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ThisIsSin

:when you get the answer to the halting problem wrong

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joined 2022 September 06 05:37:32 UTC

				

User ID: 822

ThisIsSin

:when you get the answer to the halting problem wrong

2 followers   follows 3 users   joined 2022 September 06 05:37:32 UTC

					

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User ID: 822

Really hard to kill a tank with your AR-15.

Why would you need to kill a tank with an AR-15? AR-15s are for shooting the people who have control over where those tanks go; a tank that doesn't show up to fight is no different than a dead tank, a voter that doesn't show up to vote is no different than a dead voter.

I will remind you that this actually happened to the guy who is currently in control of those tanks.

More generally, it's why soldiers in third-world countries all wear face coverings. Sure, maybe the drug cartel can't get through the tank, but they can definitely kill the families of the people driving those tanks, or the families of the people those tanks are used to provide cover for.

That's why the personal firearm is so powerful in terms of political change. Your enemy doesn't need to defeat the military; what it needs to do is to defeat you. And your enemy, if he's mad enough, can thus appear at any moment and delete you- yeah, it'll cost him, but that won't fix being dead.

Therefore I suggest that you structure your rule in such a way that the enemy (and his delete button) chooses to stay home. Because 2A means him deciding he's had enough, for any reason, is ultimately on the table.

Which gets us back to the existential angst about mass shootings, and my claim these are one-man civil wars. So, we could rule in such a way that people don't want to do that- which is what we want- or we could just ban the guns because we're too lazy and selfish to do that (and in so doing discard our ability to be that kind of political actor- naturally, those who believe in mob rule/Democracy and fancy themselves in charge of that mob are most in favor).


The days of Washington when an armed, motivated local population could defeat a great power (though not on their home continent) in open battle are long over

Yeah, you don't even need guns for that (though some AR-15s were indeed used here). If you want to resist the Federal government deporting the collection of humans you illegally trafficked, all you have to do is complain real loudly about it.

Well, in the early 1940s, the US government would just straight up pay violent men who wanted to shoot people. This was also the case in the early 1950s, and the late 1960s to early 1970s, and from late 2001 until about 2006 or so (I know that war went on for a bit longer but the enemy had been more or less completely defeated by then).

In the later half of the 1940s up until about October 1973, there was an unprecedented economic boom that meant you could quit school right at the cusp of biological adulthood (14-16) and have an easy middle-class existence until you retired at 55.

There were things to do and a future. Not so much now.

It is a heavily social contagion based phenomenon and if the median outcome is a few minutes and then the perp quickly taking the room temperature challenge, it will lose a lot of its glory.

This is why you don't hear much about church shootings any more- they just started wasting every jackass who tried it.

Pretty much only the north-westerners (UK, Ireland, Island) do the unarmed beat cop shtick.

There's a bit of rhetorical sleight of hand there since European nations don't draw a distinction between police and military (the UK does but they have both running around anyway; the fact the US intentionally divides them is a reaction to the problems that inherently creates, because when criminals are also inherently military targets, illegal speech is logically equivalent to waging civil war, and the US [being an extremely progressive nation] is obsessed with stacking the deck against itself so that if a civil war must be waged, it can be won).

[Such a civil war is why the police in North Ireland actually are armed, of course. I'm informed freedom of religion has a lot to do with why.]

Anyway, this permits an attitude of "the cops aren't as militarized" when talking to New Worlders (and it not be a lie), but at the same time conveniently ignores all the soldiers who are also patrolling. I've never seen a New World police officer with a rifle out, so the culture shock of "these people are armed to the fucking teeth, you can't even walk down the street without running into someone carrying an assault rifle- wonder what they're supposed to be protecting against? [Should I be taking cover right now?]" was quite apparent to me when I visited the Old World.

(Honestly, I don't want to go back to visit there partially for that reason, but at least it yields some perspective when understanding Outgroupers who are terrified that guns exist in the first place. Difference is that if I don't see their gun, they won't see mine, which is... also very much an attitude unique to New World nations, as I understand it.)


German patrol cars carry at least an MP5

I'm surprised; I'd figure they'd go UMP9/G36 like the French seem to have just because they're cheap if you buy in bulk and the main thing they need to do is look scary.

And around 80% of those suspects end up surviving, supposedly because the officers aren't mag-dumping when they shoot.

Or they're missing, or not actually getting good hits, or medical assistance is far closer at hand in Germany. Maybe all 3?

That is indeed the steelman of the case, and the direct cost of freedom. So (as I'll expand on in the sibling comment that misses the point a little) these are more properly viewed as a type of [civil] war death, and the dead citizens in this case viewed as soldiers on guard for that [civil] freedom to not be locked in cages.

One should expect them to be buried with full honors for this exact reason. We won't do that- this event will be memory holed because this ended in a fight against two straightwhitemen (the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems)- but the freedom side gives away the right to properly frame the conflict in terms of what is, from the anti-freedom perspective, that the sacrifice to the freedom part of the civil religion is being properly (and muscularly) acknowledged.

If you think that's too harsh, let teachers and social workers anonymously blacklist specific children they think shouldn't be trusted with a gun when they grow up.

They already do this in a process called "voting". The blacklist they've settled on is "literally all of them", which is why the compromise is on "scary features" mostly as an effort to make kids self-select out of wanting guns because it's boring.

The misunderstanding of how guns work is a feature, not a bug. Fixing the remaining violence from straightwhitemen would require the least bit of attempting to understand them, and why understand them when you can just hold up examples of misbehavior to justify oppressing them mitigating their inherent risk further?

So does a pocket pistol, if you shoot the guy enough times in the same-ish place. Shotguns are only .32ACP tier on a per pellet basis, they just make up for that by firing 9 of them at a time.

It’s a distinction most people don’t make, but then again, most people don’t understand why machine pistols exist, for magdumping for an audience on Guntube isn’t the best way to demonstrate that.

I would have expected any obvious red flags from the shooter to come out by now.

"Straight, white, male" was released immediately per media protocol.

though I’m not sure what the point of [prosecuting the mother] is

Chilling effect on the tens of millions of citizens whose kids have access to the gun cabinet- again, standard protocol. Arresting mothers who let their kids out to play is standard protocol for the same reason.

There would have to be a lot of new legislation in place to be able to spy on someone enough to track their pre-crime enough to involuntarily commit them if they’re planning something crazy like this.

Gun bans (and restrictions on liberty more generally) make far more sense if you consider them a form of involuntary commitment.


He then made his way to the special education classroom just to the left of the entrance and fired as many as 15 rounds.

So he came with a full tube (Maverick 88s usually hold 9) and a few shells in his pocket. No need for stealth if you can't just walk in, I guess. An over/under (or a .22LR, for different reasons) is about as effective; indeed, there was a case in the UK where someone did that.

Shotguns (in anti-personnel loads) are not meaningfully distinguishable from taping together 9 handguns so they all fire at the same time. Now, handguns are generally poor at killing things and are hard to use as a tradeoff of being able to wear the gun everywhere, but that assessment goes out the window once you consider you can shoot more than one time. A good hit from a shotgun with 00 buckshot is ballistically equal to dumping 9 rounds from a handgun, and it's far easier to get all 9 pellets on target with the shotgun (in 1 trigger pull) than it is 9 rounds with the handgun. Worse with #4 buckshot, as equivalent to an entire 25-round magazine of .22LR.

Most parents don’t suspect their kid will shoot up a school.

Sometimes you really do just have to lock mental cases away. The alternative is death by gunshot.


More scattered thoughts:

We could probably use more male teachers. If men go for careers and you can't make a career out of being a teacher, maybe we really should have paid teachers more?

We're only serious about affirmative action in one direction, and it's related both to why "straight, white, male" are red flags. One notes an inverse correlation between the number of male teachers and the increase in mass shooters; in my opinion this is not a coincidence.

Apparently, gun murders are not as important as being antiracist! That dovetails nicely with this other incident where a mass shooter was released to home detention

Tends to happen with trans shooters for the same reason.

or that drugs and robberies and organized crime aren’t the cause as much as “young men getting mad at each other”

2A states "you have the right to retain the means to wage a civil war" (as does 1A; the pen is mightier, but without 2A it's only mightier on paper). Drugs and robberies and organized crime, as an extension of "young men getting mad they have less than other young men and taking it out on everyone else by waging private military action", are literally what 2A is for.

2A advocates, especially old men, tend to be really uncomfortable with that; that's why they compromised on gun control in the first place. Modern young men now see those old men as those who perpetrate the drugs and robberies and organized crime (but in a far more passive-aggressive way), which is why the Overton window has shifted [back?] towards military firearms.

Neither is "Have you considered shifting the balance of power towards the outgroup? Surely it'll work this time". Socon/crypto-feminist system prompt meets equality/liberal system prompt, tale as old as time.

Really, though, it's more a disagreement on how valuable sex is, or when the payment was made for it. The woman claims the intent of selling sex was buying a future privilege that was then revoked, so the woman "sues" for breach of contract.

Contract violations are not generally criminal matters. Women find it very convenient that this one is, because criminal accusations force the matter into social court, complete with scarlet letter if they win their lawsuit. This is a privilege thing; it worked OK back when a lack of automation meant you had to make a sex and obedience contract called a "marriage" just to get a meal.

But to properly address a contract violation, you have to set the value of sex at some dollar amount. Contracts go bad and people feel taken advantage of in various ways literally all the time- that's half of what divorce court exists to adjudicate. Of course, you can't get into a contract if you don't offer your services in exchange for money, and as any crypto-feminist will tell you, sex isn't a requirement for life.

Of course, you'll recognize that as "a woman must get over the fact that inherently means she's a whore". Naturally, that conflicts with female privilege (and father privilege).

The obvious solution is "fathers have zero privilege in an individualist society; if women can't psychologically handle the act of putting an explicit price on sex, save it for marriage, simple as". But letting more liberated women operate that way means they might get more male rewards, which is something feminists/fathers cannot abide that.

In the general case, is the answer to why a conservative/progressive can't leave a meritocratic system alone. They don't believe being less [morally] capable should result in an unequal outcome. Progressives literally say this, it's just that letting them do it means you let bad people set the rules because demanding them follow the rules was "too hard", and those people cannot deliver anything other than a crooked outcome.

I, too, remember '80s movie posters.


I posit that a protagonist that is 'born awesome and talented, and even in his darkest moments he cannot keep himself from being competent' is by definition a man.

(By contrast, I posit that a protagonist that is 'born beautiful and virtuous, and even in her darkest moments she cannot keep herself from being valuable' is a woman.)

So, while we're on the topic of Eastern media, I submit Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid as being a male Cinderella story that features a man protagonist [complicated by the fact "he" is female; this is played completely straight with the Lucoa/Shouta relationship though].

(Elsewhere in this thread, I discuss Onimai, which is a female Cinderella story that features a female protagonist [complicated by the fact "she" is male]. It's very explicit about that last part.)

The 'muscular barbarian standing on top of his slain enemies carrying [her as a] scantily clad girl' image is the root of how Tohru sees Kobayashi (and how Lucoa sees Shouta, to the point of explicitly offering him this[1], and on the opposite side how Mihari views Mahiro [though in a more implicit way, which is how she can get off to [what sounds like] him getting off, while still being repelled by actually grabbing his male-ness]).

[1] Which is also why men [including Shouta himself, of course] tend to find that uncomfortable- because that creates, in large degree, a demand for future 'muscular barbarian does the thing' whose results aren't even directly measurable; and leads to instant existential anxiety about "seller decides it no longer wants that future" on the demand side that is fundamentally not resolvable. (Kobayashi's situation is a bit more stable, for she is already established and Tohru has already accepted that what Kobayashi does qualifies as 'muscular barbarian [carrying her]'.)

Actually, most mid to late '00s Western cartoons have this going on; usually Lauren Faust/Craig McCracken works feature characters that have similar inversions, but I remember it being more than just them.

I wouldn't class "a man gets sole custody of a baby he committed a sex crime to father and is now extracting child support from the victim" as simply "rare". Not even if she marries her rapist.

They're based on replacing welfare given to the custodial parent.

Yet it's abundantly clear that if the woman doesn't consent, she can unilaterally and forcefully terminate all her child s[upport] whenever she chooses no matter what the other parent believes, even if they have 100% joint custody (usually called 'a marriage').

Sure, you have to argue that you were insane in front of a judge in the most extreme case, but even in that case your peers will nearly unanimously agree you have the right to end that agreement whenever you so choose because that Protects Women.

The entire problem is that the double-standard that used to be viable (because it was compensated for in other areas of life by the conditions of reality) is no longer so, and the compensation traditional human instinct assumes is there... isn't. There were always other more even-handed ways of dealing with this problem but those seem to have been deliberately ignored.

But hey, US foreign policy even in nations it was supposed to be building is "permit the local aristocracy to get its boy-rape on so the women could have a future"- I guess if nothing else, it's a consistent approach.

Can you think of a male Cinderella story where the male protagonist kind of just has awesomeness and acclaim dropped into his lap?

Sword Art Online?

No lack of punishment for false rape claims.

Feminism empowered this woman to act that way; maybe we should try something different than "more feminism"?

ME2 isn't even really an RPG any more

True, but neither was ME1; when I went back to play it, it was ME2 except emptier, even less of an ability to re-class (hope you picked Soldier so you can use more than just a pistol), and without the Vanguard charge. I found the other non-gun-related abilities very difficult to determine if they're even doing anything, and most of the others boiled down to "press 4 to remove Marauder's Shields".

Interestingly, I'd argue that the ultimate evolution of Mass Effect's formula is Doom 2016 (Eternal turned that up to 11, but sadly the great sound design from 2016 reverted to... literally just fart noises). In those games, every power you could get in Mass Effect is a gun, and cycling through the powers (and figuring out which to start with) is how you win the fights.

Multiple marriages and divorces, mostly caused by his inability not to cheat.

Well yeah, because he's a giant slut [denotation only]. Which is the entire reason he even can function in oncology; if I recall correctly, that's stated more or less explicitly even outside of the traditionally sexual (there's one episode that's explicitly trying to get him to put out a different organ to fix a friend and long-term patient).

Interestingly, I think that's also what allows him to get along long-term with House. Both of them are in it for the love of the game (and receive the love through the game of driving back physical reality [House, stereotypical male trait] and driving back emotional reality [Wilson, stereotypical female trait]). I feel as if the larger conflicts in that series arise specifically when the foundation of that relationship breaks down, or at least that's the impression I get from the clips.


Weakly held opinion: perhaps the reason that neither men nor women can tolerate depictions of women with female character flaws is because it exposes a strategic liability that hurts them more than men would be if acknowledged? Maybe the framing should not be "Women are Wonderful" as it should be "the consequences of Women Not Being Wonderful are way more destructive than they are for men, thus, the trade-off human instinct makes for men always being flawed punching bags is that they're the only ones who may be Great in the end"?

Maybe that's the root of why female characters doing that (re: "Mary Sue") feels so uniquely uncanny vs. the male version of this, which is... well, Superman?

If that is the case, the issue with Modern Day Media is fundamentally a reflection of Modern Writers growing up in a Modernity that [for various reasons] is no longer able to naturally instruct Modern Humanity about why that compromise was made.

Then, the vanity of modern generations decried can be properly seen as rational- for when that compromise is no longer base reality, other concerns, like claiming that 'oh, you just want that because it's your instinct, and so we'll put all our effort solely into owning the Cons shitting on the Lesser Human Beings'... well, that makes sense too, as does the inevitable rejection of their works when they go bankrupt (for human instinct is ultimately what makes stories resonate).

[And then, due to the fact women use 'is already aware of that knowledge and bold enough to capitalize on it' as a differentiator between men, women cannot instinctively self-moderate on what they choose as a filter. So, by the time they figure out they need to be screaming that from the rooftops to get men to finally approach them... it's too late.]

...oh, wait, maybe that's why progressives feel no dissonance when calling themselves liberals, isolate 'Ref 1', because that's what liberals are famous for doing, and they interpreted the reason why we did that purely as hatred for the old ways (and... not going to pretend it's not some of the time) rather than the pride and joy that comes from doing a new thing.


and there are explorations during the series of how maybe this is kinda messed-up co-dependent that is not so good for either of them.

An observation one could perhaps make of any successful marriage. (Maybe marriages that don't have those flaws are not stable solely because they don't come with their own continually/tacitly acknowledged costs simply because otherwise there's no strongly defined right and wrong with respect to the other partner?)

in the same way that gloryhole stuff is more about the story than the actual pragmatic rocks-getting-off bit

Sounds girly as hell to me. What kind of story is even supposed to exist for a random dick through a hole other than the object-level details?

but they come with their own infohazards -- reacting to a grindr ping is now a test of its own.

Come on, if you're going to say that...

Mass Effect 1 is a love-letter to a very particular architectural style common to Canadian government buildings in the 1980s that is now largely disappearing.

(Noveria is literally just Edmonton, and the highway to the danger zone is exactly how the roads look after a snowstorm, just with less Geth.)

Other than that, yeah, ME1 was still leaving the KOTOR school of live-action D&D game design and as a result the gameplay was kind of ass. And you couldn't even romance Garrus. And yeah, they did get better in 2, and way better in 3, but by the time they had figured out how to make a fluid third-person shooter that didn't randomly send you 100 feet into the air the only thing you got to pick was what color explosion you wanted.

(Maybe it says something about me that when I first played ME2 so long ago I was actively disappointed that I couldn't romance the only party members you can't, in fact, romance? Or at least, the two that don't get sexual pleasure from headbutting you. I kind of get why you can't do either one of them since their 'routes' wouldn't be meaningfully distinguishable from the plot and loyalty missions, but like...)

I go to sign up for sniffies and at one point it asks you "Are you a real cruiser?"

Maybe I need to buy a Dodge Ram 2500 and grow a beard or something.

If you desire to change the class of naval vessel with which you are publicly associated, perhaps you should instead consider a Corvette?

I know there was a chapter later in the manga where Mahiro was visibly uncomfortable when his dick spontaneously regrew, beyond what would be required by simple practical concerns about being "found out".

I think I missed that one; I got through the first 3 volumes (as in, where the show left off, AIUI).

But then I looked at the latest volumes and the other related doujins (specifically about one of the other boys) completely convinced me that the transness is only important inasmuch it creates space for the development of authority -> 'manliness' on Mahiro's part.

That's the part that's anti-trans (femininity as means, not as end). If it was pro-trans (as in, 'he doesn't want to exhibit the primary/attractive characteristics of a man, and maybe he gets a sexual thrill from not doing that', or 'femininity as end') he would only be participating passively (or get over being terrified with physical contact with the other girls) and that's not quite what I observed.

(Like, look at episode 100. Does the cat-Mahiro imagine spot really scream 'Mahiro is enjoying being submissive and breedable' there? Why would he set himself up as the dominant partner in the exchange if the entire point was getting off on the submission? It's more gay than trans in the sense that the narrative takes pains to clarify that Mahiro [who... still continually appears to perceive himself as a man] is far more interested in being a sexual object to (and by extension, dominating) Yuta/Minato than anyone else [and at least by chapter 50 still doesn't yet see himself as authorized to dominate the girls, which is the kind of thing I'd expect to be present in a pro-trans fantasy]. In 67, he's notably not dysphoric about wearing male-appearing clothes or being called a boy.)


I will admit this is also contingent on a particular definition of 'trans' that isn't just 'changed gender'- it's that plus the attendant overeager lipstick-lesbian sexuality that has to be present, and that's missing in this case. One might even go so far to say it doesn't make sense to evaluate 'definitionally transgender' solely from a physical/male-only perspective considering the claim that framing isn't sufficient is literally in the name.

But I know for sure that if there is a third gender, that this is media that clearly represents it, and that I am probably of it.


acting like a dommy mommy to Takumi.

But she really doesn't, though; that's the entire reason I found it strange. If that was the point it'd have ended with Takumi in either permanent chains or something like that, but Takumi's active participation is required for the endings to occur how they do (they either die together, or die fighting each other).

That's not usually how that trope/fantasy goes- or at least, not my understanding. But maybe I'm missing some required reading; I'm sure you could fill me in.

there are modern examples now like Onii-chan Wa Oshimai that are decidedly pro-trans

I don't actually think that one's pro-trans either; there's a bunch of stuff Mahiro does that doesn't make sense if it was. A guy who plays a thousand ero-novels (or is in it for the sexual pleasure) should know perfectly well how female anatomy works and not be turbo-embarrassed about being the opposite sex (and if it's the line the show wants to push, bigger breasts), but none of those things appear to be true. My assessment of it being anti-trans strengthens when considering what Mihari in particular says and does (where she appears to indicate attraction to the male qualities of female Mahiro more than anything else, which are actively offensive to anyone bearing the modern Western feminist/trans-validation viewpoint which state that anything emblematic of masculinity [in someone who is not currently male] is bad).

Compare that to a show I think is pro-trans, Blend S, specifically because of the way Hideri acts. He doesn't say he's trans but the way he acts is pretty close to the way ex-men do (the boundary-blindness he has is there, but he lacks the uncanniness so it's not as apparent), in contrast to Mahiro who really doesn't. You might say the same thing of Baka to Test considering the entire joke around Hideyoshi and passing in the most inconvenient way possible at the time, but that's generally a throwaway bit to greater degree than Hideri.

There were many confused comments online about Onimai

It's also one of those things (that I remember you mentioning about Nietzsche, actually) where as soon as you try to take the easy way out by importing a bunch of biases/privileges/facets of reality you're Big Mad about, it renders itself completely illegible. "Sexualization" (and the related "pedophilia" and "muh soggy knees") are the trump cards one typically deploys to fully disengage from a work that exceeds one's capacity for analysis.

Most of the Onimai complaints are like that, it seems- the work is not commenting on those things that don't fucking matter. (Which most of the YouTube videos about it also seem to miss; the fact Mahiro starts as a shut-in is set dressing for the plot, this isn't a serious analysis of the effects here.)

The thing to remember here is not so much that Mihari wants to fuck Mahiro as it is that gender-change swaps the power dynamic to one where it's inherently safe for Mahiro to exercise the [since atrophied] agency, which is the entire reason why Mihari was and is attracted to him[1], which is a key to female attraction (and one that men instinctively discourage one another from seeking because, if you are a man, it's net-negative for another man to understand women better than you- this is the male mirror-image to slut-shaming). Or in your own words,

Broadly speaking, if a male can’t get laid on his own, then he shouldn’t be having sex; social engineering efforts to the contrary would be dysgenic.

Which is also why I said that it's the mother's job (or the sister's, if they like you enough, as in Mihari's case- maybe the author has some personal experience of that) to make sure their men recognize this, because clearly, nobody else will (I do agree that it is dysgenic for sons of mothers too instinct-bound to understand this to reproduce). And so any man that feels the need to propagate this information is clearly malfunctioning for the same reason women who want casual sex are- you'd have to be autistic/self-destructive/sufficiently devoid of immutable gender instinct to do those things simply because they are fun and rewarding to do [your instincts cannot account for technology unless they were weak to begin with... a condition more common in the "autistic"].

And it's that dynamic which men don't tend to understand the inherent sexuality of for women (complicated further by certain women having an incentive to not understand it): works can be intensely sexual with scarcely a bulge or nipple exposed (re: Adolescence). But once men get caught in the simplest possible trap of sexuality their body will respond to (i.e. "they see boobies and a guy who is now a girl") it's just the standard impotent rage.


Kodaka obviously understands this; I believe that's why his writing is popular with the types of women who also understand that (generally by writing the protagonist in such a way that he's as emotionally available as you'd want him to be, which is easier in VNs because that's where the narrator lives; his protagonists are like this more often than not- the less this is true, the weaker his writing becomes, in my opinion).

Said protagonist is, at that point, either equal to or slightly lesser to you in the sense that you're not inherently threatened about self-inserting on top of him, but you're not burdened by the requirement to do that; you're still witnessing his ability to actually do the work such that he remains sufficiently interesting to keep playing with.

The V'ehxness route from Hundred Line is this at its most blatant. I found it out of place because from a purely tactical standpoint it makes literally zero sense to do what she does, and every single one of that path's endings involves her actively driving the protagonist to function in a way worthy of her [even though that destroys them both in 3 of the 4 endings, if memory serves]. (Of course, the choice to be that ruthless/worthy begins with selecting Tsubasa to explode simply because it is the choice you make if you only care about your team by the numbers; a very V'ehxness thing to do on its own.)

But all of his better protagonists are like this. Makoto isn't memed as best female protagonist for no reason (and Takumi is very much Makoto 2.0, much like Hiruko is Kyoko 2.0, Tsubasa is Aoi 2.0, Moko is just Great Value-brand Sakura, etc.). And then there's Rain Code where the protagonist is basically a middle schooler (and treated a lot more sexually than any Danganronpa game treated its protagonists, with the sole exception of V3's love hotel), to say nothing of UDG.


[1] The first close encounter with Momiji only makes sense if she's both younger in apparent age and a tomboy (which she is) specifically because it's too early in the story for Mahiro to be comfortable engaging with anyone else with more developed girl hardware or software. (Actually, all of the girls in the series are like that; you have the girl who only deploys her hardware offensively against 'enemy' women [which is what a gyaru is], the sportier one, the hyper-androgynous one, and the gay one- all of whom a man like Mahiro would find particularly easy to deal with given that those things largely predict an ability to co-operate with men.)

On that note, the later chapters (once the male characters have names) treat said male characters more sexually than the girls ever really are (outside of Mahiro pissing, I guess, but this is more an inversion-of-control thing which I don't feel like explaining further right now).

I see no real reason why tits should be considered crass

Tits/teats are animal parts. (So are 'breasts' with a side of medical textbook; men already understand this re: 'penis'.)

Tits are for cows (and before you say 'but it's not meant like that', consider what 'cowtits' means).
Chickens have breasts.

Humans have boobs. Uniquely, the word 'looks like' the object.


(For the others, 'melons' is ambiguous and bears a mandate on size; 'funbags' does that and is fundamentally unserious, as are 'gazongas' [and 'vajayjay']. 'Boobs' and 'tits' have diminutives these words lack.)

"My taste in men (or my lack of ability to judge character) resulted in my daughter having her life ruined in my care"

That's the mistake-theory explanation. Women are literally the character-judge gender, so I give them as much a pass for social "I didn't know better" as much as men get a pass for physical "I didn't know better". (Which for reference is "none".)

The conflict-theory explanation from the mother's side is "permitting my boyfriend to fuck my daughter is the cost of retaining a man who isn't otherwise attracted to me". (The social memeplex about this is sufficiently strong that the mother would have to have The (Anti-)Talk with her daughter about it.)

The conflict-theory explanation from the daughter's side is "claiming my mother's boyfriend fucked me will banish him". This is a natural consequence for any society in which the age of adulthood exceeds reality (since "if you don't like it here, just leave" is practiceable for both parties); you can see that in bodycam footage where the parent(s) say "just take him to jail".


than having them wonder if you were watching while your partner was fucking your daughter.

Traditionalist-leaning men and feminists already give women sufficient privilege to outright murder their children without ever having to confront the realization that they were bad people (or "all women are essentially retarded angels that could never", to borrow an adjacent turn of phrase).

Good for those like her, bad for gender relations.

I see no distinction between "making up problems where none exist" and "shooting women and children".

but I think because men like examining very complex and well functioning machines; men will watch hours-long YouTube videos on steam engines and industrial machinery and pore over complex diagrams and cross sections and so on

Or, as in the case of the Motte, examining a very complex machine that only barely functions, which means it was either not engineered at all, or engineered absolutely perfectly, and the most interesting questions come down to figuring out which category which component falls into (and what happens to the machine when it encounters stressors it can't handle without ripping itself apart, and how to tell that from normal operation).

her life isn’t actually very interesting

If it was- mainly, having significant amounts of authority such that those things were done automatically at her command rather than her having to do it herself (correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I think you mean here, for giving orders to other men is the mechanism by which average men accomplish something that makes them Great Men) it'd be discarded as "obvious men writing women, how boring".

What's worse is that that condition gives rise to a particular meme about women who are aggressive/oriented enough to do that; if you possess an instinctive understanding of gender roles (and correspondingly label "the one that gives orders" as "the male gender role"), the response and attitude towards that (by both genders) is, by that definition of 'gender', so casually anti-transgender that even the caricatures of it don't capture it.

And it's not like it's that great either for the "not supposed to be the protagonist" gender in the general case, since as you've described it's difficult to make that interesting, willingness to look for the interesting parts, and appreciate the difficulty of them -> the power of those who do them is nowhere near as universal a skill as it needs to be (especially when a society puts zero effort into that), and once devotion to "the protagonists" does start degrading you...


Ironically, the "men should never be permitted to act as if they were entitled to be attracted to us" comment by that sector comes from this specific sector; unfortunately, the women who weren't quite smart enough to figure out that advice was not applicable to them heard it and the social conditions at the time let them reify it. Which is the OP's point, right down to the disclaimer that it wasn't about trans people, because the common definition of what that actually looks like on the FTM side grates on the instinct about as much as the appearance of the stereotypical MTF does.