Hm. Re-reading that Sinfest article I lined to in a previous article, this strip caught my eye.
I had read that particular article before my red pill conversion. Reading it again in a new light, I'm struck by this strip that the author had embedded to highlight the "oppression" of women.
Now, how many men actually feel that way? Birth control pills are common now, it's not the frikkin 1960's anymore. Yeah, it's just a webcomic, but this shit gets brought up All The Time. Women are shamed, for their sexuality, and men are congratulated for theirs.
This view is completely the opposite of what I have seen in my entire lifetime, in the media, and in society. In my friends and family. I'm sure some dude in podunkistan has thought this, but I bet if he spoke up, a horde of angry pro-feminist dudes would pound him into the dust, while women held slutwalks all over the world.
I find this concept interesting. As the treadmill of earning more to spend more trundles on, I think people have lost sight of why they're earning this money. I'm not poor, but my lifestyle is definitley more frugal than most people I've known.
The specifics of extreme early reitrement seem contentious, like being able to react to medical emergengies, and the additional costs of having children, if one desires.
But the questioning of an earn and spend lifestyle I find a very good point. Our consumer driven society presents a relatively extravagant lifestyle compared to what is possible. A critical look at what our time and money are going towards is an excellent idea. And this EER philosophy is looking outside the box, which I like.
And a good point was made in a comment on one of the articles I read. That eventually more and more people are going to be forced into an EER lifestyle, and it's better to anticipate and prepare for it, than to go crashing into a 12K (or less) a year lifestyle.
If you follow Sinfest then you know that a few years ago, Tatsuya Ishida drank some kind of feminist kool aid and went Warp Stupid. Not that I agree with the blog author's ideas about "straw feminists", but at least he sees that Tatsuya went off the deep end.
A comment on Karen Straughan's video Feminist Shaming Tactics caught my attention yesterday.
Snarge22
The result of rape culture?
I’ve been wanting to get this off my chest for a while and this seems as good a place as anywhere. A couple of years ago a work colleague (sports car pal & after work dinner/drinking buddy) of mine was tragically killed in a car accident while commuting home. Since he was all of 54 years old and active within the community the funeral was held at a large venue and was packed. A large percentage of the mourners were the engineers he and I work(ed) with. While there I talked with one of the lady engineers and gave her a nice warm hearted hug. We talked a little more then went on separately to talk with others. That next Monday she stopped by and said to me that I was the only guy who embraced her at the funeral. She was still sad (we were all still quite shocked) and didn’t know why the guys were so stand-offish. Now this is a nice woman who everyone likes so she was confused about the lack of warmth and love from physical contact with her co-workers. Now before everyone thinks engineers are the image the media likes to portray, know that such jobs provide steady and interesting work, and a good middle class income. In other words it draws a lot of sharp guys (and a few women) from a spectrum of personalities. So why the distance? It is my view that men have been hammered for so long by feminists and their insistence that we’re all assholes, pedophiles, and rapists that we’ve pulled back from genuine physical contact with the women around us (I wonder if women even get compliments from the men at work anymore?). It’s gotten so bad that even in a “safe” environment like a funeral men don’t feel free to embrace those who matter to them. One has to now ask; who loses because of this? It’s certainly not just men. I’m convinced we can thank feminism for that. Oh, so who was the guy? Let me put it this way; whenever you fly one of those large commercial airliners chances are he was one of those who had design input to its flight control system.
Now, there's another article, which I cannot find again, and I wish I'd bookmarked, where a man saw a little girl walking along the road, and did not stop to help because he was afraid of being seen and accused of trying to abduct her. Why didn't he call it in instead? I do not recall. Which is why I wish I'd bookmarked the damn thing. If I ever find it again, I'll edit this blog post to add the link.
Today, there was a link to an article at the AVFM forums "debunking" MRA claims, which lead to this gem-
"above: man crying because he has to switch seats in an airplane. Witness the profound man-pain"
You know, the point isn't that the guy had to switch seats. The point is that he had to switch seats because society sees him as a pedophile. How is that good for men to constantly be bombarded with reminders that they are scum? How is that good for children to be constantly bombarded with reminders that men are scum? As in the MGTOW movement, and the Men on Strike pheonomenon, men are beginning to retreat from society. Why would they stay? Why accept abuse based on their gender alone? This is a fucking recipe for disaster as more and more men are alienated and stripped of their human dignity.
My opinion: I think trans people should be able to live their lives without fear of being outed. I think this suicide was a tragedy. Thankfully, the author of the article linked is fairly even-handed on the subject. Vanderbilt may have commited suicide for a multitude of reasons, not simply being outed.
But the internet is not so level headed. Accusations of murder abound on social media. (Just read the comments on the article linked)
Mob mentality scares the fuck out of me. It's tragic that this person commited suicide, but it's not murder. And being trans is not a blank check for victim status. People are people. They have flaws, they make mistakes, they do stupid shit.
So again, trans people should be able to live their lives without fear of being outed. But things aren't always going to work out that way. And no amount of social justice warrior-ing is going to prevent it, short of putting microchips in everyone's brains and programming them like robots. Things happen. Formenting a lynch mob mentality isn't going to provide any kind of productive response.
One question that does linger, and I'm going to have to think on it for a bit. Can a parallel between a trans person's new identity be drawn to a person who creates a new identiy for non-trans reasons? Is this comparable to a person in witness protection being outed? Or a con artist with serial identities?
I thought I'd put down a little bit about myself, and my entry into the concept of Men's Rights.
Firstly I'm an atheist and consider myself a skeptic. I have read stuff by Michael Shermer, Carl Sagan, and used to follow the Atheist Experience on youtube. So when PZ Meyers made his 3rd hand accusations about Michael Shermer, I was a bit distressed. I wanted to believe that Michael Shermer didn't do these things, but I also consider rape and sexual harasment a serious issue. But what really bugged me is the underhanded nature of the accusation. How could a skeptical community accept a 3rd hand accusation, with no evidence? This sat in the back of my head while watching some Atheist Experience videos on youtube. Youtube puts reccomendations on the side bar of videos, and one of these recommendations was by Karen Straughan, AKA Girl Writes What.
She made some interesting points, but most of all I was intrigued by the idea of a female Men's Rights Activist. Up until that point, I imagine I had the mental image that most people have of Men's Rights. Loser guys who hate women and bitch about them. My curiosity was piqued, and so I delved into more of Karen Straughan's videos. I then moved on to stuff by Janice Fiamengo, Warren Farrell, and Erin Pizzey. I found that the issue of Men's Rights went far deeper that I had imagined.
By that point, I had avoided watching many videos by men in the Men's Rights Movement, because I had a subconscious feeling about how fairly I'd view them. My first real MRM video was by Jerry the Other.
I then moved on to Barbarossa, and Stardusk, ManWomanMyth and others. I was willing to listen at this point, and while I don't agree with every detail, the broad strokes rang true, and I'd been converted.
I don't consider myself a Men's Rights Activist, since I haven't actually done any activism. I do consider myself a Men's Rights Advocate, since I agree with the core ideas and try to engage with them online.
At this point, I created a new online handle for myself. Chad Nine, or sometimes Chad Smith when the registration for a site bitches about my alias. I was a bit paranoid at first, about people I know finding out about my interest in Men's Rights and being ostracised, but I've become a bit more relaxed about the subject. Still, I prefer to remain behind the Chad Nine alias for a while.
Otherwise I consider myself a typical guy. I have nerdy pursuits like RPGs and miniature wargaming, video games, reading and watching sci fi and fantasy books and movies. I work in the computer technology field, doing software QA and have quite a lot of experience in video games QA.
I've got a twitter account, a blog and a youtube channel that I use to follow my interests both on MRM topics and other topics that interest me. My Chad Nine persona is mostly for when I'm following and discussing MRM topics.
I had written a blog post on this topic previously, but trashed it as my thoughts hadn't gelled yet. But I was listening to Honey Badger Radio (reccomended) this morning at work, and Karen Straughan mentioned an article at The Futurist called The Misandry Bubble. The article neatly outlines the ideas put forth by GWW and Stardusk about the Fempocalpse.
Now, if there is a collapse, what will it actually look like? I think it will be along the lines of the Great Depression, more than any Mad Max scenario. The Demographic Winter will be a slow decline, similar to other Empires like Rome. Unless some outlier situation pops up due to circumstances, it's simply going to be the West having less resources and adapting to that. Putting forth policies along the lines of the Square Deal, for example.
Now, what I think is going to be a very important part of this, is the Men's movement. MRA's and MGTOW both spreading the word in society about why this collapse actually happened. Otherwise, I can see the government and feminists blaming men, as usual, and just rebulding towards another inevitable collapse.
Stay the course, keep doing whatever it is you can do, activism, donating, making videos, writing blogs, talking to your friends. As long as a reboot is avoided, then men's rights will have fulfilled it's goal.
