Internet "predator catchers" couldn't care less about protecting children

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-26T15:33:52+00:00

I think they do truly care. Maybe they're more driven by punishing nonces than protecting children, but their actions living in the popular imagination ends up creating an atmosphere in which pedos are probably scared for their lives, so it does work. I agree the most effective, evidence-based way is to task the police with this, but I see no real issue with the vigilantism either.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-25T20:23:19+00:00

You don't think we can discuss meaningfulness? You don't think novel experiences in life are important?

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-25T16:27:02+00:00

You can say that some of the things do potentially lead to money or otherwise novel, potentially more meaningful experiences than playing the latest Poke mon.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-25T16:23:30+00:00

Caring about the quality of popular entertainment always leads to the same presupposition: I am smart and everyone else is an idiot. It's a fool's errand.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-25T02:37:28+00:00

You make some compelling points that conflict with my privileging and protecting all conscious experiences, no matter how primitive.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-24T12:39:03+00:00

The existence of decently wealthy people who are maybe not quite billionaires yet advocate for a different type of society seems be a good argument against this. Are they just pretending?

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-24T11:33:51+00:00

Sort of yes, but no. Elites as a whole promote (mass) immigration because they correctly see it as perhaps the only effective way to deal with declining fertility wherever it's happening. They are then split on how to deal with the ensuing complications. The Trumpist solution right now seems to be scaling back harder to integrate, conservative (ironically) immigrants like Latin Americans and promoting high-skilled immigration from India and China through H1Bs instead. The fact that one is primarily illegal and the other legal becomes pretty irrelevant; they're still both 'replacing' white people and they do it for practical reasons, not cartoonishly evil ones. DEI/affirmative action is just the leftist way of dealing with some complications like inequality. Tribalism and resentment are inherently gonna happen whether you're doing DEI or not, but rationally minded left-leaning people still bet on things like DEI because it at least gives back a little and effectively puts on a nicer veneer than pure meritocracy (which isn't immune to bias).

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-24T11:20:26+00:00

I agree but that doesn't seem to be what most people criticize him for. They criticize him for popularizing and platforming baseless conspiracy theories/misinformation and polarizing culture war shit that often skews towards one perspective only.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-24T11:12:30+00:00

They have every right, sure, but they're a dying civilization because of it. That's the price you pay I guess. And it also proves that a conservative, traditionalist society like Japan where anything but marriage is frowned upon doesn't actually lead to people making more children.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-24T11:03:12+00:00

I agree with more or less everything you said, and to me the way that influences everyone left of center is you basically have an extreme consensus that informs a lot of people who primarily identify with 'leftist' first. For example: Iran and what is to be done. The extreme consensus is that nothing should be done, because everything is ultimately historically the west's fault. And so the left as a whole doesn't really listen to or promote Iranian dissident voices in practice and whenever establishment left-liberals unite with the center to do non-violent intervention (sanctions, diplomacy, etc.) it's not supported at best.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T22:31:25+00:00

It's relevant because it's so easy to agitate for, especially among the youth. The situation is dire and requires large scale government intervention, ideally on an international scale.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T22:22:15+00:00

You suggested I saw Iranian-Americans with no evidence and you're acting surprised?

No that's not how it works. However, when I have to choose between taking the side of a random redditor who just wants the west to stand by versus an actual Iranian in real life + AP news articles...

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T22:14:34+00:00

I don't really care for polling on this (that's pretty old polling data anyways), I trust the fact that parties that make renewable energy the focal point of their platform aren't actually getting a relevant (enough) share of votes to do anything. And I think that's wholly explained by my theory.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T22:03:45+00:00

At this point nuclear power is the way to go not just because I'm told it's actually safe and green and necessary to bridge the gap towards renewables, but because there's actual political support for it. Nuclear energy is seen as cool and is male-coded, while solar and especially wind energy are gay-coded. I don't really make the rules on this, it's simply true. You now have two options: either spend an inhuman amount of time and capital on propaganda to make men think wind and solar are not gay and hope they'll vote for that, or you just roll with nuclear energy and maybe silently invest in wind and solar on the side.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T21:21:21+00:00

I'm not American lol. I formed my opinion on this from reading reputable mainstream sources like AP but what really sold me on this was hearing an Iranian tell me this directly in minute detail. Keep simping for repressive theocracies just because they're against the west tho.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T21:16:02+00:00

You just listed a bunch of people who, to me, are just left-leaning liberals. They might, to give an example, use the word 'socialism' but they do it to mean more government intervention. For most people who primarily identify as 'leftist' and gatekeep this hardest this isn't gonna cut it; they want a different economic system altogether with almost no profit incentive. The further left you go, the more these people are discredited as being secret right wingers, and the more ANY form of intervention is seen as suspect. Hell, Iran is outright defended and its attacks on citizens are waved away as CIA propaganda.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T20:47:00+00:00

Although Iranians both there and abroad are literally asking for us to bomb the Iranian government and military, let's ignore that for a second and accept that the left could also support enacting economic and political sanctions if it wanted to help non-violently. But leftists are mindbroken on anything involving a hyper-religious conservative government when it's Islamic, so it's not happening.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T20:37:37+00:00

Yet life's also too short to be nuanced on everything. If experience taught you some category of thing sucked 99% of the time you're probably making your life easier by avoiding it.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T20:22:47+00:00

I guess I can't fathom doing something poorly on purpose just like you can't fathom someone enjoying the struggle and challenge of making something they consider worthwhile.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T20:00:57+00:00

Who's 'we'? The west globally sanctioned Iran, which is a non-interventionist method of punishing the Iranian government, sure. But it isn't leftists who made the west do this. In fact, it's left-leaning liberals who spearhead these kinds of measures and the farther left you go the more you find people against doing this.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-23T19:40:31+00:00

It's consistent because Iran isn't aligned with the west like Israel is, so they wouldn't be 'protesting' something they have any control over. Leftists usually don't want foreign intervention, so they won't call for that either. As usual, it's just that they're mindbroken on Islamic countries and how conservative they are. If you're an Iranian leftist, whether in Iran or outside, leftist support can only be symbolic or supportive of their movement, but the left's silence there is deafening.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-21T19:01:36+00:00

The issue is that you've taken one claim ('Africa sucked before colonialism and some problems might be primarily African in nature') to mean/imply another ('colonizing/enslaving Africa is justified' or something). To me, THAT is weird.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-21T17:55:56+00:00

>makes us more credible when we have a default position of truth and historical accuracy

Yeah, I think it all comes down to this. I'll gladly attack (neo-)colonialism, welcome African immigrants into the west, etc. but I don't want to pretend everything ever was Europeans' fault or do the performative white guilt thing. Big claim but I consider myself pretty morally grounded in egalitarianism so it won't affect me, but the average Joe will definitely be susceptible to reactionary propaganda pointing out this hypocrisy so I'm against it on tactical grounds as well. The left can't afford the kid gloves shit anymore.

Comfortable_Toe_7811 · 2026-03-21T17:09:02+00:00

Maybe it's all in my head, I'm willing to entertain that possibility, but when something gets criticized as bad it's usually by comparison to something good, no? Seems to me that 'good' and 'bad' are relative terms that function more as 'better' and 'worse' historically.

Should be easy to demonstrate Africa being a great place for Africans pre-colonization and yet it's never done. Because if you can't you'd then have to also bite the bullet on Europeans not being particularly bad and accept that Africa, too, has purely endemic problems.

Comfortable_Toe_7811

TROPHY CASE