This plus the comments explain a lot. I think for men to understand women's "irrational" behaviour, it has to make logical sense. The "refugees welcome" insanity obtains resources for the group to raise status and without accountability. Now I get it. Understanding the "why" helps me recognize and identify and predict the behaviour.
My rule is to never help unless directly asked, with a few exceptions for wife, friends, and family, in which case I will offer help if it appears to be needed.
But never insist. If they wave you off, then leave them to it.
Note for the spergs: never helping does not mean ignoring the rules of basic etiquette. Opening a door for a woman is simple etiquette, it's not "helping" her.
This internal ledger of women on favors/resources is key to understanding the peasant village economies from post-Western-Roman collapsed Spain to Tsarist Russia. Most internal peasant town transactions didn't involve exchanging gold nor silver and they didn't barter either. Every man's woman kept track of what their family was owed with this automatic internal ledger they have. If their husband contributed more to the village helping rebuild two other families' houses, she made sure her family extracted equivalent value over the next few years.
Much of technological development over the last 500 years is automating the things women naturally contributed to day-to-day life. We're still left with the ingrained behavior patterns despite not needing them like we used to. They'll be useful again in any future technological and societal collapse.
So if a woman was forced by circumstances to accept charity, from her brother in law, is it sensible to think she would resent him for having no way to "pay it back"?
If she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to. And if a spreadsheets-guy has a list of chores and an expectation of getting some later, then it's wrong and manipulative.
What were things like between you and your in-law before you helped her?
I have a similar issue when it comes to availing myself of support from my family. My wife is usually concerned with a loss of autonomy in regards to her in-laws if we were to be helped in any way. I suspect your sister-in-law has a similar feeling that she is obligated to you as a result of your help.
If you don't want her resentment, don't mention what you did. Never. Let her bring it up when she chooses to be grateful. And instead, tell her some form of 'No one is coming to save you', and expect her to fix her shit. 99,9% of her good future is her good choices. Even when you do help, she still needs to make good choices.
If she is your sister, expect her to work for it, believe in her when she doubts, and reward her for small actions; you're a great brother.
When I've spoken with crazies needing help due to mental health, it's always 'Do anything and everything which improves your mental health. Despite any feelings. Or be afraid of needing another visit to the emergency psych ward once again.' Because when they don't lock you in, you're healthy enough to be free and fix it yourself.
Long ago, my aunt was forced to go on welfare when her husband abandoned her and their 5 kids. A few years later, when her youngest was in 1st grade, she got a job during school hours. She figured out what she had received and began saving to pay it all back. When she had enough to pay it in full, she inquired as to where to send it. (It didn't occur to her that welfare benefits were not paid back.) She was eventually told there was no mechanism to do that. This upset her greatly, because she wanted to pay it all back, but they wouldn't take her money.
At least this is the story she told. She had a lot of pride and I'm sure she was mortified at having been on welfare.
Is it safe to assume the sign holding women don't have strong male presences in their lives to point out how misguided their thinking is? Do you think AI knows the brunette probably convinced the blond to cut her hair short?
I offer this link non-transactionally. I neither require nor expect anything in return. I'm not keeping tabs. You owe me nothing. It's a gift. Especially to my bros in Cincy.
What is the biological payoff to this "transactional" behavior of women?
I can understand that in, say, Paleolithic times, us guys have to figure out how to kill that thing much bigger than us, and get the catch to the tribe so we can feed the family and eat. And to do that, we have to cooperate. You have to find your place in the plan to get that big thing so that everyone gets meat and protein. I think most men here know that this sorting out takes seconds when necessary.
Women contribute to the good of the tribe, too. We got here with them as our partners. Of course. But much of this kind of behavior is dysfunctional...I believe....today?
While men may be specialized to get megafauna, narrowly--the women are out gathering plants, this one gets the potato or that one gets it. Is that it? With shifting alliances between (today) the potato trade-off and tomorrow something else? Kale, fer Godsakes?
But maybe the big payoff is in other vectors? Women seem to specialize in relationships: no, she is X's cousin. I can see how that could be an important aspect and not narrowly feeding everyone. Caring for the children when the men are off in a three-day hunt? They were doing a lot, too. Something else is going on.
Somehow humans got to where we are today and something that worked in the Paleolithic may not work today. Or may work 0.5 or 0.3 today.
Who cares? There is little point in wasting time writing fantasy stories about the Neolithic because it's all just imagination anyhow. Focus on the What, not the Why.
"wasting time writing fantasy stories about the Neolithic"
Science! fan-fiction is not science. It's badly written fiction and there's inevitably midwit-tier speculation on human behavior with a probable Gamma perspective filter.
I see this pattern arise in gammas. I think they keep a tally of everything. Particularly favors they have given and slights they have received. All with the idea to dump it someone at the opportune moment. Recognizing this pattern has made me avoid asking favors from gammas. It’s not really a favor when you think someone is going to hang it over your head.
Yes, Gammas always come up with covert contracts (if I do X, then you *have to* do Y. But I'm not gonna tell you or even ask, you should just know). It's annoying AF.
When I pay attention to gammas it's always I grovel to you, you prop me up in front of women. Aalways. I do it free of charge for my guys, but I just can't with gammas. Can't really explain it, gives me the ick.
I was thinking this exactly. In the "No More Mr. Nice Guy" book it says the weak men all use covert agreements "If I carry her books she has to date me" over overt agreements "Not my girlfriend not my problem" due to being raised by women. Pretty clear cut connection that men raised by women use women tactics.
The most succinct way to describe a Gamma is a man who thinks like a woman. Now with actual women we put up with this because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks but no one is going to put up with a man who acts likes this
This explains why a man in a relationship with a woman who earns more than he does is in for a rough ride.
It also explains plummeting birth rates, as the balance sheet is out of order once young women have more money than young men.
It especially explains the collapse of the black family, as black women have higher rates of what passes for education, make work job market preferences, and alternative sources of assets from the government.
Not only does a black woman have two Pokémon cards to play but they are able to fake being docile in the workplace better than their black brothers. This is probably due to the overall feminization of the modern white-collar workplace but whatever the reason, black women are more adapted to it than black men are
I have a different perspective on all this. I thought alphas/bravos/those with higher alpha traits were more likely to do favors. I always went to the most masculine guy for favors and it was usually granted. I thought it was because masculine guys like to help. It is always the more feminine and gamma men who would complain about me asking for their help.
In fact, it's the gammas who are most paranoid about me "taking advantage" of them. I was once accused of being manipulative by a gamma because his younger relative (who I was dating at the time) didn't do what the gamma wanted, and the gamma said it was somehow my influence, that I have mysterious powers and made the younger guy do what I wanted or something. I had nothing to do with that particular decision of the younger guy, the younger guy did not even ask for my opinion on that particular decision, and I didn't even know that the gamma wanted a different decision to be made.
Also, that gamma relative rudely got up and left during the middle of a conversation because I asked the gamma what he was doing for work. Apparently, the gamma thought I was planning to gold dig him because I asked him what his job was.
So, are we sure is just the attractiveness of women at play? Are we sure that some women have "the magic touch"? I always thought alphas were more likely to do favors in general. Actually, I could be accused much more of "taking advantage" of alphas than of any deltas or gammas. I think women who have difficulty with this are asking the wrong men. You should ask the most masculine guy always.
Also, I don't see what is wrong in the least with the transactional mindset. I thought I was doing the masculine guy a favor by letting him do favors for me, because he liked showing off and would puff up his chest and smile.
Also, for every alpha that granted me a favor there were about 20-30 gammas and deltas who didn't or even sabotaged me. So, even in the case where alphas do a lot of favors for women, is it really that unbalanced? So, I'd say to just accept the favor.
Reminds me that I happened to match with a chick on a dating app once who had an all-too-common profile:
"Don't take me anywhere lame. Wow me. Take me [listing a bunch of examples indicating this chick thought she was God's Gift to Tinder or whatever.]"
She must've thought she was doing a favor to whoever was stupid enough to take her out on a date.
I couldn't help it. I sent her laughing emojis and said she had to [do something lewd] first. And probably commented that her current attitude, as a woman in her mid-30s, has her on the fast track to becoming a Cat Lady.
A single woman in her mid 30s is in no position to be demanding anything, but I've often noted that when a younger woman says she loves "travel and adventure" she implicitly means she likes when a man pays for her travel and takes her on adventure. At one point that man will be her father and that burden will transition to her boyfriend/husband.
I would love to see a Vox post on how fathers really pulled up the ladder on the younger generation by the way they treat their daughters at home and advantaged them in the workplace but perhaps this is self-evident to the point of being a banal observation
"A single woman in her mid 30s is in no position to be demanding anything"
Right? And yet, they do. They can enjoy their cats. The shortsightedness is unreal. And if they're REALLY beautiful, they remain the same into their late 30s, from what I've seen. (Many, not all, obviously. Still plenty of cool women out there. Or at least that's what I choose to believe.)
And your topic idea: I'd find it interesting.
Re: Traveling-
On one app in the past, I chose the prompt "I have a controversial opinion about" or "Let's debate this topic:" and I wrote something like Traveling is overrated...it's about roots! To weed out the "This year I really want to: TRAVEL MORE!" women.
Which was something like 7 out of 10 profiles I came across. Not exaggerating.
Def some sort of social engineering going on in that regard. In the same way they were all convinced they'd enjoy working in a big city. As if all of them could work as a writer for pop magazines like they see in all the movies.
Which, of course, is why you don't care that society and civilization are collapsing. Because you have no empathy, no accountability, and no ability to understand consequences.
If it doesn't happen to you, it doesn't exist in your myopic little world.
Oh, okay then. "no empathy, no accountability, no ability to understand consequences" "myopic little world." These are insults. That's why I thought I upset you. It really wasn't rhetoric. Okay, it doesn't matter now. It looks like you wrote a new article and moved on from this topic.
I mean, in the sense of there being less arguing and potentially more favors (at least at the beginning), sure. In a way, it is more fair to think in terms of transactions. So, I don't see what the big deal is.
Even with alphas, one of them made it clear he was expecting something more and stopped doing favors once I made it clear this wasn't going to happen. Sometimes, with men, it is more like gambling. They are willing to bet x amount to get y outcome. If they don't get it, well, that's what it is. Sometimes, alphas or men who have more are willing to bet more and are more risk takers, but they are comfortable with the risk they take, so they don't become vengeful.
I don't think men's willingness to help is that innocent either. Some make it clear it isn't. The idea of transactions, whether you like it or not, it makes sense, I think.
"The idea of transactions, whether you like it or not, it makes sense, I think."
You couldn't be more wrong. Policemen don't protect lonely women, women without brothers, because the policemen expect to get. Policemen do it because it is their duty, honour and privilege to serve women when the women call for help.
Wrong. It's because good men abhor the kinds of men who traumatize women because then the women accumulate even more emotional baggage, which further degrades their ability to function within a relationship which is necessary for kids to grow up without reaching adulthood as basket cases.
No, you're the one who is wrong here, Aaron. You're a Gamma, so what would motivate you should never be confused with what motivates higher-status men.
The Delta does his job because it's his job, whether he's a cop, a baseball player, or an accountant.
I've never failed to do what has been asked of me in the workplace. Two people at different companies have described me as being “too loyal” to my supervisors.
I really don't understand how you keep twisting a discussion about ascertaing what management wants with failure to perform. The people who don't perform the task sure as hell don't bother to ask management what their preferences or requirements are after being given vague instructions.
Being in the IT world, things either work or they don't. There's no bluffing through or re-defining away failure as an alternate form of success.
The only thing that bugs me is when someone who doesn't understand a task commits myself and my coworkers to a ludicrously optimistic timeline that nobody can actually achieve, regardless of their skill level.
You made this post about subordinates asking for clarification and you keep going back to “do what you're told”. Then you brought up the case about someone who specifically violated your instructions as if that has ANYTHING to do with a subordinate asking for clarification on priorities or other unstated requirements which play into decisions which need to be made in the planning stages.
“Also, I don't see what is wrong in the least with the transactional mindset. I thought I was doing the masculine guy a favor by letting him do favors for me, because he liked showing off and would puff up his chest and smile.”
I hate that I no longer know if I’m reading satire or sincerity. If the former, well played.
That mindset is exactly the kind of mindset that many men find detestable, or even disgusting, just so you know. You aren't "doing a man a favor" by *allowing* him to do favors for you. Men don't see it that way. At all.
The mind that can rationalize "I'm doing you a favor by allowing you to do me a favor" is not one capable of being reasoned with. That same mind is going to rationalize anything and everything you say.
I had a close female friend who used to confound me with this, because she took it to the next level. I'm generous by nature, so something as innocent as picking up a certain hard to find ice cream she liked if I happened to see it while grocery shopping would elicit an angry reaction, because she felt she "owed" me. If I got her a birthday gift worth $50, she felt she had to spend at least $100 on my gift in order to have the "ledger" tilted in her favor. This got annoying after a while and I just stopped doing anything for her. With my male friends, there's no such dynamic at all, we do stuff for each other and don't keep score, so long as nobody is obviously taking advantage of it. At the time, I didn't realize that most women are like this to varying degrees.
Vox, when looking at females and how they relate to other women, would it be correct to describe them as stratified, "haves" and "have-nots", as compared to men being hierarchical?
I've been poking Ptolemy, Alex Macris' AI, on the subject, and was wanting to figure out how close to the mark it is:
"In the strictest sense, a hierarchy is an ordering of persons or things according to rank, authority, or virtue, such that each knows both his superiors and inferiors. Hierarchies can be explicit and formal (the Roman centurion’s chain of command), or implicit and informal (the pecking order among boys at play).
A “hierarchy of haves and have-nots,” in your words, is less a true hierarchy and more a stratification—a division based on possession or status, but without an accepted principle of legitimate authority, duty, or command."
"Women’s social groups can be visualized as wheels, with a Hub woman whose character and values set the goals of the group and the type, general amount, and distribution of resources being allocated toward those goals.
The Hub’s sexual value to men sets the cap for what external resources she can bring into the female social wheel. The other women are "Beads" on the Hub’s spokes, who can slide in and out of closeness to the Hub based on the Hub’s willingness to allocate resources to them and the how willing they are to having their resources allocated by the Hub."
The wheel and hub is maintained, applying this post, through this series of invisible weights and transaction ledgers with the ability to give resources but membership as a bead requires reciprocating them.
There's another piece unspoken by the ladies. Every favor is a loan of [...], and is repaid with interest.
If the difference in social level is small, it's a low interest but noticeable. If the difference or urgency is large, it's at usury rates. And don't dare incur the penalties for delay or refusal.
“In the former case, the woman knows that she is personally accountable for the obligation she is creating in her mind. In the latter, she is accountable for nothing, and furthermore, is obtaining a social benefit for her cost-free performative efforts.”
This can also be explained through the hub theory, a female social groups that was presented here some years back. Women gain social status through acquiring resources, primarily through men, and distributing to their social network who able to grant favors as closer to her status, then who has to take favors . Because the one granting the favor has an excess of resources that she can distribute as she sees fit. This lets her be the hub that is controlling the direction and who is in/out of her nest, neighborhood, and family. If the hub needs to rely on her group for resources in a time of crisis, instead of being able to distribute them, she’ll need to put more resources back into the system later to make up for being a dependent.
There’s no conflict with women welcoming refugees in this point of view. Those women generally don’t have abundant resources from their own husband and his particular network of men or their women’s social groups, which lack access to high status men with resources. So they’re trying to obtain status by distributing the resources of the entire set of men at large within their country.
Another way to think about it is in terms of dependence. A woman who is able to harness the resources of the men in her life and her own effort to provide to the women in her social group and their children as her dependence as high status. A woman who doesn’t have that is trying to make the refugees dependent to build her status , but needing favors makes you a dependent of the other women and you lose status.
Women are crazy. Refugees consume resources, they don't generate resources.
Also,
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
https://www.rifttv.com/the-secret-history-of-the-bikini-how-did-wearing-underwear-at-the-beach-become-normal/
This plus the comments explain a lot. I think for men to understand women's "irrational" behaviour, it has to make logical sense. The "refugees welcome" insanity obtains resources for the group to raise status and without accountability. Now I get it. Understanding the "why" helps me recognize and identify and predict the behaviour.
My conclusion after reading about their twisted logic is that I should help women around me less frequently.
I usually expect nothing in return, but if they are more stressed about it than relieved about the help, should be wise not doing it.
My rule is to never help unless directly asked, with a few exceptions for wife, friends, and family, in which case I will offer help if it appears to be needed.
But never insist. If they wave you off, then leave them to it.
Note for the spergs: never helping does not mean ignoring the rules of basic etiquette. Opening a door for a woman is simple etiquette, it's not "helping" her.
This internal ledger of women on favors/resources is key to understanding the peasant village economies from post-Western-Roman collapsed Spain to Tsarist Russia. Most internal peasant town transactions didn't involve exchanging gold nor silver and they didn't barter either. Every man's woman kept track of what their family was owed with this automatic internal ledger they have. If their husband contributed more to the village helping rebuild two other families' houses, she made sure her family extracted equivalent value over the next few years.
Much of technological development over the last 500 years is automating the things women naturally contributed to day-to-day life. We're still left with the ingrained behavior patterns despite not needing them like we used to. They'll be useful again in any future technological and societal collapse.
So if a woman was forced by circumstances to accept charity, from her brother in law, is it sensible to think she would resent him for having no way to "pay it back"?
If she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to. And if a spreadsheets-guy has a list of chores and an expectation of getting some later, then it's wrong and manipulative.
I'm the brother in law in question. I didn't do her family favors with the expectation of being paid back in any way.
What were things like between you and your in-law before you helped her?
I have a similar issue when it comes to availing myself of support from my family. My wife is usually concerned with a loss of autonomy in regards to her in-laws if we were to be helped in any way. I suspect your sister-in-law has a similar feeling that she is obligated to you as a result of your help.
If you don't want her resentment, don't mention what you did. Never. Let her bring it up when she chooses to be grateful. And instead, tell her some form of 'No one is coming to save you', and expect her to fix her shit. 99,9% of her good future is her good choices. Even when you do help, she still needs to make good choices.
If she is your sister, expect her to work for it, believe in her when she doubts, and reward her for small actions; you're a great brother.
When I've spoken with crazies needing help due to mental health, it's always 'Do anything and everything which improves your mental health. Despite any feelings. Or be afraid of needing another visit to the emergency psych ward once again.' Because when they don't lock you in, you're healthy enough to be free and fix it yourself.
I haven't and won't. But she's the reason I've long thought there's no such thing as female gratitude.
Yes, that should be anticipated.
That explains a lot.
Long ago, my aunt was forced to go on welfare when her husband abandoned her and their 5 kids. A few years later, when her youngest was in 1st grade, she got a job during school hours. She figured out what she had received and began saving to pay it all back. When she had enough to pay it in full, she inquired as to where to send it. (It didn't occur to her that welfare benefits were not paid back.) She was eventually told there was no mechanism to do that. This upset her greatly, because she wanted to pay it all back, but they wouldn't take her money.
At least this is the story she told. She had a lot of pride and I'm sure she was mortified at having been on welfare.
Is it safe to assume the sign holding women don't have strong male presences in their lives to point out how misguided their thinking is? Do you think AI knows the brunette probably convinced the blond to cut her hair short?
I offer this link non-transactionally. I neither require nor expect anything in return. I'm not keeping tabs. You owe me nothing. It's a gift. Especially to my bros in Cincy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dccJ3MCgU0
An excellent thread.
What is the biological payoff to this "transactional" behavior of women?
I can understand that in, say, Paleolithic times, us guys have to figure out how to kill that thing much bigger than us, and get the catch to the tribe so we can feed the family and eat. And to do that, we have to cooperate. You have to find your place in the plan to get that big thing so that everyone gets meat and protein. I think most men here know that this sorting out takes seconds when necessary.
Women contribute to the good of the tribe, too. We got here with them as our partners. Of course. But much of this kind of behavior is dysfunctional...I believe....today?
While men may be specialized to get megafauna, narrowly--the women are out gathering plants, this one gets the potato or that one gets it. Is that it? With shifting alliances between (today) the potato trade-off and tomorrow something else? Kale, fer Godsakes?
But maybe the big payoff is in other vectors? Women seem to specialize in relationships: no, she is X's cousin. I can see how that could be an important aspect and not narrowly feeding everyone. Caring for the children when the men are off in a three-day hunt? They were doing a lot, too. Something else is going on.
Somehow humans got to where we are today and something that worked in the Paleolithic may not work today. Or may work 0.5 or 0.3 today.
Vox, thank you.
Who cares? There is little point in wasting time writing fantasy stories about the Neolithic because it's all just imagination anyhow. Focus on the What, not the Why.
"wasting time writing fantasy stories about the Neolithic"
Science! fan-fiction is not science. It's badly written fiction and there's inevitably midwit-tier speculation on human behavior with a probable Gamma perspective filter.
I see this pattern arise in gammas. I think they keep a tally of everything. Particularly favors they have given and slights they have received. All with the idea to dump it someone at the opportune moment. Recognizing this pattern has made me avoid asking favors from gammas. It’s not really a favor when you think someone is going to hang it over your head.
Yes, Gammas always come up with covert contracts (if I do X, then you *have to* do Y. But I'm not gonna tell you or even ask, you should just know). It's annoying AF.
When I pay attention to gammas it's always I grovel to you, you prop me up in front of women. Aalways. I do it free of charge for my guys, but I just can't with gammas. Can't really explain it, gives me the ick.
>covert contracts
I was thinking this exactly. In the "No More Mr. Nice Guy" book it says the weak men all use covert agreements "If I carry her books she has to date me" over overt agreements "Not my girlfriend not my problem" due to being raised by women. Pretty clear cut connection that men raised by women use women tactics.
The irony is that this is exactly what so many women do to their husband or boyfriend
The most succinct way to describe a Gamma is a man who thinks like a woman. Now with actual women we put up with this because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks but no one is going to put up with a man who acts likes this
Exactly.
Quite a strangely effeminate behavioral pattern.
There's a dark side to transactional relationships - tit-for-tat, or trading hurt for hurt.
This explains why a man in a relationship with a woman who earns more than he does is in for a rough ride.
It also explains plummeting birth rates, as the balance sheet is out of order once young women have more money than young men.
It especially explains the collapse of the black family, as black women have higher rates of what passes for education, make work job market preferences, and alternative sources of assets from the government.
Not only does a black woman have two Pokémon cards to play but they are able to fake being docile in the workplace better than their black brothers. This is probably due to the overall feminization of the modern white-collar workplace but whatever the reason, black women are more adapted to it than black men are
I have a different perspective on all this. I thought alphas/bravos/those with higher alpha traits were more likely to do favors. I always went to the most masculine guy for favors and it was usually granted. I thought it was because masculine guys like to help. It is always the more feminine and gamma men who would complain about me asking for their help.
In fact, it's the gammas who are most paranoid about me "taking advantage" of them. I was once accused of being manipulative by a gamma because his younger relative (who I was dating at the time) didn't do what the gamma wanted, and the gamma said it was somehow my influence, that I have mysterious powers and made the younger guy do what I wanted or something. I had nothing to do with that particular decision of the younger guy, the younger guy did not even ask for my opinion on that particular decision, and I didn't even know that the gamma wanted a different decision to be made.
Also, that gamma relative rudely got up and left during the middle of a conversation because I asked the gamma what he was doing for work. Apparently, the gamma thought I was planning to gold dig him because I asked him what his job was.
So, are we sure is just the attractiveness of women at play? Are we sure that some women have "the magic touch"? I always thought alphas were more likely to do favors in general. Actually, I could be accused much more of "taking advantage" of alphas than of any deltas or gammas. I think women who have difficulty with this are asking the wrong men. You should ask the most masculine guy always.
Also, I don't see what is wrong in the least with the transactional mindset. I thought I was doing the masculine guy a favor by letting him do favors for me, because he liked showing off and would puff up his chest and smile.
Also, for every alpha that granted me a favor there were about 20-30 gammas and deltas who didn't or even sabotaged me. So, even in the case where alphas do a lot of favors for women, is it really that unbalanced? So, I'd say to just accept the favor.
"I thought I was doing the masculine guy a favor by letting him do favors for me..."
This is why there's the saying, "No matter how good she looks, some man, somewhere is sick of her shit."
lmao Yep.
Reminds me that I happened to match with a chick on a dating app once who had an all-too-common profile:
"Don't take me anywhere lame. Wow me. Take me [listing a bunch of examples indicating this chick thought she was God's Gift to Tinder or whatever.]"
She must've thought she was doing a favor to whoever was stupid enough to take her out on a date.
I couldn't help it. I sent her laughing emojis and said she had to [do something lewd] first. And probably commented that her current attitude, as a woman in her mid-30s, has her on the fast track to becoming a Cat Lady.
Entitled women are the worst.
A single woman in her mid 30s is in no position to be demanding anything, but I've often noted that when a younger woman says she loves "travel and adventure" she implicitly means she likes when a man pays for her travel and takes her on adventure. At one point that man will be her father and that burden will transition to her boyfriend/husband.
I would love to see a Vox post on how fathers really pulled up the ladder on the younger generation by the way they treat their daughters at home and advantaged them in the workplace but perhaps this is self-evident to the point of being a banal observation
"A single woman in her mid 30s is in no position to be demanding anything"
Right? And yet, they do. They can enjoy their cats. The shortsightedness is unreal. And if they're REALLY beautiful, they remain the same into their late 30s, from what I've seen. (Many, not all, obviously. Still plenty of cool women out there. Or at least that's what I choose to believe.)
And your topic idea: I'd find it interesting.
Re: Traveling-
On one app in the past, I chose the prompt "I have a controversial opinion about" or "Let's debate this topic:" and I wrote something like Traveling is overrated...it's about roots! To weed out the "This year I really want to: TRAVEL MORE!" women.
Which was something like 7 out of 10 profiles I came across. Not exaggerating.
Def some sort of social engineering going on in that regard. In the same way they were all convinced they'd enjoy working in a big city. As if all of them could work as a writer for pop magazines like they see in all the movies.
Wow! That is a lot of asking for favors.
Whatever. It worked out for me.
Which, of course, is why you don't care that society and civilization are collapsing. Because you have no empathy, no accountability, and no ability to understand consequences.
If it doesn't happen to you, it doesn't exist in your myopic little world.
Okay. I think I upset you. I'll stop commenting for now.
No one here is upset, least of all Vox.
You didn't upset me in the slightest. You were literally demonstrating precisely what I described.
Don't bother with that kind of rhetoric here. I wrote the modern book on it.
Oh, okay then. "no empathy, no accountability, no ability to understand consequences" "myopic little world." These are insults. That's why I thought I upset you. It really wasn't rhetoric. Okay, it doesn't matter now. It looks like you wrote a new article and moved on from this topic.
Why do you think that?
"Also, I don't see what is wrong in the least with the transactional mindset"
Simple. You prefer hanging out with people who have non-transactional mindset. So does everyone else.
I mean, in the sense of there being less arguing and potentially more favors (at least at the beginning), sure. In a way, it is more fair to think in terms of transactions. So, I don't see what the big deal is.
Even with alphas, one of them made it clear he was expecting something more and stopped doing favors once I made it clear this wasn't going to happen. Sometimes, with men, it is more like gambling. They are willing to bet x amount to get y outcome. If they don't get it, well, that's what it is. Sometimes, alphas or men who have more are willing to bet more and are more risk takers, but they are comfortable with the risk they take, so they don't become vengeful.
I don't think men's willingness to help is that innocent either. Some make it clear it isn't. The idea of transactions, whether you like it or not, it makes sense, I think.
"The idea of transactions, whether you like it or not, it makes sense, I think."
You couldn't be more wrong. Policemen don't protect lonely women, women without brothers, because the policemen expect to get. Policemen do it because it is their duty, honour and privilege to serve women when the women call for help.
Good point. Honor is not transactional.
Wrong. It's because good men abhor the kinds of men who traumatize women because then the women accumulate even more emotional baggage, which further degrades their ability to function within a relationship which is necessary for kids to grow up without reaching adulthood as basket cases.
No, you're the one who is wrong here, Aaron. You're a Gamma, so what would motivate you should never be confused with what motivates higher-status men.
The Delta does his job because it's his job, whether he's a cop, a baseball player, or an accountant.
I've never failed to do what has been asked of me in the workplace. Two people at different companies have described me as being “too loyal” to my supervisors.
I really don't understand how you keep twisting a discussion about ascertaing what management wants with failure to perform. The people who don't perform the task sure as hell don't bother to ask management what their preferences or requirements are after being given vague instructions.
Being in the IT world, things either work or they don't. There's no bluffing through or re-defining away failure as an alternate form of success.
The only thing that bugs me is when someone who doesn't understand a task commits myself and my coworkers to a ludicrously optimistic timeline that nobody can actually achieve, regardless of their skill level.
You made this post about subordinates asking for clarification and you keep going back to “do what you're told”. Then you brought up the case about someone who specifically violated your instructions as if that has ANYTHING to do with a subordinate asking for clarification on priorities or other unstated requirements which play into decisions which need to be made in the planning stages.
If you didn't bear and raise children for a man who did 'favors' for you, it was not transactional.
You will never, ever, understand. So don't even think about it.
"I don't see what is wrong in the least with the transactional mindset."
Of course you don't. You're a woman.
“Also, I don't see what is wrong in the least with the transactional mindset. I thought I was doing the masculine guy a favor by letting him do favors for me, because he liked showing off and would puff up his chest and smile.”
I hate that I no longer know if I’m reading satire or sincerity. If the former, well played.
It's not satire
That mindset is exactly the kind of mindset that many men find detestable, or even disgusting, just so you know. You aren't "doing a man a favor" by *allowing* him to do favors for you. Men don't see it that way. At all.
The mind that can rationalize "I'm doing you a favor by allowing you to do me a favor" is not one capable of being reasoned with. That same mind is going to rationalize anything and everything you say.
> "I'm doing you a favor by allowing you to do me a favor"
"I'm a hot woman, you're allowed to hit on me, and you're gay when you do not. Because how dare you not reinforce my belief that I'm that hot."
Facts. After the laughing, one of the two sets in.
There's a very basic "karma" that anyone who acts badly will only end up surrounded by bad people because no one else will tolerate them.
I had a close female friend who used to confound me with this, because she took it to the next level. I'm generous by nature, so something as innocent as picking up a certain hard to find ice cream she liked if I happened to see it while grocery shopping would elicit an angry reaction, because she felt she "owed" me. If I got her a birthday gift worth $50, she felt she had to spend at least $100 on my gift in order to have the "ledger" tilted in her favor. This got annoying after a while and I just stopped doing anything for her. With my male friends, there's no such dynamic at all, we do stuff for each other and don't keep score, so long as nobody is obviously taking advantage of it. At the time, I didn't realize that most women are like this to varying degrees.
Vox, when looking at females and how they relate to other women, would it be correct to describe them as stratified, "haves" and "have-nots", as compared to men being hierarchical?
I've been poking Ptolemy, Alex Macris' AI, on the subject, and was wanting to figure out how close to the mark it is:
"In the strictest sense, a hierarchy is an ordering of persons or things according to rank, authority, or virtue, such that each knows both his superiors and inferiors. Hierarchies can be explicit and formal (the Roman centurion’s chain of command), or implicit and informal (the pecking order among boys at play).
A “hierarchy of haves and have-nots,” in your words, is less a true hierarchy and more a stratification—a division based on possession or status, but without an accepted principle of legitimate authority, duty, or command."
This post slots perfectly into at attempt at describing how women think:
https://sigmagame.substack.com/p/the-benefits-of-female-solipsism?utm_source=publication-search
"Women’s social groups can be visualized as wheels, with a Hub woman whose character and values set the goals of the group and the type, general amount, and distribution of resources being allocated toward those goals.
The Hub’s sexual value to men sets the cap for what external resources she can bring into the female social wheel. The other women are "Beads" on the Hub’s spokes, who can slide in and out of closeness to the Hub based on the Hub’s willingness to allocate resources to them and the how willing they are to having their resources allocated by the Hub."
The wheel and hub is maintained, applying this post, through this series of invisible weights and transaction ledgers with the ability to give resources but membership as a bead requires reciprocating them.
There's another piece unspoken by the ladies. Every favor is a loan of [...], and is repaid with interest.
If the difference in social level is small, it's a low interest but noticeable. If the difference or urgency is large, it's at usury rates. And don't dare incur the penalties for delay or refusal.
“In the former case, the woman knows that she is personally accountable for the obligation she is creating in her mind. In the latter, she is accountable for nothing, and furthermore, is obtaining a social benefit for her cost-free performative efforts.”
This can also be explained through the hub theory, a female social groups that was presented here some years back. Women gain social status through acquiring resources, primarily through men, and distributing to their social network who able to grant favors as closer to her status, then who has to take favors . Because the one granting the favor has an excess of resources that she can distribute as she sees fit. This lets her be the hub that is controlling the direction and who is in/out of her nest, neighborhood, and family. If the hub needs to rely on her group for resources in a time of crisis, instead of being able to distribute them, she’ll need to put more resources back into the system later to make up for being a dependent.
There’s no conflict with women welcoming refugees in this point of view. Those women generally don’t have abundant resources from their own husband and his particular network of men or their women’s social groups, which lack access to high status men with resources. So they’re trying to obtain status by distributing the resources of the entire set of men at large within their country.
Another way to think about it is in terms of dependence. A woman who is able to harness the resources of the men in her life and her own effort to provide to the women in her social group and their children as her dependence as high status. A woman who doesn’t have that is trying to make the refugees dependent to build her status , but needing favors makes you a dependent of the other women and you lose status.
"This can also be explained through the hub theory,"
To the extent "hub theory" comes into it at all, it is derived from women's transactional nature.
It doesn't seem to require a hub theory when it's stated everything is a transaction.
The market makers are higher level.