Removed by mod

I guess you might have a point with rich people & their…ugly, inhuman body modification. But I have a solidly middle, middle-upper class friend that spent $8K+ on hair plugs. Just because his hair was thinning. That was the discounted rate. And it looks good tbh, but now he looks just like any other schmuck with hair & he’s out $8K+ for that.

(I told him to get really cool tattoos instead)

I’ve never thought about it that way before, but I like your thinking, actually.

I also like using the term CSAM, because IYKYK & if any children are listening it ought to go right over their heads.

Okay, yes, this is older technology & cars don’t have infinite, universal backwards compatibility. Cars have Bluetooth & they think that just fixes everything…well…not quite.

Maybe there are other fixes & other workarounds, but you need to employ old(er) technology solutions to fix this old(er) technology problem. You need a (QUALITY) FM transmitter that will plug into your aux, blast the signal as an FM radio station, and you tune your radio to that station & listen. Notice I said QUALITY…most of them are kinda crap & you have to deal with static. I have no specific brand, model suggestions. Good luck.

A better but more expensive solution: upgrade your car’s head unit. Stock head units are shit, anyway. 🙂 Get yourself a nice head unit with 3.5mm aux connection & aux in that iPod, if your budget allows. THEN, you’ll have the best sound quality and also Bluetooth connection, etc.

I wish you well, music makes the driving experience, I hope you get EVERYTHING you need. 🙏

…fuck…that is very hard. This is not your relationship, nor did you cheat, and their problems have now been made yours(ish). I’m sorry you’re caught up in this.

That said, your mom raises some excellent points & personally I’d be inclined to live with her. She is correct. But we must also acknowledge that she is way too close to this situation & is blinded by hurt, rage; women are prone to making decisions based on emotion & not logic, reason. How much more when she is cheated on.

The fact remains, this man is your biological father. Personally, I think it is time to reassess the depth of your relationship due to his adultery. But to cut him out entirely, forever is kind of stupid, too. That is your father. You only get one father. Your relationship to him is different than your mother’s relationship to him. You can distance yourself & react appropriately to his impropriety without…completely destroying the ties of family. It will hurt your father’s feelings, and you know what? I think he should have his feelings hurt. A little. Understand, he threw your mother away, treated her very badly.

But what’s done is done. This is the family you have now, and you have to decide what is right for you. If you don’t leave your father & distance yourself at least a little, she’s right, you do condone his actions & you’re hurting your relationship with your mother. If you care about that. But I would keep those lines open, and your mother will fuss, but explain to her that is your biological father & you have made the decision to keep in contact with him. That is your right, as his child.

It is perfectly fine, in fact it would be incredibly refreshing & welcome, to admit…she was a shitty candidate. Fuck, she was so terribly bad. And Tim Walz was a bad pick, too.

Everything was fake. Every day it unraveled more. She was caught saying things like, “I am different than Biden, I am not Biden, do not let his presidency reflect on me.” What would you do differently? “Nothing, I wouldn’t change anything.” Okay…so…how are you different if everything Biden did was totally great & you wouldn’t do anything differently?? 🤡 Heavily paraphrased, of course, the convos were more detailed (which only made it worse).

It’s fine to say Kamala Harris was a cringe candidate. Completely unwanted, unelected, unqualified. Biden bowed out & the DNC shoved her in; there is no logical reason to continue to own her as your candidate & representative. You don’t bring dead babies to Passover. This is an opportunity to rebrand the Democrat Party, to refocus on issues that actually matter. That is to say…if anyone still gives a goddamn about the issues that actually matter.

There are multiple factors to work, muh both sides, but MGTOW is very much a thing. You can rabbithole for weeks. 45% of young Gen Z men aged 18-25 have never approached a woman in person for a date. It can be argued that is an active choice, not even approaching women.

Also going to give a bonus, that “smarter” comment was just a quick little aside thrown into the larger & not entirely connected argument against marriage. I was referring to not having children, a second argument that could have been a separate paragraph, but I didn’t want to make the comment even longer. That’s kind of a format error on my part, and I apologize.

And yes, there is also proof of that. Web search ‘higher education lower birth rate’, verbatim, and you’ll see supporting evidence. All around the world, more education, overall less babies.

Now it’s important to not be overly reductive and actually think, “Me smart, me have no babies. You have babies, you dumb .” Not true. But all the various factors surrounding being in a first world country, having access to resources, better work opportunities, and yes having a higher education & access to more information…very much tends to lead…to having fewer and/or no children. Again, it’s playing out around us, we’re below replacement rate like many other developed nations around the world.

But there’s just no need to produce children like there is in developing or third world countries. In some countries, they’re popping out all the babies they can because they don’t even know how many will survive into adulthood. In countries with no law or support, children are the poor man’s pension. It’s a proven method that works, there’s more at stake, that’s all they know, that’s what they do. And I get that.

I find myself in very different circumstances, with very different rules of engagement & on its face extremely limited payoff for having children. Selfish analysis aside, I personally believe having children (especially now) is a little selfish & I don’t want to bring children into this world to be mere financial batteries for the state. Additionally, when polled, 15% of parents admit to regretting having kids. And if you ask me it’s at least 15%, it’s the 15% that have the balls to admit it. I have a friend like that, told me he regretted becoming a parent. And idk it’s hard to say “what might have been” & whatnot, but given my personality & my beliefs I’m inclined to think that I would also be in that 15%. After I aged up & learned more than I knew at 18-26 years old. Young, dumb, full of cum & whatnot.

1.) Well, yes. It’s reality, playing out around us all the time, for the reasons I listed. The evidence: web search ‘marriage rates in the US’, and see they are on a very steep decline. Women open the door to the bedroom, but it is men that open the door to the home, and marriage. Marriage rates are on a steep decline…because men are opting out of the institution of marriage (as it is currently configured), choosing instead to cohabitate or MGTOW.

2.) There is societal programming, and enough of it is good & right & leads to the benefit of society as well as the individual. But specifically marriage, I just don’t know how much it benefits the man anymore, but it’s still pushed. I think men need to be presented with all the facts, presented with options they might not have even considered & hard-checked like listen: have you really thought this through? One side is all pro-marriage, don’t think about it just do it. Isn’t it only fair to list some good reasons to…not? Men’s lives are at stake.

Men aren’t dumb; men are watching other men in their relationships, we know half or more of all marriages end in divorce, we know 70% of divorces are initiated by women, we see how it plays out in divorces, we see alimony & child support…we have more access to information than ever before. If you’d like to learn more straight facts & statistics, presented in as condensed of a form as possible, I recommend you check out “The Book of Numbers: Analyzing the ROI on the Pursuit of Women” by Aaron Clarey. What are the chances of getting married? Of staying married? Even if the marriage lasts, will you be, you know, happy and/or better off for having married? It’s a compelling read that makes a rock solid case for MGTOW.

It’s a red-pill movement, but not a black-pill. As outlined in Aaron Clarey’s book The Menu: Life Without the Opposite Sex.. Enough of society tries to tie marriage/family with life itself, and how if you fail to marry or have children, your life is meaningless. Men internalize this bullshit, and are killing themselves at record rates. Men account for 80% of suicides, and suicide is the #1 cause of death for men under 50. MGTOW teaches that regardless of whether you can’t get into a relationship, or you choose not to, or you got into a bad one & it failed, that’s not a reason to end your life. You can have a happy, strong, fulfilled life sans marriage, significant other.

As an American & living in IL, double whammy, enough of my tax dollars are stolen & repurposed for…anything they want, really, besides improving society and the lives of citizens. So that’s lost on me.

We needed to legalize gambling in IL, “for the children & roads”. We need to legalize marijuana, “for the children & roads”. With the last one, they legalized it (yay) and the money does indeed go into the fund for education & roads…but then they move that exact amount out of the fund & take it elsewhere, like it’s their own personal piggy bank. 😆 The corruption is so obvious, it would be funny if it wasn’t ruining our lives.

It’s like dealing with a bunch of morally bankrupt children, “You said it has to go into the fund…but you didn’t say I couldn’t take it out & spend it on other stuff!” Bitch, do I really have to?? It’s kind of implied, when we’re raising taxes for the children & the roads, that you spend the money on child education. And the roads. Like George Carlin, I am inclined to think this is by design.

Technically true, but if you’re not a piece of shit & you financially support, physically be there for your own children, you don’t just cum & it’s over.

Broad strokes & bad wording. I’m mainly pointing that bad wording comment at the title, and the author. It’s obviously not a problem of figuring out how to breed, it’s just that men are looking at divorce rates, divorce courts, alimony, child support, etc & they’re saying, “Yeah…fuck all that, I want nothing to do with that.” Enough of the smart, smarter ones aren’t producing children. Technically you could say “that’s a big problem for the country”.

Hence…they need help/incentive to decide to pump out babies. A one-time $5K baby bonus is on the table, which to his credit as the author points out, is nothing. A one-time $5K payment isn’t going to flip the switch for men.

Now Hungary is offering tax exemption for life, for women that have 4 or more kids. Again, there seems to be no mention of the men, I guess they can go fuck themselves…but all I’m saying is now there’s an incentive!! At least for the women. Fuck taxes.

Yes, Feelzgoodman420, you may indeed smoke the grass.

Tbh I think most people on Lemmy need to touch grass more often ¯\(°_o)/¯ Your friend sounds alright, for someone who pulls “facts” out of his ass. 😂

There’s a lot more to flesh out, but I agree 100% with this basic principle. I’m looking back & idk other than the occasional spanking when I was very little, most physical discipline was administered by my father. Even if I crossed my mother.

It reinforced traditional gender roles, and frankly I think it subconsciously implies…a solidarity & mutual respect between the partners in a marriage. My father stood up for, and backed, my mother. They parented mostly gently, but also firmly, in lockstep. Were they perfect? Of course not. But generally speaking I think it worked pretty well.

…sure. Then try this one.

“While the city continues to dispute the claims of a gang takeover, Jurinsky has released a series of photos, videos and email exchanges she says prove the problem is worse than city officials have let on.”

…and you guys also forgot to mention the border state of New York.

This border state problem is a national problem.

It depends on the media you consume. This is no doubt a blind spot to most liberal media consumers, but conservative media has covered MS-13, sometimes extensively, especially in the months leading up to the 2024 POTUS election. We also heard about TdA, Tren de Aragua, in no small part because of Jose Ibarra, who raped & murdered Laken Riley.

Don’t forget the border state of Colorado.

People have been pro-asbestos dating back to Roman times, and even back then it is said they knew it was harmful as well. But used it anyway. 😆