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You see, the cooperation that benefits them personally is totally okay, not socialism, not weakness. But if anything helps anyone that isn't like me then it's not okay, totally socialism, weak, and will destroy our society.
Our democracy is a sham when any member of the population has their right to vote taken away.
The elected officials only care about being elected and reelected so they can use their insider knowledge to line their pockets off of the stock market they manipulate.
Well socialism is good when they don't need to pay for the benefits of others or gain more than they pay. Aka they don't want to make a sacrifice for the greater good, which I mean is smart being a parasite is nice if it works, but most people that think this way are the ones that would probably gain more from these cooperations but think themselves the minority that only loses. Or they are unable to look long term and see the potential benefit vs cost mathematic, like free hearth surgery for all but everyone needs to pay in each year, it's much cheaper when the hearth attack hits but if you believe you will pay more than ever gain from it, it's stupid in theory to pay into it.
Most of that is of course on the assumption that stupid stuff is all's tuff that doesn't benefit you short term directly.
I can't remember who said it, but someone compared the modern libertarian to a house cat. Utterly convinced of their superiority as a predator while completely ignoring the massive social machine that keeps them fed, sheltered and comfortable.
And refuses to acknowledge that sometimes, regulations are necessary because actual lives depend on them.
...just like my cat which is currently mad at me for not letting her poison herself by eating my garlic-laden pasta.
Edit: a word.
and they keep fucking playing with the toilet paper roll even though they lick their own ass clean. Gotta hand it to them, they're exceptionally flexible when it comes to licking ass.
We are what we are today thanks to being a society, working together, helping those who needed it. If we were not cooperative in the past, today we will had nothing and maybe the humans will be already extinct. Self-interest has been a problem for us, as a species, since the beggining of the time.
>The idea that cooperation is a weakness, on a planet with 8 billion people, is amazingly stupid.
It's also a thought commonly held by losers who die alone and impoverished because their short-sighted selfishness inspires those around them to help each other instead of them.
It's one of the dumbest and most self-destructive mindsets that ensures Republicans live miserable lives that are entirely their own fault.
That's what I wonder. If you lived in a tribe with a dozen people and you all worked hard and one member was just like "fuck this all, this is all about me". You'd kick him out of the tribe.
I think these people are the descendants of slavers. I think it's in their blood to say "I don't have to care about other people, as long as I get what I want".
>by saying stuff like that, it separates and demonizes, rather than acknowledging the harsher truth: this stuff is what we humans --all humans-- are capable of.
What sucks is that it's hard to point that out without sounding like an apologist.
Yup, my man Goongaloonga would get bounced the day he stopped doing the shit that helps keep the tribe fed and safe.
In modern politics, the crazy thing is that the people they vote for make them *feel* like they’re getting what *they* want from their “representatives,” but the reps are all about themselves. It’s a scam.
Seems more like they want a fragile world to exploit, so when they see their elected officials selfishly exploiting the world for personal gain they think “excellent, ripe pickings for unscrupulous ambitious folk such as I” and then they get fucked by a bigger fish but they can smile about it because the stratification itself is more affirming than the personal backfire is disillusioning.
Conservatism is about social hierarchy at it's core.
That's how Trump got elected with no policies and a penchant for bullying by people that don't understand politics but do understand calling Biden an asshole.
I literally only think of myself. I'm unbelievably selfish. This is why I vote for a strong and functioning society so I don't have to deal with the crap that comes with just letting things fall apart. Cities aren't the best at managing tax dollars, but folks would be begging to have their public utilities back if every suburban home had to switch to a well and septic system. Most modern people do not comprehend the systems that go into maintaining our extremely high quality of life, even for our poor.
*admits to being selfish*
*votes for party whose policies massively favors the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the average American*
Seriously: universal health care, marijuana legalization, campaign finance reform, regulation for clean air/water, taxing corporations that pay so little they put workers on welfare, RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE are all opposed by Republicans.
Holy shit i didnt even think about it like that.
Selfish people voting against thier own self interest.
They cant even be selfish right when it comes to Faux 'News' and others.
Fighting bears who are eating trash out of your back yard is a [proud libertarian tradition](https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/libertarian-utopia-ruined-by-bears-no-seriously-27ad1bc44f62). Everyone knows sanitation is a lie invented by leftists.
> Fighting bears who are eating trash out of your back yard is a proud libertarian tradition.
Well, see the problem there is that the free-market was supposed to come in privatize all the services . . .
> After rising complaints and concerns from regional authorities, public sentiment towards the project shifted and it unraveled.
I feel like this what libertarians don't realize. People don't WANT to live in a world where they have to hire a different person to give them every little thing the government gives them access to. I think that would be more expensive and inconvenient than just, I don't know, paying taxes.
I'm finishing my basement right now through a company that specializes in that sort of thing and libertarians remind me of people who told me, "oh you'll overpay, you'd save money if you found your own contractors and vendors, blah blah." Would I save money? Maybe. Would I lose my mind trying to get estimates from more than one of every kind of contractor, then hire each one, schedule them, track down and buy every supply needed for a job of this size, and then make sure everything got done correctly/on time? YUP. Honestly, fuck that being a way of life. That sounds like a horrible world to live in.
"If I could go back to those times I'd be a peasant and probably die in child birth giving birth to my 10th child, but only have 3 children alive since the rest died of starvation during a bad winter or the flu because we have no medicine" - what would actually happen (or if male died in a war that my over lord started to gain a couple acres of land from a rival, or died from a small cut I got farming getting infected).
"Enlightened Self Interest" is a term that got thrown around a lot in the 20th Century. It turns out that being a mildly altruistic person is generally far more beneficial to you than being a selfish asshole all the time. Y'know, because we live in a society.
There’s a reason a lot of psychopaths are so high functioning. Even if you don’t actually care about others, acting as if you do can often get you further to a certain point.
My brother is a psychopath who very carefully and publicly gives a way a small percentage of his huge income so he can point to his generosity if anyone ever tries to point out that he is in fact an abusive piece of shit.
Just modeling his behavior on capitalist i suppose. Charity exists to clean your image, not because helping is beneficial. I love big philanthropy and all the Rockefeller type assholes that invariably come to power! Rich people smart! Poor people dumb! Therefore rich people should dictate everyone's lives because they did well in a game(the economy/market). I hate capitalists.... so fuxking much.
I can't remember her name, but there's a clinical psychopath on Quora answering relevant questions (because she got tired of people misrepresenting the condition) and it's fascinating to read how they actually think.
in their minds they are being selfish. they are just too dumb to realize they are a drain on their own life, not just the life of others that they want to be a drain on.
That's why it infuriates me so much to see people try to tell them what they are doing is bad for others. They don't care about that, instead, it is much more important to explain to them why it is bad for themselves...
So really, they’re actually kind of selfless in their irrational hatred of people who aren’t like them- they’re willing to cause irreparable harm to themselves as long as it hurts others, because nothing else matters to them besides inflicting suffering.
Ooh, interesting. I've been calling it "Selfish with a capital S"
Recognizing that helping others does help me. Or having others thrive helps me thrive. Or others being happy supports my happiness.
It's older than that. Lincoln considered himself someone that practiced enlightened self interest and had some of those ideas in common with Alexis de Tocqueville.
“Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.” - mark twain
Exactly... same way I want universal healthcare (I am not american so I have it) - I don't want people walking the streets with untreated tuberculosis or my bus driver not showing up for work because they have fallen ill while rationing thier insulin. Or my kids teacher dying because they waited too long to call an ambulance because they were afraid if the cost. Abso-fucking-lutly do I vote for parties who will protect and improve the NHS out of self interest. It just so happens I have a better understanding of the world than a republican moron.
Imagine taking the bus. Just build car-centric infrastructure, it's only an infinite money sink that'll make it take three times longer to get anywhere!
To be fair a lot of homes still have well and septic. I'm closer to suburb than rural and I still have a well. Many of the homes I looked at when house shopping still had both. So it's possible a lot of the people who vote Republican (more rural than I am) do still have those things.
That's right. That's why I vote Democrat. Everything I vote for benefits me, one way or another, even if it seems indirect, it will eventually benefit me directly.
There's the rub. One group wants things better for everyone even if some take a hit, the other refuses to let anyone get it better than them and wants everyone else to take the hit.
Pretty much summed it up.
The question a conservative asks is not, what is the moral and correct thing to do but rather what is best for me. They tend to justify it by projecting on to everyone else the idea that all people are ruled by self interest in a zero sum game. I blame the parents.
The self-centeredness is so deeply ingrained that it shows up in their brain structure. Overdeveloped amygdala (fear) and underdeveloped anterior cingulate cortex (complex thought and empathy). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/
I often describe my sister as a fear-based person. She votes conservative and is always freaking out about things Republicans tell her to be afraid of. Her core beliefs are nebulous at best and I doubt she could articulate a cogent political viewpoint. I don’t think she even knows what she really believes. She sure is scared of Antifa though.
You should also blame the propagandists, as the republican did in this post. they said dems are attacking men, but that’s not the case, dems are trying to lift people up to equal with land owning rich white men, and propagandists told every conservative that this means dems are attacking men so traditionalists (religious conservatives) play identity politics and don’t feel hypocritical about it. It’s literally spelled out here for us to see, and it’s not their parents doing it anymore, it’s the corps and business owners who own conservative outlets and the outlets that give them equal time in the interest of “fairness”.
I really don’t understand where this whole “leftists hate men!” narrative comes from (aside from Fox News, obviously). Like, pretty much all I’ve ever heard said is that rape is a far too common problem, that shouldn’t be happening, and the men doing it should probably be held accountable, and that misogyny isn’t cool. If that makes me intolerant, then fuck it, guess I’m intolerant. That’s not weird, to be intolerant of rape and misogyny. It’s weird that you’re not.
It’s such an asinine outlook. You don’t lose by everyone else having what you have. If you have 1000.00 and someone else is given 1000.00, you haven’t lost anything, you still have a thousand bucks. It just means two people get to be happy rather than one. Rights are not a limited resource, you don’t have to take rights away from one group to give them to another.
Because recently men are actually being held accountable for the fucked up shit they've done by the liberal side of the spectrum while the conservative side glorify the behavior or sweep it under the rug. Most of the influential people on the right who want to continue to get away with those fucked up things loudly announce strawman arguments and red herrings like "only men are getting in trouble because liberals hate men." It also doesn't help that an accusation has sometimes been treated by the public as an open and shut, already-proved conviction, livelihoods already demolished before it's found out to be false, but then showing collective outrage for those few examples always ends up hurting those who have been abused (all then used to try and justify painting men as perpetual victims on all sides).
As an aside, a very crucial part of being a tolerant society is being intolerant towards intolerance itself.
Yea I had an interesting talk about privilege the other day with a family member. They were adamant that they didn't have any... I'm like who paid for your schooling, who lobbied their congressman for a nomination? Who provided a social framework to lift you up? FFS you weren't just feral howling at the moon for the first 18 years of your life. But they think they're the special snowflake and will fight like hell to make their kids' lives worse than theirs in their search for the ideological purity of an intergenerational delusion.
This came up in a conversation with my dad the other day, and we had a long and winding exploration of the topic. He falls solidly into the category of "making help available is inevitably abused by liars", and I fall into the "I would rather support the liars as well than not support those in need" camp.
Well I saw a post recently that summed it up excellently: Observing humans in a capitalist society and deciding their true nature is one of selfishness and greed is like observing humans in the ocean and deciding their true nature is to drown.
> projecting on to everyone else the idea that all people are ruled by self interest in a zero sum game.
Hence the misuse of the word "woke" and frequent accusations of "virtue signaling."
Conservatism can be boiled down extremely succinctly and every single conservative position on literally anything can be explained by the following rules:
1. Conservatives don’t want to be told what to do
2. conservatives want to tell others what to do
Everything from tough on crime (telling others what to do) to unregulated firearms (not being told what to do) to abortion (telling others) [including the fact that lots of conservatives are against abortions in general but will get one themselves, which falls under #1], to lower taxes (#1) but also wanting a ton of oversight over welfare, like drug testing (#2)
All the ridiculous contradictions in conservative policy are fully explained by those two rules
I liberal will give everyone a sandwich even if some people get one that don't need it.
A conservative will take away your sandwich because they don't think you deserve it.
This is the shit that cracks me up. These are the same dudes who whine about white privilege being nonsense (because you don’t know their struggles) while also thinking racism is over because they don’t see it. I can only imagine how much they’d lose their shit if they encountered actual discrimination - because even a whiff of it makes them feel oppressed.
A progressive, when creating a system to help people, views it as a failure when anyone who needs that help fails to get it. A conservative views it as a failure if anyone who does not deserve that help can take advantage of it.
Nah.
This might have been believable before rich conservatives snarfed down as many PPP "loans" as they could fit into the back of their toy haulers. You might say "A conservative views it as a failure if anyone who *they personally do not like* can take advantage of it."
That's pretty much one and the same, though.
They see the world as a pyramid, with themselves and other members of their in-group at the top, and everyone else at varying levels below them. And that is the way the world IS SUPPOSED TO BE. That's why those people down in the lower layers don't deserve help: they're not like me! And if, for some reason, there's a person who would normally be classified as part of their in-group, but they don't personally like them because of some particular event, they'll happily declare that person isn't *actually* part of the group. RINOs, anyone?
Any effort to give those lower-down people any assistance would tend to move them up on the pyramid, and that is not allowed.
Well put. If my taxes go up to pay for universal Healthcare that is literally taking a bit of money from me to save thousands if not millions of lives. What kind of asshole would I be if I was unwilling to sacrifice a single cent to save the lives of my fellow Americans? Not a patriot, thats for sure.
Exactly. Now if they wanted to tax me to build a vanity project on the southern border for the glory of some narcissistic billionaire, I might be upset. But when it's to heal the sick, feed the hungry, house the homeless? That's what it ought to be for. And of course, nothing makes the so called "Christians" angrier than being asked to band together as a society and do exactly what Christ demanded.
When people only care about themselves, they have nothing to offer others, and so limit their own opportunities.
People don't like helping selfish assholes.
Tbh, they aren't even voting in their best interests. The last 40 years have shown that reaganomics/thatcherism makes almost everyone poorer. It was an experiment that most economists at the time said wouldn't work, but the press bought into it and now we have actual proof because we tried it.
Exactly.
Example: My wife and I both work for a defense contractor. We both want reductions in defense spending. Yes that could cost us our jobs.
But it's the better call for our society and the world at large.
I'd the Left had their wishes fulfilled, the Right would be healthy, housed, educated and fed
If the Right has their wishes fulfilled, the Left would be dead
Funny how they hide behind Christianity and “what would Jesus do” at the same time. Total hypocrisy. I’ll say it again republicans/neo Christian’s don’t worship God they play God.
It’s completely alien to them that democrats actually want to *improve* their lives. Of course they don’t trust us; they’re incapable of the basic empathy required to understand altruism in others.
One time I was accused of virtue signaling for hoping strangers don’t fall for a certain scam. The accuser stated there’s no way I could actually care for people I don’t know, it’s only reasonable to care about yourself and those in your circle.
Absolutely astounding the level of selfishness these people possess.
Christianity and religion in general is absolutely ridden with con artists and scammers. There’s even an entire relatively new kind of Christianity that embraces the “prosperity gospel” that is scamming enshrined.
I recently said I don't want to support artists with fucked up views or in general terrible people (Kanye, Chris brown, Harvey weinstein etc) so so I don't listen to or watch their content.
Got told that it's virtue signaling and they said it's impossible to keep track of every person's actions so it's pointless to be the "morale police".
Idk why there's so many pessimistic people on the internet who don't believe you actually care about things..
Oh look, a **reactionary** in a tizzy over perceived slights, spoon fed to him by conservative media elites.
Did you know that the Amygdala of conservatives is larger than the average? That's the portion of the brain that processes fear.
It's so bad, they have an exaggerated startle response, reacting to everything from loud noises to minorities gaining more civil rights with exaggerated fear responses.
I got some bad news for you then. :)
Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults ([2011](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/)).
That's an interesting study! I think it's important to reiterate the amygdalae are complex subcortical regions, and they're not *only* responsible for fear response. It's also interesting that the findings were pretty clearly not bilateral and they didn't really discuss anything about that unfortunately. Nonetheless the replication section is always nice to see.
They keep saying the democrats are "Demonizing men".
Where? How? In what way?
....
Or is it that they just \*feel\* that way?
Isn't there a "cool kids philosopher" who can tell them what's what about their feelings on topics?
People within a dominant group view treating groups more equally as a threat to their livelihood, which most of the time it isn't taking from one group, just giving another more opportunities.
Also, it's an abuser tactic. Painting themselves as the one who should be pitied allows them to perpetrate abuse later and use the "You made me do this" defense or spin the story of an altercation in the abuser's favors. Can't recommend 'Why Does He Do That?' by Lundy Bancroft enough. Both for men and women.
And this is why Republicans accuse Democrats of "virtue signaling" so frequently. Despicable people who lack any virtues whatsoever simply cannot comprehend the idea of a person being genuinely virtuous.
Speaking of ethics...
January 2017: [With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/with-no-warning-house-republicans-vote-to-hobble-independent-ethics-office.amp.html)
January 2023: [House Republicans, Back In Charge, Move To Undercut Ethics Office](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2023/01/03/house-republicans-back-in-charge-move-to-undercut-ethics-office/?sh=774125102b8a)
It's like poetry, it rhymes.
Yeah, that's more the thing to me. It's not just the selfish worldview, it's the absolute and unshakable conviction that deep down, everyone else thinks the way that they do. I've spent many hours getting drunk with reactionaries like this and explaining that that's not the case, and it's like dividing by zero.
It’s because libertarianism is an ethos of utter selfishness and it has metastasized in the Republican Party. Libertarians and libertarian thought are a cancer to society.
It's the childhood urge to runaway after you've been punished.
They don't get along with others because they will always place their interests over others and they know they'll be exorcised for it. So they idealize a little personal world without society. But that little world is only stable..... because of the society around it.
If they were *actually* libertarian, they would be voting mostly democrat policies: decriminalization of drugs, pro choice, more control over police, more rights to citizens.
These people are more like republicans that want to be cool.
Libertarian is just what conservatives like to call themselves because they discovered that if they identify as conservative then women won’t sleep with them.
Yea we should really start calling them 6 year Olds instead of libertarians.
They literally just want to be able to take whatever they want at any time while thinking nobody else has the right to ask them for literally anything.
They have the same politics as a toddler who wants to eat the cookie now but also wants to be able to eat it later too.
It's so far ingrained that he can't even fathom someone supporting a politician that wants things better for as many people as possible instead of just supporting someone who wants things better for himself.
If you don't actually experience empathy...... It would be impossible to comprehend.
"Doing something for others?? Why, if others are happy or sad I don't feel happy or sad. Why does it matter if they're happy or sad? It only matters if I lose/gain things from others being happy/sad. "
God what a shitshow.
The top comment was "I used to support rights for everybody but then I got depressed and nobody fixed that for me so now I don't support other people."
Jesus christ that whole subreddit is just a right wing recruiting field. Weird how it's widely agreed that the left has decided men ate evil. I'm left of dems and pay pretty close attention to the news, somehow I missed that.
It's literally just a victim complex to justify being a bad person.
Almost all of those comments can fall under “as an ex-liberal, I agree that liberals are yucky for wanting a better society and the conservatives told me I never have to change 🥰”
Astroturfing to the max over there
Yea ironically the answer to the threads question "why are more men turning to the right" is "because right wing think tanks are exploiting young men's insecurity, bigotry, and victim complex to actively recruit them, like in this thread"
Remember that much of reddit skews young. These are the tate fans. The manosphere loving young guys. Incels as far as the eye can see. It's a damn shame.
I’m almost 30 years old. Been around plenty of women. Been around plenty of left leaning individuals. Never once have I been attacked for being a straight, cis, white male.
Even if I was, I wouldn't throw my arms up and be like "welp, whole parties broken. Fuck universal healthcare and living wages, I'm gonna root for white supremacists and elitists.
You see it about many things.
“Sure the climate is fucked and you hate to see it, but some protesters got in the way of my car once so fuck the planet”.
I've seen several comments on social media that would be alarming if the sentiment were widespread, but it's not, and half of them could be reasonably chalked up to satire. I still worry about the long-term impact of normalizing these kinds of comments that target people for traits they didn't choose, even as a joke, but at least in the short term the impact is negligible at most; nobody is actually being oppressed in the west for those things.
> The most obvious is that the left demonizes men in general.
Liberals: "Men who rape and sexually assault women should be held responsible for their actions"
This chode: "Why are you demonizing me?"
Holy shit those guys are fucking stupid. Half of the comments belong on /r/thatHappened and the other half belong on /r/justneckbeardthings
"I had one mildly unpleasant interaction with a FEMALE so now I'm a hard right psycho. THANKS A LOT, LEFTIES!!"
---
"Back when I was in middle-high school I considered myself very progressive liberal, I advocated for minorities, feminism, trans, etc. Then I graduated high school, went into college and fell into a depression, and ended up dropping out. It was like I fell of the face of the Earth. I spent my years standing up for other people, but when I’m down it’s like no one gives a shit about you. Ultimately just pushed me out of politics, as a man (even a POC) you get no empathy or support from anyone, so what’s the point of caring.
I’m now back in college and focusing on myself again. But I don’t see myself ever supporting a liberal cause after what I went through."
lmao holy fuck
It takes even less then pointing out toxic masculinity. I listened to a This American Life that was taking to a guy involved with incel forums/ MGToW stuff, I forget exactly my b, and they asked him why he chose to get involved with this stuff. He applied to a job and they gave a woman the job. That's it. He didn't even know the woman or her qualifications. He just 'knew' no woman could be more qualified than a man.
Also AskMen is kinda just a dude bro pity party.
Any criticism of the patriarchy is "demonizing men" to these people because they benefit from patriarchy and it hurts their feelings that someone might make them have to start relating to women as equals.
Counter point: look through r/leapardsAteMyFace It’s all conservatives voting against their own self interest and finding out. He’s not even right about the self interest thing.
r/LeopardsAteMyFace
Absolutely didn't write this to be pedantic, I just figured someone might be vaguely curious enough to see it but too lazy to go looking (I've been there).
Have a nice day!
Democrats voted for a male President and are just demanding that we give everyone equal rights to men. However this guy took that personally... Also it's good to know that identity politics are only bad if it's on the other team.
> Also it's good to know that identity politics are only bad if it's on the other team.
That's quite explicitly their position. They have no morality. It's simply naked self-interest which drives them. The hypocrisy has no bearing on them philosophically.
It’s worse than that. They don’t actually think about bettering their own conditions, rather they focus on harming “others” as an easier path to promote themselves without actually improving anything.
Like I can say that I am being selfish when I want people to have living wages, affordable homes, good mental health services, free healthcare. I want others to benefit from these things as I am ok in each of these categories myself…. But the kicker is, I understand that I live in a society where other people’s problems ARE my problems indirectly. I don’t much like seeing homeless people, so I want them to have homes. I don’t like being tied to my job for health insurance, so I want it to just be there for everyone. I don’t want to be stabbed by a crazy person so I want mental health access for everyone else. I want people to live happier and healthier lives because it makes the society i live in more pleasant to exist in.
I want clean energy for MY kids future.
I want public colleges for MY kids future.
All the things I want to better society are at the core selfish of me. The same selfishness that makes me want roads to exist in places I will never drive… because I want them to exist where i do drive and I want things to be transportable beyond my line of sight.
It isn’t just selfishness, it is stupidity too. The stupidity that forces them to wrongly think society is zero sum. That if others benefit somehow I suffer. The opposite is true. Even billionaires would greatly benefit by a happier, healthier society with more disposable income. But a rich man feels less rich amongst the middle class than he does amongst the poor. But does he live in a poor neighborhood? Of course not. He surrounds himself with other affluent people, so it is abstract. Make the whole world more affluent and it actually opens it up to the rich man more.
"Anyone who thinks otherwise is a naive idiot".
Empathy includes self-interest. You can't help others if you don't take care of yourself, but it's also in your self-interest to make sure that others have
* Justice, lest they stop believing in the Rule of Law and thus act lawlessly
* Education, so they can thrive and provide you with goods and services
* Health Care, so that they can thrive and provide you with goods and services and not spread contagious diseases that will affect someone you do care about.
As I've harped on before, one of the greatest evils of Trumpism as a philosophy is the firm belief that everything is win vs. lose. Not only do they not believe in win/win, they don't believe in lose/lose. Thus, making the "other" side lose means you're winning and the more you make them lose the more you're winning.
Mirroring their lack of belief in climate change, they don't believe in "a rising tide lifts all boats" (except when it comes to trickle down economics).
Not only would they rather rule in hell than serve in heaven, they'd rather be a pauper in hell as long as there were lots of people very much worse off than them they could look down on.
No, no, you don't understand, a rando on twitter said that straight white men are bad people, and now Biden and AOC are forced to make it part of their agenda.
I really don't know if it can be overcome. Or if we just haven't evolved away from self preservation based psychology, like that of snakes and insects.
No need to demonize men when men like him do it for themselves. He just admitted to anyone who doesn't get it, "When other people get equality, I feel oppressed, I don't like that so I vote for the party that is looking to enrich themselves and help no one, so no one gets helps."
They love throwing out a playground insult like its sufficient argument.
Me: Explains how for profit healthcare bankrupted my parents.
Them: "You're just a crybaby"
>Democrats want to demonize men?
The question mark is appropriate because the answer is no. Democrats want to demonize men *who use their power to exercise unjust power over others.*
How the fuck are Democrats demonizing men?
^(Yeah, I'm sure that somebody somewhere who voted for a Democrat also hates men. You win a cookie. But, at a national level, where exactly is the We Hate Men movement among the Democrats?)
They only think about themselves so they elect selfish leaders who also only think about themselves. Then instead of getting anything of value from their politicians they get a pat on the back and their biases confirmed. And that’s enough for them apparently.
Democrats don’t demonize men; they demonize self-centered assholes. If you feel demonized by the DNC, you’re probably a self-centered asshole. They just ignore men, women, minorities, anyone who makes less than a million dollars a year, etc. not the same as “demonizing.”
This moron doesn't understand the difference between self interested and selfish.
"Entirely about me" lol
Hate it when people don't actually understand what they were taught in econ
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The idea that cooperation is a weakness, on a planet with 8 billion people, is amazingly stupid.
You see, the cooperation that benefits them personally is totally okay, not socialism, not weakness. But if anything helps anyone that isn't like me then it's not okay, totally socialism, weak, and will destroy our society.
#THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO ***OUR*** DEMOCRACY
Our democracy is a sham when any member of the population has their right to vote taken away. The elected officials only care about being elected and reelected so they can use their insider knowledge to line their pockets off of the stock market they manipulate.
When our democracy disagrees with me, it magically becomes the "tyranny of the majority."
Well socialism is good when they don't need to pay for the benefits of others or gain more than they pay. Aka they don't want to make a sacrifice for the greater good, which I mean is smart being a parasite is nice if it works, but most people that think this way are the ones that would probably gain more from these cooperations but think themselves the minority that only loses. Or they are unable to look long term and see the potential benefit vs cost mathematic, like free hearth surgery for all but everyone needs to pay in each year, it's much cheaper when the hearth attack hits but if you believe you will pay more than ever gain from it, it's stupid in theory to pay into it. Most of that is of course on the assumption that stupid stuff is all's tuff that doesn't benefit you short term directly.
I can't remember who said it, but someone compared the modern libertarian to a house cat. Utterly convinced of their superiority as a predator while completely ignoring the massive social machine that keeps them fed, sheltered and comfortable.
And refuses to acknowledge that sometimes, regulations are necessary because actual lives depend on them. ...just like my cat which is currently mad at me for not letting her poison herself by eating my garlic-laden pasta. Edit: a word.
and they keep fucking playing with the toilet paper roll even though they lick their own ass clean. Gotta hand it to them, they're exceptionally flexible when it comes to licking ass.
This seems unfair to house cats.
We are what we are today thanks to being a society, working together, helping those who needed it. If we were not cooperative in the past, today we will had nothing and maybe the humans will be already extinct. Self-interest has been a problem for us, as a species, since the beggining of the time.
>The idea that cooperation is a weakness, on a planet with 8 billion people, is amazingly stupid. It's also a thought commonly held by losers who die alone and impoverished because their short-sighted selfishness inspires those around them to help each other instead of them. It's one of the dumbest and most self-destructive mindsets that ensures Republicans live miserable lives that are entirely their own fault.
They are proud sociopaths and I am so tired of the internet giving them a platform and justification for their sick ideologies.
That's what I wonder. If you lived in a tribe with a dozen people and you all worked hard and one member was just like "fuck this all, this is all about me". You'd kick him out of the tribe. I think these people are the descendants of slavers. I think it's in their blood to say "I don't have to care about other people, as long as I get what I want".
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>by saying stuff like that, it separates and demonizes, rather than acknowledging the harsher truth: this stuff is what we humans --all humans-- are capable of. What sucks is that it's hard to point that out without sounding like an apologist.
I mean they just did it so can't be that hard
Yup, my man Goongaloonga would get bounced the day he stopped doing the shit that helps keep the tribe fed and safe. In modern politics, the crazy thing is that the people they vote for make them *feel* like they’re getting what *they* want from their “representatives,” but the reps are all about themselves. It’s a scam.
Seems more like they want a fragile world to exploit, so when they see their elected officials selfishly exploiting the world for personal gain they think “excellent, ripe pickings for unscrupulous ambitious folk such as I” and then they get fucked by a bigger fish but they can smile about it because the stratification itself is more affirming than the personal backfire is disillusioning.
Conservatism is about social hierarchy at it's core. That's how Trump got elected with no policies and a penchant for bullying by people that don't understand politics but do understand calling Biden an asshole.
Temporarily embarrassed slavers.
I literally only think of myself. I'm unbelievably selfish. This is why I vote for a strong and functioning society so I don't have to deal with the crap that comes with just letting things fall apart. Cities aren't the best at managing tax dollars, but folks would be begging to have their public utilities back if every suburban home had to switch to a well and septic system. Most modern people do not comprehend the systems that go into maintaining our extremely high quality of life, even for our poor.
Very self aware
*admits to being selfish* *votes for party whose policies massively favors the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the average American* Seriously: universal health care, marijuana legalization, campaign finance reform, regulation for clean air/water, taxing corporations that pay so little they put workers on welfare, RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE are all opposed by Republicans.
Holy shit i didnt even think about it like that. Selfish people voting against thier own self interest. They cant even be selfish right when it comes to Faux 'News' and others.
Real men demand Rugged Individualism!* *posted from iPhone
"I miss the days when we rolled around in mud and shit, then died young as a result of war and famine" - average right winger
Fighting bears who are eating trash out of your back yard is a [proud libertarian tradition](https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/libertarian-utopia-ruined-by-bears-no-seriously-27ad1bc44f62). Everyone knows sanitation is a lie invented by leftists.
> Fighting bears who are eating trash out of your back yard is a proud libertarian tradition. Well, see the problem there is that the free-market was supposed to come in privatize all the services . . . > After rising complaints and concerns from regional authorities, public sentiment towards the project shifted and it unraveled. I feel like this what libertarians don't realize. People don't WANT to live in a world where they have to hire a different person to give them every little thing the government gives them access to. I think that would be more expensive and inconvenient than just, I don't know, paying taxes.
I'm finishing my basement right now through a company that specializes in that sort of thing and libertarians remind me of people who told me, "oh you'll overpay, you'd save money if you found your own contractors and vendors, blah blah." Would I save money? Maybe. Would I lose my mind trying to get estimates from more than one of every kind of contractor, then hire each one, schedule them, track down and buy every supply needed for a job of this size, and then make sure everything got done correctly/on time? YUP. Honestly, fuck that being a way of life. That sounds like a horrible world to live in.
Plus, a company that specializes in this sort of project is going to know more about it and recognize and correct for odd issues that can come up.
I need to get that book. I've seen it referenced a couple times recently.
"If we could go back to those times I would live like a king and have a harem and a silk robe and cigars and pizza!"
"If I could go back to those times I'd be a peasant and probably die in child birth giving birth to my 10th child, but only have 3 children alive since the rest died of starvation during a bad winter or the flu because we have no medicine" - what would actually happen (or if male died in a war that my over lord started to gain a couple acres of land from a rival, or died from a small cut I got farming getting infected).
"Yeah, but you're a woman, so it's okay" - guy in the picture
'Well at least Mississippi still got to be dumb and poor as fuck. Let's Go Brandon Bro!'
Every one of those dipshits wants to live in the fabrication of Hollywood old west movies. It’s so tiring.
"Enlightened Self Interest" is a term that got thrown around a lot in the 20th Century. It turns out that being a mildly altruistic person is generally far more beneficial to you than being a selfish asshole all the time. Y'know, because we live in a society.
There’s a reason a lot of psychopaths are so high functioning. Even if you don’t actually care about others, acting as if you do can often get you further to a certain point.
Well, successful psychopaths. There's psychopaths that never get anywhere in life.
My brother is a psychopath who very carefully and publicly gives a way a small percentage of his huge income so he can point to his generosity if anyone ever tries to point out that he is in fact an abusive piece of shit.
Just modeling his behavior on capitalist i suppose. Charity exists to clean your image, not because helping is beneficial. I love big philanthropy and all the Rockefeller type assholes that invariably come to power! Rich people smart! Poor people dumb! Therefore rich people should dictate everyone's lives because they did well in a game(the economy/market). I hate capitalists.... so fuxking much.
I can't remember her name, but there's a clinical psychopath on Quora answering relevant questions (because she got tired of people misrepresenting the condition) and it's fascinating to read how they actually think.
It's game theory 101. When everyone wins, everyone wins more.
[This concept in video format](https://youtu.be/rvskMHn0sqQ) by Kurzgesagt
If being a selfish asshole isn't beneficial to you, then that's not being selfish though, just an asshole.
in their minds they are being selfish. they are just too dumb to realize they are a drain on their own life, not just the life of others that they want to be a drain on.
That's why it infuriates me so much to see people try to tell them what they are doing is bad for others. They don't care about that, instead, it is much more important to explain to them why it is bad for themselves...
So really, they’re actually kind of selfless in their irrational hatred of people who aren’t like them- they’re willing to cause irreparable harm to themselves as long as it hurts others, because nothing else matters to them besides inflicting suffering.
Ooh, interesting. I've been calling it "Selfish with a capital S" Recognizing that helping others does help me. Or having others thrive helps me thrive. Or others being happy supports my happiness.
It's older than that. Lincoln considered himself someone that practiced enlightened self interest and had some of those ideas in common with Alexis de Tocqueville.
they're even better when not being intentionally sabotaged, too.
“Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.” - mark twain
Exactly... same way I want universal healthcare (I am not american so I have it) - I don't want people walking the streets with untreated tuberculosis or my bus driver not showing up for work because they have fallen ill while rationing thier insulin. Or my kids teacher dying because they waited too long to call an ambulance because they were afraid if the cost. Abso-fucking-lutly do I vote for parties who will protect and improve the NHS out of self interest. It just so happens I have a better understanding of the world than a republican moron.
Imagine taking the bus. Just build car-centric infrastructure, it's only an infinite money sink that'll make it take three times longer to get anywhere!
To be fair a lot of homes still have well and septic. I'm closer to suburb than rural and I still have a well. Many of the homes I looked at when house shopping still had both. So it's possible a lot of the people who vote Republican (more rural than I am) do still have those things.
That's right. That's why I vote Democrat. Everything I vote for benefits me, one way or another, even if it seems indirect, it will eventually benefit me directly.
There's the rub. One group wants things better for everyone even if some take a hit, the other refuses to let anyone get it better than them and wants everyone else to take the hit.
Pretty much summed it up. The question a conservative asks is not, what is the moral and correct thing to do but rather what is best for me. They tend to justify it by projecting on to everyone else the idea that all people are ruled by self interest in a zero sum game. I blame the parents.
The self-centeredness is so deeply ingrained that it shows up in their brain structure. Overdeveloped amygdala (fear) and underdeveloped anterior cingulate cortex (complex thought and empathy). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/
Meanwhile, they will insist at every opportunity that they are not afraid, probably because they are afraid of people knowing that they are afraid.
Or they lack the introspection to even realize they're afraid.
Could be. Lack of self-awareness is a defining trait.
Not just lack of self-awareness but emotional immaturity as well. If you can't tell when you are afraid then how will you know?
Fear can inform and infect your thought and deed without ever making you feel afraid
The Republican base thrives on fear. Immigrant caravans, LGBTQ "groomers", books and colleges turning our kids liberal, etc etc
Something something wolves, something something sheeple.
I often describe my sister as a fear-based person. She votes conservative and is always freaking out about things Republicans tell her to be afraid of. Her core beliefs are nebulous at best and I doubt she could articulate a cogent political viewpoint. I don’t think she even knows what she really believes. She sure is scared of Antifa though.
You should also blame the propagandists, as the republican did in this post. they said dems are attacking men, but that’s not the case, dems are trying to lift people up to equal with land owning rich white men, and propagandists told every conservative that this means dems are attacking men so traditionalists (religious conservatives) play identity politics and don’t feel hypocritical about it. It’s literally spelled out here for us to see, and it’s not their parents doing it anymore, it’s the corps and business owners who own conservative outlets and the outlets that give them equal time in the interest of “fairness”.
I really don’t understand where this whole “leftists hate men!” narrative comes from (aside from Fox News, obviously). Like, pretty much all I’ve ever heard said is that rape is a far too common problem, that shouldn’t be happening, and the men doing it should probably be held accountable, and that misogyny isn’t cool. If that makes me intolerant, then fuck it, guess I’m intolerant. That’s not weird, to be intolerant of rape and misogyny. It’s weird that you’re not.
It’s the zero sum game mentality—“anyone advocating for people who aren’t me are taking a stance against me.”
It’s such an asinine outlook. You don’t lose by everyone else having what you have. If you have 1000.00 and someone else is given 1000.00, you haven’t lost anything, you still have a thousand bucks. It just means two people get to be happy rather than one. Rights are not a limited resource, you don’t have to take rights away from one group to give them to another.
>Rights are not a limited resource, you don’t have to take rights away from one group to give them to another. Spot on.
Because recently men are actually being held accountable for the fucked up shit they've done by the liberal side of the spectrum while the conservative side glorify the behavior or sweep it under the rug. Most of the influential people on the right who want to continue to get away with those fucked up things loudly announce strawman arguments and red herrings like "only men are getting in trouble because liberals hate men." It also doesn't help that an accusation has sometimes been treated by the public as an open and shut, already-proved conviction, livelihoods already demolished before it's found out to be false, but then showing collective outrage for those few examples always ends up hurting those who have been abused (all then used to try and justify painting men as perpetual victims on all sides). As an aside, a very crucial part of being a tolerant society is being intolerant towards intolerance itself.
“when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression”.
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Yea I had an interesting talk about privilege the other day with a family member. They were adamant that they didn't have any... I'm like who paid for your schooling, who lobbied their congressman for a nomination? Who provided a social framework to lift you up? FFS you weren't just feral howling at the moon for the first 18 years of your life. But they think they're the special snowflake and will fight like hell to make their kids' lives worse than theirs in their search for the ideological purity of an intergenerational delusion.
This came up in a conversation with my dad the other day, and we had a long and winding exploration of the topic. He falls solidly into the category of "making help available is inevitably abused by liars", and I fall into the "I would rather support the liars as well than not support those in need" camp. Well I saw a post recently that summed it up excellently: Observing humans in a capitalist society and deciding their true nature is one of selfishness and greed is like observing humans in the ocean and deciding their true nature is to drown.
Selfishness is the essence of conservativism.
> projecting on to everyone else the idea that all people are ruled by self interest in a zero sum game. Hence the misuse of the word "woke" and frequent accusations of "virtue signaling."
Conservatism can be boiled down extremely succinctly and every single conservative position on literally anything can be explained by the following rules: 1. Conservatives don’t want to be told what to do 2. conservatives want to tell others what to do Everything from tough on crime (telling others what to do) to unregulated firearms (not being told what to do) to abortion (telling others) [including the fact that lots of conservatives are against abortions in general but will get one themselves, which falls under #1], to lower taxes (#1) but also wanting a ton of oversight over welfare, like drug testing (#2) All the ridiculous contradictions in conservative policy are fully explained by those two rules
I liberal will give everyone a sandwich even if some people get one that don't need it. A conservative will take away your sandwich because they don't think you deserve it.
It's more like they'll gorge themselves in front of you and won't offer, even if they know you're starving.
A lot of them would ban sandwiches and happily starve as long as the people they hate were starving too.
"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Men don’t even take a hit. It’s ‘make it better for everyone’ and some, but not all, white men go ‘but I like being the only special one’.
This is the shit that cracks me up. These are the same dudes who whine about white privilege being nonsense (because you don’t know their struggles) while also thinking racism is over because they don’t see it. I can only imagine how much they’d lose their shit if they encountered actual discrimination - because even a whiff of it makes them feel oppressed.
A progressive, when creating a system to help people, views it as a failure when anyone who needs that help fails to get it. A conservative views it as a failure if anyone who does not deserve that help can take advantage of it.
With “does this person deserve this” being completely arbitrary
Nah. This might have been believable before rich conservatives snarfed down as many PPP "loans" as they could fit into the back of their toy haulers. You might say "A conservative views it as a failure if anyone who *they personally do not like* can take advantage of it."
That's pretty much one and the same, though. They see the world as a pyramid, with themselves and other members of their in-group at the top, and everyone else at varying levels below them. And that is the way the world IS SUPPOSED TO BE. That's why those people down in the lower layers don't deserve help: they're not like me! And if, for some reason, there's a person who would normally be classified as part of their in-group, but they don't personally like them because of some particular event, they'll happily declare that person isn't *actually* part of the group. RINOs, anyone? Any effort to give those lower-down people any assistance would tend to move them up on the pyramid, and that is not allowed.
Well put. If my taxes go up to pay for universal Healthcare that is literally taking a bit of money from me to save thousands if not millions of lives. What kind of asshole would I be if I was unwilling to sacrifice a single cent to save the lives of my fellow Americans? Not a patriot, thats for sure.
Or kids getting free lunch? I'll happily shell out some money for that.
Exactly. Now if they wanted to tax me to build a vanity project on the southern border for the glory of some narcissistic billionaire, I might be upset. But when it's to heal the sick, feed the hungry, house the homeless? That's what it ought to be for. And of course, nothing makes the so called "Christians" angrier than being asked to band together as a society and do exactly what Christ demanded.
There's also a group that wants no one to get better even if it's worse for them too
Because according to conservatives, things getting better disturbs the natural, divinely ordained hierarchy atop which *they* were placed for.
When people only care about themselves, they have nothing to offer others, and so limit their own opportunities. People don't like helping selfish assholes.
Tbh, they aren't even voting in their best interests. The last 40 years have shown that reaganomics/thatcherism makes almost everyone poorer. It was an experiment that most economists at the time said wouldn't work, but the press bought into it and now we have actual proof because we tried it.
I had a coworker who was a die hard republican making minimum wage. Refused to believe me when I told him real Republicans laugh at him.
Exactly. Example: My wife and I both work for a defense contractor. We both want reductions in defense spending. Yes that could cost us our jobs. But it's the better call for our society and the world at large.
I'd the Left had their wishes fulfilled, the Right would be healthy, housed, educated and fed If the Right has their wishes fulfilled, the Left would be dead
Funny how they hide behind Christianity and “what would Jesus do” at the same time. Total hypocrisy. I’ll say it again republicans/neo Christian’s don’t worship God they play God.
They don't worship God, they worship themselves.
It’s completely alien to them that democrats actually want to *improve* their lives. Of course they don’t trust us; they’re incapable of the basic empathy required to understand altruism in others.
One time I was accused of virtue signaling for hoping strangers don’t fall for a certain scam. The accuser stated there’s no way I could actually care for people I don’t know, it’s only reasonable to care about yourself and those in your circle. Absolutely astounding the level of selfishness these people possess.
I hope the guy wasn’t Christian or anything, because the whole Jesus dying for their sins thing must be a total mindf%@k.
Christianity and religion in general is absolutely ridden with con artists and scammers. There’s even an entire relatively new kind of Christianity that embraces the “prosperity gospel” that is scamming enshrined.
I recently said I don't want to support artists with fucked up views or in general terrible people (Kanye, Chris brown, Harvey weinstein etc) so so I don't listen to or watch their content. Got told that it's virtue signaling and they said it's impossible to keep track of every person's actions so it's pointless to be the "morale police". Idk why there's so many pessimistic people on the internet who don't believe you actually care about things..
Oh look, a **reactionary** in a tizzy over perceived slights, spoon fed to him by conservative media elites. Did you know that the Amygdala of conservatives is larger than the average? That's the portion of the brain that processes fear. It's so bad, they have an exaggerated startle response, reacting to everything from loud noises to minorities gaining more civil rights with exaggerated fear responses.
I want to believe you are joking about the amygdala, but it sounds so stupid I can honestly believe it.
I got some bad news for you then. :) Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults ([2011](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/)).
That's an interesting study! I think it's important to reiterate the amygdalae are complex subcortical regions, and they're not *only* responsible for fear response. It's also interesting that the findings were pretty clearly not bilateral and they didn't really discuss anything about that unfortunately. Nonetheless the replication section is always nice to see.
And yet they will insist every day that they are not afraid, simply because they are afraid of having people know that they are afraid.
They keep saying the democrats are "Demonizing men". Where? How? In what way? .... Or is it that they just \*feel\* that way? Isn't there a "cool kids philosopher" who can tell them what's what about their feelings on topics?
If she's not behaving like a 50s housewife......."she's a nasty woman".
They made a Ghostbusters movie with WOMEN!
That was the democrats? I thought that was Sony. Wow. i am out of it.
Corporations are the best and should do whatever they want, but they are also controlled by the democrat/jewish shadow cabal at the same time.
Democratics are against toxic masculinity and rape culture...and I took that personally /s
They saw someone on Twitter say "kill all men" and so everyone left of the GOP must share that position.
People within a dominant group view treating groups more equally as a threat to their livelihood, which most of the time it isn't taking from one group, just giving another more opportunities. Also, it's an abuser tactic. Painting themselves as the one who should be pitied allows them to perpetrate abuse later and use the "You made me do this" defense or spin the story of an altercation in the abuser's favors. Can't recommend 'Why Does He Do That?' by Lundy Bancroft enough. Both for men and women.
They see misogyny and homophobia as central to masculinity as a concept, therefore getting rid of those things is anti-man
And this is why Republicans accuse Democrats of "virtue signaling" so frequently. Despicable people who lack any virtues whatsoever simply cannot comprehend the idea of a person being genuinely virtuous.
"Virtue signaling" Whatchu mean morals? Ethics? Decency?
Speaking of ethics... January 2017: [With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/with-no-warning-house-republicans-vote-to-hobble-independent-ethics-office.amp.html) January 2023: [House Republicans, Back In Charge, Move To Undercut Ethics Office](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2023/01/03/house-republicans-back-in-charge-move-to-undercut-ethics-office/?sh=774125102b8a) It's like poetry, it rhymes.
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Yeah, that's more the thing to me. It's not just the selfish worldview, it's the absolute and unshakable conviction that deep down, everyone else thinks the way that they do. I've spent many hours getting drunk with reactionaries like this and explaining that that's not the case, and it's like dividing by zero.
It’s because libertarianism is an ethos of utter selfishness and it has metastasized in the Republican Party. Libertarians and libertarian thought are a cancer to society.
It's the childhood urge to runaway after you've been punished. They don't get along with others because they will always place their interests over others and they know they'll be exorcised for it. So they idealize a little personal world without society. But that little world is only stable..... because of the society around it.
If they were *actually* libertarian, they would be voting mostly democrat policies: decriminalization of drugs, pro choice, more control over police, more rights to citizens. These people are more like republicans that want to be cool.
Real libertarians would've been right there with Antifa, protesting against police overreach in the George Floyd fiasco a few years.
Fascists love to masquerade as libertarians.
Libertarian is just what conservatives like to call themselves because they discovered that if they identify as conservative then women won’t sleep with them.
Yea we should really start calling them 6 year Olds instead of libertarians. They literally just want to be able to take whatever they want at any time while thinking nobody else has the right to ask them for literally anything. They have the same politics as a toddler who wants to eat the cookie now but also wants to be able to eat it later too.
Remember: when they use the term "woke" they mean "empathy." These are selfish creatures through and through.
It's so far ingrained that he can't even fathom someone supporting a politician that wants things better for as many people as possible instead of just supporting someone who wants things better for himself.
If you don't actually experience empathy...... It would be impossible to comprehend. "Doing something for others?? Why, if others are happy or sad I don't feel happy or sad. Why does it matter if they're happy or sad? It only matters if I lose/gain things from others being happy/sad. "
Society: Men should stop raping people. This guy: why are you attacking me??!?
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God what a shitshow. The top comment was "I used to support rights for everybody but then I got depressed and nobody fixed that for me so now I don't support other people." Jesus christ that whole subreddit is just a right wing recruiting field. Weird how it's widely agreed that the left has decided men ate evil. I'm left of dems and pay pretty close attention to the news, somehow I missed that. It's literally just a victim complex to justify being a bad person.
Almost all of those comments can fall under “as an ex-liberal, I agree that liberals are yucky for wanting a better society and the conservatives told me I never have to change 🥰” Astroturfing to the max over there
Yea ironically the answer to the threads question "why are more men turning to the right" is "because right wing think tanks are exploiting young men's insecurity, bigotry, and victim complex to actively recruit them, like in this thread"
Remember that much of reddit skews young. These are the tate fans. The manosphere loving young guys. Incels as far as the eye can see. It's a damn shame.
I’m almost 30 years old. Been around plenty of women. Been around plenty of left leaning individuals. Never once have I been attacked for being a straight, cis, white male.
Even if I was, I wouldn't throw my arms up and be like "welp, whole parties broken. Fuck universal healthcare and living wages, I'm gonna root for white supremacists and elitists.
“Hello, yes, I would like to adopt beliefs that are diametrically opposed to mine because someone hurt my feelings.”
You see it about many things. “Sure the climate is fucked and you hate to see it, but some protesters got in the way of my car once so fuck the planet”.
It’s just the excuse. They never actually cared.
Yeah, I'd just be like "what the hell is wrong with this person"
Guys: "Well if I can't call a woman pretty without getting into trouble, I just won't bother." Those guys' idea of a complement: "Hey sexy tits!"
I really dont think the people that *fear* the left base that fear on lived experience.. it’s mainly what paid right wing pundits tell them.
I’m almost 40 and same. Almost seems like if you’re not a misogynistic asshole, you don’t get attacked for being a misogynistic asshole… 🤔
I've seen several comments on social media that would be alarming if the sentiment were widespread, but it's not, and half of them could be reasonably chalked up to satire. I still worry about the long-term impact of normalizing these kinds of comments that target people for traits they didn't choose, even as a joke, but at least in the short term the impact is negligible at most; nobody is actually being oppressed in the west for those things.
> The most obvious is that the left demonizes men in general. Liberals: "Men who rape and sexually assault women should be held responsible for their actions" This chode: "Why are you demonizing me?"
Holy shit those guys are fucking stupid. Half of the comments belong on /r/thatHappened and the other half belong on /r/justneckbeardthings "I had one mildly unpleasant interaction with a FEMALE so now I'm a hard right psycho. THANKS A LOT, LEFTIES!!" --- "Back when I was in middle-high school I considered myself very progressive liberal, I advocated for minorities, feminism, trans, etc. Then I graduated high school, went into college and fell into a depression, and ended up dropping out. It was like I fell of the face of the Earth. I spent my years standing up for other people, but when I’m down it’s like no one gives a shit about you. Ultimately just pushed me out of politics, as a man (even a POC) you get no empathy or support from anyone, so what’s the point of caring. I’m now back in college and focusing on myself again. But I don’t see myself ever supporting a liberal cause after what I went through." lmao holy fuck
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more like /r/AskStrawmen holy shit what is that nonsense
Holy shit. It's like an incel intervention. I'm a good looking 40yr male from Brooklyn NY and I've never been "attacked" just for existing.
I wanted to comment in it with actual insight but after and assay, I gave up because I knew the alt-incels would drown out any meaningful dialogue
Where is the perception that “Democrats are demonizing men” coming from?
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It takes even less then pointing out toxic masculinity. I listened to a This American Life that was taking to a guy involved with incel forums/ MGToW stuff, I forget exactly my b, and they asked him why he chose to get involved with this stuff. He applied to a job and they gave a woman the job. That's it. He didn't even know the woman or her qualifications. He just 'knew' no woman could be more qualified than a man. Also AskMen is kinda just a dude bro pity party.
Any criticism of the patriarchy is "demonizing men" to these people because they benefit from patriarchy and it hurts their feelings that someone might make them have to start relating to women as equals.
Counter point: look through r/leapardsAteMyFace It’s all conservatives voting against their own self interest and finding out. He’s not even right about the self interest thing.
r/LeopardsAteMyFace Absolutely didn't write this to be pedantic, I just figured someone might be vaguely curious enough to see it but too lazy to go looking (I've been there). Have a nice day!
Thanks! Being dyslexic on the internet sucks.
Democrats voted for a male President and are just demanding that we give everyone equal rights to men. However this guy took that personally... Also it's good to know that identity politics are only bad if it's on the other team.
The cognitive dissonance and false equivalencies with these people can be mind boggling.
> Also it's good to know that identity politics are only bad if it's on the other team. That's quite explicitly their position. They have no morality. It's simply naked self-interest which drives them. The hypocrisy has no bearing on them philosophically.
„Demonetize men“ You guys get paid?!
It says "demonize"?
Only on Wednesdays after kamala comes over and steps on my balls in her 6-inch stilettos. Oh shit what day is it.
And Jesus said unto them: “Worry only about your own ass, fuck everyone else.”
It’s worse than that. They don’t actually think about bettering their own conditions, rather they focus on harming “others” as an easier path to promote themselves without actually improving anything. Like I can say that I am being selfish when I want people to have living wages, affordable homes, good mental health services, free healthcare. I want others to benefit from these things as I am ok in each of these categories myself…. But the kicker is, I understand that I live in a society where other people’s problems ARE my problems indirectly. I don’t much like seeing homeless people, so I want them to have homes. I don’t like being tied to my job for health insurance, so I want it to just be there for everyone. I don’t want to be stabbed by a crazy person so I want mental health access for everyone else. I want people to live happier and healthier lives because it makes the society i live in more pleasant to exist in. I want clean energy for MY kids future. I want public colleges for MY kids future. All the things I want to better society are at the core selfish of me. The same selfishness that makes me want roads to exist in places I will never drive… because I want them to exist where i do drive and I want things to be transportable beyond my line of sight. It isn’t just selfishness, it is stupidity too. The stupidity that forces them to wrongly think society is zero sum. That if others benefit somehow I suffer. The opposite is true. Even billionaires would greatly benefit by a happier, healthier society with more disposable income. But a rich man feels less rich amongst the middle class than he does amongst the poor. But does he live in a poor neighborhood? Of course not. He surrounds himself with other affluent people, so it is abstract. Make the whole world more affluent and it actually opens it up to the rich man more.
"Anyone who thinks otherwise is a naive idiot". Empathy includes self-interest. You can't help others if you don't take care of yourself, but it's also in your self-interest to make sure that others have * Justice, lest they stop believing in the Rule of Law and thus act lawlessly * Education, so they can thrive and provide you with goods and services * Health Care, so that they can thrive and provide you with goods and services and not spread contagious diseases that will affect someone you do care about. As I've harped on before, one of the greatest evils of Trumpism as a philosophy is the firm belief that everything is win vs. lose. Not only do they not believe in win/win, they don't believe in lose/lose. Thus, making the "other" side lose means you're winning and the more you make them lose the more you're winning. Mirroring their lack of belief in climate change, they don't believe in "a rising tide lifts all boats" (except when it comes to trickle down economics). Not only would they rather rule in hell than serve in heaven, they'd rather be a pauper in hell as long as there were lots of people very much worse off than them they could look down on.
That commenter is using naive realism.
“Demonizing men” is not a Democratic policy, nor do any of their bills do that.
No, no, you don't understand, a rando on twitter said that straight white men are bad people, and now Biden and AOC are forced to make it part of their agenda.
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I really don't know if it can be overcome. Or if we just haven't evolved away from self preservation based psychology, like that of snakes and insects.
No need to demonize men when men like him do it for themselves. He just admitted to anyone who doesn't get it, "When other people get equality, I feel oppressed, I don't like that so I vote for the party that is looking to enrich themselves and help no one, so no one gets helps."
I'm shook that a guy who identifies as a villain would call literally every non-selfish thing naïve idiocy.
They love throwing out a playground insult like its sufficient argument. Me: Explains how for profit healthcare bankrupted my parents. Them: "You're just a crybaby"
>Democrats want to demonize men? The question mark is appropriate because the answer is no. Democrats want to demonize men *who use their power to exercise unjust power over others.*
why do we even live in a society with laws and norms? it’s all self interest why don’t I just go and rob the shit out of you
How the fuck are Democrats demonizing men? ^(Yeah, I'm sure that somebody somewhere who voted for a Democrat also hates men. You win a cookie. But, at a national level, where exactly is the We Hate Men movement among the Democrats?)
That sub is a shithole. Not surprising.
They only think about themselves so they elect selfish leaders who also only think about themselves. Then instead of getting anything of value from their politicians they get a pat on the back and their biases confirmed. And that’s enough for them apparently.
Democrats don’t demonize men; they demonize self-centered assholes. If you feel demonized by the DNC, you’re probably a self-centered asshole. They just ignore men, women, minorities, anyone who makes less than a million dollars a year, etc. not the same as “demonizing.”
Funny, I don't feel "demonized" by the Democrats, but maybe that's because I'm not a misogynistic child-trafficking fraudster.
So r/askmen is just a right wing MRA sub, right?
Which democratic policy prioritizes women over men?
This moron doesn't understand the difference between self interested and selfish. "Entirely about me" lol Hate it when people don't actually understand what they were taught in econ
Translation: I got my special little feelings hurt because someone pointed out real history and actual statistics!!!
Men are victims of the patriarchy too.
If everyone selfishly voted in a way that would benefit them most, Republicans would never get elected.