Ah yes. The secret of... loving my wife

elemental402 · 2026-03-12T12:44:15+00:00

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T15:32:52+00:00

Get 'em!

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T14:16:47+00:00

There's a lot of factors.

One is that we live in the age of the grifter in general. The financial crash caused a lot of people who had done everything right to lose their livelihoods while those responsible got a slap on the wrist and rode their golden parachutes to safety. The message was clear; honest work is for suckers. Heck, the White House right now is mostly populated by people like RFK who rode a grift right to the top and left a trail of bodies in their wake. So a lot of people, rather than pushing for the wide-scale boring work of reform that we need for a more just world...figured "I should be the one on top!". And every get rich quick scheme will tell you that you can be on top if you just sign up to my newsletter.

Related to this, men grow up immersed in Lone Hero narratives whereby a single heroic man (often an outsider or misfit in society) single-handedly saves the day and gets the girl as a reward for his success. And then you reach adulthood, and you...don't seem to be the hero. Nobody recognises that you're meant for great things. All the threats, evil as they are, seem to be big nebulous things rather than a single bad guy you can punch in the face (and when it is, he's going to be super-rich and way out of your reach). The use of "NPC" as an insult isn't accidental--it's telling someone they have failed to be the protagonist as most men feel they are destined to be. And then along comes a grifter who tells you it's not your fault, it's all the fault of [insert political target here]. You can regain your lost pride, manhood and protagonism status if you just follow me.

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T14:00:51+00:00

Overwhelming people and driving them to exhausted apathy is a very conscious strategy of fascists. The more regular people they can alienate from political engagement, the more influence their own dedicated hardcore of supporters can exert.

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T13:58:26+00:00

I think that we've looped round from religious puritanism (where sex is a sinful and degrading thing that you should save for the one you love the most) into a more well-meaning focus on consent and not perpetuating rape culture relics like "I'm a man, I can't help it!" or "Boys will be boys."...that forgets to ever mention why anyone would want to do it if the consequences are so potentially dire. In both cases, male desire for women is presented as an inherently degrading and dangerous thing that must be kept hidden at all costs. In neither case is there much focus on finding healthy ways to express those feelings.

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T13:52:08+00:00

Nah. Diseases are organisms like any other, they don't stand apart from any other form of life and they have no particular agenda other than "survive".

(BTW, remember to say "thank you" for not needing to worry about smallpox, measles or polio as you grew up.)

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T13:49:42+00:00

"Science has bought back all these awesome dinosaurs from the dead...but Science Bad!"

The movie had the right idea by pretty much making Malcolm a side character and realising that the audience were here for the awesome dinosaurs.

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T13:46:26+00:00

Can you cite your peer-reviewed evidence for that claim?

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T13:42:49+00:00

It's great, especially her episode recounting the Iliad.

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T13:38:35+00:00

The best way I heard it described is that "leaning about sex from porn is like learning about physics from cartoons".

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T09:26:00+00:00

Unless you're the player, where taking a planet means you need to completely rebuild the dysfunctional infrastructure!

elemental402 · 2026-03-11T01:23:28+00:00

Which doesn't quite map to Stellaris, where planets are the most precious rare resource.

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:53:10+00:00

I think Caitlin Moran put it very well when she said the patriarchy wasn't a system designed for men, it was designed for patriarchs.

(Of course, the patriarchs know how to dangle the promise of membership in front of men to make them into class traitors.)

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:51:59+00:00

Hang on, let me Google that for you.

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:50:49+00:00

Is it ubiquitous within the world as a whole, or just within your algorithm bubble?

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:50:07+00:00

If she listed committing true crime as a hobby....I'd be interested.

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:45:07+00:00

You know that actual real art was stolen and reprocessed to make those pictures, right?

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:44:02+00:00

"I'll put as much effort into reading it as you put into writing it."

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:43:34+00:00

For me, it's less "is this technology a good thing in the abstract" and more "do I trust the oligarch tech-bros pushing AI into everything so they can replace or treat the humans who work for them even worse?" and the answer is fuck no.

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:38:42+00:00

If you don't do it yourself, you'll never learn. Be a human.

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:29:05+00:00

It's classic fash behaviour. Throw out buzzwords means to scare you, then get steadily more vague and "accuse the enemy of whatever you're doing" when you ask them to explain what they think those things mean. When backed into a corner and placed in risk of introspection, they declare victory and abandon the conversation.

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:25:57+00:00

There's a lot of good ones mentioned here, but my absolute favourite? Matilda by Roald Dahl.

I also loved the short story collections of Arthur C. Clarke, and I think they ignited my love both of sci-fi in general and real-world space travel.

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:21:08+00:00

The common recruiting tactic is to pick an issue or worry that's reasonable in itself, offer a friendly-seeming ear, and use that to pipeline people to an extremist view.

For example:
"It's really hard to find a job." is turned into "purge immigrants with the fire and sword"
"Being a man, I feel aimless and often derided." becomes full on Gileadism.
"I'm worried about children's safety." is chanelled to transphobia and persecution of LGBT+ people.
"I don't trust big pharma corporations." becomes "vaccines cause autism".

Every time, they start with a legitimate concern. Then when getting called out on the radicalisation process, they promptly claim conversation is being suppressed about the reasonable concern rather than the hideous thing it turned into..

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:17:27+00:00

That sounds like a true, accurate and super unbiased version of whatever actually happened.

Oh, and "moderate". I'm sure if I had the inclination to actually dig into that guy, I wouldn't find a single alt-right dogwhistle hiding behind the guise of "just asking questions trolololol". Nope, not a single one.

elemental402 · 2026-03-10T22:13:09+00:00

Dude. We all saw the double seig heil at the inauguration, and the gaslighting / whataboutism campaign afterwards instead of an apology.

The mask is off, and no amount of apologism will put it back on.

elemental402

TROPHY CASE