To fully grasp the current situation in San Francisco, where venture capitalists are trying to take control of City Hall, you must listen to Balaji Srinivasan. Before you do, steel yourself for what's to come: A normal person could easily mistake his rambling train wrecks of thought for a crackpot's ravings, but influential Silicon Valley billionaires regard him as a genius.

“Balaji has the highest rate of output per minute of good new ideas of anybody I've ever met,” wrote Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the V.C. firm Andreessen-Horowitz, in a blurb for Balaji's 2022 book, The Network State: How to Start a New Country. The book outlines a plan for tech plutocrats to exit democracy and establish new sovereign territories. I mentioned Balaji's ideas in two previous stories about Network State–related efforts in California—a proposed tech colony called California Forever and the tech-funded campaign to capture San Francisco's government.

Balaji, a 43-year-old Long Island native who goes by his first name, has a solid Valley pedigree: He earned multiple degrees from Stanford University, founded multiple startups, became a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz and then served as chief technology officer at Coinbase. He is also the leader of a cultish and increasingly strident neo-reactionary tech political movement that sees American democracy as an enemy. In 2013, a New York Times story headlined “Silicon Valley Roused by Secession Call” described a speech in which he “told a group of young entrepreneurs that the United States had become ‘the Microsoft of nations': outdated and obsolescent.”

“The speech won roars from the audience at Y Combinator, a leading start-up incubator,” reported the Times. Balaji paints a bleak picture of a dystopian future in a U.S. in chaos and decline, but his prophecies sometimes fall short. Last year, he lost $1 million in a public bet after wrongly predicting a massive surge in the price of Bitcoin.

Still, his appetite for autocracy is bottomless. Last October, Balaji hosted the first-ever Network State Conference. Garry Tan—the current Y Combinator CEO who's attempting to spearhead a political takeover of San Francisco—participated in an interview with Balaji and cast the effort as part of the Network State movement. Tan, who made headlines in January after tweeting “die slow motherlovers” at local progressive politicians, frames his campaign as an experiment in “moderate” politics. But in a podcast interview one month before the conference, Balaji laid out a more disturbing and extreme vision.

“What I'm really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” he said, after comparing his movement to those started by the biblical Abraham, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Theodor Herzl (“spiritual father” of the state of Israel), and Lee Kuan Yew (former authoritarian ruler of Singapore). Balaji then revealed his shocking ideas for a tech-governed city where citizens loyal to tech companies would form a new political tribe clad in gray t-shirts. “And if you see another Gray on the street … you do the nod,” he said, during a four-hour talk on the Moment of Zen podcast. “You're a fellow Gray.”

The Grays' shirts would feature “Bitcoin or Elon or other kinds of logos … Y Combinator is a good one for the city of San Francisco in particular.” Grays would also receive special ID cards providing access to exclusive, Gray-controlled sectors of the city. In addition, the Grays would make an alliance with the police department, funding weekly “policeman's banquets” to win them over.

“Grays should embrace the police, okay? All-in on the police,” said Srinivasan. “What does that mean? That's, as I said, banquets. That means every policeman's son, daughter, wife, cousin, you know, sibling, whatever, should get a job at a tech company in security.”

In exchange for extra food and jobs, cops would pledge loyalty to the Grays. Srinivasan recommends asking officers a series of questions to ascertain their political leanings. For example: “Did you want to take the sign off of Elon's building?”

This refers to the August 2023 incident in which Elon Musk illegally installed a large flashing X logo atop Twitter headquarters, in violation of building safety codes. City inspectors forced him to remove it. This was the second time Musk had run afoul of the city in his desire to refurbish his headquarters: In July, police briefly halted his attempt to pry the “Twitter” signage from the building's exterior. But in Balaji's dystopia, he implies that officers loyal to the Grays would let Musk do as he pleases (democratically inclined officers, he suggests, can be paid to retire).

Simply put, there is a ton of fascist-chic cosplay involved. Once an officer joins the Grays, they get a special uniform designed by their tech overlords. The Grays will also donate heavily to police charities and “merge the Gray and police social networks.” Then, in a show of force, they'll march through the city together.

!clinklickers MOAR WORDS...

"Calvin and Hobbes is Le most wholesome conic strip ever made!"

I'm not even being ironic or trying to troll. This shit was so unbelievably bland.

Can't believe people actually shill this shit lmao I read a few years worth of strips today and it was the most basic slop I've ever seen.

DAE society and technology bad? - a 6 year old sperg with no friends

Did you know Fattershit never licensed any mercy or tv show??? Based anti-capitalist!!

@pizzashill, you are welcome. @Poj, please forgive him. You guys are like my adoptive rDrama parents, I can't handle another divorce.

Edit: Computer, enhance:

@D do you feel like an r-slur yet?

Edit 2: For you illiterate r-slurs, pizza makes around 210k a year

How many of you wagies are pulling that?

ah yess freedom is measured by laws on your sexuality🤡having laws on your sexuality&having to show it off is whats actually oppressive💀.No one care about your sexuality. Just keep it private cause its intimate. u can be gay just dont start being a sponsor n a woke preacher.

— Hamza (@Hamzah96AJ) April 26, 2024

This may have been too far lol

Screenshots of the entire thread in case I get ban hammered

Kristi Noem killed her 14 month old puppy simply because it annoyed her pic.twitter.com/SFguJiJ50I

— evan loves worf (@esjesjesj) April 26, 2024

So, tomorrow will see @HumzaYousaf stepping down and @neilcgray being the SNP choice to replace him. You heard it here first!

— Murdo Fraser (@murdo_fraser) April 25, 2024

!britbongs

Or maybe not

/r/Scotland seem to have completely turned on the SNP at this point

https://old.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/1cdf3yi/humza_yousaf_is_not_considering_his_position/?sort=controversial

For context the National is the paper for Scottish independence fanatics

He probably won't have much of a choice in the matter though

https://old.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/1ccpvcm/scottish_tories_to_lodge_noconfidence_vote_in/?sort=controversial

Humza just essentially kicked the Greens out of Scottish government too so I'm sure they'll all be super keen to keep him in power

https://old.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/1ccvlxz/yousafs_fate_hangs_on_single_msp_as_greens_will/?sort=controversial

The MSP who he's relying on left the party due to their policies too

https://twitter.com/WestminsterPup/status/1783802919915048963

lol

Update: he's now grovelling to the Greens to try and get them back on side

Now that snipers are trained on peaceful students and professors are being hog-tied by masked men with assault rifles, it'd be great to hear from all the people who made "free speech on US campuses" their life's mission every time they met a student with blue hair. pic.twitter.com/oGgCzdrmDf

— The author, Séamas O'Reilly (@shockproofbeats) April 26, 2024

Choice quotes from the article itself

The “feminists are man-haters” trope is getting old.

Until recently, refuting these claims has proven difficult. After all, every feminist-hating man has an anecdotal story of “that one feminist” he knows who definitively hates men. Thankfully, contemporary research has finally given us real, irrefutable evidence that feminists do not, in fact, despise men.

Feminists Won't Coddle Men's Egos

Whereas non-feminist women are likely to excuse or ignore men's bad behavior toward women, feminist women will, more often than not, call it out. They will not pull their punches to spare men's egos. They expect much from men, and will hold them accountable to the behavior they know men are capable of.

And it appears that this is where the man-hating feminist trope has its roots.

Yes, there is ample anecdotal evidence that some feminist women hate men. Following the #MeToo movement, many feminists began actively self-identifying as misandrists (man-haters) in response to the sheer volume of abusive, dangerous men who were exposed during that time. Many feminists and non-feminists alike saw their attitudes toward men evolve as they saw prominent male celebrities, political correspondents and politicians they trusted and admired be called out for their sexual misconduct and attempted cover-ups. For a lot of us, it was a time that eroded our trust in men. For some of us, that trust was never regained.

lmao

But the existence of some feminists who hate men does not prove that all feminists hate men. In fact, although feminism is a movement that seeks to center women's equality and liberation, it has also done much for the liberation of men. After all, men are harmed by patriarchy, too, and feminists seek to abolish all forms of gender-based discrimination that are propped up by patriarchy.

lol

Now we get into the comments

Moid does everything to please feminists but only gets shit on, continues being a feminist because it's called being a decent person chud.

I mean, to say that feminism hates men is nonsensical because feminism is a broad and diverse ideology that itself can neither hate nor love.

I've done everything that my feminist gender studies professors told me to do as a man. I am gentle, communicate my emotions, try not to be arrogant and speak over people, etc etc etc, and I am a better, more fulfilled man for it.

But... once in awhile I'd like my side to actually advocate for me, and recognize that we still live in a society that excludes men from many things. I'd like my side to recognize that sometimes WOMEN unfairly exclude and hurt men. The advice everyone gave me as a man and as a father, including the school principal and family lawyer? Get a female family member to take my kids to the doctor, because if it had been a woman doing it, this probably wouldn't have happened.

This was extremely depressing for me. Despite being the best man and father and husband I could--- and live up to the feminist ideal of what a man should be--- I was still treated like a predator and abuser by default. So who was advocating for me as a man on this issue? Who was calling this out and calling it unfair??

The only voices I hear are right wing ones, but I am not interested in being the kind of man they want me to be.

Let's be honest... if I went to a feminist sub on Reddit and brought up my woes, would people in that sub be sympathetic? Or would I promptly get banned?

Other men like you are supposed to be advocating for it. But men have been so reliant upon other people, usually women, organizing and structuring neutral gatherings and a lot of existing men's spaces being incredibly toxic means men have to start creating their own communities.

Only right wingers are dishonest and the reason why young people support palestine is because zoomers can just fact check who is more just on the internet

Something I've noticed over the decades is that conservatives tend to think that everyone knows and believes what they know and believe. Therefore, in their mind, anyone who professes to know/believe something different is just lying in order to gain an advantage over the conservative.

Which fits this situation. Since they believe feminist beliefs are wrong and trying to assert power over men, they hate feminists and assume feminists must hate them just as much (if not more). They cannot imagine a world where people just ... believe differently, everyone must be trying to pull a fast one on them.

I mean, that's what THEY do. Conservatives lie all the time about everything, so they assume everyone else does too.

I'm good

They're bad

If I do something bad, they must be doing the same thing, but even worse.

I think the reason this tends to be more prevalent on the right is that they believe in good and bad people, while the left tends to believe in good and bad actions.

Hot take. The rise of leftist thinking among the youth populations is directly correlated to how much easier it has become to actually check whether actions have good and bad consequences. Boomers cannot imagine being able to just gather data on what is and is not helpful for people and society. They favor divine command ethics and virtue ethics because these are much easier to use in low-information ecosystems.

Menslibber calls out the phd article writer for purposely misinterpreting a study

She also links to another article she wrote about the same topic, which interprets the lower benevolence result as:

Meaning, feminists are less likely to coddle, mollify, or excuse men who behave poorly.

These interpretations do not seem to have any basis in the actual study. If you read the study that she cites, the scores for benevolence are measures of benevolent sexism specifically, taken from the 1999 AMI inventory, which measures responses to statements like “Every woman needs a male partner who will cherish her” and “Men are more willing to take risks than women.” A footnote in the study explains, "Conceptually benevolence to men and hostility to men are not indices of positivity–negativity, but rather they measure stereotyped attitudes to men."

In other words, she is citing a study that found lower benevolence and then is explaining what lower benevolence means, but her explanations are baseless and not supported by the actual study. It is ironic that she is even trying to (baselessly) defend feminists' lower benevolence, because this finding actually signifies that feminists have less stereotyped attitudes towards men.

Menslibber used to be a chud but then he realized that feminists couldn't be misandrists because feminists believe in equality... just like how the DPRK is a true democracy

I used to be skeptical of feminists as well, when I was a teen. I thought many of them were just misandrists. Then I was reminded of the word "misandrist" and realized that was stupid - feminists believe in equality, misandrists "hate men."

Can someone who calls themselves a "feminist" act misandrist, or even be a misandrist? Sure. But they are different things, so that's important to know.

Menslibber volunteers for charity and notices how it somehow turned around to being about women

I volunteered for a men's charity for a while that said it was about challenging what it means to be a man, but all they really did was challenge how being a man affects women, they did talks like "here's how to talk to your friends about sexism and consent" which is very valuable, but when that's ALL hat you do I can understand why some men feel like it paints them as the problem.

Every single press snippet on their website was about the safety of women (which is incredibly important). But when your challenging masculinity charity is more only focused on demonising the behaviour of men towards women, it's like putting a plaster over a wound that needs stitches. It would be more fruitful to help them to understand themselves and express themselves in a healthy way that sends a message that these men are valued as people.

Can you understand why women and feminists main priority may be lowering the rates of sexual violence? And they do that by teaching about consent? I do not understand how you can experience a talk about consent as demonizing men

Menslibber says its only moid foid on social media

This is especially clear on social media spaces like Instagram where men LOVE complaining about women and seem to just genuinely hate women that aren't super submissive "trad-wives"

Menslibber/vaush fan explains that it doesn't make sense for men to ignore what women's expectations for dating purposes because another menslibber told them to, gets btfoed by a janny

One of the most demoralizing things I sometimes read on this subreddit is someone saying that men can't change because women still have expectations of them that fit traditional gender roles.

How true that perception of expectations are is pointless to argue because it differs from place to place and most people talk about their personal experiences anyway... but even if it was 100% true, always - so what? If it's a necessary step for the better, don't play into those expectations. Women don't want to date you because of that? Okay.

"but even if it was 100% true, always - so what? If it's a necessary step for the better, don't play into those expectations. Women don't want to date you because of that? Okay. "

I dont know man.This just feels like a bad concession .Part of appealing to a demographic means addressing issues that said demograpic actually cares about.For alot of guys,especially young guys,thats dating.How to be percieved as attactive to women around me.

Its counter productive and a bit delusional to expect men to ingore what the women they actually come across becasuse some online social tell them so. (entire comment removed)

FOH with that.

Finally we have the removed comments

https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/MensLib/comments/1ccxkhm/_/l194lda/#comment-info

Other men like you are supposed to be advocating for it. But men have been so reliant upon other people, usually women, organizing and structuring neutral gatherings and a lot of existing men's spaces being incredibly toxic means men have to start creating their own communities.

Men have organized movements for millenia, how could you possibly suggest that they simply are too lazy to organize? Men organize on this issue all the time on the right. So why not on the left? Because it is a hostile workplace environment, as evidenced by the very comments you made up above.

I know, because I've tried and I've experienced the phenomenon myself. I have attempted to organize, and I have been met with hostility from people that should be allies. For example: when my wife and I dealt with infertility, I was involved in numerous infertility support groups and ran my own. There were no men, and I wondered why. So I started a subgroup myself and encouraged the women to bring their husbands so that we could get things going.

In doing this, I realized I'd revealed my gender, and I was verbally abused by many of the women there. A few were right winger Bible thumper types who thought I wasn't adhering to God's plan of what a husband/father to be, but even more were self identifying feminists who said I was "invading the sacred space of women" and "just trying to get off on pregnant women." I would have perhaps started an exclusive men's group, but it would have taken years and years to get it up and running and I needed support at that moment, not in 10 years. It's hard to get a men's liberation movement going when the people who are supposed to be your allies are actively tearing you down. The attitude was generally. Their attitude was the same as yours: "You are wrong for expressing your pain when so many others are suffering more."

I had the same issue as a parent of a micro preemie. At the moment of my deepest depression and grief when I needed support, I went to pre-existing support groups. I was met with the same treatment. So I started my own blog and tried to organize. While working. While raising a kid with special needs. But yeah, I get it, I'm a man so I just have to do it all myself with no help, and if I fail, it's all on me.

Do you know how hard it is to try to create a movement from scratch in a busy life? It's like telling a woman in the 19th century to--- if she wanted to be a scientist--- simply to reinvent the entire university system and scientific literature system from scratch.

And yeah, it's nice that you can find a few people in the halls of academia who might actually be earnest advocates, but that doesn't mean much when the actual people in the real world who are supposed to be allies are tearing you down.

Your lecturing me without knowing my experiences is a bit hypocritical when you talk about being patronizing. You think you are the only man who has experienced that kind of pain with a loved one and struggled in a typically non-male space?

I appreciate and commiserate with your story and I am well aware of how hard it is for men to organize these kinds of groups. Yet feminists had to do it in much harsher conditions in the late 19th century to now. Again - those men didn't join the one you tried to create because to a lot of men, it isn't our responsibility. I don't see how your story contradicts my overview. I know a few good men are trying.

It's just the majority of men benefit from our patriarchal society or just don't care.

foid try to not make anything about themselves challenge impossible

https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/MensLib/comments/1ccxkhm/_/l18csfk/#comment-info

It's a lot easier to justify oppressing people who you can convince yourself you hate - and it's easier to hate someone who you can convince yourself hates you.

And unfortunately the whole conservative movement & mediaaphere is a giant machine for manufacturing hate. Hence why, and how, patriarchy gets reproduced.

Do you have any evidence that this is what anti-feminist men are trying to do? It's a common trope, but I only ever see it bandied around in feminist spaces.

When I myself was antifeminist, and when I talked to other antifeminists, our antifeminism was not about trying to justify oppressing women. Rather, it was about trying to stop stereotyping and prejudice towards men. So it is quite ironic that you describe antifeminism as an attempt to justify the oppression of women.

They regularly believe women's place is in the kitchen; that men are physically and mentally superior to women; that men deserve a well-mannered, subservient wife; that female promiscuity is a problem, and that reproductive health should be out of their control; that no-fault divorce shouldn't exist and marital rape is impossible; that sexual harassment and assault isn't a widespread issue;

islam is right about women

https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/MensLib/comments/1ccxkhm/_/l19b8lf/#comment-info

The real perception paradox: reading an article about men who hate feminists that makes feminist men question their stance. /s

Seriously though, there is something very wrong with the tone of the article.

The "all men are responsible for patriarchy" trope is getting old.

https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/MensLib/comments/1ccxkhm/_/l18vo21/#comment-info

Mods, are y'all going too hard on some of the comments? There was one that I wanted to respond to that's now deleted, and the person said they were once antifeminist but now they weren't. These are people who have learned that what they thought was wrong, and grew from it. Or they're explaining how they came to believe what they did believe. These things can and should absolutely be included in discourse about those who aren't feminist. Who knows what would work better to change someone than someone who has changed?

!redscarepod !chuds

Never have I seen so many governments and powerful institutions bend at the knee for Israel to silence overwhelming public support for Palestine

its literally illegal to question certain things in many countries, that should be all a person with critical thinking needs to know

Don't worry, soon enough the government will start planting Nazi flags, Trump flags, and flat Earther nonsense in the protests to demonize you. There will be marches by some folks in matching clothes who arrive in the back of a U-Haul.

THIS TIME THE DEATH SQUADS WILL BE REAL GUISE TRUST ME

Get out and talk to real people. There is not overwhelming support for Palestine in the US. Americans identify more with the cops than the fat enby protesters. Not a judgment call - just reality.

this party pooper ruining things

You are getting it backwards, really. >Israel has no power, they exist because America wants them to. They're a useful regional power and ally against Iran. If the US stopped supporting them they wouldn't exist. Criticism of Israel and zionism gets shut down so fast because its criticism of US imperialism. Zionism is just a convenient cover.

2020 Lockdowns had nothing to do with Covid, and everything to do with expanding. the bounds of governmental control, surveillance, and propaganda (I'm not saying Covid wasn't real, I'm saying it's not why we had "Lockdowbs" shutting down schools, hospitals (yes, hospitals), and other vital services leading to overall more death, comorbidities, and mental health issues---which we are ABSOLUTELY still in the wake of and will be for a while, check Sweden against it's comparable neighbors.

That is to say, a LOT of this, has ZERO to do with neither Israel NOR Gaza, and everything to do with power-grabs & power-moved which can serve as a guise for being "about Israel" or "about Gaza" or about "maintaining civility" "peace" "safety", etc.

Remember the phrase "Abundance of caution" in 2020? There are so many games being played at so many levels. That's why the gravitation towards conspiracy feels so strong.

Codecels are

🚨BREAKING: At 7am, @Princeton students launched their Gaza Solidarity encampment on the McCosh Courtyard. They join thousands of students across the world in demanding that Princeton divest from Israel, and that Israel end its genocidal campaign—immediately. pic.twitter.com/mYyO2b1ibs

— Writers Against the War on Gaza (@wawog_now) April 25, 2024

RDrama exclusive: I headed down to the protest, kinda quiet this morning. Israeli counter-protestors have now shown up with "bring them back" signs. Mostly old jewish ladies, sort of abortion clinic vibes. Lots of cops, as well as what appears to be a news cam getting set up. No more terrorist flags unfortunately but hopefully the counterprotestors will farm some sneed.

Police got there almost instantly lmao, no wonder there aren't nearly as many hobos over here as in NYC

A couple grad students arrested and kicked out for the protest

Some greasy guitar-playing hippie flying hezbollah flag on the lawn

Indians mourn the loss of one of their own at the school after she got evicted for being an idiot

Unfortunately the subreddit is not particularly active

reposted because i am r-slurred and cant figure out links

!coomers

!foidmoment

Free market is b-word

>A day of the life of a DEI program manager

>11:00 am - Wake up. Early birds are racist.

>11:30 am - Attend a sync up meeting. Standup is not inclusive. Everyone needs to come up with 5 words to remove from our dictionary.

>12:00 pm - Have lunch at a black-female-owned Chinese restaurant. Scold the owner for cultural appropriation.

>1:00 pm - Meet with one of my program sponsors. Discuss what protest we need to fund next.

>2:00 pm - Check internal Slack messages and mark those who used non inclusive language

>3:00 pm - Have s*x with a queer peer

>4:00 pm - Go back home. Work is racist

>10:00 pm - Attack random people online

Looking at her profile I won't be surprised she works as promoter of PhD for foids

I mean she post this:

Look through the comments and it all just foid avatars

White Foids are so oversensitive that they want to end all human life lmao

I been waiting till I had a few of these built up to do a drop !birdposters !furries

seeing as I might become employed soon I'll no I'll never stop I'm on that grndset fr fr

posting in the marsey hole idk where else these'd go I can't post in furry bc i'm facing housing difficulties

you'll find a selection inspired by some of my favorite marseys as well as some originals

I have assimilated into the marsey artstyle

I need to do more albeit

!moidmoment this is what happens when you don't raise your children