By David Futrelle
So over in the Men Going Their Way subreddit, the fellas are talking about what to do with “leftover” — i.e. unmarried — women after men finally step up and take the vote away from women, who are always voting for the wrong things anyway.
Apparently unable to understand that most women have jobs, the MGTOWs naturally conclude that in their version of utopia the single ladies — deprived not only of husbands and their resources but of Big Daddy government as well — won’t be able to support themselves. But the MGTOWs, kind ghouls souls all, don’t want to let them starve!
One brave MGTOW has a solution:
(Note: in the preceding quote “CC Rider” refers not to the famous song but to the infamous “cock carousel.”)
Naturally, other MGTOWs are enthusiastic about Mr. BCPrepper’s ingenious proposal.
BCPrepper goes on to praise himself for his “humanitarian” solution to the Leftover Woman Problem.
Such thoughtful fellows these MGTOWs are!
Personally I like the Necrons. Yeah space Terminators and the whole “we raged a war with the Old Ones so devastating that we turned the Realm of Souls into the hellscape that is the Warp.” thing, but at the same times they’re the only faction that has enough of a unified mindset. Hell the Silent King, their leader who decided to leave saw the Tyranid main fleet and went “huh, well then, Imma nope back to my galaxy and tell all the Necrons to wake up nao.”
My other favorites are the Guardmen and the Sisters of Battle. The former because it’s easier for me sympathize with people who are against literal demons and monsters and the latter because they’re the only ones who seem to be the most able of the Imperium. The latter because the SoB have formal education, access to deadly weaponry, don’t discriminate based on background, have multiple branches for noncombat like medical and teaching, and afaik are perfectly okay with people having relationships of all kinds in their ranks.
TW: Speculative but still extreme violence
@bluecat
Yep. I’ve been angry about the second (speculative but still . . .) option for quite a while now. @#$*()@####!!!1!!!
Consider the totally nonspeculative fact that in the 1800s, some men in the USA were fathering slaves. And some men in the USA–and probably worldwide, and it’s probably still happening–were impregnating their wives so often that the wives died. Whereupon the widowers would quickly remarry and start the process all over again.
If an apocalypse should occur, your knowledge of herbs and such would be invaluable. You’d probably want to start a school for the rest of us handmaids.
TW: Speculative but still extreme violence
I was out weeding today and nibbling on oxalis as I went. It’s good in salads too.
When I was a hiker and running short on water, I’d often chew on some — good for dry mouth.
Sidenotes on conversations:
I always wondered why said odious internet personality would choose “Sargon of Akkad” as his moniker. Probably just because he read that said historical conqueror was one of the first major emperors in recorded world history and decided that was cool enough. But when you look into the background of the historical Sargon (as I’m sure the modern clown hasn’t), you find that he basically acquired his position by betraying and murdering his adoptive father and stealing the fledgling empire that had already been built for him rather than starting his own. And especially the name is hilarious, because that was not the real name of Emperor Sargon I, either– “Sargon” is just a corruption of the Mesopotamian phrase that essentially means “Totally the Legit King, I Swear.” Using it as an internet handle makes it even more sad.
Secondly, in terms of video games, I’ve mentioned I’m finally getting to play the later Persona games, and SPOILERS: the first true villain of Persona 4 (who may or may not be the real overall killer, I’m still getting through the game) feels like a perfect example of the kind of what people were talking about earlier: an internet troll and gamer whose association with retro-gaming makes the trip into his psyche deeply uncomfortable (in an intentionally well-crafted way) to those of us who like video games and aren’t like him. I seriously kept thinking of the shitstain who killed that homeless black man in New York trying to start RAHOWA a few months ago. I’ve seen other people on this forum say that they’re into the series, or at least this particular game, so you’ll know what I’m talking about. For others, if you’re good enough at RPGs to deal with the brutal difficulty on this one (and there is an easy mode at least), I super-recommend this game.
ChimericMind : yes, he is pretty chilling. He may be a bit over-the-top, but he sure make a strong departure from the silly antic of the main group.
The last game I played at all regularly was Civilization. I always played with War turned off, so I wouldn’t have to build military equipment. That says something about what I find enjoyable recreation.
Someone on a discussion board commented that he would find a Civilization game without war boring. Maybe it’s the hobbit in me, but if perpetual peace is boring, sign me up.
@ChimericMind
Persona 4 is one of my favorites,
I’m currently playing Persona 5 and the premise of stealing peoples excuses for being terrible human beings thus causing them to confess their own crimes/abuses is pretty relevant these days.
On fantasy and fascism…
Star Wars’ Galactic Empire is what immediately occurs to me on this. Despite being explicitly constructed to emulate nazism, I have read multiple treatises on how the Empire are the “Good guys” of Star Wars, along with some wishy-washy “But the expanded universe isn’t canon” shit to avoid having to deal with folks like Ysanne Isard or the various other sins of the Galactic Empire.
But the reality is that, even before Disney, nothing the Empire has done in the expanded universe has been out of character for it. Glassing planets, multiple death stars, destroying the world that birthed the first death star, running penal colonies, arresting and torturing people for no reason, racism and slavery and misogyny, all these things fit the Empire the original three movies show us. So when I encounter someone specifically lionizing the Empire, my only conclusion is that they’re okay with all these things so long as it isn’t done to them.
So I can definitely see fantasy and fascism. There have always been americans who have secretly wanted america to be a fascist dictatorship, as long as its ruled by someone who murders the people they want murdered. And science fiction and fantasy have always been outlets for people of any political stripe who feel their politics aren’t permitted in society.
The same shit happens in the Eragon fanbase with their Empire, despite that Empire’s evil being fucking obvious.
Like, sometimes it’s fun to play the bad guys in a video game. To just be able to lash out and not care for the consequences. But that’s not the real world, and that’s a far cry away from actually thinking clear villains have the right of it.
Some fiction has poorly conceived villains who actually aren’t villains, but that isn’t the case with the Galactic Empire.
@IgnoreSandra
With Eragon, I think part of it was that the nominal good guys were boring, stereotypical, and fighting to restore an order that was still basically a military dictatorship ruled from dragon-back (If I recall rightly; it’s been a long time, and in any case I never finished the last book).
@KindaSortaHarmless
Yeah, that was part of it. Another is that the main character was basically a self-insert power fantasy. But even in that case, the Empire was demonstrably worse than the dragon fascists because one group preached restraint and control of power while the other fed peasants to magical monsters for a fleeting tactical advantage.
So there’s a cross here between a poorly constructed story and sympathizing with fascists.
Interestingly, Star Wars can be read as a plucky band of rebels attempting to replace a dictatorship with a monarchy – hence, Princess Leia. Even though the Empire dissolved its senate and swept the Republic away, nowhere in the films does it say the rebels are trying to restore the republic. It kinda depends on exactly what hairs you’re willing to split and how far you’re willing to guess.
Society isn’t going to collapse, is the thing. And the hope that this might happen, and to try to come up with plans for it – yes with this fantasy of theirs they have gone too far.
On this idea in particular they have over indulged in fantastical thinking because it isn’t going to happen. Those with money have too much to lose.
And even in the event of large natural disaster, others will come to help and people will be relocated.
Large scale war? Nukes? They can’t just start firing nukes, which have sat unused, the electrical systems are degraded and they’d have to be essentially rebuilt. Increases in defense spending by various parties may rectify this, but it will take a few years.
And say you were hit by a nuke – you’re dead. Urban area? Any targeted area? Dead. Close to – dead of radiation in a few days.
Those in outlying areas who do survive – are going to make use of what they can find. And try to get things back up and running again. And others will find them.
And civilization would come back to close to what it was. Like people are going to revert to being cavemen? LOL NO. Or what, it’s going to suddenly become like a Renn Faire?
When your power fails, do you get the sudden urge to go club your neighbors and roast them over an open fire? Do you have any dry wood stockpiled for such an event? Best get cracking on that. And you’ll need one of those huge black metal pots for cooking the people over the fire, in the true cannibal way.
They haven’t thought any of this through at all. All they think of is – slave women.
In any case, civilization is not going to collapse so why bother wasting your time thinking about this?
It’s a fantasy that might yield slave women. That’s what it boils down to. But it isn’t going to happen. That’s the disturbing and sad part about this to me. What a waste of time to think about.
Anything based off of bull shit (imminent collapse of civilization fear mongering) is probably not a wise way to spend time thinking and ruminating about.
I certainly hope so. Huzzah!
http://cdn.smosh.com/sites/default/files/legacy.images/smosh-pit/122010/ren-faire-fail-12.jpg
@katz
I need to do this to my Segway!
@IgnoreSandra, I was gonna argue but you’re right, the movies never use the title “Alliance to Restore the Republic.”
I don’t play 40K, but the closest I have seen a tabletop product come to apologizing for fascism is Rifts, which bends over backwards to make it clear that the Coalition Deadboys have been lied to all their lives, and that despite the rhetoric of Emperor Karl, out in the field the CS will sometimes live and let live if the DBs aren’t hurting anyone. “CS sergeant works with the player characters while his green lieutenant fumes, and the Deadboys choose sides” is like a cliché by now.
@Schnookums Von Fancypants:
Vonnegut is a smart guy like that, which isn’t surprising given work like Slaughterhouse Five and Sirens of Titan.
@ChimericMind:
Other than his British accent, naming himself after a historical figure is a way of giving himself credibility to those who don’t know any better.
I’ve noticed a lot of people on the Alt-Right, like Stefan Molyneux, have a weird fetish for the Roman Empire. There’s a tendency to misinterpret various events within its history in order to “prove” their ideology correct in some form or another. Nevermind that it was an entirely different culture from our own and the attitudes they had about governance and economics can’t be adequately equated to any modern sentiments, without massive liberties being taken. It’s rather telling these individuals either don’t correctly read their sources or that their sources were already rife with presentism as is.
Donald Trump would like to remind us (again) that he won the state of Wisconsin mainly because of Republican “big data” tactics.
How did that go… Generals are always ready to win the previous war. This President is still fighting the previous war.
He’s attempting to distract people from calling Senators and Reps about health care, and whatever else, by being “provocative”. And he’s basically an internet troll in real life, complete with sockpuppetry and logic fails.
All the 40K factions are terrible people, but I like orks because they are extremely straightforward. You always know where you stand with them. They live to fight and they fight to live, and they’re the only faction in the galaxy that is actually having fun.
Creators of Warhammer 40K creators intended the Imperium of Man to be a satire of fascism. They were influenced by left-anarchist SF and fantasy author Michael Moorcock, whose work often mocked the use of fascist themes in SF and fantasy. The Tau are a satire of authoritarian left-wing regimes like the Soviet Union.
@Zemyla I’m the grim darkness of the 41st millennium there is only war,
but for da orkz warz is da best fun da orkz culda asked for.
@History Nerd
I find it funny that when the space communists were added to 40k they managed to still be an improvement over the imperium,
Imperium on non humans: “SUFFER NOT THE XENOS TO LIVE!”
Tau to non Tau: “Just stay in your cast and obey the Etherials like the rest of us.”
They made them darker in later editions but they have an Imperium apologist running things now.
http://orig10.deviantart.net/7fd2/f/2013/268/9/a/bob_ross_by_jewelleddragon13-d6nuqog.jpg
On the whole nerdy history breakdown thing…a friend of mine who is a euro-medieval scholar always finds these discussions a bit wacky since May-December marriages were a thing both ways.
That is, you’d get older women marrying much younger men. Frequently.
The thing is that work in a low-tech, high-hunger environment is dangerous. Equipment fails. A piece of wood flies up into a face and blinds someone. Sores putrefy, and infections kill. Then you end up with a dead husband – but a woman who has survived childbirth and is a good investment for a younger man. She’s likely to give you living children, and she can teach you to manage a household because she has that skillset. And that skillset helps keep you alive – preserving food and working out how much flour you need for winter, those are valuable skills.
The converse happens too – women died in childbirth, and women’s work can easily kill. So blended families were really common, and that kind of thing leads to the stepmother-stepfather trope in fairytales. It’s not uncommon to marry into a household having to raise the children of the previous wife or husband, but given a more cutthroat life, you prioritise your own.
I always wonder how these guys cope with the fact you’re often not marrying ‘a woman’ – you’re marrying a family. You’re tossing up skill sets and land acquisition, perhaps a more lenient governor or access to a better behaved protective militia who can help against bandits. It always makes me wince how easy they think life must be under these circumstances, how simple the decisions are.
@Katz
Ok I laughed at that harder then it should have made me.
Happy little orkz in a happy little forest. Who never make mistakez, just happy little huge explosive accidentz.
@ParadoxicalIntention
No kidding. I don’t understand all the doomsday preppers who are busy investing in bitcoin. Like, even if the blockchain, backup files, and Luno exchange didn’t get destroyed by an EMP or grid collapse, the average survivor isn’t going to understand cryptocurrencies, let alone have a digital wallet. They just want to eat. The value of bitcoin will probably plummet quickly after a disaster. As systems collapse, people turn to tangible assets for security.
At least paper currency can be used to start a fire.
These underside-of-a-log dwellers are so goddamn baffling.
1) MGTOWs praise civilization to the skies (because MEN/FIRMLY ERECT SKYSCRAPERS), but also desperately want it to end.
2) MGTOWs talk constantly about the “animal nature” of feeeeemales and suggest they should be domesticated and subjugated just like livestock. And then they post this sort of bullshit, where they advocate reducing all of humanity to an animalistic, red-in-tooth-and-claw state of being. If anyone needs to be trained and domesticated, it’s MGTOWs. The only motives they understand are blind instinctual rutting, reproductive competition, rage, and revenge. Altruism confuses them.
@Steampunked
They don’t. Their idea of medieval life comes mostly from John Norman imitators.