Emerald

That's a misunderstanding of how women become attracted to a guy. It's not about his positive qualities or being better than other guys. So, it's not really about the man being some paragon... or objectively attractive in some way. It's so much more subjective than that. And the guys in the DMs are unattractive by default because they're just spammers who are trying to sell themselves to any woman who will have them. It reads as needy and desperate... because it is. It works though, as a numbers game. So, many guys do it. But it's not attractive at all. And it's not because those guys are inherently unattractive. It's because they're spamming and come across as desperate and as having low standards. So, she will just see those guys as annoying the vast majority of the time. Attraction arises through interaction and getting to know a man as a particular human being when he's not trying to sell himself to her at all. And when the attraction takes hold, it's like a Cupid's Arrow where it just feels so addictive to be around that guy... while other guys just feel neutral to be around. And at that point, the constituent qualities of the guy don't matter. His strengths just add spice to him... and his flaws don't matter at all. It's rose-colored glasses on steroids. It's that he's this unique "flavor" of experience and there is no substitute. And he is one-of-a-kind... and cannot be replaced. And this is true even if the guy is just some everyday random Joe Schmoe in the eyes of most people. But to a woman who has been struck by the Cupid's Arrow for him, he is THE guy. And you may not understand because it isn't how your sexuality works. So, you may assume that the woman is settling for some Joe Schmoe... and just for what she can get. And the rationale might be, "If she could get better than him, she would"... as this is the way that guys can tend to think, as their sexuality is about casting a wide net and attracting as many as possible. But to her, the guy is like a God. He is the one that she selected... as women's sexuality operates through selection, not attraction of many options. The attraction of many options is already a given. So, it's common that men's selection is just because you're the best he can get... the best fish that swam into the net. But for women, her selection is based on preference. The fish already chase her around... and beg her to eat them. So, there is not choosing based on scarcity... even if a woman may complain that "there are no good options" in exasperation of all the spammy attention she gets. It's waiting until the desire and hunger sets in... and choosing the exact fish that she wants. And it's usually some very specific average guy.

So, smelling weed is like a trigger for that feared chaotic dynamic where you feel vulnerable to losing your sense of stability. And then, the rationalization of changing voting to get more authoritarian policies regarding marijuana is the desire for someone in power to come in and exercise that authoritarianism in a way that removes the trigger to help you feel like you're less vulnerable to chaos? It's actually a really common trigger for why people vote for authoritarian policies. They want someone to come in like a parent and control external people and forces to help the person who's supporting authoritarian policies regulate their feelings and feel less dysregulated. It doesn't work of course, as it's more of an internal issue than an external one. But it's a common reaction that leads people to supporting more authoritarian governments who they look to as a way of punishing wrong-doers that make the supporter feel uncomfortable. But authoritarian governments know that it is people's chaotic feelings that make them clamor for authoritarianism in the first place. So, they have to keep that chaos alive inside of the imaginations of the people who support them. So, supporters must be fed a constant supply of triggers. So, they deliberately scare-monger and unsteady their supporters... and cause them to feel more chaotic and less emotionally regulated. They usually scapegoat minorities of various types. But they sometimes do this with drug users as well. So, just be careful with this. Having this trigger makes you vulnerable to being sucked into authoritarian movements, if the leaders of said movements make promises to stop and punish weed smokers... and other peripheral groups.

That's true. Someone can have genuine values that happen to fall near the center of the spectrum in the contemporary situation. And you can tell when someone really holds those values because they stick to them, even when society shifts and those values get looked at as radical by the shifting tides of society. And regardless of which side of the aisle someone is on (as long as they are not explicitly authoritarian and anti-democracy)... it is the groundedness in those values that will determine how susceptible or unsusceptible they are to being sucked into being weaponized by authoritarians in power (in this case, authoritarian Fascists.) That means that a moderate conservative who still believes in democracy and has really strong iron-clad values is less likely to be sucked into Fascism than is a centrist who builds their political identity on the shifting stands of "Let me choose the center-most and most normalized and uncontroversial political beliefs to avoid conflict and to seem like the normal one." But what @Joshe is talking about is specifically the psychological defensive claim of being "moderate"... or identifying with being a "Centrist" or "middle of the road" in order to seem wise or to deflect conflict. And this is very common with those who identify as moderates... as they don't want to take a stand on anything that could invite conflict, judgment, or controversy upon them. And this tends to make them the greatest enablers in times where authoritarianism is on the rise (in our case far right authoritarianism). Authoritarians in power need "both sidesers", "whataboutists", "enlightened centrists", and other "problem glosser-over-ers" to normalize their rise to power. And conflict-avoidant moderates are very useful for powerful authoritarians, as without the 'both-sidesing' conflict-avoidant moderates to gloss over and normalize authoritarianism, authoritarians wouldn't be able to consolidate power. It's always that explainer-awayers that set the stage for those looking for a power grab to shift the Overton Window to be more normalized to the conditions necessary for that power grab.

Are you sure that this isn't just an elaborate way for you to justify voting right wing to yourself without having to admit to yourself that that's just how you want to vote? Like, maybe you like the idea of the identity of being the person who votes for the Green Party... but you actually want to vote for the right wing because it pushes certain buttons for you and you resonate with it more. But you perhaps don't like the identity of voting for the right wing... and don't want to see yourself or have others see you as a right winger. Maybe you prefer to see yourself as a liberal and to have others see you as a liberal. So, this whole anti-stoner thing is a way for you to alleviate the cognitive dissonance around wanting to vote to the right and having right wing values. Like, "It's not that I support the far right. It's just that stoners annoy me and are a huge problem. So, I decided to vote for the far right that will crack down on them." Thus, shifting the responsibility for your preferences onto stoners. Like "Damn you stoners! If it wasn't for you guys, I would have voted for liberals!"

100% This is such an important and potentially game-changing post that everyone should see it.

I think it's more about finding the root of why people become susceptible to these contagions... which I believe is shame resulting in disconnection. There's the reason why a Tucker Carlson (and the like) resonates with people and is able to push these buttons. It sits with individuals feelings of disconnection with other people, nature, and the universe at large... resulting in a highly delineated sense of self and other. It's the sense of exile that comes with shame... exile from humanity, nature, and existence itself. So, if that shame and disconnection were to be remedied and people felt deeply intertwined with everyone and everything else and recognized that they are part of nature itself, this kind of "annihilate the other"-triggering propaganda would not be as magnetic or persuasive... and it wouldn't as easily hit a critical authoritarian mass as it has now. It wouldn't have to be resolved perfectly either... as these psychological dynamics are here to stay to some extent, even if humanity collectively heals from our disconnection issue. It's just that currently, there's enough people who are hyper-vulnerable to this contagion, such that it reaches a critical mass... and it gains a stronghold of power. We're also environmentally, WAY more exposed to TONS of information... the likes of which no human era has ever seen. And upticks in information access (including the invention of the printing press) tend to result in a surge of authoritarianism. But if we can remedy the roots (shame and disconnection) this will be like strengthening humanity's immune system against the authoritarian problems we're facing with currently.

This is very much a human thing... not specifically American... and not particular to this era. Every human being is susceptible to this contagion.

This is one of the few posts on this forum that actually lives up to the idea of conscious politics. Most people's idea of conscious politics is just "Let's accept that everyone is on a different part of the Spiral in the Spiral Dynamics model... as the problems we're seeing are just a reflection of low development within that model." And it's like, "Let's look with a critical lens at each of the phases... and let's find the good in each of these phases." But the Spiral Dynamics model is not equipped to explain what's happening now... nor does it provide any solutions. The rise of authoritarianism can happen regardless of someone's Spiral phase... as human beings all have similar needs and psychological mechanisms. And those don't go away or change. That is why true conscious politics requires a deep and compassionate collective psychological awareness of our psychological blindspots and weaknesses as humans... and how we're all susceptible to being weaponized towards enabling and abetting authoritarianism. It is not some great evil... it is psychological illness that every single human being is susceptible to without requisite consciousness to avoid these traps. It's the darkening of the collective human spirit towards a meaner and angrier world. While it's important to push back on the symptoms and not be wishy washy about the problems we're dealing with on the surface level (a.k.a. Stop pussy-footing and weasel wording around and call a thing what it is (apropos of Fascism)... lest we fall into "Passive Enabling" or becoming "Conflict Avoidant Moderates")... one cannot understand the roots of these "political issues" without realizing that 95% of politics is just a collective psychological projection and Shadow boxing with that projection. The same is true with all instances of authoritarianism and mass mobilization towards 'evil' ends that have ever happened in human history. Nazis and Fascists in the 1940s had the contagion. And now, many human beings in many nations have the same contagion... producing the same patterns and symptoms. The main difference is that the world is different technologically and ideologically. So, it looks slightly different... but is ultimately the exact same thing. A hurricane starts the same way every time and has similar patterns. So too does this collective contagion. And if we can recognize it as a temporal and contagious psychological illness, we can find ways to prevent it and treat it. And that's a much better solution than condemnation of those who are afflicted.

Yep... pure Skeksis behavior from both of them... and from Fascists in general.

My experience has been a genuine preference for who I get into a relationship with... sexually and otherwise. Those things always have gone together for me. And I've noticed that women, because we have a lot of options, we tend to go for who we really prefer... which for most women is a guy who's fairly average that she has special chemistry with. Like, I'm never attracted to guys who are significantly less attractive or more attractive than me. The guys in those categories would make me feel unattractive to be with them. So, I am most attracted to men who are in my proximal range of attractiveness... which are average guys. But for men, they don't have a lot of options. So, there's a tendency to fantasize about 10s but to cast a wide net and settle for whoever they can get. I think this also leads into men projecting this "settle for who will have you" tendency onto women and feeling down about "Women really prefer Chads... and they just settle for average guys who can't really sexually satisfy them." And that's because that's the way they feel about women. They prefer extremely gorgeous women that they can't get... but they settle for average women that they aren't that sexually attracted to. So, they feel like relationship is about settling for a sexually unsatisfying partner and assume that women feel the same way about them. And it makes themselves feel sexually inadequate because of this projection of their own "settle for the sexually unsatisfying one" tendencies onto women. But if a woman is with a man, she's probably super excited to be with him in particular. Otherwise, she'd pick a different option because women of most levels of attractiveness can afford to be picky.

I am definitely not wrong. You'll find that 7 times out of 10, guys who believe the "Women only go for the top 20%" thing are just projecting their own high standards and objectifying tendencies onto women. But it might be a different dynamic for you... as I think lots of young guys can just have a fear that no woman will ever like them or prefer them if they haven't seen evidence yet of a woman liking them. So, those narratives (though false) can also provide a less personalized way of understanding why one is struggling to meet someone. It takes the onus of personal responsibility away and says, "It's not that I need to socialize more. It's because women are unrealistically picky". Or if there is shame, it can even provide a salve of "It's not that I'm awful. It's because women are unrealistically picky." But if you interacted more with women in person and were generally social, you'd probably find a girlfriend pretty quickly. You just have to be more social.

It seems that the pattern is fairly common. And it's just completely to opposite mindset one needs to have a real relationship with a woman. Not only that... but it also scares women off, as women already deal with a lot of shame in the body because of the high beauty standards and how all-encompassing they are. Women are always getting the message overtly and covertly (since early childhood) that, if they're not beautiful that they won't be loved. The last thing that a woman needs is to feel like a guy is comparing her body to other women's bodies and ranking them. It's the opposite of safety. So, it's often the guys who have the highest tendencies towards objectifying women will have the most fear about women objectifying them. It's similar to how cheaters will get SUPER suspicious of their partner cheating on them... just projection. However, there's also other insecurities that can be at play... like fear of unlovability in general. So, that is the case sometimes with this belief. But I frequently see the 'objectifiers fearing objectification' dynamic play out with these beliefs.

That's false. Most men that I've been attracted to are average. It's a chemistry thing.

Yes. They're just projecting their own tendencies towards objectification onto women... and fearing that women are objectifying them the exact same way that they objectify women. And the way they view average and below-average looking women is boomeranging right back onto them. And this causes them a lot of shame because they feel towards themselves the disgust and indifference they feel towards women who are not top-level hot. And then, that shame makes them see sexual acceptance from very attractive women as the only way to redeem themselves. So, it further invisiblizes average and below-average looking women in their eyes, as only the most attractive women have the power to validate them and redeem them from shame. And the cycle continues.

Moderate from the perspective of the powers that be... yes. Conservative and moderate (in this regard) tend to mean the same thing... because moderates argue for the maintenance of the status quo and to keep the power structure as it is. We have lost sight of the meaning of the word Conservative in today's world, because our current "Conservatives" are actually acting as agents of radical change who are attempting to make revolutionary changes to American government and culture towards a Christo-Fascist dictatorship and/or a Technocratic Plutocratic Fascist dictatorship. But to be truly Conservative is to be a moderate. So, moderates in contemporary American culture are Libertarian-leaning Capitalists with mildly liberal social values... but in a disengaged way. The reality is that moderates and centrists are the true Conservatives as they are always trying to maintain the status quo for the power that be. And loyalists of the crown were moderate from the perspective of those in power, despite being a minority amongst American colonists. But among the oppressed lower-powered colonists, revolutionary ideas gained a critical mass of people who wanted to break away from the norm. And they did so by force against the powers that be. They were radicals from the perspective of the moderate status quo (which is determined by those in power). And radicals only come to power by force. Nothing that's radical ever gets accepted through the established means of the powers that be... not by democratic voting nor by mandate of the king. But, given that the radicals became a plurality of the low-powered colonists, it gained a sense of normalcy within the American colonial population. So, it became normal in the context of the colonies to become a radical from the perspective of the powers that be. And they fought with force and won. And eventually, the radical position became the status quo... and therefore moderate. But the colonists were still radicals. They were just radicals who gained a critical mass... which does not make them moderate. The thing that made them moderate is that the figure-head American revolutionaries eventually got accepted as the powers that be.

About 40% wanted independence from Britain and about 20% were British loyalists. So, the plurality of American colonists wanted independence... which is the critical mass. But those in power are the moderates... which was the crown itself and those in the colonies that were loyal to the crown. So, American colonists gathered enough support for Americans to fight for independence.

Yes to the abolition of slavery AFTER the Civil War... and yes to the New Deal... as these were honored by the presidents in power as the moderate 'normal' position to hold. And time normalized them even more. The American Revolution was a different story though, as it was a group of radicals that eventually gained enough support from a critical mass of people who were fed up with taxation without representation. And that was achieved through force and radicals winning out in battle against the moderate establishment... and not democratically through being accepted as the moderate position by those in the center. The moderates of the time were loyal to the British crown. Most people in the Southern colonies during that time were British loyalists. Moderates always preserve the powers that be. And moderates of that era wanted to stay under the rule of the king. But after the American Revolution, American independence became normalized and moderate. And now, it would be considered very extreme to want America to be back under British rule. But it wasn't moderate to be pro-American independence when the American Revolution was going on. It's similar to how abolition of slavery was a radical position before the Civil War was fought and won. So, to get that normalization... there was a bit of force required. But eventually, it was democratically recognized by moderates in power.

The "Women only go for the top 20% of guys" thing has always just been propaganda to play on the insecurities of men. You can look around at real couples in the real world and see that that's true. But most real-life couples are just boring average people, so they get overlooked. Relationships and marriages are very unsexy. Instead, the guys who tend to believe this kind of thing are actually doing (in their own mind) the thing they fear that women are doing. They're focusing on the top 20% of women looks-wise in their mind as the concept of what a woman is in general... without even thinking of women who are in the bottom 80% within their concept of what a woman is. And then, they lament that women (which they're unconsciously conceptualizing as the top 20% of women looks-wise) are only going for the top 20% of guys. But of course the top 20% of women attractiveness-wise are going for the top 20% of guys attractiveness-wise. Couples generally go for their own equals in terms of attractiveness. But the way these Manosphere internet propaganda things talk about how the top 20% of guys basically each have a harem of 5 women who are willing to share him because he's apparently so hot and amazing, is clearly not true. Otherwise, you'd see evidence of it literally everywhere. Most guys with girlfriends and wives are average guys who are in relationships with average women.

No one radical will ever be in power, except if that power is taken through top-down authoritarian force. That will never change. It will always be the case that moderates and centrists will be in power in a democracy. Radicals do not get elected. And if a person gets elected, they are not radical in the eyes of society. But what is radical and what is moderate are purely socially constructed and plastic... and public opinion can shift quickly. So, Nazism was moderate in Nazi Germany. Likewise, that which we now consider progressive can also be considered moderate in a future era. The most important thing is to insist that kindness is normal and moderate... and that cruelty is radical and extreme. People struggle with that though... even though it's very simple to insist on. People over-complicate things in a way that normalizes needless suffering and hatred... and treats basic human decency and common sense as radical and extreme.

What makes something more or less conscious is its proximity or distance to Christ Consciousness and the Golden Rule in both practice and intention. And while political perspectives in general will ALWAYS deviate from Christ Consciousness as politics are about symptoms rather than root causes (and Christ Consciousness is way down deep into understanding the roots, such that no judgment is possible), we can objectively say that (in intention) perspectives on the progressive Left are higher consciousness in intention as (out of all the choices mentioned) they are the most oriented towards Christ's perennial teachings of mercy for the highest number of sentient beings. But in terms of outcomes, none of them are effectively able to practice the Golden Rule because attempting to put the Golden Rule into policy will get tons of pushback because most people aren't conscious enough yet. You can't have a conscious politics in a mostly unconscious society. So, you get more "Law of the Jungle" policy passing instead... as that is where we're at as a species. And if one tries to impose Golden Rule ideals onto a society that's not ready, they must do so by top-down authoritarian means... which would make the laws cease to be rooted in Christ Consciousness and the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule can currently only be applied from the bottom up.... and politics is always top-down. So, while I advocate for people to continue to strive for policy reforms that are reflective of the Golden Rule, as that's important to at least fight the good fight... politics is only ever trying to manipulate pre-existing symptoms. So, you can trade out all sorts of laws and political systems and you will end up with the same sorts of problems in slightly different forms. The way to really fight for progressive change is to help people heal from generational trauma and enable them to feel interconnected with other beings, nature, and the universe at large. The root cause of all of our problems politically is that we feel disconnected from others and from nature. So, we can act in ways that play zero sum games with animals, other people, and with the Earth itself. That is why Christ Consciousness is the only true center... and the Golden Rule is the only ideology one ever needs. Once you know that, you will be able to easily discern which perspectives are more or less conscious.

Manchin identifies himself as a centrist because people are uninformed and will assume him to actually be in the center in terms of his political opinions relative to the general populace. But he's really a center right corporatist who is nowhere near the center of public opinion. He's a Centrist based in the center position of establishment politics. But he's a different bird than what I'm talking about. Joe Manchin has actual viewpoints of his own, at least. Centrists are usually people who believe that it's always wise to take the dead-center position on every issue... as they see the center as the most moderate and sensible position by default. So, if one side is pro-slavery and one side is anti-slavery and those are both normalized positions within the Overton Window, someone who identifies strongly with Centrism would be pro-slavery with better conditions for slaves. Or in Nazi Germany, the Centrist might be someone who might advocate for work camps rather than death camps. Centrism in the way that most self-described Centrists think about it is that the dead-center is always the most wise position. And it's a way to phone in one's political opinions by defaulting the more normalized opinions in society... even if the most normalized options cause a lot of harm. So, if it's normalized and taken-for-granted in the society to see dogs as vermin and murder them and the fringe position is not to murder dogs.... then Centrists will be pro-dog-murder and will see anti-dog-murderers as crazy radicals that want to save the vermin. Being a Centrist is to lack a perspective of one's own.

Centrists usually are just politically disengaged people who are trying to seem like "the adults in the room" by being in the middle. But Centrist is highly dependent on what others are doing in society. A Centrist in America is pro-Capitalist and economically right wing with some mildly liberal social values. A Centrist in 1940s Nazi Germany is a Nazi. So, I would rate Centrists the least likely among anyone to be engaging in conscious politics because they usually just try to choose the least controversial positions that are the most in the middle relative to the context they exist in... because they see the middle as wiser than the extremes in all cases. But because there is no absolute middle and no absolute extremes as both of those concepts are socially constructed and vary from culture to culture, their political beliefs are phoned in and rooted in a foundation of sand. They stand for nothing and fall for everything. And if extremists of any stripe take over the government and the extreme positions become normalized, the Centrists will be the first ones to entertain and further normalize those extremes.... as they are committed to the identity associated with being in the mathematical center of the Overton Window. So, if we were in a society where being kind to everyone was considered extreme and being cruel to everyone was considered normal... Centrists would be constantly criticizing the radical kind people for being extreme AND praising the normal cruel people for taking the reasonable moderate position. Luckily that would never happen in real life! Oh wait...

Are you saying that progressives are uniquely "bigoted" against people in incestuous relationships? I'm very sure that there's not much difference between liberals and conservatives in terms of their opinions on incestuous relationships. That's probably very similar across the aisle. Incest taboo is actually universal in varying degrees across all known human civilizations. And there's very good reason for it to remain as a taboo, as it has serious genetic consequences for the offspring of incestuous relationships and isn't genetically healthy for society to normalize it as a common practice. We can look at royal families who used to use incest to keep their bloodlines "pure" as evidence. There were many royals of the past who had serious deformities, mental problems, and health problems because of this normalization of incest within royal families. I've posted an image of King Charles the II of Spain below. He was the son of an uncle and niece. His jaw was misshapen, which made it difficult for him to chew food or talk. And he died at 38 after a life that was filled with health problems. This gives an insight to why there is an incest taboo... because of the suffering it causes. So, bigotry isn't the primary motivating factor for that taboo. It's because most people feel the instinctual ickiness of those pairings. And that instinctual ickiness we feel about incest comes from the natural aversion to what's genetically unhealthy for our offspring and (by extension) society at large. Also, like the previous poster mentioned, incest tends to happen as a result of an older relative taking advantage of and coercing a younger relative. So, there's also often other layers of harm that's folded in with incest beyond just the genetic issues.

100% Unfortunately, his murder will paper over these realities of how he viewed things... and wash him clean of all sins in the eyes of the politically disengaged public. Even beyond the fact that political violence is always horrible and sets up a horrible precedent where political assassinations become the norm... it's also very ineffective because it makes the target very sympathetic in the average person's eyes... regardless of how extreme they were.

I will continue using the sword and scales of discernment and calling things exactly what they are.