A confession - I'm never voting again

[Beastro]

See Admiral's post for my reaction, though I have a feeling in your case, Yuk, you need to focus on your life more and less things like politics that can drag you down. In that regard, I can see and understand why you'd do so even if it's not why you're doing it.

That's your decision. Me, I will vote as a matter of civic duty, even if I often tire of this silly and wicked game.

Same even though I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here given that BC always go either Liberal or NDP voting the other out as one messes up followed by the other.

I've never voted for either and the Conservative Party often doesn't run in placs due to the way BC is, so I wind up picking some loony party to vote for safe that they'll never get enough to actually get in power.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm not an anarchist. Well, not completely. The idea of burning the system worries me because I know the consequences. During my low points, when I'm just fed up with humanity, the idea of burning down the system simply to shove into people's faces what animals we really are is tempting. But other than that, I just want things to improve, and I tried, and failed. The treatment of women by men and women in this world hurts so badly, and I tried to change it, and it didn't work. As I said, you can't save stupid people from themselves.

Wasn't saying you were an anarchist.

The people you would be saving aren't the stupid ones. The ones with the MAGA hats are going to hurt the people who voted for hillary, who go to protests, and who do their best.

It isn't "saving people from their own stupidity," it's "saving an oppressed majority population from the gerrymandered, hornswaggling power-grabbers that have cemented themselves".

I can understand how emotionally draining and despair-inducing this environment is. I'm struggling with depression and anxiety that are, if not caused, then exacerbated by it. Sometimes I take social media breaks. Sometimes I drink and cry and shudder alone in my room because it's all so terrifying.

But voting is the most effective thing you can do to bring about change, and giving up on it won't make things any better.

[Yukaphile]

I mean, I live in a blue state. There's no danger of it going red. And I recognize my own privilege as a young white male in a primarily blue state. Thing is, however, there are other ways to bring change too. Like if I had kids, I could make them aware of this growing up, and to treat others well, and never take for granted how good you have it. I talk to people in less developed nations. It is shocking how much there is here that improves our lives which we just take for granted. No wonder the world sees us as spoiled, screaming, self-entitled, arrogant jerks.

[Beastro]

It is shocking how much there is here that improves our lives which we just take for granted.

Which is where the silver lining of pain and suffering comes in.

A year of privation I endured years ago, while rough, drilled that in all the more. Especially Christmas when I was happy to have gotten a new toothbrush.

[Madner Kami]

I'm not an anarchist. Well, not completely. The idea of burning the system worries me because I know the consequences. During my low points, when I'm just fed up with humanity, the idea of burning down the system simply to shove into people's faces what animals we really are is tempting. But other than that, I just want things to improve, and I tried, and failed. The treatment of women by men and women in this world hurts so badly, and I tried to change it, and it didn't work. As I said, you can't save stupid people from themselves.

How about trying to improve the lives of people instead? I'm sick of hearing about women-issues here and there, when it's still an expected fact that men are more likely to be the victims of crime (especially violence), die considerably earlier than women, are more likely to get injured or even killed at their jobs, usually have to work harder because society and law place an uneven burden onto them and all the while getting shafted over and over again by each and everyone and everything. If I even hear one more woman at work asking me to do her work, because I'm a man and still am not getting paid more than her, then I'll start voting for a party that aims at getting women back into the kitchen again.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm not an anarchist. Well, not completely. The idea of burning the system worries me because I know the consequences. During my low points, when I'm just fed up with humanity, the idea of burning down the system simply to shove into people's faces what animals we really are is tempting. But other than that, I just want things to improve, and I tried, and failed. The treatment of women by men and women in this world hurts so badly, and I tried to change it, and it didn't work. As I said, you can't save stupid people from themselves.

How about trying to improve the lives of people instead? I'm sick of hearing about women-issues here and there, when it's still an expected fact that men are more likely to be the victims of crime (especially violence), die considerably earlier than women, are more likely to get injured or even killed at their jobs, usually have to work harder because society and law plase an uneven burden onto them and all the while getting shafted over and over again by each and everyone and everything. If I even hear one more woman at work asking me to do her work, because I'm a man and still am not getting paid more than her, then I'll start voting for a party that aims at getting women back into the kitchen again.

1. Dude what the fuck

and
2. So are you coming out to support Terry Crews?

[Madner Kami]

2. So are you coming out to support Terry Crews?

"Coming out"? If Terry Crews was groped, then the groper needs to be punished. It is only fair. I don't see what I have to support there.

1. Dude what the fuck

WTF what? I read two consequtive women-issues posts of Yuka before replying to that post, had a really annyoing day at work (you can guess why) and his Weltschmerz-posts are just getting tiresome. I do have to suppose Yuka's what? 20? 25 at most? I had my emo-phase as well and I agree that a lot of things happening just should not be happening, but it's pointless to get depressive like that and vomit it left and right everywhere, especially when it's about issues that aren't issues at all. What discrimination of women is left in our western society is, for the most part, grown habits that will take a few generations to iron themselves out, as people are going to learn that girls don't play with puppets because of genetics. You simply can not force those things out of the people, unless you want to become an opressive shitlord that dictates what people think and do in the privacy of their lives and that is for once definitly not a world worth living in.

As for Yuka's Weltschmerz, fuck me sideways. Do a lot of dark things happen in our world? Yes. Is it worth becoming depressive like that? No, not at all. What a lot of people fail to realize is, that it ain't humans that are aweful, it's nature that is aweful. It's the literal universe that doesn't care at all whatsoever and Terry Pratchett's Death put it like noone else could:

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

There is no right or wrong. There is no justice in this universe. Justice, morals, good and evil are things made up by humanity. Good things made up by us and us alone. The world we created isn't perfect or ideal, but it's a world worth living in, despite things not being flawless. That is just nature and the universe winning over our made-up stuff every once in a while and while it may seem that things just do not get better, please, go back 50 years and tell me, how terrible our modern world is. Go back 500 years and tell me, how oh so aweful our modern world is. Go back 5000 years, before the concept of just punishment for a crime was a thing and tell me, how oh so god-aweful our oh so amoral and crime-ridden modern world is. We are living in paradise. A flawed one, but paradise nonetheless and things are getting better all the time. What certainly doesn't make the world a better place though is, sitting on the computer and crying about issues that are none or issues that just need some time to iron themselves out, while our collective perception and expectations adjust to the new reality we created for ourselves.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

2. So are you coming out to support Terry Crews?

"Coming out"? If Terry Crews was groped, then the groper needs to be punished. It is only fair. I don't see what I have to support there.

Well you could donate to RAINN, that's one thing. He's getting a lot of backlash from people who think a big strong man can't be violated by somebody unless he lets them.

I ask because a lot of people who talk about men's rights and the violence against men do so largely as a means of shutting up complaints about sexism that women suffer, and then become curiously silent when actual dangers facing men show up, like sexual exploitation in Hollywood. The MRAs who complain about "men get raped too!" are just as quick to dismiss and mock Terry Crews for "letting it happen", thus showing their true priorities.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

WTF what? I read two consequtive women-issues posts of Yuka before replying to that post, had a really annyoing day at work (you can guess why) and his Weltschmerz-posts are just getting tiresome. I do have to suppose Yuka's what? 20? 25 at most? I had my emo-phase as well and I agree that a lot of things happening just should not be happening, but it's pointless to get depressive like that and vomit it left and right everywhere, especially when it's about issues that aren't issues at all. What discrimination of women is left in our western society is, for the most part, grown habits that will take a few generations to iron themselves out, as people are going to learn that girls don't play with puppets because of genetics. You simply can not force those things out of the people, unless you want to become an opressive shitlord that dictates what people think and do in the privacy of their lives and that is for once definitly not a world worth living in.

I said "WTF" because you were apparently ready to endorse political oppression of women and a push back to 1950s cultural and moral norms just because the individual women in your workplace were annoying you.

Discrimination is not something that you just grow out of over the generations. Generations enforce it. Bigotry has to be examined, and unlearned, and fought at the institutional level by collective effort.

As for you thinking that there's very little women suffer from in Western society, I think that's just because chauvinism is much more obvious from a distance and harder to recognize in your own culture and value system.

[Madner Kami]

Well you could donate to RAINN, that's one thing. He's getting a lot of backlash from people who think a big strong man can't be violated by somebody unless he lets them.

I could, but I won't. Wrong country.

I ask because a lot of people who talk about men's rights and the violence against men do so largely as a means of shutting up complaints about sexism that women suffer, and then become curiously silent when actual dangers facing men show up, like sexual exploitation in Hollywood. The MRAs who complain about "men get raped too!" are just as quick to dismiss and mock Terry Crews for "letting it happen", thus showing their true priorities.

Personally I think, Crews had all the moral right in the world, to knock that fucker out cold. The law (at least to a degree) and societal norms or economic pressure prohibited him from doing so, sadly. Thus I recognize why he didn't do it and find people mocking or bullying him over the issue, despite his clear physical ability to defend himself, are fairly horrible people.

I said "WTF" because you were apparently ready to endorse political oppression of women and a push back to 1950s cultural and moral norms just because the individual women in your workplace were annoying you.

No. No I don't. I don't want anyone to be oppressed, I want everyone to have the same rights, priviledges and responsiblities at least as far as their capabilities allow. I expect people to be treated based on their merits and nothing else.

Discrimination is not something that you just grow out of over the generations. Generations enforce it. Bigotry has to be examined, and unlearned, and fought at the institutional level by collective effort.

No, generations do not enforce discrimination. The simple fact that things changed in the past, repeatedly, disproves your assertion. Generations change based on what their parents taught them and what their own realities tell them all the time. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, sometimes they revert what their parents decided was right, but change is a constant and change only keeps speeding up the better our means of exchanging ideas and experiences become.

As for you thinking that there's very little women suffer from in Western society, I think that's just because chauvinism is much more obvious from a distance and harder to recognize in your own culture and value system.

"Women issues" are vastely overblown in the west. My distance is, that I do not live in the USA, I live in Germany. To be precise, I grew up in Eastern Germany and thus grew up in an environment where women were required and expected to work just as hard as men, where abortion was legal and socially accepted, where women living on their own and being a single parent wasn't a big deal and men and women were paid the same if they worked the same. All the while, in Western Germany, women were mostly house-wives and a woman living on their own and having a child was socially frowned upon.
Look to Germany today. Our first female Chancellor was elected in 2005 and she's still in office. Nobody bats an eyelash upon the fact that she's a woman and disagreements with her are based on her politics. I know, totally crazy concept, right? You know where she came from? Eastern Germany. She got where she is today, because she got herself there and because didn't think that she's a house-wife. The laws allowed it and so she took the chance and succeeded. That is where women issues are for the most part today. Its a question of the women seizing their opportunities and making a place for themselves that they feel comfortable in, as the law doesn't hold them back.

As for societal perception, that is only something that is going to be fixed by time and that was my point. You are not going to enforce perceptual equality by forcing people to think the same way you do or by quotas, you'll actually achieve the opposite if you do that. You just have to wait until people realize that their percieved reality isn't congruent with the factual reality and they will change their mind on their own, at least for the most part. If a woman reaches the same position as a man and is capable of doing the exact same quality of work in that position, people will change their opinion about what women could or should do on their own.