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  • All my homies dispersed after our lives became so painful and tiring that we had nothing to share anymore.

    Men growing up never learn how to talk about their lives and wants and fears with each other, it's always fake bravado, masculinity, "how can I make everyone laugh" and other increasingly desperate attempts to cling to the simple, happy days of childhood when there was less to worry about and every day was magical.

    When the magic wanes, we're left as people holding nothing. We don't know how to laugh anymore. We don't know how to make anyone else laugh anymore. We stop smiling. We stop going out of our way to even keep up appearances, and just fade into the background, and most of us like it that way. Because society broadly doesn't know how to handle male emotional states that don't follow stereotypes for cartoonish masculinity. So as men get older, we get more and more alone.

    I literally have no clue what it feels like to have other men, related or not, to lean on and talk to. I've never had support from anyone outside of my partner, and cannot imagine how dark life is for men who don't even have that. Yes, our world is unkind to men. It's also unkind to women in a different way.

    We can each change it, but it takes effort, emotional intelligence, and of course the time in the day that most of us don't have once you have bills to pay and people to take care of.

    And I don't say this as some kind of whiny-ass teenage MGTOW redpill kid who is mad at women. I have studied sociology and neurology for decades, I have been a coach and trainer to young men, as well as women and families, I have taught self-defense, I've been in therapy, I've had substance abuse problems, i've kicked substance abuse problems. I've been religious and renounced it all. I've been a shut-in introverted gamer turned outgoing, public-speaking business leader. I've lived a few and speak from decades of just being and watching.

  • He is maintaining a stupid stageplay for his stupid base whom he still needs to retain power, as they are basically an army he could mobilize if he has to.

    Sure he would probably be happy and make sacks of cash if he got Ukraine to surrender, but nobody expects that to happen. Outside of said idiots who believe Trump to be Stupid-Jesus risen again. Most of them are too dim to understand what's happening and delight in their own cognitive dissonance. They read a statement like this and go "YEAH BROTHA TELL THEM FREELOADERS TO STOP STEALING AMERICAN CASH" then tell all their friends and family and nonconsenting coworkers how Trump "resolved the ukraine war" like he promised.

    If anyone thinks any part of that is hyperbolic, you're not getting out enough. Ya'll gotta understand that the quarter of America who worships this orange turd are cheering and partying all day, every day. They're not worried, they're not regretting shit. All of that is distraction and pandering. They believe themselves to be winning, and their leader controls the world's most wealthy and powerful nation.

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  • I really feel like the linux thing is far more cultural than practical, and if you don't actually enjoy fiddling around with settings and software, you're probably not going to enjoy the community either.

    I have no idea what I'm going to do, I can't afford a new PC nor do I have the desire to buy a new PC just because Microsoft says jump through this new hoop. I'll probably just do a bypass and ask around the docks for a security key "workaround" from the friendly, local, sailors with eyepatches and peg legs.

  • Right wing, insecure short dudes who don't know how to talk to girls are some of the absolute worst people on the planet.

    Meanwhile I knew a guy around the size of Warwick Davis who had to stay in a wheelchair, or at least used a cane and other mobility aids when he was at home. Outgoing, great sense of humor. Threw great parties. Got cute goth babes like, every other week. Just the nicest dude you ever met.

    The difference is accepting who and what you are and learning to love it and trying to find something worth enjoying in life.

  • This is a work of art, genius level.

    And will go completely over the head of almost every average American.

    "Wait, I don't get it..." They will say as they read the ChatGTP summary, which will be shorter and easier to read. "Is Hitler still alive then? Why did this guy have dinner with him? What does this mean? So like, Hitler ain't so bad?"

    They will try to ask these questions on Reddit or Facebook but the question will get shadowbanned because the topic is too controversial for advertisers. Or the only ones who answer will be bots programmed to deliver specific replies.

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  • I shouldn't be surprised that literally nobody knows how to read through political-speak or understands the game as it's being played.

    It's not your fault, it's the goddamn waves and waves of bad-faith bots and shills who have infested every corner of the internet like fucking bedbugs, latching onto any minuscule term or word that could inflame strong feelings in either side of the political spectrum, and amplifying those things to the point of absurdity, so that our general population doesn't even try to understand things like political games or nuance or complex motivations.

    This is what paved the way for our cartoonishly absurd "leadership" right now. They campaigned on face-value terms and ideas, the most superficial, black-and-white values. It's why our political landscape is at a point where people don't even attempt to debate each other anymore, because nobody listens to each other or even wants to understand each other. It's why we have to explain every little thing online in excruciating detail and with a mile of qualifiers and disclaimers. They have ruined our ability to understand anything past what we see, and as someone who lived in the before times, when there was no social media or internet at all, I can say with certainty that things are dramatically different now. People are different.

  • Social identity is one of those things we never talk about, it's something most people don't even believe exists. But it's so fundamental to who we are as a species that when it's taken away, people will lose the will to live entirely even if they're not depressed or have any mental illness. This has been researched to a great degree and we've made laws pertaining to how we treat prisoners because we've collectively determined that to take someone's social identity away is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.

    Meanwhile, we have all built an interconnected palace to finding ways to dismantle our own social identities online. It doesn't matter how "introverted" you think you are or how reclusive you feel, you need a social identity to survive, you need other people, you need to define yourself in relation to others. It's hardwired.

    And scrolling on the internet doesn't fill this gap. You can't get that self-inflection from reading other people's thoughts in your own head. You have to engage with others to find yourself, and if you don't, you slowly become more and more withdrawn and distant and you start to blame these dark feelings on everything else, because how do you even identify a cause or a syndrome that we don't even have language for in most cases? How many 18-year-old boys who don't know how to talk to girls are thinking "I need to exercise my social capacity to better find my own values"? When it's so much easier to find a forum that says you're the one who's right and true and honest, and the world is against you.

  • Yah I used to one-on-one real-life coaching and mentoring, I've done my time, I've done my service, I've had several boys who became men send me letters thanking me for "saving their life" so I disagree about ALL of this, we shouldn't be expecting anything with our stupid online chatter. This whole post is useless compared to actually getting out and talking to people, making an actual impact on someone's life. The one thing that NOBODY wants to actually do. None of you readers out there want to talk to some incel and listen to their problems and give them actual help.

    You want to bury men like Tate? You start getting boys off the internet entirely.

  • There's an old adage that you should never make life policy decisions based on how you feel in the moment. The MGTOW guys, even the "best" of them are stuck in a perpetual reaction state and thus their policy and mission statement are less actual tactics for finding comfort and peace, and more a reaction designed to elicit a response from other people.

    It's a tantrum. They're all throwing a tantrum.

    If you're actually making your own decisions about if you want to date or not, you just do it, you don't need to wear it like a uniform, you don't actually need community support outside of whatever actual social circle you [should] already have in life. The MGTOW movement, even in the most charitable possible light, is massively performative and expecting some kind of attention. This is why they get increasingly vocal and toxic, they're like the 11-year-old kid who packed all his favorite belongings in a checkerboard bindle over his shoulder and is at the front door shouting "I'M REALLY RUNNING AWAY NOW! FOR REAL! YOU'RE ALL GONNA BE SORRY!"

  • Ideally, you have these "arguments" well ahead of time before you marry someone who has fucked up attitudes about anyone, anywhere.

    People can absolutely change and "wake up" to realize that the shit they're holding onto is going to cost them their future and they will absolutely change for the better when they care for someone else and want a better future. But not everyone is willing or capable of self-examination, and many are also not willing or capable of making changes.

    Find out before you both have your names on a mortgage or carton of eggs together.

  • I love just saying "toxic masculinity" anywhere online, even if you're deep in the bowels of Lemmy, you will get a few reactionary turds who just see the term and lose all cognitive ability to think and mash the downvote button between heated breaths and tears streaming down their faces.

    edit: and it continues, very predictable. Seriously guys, just be honest if the term makes you feel shit, you will find truth by pursuing those feelings and the questions around them, literally you will figure out why you're actually unhappy. Don't pull back, push through. Yes, I am provoking, and if it's provocation that has an effect on you, that's a HUGE sign that you can figure out a big truth about yourself and the world if you spend like, 30 minutes in uncomfortable silence asking yourself "why" about things and being painfully honest in your replies until you hit bedrock.

  • Almost through my 40's and I've:

    • Had three decent careers that each abruptly laid me off without warning.
    • Had a home and lost it.
    • Had a car and lost it.
    • Had parents and siblings and lost them
    • Had health and lost it.
    • Had good credit and lost it.
    • Had tens of thousands in savings and spent it on family members with cancer. (They died anyway.)
    • Had a drinking problem and lost it, so hey score one!
  • Be me, 2021, leading a team of energetic people and rebuilding the department I inherited into a productive, dynamic team focused on creating solutions and training up new people. Get awarded employee of the year, get told thanks in part to me that the company will be set to see its strongest earnings ever. Widespread praise and appreciation. Develop strong bonds with team and feel rewarded going to work.

    Get laid off suddenly, told that it was part of the deal with selling the company to private equity. It was the plan all along to make the company "appear" profitable and successful so it would fetch highest value. Spend two years unemployed and depressed as covid ravages the working world and nobody wants to hire anyone over about age 28 or so, because it's cheaper to hire younger people willing to fill any role than spend a lot on someone with specialized skills and management experience.

    We need to overthrow capitalism guys.

  • This is absolutely a kind of rage-bait.

    I don't doubt that there's a growing segment of misogynistic boys who have been influenced by Tate and our society's general check-out when it comes to being communal and supporting each other and the absolute bullshit mess that social media and online dating has created for young relationships, the statistics are abysmal and worrying...

    But that said, the large majority of all Americans at any age are still pretty much just getting through it like always.

    These kinds of stories, while beneficial that they are highlight and showing us problems that need to be addressed, all they're doing without a prescriptive solution or counter-point is just wedging this division in our community further and further apart. It's making girls scared of boys. It's making boys scared that girls will think they're horrible misogynists, and thus they will be defensive at the ready accusations and the exchanges spiral from there.

    It's revolting that we cling to hateful figures so readily. They give us validation for pent-up frustration and anger at a system that has abandoned us. That's why it's addicting to read about horrible things and horrible people. Which makes horrible things and horrible people. Our addiction to hating people is creating people like Tate, because our desire to hate someone makes us click on these stories over and over and feel that righteous outrage that seems to make everything make sense. It's addicting and we need to recognize it and stop imbibing in it.