OK, let’s put it this way since the meme didn’t register:

Fuck. Off.

Was that clearer? I mean seriously, fuck the fuck right fucking off. You’re literally saying that a literal matter of taste is “wrong”.

Fuck. Off.

Fuck the fuck right fucking off.

There was a really sharp observation on this in Weibo. I wish I could find the post again (I thought I had a screenshot, but it appears I don’t), so unfortunately I’m going to just have to paraphrase it:

Heterosexuality is the weakest orientations. Gays, lesbians, and trans get beaten, get forced into conversion, get ostracized, lose their jobs, lose their friends, lose their family and remain gay, lesbian, or trans. But all it takes to lose your het is to see a drag queen.

And a non-arsehole-not-willing-to-push-back problem too.

I know, right? It’s an absolute nightmare of a fungus.

Here they use it as medicine. 🙃

The best deodorant in the world is dirt cheap and more effective than any commercial one pushed by the “beauty” industry. What is it? It’s alum powder.

I can buy alum powder for about a buck for about a pound. (5.5RMB per 500g to be precise.)

That much alum powder will last me several years as a deodorant. Of course I have some added expenses. I need to get a spray bottle, for example. That’s an extra 50 cents and will outlast the alum powder.

You could probably stop here, but hey, let’s splurge and go fancy! Let’s get a funnel and a measuring spoon too!

The small funnel plus all of those measuring spoons adds up to a bit over a buck. Again, these will outlast your alum powder.

So for an initial outlay of $2.50-$3 you have five years of long-lasting, completely scent-free deodorant. (You can also spray gamy clothes with it to neutralize the scent for a few hours.) After that every five years or so you spend a buck to get your next five years’ supply. It is a bit more complicated to use than regular deodorant sprays though. Every two weeks or so you’ll have to measure a bit of the alum crystal into the funnel and wash it down into the bottle with warm water until it’s full, leaving it to sit a while to dissolve.

Might I suggest volunteering for a while at a women’s shelter? That hardened my stance on tolerating male fee-fees quite a bit.

There’s just a lot of words that have entirely lost meaning and are mere verbal tics used to identify a tribe. “Leftist.” “Feminist.” “Woke.” “Liberal” (in the American sense of the term). But also: “Fascist.” “Nazi.” Even “racist” often.

While sometimes these are still used in ways that have their actual meaning, mostly they’re just a way of saying “I don’t like you and I identify as <X> tribe”.

Almost. Yes. Almost.

I call this the “immigrant effect” based on Canadian immigrant waves.

The single loudest voice against new immigration in Canada is, of course, conservative white folk. That’s just a given. But very close in line to them are … immigrants. And I don’t mean just the children of immigrants, I mean the people who actually immigrated.

As an example, I have a very dear friend in Canada who is a Russian Jew. His family fled persecution by the Soviets to Italy, and then while in Italy as refugees, finally emigrated to Canada when this friend was 14.

Now you think with the hardship they’d faced, the family would be understanding of and supportive of immigrants and refugees. You would think wrong, however. While my friend is, both of his (refugee, immigrant) parents are firmly opposed to each and every immigrant group that came after them. They opposed Iraqi immigrants. Somali immigrants. You name the group that came after them, they opposed it. All using the same language that was used by the conservative white folk against them when they were the refugees.

Privilege is a powerful drug that hooks you rather quickly. DEI beneficiaries are just following an old, old pattern in a slightly new sphere.

Mentioning women in a non-sexual context is as instant a downvote magnet as is mentioning China in anything but a negative light.

Watch this comment get downvoted for both now. 🤣

Does being accused of “writing off half of humanity” and “driving them into the manosphere” because I say women need to be wary around men count? Because if so, yes. Right here in this community.

I have had dozens of scotch samples over the years from the kinds of people who, like you, insist that I’ve just “never had the good stuff”. The range of prices has been from bottom-shelf as you said to stuff that there’s no way in Hell I could ever afford.

I hated them all.

Is it really that hard to comprehend that sometimes people just don’t like what you like? I’m getting a lot of this vibe from scotch fans here:

and I’ve personally warned about the problem for almost 20 years.

You and me both. 😟 Even as I was hearing the jackboots marching closer and closer from around the corner, friends would tell me that I was overreacting and overthinking things. Friends who are now panicking because they’re somewhere that can be actually hurt by the USA tearing itself apart from within (Canada).

Statistics show that around 84% of repetitive tasks and transactions can be automated across 200 government services

Whose statistics? Reviewed by whom?

I’ll need citations here, complete with methodology, questionnaires used, if any, and the raw data. Oh, and did you do a literature search to see if someone has already assessed and found wanting the conclusions of this purported study? I don’t want to reinvent the wheel after all.

Or, as is far more likely, did you find a “statistic” that suited your bias and stick with it?

Is anybody at all genuinely surprised that Kaptain Ketamine is a hypocrite?

I’ll bet you he’d also fire anybody who tested positive for ketamine…

There was once a business facing problems that negatively impacted them.

“I know,” said the CEO. “Let’s use AI!”

Now they have two problems that negatively impact them.

Why believe either?

Trump and Musk and that entire coterie was never the cause of the USA’s problems. They’re symptoms of the problems.

This “race to the bottom” is called “risk management”. When literally one person in four of your social group has been attacked by men, only an idiot assumes good faith when faced with men.

This is not saying that all men are bastards. This is not saying that all men should be jailed (as some very extreme 2nd generation feminists said once). This is saying that you absolutely must be very careful when dealing with men. Let’s look at the payouts, shall we?

• He’s Not A Bastard + You Trust = Possibly good things.
• He’s A Bastard + You Trust = Violent injury or death. (Yours.)
• He’s Not A Bastard + You Don’t Trust = He gets miffed.
• He’s A Bastard + You Don’t Trust = You’ve got an edge in escaping violence. (Or reversing it.)

Me? Personally? I’m very averse to violent injury and/or death. That’s kind of the -♾ payout that basically overrides all others. And when one in four of my sisters have already experienced this outcome, you can’t even say that the probability is low. Any strange man (and, tragically, often even those you think you know) is a potentially violent thug with a game-ending outcome in the game theory analysis. Suspicion and assumption of bastardry until proved otherwise is a survival strategy.

And men who are really allies? They get this. They understand that the woman’s calculus of navigating the world around them is very different from the man’s. (And let’s not even start down the path of what happens to the sisters who are trans.) And while maybe it may grate on them a little, they’re not going to start whining about it except possibly to their closest SOs, etc.

The men who do whine? The men who use this, and I can’t stress this enough, survival strategy as an excuse to go the direction of the Tates or down the MRA/PUA/Incel/whatever rabbit hole? They never were allies. They never will be allies. And they can rot in Hell.

writing off half the human race seems like the wrong approach

Nobody is writing them off, FFS! As strident as I am about this (again, for emphasis) survival strategy, I have an SO that I have been together with since 2003. Before that I dated. I partied. I met men and enjoyed their company.

But one in four. One. In. Four.

You can bet that my eye is on the exits and my knife is not far from my grasp.

Cordyceps that take control of their target (like, say, an ant), and make them stand in a place that’s suited for their purpose. Then they grow into the target, eating it from the inside and replacing all but the shell with the fungus. They then grow a fruiting growth that when it ripens showers its spores down on more of said targets, having positioned the, say, ant right where the ant’s nest mates are prone to being, thus continuing the cycle.

This is about the second most gruesome thing I’ve seen in nature and has that added mind control thing on top. (The most gruesome is the wasps mentioned elsewhere in the replies.)