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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024

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Going by your other responses, I’ve misunderstood what you meant by “cuttlefish.” I suspect you’re conflating several very different groups on the basis that they all vote Democrat.

Did you know that the states with the lowest divorce rates tend to swing blue?

Did you know that the states with the lowest divorce rates tend to swing blue?

And those red states tend to have really high crime rates and welfare usage, despite supposed conservative advocacy for law, order and self-reliance! Do you think there could be any confounding factors being left out of your analysis?

Agreed. In this case, the giant confounder is probably marriage rates. Can’t get divorced if you’re only ever living in sin!

I mentioned the gap to point out how “>50% divorce rate” isn’t measuring what he says it is. I think it’s a mistake to describe the extremely online population (which generates most of what could be called “incels,” as well as most of the "cuttlefish") with statistics from the disproportionately black, urban poor.

Did you know most people who get divorced, will get remarried?

The overall picture is that stability has crashed. Also, I hope you learned your lesson / enjoyed the reminder about blue vs red state demographics..

I feel like I might be being baited, but, if I recall correctly, you're a mod, so that seems less than likely.

I suspect you’re conflating several very different groups on the basis that they all vote Democrat.

Let me be specific so as to relieve your suspicions. The primary demographic I'm referring to are PMC Males who have pride flags next to their twitter handle, a COEXIST bumps sticker on their subaru, and have never been part of an organized sport in their lives. These are men who gain sexual access to women by hyper flattering their cultural and social biases. They often get friend zoned. They make awful husbands and say things like, "My wife's boyfriend drives a truck life that!"

Men have always lied in order to convince women to sleep with them. A lot of it is hamfisted bragging and exaggeration. Women have fantastic bullshit detectors and so, mostly, avoid those goofballs. The specific problem for the cuttelfish-dudes (aka White Dudes for Harris) are they they're exploiting all of the worst parts of third wave feminism to inject themselves as, wait for it, "good guys." And that's why I have a problem with them more so than the typical dude-at-a-bar talking about how he's "pretty good friends with an NFL player, actually. Can't say his name in public, tho." Convincing a woman you share her deeply held beliefs only as far as carnal knowledge lasts is a particularly cowardly and dirty tactic.

Did you know that the states with the lowest divorce rates tend to swing blue?

I've read your comments on here many times. They're almost always high quality. You and I disagree on things, but I have respect for your intellectual rigor and honesty. Do better here. It's not about the artificial boundaries of states, it's about demographics. The divorce rate follows a lot of other anti-social outcomes - it's higher among the less educated, the earlier pregnant, the socioeconomically lower class. That California, New York, and Illinois have a huge amount of Rich White People who stay married out of stubbornness and a fear of divorce attorney fees doesn't mean that "blue states" have some sort of amazing marriage magic contained within their borders.

Thanks. I swear I'm not baiting.

I tossed out that trite red/blue divorce fact to ask: if you're taking aim at woke, white techbros, why use those divorce stats? Which parts are supposed to reflect on PMC culture?

If "cuttlefish" were causing instability, unreliability, etc., I would expect the places where they're most represented and most influential to show more of those trends. But divorce trends are driven to other regions. They're worst where people are poorer, less educated, even just older, since we're talking about cumulative numbers.

That suggests cuttlefish aren't doing what you think they're doing. Hell, I don't think many exist, not in the form you describe. It's easy to find men who lie, especially for sex. It's harder to find ones who play that game poorly enough to get friendzoned, cucked, and divorced, possibly simultaneously. And it's really hard to point at such a group and claim they pose a credible threat to women's class interest.

I think you've excluded another category. Men neither exciting enough to be chads, psychopathic enough to be Tates, repulsive enough to be incels, nor passive enough to be soyboys. The good men of yesteryear still outnumber them all. Even though they're building wealth, getting married, having kids, they're not spicy enough to trend on social media or feature in a thinkpiece. A real silent majority.

That suggests cuttlefish aren't doing what you think they're doing.

they're not spicy enough to trend on social media or feature in a thinkpiece.

SNL Keeps hinting at it.

(Those are four separate thinks)

I'm not a a fan of SNL today nor do I watch it, but those clips seem to me to suggest some level of quiet dissatisfaction amongst the PMC with their intimate lives.

Again, it isn't about divorce rates as the ultimate metric. It's about realizing that current, mainstream dating, courtship, and marriage patterns are not working for families and increasingly look unattractive to women. The stats on Men I've cited show that 30% or so of them have already decided "no thanks." This entire situation does not bode will for a society. You need happy, prosperous, and above replacement level families at the core of your society. What's more, you can't hack your way to it - Hungary has spent about 5% of its GDP on increasing its overall fertility rate. It has failed. And in that failure, may have put itself one step closer to insolvency.

The primary demographic I'm referring to are PMC Males who have pride flags next to their twitter handle, a COEXIST bumps sticker on their subaru, and have never been part of an organized sport in their lives. These are men who gain sexual access to women by hyper flattering their cultural and social biases. They often get friend zoned. They make awful husbands and say things like, "My wife's boyfriend drives a truck life that!"

We agree about a lot of things, even on this issue, but this is just intense boo outgroup without any useful content. "The men who disagree with me are liars, cheaters, and weaklings who women hate, they have to play pretend to get laid, they make awful husbands and they're cucks," is barely distinct from "The men who disagree with me are liars, cheaters, and weaklings who women hate, they have to play pretend to get laid, they make awful husbands and they're misogynists," which is precisely the way that the left talks about incels.

I don't disagree that there are some lefty men who dissemble or exaggerate their progressive opinions to appeal to progressive women. But there are, of course, righty men who dissemble or exaggerate their religiosity to appeal to devout women. That was particularly true when religion was more important in society, as wokeness is now.

Playing the game of "find new and creative ways to call the opposition sexually-revolting losers" is particularly ironic when the topic of discussion is the demonization of lonely men, as it is with the incel policies.

Fair points made, I think there is unnecessary generalization occuring.

However, anecdotally, when my liberal friend calls Elon Musk an evil bastard, he takes a glance at his girlfriends reaction while going on the tirade.

Don't read too far into it. I indulged in some flowery language because I was / am of the mind the netstack was baiting me.

The rest of my previous post is heavier on content.