Hitler's excuse would be "well, they were going to attack us anyway", which is probably true. Should've waited until you were done with Europe though. I find it ironic that American involvement in WWII is celebrated, while American involvement in WWI is seen as a mistake and it cost the Democrats the election

Given the circumstances I’d hardly say it’s ironic. WW2 had a pretty clear-cut bad guy, public support for the war remained strong even during the height of the conflict.

Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 3rd 2019 at 6:28:20 AM

Yeah. USA intervention in WW 1 is more murky, thought honestly I said it did more good than bad.

Marine Corps Exchanges to end DVD, Blu-ray disc sales

A Military Exchange is a shopping center for the US Armed forces - think big box store for Yanks with Tanks. They have the latest stuff but they can be Two Decades Behind - well into the 2010's people were finding video tapes in Exchanges.

Now Technology Marches On - I suspect many civilian stores will follow suit to make.

Edited by TairaMai on Sep 3rd 2019 at 9:25:28 PM

I'd also say that the popularization of video games has played a huge role in displaying the other non-American Allies of WWII. Case in point, the pre-Modern Warfare Call of Duty games and Battlefield 1942 had campaigns or maps where the US, the British, and the Soviets had their own missions and equal screentime. World at War practically memefied the Eastern Front.

In fact, the early Medal of Honor games featured the French Resistance as protagonists instead of American troops. IMO, the entire game of Call of Duty: WWII was a waste of a perfectly ingenious concept for an FPS shooter, and that the female French insurgent who is only playable for half of a single mission ought to have been the campaign's protagonist instead of an archetypal white Southern-Fried Private from Texas.

@ archonspeaks: If WW2 was fictional, Hitler and the Nazis would be criticized for being unrealistically evil. I honestly wonder if any pre-20th leader is comparable in over the top evil

Pol Pot's is usually the safest bet, because killing 20% of your own country while having a healthcare system that is practically designed to kill your own population is insane enough (the Kampuchean leadership broadcasted proudly that their state-sponsored medices were in the test phase and that they were practically experimenting on their own citizens, sure they framed it as sucess in the speech but it was obvious that they knew that they were killing them).

Honestly, tons of dictators have actions that seem like charicatures. Gadaffi had a squad of Sex Slave -s and proudly showed them to the world while proclaiming himself a feminist. Saddam's brother open sadism has to be toned down in House of Saddam because they thought it would be too over-the-top for the audiences.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 3rd 2019 at 12:41:26 PM

That's why I said pre-20th century. Though I admit, I'm suspicious that Pol Pot was a legitimate Omnicidal Maniac, not just throwing a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum like Hitler at the end of the war

Leopold II comes to mind

I'd play the shit out of a game where I could punch him in the face.

Creator Provincialism creeps in when you deal with American media companies -be they studios or AAA game developers.

I hope the indie game scene will provide some non-US characters.

Creator Provincialism deals with everyone, Indie games done in countries asides USA (or foreigners living in USA) are your best bet.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 3rd 2019 at 1:04:38 PM

Some of the Tsars are eminently horrible. And some emperors of whatever-flavour-of-China.

It's easy to forger how many people dropped like flies because of horrible government.

But, I like to think there's a special corner in hell for Charles Trevelyan for the Great Famine. No, not a dictator. Worse — a guy fully believing that the vile way he was doing his job was perfectly fine. Needed. (Peel gets a small pass; he honestly tried to sort things out, once it dawned on him how bad things were about to get.)

On that note: it's not always the big guys wearing the funny hats who do the worst things. Always look carefully at those sorting the paperwork, even if they never graduate themselves to the hats.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Sep 4th 2019 at 2:46:19 PM

The Office As We Knew It Isn't Coming Back Anytime Soon. Maybe It's Changed Forever

As one conservative commentator put it "Employers will like basically dumping a lot of costs — office rent, utilities, Internet service, printer toner, etc. — off on employees."

Edited by TairaMai on Apr 28th 2020 at 2:06:02 AM

Yes, they do, but there is a limit. Employees need to interact with each other in order to be productive, and zoom can't replace informal conversations and trust building relationships. They can transition to work at home, but it will result in loss of productivity.

Hey guys, I'm originally from Latin America, but I moved to the US as a young adult. However, there are still some areas that I don't understand, and I would appreciate some clarification.

When I lived in Latin America, I was very interested in male self-improvement, dating, social skills but also went to strip clubs with my uncle. He used to go to strip clubs, brothels and faced no social repercussions. In his job, nobody asked him what he did and he was living by himself so he didn't have to answer to parents or nuclear family.

1-Why is there so much sexism on Reddit against women?

2-Why do the people who teach self-improvement for men also hold a very negative view of women?

3-Why does the red pill/MGTOW act on the one hand to help men, but on the other are about women bashing?

4-Why is American culture or the Anglosphere, so judgmental if a guy wants to visit a hooker, he is a loser if a girl wants to become stripper she is a whore?

5-Is there much less of a divide between public life and private life in the United States compared to other countries. In other countries, people don't care what you do in your time while in the United States they do?

6-Why is Reddit so lenient towards these communities, they've quarantined a few of them but have yet to ban them outright.

7-Why is there so much moral alarmist in the culture where the word "degeneracy" gets thrown around a lot?

8-Why is there a blurring of categories where a guy who is supposed to help others with their dating skills is giving political advice. For instance, Roosh is going on political rants about the state of the world?

9- Why isn't there more government regulations when it comes to certain areas? Why doesn't the government steps in and bans those who are scamming guys?

Haha, too many questions, feel free to answer the ones you'd like.

Edited by Kratistos on May 10th 2020 at 11:42:16 AM

Well, that's a lot of very good question. I'll try to give you some decent answers:

1. In the past few decades, Western (Northern?) culture saw a big push towards more equality for women. Women already had the same rights as men on paper, but it took a while for the theory to be put into practice. The reason why there are so many women-bashers online is because to the privileged, equality feels like oppression, and they are fighting these developments with what little power they have.

2. Because you are looking at pick-up artistry, not self-improvement. These people are not trying to get you to be a better man with a healthy dating life, they are teaching you how to trick women into having sex with you. Disregard for women is kind of the point. If you are interested in a more positive approach to dating advice, try googling Doctor Nerdlove.

3. We've discussed this exact question elsewhere, and came to to the conclusion that these groups are not actually interested in helping men. The point of these groups is to fight against the cultural shift described at #1, and they present the very real problems men face as a bludgeon to shut down women bringing up their own problems.

4. American culture was shaped by more puritan strains of Christianity than you'd find elsewhere, so anything sexual is generally considered shameful to begin with. There is also some toxic attitudes towards masculinity, which teaches that a man's value is measured by the amount of women they had sex with, and hiring a prostitute is considered "cheating". Yes, this is a contradiction, which comes naturally out of the different attitudes many people have towards men and women.

5. Again, puritan strains of Christianity that demands on behaves exactly as their interpretation of the lord had intended.

6. The theory is that, as long as these people have a place to congregate and spew their bile, they won't do so in other places on Reddit. I personally find that leaving them be just let's them fester and grow, so banning would be the more prudent option.

7. Because there is a big cultural shift in the attitude towards genders, and these people really do not like it.

8. Again, you are looking at pick-up artists, not "self-improvement" gurus. As for why, they have an audience that listens to everything they say. Why wouldn't they want to try and use that platform for political goals?

9. The USA is rather lax towards consumer protection, preferring to side with the businesses that perpetrate any such scams. Money equals power, so the party wiht the most money tends to win.

I hope that was halfway useful to you.

Edited by Kayeka on May 10th 2020 at 9:54:50 PM

to deep in answers.

In many way for them improving men is to help them get back the sense of maleness that is center around of "having" woman with your skills which is a prove you are worth(in the same way being pretty and well behave is proof of being a good woman), woman and feminism have bring a culture shift that have afected how males behave and see themselves, ergo "woman are running dating".

In the same way the reason hooker are vilified are twofold: men are supused to win sex by money,goodlooks,skills,what have you and woman are supused to invest the idea of having sex and reject male who want it(in a educated guess) I will guess part of it come from the fact christianity as religion is heavy invest in the idea of good and proper behivor(orthodoxy mean that in fact) so expresive heterosexuality is seen as healthy, so that come the whole degeneracy thing.

Kratistos with the intent to be of assistance, though some of the questions about shadowy congregations in the dark recesses of the net which I prefer to avoid, are beyond my limited grasp.

Women’s emancipation is an ongoing process, and as with all emancipations, adapting is harder for those emancipating than for those losing their advantage, though we’ll hear more complaints from the latter.
While not that perceptive in many ways, these fellows will be very perceptive that their romantic misfortune is related to their losing the comparative advantage afforded them by society, the P-word (“perk”?)
No wonder they will support political views which support them getting the perk of women being subservient to them and being grateful for that, too. Not that there would be no such women in a more just society, they just won’t have to put up with those jerks unless they want to. Though even in that fat chance, the jerks would dismiss most of these gals for not living up to their “high standards” anyway, fools be demandin’.
And so they’ll keep moaning how they tried being nice guys and failed, how they tried being arseholes but to no avail; sure there are gals who want nice guys, just not their kind of nice guys, and gals who want arseholes, just not their kind of arseholes.

When it comes to widely criticising prostitution, it’s not so much about the likely abuse of the hooker by both pimp and john, more about what they see as lack of commitment and character from the john. You are probably familiar with the expression “why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?”; itself a description of marriage as buying the cow so you won’t have to pay for the milk, where the cow is a metaphor for the wife, milk a metaphor for sex, and buying a metaphor for buying. According to this view, virtue demands that guy earns his wife; though earning sex by hiring a hooker will be tolerated though despised. As for women uninterested in being earned, or uninterested in men or sex, they’ll be deemed little better than hookers, at best.
In the Bad Old Days, prostitution was the only form of sex outside of marriage that was more or less tolerated, hence a brothel being called a house of tolerance. Again it has often nothing to do with concern for the woman’s consent, wife or hooker, since in many of the most affluent democracies, rape within the confines of marriage, the wife’s “conjugal duty”, was legal in the 1980s and even well into the 90s, in many other countries till later still.
Then there’s the pervasive matter of these guys’ self-esteem, those for whom a manly man doesn’t need to pay for sex, he can either seduce her through a combination of charm and intimidation, bamboozle her, or take her by force the old-fashioned way, with which their self-esteem has no trouble with.

@Kayeka I appreciate the detailed reply. 3-I'm guessing these groups are first political entities and secondly meant to give dating advice. It's very strange how politicized the USA has become. 4-This reason why I think a version of MGTOW(without the sexism) or a similar movement would be helpful. Since it seems that those men are no longer trying to "get" women but rather if they have sexual needs can go to a brothel or an escort.

@Unknowing Yes, I think that once this cultural expectation goes down that's where this attitude might start changing.

@Alityros The Philosopher The common pattern I'm seeing is cultural expectations for both men and women. Once these cultural expectations start decreasing we might start seeing change.

@Everyone I appreciate your comments. In general, I think there's too much politics going on. Maybe once a new democrat becomes president a new era can begun.

I fear it'll take a lot more than just a new guy in the White House to change political/social discourse in the US.

Yeah, the discourse has been going on for a while and we’ve had democratic presidents in office several times since feminism really began. Biden winning isn’t going to suddenly end that struggle any more than having Obama or Clinton in office did. Cultural values don’t begin and end with whoever our president is.

Also, this kind of thing is always going to be political on account of weirdos in the Mra sphere wanting to take away hard won rights like voting. And, you know, making women the literal property of men. They’re not likely to accomplish any of these goals, but these far right creeps have very entrenched political ideology in their philosophy.

And anyway “too political” or whatever is really kind of a meaningless description of the ongoing struggle and cultural change going on.

Edited by AceofSpades on May 14th 2020 at 2:02:53 PM

@Kratistos yes indeed, cultural expectations which include reward and punishment, and which claim to be best suited to our true nature. Those making such claims will use pretexts either religious or naturalist, and when the latter are disputed by scientific evidence, claimants will be claiming “scientitians be in the pockets of occult nefarious agenda anywhat” as with denying evolution being a thing, denying climate change being one too and we did it, and some such.

We’d all win should culture change positively, although those most advantaged will win less than the disadvantaged such as women, though the latter will still have a harder time at it, for a while.
So many still enjoying these comparative advantages afforded them by society (the P word), will try to preserve them when not to regain more of them, even though they’re still losing overall, but others do lose more, even still. This preference for losing as long as others lose more rather than risking winning less, is one of the many reasons why our lives ain’t all that swell and grand.

Edited by AlityrosThePhilosopher on May 14th 2020 at 9:09:44 AM

Zero-sum thinking does make everyone's life miserable and one of the main reasons why we can't have nice thing.

I have a few more questions on US Culture; I'm trying to learn more. Not trying to bash anyone, I think there's a lot of great things about American culture. However, there are also some very puzzling things:

1-Why are there so many moral guardians in US culture, especially when it comes to anime where blood, sexual references, nudity, violence are heavily censored? 2-Is there fewer divisions between fiction and reality? For instance, when I was growing up, my parents let me watch all sorts of anime with zero censorship since they understood fiction is fiction, and reality is reality. Most parents in my year group operated that same way. 3-Moreover, why does Amerian or Anglo Civilization breeds a lot of extremists? For instance, my friend told me that growing up in his household; they never talked about sex, alcohol, or drugs. He was forbidden from getting involved in this. Therefore, once he went to college, he did all of this, including a lot of risky behavior like unprotected sex, getting hammered, and doing LSD and other drugs. Meanwhile, a lot of non-American friends who I grew up with never made this transformation. Most of them transitioned to adult life in a much healthier there would be a social element. 4-While are American parents so sheltering then when the kids are 18; all bets are off? It seems very strange. I knew this girl whose parents would be hyper-protective would not even let her use makeup; however, she wasn't allowed to go back home once she became an adult(18). She had to sleep with random people to have a place to stay.

Edited by Kratistos on May 15th 2020 at 10:17:30 AM

A lot of that has to do with America never really shedding its Puritan heritage, the rise of the Religious Right over the past several decades, and the traditionalist culture formed by each, that in recent years in particular has been fought to uphold harder and harder as Society Marches On.

The Puritans followed the Bible as if it was their own personal Constitution, so a lot of those values come from their Fire and Brimstone interpretation of scripture. "No sex before marriage" is where the pushback against sexual content comes from, and "no alcohol" stems from the transformation of Jesus' "drink in moderation" message to "drink not at all".

The anti-drug thing came later when Nixon created the "War on Drugs", continued by Reagan in the 80s, as an excuse to arrest black people en masse. Furthermore, people with more traditionalist values believe heavily in "monkey see, monkey do"; they think if their children see people having sex, drinking, and smoking, they'll want to do it, too, so they spend much of their time campaigning against such content instead of, you know, parenting.

Extremism is mostly reactionary; a backlash against a backlash, so to speak. When people began to question the aforementioned values, typically those hurt by them, those who benefited from them felt threatened. The extremists, sensing their worldview and way of life in danger harder than others, were and are the ones who reacted by doubling down — tripling down, really — enforcing and imposing their values on anyone who dissented by any means, trying to get "their" America back. Naturally, a lot of this has to do with white supremacy.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on May 15th 2020 at 2:21:22 PM