skibum

Oh I figured this thread would be about podcasts not downloading fully into the Podcast app on the iPhone. They download in their entirety on iTunes on my MacBook, but right before they finish on my phone they say “Download error. Tap to retry."

You’re right I shouldn’t say dumb, but still wouldn’t we expect them to aim higher with that peak market value? (I wanted to leave this here more to play devil’s advocate now that I’ve read further and your explanation for their behavior made more sense with the Roosh quote, etc.) ---- Wow great quote from the Roosh forum. So I’m not completely making this up? Others are seeing this kind of trend where women are even rejecting what we would assume their evolutionary drives would make them prefer? Do you, or anyone else, have links to material on that dynamic? Might be mental masturbation, but maybe it’ll help me find the way through to someone special. To amend, maybe what I’m trying to say is that women’s idea of alpha, even in the shallow sense without my confirmation bias for MY traits being alpha... Is women’s idea of alpha increasingly diminishing? If we follow the logic of the quote from the Roosh forums, it’s more that they’ve decided that chasing that alpha is too risky, but not because he won’t commit, but because they’d have to challenge themselves. Although I suppose you’d have to challenge yourself regardless to get an alpha to commit if you’re a woman? Perhaps that’s the more sinister truth re: hypergamy and dualistic sexual strategy? It’s not that alphas are tough to tie down to raise your kids because they have options. It’s that alphas actually require some fucking WORK on the part of the woman. But the question still remains for me: wouldn’t their hypergamous nature sort of drive them to overcome their apprehensions and chase higher alphas? What’s the difference between the shallow woman that settles or opts out a la Roosh forum’s thoughts, and the shallow woman that goes all out? Hotness? Or perceived hotness? Too many great looking women seem to hate high value.

Here’s a gear-changer: are women now fucking up at hypergamy too? For me, I’m at a point where I’m not only questioning women’s shallowness and their hypergamous, dualistic sexual strategy, but their ability even to pursue that on any positive level. I can level with women behaving in that suddenly well-documented manner now that I finally see it. Makes total sense, and without a red pill, I can rather forgive women for carrying on as their genes dictate. (Funny, in this regard feminism has been a red pill, forcing men take one as a suppository for their own supposed shallowness re: a woman’s heart and mind, there’s a movie about it for heaven’s sake, “Shallow Hal”.) Imagine a female equivalent of that movie? Oh the howling haha. Anyway, back to my point: I’m now questioning whether women are even capable of making even halfway good decisions in the shallow framework, let alone a higher minded philosophical one. Here in the midwest, I see any number of combinations of girls latching to boyfriends very young and virtually never being single or open to opportunities. The hypergamy is often dialed down a notch it seems, or at least better veiled maybe? The way they settle, so quickly, is incredible. We talk about the alpha idiots they supposedly fuck, then find the stable beta. But they seem to be settling with guys who are more the alpha idiots Stef talks about up front, and frankly are super beta when I hear stories of their behavior in relationships as they progress. So they settle for some phony alpha attitude with a few accentuated alpha characteristics (or none), and hyper-beta lack of emotional self-control and assertiveness that I presume they hide early on. What I feel like I’m witnessing is a sort of lesser alpha / higher beta like myself--and this could be full of projection and incorrect self-assessment on my part, certainly I realize that--is completely and utterly ignored or even mocked. Women seem to get off rejecting a guy like me, or better yet giving me their number and blowing me off. Can’t believe how many numbers or texts/messages or online emails never go anywhere or never get replies. I think I’d be in that proverbial 20% you’d imagine on OkCupid as far as that survey goes, but I’m getting a sense that this 20% women are now chasing is some kind of metastasized, mutated hobgoblin of insanity as far as female choices and narcissism goes. I guess, in one sentence, what I’m saying is: have women gotten so fucking dumb that they can’t even properly select alphas and betas anymore in the way that bloggers like The Rational Male, Heartiste, and folks in this thread are talking about?

It’s most definitely brave. I think you instinctively knew what was coming from them. Thank you for doing that. Great story. But one thing I must say: you should recognize your male privilege. She was probably stressed. j/k

Hey RJ, Just wanted to tell you I read your post like I’d promised (I know, I took way too long to get to it) and followed quite a bit of the discussion here. I sympathize a lot with the anxiety you experienced when faced with conflict: particularly moral conflict where you know you’re right but it’s easy to lose your conviction and not hang in there. It’s far more difficult, however, to even start the conversation like you did. I only hope you were encouraged by your experience with this, and remember to take away the confidence from making that first bold move and (for the most part) sticking to your guns; rather than beating yourself up for not taking it all the way or being ‘perfect’ in your approach.

Berlin, What I find most telling about this thread is that: were this situation in reverse, nobody would EVER make a self-correcting post like your most recent one admitting that you may have misread the situation. Did anyone ever apologize for the Duke Lacrosse accusations/story/prosecutions/lynch mob?

This is awesome; thank you for posting. Kinda bummed that I could’ve been in Ashevile last weekend for a family function. Could’ve used it as a scouting trip. Suffice to say that Michigan isn’t exactly facilitating a fulfilling life.

Off the top of my head, at least in its effects, it’s a law or series of laws that revolve around tax compliance for foreign banks and their US customers. It was a big deal when some Swiss banks said they would now comply with FATCA I think, because basically it means the IRS can do all kinds of snooping around on Americans and force the bank into all kinds of reporting. The fallout is that it’s becoming very difficult for American citizens to do any banking overseas, and many longtime expats are giving up their citizenship just so they can open or keep open their foreign bank accounts. Hopefully that gets the discussion started for you; I’m sure you can get some much better replies on this. Folks like the Sovereign Society (former congressman Bob Bauman discusses it quite a bit I think) do some pretty good work on this as much of their business revolves around helping Americans escape heavy taxation, future economic collapse, etc.

Just wanted to chime in that I thought this was my “intro” thread because the subject is pretty much identical: I just used the postal code for Michigan instead of spelling it out haha. I’m from East Lansing, and as has already been noted your story is brave and inspiring. Great to know I’m not alone here in Michigan, and I wanted to chime in to note the same. Great reading what you both had to say (though I admit I needed to skip the last few posts for time constraints) and I look forward to chatting with y’all in the future--I’m almost as new to this place as you!

Hi! Yes I do know South Haven. Thanks so much for the welcome--and yes you’re successfully making me jealous of Hawaii. Mahalo to you! Thank you for the kind words cynicist. Looking forward to chatting with everyone. Saw you in the chat room a few minutes ago too. Want to catch some of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and I’ll listen to the rest of the call-in show on iTunes haha.

Hi all, I’ve been meaning to put a little “intro/confession” together here for a couple weeks now. [/procrastination] I’ll intentionally ramble in a stream-of-consciousness sort of manner because I really don’t want to filter myself, and I don’t think there’s really a better way to go about this. I’ve been burning through podcasts like crazy for the past few months (most of volumes 1, 2, the current, and now 4, trying to skip a few here and there and stop the perfectionism purely for the sake of time), and I can’t believe how many things seem to apply to my life/childhood or resonate with me currently (particularly the stuff on women and dating). To be as brief as possible, as there are so many directions I could take this: I think my childhood was one of neglect much more than abuse. I don’t remember being spanked, and if I’m blocking a memory of that kind I’m almost certain it wasn’t the ritualistic or sadistic type--more like one whack on the ass and that’s it. I’m now running one half of my father’s business, and I find myself struggling mightily (as with school and anything before this) to get and stay motivated. There are a lot of days where I sleep in--less than in my past, but more the last few weeks or so oddly enough. I’d say more than anything that it’s been a life of lost potential. I’ve hardly been motionless or inert but: relative to my looks, charisma, intellect, and even slight athletic talent (enough to play just about anything, but not particularly excel in one or another), one would think my life would’ve been far more “interesting”. High school was much more loser than prom king for me--funny because my dad was the prom king. Obviously high school is not where I wanted to leave my mark on the world, but it caused me a lot of pain, and it’s just a good microcosm of the chasm between who I seem like I could be on the surface and what I’ve actually achieved--I didn’t even graduate I was so depressed by the end of it. I’ve always had an almost grandiose (or at least if you have depression I read you’re prone to ‘grandiosity’) belief that I’m destined for greatness, but I don’t think I should relinquish that. I refuse to believe that I’m the one who’s crazy and not the world. Anyway, I joined the board to try and learn more about myself and what I want to become before my time runs out. I want to finally get clarity and peace with what’s happened in my past and the choices I’ve made so I can begin to confidently go forth. I simultaneously subscribed as a 'thank you' for all the podcasts I’ve digested (and forgotten) so far, and to contribute to many more. It really has been wonderful, and while I didn’t want to commit quite so much cash for gold or PK status, I was most certainly not going to be the “you’ve-changed-my-life-here’s-six-bucks” guy. Thanks everyone for reading. Derek

I wonder about the victims in the case of something like this. If some sociopath inflicts serious harm or death upon you or your loved ones, do you deserve some amount of restitution or time served on the part of these people? If you have a 30 year sentence, should you be released just because you've learned empathy? And yes it would be a very interesting FDR discussion. A lot of parallels could be drawn between that and what Stef has discussed re: a child victim owing their parents.