domain:mgautreau.substack.com
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
7m ago
Unprosecuted crimes are usually still counted in statistics AIUI (specifically as "unsolved"). However, the more indirect route of "progressive prosecutors decline to do their job -> reporting crime now doesn't result in the crime stopping -> people stop bothering to report it" seems to hold water.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
11m ago
I've seen enough of ao3, what great sin have we committed? Would a just deity unleash ao4 on the world?
More seriously though, it's bad for society if people aren't in stable, happy relationships. What is shame for? Why do we have it? To bully people into doing things that are pro-social. There's a reason why fat people are shamed and it's not just because of cruelty for cruelty's sake, there's value in it as well.
Some people just aren't relationship material and have qualities in other domains. Montgomery would doubtless be bullied for rizzing up the baddies with how he'd lay out his tanks in future wars.
Nixon told girls about his autistic alt-history scenarios where the Persians conquered the Greeks and this impeded his love life somewhat.
But society was structured in such a way that these men didn't end up loners because they were weird or gave women the ick, they married and had kids. What are we doing if the most erudite and civilized men are devoting their lives to B2B SAAS and not having kids?
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
22m ago
Free public transport is not really on the table either,
Melbourne has free trams in the CBD. Making the whole Victorian public transport network free (other than on Christmas Day) is not really talked about, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone floats the idea; the fares got bid so low in the last election that it's questionable whether they pay for the infrastructure needed to collect them (ticket barriers, ticket inspectors, etc.).
From the substack:
Second, consider that men’s psychological profile includes scoring higher on all dark triad traits – psychopathy, machiavellianism, and narcissism. These traits are distinguished by a lack of empathy and remorse, and a tendency towards deception and manipulation to achieve one’s aims.
While this is probably true in some statistical sense, I would argue that this is mainly selection bias. Dark triad traits are (I think) hot in men.
Now consider the dating marketplace and all the ways it privileges men’s psychological profile at the expense of women’s – the way he’s issued clearance to bottle-feed all of his desires, and the way she’s compelled to smother all of hers.
[...] All in all, the average woman is psychologically abused in the dating market.
As a man who dropped out of the dating market because the only relationships I might get are with women who are too neurotic to be net positive, and who is not going to organize his life around maximizing his SMV, let me say booo-fucking-hoooo.
The sex ratios in the sub-50 age brackets are balanced, so for every chad who manages to string five women along, there are four men who are not getting any. Society is not going to listen to them whine about that very much, because at the end of the day, nobody is entitled to sex. I find porn can substitute for sex and video gaming can substitute for the social interactions of having a relationship. It is not perfect, but so much better than being in a bad relationship.
I think that for evolutionary reasons, being sexually successful is hot in men. I am not kinkshaming anyone, if you are into men who can find a date and get laid every weekend, by all means go for it.
But just as low SMV men are not entitled to sex, women are not entitled to having a chad go exclusive with them. For evolutionary reasons again, most men have some inclination to take the harem route. The hot men who are inclined to a monogamous relationship likely are in a monogamous relationship, so the hot men in the dating market are mostly not interested in that.
Put frankly, if a woman prefers to date the hottest men who are willing to invest a few hours on dating for having sex with her, then she is actively selecting for men who have no incentive to go exclusive with her. If hookups are all she wants, that is fine, but if she is interested in an exclusive relationship, I would advise she lowers her SMV standards and compensate by requiring a longer runway before she engages in sex, thus making pursuing her more costly for men who are just looking for casual sex.
Also, there is no shame in being without a partner. IMO, anyone who can not function without being in a sexual relationship is definitely not relationship material. Looking at the romantic market and saying "the incentives are badly aligned, I am not going to try to participate in this" is something which women can do just as much as men. Just substitute porn with ao4 or something.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
54m ago
There's not that much need for an exhaustive deep dive, as it is a question you asked and answered in the same post.
To put it in other words, the nerd is titillated, but is also still unconsciously ashamed of his titillation, so appreciates the fact that there is a smokescreen justifying his titillation.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
56m ago
I think that's called "burying the lede". "There being a LGBTQ+" page does not give full picture of what he supports and plans to do.
I was specifically talking about the main thrust of his campaign (in this election), which is different from what he actually supports and plans to do. The campaigns that politicians run don't always correlate on what they will actually do.
BurdensomeCount
—Your em dash is showing...
1hr ago
Men who make up the bulk of an actual representative sample, to her, are Not People.
Ouch, part of me, especially as I get older, thinks videos like that are needlessly cruel, but then I remember, and realize that yes, while they may be cruel, they are also, in a very important sense, necessary.
OliveTapenade
1hr ago
I can understand it with violence, or I'd speculate possibly with competition or dominance in general? There is a thrill I get from competition, including physical competition, and that involves a certain level of aggression. When I was going through puberty I was involved in fencing, at school, and that was one of the co-ed sports. I remember trying to be chivalrous about it, but... you can't really go all out against the girls, and it's not the same. I wanted to push myself. I wanted to be allowed to be fierce.
That was probably a major difference, because I did recognise that trait in some other boys, but much more rarely in girls. There was definitely a female kind of aggression, but it did not manifest the same way.
2D3D
1hr ago
Sure but youre not starving and your post nut clarity from constant procrasturbation is just introducing shame to the degeneracy you have devolved into, despite the objective chemical release from the momentary indulgence. As long as you get your satisfaction and dissatisfaction from your own life, you're not a "atheist" who needs to get their rocks off by being emotional vampires in empathetic secular humanist circlejerks.
2D3D
1hr ago
The irony is that this age of sexual liberation has convinced many women that risky sex is more about getting involved with a needy long term stalker than having a no strings fling with a hot himbo. To be entirely fair I think thats actually a good risk reward proposition, but it also overstates the utility of a romp with a himbo. The emotional satisfaction of notching a himbo is downplayed by the fact he has a billion conquests for his name, and for all the professed sexual skills of whatever seducer exists I don't think anyone has ever matched Hitachi for total female satisfaction, let alone effort efficacy.
I do also think that men need to be more honest with their male friends about their deficiencies that stop them from successfully pairing, but honesty only goes so far. My own male peers are all hitched up, and the ones who aren't are genuinely addled in some form that makes introducing females to them a dead proposition for both parties even if successful. Shit, I just explained why girls introduce their single gals to the himbos instead of the Nice Guy. They can sniff out neediness and incompetence as well.
2D3D
1hr ago
Has there been an exhaustive deep dive on this board on why the fuck Aella has so much traction in 'rationalist' spaces? Its like nerd porn except it reduces actual sexual activity to shit even Sheldon Cooper would find autistic. That there exists a client base of horny nerds who can afford any dubai portapotty slattern but instead choose to go for a mid tier data analyst who feeds her cock counter into excel spreadsheets and orgasms to the graphs instead of the act.
aardvark2
1hr ago
TPO was modded and there was outrage about his comments "abos like sniffing petrol because they're dumb", this is the same thing. So it's norm here to say racist jokes about Russians
2D3D
1hr ago
the end result is going to be thongs becoming standard swimwear for women and that the hyper sexualization caused by a race to the bottom of who can get the most attention will be harmful
Not to personally attack you for this line, but every time I see this type of reasoning or worldview hypothesized I always think to my work partner who wore clothes she was 60 pounds and 30 years over to wear. People free to wear whatever they want face social sanction for visual pollution as much as for social defection, and visual pollution is often worse because it has concrete quality of life (and often hygiene) disadvantages. If what trannies wanted to wear was just normal dresses or blouses no one would give a shit, but they insist on wearing garish crap like its a deliberate exercise in hostile signalling.
I also agree about the incentive structures, and it is telling that the incentive structures for progressives brute-force the outcomes to fit the mechanism they create rather than adjusting to realities feedback. Body positivity was shoved down all our throats for 6 years, and while men are irrelevant to the Victorias Secret Fashion Show, women are the net buyers of that stuff and shoving trannies and fatties hardly brought in new customers. Women ultimately have working eyes and brains as well and they can tell that the products being pushed aren't actually going to make them happier. Whether its a function of the socialization matrix forcing bad behaviors onto society (the famous internalized misogyny) is a different issue, but women can tell that trigglypuff wasn't something they themselves wanted to be associated with, much less men.
Honestly though it could be a better society if people were socially incentivized to develop the beach body or an approximation therein. Being unashamed of your bikini bod (man or woman) is great, better if it came as a result of hard work put into achieving some level of healthiness. 8% body fat dehydrated veinpops are bad, but not worse than lard monsters rolling through the sands.
I had a feeling this was going to end up here when I first saw it. Really, this is just ‘gender black pill’ stuff from a vaguely femcel-adjacent perspective, but not structurally different to the male equivalents (Tony Tulathimutte etc). I think it would be a mistake to read into it too deeply. You can always find good reasons not to trust people. It’s no real surprise that someone who resents men in this way would embrace the transactional nature of ‘sex work’; this may be an advertising strategy, but it is probably not insincere.
And are you certain that young men will be turned off by that message?
FWIW, my comment wasn't intended to comment on the actual issue. I just wanted to point out that the DND topic was the least salient point raised by @AlexanderTurok, and that his remark on the othe other points still being relevant on the Motte had merit otherwise. A meta-comment, if you will. I don't know what discourse looks like inside the "Republican Coalition".
Now to comment on the issue itself.
Porn, vidya and DnD are all forms of escapism, and in my view escapism is clearly associated with the "weak men" phase of cyclical history and with the "wireheading ourselves to death" end of linear history. Maybe small doses of escapism can be used for good, but I reckon that most people will be compelled to describe as adequate whichever dose they currently allow for their addiction, going from "playing vidya for an hour a day helps me relax" to "of course I spend all my waking hours playing games, don't you know I'm disabled and thus can't be expected to do anything else, and also playing games is good for you here I cherry-picked a study for you, and also I'm an up-and-coming semi-professional gaming content creator (4 subscribers, one patreon patron who is his mom)". The justifications will scale to the addiction. Porn addicts will blame the feminists or structural androphobia or will just fling themselves off a figurative cliff of self-pity. So at least DnD is a social activity, right? No. If all that a social activity accomplishes is encysting you and a bunch of like-minded degenerates in a bubble of hedonism, then DnD is no better than being a striped-stockinged furry discord moderator on a vidya modding server.
And while we're bashing young (and not so young) men's bad habits, let's not let young (and not so young) women get off unscathed. There are also numerous technologically-enabled anti-social addictions that women dearly love. Infinitely scrolling web content. Social media. Pretending to be an "influencer" but actually just producing content nobody needs. Compulsive online shopping. Eating sweets until they grow so fat they dread leaving the house lest they be rightfully judged. Feeding their neuroticism with ever-new diagnoses and imaginary dangers. While we tell young men to cut the cooming and gaming, man up, make something of yourselves, flourish in actual society! we should also be telling young women to put the phone down, clean up the mess they've made of the house, actually pay undivided attention to the baby for once and stop stuffing their faces with sugary crap. Women can be degenerates entirely without onlyfans pages.
Having this diatribe out on the page, let's get back to your question.
And are you certain that young men will be turned off by that message?
Depends on how far down the rabbit hole they are.
The ones who can't muster the strength to pull themselves far enough out of their hedonism hole to even see the "real" world, the ones who have bought into their own justifications and rationalizations of their degenerate behavior, will probably react defensively to the message that actually, their behavior is bad, will feel "under attack" as you put it. But having those people on your side is bad optics anyways; they're nothing but sad sacks who happen to have a vote. A vote they will certainly use for whichever party promises more gibs for the unproductive - so why bother worrying about what message reaches them?
The more casual hedonists who still interact with society at large, who can hold down a job and can credibly claim that they have their addictions under control, those might be receptive to the message. But what will they do with it? I suppose these are the target audience, and the ones that might appreciate support and empowerment in their daily struggle to balance their addictions and their more pro-social activities.
Young men who do not spend every evening in pursuit of escapism, who aren't at risk, might still appreciate the message as validation.
But really now, for long-term political implications I think that unless you either
- go full Taliban, ban all the things and administer beatings to the deviants, or
- eliminate gibs so that checking out of society to sacrifice yourself to your addictions will actually kill you
the wireheading-ourselves-to-death future is pretty much unavoidable. As technology improves, its ability to put claws into our brains and promote our worst instincts grows faster than its ability to help us get ourselves under control. The last 100 years of rapid economic growth and unceasing social upheaval have seen too much happen in too short a span of time for societies and cultures to learn how to deal with these new situations in sustainable and productive ways. An enormous amount of wealth that keeps most people afloat regardless of their bad habits, public welfare to sustain even the worst wireheads, and multiple generations of atomization and globalization to ensure that people are increasingly left to their own devices with their horizon limited to their personal pleasure, and technology ever evolving to make addictions go harder and faster...well where can it go?
[American political implicaitons]
lol i dunno
Also, I play too much vidya lately. Yeah I'm tired in the evenings and I have a cold and I just want to switch off and relax so that I'll be sufficiently re-charged for the next day, but if I take a serious look at myself I have to admit that I could just as well cut this relaxation phase in half and just go to bed earlier, get up earlier, and do something useful in the morning instead. Ask me tomorrow whether I actually did that.
Corvos
1hr ago
I’m not familiar with tarot but I’d like to be. I had a set somewhere - always wanted to learn how to do readings.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
2hr ago
Bastiat is cursed to be forever relevant.
RenOS
something is wrong
2hr ago
I think it really is a question of degree and immediateness. I had some problems with violence around elementary school, like many boys, but over time realised how destructive that was, adapted & looked for new friends, and by the time testosterone really hit in puberty I was already well-adjusted to dealing with it. I haven't had a brawl or anything similar in more than a decade by now, but I also know that I still very much enjoy violence, so it's not hard at all for me to imagine that if a person was suddenly hit with my level of testosterone without any time to adapt or critically reflect on it, they may struggle with their temper.
functor
2hr ago
One of the greatest mistakes many progressives such as feminists make is using what they want as a starting point instead of thinking what incentive structures they are creating. The thinking easily becomes I want x while completely ignoring what incentive structures they are creating.
The reasoning becomes "I want to wear whatever I want". There is not enough thought put into that women are competitive and that the end result is going to be thongs becoming standard swimwear for women and that the hyper sexualization caused by a race to the bottom of who can get the most attention will be harmful.
Botond173
2hr ago
Such modern women do exist but it's generally not that they refuse to act like that. It's that it never even occurs to them that they should act like that in certain contexts, have no concept of it at all in the first place, and don't know how to do it even if they consciously want to. It's generally something nobody ever explained to them, never talked with them about, and had no woman in their lives whom they ever had a chance to emulate in that regard.
OliveTapenade
2hr ago
I was thinking particularly of descriptions of impulsivity, immediacy, and emotional intensity. I read accounts by trans men saying that all their desires become both powerful and immediate, as if someone had switched caps lock on for their desires. They didn't get hungry, they got HUNGRY. NOW! And so on. Ironically, the emotional balance they described reminded me more of being a child, prior to puberty, so it was hard for me to associate that with puberty or testosterone.
For what it's worth, I myself had a quite gentle puberty - it was a gradual slope, rather than a wall breaking. As such I've never subjectively understood either why some kids fear it, or why some adults describe it as a very painful, tempestuous time of their lives. It just happened to me quite smoothly, and over a few years my voice dropped lower, I got more hair, and I experienced sexual attraction, but there was never a moment where I found it painful or disconcerting. I was even a little disappointed that nothing dramatic happened. Maybe sex ed at school had just hyped it up too much.
Anyway, their descriptions of getting very horny on testosterone didn't seem to match my experience of sexual desire. I had my sexual awakening just like anyone else, the phase where I hid pictures of sexy women underneath the bed and snuck guilty glances at bikini-clad models on magazine covers, and so on. But it was never a consuming fire for me. Maybe I'm just unusual and this is a universal experience I'm missing, but I don't think that's it? I got turned on by the hot girl sitting in front of me in class. All the basics seemed to happen to me. It just internally didn't feel like this overwhelmingly, uncontrollably powerful force. It felt like, "oh hey, that's happening to me, all right, deep breaths, focus on something else".
I'd be somewhat interested in other men's experiences of this. It's not something I really talk about with other people, since it's obviously a personal and embarrassing subject, and I suspect that the kinds of men who talk about it openly are self-selected for being uninhibited and horny.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
2hr ago
I've always found it weird that that concept came out of feminism when women are the more neurotic sex. It's like someone took a bad comedy skit from the 50s about the husband complaining his wife is a battleaxe and just flipped it around.
But yeah it's a terrible idea that saps the fellowship between all humans. Treating the duties of a friend or lover as a form of labor is yet more unwholesome commodification of basic decency. It's evil, there's little else to call it.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
I also said that there is a LGBTQ+ page.
I think that's called "burying the lede". "There being a LGBTQ+" page does not give full picture of what he supports and plans to do.
I'm not sure what the point you're striving to make here is? That he's not campaigning on lunchbucket stuff?
No, the thing you said just before that: "seems like a specific attempt to do what many class-first leftists have proposed doing"
The last person I'd trust on giving a honest estimation on what the particular place of importance of trans policies is in his current campaign is an one-issue anti-trans campaigner like Billboard Chris.
You know you can just listen to what the guy says himself in the clip, instead of relying on said campaigner's summary?
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
2hr ago
I also said that there is a LGBTQ+ page. The point is that the main trust of the campaign is the lunchbucket stuff, not the woke stuff.
I'm not sure what the point you're striving to make here is? That he's not campaigning on lunchbucket stuff? The last person I'd trust on giving a honest estimation on what the particular place of importance of trans policies is in his current campaign is an one-issue anti-trans campaigner like Billboard Chris.
In some ways I'm surprised that it's not more popular among nerdy male rationalist types. That's the kind of demographic that gets really into Campbellian monomyths, loves mythology, and is also obsessed with creating and then tweaking complicated symbolic languages. It's exactly the sort of thing I would expect to be popular.
But for some reason tarot is female-coded, and maybe that's a killer?
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