u/AmericanLymie

Bill was hand chosen by the trustees of the Kennedy Center, including Chair Donald Trump and trustees Melania Trump, Pam Bondi and Susie Wiles, to receive this year's award.

He begged for the award on his TV show a couple of weeks ago—"PLEASE," he plead, "let me get my one fucking award!" He will get the award in DC tonight.

The great Louis C.K. will be there to celebrate his fellow great man Bill. So will Arianna Huffington.

What do you predict Bill will say? What else do you think might happen?

Here are my predictions:

—Bill will speak of himself as a liberal and everything he says will be condemning of Democrats and praise Republicans for being "brave" and for standing up for free speech even as Trump's FCC cracks down on the freedom of the press and universities restrict the expression of students.

—Bill will tell "jokes," and every joke will be based on the premise that "WOKE is destroying the country."

—Bill will again praise Republicans while calling himself a critic of Donald Trump and then flattering Donald Trump gratuitously.

—Bari Weiss may be there but whether she is there or not, CBS News will dedicate abundant coverage to Maher's extraordinary patriotism and unmatchec hilarity. If Weiss doesn't interview him herself for a primetime special, expect Leslie Stahl to do the dirty work of bowing down to him as ordered on 60 Minutes.

—Maher will return to his show with an inflamed ego and he will pronounce more confidently than before that after spending more time with Donald Trump in DC, he is convinced that the media has done Trump wrong and that Trump is in fact charismatic, brilliant, handsome, virile, and eternally youthful.

—JD Vance will do Maher's podcast and Maher will be effectively manipulated into falling in love with him through transparently false flattery.

I'm not asking WHY algorithms prioritize pictures of people in various states of undress, but rather how you feel about it.

I have become more active on Threads in recent months, as it feels a lot like Twitter when it was newer and far more civilized, but recently almost every time I open the app, the first post it shows me is some influencer showing off their body. As I said above, I understand that certain types of imagery have always been known to "sell" and sexy stuff is chief among it, but I don't look for this on Threads, I don't really want to see it, I almost always either block the account or click "not interested" to make it go away, and that doesn't make any difference to the algorithm.

I find it annoying because it interferes with the type of content I like to engage with on the platform. I also find it frustrating that I don't want it and it continues to push it on me. I'm sure I have caused my own efforts to block some such content to backfire on occasion as I have clicked on the profile to see how many followers the person has, and it's usually ways into the hundreds of thousands—and that's why I am asking this question here.

It seems like people like that kind of thing because those accounts have so many followers? But all they do is post pictures of themselves, sometimes working out or lifelessly carrying out choreographed movements as a joyfree "dance," yada yada.

But as I scroll, I encounter thoughtful people who have something interesting to say, and I like their content, I share it, I follow them...yet Meta still prioritizes the semi-naked people.

I really hate it. I am bothered that Meta makes me look at it when I really have no interest. I'm bothered that Meta prioritizes it when I say "not interested" and block it. I worry when I see it about how it affects people's body images, and especially those of young people.

But given the popularity of such influencers and such accounts, it makes me think that maybe I am the outlier and maybe a majority of people just love those posts and want more and more and more. I mean, those accounts almost always have over a half million followers, while some people I've encountered who are really thoughtful and interesting and who share expertise and insights usually have only a few hundred or possibly a couple of thousand followers.

Do you love the smutty posts on social media platforms? I really want to know what other people think of them.

I left Facebook at least a decade ago because I would sign into my account and just see...junk. Prank videos, gross-out food videos, ads showing toenail fungus. I had to manually look people up to see any of my connections' posts; otherwise, it was all crap, and so I put my account into hibernation. Before long, Instagram likewise started showing me posts by accounts I didn't follow and almost no posts from my actual friends and so I deleted that app and stopped using it. I fear Threads is going to go in that direction quickly.

But if people are following those accounts, then people must want to see those posts, right?

How do you feel about them?

The cohosts have abruptly changed my views this week on Brian's podcast when talking about JD Vance.

Joy has always effectively been a Democratic party spokesperson on the show—the counterpart to Elisabeth Hasselbeck and her successors, and to the role Ana uses to play on cable news as a Republican.

I am sad to say she *deeply* disappointed me on Brian's podcast when talking about JD Vance. She is of course entitled to her opinions. But based on what she said, it seems to me that she was easily charmed by a sociopathic man. She referred to him as "good," said he's not like Trump, he's better than Trump, he's very likable, that she would never vote for him because she only votes for Democrats but she would like to see him run against Newsom and thinks he would do well. Brian revealed that Joy told him to run for president during the break and she said he is charismatic and she repeatedly told Brian to bring Vance back onto the show.

Joy seemed not to have a single care about Vance's aggressive misogyny, his aggressive racism, his hatred of transgender people and nonwhite immigrants, his bizarre bullying of Zelenskyy at the White House or European leaders who he told to get in line behind Trump, his complicitly in supporting and promoting violations of international human rights laws, domestic constitutional laws, complicity in crimes against humanity, harm to public health, to the environment and on and on. She just enjoyed her backstage chat with him and wants him to succeed.

Sociopaths' abilities to charm people out of common sense is astonishing to me.

Sara, meanwhile, impressed me in her podcast episode much more than she did with her questioning on the show that was so celebrated. I didn't love the framing or phrasing of her responses to Vance on the show but I did appreciate the tone. On the podcast, she was unbending morally to Vance's complicity in cruelty and she identified ways by which he attempted to charm his way around accountability and she held that against him rather than buying into it as Joy did.

I have criticized Sara a fair amount. I get tired of "As an independent...!" and "I don't wear a team jersey...!" and more than anything I really resent—I take personally, in a way—that once upon a time she was the most outspoken person on the panel for gay equality by law and since last year she has been nearly silent about the scapegoating of LGBT and especially transgender people by this regime. She has made a few comments recently because of Pride month but I notice she specifies that she supports gay people like her brother and that leaves me to think she may lump in transgender people with Palestinian people as just...not really mattering, since so many people have noticed that she is steadfastly silent about the latter's human rights and I have noted how silent she is about the former.

But with respect to Vance, "I give Sara all the flowers for all the things," as Sara would say. She does seem to apply her moral concern for others selectively but considering how swoony Joy was over Vance, I am glad Sara saw through it, as she is the one person I most expected to make excuses for him.

I have a few thoughts:

1. I have always thought it strange when The View, a television show of national scope, spends a lot of time discussing NYC-specific issues. In the past, this has included Broadway shows that only people in New York are capable of attending, kvetching about NYC traffic that only people in NYC will experience, and, yes, the Knicks.

2. I am not at all into sports and so it has felt recently like this is not the show I tuned in to watch.

3. That said, while I always turn off View Your Deal segments and interviews that are just promotions without much substance, I didn't turn off yesterday's interview with Jalen Brunson and, wow, I was so impressed with him. He seemed so humble and sweet and thoughtful. I'm glad I watched it. I'll never be a sports fan but I am now a fan of his.

I really admire Sunny. It's so weird. She rubbed me the wrong way when she was new to The View and I pegged her as conservative but she honestly comes across as honest and honorable at all times to me now.

One thing I learned from this recent interview: SHE STILL HAS CHICKENS. Someone wrote here recently that she gave them up. Nope. She said she lives in Westchester County, NY, and she still has pet chickens and many are too old to lay eggs reliably. She and Maury discuss chickens and goats for a surprising length of time...

Another thing I learned: She is still certified to practice law in Maryland, DC, New Jersey and New York, and she is an active member of the Supreme Court Bar Association. I didn't realize she maintains her ability to practice law. She said she advises friends but doesn't charge them.

Anyway! In case anyone is interested, it's a pretty good conversation.

I am genuinely curious why people online are so combative, seemingly always enraged no matter what a person says.

If you are combative, would you mind explaining what motivates it?

It's pervasive but by way of example, I will discuss my own experiences this morning alone.

I posted a question here earlier and a lot of people poured their own assumptions of what I meant into what I wrote and replied with enraged insults. In many cases, I responded with greater context and acknowledged I neglected to offer greater context in my original post. I did this to clarify my question and to remove room for wrong interpretations of what I meant. In not one case did this have the intended effect, and in most cases people's replies insisted that my intention was something that I, being the person who wrote the question, know what my intention was. In a couple of cases I replied to further clarify and my responses were met with ongoing rage.

In another case, someone posted a quote from a comedian that was about herself, effectively making fun of herself in an absurd way, and a lot of people commented with greater anger that the woman should never say the things she said. I replied to someone that the comedian's version of humor is self-depricating and that her intention most likely was meant to be silly and goofy to entertain people, and the person replied that her words are harmful and used childish names to insult both the comedian and me. Then others began to pile on and tell me I have no right to comment and that the comedian's joke about herself is harmful to all women.

In many of these cases, I replied respectfully and said I understood their viewpoints but that sometimes context, subtext, humor, and other dynamics figure in and that it is most generous to assume a person does not have harmful intent if they're not saying something overtly harmful.

Is it possible to assume good intention instead of ill intent?

It seems not. And I just don't understand it.

I am 48 years old, and I'm just a bit bewildered that it seems like almost no one is willing to have dialogue with differences of opinion without accusations and name calling. It makes me sad. Culture and human interactions did not used to be like this. I believe this type of interpersonal relations began a decade ago when the country elected a president who makes constant accusations, who calls people childish names, and who only ever seems to want to fight. But I don't understand why anyone, and especially people who are his critics, now behave the same way.

So my question is why.

I know it's asking A LOT to ask people to be introspective and self-identify as a combative person online but if that does describe you, I genuinely don't understand why so many people engage with others this way as a rule and I am curious what the motivation is. In my experience, screaming insults into a person's face never changes that person's mind; it makes them defensive. So is the point to dominate, to "win"? Is there ever an occasion during which you are willing to have a debate with people who hold different opinions without becoming enraged and attacking them verbally, or is the point only to find people who share exactly the same views and agree on everything?

As I said, I am 48, and I am starting to wonder if I have entered into the threshold of which the culture in which I was raised is just outmoded and the world from now on will baffle me. I don't have the psychic or emotional energy to fight with all people all the time. It is so overwheming and tiring.

I mean the question literally!

It was 98° Fahrenheit with high humidity yesterday here in Washington, D.C., and as I walked home, I was passed by many different shirtless men in shorts, all with very short hair, and many women with long hair wearing tight tank tops or jogging in sports bras that covered half their torsos and skin-tight leggings.

I remembered that women have higher body fat and higher body temperatures than men do, and then I recalled many times when I got my hair cut in the spring or summer and barbers asked if I wanted my hair cut shorter for the summer because it's cooler than longer hair. The longest my hair has ever been is a few inches, so the difference between a short fade and a slightly longer men's haircut seems negligible compared with women's often much-longer hair. (Note: I was taught that women's body temperatures run higher than those of men and I just double checked this and it appears to be true, but I now see that women nevertheless feel cooler than men do in terms of comfort.)

It *looks* to me like social norms really disadvantage women in hot climates—men can be half naked with short hair and naturally lower temperatures and women are expected to cover their torsos with tight fabric, grow insulating long hair, and they already have higher base temperatures. It seems like this convention is backward, but what say you?

(I'm a gay man in my late 40s in case that matters to anyone.)

Edit: I must say, despite the general incivility of The People of The Internet, I am surprised by most of the responses here. I am asking what it feels like to have a higher body temperature, often longer hair and to have to wear constricting clothing in the heat because it not been my experience. This is a question based in empathy and people are choosig to read it as objectifying and diminishing.