French and Algerian ancestry who used to be a Call of Duty youtuber.
Despite this growing popularity, the RN has never led a French government and is still the would be target of the barrage républicain, the informal alliance of every other party against them on antifascist grounds. Though as we will see, this is now cracking.
The RN is in a sense the board onto which this whole election is played, and all stratagems relate in some way to its growing popularity.
Civil war among Les Républicains
LR is the established center right party, the party of Sarkozy and Chirac.
The party has waned in popularity under Macron but its position at the gates of the right and established apparatus has maintained its importance in French politics. LR parliament members have been the kingmakers as of late since Macron's party couldn't get a clear majority.
However the party's historical roots as a big tent for the right have posed a problem. Within it are now two coalitions, one of center right liberals sympathetic to Macron and another of conservative nationalists sympathetic to the RN.
Party leader Eric Ciotti is squarely on the conservative side which is more popular with the base, while his lieutenants are on the liberal side. A high-low vs middle configuration if you will.
As a result of the dissolution, Ciotti announced an alliance with the RN. This immediately lit the fires of rebellion.
His lieutenants unanimously moved to remove him from the party over this. However he ignored the decision, saying it was illegal and barricaded himself at the seat of the party.
This led to a number of dramatic scenes, including Ciotti talking down to journalists from the window of his office, as if on the battlements of a castle, as well as various party officials saying they were going to remove him by force, or call emergency services to remove him as he had lost his mind. French twitter went ablaze with memes comparing him to Tony Montana and his last stand.
Eventually the party officials found a key to the seat, opened the door and held an exceptional session of the political bureau to remove him with the forms. However Ciotti kept ignoring them and contested the decision before a judge.
His legal arguments were just recently vindicated and his exclusion stayed. Whatever this means for the future of the party or that of their alliance with the RN, nobody really knows.
The implosion of Reconquête!
R! is the party formed by right wing intellectual Eric Zemmour as part of his presidential bid. More radical than the RN on immigration but more liberal on economic questions, it was joined by Marion Maréchal, the niece of Marine Le Pen.
Maréchal and Zemmour share very similar politics, but a very different disposition towards the RN. And have led a bifurcated campaign during these European elections.
Zemmour antagonized the RN quite a bit, and Marine Le Pen in particular as being ineffectual, weak and ultimately left wing, whilst Marion Maréchal held to a more conciliatory stance seeking the union of the right.
This came to a head right after the dissolution, when in a party address, Maréchal, with Zemmour right behind her, announced apparently without his knowledge or consent that she was in talks for an alliance with the RN. To the applause of everyone but him.
They then proceeded to accuse each other of duplicity and treason on various media interviews. Zemmour excluded her from the party and she is now calling for people to vote for the Le Pen-Ciotti coalition.
The rise of the Nouveau Front Populaire
Before dissolution, the French left wing had been at its most fragmented for years. The Gaza war had finished to highlight the division between Jean-Luc Mélenchon's LFI and less radical parts of the left.
Mélenchon's conciliatory stances towards Palestinians and Islam in general may have played a big part in the surprise rejuvenation of the Parti Socialiste under Raphaël Glucksmann. The center left party which used to be the big tent for the left was left completely destroyed by Macron's first election and has only recently recovered the ability to contend with LFI for the leading spot on the left.
LFI had recently managed to put together an uneasy coalition with the left and the greens under the name of NUPES, but it was functionally defunct by the time of the European election.
Nevertheless, dissolution and the possibility of RN government turned every left wing mouth in the country to one word: union.
The same people who were at each other throats over Gaza quickly signed an unanimous pledge to unite under the name of the Front Populaire the famous antifascist 1936 left wing coalition of Leon Blum that instituted paid leave, the 40h work week and led France into its WW2 capitulation.
This new popular front has made a large contrast with the disunity of the right, however it seems on the left the knives still do come out, if after declarations of unity.
Mélenchon himself has not wasted time to attempt to seize control of the alliance. He has already declared himself the putative candidate for prime minister and his party cronies have started unilaterally nominating candidates.
As part of this, Adrien Quatennens, a high ranking LFI MP, who in 2022 had been convicted of domestic violence, pretty brazenly called for feminists to support him after being nominated for his own seat. To massive backlash.
The alliance also nominated François Ruffin (a documentarian and MP very popular on the left) for his own office seemingly without telling him. This angered him so much that he started attacking them and listing all the ongoing controversies with respect to the nominations.
This includes Quatennens' case but also the ongoing purges that Mélenchon has been doing, removing potential seats from anybody who ever criticized him. Committing the crime of "lèse-Mélenchon" as one of the purge victims put it.
The center left is no less divided in this unity. Many see Glucksmann's timidity towards LFI as weakness given he held a larger share of the vote in the European elections, and some, including two former prime ministers have denounced the alliance's inclusion of parties that supported Hamas, including the NPA, a small trotskyist party which is currently under investigation for making the apology of terrorism (which is illegal in France).
The mess in the background
All this political chaos has conspicuously overshadowed what are usually major events in French life: the football Euro and the coming Jeux Olympiques. Whoever wins this election will have to preside over the JO and the already expected chaos of them is to be compounded by the disorganization of a new administration.
Meanwhile and ever since the results of the European election, there has been a constant movement of riots and both declared and undeclared demonstrations against the popularity of the RN. Police officials have opined that with how occupied and exhausted they are with the JO they wouldn't be able to handle widespread riots that are sure to come with a potential RN win.
Overall France is at its most disorganized it has been in years. Even the election itself, the cause of all this ruckus may be difficult to make happen in the given timeline. There are concerns that there physically isn't enough paper to print all the ballots in time and many jurists have deposed motions before the Conseil Constitutionnel to stay Macron's move or delay the election, though the timeline is on the face of it within the bounds described by the constitution.
Outlaw83
4hr ago
Because it's much simpler to primary people - like, in a parliamentary system, yes, Trump would've created the America First Party and gotten 21% in the parliamentary elections, and maybe gotten a coalition with the Mitt Romney-led Republican's, etc.
Also, here's the thing, yes, a lot of people are upset with the current parties, but nobody agrees that much - some people think both parties are too left-wing, some parties thing both parties are too right-wing, some parties think they're too war-mongering, others think they're too soft, etc., and so on.
The Whig's had also been falling apart for basically 20 years over splits over slavery, and the reality is, there is no issue in America today - even abortion, immigration, etc. that comes close to what slavery was in America in the 20 years in the lead-up to the Civil War, so there was that. Also, whether you think the Democrat's or Republican's are weak, they're both getting 45-50% of the vote every national election - a party would have a chance if say, the GOP was losing 60-40 every time, because hey, why not try if we're losing anyway. But, since both sides believe that defecting means the side they agree with even less could win and install a lot of terrible policies, you stay as a good soldier and try to win the next primary.
Cute girls in libertarian sci-fi worked out for Devon Erikson, it could work for you too.
More options
Context Copy link