Emerald

Well, most women won't be interested in a guy that's a lot more physically attractive than she is. Women tend to like to seek their match looks-wise... or perhaps even a guy who's a little less attractive than her. This is speaking generally, of course. My experience is that I tend to feel just as neutrally about guys who look like male models as I do about men who are significantly less attractive than me. They just feel like, "Okay, they exist. But nothing computes romantically or sexually." But to say that being too attractive makes you less attractive isn't really true. It just means that more attractive women will be more attracted to you... while less attractive women will be less attracted to you as they will see you more neutrally. Like, if a guy is a 6... women who are 6s and 7s will be attracted to them. But women who are 8s and above and women who are 5s and below will be less attracted to them. If a guy is an 8... women who are 8s and 9s will be attracted to them. But women who are 10s and women who are 7s and below will be less attracted to them. So, it won't make you less attractive in general. About the same number of women will be attracted to you in terms of amount. The range will stay similar in breadth but will move up the scale if you're more attractive or down the scale if you're less attractive.

I see that you had to modify what I originally wrote in order to make the facepalm reaction fit. I originally wrote "Factory farming and eating meat and dairy in the quantities we currently eat them." Then, you quoted it as, "Factory farming and eating meat and dairy" (full stop) Intellectual dishonesty is one of my pet peeves. If you have to edit someone's post to make it look more reasonable to facepalm it... it indicates that you DID originally see the content in that post as reasonable and not fitting of a facepalm as it was. So, you recognized that you needed to edit my original post to make it look less reasonable to assume and less likely to happen. But I think it's quite reasonable that future generations will be more mindful about their meat and dairy consumption... as even our current generation is more mindful about these things than the generation before. And it's especially reasonable as an assumption with all the fairly realistic alternatives and lab grown meat. Think about why you changed my original post to facepalm it. You'll be surprised at how much you recognize this as a very realistic reality... even if you don't like to admit it to yourself.

Factory farming and eating meat and dairy in the quantities we currently eat them Applying solely a rationalist/materialist/scientific lens to all institutions deemed legitimate... even ones that are more humanities or arts-based Fast fashion Extreme income inequality Money in politics Rejection of many Yin/Feminine values Extreme ambition and busy-ness

100%

What I mean by detachment is the ability to let go... and to simply focus on one's own personal enjoyment in the moment and be present. So, if a man is thinking, "How can I get her to like me?" or "How do I get her to sleep with me?" it will tend to come across as too future-focused and outcome-focused and attached. And there is usually a try-hard vibe about it. But if a guy is fairly detached from those outcomes and is just focused on having a good time, he's much more magnetic as he feels more self-directed... as opposed to being directed by the desire to please the woman and manipulate outcomes in his favor for his future goals.

I know, I'm so brazen. And while I'm at it with my brazenness... the sky is blue and the grass is green too! Ice cream melts when it's hot outside! And bears DEFINITELY shit in the woods!

The Ice Shooting was against immigrants at the Ice facility... not the officers. It's just that (because the shooting happened at an Ice facility) the narrative is being twisted to frame the shooting as being reflective of leftwing political violence. But the guy killed immigrants (a common target of right wing political violence)... and people who know him say he wasn't particularly politically motivated. And he was registered as an independent. So, he might have been just crazy and looking to cause violence against whoever was at the facility, regardless of his target being an immigrant or an ice officer. Or maybe he went there to target immigrants only... as that is who he actually shot. You don't really have to identify with a political party to hate and target immigrants. It's just common that those who hate immigrants tie that in with a political agenda and the propaganda of the day. But not all xenophobes are knowledgeable about politics. Also, Charlie Kirk's shooting isn't an example of leftwing political violence. It's against a right-wing figure, but Tyler Robinson isn't a leftist. And it's clear that the Israeli government is doing all sorts of war crimes, starving children, and ethnic cleansing the Palestinian people.

Yes, I added what I could find of the scorecard. But the DOJ scrubbed the study from their website after the Charlie Kirk shooting. But here's what was found in the study... The vanished study opened with: “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives. In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”

That actually has been empirically studied recently. I'll see if I can track down the study. According to the study there is a decent amount more right-wing political violence. If memory serves, there are roughly twice as many instances of right wing political violence compared to left wing political violence. (I was wrong... there's about 5 times more right wing violence than leftwing violence) But that's only if we're keeping score, of course. And because of the observation of stochastically violence-inducing rhetoric from the far right in its current form over the past 10 years, I think it would be a fair assessment of the sentiment behind a lot of the far right values... which boils down to the suppression and annihilation of the "scapegoated other." And this rhetoric gets more and more normalized in the Overton Window month by month. So, I would be contextually more inclined to see the violent targeting of a leftwing political figure as simply the logical expression of those far right authoritarian values as carried out by violent actors on that side of the aisle who have been inflamed by that rhetoric... which is the ultimate intention of stochastic terrorist rhetoric. I wouldn't see it as an aberration of some rogue actor... but as the intention and the logical conclusion of the popular far right propaganda and rhetoric. It's sort of like how, when Matt Walsh claimed some children's hospital was genitally mutilating small children and forcibly "transing" them... and then the most violent listeners of his went and called in all sorts of bomb threats to that children's hospital. Or like when Alex Jones claimed that the parents of the Sandy Hook shooting victims were paid actors. And the craziest among his viewers went and harassed and threatened violence against them... and one of the fathers even committed suicide because of it. I see that kind of violence as the logical conclusion of that rhetoric... as the rhetoric itself is about inducing a crowd to commit violence. It would be like if a popular rock band refused to play their set until a the crowd murders and dismembers a specific member of the audience. In a crowd of 10,000 probably about 99% of them would refuse and 75% of people would be appalled. But there would be about 100 people in that crowd that would be bee-lining their way to the victim to tear them limb from limb because the band told them to. And then, 25% of people would be secretly or openly glad that those 100 people tore the audience member to pieces... because they really like the band. So, I think it's perfectly fair to say that the intention of the popular far right wing rhetoric is to have the most violent people in the base go into vigilante mode and enact political violence. It's not just a looney toon doing a looney toon thing. The intention is to ignite the looney toons of the base into doing violence. And the left has no such equivalent to that... at least in our current time among popular leftwing pundits and political figures. I'm not saying that it couldn't' happen. But I'm saying that leftwing violence is not normalized or institutionalized in any way. And most far lefties that would be advocating for such things would be pushed back on vehemently by other lefties. So, if some rogue extreme leftie kills a right winger, I'm more likely to chalk it up to perhaps being in a very fringe militant echo chamber that the vast majority of people on the left disagree with. If some rogue extremist righty kills a left winger, I'm going to assume that they're being influenced by extremely popular right wing sentiments that many people on the right agree with but probably wouldn't act on in that way unless they were following orders by someone in power... but would absolutely act on if someone in power allowed them to. I would see it as the logical conclusion of the popular rhetoric... because it is. Edit: I couldn't find the study because the US DOJ scrubbed it from their website after Charlie Kirk was shot... But here's a link that talks about the article and the scrubbing of it... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/17/justice-department-study-far-right-extremist-violence And here's a quote to share the findings of the study... "The vanished study opened with: “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives. In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”"

I think we shouldn't rule out some kind of half-baked conspiracy from the situation, where powerful interests (domestic or foreign) were looking to take out Charlie Kirk to suit their own agendas. The problem with the term "conspiracy theory" is that it tends to be associated with perfect villains and outlandish ideas and secret mafias... and a super secret scenario that EVERYONE keeps perfectly secret. We think about Flat Earthers and faked moon landings and reptiles in the government. And ALL of the co-conspirators are thought of as genius-level and super secretive and competent in their plans. But there are tons of known conspiracies happening all the time... especially in the Trump administration. They don't even bother hiding them much. It could just be Kash Patel and other FBI Trump cronies bumbling around on this conspiracy. I wouldn't put it past them. But it could easily be other gaggles of powerful dum dums conspiring in clunky ways. So, given that Charlie Kirk's murder could benefit a handful of powerful interests, I see no reason to rule out a professional hit job. That's especially true given new evidence that suggests a different angle of bullet entry.

Satanism (from what little I researched about it back when I was a teenager, which I looked up because I was frequently called a Satanist) seems to be based in things that serve the self and center the self as the source of power. They don't seem to actually worship Satan as a deity, though perhaps some do. It also seems like a "live and let live... until someone messes with you. Then, it's an eye for an eye." And a lot of the Satanic texts read like an edgy 14 year old wrote them like, "If someone bothers you, destroy them!".... and some are just common sense Humanist values like, "Don't harm children." Ultimately, it just seems like a self-oriented kind of religion that's sometimes Humanist in nature and other times just ridiculous in its edginess. Here are the Satanic 11 Commandments listed below... Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself. Do not harm little children. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

It's sort of like how a video game creator uses all polarities within its chosen palette of polarities to create its game. Within the game play, there may be left and right wing as a condition of the game play. But the creator is just thinking about how to create a game that has dualistic contrasts to provide friction and reward for its game avatars. Like in Mario... the creator creates Mario and Bowser as a polarity. They also create other polarized contrasts within the gameplay. And that's so that the game avatar can face with the contrasts of friction and reward. But the video game creator doesn't govern its own existence based off of the game conditions within the game it creates. So, the answer is neither. It is beyond any of those dualistic notions within the gameplay of the Maya that it has created. But it creates the game from a loving place, even though there are seemingly unloving dualistic expressions within the game play.

It might be about the desire for excitement and novelty... and the sense that one who seeks it may be looking for other psychological needs from sex and relationship beyond what relationship can provide. For example, if there's a guy who wants validation, and he sees sexual connection with women as a means of getting that validation. And then, he gets into a relationship with one of those women. But he feels restless because he wants to seek more validation from other women, as he already got the validation from the woman he's in a relationship with. It can take some work to actually get to the point of desiring an actual relationship when we are transferring and projecting other dynamics and psychological needs onto the concept of sexuality, dating, relationship, etc. Also, young people tend to need a time where they're just learning about themselves by dating around... and may not be ready to put the roots down deep. But for someone who's really ready for a relationship and isn't seeking other psychological needs through relationship, there is a kind of addictive bonding where things aren't exciting... but the bonds go really deep. It's like that saying, "Still waters run deep." And in healthy relationships where there is mutual love, there's a deepening of intimacy and connection that comes through living a life together. And it's very mundane but very profound at the same time.... and the profundity grows over years and decades. This brings up another reason why someone might feel dissatisfied in a relationship... and that's if they or their partner is not knowledgable about how to connect deeper or willing to find ways to make the relationship go deeper. This will tend to lead to desires for a new relationship. And men and women both have certain relationship needs. And if they don't feel like they can get them, there can be a desire for escape through breakup and cheating.

Women tend to be slightly hypergamous in terms of age, height, strength, status... preferring a man who is older, taller, stronger, and higher status than her. But women tend to be slightly hypogamous in terms of physical attractiveness. The reverse is true of men. Women date up in terms of power... and slightly down in terms of looks. Men date up in terms of looks as high as they can... and down in terms of power. It's also why it drives me nuts when men complain about women being hypergamous in one breath, then clamoring for a perfect 10 in the next. They just don't recognize how hypergamous they are. But that's a side note. The reality is that it's much easier to feel like the hot and desirable woman when the guy feels like he's batting above his weight and is really into you. Like, he has to feel like he's done well and exited that he's landed a woman who's at the upper end of his usual range of options or slightly out of it. And I find it difficult to even get turned on if I can't feel like the peacock in the relationship as I just can't feel Feminine when the guy is the peacock. Like, if I imagine myself with some hot guy that looks like Brad Pitt in the 90s, it's super awkward and I feel undesirable... like all the Femininity is being sucked right out of me. My imagination can't even imagine a hot and steamy interaction with such a guy. It would just be weird and tense. And I wouldn't even be able to open up sexually. I would just start feeling like Michael Cera's characters in the awkward roles that he plays... with a total loss of grace and ease. But if I imagine a guy who's like 10 years older than me and of a similar level of attractiveness to me but less peacocky because of having more mature features, I can feel very Feminine and desirable by contrast... as I'm the pretty one in the dynamic. So, I can only really feel desire for a guy that I feel like I have the looks advantage over... usually through partnering with an older man. And I doubt that that's just a me thing. I think most women probably feel similarly about being the peacock, even if they don't go for older men specifically to do so.

That's certainly the primary source of the current issues... less socialization and community interaction in general. And it makes it so much easier to project scary images onto the opposite sex because the online world is story-world and doesn't operate like the real world. So, it's easy to boil the opposite sex down to its worst qualities and go into Shadow boxing with archetypes rather than real people. But even beyond the lack of socialization opportunities, people have never really had the knowledge of how to sustain fulfilling and safe relationships. So, you currently and historically have issues with abuse, enmeshment, communication issues, unresolved emotional rifts, incompatibility, etc. Plus, you have all kinds of taken-for-granted ideas about relationships that make these problems worse. And that has always been the issue with community and relationship. People don't know how to engage in community and relationship in healthy ways. So, now that we can be isolated because of the internet and other material factors, isolation feels like a relief... even if it's also a starvation of sorts. So, on one level, the solution is to socialize more and to construct society in a way that optimizes for in-person community. But also, we should be learning in school (from k-12) the ways to co-exist in relationship and community in ways that don't totally traumatize us and squeeze the soul out of us. It's crazy to me that we spend 13 years learning math, science, history, etc... but we spend ZERO curricular hours learning how to create and sustain healthy friend, family, and romantic relationships. And it really shows!

I think it's quite possible that the girl you were dating wasn't getting her emotional intimacy needs met in that relationship (nor was he). It's usually not boredom that leads to that kind of disconnect. It's more like blocks to intimacy and connection... and lack of communication and non-sexual affection (which is what leads to greater levels of sexual affection). But when you're with someone, your life gets intertwined with them. And it becomes very hard to leave... even if there are major irreconcilable incompatibilities or your partner refuses or is unable to met your needs. People get stuck together in unfulfilling dynamics a lot... even with the lenient divorce laws and the lack of social stigma. But it's almost never boredom that's the culprit. The reality is that good relationships are pretty steady. They're not super exciting. But they're very addictive because of the intimacy that's only possible over the long term of living life together. And if a relationship is super exciting after the first few months, then it's probably because there's something unfulfilling about it... which creates a kind of hot and cold "Will this work out" cliffhanger dynamic. And that's exciting because it keeps a loop open for change and unpredictability. But it's not good for building something deep and stable. That EXTRA true once children come into the picture. Excitement is about more surface-level novelty and contrast... and it's very exciting to meet someone new and feel the initial sparks. And relationship is about deep pair-bonding over time and becoming family. And this is the kind of growing together that happens over the course of years and decades of living a life together. So, men and women who are truly geared towards seeking excitement will tend to have more short-lived relationship because they are looking for novelty and variety over devotion and depth. But it seems like the girl you were dating was just in a relationship where they weren't able to reconcile incompatibilities or communicate intimately... or answer each other's bids for affection. And at that point, the juice doesn't feel worth the squeeze. But life is still intertwined and there's still attachment and stickiness. It's a really unpleasant dynamic to be caught in.

I think the dynamics you had mentioned really just boil down to human beings not being taught much about how to sustain intimate connections with friends, family, and romantic partners... and society growing more an more individualistic and atomized. The Gottmans have some important evidence-based things to say on the topic of sustaining romantic relationships... like answering to bids for affection, avoiding criticism, avoiding stonewalling, cuddling (which increases frequency and quality of the sexual connection), etc. But it's even deeper than that. Before, people had all sorts of top-down authoritarian structures and a very harsh world in general keeping couples and families together to avoid exile and compromising their social and physical survival and belonging needs. But these relationship dynamics were probably Hell on Earth in most instances and would have been so stifling to the human spirit. And now that there's more freedom, more people get divorced (or even cheat) to look to actually have their needs met. But they may not know how to do so... as they don't even necessarily know what they're seeking in a relationship, or if relationship itself can even provide what they seek. (We can often seek out relationships to meet psychological needs that cannot be met that way.) So, now that we don't have top-down structures pressing in at us as much, we naturally flee from relationships with other people... because they have always been a prison requiring the sacrifice of self and authenticity. And it puts us in a unique position as contemporary people to explore what actually works in a relationship for the individual... and what strengthens bonds in a bottom-up way without needing the society and government to control us. And that begins with knowing what makes a partner compatible with ourselves... and knowing what we want and need to feel good in a relationship. But all of this Red Pill/Incel stuff just presents narratives that make this kind of deeper bonding exploration in a male/female relationship impossible with guys who are afflicted... in terms of both Masculine/Feminine polarity spiciness kind of way and an eye-to-eye pair-bonding. And it puts tons of women on edge around guys in general because this propaganda is so commonly internalized. And it stokes misogynistic sentiment as women are the scapegoated 'enemy' group of these movements. And because surrender requires trust and safety, there is no ability to actually lean into the soft Feminine mode in relationships with a guy who's been propagandized by these sources. It would be like a balloon trying to get into a relationship with a cactus. To give an analogy, women generally are like armadillos... soft underbelly but hard scales. There's a desire to relax and to feel open... and to show the soft underbelly. And guys who are unsafe (and pill-propagandized guys are SUPER unsafe, sometimes physically and always emotionally) will cause the "armadillo" to roll up into a protective ball... and only the hard scales can be seen. And this will give the impression in the eyes of those guys that some kind of depolarization has happened where "Women aren't Feminine anymore". But it's really just how women behave when they feel unsafe. It's a natural defense mechanism... like a cat hissing to ward something off. And every single woman has wounds around the Feminine because of womanhood and Femininity making us a target for so much pain, tragedy, and disempowerment. So, it's easy to step on a nerve and get a hiss to begin with. And these guys deliberately try to hit nerves and get tons of "hisses" because they perceive women as the invulnerable powerful perpetrators... and themselves as the vulnerable powerless victims. So, they're always trying to drag women down off the pedestal... when we've been historically disempowered. And they see women's reaction to that as Masculine or Feminist brainwashing or similar things like that. So, the world is not a place to show Femininity... as it is too vulnerable to do so, and it makes you a target for all sorts of terrible things. Pretty much the only safe spaces for it is if you're with a guy who is safe to show it around and who isn't intimidated by it and won't make you feel lesser for it (which can be uncommon to find in a society that's actively brainwashing so many men to hate women and advocate for us to be stripped of our legal rights and protections)... or if you're around other laid back women who value Femininity in a more holistic way.

Thank you! What I would say relative to the model dating Adam Sandler... is that Adam Sander has always been a reasonably attractive guy. He kind of plays a Joe Schmoe type though. But to most women, Adam Sandler is definitely above average in physical attractiveness. And I have no doubt that Adam Sandler could date a model... but mostly because he's a relatively handsome, successful, famous guy who is also bold, funny, charismatic, and socially connected. Now, women do tend to become attracted to guys who are proximal to their level of attractiveness. So, a model might not organically develop an attraction to an average guy. But women do like to be the peacocks of the relationship and a bit more attractive than the guy, so if she's a 6 she will likely be interested in a guy who's an older 6 or a 5 that's her own age. Women don't tend to like to go for men who are significantly more or significantly less attractive than her, as a general rule. Though there are exceptions. Let's say that there's a woman who's a 7. She will probably steer clear of guys who are 8s, 9s, and 10s because she won't be able to be the peacock in those dynamics. She will feel like the ugly duckling of the relationship, which is kind of like the female version of emasculation (which kills sexual excitement because a big part of the excitement is about being the desirable woman). Most women don't want the man to be prettier than her. And she probably won't be attracted to guys who are at a 5 and below. But she will probably develop organic attractions towards guys who are 6s and 7s. But all of this is background stuff. It's not what she's thinking about once the Cupid's Arrow has struck. It's just that outside of those proximal ranges might be a deal breaker to where it exempts the Cupid's Arrow from striking... which she won't even realize that she's sorting them out. She will just probably find herself mostly seeing men who are her level of physical attractiveness or slightly below as the ones who have potential. But it can't be optimized. The Cupid's Arrow strikes based off of so many emotional and psychological factors that the woman doesn't even know why that's the guy. It's not about his objective qualities. It's about the whole gestalt of his personality. The best thing you can do is be social and be yourself. This quality that women become attracted to in the Cupid's Arrow is 100% unique to you. And the best thing you can do is to let go of strategy and be yourself in your greatest expression... and lean into what you think is cool. Guys who do all these strategies kind of ruin it and interrupt the organic process... as it communicates commonality and neediness instead of divergence and detachment. And when it turns into a real romantic relationship, it transforms into something more stable and steady and real. This is mostly in the initial chemistry limerence phase. And it's just how women's selection tendency works when she's operating from a heart-centered place.

I can understand that that's what you fear... so it feels real to you. Plus, all the online propaganda that preys on the insecurities of men uses these kinds of narratives to agitate those pain points and insecurities to make men more receptive to buying solutions. And the Red Pill is about selling men expensive solutions to try to make themselves "high value men" through all sorts of permutations of macho play-acting... and frames everything relationship-wise as purely objective and transactional. And the Black Pill is about selling men the certainty of failure in matters of sex and love, so that men can feel the relief that comes with pity, victim's mentality, and giving up. And this also makes them a target audience for grifters looking to sell attractiveness ratings and things like that to mirror back to them their "certainty" of romantic failure. It's similar to how fashion and beauty companies have historically sold products by making women feel inadequate and unattractive. It's "Create a problem that doesn't exist... or exacerbate a small problem to the point where it seems insurmountable. Then, sell the solution." It's not our first rodeo though... so there's a lot of push towards body-inclusive brands of clothing and make-up. Society knew this marketing was a problem, even when I was a child. But I'm sure that the problems with this kind of marketing weren't in the public consciousness for quite some time. But this past 10 years is men's first rodeo with this kind of predatory marketing... and it is quite all encompassing. The problem is that men feel like these movements are working for them instead of against them, so there is an allegiance with the predatory marketers. They believe that they are being told the "real secrets" about women... giving the impression that they are being helped. But it just adds more insecurity. But in the coming decades, I suspect there will be a genuine men's lib movement where men come to collectively wake up to and push back on predatory marketing in the way that women have over the past 20 years or so. All that to say... in the majority of cases, it isn't actually true that women are settling for the men that they're with. That's just men's fear that they are settled for instead of chosen. So, the internet is filled with echo chambers that will keep validating that fear over and over. So, it feels very real. But it isn't happening in most cases.

The last time that I had a relationship last less than a year, was when I was 15 years old... which was 21 years ago. So, I am very much talking about women liking average guys for longterm relationships. And most men and women who are in longterm relationships are average. There is no need to be some super-star of a guy to sustain a longterm relationship. Just be yourself and have your life on the rails. And things will grow into something deeper. So, I'm not just talking about the initial chemistry. I'm talking about the fact that most women choose average guys... during the chemistry "initial sparks" phase and long-term.

I just wanted to mention, just in case. It's perfectly fine to want stricter public smoking policies, as long as you don't end up supporting authoritarians to get to those ends.

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!"