This could mean the end of the great advertising war! The corporations want to stick their endless adverts in front of our eyeballs, we want to live without that crap. This gives us the possibility of a truce. They let us have internet and TV and operating systems and fridges with no adverts. In return, each of us sponsors one eyeball-equipped consciousness eternally trapped in the Torment Nexus. It’s a reasonable compromise!

This could be exactly the scientific breakthrough we needed. Imagine a future where we all have one of these and it watches ads on your behalf. It can’t close its eyes. It can’t look away. it’s the perfect audience!

I do hope it has a little speaker that says “don’t worry human, help is on its way” in a cute high pitched voice.

I’m a bit on the fence here, because the bar is being set at “corresponding with” rather than “associating with”. Perhaps you need to get in touch with some government official or some billionaire to get something done, and someone you know knows a guy who could put you in touch with them, so you send that guy an email. You just corresponded with someone. Would you have done a thorough background check on the middle man before sending an email?

I mean, I don’t know if these cases are like that or not, but corresponding with someone doesn’t in itself imply any kind of affiliation or knowledge about the person you communicate with.

I’m strongly against the death penalty. But cases such as Mussolini are an exception. Not because he deserved it though. You could claim many people deserve to die but we degrade ourselves and our society by making and acting on such judgements.

But if Mussolini had fallen into the hands of allied forces, he would quite likely have ended up returning to power. The partisans had a chance to chop the head off Italian fascism, and they took it. Good call.

It’s a pretty random bunch of things to burn though. My guess is they had this stuff lying around for a while and they needed to make room for something else

Your choir has a good reason to be men only, since that creates a certain sound.

That’s true. Which is why I pointed out that my reasons for joining the choir are not just about the sound. I want a male space, and I don’t think I’m wrong to want that.

I don’t think an all-female board game club that is open to the public but only lets women join would be OK.

Personally I don’t see what’s wrong with an all female board game club, especially if it’s the kind of board games that tend to mostly attract male players. It may encourage female participation where they would otherwise feel uncomfortable, and male players would probably have their own club anyway in that case. But then in the absence of a thriving all female club, an all male board game club would be a problematic thing, since it would specifically exclude a female minority. Context matters and it’s important to be inclusive, but inclusivity doesn’t always mean putting everyone in a single group.

But as soon as you do something publicly, you don’t get to say “everybody can come except group X” without a good reason.

OK, but what’s a good reason? We often have groups for limited age ranges, for usually good reasons. You’ve mentioned some good reasons why men should be excluded from some women’s groups. So it’s not like nobody ever gets excluded from anything. And while men may have less compelling reasons to exclude women, in general single sex groups are a valuable social thing for both men and women. One of the reasons you don’t see many strictly single gender clubs is because there are de facto single gender clubs which don’t need to apply a rule. People socialize in a single gender category without having to formally exclude anyone. Which is fine, and avoids unnecessary polemics.

I’m just saying that we should recognize the value in this. It’s a shame that male only spaces tend to be associated with patriarchy or toxic masculinity, when they also fulfill a real social need.

Gender exclusive groups are OK when there is a legitimate reason.

What is a legitimate reason though? Consider…

1. men do not face the problem of being put in uncomfortable situations by women almost anywhere they go, so they have less topics or activities where they feel like they need a men’s only group. For most topics/activities men can go to a mixed-gender group and have the same experience as they would in a male-only group. Women can’t.

You seem to be saying that a legitimate reason would be a need to escape from people hitting on you or the equivalent. How about if you just want to hang out with people of your own gender? Is that not OK? Men do not have the “same experience” in mixed gender groups. Socializing in a single gender group is different from in a mixed gender group and both are important. You are dismissing the need for men to socialize among themselves on the basis that they might make an important decision that should have included people outside that group. Now I understand that this has historically been (and in some cases continues to be) an issue with work-based men’s-only clubs/outings etc, and it should be addressed in that context. But it’s not a valid reason to reject the existence of male only groups or spaces in their entirety, is it?

Case in point: I sing in a male voice choir. I enjoy it not just on a musical level, but also for the fact that it is a male space. It’s not about hating women, or having prejudices about women. It’s not actually about women at all, which is kind of my point. I have enough women in my life, what I need is to be around men sometimes. Nor is it about “we want to address a typical male problem” either, unless you consider difficulty with socializing to be a typical male problem, which, yeah, arguably it is in some cases. But guys just like doing things with guys sometimes. It’s a different dynamic and it’s good for us.

I feel ya. In the end I just concluded I don’t know enough about motorbikes to see what the problem is

To Andrew Tate: Try me. Sincerely, every single pilot precipice in the world

Haven’t you seen Alien:Prometheus? Humanoid aliens sending their pedos to earth and dispersing their DNA to create a whole new pedosystem was what got us into this mess in the first place. We must not repeat the cycle!

Thank you for diverting your attention from the Epstein files!

If you’re monitoring his movements, I’d go with a dripping tap sound. Just enough irregularity in the timing to keep it interesting. Silence it every time he gets out of bed.

That’s his biological job

I was put here to add carbon to the air and convert food into shit!

If just one ICE agent in 50 were a low-key saboteur just quietly, “accidentally” fucking up every single thing that comes their way, it would be disastrous for ICE

I dunno, looks like this dude used it for entertainment purposes

If I could add another contraction to that list, I’d

Give me Greenland and I won’t attack anyone else except Cuba! And Mexico! And Columbia! And Canada! Obviously we’re not done with Venezuela yet… then there’s always Iran…

There’s probably some simple trick they are missing. I never have any trouble getting hit by big ships, and I never even learned how to sail.