haroldbkny
5mo ago
I only skimmed her article, but I'm roughly the same age as you, and I think that neither of your descriptions sound accurate.
Farha's description sounds like every woman in college is compulsively having sex even though they don't really want to, and basically gets repeatedly laid then never spoken to again by every guy who pressures them enough. From what I've witnessed, it doesn't seem that the women around me were at all interested in one-night stands or fuck buddies. They mostly wanted to and did hook up with people, then get into relationships with those people and had sex in those relationships. This describes like 90% of the women I knew in college. I'm not a woman, so I may not know the full picture, but I do have my wife's perspective and many female friends' as well.
But you seem to describe a rather sexless college existence, and I definitely wouldn't say that college seemed like that for me or 90% of the people I knew. Granted I went to a very liberal and notoriously hippie-ish school and was involved in a number of coed communities, so maybe that made the difference. What sort of school did you go to?
haroldbkny
5mo ago
and those exploiting parasocial relationships with whales
What does whales mean in this context?
If I believed that there was a tattoo that perfectly encapsulated something essential about me (or my kids), and I knew it would do that forever, then I'd be in favor of such a tattoo. I just don't think that actually exists for me, or maybe anyone else. And it's certainly not gonna be the flaming skull head snake-rose combo. I do worry that people get tattoos these days for mostly bad reasons that won't hold up for any length of time. I talk to my friends who get them, and it sounds like they put close to 0 thought into their next tat, like "idk, I like owls so I figured why not get an owl riding a horse". And I also worry about the normalization aspect, too that you mention.
I suppose I also think there's a certain pride that I take in having unmarred skin, being my natural self, that I would like to instill onto my kids. A natural body is prettier than most tattooed ones. Tattoos are certainly addicting and people who start often end up having the opposite value, trying to think about always getting the next one, seeing how little of their body can remain natural.
I think tattoos have become ubiquitous in part because they allow anyone to showcase their taste. Whether it's good or bad, that's irrelevant.
How long does one's taste really last for before it should naturally start to change? Could tattoos have a retarding effect on one's growth as people struggle (subconsciously) to maintain their same taste for the rest of their life to not have buyers remorse?
haroldbkny
6mo ago
I actually made this post because I was at a community pool and noticed some mid-teen girls who seemed to be the extremely shy and introverted type, the type who I would have expected to be more reserved. And even they had a few tattoos on their arms.
haroldbkny
6mo ago
Why are tattoos ubiquitous these days? Almost everyone seems to have some where I live, even young teenagers. Are people really going to go the rest of their lives and be glad that they have a sagging triangle or cross or butterfly on them? How can I convince my kids in 5 years that they do not need or want to have one just to fit in, and that they're too expensive and most people will regret having them for various reasons?
It seems to me that there is likely a culture war component to this as well, as tattoos seem to be wannabe gangster, rebellious, and individualist, even though you'd probably be more rebellious just staying tattoo free these days.
haroldbkny
6mo ago
I don't know. I was also really surprised that Red Lobster could somehow botch a standard all-you-can-eat deal to the point of bankrupcy. Restaurants have been doing all-you-can-eat deals since 1947, and Red Lobster has been successfully operating restaurants since 1968. Why would all-you-can-eat suddenly have become unenforceable to the degree that Red Lobster can go bankrupt from it, when this doesn't seem to be a previously established pattern? Did something change about the enforceability of such deals? Something really does smell fishy, here.
I’m not sure this is true. I think most women explicitly prefer no interest to unwanted interest. If female-centric outlets started saying loudly, “don’t punish men for politely trying their luck” then the dynamics might change quickly.
I don't know if I really agree that the "revealed preference" of women is to have no interest as opposed to unwanted interest. Women who have tons of unwanted interest may say that, because of status signalling, virtue signalling, and because they may not know what it's like to actually have no interest. But women who actually have no interest may reveal the preference. For a glimpse of this, look at how single women in their late 40s and 50s behave and how aging women tend to lament the lack of the previous unwanted advances.
haroldbkny
6mo ago
with their usual mix of complete cynicism and complete idealism
That's a great way of putting it. My least favorite arguments I've had with the woke are the ones in which my opponent argues in this way as an attempt to excuse their worst aspects, like "every movement bends the truth, it doesn't make social justice bad just because we lie, too" or "so what if the woke encourages nosy busybodies and wokescolds? The conservatives do it, too". I've never known how to argue back other than just insisting that they should be better than stooping to low techniques then making excuses.
haroldbkny
6mo ago
I have, at times, suffered what seemed to me like episodes of minor existential horror contemplating the 'world' of narrative driven games like say, Half-Life 2. The protagonist exists in what is, essentially a linear corridor, and he can only move forward. Whatever he may want to do, there's nothing he can do but move forward.
I think I can relate to this a little bit. I have felt similarly, and also this feels to me to be related to a feeling I always have at the end of great games, and especially RPGs. The whole time, you're getting more leveled up, or maybe even you, the player, are getting more skilled. Until at one point, you have done everything you can do in the game. And then that's it. All the levels you've acquired that felt so dopaminergic, and all the skill you have is essentially worthless.
This also reminds me of One Punch Man. I think I remember hearing that the creator based it on the feeling of being overpowered in a video game. You feel like you could do anything, but there's just nothing to do.
To me, that's a lot of what real depression is all about. When I'm depressed, life to me feels like a hallway where I have no choice, and sometimes also feels like I could do whatever I want, but there's nothing interesting to do.
haroldbkny
6mo ago
Billionaire Jewish donors and powerful Jews in the media are working overtime to pull the most powerful levers possible to put out Israeli propaganda
I ask this out of curiosity: what Israeli propaganda are you referring to? I feel like I only ever see the following messaging these days:
- people and organizations denouncing Israel
- people and organizations staying as quiet as they can
- lone jewish people writing op-eds about how scared they are and how they think everyone is out to get them and they think everyone is antisemitic
I think maybe I only ever saw one billboard that was funded by a pro Israel organization that was specifically calling out Claudine Gay.
I could believe that well-situated individuals or organizations are using more shadowy means to put pro-Israeli pressure specifically on large organizations, but I don't really feel like I've seen much in the way of propaganda that's pro-Israel. I'm thinking of propaganda as big funded things like ads, flyers, commercials, demonstrations, people giving away free stuff, benefit concerts and generally things that are designed to change the mindsets of average individuals. Mostly things seem either neutral or anti-Israel, and certainly the popular mindset seems to be moving slowly towards anti-Israel, so I'm wondering what sort of things you're referring to.
Since then, the behavior of Israel, Zionists, and frankly Jews in general has made me hate Israel just as much as I hate Iran or Saudi Arabia
Once again, I am genuinely curious about what behavior you're referring to. This might be totally obvious to everyone, and I might just be the odd-man out simply because I don't pay attention to the news very much, but I want to know what things have you seen that have changed your mind. I have seen Jewish people and Zionists I know be very defensive and quick to call things antisemitic, but that's no different now than it was before, just ramped up a bit.
haroldbkny
6mo ago
It’s impossible to outrun a bear should it decide it wants to hurt you.
That's why we are not calling it by its secret name, Arth, we'd all be attacked before we could finish typing our post on the Mott----
haroldbkny
6mo ago
Was I the only person on the planet that went with "huh, that's a cool optical illusion"?
Was there another way to view it besides a cool optical illusion? Was there some crazy blue/gold dress controversy that I wasn't aware of?
haroldbkny
6mo ago
That's interesting, I was thinking of this slightly differently. Everyone talks about the hippie protests of the 60s as this big purposeful, meaningful thing that changed American culture for the better and were protesting a meaningless war, etc. This whole Columbia thing has gotten me to reconsider how much the hippie protests actually had a point from the get-go. Did they also start out, and maybe even stay, as a bunch of petulant teens complaining without having much of an agenda, or list of demands, or purpose? Did we ascribe the meaning and purpose to these protests after the fact, at least in some cases?
haroldbkny
6mo ago
I'm glad you posted this, because I wanted to rant about this, since it's the most irritating feminist trend I've seen since 2017ish, but I didn't know how to phrase any of it in a way that would be "leaving the rest of the internet at the door".
I do think that, like other commenters have called out, the trend is childish and virtue signaling, and no one is being sincere. I think takes like this:
If a bear attacks you, people will believe you, if a man attacks you, people will not believe you.
do more to show exactly what feminists think about men, as opposed to how women are actually victimized by men in society.
What is the difference between a bear and a man? Maybe that men are people and bears are not? Men have other people who love them, and trust them, and care about them. 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?
haroldbkny
6mo ago
The Kibbutzim are communes
That's definitely true. I don't know much about past Zionism, I guess, mostly just about the last 15 years, maybe.
In an interesting manifestation of the horseshoe theory, Jewish Zionists and the far right agree that the ongoing campus protests are expressions of a growing anti-Jewish trend in the US.
I don't really agree that that is horseshoe theory. The other end from the far right is the far left, which would definitely not agree that it's anti Jewish. Zionists are far from leftists, zionists and leftists have not seen eye to eye in... longer than I've been tracking politics. Zionists have always been close to conservatives in many respects.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
I had a fairly traumatic life event happen recently. It's made me think about whether I'm really leading the life I want to. I fill my life with lots of fun and educational media, and I value learning new skills a lot. I play several instruments and have several other hobbies, and I love getting better at these things. I'm a very successful software engineer at a big big tech company, building very niche systems, striving for operational efficiency and delivery of small new features.
But it almost feels like I'm filling my life with valueless hobbies, and wasting my time. These fill my time and keep me busy and somewhat happy, but they don't really make the world a better place or bring me closer to the people I love.
I wonder if I should be doing something greater with my life, to try to make the world actively better, instead of just existing in it. There must be something I can do. I feel like I worked so hard to become an engineer in big tech, and my skill set includes management skills, design and coding skills, and business skills. I'd like to leverage those skills in some way. How did one leverage skills such as these to try to do something that is more impactful? The sheer magnitude of the question paralyzes me, and I never end up making progress on it
These sort of traumatic life examination-prompting events happen every few years, and I usually just eventually go back to existing and doing what I'm doing. I don't know if that is if either me getting over the trauma which allows me to go back to normal, or if it is me chickening out from a greater calling, choosing a selfish comfortable and non impactful life over trying to actually make the world better. I have had also many traumatic (in a different way) events in the past that have ended up making me scared about my ability to maintain my life as is, so striking out on something new (especially if I don't even know what it is) is extra terrifying to me.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
I agree with you but I also want to play devil's advocate a little bit. Do you, and I, and others actually feel like it'd be better to have a society that values the strong over the weak? It's not hard to imagine how that sort of society could be dystopian, too.
And is it a binary choice, or is there a middle, too, where we can have the strong and weak valued equally, or strong is valued over weak, but not so much that we get the effects we're seeing in society today? If I had to choose a society one way vs the other, I'm not sure which I'd choose.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
Well, if that's the case, then it really is an echo chamber, and there's no point in anyone playing Darwin2500's role and arguing the counter point. Also we should probably also change the banner on the side of the site.
Realistically, you're probably right to some degree. But I do believe it's possible for people to change their minds, even if just in small ways. Then small mind changes lead to bigger ones. But people don't change their mind by being nagged, mocked, and provoked by an enemy. They do it when people make great points and relate to each other.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
Well, someone has to, if this forum is going to be anything other than a complete echo chamber
No, no one has to reflexively argue the opposite. A principled leftist would do more than just spitefully fight for the sake of fighting and as such turn mottezians further against leftism by providing examples of the ideology they despise. He would lead with empathy while providing legit counterpoints that open up people's hearts and minds and make them think.
I think you're correct. From everything I've ever seen of her, I don't think she's anti-trans, I think she's anti-men. That then cascades over into some anti-trans positions because she hates men, especially those who she deems as a threat to women, and she believes that trans women are actually just men who are infringing on female space.
But this is all a moot point, because in the court of public opinion, if you don't believe any person that they're trans, or if you say anything even remotely construable as questioning trans ideology, then you "hate trans people". And as you say, this simply becomes repeated until the point that no one questions it, and it becomes "truthy" (in the sense that Colbert used to talk about "truthiness").
haroldbkny
7mo ago
That's horribly short sighted from a consequentialist perspective, and not particularly rational to indicate that short term gains are worth degrading the value of truth and language. Just because you can't see the immediate negative consequences, or they're obscured, doesn't mean that they're not there. All of this lowering the sanity waterline is to blame for all the horribly contentious political strife going on, and increasing divide. If there's a civil war that happens, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that this sort of sophistry is not an insignificant factor.
Furthermore, I doubt most of the people who actually are promoting this sophistry would actually be okay with other people doing it as well. Saying "it's okay when we do it" isn't exactly a good look, or anything I think people should be aspiring to do.
haroldbkny
7mo ago
Whether or not the 1913 definition means what you're implying it to mean probably depends on exactly how you define consent, and how you define the boundaries of consent. Suffice it to say, based on what I was exposed to growing up in the late 20th century, it was my impression that rape referred to a violent brutal crime, and I'm sure that most others of my generation and geographic location would agree with me. Ymmv, perhaps
It's like Jonathan Haidt says, people form their moral judgements first based on disgust, then rationalize it post hoc. People will jump through many hoops to preserve their feelings of moral superiority, especially when it comes to protecting women and how women are treated. This, in my opinion is evidence that women are not oppressed. Everyone wants to think everyone else is oppressing women but they are the one of the few good ones.
Oh yeah, thanks!
Interesting. I was thinking maybe it had to do with channels like Casting Curvy.
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