Hoop Fluke
Two points make a line. Unless they miss.
don’t put the cart before the duckstack
Behold, our latest innovation in physical security: The Duckstack. Waist-high, this mobile tower of ducks will waddle anywhere in your house and defend against intruders with terminal force. While the pecking force of any duckstack is multiplied by the amount of ducks in the stack, to be safe each duck also has throat mounted laser cannons inside their mouths. Try referring gently to this in conversation. What do you think will happen? What’s the worst that could happen?
It seems indisputable1 that anyone who knows or suspects you of having one is going to be heavily disincentivized from launching an invasion. weaponized duck stacks are the next best thing in personal defense. Your food budget will go up, but that is the price for peace of mind. Just check out these testimonials:
“I have four for my mansion. They killed all my enemies. And butlers.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger
“I take one with me when I swim, and they swim along with me.” -Michael Phelps
“One time a boy tried to sneak a kiss on me and my duckstack vaporized him. It was a bad date anyway. How did they know?” -Random girl off the street
“Why do I have so many orders for these things” -Santa
We’ve already sent one to you. Activate it by reading this.
Administrator Privileges
What do women want? Why do women want? Where do women want? What “are” women?
Those who know me know that I am greatly invested in the state of gender relations, partially for religious reasons since marriage is the most important thing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, partially out of sheer empathy (I had a hard time dating and want to save others the trouble) and partially out of investment, since both my friends and children are going to have to get married someday and then after that they're going to stay married, and another reason is that I am a grump and curmudgeon and hate seeing inefficiency and I take it all personally.
People’s ability to get married has nosedived since the advent of the internet. Why this is so is a complex question that I can answer, but won't2. What I can tell you is that people are not handling it well.
In absence of any relationship guidance beyond “men and women are identical and interchangeable”, what you find is a proliferation of competing frameworks. One framework says that men are toxic and seek power and domination over women, and there is some truth to that. Another framework is that women only date the maximum status man and leave all the other men out to dry. And there is some truth to that also. The problem is that there is not really a lot of truth to either- the reason these philosophies survive is that they aren't outcompeted. The null hypothesis (that everyone is the same) is so incredibly bad and useless and counterproductive that basically anything people adopt will give them a marginally better chance at life, which means they will trumpet it as a cure all universal truth. “this is what atoms3 are really like” Of course when you have been struggling with something for so long and finally figure out something that helps you're going to feel like you've pierced the fabric of the Universe. Unfortunately these “cure all” heuristics introduce blind spots that cannot be resolved without giving up the initial philosophy for something better- but people are going to resist doing this, fearing that it will leave them out in the cold, back to square one, back to the hurty place. Usually this calms down with maturity but we are talking about marriage, something possibly more time sensitive than anything. People need a solution now.
The most common framework I see adopted (within MY sphere of influence) is the idea that women should be “submissive”. I am not going to unpack that right now, but I don't agree with it. Men are trying to teach men how to be men when none of them had any role models and I forgive them for it. But there is a better way.
What guys want is for a girl who is enthusiastic about them, looks up to them, wants to make them happy. Not so different from what women want.4 But how do you get it? Not so easy of a question.
So you see young men especially passing along stories about “alpha males”. This was comedic when I was in high school but I think people take it more seriously today for the reasons I listed. And I hear the generation after me its even worse.
Women, too, want to be respected, and sometimes they make the same error: If I am really headstrong and annoying, people will respect me. This isn’t how it works. An easily provoked person is not capable of governance because he cannot govern himself- he spends his resources foolishly on poorly chosen battles, measures context poorly for how slights should be weighted, and due to incompetence or stubbornness has an overall poor grasp of reality. What woman is attracted to this archetype? What man? Indeed to most people the “alpha male” is little more than the common brute. What actually attracts people is a very different quality, which you can shorthand as just “leadership”.
This quality is low-visibility to many young men, and so it is a lot easier to separate human attributes into things that are more directly parseable, such as power. But this leads to all sorts of weird beliefs, such as the belief that you need to “put your wife in her place” to have a good marriage. No. Don’t do that. If a man exercises power over a woman that may very well be essentially a declaration of war which it goes without saying that is not the type of relationship you want to have with your spouse.
A lot of the “Alpha male” seduction techniques do work, for a specific subset of girl. Usually highly promiscuous with a history of drug use. But there is a danger here: The skills that work for getting some girls to sleep with you on first date tend to be mutually exclusive with the skills that work to lay a foundation for a strong marriage. Some girls will be short sighted, true, but it is going to end up the same way. In marriage girls want stability, and in dating they want excitement. There is some overlap but its clear which phase you’re going to be in longer. And if you build a relationship on novelty, you’re locked in to having to constantly create novelty for her- forever.
And this is the kernel of truth in the worldview that leads to this sort of philosophy: One thing that creates stability is rules. Hence the advice to “put her in her place”, as if being dominating gets people to like you. In real life, people like powerful nice people. If you presented a girl with a firefighter, a lumberjack, a businessman, and a bar brawler, they would pick anyone but the brawler. Any good relationship theory needs to account for this!
A better way of thinking about good communication styles is to categorize things as passive, aggressive, or assertive. This is a very old framework but works quite well- it is bad to be too passive, and too deferent. As my wife puts it: “Then you’re not a participant in the relationship. What woman wants that?” But aggressive is too wild, it risks trampling too many daisies, it comes with too much miscommunication and too often sends a clear message that you aren’t wanted. This is the opposite of what women want, especially in marriage. Assertive is the middle ground- you state things plainly, you don’t particularly compromise yourself, but you get things across. This will get you much further, because it renders you trustworthy, both to state your feelings and also to respect theirs. If women feel like they know “where you’re at” this creates an immense sense of peace, and doesn’t burn the marriage down in the process. Nobody likes walking on eggshells. When I get burned in my life, its usually because I lean too much towards the passive/deferent side of things, “bottle things up” and then my wife feels like she has to pull double the weight of the relationship. If I make myself an unknown quantity, then she has to figure out what I might be wanting herself, on top of figuring out what she wants, and that’s no way to negotiate with someone.
Another communication style most need to master is presentation. You can get decently far by thinking of people like animals- even if the animal wants your food, they usually will not approach you (unless they have a lot of experience). This is out of a basic self preservation instinct. Admitting to wants is to become vulnerable.
So what you do, is you pretend not to be paying attention to the animal. You drop the food in front of you, you say “hey, I have this food here, if you want it.” and then you let the animal come. This is much better than confronting the animal and trying to shove food down its throat, and surprisingly also works much better than leaving the food in your pocket and waiting for the animal to realize you have it. When you offer or invite, you set up a low stakes situation. You’re not going to revoke the food if the animal doesn’t please you. You’re not even setting up vectors where you might be able to attack the animal. You’re legitimately being nice, and if you let them, they will come. You don’t make a good marriage by commanding your spouse, you make a good marriage by working with them to build something— together.
Duckstack Self Defense
Jiu jitsu. Karate. Thai chi. Yoga. Sitting at a computer typing.
I heard the other day about throwing knives. Apparently they’re some kind of weapon that ninjas used to use, but I thought, you know what, we can improve on this. Because like, butter knives aren’t that sharp, so I think they’d be more annoying when they bonk people on the head than anything else. So we put our best Duckstack Scientists5 on the job, inventing a new ranged self defense line that, I don’t mean to brag, I believe would be better than throwing butter knives. These new items are available to market immediately, and since I didn’t inform the FDA or anyone else that we were doing this, they’re currently totally legal.
Throwing Ducks: You have heard of angry geese? Their destructive force is quite impressive. Why not throw ducks at your enemies? However, ducks have another advantage, which is that they are born knowing how to fly, once they learn. What I’m saying is they can be trained to be homing. This also lowers quite a lot of restrictions, for example you could lean out an airplane window and throw them. Upgrading the average throwing butter knife into a throwing duck opens up all kinds of military applications.
Throwing Nuclear Bombs: Throwing ducks might not be your speed. Maybe you’re a patriot who likes fireworks, or you just want something with a little more power. I understand. Admittedly, throwing ducks do not yield a satisfying *thunk* noise on impact, reducing the experience somewhat. Can I interest you in a throwing nuclear bomb? More or less portable, the destructive impact of a throwing nuclear bomb is only slightly less than that of a regular nuclear bomb. It is a little heavy, so if your strength isn’t up to the task6 you will likely need to use both hands. But don’t let that deter you, this baby is sure to stop any intruders in their tracks. Unlike throwing ducks, it has no military applications. Also, no warranty.
Throwing Suns: Lets say you are a gentleman of more refined, more esoteric tastes. More expensive tastes. Well, prepare your wallet for the Throwing Sun! Inspired by the classic throwing nuclear bomb, we cut out the middle man. You can just throw this baby after its already exploding! With a shelf life measured in the trillions of years, maybe you don’t need it today, but you will never have to worry about buying another one. And your enemies will never have to worry about you buying another one either. They probably already weren’t. But after seeing it in action, before the blissful vaporization that always follows such things, they will think: “I sure hope he doesn’t have another of those.” Sleep easy, with Throwing Suns!
History
Here is how the toddler pronounces alligators: “Awbugators.” He says they aren’t scary like crocodiles are.
The toddler has a complaint: “the orange juice is out of orange”
The toddler is feeling generous: “Want some cheese?” “No.” “But… You have a big mouth.” I guess that’s one way of determining what you should eat
The toddler ran in from his bath to tell us, “There’s a big water mess.” so we were like “oh did you splash on the floor?” and he was like “no, the tub did it all by itself.” and we were like “uh huh.” And we ignored him for a couple minutes, then went in to the bathroom to find ONE INCH OF STANDING WATER the tub had clogged and overflowed and it really had done it “all by itself” and we had DOUBTED HIM.
This week my parents who subscribe to my newsletter asked me “if I'm writing down the cute things my kids say” anywhere. It sounds like a good idea.
Ducksnax
Darts
+++ previous duckstack - - -
Not that we’re asking
You'll never take me alive!
Adams. and Eves.
I wouldn't necessarily weight it that way for women, however.
Currently, just Carl
anything less than 18