0:12 - Soft Drinks and Poverty
4:53 - Bill Maher and the Snow White Trailer
5:56 - Hypocrisy in Ourselves
11:36 - Milo Yiannopoulos and Personal Loss
18:35 - The State of Feminism and Relationships
25:12 - Status and Social Dynamics
In this episode, we dive into the impact of influencer culture and its troubling connections with big corporations, particularly around the topics of nutrition and socioeconomic disparities. I discuss how prominent right-wing influencers have received undisclosed payments to promote soft drinks as acceptable choices for SNAP benefits, despite the known health risks associated with these beverages. We delve into the implications of these actions on communities struggling with poverty, highlighting how unhealthy food choices can perpetuate cycles of low energy and lack of motivation.
The conversation shifts to examining social phenomena surrounding hope and personal reflection. I ponder whether hope can devolve into shame if one continues to expect change from those unlikely to provide it, drawing parallels to popular culture, specifically the Netflix portrayal of societal negligence towards young men. While critiquing the narratives around masculinity, I argue that societal failures must be addressed without simply placing the blame entirely on gender norms.
We also touch on the dynamics of marital happiness, discussing the differing levels of satisfaction among various demographics of women and the underlying factors contributing to these statistics. This leads us to a broader analysis of contemporary cultural discussions, including an intriguing critique of feminist literature and the perception of male achievement in the arts. I reference statistical evidence revealing the challenges faced by young white male writers in today's literary landscape, underlining a cultural shift that raises questions about equity in artistic expression.
The nature of personal relationships and societal interactions is further explored as I respond to listener questions and commentary, particularly the phenomenon of public mockery in romantic partnerships. I emphasize the importance of respect and support within relationships and question the motivations behind behaviors that foster public ridicule.
Throughout the episode, I frequently challenge listeners to confront their own biases and examine the societal norms that influence behavior and perception. This introspection is crucial as we navigate a landscape laden with mixed messages about identity, value, and success. I encourage an open dialogue around the sometimes uncomfortable truths about human relationships and the media that shape our views.
In the closing moments, I reflect on the current sociopolitical climate, hinting at the interconnectedness of personal and collective experiences. We wrap up with insights into how societal expectations shape individual identities and influence interpersonal dynamics, ultimately encouraging listeners to foster a greater understanding of themselves and those around them.
[0:02] Yeah, Andy Ngo said, Many influencers on the right appear to have taken undisclosed payments to post big soda talking points about continuing to allow food benefits or SNAP to be used on soft drinks.
[0:12] Soft drinks offer no nutritional value and is associated with the prevalence of the overweight, obese, and those with chronic tooth decay. It is devastating on those living in poverty. A similar undisclosed right-wing influencing was recently observed by some of those propping up TikTok and Pfizer. Yeah... Somebody said, Nick Sorter writes, these influencers were given a couple of templates used by Influencible, with one of those templates specifically telling them to mention Trump's Diet Coke habit. Yeah, it's wild, man. I mean, if you have bad food, then you have low energy, which tends to keep you kind of poor, because you lack energy and motivation to go and get jobs and all that kind of stuff, right? That's crazy. They could be proactive and ask for a gifted sub yeah, why is it so easy to see hypocrisy in yourself but it's so obvious in other people, i think most people have easier time seeing hypocrisy in others and not themselves but maybe you're the exception somebody says are hope and shame connected hope and shame connected.
[1:26] I do think at some point, hope does become shameful. I mean, if you're 50 and your mom is like 75 and you're still hoping for her to change, that is kind of shameful.
[1:43] Have you watched Adolescence on Netflix? Oh, that's the British story where they race-swapped the murderer. I think it's interesting that it dares to broach the topic of incels with a critical eye towards parents and society failing their children. Ultimately, I think it falls short as it still largely lays the blame at masculinity. Yeah, for sure. It's a known issue that when soda was allowed on Snap, Snap recipients would just buy cases of soda and then resell them just to get some cash. Yeah, for sure. Somebody says, I had written some journal entries some months ago, letters to family members with their judgments of me. On the way home this week, I bought a fire pot from Walmart and burned them. I assume the letter is not the family. Okay. The letters went out so quickly, it was surprising, and then it hurt. Something shifted. It's not done, but it's the right direction. Good for you. All right. Let's see what else I have to mention.
[2:41] No group of women are happier than married moms with children. No group of women is less happy than single childless women. Now, of course, you know, this idea that, you know, we have to go and men have to go bang the Karens in order to un-Karen them. No group of women are happier than married moms with children, but it's not like they were unhappy, they got married, had children and became happier. I assume it's because men are more likely to marry happy women, right? But it is kind of a true thing.
[3:12] Um, somebody made a meme, the Spanish Inquisition killing 5,000 over the course of four centuries, the Aztecs casually sacrificing 20,000 a year. That's true. That's true. Just stepping over the crimes of other, right? This was pretty wild. This was pretty wild.
[3:36] So the case for feminist sport, This is, I think, this is peer-reviewed. It says, They maintain, for instance, that the most important explanation for the gap between male and female athletic performance is the difference in opportunity and expectation. Not any natural advantage that men might have over women. In fact, they suggest men have no natural advantage in size and strength at all. Wild man. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men. Although he was twice married, it never occurred him to verify the statement by examining his wife's mouths. Kind of true. And, of course, one of the things that they talk about, I think, in this book is that men are larger because the government says that men should consume more calories, and therefore men just get larger because of that. Isn't that wild? Somebody wrote, So far, prominent conservative influences have brought to you the following. Fake binders supposedly filled with Epstein documents. JFK files that proved nothing and showed nothing we didn't already know. Astro-turfed support for Big Soda to continue poisoning poor Americans on SNAP, EBT, benefits paid for with your tax dollars. Why do any of you follow these accounts? Why bolster their reach through huge follower numbers? What's the point?
[4:53] Anyway, I think that's interesting, to put it mildly.
[5:04] The fact that people still follow bill maher is really quite something, um this one's pretty funny um i'll just do this real briefly but people express how they feel about the snow white trailer in song form right so you can get ai to it if i saw this movie on a plane, I would still walk out. The trailer makes me want to sit on the TV and look at my couch. I paid nothing to watch this trailer, but I already want my money back. Disney, coming to a theater near you. Is that a threat? They should have made Rachel CGI instead. Oh, that's funny.
[5:56] So, let me just get back to your questions and comments.
[6:12] That would be a horrible typo. Sorry, Stef. Meant to say, why is it so hard to see hypocrisy in yourself? Managed to completely flip the meaning. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Look at Mexico with all their deaths. You would think the Aztecs are still in charge. Well, I'm just reverting back to their original shape, right? The Spanish Inquisition only did 5k. I'm shocked. That's like a slow afternoon in Beijing. Well, it is nothing compared to 100 million under communism, right? If one has yielded to the narcissist temporarily to survive the gulag, and they know why they did, can they free themselves later from the chains of the narcissist? Yeah, I mean, if you're obeying because you're in threat and you don't genuinely believe it, but it's when you seek the approval of the tyrant that you're in the mental prison. Obeying the tyrant could be quite valid and healthy, right?
[7:08] So then if the question is, why is it, and it's good that I caught your typo, I guess, is your question is, why is it so hard to see hypocrisy in yourself? Well, because hypocrisy is the price that we pay to continue to feel that evil can be benevolent, right? So if your parents hit you while saying, don't hit people, don't hit others, don't hit children while hitting you, then in order to believe that your parents have some capacity for virtue, then you have to ignore that hypocrisy. You internalize that, and therefore it's hard to see in yourself. Because if you see hypocrisy in yourself, then you see the hypocrisy that was inflicted on you by those in power. Somebody says, I had minor hope for Bill Maher because he would occasionally go against the leftist narrative. I guess this speaks to the theme of your great talk today. Thank you. Yeah, Bill Maher is, honestly, to me, it's just personally, it's just like the definition of the ultimate grifter, right? So when things shift left, then he'll go left. When things shift a little bit to the right, he'll put, he's great marketing, right? So he'll put out a couple of talking points that agree with stuff vaguely on the right, and then all the people on the right will grab it greedily and share it, and he'll make a bunch of money and get a bunch more influence and listeners. But I mean, the man has no principles, right? There's no principle.
[8:29] This one I love, although it also makes me cry. Loméz wrote it on X. One of my favorite stories of the woke era is the sordid tale of Yifeng Chu, an obscure poet whose poem, The Bees, The Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve, was selected for the prestigious Best American Poetry Collection in 2015. What the editors of Best American didn't know was that the same poem had been rejected over 40 times by journals large and small, and that Yi Fen-Chu was not a Chinese woman with a complicated immigration story, but a nondescript white guy from Fort Wayne, Indiana named Michael Derek Hudson, who, after years of summary rejection by the literary establishment, decided to submit his poems under a different name and was immediately vaulted to the heights of success in his field.
[9:21] Right. One of the things I didn't understand at the time, I kind of got it in theater school, but not enough, is that white males are systematically excluded from the art world, right, as a whole, right? So I think since 1984, like not one white guy has been, has had fiction published in the New Yorker and so on. And I didn't really kind of understand that one of the reasons why, although I absolutely love my writing, one of the reasons why I was rejected by publishers with such hostility was because, I assume, racism and sexism, right? That I couldn't have, I couldn't get literary success or be published because I was a white male, and also, of course, because my books are pretty anti-socialist, right? So...
[10:21] Now, this is from Our Marriage, and is it true or not? I don't know, right? But it says, but I'm sure it's happened to people. My wife used to have an OnlyFans. I'm devastated. We got married earlier this year, and everything seemed fine, so I thought. One of my wife's closest friends couldn't make it to the wedding, so she decided to stay with us for the weekend. While we were eating, her friend jokingly asked my wife, is he involved in your small business? I was confused, because, as far as I knew my wife didn't have anything like that so I asked her friend what small business my wife turned red and tried to change the subject but her friend said oh she used to do only fans with Rex boyfriend and a few others I thought she told you about it, this immediately made me leave my room or leave the room to collect my thoughts while they got into an argument I haven't left the guest room since and I heard my wife go to our room I work in investment banking and my wife is a dental assistant assistant oh so she's an oral expert. I guess that's helpful. This situation is very scandalous for my career, and doing porn is not something I ever wanted in a partner. I'm at a loss.
[11:27] I don't know why you'd be at a loss. You'd just get out. I mean, you would just get out.
[11:37] I mean, there are Chinese programmers now who are writing algorithms to scan through pornography, look for faces, and try and match it up with people on social media so that you can't hide your past.
[11:53] Milo Yiannopoulos lost his cat. And I was kind of half and half about that in terms of like, he seemed very upset about it and so on. But boy, he is, he is scaldingly honest, man. So somebody wrote to him after he lost his cat. Do you think that it's wise to have your destiny controlled by a deer cat? What if somebody purposely took him knowing it would trigger a descent? And Milo wrote, I'm a disordered and broken thing trying desperately not to fall into a very dark sin. There are so few sources of joy in my life. Maybe just Troy, says the cat. We spend all day, every day, side by side. This is worse than either of my parents dying, which they did last year. And he also wrote, Troy is the only member of my family whose death would come as something other than a relief. Why couldn't they have taken and sold my ex-husband or that slutty aunt?
[12:51] And it is very tough. It's very tough. My heart goes out to him. I mean, obviously very, very attached, and that is a great loss. And it's very sad. I don't quite get the whole pet thing, but obviously he's in great, great suffering. and it's very very sad.
[13:12] And I do sympathize with his suffering for sure yeah Wesley Yang wrote what not one single white American born after 1984 has published a work of literary fiction in the New Yorker yeah, Jacob Savage on the evaporation of opportunities for young white men writing fiction over the course of the 2010s the literary pipeline for white men was effectively shut down between 2001 and 2011 six white men won the New York Public Library's Young Lions Prize for debut fiction. Since 2020, not a single white man has even been nominated of 25 total nominations. The past has seen 70 finalists for the Center for Fiction's first novel prize, but again, not a single straight white American millennial man. Of 14 millennial finalists for the National Book Award during that same time period, exactly zero are white men. The Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, a launching pad for young writers, currently has zero white male fiction and poetry fellows, of 25 fiction fellows since 2020. Just one was a white man. Perhaps most astonishingly, not a single white American man born after 1984 has published a work of literary fiction in the New Yorker. At least 24 and probably close to 30 younger millennials have been published in total.
[14:25] Somebody says, outside of Europe, the situation is the same for music competition. A Caucasian male born after 1975 has never won a Pulitzer Prize. And, uh, somebody wrote, Nope, this is false. Don't know. Don't know.
[14:46] Somebody says, I stopped looking at contemporary fiction books as they're all written by females with female heroines have a strong romantic storyline and social justice agendas woven through the books. It's very frustrating. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but it's funny because, of course, giving up on traditional media is one of the reasons why I worked in alternative media. But it just goes all very badly. And you just keep excluding men from the civilization that their ancestors created. And it just goes very badly. And I wish it wasn't happening, but it is not happening. H. Pearl Davis, pearly things with a Z. And she's pointing out that having conservative men whose husbands, whose wives make fun of them in public is not good. It's not good. And it's not and it's not, alright let's do another couple of questions.
[16:05] Alright yeah he married a porn star yeah How do you not see the science? Well, of course, women who are pretty have opportunities for massive amounts of sexual activity, aka traveling. And so the looks are intoxicating for men, right?
[16:38] What's happening what's amazing this is happening while whites are still the majority yes but not in the publishing industry why do women shame their husbands for the sake of laughter, so there is to me a really gross form of perverse humble bragging which is you know like i the guys will say this. I just don't know how I ended up with such a wonderful woman and why she puts up with me and I must be so lucky and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just a form of humble bragging. And maybe it's around penis size. I don't know. But women also will kind of roll their eyes at their husbands in public. And it's a very sad thing. But what they do is they're signaling for other empty hearted people to gather around. Like I would not be friends with a couple that mocked each other. I just wouldn't. It'd be kind of weird and gross. And I would get the underlying pathology and all of that. I just wouldn't be friends with people like that. I mean, my wife and I have our sort of private jokes and so on, which is fine and fun. But I mean, she would never make fun of me in public. It's just not a thing that would happen.
[17:49] And I don't really understand it. I mean, why would you make... Be like me mocking the value of philosophy or mocking my wife or something or my daughter, i just don't understand why why but why would you do that i mean if you love your wife then you want to elevate her in the world and so on and you want other people to have affection towards your wife and look up to her and respect her and so i don't know the backstory of what the sort of shaming was occurring but it's just a joke bro doesn't really cut it, and I really don't like this idea that you have to appease your wives or let them make fun of you and all of that, right?
[18:35] All right, let's see if I had anything else.
[18:45] Oh, yeah, this is kind of true. Jeremy Kaufman wrote. We entered the Department of Education. Nice. Glad to see the department finally be abolished. Actually, we didn't really abolish it. We just stopped funding it. Well, at least we're done funding student loans for leftist indoctrination. No, we're still doing that too. So what actually changed? Well, we managed to get the left angry without changing too much. It's called American conservatism. Look it up. Oof. Oof. And Robert Murphy made fun of him.
[19:23] 44% of women believe they have been broken up with due to their feminist beliefs. 62% believe being feminist has made it more difficult to find a partner. I mean, that's, I don't know if I've ever dated a feminist feminist. I think I dated a couple of women who had feminist leanings, but I just wouldn't in a million years. I mean, it's a great way to end up living in your car. Yeah, like parents who mock their kids, yeah. My ex would do things to irritate me to see how I would react. That's what pivoted me to ask that question. Sorry, I must have missed your question. Let me go back. Oh how do you know how did you not see the signs well we are all designed to be protected by our community right we're all designed it's why we have eyes in the front of our head not those sort of prey eyes to the side of our heads so we are all designed to be protected by our community so a man's like we need a huge amount of lust and passion to sustain a lifelong romantic relationship which is what's best for your kids your grandkids your great-grandkids and so on right so as men we have massive amounts of testosterone, which allows us to sort of dominate the planet. And the reason we have massive amounts of testosterone is you need that amount of testosterone and lust and sexual desire to pair bond with a woman for your entire life.
[20:50] And it's, I mean, I've been married for 23 years. I find my wife more attractive now than even before. It's, you know, we got almost a quarter century on us, right? And so you just need that level of pair bonding to sustain a relationship for, you know, I mean, in the past we get married at 20 and lived to 80 or whatever, right? So 60 years is a long time to sustain a relationship. So you need a lot of passion, you need a lot of sex drive, you need a lot of lust, you need a lot of, you know, you just need all of that pair bonding stuff, right? And so the reason why we're, our nature allows us so much pair bonding is our friends and our family are supposed to keep us safe from being exploited.
[21:36] And if our friends and our family do not warn us against bad women, we are completely doomed because we pair bond. It's like being, handcuffed to a truck that's driving off a cliff. This kind of female ball busting stuff is really prevalent in protestant christianity the women hold the power in the environment yes i mean to me if the woman is dominant it's not christianity and that's not even just my opinion that's christianity as a whole uh what is your experience of the parasocial relationship with the audience like i've experienced, and have seen over the years how many of us view you as a mentor or father figure despite most of us effectively being strangers. I don't know what you mean by strangers. We're united in thought. That's the closest you can get.
[22:35] Yeah, we're as close as we can get. Why do so many men say they love their wives but don't like listening to them? I don't know. I've never known anybody who said that, but maybe it's a thing out there. Somebody says, I know two young social media influencers who have an ongoing comedy series where they mock each other and use cute animals as new pets for cliques, including a llama. He plays dumb. She does makeup and clothes. The appeal of them is not shared by me. I find them annoying. maybe toxic, certainly not healthy, a healthy way to behave. I agree with that. I've always found the saying, happy wife, happy life, as a demeaning undertone, to say it means that one lacks a masculine self-respect as a man. Yeah, it's just appeasement, right? I have to appease my wife, otherwise she makes my life hell. That's terrible. That's terrible. But it is generally the case that those who've achieved the least require the most status.
[23:36] That is a sad reality. And if women wives have not had particularly successful careers, if they've not been particularly good parents and all of that, then they're going to have to get their status up somehow. And I assume they get their status up by putting down their husbands. The other thing, too, is that, of course, most women who are social media influencers gain their prominence either through looks or through their husbands, or partners, or whatever it is, right? So, it's things that they didn't really earn. Like, you know, wealthy women get their money from their husbands. And not their own particularly fantastic careers.
[24:36] All right, any other last questions or comments? I really do appreciate your support, of course, and you get to not have a donation pitch. Isn't that nice for you? This describes a man, they're absolutely obsessed with the looks. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Status will never bring you happiness because happiness is equality in virtue and status is dominance in non-virtuous aspects. Or money or being the top G or something like that. It's kind of gross.
[25:12] I just wait for people to finish typing. If you're done, you're done.
[25:23] Going once, going twice. Please don't type a long paragraph. Or just give me what you got in case. I don't want to wait around for people who are just saying goodbye. You ever do that thing, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, and then everyone goes. How can you tell if someone is interested in status? Oh, that they have an evaluation metric that's going on when they meet you. Oh, what do you do to find out if you, right? An early election was just officially announced in canada april 28th is election day yeah, yeah very sad i mean it seems unlikely that um people will get the conservatives um which they kind of need for immigration issues i think but.
[26:16] Yeah somebody's interested in status uh usually they're signaling it right away. And they've got cocktail eyes looking around the room, trying to figure out if you're worth talking to or if there's someone they can get something more out of or whatever it is. Somebody who is also, you will get status people from how much they sort of implicitly praise themselves or drop status. Oh yes, our second home in Tuscany or all my children are doing PhDs. Like they'll just mention all of this quote high status stuff and so on, right? All right well thanks everyone i really appreciate your time today have yourselves a beautiful wonderful day and you get a quick outro because you're donors i thank you for your support so much my friends that's a love i'll talk to you soon bye.
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