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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1144 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 17, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'm not sure there is an easy way to distinguish. I'm not 100% wedded to the trolling narrative. It just seems way more likely for Elon than the "insecure" narrative.

I've known quite a few and briefly been a guy that sleeps around. I've been a teenager pumped full of testosterone (naturally via puberty).

There is a confidence that these things grant you that is sort of the polar opposite of insecurity. These people and myself were way more likely to be obnoxious overconfident assholes for no good reason than they were to think "do people not like me?"

We kinda select against this personality type/mood here on themotte. We don't tolerate the trolling, and then these types are also likely to get in dick measuring contests with the mods once we demonstrate the tiniest amount of power over them.

Not all trolling attempts are going to land. Just like a lack of people laughing doesn't mean something was not intended as a joke.

Lastly people seem to be interpreting this as me defending him or giving him credit. I don't think very highly of testosterone addled aggressive males. I think they are high variance individuals. They are going to jail for violence, or they are going to have lots of sex and possibly get lots of money in risky ventures.

As I mentioned this was almost sort of me. I was having sex with different women, I was doing drugs, and I was blowing off my boring job. But going down that road meant screwing over some of my real friends, hurting many or most of the women I was sleeping with, and generally disregarding the people around me.

These are not good people. They never make for good friends, just for good stories.

There is a confidence that these things grant you that is sort of the polar opposite of insecurity.

I just don’t think it’s true that men who are socially and sexually successful can’t be insecure. There are tons of famous actors, musicians, political figures and so on who are obsessed with their image, stalk fan pages, get extremely upset about anonymous criticism on social media, let it get to them.

A lot of people with a lot of money are constantly worried about losing it, question whether they could make it themselves, or make it again. I think famous and successful people often have this kind of feeling. Whether you want to call it insecurity is a matter of opinion, I guess, but I do think Musk cares about his image, even though he doesn’t know how to improve it because he fired / didn’t listen to his PR, unlike Zuckerberg who seems to do what they tell him to.

Ya that's a thing too. I just know what that trolling instinct feels like, and I know what insecurity feels like. And Elon just pattern matches with trolling much better right now.

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