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Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

Haha I like how you've written this. This is good advice. Yes, my question was more about creating a social circle. I haven't had one that isn't digital in a long time. The digital ones go pretty well! People think I'm funny and I have a pretty good amount of social capital, and I've really gotten a lot more confident about talking to random people about whatever the hell I want to talk about or what I think they'd be interested in. But they're all men and they're all around the country and they can't help me. Same for my family. I also live in a rural area that hemorrhages successful young people, and my brother is a loser too, and my mom isn't in any social circles that have any young single women, and my dad's crazy and far away and a loser too, and my grandma is only friends with other old women.

I went on some language learning apps to try to get some practice talking to actual women, and it seems many of the conversational skills transfer over, but there's still a lot I don't know, and there's so much that isn't conveyed that it would be pretty difficult to meet someone and marry them that way. I thought it would be easy, but women apparently don't think coldly about the benefits of American citizenship like a man would, and international college-educated women with interest in languages are similar to American college educated women, in that they don't even know what they want, and marriage isn't even on the radar until later in their lives.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

I don't think this is true. I think most humans are generally unwilling to murder, either out of instinct, moral training, or fear of consequences. Finding someone both willing and able to murder your opposition is, I'd guess, rare.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

That's largely because trans subverted and devoured feminism wholesale

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

No, they'll often insist on the "Yes, sir" or "Yes, officer". (and troopers get mad if you use "Yes, officer")

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

You're being silly.

And yet my view can explain behaviors that your view cannot.

It's one thing to break out the civic resistance card for obvious government overreach. It's quite another to suddenly be a principled libertarian when one is getting a speeding ticket or being pulled off a train by the constables. It has all the sincerity of an atheist in a foxhole. It is transparently self-serving and no one is stupid enough to fall for it.

Rather the opposite. It's very easy to say one should only resist for "obvious government overreach" and then whenever one is in a situation where resistance is an option (though not a prudent one), chicken out by saying that one didn't involve enough overreach. Any libertarians resisting speeding tickets or being pulled off a train are living by their principles even when it is harming them.

But we aren't talking about libertarians here, just people who don't want to eat shit. Nobody, as I said, except the most beaten-down milquetoast PMC, likes to eat shit. Most people always do, because they don't want to be literally beaten and/or jailed -- although they'll rarely admit that this is the reason. Some people, for various reasons, have a higher tolerance for pain and social punishment and/or a lower tolerance for shit-eating. Or just a higher time preference. That's all there is to it, really.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

Chicago, west side.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

Part 1: Actual Response To Your Question

First, you're thinking far too specifically about "where" to meet women instead of the general "how" strategy. If your total approach is to go to physical spaces that are disproportionately women and then just hang out, your odds of success are low. Women are not fish, there's a lot more to it than a raw numbers game.

The beginning and end of all "game" advice is that heterosexual dating is a sexual marketplace where men's primary (not only) value driver is their social esteem. If you don't have that social esteem / social proof, it almost doesn't matter what you look like. If you're movie star level of handsome, you'll be fine. If you were that, you wouldn't be asking this question in real life.

So your strategy should be "how" based. And that "how" is simple; have a good and dynamic social life. With everyone. Don't just go to Yoga studios to try to pickup chicks. This is anti-social and weird. Don't just play DnD in your buddy's basement. This is anti-social and weird. Don't just post on The Motte and culture war hard discuss issues of the highest importance with the smartest people on earth. This is anti-social and weird. Instead; do all of these things. Can you think of a thing that involves other humans that you enjoy doing? Do it. Then, once you are doing this thing, find ways to build social connections with people. Fast forwarding the tape, eventually you will have a circle of friends who do things and (social things). They will invite you to these things if you aren't anti-social and weird (see above) and, quite often, there will be other people whom you have not yet met at these things. You can repeat the same process to become friends with these new people. Keep repeating this now compounding process! If you do that, with intent and regularity, eventually some of these people will be women. In fact, they will be women you find attractive and fun and interesting and and and.

But now you have what we were seeking in the beginning - social esteem. When people say "Yay! oats_son is here" when you arrive at the thing you are all doing together, the people who don't know you (yet!) will naturally be signaled (memed?) into believing you are a person that causes other people to be happy when you arrive. This is a massive, massive super power.

Part 1 TLDR: Go make friends (male and female) who do things you like to do. Be their friend for an extended period of time.

Part 2: Where I am less snarky, but more directly cranky

Treating dating like a problem to be solved, a system to be designed, an achievement to be unlocked is pretty much a guaranteed route to misery at worst and a particularly perverted version of the hedonic treadmill at best. If you try to setup such a system, you may be successful in "getting laid" and you'll be successful directly in proportion to your anti-social capabilities and the emotional frailty of the other party.

Okay, okay, so you're not a committed pervert, you just want to, ya know, casually date a cool chick or whatever. This is just a less salacious version of the same problem in the first paragraph. Specifically define the desire you have. Is it a need for emotional support? Maybe work on doing that yourself or with the help of a professional (who is also aware of the problem). Involving another human being casually - and under the pretense of romance and possible sex - is a pretty shitty thing to do, don't you think? Perhaps the need is to stave off loneliness. Totally reasonable. Why does this context have to be romantic?

Now let's say you're really in it for life - you're searching for a wife. If this is the case, then take all of my points above about meeting women through your social circle and multiply them by 10. There is nothing more effective than weeding out poor mate matches than a well bonded social circle of people who share a values system. And you not only want this filtering mechanism, you probably need it. Love is a hell of a drug and it clouds our judgement. Having multiple people who can offer you multiple different perspective on your prospective beau while sharing your essential value system is a big freaking deal.

"So you're saying I should let me friends pick my wife for me?" Yup. Preferably your parents and family provided you don't have some sort of horrible relationship with them. But, failing that, yes, your friends (note: I do mean close, good, committed friends here, not your drinking buddies).

Part 3: In which I relent and my inner Bro gives you that sweet sweet dope you crave

  1. Don't go to structured environments with lots of women to try to pick them up. Dance classes, yoga, etc. This is because the people going there are going there on purpose, it wasn't spontaneous or organic. This means they want to do the thing and not have to deal with a guy thinking he's being slick. Instead, go to more broadly social and public events; farmers market (Superbad was right), First Friday Style events, harvest festival things (seasonal). Think of a totally outdoor or large space format that has a lot of different stuff around - booths, restaurants, whatever. The benefit here is that quick and casual conversations are totally fine because they can be quickly exited without hurting anyone's feelings. Example: You see a nice looking lady inspecting, I don't know, artisinal almonds at some booth, you walk up, inspect the almonds for a second and the make a comment in her general direction, "I though the ones with chocolate were as fancy is it got! a har har har har!" If she laughs back, okay start a conversation, if she doesn't (or does the exhale through the nose thing) she can simply drift off. No harm, no foul.

  2. Don't ask for a number, ask for a date. In today's attention economy, it's really hard to get people back to re-focus on you after you've broken contact. The idea that a girl is going to give you her number, be excited when you text (because nobody calls anymore), and then get re-excited enough not to ghost on a date has to be balanced against the fact that she's probably receiving 20+ matches per day if she's on an app and, if not, getting semi-approached by random guys with enough regularity (assuming living in a metro area). If you ask for a date, you'll get, generally, an honest response. "Um, sure!" = "Eh, maybe. I'll probably ghost you!", "Definitely" = "Maybe" , "Yes! I would love that" = Okay, looks like you actually got a date, guy. The point is you're soliciting higher quality information and, therefore, not wasting your time or getting your hopes up. I think it's funny that guys have this image in their mind of slow texting a girl for weeks (!) before asking her out as if she's pining away for him. The connection should be pretty quick and pretty powerful. If it isn't, why bother? Dude, because she's hot! moronic.

  3. Ignore everything in this section and re-read Part 1 again.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

Many argue that true virtue is altruistic, which only occurs when the result of your action is bad for you personally.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

Sounds like we're all in agreement then, resisting is the worse option.

Friday Fun Thread for September 19, 2025

Of course I am using KB&M controls, do I look like a console peasant?

Inventory management is a pain, worse that Skyrim without SkyUI: there's a perfectly fine character screen for managing your materia, but no, there's a separate screen for this and you can't just drag it into a free slot.

The confirm button in dialogue and combat is "move right", not "interact", so if you want to switch your target, you have to cancel the skill, select it and select the skill again.

You can have six active skills per character, but you have to split them into three banks.

If FF/RPGM Attack/Skill/Item arrows/confirm/cancel menu is bad because you want the player to keep one hand on the mouse for free aim and jump counters, why not use a radial menu that can be controlled from the mouse alone?

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

You're being silly.

It's one thing to break out the civic resistance card for obvious government overreach. It's quite another to suddenly be a principled libertarian when one is getting a speeding ticket or being pulled off a train by the constables. It has all the sincerity of an atheist in a foxhole. It is transparently self-serving and no one is stupid enough to fall for it.

No shit, being arrested sucks. Being ticketed sucks. But, as you can imagine, that's part of the deterrent value. Why would it be pleasant? Do you envision a police force that politely writes letters of warning that can be easily ignored and have no power to detain you?

The modal person saying these things is not a martyr for civil rights against a overpowerful constabulary: they are habitual rowdies grasping at straws, hoping that saying the right words will get them out of crimes they know they committed. It never works, and then they physically attack the dully employed enforcers of the law. See: the entire run of COPS, liveleak, etc.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

Wouldn't the woman most likely be a vegan or Buddhist or some other kind of weirdo?

Odds are high, but don't forget the rise of right-wing hippies into yoga and alt medicine and all that thanks to covid nonsense. The person you see struggling to keep their eyes from rolling during some woo statements might be on the same page as you.

I find myself quite repulsed by the idea of entering a yoga class.

The one I went to was definitely a "women's space" and my brain reacted accordingly, but in general the teachers wanted more students so they could make more money, and they worked overtime to avoid being sexist because that's mean and icky, so the overall vibe was hilariously schizophrenic and I could find something to amuse myself every time I went. Just about every session could generate a humorous anecdote.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

I feel like there's no need to actually say, "Yes, sir." I'm sure you would get the same effect if you say, "Sure thing, man." The main thing is to remain calm, show whatever papers or cards you need to show, and comply with whatever the local rules are until the cop leaves.

Tinker Tuesday for September 23, 2025

I am working on making my own video game... for the third time. I've started and abandoned projects like this in the past, mostly because I got bogged down in pedantic issues like making menus and saving/loading that were boring but necessary and didn't get to the actual fun part of my game design ideas, until I got bored.

I have slightly higher hopes for this one, partly because Chat GPT is making things a lot easier. I am self-taught at programming, so there's a whole bunch of features and functions that I just don't know exist or syntax that I don't remember, and I can just ask it "how do I do this?" or "I can think of three ways to solve this problem, which is considered best practice?" and it can give advice much faster than trying to dig through google and stack exchange, and often give me code snippets I can copy/paste for my specific use case. I'm finding the overall experience to be much less frustrating than before.

For the game itself, the idea is a roguelite dungeon crawler combining elements of Blue Prince, Stuck in Time, and Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. The idea being you have an RPG character with stats, you run around in a dungeon that you generate room by room by choosing one of three options and having to rotate and snap doors together, and then you do actions in each room which have a chance to pass based on your stats and cards you play to temporarily boost them against a difficulty. Each movement, room draft, or action costs you time and energy resources, failures cost health or have other negative consequences, and if you run out you die and have to restart. But with permanent meta-progress. Each unique room/action combination has a familiarity level which goes up each time you do it, and it costs you less energy based on its familiarity level. Additionally, while many of the actions give you more resources and short term powerups within a run, some of them instead cost bunches of resources but reward you with permanent meta rewards making you permanently stronger. So you run through the dungeon over and over again getting a little stronger each time, making it a little further and unlocking a little bit more.

This is one of my favorite gameplay loops in roguelites and dungeon crawlers in general. I know a lot of people don't like grinding, but I love it if it accomplishes a certain balance between grind and skill, where your progress is determined by a combination of how much stuff you've unlocked and how well you do, and doing well gives you more rewards faster. I don't expect the game to ever get polished to a point of commercial viability. Maybe if it reaches a sufficiently playable state I'll present it for free on GitHub. But the primary goal is just to make my own perfect game tailor-designed towards my own preferences where I can keep adding more content and more upgrades whenever I reach the end.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

See also: “do you know who you’re dealing with?” and “am I being detained?”

Lots of people will do unreasonable things when they sense a dominance game.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

It's still preferable to default to an attitude of helpful cooperation

Yes, but there's a difference between cooperation and utter submission. Some cops will be dissatisfied with the former and demand the latter, even when there's no logical cause for it. ("Come this way." "Very well, but you're making a mistake and you're going to regr-" "YES SIR." "Excuse me?" "Say YES SIR and DO AS I SAY. I don't want to hear another word or you're gonna get it.")

Far fewer cops than the media suppose are inclined to random acts of murder, but many like to lord over their power at a petty, schoolyard-bully level, without any practical necessity. I find it very plausible that lots of escalations of this kind are the fault of the cop for trying to "act tough" when measured, reasonable conversation was on the table before they started barking demands.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

You said their behavior was baffling. It's not baffling; eating shit sucks. They merely have a far stronger aversion to yielding in monkey dominance games, and likely a lower level of impulse control and a higher time preference.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

I do not think this is a valid interpretation of the text. How do you interpret "Love your enemies" or "pray for those who persecute you"? Where do you see your interpretation being modelled by Jesus or his disciples in the rest of the text? Where do they force their opponents to break the law? Peter cuts an ear off one of the men arresting Jesus; Jesus heals the man on the spot. How does that mesh?

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

It's probably a good suggestion, but I find myself quite repulsed by the idea of entering a yoga class. Wouldn't the woman most likely be a vegan or Buddhist or some other kind of weirdo? I dunno about that.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

"Sir" is one thing, but you'd only say "Yes sir" to someone in a position of authority over you. Which, of course, cops are, but it's not just civility to a stranger. If a stranger with no authority tells me "Walk this way", and I'm inclined to do as he says, but don't want to acknowledge him as a superior, the formal thing to say is more like "Very well". "Yes sir" is what you say to a teacher or a CO.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

"rape culture,"

You know, I feel like I haven't heard this one in a while now. Odd how fixations on these things fade, sometimes surprisingly quickly.

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

Dance classes supposedly have a very twisted ratio when it comes to men and women, but I've heard this can vary from location to location.

I'd like to learn myself, but, sadly, the evenings they offer for classes are already filled up.

Personally, I wish there was a local book club where I live; the one I attended a while back before covid was surprisingly fun, but nowadays I'm not willing to drive 50-miles one way to attend such a thing.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

I live near an East Coast city, and I too see masked-up young-looking people (seemingly) every time I take the bus or subway or go to the mall. They're not common, they're definitely a small minority, but they're common enough that I continue to notice them during my day-to-day times in public spaces.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

You can pack it up in as much high-sounding talk as you want, it's still showing your belly and your monkey brain knows it.

Yes, and? I didn't like dealing with a cop the last time I was stopped for speeding, but since I have an appropriate level of impulse control and time preference, I was able to balance that feeling against how much I would dislike an involuntary trip to the jail. I got a warning, life went on.

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

It's baffling that this progressive idealogy has been allowed to persist within the black community and survive contact with deadly consequences. Luxury beliefs are ones that privileged people can hold because someone else has to pay the costs. It does not baffle me that lefty white people believe that black people are oppressed and should fight back against the oppressive beliefs, because this doesn't cause lefty white people to get killed. It does not baffle me that college educated black people believe that they are oppressed and their lower class brothers should fight the police, because the college educated black people are much less likely to get themselves killed. It does not baffle me that black people believe that white people owe them and they should be given free handouts from the government or are morally blameless when they steal things, because this benefits them.

It does baffle me that lower class black people who get are at risk of being killed by police believe they should fight the police. This is not a luxury belief, this has deadly consequences. This is the kind of thing where skin in the game usually causes people to set aside their silly biases and obviously false platitudes and go "oh crap, this is wrong, something needs to change." Even if they verbally adhere to the same ideology, people at least turn hypocrite to avoid the consequences themselves. Someone who claims that homeless people should be given free homes balks at the thought of actually sharing their own home or neighborhood. People who want more government spending even if this requires higher taxes almost always want the taxes raised on someone else. The ideologies mutate into the most consistent and coherent form that just so happens to be compatible with avoiding negative consequences for the believer. I would not be baffled to have black people going on about how police are evil oppressors but you shouldn't physically fight them because they'll kill you. I would not be baffled to have black people going on about how police are evil oppressors that you should fight, and then not actually fighting them and hoping someone else will do it. I am baffled at them actually fighting the police in non-negligible numbers. The ideology, at least the version of it held and professed by black people, should have mutated to avoid this outcome the majority of the time. But it hasn't.