You can’t make a bully back down by hugging them despite what children cartoons may say. I am not advocating slaughter - I’m advocating pure backbone. You must resist and stand up for yourself from the aggressor - that doesn’t mean escalating without cause. If punched - punch back. If pushed push back.
Not pretending that playing music or feeling bad for the other side will help.
When I said ‘war’ earlier I wasn’t talking about one we start (civil, etc.) but the very real threat that we end up in a nuclear escalation or some other world war due to Trump and his flailing about as commander in chief. My point wasn’t to start violence - only that you can’t get a bully to back down by being nice back - you have to be willing to hold the line.
I’ve been on Reddit for the better part of a decade and I did notice more toxic circle jerks occurring and I never quite was sure what to make of it. I kinda got the feeling of 4chan was leaking toxic sludge into the greater internet. More and more I would see bullshit from young “nice Guys” and “beta male” whining about not understanding why girls wouldn’t sleep with them but not understanding that that shit takes time and a real effort to know a person. It was like all the worst parts of bar room dating culture and angry vulnerable geeks.
The pedantic part of myself just had to cringe as both wolf and human behavior is far more complex and the whole “Alpha wolf” thing was always bullshit. That crap came out of a shitty study in the 70s that only looked at wolves in captivity and a really small sample. It’s just yet another simplistic box to shove your identity into as the old molds we used to have have crumbled for most of the country.
I kinda wish the Alpha/Beta labels would just die out of the culture as I don’t think it was ever a help.
I challenged what I should interpret from a photo with no other argument made:
A strawman is an intentional misconstruction of your words or argument - if I’m not understanding you - it’s not with malicious intent. I apparently am missing your point entirely.
you’ve not been accused, you misunderstood i am sure accidentally.
See, in making an argument, you imagine you’ve found one started by someone else. Making absolute statements rather invites contrary evidence. It does not invalidate your point, just grounds it in a shared reality if you’re up for sharing. There are other options than World War imagery and other FUD.
I think someone needs a hug.
Well if you assume that I meant you misconstrued my words, as opposed to you presented strawmen in your initial statement (to which I responded my mentioning your use of them quite clearly), then maybe you could pause, assume nothing about what I mean, don’t pretend I oppose you, and try again from the top?
Alright - I brushed that comment aside - to be entirely honest from your first comment I felt it was a fair critique mostly because I struggled to explain what I was trying to say - and on review didn’t really care for it myself. I don’t like editing things once I post outside of grammar mistakes, so take that for what it’s worth. My examples were not meant as strawmen - I was trying to build a list of disparate but real voices from the right - that all feel a sense of being victimized by changes in society.
I do agree my list sucked. I’m not sure that they were technically strawmen - as much as a crappy list.
I am sympathetic to this argument, because I too am in the internet, and have lurked in Trump message boards, and have seen how the young men on these boards adulate Trump, and how their memes spread. But 40-whatever percent of the country is not on freaking 4chan and reddit.
I worry that people whose jobs are to write articles on the internet forget how little of the country is participating in the memes that they see, and how the discussions they’re having about cucks and Milo and whoever are not actually being shared by the idiots who voted for Trump in rural Pennsylvania.
By stating you are unwilling to engage or give mass respect, for explicitly stated reasons, you are literally (or figuratively) building that wall. With magic? Something like that. Right down the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. As if plane tickets or a less contemptuous conversation style would be too much effort. I think that’s it.
Most of the Brits, Aussies and Kiwis that I know refrain from using those terms in mixed company because they know the North American connotations are quite different. That doesn’t mean they don’t use them, though.
Allow me to clarify: Milo tells lies of all sizes so often that I find it pointless to read any more he has written, even if a brave person such as yourself has gone ahead and vetted it. If there is value to what he said, a better person than he has said it better elsewhere. I prefer not to give Milo the clicks. Your mileage may vary, of course, and I respect your decisions, but I feel disinclined to lend him my ears or eyeballs.
To me, if any part of this is interesting, it is what his fans prefer to think he meant when he opened up that sewage outlet that is his mouth. However giving him a broadcast platform like Meyer did, allowing hill to speak on campus at taxpayer* expense, these things, I don’t hold with.
*that would be working stiffs like me, since Trump famously doesn’t pay taxes.
