Emerald

This rationale is not very well thought through. That's like saying 'Because the U.S. Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th amendment in the Bill of Rights, it is pro-crime." Cutting barbed wire on the border just means you're trying to keep people from hurting themselves at the border and not that you're opening up the border. And undocumented immigrants should not be subjected to physical harm for crossing the border illegally. And I feel like this should be pretty obvious. It's not like barbed wire is an effective defense at stopping illegal immigration anyway. So, removing the barbed wire isn't going to do much other than keeping from people getting injured. Most undocumented immigrants actually fly into the country legally and overstay their visa. So, the border policies that are pulling the most weight at preventing illegal immigration don't have to do with the actual crossing of the Southern border. And since you don't even have a physical border in most areas across the border, there are already plenty of places without barbed wire anyway. The way you seem to be thinking about it is like "Oh no! Now that the Democrats removed the barbed wire, the border is now totally open to anyone who wants to immigrate to the US on a whim."

I addressed that in an earlier post. You can find very politically naive people here and there who believe in open borders. But in my experience, it's not a widely held leftist policy proposal. You never see lefties rallying together and pushing proposals to abolish/open the border. Most active progressives are aware that that's not possible. Instead, the immigration-related policy proposals progressives rally around would be more around pathways to citizenship, abolishing ICE, not putting kids in cages, and better treatment of undocumented immigrants at the border. And there is nothing policy-wise that's gotten anywhere close to suggesting open borders. Open borders is just a phrase that Republican politician use to straw man the Democrats and scare their constituents into voting for them. The name of the thread is "harmful leftist policies", so I would be coming to this thread for critiques on things like laws (and bills that have nearly passed) and a critique of the outcomes (or potential outcomes) of those policies. I would expect the same from a thread called "harmful right-wing policies". So, an equivalent situation would be if someone went on the "harmful right-wing policies" thread and suggested they were against the policy of deporting all immigrants. Sure, you can find some fringe group of right-wingers that are pushing that as a policy proposal and you might have a sizable minority of right-wingers that even dream of that as an ideal... in the same way that a sizable minority of left-wingers might dream of a world without borders as an ideal. But there's no such policy or policy proposal... at least not in the US or anywhere that I know of. My main point is... if we're talking about policy... let's talk about policy and policy-proposals and not just whims, philosophies, and ideas.

I'll come back later and check these out and see what the policies are like.

Like I said, this post is about actual policies (codified laws) and not philosophical positions. You could even list policy proposals that got even remotely close to becoming law and I would consider it within the realm of policy. The issue with philosophical positions is that there are uninformed and politically naive people everywhere that don't have any real political power. You could find a person who believes in open borders because they know nothing about how the systems work. I believed in open borders when I was a kid because I had a naive sense that divisions of any kind should go away. I just listened to John Lennon's "Imagine" and like the idea. But I didn't have the capability or desire to get that codified into law. And I certainly wasn't a leftist back then. I was just politically naive. So, you might have read a book from a politically naive person who believed in open borders and you could find small enclaves of people that might agree. But it's not a commonly held leftist position and there aren't any "open borders" policy positions going through congress or coming across the president's desk.

There is a difference between policies and philosophical positions. A policy is an actually codified law, while a philosophical position is just what someone believes. And there are no such policies around open borders. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a leftist that actually believes that open borders is feasible and holds it as a policy position. It's more of a right wing straw man of what lefties believe. And it's certainly not reflected in any policies anywhere. With defunding police.... that is a common philosophical position among lefties. But you won't find many codified policies around defunding the police. Butthere are positive ways to do this by re-allocating funds to other types of interventions in non-criminal cases (like someone with a mental illness that the police might be ill-equipped to understand and intervene with). With allowing in too many immigrants, that's a subjective judgment and you'd have to give me specific policies to evaluate. But bear in mind that the U.S government allows the level of immigration that they currently do simply because our economic system requires a cheap immigrant labor force. And when DeSantis put into policy something that really impacted immigration to Florida, it led to a huge labor shortage. So, the U.S. system (whether Republicans or Democrats are in power) allow only the level of immigration that they need. And Obama was accused of being soft on the border whilst also having the nickname "deporter in chief" because he had very strict policies. Biden has similarly strict immigration policies. So, I haven't seen any of these 'too lenient' border policies in the U.S. at least. With legalizing all drugs... this is one that I agree with as a philosophical position but there aren't many of these policies in effect yet. I think it's important to decriminalize, tax, and regulate all drugs. The reason why is that, when you criminalize drug use, it just pushes everything under ground and you get all these illegal cartels with all sorts of awful business practices. And you get just as many people doing the drugs who are then (on top of dealing with addiction) put in jail/prison which can further push them into a downward spiral. Name me the actual policies around going easy on criminals, and I will judge them individually. The issue here is that these are more vague philosophical ideas and not ACTUAL codified policies. So, I can't critique them on the policy level. With allowing parole of violent offenders, let me see the policy and show me that leftists are promoting it. Then, I can judge it. I haven't heard many lefties specifically holding parole of violent offenders as a common philosophical position... though rehabilitation-focused justice is a lefty thing. But I would have to see the actual policy to judge it. Also, the last time I checked policy-wise, children under 16 aren't allowed to have a gender affirming surgical interventions. Under specific circumstances, you have to be 16+ to get top surgery and 18+ to get bottom surgery. And there are many protocols that gender affirming care specialists have to go through to give the okay to someone (adults and children) who wants to surgically transition. With not funding the military enough... this one just isn't true... in the US at least. In America, we have the biggest military budget in the world by far. And we increase the military budget every single year. There are no such policies around reducing funding for the military. with UBI, there are no such policies that I'm aware of. And I am not familiar with Canada's carbon tax policy.

I was just trying to find some problematic leftist policies. It's problematic and overall ineffectual. But it doesn't bother me too much as a policy for the reasons you mentioned. I'm pretty indifferent about banning/not banning plastic straws because the real problem is single-use plastic in general. And if you ban plastic straws without banning other forms of single-use plastic, it's not going to do anything substantial. The thing is, policy-wise, it's hard to track down harmful leftist policies because it's hard to track down leftist policies in Capitalist nations period. And when there are leftist policies in Capitalist nations, they tend to just be piddly and ineffectual... and never too strong to the point of corruption. So, you would mostly find ineffectual leftist policies with mildly problematic side-effects. So, it's much easier to make lists of harmful right-wing policies because the majority of American policies are center-right. You really have to go to authoritarian left countries to find truly harmful leftist policies.

It seems like people on this thread who are talking about harmful leftist policies aren't actually referring to specific policies... but more general philosophies or even straw men of general philosophies. For example, the people who are saying "open borders" as a harmful leftist policy... I challenge you to find literally ANY policies in any nation on Earth that actually reflect open borders. You won't find any. And in America, the term "open borders" is just a Republican straw man to characterize their Democrat opposition as weak on the border in the eyes of their constituents so that they can position themselves as "the party that cares about the border" and fear-monger about criminals flooding in if the Democrats get in office. Republicans have really been leaning into the notion of Biden being weak on the border... which isn't true at all. In fact, he's kept many of the Trump-era border policies in place. And he even had an immigration reform proposal some months ago that gave Republicans most of the things they wanted (if memory serves, there was something non-immigration related that Biden was hoping to get in return by compromising so much with Republicans regarding immigration). But the Republican politicians outright rejected his proposal... because they wanted to be able to maintain the optics of being displeased with Biden being weak on the border and to continue to claim that he's pro "open borders". Now, back to the prompt... Truthfully, the challenge here is that you won't find many truly leftist policies because most of the current power structures in the US function mostly off of a center-right framework. And whenever there is an actual left-wing policy, it's usually ineffectual or doesn't go far enough. So, you don't get to see the excesses of the left in US politics. But here are a few harmful/problematic leftist POLICIES worldwide (I'm sure there are more. This is just as far as I felt like researching)... No private land ownership in China. All land is public and the Chinese government owns it. (This is true for some other Communist countries too) Censorship laws against criticism of Socialist/Communist leaders (like in North Korea) Plastic Straw bans in some U.S. states - This doesn't address the real issue and makes it harder for some disabled people who need plastic straws to drink to go out to restaurants Basically, harmful leftist policies are ones that either come out of authoritarian Communist countries where the government is given all the power without checks and balances... OR there are ineffectual leftist policies in Capitalist countries that don't address the problems they're trying to address and instead just create annoying negative side consequences for people in those countries.

In the past, I had been contemplating about if there are any other forms of economic system that falls outside of the Capitalism vs Socialism umbrellas. And it was previously difficult for me to fathom of something totally new economically. But given the recent rise in A.I. technology, I can see some writing on the wall that will likely be rife with problems but also has the potential to bringing humanity more into alignment with the underlying principle of unconditional validity. Take this as food for thought, because I (of course) don't know if this will happen. But I suspect that A.I. will likely replace 60%+ of human jobs... and in fairly short order. And if this happens, this will create a dynamic where large swaths of the population are unemployed. This will come rife with problems like a widening gap between rich and poor. And there would likely be a rise of eugenics campaigns, genocides, and other deliberate forms of population control. But if we are able to rise to the challenge, I believe we will begin asking ourselves the question, "What is the true function of an economic system?" Currently, (whether we're talking about Capitalism or Socialism), the way we think about economics is that it's a way of disseminating value based off of the labor a worker puts in. So, Capitalism is where the owners of a business owns the means of production and gives the worker of portion of the value that they bring in. And the ideal within Socialism is where the workers own the means of production and keeps the entirety of the value of their labors. Both of these philosophies inextricably tie together the concept of labor in exchange for value. But, the reality is that an economic system is a tool. It's a complex tool... but a tool nonetheless. And the function of that tool isn't to disseminate value based on labor across the human populace. It's a tool to disseminate value across the human populace, period. And with the rise in AI and the loss of human labor, the best possible outcome that I can see happening (though it would also be a huge collective existential crisis at best because we equate the value of our being with our doing) is that we start fathoming of how a post-labor economy functions. And instead of thinking about people getting what they want and need based off of how much their labor value earns them... we instead start thinking about people getting what they want and need simply because they exist. If these things come to fruition, I see this collective paradigm shift away from the notion of earning/deserving based off of labor value... and towards unconditional bestowment based off of the inherent validity of one's being as 100% necessary to avoid the looming problems of A.I. Just some food for thought. What do you think?

I was about to make this same comment. The vagina (which specifically refers to the internal canal) is a self-cleaning organ. And if you try to put anything inside to clean it then you'll mess up all the vaginal flora and end up with all sorts of yeast infections and other problems. And the vulva (the external lady parts) is best to clean with either just water or some kind of gentle soap and water.

This is a silly thought about what a younger woman gets out of dating/partnering with an older man. Truthfully, sex with an older man and with a younger man isn't that much different at all... except (if anything) older men can have more issues in that department and less stamina. When I was in my early 20s, I was mostly interested in men in their early 30s or sometimes a bit older. And it was always about feeling like I can learn from someone with more experience and feeling taken care of by someone who is already established. It was really a craving for maturity and seeking out stability. In retrospect (as I'm now in my mid-30s), I look back now and see that my attractions (and even fetishization) of older men came from not having a strong support system and being sexually attracted to what I saw as a symbol of stability and support. The issue is that, older men who specifically seek out sexual relationships with younger women tend to be immature compared to the average man of their age. And they usually can't offer the younger woman what she's REALLY looking for with that dynamic as he doesn't really understand what she sees in him. And if a longterm relationship blossoms between them, she will keep getting more mature and he will keep staying at the same maturity level. So, a 20 year old who dates a 30 year old and sees that he has is own apartment is exciting because he feels like a full-fledged adult. So, the younger woman wants a fully mature man which is why she's dating older. But the older man who is attracted to the younger woman is trying to avoid growing up and using her as a means to hold onto his youth. She's looking for the settledness of maturity. And he's looking for the excitement of youth. And so it creates a mismatch that leaves her lacking what she really wants but likely doesn't know how to articulate. That's why it's generally not a good idea to seek out a relationship with a big age gap for young women (and young men too for similar reasons).

Do you have trouble connecting with women/people in general… like with an avoidant attachment style? People need interdependence with other people as we are wired for connection within a community. So, what you said about not needing anything from women beyond sex could potentially be reflective of difficulties with interdependent human connection more generally. An alternate reason someone may feel this way is if there are fears around intimacy and connection with the opposite sex in particular. Do either of these explanations fit for you?

You don’t have to purposefully kill the excitement. Things will just naturally get more settled if the relationship is progressing. And this more exciting feelings are replaced by more oxytocin/bonding/attachment feelings of wellbeing

It's not about wanting to select vs attract between women and men respectively. If anything, women generally have more of a tendency to want to pursue a particular man if she's interested in him because women are more prone to specific attractions... and men generally have more of a tendency to be detached and want an easy and convenient female companion if it's available to him and to be more interested in "getting good" with women in general. And men generally want to keep their options open. So... naturally women tend to skew more towards the Masculine/lover role in relation to a man she likes. And men tend to be a bit more detached, which puts him in more of the Feminine beloved mode when a woman really likes him and the depth of those feelings aren't mutual. But this female pursuer/ male selector dynamic doesn't lead to a solid stable relationship.... and isn't a good strategy to go with for women who want a longterm partner. But TONS of women end up in this dynamic because she tries to pursue a guy who isn't interested. And it's very dysregulating and exciting... and every scrap of attention feels like heaven. And it keeps her in this intermittent reinforcement dynamic where she tries to win his affection by cooking, cleaning, giving him sex, looking good, being the chill girl, etc. But it doesn't work. And it isn't good for feeling settled and building a home and building a stable environment for children. Show me an exciting relationship where the woman is really into the guy and isn't sure how the guy feels about her, and you're showing me a bad relationship for child rearing. Show me a boring relationship with stability and certainty where the guy is super invested in the woman and she isn't feeling uncertain about his feelings, and you're showing me a good relationship for child rearing. It's not exciting... but it is functional. So the pursuer vs selector dynamic between men and women respectively is one that is a best practice for creating stable relationships that make a good environment for child rearing.

He didn’t know about Spiral Dynamics. But I am familiar with Spiral Dynamics and I know him very well... and I can tell you that he is/was a mixture of Orange/Green/Yellow. His sexual philosophy was identical to yours in the way you expressed it in your previous post. He’d argue me tooth and nail using the same words you used in your previous post. I’m merely pointing out the similarity and how his ideas panned out so that you might avoid making the same mistake in the future. Now… one big difference is that he didn’t believe himself to be uniquely deep among other men/people in general. So, at least he had that going for him.

I don’t have any personal experience with non-monogamy, so my advice might be a little thin. But if I were considering trying polyamory, I’d probably seek out tons of non-monogamous perspectives and reading material like “The Ethical Slut”. But most importantly I’d try to get clear on why I’m interested in polyamory. And given the avoidant attachment style, I’d want to notice if my desire for a non-monogamous relationship is about going TOWARDS what is wanted about that dynamic… or if it’s about going AWAY FROM feelings like being trapped and others things avoidant people are trying to avoid.

I used to worry about aging a lot when I was in my 20s. I felt like turning 30 would be a death sentence and like it would be the death of sex, romance, and desirability. But I’m almost 35, and my identity has shifted in such a way that aging isn’t as scary. And things have improved in my romantic life. And I feel much more powerful and respected than I did in my 20s.

He’s not a random guy. I’ve known him for 14 years. And I was in a relationship with him for many years. And I still know him. He’s a friend of mine now. He is like family. And back then (10 years ago), his philosophy was identical to yours. He explained it the exact same way as you did in an earlier post. And like you, he fancied himself as philosophical and deep in the way he viewed his sexual philosophy. But it was one of the main factors that made the relationship untenable and why I decided to end the relationship. There’s no accusation there… only a factual statement of noticing a similar pattern of thinking between you and him.

That’s true in the initial attraction phase for sure. A woman who isn’t interested in more than friendship can’t be convinced to be interested in more than friendship. But what the OP was talking about once that initial attraction phase hurdle is cleared and what strategies a woman can use to keep a man once a sexual relationship has been established. That’s where it’s important for a woman to avoid these man-keeping strategies because at best he still leaves and at worst he sticks around out of comfort and convenience taking up valuable time that she could be using to find a man who really sees her as his beloved. This is especially true if she wants marriage and kids.

It’s a mindset that a woman can adopt to keep her in the Feminine/beloved frame so that she doesn’t slip into the Masculine mode of chasing/pursuing a man who isn’t very interested in her. That way, instead of trying to woo and impress a man who isn’t (and will never be) interested in her… she recognizes that she is the prize as she is and doesn’t need to woo or prove her worth to a man. Instead, it puts her squarely in the power of the selector/rejector role. And she can choose someone she likes who already sees her as the prize and wants her in his life because he recognizes her value and beauty.

Oh brother You seem to see yourself as too deep and complicated for my little pea brain to understand. But let me tell you this. Your philosophy isn’t that deep. And when the rubber meets the actual road, it isn’t going to be sexually fulfilling for her over the long haul. He really did think exactly like you way back when.

The core of the human personality never changes. But you can express that core in positive, negative, and neutral ways. So, any positive change is always about taking your nature and exalting it to its highest form... not by changing its fundamental nature but by finding its highest expression. Your discomfort with his statement indicates a sense of shame and a desire to get away from your nature because (perhaps) you believe your nature is negative or bad in some way. There is nothing wrong with you now... and nothing wrong how how you've always been.... even if your actions in the past weren't ideal. You will never not be you. That will never change. But you can exalt yourself into the highest and best version of yourself. A sunflower will always be a sunflower... and it will never be a rose. So, choose to cultivate your sunflower into the biggest and most beautiful sunflower there is. Become the most sunfloweryest sunflower you can be!

It definitely did show itself up in other ways. He was just really biased and couldn't see things from my perspective and was very unreceptive to my needs. So, there couldn't be any real give and take. It was all give on my part and all take on his. He did all the communicating and I did all the listening. And for years I begged him to be more considerate towards me and nicer towards me. Often, he would deflect blame onto me. Sometimes he'd outright tell me no. Needless to say, I'm not with him anymore.

Your philosophy and mindset around sex in relationships is quite literally identical to his. My previous partner (who was not traditional at all and was more like a mixture of Orange/Green/with a splash of Yellow at the time) who had this philosophy around sex. Sex is just the way he feels loved. And when I wasn't interested in sex he felt rejected and unloved. And he would then withhold cuddling and affection from me because he felt I was rejecting him... se he was rejecting me back. And it created all these pressures and felt like a chore. And the more it was a chore, the more closed up I became. And you could potentially execute this philosophy in both better and worse ways than he did. But the philosophy is the same, and it would likely yield similar results.

This whole post is 100% true and relates a lot to what I'm trying to drive across. And the underlined statement above is the dynamic that I fear some women can get into if they start trying to use "female game" as a means to strategize to keep a guy around. So, a lot of the advice from earlier posters around making herself useful to a guy or giving him sex or looking good or any advice like that is just bad strategy... because it is usually a woman who likes a guy who isn't interested trying to find a way to cause a man to fall in love with her and want to be her partner. The thing is, that no woman can make a man want to be with her and fall in love with her. If it isn't there from the beginning, it will never ever be there. And once a woman accepts that she is 100% powerless to change a man's feelings about her and that she cannot "earn" his love... this gives her the ability to be in her Feminine energy and utilize ACTUAL "female game" which is to reject the uninterested men and select a compatible man who loves her and wants to commit to her that she has mutual feelings for.