By David Futrelle
The last time we checked in on YouTube philosopher racist crackpot Stefan Molyneux, he was trying his hand at slam poetry, sort of. Now he’s become a beauty blogger. Or beauty tweeter, anyway, unleashing a veritable tweetstorm on the subject of makeup over the last several days.
I’ve been going through his tweets and have extracted these Six Fun New Makeup Tips for Devious Females.
Simulate the look of sexual arousal by painting your lips a deep red because everyone who’s had actual sex with real human females knows that their lips turn the shade of a cherry whenever they’re feeling really horny. It’s just science!
Use lipstick to arouse the male’s monkey brain, because obviously our primate ancestors wore tons of makeup. (Just don’t go too far and arouse the lizard brain because then the guy you’re trying to win might ignore you and start trying to catch nearby flies with his tongue.)
Use makeup to hide the fact that you’re a wrinkled old crone of, oh, 45 or so.
Use makeup to manipulate gullible men and extract their man-resources!
Feeling hungry? Apply lipstick at once and get some beta male dupe to pay for your $100 dinner.
Use makeup to con wealthy investors into pouring millions of dollars into your fraudulent blood testing startup!
Now, I suppose I should add that the last woman who pulled this particular long con got caught and is probably going to jail. But honestly, gals, her makeup skills were pretty basic, at best; surely you can do a better job and succeed where she failed!
COMING SOON (probably): Stefan takes aim at the dastardly tool of dude manipulation known as the Wonderbra.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
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@Surplus
The only advice I can give you is to see if you can find a therapist either on a sliding scale or perhaps a reduced rate online therapist that you can afford to discuss these issues with. It is extremely unfair to continually bring your problems up here. Commenters try as best they can, uncompensated, to offer you advice, at which point you inevitably tear them to pieces for trying to help you. You cannot keep treating people like this. Please talk about your problems with someone who is paid to listen and advise.
@AsAboveSoBelow
@Surplus:
Another thing I thought of:
I’m in the energy industry. I’m on the supplier side, not the distribution side, but I do know a bit about the network.
In short, it’s precarious as hell all over the world. A small fluctuation at times of high load, a transformer malfunction, small, local things like that, can knock down huge swathes of the distribution network like a game of annoying dominoes.
It doesn’t matter what the utility companies tell you. The distribution infrastructure world wide is very fragile.
Basically it’ll break down if you look at it funny.
Get treatment for your paranoia.
I took dance lessons many years ago (as an adult and because I’d always wanted to as a child) and decided to participate in the recital. We were all required to purchase and wear pancake makeup, false eyelashes, and a specific color of lipstick. I felt like I was wearing a mask and didn’t recognize my own reflection at the time but when I watched the video, lo and behold, I looked like me!
It’s almost like people who produce stage shows know what they’re talking about!
I stopped complaining about having to wear all that makeup for one recital after that. But it all went in the bin anyway.
@surplus:
I read like 60% of your post. I think I get the feeling because, during much of my life, I’ve been angry and resented with things. “For the others it’s hard, for me it’s harder.” “The others pay the full price and they get it; I pay three times the full price and I don’t get it.”
It’s impossible to just stop this because the resentment is too much. But you’re not right when you think that way and that way of thinking is poison.
In my case, it has helped to:
-not be so hard on myself,
-not be so hard on other people (like, judging less, avoiding destructive vocabulary to even think about others, even if they are really awful people), and
-not look actively for every single little detail that I can use to confirm my angry delusion that the world is against me.
There can also be a deeper existential issue, like what I’m going to do with myself and my life.
You can’t change all that in half an hour, but yoy can begin moving in that direction.
Also, seeking professional help, like other commenters have hinted, could be more than a good idea.
I don’t know if what I’ve said applies to you; I know what applied to me. But I do wish that you get out of that state: nobody has to live like this.
@surplus
Something else I want to add. Just about the problem your having with clothes. Idk if this will help or not because I know you said your living on a budget but if you could save up for it or just get it when your a bit more secure. A sowing machine can be a life savor. I’m a really specific size as well and when I buy things from a regular store or a donation store I normally have to alter it in some way. There are loads of online descriptions and YouTube videos you can watch to learn how to do it and with practice it works out pretty well. This could help you get the right size for you so you won’t have any more pants falling down issues. I’m sure somewhere you can find a used sowing machine so you won’t have to pay full price for it.
This might actually help with your social life as well because the sowing community much like the knitting community, are generally really nice people. Plus there is something so organic about making something with your hands. The woman who taught me how to sow when I was a young girl would tell me everything you make with your hands has a little bit of magic in it.
I also have a really yummy chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipe if you want to make your own instead of store bought. That way as long as you have the ingredients you can make them yourself.
@surplus:
I read like 60% of your post. I think I get the feeling because, during much of my life, I’ve been angry and resented with things. “For the others it’s hard, for me it’s harder.” “The others pay the full price and they get it; I pay three times the full price and I don’t get it.”
It’s impossible to just stop this because the resentment is too much. But you’re not right when you think that way and that way of thinking is poison.
In my case, it has helped to:
-not be so hard on myself,
-not be so hard on other people (like, judging less, avoiding destructive vocabulary to even think about others, even if they are really awful people), and
-not look actively for every single little detail that I can use to confirm my angry delusion that the world is against me.
A bit like, take it easy, man.
There can also be a deeper existential issue, like what I’m going to do with myself and my life.
You can’t change all that in half an hour, but yoy can begin moving in that direction.
Also, seeking professional help, like other commenters have hinted, could be more than a good idea.
I don’t know if what I’ve said applies to you; I know what applied to me. But I do wish that you get out of that state: nobody has to live like this.
My post sent twice looks very ugly. Sorry.
@hambeast
I know it may seem like a lot but even stage makeup is suppose to enhance your natural features. Under the lights and from a distance it really does. Would any one wear it for everyday? No I don’t think so. It’s also bad for ones skin to wear that much.
Also I hope you had fun with your dance lessons! I have had many adults tell me that they wished they had taken dance as a child or that they could have. When I try to tell them they can take it now as an adult it doesn’t seem to appeal to them. To worried about looking silly or something like that. So that’s really cool you were able to do a childhood dream of yours! Maybe I can achieve mine of learning how to play the piano….. or maybe even the harp!
@Kat – A kindred spirit!
Ah, but then I’ll look disorganized and I want to appear to be organized! (This is sad but true.)
@Surplus – I understand with the so-called conspiracy theorizing that you’re poking fun at your own tendency to overanalyze, but I’m not sure everyone gets the humour (in case you’re confused by people’s reactions).
I get that a lot – sometimes people can’t tell if I’m serious or funny when I want to express the fact that 1) I am upset at things (serious), but 2) I am also exaggerating for comic effect (to lighten the mood).
But I second the suggestion to talk about your actual anxiety with the doctor and ask for some strategies for managing it (once you finally manage to reach them – bureaucracy is a headache and a half). I would not say your actual worries are not “normal”. You are dealing with tough things. Also, it’s a fairly common thing with anxiety to think trivial things = serious and moderate things = super serious. Yes, that could be better too, but it’s doesn’t mean you’re crazy or weird.
I’m more self-aware about my overreactions than before – and I think you are too, thus the humour – but it doesn’t stop me from reverting to anxious ways of thinking when in a crisis.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I had a panic attack because I was alone in my building and it was about 30 Celsius (I also hadn’t slept much). My mind said “discomfort = MORTAL DANGER” and my heart started beating fast and I thought I was dying. At the same time, I kind of recognized that maybe it was just a panic attack so I held off calling the emergency number and just called my friend. At 2:30 AM. Which was not ideal, but it helped me calm down.
Last thought – people do tend to be less efficient when it’s hot out, and power outages are also more frequent in hot weather. The power went off and on again most of Sunday night (at first I was confused why my phone wasn’t charging). Anyway. Take care.
@Lainy:
@Ohlmann:
Those were two of my hypotheses, out of three. I came up with compelling counterarguments to all three. I literally do not understand what the fuck is happening to me or how to fix it.
I actually came up with a fourth hypothesis overnight, which I *can’t* refute but which *seems* ludicrous on its face: Novikov self-consistency. As in, “if I succeed in completing a backup it will somehow result in a temporal paradox, therefore every attempt is pre-destined to failure. If I somehow could afford a generator, and magically was immune to carbon monoxide poisoning from running it indoors and tried to run the machines off that during the backup, something would still go wrong. An ACME anvil would crash through the ceiling and wreck the equipment, or the generator would inexplicably fail despite plenty of fuel, or Donald fucking Trump would push the BRB, whereon since there’s a NATO airbase not that far from here I’d certainly get EMP’d and likely vaporized 20 minutes later.”
The only argument I have against that one is that it’s science fiction. Then again, so were communications satellites, flip-phones, and CT scans at one time.
@Knitting Cat Lady:
It’s nearly-new. And I don’t see how attempting to back up to a faulty drive would black out a whole city for three hours. As for the rest of that I won’t even dignify it with a response.
@Onager:
Won’t work in this instance. Well, it technically would, but the destination drive is so big that small files take up twice as much “space on disk” as their actual sizes, so I need something that creates large zip files or otherwise bundles them up.
Leaving aside the not-so-minor issue of the price tag, I really don’t see how that would keep my power from going out.
@Rhuu:
The initial letter was just an acknowledgement that they were (allegedly) looking for one, not that they had found one. They haven’t and I’m presuming they won’t and the whole thing is just a pacifier to delay the eventual descent of a torches-and-pitchforks mob upon Queen’s Park, or some such nonsense. Same as phone reps that make excuses and refer you around in circles, and feedback forms that never result in fixing the problems that people complain about, and so forth.
Oh. Then it must be yet another of those things that works for other people, but inexplicably doesn’t work for me. Like the backup tools, the shops, and literally almost every other thing I encounter in day to day life.
I’m not rich enough to be replacing my clothes before they wear out to, say, keep in some sort of style or something. So, no.
To convince me of that at this point, after two weeks of my beating my head against the proverbial wall, you’d have to give me a convincing explanation for the timing. Why did the problems start at the same time I started trying to back up my files, and why do the individual outages seem timed to stop backups that are on the verge of succeeding?
It feels like I’m stuck on some particularly difficult (and poorly-designed) video game level, somehow. You need to find the flooblezitz and give it to that weird NPC with the discombobulated-sounding dialog tree at Feeglezottz Park before trying to back your files up or the power will go out just before the backup finishes, but there’s no clue in the game that this is what’s required to pass this obstacle, and they forgot to even give you the little thingy advertising the strategy guide that you can buy for $19.95 plus S&H…
Except that there are no walk-ins here and the family doctors are all downsizing because of Ford cuts or some such shit. So even if they don’t *want* to make it easy they are *morally obligated to do so* OR to fix things so that everyone has a bloody family doctor OR to open a walk-in next door, one of those three.
I literally don’t know what to think at this point. Much of it seems hard to explain if I don’t have a nemesis, but as explained in my previous post “nemesis” doesn’t really make sense either. NONE of it makes sense. I mean, it seems like these should be exhaustive, right: these systematic problems are being caused by me, caused by someone else, or caused by no-one. But the first requires magical fairy-wand selective incompetence that makes no sense, the second requires a petty jerk with supervillain resources which makes no sense, and the third requires that I have won some sort of inverse lottery, roughly equivalent in likelihood to winning half a billion dollars on one Powerball ticket, except bad luck.
Cooler than during July, which was heat wave after heat wave here — with rock stable power.
@Viscaria: I don’t have that kind of money.
@Ucalegont:
I’m not looking actively for anything. I’m doing things like trying to back up my files. I’m doing ordinary things, and then having inordinate difficulty far beyond anything I can believe is normal. It’s not a delusion! I can’t explain it. I was hoping maybe someone here could, but it’s looking more and more like nobody can explain it. Although the most disturbing thing by far is the suggestion made by one and at least hinted at by others that I deserve to lose my freedom over this. I thought we were the people who were opposed to the ones who advocate for herding people into camps for daring to question or oppose “the system”?
I don’t see how that can cause my trying to back up my files to, in turn, cause power blackouts dependably and predictably as they have been. That being said: I do indeed have an existential issue, to wit, it is unlikely that I will (usefully, at least) outlive my 50s, if even reach them.
I have noticeably less stamina than I did ten years ago. It seems very unlikely that by ten years in the future I will still be capable of multiple multi-kilometer walks per week to the stores to get supplies and things. Once that point is reached I will have to spend an extra $20+ on most or all such trips to hire taxis. Then my finances go into the red, assuming that nothing else (Ford cuts, increasing costs of living, etc.) has done that already. And once my finances go into the red, I have another year or two tops of drawing down my savings before the past due notices start to pile up. A month or two after that, no more roof. And a few months after that someone finds the feet of my corpsicle sticking out of a melting snowbank in the spring.
Even if I somehow found a way to survive without a roof over my head, I can’t do so and also have electronics, not with nowhere to keep them dry or to recharge things. So there go all of my files and work, backups or no backups. So I could perhaps survive but my life would be over in every sense except the purely biological. I could not do any art, writing, or anything, or contribute in any way at all to society past that point.
The same applies if I did something really stupid to avoid rooflessness, like commit a crime to go to jail or get myself committed to some hellish asylum somewhere. No data, no network, all my stuff gets auctioned off somewhere and wiped and overwritten with other people’s stuff … survival, but not life.
So I have perhaps ten years left in which to complete my life’s work after which I will lack the tools and finances necessary to continue doing so (and, most likely, even to continue breathing).
And here I am with two weeks down the drain on a necessary task that should not have taken more than a few dozen hours.
Apparently that’s not correct, because “not living like this” apparently costs money I don’t have.
…
…
…
Well, to those who offered constructive suggestions in good faith: thanks for trying. I was hoping someone knew “the secret” or something, some trick, or just what impossible to figure out puzzle-steps are needed to get past the “power always goes out if I try to run a backup” obstacle in whatever stupid game I’m somehow trapped inside of. But apparently nobody has any more clue what is going on or how to fix it than I do.
There seems to be nothing further I can do to resolve my difficulties. Every hypothesis I can come up with is also easily refuted. Nobody has offered any more hypotheses. I have the distinct sense that what is happening to me is wrong and I am being treated unfairly, but I can’t even identify the source of this unfairness or guess at which authority should hear my appeal. It really does feel like being stuck on a hard level in a badly designed video game, except that I’m living inside the game and don’t have the first clue how to contact the vendor or even who that vendor is. And either you’re just some of that game’s NPCs or it’s massively multiplayer but you’re all as clueless as I am about who the hell is running the show, but have managed not to get stuck in the spot where I did…
which is just another science-fictiony hypothesis that, while seemingly ludicrous, I cannot refute. Or turn into any useful idea for something to try, though at least in theory there would be a way past the obstacle, unlike the Novikov case.
So this is it. My life is, for all practical purposes, at an end. I cannot continue with any of my work without knowing how to run a backup without the attempt having the consequence of blacking out the entire city I’m in. And nobody seems to have a clue how to do that. I thought I had maybe another ten years of skating by and then maybe one or two of circling the drain but suddenly it looks like I’m already plunging down into the sewer pipe. It’s escalated to where I can not continue any of my projects, and therefore have little ability to contribute even in an unpaid way to society anymore, and people are openly suggesting that I deserve to be locked up for whatever it is I have supposedly done wrong (which, of course, is never clearly specified, just as the error messages have usually been vague and the power outages utterly inexplicable). I doubt it will be long before it escalates further, to where I am actually jailed on trumped-up charges or just killed outright by Trump starting WWIII, being hit by a bus, or some ludicrous but oddly-appropriate thing like a piano falling on my fucking head.
I will hold out a faint hope that someone will belatedly think up something that can explain and/or fix this shit, but I think I’m just awaiting the end at this point.
@surplus
Again there is this thing called paranoia you really need to talk with a professional.
@Surplus
I am very sorry to hear that. For reference, I attended a sliding-scale clinic when I was a student about a decade ago, and they were charging me $8 (I believe) a session. Presumably it’s a bit more now, but still, perhaps less than you are imagining? It might be worth checking to make sure it’s not something you can afford.
Either way, though, it’s still not okay to treat the commenters here like your personal kicking post. I hope that you can get professional help, but even if you can’t, abusing people here is not an acceptable alternative.
What about purple, blue, green, and pale pink lipstick? What’s that trying to “signal”?
I have never, in my entire life, seen a woman’s lips get redder when she’s sexually aroused. How did this myth get started?
And, dancers, people appearing on TV, and *anyone* under stage or theatrical or photography lighting, *has to* wear makeup, and usually a lot. If you don’t, you look like you were too impatient to wait for the Last Trump, and so rose from the grave way too early.
Surplus, you *really don’t see* that absolutely no one is out to get you.
When you are low, *everything feels worse*. I’ve tried giving you examples of when I was in similar straights (broke, jobless, family stuff that I was too far away to help with) and you just threw it back in my face, so I’m not going to try to empathise with you.
You’ve been given what solutions we can. Honestly, I think @Viscaria hit the nail on the head.
This comments section *is not your therapist*. We’re all dealing with our own shit. We can try to help, but as you’ve just shown again, you aren’t happy except with a magic fix everything button.
There isn’t one. Sorry. Take small steps to fix what problems you can, like checking to see online how long you should be waiting for a letter from health care connect. If it’s been longer, CALL THEM. Even if you dont’ think it won’t do any good, doing nothing is also not doing any good, and you say you’re suffering from a lack of a doctor, so…?
You also never mentioned if you’d talked to your pharmacist, so I’m going to assume you also didn’t do that.
@ epitome of incomprehensibility – Surplus isn’t joking. They’ve been asking for a magic way for us to fix everything wrong in their life for over a year. Since it’s impossible, any small hints of help are just ignored, or we’re told that it isn’t good enough and made to feel bad for even trying.
I honestly don’t know why I keep engaging. Surplus just makes *me* feel bad.
@surplus
I know that the material side of things, housing and the like seems like The Issue here. And I’m not making light of these issues which are legit. But the feelings of surreality and living in a simulation/game sound pretty familiar from my experiences of living with a dissociative disorder. They might also cross over to psychosis – whatever the case, I really believe there’s no way out other than you seeking professional help. There are sliding scale helpers out there and I second other commenters here. None of this will change unless you take steps to fix the underlying issue.
Two things about your posts keep catching my eye: your sense of impending doom (“I won’t see my 50s”) and the interlinkedness of your tech issues with other stressors. You might not be willing to recognize this side of the pattern, but do you lose time? You describe losing skills, and that combined with losing time is a dissociation classic. Do you think it’s possible you recognize your need of mental health help, then reach out, but pull out again as addressing the underlying issue feels too overwhelming?
I have to agree with other commenters that ultimately asking for advice, then declining it is not fair. I believe you have your reasons and I feel sympathetic. But there’s no way out of this unless you redirect your energy towards seeking help. Best of luck. I understand it feels too expensive and too everything, but… None of us can help you, not really.
@Surplus
Well, I suppose I’m a glutton for punishment.
Statistics are a good way to predict happenings in a larger population; they do not determine what happens in particular instances. A small chance is still a chance, and that means that something surpassingly unlikely still happens to some people. You are just having a run of bad luck. It’s shitty, but it’s not proof that you’re being specifically targeted by anyone.
You mentioned the power went out when you were out shopping. I assume that didn’t coincide with you running another backup. Therefore, the power outages are not caused by you trying to back up your files; you’re just having bad luck (and I assure you that the power outages have also inconvenienced many, many other people in your town as well. You are not the only person in existence.)
Try googling the specific hard drive that you’re doing your backups to; other people may have noticed similar problems/delays and come up with work around. Also, try googling the program you’re using to do the backups, see if there are problems that were encountered with that and workarounds discovered.
Alternatively, try backing up things in parts. Zip up your most important files and copy them onto the drive, and continue from there. It might take more time and effort than if you could back up everything in one go, but given your power difficulties, this might be the best option.
Did you try talking to your pharmacist about your prescription?
If you’re having difficulties shopping and traveling, you could try ordering things online to be delivered to your home. There are often affordable options.
If you want to make IRL friends, try to not expect that someone giving you advice will be able to immediately fix every problem you have for you. Oh, and try not to mention that you think the government is out to bully you personally. That tends to put people off.
And finally, for the love of god, get your name on a waiting list for a therapist. You’re exhibiting a lot of red flags of mental illness and you need to get some help. We aren’t threatening you or saying that you need to be locked away, we’re saying that you’re exhibiting really worrying behavior and you need help. Talk to someone, professionally. Random commentors on the internet cannot be your therapist.
Oh and Surplus, you’re welcome for the tip on healthcare connect, from the last time you were here bemoaning your life.
Not that I expect any gratitude, but I did go out of my way to give you the links so a ‘thank you’ would have been nice.
Whatever.
Surplus
I’m also really upset that I and other people concerned about your mental health, even opening up to you about our own mental health problems, read that and took that as “YOU JUST WANT TO LOCK ME UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY. I’VE DONE NOTHING TO DESERVE THIS. I’VE COMMITES NO CRIME” when all we were saying was talk to someone who can figure out what’s wrong and help get to a place where you can not feel this way. It’s really hurtful. Me telling you about my own parinoa was to try to help you and spat on it because it wasn’t the advice you wanted.
But perfectly understandable if it’s the result of low medication and stress or PTSD. Also could be indicative of anxiety about unsympathetic authority figures.
It really does seem like his area is experiencing rolling powerdowns. Frustrating but not a conspiracy.
What’s also concerning is the apparent lack of social support. Even tech wizards need help now and then. Talk someone online or outside the area. I echo someone’s concern the drive being copied to is a problem.
Good luck.
@Surplus:
There’s this thing called confirmation bias. The dictionary has your picture next to the definition.
And your paranoia is way out of hand.
I’ll tell you one more thing:
If you don’t get mental health treatment now you’ll be involuntarily committed eventually.
I’ve spent a long holiday weekend on the closed psych ward. As a patient. I know what psychosis looks like.
You display very worrying signs.
The world isn’t out to get you. The world doesn’t care one bit about you.
Your brain is broken. That’s no big deal.
Mine is broken six ways from Sunday.
I deal with it like an adult. By taking my meds and seeking more involved therapy when necessary.
I’m on sick leave to prevent a relapse right now, FFS!
Give yourself a kick in the ass and seek professional help.
And stop rejecting all the advice the people on here give you out of hand.
Honestly.
I’ve been dealing with mental health shit since I was about 10.
I take three different psych meds.
It’s no big deal.
Just go and get help, dude!
@surplus
Honestly your just really making me regret the emotional labor that it takes to open up to you and give you advice. I want you to be well and for things to get better for you. But you put it down and make me and other commuters here not feel good enough. I have problems saying no to people. I get walked on because I’m timid and social navigation is extremely hard for me. Just because a lot of people here are willing to do emotion labor for free for you, doesnt mean you should take advantage of it or abuse it. People can only give so much.
There is a snowman in the wonderful game undertail. He ask you if you can take a peice of him so he can see the world. You can do this. But in another play through of the game you can take peice after peice of him till he begs you to stop and that’s how you kill him. People here have freely given you that first peice up. You came back saying you need another and we say I guess you can have another. Please take care of it this time. But not you are here to take peice upon peice until you kill that snowman.
It is? Then my favorite lipstick is literally glow-in-the-dark green because…??
@crip dyke
Hear me out on this one. Your actually an alien and since mine is my black lipstick or my blue one, I’m imitating a corpse or something.
You’re trying to attract the watch I had in elementary school as a mate. Obviously.