Yeah I’m only 10 lbs more than my wife and she is 5’ tall. I was the last in a long line of tall, usually thin, men for her. It’s definitely a type for some.

I am 6’ 6" and most of my life I’ve been between 145 to 165. So incredibly skinny, always under weight. I never struggled with women as an adult, but I also didn’t chase too many shallow women. When I was young i certainly got told by a few that they weren’t into skinny guys, but it was almost always by people that were incredibly socially controlled people, the type to “keep up with the Joneses” so to speak. Once I stopped chasing after people for the wrong reasons things improved dramatically.

Do you have close friends that are women? I wonder if there is a communication aspect to this if not. Do you date outside your culture? I grew up around mostly white rural Christians and they were more judgy about being skinny than other cultural groups, in my experience. Maybe something about rural people doing a lot more hard labor and it being culturally homogeneous.

I tried… I’ve both worked and volunteered in the party for thousands of hours. Most of the people working in the party want progressive policy, but we don’t live in a country that gets enough votes from progressives, so politicians predictably play it safe. You can’t wave a magic wand and poof, you have all the votes you need for progressive policy. Politicians are paid to represent their constituents. If even 5 percent of Dems won in a conservative district, or a district where only conservatives show up, then those districts wants and needs will not pass the most progressive policy. So people in the party work to pass what they can pass, that makes them practical, not anti-progressive. People with brains do what they can with what they have.

The more Dems we can get into office the more opportunities we have to move the needle left. You don’t move the needle left with constant infighting within the left. You move the needle left, by the left wing uniting and gaining a clear mandate. We haven’t had a real left wing mandate in my lifetime and people act like Dems should magically pass progressive policy without the votes, then they whine and stay home because the party without enough power to accomplish anything, predictably didn’t accomplish anything. It’s and endless self fulfilling prophecy and it’s incredibly moronic. I’m just so tired of seeing your endless doomsaying all overy lemmy, fucking do something instead of bringing everyone down with your lies and toxicity.

Politics is a zero sum game, they saw the money better spent on winning. Your framing of it is dishonest. Again, I don’t agree with doing that, but it’s pretty easy to understand why they did it, it worked.

That would be convincing if they hadn’t spent money buying ads for maga candidates during that same election cycle.

I agree, that was an awful strategy. Even if it helps in the short term, it boosts fascism in the long term. It did mostly gain us seats though… https://www.npr.org/2022/11/11/1135878576/the-democrats-strategy-of-boosting-far-right-candidates-seems-to-have-worked

So your answer is no then? Representatives don’t get as much contact as you think. Apply pressure wherever and whenever you can, even if that legislator does nothing in the years to come, every person applying pressure moves the needle. Doing nothing does nothing. Legislators like to keep their jobs and will suddenly have a change of heart if they feel their job is threatened. That takes hundreds of people in each district making their dissatisfaction known. Be the change you wish to see.

Parties pull funding when it’s clear there is no path to victory, so they can ensure victory elsewhere. That’s not them “rather have a maga chud” that’s strategic. You would be just as angry if they wasted money on a loss. I’ve seen your views all over lemmy, whatever narrative says the party did wrong, that’s the narrative you’ll take. Volunteer for the next candidate that runs, prove to the party that they have support and maybe funding will actually stick around. You’re an open book, no action, all anger.

I think you’re making a values judgement instead of a logical one. No one was claiming the USA wasn’t a democracy when only male white land owners could vote. It was just a flawed society, but still a democracy.

By definition, can you really be a democracy if you are an apartheid regime where two thirds of your “residents” have low to no rights in gotingnor determining their future?

The population of the Palestinian territories is, closer to 1/3 of the whole of Israel/Palestine. But the answer is yes either way. The people of Israel have a fully functioning democracy, and have had for some time. If they use that democracy to create a brutal militarily controlled territory, Israel is still a democracy, even if their territories are not or even if their territories have limited self determination. Democracy is just a form of government, that form of government exists for the people living in Israel proper whether or not it exists for their territories.

Just the first image on a search. But chart aside, saying something is a democracy doesn’t make a country good or bad. Israel is fundamentally a democracy by any argument. That doesn’t make their current far right government good. I think arguing about whether it’s a democracy or not just undercuts your larger argument. Israel let’s any citizen, regardless of ethnic origin, vote. Their Islamic citizens largely support the same wars the Jews do. Saying they don’t let Palestinians vote is sorta like saying the USA didn’t let Iraq vote while we were slaughtering them. Or more close to home if we started a war with Mexico. Even when the USA had slaves we were a democracy. We are still a democracy even when we do bad things. People are shit, and we vote.

Not the person you’re responding to but it’s close according to this graphic, basically Israel and Cypress.

It looks like this chick shoots porn and is an “influencer”. I assume she was just advertising herself. Also she publicly seems to like Andrew Tate, weird. I think she just says what she thinks people want to hear for attention because that’s how she makes money.

Sure but Steph Curry in his first year got absolutely bullied because he was tiny and weak and still threw up points. I’m skinny and not very strong, I got bullied in basketball, but had I had better handles I could have found a role. I could shoot, rebound, block and guard despite the disadvantage, I couldn’t dribble with a skill level that would get me anywhere though. I played thousands of hours of basketball in my life. I don’t think people understand where value really lies in the game. Plenty of players in the NBA look uncoordinated and weak and somehow carve out significant roles. Because they’re tall, or good 3 point shooters, or talented at rebounding, etc. I fail to see how talented women couldn’t carve out roles in the NBA.

I also think it’s worth noting that most women, even in sports, are strongly culturally discouraged from bulking up. As soon as a woman is strong enough to bully her peers she is accused of being a man. As things change, even though women don’t have the muscle mass of men, some women will bulk up enough to compete as much as they need to. A lot of this stuff is far more cultural than people want to admit.

Height and muscle mass obviously make a difference. But it’s important to note that uncoordinated, weaker, or shorter men all find roles in the NBA. So the argument people make that women can’t match up seems suspect. No one is saying Caitlyn Clark will be able to play like LeBron in a decade, but when she hits her prime she could absolutely fit a role on an NBA team, not as a starter at her size unless she bulks up. I think especially with the newer batch of wnba players coming in it will be hard to argue that at least the top 20 wnba players couldn’t fit roles in the NBA. (But most won’t because they’ll make more money on endorsements as stars in the wnba)

I know 2 people that have played/do play in the wnba. I did play with one of them, when I was a kid.

Not only am I athletic, played team basketball for years.

That last sentence is a bit misleading, women aren’t trying out for the NBA left and right. There also is a massive cultural barrier there, some of the best wnba players could likely play in the NBA and yet it hasn’t happened. I think someone would have to be willing to sacrifice their wnba career to try it out. If the person that does this isn’t built physically for it, it could paint a negative perception for years to come. Thus far it’s just been easier to keep separate. I do think we will see women start to enter sports dominated by men in the coming years though.

IIRC: He helped close down the poorest school in his city district instead of funding and fixing it. Championed broken windows policing that in part led to things like George Floyd and poor people I know getting massive fines for things like chipped paint on their house, leading to foreclosures and a debtors system with the city. Worked to kick out small businesses in favor of corporate chains. Tried to push poor people into neighboring districts and suburbs. Etc. Nothing he ever put his hands on helped people. I think it was very likely he was being paid under the table by business interests to do this stuff. If not, he is still a royal piece of shit.

When the revolution comes, he’s on the short list of people to punch in the face.

Don Samuels is a corrupt garbage human, it should never have been that close regardless of your view of our Israel policy.

The fact that someone else manages it is entirely the point. In a 401k a politician can insider trade, in a pension they typically can not.

If you say the state should have done more after the fact I agree, but that’s not all on Walz it takes votes and political will across the party, it was never really there. The truth is politicians don’t yet see a way forward to get this stuff passed without sacrificing literally all other issues when they eviscerate their own political capital. Police accountability is only popular until white liberals get scared of a would with less police and back away from their own morals. It’s why Frey is still there. I agree it should have ended Frey as he probably had more wiggle room at a city level than state politicians did. Frey is a complete coward. Thinking about it more, maybe Walz could have done more, I’m not sure politics are always that simple.