Open Thread

The Open Thread: October 2017 (Part II)

The monthly Open Thread is a place for open discussion among my readers. Post anything you feel like sharing! As the October thread has gathered over 100 comments already, I’m opening a second thread.

The stage is yours. Go ahead! Oh, and if you like my blog, then consider throwing a few coins into the tip jar, and buy my books! They are great.

56 thoughts on “The Open Thread: October 2017 (Part II)

  1. Aaron,
    I guess that having kids is something you want in the future.
    So, I was wondering how you’d go about raising them. Would you go by gut feeling and also using the template your parents laid out or would you read up on it?
    The topic is getting interesting to me and I want to make things better than one generation ago, so if you have a recommendation book-wise, I’ll be happy to hear your thoughts.

    1. I’d go for a mixture of all three. At this point, I can’t give any book recommendations, though. In general, I suspect that a lot of literature in that field is complete nonsense, simply based on the fact that the academic discipline of educational studies is a complete joke.

    2. Just my 2 cents,but I think that with a subject as serious as parenting,you’re going to need something like personal training from qualified professionals. I’m not saying you can’t write a good book about it,but such a thing would serve as a useful reference at best once you’ve already received training,but not as a cheap replacement to it. It would be like trying to learn Martial arts/Physical self-defense using just a book or DVD. While its not totally impossible to pull it off,you’re probably going to cause more harm than good trying to go that route. (Not to mention,make the already difficult task of parenting even harder than it has to be because you have no clear map/plan and you’re relying on trial and error)

    3. You would have a point if academia wasn’t so thoroughly infested by leftists. Those people have caused immeasurable harm. By pushing laissez-faire methods in education and child-rearing, they managed to raise a generation of lazy, entitled, misbehaving, intolerant bigots who are unable to construct a proper argument because they internalized that it is sufficient to shout terms like racist or Nazi to get one’s way.

    4. @Maou
      I agree on some sort of coaching, whatever, some qualification, a permit, a psychological opinion – who the hell knows.
      Weapons permit, fishers permit, drivers licence… but hey, incompetent idiots pumping out babies at will? Sure go ahead…

    5. Aparently nature is more important than nurture. But you can still traumatize your kids with abusive upbringing and make them pissed off. Like asian parents sometimes do. In other words you cant really help your children by being amazing but you can hurt them by being lousy.

    6. @Neutralrandomthoughts
      LOL! Indeed you’re right,we require training for many things,but apparently not for parenting. sigh.

      @Jon
      You’re correct,Genes matter. This is why I support the idea of “Designer Babies.”
      I’m likely going to be childfree for the rest of my life,but in the hypothetical(unlikely)event that I become a multi-millionaire in a future when technology had greatly advanced,I would only consider having children if I were legally allowed to have them genetically engineered with the very best genes.

      Of course,this is just among the “unlikely to happen” checklists I have for me to even consider becoming a father,but its an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.

    7. Fuck the “qualified professionals”.

      Mankind has raised kids for generations without experts just fine.

      I would go the opposite way and argue that the importance of licenses for a lot of stuff including driving and guns is vastly overrated.

    8. @Yarara
      “Mankind has raised kids for generations without experts just fine.”
      – Considering that a significant percentage of our overpopulated society are undisciplined and incompetent,and how a lot of parents are forced to put up with unruly and bratty children,I beg to differ.

      I don’t know about you,but if I’m going to make a very serious and life-changing decision like becoming a parent,I’d damn well make sure I’m as prepared as I could be. Anything less and you run the serious risk of creating a permanent problem in your life(and your child’s life). You want to see the results of bad parenting? search “out of control kids/children” on Youtube. (and needless to say,going the other extreme and physically abusing your kids isn’t the solution either and will create a whole new set of problems)

      Here’s my favorite example,lol:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EjolpEEdcc

      Of course,I realize that not all so called “qualified professionals” have the good info. so it’ll be put up to the person to do their own research to find the true qualified sources. or they could go in unprepared and use the trial-and-error approach that the average parent does and gamble how it turns out. Its their life after all.

    9. Most kids nowadays grow up in low-income households. This includes staggering numbers of single mothers. Those people do not raise kids on trial and error or common sense. Instead, they care very little about their children and see them as nothing more than walking government paychecks. Their parenting style is one of utter neglect.

      The average parent is a fucking idiot, plain simple. In the case of the lower classes, they are low-IQ parasites. Add to that a myriad of single mothers who, by and large, make shockingly bad decisions about their lives. You can’t expect stable kids to come out of that. It is really shocking that we in the West allow families to exist who have persisted on welfare payments for multiple generations. But, sure, those children are our future. Fuck no, they are not. In popular mythology, one of those kids of low-IQ inbreds may end up curing cancer, which is about as likely as me running 100m in 8.5 seconds.

    10. “see them as nothing more than walking government paychecks”

      That’s something which is hard to believe for me – this type of objectification of children. The thinking that goes like “make a baby, this will equal xyz amount of money every month over the next 18 years”.
      Maybe it’s because I could never do that myself, I just can’t. We’re talking about humans after all, what the fuck….

      I really liked the whole comment. Very well written.

    11. I don’t know about the situation in Switzerland, but in Germany there is enormous asymmetric incentivization of the underclass to produce children. Look up how much money a family of five or six in which the parents do not work will get paid month after month! No wonder they pump out one kid after another, and that kind of human debris then floods our schools. If Western governments had any sense, they would either scrap child support altogether or tie it to income, i.e. the more the head of the family makes, the more you get in child support. Limit this to the middle income band and you’ll create massive incentivization of productive people who are able to serve as role models to have children. (High-income earners would not need that kind of handouts as they make enough money.)

      Instead, we have families in which there is nobody alive who ever was gainfully employed. I would laugh if it wasn’t reality.

    12. @Yarara
      “Mankind has raised kids for generations without experts just fine.”

      I think the methods used just two generations ago are more than questionionable. The consensus was and in some places today still is, that physical punishment is a valid form of raising children.
      So, no, things weren’t “just fine”.
      The laissez-faire counter-reaction by the (I guess) 1968 hippies didn’t produce anything good either, see the snowflake generation today.
      I think what we must understand is that kids want to collaborate and that if a kid is frustrated and it’s a childish reaction, then that frustration is part of the learning process, too. No need to beat the child, no need to make it the center of the world and fulfill every oh so irrational wish.

      My hope is that we are finding the good middle ground soon.

    13. “I don’t know about the situation in Switzerland”
      I’m not an expert either, but knowing that the city of Zürich cut social welfare for asylum seekers recently, I assume that the incentive to pump out baby after baby is much lower.
      I do see Yussuf and Ali at the trainstation, but I rarely see a veiled fat Aishe with 4 kids on the bus.
      So yes, your common-sense approach works.

    14. Physical punishment is still largely seen as valid in Asia…and I say this drily. Pinching, caning, slaps on the face or hand are common punishments for a child’s (or even young teen’s) misbehaviour or wrongdoing. A friend of mine got it worse– his father used a belt.

      There’s a “peaceful parenting” school of thought out there, with Molyneux being a strong advocate of it. He has a playlist devoted to the topic, which I think is pretty solid material. It’s not just about raising children without aggression, but also about teaching children from a young age how to reason and negotiate. So instead of just telling them why they can’t have more candy, you have to explain and help them understand why too much candy is bad for them, and get them on board with your programme. It’s a slow and tedious process, trying to teach children from such a young age how to reason, but I can imagine that it’d be very rewarding in the long run. Molyneux also says that he asks his daughter for feedback on him (“What’s your experience of me today? What did you like and not like so much?”), which may not sit well with egotistical types. It’s a pretty radical parenting approach.

      One of the difficulties I see with executing this is that your child’s entire environment and lifestyle have to be in sync with its principles. You have to eliminate contradictions stemming from both you and external sources. You can’t teach your child that the better argument wins, but continue to put him or her in a school where the teachers expect obedience just because. Your child would see that you’re not walking the talk, and your teaching would be undermined as a result.

    15. Sleazy Gal

      I’m interested – that friend of yours, does he exhibit problematic behaviour in his relationship to other men? I don’t want to give hints, I’m curious to hear your observation.

      Totally agree with that “walk the talk” you mentioned. Children are great at spotting a lack of congruence in their parents. Worse, they learn that you can say one thing, expect it from others and then do something else yourself. The arising stubborness is so immense, it’s unbelievable. Children always win the battle of being more stubborn than their parents, maybe not in the beginning, but as they get older and parents can’t enforce their way with physical punishment anymore (it becomes ridiculous at some point), children win. Problem is that till then, often two decades have passed by. End result is a mixture of love, hate, sadness and anger.
      Be real, walk the talk, don’t enforce stubborness, it’s a losing game, even if it looks like parents are “winning”, when they get their kids to follow their will after a beating.

      And now, honestly, how can you slap a helpless little creature in the face?
      – “oh, wait till you have children, you’ll see…” – This argument is shit. I’ve found out that I get along well with kids with whose parents I get along well with. Simple as that. Good people makes good parents makes good kids.

    16. He seems to get along with other men fine. Then again, it could be that I don’t know him well enough to tell.

  2. Is Assanova still around? Lately I noticed his articles are online, again. They worked great for motivation part until I got to read older ones. From what I see, he is (chronologically) advocating game, then unclear about it, then “just advance”. I think this is dishonest. It’s like I spent some years learning programming then started telling people “it was in my blood, and it’s in your blood too! Just start!”

    1. I haven’t read enough of him, but it’s common that people believe overcomplicated nonsense at first, but overtime start to understand that much of what they believed is “fluff” that makes no discernible difference. This is true in every area.

      Novice lifters tend to overcomplicate lifting weights. Experienced weighlifters will tell you “just lift heavy, don’t make it more complicated than that”.

  3. I prefer to have sex at her place so I can leave soon afterwards. But when a girl comes over to my place it can you get awkward when I want her to leave. I don’t want to kick her out except that I do. Have you guys found a good solution to this issue?

    I similarly feel awkward after having sex with a girl and then running into her constantly in my social circle. Is this just left over societal condition? I sort of feel guilty for “using her” even though I think it’s pretty clearI don’t want a relationship.

    1. But when a girl comes over to my place it can you get awkward when I want her to leave. I don’t want to kick her out except that I do.

      It means you weren’t direct enough that this is just sex. I usually have the girls escort themselves out, no kicking out needed.

      Is this just left over societal condition?

      yes.

    2. This is interesting to me as I came across the same problems. However, I have not found the solutions to them. I think that most girls like dating within their social circle because of this exact reason. My humble two cents on this is to not care about the problem anymore. Do what you want. At least that works for me sometimes.

  4. “I prefer to have sex at her place so I can leave soon afterwards. But when a girl comes over to my place it can you get awkward when I want her to leave. I don’t want to kick her out except that I do. Have you guys found a good solution to this issue? ”

    –> And why can’t she stay at your place? Why are you so hard on her? If she has an unbearable personality and you “have to” kick her out, why do you spend time in form of sex with her in the first place?

    “I similarly feel awkward after having sex with a girl and then running into her constantly in my social circle. Is this just left over societal condition?”

    –> If you feel awkward then either you are not at peace with yourself or your social circle sucks. The latter is less probable.

    “I sort of feel guilty for “using her” even though I think it’s pretty clear I don’t want a relationship.”

    –> Have you nurtured feelings for a potential shot at a relationship with her? If not then you can expect her to understand the context of the sex you had, that is just a hook-up.
    The general rule is: If you feel guilt whenever something positive happens in your life and you feel like you don’t deserve it, you should seek professional help.

    1. @Aaron, is it possible to make this comment a reply to GMoney’s initial post?

  5. What’s up with all this “me-too” hashtags recently? I suddenly have several female facebook “friends” post it. Is it supposed to express that they were raped, too? Any connections to that Holliwood stuff recently?

    1. I don’t actively use Facebook. My best bet would be that it’s another round of trying to get attention as alleged victims of sexual harassment.

    2. It’s a great way of tagging themselves as a girl to be avoided. While I’m compassionate to genuine victims. You don’t know if she’s posting the tag because she really was, or if she’s a soulless cunt who’d throw you under the bus to get attention.

      So better err on the side of caution and avoid any of the girls who post this tag. Don’t even talk to them. They can distort everything and anything into “this dude was totally creeping on me”.

    3. They conflate “creepy” guys attempt to flirting with actual violent harassment. When you point that out they cry victim blaming.
      “oh noo some guys discussed that they would fuck me and I heard that #metoo”
      These shallow cunts totally discredit and understate the experience of real victims.
      Dishonest.

  6. Uhm, what the fuck is this garbage? This is one of the most terrible songs I’ve ever heard, and I’m not just saying that. The messed up part is that it’s got nearly a quarter of a billion views.

    https://youtu.be/PEGccV-NOm8

    This goes to show how much people have degenerated over the years. This isn’t even catchy, well produced or anything. It’s just some slut talking shit over a shit beat.

    1. This is horrible!

      I think pop music hit a real low with Beyonce’s “Run the world”. The lyrics consist of little more than the ungrammatical phrase “Who run the world – girls” and “We run this motherfucker”, which refers to the planet, repeated over and over. Pop culture really is for idiots.

    2. Sleazy
      What’s some recently released music you like listening too?
      I’m a big fan of the two channels ‘Stoned Meadow of Doom’ has on youtube. Curious about you.

    3. What about those beats…something like “binaural beats” that help with mindfulness or meditation?

    1. Video description for the youtube link:

      Tyler Malka, the CEO/Owner of NeoGAF, the largest gaming forum on the internet is currently watching Rome burn because of allegations made against him.

    2. Thanks for posting this! Incidentally, I noticed that NeoGAF is currently down. I think that NeoGAF is full of male feminists and a rather unpleasant place in general. Yet, it’s a decent enough place for gaming news. Whenever I visit, though, I think I should not bother with it anymore and just get my news from the Nintendo newsletter.

    3. It’s almost like these manginas who are “male feminists” are actually sexual predators using the “you go grrrrrl” as their sheep’s clothing.

      It’s funny how there’s this Ben Affleck “scandal”. The trashy show “Entertainment Tonight” interviewed the woman who was supposedly assaulted on-camera by Affleck. Two interesting things:
      1) Man, she hit the wall hard!
      2) Still, good on her for telling the truth and telling everyone to chill the f–k out. She could have easily attention-whored and got views/popularity.

      Here’s the video:
      http://www.etonline.com/real-story-behind-ben-afflecks-resurfaced-touchy-feely-interview-canadian-reporter-exclusive-89036

    4. Weak males ALWAYS get weeded out of the genetic pool, no matter what your feminist dimwitted cunt can say.
      Strong males on the other get pussy served on a silver plate, and if he has a well-paid job, the better. There was a very famous page on my country about soldiers, marines and police officers who shared pics, videos and selfies about themselves. For every handsome soldier or cop who uploaded his selfie, there was HUNDREDS of horny women catcalling them.

  7. Aaron,

    Was in Stockholm this past weekend for a quick business trip, friend tagged along. You’ve mentioned Stockholm in your past writing. Is it just me or is the nightlife severely lacking? Other than 2 clubs in Ostermalm closer to the city center that seemed jammed packed til 3AM, we ventured elsewhere and into Gamlastan and Sodermalm and everything seemed to close by 1. Going again in a month for work – can you point us in the right direction? Thanks!

    1. The last time I was in Stockholm, I noticed hordes of dark-skinned men in the Stureplan area who likely caused plenty of women to rather stay indoors.

      It’s certainly possible to go out on a Saturday and walk into a club that is not particularly busy. In your case, one particular aspect of Swedish society only made it worse: Swedes are not known to handle their money well, and going out is fairly expensive. Furthermore, Swedes get their salary on the 25th of the month. As a consequence, the weekend after the 25th is normally really busy and the weekend before — in your case the 20th and 21st — it is quite the opposite.

      For mainstream venues, go to Stureplan. For a more indie feel, i.e. a grimy, Berlin-style club, check out Under Bron in Sodermalm.

  8. Interesting, I expected to see a lot more immigrants when I was there – obviously they might be in a certain area. I saw dark skinned girl spit in the face of a Russian woman though…

    Expensive is an understatement – made NYC look cheap. Alright will check it out – thanks!

    1. You’re welcome.

      By the way, if you want to get a better feel how expensive Stockholm really is, look up salary levels!

    1. Sweden is really worth it if you are an illegal immigrant with multiple wives and a dozen kids. You’ll make out like a bandit. The government gives them free housing, free healthcare, money for blow, child support, free child care, free schools, and so on, and so forth. Here is a particularly egregious case:
      “Nacka municipality has bought three condominiums in Saltsjöbaden, outside of Stockholm, for a total of 13,950,000 SEK for an immigrant with three wives, reveals SD Nacka on its Facebook page.”
      (http://www.savemysweden.com/sweden-three-condominiums-muslim-immigrant-three-wives-children/)

      As a regular Joe, your only sane reaction is to say “Up yours!” to the government and emigrate.

  9. Headline: Left-wing Icon Leon Wieseltier Admits to ‘Offenses’ Against Female Employees; Loses Magazine

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/10/25/left-wing-icon-wieseltier-admits-offenses-female-employees/

    I can’t say it’s possible to gloat too much. And this is just one of dozens such stories on a daily basis.

    These are the same men who worked hard to promote feminist theories about rape culture and ever expanding definitions of harrasment.

    In their hubris, they thought they were being clever and that it would serve to eliminate their competitors in the mating game. Little did they know it would come back to bite them in the ass.

    Karma is a fair queen.

  10. Oh boy, look at what I stumbled upon! A Kickstarter for a children’s book on Trump’s presidency: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ronaldplump/how-the-people-trumped-ronald-plump-a-childrens-bo

    I quote the authors:
    “If you have children and you believe in teaching them that we are all equal and that we all deserve a chance, no matter where we come from, what we believe in or what the colour of our skin may be, then President Trump may seem like a roadblock in teaching our children these lessons. Both of us have young children and we want them to grow up in a world free of hate, bigotry, and immoral behaviour.”

    According to the illustrations, children will be taught that Trump won the presidency by cheating and lying, and men and women are created equal, amongst others. The thought that children would be indoctrinated with this is appalling! I shudder if this gets funded.

    1. The author is of the typical lying-through-your-teeth leftist scumbags. In the comment section on the Kickstarter page, he makes the following statement:

      “This is not a political book what-so-ever. It teaches morals, love, inclusion and selflessness.”

    2. Sleazy’s Gal: “The thought that children would be indoctrinated with this is appalling!” Yes it is. But hardly the worse thing they teach in school. They are teaching children of 5 yo about trans-sexuals. The only way to prevent the brainwashing of children seems to be home schooling. It’s all part of the plan. Now they have most women in the workforce. They can brainwash all the children from a early age. The parents are no longer the ones teaching their children values. The schools, institutions, government and media are teaching children what to think. These people are just like wolves. One distract’s the father, one distract’s the mother. And the others take the children while the parents are distracted. This was one of the original reasons they started the feminist movement. Now there’s no one standing in between them and the children. Daddy is working or even completely out of the picture. Mom is to occupied with trying to combine career and household work. And meanwhile they’re teaching this shit.

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