The return of Trump was also made nearly-inevitable with fourth wave pseudo-feminism declaring all men inherently evil “Schrödinger’s rapists” while claiming all women are angelic by nature because they are naught but tiny little blameless children, even up to their 40s.
That just ain’t how people are, and men are tired of hearing about it. Even I am extremely over it, and I didn’t vote for Trump.
True, but there’s more to it than that. And the “more” paints progressives in an even worse light, unfortunately. I remember the tail end of the pay toilet battles during the early and mid-1980s. The progressives got them banned because “no one should have to pay to do a basic bodily function” and because their position was that there should be free and plentiful public restrooms1. But then they never bothered to build any political power to achieve this goal.
Like much of progressivism, the pay toilet battle highlighted a tendency which has metastasized to be even worse now — they take something away, even if imperfect, and replace it with nothing at all.
And that’s never a winning strategy, weirdo degrowther fantasies aside.
That’s a great observation. It leads one to wonder why we became so fearful. And why we collectively decided that all relationships are only about power. I’ve heard people posit it was due to increased precarity, but that doesn’t ring true to me. That’s a pat answer that only touches the surface.
There’s no single explanation of course, but I believe this retrogression has more to do with smartphones, social media and the exaggerated performativity they inject into the sociocultural landscape than it does with the socioeconomic concerns. Essentially, by compressing us back into de facto small communities again with Instagram, Facebook and those other evils, we’ve been forced to resume the mores and norms of a medieval village. That is, a now-virtualized non-locality where everyone knows or can easily discover your business and pass judgment upon you, sometimes with devastating consequences.
We are not cognitively set up to handle this compression of all of us into one tiny yet vast mental conurbation, so we adapt in various ways — most of which are actually maladaptive to any end goal of human happiness or eudaimonia. The solution isn’t to retreat to a past that would no longer be composable with now-novel minds never seen in human history but to tame the beasts of tech and moral overreach to make our tools serve us rather than have us further bent to their whims and limitations.
At least, we should do this. We probably will not and instead will stumble along until something breaks. But change will occur either way. That, at least, is certain.
Is the era of body positivity over? Some experts worry about a return of ‘thinness’ as the norm.
I hope so. “Thinness” should be the norm. And we should give people the tools and the environment to realistically achieve that.
Anything else is allowing great harm.
What an awesome fucking time capsule. I remember that world; I was about the same age these kids were in 1989. It was so very different than now, in ways that are hard to describe unless you lived it. Younger people cannot believe a world like that truly existed:
But it did. In important ways, it was a lot freer — there was far less surveillance. Kids were allowed to roam, and have their own lives. There was no social media (except BBSes, which few used). I would not want to go back, but this is one of the few examples I’ve ever found of what it felt like to live in that time. I knew kids just like this dude and his friend who did things just like they are doing in the video.
As much as they are considered harmful, I think social media and smartphones are underestimated as a cognitohazard, particularly for women. I saw a dude on Reddit who said the first thing he vets for is the woman’s social media use and addiction as those who are deep into it are so poisoned.
Smartphones should likely be heavily regulated and social media in most forms basically should not exist.
I too prefer that older way and world — at least in that respect.
I’m glad more people are making fun of that liberal insanity. “Just let yourself be set alight if it makes the meth-infused vagrant happy. It’s what they need. It’s therapy.”
I’m also so glad my partner does not use social media. The last commenter is correct; social media has absolutely destroyed women and their mental health, far worse than men. Many of them are incredibly addicted to it, much more severely than any men accused of being addicted to porn or gambling or other such things.
If I were dating now I’d work very hard to find a woman who does not use social media, or uses it for less than an hour or two a week. Otherwise they are probably too far gone to save. Especially for women, social media reminds me of the Blight in A Fire Upon the Deep – a near-omniscient alien intelligence that effortlessly enslaves entire worlds and civilizations. It has been incredibly sad to see this occur.
(And yes, I recognize that Reddit is a form of social media — but it does not appear to be nearly as toxic and cognitively hazardous as those such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and the like.)
Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead is the only person in any popular fictional work that I can think of who is very high on both openness and on disagreeableness. Are there any others?
Maybe Betty Gilpin as Simone in Mrs. Davis?
They have won until hundreds of thousands of kids start dying of easily-preventable diseases again. Then some tunes will change. But at a great human cost. That’s the way people seem to roll, though — can’t learn lessons from anyone else and only take instruction the hard way.
I realize this is is me mostly being behind the times more than anything else, but I still cannot believe how much people do on their smartphones. They are so incredibly slow as compared to a real computer. And by that, I mean speed of use, not necessarily speed of operation.
But it’s not just me being behind the times. I watch younger people do things they claim are “easier” and “more convenient” on smartphones, and they take anywhere from 2-10x as long as I do to complete the same task on a full computer. When I witness things like that, I know there is a propaganda operation at work — that those preferences have been engineered and are not entirely organic.
But the world is what it is. Alas.
Didn’t really understand how fat our country is until frequenting tinder (U.S.).
I’ve never used Tinder and never will, but this is true. We need to be just putting Ozempic in the water and in soft drinks1.
Everyone becoming house-sized was not a positive change. Combine that with horrendous tattoos and people walk around looking like fucking dumpsters for no goddamn reason at all.
How the fuck did the belief that we should have wild-eyed crazy people roaming our streets, harassing and attacking at will, become a tenet of progressive politics? And they wonder why they lose elections.
It was so damn bizarre watching them transition from #MeToo to “Everyone needs to enjoy a little harassment on the bus or train. It really spices life up! Anyone gets a free grope or two, don’t worry about it. And if you don’t like it, you must be MAGA!” And I’m barely even exaggerating there.
Dang that was wild.
It’s still odd to me how many women are like, “She’s impossibly skinny!” about some completely normal-looking woman. I’m old enough to remember when 80% of women were as thin the person they’re talking about, or thinner.
That is not good change, that someone with a completely normal BMI is said to be in some impossible-to-achieve state. Put down the damn Twinkies and you too can achieve the impossible. It’s like a miracle and stuff.