SkookumTree
1yr ago
Yeah - the medical profession in present day America would not like that. Maybe a doctor could get away with that kind of crap in 1950 Alabama, but not in 2023 Alabama, not openly claiming racial animus. Even if it was legal.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Is it at least novel, interesting, or cool?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The Hock provideth.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
It is likely that it will be more or less understood that you will never have a partner. You aren't making a million a year, you don't have enough charisma for a career in politics, AND you are fundamentally disgusting on a deep visceral biological level due to autism or shortness or something like that. The best you can realistically hope for is someone that holds their nose and endures that disgust due to religious or personal convictions.
Are you charismatic enough to convince people to more or less go through Hell basically to make you happy? Are you able to hang in a contest of wills against a Navy SEAL or better yet the Saigon monk who calmly burned himself to death? Are you OK with being maimed, even killed, by your partner? Being a nurse and caretaker to someone who's addicted to something and only using you as an enabler? If you are OK with all of these things - and a goddamn saint to boot, AND you never make a social blunder large enough to be described in words - congratulations. You have The Right Stuff to be in a relationship.
Climbing Mt. Everest is probably easier; I think K2 is on a par with being in a relationship. Or maybe Everest - if you're doing it without oxygen and maybe solo.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Both, I guess - and that if you are unattractive, whatever your gender: where do you want the ambulances? What kind of tragedy would you like to endure? Is it worth it to be married with three children if at age 47 your drug-addicted wife runs you over with a truck while on a PCP bender, nearly killing you and costing you your right arm? I think it is.
I mean, hell: I think that people should freely choose to endure hardship and misery - up to and including death - rather than be awkward. Basically: the ideal man would sincerely prefer, in the absence of any compulsion, to be dead rather than have done his utmost to have become graceful. Something vaguely akin to the Spartans' conception of military honor, basically shaming a guy who was absent under orders from the Battle of Thermopylae into committing suicide-by-Persian, or the Samurai's conception of bushido, applied to social grace and to a lesser extent physical fitness, conscientiousness, and general life skills. And yes - if someone is not doing their utmost, occasionally they may need to follow the fate of Admiral Byng. But only occasionally, and even then I don't like the State participating in it that much. If some awkward guy gets killed for being awkward around a volatile bully and the bully gets a slap on the wrist, however...I think that is a good thing if it happens very rarely.
It is entirely reasonable to expect our young people to prefer being dead to failing to do their utmost to become fit, graceful, productive members of society, and I also think that in this country it is necessary for a lazy person to be killed from time to time to encourage the others. Better yet is that they freely choose to embark on a course of action that will make them graceful or dead. Although - again - I think that this should be very rare indeed; Byng was the only admiral executed by the Brits.
You need to work on yourself until you're attractive to women. Get into a long-term committed, monogamous relationship with a woman who can stand being in the same room as you. Your mindset will improve.
For that - as I am - I need to decide where I want the ambulances, more or less; I hope that this can happen without doing things that are considered predatory such as trawling homeless shelters for girlfriends. That being said - and it's gross and nasty as hell, as well as at best morally murky - maybe relationships for the unattractive are just straight up hell and fucking suck, and part of the whole point is being able to bear the opprobrium of society AND whatever shit your girlfriend is slinging. For what it's worth, I know guys that have been attacked by knife wielding girlfriends; one of whom nearly died to blood loss. This is reasonable to expect from people, in my opinion: who cares if you die to blood loss at age 29 because your crazy girlfriend stabbed you, you've been in a relationship and she probably goes to jail or some shit, meaning that your betters are better off and you serve as an example and warning to others.
This is part of why I am going on the Hock on February 13, 2024, in the Alaskan wilderness somewhere north of the Arctic Circle: because I sincerely believe that this is a kind of preparation for a kind of struggle that is considered idiotic and stupid by the standards of my society. Also, the Hock will expose me to life and death struggle, which I think makes men more attractive. It is also going to make me more used to enduring pain, misery, privation, fear, cold, and hunger for no good reason. That's valuable when you wake up in the ICU thirteen days after being very nearly killed by your crazy girlfriend, one leg laying useless and crippled for life, rasping out statements about how you loved her and it was worth it.
Dulce et decorum est, boyos.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
WWI poetry - especially Wilfred Owen. Gone too soon.
This is something I've been mulling over for a while: if you aren't lucky and fairly determined, as a man - maybe as a human being - you need to decide where you want the ambulances and the tragedy if you want a relationship.
This is a stage that many people pass through at one point or another, and it is admirable to have strong enough personal or religious convictions to attempt it. Maybe that means being stoically resigned to being sexually assaulted or raped because you're a somewhat awkward but physically attractive mildly autistic 17-year-old girl who wants to experience life and have a family someday. In that model, you accept that you are going to need to kiss some frogs to find your prince. And you have an immune deficiency, so you genuinely make your peace with the fact that those frog kisses are likely to lead you to a couple of hospital stays that hopefully don't give you permanent damage. Maybe it means accepting that your girlfriend might stab you because you stuck it in crazy to get whatever wisdom comes from sex or relationships; maybe it means being maimed at 48 by your wife and the mother of your three children and winding up nearly dying, losing a limb, and spending three weeks in the local ICU.
I think that this is admirable and respectable, that in ages past men and women endured similar dangers in order to be worthy, and that war for men and childbirth for women have been how these tragedies played out until very recently.
What's your take on this?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
English is not my native language
It is mine, and you could've easily fooled me into thinking you were a native speaker.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The Hock provideth.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Hmm. My personality changed at age 15 following a traumatic experience. I went from jovial class clown to quiet, somewhat intense, gentle nerd. Wasn't deliberate though.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
To some degree, yes. Especially given that you are a fairly conscientious and determined individual. While doctors aren't Navy SEALs, they can't be chumps in the conscientiousness department.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Hmm. That's interesting. There's a lot of possible explanations for this. The ones that come to mind are basically poverty and what you might call a cultural clash, especially if you are trying to make the jump from poor to middle class.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Here the girl doesn't want the true reputation of being a girl who gets drunk and sleeps with strangers, so she does something far worse - slander at the very least, quite likely perjury - but this is something she "need[s] to" do because it leads to her looking better in the eyes of society. No. This is evil behaviour and shouldn't be excused.
I mean, consent is murky when you are drunk.
Were they both equally drunk? If they weren't, did she deliberately get drunk in order to sleep with someone at the party? Was the guy mostly sober and deliberately targeting drunk women? What are the facts around this? It is possible that the guy is an asshole; it might even be that he is deliberately predatory and at best in a rather dark grey area.
He is at best...a little careless, and at worst a predator and genuine rapist. Guy's not a Boy Scout, but he's also not necessarily an evil rapist. Using the law to call this guy a "rapist" seems...disproportionate, there are a lot of legal ways to be a predator/asshole/piece of shit.
However, talking about "the defense of her reputation"...seems to imply an interesting culture, being charitable. Basically someone in a shitty situation who will face genuine victimization for getting a reputation as a "slut" and as such winds up getting a guy who's maybe half innocent tarred and feathered to save her own hide. Maybe if you're in high school and moving isn't exactly a live option, or if your family's going to honor kill you or something, that could be pardonable. Other than that I agree with you, more or less.
TL;DR doing this to go after assholes/rapists is a grey area and disproportionate unless he's actually a rapist, not just an asshole engaging in legal assholery. Doing it to defend your reputation is a shitbag move if you're a Westerner.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Ok, an extreme example, here is an extreme answer: before they review the tapes, the resident will be sent home, maybe put on administrative leave. Even after he is cleaned some people will keep whispering about the accusations. That is not a "no damage at all".
This is not what I have seen as a medical student at a US teaching hospital. Patient in the psych ER accuses resident of having raped her; IIRC, it was in an interview room. Of course it was utter and complete bullshit. I don't recall whether the resident was sent home for the day or not, but the tapes were reviewed within hours. By the end of the day the next day, the resident was cleared and all concerned just called it bullshit.
The resident had a couple things going for him:
-
He had video footage of all his interactions with this patient; he never even touched her, and that was corroborated by the tapes.
-
He was a resident; she was a schizophrenic psych patient brought to the local psych ER by police.
As far as I know, nothing happened to the resident - not even rumors. There were plenty of witnesses and plenty of videotape to prove his innocence.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Could be that this crap is a feature, not a bug. The timid and cowardly get got as do the awkward chumps that got too big for their britches. Persistent horndogs and competent predators survive, as do Chads.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Idk. I can see arguments for clemency if the 40yo nazi in 1955 is quadriplegic or has terminal cancer or needs nursing home level care because he has ALS or something. You are just moving him from a free world nursing home to a prison one.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
This doesn't even seem that good even if you are just trying to maximize the number of dead infidels!
SkookumTree
1yr ago
To some extent but not quite as far as "women can't go outside without male escort"
SkookumTree
1yr ago
How about this one: a patient in a psych ER accuses a resident or attending of rape. Cameras everywhere. They go through the cameras, realize it's bullshit, and nothing happens.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
In the end, it is likely that some arrangement between men and women will be reached.
Agreed. It's going to be different, given:
- Washing machines, broadly defined as readily available labor-saving home appliances that essentially eat electricity and shit household tasks.
- Birth control, broadly defined - the Pill, sure, but also condoms.
- Modern medicine: antibiotics, effective treatment for STIs, perhaps even AIDS treatment and prophylaxis.
A question: could the Sexual Revolution have happened in a world without penicillin? What would have happened to sexual mores and norms had AIDS remained as deadly as it had been in the early 1980s...and if there was no effective or reliable test for it?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Some things that are legal are still wrong.
Definitely agreed; a pretty central example is adultery. That's usually considered wrong - and yet is legal in most Western countries.
So too, marital rape was legal in 18th-century England; commentators at the time (Blackstone, IIRC) were of the opinion that it was odious and wrong but the justice system of the time couldn't effectively deal with it. Freedom isn't free; justice isn't free, you get the justice you pay for, in blood and treasure.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
In heavily Islamic communities, the view that women invite rape by being outside without a chaperone is often times so predominant that it is integrated into the law as well. Given the high levels of Islamic immigration into western nations, this is far from just an academic concern as well.
True. If they pull that crap over here in America, we'll fight 'em; these are essentially two mutually incompatible views of morality, male nature, and civilization. Besides, we've got all kinds of shit like guns and contraceptives and washing machines that they didn't have in the Middle East a thousand years ago - so that way of life and set of cultural norms is likely deeply maladaptive in a modern, industrialized society. It might have worked OK in its time, but using a camel caravan for hauling instead of an 18-wheeler isn't any good in 'Murrica or for that matter the West.
I gather that you are not terribly optimistic about my chances of surviving the Hock.
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