Youtube comments of Tête Dur (@tetedur377).

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  220. The 90% of men, those of us that the vast majority of women do not see, okay, are hyper picky for one reason: We are/were the simps. We bow and scrape and do everything for the women we are attracted to - basically, we provide everything that boyfriends and/or husbands do, except conjugal visits. We are/were the guys in the friend zones. Our female "friends" only want us for what we can do for them, including being an emotional tampon. In some respects, we're slaves to these women, except we nearly always live separately. We think that somehow, if we're good enough, kind enough, do enough for these women, that eventually, they'll have an "Aha!" moment in the middle of getting their back blown out by Chad and say, "Damn, that Hard Head is a really good guy! He's always there for me, he does lots of things for me, he takes me out, listens to me when I cry about Chad, why am I not with Hard Head?" And it never happens, even though our friends all thing that there's something more to our relationship than there really is. Our hyper-pickiness is our way of saying that the woman in our lives wasn't enough for us because we'd never admit that we are/were a simp who provides LTR partnership benefits who her with no reciprocity. Thankfully, channels like this exist. It's too little, too late for me, since 70 is just over the horizon, but it allows me to see what a simp I was and why, and it allows me to pass on a little of what I've learned in the last few years. It's information I could have used, say 40 years ago. Well, maybe the next lifetime, if there is such a thing. Who knows? Not me, nor do I care.
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  402. The younger generations have somehow acquired unrealistic expectations that we Boomers were never inculcated with by our parents. I went to college late in life (in my 40s), and even then, Gen X had expectations of compensation packages that we simply did not have. Here's what the Bust Generation that went through WWII and Korea told us the world owed us: "nothing." Here is what especially the Millennials and younger generations somehow came to expect from the world: "everything." Not only that, but they expected it just out of high school or college. I'm like "no, kids; it doesn't work that way." I don't know what their parents, my children and grandchildren have told them/are telling them, but they're telling them wrong. I was 26 when I bought my first brand new vehicle. I wasn't prepared, and when massive layoffs in the aircraft industry came, I had no emergency fund to allow me to continue payments or pay it off. My next new car came after my wife of 20 years passed in 2016. From 1980 to 2016 is a pretty long time. I was 50 years old, but I had an emergency fund, and I made sure I could pay it off. My first new house was a manufactured home, and it came a couple of years after I graduated college. The house I live in; that I've been in for 18 years, and it costs me $1,100 a month. That's less than half of what the renters across the street are paying for the house they're in. I was 49 when I bought it. Oh, and we bought in 2005, at the top of the market. It's the first stick house I've ever owned - that is, it doesn't have wheels - and may be the last house I'll ever buy, since I'm 67. The younger generations see my home ownership and my now 4-year old Tundra, and the other accoutrements that come with being able to AFFORD (not finance) such things, and they want all that NOW, NOW, NOW. They blame us because they can't afford all the things. I've got news for them: in 1980, I was making just under $11.00 an hour in the Midwest, and we were living under the Bidenomics-like conditions of the Carter administration. My first vehicle was 21% interest. My first new vehicle was 19% interest. I washed a lot of dishes in restaurants, I picked up beer cans (before it became a thing) and I worked day labor and gave blood in order to get by. I wasn't smart with money, which is a legit thing to blame my parents' generation (you don't talk about money, politics or religion - and look where we are because of that), but I could make it. I did make it, obviously. Basically, Gen Z's anger at their grandparents' generation (us Boomers) is misplaced. Oh, and my parents' generation still prowls the halls of power in this country. Nancy Pelosi is my mother's age. Joe Biden is technically old enough to have been my father. He would have been 16, but still...not unheard of in those days. Warren Buffet is still a force to be reckoned with, and he's how old? My generation began to take their place in those halls of power when our parents began to die off....and the f*chers would. not. die. Think about that. I'm retired at 67, and people my parent's age and older STILL WIELD POWER in this world.
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  520. You know, I'm old...too late to start again, and given today's modern woman and how they are (as told by them), I wouldn't want to. The best thing I ever did was to work on myself, after my wife of 20 years passed away. Don't get me wrong: as far as these things go, it was a good marriage. I think I got incredibly lucky, compared to a lot of men out there who get married. I also, thanks to the RP/MGTOW movement, learned a lot about both myself, and about women. I was the retirement plan. I was also a grade A, number one draft pick, Hall of Fame simp. Nobody told you these things, back in the day. Men suffered in silence and misery, often "checking out," because of what women have done, and continue to do to men. There was no real social network, past work or the local bar. Men couldn't share this stuff if they wanted to. Here's something I learned yesterday, as a matter of fact: 56% of all marriages in this country (US) end in divorce. This is the part that I didn't know: estimates are that 20 more percent of marriages that should probably end in divorce don't, "for the sake of the children." Women have always claimed that they were the ones to make that sacrifice to show what martyrs they were. I don't know the exact statistics, but this guy feels like most of those are men trying to hold a marriage where the woman has checked out together for his children. Did you know that children of single fathers; that is, where the father has custody, do almost as well as children of two parent households. Single mothers produce criminals. 75% of incarcerated individuals in this country are products of single mother households. Interestingly, there is a 75% recidivism rate in this country; 3 out of 4 convicts re-offend, sometimes within hours of being release. Roughly 75% of women vote Democrat/pro-daddy Government to take care of them.
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  521. We know that women say one thing, think another, but respond in a completely different way. Why is it that women, as mothers, tell their sons what they think they want in a man, and not how to really get a woman? In other words, my mother told me to go make friends with women. Her theory, as a Silent Generation woman, was that a guy had to do all the old fashioned things for a woman, get to know them, become friends with them, and then, and ONLY then, would he have a chance to marry "his best friend (or some bullsh*t)." Her reasoning was also that "if things don't work out with you as far as marriage, you'll always have a female friend," for whatever that's worth. Now my a*hole father (lot of people were glad when he died) presumably wanted to get laid, so he went along with that "how to get a relationship" advice my mother handed out, and I kind of sort of understand it - okay, not really, but it makes a tiny little bit of sense. But I can't understand her dispensing that kind of advice to her son(s), and gods know what she told my sisters. I never dated through age 17, when I dropped out of high school and joined the military. The only women I could con into giving it up were hookers overseas. I quit even trying to date at age 24 after many failures, and now, at age 67+, I'm only now beginning to understand that maybe I was not the whole of the problem. So now, my attitude at my age, is the same as at age 24: ALL women are 304s. They have the slot-C, we men want the slot-C, and we'll trade our souls for it. Unless/until we say "no f*ckin' way," and we go decades without it, but don't seem to be any worse the wear for the lack-o-nooky.
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  532.  @moda78z  Roughly 30% to the Fed every year, and no, I don't get a lot of that back. Then there's the state one lives in, and in some places, local taxes, including an "occupational privilege tax," which I paid in Montgomery county, just outside Philly. Basically, there are taxes on money we make, money we spend, money we save, and money we leave behind when we die. Hell, here in Maryland, they tried to implement an asphalt tax. I forget what name they gave it, but basically, they judge the square footage of the areas on your property that are paved that prevent rain from falling on the earth, and tax you on that amount. There was such a hew-and-cry over that bit of crap that they backed off for now. Democrats especially never met a tax they didn't like, as long as they don't have to pay it. Many states are losing money in tax revenue due to EVs. Politicians don't like losing money. You'd think they were corporate stock holders or something. Anyway, that actually started decades ago with the advent and rise of hybrid vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius. States have proposed, often with little success, road use taxes, such as the ones they levy on over-the-road truckers. We get taxed plenty here in the States; it's just not one big lump sum like it is in many European countries. I would call it nickle-diming us to death on the taxes we pay. I mean, we Americans are often shocked when we find out Europeans pay up to 60% of your income in taxes, but what most people don't realize is that we pay just as much; just not all to the same place. It's like that Beatles song "Tax Man." If our politicians can find a way to tax us and get away with it, they will. And spend it like drunken garden tools when the Fleet is in port.
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  688. @askel6498 said: "Explained in gamer terms: Boomers had figured out the meta, are now op and gatekeep others from playing it. Gen Z understands that they have no way of winning and choose not to play. Now boomers complain that there are not enough noobs to farm." Here's the problem with your cute little metaphor for life. The last of the so-called Silent Generation (aka, my parent's generation) AND the oldest of the Baby Boomers IS STILL IN POWER! Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, is 82 this year. He is the youngest "group" that belongs to my parent's generation (1928-1945). Senator Nancy Pelosi is a year older than Sanders. That's a quick couple of examples from politics. Industry: The best known example is Warren Buffet; he is 94 this year. In fact, he was born in the same year as my father, 1930. Roger Penske, of Enterprise, is 84. In fact, most of the CEOs in the Fortune 500 are early Boomers - who identify more strongly with our parent's generation than us mid- to late Boomers - and, of course, our Silent Generation parents. Well, the ones still alive. (don't quote me on those exact ages - close is good enough, in this case) The point here, my dear baby Gen Zer, is that I've been retired for going on 5 years now. Again, mid-Boomer. My. parents'. generation. hasn't. given. up. power. Nor have my older brothers (and sisters) of my generation. We did not come to power in the political realm, in the industrial arena, in media, fashion, or any other field you might care to mention, until we ourselves were near retirement age, because our parents wouldn't go away. Not until they died. Do you understand? Your great great grandparents did not give up the reigns of power until they either died or, for some, retired. We Boomers didn't have as much power and influence as you might think we did, in an effort to keep you brats from enjoying the alleged "good life" you think we were born into. Some fun facts where we did have some influence, however: we marched and protested to end the war in Vietnam; we marched and protested for civil rights; for equal rights for women; for abortion - regardless of how one feels about that. Earth Day; the Free Speech movement on college campuses - not only did that one not age well, but your generation seems hell-bent on killing that movement. Each generation tries their best to give their children a better life than they had. At least ideally. But other than the very affluent, the vast majority of us were not handed anything. We were taught to stay in school, go to college, get a good job, keep our heads down, work hard, and raise a family. Here's a quote you might find interesting from Realtor.com: "You might call them an unlucky generation. Just as they entered the market hoping to buy their first homes, typical mortgage payments soared. Amid rampant inflation, home prices had shot up more than 60% in four years, and mortgage rates surged to their highest level in recent memory. No, these young prospective homebuyers weren’t millennials. They were baby boomers, and the year was 1980, when mortgage rates topped 16% and the average monthly home loan payment jumped 34% from a year earlier. Those figures come from a new Realtor.com® analysis of historical home price, income, and mortgage rate data. They closely correspond with contemporary estimates reported in 1981 by wire service UPI, which called the record surge in mortgage payments “astounding.” Millennials, perhaps bitter over the economic havoc wreaked by the 2007 global financial crisis just as they entered the workforce, have long complained that “boomers had it easy.” Houses were cheaper, jobs were plentiful, and college tuition could be paid off with a summer job, according to the common wisdom on Reddit. But, according to our historical analysis, boomers arguably faced the toughest housing market ever for first-time buyers." https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/boomers-not-easier-buying-first-homes-millennials-housing-market/
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  771. For those of you wound up a little bit about the whole MPH vs KPH thing, here's what I've observed from a limited pool. That pool is made up of videos from all over the world, including England, Ireland, Netherlands, Australia, and many others. Not Scotland, though; can't understand them, even though we share a common heritage. You see them use a mix of metric and imperial measurements on the regular. Scott Brown Carpentry (New Zealand) typically uses strictly metric, but he does often convert to imperial for his viewers. A couple of people in Canada use both systems interchangeably. SaskDutchKid will use both MPH and KPH, as well as distance in miles and in kilometers. Temps are almost exclusively in Celsius, though. That's easy to convert those. You get a ball park, not an exact conversion if you take 20 degrees C, double it, then add 30 to get 70F. Like I said, it's not exact; but that's a conversion that requires fractions, which I can't do in my head. Tom Johnston, of Thomas Johnson Antiques is in Gorham, Maine, yet he almost always uses the metric system, but he does convert for his viewers. Which I think is strange, given that Gorham is closer to Boston than it is to Canada. It's kind of a leveling-affect similar to what we've seen with accents in this country, over the last several decades. For instance, the Cajun French accent. Troy on "Swamp People" is a prime example of an accent being so heavy that it's hard to understand. Yet, I've heard younger people - young enough to be his children - who have described their own Cajun French accent as being mistaken for a soft New Jersey accent, believe it or not.
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  798. I'm a Boomer - and I did what I was told to do by my father's (the so-called "Greatest" generation): go into the military, learn a trade, transfer that trade into the private sector, go to college, get a good job. Keep your head down, don't make waves, never quit a job until you have another job lined up. Save your money, don't spend, and so on und so vida. I went into the Navy; learned to be an aircraft mechanic. Guess what: you can't work on aircraft in the private sector unless you have a year aand a half of training AND you take the certification tests required by the FAA (federal aviation administration) in order to gain an entry-level job. And oh, by the way, when I went that route, there was such a glut of like-minded, former military guys (and a few gals) like me out there looking for those jobs, that most of us were working low-wage, entry-level jobs in order to get by. I went to college - only to roll my toolboxes back out of storage in order to support myself and my family - which is what I'd done BEFORE going to college, and even while I was in college. What I discovered in the white collar world, when I finally got my foot in the door at age 44 - not long after I bought my first house (a manufactured home that we paid rent on the land it sat on), I discovered that self-promotion, office politics, game-playing, and moving from program to program within the company, and going to work for other companies was the path to promotion. I hated it. Still, I managed to stick it out for 22 years. Oh, and I'm living in the same house that I bought 18 years ago when I moved across the country for the job I retired from. It's the 2nd house I've ever owned. On top of that, we bought at the top of the market in 2005, an 1100 square foot home. One of the problems I see with the Z'ers and the Millennials - even the X'ers, is they want what their parents have, without the years of sacrifice. I'm not sure that was the case with us Boomers. One thing that was accurate about what they told us was that it would take us years and years of hard work and sacrifice to achieve what our parents had achieved - through years and years of hard work and sacrifice. Most everything else they told us about how the world works was BS. I saw it when I was about to graduate college in '99. Kids thinking they were going to get the sweet salary and benefits; buy a new house, new car, and all the things their parents (my generation) had, but took us 2 and even 3 decades to acquire. If we acquired that stuff at all.
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  852. I'm a Boomer, and I agree with quiet quitting - to a point. Let me just first warn you that being old, I tend to write like a lot of old people talk in person; which is that it's a lot. I'll talk your ear off, in a manner of speaking. Heh. Also allow me to point out that my parents' generation, the so-called greatest generation, still walks the halls of power in this country. That might take a moment to sink in. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is 16 years older than me. Theoretically, he could have had a child my age. Meaning that we Boomers - you know, the generation that marched to end the war in Vietnam, to end separate but equal, for Civil Rights in the mid-60s, kicked off Earth Day, for the Equal Rights Amendment, and on and on. Yet Millennials in particular constantly blame us for the world's problems. Dude, you know how Boomers came to power in education, in corporate America, in politics? Our parents died, that's how. Which meant that most of us were old by the time we started stepping into those halls of power. Hell, I'm retired, just turned 67, and there are still the youngest remnants of my parents' generation, as I said, walking the halls of power in this country. My own mother was 84 when she died. She'd have been 89 this year. Look at (emblematically) the oldest of the Boomer generation: King Charles of England. He's 74; an age where the vast majority of the Boomers are either dead, or retired. Get it? Now, I've known almost my entire adult life that companies are not loyal to their employees, other than via collective bargaining. I was just out of the Army in the late 70s/early '80s when Hershey raided the pension fund set aside for their workers. Nowadays, it's rare for employees to be guaranteed a defined pension plan. Historically, it's been rare, but companies began raiding those funds in the time period above like there was no tomorrow. Bunch of legislation was written in the '80s about pensions and pension plans. Here's the thing: it was our parents who told us to stay loyal; to keep our heads down; to not make waves; to not quit a job until we had a job lined up. "Work hard," they said. "Your hard work will pay off," they said. Yeah, naw. No it won't. Not for the most part. I worked at the same job for 22 years, and I do have an annuity. That, combined with social insecurity, low overhead, investment/savings fund accounts, all give me a fair lifestyle in retirement. Even within that job, I could have had better opportunities, and attendant higher pay. Still, I didn't make a bad living, and most of my bosses, who were moving around within the enterprise, were pretty good bosses. As far as bosses go. But one thing I don't think the younger generations get is that it took me a couple of decades of hard work and sacrifice to get there. I drive a 3-year old truck that's paid off; I live in an 1,100 sq ft house that I pay half of what rent goes for in most places ($1,100 a month), and other than said $1,100 mortgage, I have no debt. All told, it costs me just shy of $25k a year to live, including $4,800 a year to charity. Gen X, my daughters' generation, was the first, but not the last, to want what we had, and what our parents had, without putting in the work, and without having to do the time. Because it takes both. But we'd given them all the things we didn't have when we were growing up, as had most of our parents, and it didn't teach us very much in the valuation of either things or time and effort. So yeah, that part is our fault. Quiet quitting is not always the answer. Sometimes it is, but not always. You have to be smart about when it's an effective tactic or not. In my old job, self-promotion is a huge deal. I was lucky and had bosses that recognized my hard work and extra effort. In situations like that, you absolutely have to put in the extra work. I directly supported my division's bosses as they came and went (about every 3 years). Others weren't so lucky. If they played the self-promotion game well, they got recognized; if they didn't, normally they sucked hind tit. Office politics stink, but it's always been around; even in the blue collar world, and in the military. Trust me, been there, done that. Told you it was going to be a long one.
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  909. I was lucky. I went to a 2-year school when I got out of the Navy, but couldn't find a job. This was mid-70s. So, I went into the Army reserve to supplement my G.I. Bill. Fast forward through a bunch of years and a number of low-level jobs, so I went back to college again, this time a real community college that actually taught me the remedial stuff that I didn't get because I dropped out of high school, and because the previous 2-year school didn't focus on the fundamentals, like English, Math, and so on. My G.I. Bill had expired by this time, so I paid for it all myself. Fast forward 5 years. I met a woman and went to live with her on the East Coast, and enrolled in a Big Ten University for my final 2 years. Working, and with the help of grants, loans, and small scholarships, I graduated in 2 years, but only by taking full loads for one summer - at the 400-level course tier. Jobs were crappy when I graduated and went back to California. That was right at the tail end of Bubba's time in office. It wasn't until the middle of W's first term that I found a white collar job, which I retired from 20 years later. I survived on my wife's annuity - which she could not have survived alone on, her job as a government contractor, and my income as an auto mechanic, which I had done for 20 years before my upper division work. Again, I didn't plan things out; but things worked out. I had experience living through the Carter years, and the Clinton years, of always being able to find work, and on top of that, I had relatively current skills and the tools to exercise those skills.
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  960. First of all, no. I'm getting increasingly aggravated at content creators such as yourself who attempt to end-around the usual in-video programmed ads by prostituting yourselves for your sponsors. It wouldn't be so bad, except rarely are these creators-as-spokespersons' pitches at the 30 second mark that pre-cable television held as a standard length of commercials. I'm aggravated because I pay for youtube premium precisely so I don't have to put up with ads in the video. Are you old enough to remember the late '70s, when they were pitching how great cable was? At least here in the States, they were. The big selling point was: monthly fee, no more commercials! Yeah, that didn't age well, did it? And now there are subscription services such as Amazon that charge you for membership, and charge you to NOT put up with ads within the audios and videos that you <checks notes> PAY FOR! One is able to listen to youtube for free, and I've done that, but it's more trouble to me than it's worth. Now, second, having said all that, I do not mind you hyping your own product. So few youtubers do, and I wish you success with that. But as far as outside sponsorships: please stop. Many youtubers have them. Some are a single sponsor that have sponsored channels for years that I know of, while others are a rotation of sponsors that sponsor individual videos, not the channel. Where does it end? Today, you're doing one sponsor - though technically, you are doing two. Next week, next year, everyone is up to two, or three, or more.
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  987. After the 3rd notice that youtube doesn't permit ad blockers, I saw the writing on the wall. I bit the bullet and paid for premium content. So far, so good. It doesn't stop the creators themselves from their in-video advertisements, which I typically skip right on past like the sex scenes in the paranormal fantasy novels I consume. What, TMI? I'm old; I don't give a damn. I am old enough to remember back in the mid- to late-70s when one of the big selling points to cable service was "you pay for the service and skip all the ads." I forget how exactly they phrased it, but yeah, cable wasn't free, but you didn't have to put up with advertising the way you did on "free" television. On the other hand, as Vicki Abt and Leonard Mustazza wrote (paraphrasing) "they're not selling goods and services to an audience; they're selling the audience to the providers of goods and services" ("Coming after Oprah: Cultural Fallout in the Age of the TV Talk Show" (1997)). It's even worse, now, in this technological age. We are the commodity being sold, and the information about us is far more sophisticated than ever before. I'd have to ask them, but as visionary as Abt and Mustazza were (along with many others), I'm not sure they would have seen just how infected our society would become with this type of behavior. And we haven't even talked about the role of Government in all of this. Anyway, the conspiracy theorist in me things this was all an evil plot to lure in millions of people to both create content and to consume that content, and once sucked into the matrix, gradually build up to the barely controlled cluster-f*ck that is youtube today. I'm also old enough to remember when MTV played music videos. Like MTV, I also remember when youtube was merely a platform that played videos people uploaded, as opposed to the whole "creating content" thing we have nowadays.
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  1055.  @magenta7702  I went to college really late in life - I was 40 when I graduated from community college on the 7-year plan. In 1997, I matriculated from community college to a 4-year institution to do my upper division work. Because I took 3 courses at the 400-level, I was able to graduate in 5 semesters, or within that 2 year window. The relevant background to my life is, that, like many people of the generations after me, I was sold on a degree, ALMOST any degree was a good degree. I was also an auto mechanic (25 years in that biz), and I worked the entire 7 years of my community college experience, and even the 1st couple of years of my upper division. Even though I had a few small grants, it wasn't enough, so, I bit the bullet and took out loans. Colleges and universities think a lot of their education as far as cost - aided and abetted by the federal government. A generic liberal arts degree shows one thing: that you have persistence. If you don't take away anything else from the college experience, you should take away this: communication. You should be able to express yourself clearly in writing and in the spoken word. You have your general ed courses that everyone has to take - ask an engineer, if you're ready to hear them carp on that fact. Beyond that, I would focus on critical thinking - which is the other thing you should derive from your college experience and try to shoehorn at least an intro to business and finance. My company was willing to pay for a graduate degree - the baccalaureate being the foot-in-the-door - but I had had zero business courses at the lower level. Let's just say things did not go well. I'm not ashamed of my degree, nor do I have any overall regrets at the time invested. I was so stinking proud of my 2-year degree that I was almost beside myself. I was just as proud of my 4-year degree, though by that time, I had spent nearly a decade in school, not counting the 2 years I spent in a 2-year program when I was fresh out of the Navy. Knowing what I know now, would I do it again? I'm really on the fence. I don't want to just knee-jerk reaction say "no," however, I'm leaning heavily in that direction.
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  1097. Well, women are almost completely useless. They're really only good for one thing, and that's making babies. Unfortunately, we do need them for that. The problem is: they're not good at raising babies, particularly since they treat their boy children like defective girls (as do female teachers, and even female bosses). Women are more likely to cheat on men than men are on women - not a new fact; just one that mental health professionals and others are finally willing to say out loud. Modern women go into marriages with an exit plan, generally by the 7 - 10 year mark; that too is becoming widely acknowledged. They are entitled, privileged, arrogant, demanding, and they all think they're 10s - because if you think you're a 10, that will manifest in your life, don't you know. Oh, and about that raising babies thing? Women are 7 times more likely to hurt their children than men are. We should probably ask about how many boyfriends of these single moms hurt their girlfriends' children. Are there exceptions? Sure, but the exceptions, contrary to popular f'nist opinion that one exception completely obliterates the rule, they do no such thing. Only in the delulu minds of women everywhere do the exceptions disprove the rules. But any of these survivor shows actually prove that women, as the communicative, cooperative creatures they claim to be, cannot, in fact, survive without men. On the other hand, men do just fine without women. Maybe the Rapture will come and G_d will only take women, and we men can finally have some peace in our lives. I feel bad for G_d, however.
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  1197. I was in my 20s (I'm almost 68) when I realized that women use sex to a) trap men into relationships, and b) produce their desired number of spawn. That's all. My 20s, guys. I honestly did not, and 40+ years later still do not believe that women actually enjoy sex. It's a tool, and only a tool to be used for a) procreation, and b) manipulating men. Oh, it's pleasurable enough for them; otherwise they would forego it altogether. If you listen to every, single married man out there, eventually, they do. Well, with them, anyway. For men: men need to stop lying. Men have always lied about how great sex is; about how pleasurable it is; about how much they want, need, and enjoy sex. It's not. It's like a drug; there's no high as good as that first high, and addicts spend YEARS trying to replicate something that has almost zero chance of being replicated. Even if that first experience is "meh," men will spend the rest of their lives trying to find a better experience. All because other men keep lying about it. Stop it. Do better. You do not need sex. You. Do. Not. Need. Sex. The only thing sex is useful for is procreation. I've gone decades without it, and I'm no worse the wear. My body count in high school was zero. My body count in the Navy was 2. My body count by the time I was 24, which is the age I gave up on trying to date, was 3, maybe 4 (yeah, that memorable). My body count by the time I was 44 was 4 (or 5), and including my wife, it was 5, because we had a sexless marriage. The first couple of times was 2 middle-aged teenagers groping in the back seat (figuratively). She may or may not have been willing; I felt obligated to try. For 20 years, we did without. Mostly, that was me. I was ambivalent toward sex anyway, and I wasn't attracted to her sexually. Nice woman, no drama, and in some ways, most ways, I'm a better man for having had her in my life. Like comedian Bill Burr says "...rub one out like a man; who cares." It's cheap, quick, and easy. Stand over the toilet, pee afterward, and go back to your video game, or whatever. But stop lying about it. You're not doing anyone any favors.
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  1259. It's beyond ironic that if Safeway, and other retailers come out and say "it's because of shoplifting," without saying who's doing most of the shoplifting, the black community KNOWS that it's primarily members of their own community doing the shoplifting, and will scream "that's racist!" That's like if Waffle House sold and moved out of an area and said the reason was because their customer base had shrunk to where it was no longer profitable to keep the doors open, due to fights and disturbances, as well as people constantly walking out without paying for their meals - again, without naming names - and the black community turning around and screaming "that's racist!" thereby admitting that it's black people causing all the problems. They KNOW who's causing all the problems, and even though Waffle House (in this hypothetical situation) never said it was black people causing all the problems, and they dime out members of their own community without realizing that's what they're doing. At 68, I've traveled and lived all over this country. I've been in the military, in the blue collar world in a wide variety of occupations, and I retired from the white collar world. I'm sad to say that my bigotry is the soft expectations I have for the black community as a whole. Yes, I understand that no all _______ are like the rest. Just as that beyond-Archie Bunker-type guy that lived next to us in Philadelphia doesn't represent all white people. But when activists, black, white guilt leftists, and others constantly harp on how racist white people are by virtue of their skin color, eventually, people like me are going to react. I would hope that Dr. King is spinning in his grave right about now. His dream is dead, and they're digging that hole deeper to bury it in.
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  1342. Yeah, I don't understand that female mindset of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine," except that women move in and out of the workforce AT WILL. You understand? When they get to a certain age, they say "I'm tired of this rat-race," and they find a guy who'll support them (on 40K) and they QUIT their 100k job! Then, in about 7 or 8 years, they get tired of being a SAHM, and if they don't divorce the man and take everything he has, they'll go back to work. So it's not that she's likely to keep her $100K job, once she cons some sucker into wifing her up, but even if she does, all of these modern women feel entitled to keep the money they make to themselves, and I don't understand where that comes from. Into and out of; into and out of. That's precisely why male hiring managers in the past did NOT want to hire women. They knew. They hire a woman, train her up, and the next thing they know, the woman has quit, gotten married, and is off having babies. So now they have to go through the whole thing all over again, preferably with a male employee who is likely to stay at that company long-term. NOTE that that's AFTER the Federal Government said "you can't discriminate against women in hiring," which mean the Gov't began looking at quotas to determine solely on that basis whether you were discriminating against women in hiring. Before that, managers tended to hire not only men, but MARRIED men, since married men were less likely to make like women and flake. I got turned down for jobs because I was not married in those days, and I wasn't smart enough to lie about it. Managers also knew that by hiring women and young, single men that that job would NOT go to a married man who needed that job. And now, companies are actively discriminating against men generally, and white men specifically, WITH the blessing of the Federal Government.
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  1378. I'm throwing the BS flag on this. I retired as a federal employee at the GS-13 level, with 26 years of service between my government service and my military service. People voluntarily retire. People are offered buy-outs, which is when the government offers the employee incentive to go ahead and retire. The government also eliminates that position, so they can't hire somebody into it, after they paid someone to vacate it. People can resign. The offer to stay at home and not work, but still get paid sounds like a sweet deal - until you realize you forfeited a retirement. That's not such a good deal, unless you don't have a minimum amount of time and aren't old enough to collect a retirement. People are put on probation for one to three years, and there are several factors involved, such as fresh hires out of college (3 years), newly hired former or retired military members (often 1 year), but here's the thing: if I, as a GS-13, were to move into a GS-14 slot, that's a management position; almost always. Not everyone makes a good manager, and despite having 20 years in the government, that GS-14 position is a probationary position. I have talked to people who still work for the government, and such probationary people have lost their jobs. The thing of it is, it's hard to get people to work for the government. The main reason to work for the government is the benefits, because it sure ain't the money. The vast majority of the workforce in the Defense Department is educated at least to the baccalaureate level. A great many of the jobs in DoD pay more on the outside. For at least a half dozen years, the growing concern within DoD is the aging workforce, and the lack of replacements coming in. Next time, do a little more research before claiming to be something you're not, and talking out of your 4th point of contact.
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  1512. If a guy has female friends, chances are good that he is in one or more of those female friends' so-called "friend zones," and that means he's a simp. At BEST, he's a back up, but more than likely, he's fulfilling boyfriend/husband duties and obligations while she's between "situationships." Note that I do NOT mean the conjugal kind of duties and obligations; I'm talking about the fiduciary kind. A guy can have female friends; even friends who are married. I've had...4 in my life, including a former boss. Everything has to be circumspect and above board. For instance, if I call my former "office wife" - my now late wife gave her that label; I'd never heard of it before - I'll say "hey, it's been a while, you and the big guy want to go to lunch?" Most of the time, he can't attend, but the key is: he knows we're friends and going to lunch together. Hell, I've been invited to their house for holidays several times after the Mrs. passed away. We've kind of drifted apart, as these things do, and that's okay. We still remain in touch via social media, and a lot of time between texts (like over a year), but the connection is still there. Everything is open; there are always witnesses. When my wife passed, my now former boss organized gift cards, sympathy cards, food, and brought it directly to me house - chauffeured by her BFF. I wouldn't have it any other way. Female friends can be a great resource for many things, especially perspectives that might not have occurred to you. But female friends aren't like male friends; you don't belong to that club; that sorority. You can visit, but only in the lobby, and when visiting hours are over, you have to leave. In a real sorority, the house matron or the senior girl would make sure you a) were not unattended with the object of your affection, and b) that you left when visiting hours were over. OMG, did I just date myself or what? I can't imagine the free-for-alls that sorority houses must be in this day and age. That's the way it has to be, especially if you really care for your friend, because it's more than likely her reputation that will get besmirched or ruined if someone has an ax to grind.
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  1522.  @allie9462  "That’s where you’re wrong. Women are nurturers and more loyal than men. Women actually get so much pleasure from taking care of their man by cooking for him, cleaning for him etc. it’s an innate desire to make sure your man is cared for to face the big bad world" 🤣 Hahahahaha! Yeah, no. Women are NONE of those things. Women are incapable of love, of happiness, of loyalty. That's not to blame them; it's a biological imperative. Women are biologically wired to be incapable of the things I just mentioned. It's a survival mechanism in order to reproduce. Like the man said, men and women have to LEARN strategies in order to compensate for what they lack in areas that make them attractive to the opposite sex. For example: I'm short, at 5'7" tall. That puts me solidly into the "average man" category, which means I have to learn strategies that make me more attractive to the opposite sex, which happens to be the one I've always been interested in. If a woman is plain, for example, being and staying fit, wearing of clothing that not only enhances that fitness, but complements her "type," and so on, can go a long way. Too many women (and some men) think that they're entitled to the opposite sex bringing all the things to a prospective relationship for no more reason than they have a physical presence. Just look at how women respond, after they've listed what a man needs to do for them, and what the woman is expected to provide, and if they don't get angry, they do the Vanna White wave and say "Me! I'm the table!" No. No, you're not.
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  1524. Nate said "...this is what happens when you hire criminals and give them guns." Leaving aside the historical fact that NOPD is, or has been one of, if not THE most corrupt law enforcement agency in the country for many decades, there are many people who will argue that cops ARE criminals with badges and guns. In fact, that old saw goes like this: "What's the difference between a street criminal and a cop?" The cop has police powers, a badge and a gun." I heard that back in the '70s. The thing of it is, Simmons could have been injured or killed by a brick. I've seen it happen not 10 feet from where I was. She looked to be in uniform, which suggests to me that the perp was not only willing to try and injure what looked to be a cop, but anyone who got in his way. The only reason he didn't try to incapacitate her was a) she was armed, and b) there ware at least 2 others after his punk ass. I would argue that he posed a serious threat to the community at large. Criminals only escalate their behavior. My only issue with her is that she endangered the public by doing what she did. Pretty good shooting, however; 7/11 rounds at a moving, man-sized target that a lot of people would have a hard time hitting from that distance were it stationary. How many rounds did New York cops fire at a suspect some years ago, and hit everything BUT the alledged perp? Dozens of rounds fired. I can't remember for sure, but they hit buildings, cars, windows, maybe even a bystander or two. Dozens of rounds.
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  1587.  @eestudaj  Your master's degree doesn't seemed to have paid off when it comes to structuring a paragraph. You knew what you were trying to say; I've read it twice and am still trying to figure it out. Your college degree cost what it cost, and that's a sunk cost. We SAY that we earn more with a master's (or even a baccalaureate), but the money we put into that degree is money that we really can't get back. My first white collar job paid less than my last blue collar job; not by a huge amount, but still less. However, at the end of 22 years in that job, I retired making roughly $130,000 a year; far in excess of what I started at, and much more than I could have made in my previous career. As a matter of fact, only the very cream of the crop; well under 10% of the top people in my blue collar field were making upwards of a $100K a year the same year I retired from my white collar job. I did not need a college degree for my white collar job. The requirement to have one was a gate-keeping device. It helped with my communication skills, which is all a general college degree is good for - as opposed to a specialized degree, such as engineering, for example. Effectively, what I think you're trying to say is that by spending money on tuition instead of going straight to work cost you that $55K in wages or salary PLUS the cost of tuition. And that's not necessarily the case. You have to ask yourself "could I have acquired that job without a diploma?" In my case, the answer is "no," absolutely not. That was one of the criteria of the gate-keepers: "do you have, or are you nearing completion of a college degree in at least a general studies area?" There was no waiver for that particular criteria. If your answer is yes, then you might make a case for the lost wages as opportunity cost - except opportunity cost applies to production. Comparing how much you could have made in exchange for your labor and the costs of tuition for schooling is the old apples v oranges argument. Education is labor, but we don't view it as such, since most people don't get paid to go to school as an occupation. I would probably be still in school, if that were true.
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  1646. When I go to get in my Tundra tomorrow, my GPS is still going to try to get me to the general vicinity of the doctors' offices adjacent to the hospital 30 minutes from where I live that I went to today. It got me there...and then shut up. I could see the building and the left, the hospital on my right, but the GPS was on a union-mandated break or something. One of the first times I used it, a few years ago, it got me to within, oh, I dunno, 2-300 yards or so and said "You've arrived at your destination." And I'm arguing with it! "There's nothing here! There's a parking lot there, a pad there...the nearest building is a quarter of a mile away!" It went on break that time, too. GPS didn't even say that. It just shut up altogether. Then, when I was driving away, it kept trying to get me to make a "legal u-turn" to drive back to the general vicinity, where, presumably, it wouldn't tell me I'd arrived at my destination. I did figure out how to mute it, but for the life of me, I could not find where to cancel the trip. Break, break So, I'm 66; about 4 months from being 67. Here's when you know you're old: going to doctors' appointments becomes a part-time job. For me, I've been going to the cardiologist, the endocrinologist, the retinal specialist for a few years now. Medi-don't care, which they force you into, requires an annual "wellness visit." Said wellness visit set off a whole series of other doctors' appointments, to where it's just about a part-time job, just coming and going. So that's how you know you're old.
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  1698.  @kenweaver1329  If you were an actual business owner, then you'd know that the largest cost to doing business is labor. Period. Regardless of the industry or the size of the business IS labor. Assuming you are an actual business owner, here is what I observed in the work force: the vast, overwhelming majority of business owners have no business owning a business. You all have no training in business; in how to run a business where the rubber meets the road. You learned a trade, you got good at it, decided you could do better if you worked for yourself, and so you hung out your shingle and started working via referrals and a little bit of advertising. That's best case scenario. Too many guys with enough knowledge to be dangerous pick up their hand carry Craftsman tool box out to the '72 Ford Econoline and go out and f*ck up more than they fix. The point is that almost none of you learn how to manage a business so that anyone other than you and your wife who is the book-keeper (because she can balance a checkbook) makes money. So you underpay your employees, because that is the largest expense of doing business, you barely keep your debts covered, you buy your wife a new car, and you take vacations that shut down the business for a week or two while your employees go unpaid for that period of time. And then you can't figure out why you can't get any good employees. Or keep them if you do accidentally get one. That's my observation from being in the blue collar, as well as the white collar world for roughly 50 years outside the military. Seen it over, and over, and over. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen this play out, I'd be f*ckin' rich.
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  1745. PS: I know it's popular to blame the Boomers - you know, the generation that marched to end the war in Vietnam, for civil rights, for abortion to be legal, started Earth Day, fought to clean up the environment and to no longer allow companies to treat the earth as a dumping ground for toxic waste - that generation - for everything wrong under the sun, but consider: Joe Biden, the man that holds the highest public office in the land; the most powerful office on the planet, is technically old enough to be my father. He still holds public office. Okay, he would have been a 16-year old dad, but still. Strom Thurmond died in the Senate at 101 years of age. People get exercised about the person who gets elected to an office that they can only serve in for 8 years at the most, and yet yawn and turn away when you talk about people that get elected at a relatively young age - and stay in that office for 4 or more decades. Do you get it? As one of the youngest of the Boomers (1946 - 1964), I retired before some of these people of my PARENTS' generation no longer waked the halls of power, in government, in industry, in academia. Do you get it? Nancy Pelosi is still in the US Senate; where she's been since 1981. She's 83 freakin' years old. My mother died when she was 82. Warren Buffet is 93 years of age. He's 10 years older than Pelosi. ONE of the richest men in the world, 93 years old, and a captain of industry. In other words, we Boomers began taking the reigns of power when our parents died. Not when they retired and turned things over to us. When they died, is when we began to have any influence in this world. You know, other than the protests and the marches we took part in. Those were pretty powerful. Now, they're mostly peaceful protests. The two aren't the same.
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  1923. Is there any way we can stop pretending that marriage is all about love and all that bullsh*t? Women are INCAPABLE of love. They are only capable of feelings. That is how they navigate the world; their lives. PERIOD. Women do not love themselves, let alone parents, children, husbands, or anyone else. It's simply not in them. They are like the story of the half-frozen snake, where the monk comes across it, picks it up, carries it to his cabin, and warms it up. The snake promptly bites the monk. As the monk lies dying he says "why!? I picked you up, saved you from the cold, warmed you up, even gave you a mouse to keep you from starving! Why would you bite me!?" And the snake said "you knew what I was when you picked me up." We don't need to hate on women for being what they are. We can hate their behavior without hating them. We can certainly avoid them. I mean, let's face it: there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to get married unless 2 people want to have children. There is no rational reason. My late wife and I got married. I was 44, she was older, and I was the retirement plan. Period. There was no other reason for us to get married. It was a good marriage, as these things go, however, she was entitled to all my resources, and I was the retirement plan and built-in care giver in her final years. I saw marriage contracts are the way to go. It's the way to both protect ourselves, to make sure that the offspring are genetically ours, and that they are taken care of until at least 18 years of age. Because if we don't, I can see a time when they at least try to implement a draft. Not selective service, but a marriage draft. And lest anyone think that's too far-fetched, stop and ponder your world for a while and think about the things in our realm of existence that even 50 years ago would have seemed to fantastical to even move beyond the world of Sci/fi.
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  1956. The 1st lie she told was "...have someone call you ugly." No, sweetheart, no one called you ugly; you made that part up. A man expessing his concern about your lack of activity is not the same as calling you ugly, except in your own teeny, little, lying lizard brain. The 2nd lie you told was that old "fat phobia." There's no such thing, baring you threatening to sit on someone and smother or crush them. Then again, some guys are into that. I didn't get married until I was in my 40s - 20 years after I stopped even trying to date. I met her in the old chatrooms on AOL and Prodigy. We corresponded for a year before she flew from the East Coast to California to meet me in person. She was a big girl - a 3x, if you want to know. But she was a great person with a good head on her shoulders, and she was both kind and peaceful. I, having been a simp, nearly a virgin, and figured I couldn't do any better, wifed her up. She'd been married twice before and had 2 daughters that were finding their own way in life. I learned a lot from her in the 20 years we were together, and I grew in confidence as a man. I never physically cheated on her, not that I believed there was opportunity there. I didn't grow that much in confidence. Having said all that, she was also 10 years older than me, and medically, she was a train wreck. Whoever said "age is just a number" was a deluded fool. Not only did her medical issues, brought on mostly by her weight - as well as dangerous fad diets when she was younger, cost us a lot of money, but her insecurities had led her to becoming a hoarder and an abuser of drugs (prescriptions) and alcohol. On top of that, she was a spend thrift. That doesn't mean she was thrifty with money; quite the opposite. Pro tip: never let your woman have unfettered access to money without oversight. Anyway, big girls come with a host of issues (more so than other women), and you cannot fix them. They can be kind, and loving, bring peace (or at least minimal drama) into your life, however, the mental and especially the physical issues can become overwhelming. Skinny beotches love telling big girls all the lies we've heard, because that's one less competitor for those so-called "top tier guys" that all women are after. In a group of 10 women, the big girl still wants that top tier guy, but she's almost guaranteed to be not in the running.
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