Amygdala? I hardly know 'er!

Belief that heirarchies are natural and desirable because some people are better than others is the worldview required to be vulnerable to the lie of fascism, it’s the precursor to all supremacist thinking.

It isn’t because “some people are better than others”, it’s because some people are better than others at leading. Leadership is a skill, and it can be learned and practiced just like any other skill. You could say, “Hey, Mary is good at fixing things, let’s put her in charge of repairs. Margaret is good at planning projects and organizing people, let’s put her in leadership.”

And no, it doesn’t imply that the person leading should have total control over everything or that they can’t be held accountable.

If you look at opinion polling across countries, die-hard support for supremacist candidates hovers around 25-40%.

You said “humans who want hierarchies” and you’re equating that with “support for supremacist candidates”. Does that mean that if I support a centrist or a left-wing candidate, then I don’t want hierarchies? I can tell you, there are certainly not that many anarchists in the world. 60-75% of the population?

You aren’t concerned about losing potato chips or French fries? I’m confiscating your American card.

Look at it this way. One of my values is having the courage to help others. So, I would admire somebody who risked their life to go into a burning building and save somebody. I’m doubtful that I have the same courage, but I hope that I would. It’s something that I aspire to.

In the same way, somebody who admires Musk has a value of “being rich”. They’re doubtful that they’ll ever be as rich as he is, but it’s something that they aspire to.

“Just about everyone”. What percentage of people are anarchists?

This, but unironically. As a sub who is anti-Trump, it becomes a bit uncomfortable when the conversation turns into “Conservatives are just subs who want to be dominated!” Yeah, okay, maybe there’s some truth to that. The problem is that there isn’t any safeword I can use on Trump.

I’d like to see how you got to “hierarchies = fascism”. I also think that the people who want hierarchies are much higher than 25-40%.

It raises the question. Begging the question is this.

It seems that populism/fascism is ‘ingrained’ in our simple minds.

These are not mutually exclusive. Right-wing populists can also be fascists.

This is what the US tried to do in Germany after WWII. There were “denazification” efforts. Unfortunately, they did a shit job of it, which is why Germany still has a problem with the right wing.

This is the same logic as “If I give the bully some money, then they won’t take all of my money”. If they can get some, why wouldn’t they take the rest? Appeasement doesn’t work. They just push for more.

Because of course he does.

“Mix relish into canned baked beans…”

No, I don’t think I will.

Does part 1 explain how Archie and Betty became telepathic?

You don’t need AI to do this…but they’re probably using it, anyway.

There also seems to be something about the echo chamber that has a weird reinforcing effect. It can become really pathological. People talk about the “reddit hivemind”, but it doesn’t really strike you until see people acting crazy.

One incident that really stuck out for me was a post with a woman holding a sign. I forget what the entire sign said, but the phrase had the word “stupider” in it. I went into the comments, and a ton of people were making fun of her for using that word. Why? Because they thought that it was grammatically incorrect. You’re supposed to say “more stupid”, they said. Well, that’s wrong, and I pointed out to them that it was a word according to any dictionary. I had people arguing with me that the dictionaries were incorrect.

Then there are the AI detectives. These people are fucking insane. It doesn’t matter if you have a statement saying that you don’t use AI. They don’t believe you! They can tell. If they were doing this to my artwork, I would be livid.

Why can’t you comment while on a VPN? I’m on a VPN right now and I’m commenting.

Also, I hate to tell you this, but reddit is the way it is because it’s so popular. If we had the amount of people necessary to make niche communities thrive, it would be just like reddit. Well, at least as far as the people posting and so on. There wouldn’t be any of the weird administrative stuff because it’s run much differently. But the fact that the system is just like reddit’s means that it attracts the same kinds of people and encourages the same kind of behavior.

Part of punishment is deterrence. Perpetrators are protected by their community and their wealth. They think that they won’t get caught, and if they do get caught they won’t get punished, and if they do get punished, the punishment will be minimal. Worst case scenario: daddy will hire an expensive lawyer to get them off the hook.

Nobody would propose that we prevent murder by allowing murderers to get off scot-free and focusing on murder prevention.

I’m not sure that you understand what toxic masculinity is. For one thing, a confident man isn’t necessarily a rapist, and a meek, nerdy man isn’t necessarily safe. Nerdy guys can hold ideas from toxic masculinity, too. There is no rapist bingo card that tells a woman whether a man is safe or not.

I think that they were brought up to believe that either this kind of behavior is okay or, at least, that they wouldn’t be punished for it. Or if they were punished, it wouldn’t be severe.

I believe that there are plenty of men out there who think that if she consents, then it can’t be rape, even if she isn’t in a state of mind where she can consent. I don’t find that hard to believe at all.

What do you think the reason is? Are some people just born rapists?

Start treating all men as a whole like we’re too dumb to know rape is immoral?

Consent and bodily autonomy do need to be taught. This isn’t some knowledge that you’re born with. Sure, a guy might know that “rape is wrong”, but they might not understand that somebody could be too intoxicated to consent for example.