The Fall(acy) Guy

I broke down the "men don't read" debate so you don't have to. Some of the numbers are ugly, especially for boys and for fiction. Here's who chose the books, where the readers went, and what we can actually do about it. Full Breakdown Below

I get that the country and the world have a lot of problems. We can argue about all of it tomorrow. Today we owe the people who put on the uniform. The ones who went, the ones who came home, and the ones who didn't. You don't have to agree on the wars to respect the people who served. Happy Veterans Day.

Its reductio de absurdum

I did reductio de absurdum.

He Didn't See the Light. He Saw a Booby

"This week the White House said there are only two sexes, and someone else went viral claiming the gender binary is made up and that boys and girls only like different things because of how they're raised. Ask any parent who has raised both. You can hand a boy a doll and he'll turn it into a weapon. You can put a truck in front of a girl and she'll walk right past it. That isn't just anecdote. A 2020 meta-analysis of 75 studies found large, consistent sex differences in toy preferences across countries and ages, even after accounting for environment. Upbringing matters, but it isn't the whole story. Boys and girls are different, and pretending otherwise doesn't make anyone more equal. The funny part is that the same people who say gender is just a social construct will also tell you boys don't read. Maybe boys read fine. Maybe they just don't want the same books girls do, and nobody's writing the ones they'd pick."

"The #2 bestselling book in America last year was a YA novel about a 16-year-old boy. Sunrise on the Reaping sold about 2 million print copies. Boys will read. They're just rarely being written for. Even people inside publishing see it. A Quarto acquiring editor said it outright: 'If publishers continue to dismiss this half of the market as non-readers, others will fill that void to everyone's peril.' He's right. When books stop speaking to young men, somebody else will, and it usually isn't someone with their best interests at heart. More Tuesday."

What I'm starting to recognize from the "male writers and male protagonists" debate is there is a large contingent of young women who do not understand the number of social initiatives that went into helping women writers. They believe women fought through oppression while men actively sought to hold them down and now that they have broken free, men deserve what they get. Men weren’t simply spectators in women’s advancement. Overwhelmingly male legislatures passed and ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. Predominantly male Congresses passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title IX in 1972, followed by the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, prohibiting sex discrimination in lending. Even Roe v. Wade was decided by seven male justices on an entirely male Supreme Court in 1973, not Congress. These weren’t minor contributions: men used their votes and institutional power to help expand women’s rights. The story that men uniformly opposed women’s progress simply doesn’t fit that history. The disparity women complained about in literature was mainly in male dominated genres. There were genres dedicated to women where women writers and protagonists were the norm, but women wanted better representation in things like sci-fi and fantasy.Ending the disparity in reading was a huge cultural movement that started in the 90s. There were corporate programs, governmental grants, even the retail chains announced they would start featuring female writer. Men listened. They made room for those voices. It was a good thing. Government and corporate upper management were mainly headed by men at the time. If men's goal was to oppress women, they wouldn't have helped them. Young women think that women somehow stormed publishing and took it over, when they were gifted control. Now that women are largely in charge, the discrimination is as bad as 1950s but in reverse. They are rationalizing unjust behavior under a false pretense. Collective guilt means assigning people blame for what others did simply because they belong to the same group. Treating men today as deserving of exclusion because other men excluded women in the past does exactly that. It replaces individual responsibility with inherited blame, including for boys who had no part in creating those barriers. Historical discrimination is a reason to oppose unfair treatment, not a license to reverse its direction. Equality means dismantling barriers, not deciding whose turn it is to suffer behind them. The real problem is that we haven't held women to the same standards for discrimination that men were held to in reverse and honestly, we are learning they are just as bad and need reigning in. This is clearly systemic and blatant discrimination against men and should be punished legally. I get you want to highlight the heroes of these movements to give young women role models but the way things are being painted is causing more harm than good.

I made the list! What's funny is I never said Brand didn't do it. I do know that this wasn't about Justice for the victims. If that were the case it wouldn't have taken them 20y to pursue it. This was the 4Ds Dismiss, Discredit, Demonize, and Destroy. Whatever you feel about Brand, there are legitimate questions about how the trial came to fruition and how much public opinion affects are ability to judge things objectively. Everyone knows Brand has become very critical of the establishment in recent years. First they (dismissed) him, saying he should just stick to the off-color comedy and leave the politics to the professionals. That didn't stop him; he decided to start a podcast. Then they (discredited) him labeling him a right-wing conspiracy theorist pushing lies. His followers grew not diminished. So they (demonized) him to destroy his image and ran a full expose painting him as a serial predator who has been assaulting women for two decades. they begged women to come forward. The case they ran against him was flimsy but they already convince you of his guilt years ago so when they (destroyed) him early this week, you didn't ask questions. You felt justice was served. Rape allegations break most women's brains. All they have to do is hear the word consent and they are ready to see a man hanged. No amount of evidence is too small. No accusers are uncredible. "Believe all woman" isn't a suggestion. It's a mantra. Rape works so well because it's an appeal to fear, emotion, and sympathy all rolled into one. All of which are more affective on women than men. Men likewise because of intrasexual competition like to see men like Brand get taken down. They are monopolizing the sexual market. It's not fair. Jealousy is a powerful motivator. They cheer on the fall. Those things plus the fact that his takes were divisive. Even if he didn't do these things, many believe he is a bad person, rapist, sexist, homophobe, ect. So when he's charged, you want to believe it because you can't stop people from thinking those things but you can stop their heroes from saying them. Whether you think he's guilty or innocent probably largely depends on if you agree with the divisive things he said. It shouldn't matter but I know it does. the tactics they used to get him, however, can be used on anyone. They started kicking stones to find enough evidence they could use to take him down. Either they protected him all these years because he was making them money and supporting the things they wanted or they are persecuting him now, Rape was still rape 20y ago. Actively drumming up unsolicited information is a choice. If it was about the victims, it would have been done years ago. This is not in defense of Brand as a person, IDK him or what transpired and I actually do not care but I do know that allowing the word of people from decades ago to bring down people who are critical of the government isn't a practice we should be celebrating. I also think this needless labelling of people who don't agree with you as "rape apologist" shows you cannot think of things critically and all your future opinions should be discounted. I did not excuse rape or him raping people. Making that leap, because I think they targeted him is an emotional response that completely misses the argument I am making. IF he did it or not doesn't change the fact that they only cared about it once he stepped out of line. It just changes the reason not the reasoning. nitter.gq/i/lists/21191452599136…

anything else you want or can i stop now.

Just curious, Do y'all think they were protecting him then or persecuting him now? two decades old trial doesn't happen unless they want it to. either way, it's basically the same thing.

I broke down the redpill single-dad claim so you don't have to. They're older, richer, and more likely to have a partner and one kid. Control for money, support, and time — and the "family man vs damaged goods" scoreboard falls apart. Full breakdown below.

This chart might be the most important thing to come out of last night, and it's not about who won. Young men swung 38 points toward Democrats. Young people overall swung 32 points, and Hispanics swung 28. Those are the same groups that handed Trump the win in 2024. Two years later, they took it right back. They aren't loyal to either party. They vote on whether anyone is actually listening to them, or more aptly not listening to them. I live on the border in Texas, and I watched one issue flip my whole community. That issue was immigration. Living through the open border under Biden was awful, and around here we're almost all Hispanic, so calling us racist for wanting it closed was never going to work. We wanted the border secured. Then Trump came in and went too far for most of us, and we were gone just as fast as we came. Both parties need to quit catering to their extreme bases and start paying attention to young men, young people, and Hispanics. These groups decide elections now. Just because I don't want to vote for communism doesn't mean a living wage and a house I can afford don't matter to me. Whichever party figures that out first is going to win for a long time.

#votered and #VoteBlue are trending right next to each other. Today's the day you finally decide whether you're a fascist MAGA cult member or a brain-dead woke communist zombie. Just kidding, but it does feel like that, doesn't it? Reducing the other side to a caricature like that is outgroup homogeneity bias. Both sides do it, while believing their own side is full of individuals with nuance and reasons. Here's the thing: most of us are worried about the same stuff, like rent, groceries, education, and the economy. We just disagree on the details. I get why political parties resort to hyperbole. Vilifying the other side is a tool to drum up support and motivate you to actually show up. After all, if you don't have time to stop "the end of democracy," what do you have time for? So vote, but remember your neighbor isn't your enemy just because he checked a different box, even if that's what you've been told. #ElectionDay #Midterms2026 #GoVote #VoteRed #VoteBlue