(02-07-2014 01:19 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Just like we should respect feminism because it "sounds fair"

Sheryl Sandberg and Gloria Steinem are more successful than me and yet their feminist opinions remain a steaming heap of garbage. Their success doesn't make them right, just like a lack of success doesn't make someone wrong.

None of this is about insecurity on my part. I'm a known entity. It's about calling out bullshit.

We've already established that Scorpion is a financially unsuccessful dude without a job (and likely no passport) living in a supposedly "large and racially diverse city" in "the South." No one on the forum has actually met him either.


Case closed.

What this mostly boils down to is that this forum, and the manospere in general, is split between two broad groups that overlap on a lot of areas but are also quite different. There are the traditionalisst who are drawn here by a dissatisfaction with the current state of things and a sense of nostalgia for traditional social norms. And there are the more liberal members (I mean liberal in the classical sense and my necessarily the leftist sense).

Both groups support but game, but you get the sense that many in the first group are here as a last resort and would have rather have married young and had a family, whereas the second group would have been poon hounds no matter how easy it was to form a traditional family.

I'm definitely in the second group. I've never had a desire to be surrounded by people just like me or live in a homogeneous culture. I've always wanted to get out and see the world. I'm more comfortable in cities than in small towns. And I love meeting people who are nothing like me.

I've got nothing against the people in the first group, but I do have to wonder why some of y'all so angry. Some of these really earnest, outraged posts, they're kind of comical. You guys have it better than 99 percent of all people who have ever lived as yet everything is some affront to your very being. I don't really understand it.

(02-07-2014 01:26 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  None of this is about insecurity on my part. I'm a known entity. It's about calling out bullshit.

We've already established that Scorpion is a financially unsuccessful dude without a job (and likely no passport) living in a supposedly "large and racially diverse city" in "the South." No one on the forum has actually met him either.


Case closed.

What bullshit exactly? What case is closed?

(02-07-2014 01:28 PM)j r Wrote:  What this mostly boils down to is that this forum, and the manospere in general, is split between two broad groups that overlap on a lot of areas but are also quite different. There are the traditionalisst who are drawn here by a dissatisfaction with the current state of things and a sense of nostalgia for traditional social norms. And there are the more liberal members (I mean liberal in the classical sense and my necessarily the leftist sense).

Both groups support but game, but you get the sense that many in the first group are here as a last resort and would have rather have married young and had a family, whereas the second group would have been poon hounds no matter how easy it was to form a traditional family.

I'm definitely in the second group. I've never had a desire to be surrounded by people just like me or live in a homogeneous culture. I've always wanted to get out and see the world. I'm more comfortable in cities than in small towns. And I love meeting people who are nothing like me.

I've got nothing against the people in the first group, but I do have to wonder why some of y'all so angry. Some of these really earnest, outraged posts, they're kind of comical. You guys have it better than 99 percent of all people who have ever lived as yet everything is some affront to your very being. I don't really understand it.

The way it looks is that the pro-immigration posters are the angrier ones, and more willing to go ad hominem. They seem to be really emotionally invested in it, too.

Saga that is not my point I will state again.

Throw success, financial out of the picture.

Straight up without anything why should I care that's all I want to know. I will literally bet everything I have I have read more on economics than him and yet he has the right to supposedly call me out for not being well read on economics.

So I am returning the favor. Why should I care?

Crickets.

I am not even emotional I wish we could do this stuff live because I just want to know why I should care about the opinion of someone. My tone would be monotonous.

That's all I don't think that's unreasonable. Again I don't care how someone feels. I am a happy go lucky guy always have been always will be. But I don't understand why I should just listen to someone it's insane.

---

To be crystal clear I don't care about his income or location one bit. I just want to know what makes him believe so much in his opinion.

I stated my opinion is based on 1) hundreds of pages of reading 2) real life outsourcing experience.

And scorpions is based on ____ I just want someone to fill in the blank for me

(02-07-2014 01:26 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  None of this is about insecurity on my part. I'm a known entity. It's about calling out bullshit.

We've already established that Scorpion is a financially unsuccessful dude without a job (and likely no passport) living in a supposedly "large and racially diverse city" in "the South." No one on the forum has actually met him either.


Case closed.

This is extremely immature and childlike behavior.

Race trolling, personal attacks, drama creation, etc.

I ain't touching this thread.

Instead, I'll be over here eating my corn...

(02-07-2014 01:36 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  I ain't touching this thread.

Instead, I'll be over here eating my corn...

Hotwheels, where did you buy that bag of popcorn at? Costco?

(02-07-2014 01:34 PM)NY Digital Wrote:  

(02-07-2014 01:26 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  None of this is about insecurity on my part. I'm a known entity. It's about calling out bullshit.

We've already established that Scorpion is a financially unsuccessful dude without a job (and likely no passport) living in a supposedly "large and racially diverse city" in "the South." No one on the forum has actually met him either.


Case closed.

This is extremely immature and childlike behavior.

Couldn't agree more, sir. What grown ass man without a steady job spends all day on the forum arguing without a shred of "skin in the game" experience? What a waste of time.

A broke location independent dude should be in DR, SA, SEA or EE, not a so-called "large and racially diverse" American city.

All this time on the forum and one hasn't even learned that much?

Doing it wrong mane....

^ ha HC I think you're legitimately annoyed.

I am genuinely curious like curious George at this point.

lol. the biggest question that should be asked in this thread is what does it mean to be american? last time I checked, the US is a multi-cultural country since its birth. it's in no way shape or form a country like China or Spain, which both have thousands of years of cultural background.

(02-07-2014 01:12 PM)scorpion Wrote:  I find it bizarre and comical how insecure you guys are. If you really think I'm some poser, why do you get so upset with my posts? Why do you feel so threatened by someone who disagrees with you?

HC, why do you equate data sheets and travel with cultural analysis? Are you really so arrogant as to believe that someone could be well-informed and yet still disagree with you?

WestCoast, why do you equate net worth with knowledge and understanding? Are you incapable of understanding the difference between what is actually valuable in life and what is simply worth money?

HC is undoubtedly much more well-traveled than I am, and WestCoast makes more money. Neither of these facts makes me feel insecure. To be honest, I don't derive my self-worth from my number of passport stamps or my ATM balance, nor from my popularity on the RVF for that matter. I never claimed to be an expert on travel or making money. I simply share my opinions, and people are free to take them or leave them as they see fit.

As for calling me irrationally confident on a forum founded to discuss game, well, I'll take that as a compliment. I'm sure most of the women I've been with would say the same thing. But frankly, this is an embarrassing amount of insecurity coming from two guys who should be far beyond sweating a random poster's opinions to this degree. I would encourage you both to concentrate more on your own lives (which, as you constantly remind me, are much more successful and interesting than my own) instead of perpetuating this internet feud.

You're right.

If people disagree with you, they should attack you based on the merit of your arguments alone.

While your complete absences from the Who Have You Met From The Forum thread is suspicious, as is your complete apprehension to share even the most minute personal details, the supposed complete lack of world travel or real world experience, this should not be a basis by which your posts are judged, as they do not in fact prove that you are nothing more than a keyboard jockey.

While suspicious, those factors don't mean that your opinions don't have merits.

No, if members don't like your arguments, they should continue to point out the massive gaps in your logic, the unsupported facts that you claim, the unreliable studies that your reference and the past times when you've been clearly proven wrong.

I absolutely agree with you.

(02-07-2014 01:26 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  None of this is about insecurity on my part. I'm a known entity. It's about calling out bullshit.

We've already established that Scorpion is a financially unsuccessful dude without a job (and likely no passport) living in a supposedly "large and racially diverse city" in "the South." No one on the forum has actually met him either.


Case closed.

Famed investigator Hencredible Casanova, on the trail
of the mysterious 'scorpion', an infamous internet villain

If by "financially unsuccessful" you mean "is not rich and does not have a trust fund", that's correct.

If by "does not have a job" you mean, "does not draw a paycheck from a single company and report to an office every day", that's correct.

Your other points about where I live and who I've met are also correct, although I do have a passport.

Yep, looks like you've solved the case!

(02-07-2014 01:32 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Saga that is not my point I will state again.

Throw success, financial out of the picture.

You mentioned accomplishments, so financial/professional success is what I thought you meant. My mistake if you meant something else.

Quote:Straight up without anything why should I care that's all I want to know.

A discussion only works if both sides are genuinely interested in hearing what the other side has to say. If you don't care, I respect that and I won't try to make you care, but it's no longer a discourse...remember, one of Socrates' basic principles was that learning (even enlightenment) can come through discourse.

(02-07-2014 01:44 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  A broke location independent dude should be in DR, SA, SEA or EE, not a so-called "large and racially diverse" American city.

So you're only willing to listen to people who don't live in American cities? I don't get why you'd want to disqualify viewpoints based on geographic location.

^ yes I will listen I stated above I am curious I just don't get it. Yes let's throw financial blah blah as success I will repeat the same thing and copy it again below.

Quote:"I stated my opinion is based on 1) hundreds of pages of reading 2) real life outsourcing experience.

And scorpions is based on ____ I just want someone to fill in the blank for me"

If there is a legitimate answer to the blank then all is fair. I believe this is a reasonable question/request to keep his privacy I am sure he can respond. Is this too much to ask?

Why do you guys get involved with this level of bickering? Go bang some backpage whores if you're bored.

(02-07-2014 01:53 PM)Saga Wrote:  

Quote:Straight up without anything why should I care that's all I want to know.

A discussion only works if both sides are genuinely interested in hearing what the other side has to say. If you don't care, I respect that and I won't try to make you care, but it's no longer a discourse...remember, one of Socrates' basic principles was that learning (even enlightenment) can come through discourse.

This isn't a discussion. When a member posts factually questionable opinions and isn't willing to back them up with any legit documentation, there are going to be other members who take offense to the quality of the forum being reduced.

Some folks just love the truth and can't help but attempt to completely discredit those who have a less sturdy appreciation of factual integrity.

(02-07-2014 01:37 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(02-07-2014 01:36 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  I ain't touching this thread.

Instead, I'll be over here eating my corn...

Hotwheels, where did you buy that bag of popcorn at? Costco?

My woman popped that shit up for me.

Who the fuck buys corn at Costco?

When I saw the page 1 predictions on this thread when it first started I thought to myself "well thats pretty unlikely...this is about soft drinks and immigration" 10 pages later I have been proven wrong.

(02-07-2014 02:45 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  I'm not a senior citizen and I hate living in the big city.

Always have.

Right. But there's congruence between that and your posts. And I rarely agree with you on most cultural issues from what I gather but I think you're a legit poster.

But to find out we have a guy arguing incessantly about grand topics with members more versed in them, when he has no steady income (no benefits), lives in a relatively insignificant part of the country, has a dearth of compelling posts rooted in experience, I think calling into question his identity is fair game. What's actually informing his views? Apparently, lack of real world success. Typical.

He claims to not care about what I say but unfailingly responds to my posts.

I must have struck a nerve because he revealed a lot of info about himself that he had been withholding previously.

Also, I don't see this as a forum-wide battle. Many of the people who endorse his posts only appear on political threads for the most part. Haven't seen them drop game, money, or lifestyle info. I actually think most of those dudes know their boundaries though. They keep it to a certain minimum so you can just ignore them.

I'm just saying, I think in life it's only right to call out bullshitters. We do it all the time on the forum (feminists, economists, etc). Anyone can voice an opinion, but authenticity is key. It's the cornerstone of every guy's niche.

Any dude on this forum with some type of angle put in work to get there.

Anyway, it's whatever at this point. The facts have come out. We know the difference between who's done it and who's said it.

Kill it.

WestCoast, my point is not that you should try to figure out the other guy as a courtesy or because you owe him anything. Forget about that.

It's a purely selfish/self-improvement suggestion for you -- you should try to figure him out because it's an opportunity to learn something and to take something away from what would otherwise be a complete waste of time.

Forget about what someone said about you, etc. Just look at it as a puzzle. Here's an intelligent guy. Why does he feel so passionately about these things. What is driving him?

And to say that these are your views from 5 years ago is missing the point. I feel that your personalities and psychology are sufficiently different that even if you held the "same" views 5 years ago, it would have been for totally different reasons. It's not really an answer that allows you to learn anything.

It's not just about something as specific as immigration, either. The guy has a whole worldview, and there are clearly plenty of others who are sympathetic to it. Why? What animates it?

I'm not known as someone who is a big fan of feminism. But I read two books by Andrea Dworkin cover to cover and thought about every word. And I read other radical feminist texts at every opportunity. There is no danger of me agreeing with them. But I always want to understand more and more. Not just the thinking but the emotion. What's really going on?

You'll never convince someone else or make them change their mind unless you understand why they think the way they do. This is the way to gain real intellectual power.

^ Yes I already do that.

I have gotten quite good in that I can tell what race/age range and income range a person is with deadly accuracy before I meet them.

I know why he has the views he has (believe I do) and understand that many agree with this. I already know what the response is to the full in the blank request so just looking for confirmation. Note again I don't care where he lives or whatever not important to me once I understand he bought process I can add or subtract the person from someone of interest to me. It is clear I have chosen the latter and again I use these threads to further drive the stake between people I would want to meet and those that I wouldn't bother with.

That is also why i stated I have no interest in meeting people that think like this. It's okay the world moves on. It's not really a big deal we have very opposing personalities and ideologies. I would rather find people who share the same mindset as I do because all the guys who do quickly change their lives, improve and grow. If the view scorpion shares is popular and many agree and on top of that they are happy with their lives then great.

I don't have time to learn about everyone I only learn about people I believe I can help.

---

You're basically giving me Dale Carnegie 101 for everyone. Unfortunately this is a place where I voice my real opinion (real life experience only and real reading only). I work with enough nut jobs who I trick into liking me in real life as it is, here that is not my concern. I would rather have people polar against my type of views or with them. Easier to sort, I don't have time to convince someone that I may consider as an acquaintance in the future better for like minds to meet than not

I also realize my view is not in the majority based on the responses here and that doesn't bother me one bit. I look at who agrees with me, what type of person they are.

I would rather have 1 legit guy in agreement with me that I want to meet than 75 random people who I don't want to meet in agreement with me. The majority is practically always wrong. So on that basis I was able to pick up another guy I would like to meet so it was a net win.

Simply put I only want the cream of the crop on my side. If my voice goes against the cream I will be worried.

Fair enough. I'm really making a more subtle point, but I understand it's not for everyone. But you're a smart and ambitious dude and you're always looking for ways to get better, so why not try.

I have no doubt you have a good rough and ready understanding of different types and where they're coming from. That much is obvious from your posts.

But that understanding doesn't go as far you might think. It's probably a little bit thin, a little bit mechanical. It doesn't go to a depth where you really feel what animates the other person.

You're trying to be efficient and sort things and people out quickly so you can get on with your life and make your money. I get it.

But there is a lot of value in being a little less efficient, in allowing yourself to really linger on things, in coming back to them again and again. It's the only way to gain depth of understanding.

I've been in your shoes. When I was much younger I was just a smart guy who picked everything up very quickly. I had a lot of rough and ready recognition -- and very little real understanding. It's easy to mistake one for the other.

Your feeling is, life is short, there is no time. But the truth is that life is long and there is time for all sorts of things.

Anyway, I hope you can make something from what I've said here. If not, that's fine -- you'll probably figure it out sooner or later.

You talk about the bigger picture, but I don't see it in your post. I see lots of "smaller picture" scenarios. Let's go through them:

(02-07-2014 09:12 AM)Blaster Wrote:  To see most of the side-effects, you have to look at a bigger picture and include social consequences. I have seen your story myself and is partly why I made the point that a rigid, inflexible policy is a bad idea. But it's not the whole story.

Doing the same job for less pay isn't a "bad thing" in and of itself. That's how a free labor market works. But when the US moved away from 80-hour work weeks in the 20th century it was considered progress and greatly improved the quality of life for Americans, especially middle-class Americans.

I'd like to see some stats here. Both my parents owned their own business in the 20th century and I don't recall them ever cutting their hours. It was always 60-80.

Quote:To see how immigration can harm or at least change a community you have to look at the whole community. You have to look at the burden on public services (schools, police, transportation, use of public parks and recreation, etc.). You have to look at the effects on housing and rental markets. You have to look at the changing demand for local businesses, for example a french bistro failing and a cheap-eats taqueria opening in its place. You have to look at secondary effects. The immigrant workers might not collect welfare but the displaced Americans will. Or, more likely, the baby momma's of the displaced American workers will collect the welfare.

I don't think any French bistro ever closed because too many ethnic minorities moved in. Every French bistro I know of are in neighborhoods that ethnic minorities are too broke to afford.

I do agree that it's largely ethnic groups that utilize public service like free parks and transportation, but you can't fault them for that. Most white people don't ride the bus in L.A. because it's such a shitty system, and they don't go to parks because they're too insular and would rather be hanging out at the Standard rooftop pool.

Quote:You also have to look at the day to day interactions of the people when they interact with store clerks, food service workers and such. It's hard to describe how much nicer it is to interact with a cheerful teenage girl who speaks fluent English than a sullen adult who mumbles and barely makes eye contact. If you go to a grocery store in a small community in white middle America, you're more likely to get the teenage girl (though increasingly she will be overweight). If you go to a grocery store in big city immigrant neighborhoods, you're more likely to get the sullen adult.

I wrote a post about this a month or two ago. The most miserable people I see are white people in Whole Foods, so I stopped going. The most polite people I've seen at a grocery store are at my local Ralph's, in mid city, who are mostly black and hispanic (or mestizo or whatever the hell you want to call them. Brown)

Quote:You also have to look at the scale of the demographic change and the capacity for the immigrants to improve their economic standing over time. Young males working hard 80 hour work weeks to "pay their dues" is OK so long as the system will reward them for sacrificing their youth in such a way. If 80 hard work weeks become the norm, that means quality of life is going down not up. It will mean an increasing gap between wealthy and poor and decreasing ability of the poor people do anything but work eat and live in soul-crushing tenement housing.

That's an exaggeration. Nobody HAS to work 80 hours, it's called jumping at opportunity and a strong work ethic. My guys working 80 hours a week make about 50k per year. Not bad for someone without a college degree and wasn't born here. That's about 5 times more than they'd make back home, depending if they're Mexican or Central American. That's also how much I've had to work at various points in my career to get where I am today, and now work 50 hours a week.

Quote:That's why there has to be a sane, sensible immigration policy that doesn't simply take one look at a cheerful, hard-working Mexican and say open borders forever it's every man for himself.

Whoever espoused that idea?

Your post largely consists of rhetoric based on your own personal experiences, or I don't know what. I'm not sure. Just like my posts are based on my experience, which happen to come from Los Angeles, the third largest economic center in the entire world. [/quote]