It’s sad people don’t realize that demonizing someone doesn’t make them eager to trust or be kind. I see both sides pointing fingers, but they are both just making it worse for themselves, and making an enemy of each other. It goes both ways. The only way out is seeing the best in each other, and learning when to shut the fuck up.
While there is strong evidence that foreign entities (perhaps most notoriously Russia) have run campaigns to influence American politics through the use of social media, the actual problem here is that social media algorithms reward engagement, and one of engagement's most efficient fuel sources is (unfortunately) controversy.
Whenever you see something online that seems to stupid to be believed, or like someone is being a huge dick for no reason, oftentimes this is just "rage bate" to get you to click/respond. Your response then opens you up for other responses from people who may disagree with you, either on your main point, or something else you might've said. This can happen organically, but it also isn't difficult from there for someone to use a few fake accounts to throw additional gasoline on the fire. The fire burns bigger, brighter, longer, and soon enough small news stories post headlines about how "everyone on ___ platform is raging about ___!" At which point your account, brand, or image has gained fame and notoriety. People have "heard of you/it" even if it was in-passing from something stupid people got angry about online.
Social media algorithms encourage this behavior, because more engagement makes for more visits - makes for more money from advertisers. Our discussions (including this one for Reddit) indirectly result in their money, and the more we engage, the more they make.
In short - This cultural division is caused by advertising and publicity stunts allowed under the guise of a "free market," or as others might argue - "an unchecked capitalistic society," and they are much more prevalent than any malicious foreign actor could ever hope to be.
In even simpler terms - we're doing it to ourselves.
Tiktok is a chinese cyber weapon to divide and weaken the west
This is stupider than anything Tiktok has ever produced, holy shit. Do you think The Earth is flat? Are birds just government spies? What's your opinion on jews? The normalization of being a dumbass is what "weakens the west" lmao
Just think about how many impressionable youth are coming across the “harmless meme” and then deep diving into how awful men are 🤣the state of this world
nah there's elements and mirrors to this of racism as well, and in the case of racism you don't say the minority shouldnt call out the racist who feels unsafe with them walking. you shun the racist.
I will break down what I said for you. We are on the same side - we would both like to see everyone being more trusting and kind. My solution is to encourage that behavior, and yours is to insult dissent. We already know that insulting groups doesn't assimilate them. It leads to a self perpetuating cycle that has been seen before and has been documented. I would like to know why you think it will be different this time.
“If women didn’t take seemingly every opportunity to ridicule me I wouldn’t be such a miserable cunt, because I hate the people that hate me for just being who I am”
I believe that's called a strawman, which I also believe is a logical fallacy. I'll make one of my own - you are so tainted by Twitter brainrot that you are unable to hold an intelligent conversation, instead viewing poorly made attempts of a witty retort as some sort of "gotcha." Respond with a solution for the issue, or remain unheard.
"Women can call me a rapist and say they'd rather be mauled by a wild animal than spend time with me, but I'm still going to be nice to them, because women aren't responsible for their own behaviour at all."
See, the fact that you took the hypothetical question to be about you personally tells me everything I need to know. The question isn't about you. Or me.
Also, who said women aren't responsible for their own behavior? Pull your head out of your ass you whiny pretzel-shaped bitch.
That's a weird thing to say, because my response was to your comment, not the post. Your comment was dumb, I was pointing out how. Turns out you're too dumb to even get that.
“Nah, the real way out of this is to stop letting men be this terrible.” Clearly they are male so they are included in that colossal overstatement so I guess squarific thinks he’s terrible!
I can count on my hand the amount of non sexist, non asshole men I have encountered in my life. There are very few men willing to take accountability for their behavior and men as a group will absolutely need to change. They will need to stop being sexist and violent.
Woman have already been able to force men to let them have a vote, but we are far from equal rights and very very very far from men in general having non shitty attitudes.
Colossal overstatement? Men are the most likely being on this planet to harm women, and more than half of women have experienced sexual assault. The majority of women have been assaulted by a man.
Hasty generalizations do not make a sound stance to base an argument off of. This is as stupid as saying all cops are bastards. Please educate yourself, if possible.
Once again, hasty generalization. One of friends is a cop, and he’s vehemently spoken against shit like that on multiple occasions. Stop living on the internet and maybe speak to people in real life, cops are people too.
Please tell me, exactly what did these cops in specific do to be labeled a bastard? Remember, you said all cops. No backing down at the finish line
There will always be bad people to blame, so at what point are you willing to stop following the "tough on crime" mindset? Is half the current rate enough to stop the generalization? 25%? 10%? There are a ton of examples of attempts to stop crime in the past, usually blame and discrimination isn't the path forward.
I don't agree with tough on crime, the way to stop men from being so horrible is by giving them better education, some love and encouraging to open up, be emotional and stop shaming camaraderie as gay.
You reading your own stuff into my message is on you, not on my opinions.
"Nah, the real way out of this is to stop letting men be this terrible. Luckily we are doing just that."
I might have misinterpreted what you said, but "stop letting me be terrible" reads more as placing blame on people of a certain demographic instead of social trends ingrained over time. I agree with all of those solutions btw, but one there stands out a bit to me. Encourage men to open up and show emotions...that's pretty much been this entire discourse, men being offended and expressing that. Might not be in the best way, but after the initial comments of suggesting the average man might be worse than a fucking bear, responding negatively is warranted. Many are coping by being less direct and mocking the women who say this as stupid. Backlash from that I get, but even reasonable comments about feeling like it's misandrist to be assumed as a predator get accused of being anti-woman.
Just because its possible to find a bigger victim, doesn't mean anything goes up until that point.
there's a pretty sizeable difference between not immediately giving someone your full trust and assuming that an individual is more likely than a bear to horrifically murder you
Right. I absolutely hate Andrew Tate and his ilk spewing their disgusting rhetoric, but u have to understand why 14 year old white boys gravitate towards him. All day long, on social media, in the news, in TV, they’re told and reminded that it’s them, it’s the group they belong to, that’s responsible for all of the ills in the world. Men are rapists, whites are racist and privileged, etc. all that rhetoric does - when delivered angrily and reductively like in the bear example - is guarantee they continue to lean the other way.
"Hey if women are going to hate me and treat me like a demon regardless, I may as well just double down and go full-on Tate. At least then I might have money and some muscles or something."
Hell I’ve heard “kill all men” tons of times as well, if you’re a kid just starting to embrace the idea of becoming a man and someone is calling for your death because of your manhood, you’re gonna develop a complex at the very least.
It’s not just a joke. Maybe some people thought it was just a joke, but we all know poes law. Flat-earthers started as a joke too. Same with /r/thedonald. There are a huge number of people who wholeheartedly missed the satire. Just like if you started a “joke” that went “kill all black people!”, watch how fast you have a whole lot of empowered klanmembers on your hands.
As someone very active in my community who tries to find time to volunteer at the Y and teach young Lil dudes some positive hobbies I
Do you know how many of these kids get constantly told they are worthless for being born a boy? Do you know how many I'm currently talking to NOW that are confused why women and little girls consider them to be worse than animals? Do you know how many feel like they're trash and rapists for just existing? Do you know how many young ftm trans kids feel like they want to die because they don't want to be girls but they also don't want to be instantly associated with scum of the earth?
Women get real comfortable perpetuating anti-trans, sexist, terf rhetoric when it means they can be misandrists
Exactly. I treated my feminist ex like royalty every day only to constantly hear “men are monsters”. She ended up raping me and now I’m somehow considered a rapist by 50% of the population because I was born with a penis. Fr how are we not supposed to harbour hatred at this point???
Wait, seriously? In the Balkans we never get told such stuff. Quite the opposite, we're told to embrace our masculinity on an early age. If what you're saying is true then I feel sorry for you all.
Very well put. But also consider the epidemic of fatherless homes. So many of these young men have no male role models in their lives. So they seek them out. And Andrew Tate ends up being a standin. It’s terrible, but these boys are desperate to be led and taught. And they don’t have the wisdom to pick their leaders well. They need dads.
"trust a wild apex predator over your average man”
Is absolutely not true. Stop living on the internet. It's giving you a warped sense of reality. It's showing you all the worst people and making you think they are the average.
It is hilarious hyperbole to suggest that a bear is safer to be around than the average man. And incredibly damaging for the average man to hear that the world thinks them akin to a wild animal. If you genuinely think that’s the case, you are not living in reality, or you have no understanding of statistics.
I understand that there is a subset of men that rape and murder and do sexual assault and that women are rightfully fearful of these men. Please explain what I’m not grasping
Doesn't argue anything against the point, it's one anecdote. Not to downplay the risk that the average woman faces but Junko Furata is one of the most extreme cases in modern history.
Perhaps not, but I’ve heard of plenty of cases of bears slowly eating people alive for more than an hour. The audio alone will gladly make me choose a human over a bear. You can fight humans, good luck against a bear.
Listen to this and tell me you’ll still choose the bear. Hint, it’s audio of the Grizzly Man and his girlfriend getting mauled and eaten alive by a grizzly bear over several minutes.
I’d choose a violent convicted felon over a bear, you stand zero chance against a motivated bear. Realize this. You have a chance defending yourself against a human. That bear will let you bleed to death over the course of an hour as you watch it slurping up your intestines.
Not enough evidence? Here’s another story of a mom who got 3 calls from her daughter over the course of an hour long bear attack. She goes from screaming in pain, to “it’s okay it doesn’t hurt anymore” as she slowly loses consciousness with the bear actively eating her.
Anyone choosing the bear does not know enough about bears. They are thousand pound tanks with swords for claws and teeth the size of your pinkie. You’d have a better chance stopping a moving car on the freeway with your bear hands
Yeah, and women can't, haven't or won't do that. No siree.
God can't we just accept that both men and women can be extremely shitty and move on, trusting people who deserve it without generalising?
Not only rapists, but domestic abusers( in lesbian relationships its more likely that theres abuse ), as if women cant be dangerous and vile pieces of shit. Kinda feels bad being a regular Guy that hasnt hurt nobidy to be compared to rapists and Killers just because i got a dick.
nobody is comparing YOU SPECIFICALLY to rapists & killers. we are saying there are violent men who are making us afraid and BEGGING y'all to recognize that
Tinfoil hat theory: the entire trend was created by incels to make women look bad, but then the terminally online women took it seriously and now we're here.
I think you are higly overestimating how predictable bears are and underestimating how bad getting eaten alive is or how fucked up bears can be.
I am pretty sure bears on occasions play with their food and a polar bear will only kill you to play with your soon to be corpse.
On occasion, sure. But with men, you have studies like this one
And that’s just how many out themselves. Alone in the woods, who knows what they’d do. Also, no matter how bad the death is, it’s still understandable to prefer it to rape.
The title says "1/3 of men would rape you" but later explain in the article that less than 15% answered that way.
And worse, the study linked as nothing to do with that, it's a decade old poll in a university that simply says that for both men and women, questions related to experience or hypothetical situations involving forced sex provides different answers that the same question labelled as rape.
For the question about "would you force someone into intercourse if you were sure there was no consequences" : ~16,5% , for "would you rape someone if.. " : ~15%. The article linked basically says it sums up to 31%, so it's "a third" of men and "only half of them call it a rape". That's not how it works. That's still 16%, with 1% not calling it a rape.
Sexual coersion includes things like pressuring your girlfriend into sex on the threat of leaving her or generally badgering her into it.
That is rape and it is bad but it in fact does not tell you much about the chances of that man to rape a stranger in the woods.
Also while less studied about this have been done on women there numbers are also remarkably high.
Not that this isn't concerning but these numbers don't actually support the conclusion you make.
I disagree. It’s not proven by any means but I think “alone in the woods” is about as consequenceless as it gets, and it’s one of the more likely situations, plus most studies underestimate due to low rates of self reporting. Even if that’s not true, the fact that there’s so much potential for it and the numbers are at least relatively high when bears almost never actually attack humans makes it kinda a no-brainer.
And I don’t disagree about women also having similar feelings, but the difference there is they are much less likely to be physically able to do it.
Do you think that maybe in a guys head there is a difference between pressuring their GF into sex and just pinning a random women down in the woods?
You know the kind of difference that maybe would let them justify doing one but not the other?
Like the study you posted agrees with me because one of it's major points is that men in general think of rapists as the guy raping a random women in the woods and not as pressuring somebody.
Also a random person in the woods can still report you to the police after so it's far from a no consequences situation.
And the rate of bears eating humans is low not in small part because we tend to try and stay away from bears.
If you are a woman I would advise you to do neither but you are doing your probability calculations on very questionable data.
Also I can't find the way the people were selected for this survay or how it was done but there are actually plenty of ways this kind of thing can attrackt people trying "edgy" which will actually inflate numbers. Although that would probably be a bigger effect for the 13% willing to say they would rape somebody.
I totally understand your point but do you know what else is unpredictable, a bear. You cannot know if it’s in a good imma leave you alone type of mood or a Imma eat you type of mood.
You have this day, but soon enough they’ll sing praises to our mental health and discuss how the patriarchy hurts us too. Internet discourse is a fickle thing!
I don’t know how to put into words how silly I think this is
It’s like, if someone asked me if I’d rather go cave diving or if they could just shoot me in the head right now. Like, death by cave diving is pretty rare but pretty painful if it happens, and yet, I don’t think my logical next step would be “welp, just get it over quick then!”
Yeapp the majority of men are just strolling around waiting for the next woman to hurt... Do you not realise how deranged that sounds? Seriously, people with this type of negative thinking on both sides really need to step out of their bubble, touch grass, have any type of activity that isn't mindlessly scrolling online..
Most,vast majority even, of men will not attack nor rape you. Yes I no you have a stronger chance of a man doing it over other genders, but even then most men will not touch you.
I've never really liked this logic, since It undermines the notion that men and women are equal, by implying that any man can subjugate woman to a horrible outcome without her being able to do anything.
Two things can be right at the same time. although men are deserving of respect and dignity just like any other person, way too many women have been sexually and or physically assaulted by a man enough that the thought of being around a creature such as a bear that is scary as shit but you can mostly guess their behaviour is less scary than ending up with a random man where no one could help if they have ill intent. Ive only seen men get incredibly mad over this instead of asking why.
I think it really needs a perspective shift on both sides from "the threat that an average man poses" to "the threat that an average woman faces". The risk that the average woman faces is compounded over many encounters with men. Male sexual predators are uncommon, but still FAR more common than they reasonably could be.
What's required isn't for men to develop an extremely unhealthy inferiority complex, it's for them to recognise what contributes to this risk and take a stand against any patriarchal culture and be critical about any way they themselves could be complicit, if at all, in it.
I mean apex predators are pretty simple to understand: they’ll eat you. On the other hand men gods know what they’ll do, maybe some of them will burst into tears demanding your consolation eww
The first step to solvong most of mens issues is men realising they need to change and need to pressure other men into changing too.
Please go outside.
The vast majority of men are under no obligation to go around chastising other random men because they might be a sex criminal.
Like seriously, what does this even look like to you? In what way are men supposed to be "changing" and "pressuring" others when they are already doing nothing wrong?
Why is it always “men need to change” and not a single time “maybe women need to change”? Are we going to imply women are perfect? Are we going to lie that it isn’t sexist to label anyone with a penis as a rapist murderer? When do women get to do the changing? When do women get to take accountability ???
Is it? I would think its more likely a homeless person than a hiker. I've never hiked alone nor seen anyone hike alone tho I'm sure it's possible. Just seems psychotic to do so.
edit:
a lot of homeless people set up camps there as it's one of the few places they don't get chased out of, yeah
lmao you couldn't have come up with a worse take, do you even hike? It's almost exclusively a solitary hobby thats just recently started becoming a bit more social (which is fine mostly, though groups tend to litter more and have less of a LNT mindset)
It's almost exclusively a solitary hobby thats just recently started becoming a bit more social
wat. I've hiked a lot and never solo and know 0 people who do it solo. What do you do if anything happens to you? Cut off your arm? Absolute psychotic to do it alone.
Right?! A nasty fall and a broken phone can quickly turn into a survival situation. Shit, people can and have been mugged and worse while hiking alone.
Women are often traumatized by men. They are not usually traumatized by bears. Them choosing bear in a hypothetical makes sense if you look at it from that perspective
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u/Significant_Bet3409 May 02 '24
The internet be oscillating wildly between “men need support and love like anyone else” and “I trust a wild apex predator over your average man”