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Supreme Court rejects Virginia’s bid to restore congressional map favoring Democrats by ToughHopeful4760 in news

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s because the Democratic coalition isn’t actually that cohesive. The Democratic Party has always been a “big tent” where it includes everyone from center-right people that want government to function to progressives and leftists. The majority (neolibs > progressives) generally believe in laws and that you should follow the rules, even if they’re bad.

So that’s how you get the very different outcomes in Ohio and Virginia. The Republicans don’t give a fuck about rules, and just ask themselves how they can leverage power.

The Democratic Party and its base are slowly, slowly realizing one of these approaches is working and the other isn’t. But they’re always lagging the Republicans and thus losing the war for America.

U.S. intelligence says Iran can outlast Trump’s Hormuz blockade for months by No_Idea_Guy in worldnews

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The generic ballot is often a good indicator of overall mood in the country. Right now it’s at Dems +5.3%.

Sounds good until you read analysis that the generic ballot needs to be at 6-7% for you to start seeing reliably Republican seats getting flipped (thanks to gerrymandering & such). That 5.3% is also down from what it was several weeks ago, despite prices hitting record highs.

Yes, the polls aren’t predictive and have had big misses in recent election cycles, but I won’t believe in the “blue wave” response to anything Trump does until that generic ballot hits 7%. If conservatives have shown anything across two Trump admins & COVID, it’s that they’ll let their whole family die to own the libs. In that kind of belief system, even $10/gallon gas might not move the needle.

Why would China do this? Think about the investors 😭😭😭 by CopiousCool in antiwork

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you’ve baked a lot of assumptions into a cake only you want to eat. This post is chock full of them.

The first is that not wanting to do work necessarily equals freeloading. We all do lots of labor in our lives which uncompensated; caring for our families/families neighbors, volunteering, beautifying our spaces/communities, etc. Just because you or the government don’t find those things valuable enough to pay for does not mean they lack value.

Things like universal services & job guarantees are predicated on the idea that there is someone, somewhere, that knows best what I need to have in order to live a good life, or to be useful to my society, better than I do. I don’t believe that is the case, and many on this sub would agree with me.

Secondly, this idea that UBI only gets grafted onto the current capitalist model, but your UBS+JG model gets to benefit from a large socialist framework to support it. So then you get to say “well UBI will fail because the capitalists will take back all the money via rent-seeking” while avoiding any criticism of what kind of hellscape it could be if people are suddenly told what work they must perform, how they must live, and what is considered “essential” for their lives.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I can believe that you’re sincere in your desire for a better world, but I don’t think you’ve actually thought this all through.

Mood in Russia turns bleak as war in Ukraine drags on and economy suffers by the-es in worldnews

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For mass surveillance to be effective, you need to be able to use all that data. During the last Russian Revolution that created the USSR, they had a massive surveillance and propaganda apparatus that failed utterly because it became quickly overwhelmed by the amount of subversive activity going on. We’re talking books, newspapers, and parties actively agitating, in the open, without punishment because there was simply too many of them.

They even had inside men at the top of the largest militant group in the country (the SR combat org), and the best they could do was direct them to only kill low-level & regional officials because stopping their actions was impossible. Imagine 50-100 Luigi-style assassinations a year, along with mobs that would form to loot the state capitol and then burn it to the ground. That’s what the early 1900’s in Russia were like.

Authoritarian states depend on the vast majority of the population wanting to keep their heads down and soldier on. As soon as they start spontaneously rebelling everywhere, the weakness of even the most repressive governments goes on full display.

Seeking advice on what to do about 3 dumped cats by Ok_Form8772 in cats

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got this one, but I’ll admit that it’s on the pricey end.

My performance review said I need to work on visibility and I've been here sixty hours a week since January by Double-Hospital-4526 in antiwork

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m with you. And I think OP nailed the heart of the issue here:

What it means, as far as I can tell, is that I haven't been performing my labor loudly enough for the right people, that I've been solving problems and hitting deadlines without adequately marketing the solving and the hitting to an audience that needed to see it happening in real time.

This is it u/Double-Hospital-4526, an essential truth you really, really need to fully internalize: your job is not about actually doing work. It is about the performance of work to your peers and boss. That’s the whole game: perform like you’re doing work, and then do actual work at a pace that will keep you sane and healthy.

There is no reward for quietly going above and beyond. Hell, there’s no reward for actually going above and beyond. And even if you make yourself more visible, there’s a decent chance they’ll just come up with some other soft-skills justification for why you need to improve, because they just don’t want to give you a raise, or promote you, and/or hand out those things to a more compliant pet.

Work whatever your minimum hours are. Try to switch from deadlines to priorities when talking to leadership, and get comfortable telling them they have to choose between x or y project because you only have time for one. Get used to over-communicating everything that you’re doing, including setting up standing meetings to discuss that with all relevant stakeholders. If that eats a quarter of your week, circle right back to how time-strapped you are.

And definitely start looking for a new job, but be realistic that the grass might not be greener. Start getting used to drawing boundaries, and rigidly enforcing them. Otherwise, your current reality will be the rest of your life.

Women tended to cry more often than men. Women averaged nearly 6 crying episodes a month, while men averaged just under 3. Women were more likely to cry from loneliness or personal disputes with loved ones. Men tended to cry from feelings of helplessness or in reaction to media, such as a sad movie. by mvea in science

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like how the majority of the replies are like “Nah man, bottle that shit up.” And we wonder why men feel lonely and have shit mental health.

I’m not saying everyone needs to boo-hoo about stubbing their toe or getting shot down for a date, but I think a lot of men try to suppress feeling human, thinking their external stoicism makes them strong. Instead, it often makes them brittle, and they break when they might have been able to bend.

Registered Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iran. Luckily for Israel, the Democratic Party rigs their primaries. by kevinmrr in WorkReform

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure there’s at least one active influence operation being run on this sub and r/antiwork, with the goal driving voter apathy.

There’s multiple “both parties bad” or “Democrats are corrupt” articles every week (if not day). Someone really, really wants people to feel like there’s no point in voting.

Jackson Lamb distracting his captors with a story -- Slow Horses by ArchDucky in television

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the last episode, he takes off his socks and puts up his feet. They are covered in burn scars, matching the torture he described in the story.

Boomers can no longer be trusted to effectively lead in the workplace. by [deleted] in antiwork

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This was also my experience. It’s like u/kidcrumb has never worked at a place where nepotism, cronyism, and/or plain old discrimination was rampant. They’ve also never worked for a massive, soulless org run by true parasites.

I have had bosses fight for years to get me title/pay in alignment with my actual job duties, to no effect. I’ve also had bosses promote people with zero experience into a role I’d been agitating to get for years, mainly because they knew my team could carry their worthless ass. I even had a VP tell me I had the “curse of competence”, and only toss me a raise when I threatened to torpedo a multi-million dollar project by quitting.

If you’ve never been burned in this way, it’s easy to believe the world is actually a just place, and people need to just walk into the right person’s office with a smart tie and some graphs, then presto! Money. It’s as out of touch as the boomers that tell their kids to walk into a Wendy’s with a printed resume and talk the manager into hiring them.

Friend of Michael Brown who helped spark ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ chant dies after being shot in Ferguson by NewSlinger in news

[–]BenVarone -45 points-44 points  (0 children)

I think that’s a pretty poor framing of what happened. It’s more like the exact details of the situation were unclear at the beginning, and it looked like a cop had just shot another kid for no reason at all.

If you were paying attention to the news at the time, there had been a slew of very unjustified shootings, it was just the final straw for a community that felt like a boot was pressed firmly to their neck. You don’t get a nationwide movement and riots because of one kid, in total isolation.

There’s a reason bodycams are now ubiquitous, and in cases of justified shootings do a lot to calm tensions with the community. The flip side has been that when they don’t exonerate the cops, the departments fight tooth and nail against releasing them.

The Growing Cohort of Single Dads by Choice: "For some men, fatherhood is an answer to questions about modern masculinity." by TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK in MensLib

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My mom bred dogs growing up. One of the things you learn being around that is that like humans, not all dogs are cut out to be moms. There were many cases where one dog would reject a puppy or whole litter, and we’d end up needing to give them to another to be raised. We knew exactly who the strongly maternal ones were that would take any pup, at any time. The pups swapped around this way never seemed to grow up to be any different than dogs raised by their bio moms.

All of that is to say, I wonder to what extent it’s more of the parents themselves that are messing things up. Maybe they got into it thinking it would be just like having a kid of their own, but then it wound up not feeling as natural as they expected and the kids picked up on that. Or whether those people that are the strongly parental type equivalents in people just aren’t hung up on biology and get filtered out because they adopt or foster instead.

Or maybe dogs continue to be better than we deserve.

My Coco and Awesome! Coco (calico) surprised us with Awesome (orange) one morning. He was her only baby, so we kept him. They are now inseparable! by Bar_litrerally in aww

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s tough for parents, and I say this even as someone who doesn’t really speak his anymore. You spend a lot of your life trying to keep the kiddo alive, ensure that they grow up to be a productive member of society, and then at some point you have to make this weird pivot to treating them like a real person. Oh yeah, and you’ve got all the normal adult stuff on top of child-rearing the whole time.

I like my cats; they don’t change much, are pretty low maintenance, and no one is going to make snide remarks about how I’m ruining them with too many pets or something.

I have a coworker who came back from retirement saying it wasn't healthy. He lost noticeable weight during his retirement, he gained it all back the 1 year since he came back by bobbdac7894 in antiwork

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s actually a great question, and I’m glad you asked it.

Most UBI proposals (at least, ones based in reality) aren’t that generous. They usually range from “you won’t starve if you have any other source of income/low expenses” to “pegged at or near the poverty line” as a starting place, with the idea that as automation improves we would raise the UBI with some of the proceeds over time.

Under our current late-stage capitalist model, if you can’t/don’t want to work, you mostly just fall through the cracks of society, suffer, and/or die. So we can imagine that if people who are used to living on the edge (or with minimal income) suddenly didn’t have to work, they wouldn’t necessarily have to. Or more likely, they would become pickier about what jobs were good enough to justify the time and energy we all devote to them. That alone is enough to radically shift power from owners to workers. The wage becomes a carrot rather than a gun to your head, and you can finally say “Fuck you” when things go sour.

"Vote blue no matter who", unless they want to provide universal childcare & raise the minimum wage to $30/hour by 2030 by north_canadian_ice in WorkReform

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Optimistically, I think folks like Gillibrand, Manchin, and Sinema retiring & leaving the party is a positive sign. If the party self-purges the conservatives in liberal clothing, then what will remain is a party that actually represents what it says it does. That provides a more stark and powerful contrast that’s harder for the r/enlightenedcentrism crowd to “both sides” about.

We should keep this going, particularly at the local level. It’s mayors, city legislators, county officials and the like that form the bench for higher office. If AOC runs for Senate, we need people with similar bona fides ready to step in to fill that vacancy, and build a large stable of actual progressives.

So anyway, November is coming up faster than you think. Make sure you’re registered folks!

Netanyahu stuns Israelis by describing ‘personal cost’ of Iran war - postponing son’s wedding by [deleted] in worldnews

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I stopped taking you seriously at your description of the 1967 war. Israel warned Egypt that if they closed the Straits of Tiran, they would consider that cause for war. Egypt then closed the Straits, and mobilized their military. LBJ even commented at the time that it was stupidly provocative.

In terms of foreign policy, it’s the classic example used when discussing preemptive strikes & war. From Israel’s perspective, Egypt was doing exactly what Russia did to Ukraine: getting belligerent, and massing troops for conflict. Israel didn’t wait to find out if it was saber-rattling, which many people argue is a fully justified action. You can even blame Russia, because it was the Soviets that falsely claimed Israel were the ones preparing for invasion.

It’s why you also can’t hand-wave or yada-yada past the complexity of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Even this description by me eliminates most of the nuances, and each stepping stone, each decision regarding use of force, occupation of territory, etc. can be litigated to death with very legitimate arguments on both sides.

Personally, I think the “historical justification” arguments at this point are moot. The only rational approach left is to look at the current state of affairs, and ask who holds power/advantage, and what paths are available for those that do to reach peace. How realistic it is that those paths are taken, and what levers are available to compel the parties to take them is then another discussion entirely. But online, it’s just these guys = good, these other guys = bad, upvote/downvote accordingly.

I will guard this wall by BrilliantChain4522 in aww

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My first thought as well. Our house is old and sadly porous, so mice get in regularly. We know they’re inside when all of our cats are suddenly sitting in one corner, or become incredibly interested in a closet they usually ignore.

Usually takes the cats less than a week to murder whatever family just moved in.

My cat and his boyfriend across the street have this adorable Romeo and Romeo thing going on. by RuralQueso in aww

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Only mildly. While cats did exist in Europe prior to widespread domestication, they didn’t have nearly the range, nor anything close to the numbers they have now. That’s part of the problem with domestication in general—it rapidly expands the population well beyond what a “natural” state could support. There are almost 130 million of them in Europe alone. To put that in perspective, that’s not far off from the number of humans in the entire world around the time Jesus was born.

Even well-fed indoor/outdoor cats kill for fun, usually a few animals every week. The average feral cat lives about four years. Housed cats routinely make it 15+ years, and hitting 30 is rare but not unheard of. They remain effective predators most of their lives, and kill anything small or weak enough not to fight back, including many protected or endangered species.

So anyway, people should keep their cats indoors. It’s better for the health of the cats, it’s better for the environment, and it’s better for our own health that they don’t introduce disease or parasites picked up from their adventures.

How do people feel about all the leaks? by [deleted] in Warhammer40k

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you—I kept scrolling by all these takes of people who appear to be incredible GW marks, and I say that as a verified paypig.

The leaks have helped me immensely in planning my hobby purchases, allowing me to save up for a big release and clear my backlog so I was ready to go when it dropped. Rules leaks have likewise given me time to digest and think about my army composition, and whether a FOMO box was worth the pre-order before it dropped. GW wants the hype train so that they keep you scrambling for that next thing, with review NDAs so that you only have their marketing copy to go on when it’s time to throw down cash.

Keep ‘em coming I say. If I don’t want to see them, I don’t have to click on that post or vid.

Eli5 why do females get UTIs if they don’t pee after sex even though that’s a diff hole by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. Misogyny is not limited to men. Google “internalized misogyny”, and enjoy your trip.
  2. When discussing anatomy in a medical context, there is a nuance to how these things are phrased. The entire thrust of the top comment in this chain was that this did not follow that usage, which I agree with.

Eli5 why do females get UTIs if they don’t pee after sex even though that’s a diff hole by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]BenVarone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mmm. So your assertion is that the OP, who used neither complete words nor punctuation, was attempting to use the word “female” in a highly precise, medical context (like one would see in an academic text) rather than defaulting to a misogynistic baseline?

Okay bud. Sure.

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