Lurker > legendary_zell

SwayM posted...

My post says all it needs to on this. I qualified that its my opinion that their perspective is hyperbolic BS. But I also said it cant be proven like the male experience. But you could also just go on YouTube and see any number of videos where women try tinder as a man and see how their perspective switches. Idk how much proof that is but why is it always so eye opening for them to see how different it is?

Also you really got lost in that analogy.

It's literally the same analogy, nothing changed. I didn't add anything to it. Those videos are pushing the very narrative you believe, that's why they were created in the first place. At best, they prove that dating is hard for me, that's not really in dispute. What's in dispute is whether women have it easy, or easier. The problems that women have with online dating are also well documented. The difference is that rather than resulting in a reddit infographic, they're reflected in crime statistics and the women who left the apps entirely.

Thats just the thing. The issues arent different.

one very frustrating about this conversation because no matter how many times its brought up. It doesnt seem to get through that men also share these exact same problems on top of their own.

Imagine having all the same issues of trying to find a good match that doesnt have just as many red flags and issuesalso using an infinitesimally smaller dating pool.

The issues are absolutely not the same. In particular, as I've said before and as others have said, men are worried about being left alone (a very legitimate fear and a terrible fate). Women are worried about wasting their lives at best and ending up traumatized or dead at worst. Not the same thing.

Now I'll make a different analogy. Being a woman online is like foraging for berries in a forest where there's abundant berries, where some are delicious and nutritious, but most have no nutritional value and will make you mildly sick, at best, or paralyze/kill you at worst. And they all do their best to smell great for you and look like what you want.

SwayM posted...

I definitely am not blaming women here and don't condone it for one second.

But can we talk about this at all without the inverse happening? How about "Online dating is shittier for men than it is for women"

Isn't an invitation to assume that's a shot at women and blaming them for the problem. It doesn't invite people to dismiss the problem as nonexistent or that women actually have it worse. And you're an incel for even talking about it.

If we want to have productive conversations, it's a two way street.

Who said getting a match is the end goal. It's not. But what it is, is a VERY important checkpoint that needs to happen in online dating for anything more to proceed. And if in this example a man has a 98% chance of not getting a match...no amount of "women have it bad too" is doing anything for anyone.

To address the "One is dying of thirst in a desert. The other is in a swamp" analogy.

The man dying in the desert can be statistically proven here. This is a quantifiable experience.

The swamp, is literally just how the women are choosing to define their dating pool. It's speculative, and imho, a hyperbolic, poor representation of the reality of dating.

If we're comparing dating to resources humans need to live in this analogy. Then just imagine being that man in the desert who can't find water for miles in any direction and telling them "Yeah I've got it bad too, there's water all around me but none of it's drinkable." Would he even have the capacity to understand that as a problem from his perspective? And is that actually the reality of the woman? It's not something that can be measured like the pictures in the OP. It's also, imho, a load of bullshit.

Hmmm, who should we believe on what the dating experience is like for women online? Countless women who directly experience it and tell a consistent story on the dangers? Or SwayM, who has never experienced it and never will?

Human beings have long understood that being surrounded by water but being unable to drink it is a death sentence equal to being stranded in a desert. I'm not sure why you don't understand what the average peasant in Babylon surely understood.

Even when men swipe on "shitty" profiles, the shittyness doesn't typically come in the form of being physically dangerous or exploitative. It usually just means a bad personality for us. That's one key difference. We both want water, but as another user said, they're swimming through a swamp, while we wander in the desert. It's hard for either of us to get what we want.

I don't dispute that it's hard out there for many men, but it's not clearly better to get more trash options, rather than very few options of variable quality.

PowerfulSageIRL posted...

the soviet union literally did all the things that you initially stipulated. this is moving the goalposts.

No goalposts have been moved here. If there's moderate to significant success, and extreme failures, most people wouldn't consider that a success to cite. When you increase literacy, and establish a model universal healthcare system, but also kill and imprison millions of your own people, that's not gonna get it done. If you did the latter without the former, THAT'S undeniable success.

every attempt at socialism had successes, challenges, and things we can learn from. basing your conversations on US propaganda isn't going to move things forward

Bad things that absolutely should not be repeated happened under the USSR, acknowledging them is not basing conversations on US propaganda. If you can't acknowledge and explain that, why should anyone believe you won't repeat those mistakes?

The whole name of the game is to keep the good stuff from prior socialist experiments and abandon the bad stuff. To do that, you have to actually acknowledge and have a rational explanation for why the bad stuff happened and why you are presenting something different so that it won't reoccur.

PowerfulSageIRL posted...

the soviet union literally did all this

If they had done this stuff without the aggression they showed towards Hungary, Afghanistan etc, hadn't had the famines and deportations, maybe there'd be something there. And I'm not sure what they did to combat anti-leftist hysteria. They fucked up a lot and gave easy propaganda victories to capitalists.

You're not going to be able to convince anything more than an extreme minority of people that the Soviet Union actually overwhelmingly got it right and that we should just run that back. One of the chief missions of leftists is to explain how we differ from that and why that won't happen again.

ToteAll posted...

But where's the "exploited underclass" whose labor (because that's the argument and you know it) is being taken advantage of?

I know and agree that pollution and unchecked capitalism go hand in hand, don't get me wrong, it's one of the main reasons I believe capitalism must be held in check, but that is a very vague and lose interpetation of "exploited underclass".

I think the climate change stuff has been part of the argument from the beginning, if you look through the topic, and beyond the topic, it's one of the chief criticisms of capitalism. It's also going to be the main byproduct of the Nordic economy. It's very relevant.

But it's not hard to see the problem of an exploited underclass in Norway, or in Europe or the USA for that matter. It's the same in all these places. Migrants, minorities, the disabled, etc people performing law wage, dangerous, or exploitative labor. The upper classes get cheap food, clothing, services, and other things at these people's expense. Their suffering subsidizes our lifestyles and our sense that we're prospering. As this article explains (from a Norwegian university, not some lefty with a grievance), all of this is a result of the structure of neoliberal capitalism. Free capital, but not free people, the absence of major leftist alternatives, the profit motive for capital, and the desire of global winners to live as cheaply as possible. Exactly as I've said throughout this topic.

https://tinyurl.com/yvbhkezf

Again, by what mechanism will you control capital within Capitalism??? You wouldn't take me seriously if I said I wanted a Maoist one party state, but I promised that I'd limit the power of the government somehow. Why should I take seriously that you'll control capital while allowing capital to accumulate power?

He's Republican Kamala Harris, mixed with Republican Hillary Clinton as another poster said. So he's a terrible candidate. That shouldn't give people too much comfort though because Hillary almost (and should have) won despite her narrow base.

ToteAll posted...

Would their systems collapse without these clothes?

Now we're getting somewhere. Where's the numbers behind this data?

Here's one example. Norway alone has gotten over a trillion in funds directly from oil and gas activities and are still profiting from that now. That's the money that largely funded the Nordic lifestyle. Those emissions aren't concentrated in Norway though, instead, they'll affect the global south. That relationship applies to the rest of their economy as well. Norway gets to be rich and pretend to be clean, while others bear the consequences. Capitalism is full of situations like that (aka externalities, aka "you poor/brown people deal with this")

https://www.vox.com/22256192/norway-oil-gas-investments-fossil-fuel
https://www.vox.com/22227063/norway-oil-gas-climate-change

Gwynevere posted...

If you can buy cheap sweatshop clothes from Bangladesh in Nordic countries, then they're still exploiting a global underclass. Cheap, accessible goods always come with a price

@ToteAll
Not to mention that their big fancy sovereign wealth funds that they tout come directly from oil and gas and thus emissions that will cook the third world and create a fascist government in all these Nordic countries once the refugees come knocking at their door.

In the "well regulated capitalism" you're discussing, capital still has disproportionate economic and political power and has a strong incentive due to relatively high domestic wages and rights to outsource exploitation internationally and to dismantle social democracy domestically. That already happened everywhere else, it's not a hypothetical.

Your hypothetical well regulated, non exploitative, permanent capitalism is just as fantastical as my hypothetical Monty Python anarcho syndicalist commune.

PowerfulSageIRL posted...

so what do you think would be an acceptable way for the "worse" nations to defend themselves from "better" nations

I'm not sure, since it hasn't been done yet. My best guess is that it would involve some sort of international economic and military solidarity, undeniable domestic societal/economic successes, and work to reduce anti-left hysteria in capitalist states.

All I know is that the state police disappearing you because your aunt heard you disparage the motherland and the party is not the way. That can't be the way. I wouldn't want to live under that, and that method has been the second biggest enemy of the left after capital.

Prismsblade posted...

I'm not sure frankly, I just believe it's more likely they had a failing system and foundation that sabotaged them more then any foreign interference. Plenty of country's still rose and progressed overtime from Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, china and so on. All thanks to capiltisim BTW.

That's a convenient consequence of couping and sabotaging them, then propagandizing them as pure evil for decades. People don't get a sense of what their merits are, they can by necessity, only make assumptions, and those assumptions can only be based on ideology. An ideology helpfully supplied by the couping society.

All of the Asian Tigers other than China were handpicked for success as a policy to destroy leftist potential in those countries. And none of them succeeded through the neoliberal capitalism of today. They all had heavy state direction of the economy, protectionist policies, authoritarian capitalism, etc. No one is allowed to do what they did today as the US and international institutions force neoliberal capitalism on any developing country that wants money today.

That and other country's had century's still to flourish before any interference at all. And achieved very little compared capitalist ones.

The countries that did flourish did so directly through conquest and subjugation of the very countries you're saying weren't interfered with. When were those centuries where Asia, Africa, and Latin America weren't colonized/exploited, but Europe/the US was already capitalist? Colonialism started as early as the 1490s, Capitalism started in the 1500s. And Capitalist wealth was funded directly by the international exploitation, to the point that such wealth directly sparked the industrial revolution in Britain.

Demand is shaped by the needs and wants of the people. Which are infinite and ever growing. Yet another reason why captilsim is the the most compatible system for humanity.

They are not infinite and ever growing, though they are great. Capitalism generates ever greater demand, to the point of being unsustainable, while not meeting people's actual needs for community, rest, leisure, self determination etc. People had been content with far less than what they feel they constantly need under Capitalism for all of human history, and that's in large part because they had those other, more important things. It's possible to do both, but not under Capitalism.

And I think you're overestimating humanity by a wide margin of you believe they'd be willing to make any comprises for a better world if they knew how much pain and suffering it would cause them.

I think you're underestimating the hell out of humanity, and that's core conservative assumption, that our nature is fixed and that it's awful. If you genuinely think humanity would rather burn for an uneven and temporary period of enhanced wealth, rather than a substantiable system of living, I don't know if we can ever agree.

Those same people aren't interested in paying more taxs, hell it's sort of political suicide for any politician to even entertain the thought.

That aversion to taxes, and the assumption that ordinary people would bear the burden of it has been deliberately generated over the last century by capital and their buddies. It doesn't have to be that way at all.

And without a major overhurl to them and higher taxs its going to reach a breaking point eventually. And the suffering then will be unimaginable.

PowerfulSageIRL posted...

worse comparatively to what?

Compared to the capitalist states in North America and Western Europe. Yes, those states don't have to worry about the CIA couping them into a helicopter ride, but there is more free speech, less enforced political orthodoxy, more political diversity, and less concentration of political power in the hands of one party or one party official.

ToteAll posted...

But are you saying it was "great"? "Good"? What are you saying? Because using "perfect" as "what you're not calling it" is really fucking suspicious of what you would be calling it. Allende's government was a disaster.

It was democratically elected and if it was going to collapse, it should have been allowed to do that. It did enough good things to worry the interests of capital, and that's why it was forcefully toppled. That's the same dynamic we saw all throughout Latin America. Were all those places instances where the government was definitely about to fall and the CIA just gave it a push out of the kindness of their hearts?

Oh so you feed into this crap and don't know how the crap even works? It sure as hell was gonna collapse, it was already collapsing. Allende would increase government spending by 400% (I am not exaggerating) between years while systematically ruining the government's income. You thinking they interfere because "it wasn't gonna collapse" is childish. They toppled the falling tower to be there to ransack the rubble and do their little experiment.

Who says I don't want change? I do, I just laugh at the notion that socialism or anarchism are the solution, because they are not. There's even some CEbuddies who shill for fucking communism.

You're not addressing my core argument. You say you want change, but you don't address how you'll get that change while accepting the structure and power relations of capitalism. You've spent a fair amount of time criticizing your current social democratic government. So is social democracy too far, or do you want some other form of social democracy? Socialism is too far, anarchism is too far, communism is too far. If you think all of that is too far, you'll be trying to fix Capitalism with Capitalism, and that's not going to work if all political and economic power is still concentrated in the hands of the wealthy. And how are you going to reduce that power without one of the aforementioned systems? Your plan is to wait until they have everything, then try to fight them, without leftist ideology?

The previous periods of "well regulated capitalism" were only secured through the struggle of unions and other groups organized by communists, socialists, and anarchists, and through the constant threat of the peasants/underclass/proletariat taking their cues from the Soviets. Without that, all you'll get is what we have now.

PowerfulSageIRL posted...

the US currently has the power to kill millions and make uncheckable decisions that do so. and, crucially, they have done so and continue to do so, mostly in other countries.

the alternative to an "authoritarian" state that the US government does not approve of, is the government getting overthrown by illegal military coups funded by the US. the US then installs a worse state that is in line with their own corporate interests

I've already said that the US is authoritarian, especially internationally and I oppose that authoritarianism. Doesn't mean previous and current Communist states weren't authoritarian in an even worse way domestically, if not internationally. I don't dispute that the domestic authoritarianism we've seen in the Communist countries we've seen so far was in large part due to the legitimate paranoia of counterrevolutionary activity funded by capital. But it was still awful and unacceptable. You can say it was necessary, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worse comparatively and more importantly, bad.

ToteAll posted...

I didn't expect someone to actually bring it up... but did you actually just call Allende's government stable?

I'm not saying it was perfect, but clearly the US didn't think it was gonna collapse on its own, otherwise they wouldn't have bombed the presidential palace to do a coup, then install a military dictatorship to crush dissent.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Again, highly regulated capitalism (which is hardly a "conservative" view) is the best humanity's gonna get, given human nature. Your fantasies won't change that fact.

We had that, or as close as we're going to get. It was killed by neoliberalism, essentially starting with your country. You don't want to change from what we have now, and the system of undemocratic control of economic power and thus political power is what we have now. That's what's conservative about it. You're saying the status quo cannot be changed due to human nature. That's THE conservative argument.

You're saying I'm spouting fantasies, but you're the one saying that we need to go from neoliberalism to "highly regulated capitalism", presumably without changing any of the structures that led us here in the first place. That's a bigger fantasy than socialism or anarchism. It's fathomable that we could get different results by doing different things. It's unfathomable that we'll get different results by doing the same things.

The mid-century "well regulated capitalism" we had still gave far too much power to capital. They used that power to create think tanks and economics departments to create ideologies that would benefit them. They were mad about the tiny concessions made to labor and regular people and they wanted it to stop and wanted more of the economic pie. They bought a political party and a half and infiltrated the entire foreign policy and intelligence apparatus. Then they fucked up your country, experimented on it, and exported that experiment back home to the US and Europe. Then they forced it on the rest of the world through propaganda, economic blackmail, neocolonialism, and when all else failed, outright violence. That's our current world.

You're not getting from where we are back to "well regulated capitalism" if capital gets to maintain their economic and thus political power. What's stopping all this from happening again? And the system where they don't have all that requires socialism or anarchism.

ToteAll posted...

Wait wait wait.

You think capitalist superpowers overthrow stable third world governments to mantain cheap outsourced labor?

And you think capitalism is the reason for this insane conspiracy theory?

Yeah, no, people just want "accountability", amirite Dark_bro?

Wait wait wait....aren't you from Chile? Isn't that exactly what the US did to you guys? And your neighbors as well? Why are you so incredulous about it?

ToteAll posted...

You're too naive. You underestimate how massive the workload of true democracy is, and you grossly overestimate what majorities would do with that power. Majorities would just rule for majorities, unless you want some sort of world government in which 7 billion people each have a voice in every desicion. That's brilliant.

Your response is essentially that democracy is too hard and the people can't be trusted with it, and that it's better for businesses and the wealthy to have undemocratic, unaccountable power instead. That's a fundamentally conservative argument, even if you don't think of yourself as a conservative.

It's possible for majorities to wield power with safeguards for minority rights, especially when that power is built on strong social solidarity and mass movements. I don't favor world government as the solution, I favor smaller, likely subnational or regional governments or cooperatives working together to solve common problems in favor of our continued existence.

Sounds much better than BP and Chevron deciding that we don't need to know about climate change and blocking action to move to renewables for decades because they're still zuccing up profits.

ToteAll posted...

CE should really start printing this on sweat/stain resistant T-shirts.

But no, you're, again, thinking of neoliberalism.

Alternatively, tell me what system would be better, without rampant poverty, forced birth control, hunger, etc. By all means, I'm all ears.

Your defenses are inherently contradictory. You're ascribing all of the negative aspects of capitalism to neoliberalism. But that's exactly the system we have. That's been the dominant economic system for decades now. That IS capitalism as we know it. But then you're also saying it's brought unprecedented riches. It can't be one or the other, the best case for you is that it's both.

All forms of capitalism, including whatever mythical, ahistorical version you're thinking of has a domestic underclass, a foreign underclass, or both. The creation of any version of capitalism that treats people better domestically will itself be the catalyst for a bigger foreign underclass. That's already happened and we're living in that world.

An example of a better system would be one in which ordinary people directly made the economic and political decisions that affect their lives. That means democracy in the workplace, democracy in the economy, and that trickles down to democracy in the public sphere. A system in which maybe we have less relentless growth (maybe the same, maybe more, I dunno), but that growth is sustainable and rationally spread, rather than hoarded and planet killing. There's no reason why such a system is impossible or why it wouldn't be orders of magnitude better than what we have, which I can't stress this enough is killing us.

PowerfulSageIRL posted...

"authoritarianism" is a buzzword. it's applicable to basically any functioning state. in order for any society to meaningfully resist western imperialism, they will need to have some sort of authority in place

I agree that most existing states are authoritarian and that the word can be used as a cudgel. But that doesn't mean there aren't degrees to it. The US is authoritarian in some respects, especially if you don't live a life useful to capital, but I can call Joe Biden or even Trump or Bush a poopyhead while they're in power. I can relatively openly be a leftist. I could even call for revolution, as long as I don't take any violent acts towards it. In Stalinist Russia, or current NK, or Maoist China, that....wouldn't go well. Those states crushed any and all dissent, individual or organized, and had the power to kill millions or make uncheckable decisions that did so. In contrast, this state mostly focuses on violent dissent and dissent that gets a little too well organized, or controls through poverty and incarceration.

TLDR: there are levels to this shit.

Prismsblade posted...

You don't suppose it's more likely most of those countrys just had a crappy system that peaked early, couldn't compete, fell behind and failed? Or is it just easier to accuse captilsim of sabotaging them?

Are you denying that they were in fact sabotaged? They made a lot of mistakes to be sure, I'm not a defender of authoritarian communism, that system killed a lot of people. But these were some of the first attempts at an alternative and they were attempted under horrible conditions. And they did some things right. Furthermore, those weren't the only socialist/leftist experiments. The US/West/Capitalist countries also killed all attempts at non-authoritarian experiments in Central America, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

I don't know what would have happened if they'd been allowed to develop without fear and violence, but I do know that sabotage works and support works.

Also it's people and their demand that's destroying the world, not captilsim. But most can't accept that pill and it's only solution so it's easier to blame captilsim again.

Demand is in large part shaped by Capitalism. That's one of the central elements of the system, it relies on endless growth and endless consumption. That's led directly to increased exploitation of natural resources and increased emissions. Additionally, the interests of capital are the exact interests who blocked, falsified, and downplayed the effects of emissions on the climate. The people would want a different world if they knew what was actually being done to it and have always wanted a transition to a more sustainable economy, but current business interests didn't want that, and here we are.

Idk what made you think I was criticizing it but I wasn't. Most people are just ignorant of it's cost, want more from it and the elites to pay for it. But it's not that simple.

Maybe it's the fact that you were focusing on the debt we're in because of them and not the fact that they're necessary and the only thing keeping tens of millions of people out of abject poverty. And that there could have been a lot less debt with higher taxes.

Prismsblade posted...

I dont buy that from any of them.

How does anyone look at capitalists country's vs non ones and generally believe it's doing them no favors? And when did a billion $$ become the baseline for success here?

Hell most of those people don't even know how much our current social programs cost. How much debt we're in because of them, and actually believe billionaires could somehow cover the yearly cost.

The non-capitalist countries were/are all some combination of wartorn, sabotaged, colonized, couped, etc. The capitalist countries are prospering at the cost of the planet and the global poor. And it's all temporary because it's killing the planet.

You're touting capitalism, and yet criticizing some of the social programs that have made it even marginally tolerable, you seem to want an even worse version.

ForsakenHermit posted...

Exactly

The capitalism you're talking about only existed for a few decades in some places, in the middle of the 20th century. It was largely funded by colonialism and the even more ruthless exploitation of the global poor than we have now. And it's been slowly rolled back or outright killed since the 70s by the very same people benefitting the most from the current system and they're not giving the power back. There's social democracy to be had when the capital class buys the media, the legislatures, and the courts, and makes it borderline or outright illegal for people to organize to win that social democracy. And again, the structure of capitalism just has that social democracy get eroded, even if you manage to win it.

It's just the dominant socio-political system that controls your life and the life of damn near everyone on the planet. It's also currently killing the planet and driving us towards fascism. But you're right, I guess we should talk about it less.

The worst part of being a garbageman is driving around in narrow streets, if I don't have to do that, it's an easy pick.

People say "let's be honest" or "you know I'm right" or "it's common sense" when they're saying something wrong and indefensible, but relying on widespread misconceptions or bigotry to get you to agree.

He also seems to have trouble understanding basic concepts or replying to posts that challenge his assumptions or interpretations.

People have a hard time acknowledging how much of a monster Truman was because he was a nationalist and anti-communist monster, and we still have a lot of those around today and a lot of people who are one and/or think it's good to be one.

brestugo posted...

Fair analogy.

I like to think Truman was smarter than Tuberville though.

He certainly was, but that's not hard.

Truman was a regular ass, unsophisticated Missouri politician elevated to extreme heights by chance, during what happened to be one of the most consequential periods in human history. That's why he wasn't all torn up about the philosophical and moral implications of dropping the bomb. Just like Tommy Tuberville wouldn't be if he was somehow made VP and then President.

Quake-64 posted...

no, because nobody is saying lol the qran is bs lol ITT

But we inherently are though since they're making the same claims about the same events in favor of the same God.

Also, this statement is demonstrably false as multiple people in this topic have said such things as direct as "fuck Islam" and "those religions are fake" (referring to Islam) and "Islam is rather silly". All without being modded, of course.

Your victim complex is getting in the way of your ability to read. It couldn't be more clear. Every single claim you've made in this topic is false.

Oh yeah, the mods are known to be very touchy about....Zoroastrianism. Your victim complexes are absolutely warping reality. For one, the story of Noah's Ark is a pre-Christian story, though it is relevant to Christianity. If it's an "attack" on anything, it's an attack on Judaism, and just as another poster said, it's as much of an attack on Islam as it is on Christianity.

Second, anytime there's a terrorist attack or a migrant crisis, or a war, Islam is attacked pretty viciously on this board with very little moderation. It comes in for far more pointed criticism than Christianity does, which receives little more than babbys 1st reddit atheist criticism.

He's actually cooked multiple times over and he knows it. That's why he's setting the groundwork for people not abandoning him entirely when he gets convicted.

Anyway, it may actually be a good thing that people in jail can run if we ever get President DeSantis or MTG. Their opponent will certainly be imprisoned.

Just in the last 100 years, the 30s and the 60s were more toxic. People were straight up killed by the state and private thugs for trying to unionize just before that period as well. You could be surveilled, interfered with, or killed for trying to improve society at all. We used to have a legally enforced racial apartheid system.

What we're seeing now is because both the previously unheard/silenced minority groups and the previously unheard bigots and crazies are now constantly being heard, and all trust in mediating/authoritative institutions has broken down.

Pure propaganda. But it's also not surprising that he was specifically selected to make this point.

Poorly posted...

How is dis creepy? Didja get hit in the head as a baby or something?

It's because it's completely alien from how human beings normally act. It's just super offputting to me, especially since it makes people that would be very attractive, unattractive.

I find intentional model poses like these incredibly creepy. I hope she does well in the show tho.

Music to my ears. I wish he could somehow get to five indictments so I can make some Booker T memes.

It's certainly better than nothing, but they vary widely in quality between areas. The ones I went to years ago had modern machines and free weights. The one near me now has no free weights and machines that would have been considered outdated when I was in high school. Overall, I'd say it's certainly worth it to get a base level of fitness for cheap.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


To use Elvis, a man who is literally the patron saint of benefitting from open white racism by being palatable to audiences and stealing black music/style and thus money/careers/recognition is just....wow.

Homophobia and misogyny, the usual culprits.

I don't wish poor health on him, but he should retire immediately. Along with all the other ancient millstones around our necks.

The whole "who ever asks should pay" thing is nonsensical in a social context where men are overwhelmingly expected to do the asking and many women either refuse or don't know how to ask.

That said, there are plenty of women who insist on splitting. Try dating feminists, it'll happen pretty frequently. It's really a matter of individual ideology at this point, which makes things confusing, but I essentially always go prepared to pay and I'm pleasantly surprised if she offers to split or pay.

VGAddict90 posted...

A functioning legal system would have Abbott under federal investigation for trying to drown immigrants.

That too, and that first. If we had a functioning society, he wouldn't be able to show his face in public after that came out.

Not surprising at all. They accuse liberals and the left of indoctrinating students and persecuting conservatives because that's what they do and want to do more of. And they consider it morally righteous, not corrupt.

If we had a functioning legal system, this would be prosecuted as a severe denial of academic freedom and viewpoint/content discrimination.

The difference is that people say this, but they mean jailing. They don't want to include all of the other necessary supports or have patience. They just want the undesirables out of their sight, by any means necessary.

No one wants people living out on the street. No one wants street drug markets or use. But are you willing to advocate for legalizing drugs, treatment, and non-eviction for use, non-eviction for the results of mental health crises, etc. That's the next step here.

You can tell by their values and the things they advocate that a huge chunk of the right has NO problem with Nazi beliefs. They agree and proceed from the same assumptions to a very large extent. If you took the labels off, they'd say "yeah, that's right!"

That's just becoming increasingly clear to themselves and others, that's why we're seeing stuff like this and Mom's For Liberty explicitly referencing Hitler and Nazi ideology, etc.

This is absolutely something, along with everything becoming a service and micro transactions in physical products like cars that should NEVER be accepted.

One of the few primary benefits of capitalism is that we're supposed to own a bunch of variably useful stuff. Now, we don't even get the stuff, just a digital license and a chance to keep paying indefinitely without being arrested.

A reminder that you can be so incompetent, so malicious, and so childish that your actions become indistinguishable from active sabotage.

Well 6 and 16 are probably auto-worst, followed by 10. FF8 seemed pretty chill overall.

Interesting that DC is even more pro Opp than New Mexico. I guess it's full of serious individuals.