It’s a scam, y’all.

The hijra are on South Asia or the Indian subcontinent. I don’t know exactly what their social status is but it might differ from one part of South Asia to another.

I don’t know much about Burma and Cambodia so I can’t comment. Barring Malaysia and Indonesia, since they are Muslim-majority countries, the lgbt community in Philippines and Thailand is widespread and less stigmatised. We all know how accepting Thailand is of lgbt, and in Philippines many gays and lesbians are tolerated, but not accepted due to Catholic reasons for still refusing same sex marriage. However, before the Spanish colonisation of Philippines, gay men or bakla were conferred a special status as clerics in religious occasions, similar to hijra in South Asia and third spirit among Native Americans. Despite the Christian influence, the tolerance of lgbt in Philippines is still intact.

I tend to pose just having such uncontested language goes a long way for gender roles (and conformance) not being such a puritanical binary like it is in the American anglosphere.

Austronesian languages are not gendered. There is no he or she. Probably the closest translation of singular pronouns to English from Austronesian languages is “they”, which may sound awkward to gendered language speakers.

Yup. If we’re going to romanticise non-modern life, we should probably look to the hunter gatherer San people of South Africa. They are considered one of the most peaceful cultures and hardly had any previous records of conflict (except in the 1970s and '80s but that’s a long story).

I don’t want to say specifically where I’m from, but I am originally from South East Asia. A common theory for the relative gender equality is because of the sea-faring, nomadic culture of Austronesians, who populated South East Asia and later the Pacific. Apparently, because of the lifestyle and constant movement, the workload is distributed between men and women, which promotes egalitarianism. Similar thing is observed on Native Americans and hunter gatherer cultures. I don’t know how solid the theory is but I will have to read more on it.

Even with South East Asia now being a “settled” society, and Abrahamic religions introducing some patriarchal ideas, the egalitarian value still largely remains as far as I can tell. There is remarkably more women in management roles in South East Asia compared to other countries. Many Westerners even noted how there are many female security guards in my home country.

I find it incredibly stupid when people blame the forests when they have a problem with a specific tree.

That’s why I have a problem with the phrase “improving yourself” because it’s such a broad statement and nonspecific. A guy could be a gym buff but still struggle to date because he’s too shy, overly anxious etc. Women, or any gender, like a confident person who could take care of him/herself. And the problem, of course is, no one will tell the guy what the problem is because it will come off as rude. A pertinent issue is that men tend to be solitary and form less bond with others than women. Women give each other feedback, while for men, there isn’t anyone to receive feedback from. Many men instead end up losing their way to snake oil salesmen.

I saw post on social media with female OP wondering why some men are still single. A lot of female commenters say many men are too anxious and over thinking. It reminds me of my friend who is good looking, but quite insecure. Looks don’t matter much to women and they prefer personality. Many insecure, single guys scoff when I say this, but look around and there are less physically attractive guys dating ridiculously good looking women. It is nuanced and looks matter to an extent, but it’s not a top priority to less shallow women. Women aren’t some mystical and mysterious goddesses who are untouchable.

Women do have a point that men would do anything, including harmful stuff, than go to therapy. I’m glad that another friend of mine seems to be holding on his current relationship long, after I advised him to go to therapy.

In all seriousness, as a guy, I am genuinely gobsmacked at how many men feel entitled to sex and blame their insecurities and lack of dating skills on women. Looking back, I’m glad that I came from a culture where it’s more egalitarian. The schools I went to taught us that feminism is about equality between men and women. It’s not about one gender being superior to the other. When I was younger, my mom repeated to me couple of times not to get upset if a woman rejects me, to the point I told her she keeps saying what I already know before.

Later, as I got older, I realised that feminism and gender equality is taught differently in different places, or barely taught at all. Many people mistake feminism as female superiority. Some families don’t teach treating the opposite gender with respect. Even here in Europe, despite the progress since forever, I find Europeans still have more rigid gender expectations than in Southeast Asia.

Sometimes, being born into what family and the environment you grow up in is a matter of luck and shape who you are. Despite my parents’ flaws, I’m lucky I was born to educated parents and our culture is more or less egalitarian despite some hiccups.

This is what Franz Kafka means in some of his stories. The tyranny of bureaucracy. A structure and organisation so complex, it’s oppressing the individual, both physically and mentally.

I forgot what the term is, but there is the idea that using jargon heavily is a way to exclude the masses from discussions and information.

But yeah, this elitism, even in the business world, is a flex saying “I know better and I am better than you. Therefore, I am superior. I can control you.” I would say that my industry is not nearly as abused with jargons, as in not mincing words to say nothing of value, but my current company and work is definitely Kafkaesque.

the amount of jargon that was used just left me yearning to go tend a field instead.

Haha then you should watch Office Space! Personally, I know of someone who is in IT and a son of a farmer. He said that he’d rather be a farmer like his dad, in his home country of India, if money is not an issue. Me, I’d rather be a polymath if money is not an issue.

Yeah, I have a backlog of games and thus usually they’re old games to complete (only just couple of years old, not 30 years old), or at least only require lower spec, so I am not in a rush to upgrade my laptop.

I distinctly remember calling someone out as Nazi for misogynistic comments and yet denies being one, despite literally posting Nazi like slogans. Fascists love to act in bad faith and they know it.

You leave them to do an assignment and they will be on a game in 10 seconds unless you keep on them.

Why even have games in them? If I am an entrepreneur, a school notepad or laptop without games is a good business idea…

Thanks for sharing. I’ve been trying to minimise, or try my best to avoid companies that are associated with Israel.

It takes decades for innovative products, or seemingly useless ideas, to be commercially viable. That’s why the best response, when asked what is the purpose of doing research on seemingly useless topics, is to say “I don’t know, but I know it’s going to be taxed someday.”

My bad, I typed the comment while tired. But my point still stands, she shouldn’t have posted if the opponent could have an easy shot…

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“He did some good things.”

One of the many reasons why I hate nostalgia.

People pay for subscription to ask AI?

So they know that AI is going to be unprofitable for near to medium term?

If they can’t be persuaded by talking to them softly, beat them with a big stick.

The far right are gaining influence and power in Spain, UK and Thailand.