something_else

Some people are lucky that they have a kind of natural motivation and drive. Some other people are lucky that they find their purpose in life early. There are lots of different reasons. Generally people who seem to have crazy energy levels are very internally motivated and don't need to burn through a lot of willpower to stay motivated. A lot of us are externally motivated and we need to burn through our willpower reserves to keep motivated, which is not sustainable and burns you out.

Wow I haven’t seen this dude in probably 10 years

Great argument Use your imagination sometimes, watch porn sometimes. Can you actually explain why you think porn is bad for you instead of just asserting that it is the case? IMO in moderation porn isn't bad for you, but if you believe it is then you'll feel guilt and shame and a whole other concoction of negative emotions.

The problem here is the shame, not the jerking off to porn. Jerking off once a day is not going to hurt you in any meaningful way unless you attach a ton of shame to it.

My general opinion is that once you hit 25, everything is fair game. 21-25 is a bit of a grey area, it depends on circumstances. <21 the age gap should rarely exceed 2-3 years. 30 and 20 is extreme and I think most people would agree with that. What on earth do a 30 year old and a 20 year old have in common? Almost nothing Yea that $30 saved from not buying things on amazon and having subscriptions is really gonna save you from your $2000/m rent for a two bed house Watching stuff about the modern world isn't the same as actually living in it. If you have next to zero real life experience you'll struggle to raise healthy children.

It's not like these are the only two options. Financially stable with kids is the realistic ideal for most people. You'd need a man in the top 10% of earners to comfortably support a mother and multiple kids on a single income. By definition there aren't enough men in the top 10% to make this a viable option for most couples/women. This isn't the 50s anymore where a median income could support an entire family. Also, a 30 year old has little business dating a 20 year old. He'd be using her as a sex/breeding machine and she'd be using him as an ATM, because there will be little to no emotional connection with that age difference in the vast majority of cases. The grandparents who also haven't really lived a life because they had kids at 19? They also haven't existed or lived in the modern world, they can provide some general life wisdom but not as much practical advice as parents who actually lived a life in somewhat modern times.

Having a kid at 20 in the modern world is generally not very sustainable unless you were born into an already wealthy family or you somehow find a rich husband. A dude earning median salary (or even significantly above median) is not going to be able to support his 20 year old wife and their kids. Providing a good life for a family on a single average income is just not feasible now. Also, if you have zero career skills at 45 and try to enter the workforce, nobody is going to hire you. The difficulty in kickstarting a successful career at 45 is INSANE. Honestly, I don't get the big deal with having kids in your late twenties or early thirties. You get to actually experience the world instead of being stuck at home 24/7, plus you are more financially stable when you do decide to have kids so you can provide a better life for them. I don't have proof for this, but I suspect that parents who have actually lived their own lives before having kids make better parents. How are you expected to teach your kids how to live a good life if you never have?

He's the perfect example of a very intelligent person who has a deeply flawed world view. He can create extremely convincing, eloquent, and logical arguments which resonate with a lot of people... but they're all based on a deeply flawed view of the world.

I have no idea what point you’re even trying to make here. This reads like an acid trip ramble

What in the fuck are you smoking Most of the cringiest corniest things I have heard or saw have all been from US people. Are you seriously trying to suggest that your average American is less corny than your average German?

I think women typically prefer balanced men. It is not really correct to say they prefer betas or alphas. The ideal is a man who is masculine, but not so masculine that they become scary. Confident, but not arrogant. Physically strong, but not obscene looking. You get the idea. The flawed thinking here is that these balanced men (who women really do prefer) are 'beta'. Or in other words that not being hyper-masculine makes you a beta. This just isn't true. The men who are well balanced overall don't fit the stereotypical definition of a beta, nor the definition of an alpha. Generally a beta is a dude who lacks confidence, is kinda boring, doesn't have anything particularly unique or interesting about him. Not many women are going to look for a man like that.

This is so judgy

I‘m surprised you’ve made out with 10 women in a night and not got laid with any then. Because in my experience at least 50% of the women I’ve kissed in clubs have ended up sleeping with me

I’m guessing that because you’re in a conservative Muslim city, hooking up is a lot more frowned upon? You’re probably making the right call to move. Logistics wise, I got laid the most in my life when I lived a 30 second walk from the door to a nightclub. Fun times.

I don’t need alcohol to socialise anymore because I drank alcohol and used it to gain massive social experience, despite being very socially anxious. Although I do still enjoy it occasionally if I want a really fun night. Alcohol basically cured my social anxiety by giving me the confidence to go and find out that socialising is actually really fun and not something to be scared of. I have so many crazy experiences, stories, and friends that I just would not have if I didn’t drink. These experiences would actually be worth sacrificing 10 years off the end of my life for me, although I don’t think I’ve actually drank enough to do that.

It’ll probably get you laid. Or at least make it much easier. If you’re socially anxious and you need a way to relax when you’re out partying or whatever, a bit of alcohol goes a long way. The risk to reward ratio is very favourable if you drink in moderation. I’ve tried cocaine a few times and it’s not worth it. Some people seem to really enjoy it but it just felt like I’d drank a few red bulls. And it cost me like $80. For the price tag and the health/addiction risks it’s not remotely close to being worth it. It’s not going to ruin your life instantly like the other two drugs you mentioned but it’s just a terrible risk to reward ratio. It’s kind of obvious that taking heroin or meth is a terrible idea. That can actually destroy your life just by taking it once or twice. So don’t.

He seems pretty certain these have no side effects, but I really doubt that.

I think you may be overthinking this

@Princess Arabia Women enjoy interesting men, there is no doubt about that. A big part of being interesting is having some depth/intrigue about you. Men who find a healthy balance between being open + direct and interesting + mysterious are usually the ideal. Obviously it depends on the woman but in general I find that tends to hold true.

Thanks for the links. Looking at the actual numbers from these studies, the correlations between number of sexual partners and relationship stability are there, but they're very small. There's typically a negative correlation of around -0.1 to -0.2 between no. of partners and things like relationship satisfaction and stability. That's very much in the weak correlation category. For reference I think 0.3 to 0.5 would be considered moderate and above that would be considered strong. You can see that correlation between many of the other categories (e.g. communication, sexual quality) in the chart below sit around 0.6, showing that they are far more important qualities. My statistics is a bit rusty, but I'm pretty sure you can calculate the estimated percentage effect of the no. of sexual partners on relationship stability by squaring the R value. So in this case the correlation between no. of partners and relationship stability is -0.17, so that works out at (-0.17**2) * 100 = ~2.8%. That means no. of sexual partners accounts for around 2.8% of the total variance in relationship stability. While for communication, this works out at around 35%. So this kind of shows the same thing as what I've seen in other studies. There is a correlation there, but it's definitely weak.

What issues that these people care about do we focus 50% of our political bandwidth on?

You made good points in this comment. However on this point in particular, the studies I've seen are never particularly convincing. IIRC there is a massive jump in divorce rate between 0 and 1 premarital partners and a minor but not especially significant jump between 1 premarital partner and 10+ The issue is that a majority of people with 0 premarital partners are heavily religious and would be prevented or discouraged from getting divorced even if it was the right decision.

Jesus dude, I missed your reply. Calm down I just assumed that by referring to 'the wokes' you were talking about left leaning people in general. That's typically how the word 'woke' is used nowadays. I guess what you meant by it was extremely left people, bordering on hippies—and sure—I guess they are not particularly focused on practical solutions. I can't say I've met many of these people though. Usually left leaning people of all degrees are very much aware of the issues you listed.

It should be easy enough for you to do it again then. I'd appreciate it if you could explicitly point out the: mental gymnastics fallacies hypocrisy the points you made which I ignored (this one confuses me the most because you posted a video and an article, you didn't make any points) anti-meritocracy misuse of statistics Because I'm struggling to see any of those in my post. I talked briefly about asymmetries in other industries. In female dominated fields there should be a drive to hire more men, for the same reason. There usually is to some extent, especially in healthcare for example, although it's not as intense as it is in fields like tech. This is just a strawman. I did not say white men all have an easy life. Men have plenty of challenges in life. On average white men have an easier time building a career than white women, though.

A true meritocracy would be amazing, but it’s just not possible. At least not anytime soon. Humans are too biased for that. Even if we could make hiring decisions perfectly merit-based, it would still be unfair because the playing field isn’t level to begin with. If white people are far more likely to have access to quality education than black people, then even a “pure” meritocracy (where equal education leads to equal hiring chances) still reinforces inequality. To have a truly fair meritocracy, you’d need a truly fair society. One where everyone has the same opportunities from the start, especially in education. And right now, we’re nowhere close to that.