Apparently “that’s different and you know it”

This is conservative thought. Different rules for different people. In-groups to protect, out-groups to bind.

You can also see it when it’s like “when I needed welfare I was down on my luck and needed help. When they needed it, they were lazy cheats”

It’s poor empathy, poor reasoning, emotional dominance. They are, frankly, stupid

Many of them are illogical, or have logic descending from extremely dubious axioms.

For example, “abortion is murder of an innocent baby” + “allow abortion for rape or incest” don’t square well together, but see commonly seen together.

In addition to all the other ways conservatives are assholes, many of them are also this kind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro-masculinity

I feel like anti vaxxers in position of authority should be criminally liable. That’s a lot of sickened people for nothing.

True. Having some reasonable photos and sending a good first message helps with that. Ask your friends of your desired gender to look at your profile. (If you have no such friends, maybe work on that, too.)

Some people just write “hey” and that’s a really poor strategy. Write something that plays off their profile.

Also don’t spend too long chatting on the app. Initial exchange, like 1-3 more volleys, clear any deal breakers, ask them out. You want to get in person so all the normal human things like body language work for you, and the siren song of new matches is somewhat muted.

I guess I’m an elder millennial now. Got the greying hair and all.

I had pretty good success on the dating apps without paying. Location is a big factor. But also, as the saying goes, “the bar for men is in hell”. I think just having a reasonable conversation and caring about her put me a tier above the average.

Of course, the apps are profit seeking machines that don’t especially want you to be happy. They can work, but they’re not trying to.

I’m pretty sure the apps algorithm didn’t think I’d click with my partner. It feels very much “pretty close”, like they wanted me to have a few dates and move on. But to everyone’s surprise we really got on, despite things that superficially looked incompatible.

Maybe they should instead build technology that people want and that solves their needs.

I read an article once about how people change their minds. It cited a long term study that found people who changed their stance on big issues (eg: abortion) often didn’t remember they had ever held the opposite opinion. Not only do people not like to admit changing their minds, sometimes they can’t even consciously realize.

The only time I wont willingly admit it is if the other guy is a prick and it won’t do to give them an inch.

At the risk of being seen as a prick myself, I feel like I hear the siren song of that behavior, but man is it unhealthy.

It’s more common if people arguing against me are inflammatory: “LOL, you absolute moron! Take a look at this: (well-researched study)”

I try to remember that “The worst person you know just made an excellent point” onion post for times like that.

I really don’t want to be like my mother at all

I think this is a big motivator for me. I’ve seen how aggravating it is when someone refuses to admit fault, continuously reaches for excuses and justifications and lies, rather than just shrug and say “Oh. Seems like you were right.” Hell, you don’t even have to explicitly say “I was wrong” most of the time.

They should have had cross play with windows from the start. Fuck Microsoft.

I would recommend the invite tracking. Keep track of who invites bad actors, even higher order. If your friend’s friends suck, that should reflect a little on you. If no one has vouched for you, then you’re less trusted.

The other day I saw some dude throw his cigarette on the ground before getting on line in front me to get carded to enter a bar. For a long moment I considered picking it up and going “hey, you dropped this” and handing it back to him.

But I didn’t, because there’s no way that ends happily.

But man, fuck people who litter.

I have a recurring fantasy of a honey pot for this sort of thing. You advertise like an exclusive doodad that no reasonable person would buy. Maybe extra-large cars. Maybe horse armor. Could be anything. Everyone who goes to buy one goes straight to therapy, and they don’t leave until they’re no longer a fucking moron. Kind of like The Good Place.

Unfortunately, no. I think it was a semi-obscure but not terribly so word like “esoteric”. We were all native speakers from the same region. From what else I remember from the conversation, her general practice was to avoid looking things up. If she couldn’t figure it out from context, it wasn’t worth doing more.

Unfortunately most people use very flawed arguments like trying to appeal to emotions or strawmaning my point (or one of the many fallacious things we all have to deal online). And that will not convince me, in fact it only proves you have absolutely no argument

One thing I struggle to remember sometimes is someone can make a bad argument, but what they’re arguing for can still be true.

I used to work with a guy that would argue with me, and sometimes at the end he’d be like “I actually agree with your point, but I wanted you to be right for solid reasons”

Of course, it’s also very common for people to be making bad arguments because they’re just feeling stuff, and they’re pulling together whatever words come close to capturing that right now.

This reminded me of a person I used to know. She adamantly refused to look things up. We were having some casual conversation about work, and I was like “I think that’s not what that word means.” She just refused to look at the dictionary or engage with trying to find out the answer. I don’t know if it was pride, or an insane commitment to a bit, but it was frustrating to deal with.

Incidentally, she was the worst D&D player I ever had, and was deeply dysfunctional in her romantic relationships. I can only imagine what madness she’s up to now.

I think it was Diablo 3 (not a game I recommend) that had like “5% more damage” and “5% more fire damage” as buffs, but due to esoteric maths, the latter was significantly more impactful on the damage equation. Not a fan of that kind of secret maths in games.

I remember once when I was a kid, my uncle asked me something or other. I dithered for a bit, and then admitted I didn’t actually know. He said something really nice about how it’s much better to just say you don’t know than to dig deeper into bullshit. Really stuck with me, for some reason.