wonderingwanderer

Pretty sure he was an aristocrat. “Low-ranking official” in this context basically means “from an unimportant noble family, or low-ranking within a medium-importance noble family.”

Basically, infinitely higher standing than a peasant, yet still the dirt beneath the shoes of the high-ranking nobles.

Confucian bureaucracies were highly stratified.

Unfortunately, somebody already has…

Yeah, I get so tired of people saying things like “there were no old people in the medieval era because everyone died by 30,” and they always say it with so much smugness like they think it’s this controversial quip that nobody knows about and they’re one of the few with this secret knowledge or something.

But it’s so obviously just some “pop factoid” that they read on social media, because any actual historian would give you a more nuanced point of view without conflating averages with absolutes.

Like yeah, a lot of people died untimely deaths back then. But it was by no means all. They fucking invented the word “wizard” to describe old people. Strange thing to do if they had never seen a person with gray hair, wouldn’t you think?

Sorry, I don’t think I’m in your state :( I’ll still try it though

Honestly, if someone’s gotta control the world, I’d much prefer if it’s a social worker…

Brace yourself for downvotes, but this comment rings true. I don’t agree with all of your takes by far, but this one is fire.

I’m wondering how many more hundreds of years it will take before men can be humanized and seen as people and have a place within so-called “egalitarian” society.

The answer to injustice isn’t to reverse the playing cards, and as long as people act like it is we’ll be in this endless battle between different demographic groups. Hold individuals responsible for their part in the injustice, but blaming an entire group of people is the definition of prejudice.

Yeah, the self-reporting was a glaring issue I noticed as well. Like “less men than women report feeling lonely.” No shit, are we all just going to pretend that the previous paragraph didn’t just mention how men are more reluctant to open up about their feelings?

And don’t blame men as individuals for their reluctance. That’s socially conditioned and enforced, just like so many social expectations that people complain about women facing and being forced to conform to.

Yeah, it seems like we’ve reached a point in society that mocking men for any reason is just seen as acceptable, and if a man doesn’t like that or complains about it then people just double down on him harder. How is that any different from the traditional “be a man, suck it up, don’t be so emotional” mentality?

This article was pretty good, but it could have done so without starting off by dismissing the common reality of loneliness that a lot of men seem to experience. I for one, as an isolated and lonely man, feel like I’m being gaslit when people badger me about how there’s “no loneliness epidemic” and it must be all my fault.

Maybe women experience loneliness too, but at least they get to talk about their problems and nobody verbally abuse them over it. And anybody who would give them shit for that anyway is likely a crazy right-wing fascist, and who cares what they think? But men who talk about their feelings get bludgeoned by the right-wing crazies for being too “weak” or whatever, and they get bludgeoned by everyone else because berating men seems to be the cool thing to do or whatever.

But we just can’t talk about it. And even articles that are dedicated to loneliness frame it as “there’s not really a male loneliness epidemic… but wait look there’s a loneliness epidemic that many men just incidentally happen to suffer from.”

Like, people can talk about issues that women face and everyone’s like “yas, preach.” But when people talk about issues men face everyone becomes dismissive and it’s either “everyone has those problems” or “women have those problems too.” But, well, men always get left out of those conversations. So why can’t we have our own?

It’s like, women’s spaces are totally fine and normal. But if a space is designated for men then suddenly there’s a moral outrage about the exclusion of women.

I’m tired, boss…

Would you eat them with a Musk? Would you eat them with a Tusk?