If your identity depends on someone else’s behavior, then it’s not an identity; it’s a desire to control others. Men who need women to behave in certain ways so they can feel masculine enough define masculinity as power and dominance over women. And that’s really all you need to know about them.
It bespeaks a lack of human connection & a discomfort with
the core of what many of us consider it means to be human.
It's an inability to reconcile the demands of being individual
with the demands of participating in society.
It coincides beautifully with preference for & glorification of
being the solo commander of one's computer in lieu of any
other economically viable behavior.
Computers are so much more rule-based, controllable,
fixable, & comprehensible than any human will ever be.
These techno-libertarians make a philosophy out of a
personality defect.
21 Oct 2025 interview (abridged)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL-kwZdkiOA
Interview: "The Woman Who Predicted Tech Fascism — Paulina Borsook Was Right"
Borsook wrote Cyberselfish, which warned about "the rise of Silicon Valley authoritarianism & technofascism decades before Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, & the far-right tech elite took power."
"How Silicon Valley’s toxic libertarianism evolved into a global far-right propaganda machine."
The Woman Who Predicted Tech Fascism —
Paulina Borsook Was Right
Borsook warned of a new toxic techno-libertarian political
strain informed by absolutist Ayn Rand.
It wanted a world as controllable & predictable as a
computer - no room for messy human needs.
Borsook's Cyberselfish revealed the strain's childish political
beliefs & toxic masculinity. She predicted that if it took an
interest in politics, it would be bad news for the world.
Years before Musk & Thiel rose to challenge democracy,
Borsook saw it coming. But the media gatekeepers weren't
interested, & her writing career took a dive.
21 Oct 2025 interview (abridged)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL-kwZdkiOA
The call never came. Instead, #Hegseth was trying to beat a simultaneous pushup record during a Navy & Air Force football game. A day later, #JBPritzker announced that #Trump had ordered 400 members of the #Texas#NationalGuard to deploy into #Illinois, #Oregon & elsewhere. He also said that 300 Illinois National Guard troops were being #federalized against his “vigorous objections.”
“I got no call. And I got no call all afternoon, all evening, & I have not received a call at all. It turns out that #PeteHegseth was at a football game, & he was doing push-ups as part of a show of Guinness Book of World Records. So he was out having fun after saying that he was going to call me & didn’t. And they’re sending #troops while he’s going to a football game, & ignoring what he should have been doing.”#JBPritzker said in an interview Tues.
"The president who received five draft deferments—four for college, one for bad feet—continued to a room full of career officers....
For the next 70 minutes, he spoke slowly, slurring words, delivering to the hundreds of professionals who had rushed from around the world to attend this meeting a rambling, incoherent stream of words that jumped from what appeared to be prepared remarks to his own improvisation."
"America’s toxic masculinity crisis was on full display today when Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense or, as he likes to say, Secretary of War, stood up in front of a room full of generals, admirals, and other senior military brass and lectured them about what it meant to be a real man."
"There was no hooting, no hollering, no one applauded. They just sat like this. Like, it was emasculating in a way that this man who desperately tries to cosplay as an alpha was seen as a beta cuck by U.S. military leaders. Like, that was, I thought literally, and them televising this, I think it was even worse."
Entitling his commentary "Bulging Biceps Don’t Win Modern Wars," Paul Krugman writes,
"Hegseth’s speech was morally vile. It was also, however, profoundly stupid. Hegseth seems to have gotten his ideas about what an effective military looks like by watching the movie 300."
"A military rife with sexual abuse and bigotry isn’t going to attract the best minds — many of which, although people like Hegseth will never believe it, reside in female and nonwhite bodies.
…All of this is of a piece with Trumpian policy in other domains."
"Of course a regime that believes it can make America great by defunding science and destroying higher education believes that it can make our military more effective by making it prejudiced and stupid.
The good news is that America’s officer corps isn’t stupid, at least not yet."
#ToxicMasculinity claims #empathy & #grief are weakness – or worse, #sin - but studies show that hardening the ❤️ in ungrieved grief can injure the body & mind w/ anxiety & depression, illness, addiction, even death… never mind impaired productivity. #Living-W-HeartInAHeartlessTime bit.ly/4dLtKeu https://bit.ly/4dLtKeu
LIVEdammit is a mental health support site with stories, tools, free e-course, bookstore & inspiring wearables — for stubborn souls doing the work to stay here, stay human, & stay strong.
I've Finished: The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
On one hand, The Gate to Woman's Country is a product of its time. Dealing with the aftermath of world war III. On the other hand, toxic masculinity is as relevant as ever.
In dialogue with the Iliad, Tepper Imagines a woman lead society that segregates men to a military garrison limited to Trojan War technology and confining war to formal battlefields set outside the walls where women, children and men who have renounced military life, live.
There is more to it than that, the arrangement isn't stable and must be maintained. The segregation isn't hermetic and women interact with the warriors outside Carnival Time. This is where the drama and the characters weaknesses and strengths come into play.
One place Where Women's Country really feels dated is that in a society where the sexes are mostly confined to their own camps and where marriage has been abolished, there is no mention of lgbtq sex.
A thought experiment with depth and compelling characters.