Dear Board : A thread for small things not worthy of a thread of their own.

[Datepalm]

That does appear to be as good a strategy as any to become president of America these days.

[Arkhangel]

Fair point. Fair, soul-crushing point.

[Datepalm]

The crazy rabbit hole is a now a neat tunnel full of perfectly rational people who evidently understand the world a lot better than us. I think at this point they're just loathsome rather than crazy.

[Larry of the Lawn]

I learned about this roooosh character in this board.  my eyes about bugged out of my head when a old college friend told me he'd been reading the guy's shit for awhile and that "roooosh really has it figured out.  My life has pretty much made a 180 since I blah blah blah blah blah".  Wtf dude.

[Datepalm]

I just now learned about Rooosh and have now read some his blog and now I feel bad.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 minute ago, Datepalm said:

I just now learned about Rooosh and have now read some his blog and now I feel bad.

Not to be all doom and gloom, but doesn't get any better with time.

[Datepalm]

Weirdly, the one thing that bothers me most so far (i'm two posts in...why am I two posts in?) is spelling pussy 'poosy'. That's somehow more infuriating and degrading and pathetic than, you know, everything he actually says.

[Datepalm]

I'm vaguely intrigued by his arguments from an economic geography perspective. Much complex and conflicting research about the roles of jobs, amenities, culture, etc, in city growth and labour mobility out there...perhaps we've all been neglecting the Roosh Formulation: "If you choose where to live only accoridng to the job market, your dick will not thank you."

[Larry of the Lawn]

I found about him when someone linked to a blog of one of his followers, which was even more disturbing.  Solo summed up the blog something like: "american expat relocates to thailand to become misogynist pua and compose a series of rape suites on piano"

[Datepalm]

It's mostly a bit sad, to be honest. I mean, you always say 'you're just sad' to jerks to try and make them feel bad, I guess, but this really is just making me a bit sad. Particularly the really terrible attempts at fiction and the weird competitiveness with telephones.

[Arkhangel]

Spoilered for length and also awfulness -

Feminism is destroying the environment:

 

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Hi folks.

I joined this group not to provide confirmation of what most of you already know, but to stimulate you to think in new ways. This post is going to be different from what you're used to.

I also admit that my picture of the world is probably not complete yet, and that I may have as much to learn as I have to teach. So I welcome whatever education and enlightenment you feel I need. My goal here is not to replace your beliefs with my own, nor to replace mine with yours - but rather to form a synthesis that gives all of us, me and you, a fuller picture of reality.

So I guess I'll post an introduction that explains my experiences, and how they led me to question the validity of feminism.

This is something I wrote today. It's not spam, and I'm not going around from group to group copy+pasting it. This is the first group I'm posting it in.

Apologies if it's too long. I made it as concise as I could. Any shorter and I wouldn't have been able to get the point across.

Here goes....

A long time ago, I considered myself a feminist. But my personal experiences over the years have made me question whether I still should.

I believe the most important issue in the world is Ecology. If we do not have a functioning biosphere, we cannot argue about any other issues, because there would be no "us" to do the arguing.

Because of my deep love of nature, I felt attracted to "Ecofeminism" - the idea that a feminist society will automatically be more kind to the Earth, and that men, through patriarchy, are the primary perpetrators, and masculinity the primary motivator, of environmental destruction and irreverence - and that elevating women and femininity to a higher degree of power will make our culture inherently more respectful of the Earth. It sounded good to me, so I believed in it for a while.

But then I realized that it's not true; feminism actually drives environmental destruction. Yes, really. It does that by stimulating consumerism.

How does feminism stimulate consumerism?

Consumerism is the result of unfulfillment. The greatest human need, other than physical necessities, is love. We need companionship. We need partnership. We need someone to physically touch our skin with their skin. We need romance, and we need to be able to explore the world of sexuality. When we don't have access to these things, we start looking for other ways to "fill the void", and consumer products are the most easy and ubiquitous strategy. All over the world, billions of unsatisfied people are buying crap they don't need, just to fill an empty space in their souls where human connection was supposed to be.

So how does feminism prevent human connection?

Like this:

In past generations, before women's liberation, just about everyone who wanted a romantic/sexual relationship could have one. And those that didn't have one still knew exactly what was required to get one. For a man looking for a partner, it was simple. All he needed was:

1. A job
2. A home
3. Decent morals

With those three things, he could be sure that women would come his way, and he'd have the opportunity to date them. And this was because women were financially dependent on men. Women didn't have jobs, so they needed men to provide a home, food, and stability.

It was a trade-off. Men came with economic providence, but needed emotional connection and sex. Women came with a vastly greater familiarity with the realm of emotions, and of course carried the sexual prize, and they traded these things for the man's economic providership.

In other words, men traded providership for affection and sex, and women traded affection and sex for providership.

It was the system for many thousands of years, and it worked well in that it guaranteed any man a chance at love, as long as he was willing to work and do his part to contribute to society, and not be a psychopath.

However, it did have flaws. As feminists, you know them quite well:
-Women could not pursue their own interests without permission from a man
-Women in abusive relationships were often trapped, as police often sided with the man
-Women's intellectual potential was often ignored and left undeveloped
-And quite a few more.

Change was definitely called for. I believe in the march of social progress. Any time someone is separated from their own power, and unable to guide their own life, something isn't right, and must be fixed. It's always a good thing to lift people out of helplessness, and make sure they have the tools to decide what kind of life they want to live.

And the feminist movement achieved these goals, for women. By bringing women into the workforce, it brought them independence, self-determination, and the ability to reconnect with their inner power to guide and direct their lives. No longer dependent on men for food and shelter, women no longer had to worry about the threat of these things being removed or denied, and could tell a man to f*** off if he was trying to control her against her will.

But here's the problem: Men lost the ability to obtain romantic and sexual partnership.

In the old system, a man's stable home and gainful employment were powerful leverage he could use to attract a mate. Men were generally clueless back then (and still are today) about sexuality. They had (and continue to have) very little proficiency in navigating the emotional realms of women. Sex was (and is) a mystery. While it's true that a small minority of men have always had a "gift" for connecting with women, the vast majority do not. I'm sure you know a handful of guys who are naturally able to connect with you and with other women, and able to get sex virtually any time, just with their charming and suave personalities. But they are the exception, not the rule.

Most men, in this time period and in the past, have needed something else to attract women into their lives. And for the vast majority of human history, that "something" has been economic providership.

By putting women into the workforce, and making women financially independent, feminism has taken away men's leverage to attract mates.

Women simply don't need us anymore. They have nothing to gain from us that they don't already have, and so they pass us over. They ignore us. We no longer exist in their eyes. We are invisible. We are nothing.

I personally experienced this, as I went through all of highschool, all of college, and 9 years after graduating college, as a virgin. I never had a girlfriend, or slept with anyone, or even hooked up with anyone, for all of that time, until i was 29. To describe the utter Hell of long-term involuntary celibacy would require a post all of its own, so I won't go into detail here - but suffice it to say that crying oneself to sleep every night from age 16-29 is not a life you'd wish on your worst enemy.

When I was 29, I moved to Asia. Within a month and a half, I had my first girlfriend. Within my first year, I had had three girlfriends. I started having a sex life. Why? Because the culture over here is more traditional. I have the same leverage that my dad and grandfathers had in the 1950's and 60's. If I have a job and a home, and I'm not a jerk, women are interested in me!

I'm not at the top of the pyramid, and that's fine, because I never asked to be. All I wanted was SOMEONE. But in feminist society, I wasn't good enough for ANYONE.

Millions of men are suffering from chronic, involuntary celibacy. They're all around you. They're suffering.

They're seeking escape in porn and video games.
They're developing love affairs with firearms.
They're becoming Republicans, and deciding that you can't have abortions.
They're voting for the human molotov cocktail Trump.
They're barging into public places to shoot up crowds.
They're shaving off the Earth's forests to make consumer products they don't need.

What do all of those activities have in common? Power, of course. Those activities are the only time they get to feel a sense of power in their whole lives. A man might say to himself, "I can't have sex, and I'll probably never be able to, but at least I can leave a mark on someone, by forcing her to bear a pregnancy that she doesn't want." For just a moment, while he selects the candidate with the (R) next to his name, he gets to feel a feeling that was completely foreign to him: power. Just for a moment. Same for the mass shooter. Same for the porn addict who gets to capture and own a woman on his screen. Same for the violent videogamer holding the virtual bazooka.

While your husbands and boyfriends, the lucky few, are getting it the natural way - sex - millions of men are not getting it. Deprived of Eros, their only outlet now is Thanatos. So they kill and destroy.

They don't know about the situation on other continents, and so they continue to wallow in their despair. And even if they knew about the greener prospects in Asia, and South America, and Eastern Europe, those prospects would dry up quickly if millions all packed up and moved at once. Expatriation is a solution for the individual man - for now - but it's not a long-term solution to the wider problem.

So what is the solution?

There are two.

The first is to rewind to the past. We take women out of the workforce, make them dependent on men again, and try to live like it's the 1950's. I seriously doubt this will work. There was a reason the women's liberation movement started. The previous system was stable, but deeply flawed, and it needed to change. I don't believe in going backwards.

The second is to lift men up. The same way women gained economic power on par with men, men now need to gain sexual power on par with women. If men can attract sexual partners without needing external "stuff" to lure women in, and are innately capable of attracting prospects for dating, then the leverage of economic providership is no longer necessary.

(see picture)

How can you help lift men up to proficiency in the emotional and sexual realm?

One slightly radical way would be to have sex with them. If you're saving yourself for Mr. Right, then this isn't the option for you; however, if you already enjoy experimenting and exploring with multiple sexual partners, and adding one more "notch" to your bedpost doesn't mean much to you, then sexual charity work won't hurt your sense of self-worth. You can go out and find a lonely, basement-dwelling, video-game playing, nerdy, dorky dude, the kind that only makes the news when they're at their wits end and decide to bring a gun into a public place, and teach him the ropes. Be his friend, take him shopping for better clothes, let him practice taking you out on a date, kiss him (probably his first kiss), touch him (probably the only time he's been touched since having his umbilical cord cut), blow him (the first time he's felt pleasure in the presence of a woman), and provide a shoulder for him to cry on when he realizes just what he's been missing all these years.

You won't have to be his girlfriend forever - just long enough for him to figure out how to attract a mate on his own. Once he has confidence, once he knows how to talk to girls, and most importantly, once he no longer views the female sex as an oppressive alien force whose only purpose on this Earth is to torment him, he will be able to go out and find mates on his own, and you won' t have to continue feeding him.

It's always better to teach a man to fish, than to just give him fish. But this analogy forgets the fact that a starving man cannot concentrate on his fishing lessons. You need to feed him first. THEN teach him to feed himself.

And if that role is too much for you, I understand. There's STILL something you can do.

You can help by steering the feminist movement toward recognition of the realities I've just explained in this article. You can help to make men's sexual liberation a goal, among the many goals of feminism.

Even a mere verbal acknowledgment goes a long way. Simply recognizing that men have a plight, that our plight is painful, and that our pain is real - and that it matters - would do so much to get the ball rolling.

So let's start right here, right now. I ask you the following questions:

1) Do I count?
2) Do men count?
3) Is men's pain real?
4) Does men's pain matter?
5) Would you prefer it if we didn't have this pain?

Thank you for reading.

I await your responses.

 

Women are to blame for patriarchy also:

 

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 I realized there's a crucial piece of information that ya'll seem to be unaware of. That's ok. I'll explain it to you.

It's about matriarchy, patriarchy, and "alpha males."

Theorizing about ancient history is always a tricky subject. But I have a theory about how and why patriarchies first arose.

Somewhere in peaceful, pre-warfare history, in the deeps of time, long before any classical civilizations or empires arose, long before Egypt or Sumer, and probably around the time of the neolithic revolution (the beginning of agriculture) women were the more powerful sex. Men were physically stronger... but only by a little bit. Women's sexual and emotional power far outweighed the extra little bit of muscle strength that men had. And so women rose to control tribes.

With women in control, they could basically get what they wanted. And so they started flocking toward the most attractive men, the 10% or so called "alpha males."

This may be new information to you, but bear with me.

In the animal kingdom, there is this thing called "alpha males." Generally speaking, a tiny handful of males (in some species, just one male per social group) has/have sex with the vast majority (in some species, all) of the females. This is an evolutionary fitness device. It arose because of the difference in reproductive ability between the sexes. Simply put, females can only have a few offspring per year (in humans, just 1). But males can theoretically have infinite children - they can impregnate an entire tribe, and thereby sire the entirety of the next generation. So mother nature, in one of her gravest errors, made it so that only the absolute strongest, fittest, best male, the male with the very best genes in the whole tribe, would mate with virtually all of the females. The rest of the males would go without.

This behavior is seen in humans. In our modern, feminist society, especially on college campuses, it's practically an epidemic. 10-20% of men are monopolizing 80-90% of the sex. No one knows the exact numbers, but it's a big spread.

This probably happened in ancient matriarchal societies. As women became all-powerful, and no longer needed men (or could easily control them), they become more "licensed" in their sexual selections... and they all selected the same few men, leaving the majority out in the cold.

So eventually those "beta males" couldn't put up with it any longer, and staged a coup. They got sticks and rocks and clubs, and stormed the village, probably killed the alpha male, and then set up a system of egalitarian distribution, where everyone was allowed to have ONE partner, and only one partner. This prevented the formation of new alpha harems, and ensured that there were enough women to go around, and every man could have one.

The "one man, one woman" mantra that you hear from Christian conservatives - it's the core of patriarchy, and the main reason for patriarchy's existence.

Patriarchy arose to... redistribute... women in a more egalitarian manner.

This might be upsetting. I just talked about women in terms of being a commodity that men can distribute among themselves. It's an extremely "low vibrational" type of thinking. I want to be extremely clear that it's not how *I* think about women. But I do think it's how our ancestors thought about women. And if it's indeed how they thought, then, well, we've got to recognize that what happened happened. I mean, most of you already know that this is how past cultures thought about women. It's not new information to you. But have you ever thought about *why*? Why they started thinking that way?

I've offered an explanation. Granted, it's just a theory. But I think it's an accurate one. It makes sense to me. And if we don't learn the lesson from it, then history will repeat itself. Any time a society, ancient or modern, goes too far toward the extreme of female dominance, it sets itself up for a patriarchal coup. We may have just seen it begin in November. Hopefully there's still time to restore balance, and I'd like to do that, before it's too late.

 

[Arkhangel]

Also Trump and the Coming Darkness, our fault:

Quote

Ok, let's not fight. Let's try to get along. We're on the same team. Or at least we're supposed to be. We're supposed to work together, in partnership, not in conflict against each other. How will we ever overthrow oppressors and their oppressive systems, if we're busy fighting each other?

Don't you see what I'm trying to do here? I'm trying to help you understand. A lot of you are reeling from what happened - you're asking why, why, why, because you don't know how he could have won, and how we're going to deal with 4 years of him. Well guess what. It might be 8. Let's stop that from happening, shall we? I want to make sure he doesn't get a second term. That's my goal. Are you in? Are we on the same team?

In order to stop him, you Need. To. Understand. WHY. he won.

WHY.

And I'm trying to help you understand WHY.

By giving you a glimpse into the mind of a person who would support him.

I'm delivering you vital intelligence about the way his people think and operate.

And also reminding you that in the grand scheme of things, YOU have helped create this situation. The darkness in others is always related to the darkness in us. No one side is ever completely innocent, and no one side is ever completely guilty. You must understand what you did, what part you played, how you contributed to co-creating this.

Right?

I mean, if you don't realize how you created a problem, you're probably going to keep re-creating it, right?

[DunderMifflin]

On 12/30/2016 at 2:51 PM, Tears of Lys said:

 

On 12/30/2016 at 2:51 PM, Tears of Lys said:

Concerning mattress stores, there's a store here that sells both matresses and pool equipment. Not swimming pool, billiard equipment. I was found it a puzzling combo for a store.

[Larry of the Lawn]

8 hours ago, DunderMifflin said:

 

Concerning mattress stores, there's a store here that sells both matresses and pool equipment. Not swimming pool, billiard equipment. I was found it a puzzling combo for a store.

I think it's a sales model thing.  I had a buddy that worked at a billiard and hot-tub store.  You had a choice as a sales person there: either minimum wage or commission.

*And the delivery, you're already equipped to move bulky items

[Lizard Queen]

I don't want to go back to school. 

 

Also, Theon annoys me lol. I am only on book three though and don't know how he's going to change from here on out. Well, actually I do because I've seen the show, but that's not made me privy to his changes in thought. 

[Iskaral Pust]

We got my son a Play Station 4 for Christmas (with the usual limits on screen time).  It's all fun and games and we've been enjoying it but I am one of those people who always wants to do things as well as they can be done, with constant improvement and progress, and who generally has very little patience for anything.  My wife and son OTOH are two of those people who are fucking terrible at video games and bumble around ineffectually for hours before they somehow exit the game without saving their progress, despite autosave, and then rinse and repeat -- without it bothering them in the slightest!

I want to be a better person but after the first 30 minutes of watching them walk off cliffs, accidentally shoot each other, and generally get stranded in the same scene because they can't execute the simplest maneuver to progress, I just have to leave the room.  No other form or art or entertainment causes such teeth-grinding frustration for me but video games are unique in demanding a certain basic level of competence from the consumer.

The silver lining is that I found a lot of extra reading time as I abandoned them to four hours of Lego Star Wars (still on the same chapter).

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

We got my son a Play Station 4 for Christmas (with the usual limits on screen time).  It's all fun and games and we've been enjoying it but I am one of those people who always wants to do things as well as they can be done, with constant improvement and progress, and who generally has very little patience for anything.  My wife and son OTOH are two of those people who are fucking terrible at video games and bumble around ineffectually for hours before they somehow exit the game without saving their progress, despite autosave, and then rinse and repeat -- without it bothering them in the slightest!

I want to be a better person but after the first 30 minutes of watching them walk off cliffs, accidentally shoot each other, and generally get stranded in the same scene because they can't execute the simplest maneuver to progress, I just have to leave the room.  No other form or art or entertainment causes such teeth-grinding frustration for me but video games are unique in demanding a certain basic level of competence from the consumer.

The silver lining is that I found a lot of extra reading time as I abandoned them to four hours of Lego Star Wars (still on the same chapter).

Heard about this cool technique that could be beneficial, it's called 'drinking heavily'.

[Tears of Lys]

16 hours ago, Lizard Princess said:

I don't want to go back to school. 

 

Also, Theon annoys me lol. I am only on book three though and don't know how he's going to change from here on out. Well, actually I do because I've seen the show, but that's not made me privy to his changes in thought. 

You won't want to go back to school for another 40 years - then you'll think, hmm, wouldn't it be nice not to have to face the real world and all its challenges and just devote myself to improving my mind.  And get off my lawn while you're at it.   

Theon annoyed the hell out of me too, along with the rest of the Ironborn.  The only time I could even partially stomach him was in watching his TV show self.  Maybe that was just due to Alfie Allen, though. 

Oh, and a word to the wise, some folks on this site take exception to even the slightest discussion involving the SoIaF world occurring down here in General Chat.  Or at least that's the impression I get.   

 

Edit:  Thanks, DP, for the link to the informative article.  All I needed to do was post the question and magically the answer appeared! 

[Lizard Queen]

3 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

You won't want to go back to school for another 40 years - then you'll think, hmm, wouldn't it be nice not to have to face the real world and all its challenges and just devote myself to improving my mind.  And get off my lawn while you're at it.   

Theon annoyed the hell out of me too, along with the rest of the Ironborn.  The only time I could even partially stomach him was in watching his TV show self.  Maybe that was just due to Alfie Allen, though. 

Oh, and a word to the wise, some folks on this site take exception to even the slightest discussion involving the SoIaF world occurring down here in General Chat.  Or at least that's the impression I get.   

 

Edit:  Thanks, DP, for the link to the informative article.  All I needed to do was post the question and magically the answer appeared! 

 

Hehe, yes, the real world sounds like it has it's own pains.

>_>  I must have skimmed the Ironborn chapters pretty hard because I barely remember anything of Theon's kin. But yes, I too was scoffing on the inside or frowning frequently during Theon's chapters. I agree that he's not as bad on the show for some reason.

And thanks for the head's up . I'll see if there's another thread around for random Asoiaf thoughts. I think I'd rather not get flack.

[Tears of Lys]

Good thinking, LP. 

 

Here's an innocent question, not enough for a topic:  Say you wanted to get out of the country for, oh, around four years, maybe more, no particular reason, where would y'all go?  What would you do? 

I'd go abroad, maybe to a European country, but they've got their own problems.  Australia or New Zealand seem nice.  They're extremely far away from my family, however, which is worrisome.  East Asia, I'm afraid, is too darn different besides being hot and buggy, which I can't stand, which also lets out several other places.  (Where I currently live can be hot and buggy in the summertime, but at least I know the bugs and most of them don't look like mutant aliens.)   Canada seems like a great option, but it's a little too close. 

I've been thinking of a long ocean cruise, something like the one in Ship of Fools or Between Two Worlds, only sunnier.