domain:firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com
NullHypothesis
6m ago
To be honest, I wasn't sure if I should post this topic either, since at the end of the day it's just one of many hundreds of viral internet trends indicating the battle of the sexes. People will say anything on the internet to get clout, there are hundreds of ragebait topics being discussed. Plus are TikTok/internet trends indicative of general trends in the population?
What made this trend more interesting is that it's gotten so viral to the point that there are now journalists and news articles that are using this to push the "women's lives are so hard" narrative, and we have a few actual polls now to get a better understanding of what the split is. So at this point it's not just a stupid viral TikTok trend, it's a question that is being used to push an agenda.
Is that perhaps the reason why people may give men the benefit of the doubt in the case of an ambiguous he-said-she-said situation, but not give such benefit to a bear? Do men not deserve such a benefit over bears, because, you know, they're actual people and bears are not?
I've always had a problem with women complaining about how no one would believe them if they cry rape/sexual assault. I think it's similar to when people said people didn't vote for Hillary Clinton during 2016 just because she was a woman. Well yes, but people also did vote for her solely because she was a woman. #BelieveAllWoman was (and still is?) a thing, the biggest high-profile case I remember in recent times was the case between Amber Heard and Johhny Depp. Plenty of people automatically believed her story, just as plenty of people automatically doubted her. We didn't know the facts so the most unbiased stance should be "I don't know, let's wait for some evidence before concluding." Well based on the evidence, the jury did find Amber Heard liable of defamation and that he did not abuse or assault Amber Heard.
People should give men the benefit of the doubt because of the mantra "innocent before proven guilty". Anyone can accuse anyone of anything. Yet the mere accusation can destroy a man's livelihood and his reputation. There are plenty of examples you can find that have impacted everyday average men. Women have plenty of reason to falsely accuse men, whether it be an act of revenge, some way to get clout, and so on. And women tend to overdramatize their experiences. Men face harassment online more often than women, but women are more upset about it. There was also that video of a woman walking through New York to show how much catcalling/harassment she got and all it did was show how it wasn't much of anything at all... (and also, how the men doing the "problematic" activity was a certain demographic of men, specifically black/latino but it's racist to point that out). Or that one journalist that wrote an article complaining about catcalling... only a few years later to then write an article complaining about how nobody would catcall her anymore and how she misses it (can't find the source atm).
If a bear is falsely accused, well nobody really suffers from that. If a man is falsely accused, there is an actual victim in that false statement. Which is why the appropriate response should be to hear out their case, and if it sounds like an actual crime is investigated, then a police report should be filed and the situation investigated. Surely spending a few hours at the police station and getting some justice is better than spending days/weeks/months suffering and letting the criminal go free?
If a woman told her friend she was raped/assaulted, in reality, it's likely 80 - 99% of her friends would automatically believe her unless she did such a horrible job of telling the story that it would cause reason for doubt. Most people's automatic response is to believe, not to doubt. But because some people might dare question the story, it's a huge problem.
srf0638
17m ago
"If you judge safety to be the paramount consideration in life you should never, under any circumstances, go on long hikes alone. Don’t take short hikes alone, either – or, for that matter, go anywhere alone. And avoid at all costs such foolhardy activities as driving, falling in love, or inhaling air that is almost certainly riddled with deadly germs. Wear wool next to the skin. Insure every good and chattel you possess against every conceivable contingency the future might bring, even if the premiums half-cripple the present. Never cross an intersection against a red light, even when you can see all roads are clear for miles. And never, of course, explore the guts of an idea that seems as if it might threaten one of your more cherished beliefs. In your wisdom you will probably live to be a ripe old age. But you may discover, just before you die, that you have been dead for a long, long time."
(Colin Fletcher, The Complete Walker)
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
21m ago
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
27m ago
that cannot be emulated
If you lack creativity, then nothing can be emulated. You should just accept defeat at that point. Consider that Hebrew is a reinvented language.
tax exemption
It’s so difficult yet virtually every small non-denominational Christian church is tax exempt? This is another case of defeatism. No one said change is trivially easy; this level of defeatism is unwarranted.
these just so happened to give you true belief in the specific doctrines of the denomination you found it most convenient for your political goals to join
They give me insight into a lot of things, most of them have absolutely no political consequences. But some have political consequences, sure. Is it surprising that God wants his people to thrive? This is the basis of all religion.
Bartender_Venator
27m ago
From a South African: great writeup. A couple minor points:
- "uh-par-theid" is a valid English pronunciation. "uh-par-tate" is the Afrikaans pronunciation, but even Afrikaans speakers (those without strong accents) will say apar-theid when speaking English.
- The Zulu/Xhosa divide is extremely important, probably more than any other ethnic division in terms of determining backroom politics, given that it dominated ANC internal politics after Mandela. Mbeki's corruption/nepotism crew were nicknamed the "Xhosa Nostra" ("Xhosa" = "Khosa"), and when Zuma came to power the Zulu faction of the ANC saw it as their turn to eat. MK is essentially those parts of that faction who were kicked from the ANC trying to do their own thing. Ramaphosa, the current president, represents something of a compromise (he's from a small tribe, the Venda, not under either umbrella), but leaning towards the comparatively moderate and business-friendly Xhosa faction.
- Both the IFP and VF+ may sound good now, but they were essentially forced into sanity by irrelevance - both started out as very immoderate parties. Back in the 90s there were very real concerns the IFP would start a civil war in the name of Zulu nationalism, and the original Freedom Front were a hard-right Afrikaans group descended from the pro-Apartheid opposition to de Klerk. Their brands are so tarnished that, realistically, they will stay very small.
- The DA has done a surprisingly good job on the ground in the Western Cape - their main problem, apart from the central government, is that South Africa's problems are so intractable nobody can live up to campaign promises. Secession is far more popular than comparable movements elsewhere, and also imo a very good idea, but the basic issue is that there's very little organization or money behind it compared to the DA. This may well change if the DA fails or is forced into coalition with the ANC and therefore has to take responsibility for ANC failures. Western Cape opposition is, organizationally and financially, dominated by Respectable White People - but I find their impeccably liberal opinions can quickly change to secession talk after a few glasses of wine.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
29m ago
well, there's a lot of metaphors where the Little People doing unfavored things would be sitting in jail.
That Little People get arrested for doing unfavored things, while others do not, is what makes them Little People. It's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy. Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi.
Pigeon
coo coo
33m ago
So really it's much less brazen than what blue states have been doing, where they've been ignoring specific that have been upheld as valid.
Except, despite this, it'll be treated as an egregious assault on federal authority — unlike the actions of said blue states — and suppressed accordingly. Blue states get to defy Red rules, Red states do not get to defy Blue rules. It's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy, and Reds are just powerless.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
41m ago
things like marijuana "legalization" seem not all that different.
The difference is that in those cases, it's the Left doing it, with the backing of all the institutions they control. The Right, being mostly powerless, will not be able to get away with it the way the other side can.
srf0638
42m ago
I live in the western US and work in the woods, and while I guess "shoulds" are ultimately hard to argue this post reads as massively cucked safetyist nannyism.
If I, as a male, want to be a bit cheeky, I can actually agree that a random bear is less dangerous to an American woman than a random male.
Statistically speaking, if the male is chosen COMPLETELY at random from all living males, then the odds are more likely you're getting a middle aged guy from Asia (esp. China), India, or Africa. I really have no frame of reference for what I expect such males to do in this situation, but the stereotypes are concerning.
Cursory Google search shows there are about 200,000 brown bears in the world, and around 800,000 black bears. Then presumably negligible numbers of Pandas, Koalas, and Polar bears, along with more exotic types.
So odds are that the randomly chosen bear is a relatively less dangerous black bear vs. the "will attack you instantly" brown bear.
So playing the odds, I might say yeah, a given woman is better off with a randomly selected bear in most cases, vs. a randomly selected male human.
But if we restrict the question to American males, and we specify that the bear WILL be one of the more dangerous varieties, I think the answer is clear.
Corvos
51m ago
I think it means, as you say, specific, personal drama from other forums. If I recall correctly, someone got tempbanned a few years ago for making a top-level post that was just a blow-by-blow of drama they'd had on a different site. I would guess the intent is to prevent the Motte being recruited for internet raids and turf wars. Probably less relevant now we aren't on reddit.
roystgnr
54m ago
If men are bad alone why would they be good together?
Because of the binomial distribution? If 1/6 men are secretly pure evil, so each individual man is Russian roulette, then a clump of just 5 random men gets the odds of evil ones outnumbering good down to 1/28, and a society of as few as 99 men gets us down to about 1 in 100 trillion.
Or just because of the multiplication rule in probability? If 1/6 men are secretly mostly evil (they'll commit a rape in a he-said she-said scenario but they won't kill unfavorable witnesses) then even a clump of 5 random men has the odds of unanimously-evil down to 1/7776.
And if individual men aren't quite as risky as Russian roulette, the risks get pushed down even faster in groups. A rate of 1% for individuals (now each individual man is a mere climb to the summit of Everest) now becomes 1/100,000 or 1/10,000,000,000 in a group of 5.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
58m ago
We used to be a proper nation.
faceh
1hr ago
One possible solution is that you have people pay to have questions answered, and as part of that payment, they pay people to act as oracles who have good reputations.
Yeah, this was part of how Augur's system worked. Reward people who end up on the 'right' side of a final resolution question consistently AND anyone who is answering the question has to stake some portion of their reputation on the outcome they're judging. Eventually 'bad actors' (who are either malicious or are too stupid to reliably interpret contracts) lose out and the correct/consistent oracles accumulate more wealth so they can have more influence over future resolutions.
It helped settle into an equilibrium where it was usually not worthwhile to try to exploit an apparent ambiguity, while knowing that wealthier oracles will ignore said ambiguity and you'll lose money directly by trying to challenge them.
I've been blown away by how bad otherwise intelligent people are at writing and interpreting resolution criteria.
Yep. There are plenty of bright line rules for resolving ambiguity in legal contracts, and it can be permissible to pull in outside evidence to interpret them, but you have to think about the ENTIRE document in a systematic way, you can't just glance it over and interpret it based on vibes.
And glancing at things and going with your gut is how so, so many humans operate.
The problem is there's always a tradeoff when you try to get as precise as possible with your wording, in that it both makes it harder for laypeople to easily understand what the terms say (and less likely to read it all) and, paradoxically, can open up a greater attack surface because there's more places where ambiguities can arise.
This is where I imagine LLMs would have a role, if they are given a set of 'rules' by which all contracts are to be interpreted, and they can explain the contracts they read to laypeople, and everyone agrees that the AI's interpretation is final, then you at least make it more challenging to play games with the wording.
Skulldrinker
1hr ago
ATVing in wisconsin north woods. Turned a corner and there was what looked like a large black dog in the trail. It was sitting oddly, like a human would. Then it got up and lumbered off. "Oh, that was a black bear. Cool."
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1hr ago
Read about the political influence of Kiryas Joel if you’d like
I have. I've even talked about it to others IRL as a model to emulate, whereby the universal response is that such a thing only works for Hasidic Jews; that there are unique elements there — ranging from their long history and separate language to their ability to suppress criticism by denouncing critics as antisemites — that cannot be emulated.
Every Protestant church has religious protections.
Every currently existing Protestant church. But, AIUI, you're talking about creating a new one. And, also AIUI, the IRS tends to default to treating all new religions as tax evasion schemes until proven otherwise.
Personally, I have had divine revelations in dreams and given an understanding of mystical meaning behind Biblical symbols and allegories.
And these just so happened to give you true belief in the specific doctrines of the denomination you found it most convenient for your political goals to join? If so, then lucky you, I suppose.
Yeah, civic nationalism has really been working hasn’t it?
And where did I endorse that? It's clear that isn't working, either. But I don't see 'just rebrand your secular political goals as a religion and start a cult, bro' as a viable project either.
BahRamYou
1hr ago
I had a crazy idea recently. What if we took LLM AI and, uh, scaled it up? Make a social media platform where you are the star of the show. Just you, or maybe you plus a handful of friends, plus hundreds, thousands, or millions of AI chatbots who all adore you and want to worship you as a celebrity. Finally, every single person on Earth can be the most popular person on the planet!
Tomato
1hr ago
There’s a saying I’m paraphrasing that I think is basically right,
Black Bear is fine unless you startle a mom with cubs
If a brown bear sees you it’s too late
If you see a polar bear it’s too late
BahRamYou
1hr ago
Interesting. Was that just for skilled jobs, or for everything? And why couldn't they just get employees from other Eastern Bloc countries- was it the language barrier, or was travel for work just forbidden?
HorthyMiklosKatonaja
1hr ago
East Germany had something like this. Because of its unique situation with continued flight to the West, many factories and other businesses were constantly begging for employees.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
1hr ago
Political goals are accomplished through influence. Communal political influence requires (1) the conscious saving of money which is reinforced socially especially for the rich members, (2) the directing of the money to a centralized lobbying arm which can efficiently accomplish goals, (3) protection against out-group propaganda. Read about the political influence of Kiryas Joel if you’d like, which at one point was the poorest town in America, yet senators would make a speech every year to them because of their donations and block voting; and they then benefitted from that politician’s funding of amenities and lack of investigation into crimes. Political goals are also accomplished through consumer behavior. Religious cultures direct consumer behavior toward in-group providers, and boycott companies against their goals. Religions take the money that is ordinarily spent on wasteful consumerism and direct it to communal goods. They also hire among their own.
vastly overstate said religious protections
No I do not. Every Protestant church has religious protections.
isn't this just "instrumentalizing religion”
That depends if you believe in it or not. If you don’t believe in it, then obviously you shouldn’t do it. Personally, I have had divine revelations in dreams and given an understanding of mystical meaning behind Biblical symbols and allegories. But that’s just me, you know? I’m also tired: of people who don’t understand how people work, of my dog eating deer poop, of hubris, of the cost of a double cheeseburger at Wendy’s. I am not sure what tiredness has to do with this conversation.
ridiculous idea
Yeah, civic nationalism has really been working hasn’t it? Was it Einstein who said that the mark of a genius was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Meanwhile, I will stick to my understanding of how culture operates which is informed by thousands of years of history and a hundred years of social psychology.
Sloot
1hr ago
If men are so bad, why would having more of them around help? If a majority of men decided to use violence to subjugate women, it would be easily accomplished since men are more violent, better at organizing violence and are stronger.
It’s because men and their shittiness cancel each other out when there’s a group of them :nailpolishemoji:
It makes sense if one is accustomed to expecting men to white knight against other men on your behalf, or if one’s mental model of the world is heavily influenced by media, memes, and tropes. Conservation of Ninjitsu: One man is a deadly threat, but an army of them is just a sea of potential simps and orbiters, ATMs and meatshields.
That's a good question, but I don't know anything about Japan.
Also, I somewhat dispute that the gender war has "turned hot" in Korea. I think this "gender war" mostly journos trying to make a big issue about gender, for the reasons outlined in the second half of my grandparent comment. Surveys in 2021 showed that in every demographic surveyed, "inequality between men and women" was considered less of a problem in 2021 than in 2016. Also, if you are not terminally online you won't notice any gender war. (But Korean society does tend to be terminally online, so most people are aware of some feminist/anti-feminist drama. )
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