whofearsthenight @ whofearsthenight @lemm.ee

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2 yr. ago

I don't disagree, but $150k is just not that much money any more for a household. My wife and I make probably around $110 or so. I got lucky and bought a house 6-8 years ago (I'd never be able to afford interest rates or what that house appraises at now) we have a couple of <$20k used cars with good rates, and a household of 6-8 depending on which of my kid's friends basically live with us this week.

if I were buying my house today, we'd need to make much closer to the 150 just to maintain our current middle class lifestyle, and trust me, it's not like we're eating steak every night (or probably even every month.) I mean, sure, there are things we can do to make that money go further, and we will likely have to do as my kids get older/more expensive.

I mean, Kissinger can have a layover on his way to hell to get his ass beat by Bourdain. This sounds like heaven to me.

oh, absolutely. I've never really lived in a proper city (bigger towns, maybe) so it's still possible now, but the culture has def moved on. I mean, I see the occasional kids on bikes, but when I was a kid (80's - 90's) pretty much every kid had a bike and this was just the default.

I swear I probably spent like 2 solid weeks after school just running into walls in the Water Temple because I couldn't figure it out. And I used to 100% like everything I played. You'd find out every secret, every cheat, and spend hours. Especially once things like GTA came out, just hours and hours of doing functionally nothing. Fuck even games I didn't really even like I was an expert in. These days, I'm lucky to get a few hours a week on a game, and I rarely finish anything that's not exactly the type of game I'm extremely into, and 100% is a thing that basically never happens anymore.

Dude, this is the thing that depresses the hell out of me. When I was kid there were skating rinks, arcades, malls, etc. Granted, those things cost money as well, but most of us could make a $5 last all day.

I've noticed with my kids I have to know where they are basically at all times. Leave school, go to friends house, I get notified. On weekends if they go from one house to the other, I need to know.

When I was a kid, I would get up and on my bike around 7-8am, would not be back until dark at least, and just go... anywhere? Ride 10 miles across the whole town, through construction, to the creek or up the big ass hill a little outside of town? Sure. And the wild thing about this is that it was completely normal.

dehumanizing

You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

“Ignorant” is a bit of a catch-all here and is doing a lot of the lifting

Oh it definitely is. My general assessment would be the truly bad people who know all the things we know and still hold insane positions is vanishingly small. Trump, for example, has no ideology. He has and will reverse course on basically any position he holds. Do we think he actually gave a shit about overturning Roe, knowing that he's probably paid for more abortions than Planned Parenthood? Even in the category of bigots, I think it's largely more of a function of ignorance that it is some deeply held belief. Like, if you're white I'm sure you know someone who'll drone on about "orientals" except the people they personally know who are "one of the good ones."

The rise of conservative talk radio, and the media sphere it eventually evolved into, is at the heart of this slide into populism.

I don't think that we're disagreeing. I think Rush, for example, falls pretty firmly into the bad people group and is part of a machine that is basically keeping people ignorant. Fox News is the prominent example, and it's hard to call its viewers much more than ignorant, and there would be far fewer of them if they weren't all aggrieved about their economic situations and had some basic knowledge. It's not a secret that economic/education has taken a major dive in the last few decades, and I simply don't think you end up with this populist movement without that.

See my comment I just posted. It's really not, and it's not even effective regardless. Right wing authoritarianism is a symptom of larger societal problems.

Well, that's the thing, it is pretty well documented as are the causes. We'll never completely stop people from taking stupid positions, but there is a ton of data that shows education and economics tie heavily into political ideology.

There are really about three categories of modern Republicans:

• The greedy. These are the politicians and business owners and others who know perfectly well that Trump is all of the bad things the left says he is, that know he's going to hurt a lot of people, but also know he'll cut their taxes and they're mostly insulated from the worst of it.
• the hateful. Racists and bigots, etc.
• The ignorant or stupid.

These groups are always going to exist to an extent or another. The thing is that while there are some people who will always, always fall into one of these buckets, I think they are actually vanishingly small, and the vast majority of folks are the product of things that are controllable through societal function. More simply, why is basically every American city not only blue, but also generally deep blue? Cities generally have better economic outcomes, higher rates of education, and more diversity in general because of the first two. Conversely, red states fall at the bottom of the country on basically any measure of economic outcome, education, etc.

So in short, put in some more guardrails, improve education, and fix wealth inequality. That sounds reductive, but any of those topics have extremely actionable things that we can see better outcomes from in our own country, and if we cast a little further, many other countries get much more right than we do, but that would turn this comment from a novella into a Sanderson-sized epic.

Also, I got bit farther afield from the original article, but tbh I think shame is going to play a part as well. Holding these views should be deeply unpopular, and you should expect to be ostracized if you hold them. I honestly think one of the worst things that we on the left do is engage on some of these things in good faith. If I have a dinner party and invite someone over that wants to have a debate about a wealth tax, fine, we can talk about it. If they tell me they think there shouldn't be an age of consent and pedophilia is a-ok and then shits on the table, we're not talking about it I'm kicking them out of my fucking house and calling the police. Some ideas don't deserve engagement. That's where women (and I'm guessing quite a lot of men) are with Republicans.

edit: it should be worth noting that I'm not saying these are things or qualities that the left doesn't have. Corporations, for example, are by nature greedy, and I'd argue the c-suite in particular probably also has a Venn diagram that is basically a circle. Target and Disney as entities aren't more inclusive or celebrating pride because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the profitable thing to do. But this leads to a more inclusive society with better outcomes for everyone anyway...

This post reads to me like the typical in-group out-group type of thinking where the essence of the entire “out-group” is boiled down to most hateful exaggeration of their position in order to (and in this case hypocritically because it’s what you are accusing them of doing) dehumanize them.

Then your reading comprehension is low. They're still human, I'm not trying to deny them basic rights, and I'm not exaggerating anything. Trump is a rapist. This is a fact. Trump is also the front runner for the Republican Party. This is also a fact. Trump maintains that massive support after he installed 3 justices which lead to the overturning of Roe and has led to a state where women have fewer rights. Even in cases of rape, where a women's bodily autonomy has been violently taken from her, she may not be able to exercise control of her own body to abort. Republicans are arguing right now that women shouldn't be able to voluntarily divorce. So yeah, for shorthand, Republicans don't believe women deserve equal rights, and thus don't believe women are the same amount of human they are.

Nothing has really changed in 20 years.

20 years ago women had bodily autonomy. Book bans were things we read about in school done by fascist governments. Vaccinating was not controversial and polio had been all but eradicated. White Replacement Theory was not on the most popular primetime "news" show. Mocking service members who lost limbs in war for this country was career ending. The list goes on and on.

It’s close mindedness

No, it's not, and choosing to engage in these sorts of arguments in good faith is already ceding ground that simply should not be. One side: "I would like us to go to Dairy Queen." Other side: "I want us to eat dog shit." Side one: "no." Side two: "you're just not being open minded! let's debate this great idea!"

I do believe that there is something wrong with the modern day republican party

Phew, that's the easy, obviously correct position.

revealed to be everything they openly hated about Clinton (other than liberal)

I can guarantee you that none of these people could articulate a thing they hated about Clinton.

but closing yourself off to them

"Really need to check out this dogshit idea." Tbh this is just the free market doing its thing. If I open a dogshit restaurant, I'd expect that I'd quickly go out of business. Republicans are choosing policy positions that are not only not popular, they pretty easily provably lead to worse outcomes for most Americans. Most of these things are not moral or philosophical debate. Speaking of, another thing that's changed in 20 years - access to information. While you're right Republicans haven't really had good positions in my lifetime, they've moved to more extremes, and information about what they're doing is more widely available. Like, there has been an undercurrent of racism in the party for a very long time, but it was easy to dismiss because leaders at least still spoke in dogwhistles. Trump is just flagrantly racist, and, again, still the front runner.

Anyway, this is the difference. Republican positions are to ban things and ideas they don't like. Words like "eradicate" come up a lot when talking about other people. Listen to a trump speech, DeSantis speech, etc. They season them all with frankly genocidal language. The other side is "vermin." This is what it means to dehumanize. You'll find none of that in my comment. Republicans are human, just stupid or greedy humans. I don't believe that they don't deserve to exist, I believe they deserve better educations and economic outcomes so they stop holding such dogshit ideas.

I don’t think many thinks these exact words.

It's a distinction without a difference.

I think that they want someone cruel and vindictive and willing to break the rules to hurt their enemies.

For sure, still unfuckable.

But even this language that you're using is shifting the Overton window:

this deep of a schism where people won’t even date someone with differing views

We're not arguing about marginal tax rates. This is not just "differing views," and it's not on women or the left to solve. If we wanted to have a seriously discussion about this issue or someone wanted to write an article about how to solve this divide, they'd start with "what the fuck is wrong with republicans" and move on from there. Questions like "why are republicans so susceptible to propaganda" or "how can we get republicans to stop voting against themselves and support basic education" would be a good starter.

This article is basically "incels have a point" except they don't. As any sort of real intellectual discussion, this piece is even more silly because these aren't questions that don't have answers or need some deep philosophical thinking, the answers are right there. It's the equivalent of the Skinner meme "Women won't fuck me, it must be the women that are wrong." It's like how I keep seeing all of these "the economy is great, why do people think it's not?" pieces that go on to tout employment numbers and the stock market, and ignore that groceries cost too fucking much, you can't buy a house any more, and you're not getting a decent raise anytime soon. These are both pretty simple fucking problems, tbh.

Yeah, but you can't yada yada over why that divide exists. They might not be directly saying "get over it and date a j6er" but they're not saying much less. It's basically "you don't have to date a nazi, just someone who supports nazi's and their positions." Which, you know, is a nazi with less fancy clothes.

“alternative perspectives that may at first seem odd or offensive.”

The absolute fucking gall to suggest that left leaning women need to embrace this while Republicans ban books, demonize anyone who isn't straight, lose their minds over anyone with a different hair color or piercings...

Women aren't upset about arguing tax rates, they don't to date/marry those that see them as subhuman (amongst the many, many other reprehensible policies modern republicans hold.)

Basically, “it’s not good for your happiness nor your ability to be open to new ideas. It’s also bad for society, so maybe we need to rethink this”

Ah yes fresh ideas like "we should have a treasonous rapist for president" or "maybe the party that doesn't believe women are real people is for me" or "as a non-white cis male, maybe I have too many rights."

If it were 20 years ago, maybe this piece would make a little sense, but republicans are full mask off now. I don't know that I would call it bullying, but I would call a piece that unironically suggests women (or anyone) engage with these people incredibly naive at best, and in 2023, just downright stupid.

I mean, he seemed pretty fucking high out of his gourd, so I suspect that he didn't really know what reality he was in.

This is the woke mob trying to repaint history. The settlers arrived and invited the native Americans to dinner and the native Americans taught the settlers about "maize" (which means corn) and then the settlers asked they would move to the very cool reservations where they could have the casinos and the native Americans were like "yeah bruh."

Eh, I have been running a pi-hole on my network for many years now. When I did it was purely because I find ads annoying, these days I'd consider it a basic necessity.

also, I have a hard time complaining about privacy and recommending anything google, especially at the price point they sell Chromecast's for. If you're buying a consumer set top box, Apple TV is basically the only one that's anywhere near privacy conscious. Kodi box or self-built PC though if you really care, and even then I'd still want a pi-hole or similar even if you run it on Linux instead of Windows because the services themselves are doing all kinds of shady shit.

On the other hand, I've noticed so, so much more intentional stuff that you just couldn't see that the old resolutions. It's one of the reasons it's a damn shame that Boy/DS9 haven't gotten a remaster (though, I think in this case the way it was filmed basically means this will never happen.)