I swear I’m not Jessica

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • Hmm. I see you read what you wanted to in my post. It’s true that many Trumpians feel helpless and forgotten. It’s true that the Democrats are mostly evil dogshit, largely upholding an economic system that makes people feel powerless and exploited. The middle class shrinks as the risk of getting taken out by medical debt, scams, disasters and predatory businesses with more legal rights than people. The Dems are owned by people who truly want none of that to get better or stop getting worse. If there’s one thing Democrats and Republicans can bond over, it’s hating the Democratic party.

    The logic and actions of Trump’s followers might be madness, but their emotions are fuelled by real problems they are right to be upset about. Even multimillionaires are vulnerable to economic ruin and destitution, creating a real fear that their lives are always in danger. Unless you have “fuck you” money, you’ll never get enough to be safe. We’re sliding deeper into the lawless state of nature, where it’s everyone for themselves and your only right is to do whatever it takes to survive.

    That’s why they believe that migrants are coming to take everything away from them. Someone is coming to ruin them, but it’s not the other. It’s why white men so easily believe that women and minorities have it better than them. The only reason we’re “stealing” rights from men is that capitalism makes human rights a resource of increasing scarcity. Fewer people get their human rights, but that supply could easily be infinite if neoliberal capitalism didn’t only reward them based on wealth.

    Believe that I’m a close minded idiot stuck in an echo chamber all you want, it won’t change the fact that I’m addicted to understanding other points of view. I’m a sicko who faces bigotry head on and endures hatred that most are smart enough to avoid. Don’t think for a second that I agree with yeeting apologists because I’m unwilling to challenge my beliefs. That’s the funnest part for me. I only agree because it doesn’t help anybody in most cases. The cost of tolerating intolerance is higher than the overall benefit in spaces like these.




  • As someone who actively seeks out ideological conflict, I’ve learned that you simply cannot reason with fascists. Beyond the more general inability to reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into, fascism has no principles outside of winning and being the strongest. Truth is an inconvenience. Only rhetoric matters; spinning words into salient phrases that result in them appearing better than you. They will use tidbits of logic, but often in ways where they don’t differ from their opponent.

    US politics being divided right now is a good thing if you value any aspect of our system. Everyone from Cheney to Sanders agree with the liberal democratic framework that the US was founded on. Despite their wildly differing perspectives on what parts matter most, every president from FDR to Ronald Reagan was ideologically liberal. That held true for 200+ years, and then Trump was elected.

    Trump, unlike Bush or Reagan, actually despises every element of liberalism. He hates not using power without the restraints of principles like freedom, democracy, or even free market capitalism. He actively undermined the interests of big business, which loves the status quo funneling wealth to them. However, the instability caused by economic woes fuels demands for change, which is easily co-opted by fascists who blame the other rather than the fat cats.

    The end result is that Trumpism took control from the liberal conservatives that wanted business to win through the ballot box. He divided this country by rejecting all common ground politics, instead focusing on the raw mechanisms of power. He flip-flops positions because none of them actually matter beyond how they grant him power. He destroys the career of any Republican that have power of their own, replacing them with weaklings like Mike Johnson and JD Vance. Republicans are nothing without him now.

    Trump supporters aren’t necessarily stupid, as the smartest a human can be is not very smart, but they are beyond arguing with. If you can’t accept that reality, join the Trump camp. He offers exactly the self delusion you want.








  • I’m not ignoring your point of view, just pointing out that you read what you wanted to read, not what was written. The nuance is that you have an even less nuanced view of politics than the meme, assuming that op must mean America should be dismantled. Criticism isn’t destruction you nationalistic fool! No amount of flowery language will save your arguments from being close minded and built with strawmen.





  • And yet, we still need to parse the effects of biology and the effects of situation. Sex differences across species vary based on the various incentives they experience. Sex itself arose out of a need for multicellular organisms to iterate more quickly. In less extreme and volatile conditions, asexual reproduction makes more sense. In certain organisms, all members contribute both male and female gametes, while others have individual organisms specialize in one or the other. It all depends on their specific challenges, modulating to changes in context.

    When we think about why men might have advantages over women at the heads of large organizations, we’d have to look more at the context of what is adaptable in those empires. How much of it is due to biological advantages, and how much of it is due to the same self reinforcing mechanisms that favor pale skin over darker skin? The effect of skin color is totally cultural, yet the disparities between darker and lighter skin are compared gender in several places.

    There are about 121 non white US House Representatives and 128 women. Assuming a 50/50ish gender breakdown, the disparity for race would be 13% while the disparity for gender would about 21%. In the US Senate, there are 12 non white people and 25 women, meaning racial minorities are underrepresented by about 29%, and women by 25%. For CEOs, women are underrepresented by about 18.5%, and racial minorities by about 17%. If race, a completely cultural factor, has such a similar effect to gender(equivalent to sex for most of these cases), what does that say about the effect gender or sex might have on someone’s ability to have positions of power?

    Male and female bodies are different, but how much of an effect do those differences actually have on the behavior of domination? How much of the difference comes from gender as social construct, and how much of it comes from the realities of our bodies? Men can usually lift heavier things and women often have to give birth. Men are more likely to die in battle, women in childbirth. People who identify as male prefer to think and act differently than I do, but it’s unknown how exactly those predispositions shape our outcomes because there’s a mountain of culture woven into every part of those differences. Male behavior is part of human behavior, regardless of how much more often they do it.

    Masculinity is but one part of fascism, not the core reason or mechanism behind it. It’s just an important identity to manipulate for fascists looking to wield power. The will to power above everything else is at the root of fascism, and the basic will to power is just a fundamental adaptation for all life. If you want an evolutionary explanation, that’s it. Seeking power is near universal for all organisms, as power allows them to continue their existence. Those that don’t seek enough resources and control to continue simply don’t continue. However, all drives can be counterproductive in certain ways, getting culled into homeostasis eventually.


  • Gorillas and chimps are not similar at all in terms of social structures. Gorillas are heavily polygynous while chimps are more classified as promiscuous. There are more dominant and less dominant males for chimps as well as competition for social status, but social status is less connected with reproduction than in Gorillas, where the head male monopolizes groups of females and infanticide is common.

    Most importantly, they are both very different from humans, who are far more monogamous because raising our babies is incredibly difficult. We’re fairly flexible and able to have all types of relationships under the sun, from polygyny to polyandry. Our social structures can have more or less dominant members. While that often coincides with men who best wield violence, there are many other important things that are used to exert domination and control, from group support to one’s usefulness at important tasks.

    Above all else, “alpha” men who rise through the ranks by being brutal assholes are not always those who are successful. If anything, the original alpha male study showed how behavior is flexible given the context. In brutal conditions with mostly strangers, violence and domination is likely the most successful strategy. Typically, wolf hierarchies are based on seniority within family units, where being an asshole isn’t always the best idea. The situation drives behavior, so alpha bros will only be as prevalent as our social structures support.

    We are capable of whatever currently works best because nature is fundamentally about whatever works best. Biology evolves slowly, but it’s also designed to adapt to a variety of circumstances. Most toxic men are made by being rewarded for toxicity instead of being rewarded for rejecting it. Different people tend towards different behavior through a multitude of factors, but room can be made to satisfy most typical impulses in a positive way.

    You are kinda right about harnessing things like biology, but our understanding of things is the most dangerous thing of all.