Srsly tho

It's crazy to me that the housing shortage isn't a top issue for teachers and their unions. There are going to be mass closures and consolidations of public schools in coming years if families keep leaving Greater Los Angeles in droves.

The relentless promotion of pro-Russia, anti-NATO political parties in Europe is just in obvious contradiction to the stated aim of getting Europe to carry more of its own weight in western defense.

@sirchadius @JerusalemDemsas @TheArgumentMag No u

@srsjeff @JerusalemDemsas @TheArgumentMag Shut the fuck up.

That young men are sexist and hate women and are increasingly conservative has become one of those stylized facts of public debate. But is it even true? Maibritt Henkel looked into the question for @TheArgumentMag, using our original polling: theargumentmag.com/p/the-bros-are…

so it's for sure ethnic cleansing

A popular argument I hear increasingly often is that Europeans can't blame the US for blowing up their economy with this stupidity, because if they had adopted sensible energy policies, it wouldn't have happened. But this argument, like every argument the supporters of this war use, is completely idiotic. First, while it's true that Europe's energy policies have been pretty stupid, it's just magical thinking to believe that, even with the right policies, Europe still wouldn't have been more dependent on the oil and gas that goes through Hormuz than the US, because policies can't change geography and geology. There is no possible world in which, if it had adopted the right policies, Europe wouldn't still have been massively harmed by this war, except a world in which Europe is much poorer because we ignored economic incentives and almost stopped relying on fossil fuels. It would have been harmed less, but it still would have been harmed a lot. I don't hear American rightoids argue that the US was stupid because it didn't adopt policies to make its economy less energy-intensive. The US economy is more energy-intensive than advanced European economies, which is going to make it suffer more from this crisis than Europe other things being equal (it's just that other things won't be equal because the US is also a net exporter of energy and is largely isolated from the global natural gas market because it lacks export capacities), because Americans face different incentives than Europeans, which largely due to geography and geology. Their energy policies were also imperfect, but that's not a reason to ignore that basic fact. So the premise of the argument is a wild exaggeration and rests on magical thinking, but what's even worse is that, even if that premise were true, the argument would still be completely stupid. That's because even if Europe could have made itself completely insulated from one of the largest energy shocks in history, which again is ridiculous, it wouldn't change the fact that, had Israel and the US not started this stupidity, Europe wouldn't have been harmed. If there has been a string of arsons in your neighborhood and you didn't buy a fire extinguisher, you were imprudent and can be blamed for that, but if someone later sets your house on fire and it burns down because you didn't have a fire extinguisher, it would still be profoundly retarded to argue that you have no standing to blame the arsonist, yet that's exactly what the geniuses who make that argument are saying.

This is not very convincing.

@thefuzzybastard @_rotimia I still don't think that's possible anymore. Like, Abigail Spanberger has cultivated a reputation for centrism. If she's the nominee, the centrist reputation will evaporate, even if she does some hippie-punching.

@srsjeff @_rotimia They’ll view it as inauthentic if, like Harris, the candidate is on camera saying all the same things a year before. But a candidate who’s already cultivating a reputation for centrism (as Clinton had) could make a lot of hay by saying “I’m an FDR Democrat, not a Hasan Dem”

The highlighted quote is the same logic some on the left use for their pet issues. It feels like parts of the coalition, moderates and progressives, are willing prioritize their pet issues over winning—even if it risks handing the presidency to someone like Vance.

@LibertyTruthX @AmiDar @DerekPederson3 Fatah recognizes Israel's right to exist. They will not denounce right of return, but Israel doesn't need them to. Even in a 2 state situation, Israel can simply not allow right of return while also accepting that Palestinian organizations will not formally agree

@srsjeff @AmiDar @DerekPederson3 If you listen carefully to Fatah, they wouldn't do this neither. And here's the problem: If the vast majority doesn't support the existence of the state for which you want to grant the right to vote, you have a similar situation like in the Weimarer Republic.

@SwannMarcus89 Hasan Piker sucks ass, but there is a bigger conversation here, and it's the anti-Hasan side that's in the wrong on the broader principles of this discussion.

This argument is stupid when the far better argument is that Hasan has 5 million times as many haters as fans to the point he regularly gets ratioed by dudes with 8 followers I don’t think being dogzapping lolcows is the path to victory

@thefuzzybastard @_rotimia I'm not sure hippie-punching works anymore. People will just view it as "inauthentic" or whatever and dismiss it.

@_rotimia Democrats lose because voters think they’re too far left. Hippie-punching like Bill Clinton is the path to victory.

@LibertyTruthX @AmiDar @DerekPederson3 Hamas is literally an Islamist terrorist group. That was never going to happen.

@AmiDar @DerekPederson3 @srsjeff Imagine Hamas had declared they recognised Israel's right to exist and denounce the demand of a right of return. The effect would have been the end of the blockade, wouldn't it?

@fulton5280 @AmiDar @DerekPederson3 Israeli actions in the West Bank suggest otherwise.

@AmiDar @DerekPederson3 @srsjeff Yeah. Full autonomy in Area A. Shared in B. Time to adultup, recognize Israel, make peace, build a civil society, make living more important than killing Jews. Almost all the Israelis/Jews/Zionists I know are willing to recognize & work with a peaceful New Palestine.

How were they not? They had a government that was not subservient to Israel, they had a military capable of launching a pretty serious attack on Israel, they had their own contiguous territory with borders with both Egypt and Israel. It was its own city-state. Any small country that decided to perpetually launch missiles at its neighbors would get blockaded. That would happen to Singapore too. That doesn’t make the not independent. There were many deals given to Hamas to end the conflict and the siege.

@lxeagle17 @dcoxpolls That's because they tend to identify as nationalist or right-populist, which is distinguished from being "conservative". But your poll has no option for them to indicate that.

@dcoxpolls look, i think there is a bit more to this than what meets the eye. i understand the sampling questions you have. let's control for that by looking *just* at Trump voters. it's still true that a far lower share of trump 18-29 voters identify as conservative than trump 65+ voters

This is the definition of an overcorrection. One survey that deviates from a dominant narrative, which suddenly becomes the new narrative. Also, note that this sample is of REGISTERED VOTERS, a group that is typically not very representative of all young adults.

@samstein Amanda Litman is correct. "Moral clarity" is not a good distinction from litmus tests. Everyone will just say *their* litmus test is actually a test of moral clarity, and then we're back where we started.

Third Way laying down a marker here, in ways that are definitely going to rile folks on the left.

@DerekPederson3 Lefties cling to that theory because it's necessary for the rest of their delusional political analysis that this country would go hard-left if only the moderate Democrats and the DNC would get out of the way. They cannot admit they're genuinely in the minority.

How many polls showing non-voters have the politics of like Joe Manchin do we need before left-wing turn-out-the-vote theories are discredited. And why do they never consider that a left-wing Democrat will drive turn out among Republicans even more?

In 5-10 years, not only will republicans deny they ever liked Trump (“he wasn’t a ‘real republican’”), but also they will lament that democrats are so left now and not like old school moderate democrats like Obama and Biden

@TruismsT @DerekPederson3 @Atla5drugg3D I am not saying anything like "men with AGP have no choice but to live out their fetish". Many men (and women too) have benign fetishes and no particular reason to suppress them. Kink in general is not unhealthy.

That’s my exact point. Our CULTURE has created the space for fetish and hedonism to flourish. The idea that men with AGP have no choice but to live out their fetish (and make the rest of us participate in it too) is wrongheaded. I started out saying we should not normalize kink. It’s an unhealthy expression of human sexuality. Pornography is ruining the sex lives of countless people.

Autogynephilia is a tragic sexuality. The most liberating, the most freeing thing an individual can ever experience is to actualize your sexuality with someone who you love, and who loves you. And you've got to realize that most autogynephiles will probably never experience this. There are very few women who will be interested in their forced fem fantasies. There are probably even fewer who will be fond of the idea that they are fantasizing about actually *being* them. Any sex act will likely either be a situation where she is unaware of what he's really thinking about or she has just privately lost any interest in him. So they are heterosexual men who basically can't have real, fulfilling relationships with women. I suspect this is a major factor in so many seeking out relationships with other autogynephiles and with gyandromorphophiles (a bit redundant, as there is enormous overlap there), which Blanchard dubbed as "pseudobisexual." But my suspicion is that such relationships lack what we might normally conceive of as romantic love. They are still two heterosexual men, after all. So, it is a very pitiable state. This is a piece of evidence in favor of the idea that AGPs enormously struggle to have normal, stable relationships with women. I understand a lot of the issues with the Trans Rights Activist stances, but I don't understand the people who want to demonize AGPs for being what they are. No one can choose their sexuality, and it is not a moral failing.

@Atla5drugg3D @TruismsT @DerekPederson3 A lot of people are able to indulge their fetishes without "blowing up their families" and the rest of the things you saidm

Right just blowing up their families, embarrassing them, alienating their social circle, and grossing out coworkers and the general public by foisting their weirdo fetish on everyone. But other than that, "no reason at all." What a sad statement about maleness. If this is true, how TF do any of you believe you're "good leaders?"

@RuxandraTeslo Two things: the rise of the manosphere, and Trump overperforming with the lowest age bracket in 2024.

I find this topic very interesting and I would love to read more on how the "dominant narrative" of young men being increasingly conservative came to be. Like a historical narration of different strands of evidence and how they played into the discourse.