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sj_zero | @sj_zero@social.fbxl.net

Author of The Graysonian Ethic (Available on Amazon, pick up a dead tree copy today)

Admin of the FBXL Network including FBXL Search, FBXL Video, FBXL Social, FBXL Lotide, FBXL Translate, and FBXL Maps.

Advocate for freedom and tolerance even if you say things I do not like

Adversary of Fediblock

Accept that I'll probably say something you don't like and I'll give you the same benefit, and maybe we can find some truth about the world.

Ah... Is the Alliteration clever or stupid? Don't answer that, I sort of know the answer already...

Making Mike the smartest person in the room if I'm being honest.

But here's what I don't get: why do the Democrats still think the presidency is an STD?

I saw one dummy laying the groundwork. "Trump will suspend elections if he's elected so we need to suspend elections to protect democracy!"

I don't believe for a second that Harris would do comparably to Biden in a Trump match-up.

He might be a vegetable because he's old, she's just a vegetable.

I started going through this, but while this is my first set of meditations on the topic, I think I may end up elsewhere soon because there's a bigger idea I'm missing, but here's my first look at this set of ideas:

I tend to think that the Andrew Tate red pill lifestyle is a lifestyle with the ultimate goal of being the owner of a strip club who's a millionaire. You'd be rich, lots of sexually desirable women would be showing you respect and under your control, and everyone knows you're important.

Now some people think that the best criticism against the red pill is that most men will never become millionaires, or will never own a strip club, but I think that that's way off base, it's the wrong criticism. On the other hand, it could also be that criticizing the point of view for being what it is is to miss the point.

Even if you're destined to become a millionaire and you're on track for that, even if women love you and will do anything you say, most men don't want their final destination to be as owner of a strip club. There's a phase in many men's lives where they want something like that, but eventually they grow out of it because it's a very surface level success.

I don't think that the reason the red pill vision draws men in is just because of the final goal, I think it's because a lot of the things that will let you become a millionaire strip club owner will also let you find conventional types of success on your path to becoming a more self-actualized human being. I don't think that most men are dumb enough to want to become the owner of a strip club in their twenties and then just shut down for the rest of their lives. On the other hand, let's say you aim at financial success, physical competence, and romantic (romance in the red pill sense being sort of shallow but still something men who have never succeeded can understand) -- even if you get a little slice of that kind of success, a little wealth, a little success with women, a little competence, that's a pretty good spot to start on the rest of the journey of your life.

Many men get into manosphere stuff, whether it be red pill or pick up arts or something else, but many put that part of their lives away after a few years.

Obviously it isn't red pill per se, but Neil Strauss, the famous author of The Game -- a New York Times bestseller that spoke of the at the time secret world of pick up artists, he basically won the red pill game. He was making lots of money selling pick up guru services, and he was world famous, even going on shows like The View, and he was popular among women -- their Project Hollywood setup in LA was a hedonistic paradise -- but eventually back then, he moved away from that scene. A later book, called The Tuth, was in some ways a repudiation of the lifestyle talked about in the first book, because the lessons he learned ended up being unproductive when trying to navigate marriage and fatherhood (as Hollywood goes, his marriage started in 2013 and ended in 2018,) and recently his life has been about doing things entirely unrelated -- he wrote a book about a rock star, and another book about surviving a bunch of apocalypses. He's likened the face of his life where he got deeply into the pickup arts as something like a later adolescence or going to college -- short time in his life where he had a lot of experiences and learned a lot, but eventually had to put it aside for adulthood. One of his most recent books was the first book to ever be put on to the ethereum blockchain, and as a result was acquired by a major museum.

Contrast that with one of the other main characters of the book, Eric von Markovik aka Mystery. According to a 2018 BuzzFeed article, so take that as you might, it seems that he never really stopped doing the thing that he was doing, and in a lot of ways he sounds in the article like one of those guys who's best days were in college who is constantly hoping to relive The Glory Days -- he talks about getting back to LA to create a project Hollywood 2.0 "just like in the game". Even without the extreme bias of far left BuzzFeed editors, you do get the impression of a guy who is exactly where he was 15 years ago, except no longer in his prime physically or mentally.

This touches on two chapters from the graysonian ethic, in one chapter called think ahead, I asked the reader to consider what their lives might be like in 10, 20, 30 years from now. It's been 6 years since von Markovik gave that interview, do you think his life has gotten markedly better since then? In the article, he has two kids on the other side of the planet. He doesn't strike me as a present father, and so you kind of have to ask the question what is the purpose of his life? And he's I think by now in his 50s, he's got to be a pretty weird sight in the club. And he hits his 60s, did he really still going to be doing this? And his 70s, what sort of weirdo will he be? What happens if he lives to reach 100? "50 years ago I had lots of sex!" That's great, granddad. Second, I have an entire chapter on attraction that starts off with a warning about he pretended dangerous of love and sex without prudence, but later on closes off in part with a warning about letting chasing the opposite sex become the only thing that matters anybody, and without really realizing it I ended up writing about someone like mystery who have had all these ephemeral successes; notches on a bedpost that has long been sent to the incinerator because the owner of the bed no longer needs it. These things are important, but they aren't all there is to life.

If one takes the various religions as ancient wisdom that helped their civilizations thrive, then it is clear that a focus on this sort of short-term success is something that virtually every religion warns against. The Bible famously contains the line "my name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look upon my works in despair" with an admonition to focus on following the commandments of God and finding greatness through dedicating yourself to a higher purpose. Buddhism advocates for a disconnection from the physical world to focus on spiritual things. Islam, Hindu, Shinto, all of them contain a similar idea.

That's all true that life must be more than just these ephemeral things, but just as man cannot live on bread alone, man still needs bread. We still need to learn how to achieve the things in life we require -- safety and food, companionship and sex, and community, before we worry about self-actualization, and so a phase of your life where you focus on that is sensible, and thinking you can avoid such a phase of your life is self-destructive unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. There's an inherent paradox in the fact that you must leave ephemeral success behind to advance as a person, but you must still often require ephemeral success to reach those higher levels of advancement because without that base you won't be able to see higher up. Of course, one of the truths you find along the way is that the complexities and contradictions inherent in understanding these ideologies and even embracing them while not letting them completely define you because there are other contradictory truths one must learn and embrace to be fulfilled is just part of the dance between competing forces in the world -- most of the things red pillers say about women are in fact true, but they are also in fact false, because the world is a filled with many ambiguities and contradictions can coexist at one time. Just talk to happily married men and women who do not by any means hate women or men, but are happy to engage in sexist humor that describes parts of the life they love that are paradoxical or frustrating.

I myself had an era between about 2007 and 2009 where I was deeply interested in the pick-up arts (again, being a space older than but somewhat adjacent to the red pill movements). I had just graduated from college and was working my first professional job and was ready to find companionship, but having spent my formative years focusing on either school or computers (not gonna pretend I'm not a huge nerd) or fitness, I thought I'd never learned what I needed to. One of the key lessons I needed was to put myself in a beautiful woman's shoes, and realize that their whole existence was much different than mine, and from 18 onwards even mid women were constantly geting propositioned for sex, much unlike 99% of men. That's kind of a red pill moment, isn't it? Realizing how different the world is. Eventually, after dating or going out with a bunch of women, I got married, and that part of my life went into the box, never to come out again -- I needed it in that moment no matter how ugly some people might have considered it, and I appreciate it for what it gave me, but I don't want or need such a thing any longer. Unlike the perception that red pill ideas would foster misogyny, many of those red pill ideas are the shadow to the ideas of the blue pill my generation was raised on, and just as an intellectual diet consisting solely of red pill ideas would be a toxic negative environment, so too is the intellectual diet consisting solely of blue pill ideas a toxically positive environment, and not representative of the lived experience of women, or representative of the lived experience of men who have been either successful or unsuccessful with women.

After I learned a little bit more of the pickup arts, I ended up helping a number of men learn how to pick up women themselves. Now typically these were not hulking giga chads who needed to get their game from a 30 to a 31, they were good people who nonetheless had to get themselves from a 0 to a 1 or higher. In both cases, those men had a severely lacking understanding of the women they were pursuing. In both cases, they had a wildly optimistic view of the women they were pursuing, and so thought that the only thing stopping them from getting into relationships with these women was some major romantic gesture, effectively just confronting the girl they liked about the fact that they liked them. I told them both that they had some highly unrealistic expectations of what was going to happen, and I explained in no uncertain terms what could be described as a highly red pilled version of what was going to happen. In both cases, after going off to try to prove me wrong by confronting their crush about the attachment that they felt, the women in question ended up showing they were much better described by the red pilled version of reality. In one case, the woman he thought was this pure virginal sweet thing threw it in his face the fact that she was actually having an affair with a married man. These moments helped them understand women a little better, and forced them to disregard previous misconceptions about women's perspectives. If the only perspective these men came to understand was the red pilled perspective that would be a big problem because the world is more complicated than that and some blue pilled ideas are also correct, but

There was a study in the 2020s that actually investigated whether the pick-up arts ultimately led to relationships (and I'm still considering the two directly adjacent), and it found that it had a large impact in creating long-term relationships. I directly credit it with a series of situations that ultimatley led to my marriage. In that sense, while it may appear on its face to be misogynistic (one of the primary moral arguments against following such ideas), it may in fact be good for women by helping good men become noticable, bringing good men and good women together being a net good in the universe even if the methods seem incongruous with that. The other primary moral argument is that the methods themselves are immoral. I think it's important not to paint with too broad a brush. While it's true "all's fair in love and war", it's also true that even war has rules and what you do to find love you'll have to live with the rest of your life. Being a bit cringey such as negging or using the pick up arts vernacular is one thing, but many would consider Tate's loverboy method where he attracts women to bait and switch them into working in his virtual brothel to be morally reprehensible given the chance to actually do it. I think that speaks to another paradox, that men might think they want that goal and will pursue them, but upon achieving such a thing may realize the goal isn't at all what they want -- going back to my original metaphor, owning a strip club would actually suck your soul away.

The Indian sacred text Bhagavad Gita (the source of the famous quote: "now I am become death, destroyer of worlds") is a god posing as a chariotman of a prince imparting lessons about morality. The Old testament book of Kings tells the story of many sovereigns, and their stories in relation to their relationship with God and they're following of His commandments. I think this suggests that early civilizations believed that in order to be conversing with God at the highest spiritual level you'd need to be at a certain level of material sufficiency, thus the focus on princes and kings who did not want for such things and so could focus on spiritual enlightenment. Later on of course ideologies such as Buddhism and Christianity changed that so the poor and middle classes could find spiritual enlightenment as well. The thing is, anyone who has been destitute and also without social structure in place knows they have nothing and can't build anything from the nothing they have and so forget about spiritual enlightenment, they will struggle just to achieve the day to day. One benefit of organized religion is it helps people have some of those bottom rungs of Maslow's hierarchy regardless of their personal wealth. In an atheistic world like ours, you need to build those bottom rungs yourself, and so despite the ugly nature of red pill ideas, they can actually be the beginning of a path to spiritual enlightenment and self actualization because it lets a man pull himself up the hill to see the next steps where one leaves behind such trivialities as being an owner of a strip club. That being said, it should be clear from this analogy that it's a tool you eventually leave behind.

In Canada and the UK, sovereign immunity is criminal and civil liability applying to the king or queen, but not to the head of the government as far as I can tell, the prime minister and so on. One of the things about sovereign immunity is that it's immunity unless the government allows itself to not be immune, and so in both Canada and the UK there are laws allowing lawsuits to be filed against the Crown.

In the UK there's also specific immunity regarding the monarch.

Besides that, it turns out there's a huge swath of immunity for the king or queen as a private citizen: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/14/queen-immunity-british-laws-private-property

The United States is different in that the head of state is the head of the government, and so I can see where a discrepancy between the two may arise.

The United States also has blanket immunity itself, which is a different question, and different countries state apparatus do or do not indemnify themselves.

Japan's supreme court recently claimed they have no power over the Emperor, suggesting sovereign immunity.

Australia notably does not have sovereign immunity, and their laws list which statutes do and do not apply to the crown.

India has an elected head of state in its president, and that president has immunity for the term of presidency written into the constitution, but that ends once the term ends.

So it seems like there's a lot of variability, suggesting the US could go either way under normal circumstances.

I think right now there's a problem that the US is on the verge of civil war, so we aren't in normal circumstances. Having the absolute sovereign immunity for actions taken in an official capacity I think might help throw a little water on the lawfare we're constantly seeing. If this decision went the other way, I don't see any reason to think we wouldn't see charges up against Biden, Obama, and Clinton in short order, and that it doesn't matter what you think about them, that would be a bad thing.

Having to come up with legislation, particularly bipartisan legislation, to limit such immunity, might actually be good -- it'll help set the ground rules and ensure there's accountability on one side, but that people aren't trying to figure out arbitrary rules before they've even been set on the other.

Is.... uh.... Is a bunch of fit women taking their shirts off and cleaning up the usual result of electing right-wing governments?

Just asking.... for a friend.....

Honestly, this is a big problem for anyone who doesn't actually know what the law already said. Sovereign immunity has been the law of the land since the 1600s. In this way, the supreme Court is only reaffirming everyone already knew. It has its roots back in English common law. The king had created common courts which were required to hold to precedent created by earlier courts, ensuring fairness. Of course, being england, they did end up having to say that the King was immune to prosecution because they are the king the ultimate organ of the state. A lot of common law ended up getting transferred over to the United States when it was formed, including that concept.

As I said in my previous post, there is a solution to this. The Congress can pass a Federal executive liability after that explicitly lays out the situations under which the president would be criminally liable for actions that they make as the executive. There are already examples of Congress doing this such as 1983 civil rights claims and the Federal civil tort claims act.

If the concern is that Donald Trump is going to do something that bad, then Congress and Senate could get together with Democrats ans some never Trumpers pass such an act, and get Joe Biden to sign it. If Joe Biden won't sign it, then create a bipartisan law with broader support that gets supermajority, and force the president to sign it.

Of course, this is all political theatre so nobody will even try to pass such a law.

Bare metal for everything, like a man!

Prior to the current era, the health of the community was considered part of the health of the individual.

Some things we look back on that don't make sense are actually community reactions to things. Witch burnings were for example a sort of social immune response to individuals stirring up discord in the community, and in England relatively recently, being a Karen was an offense punishable by law.

Confucianism is essentially making this idea of community harmony God to be worshipped (though that brings with it a whole new set of issues, including corruption and practical conservatism)

An unhealthy community breeds unhealthy individuals, and when both are combined you end up with a community that can't deal with the world.

Maybe it doesn't matter individually, but it matters a lot to a community, and to a region made up of those communities, and a country made up of those regions, and a civilization made up of those countries, because we've got a civilization that's falling apart despite a long period of (admittedly shrinking) economic expansion and a long period of world peace. Imagine what would happen if we actually saw some serious external threats?

Besides the whole in concept, in practice we know about things like social contagion which see bad behaviors spreading beyond just the individuals to others.

Could be cultural then.

The pathogen had already taken hold.

That's kind of a neat idea.

I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in the next 50 years. The Internet is a luxury that can only exist in an era of world peace, which I think we can all see is fracturing.

I tend to agree with you. Sometimes it should be perfectly obvious a way to make things better, but everyone is so busy fighting to keep a KPI in the green they aren't allowed to walk three feet to go look at the thing.

Big problem with "touch grass" as an appeal to normal people is that most normal people aren't touching grass. Generations of iPad kids growing up on the Internet, the world's biggest shopping mall filled with all the creeps of the world. People spend too much of their lives on their phones.

I go outside every day I'm home, with my son. Sometimes we go outside multiple times a day. The sidewalks are empty. The parks, it's rare to see someone at the parks and even then it's like one person, not usually a group. The world is a ghost town. It feels to me like the fact of ghost towns outside is a shocking revelation. We all assume someone else is still outside, even as many of us are not.

Where is everyone? Well that's the problem, isn't it? They're online, they're on their phones, they're watching TV. They're physically protected and psychically & psychologically under constant abuse and assault.

The first technology to threaten society is thought to have been the coin. This occurred overwhelmingly long ago, and by trading coins instead of favors, individuals didn't need to have as close relationships between each other, but cities could grow larger. The breakthrough technology that helped people deal with this was organized religion, which brought people together and pushed a common set of values despite money breaking apart interpersonal connections.

It's likely that soon we'll see the development of something to help resolve the problems brought about by the social problems caused by The Internet. Now it might not be something as powerful as organized religion, but perhaps we'll have to collectively learn how to step away from the screens and start going outside again?

I expect it'll have to be a cultural technology, not a digital technology.

Holy shit, two samson tracks? My cup runneth over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGp_U6kz7i8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc1c_WSzk9E

That second one is probably about getting roped in with the other "conservative rappers".

Honestly, I think there's some insightful stuff there. Just because you share values with other people doesn't mean they're good at their craft, and doesn't mean you want to be associated with them.

It's something we're seeing a lot right now, "conservative media" in general isn't any better than "liberal media" -- what you really want is "good media". I've seen the conservative reviews of conservative media for example coming out on Daily Wire+, and it's not actually any good.

I know lots of people like him, but people compare Samson to Tom McDonald, and I feel like it's comparing Eminem to Vanilla Ice. The latter might be saying shit I agree with but he's not a great rapper, he's just an ok one.

It would be really cool if the entire liberal party and NDP resigned tomorrow.

A lot of dark modes are just grey mode which represent the unlimited ennui of living in a post-modern post-industrial society where you're expected to find meaning in life not through nature or god or family but through mild contributions to a service.economy making sure food and other goods premanufactured in a foreign country are adequately prepared for sale... So I'll just go with light mode in those cases. Black or bust.

Not enough.

(And I do want to make sure I say: Lots of game magazines used to be awesome! The industry degenerated!)

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