domain:firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com
Bartender_Venator
1m ago
So, the ANC has gone back and forth between the two, and there were always cliques moving in and out of the main Xhosa/Zulu power structures within the party. Money united governing factions just as much as tribe. Ramaphosa represents a mildly Xhosa-slanted compromise with moderate/business-friendlier Zulu factions, but there is definitely fear among Zulus that the old Mbeki way of doing things will come back (Ramaphosa is somewhat corrupt - he definitely pays bribes to get things done - but there's a general sense among business-friendly people that he's corrupt in the interests of the country. Mbeki wasn't as blatantly corrupt as Zuma, but he had some awful people, notable for AIDS denialism contributing to SA's horrific HIV/AIDS problem). It's not quite a Zulu/Xhosa crackup of the ANC yet, particularly because the MK is so Zuma-centric and nobody knows where it will go yet. Educated and better-off Zulus are often embarrassed by Zuma representing them, for obvious reasons, and South Africa has a long history of splinter parties which go nowhere. I'd speculate this is more likely going to be a split among Zulus between Zuma loyalists and those remaining with the ANC, which could well spell a decrease in tribal jockeying within the ANC rather than Xhosa dominance. Worth noting that Zuma seems to have significantly greater ability to organize street violence than the ANC, which is a potentially massive wild card. Johannesburg is iirc the largest city in the world without a natural water source, northern SA's economy is dependent on mining exports, and Joburg's lifeline to the coast runs through the Zulu regions...
hydroacetylene
4m ago
Another Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey got released in March too.
NullHypothesis
5m ago
Because we have been conditioned by society to tell our daughters to avoid strange men (and for good reason!) and men are applying that same conditioning to this scenario. It's a trick to try to get men to consider the scenario from a woman's perspective.
As you point out, your daughter would have greater chances with a random man than with a bear.
guajalote
6m ago
I've met bears on a number of occasions while hiking, hunting, or berry picking in places like Tahoe, Colorado, and Minnesota. In my mind, meeting bears is a normal thing that happens from time to time, but I suppose that just shows how out of touch I am with normal peoples' lives. I think you're right that the bear is not "real" in the minds of most people answering the question.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6m ago
The reason why cannabis legalization worked
…is because the Left supported it and the Right opposed it. It doesn't work the other way around. Cthulhu always swims left.
hydroacetylene
8m ago
Actual longhouse societies don’t look like that; men sit around gambling and using substances all day while everyone lives off of the women’s gardening in a mud hut.
NullHypothesis
8m ago
If the questions specifies that they're in the woods, this presents a situation where the male in question can reasonably expect not to be observed.
That is a fair point but I will still have to disagree with you that greater than 20% of men when given the opportunity will have a near 100% chance of committing rape/assault on a lone woman.
I'm not quite willing to say 20% of men would not, purely on the evolutionary argument that assault and rape were a common element of our ancestral environment.
On the evolution argument, the child has to survive to pass on their offspring. Babies and pregnant women are extremely vulnerable. The genes that foster safety in groups and willingness to cooperate will outpace the genes that might make a man rape/assault someone. There could be an argument for tribes taking women as a prize after some kind of war/battle, but that's distinct from just an early caveman just raping/assaulting any woman.
Felagund
8m ago
Thanks, that's really helpful.
Huh, the South Africans I know pronounce it the way I specified. Maybe that's unusual.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
10m ago
non_radical_centrist
13m ago
Part of what makes it obviously artificial is that hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, in the US census. So someone can be both hispanic and white, or hispanic and black, or even hispanic and Asian American Pacific Islander! And it was chosen like that because black activists didn't want to lose any influence from black spanish speakers choosing to identify as hispanic over black.
BurdensomeCount
Singapore is the only country that learned the correct lessons from the British Empire.
14m ago
Why would changing from yourself to your daughter being in the forest change anything? The bear is far more dangerous in either case (assuming we're talking about an average male human vs average bear) and can't be reasoned with. If anything your daughter is better placed to charm the man and get him to sacrifice himself for her if needs be than you are.
On the other hand if the comparison is between a particularly dumb human vs Yogi Bear then I would go with the bear...
As others have suggested, many women (performatively or genuinely) overestimate the danger men pose, due to a combination of lipstick feminism, movies and television, being meme-susceptible, humble bragging as to being so desirable as to be a constant target for rape, a lifetime of being sheltered away from actually being under real risk of physical harm, perhaps some rape fantasy and hybristophilic wish-fulfillment sprinkled in there.
I’d also posit that on the flipside, women underestimate the danger animals, whether wild or domesticated, pose in general. Or at least, the modal woman underestimates the danger animals pose to her in particular, under the belief that in such situations her Disney Princess powers will kick in and she’ll have immediate rapport with the animals. Hence why defending pitbulls as nanny dogs is female-coded and the countless selfies of young women making a sad face with cuts and scratches after they’ve been mostly gently mauled from getting too cuddly with a dog.
There’s a video that comes to mind but I can’t find, of a girl in a skirt or dress and Uggs getting rammed by a goat or sheep (wait, not that kind of video) because she tried picking up its offspring for a cUtE Insta photo. When she saw the mother coming, she tried evading by daintily kicking up a puff of dirt (“ugh, stupid mother! go away”) and half-heartedly jogging away with the offspring in her arms before getting chased down in like half a second.
And of course, as always there’s always the whole Who? Whom? aspect, as the bear vs. black man permutation hilariously illustrates.
hydroacetylene
20m ago
On Zulu/Xhosa tribalism- which faction headlines the ANC? Is the general public of the opinion that Zuma’s faction leaving puts the Xhosa nostra firmly in the driver’s seat?
BurdensomeCount
Singapore is the only country that learned the correct lessons from the British Empire.
20m ago
Gay son, not even a contest (and especially so if you have other children who can continue on the bloodline). Being gay isn't a personal or moral failing.
guajalote
21m ago
"If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down. If it's white, good night."
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
22m ago
I still remember the blue/gold dress discourse.
Was I the only person on the planet that went with "huh, that's a cool optical illusion"?
Mantergeistmann
23m ago
I challenge anybody reading to name an occasion on which they met a bear they weren't actively going out of their way to meet.
My grandmother had a local bear who liked to sit in her peach tree and eat the fruit. Occasionally would wander up onto her porch. She was more concerned with the deer, since they ate more of her vegetables (up until the bear broke half the peach tree by being too large for the branches. She wasnt pleased by that).
NullHypothesis
28m ago
I believe the rhyme goes as follows:
If it's black fight back.
If it's brown stay down.
If it's white, goodnight. (never really liked this one, although to be fair this is the one you are least likely to encounter so I guess the rhyme doesn't matter too much).
faceh
32m ago
I still remember the blue/gold dress discourse.
Plenty of women go abroad alone to dangerous countries like India. Sure there are some examples of women getting raped/killed there, but plenty more aren't.
If the questions specifies that they're in the woods, this presents a situation where the male in question can reasonably expect not to be observed.
THAT much, I will grant, is reason for concern for the woman.
I would not say 20% of men across the world would choose to assault/rape/attack a lone female. And even actual criminals don't commit crimes all the time.
I'm not quite willing to say 20% of men would not, purely on the evolutionary argument that assault and rape were a common element of our ancestral environment.
Really, my concern is that I don't know to what extent all men, everywhere on the planet, are actually socially trained against any sort of violence against women... and have enough to lose that they care about that social training. I could see it being higher than 20% who would in theory be dangerous to an unaccompanied female. But the error bars on that estimate are large.
But I can say for damn sure that a tiny handful of bears is trained against violence towards humans in general, but some are more naturally inclined towards it than others.
celluloid_dream
35m ago
Funny enough, I was hiking in the woods alone last weekend and crossed paths with a woman also hiking alone. She greeted me with a somewhat exaggerated "I'm glad to see you out here!" (I was unaware of bear discourse at the time, so it went over my head).
Anyway, I didn't eat her. She didn't eat me, and we both continued on and didn't die to the best of my knowledge.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
36m ago
How do I capitalize on the fact that the social fabric is fraying at breakneck speed?
I think this is more complicated than that in terms of market strategy. If anything, my feel for the zeitgeist is that this statement is true, but also that the median (Western) human is becoming acutely aware of this fact and it's starting to change behaviors. More than a few friends, even tech oriented ones, have done things like moving to tight-knit rural communities and taking up growing vegetables and raising chickens.
I don't have huge confidence in this, but I think there may be a groundswell of interest in deliberately investing in social fabric. This could conceivably go badly for tech companies: something like "social media is like alcohol: okay in small amounts, but everybody looks down on that guy that drinks beer for breakfast. Abstaining isn't frowned upon." Although I would be interested in something like Facebook was in 2010 that was primarily focused on actual social connections and not "influencers" or anonymous-ish groups.
There may be some business opportunities for explicitly creating Third Spaces, but what shape new ones would have is much less clear. Most of the general examples of those (gyms, coffee shops, bars) aren't in short supply, but also don't feel like they really are establishing communities anymore (or maybe large chains can't do local culture).
NullHypothesis
40m ago
It's funny how so many people online think that's a good response but all it does is serve as yet another example of how poorly so many people understand and use statistics.
slothlikesamwise
Subway Wizard 🔮
44m ago
California is red tribe? Migrant workers aren't picking field corn in the midwest, they are only needed for certain crops.
slothlikesamwise
Subway Wizard 🔮
47m ago
If i might be a bit crass, paraphrasing the same objection over and over doesn't win an argument.
The reason why cannabis legalization worked is that there are only 10.1k DEA employees and they entirely rely on state and local government to be their enforcers, so states could withdraw that support and they'd not be able to fill the void.
The FBI only has 35k employees, not just special agents, and is in a similar situation with a wider breadth of requirements.
It is why nullification has always worked in the US.
The Hasidim of Kiryas Joel speak Yiddish as their day-to-day language, not Hebrew. You should know that if you'd read up on them.
Because for all of them, there's a history and structure already in place, going back to whichever group they schismed off of earlier. As others have pointed out, "religions" invented whole-cloth tend to be much harder to get past "tax scam" skepticism.
You just casuallly dismis all objections with "just try harder, bro." Along with the implication that one can have politically-useful divine revelations on cue as needed. It still boils down to "Just found a cult, bro. Not working? Just try harder, bro." And, of course, the usual denouncing anything other than unfettered optimism in your particular solution as "defeatism."
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