Hardkill

I've been contemplating on the notion that “women only want the top 20%” meme and I now find that to be really misleading. It seems to mostly describe app dynamics (photo-first, inbox floods, safety filters, status amplification). Offline, in socially dense contexts (recurring mixed-gender scenes, warm introductions, real third places), the old forces still run the show: taste diversity, multi-factor attraction, repetition, vouching, assortative matching, and satisficing. That’s why, historically, most men (not 100%) ended up with partners by mid-life. Also, paying for sex is a minority behavior, and even among men who’ve ever paid, most of their encounters are still unpaid. For premodern settings, “most men had sex by mid-life”—typically ~90%+ in many regions—while ever partnered ranged roughly ~80–95% depending on marriage system (lowest where late marriage or polygyny left more men single). For modern settings, like in the past, most men have had sex by mid-life (often ~90–97%), and most will have ever partnered—but the age it happens and the share who never marry vary more now by region and economy than ever before. Two things seem true and in tension: App markets look extremely top-heavy; lots of men feel invisible. Historically and across many countries, most men eventually have sex and many partner by mid-life (even average/below-average guys). How do you reconcile these? My current hypothesis: the 20% vibe is mostly platform structure (photo sorting, message overload, safety screening), while offline contexts (warm intros, repeated contact, assortative matching) broaden who gets chosen. If you disagree, what data (not anecdotes) best shows the 20% dynamic holds offline?

I agree that offline, average women date average men, and that apps skew attention. The “top 20%” thing mostly describes app attention, not offline selection. Two truths can coexist: Boosting your own package (health, style, social skills, purpose) helps a ton—do it for you. In recurring, talk-friendly scenes with warm intros, assortative matching and mere exposure kick in, and most guys do fine without being “top 10%.”

Yeah, I just remembered that about Preety India, aka Tyler Robinson. lol

Exploring for me is both fun and help me figure out what kind of woman I ultimately want to have for my life partner.

To have that in America would be Trump's wet dream.

It may take just about 100K YouTube subcribers for talking about controversial topics from either the Left or the Right to get death threats and all other kinds of harassment. Around the time Allan and Sam Lichtman got about 100K YouTube subcribers and he predicted that Harris would win the 2024 election, Allan said at the time that he and his family were threatened in many ways by a lot of crazy right-wingers out there.

Imagine how many more wars there would've been if the assassination of every major political figure had caused one.

The face he has been making is strange. It does appear to be a sign of a stroke or Bell Palsy. However, we don't know what kind of stroke he may have had and/or how severe it was. We would need to know a number of things that might have been impaired including his speech, comprehension physical capabilities, etc.

In any case, I applaud Brazil. I am very impressed.

You know, our country should be absolutely embarrassed that a developing nation like Brazil was able to hold a fascist accountable, but America, which is still a developed nation and has had the longest-running democracy in the history of the world, can't hold a fascist accountable.

A lot of guys online say it’s gotten much harder to get women in developed countries today. But when you look closely, maybe it seems more complicated. Why People Say It’s Harder Now Apps concentrate attention on a small % of men. Marriage is delayed, so men compete longer in the casual dating scene. Women aren’t pressured to settle for survival, so they can be choosier. This makes wealthy, urban dating feel cutthroat. But now that I think more about it the environment still matters, yeah? Working-class / poorer areas: People settle faster into LTRs. Stability matters more than endless choice, so it can actually be easier to find a partner. Wealthier / urban areas: More hookups, later commitment, higher selectivity. Geography: The same man might struggle in LA but easily find an LTR in a small town. Therefore, perhaps it’s not simply “harder” or “easier.” It depends on: Where you live Your background (education, class, culture) Your personal attributes (looks, charisma, ambition, etc.) So, is the so-called “dating crisis” mostly an upper-middle-class urban problem? Are men in poorer or smaller communities actually better off at locking down LTRs? Should men adapt their dating strategies to their environment?

Unless the Right figures out a way to pin the blame on the Left and the Democratic party for making this shit up, lol....

If that holds true, then that could be a silver lining for our society. What's also crazy about this is that no known Democrat or Leftist out there had ever suggested to anyone to go out there and assault any right-winger let alone kill any of them. If anything, every actor out there aligned with the Democrats and progressives has also made it clear that violence of any kind is never the solution to any problem and that it instead plays right into the hands of conservatives, Trump, and MAGA. Even today, every Democrat and Leftist out there has already made all kinds of public statements vehemently condemning the assassination of Charlie Kirk. So, wtf are Democrats and the left-wing supposed to do?

This murder is horrific and dangerous. The great risk now is a policy overreaction—using tragedy as pretext for excessive sweeping crackdowns. The right will rally; fundraising and “law-and-order” proposals will surge. Of course, shock events are often leveraged to expand surveillance/policing beyond the narrow threat. Social media can harden identities, spread misinformation, and reward maximalist narratives. But “fascism spiral” isn’t inevitable. U.S. history shows even the worst assassinations didn’t collapse our system. Multiple assassinations of towering figures (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, RFK Sr.) produced turmoil and policy shifts, not regime collapse. The modal outcome has been institutional continuity with some ratcheting—serious, but short of an authoritarian break. Federalism, courts, divided media ecosystems, civil society, and elections create friction against rapid, durable autocratization. Attempts at overreach face litigation, street-level pushback, and electoral penalties. Such broad collective blame tends to alienate moderates and institutional conservatives, who become pivotal in blocking maximalist responses. Post-shock politics often re-centers once facts and prosecutions clarify responsibility. We should do two things at once: (1) condemn the killing and harden security narrowly around real threats, and (2) reject collective blame and resist broad limits on speech/protest. Courts, federalism, elections, and civil society make durable autocracy hard here—if leaders and citizens insist on due process, proportionality, and facts over outrage. Targeted hardening (event security, threat interdiction) can proceed within rule-of-law constraints, obviating the “we must curtail liberties” narrative. The more we generalize and catastrophize, the more we hand authoritarians their justification. Nevertheless, I think that this political violence that we will experience in the coming years could very well parallel that of what occurred during the late 1800s, 1910s–20s, or 1960s–early ’70s. Perhaps not even as bad as either of those periods.

That’s very true. It’s not fair or right. If it wasn’t for the dominance of the growing right-wing media and alternative, most of the mainstream media not fighting back right wing extremism, and the growing division in our country then the left and the Democrats wouldn’t keep losing the messaging war.

Former Democrats turned Independents such as Joe Manchin and Chris Cuomo say that they left the party because of how “extreme, partisan, and crazy” the Democratic Party has gotten like the Republican Party has in its own way. I fear this tragic event could give more ammunition to the idea that both parties are equally bad and other asinine false equivalencies.

Oh yeah true. lol

Yet, some prominent figures leading the military have been left-leaning. TR was a military war hero who didn't mind putting up a fight if need be. He even killed several enemy soldiers himself in combat. Woodrow Wilson was forced to lead the country in WW1 to help the Allied Powers defeat the Central Powers. FDR was forced to lead the country in WWII to help the Allied Powers defeat the Axis Powers. LBJ put our country into full-blown combat mode in Vietnam, which turned out to be one of the deadliest and probably the most disastrous war in the history of our country. All four of those presidents were arguably the 4 most progressive presidents in the history of the country. Plus, all of them, along with Truman, who was another prominent liberal president, were responsible for upgrading our entire national security state, including our military, in such revolutionary ways. Don't forget that JFK, who was a liberal icon, and Jimmy Carter, who had several liberal beliefs himself, were proud members of the US Navy.

Yeah, I think that the majority of the military and law enforcement don't really like Trump, but uncomfortably support him because the majority of them are conservative-leaning individuals and given the extreme political polarization our country is going through in this day and age most of them feel like it's always better to vote Republican than Democrat in any given election, because clearly the Republican party is the only party today that strongly stands for conservatism and American traditions.

True. Though: However, I think that the Democratic party has gone too far to the left on social issues, while still being too much to the right on economic issues for decades, despite having shifted more and more back to New Deal style economic stances since the election of Obama in 2008 and the rise of the progressive movement in the mid 2010s.

This is another reason why I miss the 1990s.

This may have never happened had the US had much better gun control laws like the peer developed nations do.

Holy shit! I can’t believe I am saying this now, but as much as I hate this guy I actually don’t want him to die. This is so horrific. However, I knew that something like this would eventually happen to someone on their side because of their right wing extremism including their belief in absolute gun rights.

and what about the fact that there are still too many moderates and Independent voters who supported Trump in 2024?

I just read the blog on Social Influencer Corruption. I agree the influencer space is ripe for abuse—opaque funding, NDAs, and pay-to-push politics wreck trust. Plus, it really has contributed to the widespread brain rotting in our country. But if the Left refuses to build a competitive creator operation while the Right scales theirs, we’re unilaterally disarming in the new media battlefield. Also: while mainstream media has better accountability/reporting than alternative media, much of it was complicit in normalizing Trump (2016 & 2024). These are profit-driven corporations that explicitly frame themselves as running a business—not guardians of democracy. You know that and you've talked about that before a number of times. They’re not natural allies of Democrats or the Left (maybe MSNBC is the closest exception) and they can't stop themselves with their constant bothsideism My stance: Don’t abstain. Fight fire with clean fire—run an influencer program with hard rules so audiences can calibrate trust instead of losing it. Guardrails (non-negotiable): Radical transparency: clear on-screen funding labels; monthly public funder logs. Speech independence: no message vetoes or gag clauses; creators can criticize “their own side.” Accountability: independent ethics audits each cycle; fast disclosure of contracts if challenged. Quality: offer fact-checking help; require visible, time-stamped corrections. Politics is coalition-building under constraint. History shows you sometimes partner with imperfect actors to beat worse outcomes—but you do it with rules. If abstinence cedes the field, what’s the workable alternative? Which transparency standards would keep a funded creator credible to you? Where are the red lines (e.g., no foreign money, no astroturf, no deepfakes)? I remember you saying a few years ago about how even pompous and very bothersome progressives whom I can't stand anymore like Cenk are still trying to fight back against the greater evils: Also, that woman, Taylor Lorenz gives me TYT vibes, which again I am getting sick and tired of, and she doesn't even seem to have impressive academic credentials herself.