Down the feminist rabbit hole

I fell down a rabbit hole today. By reading this: An Incomplete Guide to Feminist infighting. Bemused, I chased links and read manifestos and counter-manifestos for a couple of hours until the sources just began to repeat themselves. But in some respects my confusion was just beginning.

As I was falling through all these diatribes like Alice wondering how deep the rabbit hole goes, one of the thoughts uppermost in my mind was Poe’s Law: “Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.”

There was no humor down this rabbit hole. I found myself in the land beyond parody. On this evidence, I suspect it would be nigh-impossible to write a literate spoof of modern feminism that even many of its disputants wouldn’t blithely mistake for a real ideological position. And I found myself thinking of the Sokal Hoax.

Somebody, I thought, really ought to go all hermeneutics-of-quantum-gravity on these women just to see what happens. And then it hit me: maybe someone already has! It is impossible to tell how many of these women are ironists being “performative” (one of their favorite words) because all of them sound so precisely like an anti-feminist’s cruelest parody of the movement.

I mean, are they even women, really? On the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. Could these feminist twitter wars be an elaborate fiction accidentally generated by beer-swilling men in wife-beater T-shirts, each a master of the art of satire but utterly convinced by circumstances that everyone else in the flamewars is a sincere paragon of feminist outrage with immaculate activist credentials?

Fucked if I know. Sure, there are external checks one would apply – some of the disputants report having jobs at identifiable institutions. My point is that I can’t tell how anybody could falsify the wife-beater hypothesis going strictly on the rhetoric. That’s how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Actually, in a way it would it would be nice to think the wife-beater hypothesis is true and real feminists are off doing something healthier and more useful. Alas, I doubt this is the case; I suspect what we see here is what we get. So, under that depressing premise, what does it look like down the rabbit hole?

The most conspicuous thing is that these women ooze “privilege” from every pore. All of them, not just the white upper-middle-class academics but the putatively “oppressed” blacks and transsexuals and what have you. It’s the privilege of living in a society so wealthy and so indulgent that they can go years – even decades – without facing a reality check.

And yet, these women think they are oppressed, by patriarchy and neoliberalism, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, and there’s a continuous arms race to come up with new oppression modalities du jour and how many intersectional categories each player can claim.

While these children of privilege are filling out their victimological bingo cards…elsewhere, women are treated like chattels. Raped under color of law. Genitally mutilated. But none of this enters the charmed circle of modern American feminism. So much safer to rage at the Amerikkan phallocracy that provides them with cushy jobs writing about their outrage for audiences almost as insulated from reality as they are. Not to mention all those obliging men who will grow their food, fix their plumbing, mow their lawns, and know their place.

There were pictures. Such pictures! They all look alike, from the cutesy white chicks with hipster glasses to the black WOCs with dreadlocks. It took me a while to figure out why, but I got it eventually. It was like browsing some Renaissance painter’s gallery of fin-de-race noblemen. Such arrogance, such entitlement, all those faces suffused with a a bland and unimpeachable conviction of their own superiority and righteousness. No wonder they fight each other like cats in a sack!

I cannot do justice to the sheer, pluripotent absurdity revealed by these twitter wars; it would take the powers of a Jonathan Swift to do that. I think I may have some light to shed on how it got so hilariously you can’t-make-this-stuff-up awful, though.

Years ago, I wrote about kafkatrapping, and uttered this warning: “At the extreme, such causes frequently become epistemically closed, with a jargon and discourse so tightly wrapped around the logical fallacies in the kafkatraps that their doctrine is largely unintelligible to outsiders.”

I think that is almost exactly what has happened here. While I had certain varieties of feminism in mind when I wrote that, it now appears that I grossly underestimated the degree to which closure had taken hold or would do so. While I wasn’t looking, they went from incestuous to plain ridiculous.

And to return to an older theme – I think this sort of bitter involution is what eventually and inevitably happens when you marinate in left-wing duckspeak for long enough. (Clue: if you find yourself using the word “neoliberal” as non-ironically as these women do, you’re there. For utter lack of meaning outside of a dense thicket of self-referential cod-Marxist presuppositions disconnected from reality, this one has few rivals.)

Accordingly, George Orwell would have no trouble at all identifying the language of the feminist twitter wars as a form of Newspeak, designed not to convey thought but suppress it. Indeed, part of the content of the wars is that some of these women dimly sort of get this – see the whole argument over “callout culture”. But none of them can wake up enough to see that the problem is not just individual behaviors. Because to do that they’d have to face how irretrievably rotten and oppressive their entire discourse has become, and their worldview would collapse.

Ah well. This too shall pass. The university system and establishment journalism are both in the process of collapsing under their own weight. With them will go most of the ecological niches that support these precious, precious creatures in their luxury. Massive reality check a’coming. No doubt the twitter wars will continue, but in historical terms they won’t last long.

547 comments

  1. That last paragraph is optimistic; I hope you’re right. Communist academia and communist media are the reasons America *didn’t* win the Cold War and we’re slowly losing it.

    You’ve done a good job calling out the nonsense that is militant feminism. It’s merely one node, however, in the entire Frankfurt School strategy that is dismantling our Constitutional liberty. The whole “big tent” strategy of playing all of these special interest groups against the middle, but *never* against each other (homosexuals and muslims voting together as a single bloc?) only works because communist academia and communist media help them along, vilifying the paleoconservative/libertarian defenders of *their* freedom.

  2. I’m not sure why you spent the time chasing down those rabbit holes. If I do that, it needs to at least be *fun*.

    But you might want to think of it as religious disputations among the faithful. The underlying beliefs are emotional and live on a gut level. They aren’t for the most part amenable to rational argument, because the bases aren’t rational. They are also prime examples of cognitive dissonance, and the ability of the human mind to hold mutually contradictory ideas.

    The 80-20 rule also applies. You can achieve 80% of desired social change, but that last 20% can be a killer, starting with disagreements about just what it is.

    And the jockeying for position you see in such forums isn’t about social change, it’s about status in that community. “I’m more oppressed than you are, so I have higher status than you do!”

    Personally, I’m a utopian. I dream of living in a world where we are all just people, and your age, gender, ethnic group, and sexual orientation are details like the size of your shoe, relevant only in specific and well defined circumstances. For the rest, you get status based on how well you get along with your fellow people, and what you have done that has caused measurable benefit for them.

    That world would terrify most of these folks if they thought it through, because then their proclaimed oppressed status wouldn’t exist, and they wouldn’t be *special*. They’d just be people like everyone else, with nothing to make them stand out beyond what they might be able to *do*, and for the most part, they don’t know how to do anything save preach their gospel.

  3. >While these children of privilege are filling out their victimological bingo cards…elsewhere, women are treated like chattels. Raped under color of law. Genitally mutilated. But none of this enters the charmed circle of modern American feminism. So much safer to rage at the Amerikkan phallocracy that provides them with cushy jobs writing about their outrage for audiences almost as insulated from reality as they are. Not to mention all those obliging men who will grow their food, fix their plumbing, mow their lawns, and know their place.

    After taking the red pill for so long now, I can actually begin to see the matrix shaping Eric’s thinking. Even as he criticizes feminism’s extreme outliers, he does so in a way that still reinforces the fundamental feminist chauvanism of our day: the prioritization of women’s interests ahead of those of men AND THOSE OF CHILDREN.

    It’s subtle, how he tricks himself — and the rest of you — by characterizing these people as “children” at the start, such that the normal scale of relative expendability (Men > Women > Children) is narratively leapfrogged. Where did the children’s interests go? Behind those of the women, of course! But it’s narratively framed in such a way that you never notice. Pay no attention to those boys behind the curtain!

    Which is what all feminism, as distinct from women’s liberation, is about: the prioritization of women’s interests (and particularly feminist women’s interests) ahead of the interests of men AND THE INTERESTS OF CHILDREN.

    Feminism is about prioritizing women’s interests ahead of those of children, and here’s Eric demonstrating exactly that by whose interests he does, and more noticeably, whose interests he does NOT, identify and use as comparative examples to “extreme” feminist outliers.

    We’re living, right now, in a literal Soylent Blue dystopia of the industrial commoditization of human flesh of infants. That’s an inarguable fact; google ‘neonatal fibroblast’ and you’ll see multiple price pages for vials of baby boy sex parts. We harvest the human flesh at the freshest we can for the most benefit to research and manufacturing; we can’t have use fetal tissue for those purposes anymore, so we have to use baby boy flesh taken as soon after birth as we can.

    “Raped under color of law. Genitally mutilated.”

    Hey, Eric, what’s the DEATH count at the MALE circumcision camps in africa like this year?

    Where is feminism’s address to this? The left’s?

    Yours?

    HIdden behind the curtain with the rest of the boys, apparently.

  4. @ESR: “Actually, in a way it would it would be nice to think … real feminists are off doing something healthier and more useful.”

    Eric, you are an optimist of the highest caliber. May you ever retain such an adorable quality.

  5. Hmmm. Maybe stating the obvious, but most politics of this “victim” mentality kind are centered around these themes/catchwords: social change, justice, empowerment , equality, etc (all of those, in a vague, undefinable way). The difference between real social movements and those centered around -isms is that -isms remain rooted in the basic victim mindset while real movements move on after achieving realistic goals.

    The thing is, these -isms don’t define realistic, clear or attainable goals because then they would have a yardstick to measure their performance on and that would expose their inherent and fundamental flaw as well as the intellectual dishonesty of those who profess those -isms.

  6. Because I am a naturally contrary person (and seemingly one of the few who are ambivalent about social justice), I’m going to point out competent handling of a man who’s made going to conventions less fun for a lot of women.

    http://twistpeach.livejournal.com/101026.html?nc=166#comments

    http://k1ttycat.livejournal.com/160255.html

    I’m going to note that the target was what I’d call appropriate.

    And the only people working on sexual harassment at conventions were SJs.

    So far as your link is concerned, I think a lot of the difficulties among SJs would be lessened if they were willing to allow for specialization– that people can attend their own or their own preferred groups’ interests instead of all having to be perfectly aligned in the same direction. As it is, there’s a lot of unnamed competition over who gets whose attention.

    By the way, any theories about why MRAs aren’t better at advocating for their interests? It can’t be *that* hard to push for more equal treatment in divorces.

    Would an organization to get decent treatment for men need to be substantially anti-war? (trick question)

    You work on gun rights in the US even though there are people who are desperate for weapons in Syria.

    1. >By the way, any theories about why MRAs aren’t better at advocating for their interests?

      Not a clue. Haven’t studied them enough to develop a theory.

      >Would an organization to get decent treatment for men need to be substantially anti-war? (trick question)

      No, but it would need to be anti-draft. Some men like military life; some men even like battles.

      >You work on gun rights in the US even though there are people who are desperate for weapons in Syria.

      To be analogous to an American feminist I’d have to (a) argue that we shouldn’t arm anyone because violence is bad, or (b) deny that their desperation points at a real problem, or (c) deny that that it’s a problem anyone but other little brown foreigners. In fact I’ve always been in favor of sending weapons to people who want to kill Communists, Islamists, and other enemies of civilization, and said so.

  7. Feminism is nothing more than the belief that all people are people, and it doesn’t matter your gender, sex, sexual preferences, or similar such. It is one expression of the idea that all people are people, and like DMcCunney said “your age, gender, ethnic group, and sexual orientation are details like the size of your shoe, relevant only in specific and well defined circumstances”. I would add colour of skin (different from ethnicity), colour of eyes, handness, and so on.

    Please ignore “feminism” that calls all sex rape, or says that all porn is exploitative (both of which are sex negative traits), or wishes to deny self to trans people, or similar.

    I would argue that all libertarian ideologies (that is, ideologies that have at the core the liberation of all people, making people free), including the various anarchisms, and libertarian Marxisms (e.g. council communism) are essentially feminist to the extent that the basic feminism demand is an essential part of them.

  8. I haven’t studied MRAs, but I’ve been exposed to them enough to have a theory– they are so driven by resentment that they aren’t working on the problems they talk about…

    Instead of forming alliances with women who oppose genital mutilation (certainly not possible with all of them, but should be with some)– something like Supporting Genital Integrity for All Children, MRAs just complain that they aren’t getting enough help from feminists and/or the general public.Or MRAs could just form organizations to oppose male circumcision, admittedly a difficult thing to do because it looks anti-Semitic and sometimes attracts real anti-Semites. However, they aren’t taking either approach.

    I’ve seen some fund-raising for research on prostate cancer done specifically by men, but I’ve also spent time (long badly judged road trip) with a man who resented the money spent on research on breast cancer. He also opposed research on women’s health issues until men had equal lifespans with women.

    There certainly should be shelters for men who are subject to domestic violence, but MRAs complain about how feminists are only supporting shelters for women. Guess who I think should be at the forefront of domestic violence shelters for men?

    MRAs typically resent that men are at risk of being drafted while women aren’t rather than pushing for either sort of consistent policy.

    I’m not accusing you of hypocrisy in re weapons and Syria, though it could have looked that way. My point is that insisting that people put all their energy into the most desperate problems isn’t reasonable.

    As for reading people’s personalities from single photographs, I don’t see the same thing in the photographs in the link from The Wire. They don’t all believe the same things, and some of them are relatively speaking on your side.

    Michelle Goldberg looks pleasant but nervous, and if I opposed the SJ excesses the way she does, I’d probably look nervous, too.

    Mikki Kendall/Karynthia looks sad but focused and curious. She’s the one I’d be most inclined to spend time with. I might regret it, but this is just the face analysis part.

    Brittney Cooper– she spooks me for reasons I find hard to define. She looks very shielded, and I’m not sure what’s underneath.

    Courtney Martin– a good bit of tension, but an amount of outward focus which suggests she’s paying attention.

    Anna Holmes– another one I’m spooked by. Very tense, and over-energized.

    Jill Filipovic– nothing especially wrong with her, but she looks so frightened I might find it hard to be around her.

    Andrea Grimes– the only one who matches your description of a compulsive rule enforcer. If she were older, she’d make a plausible Dolores Umbridge.

    Suey Park– hard for me to read, but probably a pleasant person.

    Meghan M. Murphy– looks like a glamour photo, impossible for me to read.

    Sarah Milstein– I take that back about the Grimes picture because Milstein looks like another mean one. Not an Umbridge, though– she uses her own strength rather than depending on rules.

    1. >I haven’t studied MRAs, but I’ve been exposed to them enough to have a theory– they are so driven by resentment that they aren’t working on the problems they talk about…

      This agrees with my impression from very limited exposure. For a crowd that talks so much about reclaiming manliness they seem remarkably ineffective at it.

  9. MRA? SJ? EXPN? Please keep the jargon to a minimum. All it does is insulate the discussion from those not in positions of feminist privilege.

  10. Part of what I see going on is that somebody develops a useful tool (like, say Deconstruction) and gets a Ph.D for it. Perfectly reasonable. (Yes, a lot of the use of Deconstruction is a waste of time, but that boils down to the whole “if all you have is a hammer” problem).

    Then thousands of people apply this tool to every known piece of literature and get a Ph.D. based upon that as well. It’s as although nobody’s heard of iterators before. This allows those who are intellectually lazy to get credentials without having to do the real mental effort of discovering something new.

    The best example of the application of Privilege theory I’ve seen is the following:
    Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names.
    It’s not about making people wrong, and it provides a useful perspective which you can take action on.

    In my EMS training, we received a very brief overview of gender theory simply because there are people out there who present as women and are male (and vice versa). This actually matters when it comes to treating patients. Biological differences matter, and being aware and prepared for trans-gendered patients allows us to provide better care.

    Most of the “feminist” chatter I see is overwrought hand wringing as a substitute for doing something useful.

  11. Garrett, I’m trying to see how an overview of gender theory would help an EMT more than simply “treat people with respect and as they wish to be treated”, which is what permeated my training all the way from basic EMT to paramedic in a leadership role.

    Privilege theory may not be intended to make people wrong, but that’s how it’s used. “You’ll never understand. You’re privileged.”

    Oh, and another acronym to expand: WOC?

  12. MRA– Men’s Rights Activist. It’s what they call themselves.

    SJ– Social Justice. A convenient if perhaps not entirely accurate term for the folks who are doing anti-racism and some types of feminism. I believe some of them call what they’re doing social justice.

    WOC– woman of color. “Of color” means not white.

    There’s more to life than EMT, but one example of gender theory applying to EMT would be to be careful about descriptions of and pronouns for transgendered people. I realize there are some here (probably the majority) who think transgender is a delusion or somesuch, but I would hope at least for kindness to people having medical emergencies.

  13. “Be careful about descriptions of and pronouns for transgendered people” is a special case of “treat people with respect and as they wish to be treated”. Yes, that can cause difficulties in, say, medical reporting and transfer of care to another provider, but EMTs are used to dealing with that kind of thing.

  14. Sometimes, gender theory is a useful tool for pointing out what people want.

    Also, I don’t know whether you looked at the livejournal links I posted above, but they were partly about the importance of having sexual harassment policies at sf conventions. I agree that it’s important to treat people the way they want to be treated, but what if you have an EMT who doesn’t?

  15. I’ll say the same thing about militant feminists (“feminazis” if you prefer) that I say about every special interest group:

    “For a group that supposedly wants to be treated equally to everyone else, they sure do go out of their way to make everyone aware of their identity”

  16. @MRA? SJ? EXPN? Please keep the jargon to a minimum.

    mra? men’s rights activist, i think.
    sj? dunno.
    expn? dunno.

    1 out of 3. if i was a baseball player i’d be rolling in millions! anyhow, i’m off to read more about the dark enlightenment.

  17. Nancy: I did. The guy’s a slimeball who deserves all that’s going to come his way. The con had an enlightened policy that was thwarted to some degree by the simple fact that he wasn’t a registered attendee. (“Member” of an SF con still strikes me as a very weird usage.)

    An EMT who doesn’t treat patients with respect and as they want to be treated isn’t going to be a very good medic for lots of other reasons. He’ll either get retrained or run off.

    Bringing in the heavily political topic of “gender theory” just serves to politicize and obfuscate.

  18. It may be surprising, but I don’t identify as a feminist. What did for me was Mary Daly being accepted as a feminist. I read a few of her books, and the problem for me is that she hates men.

    Her books aren’t totally useless (they’ve got some good Nietzsche-esque live for the gusto stuff), but I found it necessary to interpret what she said about women as applying to all people, and what she said about men as being about some dull inimical non-humans who weren’t worthy of attention.

    That’s good enough enough for getting some use out of a very uneven writer, but back in the real world, Daly was making a difference– not so much to men, but she also hated M to F transgendered people since she considered them to be men trying to sneak into women’s space, and the consequence of that was M-to-Fs having trouble getting into domestic violence centers, sometimes with deadly consequences.

    When Daly died, there were eulogies, and there were people who were angry about transphobia (prejudice against transgendered people), but I didn’t see anyone complaining about the misandry. So I don’t trust feminists in general enough to call myself one.

    Jay, the reason Justin got into trouble was that Arisia had a policy. The reason Arisia had a policy is that SJs pushed for one. The reason the SJs pushed for the policy is that women either didn’t make complaints because they didn’t think their complaints would be taken seriously, or they made complaints which weren’t taken seriously. Justin had been getting away with harassing women for years.

    Admittedly, this is SJ at its best, but possibly political movements should be judged by their best as well as by their average and their worst.

    It’s true that I’ve been talking about SJ in general, and I don’t know what you mean by gender theory. What do you mean?

  19. “Social justice” is far too tainted by its association with communist radicals to be taken seriously as anything other than a marker that someone’s dangerously disconnected from reality. It’s a short codeword for “equality of outcome”.

    The reason that Arisia has a policy is that people pushed for it to have one who refused to put up with assholes assaulting others, period. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not about a social movement. It’s about treating people with respect.

    By “gender theory”, I mean the claptrap that’s destroyed liberal arts education in this country, also labeled “gender studies”: seeing anything and everything, no matter how innocuous, as gender/whatever-based oppression of everyone sen to be disfavored by who doesn’t toe the radical leftist line.

  20. @Nancy: “Also, I don’t know whether you looked at the livejournal links I posted above, but they were partly about the importance of having sexual harassment policies at sf conventions.”

    I did. I’ve been involved with Arisia since 2001, and harassment policies are a very thorny issue. While they are absolutely necessary, they must also be very carefully crafted.

    For instance, Arisia has a long-time attendee who is the sort of jerk harassment policies get written in response to. Arisia Security has accumulated a ream of complaints about him. Arisia came up with a policy that called for a lifetime ban from the con as a result, and attempted to apply it to him.

    He sued. Arisia, Inc, was able to successfully defend itself in court, but it cost $15K. The vast majority of SF cons would be put out of business by that. The current harassment policy was crafted with lots of advice from their lawyer, to come up with something that might just be enforceable.

    The jerk still attends Arisia, and has been very careful to stay just this side of the line. He’s playing a game, and thumbing his nose at the con. (A couple of Arisia Security staffers favored more direct action, like taking him behind the loading dock and beating the shit out of him, but refrained because they were associated with the con and the cure would be worse than the disease in terms of the effect on Arisia.)

    And even when you have a harassment policy, there are hard limits on what the con itself can do. You can lift their badge, and ban them from spaces the con is renting from the hotel, but you can’t keep them out of hotel public space. And you place your door dragons, if any, in the position of having to turn the malefactor aside if he tries to enter a con space. What if he just bulls his way through? All you can do is call Hotel Security, and let them deal with it.

    Such things all assume everyone is playing the same game by the same set of rules, and tend to fail catastrophically when folks aren’t.

    I don’t have any answers, but too often I think people are asking the wrong questions.

  21. DMcCunney, I agree that harassment policies need to be carefully crafted, and I could probably stand to know more about failure modes and the limits of what’s practically and legally possible..

  22. @ Garrett, RE: ‘Most of the “feminist” chatter I see is overwrought hand wringing as a substitute for doing something useful.”

    Well said. I think not just feminists but a lot of folks out there with the various “-ists” and “-isms” and other social platforms. Life in the U.S. has become so easy, and so empty for a so many people (my daughter has a term for this – First World Problems – she told me the other day she doesn’t know if she wants chicken or steak for supper – then sighed and said “first world problems dad…first world problems…”) , but those old bio urges that drove humanity to the top are still present beneath the surface. The screaming and howling seems to me to be the desperate desire to be part of something (or probably in truth to be seen as part of something) that matters (and hence be a person that matters) – and with the added benefit of not having to do anything meaningful to achieve it. Score!

    We are brought up in the U.S. on the foundations of myths and ideas, of greatness and great persons, of great movements and events. Really feeds the existing species drive to dominate and expand. Or to be part of the perceived “right” group.

    When I was in the UK last year, there was a protest in London in front of the Russian embassy relating to homosexuality.

    Please. My view is get your ass off the street corner, off your stupid blog, and out of your McMansion and get thee overseas. I’ll start debating with you when you start using your resources, whatever they are (fiscal, skillset, whatever) to do something meaningful for your ideology. Don’t tell me how bad it is in Afghanistan and what should be done about it when you’ve never been out of your country, if you’ve even been out of your region (and vacation doesn’t count), or in a situation that provides some true or equivalent perspective. Your classroom doesn’t count. neither does having a black friend or Hispanic friend or any of that nonsense.

    If I can detect no hypocrisy in your preaching, and you’ve been in a position to sacrifice or spend resources, or been danger close to being FORCED to stand for what you believe in, then we can have a conversation about your religion.

  23. @Nancy: ” agree that harassment policies need to be carefully crafted, and I could probably stand to know more about failure modes and the limits of what’s practically and legally possible..”

    You and me and the cons trying to craft policies.

    Arisia got a $15K lesson in the error of assuming everyone is playing by the same rules. They assumed the jerk would accept the ban and stay away, and found out the hard way he wouldn’t.

    Another issue is cultural. Harassment at cons usually translates to “A girl complaining about a creepy guy who won’t stop bothering her.” The first question I would ask is “Did you explicitly *tell* him to go away and leave you alone?”

    SF cons tend to attract a higher than usual percentage of people who are “On the spectrum”. We normally tell how we are being received by others primarily by non-verbal clues: facial expression, tone of voice, and body language. People with Asbergers Syndrome don’t *perceive* those clues. They’re wired wrong. Only an explicit “Go away and stop bothering me!” verbal response works. That, they get.

    I don’t have stats to prove it, I suspect a lot of harassment complaint have as root cause a guy with Asbergers who doesn’t get the clues and a girl who *doesn’t* bluntly say “Go away and leave me alone!”, and things spiral out of control.

    At this point, however, Arisia has an increasing number of the professional oppressed minority types influencing policy, and painting anyone who doesn’t agree with their prescription to cure the maladies as part of the problem. I do not see things ending well if current trends continue.

  24. Agreed. Frankly, you don’t have to listen to them long before you realize they’re just another victim group- so a lot of guys who encounter them move on to something else because all the whining isn’t manly. They sound like screeching feminists.

    There are guys who fight for men’s issues and agains things like divorce biases who may be called MRA’s but are not, in attitude or action, the same kind of whiners.

    One aspect related to the rabbit hole you went down was a recent posting at the Tor publisher site about ending the default of binary gender in SF. Poor little girl wanted to never again read a book in the genre where you had that default.

  25. In my opinion the point here is, an ideology never is an ideology to those who adhere to it. If you look into history, it were privileged women who started the fight for women’s rights. Of course they had reason, they did not have the right to vote, but claiming they were generally discriminated against is short sighted.

    In nineteenth century England women were no longer admitted to work in coal mines to spare them from the hard work and consequentially only male workers were injured and killed in events like the Hartley Colliery Disaster. Women subsequently stayed at home “in the kitchen”. Was this discrimination against them? There are plenty of other examples that women in western countries were generally treated more favourably than men. This doesn’t mean they had the same chances, but when you look at society, the higher you get, the less chances there are. Is it justified to discriminate against a large number of male people at the lower end of society, because women are not equally represented in the smaller number of places at the upper end? And this can be argued in a similar manner for other points. From my point of view it is not women in general which are targeted, but the weak and vulnerable. Thus, the division really is horizontally but feminism draws a vertical line.

    Returning to my starting point. In your post, Eric, you intimate: feminism is a “good thing”, you even can’t imagine woman behaving like this, it must be men. Well that’s it, In the twentieth century feminism has become the mainstream ideology, but feminism is what any *ism is, an ideology. It is the women’s fight for supremacy, nothing more, nothing less – but you can’t say that in our society, because feminism *is* the mainstream and you will at once be targeted as reactionary and misogynist, not only by women.

  26. @Nancy Lebovitz I didn’t read ESR’s post as insisting that anyone, feminists or not, “put all their energy into the most desperate problems”. I read his post as bemoaning the fact that so many feminists are putting all their energy into complaining about “problems” that aren’t that significant. (i.e., things that are “first world problems”, as one of the other commenters remarked).

    I also think that your suggestion that some feminists “are so driven by resentment that they aren’t working on the problems they talk about…” has merit. If you are right, though, those feminists are doing nothing useful at all, even by their own standards, and ESR’s criticisms are justified.

  27. @Catherine: “I also think that your suggestion that some feminists “are so driven by resentment that they aren’t working on the problems they talk about…” has merit. If you are right, though, those feminists are doing nothing useful at all, even by their own standards, and ESR’s criticisms are justified.”

    It depends on what you define as useful. If you change your idea of what the infighting is about, it becomes more sensible.

    You can usefully view the sort of squabbles Eric read through as not really being about the putative subjects under discussion. They were dominance games to establish pecking order in their particular society, and the purpose was to have cause to assert “I’m more *important* than you! I have higher status, and look down on you!”

    Outside this circles, other factors come into play. I know at least one of those folks who is a drama queen, whose motive is to be the center of attention. I’ll do her the courtesy of assuming her beliefs are sincerely held, but I think the beliefs are less important than the attention she gets by publicly expressing them.

    “Useful”, in this case, defines as helping to accomplish the goals of the individual, and those goals are likely to be personal and self-centered.

  28. @DMcCunney:
    > I don’t have stats to prove it, I suspect a lot of harassment complaint have as root cause a guy with Asbergers who doesn’t get the clues and a girl who *doesn’t* bluntly say “Go away and leave me alone!”, and things spiral out of control.

    I think, that’s too simple. It doesn’t need Aspergers. Mating is a game of attracting an repelling and, like any other game, you usually learn it by playing. But if, for whatever reason there is, you don’t have the chance to learn the game while you are young, you may have a hard time to learn it later. This is because at a given age people expect you to know how to play the game and if you don’t, you’re likely to alienate people, thus further reducing your chances to get the grip on it.

    BTW as it is a game of attracting and repelling, even a blunt “Go away” can be mistaken as part of the game, so there is no panacea for the problem.

  29. Here’s a distinction that may shed some light on the subject at hand.

    In the context of family and parenting, modern men tend to think of themselves as being supermen when compared to their father’s generation. This is because we still do all the standard male roles (pay the bills, mow the lawn, fix the car, take out the garbage); but now-a-days, we also help raise the kids, cook meals, keep the house clean, and even do our own laundry at times. This is way more than our 1960s fathers ever did, and consequently we give ourselves an A+ for husbandry and have earned high self-esteem in the process.

    For modern (particularly feminist) women, exactly the opposite is true. On the home-front, they tend to do way less than their stay-at-home mothers did (not a knock on modern working mothers, just a reality of limited time and focus), and consequently they can acquire an inferiority complex when they compare themselves against memories of what their mothers did. They may see themselves (perhaps subconsciously) as being inadequate and feel guilty about it.

    Well, someone has to be blamed for this state of affairs.

  30. I think there is a lot of value in the comments above, but let me offer a different spin on it.

    I call it the “March of Dimes” problem. In the forties Roosevelt started a project to raise money from ordinary folk to work toward a cure for polio in response to a surge in the disease. One might consider this rather self serving of him, nonetheless is was undoubtedly a good cause. However, the project was so successful that polio was essentially eradicated in the USA, and, as it now close to being the third serious scourge to be entirely eliminated from the earth.

    The March Of Dimes can by any reasonable measure be said to have utterly and completely achieved its goals decades ago. However, it is still a fully functioning charity doing other (undoubtedly valuable) work.

    Why did the organization, on completion of its goals, not simply go away? Because organizations take on a life of their own beyond the actual purpose for which they are founded. If you have ever worked in corporate America you will see this every day.

    When feminism became an emergent idea, it was desperately needed. Women really were oppressed in horrible ways, and equal treatment under the law was a far goal. Furthermore the workforce was certainly set up to conform to the needs of men in a traditional patriarchal society. But feminism won all of its reasonable original goals. The right to vote, equal treatment under the law, access to contraceptives, abortion and sexual information, demands for fair and equitable treatment in the workplace, maternity leave, flexibility around child care arrangements. And these were just legal things. Societies memes even changed to offer sexual liberation, a view the women could succeed in STEMS; we have mail carriers rather than mail men; Ms rather than Mrs. One need only look at heroic women like Kim Campbell to see how far this has gone.

    Yet despite all those wins the organization has its own life independent of the goals. And that is what modern feminism and anti racism is.

    Let me give you another example. As many of your know I am rabidly anti religion. I have a good friend who is a church minister, who I enjoy very much talking with and debating. But it strikes me that, no matter how convincing my arguments against his religious faith, he cannot abandon it. His religious life, his livelihood, his circle of friends, his whole _raison d’être_ are tied to this religious belief. The value of intellectual integrity is minuscule in comparison to those things.

  31. @Jessica Boxer “I call it the “March of Dimes” problem. ”

    A good thought and useful comparison. But the MoD didn’t turn into a force that is utterly bent on the destruction of western civilization and modern society. Whatever it is that MoD does today, it probably mostly gets checkmarks in the “good” column. I don’t believe that could be said of front-office feminism today.

    “… But it strikes me that, no matter how convincing my arguments against his religious faith”

    An alternative explanation is that your arguments aren’t nearly as convincing as you think.

  32. @Manfred: “@DMcCunney:
    > I don’t have stats to prove it, I suspect a lot of harassment complaint have as root cause a guy with Asbergers who doesn’t get the clues and a girl who *doesn’t* bluntly say “Go away and leave me alone!”, and things spiral out of control.

    I think, that’s too simple. It doesn’t need Aspergers. Mating is a game of attracting an repelling and, like any other game, you usually learn it by playing. But if, for whatever reason there is, you don’t have the chance to learn the game while you are young, you may have a hard time to learn it later. This is because at a given age people expect you to know how to play the game and if you don’t, you’re likely to alienate people, thus further reducing your chances to get the grip on it.”

    Yes, it’s over simplified, and the issues run deeper.

    Mating behavior is a dance. In animal behaviorist terms, it’s an “action chain”, which may be thought of as an extended reflex. It’s triggered by stimulus and proceeds through a series of steps until the end result happens.

    The key point is that *all* of the steps in the dance must be carried out, *in the specified order*, or the end result does not occur. There is strong evidence that action chains occur in humans, too, and that the steps in any particular chain may differ between cultures.

    For instance, an interesting problem occurred during WWII. IT was the run up to the D Day invasion, and hundreds of thousands of US troops were quartered in Britain, waiting for the Joint Chiefs to set the date when they’d climb aboard the transports for the dash cross channel to hit the beaches at Normandy. High command got a lot of complaints from a British village about the behavior of the US troops stationed nearby. The girls claimed the GIs were pushy and sex-crazed. The GIs said the girls were prudes or whores. A little investigation revealed the problem.

    A GI would take a village girl on a date. They would like each other, and things would go well. He would take her home, and try to kiss her goodnight. Bang!

    The kiss, in Britain at the time was a specifically *erotic* act, that did not occur until *much* later in the relationship. What the GI was trying to communicate was “That was fun! I like you! Let’s do this again!” What the girl got from it was that she must either scream and run or get ready for sex.

    The steps in the dance were in a different order in Britain than in the US, with potentially tragic results, and this was between two countries that shared a common language and a largely common culture up to about 150 years previously. When the cultures are father apart, the problems become much worse. There have been problems in the US in areas where Latino and Anglo culture intersect because the dance has different steps in each.

    (And such cultural patterns are transmitted by conquest. We hear of periodic scandals in India when Bollywood stars are caught kissing in public, and the kiss over there is one small step removed from fucking in public. I suspect this is an attitude the Indians picked up from the British during the Raj.)

    But yes, some folks never do learn the steps in the dance, or they do, but the steps are different where they come from. And at Arisia, the BDSM crowd is in attendance, and “Go away!” may *be* part of some of those games.

    No, there isn’t a panacea. But being safe begins with one’s self. The military calls it “situational awareness”: be aware of where you are, what you are doing, and what’s going on around you, and adjust your behavior accordingly.

  33. @Michael: ““… But it strikes me that, no matter how convincing my arguments against his religious faith”

    An alternative explanation is that your arguments aren’t nearly as convincing as you think.”

    They *can’t* be. Religious faith resides on an emotional level. It is not amenable to rational argument, as it is non-rational in origin.

    I enjoy the odd theological debate with a believer in a religion, but I *don’t* expect to change their minds with my arguments.

  34. @Michael
    > An alternative explanation is that your arguments aren’t nearly as convincing as you think.

    The degree to which my arguments are convincing is entirely independent of the cost benefit analysis I mentioned. As to the the validity of my arguments, I think you and I have been round that particular matter before, so let’s keep a lid on that can of worms.

    Needless to say, your lamentation against the detrimental effects of feminism on society sound rather hollow in face of a religion that promotes the Creationist Museum and actually force feeds intelligent design and creationism to children in schools, or that teaches people that homosexuality is evil, and opposes attempts by homosexuals to be treated with fairness under the law, or opposes the use of contraception with all the dreadful consequences of poverty and childhood misery it produces, or thinks that every woman’s body has an obligation to carry whatever fetus happens to end up in there. Though I’m sure your particular flavor of religion doesn’t advocate for all these evils.

    Religion after all, was the original inventor of political correctness with things like blasphemy laws and social ostricization for any who would dare to question religion.

    The cult of feminism undoubtedly learned many of these lessons from religion, lessons that made the cult of Jesus so very successful.

  35. “Feminism is nothing more than the belief that all people are people, and it doesn’t matter your gender, sex, sexual preferences, or similar such.”

    “Feminism” seems to attach to different things for different people. It is probably useful to distinguish between the meanings. Here’s a few I’ve run into:

    1. The belief that women should have equal political and economic rights to men; voting, equal pay, admissability into STEM and similar work, etc. This I am pretty much on board with.

    2. The belief that women (and others) should have equal social standing to men, or that sex/gender/sexuality should have no impact on social standing. I think this is what you’re talking about, and I’m also pretty much on board with it.

    3. A socio-political narrative centered on collective female victimhood and collective male guilt: The Patriarchy. I don’t buy into this one but don’t really object to people who do — or at least no more than I object to non-proselytizing religious people.

    4. A *tribe* of like-minded people united by #3. In and of itself I don’t have a problem with this either; like goths or railroad enthusiasts or (sadly) hackers, it’s just not my tribe. Mind your business and I’ll mind mine. Unfortunately, often it comes with the additional tenet that people who don’t acknowledge #3 are the Enemy and must be Opposed. To that form I am hostile.

    All four of these tend to get lumped under the same label, and I think that’s a mistake.

  36. Addendum to previous: a mistake because it lends itself to arguing over what “feminism” really means, instead of which beliefs are right or wrong and which behaviors are good or bad. The latter is useful and the former is not.

  37. Eric is quite right that modern belligerent feminism is a form of cultural psychosis. And Jessica is also correct in pointing out that while it’s origins were rational, it has morphed into an entitlement addiction. Regardless, it is now part of our societal landscape and these attitudes are deeply ingrained in a large cohort of the population. As long as we remain an affluent society, and government continues to serves as a surrogate family provider, both men and women will lose continuity with traditional family roles and competence. Where this cultural mutation will take us is an interesting question.

  38. TomA,
    It is my theory that every legitimate freedom/rights movement (without exception) morphs into an entitlement addiction/victim movement unless the rights movement actually has an achievable goal that puts the movement/ideology to rest after it has.

    Basically what it all boils down to is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Unfortunately the longer the -ism remains in public consciousness, even the good intentions become questionable and poisoned by the victim-card mentality, intellectual dishonesty and apologeticism.

    Where it becomes really dangerous is when the practitioners of the faith want to put their theories into practice by social “engineering” and want government and legislative support/sanction for forcing it on society.

    To my mind it’s actually a good thing if these movements have splinter factions that keep fiercely debating their moribund theories and expend their energies to their satisfaction and keep away from the “engineering” part.

    A lot of this has to do with the decline of values education that emphasizes honesty, respecting the experience of elders, hard work and determination, traditional family bonding, patriotism and striving towards living a life of dignity and independence. Sadly the level of this poison runs so deep that even being patriotic or nationalistic or believing in family values is seen as a negative trait.

  39. DMcCunny, that kind of thing does happen– I got a rather vivid account from a friend where a bunch of women were being creeped out by a man who was on the spectrum. He has bad vision and hearing problems, so he was moving in very close just to be part of the conversation. The women in question had never told him there was a problem.

    On the other hand, the recent Arisia issue was a man who seems to have just wanted to ignore clear boundaries, and ignored being told no.

    Actually, it’s probably to your credit that you find the situation bewildering. If you’re not a predator and your friends don’t talk about being predators, it can be hard to believe that yes, there really are predators.

    And see http://blairmacg.livejournal.com/85508.html about boundary violations by socially adept men.

    And this about when women are supposed to start defending themselves http://blairmacg.livejournal.com/34215.html (Author is a martial arts instructor.)

    Minor story from my end– a couple or three times, I’ve disliked the way my hand or arm was taken and I yanked it away hard enough to sting slightly. The guy would say “You didn’t have to do that”. I didn’t have an answer handy, so I’d just look at him and the conversation would end. I don’t think I ever had to do it twice to the same guy….but what universe does he live in where taking someone’s hand isn’t considered intrusive?

    The author at that link is a self-defense teacher, and her point is that many women are so afraid of being impolite that they’re willing to let themselves be put at a serious physical disadvantage before they start setting physical boundaries.

    Catherine: Here’s what Eric said: “While these children of privilege are filling out their victimological bingo cards…elsewhere, women are treated like chattels. Raped under color of law. Genitally mutilated. But none of this enters the charmed circle of modern American feminism. So much safer to rage at the Amerikkan phallocracy that provides them with cushy jobs writing about their outrage for audiences almost as insulated from reality as they are. Not to mention all those obliging men who will grow their food, fix their plumbing, mow their lawns, and know their place.”

    I think this could be reasonably described as insisting that people should put all their energy into the most desperate problems.

    On the one hand, I’m weirded out that anti-racists seems to focus on art and words while, so far as I know, putting very little effort into reforming the American justice system, some of which is quite racist. On the other, I’m not horrified if there are feminists who are pushing for female comic book superheroes to have reasonable costumes.

    Catherine: “I also think that your suggestion that some feminists “are so driven by resentment that they aren’t working on the problems they talk about…” has merit. If you are right, though, those feminists are doing nothing useful at all, even by their own standards, and ESR’s criticisms are justified.”

    I said that about MRAs, not feminists.

    Jay, at least one of the people with a lot of influence on the Arisia policy is Shira Lipkin, and she’s definitely involved with gung ho feminism. There really is an ideological basis.

    I wish there were a high-energy movement for decent treatment of people in general. There isn’t.

    1. >I think this could be reasonably described as insisting that people should put all their energy into the most desperate problems.

      It could be, but Cathy is right about my intentions. The gravamen of my argument is that when women are being raped and genitally mutilated wholesale, spending lot of energy on stuff like Title IX and a nonexistent campus rape epidemic suggests that these women are less interested in ending oppression than they are in political/social ascendancy in their immediate environment, with “womens’ issues” as a mere pretext.

  40. Nancy, to the extent that you ascribe “social justice” as a motivation for anti-harassment policies, you discredit, cheapen, and politicize them. Not everything with an ideological basis is wrong, but everything based in hard-left ideology like “social justice” is automatically suspect. They’re just as much camel’s-nose efforts as are, say, banning magazines of more than 10 rounds capacity.

    1. >They’re just as much camel’s-nose efforts as are, say, banning magazines of more than 10 rounds capacity.

      Yes. The giveaway is the slogan “the personal is political” so often invoked by SJ types. It’s a recipe for the totalitarianization of everyday life via increasing intrusion on private choices in order to serve political ends.

  41. There are serious current issues for women in the US.

    15,000 lost rape kits: Memphis.
    One lost (eventually found) rape kit:
    San Francisco
    , and a proposed law
    Lost rape kits: Chicago
    10,000+ backlogged rape kits: Detroit This is the big case which brought the subject to my attention.
    Or do a search on [lost rape kits]– there are plenty more cities with the same negligence.

    And there’s the efforts to make abortion unavailable, and I’m not just talking about cutting off funding, I’m talking about regulations which make it more and more difficult for abortion clinics to exist. You’d think it would make leftists a little cynical about regulation, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

    This being said, there’s still a lot of energy going into trying to change sf, and that’s mostly not the bodily integrity stuff.

    It’s a goddamn shame it took hard left people to institute anti-harassment policies. Moderates, right-wingers, and libertarians weren’t working on the problem.

    For that matter, it’s a goddamn shame taking down Jim Crow was (to the best of my knowledge) limited to being a left, and sometimes far left, project. Right-wingers could have been working on it– possibly at the state rather than federal level– but they weren’t. This has damaged the reputation of the right wing, and justifiably so. At least libertarianism has an excuse, since it didn’t exist at the time.

    Jay and Eric, the people who do the work get the credit.

    I haven’t heard anyone say “the personal is the political” for a long time, for whatever that’s worth.

    Look, I don’t like SJ. A lot of their approach is emotional abuse, and some of them know it, but aren’t getting any traction. However, to some extent, they’re also trying to address real problems.

    One side effect of dealing with quite painful emotional effect reading a lot of RaceFail had on me is that I’m less vulnerable to insults, and Eric, that includes your insults. I don’t mean you’ve insulted me personally, but there was I time when I would have just curled up from the way you talk about the SJs, and not commented. And been afraid of SJ backlash from what I’m saying about them here, and not commented.

    Another side effect of RaceFail is that I notice when people’s motives are attacked, and I mistrust that sort of argument. Sometimes it’s necessary to look at motives, but it’s very easy to get disproportionately hooked on only assuming the worst.

    I feel a lot like Treebeard: “I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side.”

  42. @esr
    > The gravamen of my argument is that when women are being raped and genitally mutilated wholesale, spending lot of energy on stuff like Title IX and a nonexistent campus rape epidemic …

    But what people spend their energy trying to fix is a function of much more than its universal importance. It is a function of things like importance, proximity, personal impact, interest and so forth. And that is perfectly fine, a good cause is still good even if there are other better causes. Were that not true one might legitimately ask you why you spend all that energy on open source advocacy when 3,000 children die each day from malaria due to a lack of a $5 mosquito net.

    Of course if your argument is that the political advocacy these rad-fems favor is less than useful that is one point of view. I think the comparison with other worthy causes is just distracting from that argument.

    Personally, I think there are crazy extremists in every -ism. Rad fem does seem a little in vogue — though a reactionary MRA is also in vogue on the ground if not in the press. It has been a while since I was in college, but I do wonder whether it is bad as people paint it here. I don’t doubt there are some crazy cases that make lots of noise. But the hook up culture of college doesn’t suggest to me that there is all that much fear of unfair sexual harassment charges. Which doesn’t mean some of the cases you hear aren’t absolutely outrageous. Maybe some little Charlie did get suspended from grade school for hugging little Susie, but there is lots of grade school hugging that goes on without such “punishment”.

    The loudest is rarely the most representative.

    I am ambivalent on what seems to be the inevitable demise of the University system of education. From its roots it has been spectacularly important for the rise of western civilization. However, in the last thirty years it has been captured by the government and ruined beyond measure. Is it’s death the only salvation for that most effective mechanism for research and education? If so, it is pretty sad. I think the rise of the WebEx based college is good for some things, but the gathering of a group of top experts in one common room, with a lab full of great equipment down the hall is the matrix of much of the scientific genius that we have today.

  43. I don’t think that Eric was picking on feminists per se in this post. He was making a larger point about the pervasive sickness in our culture, in which whining and grievance are now more common than integrity and character. Think Jesse Jackson versus Jackie Robinson.

  44. @TomA
    > He was making a larger point about the pervasive sickness in our culture, in which whining and grievance are now more common than integrity and character.

    I am honestly not convinced that the culture is any sicker, or that there is more whining and grievance, or less integrity and character. I think the primary point, and one which I certainly agree with is that now our society is rich enough to give a hoot about the whiners and complainers.

    FWIW, there are many, many ways in which our culture is a lot less sick than it used to be. And many of the ways it is less sick is because the people who proceeded the whiners and complainers actually achieved spectacular and useful change. Remember, we used to live in a society where women could routinely be beaten by their husbands, where black people were denied basic civil rights, where they didn’t turn off the machine when kids crawled underneath to pick up the cotton remnants, and where people thought it was perfectly legitimate to throw people in jail for “sodomy”. That is pretty sick.

  45. “From its roots it has been spectacularly important for the rise of western civilization. However, in the last thirty years it has been captured by the government and ruined beyond measure.”

    I’ve always had the impression that this is less because of government involvement (most of the universities are and have been state-funded entities, IIRC) and more because of the conflation of univerity as education with university as job-qualification. When employers start treating a college degree as prerequisite to anything better than a bare subsistence job, you’re going to get a lot of people who want to go to college not to learn but to avoid being broke for life.

    There’s a benefit to getting most of the smart people in the world in one place with lots of toys. And there’s a benefit to training people enough that they can make a decent living. Right now universities are serving both roles, and neither well. I’m not sure when exactly that started — if it pre-dates the decline then I’m probably wrong.

  46. “For that matter, it’s a goddamn shame taking down Jim Crow was (to the best of my knowledge) limited to being a left, and sometimes far left, project. Right-wingers could have been working on it– possibly at the state rather than federal level– but they weren’t. ”

    By “right wingers,” of course, you’re referring to Democrats. Like Klansman Robert Byrd, who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and who stayed in office until he died.

    Those are the same folks who fought the Republican-sponsored Equal Pay Act of 1963, for the most part.

  47. ESR: The personal is the political is an incredibly useful slogan that means what it says.
    Contraception is personal. Abortion is personal. Who people marry and/or have sex with (and how to have sex) is personal. Drug use is personal. Etc. There are many deeply personal issues that are politicised by those who wish to impose themselves into other people’s lives. If there wasn’t people (most of the “conservatives” on the “right” of the political spectrum, but certainly not limited to those) who wished to outlaw or otherwise use the legal system to restrict or prevent people’s rights to {drugs|contraception|sodomy|etc.} then perhaps that slogan would be less useful.

    Moreover, even if all of these issues were fixed, the personal is still political. What is politics if not influencing people and society?
    Personal issues, such as assault (within, and without the home) are very personal. Yet I doubt that anyone would not also say that it is best for society if assault is not permitted, as it is an affront to society. And so, we have politics. Everything is politics. Whenever we get people saying what we can and can’t do, that’s politics. And invariably we get people who wish to delve deep into our personal lives (hi there NSA).

    The personal is the political.

    Related reading:
    Carol Hanisch (1969, Feb) “The Personal Is Political” http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html

  48. Nancy, I’m not about to try to tell you that rape isn’t a serious problem in the US. That rape kits get lost and the crimes not prosecuted is a scandal that needs fixing.

    Where I part company with radical left feminism is in the idea that there is such a thing as “rape culture” that guarantees all men are rapists and can’t help preying on women or condoning others who do. That’s purest horseshit, as anyone who knows me fairly well can attest; I am a reasonable counterexample, I believe.

    When the leap from “rape is bad” to “our culture promotes and mandates rape and all men are rapists” is used as a justification for “and therefore we must replace the culture and permanently put men in their place, at the bottom of the heap”, then you’ve got a fight on your hands. Not because I’ve suddenly gone to thinking that rape is good, but because the conclusion you’ve tortured “rape is bad” into leading to is flatly unacceptable.

    But if you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Mao,
    You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow…

    Even John Lennon got this one right.

    It’s possible to end rape without replacing American society with the kind of totalitarian matriarchy the radical feministas espouse. You’re not going to get there by telling men they’re slime and can’t help it and therefore must be replaced.

  49. @Jay Maynard: “Where I part company with radical left feminism is in the idea that there is such a thing as “rape culture” that guarantees all men are rapists and can’t help preying on women or condoning others who do.”

    If you want an example of real rape culture, look at places like Saudi Arabia where the burkha is customary female dress.

    As mentioned upthread, mating behavior is an example of an action chain. It’s triggered by a stimuli, and proceeds through a series of steps until the end result occurs.

    All societies have agreement on what constitutes acceptable behavior, in mating as well as everything else. If the agreement doesn’t exist, the society cannot survive. We call the agreement “custom” or “morality”, and the written down version “law”.

    All societies have controls to enforce cultural norms, and the controls may be internal or external Different cultures may place the controls for the same actions in different places.

    In our culture, the male is expected to initiate the mating ritual. When he sees an attrractive female, he is expected to ascertain whether she is legal, available, and interested in sex with him. If any of those answers are “No”, he’s expected to withdraw. The controls in our culture are internal: the male is expected to control *himself”.

    The Arab culture that created the burkha assumes the male *cannot* control himself. Responsibility is shifted to the female, who must dress modestly to avoid providing the stimuli that might trigger the male’s mating reflex. The controls there are external.

    If your society assumes you cannot control yourself, you never learn how, and there have been ugly incidents in the US between US females and maloes from Arab cultures over for study.

    The burkha is used as a knock against Islam, but Islam is actually incidental: the Prophet was born and raised in the surrounding Arab culture, and simply incorporated the practices of his tribe into the religion he was founding.

    And such practices are transmitted by conquest. Up to perhaps 50 years ago, Latin American countries had the custom of the duenna. Latino culture taught males they were hot blooded and passionate, and if left alone with an attractive young woman, would be unable to control themselves and would attempt to have their way with her. It taught females they were weak and passive, and would not be able to resist the male. Latino culture got around the obvious problems by making sure young unmarried women weren’t left alone with men. TGhey were accompanied by the duenna, an older married female relative or friend who seved as a chaperone.

    I strongly suspect Latino behavior was a modified form of Arab practice, transmitted to the Spaniards during the period whenntyhe Moorish Arabs controlled much of the Iberian peninsula.

    1. >The burkha is used as a knock against Islam, but Islam is actually incidental: the Prophet was born and raised in the surrounding Arab culture, and simply incorporated the practices of his tribe into the religion he was founding.

      Incorrect. While the burqa was known and sporadically used by pre-Islamic Arabs, the later Islamic practice of secluding women (on the theory that men are uncontrollable) did not originate with Arabs and was probably unknown in Mohammed’s time. Neither the burqa nor the custom of seclusion is prescribed in the Quran.

      That complex of ideas and customs seems to have been imported from Islamicized Persians well after 654; much of of the vocabulary describing it in Arabic is Persian loanwords. There are pre-Islamic accounts of the zenana in Persia; on the other hand, we have abundant evidence (from the Kitab alf laylah wa-laylah, among other sources) that late as the end of the tenth century (350 years after Mohammed) women routinely went not merely without burqa but unveiled in Baghdad.

      Those are the facts. My interpretation: the seclusion of women was part of the tragic inward turn Islamic culture took under the influence of al-Ghazali after 1000CE, ending its golden age. The newer, stricter construction of the religion demanded sexual austerity, and Persian customs were available as a cultural template.

  50. @Michael:

    > Contraception is personal. Abortion is personal. Who people marry and/or have sex with (and how to have sex) is personal. Drug use is personal. Etc.

    Not all of those are personal. Contraception, yes. Abortion for a single woman with no other connections, yes – but if she is in a consenting, committed relationship with a partner where both have agreed to try for a child, should her partner not also have a say? Consenting sex or relationship, yes. But marrying, which is in effect requiring others to recognise your relationship as such – no. Drug use – yes, as long as you don’t expect publicly funded health services to fix the bad effects of them, in which case no. Etc.

  51. Where I part company with radical left feminism is in the idea that there is such a thing as “rape culture” that guarantees all men are rapists and can’t help preying on women or condoning others who do.

    There are radical feminists who believe that all men are rapists, and they’re pretty risible. But that has nothing to do with rape culture.

    Rape culture actually means a culture which passively condones sexual assault by looking the other way when such assaults occur. When a feminist flags up an incidence of rape culture, she (or he) is making the assumption that men can help themselves, and are being derelict in their duty. In fact the assumption that men can’t help themselves is often made by the other side. A common complaint about rape culture occurs when a woman is attacked, and commentators — or even worse, the keystone kops in whose jurisdiction the attack took place — insist “she shouldn’t have been wearing that clothing and walking those streets so late at night; she was asking for it”. The subtext being that it’s the woman’s fault she was attacked, because she was provoking an attack with her dress and being in a certain location.

  52. For the record: “The subtext being that it’s the woman’s fault she was attacked, because she was provoking an attack with her dress and being in a certain location” is also purest horseshit, and those who purvey it are contemptible and complicit in not placing the blame where it lies.

    I feel compelled to say that lest I be thought of as complicit in the radical left’s ideas that all men are rapists and support rape culture.

    Of curse, the Left would excoriate me for demanding that women take responsibility for their own protection, by arming themselves and not holding back in making use of the capability. And no, I do not consider sexual assault insufficient justification for the use of deadly force.

  53. “[I]n…a system in which each is allowed to use his knowledge for his own purposes the concept of ‘social justice’ is necessarily empty and meaningless, because in it nobody’s will can determine the relative incomes of the different people, or prevent that they be partly dependent on accident. ‘Social justice’ can be given a meaning only in a directed or ‘command’ economy (such as an army) in which the individuals are ordered what to do; and any particular conception of `social justice’ could be realized only in such a centrally directed system. It presupposes that people are guided by specific directions and not by rules of just individual conduct. Indeed, no system of rules of just individual conduct, and therefore no free action of the individuals, could produce results satisfying any principle of distributive justice…. In a free society in which the position of the different individuals and groups is not the result of anybody’s design—or could, within such a society, be altered in accordance with a generally applicable principle—the differences in reward simply cannot meaningfully be described as just or unjust.” —F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice

    In other words, “social justice” can only come about via a disregard for individual (real) justice, and works in a totalitarian direction.

  54. I’d always known that “social justice” was so much bullshit in and of itself, useful only as a codeword for Communist-style equality of outcome. I hadn’t known that there was a good theoretical explanation of it. Thanks, PapayaSF.

  55. You’re welcome, Jay. It’s a regular source of astonishment to me how many thoroughly demolished notions live on. I guess it’s because they “feel right” to some people.

    1. Ayn Rand put Hayek’s point more pithily:

      “Are we to understand,” asked the judge, ”that you hold your own interests
      above the interests of the public?”

      “I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.”

  56. I read Nancy’s links and here’s what I came away with:

    A woman was offended by some guy. She and her friends have harassed him and gotten the management of a convention he paid to attend to harass him and drive him away. They all congratulate each other for the way they fight for justice and equality.

    The only difference between what Nancy describes and a Jim Crow-era lynching was that the lynch mob wore somewhat more revealing costumes.

  57. Trimegistus: The problem with your story is that the conduct described is well beyond merely offensive. Further, if you’d read, you’d have found the guy wasn’t registered at the con.

    I’m satisfied the guy’s actions rose to the level of at least attempted sexual assault. You obviously aren’t. Why not?

  58. First ESR and RMS working together on a project, now ESR starts quoting Rand … the apocalypse is definitely on the way.

    This cropped up on HN recently:

    http://www.hastac.org/blogs/ari-schlesinger/2013/11/26/feminism-and-programming-languages
    Feminism and Programming Languages

    “I realized that to program in a feminist way, one would ideally want to use a feminist programming language. So what is a feminist programming language? Well I took a look at the major programming paradigms, the following are the four main groups a programming language can fall into: imperative, functional, object-oriented, and logic. I decided to explore feminist logic such that a feminist programming language could be derived.”

    Being unfamiliar with the OP, I’m *still* not sure whether this is satire or not.

    1. >First ESR and RMS working together on a project, now ESR starts quoting Rand

      You need to get past some preconceptions. First, RMS and I have cooperated on various projects since the earliest days of Emacs. Second, it’s not all odd for me to be quoting Ayn Rand; while she was seriously flawed as a systematizer she was a trenchant critic and a nearly unsurpassed polemicist. When she was wrong she was embarrassingly awful, but when she was right she had a knack for the telling phrase that few champions of liberty have ever matched.

  59. @Duncan Bayne
    > I decided to explore feminist logic such that a feminist programming language could be derived.”

    Clearly not satire, because obviously Ada is the feminist programming language. Not only is it named after one of the vagina carriers, it is also clear that that penis carrier Babbage tried to take all the glory: she actually got the job done, all he ever did was screw around in the garage with his tools. Typical man, never finishes ANYTHING.

    And of course, Ada is very focused on multitasking, something that women clearly do much better that you single core men, with your penis oriented thinking.

    Need I say that Ada is an extremely verbose language? You boys can’t string two sentences together — we girls talk.

    And, most important of all — it is the core language of the military, previously the sole preserve of the male. We girls can kick it in camouflage too, though we officially disapprove, and so to confound it all and make world peace inevitable we write all the military software in a massively complicated language that takes forever and HAS NO BUILT IN FEATURES FOR UNIT TESTING. Epic, inevitable fail, achieving our goal of “give peace a chance.”

    QED.

  60. I suspect not satire. Seems like typical post-modern “intellectual” blather to me. Feminism is her hammer, and programming languages are a nail that hasn’t been hit yet.

  61. Well, she might be able to fool the readers, but she won’t be able to fool the computer.

  62. > You need to get past some preconceptions.

    Sorry; that was an attempt at humour that failed miserably, probably not helped by the medium or a lack of smilies in the text :)

  63. To clarify: I’m well aware of your historical collaboration with RMS (researched it after reading your ‘Dragging Emacs forward’ post in fact), and I’m an objectivist myself (little-o; at the very least my anarchocapitalism disqualifies me from being an Objectivist).

    Relatedly – have you read Mr. Childs’ open letter to her, on the topic of anarchocapitalism?

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/roy-a-childs-jr/objectivism-and-the-state-an-open-letter-to-ayn-rand/

    (Also please don’t take my linking to lewrockwell.com as a blanket endorsement; there is a preponderence of irrationality on that site. It’s just a good source for that letter. I really need to reproduce it on my own site.)

  64. Clue: if you find yourself using the word “neoliberal” as non-ironically as these women do, you’re there. For utter lack of meaning outside of a dense thicket of self-referential cod-Marxist presuppositions disconnected from reality, this one has few rivals.

    “Neoliberal” is widely used as a term of abuse in Latin American politics. It refers to any administration or party which tries to acknowledge economic reality by removing price controls and import controls, opening a country’s economy to foreign investment on fair terms, ending the privileges of entrenched labor monopolies, privatizing state enterprises, laying off redundant state employees, ending excessive pay and benefits for state employees, or ending subsidies. Such measures have been demanded by the IMF in return for “bailouts” when Latin American countries faced bankruptcy.

    Left-wing “populists” such as Chavez in Venezuela, Kirchner in Argentina, Morales in Bolivia, and Correa in Ecuador routinely excoriate opponents (and preceding administrations) as “neoliberals”. Cuban propagnda also uses it. (I wouldn’t call Cuba cod-Marxist.)

  65. @Jay Maynard:

    Well, she might be able to fool the readers, but she won’t be able to fool the computer.

    I have a few thoughts on this:

    1) It is only about “not fooling the computer” for geeks and nerds who really care about doing battle in that particular sphere. For everybody else, including probably 90% of people who call themselves programmers — it’s always only been about keeping customers happy. Since she’s a student, it’s not necessarily a given that her customers (teachers) are entirely foolproof, and with today’s languages and development environments, it is extremely easy for minimally technical people to get something working. So she might easily get an A in any case. And even if she can’t really program, there are still going to be other tangentially related obvious career paths for her.

    2) It’s common knowledge that Domain Specific Languages are often the right tool for the job — they can act as impedance matchers between user/programmers and the system. And even regular computer languages all have domains where they shine, and others where they don’t. These domains are partly predicated on the problems being solved, but are also partly predicated on the skills and preferences of the available programmers, which vary widely by domain.

    3) It’s entirely plausible that that there might be some features that would make languages more attractive to a particular gender, given there is at least some research showing gender differences in reasoning. It’s also somewhat plausible that focused, gender based research might uncover entirely new useful programming language features or feature combinations. And if she has the chops, she could make a difference here, and even if she doesn’t, she might get (take?) a lot of credit for getting the ball rolling.

    4) Even if there were some language that most females prefer and are most productive in, and a different one that most males prefer and are most productive in, we can be fairly certain that the preference and productivity will not hold for all males nor for all females. So although she claims to already be a programmer and a computer scientist, the specious conflation of feminism and gender-based cognitive differences may mean that she’s not capable of thinking clearly enough to make a difference. Or it may just mean she’s young.

    5) As a thought experiment: let’s say she enjoys some success. That could take many forms, including developing a language that even men are more productive in. But let’s say that she develops a “neutral” language that handicaps men while being easier for women. How long until we see the first discrimination lawsuit settlement requiring code to be written in a particular language?

  66. @ Jessica Boxer – “I am honestly not convinced that the culture is any sicker”

    I sincerely hope that you are correct. And the world most definitely needs many more people with your optimism and hopefulness.

    In my experience, most people (when encountered as individuals) are frequently good-natured and genuinely desire to be productive, useful, and self-reliant.

    However, put a lot of deadweight underachievers together under the banner of some perceived grievance, and they will soon determine that they are “entitled” to redress at some else’s expense. Today, nearly half of all Americans pay no income tax and welfare dependance is a record levels. Our current political system if furthering this imbalance because vote bribery equals incumbency. Cancer is just discomfort in the beginning.

  67. @TomA:

    Today, nearly half of all Americans pay no income tax…

    According to wikipedia “In 1894, Democrats in Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman tariff, which imposed the first peacetime income tax. The rate was 2% on income over $4000 ($107,923.08 in 2014 dollars), which meant fewer than 10% of households would pay any.”

    and welfare dependance is a record levels.

    This needs to be fixed, but it’s extremely difficult when it’s a morality play. The “compromises” between the “oh, we need to help the poor people” crowd and the “they need to get off their lazy asses” crowd are mostly unhelpful, with, perhaps*, the exception of the EITC.

    *As with all government transfers, this is a reasonably soft target for fraud.

  68. In Nietzschean terminology, feminism is reactive, and for the most part also an outlet for ressentiment. Since women are by default under the control of men, feminism’s only recourse is to negate and restrain men (viewed this way “feminism” is just a special case of how women have always operated). Unfortunately, you can’t make anything *new* this way, since that can only come from an active will that is capable of affirming as well as negating.

    So without the ability to affirm a new, higher order, what do we see? For those whose thirst for power (or more accurately, thirst for the *unpower* of others) has been sated the answer is: drop out and “get by” in this new moral code. This is the best possible outcome – to start acting like a normal slave. For those who still hunger, as well as newcomers to the game, it means an intensification of ressentiment to new extremes. Racial and sexual differences must be negated (as these are a perceived source of frustration). Even the mildest acknowledgement of these differences causes pain in these pathetic creatures, so they must be met with the harshest public rebuke by the PC police (and ideally, loss of employment for the perpetrator). Female IT workers are reduced to accusing harmless computer nerds of oppressing them with “microaggressions”. “Rape” has to be redefined to afford unrealistic, neurotic levels of control over sexual encounters (one of the last remaining bastions of loosely-controlled, animal fun) to allow for the continued negation of increasingly docile and harmless men.

  69. @Michael

    Feminism is nothing more than the belief that all people are people, and it doesn’t matter your gender, sex, sexual preferences, or similar such.

    What gibberish. People *are* people (this is pure tautology), but some people are worth more than others. This post exemplifies the denialist, negating attitude of reactives. Everything is always a reframe to conceal hypocrisy. “Pro-choice” feminists believe a woman’s mere right not to carry a baby around in her stomach is worth more than the *life* of a baby (personally, I agree). You can guarantee that the more reactive someone is, the more of a humongous hypocrite they are. But hey, “people are people” – except some can be murdered because their existence causes another person an inconvenience. LOL

    The abortion issue is the clearest possible demonstration of the true dynamics of all of this. Both sides (remember, Christians are the original reactives/slaves) of the debate do nothing more than reframe the conversation. What pro-lifers *really* mean is “pro-human-life”. In other words, that they have simply weighed the life of the various creatures differently. They’re no more “pro-life” than anyone else, and are happy to terminate the lives of lower animals in order to eat them. They simply don’t think the lives of cows are worth much. Many of them are quite happy to shoot and kill an intruder who is merely stealing from them. Again, they are “pro-life” right up until it suits them to change uniforms.

    Likewise, the “pro-choice” people don’t care about “choice” anymore than anyone else, they just care about their *own* choice. The baby doesn’t get a “choice” in whether it’s going to have its brains sucked out or not. They weigh their choice above the very life of the baby. In other words: they believe they should be allowed to murder a baby so they don’t have to carry it around for 9 months.

    And just so no morons try to (inevitably incorrectly) read my politic beliefs from this I fully support shooting thieves, eating cows and killing unborn children. Because I don’t think any of them to be of much worth.

  70. “Neoliberal” is widely used as a term of abuse in Latin American politics. It refers to any administration or party which tries to acknowledge economic reality by removing price controls and import controls, opening a country’s economy to foreign investment on fair terms, ending the privileges of entrenched labor monopolies, privatizing state enterprises, laying off redundant state employees, ending excessive pay and benefits for state employees, or ending subsidies. Such measures have been demanded by the IMF in return for “bailouts” when Latin American countries faced bankruptcy.

    Many Latin Americans still remember Operation PBSUCCESS and Augusto Pinochet. They react to foreign investment and privatization with visceral horror, fearing being once again reduced to serfs on their own land under the feudalism of Yanqui imperialism. This may seem like misguided ideology and propaganda to you, but in that part of the world the ravages of global capitalism are very real. Remember, Chávez was an enormously popular president, repeatedly put into power by popular elections which have been vetted as fair. Some of his policies rightly deserve criticism, but he did improve the lot of the poor and to lower and middle-class Venezuelans at the time, the alternative — effective rulership by distant, unelected U.S. megacorporations — was even more horrifying.

  71. > This may seem like misguided ideology and propaganda to you, but in that part of the world the ravages of global capitalism are very real.

    Crony capitalism != captialism.

    http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/crony-capitalism-2012-campaign

    “What is “crony capitalism”? The Wikipedia definition will serve: “an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth.”

    The reign of cronyism throws into relief two radically different breeds of businessman: the one who profits by innovating, producing, cost-cutting, and serving customers—and the one who prospers by means of “pull” in Washington, the state capital, or the town hall.”

  72. Crony capitalism != captialism.

    In theory. In practice, laissez-faire capitalism tends to degenerate into crony capitalism simply because unregulated wealth accumulation follows a power-law curve, with most of the wealth going to a few who are determined enough to prioritize growing rich over almost everything else. (It’s no coincidence that many of the wealthiest people in the world are sociopaths.) The wealthy elite are much more easily able to procure enforcers — public or private — to protect themselves and their interests than are the masses in the long tail, even if they combine their resources.

  73. @Roger Philips
    “What pro-lifers *really* mean is “pro-human-life”.”

    A disconcerting number of “pro-lifers” are also “pro-death penalty”. Here, the life of a microscopic one week fertilized egg seems to be worth more than the life of a fully grown adult.

    So, it seems that the motivation of many pro-lifers is not to save all human life, but only some.

  74. A disconcerting number of “pro-lifers” are also “pro-death penalty”. Here, the life of a microscopic one week fertilized egg seems to be worth more than the life of a fully grown adult.

    The hypocrisy of the “pro-life” movement becomes readily apparent when you consider that most “pro-lifers” in the 107th Congress voted for a resolution authorizing the President to send innocent American youths to die — and kill — to protect American business interests in Iraq.

    Abortion has been the right of women — who are in a unique position of determining whether they have the physical, mental, and material resources necessary to see through a pregnancy and the ensuing two decades or so of life-altering responsibility that come after — since time immemorial. Attempts to ban or restrict it are invariably nose-in-the-tent initiatives to control and subjugate women.

    Conservatism really is brutal — red in tooth and claw — when seriously examined and scrutinized.

  75. Regarding the “personal is the political”:

    Why is it that the sexual decisions, and the ability to make them, by women are viewed as sacrosanct, yet my desire to control what I do with my money is viewed negatively?

    That is, I am forced, via the Holy State, to tithe ~1/3 of my income (via taxes) to pay for government expenditures. This is viewed as being the cost of living in a democracy, etc., etc., and that if I oppose this I am evil for failing to take into account my privilege. However, if that same democracy holds that abortion be banned, there is a whole patriarchy oppressing people.

    What I find somewhat bemusing about the whole thing is that forcible taking of money from me via taxation always leaves me worse off. At the same time, rape (depending upon how committed) is not guaranteed to leave the victim any worse off. However, culturally, we’ve decided that attempts, even legal ones, to avoid the first are to be demonized, and that attempts to avoid the second should be completely unnecessary.

  76. Winter, there is no conflict between pro-life and pro-death penalty positions, from the point of view of the conservatives who hold them: the unborn baby has done nothing to rate being killed, while the condemned murderer has forfeited his right to life by his crimes.

    I’m not pro-life myself, but I at least am willing to try to understand their arguments instead of simply shouting them down.

  77. @Garrett:

    However, if that same democracy holds that abortion be banned, there is a whole patriarchy oppressing people.

    A lot of what passes for feminism I can’t agree with. OTOH, I cannot really dispute their assertion that things would be different if guys could get pregnant. Seriously, can’t you do better than comparing taxes to abortions?

  78. A little OT, but still in the same area of self deceptive nonsense…. Am I the only one who fell on the floor laughing to see Bob Dylan’s Superbowl ad pushing the whole “American Pride” in Chrysler? You know that great American company that is currently owned by the Italians?

    Chrysler is no more American that Toyota.

    (Apologies to non American’s who didn’t watch the pageantry of the Superbowl.)

  79. Jessica, which is more American: the Ford truck built in Turkey, the Chevrolet truck built in Mexico, the Toyota truck built in San Antonio, or the Subaru built in Indiana?

  80. @Jay Maynard
    > Jessica, which is more American: the Ford truck built in Turkey…

    My Toyota, built in KY. That is my point, it is all BS. At least Ford didn’t take bazillions of dollars in federal bailout money. Kudos to them for that.

  81. @Garrett
    > Why is it that the sexual decisions, and the ability to make them, by women are viewed as sacrosanct,

    Why just women? Doesn’t everybody have the right to control their body? There are places that, for men, extra marital sex can lead to the hangman’s noose. There are many more places that engaging in homosexual sex will get you killed in a painful way.

    > What I find somewhat bemusing about the whole thing is that forcible taking of money from me via taxation always leaves me worse off.

    Maybe you, but taxation has no material impact whatsoever on the life of Bill Gates. This is no less extreme that taking the few isolated cases of where rape has no material impact on the raped person. As always, when you are thinking about rape and its impact I suggest you flip it around and wonder how you would feel if the rape in question was someone homosexually raping you. Are there cases where that has no material impact on you? Probably, but they are rare enough to be unimportant to the discussion.

    > and that attempts to avoid the second should be completely unnecessary.

    Bullshit. There is a whole industry around teaching women how to prevent themselves from being assaulted. It should be no more unnecessary than it should be unnecessary for you to protect yourself or avoid an bad area of the city where you could get assaulted. It should be unnecessary, but pragmatics require preparation and avoidance.

  82. Here’s what leaves a bad taste in my mouth about the whole Arisia business.

    1. We all have complete freedom of expression at the con! We can wear whatever costumes we want, and do and say what we want! Unless what you do offends a woman, in which case shut up and go away.

    2. Nobody should be offended at the con! We should all be considerate of the opinions of others! Unless you’re a man, in which case shut up and go away.

    Here’s what’s offensive: going to a convention and getting a notice in my packet telling me that, as a man, I’m assumed to be a potential harasser/stalker/rapist. Going to a convention and seeing signs up, designating various rooms as “safe spots” from all the male harasser/stalker/rapists.

    If this is all the fault of one guy, then the con needs to deal with THAT GUY and stop treating all men as potential harasser/stalker/rapists.

    Or maybe women should stop acting like petulant, entitled children, and recognize that actions and words have consequences. If you want to dress like Slave Leia, then you’re going to have to FUCKING DEAL WITH men who aren’t rich, handsome, or high-status trying to hit on you. You’ll have to deal with men who aren’t rich, handsome, or high-status looking at you and thinking they’d like to have sex with you. If you can’t deal with that, don’t wear the Slave Leia outfit.

  83. Somewhat relatedly there has recently been a disturbance in the SF world due to this article – http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/01/post-binary-gender-in-sf-introduction – which starts with the following: “I want an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories.” and goes steadily downhill from there.

    Larry Correia, a most sound “cismale gendernormative fascist” author, has had much fun mocking the article, its author, her defenders and the culture that spawns them.

  84. @Trimegistus
    > Here’s what leaves a bad taste in my mouth about the whole Arisia business.

    How would you feel if some extremely unattractive woman, 300lbs, dreadful skin, body odor, constantly followed you around the conference making sexually suggestive comments, “accidentally” bumping in to you, grabbing your butt, interfering with your interactions with other people, following you to your room. Would you find it bothersome? Would it spoil your enjoyment of the event? It sucks. It sucks even more if you have a realistic fear that this evidently wacked out person might follow you to your room and hurt you.

    How would you feel if the above were replaced by you being harassed by an extremely effeminate gay man constantly trying to hit on you?

    There is a huge difference between being oggled and being harassed. I agree that if you wear a skimpy costume you are going to get oggled — hell that is WHY you wear a skimpy costume. Pretending that that is not true is indeed a common female self delusion. But that doesn’t deny her the right to reasonable personal space.

    In regards as to why packets and safe rooms target women, I wonder if you know the answer to this: bison are more unhygienic than dogs, so how come restaurants frequently have signs saying “no dogs allowed” but never “no bison allowed”?

  85. @Jessica

    Why did the organization, on completion of its goals, not simply go away? Because organizations take on a life of their own beyond the actual purpose for which they are founded. If you have ever worked in corporate America you will see this every day.

    Jerry Pournelle cals this his “Iron Law of Bureaucracy“:

    JP> Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

    So the fact that polio was essentially eradicated was no reason for the organization to announce “We’ve won the war against polio and are shutting down.” because the true reason for the organization has become simply to perpetuate itself.

  86. “And to return to an older theme – I think this sort of bitter involution is what eventually and inevitably happens when you marinate in left-wing duckspeak for long enough. “

    Correct but incomplete. Kafkatraps are not exclusive to the left-wing. If you haven’t yet, follow the Dark Enlightenment rabbit hole.

    1. >Correct but incomplete. Kafkatraps are not exclusive to the left-wing. If you haven’t yet, follow the Dark Enlightenment rabbit hole.

      Been there. They are mostly as crazy as the feminists, but more interesting about it. Qualified exception for the Human Bio-Diversity guys; they might actually be on to something. Also, Mencius Moldbug is hilarious.

      I didn’t see kafkatrapping there. Lots of other errors of reason and argument, yes, but not that.

  87. Or maybe men should stop acting like petulant, entitled children, and recognize that actions and words have consequences. If you want to dress like Conan the Barbarian, then you’re going to have to FUCKING DEAL WITH men who try to hit you with swords. You’ll have to deal with men looking at you and thinking they’d like to fight you. If you can’t deal with that, don’t wear the Conan outfit.

    Wait, is this answer too obvious?

  88. @Trimegistus, @Jessica Boxer – Here’s the thing. I am truly not out to harass anybody. I may be lacking in social graces, but I know how to keep my hands to myself, for one thing.

    But the whole attitude of “harassment will not be tolerated” seems to carry with it the connotation “anything a woman chooses to call ‘harassment’ is harassment.” How am I supposed to know where the line is drawn? Will I get the con security sicced on me for saying “Hello” to some woman? If I simply look at some woman who happens to have a chip on her shoulder, am I going to get accused of “eye rape”?

    You might say, “Erbo, you’;re being unreasonable.” My answer: How do you know? Can you guarantee that no one at an event as large as a con is going to have that kind of attitude? Can you guarantee my safety? You can’t! And, if I’m right and you’re wrong, I could suffer, not merely social, but potentially professional and legal consequences.

    So, am I supposed to go around the con averting my gaze from women, scurrying out of their way lest the Sword of Damocles fall on my neck? Screw that. I might as well not waste my money on the con and just stay home.

  89. Nancy Leibowitz said:
    For that matter, it’s a goddamn shame taking down Jim Crow was (to the best of my knowledge) limited to being a left, and sometimes far left, project. Right-wingers could have been working on it– possibly at the state rather than federal level– but they weren’t. This has damaged the reputation of the right wing, and justifiably so. At least libertarianism has an excuse, since it didn’t exist at the time.

    I think this is a left fantasy, that actually the fight was by Republicans of many stripes including “conservative” and “libertarian”. (Incidentally, “libertarian” views aren’t new – only the name adopted in self-defense after the left stole the name “Liberal” which in the 19th and early 20th centuries meant what we call libertarian now.) The Democrats were the party of racism even into the mid 20th century and played largely an opposing view towards “taking down Jim Crow”!

  90. And, feminists, before you jerk that knee, consider that Erbo’s position is where that slippery slope leads. The solution is to find and publicize the happy medium between that dystopia and the one where every woman at a con is assumed to consent to being dragged off to a closet and raped, and make sure everyone understands where the line is.

    Don’t like a slippery slope argument? Scatter some sand and add friction to keep things from sliding down.

  91. Correct but incomplete. Kafkatraps are not exclusive to the left-wing. If you haven’t yet, follow the Dark Enlightenment rabbit hole.

    Breathtaking. Though some of the ideas could be traced back to Heinlein, who himself disdained democracy. Near as I can tell from several of his works, including “The Roads Must Roll”, “Gulf”, Glory Road and Starship Troopers, what Heinlein favored was a sort of benevolent shogunate, a system under which freedom would be protected by an elite warrior-intellectual class, lacking any other kind of state or political apparatus. The problem with shogunates is the same as with bureaucratic organizations as flagged up by Pournelle: their goals eventually tend toward self-preservation and that is the death of freedom.

    1. >Breathtaking. Though some of the ideas could be traced back to Heinlein, who himself disdained democracy. Near as I can tell from several of his works, including “The Roads Must Roll”, “Gulf”, Glory Road and Starship Troopers, what Heinlein favored was a sort of benevolent shogunate, a system under which freedom would be protected by an elite warrior-intellectual class

      I’ve studied the matter closely. Here are some facts:

      In the 1930s, Heinlein was attached to now nearly forgotten politico-economic theory called “Social Credit”, a sort of bastard child of technocracy and socialism.

      In the 1940s, Heinlein identified as a New Deal liberal.

      There is evidence that the Cold War drove Heinlein away from the center-left between 1949 and 1959. I suspect, but cannot prove, that having a ringside seat for the co-option of Hollywood by Communists was important for this, as it was for Ronald Reagan who moved in the same way around the same time.

      In 1977 Heinlein described himself in an interview as a libertarian, and appears to have maintained that position until his death in ’88.

      There is strong evidence that he had arrived at this position by 1966. The timing is right for Ayn Rand to have influenced him in the late 1950s and early ’60s, but I can’t prove that.

      There was no period of his life at which “benevolent shogunate” would have been more than a crude parody of Heinlein’s politics. I’ve run across this notion before, usually from people who read Starship Troopers carelessly. To be fair, he wrote that book as a provocation and seems to deliberately slid some of the most important facts by in throwaway lines that you can easily miss if not watching for them.

  92. @Jay

    I’m not pro-life myself, but I at least am willing to try to understand their arguments instead of simply shouting them down.

    I’m not “simply shouting them down” I’m illustrating the way they frame the issue. The “argument” is not in question since to even TALK about their argument I’d have to accept their frame. But by now I’m accustomed to you responding to things without bothering to read them.

  93. @Winter

    @Roger Philips
    “What pro-lifers *really* mean is “pro-human-life”.”

    Disappointed that this is what you chose to quote this out of context. What should be written here is that pro-lifers are “pro-whatever-life-i-deem-worthy-of-existing”. Indeed this is what the rest of what I wrote says! And you responded EXACTLY as a reactive does – by distorting what I said by omitting the hypocrisy of the pro-choicers.

  94. @ Jay Maynard

    Where I part company with radical left feminism is in the idea that there is such a thing as “rape culture” that guarantees all men are rapists…

    The conclusion I’ve come to about this claim is that our culture is not a “rape culture.” However, our culture contains a “rape subculture” which consists of good-sized minority of men (and some women – (“She’s a whore, she deserved it”) ) whose collective attitudes tolerate and sometimes even encourage inappropriate conduct towards women.

  95. @Erbo
    > But the whole attitude of “harassment will not be tolerated” seems to carry with it the connotation “anything a woman chooses to call ‘harassment’ is harassment.”

    Just because some women (and men) are ridiculous about this sort of thing doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem. Part of the point of these harassment guides is to set out what is reasonable, and mostly they are.

    But in truth it has very little to do with conventions, it is just plain human decency. If you try to engage with someone socially and they ignore you or directly tell you they don’t want to engage with you, then leave them the hell alone. Every society has slightly different physical space requirements and in crowded conventions they shrink. But it is hardly hard to recognize the keeping your hands and your genitals to yourself is hardly a crazy freaky girl request. Would you be OK with a gay man “brushing” your butt, or rubbing his nuts against your hip? Well then don’t do that to some random chick you don’t know.

    If you abide by that — don’t keep engaging after he/she doesn’t show any interest in engaging, and no touching — then you will do just fine. There you go — you said you have poor social skills, that is my two point guide. Women who claim harassment from someone who has followed these two guideposts will generally be laughed at an ignored — crazy outlier cases excepted.

    > Screw that. I might as well not waste my money on the con and just stay home.

    If your social skills are so poor that you can’t interact with people reasonably, then yes, perhaps you should.

  96. @Jessica Boxer:

    If I had a restaurant-sized freezer, I’d love to have a bison to put in it!

    (sorry, but that truly was the first thing that popped into my mind — bison are delicious!)

  97. @Jessica Boxer: You didn’t read carefully. I said:

    I may be lacking in social graces, but I know how to keep my hands to myself, for one thing.

    So what’s the point of lecturing me like this?

    But it is hardly hard to recognize the keeping your hands and your genitals to yourself is hardly a crazy freaky girl request.

    Didn’t I just say that?

    Women who claim harassment from someone who has followed these two guideposts will generally be laughed at an ignored — crazy outlier cases excepted.

    But how do you recognize the crazy outlier cases? Something like this could easily happen:

    Erbo: (to woman, standing 6 feet away, completely out of range of physical contact) Um, hello.
    Woman: HELP! SECURITY!
    (Con security arrives)
    Security Person: What’s going on here?
    Woman: (points at Erbo) He’s harassing me!
    Erbo: (looks astonished) What? I just said “Hello”!

    Who does the security person believe? It’s her word against mine, and their own policies ensure that believing her is the path of least resistance…particularly if they don’t know me, which they probably don’t, but, even if they do, that wouldn’t necessarily save me. Sorry, Erbo, you lose, thank you for playing, we’ll just eject you now and maybe smear your name across the Internet for good measure.

    > Screw that. I might as well not waste my money on the con and just stay home.
    If your social skills are so poor that you can’t interact with people reasonably, then yes, perhaps you should.

    Wow. And here I thought SF fandom was supposed to be a welcoming, inclusive community. Thanks for bursting my bubble.

    1. >Wow. And here I thought SF fandom was supposed to be a welcoming, inclusive community.

      It is, generally. Jessica is short on direct experience here.

  98. @Erbo
    > Erbo: (to woman, standing 6 feet away, completely out of range
    > of physical contact) Um, hello.
    > Woman: HELP! SECURITY!

    Erbo walks away and leaves her the hell alone. Really, this is pretty simple stuff.

  99. As regards the whole thread, I think the issue with feminism is threefold, and some of the issues have already been discussed. First, as noted earlier, most of feminism’s attainable, laudable goals have been met. There are a few good goals still outstanding; an equal rights amendment, equal pay, etc. but the worst injustices have already been corrected by various laws and by changes in custom.

    This leads is to the second issue: Because of earlier feminist success, it’s difficult to advance within the feminist culture by actually producing laudable results for women – there simply aren’t enough good causes for everyone to be important in some subsection of feminism. Instead of advancing by producing greater real equality, many feminists advance by engagineg in various sorts of academic debate – the “discovery of new forms of oppression” described in a post above, or by various other academically fruitful behaviors. This may ocassionaly lead to useful results. Those who won’t/can’t compete academically advance by attacking other feminists as having the wrong attitudes about sex, race, income, ideology, etc. My daughter was very disappointed when the feminist club at her college broke up due to arguments between the pro-sex and antisex feminists. This was the effective end of her belief in feminism as a positive social force, and I found the whole episode to be very sad.

    Third – and this is where the rubber hits the road – most of feminism’s current goals are social rather than political. There have obviously been many changes in the laws which affect women and these are enforced about as well as any other laws; that is, they get enforced by overworked bureaucrats, criminal courts, or people who can afford lawyers. But there are many places where these laws are not socially accepted, which is why it’s legal for a woman to be a computer programmer, but countless female programmers can tell you horror stories about their bad experiences with male colleagues. (You can treat “computer programmer” as a variable here and fill it in with whatever occupation you’d like; there are many fields where women aren’t welcome.)

    IMHO the existence of this third category a major reason why modern feminism is so problematic. Feminists got the laws changed. They had to fight very hard to get the laws changed. It was a difficult and horrible struggle against multiple real enemies but most of the laws that concerned women were changed in an entirely positive way. The new laws gave greater equality, better pay, more opportunities… but society did not change when the laws changed. Male privilege still exists. Stupid assumptions about female inferiority still get made, and the world women live in is still very ugly.

    So far the various strategies feminism has evolved for handling this don’t work very well. Discussions about how “all sex is rape” piss off possible male allies. The definition/construction of “harassment” is pretty scary to many men. Discussions of “complex” stuff like “intersectionality” haven’t been translated into terms that resonate with the general public. Feminism is currently convulsed by a gigantic number of internal fights over issues of sexuality and ideology… All these issues are symptomatic of an ideology that’s badly stuck; ground up agains the wall of a problem it might not be big enough to handle.

    Anyway, that’s my .02. Back to lurking…

  100. > Erbo: (to woman, standing 6 feet away, completely out of range
    > of physical contact) Um, hello.
    > Woman: HELP! SECURITY!

    Erbo walks away and leaves her the hell alone. Really, this is pretty simple stuff.

    Woman gives Erbo’s description to security, who then go track him down. Even running away (which, at that point, would probably be what I felt like doing) wouldn’t save me.

  101. @Alex R

    But there are many places where these laws are not socially accepted, which is why it’s legal for a woman to be a computer programmer, but countless female programmers can tell you horror stories about their bad experiences with male colleagues. (You can treat “computer programmer” as a variable here and fill it in with whatever occupation you’d like; there are many fields where women aren’t welcome.)

    Idiots complaining on twitter is not a representative sample of the population. Have you heard of selection bias? To say that women are “unwelcome” is exactly the kind of nebulous, childish whining that feminists are fast becoming known for. I wonder when we’ll get around to addressing the ultimate privilege (held by women) to have people scrambling to their rescue any time they “feel” threatened, even when it’s _completely harmless_ computer nerds we’re talking about.

  102. @Patrick Maupin:
    “Seriously, can’t you do better than comparing taxes to abortions?”

    Why are you invalidating my concerns? Am I not allowed to have my own values? That seems awfully intolerant of you.

    “(and no, comparing taxes to rape isn’t any better)”

    I would posit that you’ve bitten off the Left wing thought, swallowed and not even noticed the hook.
    In American culture, rape is viewed as so bad that legislators talk about bringing back the death penalty for it. Property crime is viewed as mild so that perpetrator should possibly go to jail though using lethal force yourself is suspect. And taking money from me (a property crime) is fine if the government does it. Why are these incomparable?

    My goal there was not to make an analogy between them directly – it was a comment on how there is a vastly different view of these two things to the point that one is view as a horrible terror, yet the other is viewed as absolutely necessary, both reflexively. It seems that both positions are required as a part of Left GoodThink.

    @Jessica Boxer:
    “Why just women? … There are many more places that engaging in homosexual sex will get you killed in a painful way.”

    Yes. Absolutely. And it’s horrible. However, as our host noted, almost all of the hand-wringing on this issue is about the circumstances in this country, by people in this country. I was vaguely attempting to stay on topic while attempting to phrase something that’s been on my mind for the past few years.

    “Maybe you, but taxation has no material impact whatsoever on the life of Bill Gates.”

    Straight-up false. The impact can be directly quantified and monetized. In fact, it’s one of the few cases where the harm can be measured objectively and in advance.

    “As always, when you are thinking about rape and its impact I suggest you flip it around and wonder how you would feel if the rape in question was someone homosexually raping you.”

    There are a few ways harm results:
    1) Physical trauma
    2) Disease acquisition
    3) Pregnancy (doesn’t apply to men being raped)
    4) Pain/memory of the attack
    5) Knowledge of being violated.

    In cases where care, intoxicants and barrier devices are used, the first 4 don’t apply. The 5th is a cultural construct.

    “There is a whole industry around teaching women how to prevent themselves from being assaulted.”

    Yes. And there is a part of the feminist movement that argues that this is an indication of rape culture, the patriarchy, and an attempt to suppress women.

  103. Posting again, looks like delimiting text with double pairs of opening and closing angle brackets doesn’t work right. (Please delete the previous post)

    Witness the frequency with which people mistake articles in “onion.com” for real news articles, sometimes even when the humor is closer to blatant to subtle.

  104. OK. last try!!! (Obviously I don’t post often on these blogs)

    >Poe’s Law: “Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.”

    Witness the frequency with which people mistake articles in “onion.com” for real news articles, sometimes even when the humor is closer to blatant to subtle.

  105. @Alex R

    Male privilege still exists. Stupid assumptions about female inferiority still get made, and the world women live in is still very ugly.

    Again, just _imbecilic_. Women ARE inferior, just as crippled and stupid people are inferior. It’s hard to imagine how the discourse gets to the point where this is not only in question, but seen as “stupid”. If women aren’t inferior, why do they need feminism? The only strength women have is through collectivization, i.e. the masses of slaves. And a mass of slaves can only exert a negating (inferior) force. Just look at the values they have imported into computer programming. Have they raised or lowered the signal-to-noise ratio with all their entitled bullshit? Man’s “privilege” comes from his superior strength, and the whole point of feminism is to bemoan and negate this fact, which is why in the lexicon of slavish imbeciles “privilege” is treated as dirty and artificial.

  106. Winter said: A disconcerting number of “pro-lifers” are also “pro-death penalty”. Here, the life of a microscopic one week fertilized egg seems to be worth more than the life of a fully grown adult.

    And that’s only disoncerting because you didn’t pay any attention to their arguments beyond perhaps the most bumper-sticker worthy.

    The arguments vary depending on the specific speaker (whether they’re religious in basis or not – remember that despite a preponderance of Christianity in opposing abortion, it’s not a universal feature), but they tend to boil down to wanting to defend innocent life.

    The death penalty, applied properly – and none of them seem to ever argue for just applying it recklessly, do they? – kills people guilty of specific things that, in the language of the argument, forfeits their “right to life”.

    (If one finds it difficult to imagine that, well, consider that everyone but the most committedly suicidal pacifists seems to think that killing in immediate self-defense is not just permissible but actively good; such an aggressor literally has no rights I’m violating in my defense, by killing him.)

    The same goes against Jeff Read’s “Iraq War” argument – those soldiers were all volunteers who knew damned well that they might be sent off to fight foreigners and possibly die. Likewise a war, even a “war of choice”, as the opposition loved to call it, is not the same as simple murder of the troops.

    I’m with Jay Maynard – in order to argue usefully against (or for) someone’s position on a topic of policy, you have to understand it, not a caricature of it provided by the opposition.

    (Disclosure: I’m pretty ambivalent about abortion, myself. Probably because I do understand both sets of arguments pretty well.

    It’s amusing, say, watching commenters at Reason simply assume that “liberatarian means pro-choice”, as if the magic incantation “libertarian” decided the core issue of fetal personhood vs. female parental autonomy.

    You can’t handwave away the core issue; you have to address it.

    That sentence, in fact, applies to every topic of dissention, and reminds us how vital it is [see up-thread, variously] to define your terms. People can’t even agree what “feminism” means, so it’s nigh-impossible to discuss or critique it.)

  107. @Jessica Boxer “Erbo walks away and leaves her the hell alone. Really, this is pretty simple stuff.”

    So you think security’s just going to ignore this hypothetical woman’s scream for help just because Erbo walked away?

    I think a better example than Erbo’s is that woman a few years ago from the skeptic con who got skeeved by a guy in an elevator who asked her if she wanted to go back to his room, and then took no for an answer. What if, instead of waiting until the con was over and complaining to the Internet, she whipped out her cell phone and called 911? Objectively, he didn’t do anything wrong; all he did was creep her out, _possibly_ because she was oversensitive.

    Also, and unrelatedly, what’s “cod-Marxism?” Nobody here bothered to define the term that I could spot, and I couldn’t find anything approaching a definition with a quick Google.

    1. >Also, and unrelatedly, what’s “cod-Marxism?”

      Sorry, I used a Britishism. Cod- anything is an inferior, stupidified version of the thing.

  108. @Erbo
    > Woman gives Erbo’s description to security,

    You engaged her for two seconds from six feet away, she must have AMAZING powers of observation, and a really serious mental health problem to pursue something like that.

    Life is risky, this scenario might happen to you, But a meteorite from Mars might also crack your skull open too.

    Which is to say you are living in tinfoil hat land my friend. Better to stay home.

  109. @Rick C: That is a good example. Not that I would ever do that; I would probably be standing stock still and silent in that elevator, facing some direction other than that woman, hands conspicuously grasping the rail or my own bag to emphasize that they’re not suddenly going to move in her direction.

    You know what really gets me about this? Here I am, trying to understand how I can keep myself safe, and becoming increasingly alarmed that, no matter what I do, I may still come up against a woman with a chip on her shoulder who is bound and determined to ruin my life–or just to ruin someone’s life, and I would just happen to be the nearest acceptable target. And all someone like Jessica can say is: “If your social skills are so poor that you can’t interact with people reasonably, then yes, perhaps you should [stay home].” You know what it feels like she’s really telling me? “You can’t learn this. We can’t be bothered to try and help you. You’re not one of us, and you never will be. Go away, toad.”

  110. Which is to say you are living in tinfoil hat land my friend. Better to stay home.

    In other words: “We can’t be bothered to address your concerns. Easier to just dismiss you as a nutcase. You’re not one of us, and you never will be. Begone!”

  111. @Jessica Boxer “Which is to say you are living in tinfoil hat land my friend. Better to stay home.”

    I have a friend who is not particularly socially ept. In his 20s he was doing a temporary office job. He had, at that time, a habit of looking over people’s shoulders while talking to them because he wasn’t good at making eye contact. He was accused of sexual harassment.

    I had a woman once ask me if I was staring at her breasts because I was sitting down and she was standing, and she apparently couldn’t figure out where my eyes were.

    I suspect any American male, especially those living in a liberal city, can come up with a similar tale. So with all due respect, Jessica, you should take this opportunity to shut up because you don’t know what you’re talking about.

    I wonder how long it’ll take for someone to set fire to a strawman, claiming I’m equating what I described above with actual sexual harassment or rape. I’m not–I’m pointing out Jessica’s belittling an actual problem she doesn’t seem to think exists.

  112. Alex R.: My daughter was very disappointed when the feminist club at her college broke up due to arguments between the pro-sex and antisex feminists. This was the effective end of her belief in feminism as a positive social force, and I found the whole episode to be very sad.

    I found it hilarious and hopeful. She learned a valuable lesson about identity politics, political factionalism, and the limits of activism. She can now live her own life without being stressed out about the “male gaze” or “rape culture” and other feminist nonsense. She’ll be fine, and women will not suffer due to her loss of belief in “feminism as a positive social force.” They actually might be better off.

  113. @Garrett:

    > I would posit that you’ve bitten off the Left wing thought, swallowed and not even noticed the hook.

    Believe it or not, there are some libertarians who believe that governments are allowed to collect taxes. The debate then becomes how much and what for.

    In any case, I’d personally much rather pay taxes than be raped. I would posit that you feel the same, because they don’t usually allow use of computers in PMITA federal prison.

  114. @Garrett
    > In cases where care, intoxicants and barrier devices are used,

    What about cases when they aren’t, which is to say, nearly all cases?

    > The 5th is a cultural construct.

    Violation of the most intimate part of ones property, your body, is a cultural construct? If you found some stranger in your living room at night, would you also consider that a cultural construct?

    You are drunk at a party, and some guy buggers you without causing you injury, and you are OK with that? You can still vaguely taste his cum in your mouth, and you dismiss it as a social construct dealt with by Colgate and Listerine? I think it more likely that you would consider it a social construct dealt with by Smith and Wesson.

    Perhaps I am being dumb here, and this is the unrealized self mocking ridiculous satire that the OP was talking about. Otherwise your position is one for the Onion.

  115. @Roger Phillips
    > Women ARE inferior,

    Come on Roger, you are a scientist. Surely you know you have to give your units of measure when you make a statement like that.

    1. >Come on Roger, you are a scientist. Surely you know you have to give your units of measure when you make a statement like that.

      Jessica, right now I’m wondering if Roger has been huffing steroids while reading The Will To Power one too many times. He seems deranged. It’s almost like he’s channeling JAD or something.

      Nevertheless, there’s a point buried there under the dime-store Nietzscheanism. On many objective measures women are “inferior” in many ways that mattered a lot in a low-tech society, and a few that still matter a lot. The huge differences of mean in upper-body strength and running speed stand out as examples. The lower dispersion of IQ means that there are far fewer female geniuses than male ones. The biology and psychology of reproduction pretty much guarantee that most non-childless females will lose huge amounts of time (spans of months or years) off the career track.

      You know me better than to think I consider this an argument for treating women as slaves or second-class citizens. But I will candidly admit (and have written about on this blog) my fear that the ideology of sexual equality is not sustainable.

  116. @Erbo: You could dress in a burqa. Not only nobody will notice where you are looking, nobody will suspect you being a man. Thus no woman will feel harrassed even if she should think you’re looking at her.

  117. “Violation of the most intimate part of ones property, your body, is a cultural construct? If you found some stranger in your living room at night, would you also consider that a cultural construct?”

    That sounds to me like he was saying “Knowledge of being violated” is a cultural construct. I’m guessing–and this IS just a guess–he means not that you remember a violation happening is a cultural construct, but treating what happened _as_ a violation is. Example: I remember reading a story about a non-Islamic woman, probably in England, being raped by a Muslim. The man was charged, and his mother expressed disbelief that there was going to be a trial, as “what happened to [the woman] wasn’t a crime in her culture.”

  118. OT: I just noticed, Eric, that at the very bottom of your AIM (2nd to last sentence on the page), you spelled “Manifesto” incorrectly.

  119. “To be fair, [Heinlein] wrote that book as a provocation”

    That does seem to have been a specialty of his.

  120. @Rick C:

    This is why you won’t find too many cultural relativists hanging out around here.

  121. @Rick C
    > He was accused of sexual harassment.

    Anecdotes do not make for useful data.

    > I had a woman once ask me if I was staring at her breasts

    So? We all misperceive social faux pas. How exactly does that relate to anything at all? I’ve had guys ask me if I was staring at his crotch. Sometimes the accusation was even false.

    > I suspect any American male,

    I also suspect any american female can come up with a tale of similarly dumb male. I still don’t see your point. People do dumb things. People give ridiculous examples of guy who says hello to a girl from six feet away and security tracks him down even though he left immediately. Does that happen? Probably. Do first grader boys get banned from school for hugging a little girl? Sure. But these outliers don’t happen often, so that aren’t useful data about the general condition of society.

    I don’t know a single adult female who has not suffered some form of serious sexual misconduct against her. So they have reason to be wary. If you can produce some serious statistics to demonstrate that there is a reasonable chance for a man to suffer serious consequences for a benign but misinterpreted interaction, I’d love to see them. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but so does death by bee sting.

    Otherwise it is all just anecdotes of weird outlier situations.

    And, BTW, Eric is correct, I don’t have any significant experience of Science Fiction conventions or the community in general. So I am talking about general social interactions, perhaps though these conventions are hotbeds of extremist radical feminism. Somehow I doubt it though.

  122. > I had a woman once ask me if I was staring at her breasts

    I think the only appropriate answer to that question is “no, perhaps you need a better bra.” Trolling is for meatspace, too :)

    On a serious note: my wife is a helicopter pilot, which industry (in Australia) is very male-dominated. It’s a hard gig; so many things are just simply set up for men (“no we don’t have a ladder for refueling … never had someone who couldn’t easily reach the tanks before”).

    After qualifying she did the rounds of potential employers, asking them if she could send through her résumé. Many said no, some said yes, and one … one said “by all means, but I should warn you, we operate an unofficial no chicks policy.” This, in 2008. Those exact words.

    Her response? “Their loss.” And she’s right; in a free market, companies who discriminate irrationally will be penalised; in this case, they lost out on an exceptionally valuable employee with a wide range of skills (not just a pilot). She now works for a much better company.

    Amusingly, she got the inside story a few years later. The company had made a bad hire (at least from their perspective) and generalised that to “all female pilots”.

    http://xkcd.com/385/

    So, yes, sexism is a real thing in many industries. It sucks, it harms the careers of women, and it harms the performance of businesses and by extension their customers.

    But having had ample exposure to feminism at university (first as a student, and then as an employee – that was an eye-opener in many respects) I can safely say that most contemporary feminist theory has sweet fuck-all practical application to helping people on the receiving end of an “unofficial no-chicks policy”.

    Relatedly: hypocrisy is rife in university culture. I attended a staff orientation at Massey where it was explained that no form of racial discrimination was acceptable, and any was grounds for disciplinary action or dismissal. Oh and by the way, staff of Maori (i.e. native New Zealand) descent have access to this great big list of free resources. My subsequent pointed questions were not welcome.

  123. Jessica

    Come on Roger, you are a scientist. Surely you know you have to give your units of measure when you make a statement like that.

    I already did, but to elaborate women are more interchangeable than men are, and therefore of less worth as individuals. Obviously they are essential to the survival of the group, but then, so are all slaves. Being born a woman is an instant disadvantage in the slave/master dynamic. Nobody colluded to make it that way – in fact, the only collusion is to bring men down to the level of slaves. Which is good to a point because slaves are useful will-amplifiers, but the whole thing needs some active power at its root to function.

  124. > Many said no

    I should mention that this was not a consequence of her sex, but a consequence of her being a junior low-hour pilot and therefore undesirable as an employee.

    Of course, one of her marketing points is that she has extensive management experience prior to becoming a pilot – but the hard part is making that pitch in an industry that historically has not valued quality management.

  125. @Roger Phillips
    > but to elaborate women are more interchangeable than men are,

    Hmmh, you’ll have to explain why you think that, but I thought interchangeability was an asset. isn’t interchangeability of parts what made the gun industry and later the assembly line?

    > Being born a woman is an instant disadvantage in the slave/master dynamic.

    Do we have a slave/master dynamic?

    Like I say, to claim that men are better than women requires some dimension that we agree on. I’m not sure “fungibility” would be the one that would spring to most people’s minds.

  126. @ Ric C – “I had a woman once ask me if I was staring at her breasts”

    This conversation on the dangers of social awkwardness is getting a little tedious. The above happened to me with a business client a few years ago. I answered honestly, “Yes, there’re gorgeous!” She said “Thank you, I wish my husband noticed.”

    Moral of the story – not every awkward moment has to end in an arrest.

  127. @ PapayaSF

    She can now live her own life without being stressed out about the “male gaze” or “rape culture” and other feminist nonsense.

    While I hope that my daughter studies and understands the history and teachings of Feminism, I’m half-inclined to agree with you. I believe that Feminism has historically done a great deal of good for women, and that it has the potential to do more good for women, but it’s also obvious to me that the current crop of American Feminists is almost universally (I’m going to be kind here) composed of academics who have little or no actual experience with the problems experienced by most women.

  128. @Jessica Boxer:

    Hmmh, you’ll have to explain why you think that, but I thought interchangeability was an asset. isn’t interchangeability of parts what made the gun industry and later the assembly line?

    I think you’ll actually have to do a bit better than this to spar with Roger (not that I don’t think you’re up to it), but yes, interchangeability is an asset for a user of the part, but that’s primarily because it reduces the cost (value) of the part itself and also the cost of installing a new one. Taking this analogy a bit farther is interesting — to the extent that divorce laws and custom (as enforced by judges) have typically, in recent history, favored women (in terms of custody, child support, and alimony) , they reduce interchangeability by making it much more expensive to swap in a new part, thus raising the value of the part that is already installed :-)

  129. @Jessica

    Hmmh, you’ll have to explain why you think that, but I thought interchangeability was an asset. isn’t interchangeability of parts what made the gun industry and later the assembly line?

    A chisel doesn’t generate anything new, it just follows the will of the sculptor. Who does history glorify and value, the chisel or the sculptor? If the choice of chisel were integral and the necessary chisel could only be made by one person then the chisel would warrant a greater mention in history, and even then it would be the creator of the chisel who was given lion’s share of the credit, because the chisel is just an extension of his will (a slave).

    The whole point of using standardized parts is to reduce the importance of any individual part. That is, to reduce them to an even lower rank. Of course, the master wants a large population of fungible slaves – but what is happening here is that the slave’s status is being reduced. It’s only the slave who (as a coping mechanism) thinks that being a “quality slave” puts you in a position of superiority.

    Do we have a slave/master dynamic?

    There are always slaves and masters. The question is whether the master is competent or has taken on the mindset of a slave (as is the case in modern civilisation). The primary characteristic of modern democracy is that you get a tyranny of the mediocre (since society is increasingly ruled by the rabble). You neither get horrific failures nor glorious victories, just a steady flow of mundane failures and tepid successes. In the geopolitical realm this might be a good thing given the growing means of destruction that are available, but there’s no reason to let this attitude pollute the intellectual, artistic and economic realms.

    Like I say, to claim that men are better than women requires some dimension that we agree on. I’m not sure “fungibility” would be the one that would spring to most people’s minds.

    Where the master says “this is a high quality slave” the slave says
    “I am a superior slave” because between slaves the only concept of rank is that which comes from the how the master values them. In other words, slaves define themselves against the master, never the other way round. That’s why you automatically heard “better” when I said “superior”, meaning greater in rank. Another way of saying master/slave is giver/taker, and here you are clearly taking your values from your masters (“most people” i.e. the rabble).

    The true reason the earlier feminist works are better than the current ones is not that they were more “equal” but because they were more ruthlessly discriminant, and were concerned with unevenly distributed characteristics like contribution to civilisation. Gender on the other hand is assigned in equal proportions by lottery. Assigning “privilege” according to gender is in fact a _true_ egalitarian policy (revealing after all that egalitarianism is stupid) because every child that is born has an equal chance of obtaining it.

  130. @Jeff Read
    > Near as I can tell from several of his works, including “The Roads Must Roll”, “Gulf”, Glory Road and Starship Troopers, what Heinlein favored was a sort of benevolent shogunate, a system under which freedom would be protected by an elite warrior-intellectual class, lacking any other kind of state or political apparatus.

    Amplifying ESR’s comment, your interpretation is at serious odds with my understanding of Starship Troopers in particular, which hints strongly at a planetary representative democracy. The book’s twist is that the electorate comprises those who have shown that even while facing the threat of death, they are capable of making decisions that benefit the group rather than the individual. That may not exactly be “one man, one vote,” but it’s a long way from a shogunate.

  131. @esr
    > On many objective measures women are “inferior” in many ways that mattered a lot in a low-tech society, and a few that still matter a lot.

    I think that is true, but it is also true that women tend to be superior to men in a number of important ways. For example, women tend to be more social and interact better with other people, and they tend to multitask better, and synthesize certain types of information better. There are good evolutionary reasons that is true, and they are very valuable skills in the types of economy we operate in, where connection, information, and synthesis are extremely important. And specifically, in a world of machines, the physical advantages men tend to have are very much negated.

    In fact the testosterone driven parts of the male tend to put them at a significant disadvantage in one very obvious sexual diamorphism, namely the much higher crime rate and incarceration rate of men. This means that men also take themselves out of the running for a significant part of their lives on average, though of course, and it tends to be the less valuable males that end up there.

    In terms of pure value, female reproductive capacity is much more valuable than male reproductive capacity. One egg a month verses 150 million sperm a shot, means that we send me off to war and keep the women home. It is why polyandry is very rare, and polygamy is much more common. However, polygamy leaves a lot of men out in the cold.

    I guess an important question is this: does it matter what the average is, or does it only matter what the top tier is? My view is that as a general rule, women are more valuable on average, but top tier men are on average more valuable than top tier women. In the top tier men are pitching their superior IQ verses the women’s superior social IQ. For some measures that favors the men, for others the women.

    1. >My view is that as a general rule, women are more valuable on average, but top tier men are on average more valuable than top tier women.

      I think that’s a good first approximation in a modern technological society that has worked hard at trying to give both sexes an equal shake. That is, the kind I want to live in.

      Take away either qualifier, though, and it gets ugly real fast. I think it was John Ringo who taught me, through a mercilessly clear-eyed view of the economics of a post-Utopian collapse, that in a society dependent on muscle power women are very close to worthless except as comfort objects and walking reproductive tracts. They’re not strong enough to fight men and (more importantly) not strong enough to farm by themselves. The things they can do (cook, keep house, etc.) are relatively low-value labor, with the single exception of being pregnant. Meanwhile, they eat nearly as much as men, so their efficiency (of converting input labor and resources into output) is even lower than a straight comparison of ability to work would suggest.

  132. @ESR, RE: ” The lower dispersion of IQ means that there are far fewer female geniuses than male ones.”

    Aye, though it means that less of them are utter dumbasses too.

  133. @esr

    You forgot the biggest one: risk taking, which is the source of _everything_ that is new. You for the most part “get it” while simultaneously kowtowing to the stupidities of egalitarianism with all sorts of phony qualifications, which is embarrassing to watch. Yes, women make perfectly good worker-bees. They’re smart and competent at most things. But they’re appropriators, not creators for the simple reason that they don’t take risks (randomness is least reactive power). The exception is the creation of children, which historically has been womens’ great risk-taking endeavor. When women start crowing about “exclusion” (in other words, when they’re beginning a program of appropriation) you can be sure the pioneering days of the field in question are long gone.

    1. >You forgot the biggest one: risk taking, which is the source of _everything_ that is new.

      I had never thought about this before, but I acknowledge the point. Women are, both on average and in the distribution tails, usually quite bad at this relative to men. “Quite bad” unpacks to both habitual timidity and a tendency to poor, over-emotional judgment when that timidity is occasionally abandoned. It’s a rare woman who can even play poker competently, or wants to.

      I’m thinking out loud here. Could this go back to reproductive investment? Yes, probably; when you’re carrying a baby, the conservative, risk-avoidance response is almost always the best one even if the gambler’s payoff could be high. Men are, bioenergetically, more expendable – so, from the germ line’s point of view, the level of male risk-taking should be higher.

  134. Jessica, your repeated ad hominems sure sound like ceding the argument, whatever point you originally had.

  135. Jessica your entire last post is like listening to a cow talking about how “superior” it is to the wolf because humans like to eat it.

  136. > . Yes, women make perfectly good worker-bees. They’re smart and competent at most things. But they’re appropriators, not creators for the simple reason that they don’t take risks (randomness is least reactive power).

    Bollocks. Utter bollocks. Proof by demonstration: Mary Bara (GM), Meg Whitman (HP), Virginia Rometty (IBM), Indra Nooyi (Pepsico).

  137. @Duncan Bayne

    Bollocks. Utter bollocks. Proof by demonstration: Mary Bara (GM), Meg Whitman (HP), Virginia Rometty (IBM), Indra Nooyi (Pepsico).

    What’s “bollocks” is your attempt to disprove the rule with exceptions, universally the sign of a deficient thinker, as though I should waste my time qualifying every statement with probabilities and other details that an intelligent reader unconsciously reconstructs on their own. Here’s what you sound like:

    Normal person> people find programming difficult
    Duncan> wrong! *gasp* WRONG! Linus Torvalds (Linux)! Chuck Moore (Forth)! Gordon Bell (QNX)!

  138. Roger,

    You made a very clear assertion of fact:

    “Yes, women make perfectly good worker-bees. They’re smart and competent at most things. But they’re appropriators, not creators for the simple reason that they don’t take risks (randomness is least reactive power).”

    I disproved it by demonstration.

    Perhaps you would like to clarify your statement and try again with something that isn’t trivially falsifiable?

  139. Roger,

    To clarify that: I think your position is only defensible if you talk in hand-waving generalities and expect people to give you the benefit of the doubt. I think that if you attempt to get down to specifics, citing evidence, your argument will falter and then fail.

    Have at it.

  140. @esr

    I’m thinking out loud here. Could this go back to reproductive investment? Yes, probably; when you’re carrying a baby, the conservative, risk-avoidance response is almost always the best one even if the gambler’s payoff could be high. Men are, bioenergetically, more expendable – so, from the germ line’s point of view, the level of male risk-taking should be higher.

    The worst thing for a woman is to hit rock-bottom and fail to reproduce, because if she plays it safe her reproduction is more-or-less guaranteed. So she can wait for the next incarnation to “hit it big” in the genetic game. No so of men. Monogamy short-circuits this to some degree by guaranteeing any semi-functioning man a wife, which causes men to behave more like women. It also disadvantages hypermasculine men relative to “nature” by prohibiting them from hogging all the mates. The end result is a huge pool of compliant slaves ready to do boring stuff all day to keep civilisation chugging along. The precise mechanism isn’t that important – the point is that the more feminine you are, the harder it is to go against the group. And you can’t do anything original when you’re a slave to group consensus. This is why feminism is infected with an inverted “get social approval first, then succeed” attitude – because this is the attitude of the general rabble of women.

  141. > Duncan you are an imbecile, don’t talk to me.

    Roger, I’m not talking to *you*. I’m asking you, in a *public forum*, to clarify your hand-wavy statements to the point where evidence can be introduced, and their veracity can be debated.

  142. “What’s “bollocks” is your attempt to disprove the rule with exceptions..”

    No it isn’t. Exceptions do not prove rules, they DISPROVE them. Cut the crap; Bayne is right.

  143. This is why I’m so keen to define terms before proceeding to evidence. There is an element of circularity in a lot of sociological debate.

    Take intelligence at an example. Simplified, one of the main problems in discussing intelligence boils down to: “How do we define intelligence? As measured IQ. What is IQ? A measure of intelligence.” However, to quote Binet (the inventor of IQ):

    “The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of the intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable*, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured.”

    It is vitally important to agree on definitions before proceeding with debate, and yet this is a field in which definitions are extraordinarily hard to come by.

  144. No it isn’t. Exceptions do not prove rules, they DISPROVE them. Cut the crap; Bayne is right.

    The mark of the lowest tier of intellectual achievement (a few steps above “not trying at all”) is the person who strives for all the trappings of logic and reason but spends all his time splitting hairs and arguing over bullshit that is completely irrelevant. Someone who, in his heart of hearts, *knows* exactly what was meant, but insists that every nuance of language be clarified to include every exception to delay the inevitable, confirms himself to operate on that tier. In a previous thread I rebuked Winter for this behavior, which amounts to nothing less than dragging the argument down to the linguistic level (rather than setting it free to SOAR to the higher, conceptual level). So congratulations on letting everybody know that you are are *at least* 5 years of strenuous intellectual development away from being worth talking to. And of course in 5 years everyone else will be even further developed, so you’d better get cracking.

  145. Roger,

    To quote Rand (my emphasis):

    “The primary purpose of concepts and of *language* is to provide man with a system of cognitive classification and organization, which enables him to acquire knowledge on an unlimited scale; this means: to keep order in man’s mind and enable him to think.”

    You can’t achieve the conceptual level of which you speak until you’ve defined the concepts well enough that everyone is speaking the same language. Hence my request that you define risk-taking behaviour in a manner that would provide a context for the discussion of evidence.

  146. Exception:
    1. The act of excepting or the condition of being excepted; exclusion.
    2. One that is excepted, especially a case that does not conform to a rule or generalization.

    Exceptions in and of themselves do not prove the rule but they exist WRT that framework. Exceptional people, because why? This isn’t addressing the argument currently underway, but Roger Phillips’ arguments cannot be addressed properly by calling them hand-wavey. Calling his particular arguments hand-wavey is hand-wavey.

    Roger: “Yes, women make perfectly good worker-bees. They’re smart and competent at most things. But they’re appropriators, not creators for the simple reason that they don’t take risks (randomness is least reactive power).

    Response: “Proof by demonstration: Mary Bara (GM), Meg Whitman (HP), Virginia Rometty (IBM), Indra Nooyi (Pepsico).”

    That wasn’t proof against his statements by demonstration. That was calling out exceptional people, exceptional women vice the (to simplify) “averages” points that Roger was detailing.

  147. > That wasn’t proof against his statements by demonstration. That was calling out exceptional people, exceptional women vice the (to simplify) “averages” points that Roger was detailing.

    They were proof by demonstration against the points that he explicitly made. I invited him to make more clearly-defined statements that could be discussed, and he declined. That’s why I called them hand-wavey.

  148. Jessica, I have spent years in the game theory modeling of human evolution in order to arrive at insights that you seem to intuit effortlessly.

    Our species has been evolving for a few million years, and its only been in the last few millennia that notions of comparative superiority/inferiority of the sexes has been possible. Prior to complex language and cognitive analysis, both sexes were subject to a long history of evolutionary forces that resulted in our current spectrum of features and attributes. We are what we are predominantly because it worked (for both sexes).

    It is reasonable to analyze the differences between us (in our modern evolved state of cognitive powers), but putting value judgments on these differences is ignoring the power of the evolutionary process; and likely to be more hubris than enlightenment.

  149. @Michael: > Feminism is nothing more than the belief that all people are people, and it doesn’t matter your gender, sex, sexual preferences, or similar such.

    As certain as black is white and two plus two equals five. It’s more logical to buy into the belief that communism is about equality than feminism. At least that is what the word communism means. If you want to know the true nature of feminism and the word femin-ism doesn’t give you a clue, look at the logo this movement has given itself. This is not a hand stretched out for partnership, this is a fist clenched for a fight. I don’t deny that there are things like genital mutilation, but fighting against that isn’t feminism, it’s simply a fight for human rights.

    Defining feminism as a movement that strives for equality is Newspeak in its strictest sense. It gives the term a pleasant meaning, distracts and keeps people from thinking. And there are more parallels with 1984. For example, if you talk to real feminists, biology is a taboo word, unless it’s to the benefit of women. In Feminist Newspeak any relation between sex and biology has been erased and it’s thoughtcrime to mention biology in any context with sex. I don’t know how children come into existence in the feminist world, but it definitely doesn’t have anything to do with sex. But it’s OK to refer to biology to justify when men have to work harder for the same money, because they generally are stronger and can carry a heavier load. That is called equal pay in Femspeak. The role feminism has to play in this world is to draw the attention from the much larger social inequalities.

    While it may seem kind of crazy when men defend feminism (unless you buy into its Newspeak explanation) that’s probably the old gentlemen’s attitude. But fighting the feminist fight as a male person has a twist. Being a man yourself and sharing the derogatory feminist image of men (which is necessary to fight the feminist fight and seems to shine through phantasies like “I mean, are they even women, really? On the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. Could these feminist twitter wars be an elaborate fiction accidentally generated by beer-swilling men in wife-beater T-shirts …”) implies a negative image of yourself and a need for compensation. Some compensate by trying to be (or at least seeing themselves as) better men, others give themselves a homosexual identity, and there certainly are more ways to compensate. I know because I once fell into this feminist trap myself until I had to realize this society does not only abolish existing or perceived men’s privileges but creates more and more privileges for women. This is quite different from creating equality.

    In the past years I’ve had the chance to listen to young girls talking about boys. If a boy in the same way did speak about girls, he would be accused of sexism and women hatred. But nobody cares when girls talk like that, and they weren’t lower class, they came from privileged homes. There was a project to give sexually abused boys a home, it was cancelled by the opposition of local people orchestrated by local politicians. It’s a big issue when women get raped, being abused isn’t any better for a boy, but that usually is swept under the carpet and feminist Newspeak is used to cover it up.

  150. @ESR
    … in a society dependent on muscle power women are very close to worthless except as comfort objects and walking reproductive tracts. They’re not strong enough to fight men …

    They can carry rifles, though.

    @LS
    No it isn’t. Exceptions do not prove rules, they DISPROVE them. Cut the crap; Bayne is right.

    Without taking a side in the larger discussion, citing four examples out of a global population of >3.5 billion women doesn’t prove or disprove a damn thing.

    1. >They can carry rifles, though.

      Technological equalizer, which see.

      And it turns out women make inferior line troops even with that. For at least three reasons. (1) Much less ability to hump lots of warfighting kit, (2) low levels of aggression, (3) don’t readily form the kind of hunting-band psychology that makes the military work at the small-unit level.

      They can be very good at defending fixed positions, though. The biological template is obvious.

  151. > Without taking a side in the larger discussion, citing four examples out of a global population of 3.5 billion women doesn’t prove or disprove a damn thing.

    Yes, it does. Roger literally claimed that women aren’t acquisitional risk-takers, and those examples prove that assertion wrong. I then invited him to state his assertion more precisely and (so far) he has replied with nothing beyond ad-hominem attacks.

  152. @Duncan: “Yes, it does. Roger literally claimed that women aren’t acquisitional risk-takers, and those examples prove that assertion wrong”

    That sounds like “Four of the swans we have seen were black, so swans aren’t regularly white”.

  153. > That sounds like “Four of the swans we have seen were black, so swans aren’t regularly white”.

    But ‘regularly white’ wasn’t Roger’s claim; he’s being deliberately vague with terms (in my opinion, to avoid detailed examination of his position and the evidence for or against it). Using your simile, the conversation would have been:

    “Swans are white.”
    “What about these black swans, here?”
    “You are an imbecile.”

  154. @Duncan Bayne
    Yes, it does. Roger literally claimed that women aren’t acquisitional risk-takers, and those examples prove that assertion wrong.

    You’re probably the only one here who didn’t take his comment to mean in the aggregate, but I’m sure Roger is capable of defending his own case.

  155. @strongpoint
    You’re probably the only one here who didn’t take his comment to mean in the aggregate, but I’m sure Roger is capable of defending his own case.

    The evidence suggests otherwise. When I pointed out that his statement was trivially falsifiable and asked to define his terms in more detail, he called me an imbecile and stopped replying to me.

    That is not the behaviour of someone who is intellectually honest about the topic in question and prepared to debate the specifics of it.

  156. “low levels of aggression”

    you haven’t seen a woman defend her children ;-)

    1. >you haven’t seen a woman defend her children ;-)

      You’re in ooooolllld territory for this blog, Manfred. I’ve written before about how the bioenergetics of reproduction naturally create two very different tactical roles in men and women – outer guard vs. inner guard – and how this explained why women usually fight only under extreme provocation but with unmatched ferocity when they do.

  157. @ESR
    And it turns out women make inferior line troops even with that. For at least three reasons. (1) Much less ability to hump lots of warfighting kit, (2) low levels of aggression, (3) don’t readily form the kind of hunting-band psychology that makes the military work at the small-unit level.

    They can be very good at defending fixed positions, though. The biological template is obvious.

    Exactly. You said “a post-Utopian collapse,” which makes me think less of warfighting, aggression, and small-unit tactics, and more of defending a homestead.

  158. > > “low levels of aggression”
    >
    > you haven’t seen a woman defend her children ;-)

    That illustrates my point. ESRs assertion that (presumably, on average) women have lower levels of aggression immediately leads to: define aggression.

    This is actually where I have some smpathy for academic feminists. Language is vitally important when discussing important matters, and yet definitions are regularly taken for granted by all parties concerned.

    I *think* what ESR meant was, “aggression of the type that is useful to small-level infantry tactics”, and you can see how circular *that* becomes.

    Possibly – and this is in the ‘thinking out loud’ category, this sort of discussion amongst people who are not specialists in biology and neuropsychology is fundamentally as useful as laypeople sitting around debating quantum mechanics.

  159. > > “low levels of aggression”
    >
    > you haven’t seen a woman defend her children ;-)

    And therein lies the problem with this sort of discussion. There is ‘aggression’ and there is ‘aggression’. (Anectodally, I agree with ESR; I’ve seen men go a-hunting in groups and alone naturally and easily, women, not so much.)

    But you can’t (usefully) debate that in the context of psychology and philosophy. Defining the terms more exactly is much harder but *very* necessary if you’re up to defending the sort of … sweeping (see, I can be charitable) … claims that Roger is making.

    It’s easier in primate studies. Studies of chimps have shown that hunting behaviour is much more prevalent amongst males than females, although there are males that don’t hunt and females that do.

    So perhaps you could do it like this … (thinking out loud here).

    1. hunting-aggression is useful to small-unit tactics (possibly another discussion in itself)
    2. hunting-aggression can be measured by the frequency with which individuals engage in hunts
    3. ???
    4. men are, on average, more useful to small military units by virtue of their greater hunting-aggression

    The underpants-gnomes step 3 could be some sort of cross-cultural study that examines hunting rates in humans around the world, and links them to sex. Perhaps the chimpanzee studies could be tied in here? Unsure.

    And then step 4 itself is a can of worms. Granted the likely case that men are more hunting-aggressive than women, just *how* much more useful is that to military units? And which types? There have I believe been very successful female snipers, for example. Perhaps there are different types of hunting? And so on.

    This is why I find language like “women are inferior to men” to be hand-wavey and fundamentally unhelpful to understanding the domain. It’s complicated, full of logical pitfalls that are tied very closely to our own evo-bio cognitive biases, often counter-intuitive, and very hard to understand (at least I find it so).

    “Women are inferior to men” is like saying “OO is inferior to functional programming”. It is a statement devoid of information, except perhaps for that pertatining to the person making the statement.

  160. Also, perhaps 4 is only true in the context of primarily-male military units that have honed their tactics over centuries of being all-male. That’d be another interesting can of worms :)

  161. “Mary Bara (GM), Meg Whitman (HP), Virginia Rometty (IBM), Indra Nooyi (Pepsico).”
    “…citing four examples out of a global population of >3.5 billion women doesn’t prove or disprove a damn thing.”

    Yes it does.
    1. It’s not four examples out of 3.5 billion; it’s four out of the CEO population of the largest American corporations (a much smaller number).
    2. There used to be NONE. Now there are four. It kind of makes you think that soon there will be many more of them, and there would have been still more if corporations had made better use of their female executives.

  162. “This is why I find language like “women are inferior to men” to be hand-wavey”

    It’s kind of funny how Eric in particular as well as others tried to point out they weren’t being absolutist, but you seem to have fixated on the idea, just like you did with Roger.

    Perhaps you should stop being such a language lawyer and assume that nearly every statement has an assumed “in the aggregate” somewhere in it.

  163. > It’s not four examples out of 3.5 billion; it’s four out of the CEO population of the largest American corporations (a much smaller number).

    And, crucially, the population at the extreme end of the normal distribution – not the overlap in the middle where most of us live, most of the time. Here, we’re comparing alphas.

  164. @Duncan: I’ve seen a female cat go crazy and I have seen girls in a fight, that’s what I call aggressive. I think the notion of women being less aggressive than men is a myth derived from the classical role model. I even think they are in fact more aggressive than men.

  165. @Manfred: yes. Having fought my wife with (wooden) longswords and come out of it bleeding, I’ll second that. I was just making the point that there are different *types* of aggression, which are useful in different circumstances, so it’s helpful to define terms. As it is in all things :)

  166. I’m with the new guy Duncan, and TomA too. The whole problem goes back to what I said originally, Roger didn’t define his unit of measurement.

    I now get to use a word I never use — I am really excited…

    Not wanting to sound like the crazy rad fems, but I think this discussion is phalocentric. Actually not really phalocentric, but you’ve got to use that word whenever you can. What I mean is that the terms of the discussion are focused around male traits. It is kind of like saying e-coli isn’t as successful as humans, because e-coli never formed an intelligent brain. Nonetheless, from e-coli’s perspective it totally rocks. It has been around for billions of years, survives in the most difficult of circumstances, can live for a long time, propagates and adapts effectively and so on. From many perspectives e-coli is much more successful than humans.

    For example, I read above that women are not risk takes are are not creative. Even if we stipulate that that is true from the male perspective of risk and creativity, it is plain that women are extreme risk takers in the context of their biological function. There are few things riskier than pregnancy — something the puts you at huge risk for nine months, and ends with childbirth, a process that, pre modern medicine had a very high mortality rate, and that the best outcome is that you will have minor injuries. Worst outcome? Your guts are ripped out and you slowly bleed to death or die of sepsis, possibly watching your child die at the same time. But nobody, even today, comes out of childbirth uninjured.

    In terms of creativity — women created all the people living on the earth by gestating them in her bowels. So which is the more creative, the guy who invented calculus, or the mother who made the body and brain that went on to invent calculus? And not just in terms to pure biological creativity, also nearly every human has been primarily educated, early on anyway, by a woman. The hand that rocks the cradle, they say, rules the world.

    So if you judge women by male oriented measures they will surely come up short. However, if the terms of our debate is “who contributes more to society”, I stand by my earlier assertion that on average women do (because nearly all women at least add more humans to the human race, and there are plenty of men who contribute nothing of any value at all), but in the top tier of intellectual and engineering creativity, then men probably exceed women.

    Of course the whole debate is rather pointless. It falls into the same stereotyping category as the rad fems in the OP. People are individuals. Their contribution should be measured by their contribution, not by the shape of their genitals.

  167. @Duncan Bayne:
    “Proof by demonstration: Mary Bara (GM), Meg Whitman (HP), Virginia Rometty (IBM), Indra Nooyi (Pepsico).”

    My first thought when I read that was you were arguing in *favor* of the position. After all, none of those women started those companies. I have no reason to doubt their ability to maintain the companies. However, they didn’t have to risk years of their lives resulting in a major company – they were appointed to the top management position after it matured.

    Rick C: “he means not that you remember a violation happening is a cultural construct, but treating what happened _as_ a violation is.”

    That was exactly what I was attempting to get at. Having dirt shoved in your mouth and having cum sprayed in your mouth (per Jessica, absent disease) are nearly identical in their physical outcomes. How people react to nearly identical objective events is substantially different.

    @Roger:
    “The end result is a huge pool of compliant slaves ready to do boring stuff all day to keep civilisation chugging along.”

    “But [women are] appropriators, not creators”

    This is getting into the territory I wasn’t at all certain how to breach.
    How do you appropriate things? Take them.
    However, if you are talking about “women’s superior social IQ”, it’s unacceptable to simply come out and take stuff from other people – you generally get resentment for that.
    The trick is to then get other people to do the appropriating for you. Marrying a great military man is a way to do that. So is marrying a government official. What if you don’t want to marry, or are uninterested in that type of man? What other ways are there to appropriate which are socially acceptable?

    Well, one of the ways to do so is to do it indirectly through the government. Pretty much any Western government is going to have Legitimacy of some form or another. Thus the decisions it takes are viewed as being in the public interest and not in the individual interest. Supporting redistribution through the government is done directly through voting, which is a private act. You can’t be held to account socially for something which is done privately. The way the government handles this is through taxation.

    Thus, women (as a whole) get to benefit from the (generally) highly productive men in society without having to provide the historical benefits of being “comfort objects and walking reproductive tracts.” Why is objecting to this somehow vilified?

  168. @Jessica

    From many perspectives e-coli is much more successful than humans.

    And yet nobody disputes that e.coli are one of the lowest forms of life. It’s not enough to persist or be useful to other organisms. Indeed, the highest forms of life are the most fragile (or more accurately, _discontinuous_, since they emerge again), and the most dependent on other organisms.

    In terms of creativity — women created all the people living on the earth by gestating them in her bowels.

    This is only half correct, and I already said the correct part – that child birth used to be a woman’s major risk-taking (creative) endeavor. So contrary to your post, I am not trying to exclude female perspectives. Further, by casting childbirth as exceeding men’s creative output you’ve misunderstood the concept of creation. If I copy a CD am I ‘creating’ something? Yes, but only in a minor degree. The greater credit goes to the artist. And since women choose mates in an environment dominated by men, it is ultimately the men – the most dominant ones, especially – who are themselves determining women’s tastes because the women who don’t choose them don’t get the resources that the dominant men can command. You might as well say that factory workers in China are the “most creative” because they slave all day to turn out the most physical deliverables, whereas it is clearly the designer sitting at home in the West who is the creative one.

    You are also still telling me to “define your unit” when I very clearly have (and did so right in the beginning). That unit is the amount of active power you possess. This is the most straightforward possible thing to understand. The forces that create determines rank. How else could it possibly come into being? Again, cows are inferior because they have zero power to agitate for higher status.

  169. I think this is a left fantasy, that actually the fight was by Republicans of many stripes including “conservative” and “libertarian”. (Incidentally, “libertarian” views aren’t new – only the name adopted in self-defense after the left stole the name “Liberal” which in the 19th and early 20th centuries meant what we call libertarian now.) The Democrats were the party of racism even into the mid 20th century and played largely an opposing view towards “taking down Jim Crow”!

    The supporters of Jim Crow were conservative Democrats. After Johnson made civil rights a plank of the Democratic platform, the Nixon campaign saw an opportunity to garner votes by wooing the disaffected racist contingent to the Republican side of the aisle — the famous “Southern strategy”.

    Many of the thought leaders behind the civil rights movement were avowed leftists. Martin Luther King was an avowed socialist. So much so that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover stalked him and sent him death threats. W.E.B. Du Bois was a communist and admirer of Stalin before he found out what Stalin was really up to. He renounced his United States citizenship and moved to communist Ghana, thinking it a much better environment for blacks. An interesting and well-supported theory, expressed by historians like Mary Dudziak, is that the Civil Rights Act was passed largely as a Cold War measure to prevent America from losing face on the world stage, as communism was enjoying enormous success in appealing to blacks and flagging up American hypocrisy.

    So no, civil rights was, in fact, largely a success of leftist activism. The conservatives were — and still are — on the other side; the only thing that changed is their nominal party affiliation.

  170. A slight tangent if I may.

    As extensively commented above, the modern feminist movement is currently drawing more ire than ally from the male component of the population. Ultra-feminists may succeed in winning a few more battles in the political economy, but then may not be able to attract the kind of mate that would make it worthwhile. Successful alpha-women with no offspring is an evolutionary dead-end.

    Speaking for myself, being “male-equivalent” is not an attractor. However, being an intelligent, competent, and capable female (plus all those other nifty parts) is pretty damn hot.

  171. @Roger Phillips
    > And yet nobody disputes that e.coli are one of the lowest forms of life.

    That is just exactly the same mistake Roger. They are defined as the lowest form of life because they are, in a sense, the most distant form from us. They are certainly simpler than humans, but why is simple a bad thing? They effect their purpose quite well, and do so with much lower energetic input. Simple is usually considered better than complex insofar as both achieve their goals.

    My point is not to praise the germs. Rather it is to emphasize the core point that there is more than one measure of superior or inferior.

    > Further, by casting childbirth as exceeding men’s creative output you’ve misunderstood the concept of creation.

    I did no such thing. There is no objective measure of “creativity” that can successfully measure all creative endeavors. Perhaps you misunderstood my point about who was more creative. I was not making the claim that Newton’s mom was more creative, rather my point was that you can’t really say which is more creative, unless you do so through a particular lens.

    > That unit is the amount of active power you possess.

    Is it your view that, in the modern world, men have more power than women? Isn’t the whole whiny claim of the men’s movement exactly the opposite, that the pendulum has swung too far? Apparently women have managed to effect that power grab.

    > Again, cows are inferior because they have zero power to agitate for higher status.

    Just like women? Women don’t agitate for higher status?

  172. BTW, here is a random thought…. I have an older female friend who got out of a bad marriage ten years ago. She basically hasn’t been on a date since then. She used to be a nurse in a women’s health clinic, and is terrified of STDs. Consequently, she has this thing that before any guy gets near her she needs a full blood panel STD. Not surprisingly, not too many men are open to that on a first date!

    However, I think the truth is that she is just using that as a cover for her fear of intimacy. By putting up a barrier that can’t readily be passed, she has given herself an excuse not to face her deeper fears; fears about herself; fears about men’s attitudes; fears about sex and so forth. She can blame men and disease for her loneliness.

    I sometimes wonder if this fear of sexual harassment lawsuits, which to me is a fear of an extremely unlikely event, is really a cover for the fact that so many guys in the demographics who seem to have these fears are actually using it as a cover for their fear of women, or fear of dealing with women. Has the stereotypical nerd found an excuse not to talk to those scary girls? Not the only reason, just a small piece of the puzzle perhaps.

    We heard from some guy earlier. Is he not saying “hello” to the scary girl because he is scared shitless of rejection, or because he has a reasonable fear of a sexual harassment charge?

    I’m sure I am wrong in the general case, though I am sure it is true sometimes. But anyway, it is just my random though for the day.

  173. @Jessica

    My point is not to praise the germs. Rather it is to emphasize the core point that there is more than one measure of superior or inferior.

    That you think I dispute the reality of pluralism indicates that you don’t understand what I’m saying. What’s unsaid in your response however is that all the measures of superior and inferior can themselves be ranked from superior to inferior. For example, what the cow thinks of its relative worth in the scheme of things is of little importance to higher life forms.

    There is no objective measure of “creativity” that can successfully measure all creative endeavors. Perhaps you misunderstood my point about who was more creative. I was not making the claim that Newton’s mom was more creative, rather my point was that you can’t really say which is more creative, unless you do so through a particular lens.

    I don’t claim “objectivity”. But not all world views are equal. Though, you’re welcome to look at the world through the lens of a cow or an e. coli if you like.

    Is it your view that, in the modern world, men have more power than women? Isn’t the whole whiny claim of the men’s movement exactly the opposite, that the pendulum has swung too far? Apparently women have managed to effect that power grab.

    First, the more offensive error: I am not part of the “men’s movement”, especially not if that means MRA. If feminism is a slavish reaction to male civilisation, then MRA is a slavish reaction to the slavishness of feminists.

    Second, a key word in that sentence is “active”. Women’s power is reactive. It consists of accommodating itself to the active powers and trying to restrain them (e.g. selecting the best mate and trying to keep him from boffing other females or getting himself killed). It doesn’t go to the edge of its capabilities, and it tries to drag others down to its own level by preventing them from exercising their capabilities to the fullest. The “creative” part of mate selection is the bit where you take the risk on some mate or another (or take the risk of cheating on your provider mate).

    If tomorrow men decided to go to the limit of their powers and take it all back there would be nothing women could do about it – except beg other men to help them. It is a phony kind of power maintained purely by conditioning people to become reactive and slavish. As I mentioned previously, this is good in the geopolitical realm when you have nuclear weapons available and the result of going to the fullest would negate the whole of civilization. But it’s also infecting other realms where the caveat of total obliteration doesn’t apply.

    Just like women? Women don’t agitate for higher status?

    They do agitate for higher status. Technically so do cows. I mean, if you stab a cow in the side I’m sure it’ll let out some sound or another, maybe even fight you. So it’s a matter of degree, and women have not had the means to agitate for higher status except through men, which is the filter that has determined their nature.

  174. @Jessica

    I sometimes wonder if this fear of sexual harassment lawsuits, which to me is a fear of an extremely unlikely event, is really a cover for the fact that so many guys in the demographics who seem to have these fears are actually using it as a cover for their fear of women, or fear of dealing with women.

    There is that, but also that men are learning that the way to get what you want is to play the victim and resort to hysteria. It cuts both ways – when people can get onto twitter with their moronic hashtags about women being treated poorly, women’s own extreme overreactions are subject to the same treatment. And in both cases due to selection effects in the huge sea of people on the Internet, you get a very distorted picture of the world because you only see the most sensational and weird stuff. If you step outside into the Real World most of this Internet bullshit is nonexistent and people are pretty reasonable (if dull).

  175. We heard from some guy earlier. Is he not saying “hello” to the scary girl because he is scared shitless of rejection, or because he has a reasonable fear of a sexual harassment charge?

    I’m not going to deny that I would still be afraid of rejection; it’s been shown that rejection hurts, in the same way as physical pain does. (See e.g. this article.) What the harassment issue does is it raises the stakes considerably: the penalty for failure is no longer just “pain of rejection,” now it’s potentially “pain of rejection PLUS being labeled a harasser, thrown out of the con, and having your name smeared all over the Internet.” Think of it as raising the limits on the table from 2/4 to 250/500. Is your average fish (i.e. me) even going to try to play that table?

    Perhaps the woman would be irrational by screaming for Security at a mere word or two from me. People do irrational things all the time, though. How am I to know what mental state has contributed to the chip on her shoulder? Maybe she’s on her cycle that day. Maybe her boyfriend just left her. Maybe she got cheated out of a good parking space at the hotel. Maybe the barista gave her whole milk instead of nonfat milk in her latte half an hour ago. From my point of view, it’s irrelevant, and she’s now a seething cauldron of frustration that gets tipped over the edge by one nerd saying “Hello” to her…and her response is enabled by con policies that encourage her to see all men as potential harassers who would be pawing all over her in about ten seconds if given half the opportunity. And the politics behind those policies encourage the security staff to take her word over mine, particularly if, as a relative outsider to the fan community, I have no one to speak for me. Instant railroad tracks to oblivion.

    When you up the ante like that, a lot of guys are gonna fold.

  176. Jeff Read on 2014-02-03 at 13:42:39 said: Near as I can tell from several of his works, including “The Roads Must Roll”, “Gulf”, Glory Road and Starship Troopers, what Heinlein favored was a sort of benevolent shogunate…

    Someone didn’t read carefully.

    “The Roads Must Roll” suggests that in a high-tech society, those persons who administer critical functions should be imbued with an occupational culture which powerfully idealizes service to the common good – lest they become a power elite.

    “Gulf” is elitist.

    Glory Road is rather more libertarian. Her Wisdom has no authority, only the prestige of almost always being right. “Mostly she doesn’t.”

    Starship Troopers does not clearly define how political leadership is chosen; but it appears to be a conventional democracy, except for the way the franchise is restricted. Heinlein also included a splash of something which very people today even recognize: the view of political activity as vulgar, beneath the dignity of a gentleman. I think this was always a minority sentiment, but it was once fairly common in the U.S.

  177. > For a crowd that talks so much about reclaiming manliness they seem remarkably ineffective at it.

    Spot on. The common thing in feminists and MRA’s is that they are very, very good at shooting down the libido of the other sex to minus infinity. Given that any kind of social movement needs some kind of sexual tension to fuel it, to keep people energized and sparkling this just cannot work like this.

    Their major utility is largely when some women object that a critique of feminists being fat and ugly is superficial because we should be listening to what people actually say, we can point to the stereotypical whiny MRA and ask her if she finds it easy to listen to people who send out these kinds of hopeless sexual loser signals.

    At the end of the day I am not even sure if it is 100% unjust. Surely, the general rule is to listen to the content and don’t go ad hominem, but there are many cases in life when the same sentence means something entirely different depending on who says it. I trust those writers and intellectuals more who don’t entire hide behind written texts but can stand up and make a borderline charismatic speech as well…

  178. Their major utility is largely when some women object that a critique of feminists being fat and ugly is superficial because we should be listening to what people actually say, we can point to the stereotypical whiny MRA and ask her if she finds it easy to listen to people who send out these kinds of hopeless sexual loser signals.

    I don’t think many feminists would dignify attacks on feminists for being fat and ugly as a “critique”, they’d normally consider it low-grade trolling. Have you come across any MRAs who can write well, or even entertainingly?

    1. >Have you come across any MRAs who can write well, or even entertainingly?

      I have, during my brief anthropological foray into the region. Some of their blogs are pretty good. Most are dreary and whiny.

  179. > Have you come across any MRAs who can write well, or even entertainingly?

    Glenn Sacks and Warren Farrell spring to mind, though I think both would disclaim the label “men’s rights activist”. I believe Sacks considers himself more of a fathers’ rights activist, and in my experience there is a difference between them and MRAs.

  180. @esr: sorry, I missed that.

    @TomA: there is a serious flaw in your theory:
    > Ultra-feminists may succeed in winning a few more battles in the political economy, but then may not be able to attract the kind of mate that would make it worthwhile. Successful alpha-women with no offspring is an evolutionary dead-end.

    Ultra-feminists don’t need successful mating, they reduce men to the role of a sperm donor anyway.

    @Jessica Boxer:
    > I sometimes wonder if this fear of sexual harassment lawsuits, which to me is a fear of an extremely unlikely event,

    That leads me back to my earlier post. If you know how to play the game, you quite probably don’t have to fear much, but if you don’t it’s much different. And there are plenty of reasons for someone not to know how to play the game besides being fat, ugly or sick, which usually are suspected first. Raising the stakes by threatening with a lawsuit just adds one more item to that list.

  181. I believe Sacks considers himself more of a fathers’ rights activist, and in my experience there is a difference between them and MRAs.

    A lot of them do seem to fit the “bitter divorcee” stereotype, I can never figure out what they, the panty-whisperers and the MGTOW have in common apart from a loathing for feminism,but perhaps that’s enough.

    I came across some of that dark enlightenment stuff (at least I think that’s what it was) on Vox Day’s blog, he seemed to be looking forward with some relish to a collapse of civilisation (I couldn’t tell if feminist thinking was a symptom or a cause of this) after which, I dunno, all the machines would stop working and upper body strength would once more be properly appreciated by all, or something. Seemed to be more or less internally consistent, at least.

    1. >I came across some of that dark enlightenment stuff (at least I think that’s what it was) on Vox Day’s blog, he seemed to be looking forward with some relish to a collapse of civilisation

      That sounds like some of their nuttier types, all right. At least Vox can write interestingly; most of the wack jobs can’t.

      Actually…while I’m not certain I understand the inter-tribal distinctions correctly, I don’t think of Vox as a core Dark Enlightenment type. He comes from PUA, which seems more like an allied country or outlying suburb. The people that look central to the Dark Enlightenment from my outsider’s POV are more political philosophers and historiographers than sexual politicians; Mencius Moldbug, Nick Land, et al.

      I should probably blog some commentary about the Dark Enlightenment sometime. They’re like Randites in that they’re very good at some kinds of critique, but awful systematizers. And the wing that calls itself HBD is, sadly for all of us, actually on to something.

  182. @Erbo
    > I’m not going to deny that I would still be afraid of rejection; it’s been shown that rejection hurts, in the same way as physical pain does.

    Apparently you are missing the point. It is supposed to hurt, though in my experience women almost always try to let a guy down gently, unless he is being a real ass.

    It is meant to hurt because if you don’t have the balls, the bravery, to walk up to her and say “can I buy you a drink” how the hell are you going to have the balls to risk your life taking down a bison to feed your family?

    Far and away the most attractive quality in a man is confidence. If you are weasily and fearful of rejection it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

  183. @ Jessica Boxer – “how the hell are you going to have the balls to risk your life taking down a bison to feed your family?”

    Extremely well said.

    As soon as I can get my hands on a bison, I’m gonna drop it at your doorstep.

    1. >As soon as I can get my hands on a bison, I’m gonna drop it at your doorstep.

      Ahhhhh. Courtship, Armed & Dangerous style.

      I approve.

  184. > As soon as I can get my hands on a bison, I’m gonna drop it at your doorstep.

    She’s gonna need that restaurant-sized freezer…

  185. It is meant to hurt because if you don’t have the balls, the bravery, to walk up to her and say “can I buy you a drink” how the hell are you going to have the balls to risk your life taking down a bison to feed your family?

    I’ll remember that if I ever need to take down a bison. Thankfully, in this day and age, if I want to eat bison, I can go to King Soopers and buy it.

    Far and away the most attractive quality in a man is confidence. If you are weasily and fearful of rejection it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

    Well, how does one get confidence? Is it one of those things like, if you don’t have it by a certain age, you might as well forget it?

    Don’t say “you gain confidence by approaching women.” That’s circular logic; besides, with the aforementioned enhanced penalty for failure, I’d be much more likely to end up worse off than I am now.

    (And don’t say “alcohol.” I have gout and I can’t drink. Not that I ever really liked it much, anyway…)

  186. @Erbo “Well, how does one get confidence? Is it one of those things like, if you don’t have it by a certain age, you might as well forget it?”

    Confidence is one of those things that you make when you can’t get -and you mostly can’t-. You wouldn’t know, because you’re too busy running away from completely imaginary problems, and buying bison at King Sooper’s. Confidence is the ability to go to a con and not care about women, just glancing appreciatively at some particularly good cosplay, and _moving_on_.

    Confidence is the ability to talk normally to people and not second-guess yourself to death. It comes with time and practice, practice you’re too busy avoiding by asking pointless, hyperbolic questions in a blog.

    1. >practice you’re too busy avoiding by asking pointless, hyperbolic questions in a blog.

      Oh, stop. Erbo’s worry about getting law-slapped by a twitchy woman is not, unfortunately, entirely unreasonable. You’re not helping by punching him.

  187. “(And don’t say “alcohol.” I have gout and I can’t drink. Not that I ever really liked it much, anyway…)”

    Yes, going to a con under the influence and approaching women is sure to give you great results any day.

    “Don’t say “you gain confidence by approaching women.” That’s circular logic”

    Sorry, but “you gain confidence by approaching women.” If you fear going to a con, make friends at work, or another easier playground. The library. The chess association. LARPs. Book clubs. You master fear by facing fear. Haven’t you seen a single cartoon in your childhood? I hear My Little Pony is back with a vengeance.

  188. Eric, while I agree that it is possible to get law-slapped by women at a con,
    “Will I get the con security sicced on me for saying “Hello” to some woman? If I simply look at some woman who happens to have a chip on her shoulder, am I going to get accused of “eye rape”?”
    and
    “Here I am, trying to understand how I can keep myself safe, and becoming increasingly alarmed that, no matter what I do, I may still come up against a woman with a chip on her shoulder who is bound and determined to ruin my life–or just to ruin someone’s life, and I would just happen to be the nearest acceptable target”
    are, to me, unreasonable stretches, that grant the answer “If you’re really so afraid, then just don’t. Don’t say hello. You’ve told me you don’t want the hassle.”

  189. Question: What if I told you I was afraid of doing business with Americans because they easily sue for perceived offence? What If I said I was wary of meeting Latin Americans because one of them might be a violent thug? What if I was afraid of all Italians because they might be mafiosi?

    Seriously, what is the difference? If it makes you happy, restrict the examples from Latin Americans to -say- Venezuelan youths, and the Italians to Neapolitan or Palermitan males.

  190. @esr
    > Erbo’s worry about getting law-slapped by a twitchy woman is not, unfortunately, entirely unreasonable.

    There is an unfortunate circularity here. What I think makes women twitchy is not some specific thing he might say or do but a weird, creepy vibe. Lacking confidence is one of the things that produces that weird creepy vibe. Women are EXTREMELY sensitive to body language, and the unconfident body language is very similar to the creepy body language.

    And I also want to say in defense of women, being twitchy in face of a weird, creepy vibe is also not unreasonable. As you all have pointed out men are stronger than women in general, and men do sometimes have problems controlling their aggression and anger. So weird, creepy vibes set off her risk detector, because women do have to face real risks from weird creepy guys.

    Not that I think Erbo is one, but one has to make a quick determination in defense of one’s health, and unfortunately proxies are often used. Same reason many people move the other other side of the street when they see a group of young black men coming toward them. Unfair, perhaps, but our job is to look out for ourselves and those in our circle, not to bring about a more fair world for strangers.

    And I will answer Erbo’s question. They way to become more confident is to face your fears. The way to be more confident is to realize that the thing you fear isn’t really all that bad. So if you have a problem approaching women in a romantic setting, then start doing it. Start low risk then build it up. Go to the bar with your friends, and when you are standing at the bar next to some girl just say hi, and then leave. She probably wont bite. Then engage her for thirty seconds of conversation before leaving. How bad can it be?

    Keep practicing, and you will be Lothario before you know it. The web is replete with ways to pick up chicks, some lovely some nasty, most work to some degree, because most of them are designed to convey confidence and control, even if it is phoney. Go thou and do likewise.

    1. >The way to be more confident is to realize that the thing you fear isn’t really all that bad. So if you have a problem approaching women in a romantic setting, then start doing it. Start low risk then build it up. Go to the bar with your friends, and when you are standing at the bar next to some girl just say hi, and then leave. She probably wont bite. Then engage her for thirty seconds of conversation before leaving. How bad can it be?

      I think this is good advice. Never underestimate the transcendent power of Not Giving A Shit – not being attached to a “good” outcome in any one instance leads to good outcomes in aggregate because it looks like … confidence.

  191. That’s good advice when the worst that can happen from a failed advance is the pain of rejection. It becomes not such good advice when the consequences are significantly worse than that. When a rejected advance puts you in legal and/or social jeopardy, if it can get you arrested, disciplined, fired, expelled, or shunned, then even someone with confidence may and should think twice; now add that on top of a general lack of confidence, coming from a lack of early practice, and the effect is far greater.

  192. To address a point made by an earlier poster, feminism isn’t just about campaigning for equal rights. In some cases, it’s quite explicitly about demanding privileges. From http://www.mattiebrice.com/on-civility/

    “When you are in a place of privilege and you find yourself being called out by an oppressed person, you should be racing towards an apology, even if you don’t quite understand what you did wrong. Firstly, for your continued, if even understandable, complicity in their oppression.”

    To paraphrase: please suspend your normal process of identification and evaluation of facts, because I’m a member of an oppressed minority, and you’re a white man.

    (This actually smacks to me a little of the very worst of fantasy Medieval chivalry. I wonder if feminism in its modern form – that is, more than a fight for legal and social equality – is an unconscious response to the loss of certain privileges arising from gains in legal and social equality. That would be an interesting topic of study for someone with tenure and a thick hide.)

    Incidentally, I found this … article … linked on Adria Richards’ (https://twitter.com/adriarichards) Twitter feed, along with the following statement:

    “Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power”

    This strategy is as old as the hills: it is a fairly ingenious way to frame the conversation to entirely exclude the possibility that you – or at least the group for whom you are demanding privileges – might be seen to exhibiting the same irrationality for which you are criticising others.

    Feminism as an academic subject and as a political movement is not worthy of benevolence.

  193. There are two issues here.

    1) Is a SF convention a suitable venue for making advances on a female?

    My answer : No it is not – I suspect any female going there and dressing up as Slave Leia, Tank Girl, whatever other character involving sexy clothing, is going there for the fun of the event, and not specifically looking for potential mate material. So my advice is – stay away from them, don’t make advances, perhaps don’t even say “Hello” – no worries, no concerns. Hey you can cop a /look/ at them from a distance, just don’t make it a creepy stare – after all you’re a hot-bloodied male aren’t you? It’s in our DNA fer feck’s sake, so, don’t feel ashamed at admiring beauty.

    The other issue:

    2) Are you a Mangina?

    My Answer: What is a Mangina? A mangina is the betacized male. It’s the end result of decades of feminism. You /know/ one when you see one. You /know/ one when you read what he’s typing on an online forum. They’re the ones who are blousing about saying “hello” to a pretty lady in an SF convention – See Issue #1 above – don’t do it not because of “fear of rejection boo-hoo”, but because inappropriate venue – it’s THAT simple. If there’s an after-event late night pub drink-fest going on and the pretty ladies are in that pub still dressed like Slave Leia and are clearly open to a “hello” – then yeah go for it. It’s all about reading the situation, and acting the right way in the right circumstances.

    By the way – if you really are a creepy sort, then frankly you deserve everything you get

    Oh, and quit being a Mangina.

    1. >My answer : No it is not – I suspect any female going there and dressing up as Slave Leia, Tank Girl, whatever other character involving sexy clothing, is going there for the fun of the event, and not specifically looking for potential mate material

      This is so ludicrously wrong that I believe you must be trolling. Stop it. Erbo has enough problems without people trying to confuse him for cheap yucks.

      Erbo, SF cons are excellent places for intelligent men to seek out intelligent women. Pretty much my entire sex life outside of being married took place at SF conventions, or at events sampling the same population and closely related, or with girls I met at cons.

      Yes, the girl in the Slave Leia costume does want men to approach her – provided they do it tastefully and tactfully. It’s OK to tell her she looks gorgeous, provided you don’t slobber. If she smiles back, talk to her. If any of it looks home-built, for example “How much of that did you make yourself?” would be an excellent opener. More generally, if she were stupid she wouldn’t be there; give her a chance to display her brain as well as her body. If you make it clear enough that you are interested in what’s behind her eyes, she might jump you.

  194. Told by a feminist friend to me:

    Q. How many feminists does it take to screw in a light blub?
    A. THAT’S NOT FUNNY

    There are feminists with a sense of humour. There are multiple waves of feminism. Perhaps the most interesting is the one that imagines other ways past the one that is largely influenced by aggressive male behaviour and the systems that reward it, which we soak in today. Comparing the extremes of suffering to the aspirations of theoretical writers to dismiss those writers and the system that supports diverse critical thinking is not the way there.

  195. To address a point made by an earlier poster, feminism isn’t just about campaigning for equal rights. In some cases, it’s quite explicitly about demanding privileges.

    It’s worth remembering that that’s directed at people who are already trying to be social justice, not the likes of you (I presume) or even me. But it is kind of a lot of self-abasement to be recommending, reminds me of this (which at least is satire).

  196. @Milhouse
    > It becomes not such good advice when the consequences are significantly worse than that.

    Legal consequences aren’t the worst possible consequence. She might have a paraphillia where she invites you back to her place, and while you are getting naked, she slits your throat, dismembers you and cooks up your liver with a nice Chianti.

    However, despite these dreadful risks a million people hook up every Friday night, and the courts are not bursting full of bullshit sexual assault claims, and the local wine store has not yet run out of Chianti.

    > then even someone with confidence may and should think twice;

    Really? I think you need to make better assessments of your risks, or alternatively stop making excuses and look into yourself to see what is really going on.

  197. They way to become more confident is to face your fears. The way to be more confident is to realize that the thing you fear isn’t really all that bad. So if you have a problem approaching women in a romantic setting, then start doing it. Start low risk then build it up. Go to the bar with your friends…

    I don’t go to bars.

    Honestly, I think I’ve probably missed the boat. The time I should have learned this was probably back in high school or college, but back then I was too concerned (as were my parents) with getting my life in order in other respects. After that, it becomes a hell of a lot harder, and I didn’t do anything at that point either. There’s a quote from a Larry Niven story that says, “A large part of being insane is having been insane.” I think something like that is probably the case here. Lack of knowledge leads to failure, failure leads to pain, pain leads to fear, fear gets amplified by all the sexual-harassment news out there, it feeds back on itself. It’s probably far too late to change that now.

    But I did take myself off the local con’s mailing list and unlike their Facebook page. So I did take that part of your advice.

  198. @Erbo, RE: ” It’s probably far too late to change that now.”

    Forgive the gruffness, but no it ain’t. Every second you’re breathing is a chance to start doing something differently.

  199. Right on @WCC. Really Erbo, stop with the pity party and self loathing. If you are deficit in this area stop blaming mean litigious girls and take a look in the mirror. Then step up and take some action.

  200. Also @Erbo –

    Don’t take any of this personally or be insulted. It’s meant to convey an attitude, that is all.

    Put your chin up, square your shoulders, and put some fucking steel in your spine bro. Cowboy the fuck up or quit now and avoid the rush.

    Don’t ever give in to the worst possible person to give in to – yourself. Dude, you’re losing out on life by accepting that worst kind of defeat. Whatever it is you’re doing or wanting to do – do more. Go until you can’t go anymore, then get back in the water, push one more out, just one more mile. Everyone can do so much more than they think they can – but you’ll never know until you run for that limitation. And you gotta keep doing it to evolve. But from your words you’re running FROM it. No scratch that, you’re not even going to step in the zone. Come on, man. That’s not living. That’s dying by degrees.

    Look I don’t know you and who am I to be talking to you this way. But you’re here on this blog, where from what I can see smart, capable people come to play. And you put yourself out there – more than once. That says something about what you really want if you’ll just step back and consider your motivations for a bit. And it counts for something too. Not much, but a start is a start. Journey of a thousand miles and all that.

    Regarding only the subject at hand (your confidence et al) – you are framing everything through your lens of fear and perceived shortcomings. Take a couple of days and start reframing your entire outlook from the opposite perspective. That’ll get you started.

  201. @ Erbo – ” It’s probably far too late”

    Become a volunteer in some charitable endeavor. Do it now, today. Big Brothers will work if nothing else appeals to you. You will quickly find that helping others overcome their difficulties in life will give you perspective and growing self esteem.

    Then get a dog and walk it at the community dog park every day. Dress reasonably well and smile at everyone you meet. Compliment others on their dog, or style of dress, or appearance, or just say “nice day isn’t it.” Do this to everyone you encounter, not just the pretty girls. Be persistent here.

    Lots of unattached women are eagerly looking for normal guys with a job and a pulse. Within a month, you will have your pick. I guarantee it.

    Advanced course tidbit – pick well, there is a lot of variance out there.

  202. Incidentally, I found this … article … linked on Adria Richards’ (https://twitter.com/adriarichards) Twitter feed, along with the following statement:

    “Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power”

    Hey, that’s the Donglegate callout girl. No surprise coming from her.

  203. > Hey, that’s the Donglegate callout girl. No surprise coming from her.

    In her defense, I think she handled that situation poorly but never intended the firings or the shitstorm that followed. *Everyone* involved other than the guys making the joke over-reacted and / or dropped the PR ball.

    The entire IT industry lost, that day.

  204. Erbo,

    My wife is proof positive that at least some women aren’t easily offended by inept communication (quiten down in the back, you lot).

    Back in New Zealand I worked with a really nice guy – sharp as a tack, great developer, excellent sense of ethics, and great sense of humour. He also had almost none of what most people would call a brain-mouth filter.

    When I introduced him to my wife (in a business setting), the first thing he said after “hello” was “do you own a chain-mail bikini?” Not an unreasonable question perhaps, knowing my love of swords, but her response was “no, why?” He then followed up with “I was wondering whether they pinched.”

    Watching our mutual manager’s reaction was the funniest part of that interaction. But my wife and I both found it funny (unintentionally; he was 100% in earnest), and I think it strongly influenced her opinion of him for the better.

    I guess the take-away from that is: be polite and courteous but ultimately let *you* shine through. My personal experience is that most women value honesty extremely highly, and that filtering prospective mates on that criterion can’t hurt either.

  205. Erbo,

    One more thing: do *not* for a moment think that any aspect of your character beyond your basic temperament[1] is hard-wired. You can change a great deal about who you are and how you interact with others. Look into schema therapy, CBT and (oddly) stoicism[2] for some pointers.

    [1] Research on babies suggests they’re born with a temperament that doesn’t change throughout their lives; there is a lot of nurture layered on top though. Think of temperament as BIOS, character as OS, and skills as apps.

    [2] CBT was, from what I’ve read, based loosely upon stoic philosophy. There are holes in stoicism – the physics and basis of morality is mostly wrong – but much of the advice about how to live and how to run one’s life is sound. At the very least, reading some of the stoic classics[3] will give you insight into how you might choose to change things in your life.

    [3] Whee, a tree of footnotes :) Check out “The Wisdom of the Stoics” for a good intro. The Romans make for interesting reading as they have a very practical bent.

  206. > Honestly, I think I’ve probably missed the boat. The time I should have learned this was probably back […] But I did take myself off the local con’s mailing list and unlike their Facebook page. So I did take that part of your advice.

    @Erbo: with that approach, ten years from now, you probably will sit there and say “Now it’s too late, I should have gone to that con ten years ago.”

    The image you draw is the image of a vicious circle, but even moving in a circle doesn’t necessarily get you to the point, where you have started. If you take a screw, going in circles will slowly take you forwards or backwards, if you take a staircase going in circles slowly takes you up or down. It’s usually even easier to get up going in circles than taking the straight way, after all that’s why stairs are built that way. And it’s mostly you who determines the direction.

    You got plenty of advice here, but I think there is something missing. If you want to be confident, don’t listen to other people. I mean, hear what they say but don’t do it simply because they say it will be good for you.

    – Working for a charity, you may easily get exploited. As it’s for a good cause, they don’t need to have any scruples.

    – It’s not a good idea to get a dog to meet people if you don’t like dogs, but an animal is often a better friend than a human – they don’t understand what you say. I mean, they will know you are pissy from the sound of your voice, but they don’t get insulted, when you call them names – and they neither call you names.

    But most importantly, the world isn’t nice. In the end you’re always on your own. So do what *you* think is right, don’t care what other people *might* think.

    My advice is: Don’t go out to get married, don’t go out to get involved. Don’t go out to make friends or acqauintances. Don’t even go out to meet people.
    Go out to see the world, go out to have fun, go out to make money, go out for whatever you like but forget about people, you can’t avoid to meet people anyway in this world.

    If you worry about someone getting pissy when you watch them at a con or somesuch, you could start your own blog here, prepare some business cards, take a notebook, maybe a camera and then take notes of what you see and post you’re experiences in your blog. If someone should ask, you can give them your card. But when people come up to you, don’t forget your mission. I recommend a camera with a viewfinder, it’s better suited to keep people at a distance.

  207. the courts are not bursting full of bullshit sexual assault claims,

    1. Only because most cases don’t make it to court. They offer a plea bargain, and your lawyer says to take it because you won’t have a chance in court.

    2. University disciplinary panels all over the USA certainly are bursting full of bullshit sexual assault claims. Where have you been that you haven’t heard of the so-called “rape epidemic” on campus, or that it’s bull?

  208. Some days late, but regardless.

    @James M
    Regardless of whether you agree that all of the items I listed are personal or not, that you agree that some of them are, indicates that you should agree that at least for some items, the personal is the political. Consider restrictions on contraceptives (for example), this is a very political issue in some places (including so called “morning after pills”). (And I would suggest that even if two people are involved, things can still be personal. And many of these are very political.)

    @Roger Phillips
    People are not worth more than other people unless you’re a fuckwit. Wait…
    As for fetuses, I would suggest that they are not people. But, even if you say that they are (and thus are, of course, worth as much as other people), then there are still good arguments which explain why abortion should be permitted. These are based on the right to bodily autonomy that all people have. (If someone kidnapped you, and stitched the head of another person onto you, with the promise that it would be removed in nine months time, you would still have the right to remove said person from yourself, even if it killed them.)

    @Garrett
    A persons bodily autonomy is worth far more than their “property”. As such, while I can understand and to a certain extent agree with anti-taxation arguments, I don’t see taxation and limitations on bodily autonomy as at all equivalent.

    @Manfred Wassmann
    I guess you don’t agree with me that true communism would equal equality? As for the logo of the clenched fist, that is used for many struggles (from the civil rights movement in the USA, when black runners raised their fists after winning in the Olympics, etc.). As for real feminists, I’ll just talk to myself (not that I’m crazy, no wait…). Hey Michael, what’s feminism all about then? Well Michael, as a right and proper feminist, I reckon that feminism is all about equality. Really Michael? Yup.
    As for the rest of your comment, I can’t see anything meaningful to engage with. So I guess I just won’t…

    (Also, everyone should know that it is white swans that are the exception. I’ve seen far more black swans in my life than white.)

  209. > People are not worth more than other people unless you’re a fuckwit.

    Trivially disprovable. Imagine I had to choose between saving the life of my beloved wife, and the life of a total stranger. I’d choose my wife. Therefore, she is worth more to me than the total stranger.

  210. > Therefore, she is worth more to me than the total stranger.

    That needs some explaining. What I mean by that is: her worth to me, which is greater than that of the stranger, is the basis for my decision.

  211. >This is so ludicrously wrong that I believe you must be trolling. Stop it. Erbo has enough problems without people trying to confuse him for cheap yucks.

    I stand corrected. Thank you.

    For the record – it was no attempt at trolling, and I apologise for my ignorance.

  212. I was chastised for interpreting “pro-lifer” as someone who was “pro-human life” instead of “pro-valuable human life”.

    The claim was “but they tend to boil down to wanting to defend innocent life.” Which comes down to giving some human life a label of being more preservable than others. That is a decision based on a moral judgment that is culturally determined.

    So, in this view, a mother cannot decide over the use of her own body and has to carry a child full term. But others can judge her child’s life worthless and kill him later.

    Furthermore, self-defense is in no way comparable with capital punishment. There is absolutely no acute danger that requires such drastic measures. Actually, the only thing comparable with capital punishment is human sacrifice: We kill some persons for the imaginary good of the community.

    To summarize, those calling themselves “pro-life” are lying, they are “pro-some life and against the life of others”.

  213. @Roger Philips
    “In a previous thread I rebuked Winter for this behavior, which amounts to nothing less than dragging the argument down to the linguistic level (rather than setting it free to SOAR to the higher, conceptual level). ”

    In this argument, you defined away the meaning of “Object” and then you balked because I asked what you wanted to say when you use the word “Object”. The linguistic angle came about because I could not understand what you wanted to say in the first place. Semantics and Pragmatics are all about the meaning of words and phrases.

  214. @Michael:

    > I guess you don’t agree with me that true communism would equal equality?

    As I said: “At least that is what the word communism means” so there is no point in your reproach. And regarding the emblem, other movements using similar symbols doesn’t make it less aggressive.

  215. … and BTW Michael “everyone should know that it is white swans that are the exception” of course – if you acknowledge that black is white.

  216. > I guess you don’t agree with me that true communism would equal equality?

    “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is an explicit rejection of equality.

  217. @ESR how would you deal with people like this? http://imgur.com/IuG2okB

    I guess there is a very thin and difficult line to walk between getting angry and aggressive and getting defensive and explaining and pleading.

    1. >@ESR how would you deal with people like this?

      With mockery. In this case “Being rude to whiny assholes who insist on inserting political agendas where they don’t belong is everyone’s right and duty!” would have done nicely.

  218. Second pic to previous comment: http://imgur.com/25omNyx

    Note: “There is no neutral.” is the best red-light giving away you are dealing either with fanatics or dishonest people – as even from WW2 to The Cold War which arguably had a tiny bit of a higher ethical or practical stake it was OK for nations, organizations and people to be neutral…

  219. Duncan, it is an explicit rejection of equality only if you look at the inputs, not the outputs. It’s the clearest possible statement that equality of outcome is the goal, and that any methods used to reach that result are acceptable.

  220. Jay,

    I disagree. I take that statement to mean that if you are competent, you will be worked like a slave to support those who aren’t. Even the ends will be unequal; if I require a car for my job and you don’t, I will have one and you won’t. We’ll both have jobs, but they won’t be equal either, because at the very least one requires travel and the other doesn’t.

    Then there’s the practical aspect of how need is determined. Rand created an excellent fictional account of a motor car company that chose to run according to that Communist maxim, and the real horror began when it was time to determine the need of the workers so the money could be doled out.

    I’m afraid that Communism isn’t about equality. Even a superficial reading shows that it’s about power.

  221. > With mockery.

    On the other hand, someonesuggested to offer the other cheek instead, and that notion has been around for 2000+ years.

    1. >On the other hand, someonesuggested to offer the other cheek instead, and that notion has been around for 2000+ years.

      That is advice intended to keep slaves submissive to their masters. I reject it.

  222. My Toyota, built in KY. That is my point, it is all BS. At least Ford didn’t take bazillions of dollars in federal bailout money. Kudos to them for that.

    No more BS than watching a victory by the “Seattle” Seahawks, only one member of whom is actually from Washington State.

    So much of American culture now is BS — our food, our music, our sports…

  223. @esr
    “That is advice intended to keep slaves submissive to their masters. I reject it.”

    His country men did not heed the advice. They have become the poster child of displaced persons.

    1. >His country men did not heed the advice. They have become the poster child of displaced persons.

      I’m sure your theory that the Roman Empire fell because the Romans failed to be sufficiently submissive to the invading barbarians will take the academic world by storm.

  224. @Michael

    People are not worth more than other people unless you’re a fuckwit. Wait… As for fetuses, I would suggest that they are not people. But, even if you say that they are (and thus are, of course, worth as much as other people), then there are still good arguments which explain why abortion should be permitted. These are based on the right to bodily autonomy that all people have. (If someone kidnapped you, and stitched the head of another person onto you, with the promise that it would be removed in nine months time, you would still have the right to remove said person from yourself, even if it killed them.)

    Which entails that the host is worth more than the parasite. I wonder if, after having read this, you will actually *think* about what has been said, or simply grasp at something new in your desperate bid to escape the pain. Just look at this writing: “there are still good arguments”. Not *your* argument – the one you will stand behind because it is the one that firmed your belief in this nonsense, but rather the multitude of arguments that simply happen to be within arm’s reach for you to defend your retarded ideas. And anyone who invokes the word “rights” in a positive light instantly reveals themselves to be either a devilish manipulator or a victim of manipulation.

  225. “That is advice intended to keep slaves submissive to their masters. I reject it.”

    “Guns are intended to keep slaves submissive to their masters. I reject them.”

    1. >“Guns are intended to keep slaves submissive to their masters. I reject them.”

      False analogy. Slavery becomes more difficult in a world of gunpowder weapons, not less.

      Here’s why. Without gunpowder weapons, there is a very large difference between the combat capability of the warrior who trains full-time and the civilian. This means politics is relatively easily dominated by specialists in violence. From this you get vertically-organized societies dominated by slave-holders and serf-masters.

      Firearms are the great equalizer. Yes, more training can make you more lethal with them, but the effectiveness per hours invested curve is much shallower. Full-time warriors can no longer count on being able to near-effortlessly dominate civilians and irregulars on the battlefield. Slaves become the near-equals of their masters in killing power.

      It is not a coincidence that the abolition of slavery in the West effectively coincided with the replacement of swords by guns.

  226. @Adriano
    “Guns are intended to keep slaves submissive to their masters. I reject them.”

    The Mamluks were slave soldiers. That is, they were armed slaves, used to oppress other subjects. If you think this would be an insane plan, you are not alone.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk

  227. http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software

    “Unfortunately, our society has set girls up to be anything but technologists. My son is in elementary school. Last year, his school offered a robotics class for girls only. When my son asked why he couldn’t join, it was explained to him that girls need special help to become interested in technology, and that if there are boys around, the girls will be too scared to try.

    My son came home very confused. You see, he grew up with a mom who coded while she breastfed and brought him to his first LUG meeting at age seven weeks. The first time he saw a home-built robot, it was shown to him by a local hackerspace member, a woman who happens to administer one of the country’s biggest supercomputers. Why was his school acting like girls were dumb?

    Thanks so much, modern-day “feminism”, for putting very unfeminist ideas in my son’s head.”

    This is one of the unfortunate consequences of creating privilege in an attempt to reverse oppression.

  228. FWIW, and I hate to own up to this, but I think there is actually a small degree to which STEMS preferences is genetic. Women tend to be much more sociable than men, and STEMS pursuits have a far larger amount of alone time as a general rule so is less appealing to their natural tendencies.

    For sure it is intimidating for a young girl to get involved with all the boys who use their passive aggressive fear of girls to push them away. But I think there is a solid genetic reason why when women do go into technology they tend to end up in the more social aspects of it like HCI, testing, and management.

    Of course I think it is just a tendency and not a huge one, that certainly doesn’t explain the large disparity.

  229. Eric, the connection between the short training period needed for guns vs. the long period needed for muscle-powered weapons and the abolition of slavery isn’t obvious to me.

    Flintlocks came into common use about 200 years before the abolition of slavery in the US. (I’m trusting wikipedia.)

    Slavery was abolished in much of the British Empire in 1833, the process was completed in 1843, and it happened because the government had sufficient dominance to do it without war.

    So far as I know, the only successful slave revolt was in Haiti.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

    I didn’t know there were independent (and much earlier) efforts (some fairly successful) at eliminating slavery in Asia.

    1. >Flintlocks came into common use about 200 years before the abolition of slavery in the US. (I’m trusting wikipedia.)

      That is correct. But for all but the last two decades of that period, firearms were not yet all-weather weapons; that required mass production of percussion caps. Until then they could not finally displace the aristocratic sword. Tellingly, that transition took place during the same decade (1833-1843) during which slavery was abolished in the British Empire.

      >it happened because the government had sufficient dominance to do it without war.

      That theory fails to explain the international wave of abolitions in the early 1800s.

  230. @Duncan Bayne:

    > This is one of the unfortunate consequences of creating privilege in an attempt to reverse oppression.

    I very much second that. IMHO this example also shows, politics is always lagging behind. When I grew up some day my father came up to me and asked if I had a problem my mother wanted to go working again. I was very surprised, why shouldn’t she? But even a generation later politicians act as if they had to fight for womens rights like 200 years ago.

    @Jessica Boxer: So when you think there actually is such a difference, so why do you want to *force* girls in and boys out?

  231. … and Duncan, i was pondering about your statement “I was just making the point that there are different *types* of aggression, which are useful in different circumstances, so it’s helpful to define terms.”

    Do you really think it’s different types of aggression or wouldn’t a different wording like “men are more combative” better describe what is meant?

  232. @Manfred Wassmann
    >So when you think there actually is such a difference, so why do you want to *force* girls in and boys out?

    Citation?

  233. And FWIW, I think there is a good reason to provide protected spaces for people who want to get outside of the social strictures to allow broad education. That includes, for example, providing girls a place to learn STEMS without having to suffer the misogyny that seems to come automatically with puberty, and similarly for boys who want to, for example, learn ballet, I think it is a good to provide them with a protected space where they don’t have to suffer under the homophobia and prejudices that also seem to come with puberty.

    That this is provided by governments is one of the many ugly consequences of government control over the school system. Were the schools privatized I think many parents would continue to want to provide these protected spaces in that private setting, and I think they would be wise to do so.

  234. @Jessica Boxer:
    > Women tend to be much more sociable than men, and STEMS pursuits have a far larger amount of alone time as a general rule so is less appealing to their natural tendencies.

    1. >There was certainly an ideological shift against slavery, but I don’t see what difference the increasing usefulness of guns had to do with it.

      Wow. You should read more history! What I’m talking about is commonplace to any student of military and technological history.

      Abolition was part of a very large general trend given by gunpowder weapons and the printing press. The old aristocratic order had been founded on the existence of a class of specialist warriors who could dominate the battlefield by dint of full-time training in weapons systems too expensive to be deployed by civilians (in this period, heavy shock cavalry). What displaced it was, eventually, civil mass armies and civilian militias using firearms. The key difference was that a firearm-equipped part-time soldier or even civilian approached and then surpassed combat power parity with a full time shock cavalry or shock infantry fighter using contact weapons.

      You can see this technological shift beginning to get real traction during the Wars of Religion after 1520. The English use of longbows to break the French chivalry at Agincourt a century earlier was prefatory. The grand story of politics over the whole period 1520-1781 was the democratization of warfare driving the democratization of politics. Serfdom and slavery could not survive this trend.

  235. Oh, and I should have said — how do I reconcile the “protected spaces” comment, with the “genetic proclivity” comment? Because individuals are not averages, something that our government school system is terrible at recognizing.

  236. @Jessica Boxer:
    > the misogyny that seems to come automatically with puberty

    Where do you get that from? Or is it only the feminist eye which can see it? Couldn’t it be just some behavior related to puberty (and which BTW is also shown by girls)?

    And WRT protected spaces. The protection is only effective inside the protected spaces. If you don’t want to keep girls confined into that spaces, your protection will be more or less futile. Wouldn’t it be much more efficient to train people to cope with things which are inevitable in life? That is being confronted with insults and humiliation?

  237. @Jessica

    For sure it is intimidating for a young girl to get involved with all the boys who use their passive aggressive fear of girls to push them away

    Typical fem-centric framing. It’s the boys’ passive aggressive “fear'” (what?), not the girl’s hypersensitivity to social approval. As is typical, boys get blamed for girls’ weaknesses, and it is framed in such a way as to shame them using the same sort of gender-coded language feminists are so against. I’ve taught highschool kids programming, and the girls are simply allergic to doing anything where they might be seen to make a mistake. Meanwhile the boys are tromping ahead (many of them having started programming already at home on their own initiative) regardless of whether or not they know what they’re doing, so much so that you have to reign some of them in. You can reassure them, you can surreptitiously assign female tutors to them, but in the end it makes no difference because you simply dealing with weaklings from the start. And by making the world safer for them you just turn them into bigger weaklings.

    It’s also a most unjust rewriting of history to pretend that what has happened here is that nasty boys have kept women out of STEM. In fact, socially-adjusted people (and women are the most socially-adjusted people) generally steered clear of STEM of their own volition because it entailed large social costs. And now the people who bore those costs for one reason or another (passion, lack of social acuity, individualistic attitude etc) now get the blame when the vast rabble of johnny-come-lately’s scrambling for their “rights” and “equality” don’t feel comfortable with the STEM experience.

  238. @esr,

    I was going to mention the longbow thing. I’ve heard from several historians (implied for “… whose names I can’t be bothered researching right now”) that English feudalism was … gentler … than the French because of the longbowmen. That is, the aristocracy had come to depend upon a very well armed peasantry, who could conceivably slaughter the lot of them if push came to shove.

    This is IMO one of the reasons to have a very small standing army, and an armed citizenry. Keeps the Government honest.

  239. > I’ve taught highschool kids programming,

    Just the boys, or did you bother teaching the weaklings too?

    On a serious note, had it ever occurred to you that attitudes like yours might have something to do with a perceived sensitivity to failure amongst women and girls?

  240. Good god some of you guys are so fucking hyper sensitive about these things.

    It is a plain fact that the normal social dynamics are that males and females separate around puberty, and are very unsure of people of the other sex. Girls are awkward about it in a very different way than boys, and have their own challenges. However, when a girl is going into a group almost entirely composed of boys it is the boys’ fear of girls that dominates the interaction, simply because she is greatly outnumbered and there are a lot more of them and boys tend to dominate in male female interactions anyway.

    I was a cheerleader in high school, and we had some males on the squad. It was equally difficult for them to become part of the group, though I suspect the latter part made it easier than it is for girls in the reverse situation.

    So it is indeed one of the challenges for girls trying to get into STEMS. Nonetheless, that was entirely peripheral to my point which is that the social nature of girls makes them less attracted to it intrisically, regardless of any extrinsic factors. Something with which Roger and I apparent agree, and he might have seen so had he not been sitting on a hair trigger of hyper sensitivity about the supposed oppressive effects of my, apparently, radical feminism on society.

    Manfred is telling me that I claimed the girls should be forced into STEMS and boys kicked out, when I have never said anything even vaguely resembling that. I think everyone should be given opportunities to do the things they want educationally, and the education system should be designed, using market forces, to provide these opportunities in a way that suits the strengths and weaknesses of the participants. Whether those strengths and weaknesses come from gender, genetics, memetics or preferences.

    Frankly, I agree that the radicalization of feminism is a bad thing, as is the radicalization of pretty much any point of view. But what I see here is an equally radicalized view of the MRA, and its radicalization is equally bad and counter productive. Radicalization ghettoizes thought, and I don’t find it helpful at all.

    “Typical fem-centric framing” my ass.

  241. @Bayne

    Just the boys, or did you bother teaching the weaklings too?

    The standard behavior of a loser is to paint his loser attitudes onto other people. When I step into a classroom I am there to teach, not to worry about who is weak or strong. I will happily sit with an imbecile for hours explaining the same thing many different ways until he gets it. And I have been thanked many times by said imbeciles for doing so because I have an unwavering patience with them. And when I am discussing some matter or another away from students I am equally unwavering in my pursuit of the truth, which is why I am capable of thinking and while you spin your wheels with endless idiocies (like this reply).

    On a serious note, had it ever occurred to you that attitudes like yours might have something to do with a perceived sensitivity to failure amongst women and girls?

    Hello, slave morality.

  242. @Jessica

    However, when a girl is going into a group almost entirely composed of boys it is the boys’ fear of girls that dominates the interaction, simply because she is greatly outnumbered and there are a lot more of them and boys tend to dominate in male female interactions anyway.

    Again, no reasoning or response to the content of my post, just a repetition of the frame and a repetition of the same emotion-laden shaming language. Boys may be nervous around girls, but if anyone is *afraid* it is the stupid little girl who is too dumb to try things because she’s worried what people will think. The “hypersensitive”, “passive-aggressive” one is *you* extending a tactical agreement regarding “radicalization” while I condemn the entire feminist movement as losers and degenerates.

    Something with which Roger and I apparent agree, and he might have seen so had he not been sitting on a hair trigger of hyper sensitivity about the supposed oppressive effects of my, apparently, radical feminism on society.

    As usual just inventing things that you would prefer that I said because you have nothing to say about what I actually said. “Oppression” is a word belonging to losers and used for loser purposes, not me, and the fact that you *imagine* me using it on your own initiative shows that you are not past the level of comprehension where you merely project your own thoughts and behaviors onto me. Your feminism is not “radical”, and it would be much better for everybody if it was. It is the much more effective, insidious kind. And what a cute little idea, that I should halt my attack simply because we happen to agree on some material facts, when the attack didn’t relate to the bare facts at all.

  243. I think the feminist movement goes astray when it strives for de facto male equivalence under the guise of pursuing equality of opportunity. If our species is to survive, we need the sexes to continue to be attracted to each other. A strong smart STEMs female is very attractive (see for example Marilyn vos Savant). However, women blithely going to war against men is neither attractive nor beneficial to either party.

  244. @Roger Philips
    ““Oppression” is a word belonging to losers and used for loser purposes, not me,…”

    I see a lot of talk about “weaklings” and “losers”. But I cannot really find out when you (or I) are supposed to be such a “weakling” and/or “loser”.

    Can anyone enlighten me about these categories?

  245. @Eric:
    > Firearms are the great equalizer. Yes, more training can make you more lethal with them, but the effectiveness per hours invested curve is much shallower.

    This is something that I’ve been curious about for a long time – although I personally am unlikely to ever get the chance to put it into practice – but I’m wondering whether you have ever considered writing an artice on getting started with defensive firearms today. In particular, how long and what sort of training would be needed for a reasonably intelligent person with no previous weapons experience to get to the stage of being able to carry in public, without being more of a danger to themselves or innocent people than bad guys. Obviously this will vary with the individual, but there must be at least a minimum amount needed.

    1. >In particular, how long and what sort of training would be needed for a reasonably intelligent person with no previous weapons experience to get to the stage of being able to carry in public, without being more of a danger to themselves or innocent people than bad guys.

      A reasonably intelligent person can:

      1) Learn basic safety, enough to prevent unintended injuries, in ten minutes.

      2) Learn basic shooting in three hours of practice under a competent instructor.

      3) Maintain competence with an hour of shooting per month.

      It actually takes more time and effort to learn the legal restrictions on defensive use of firearms in your jurisdiction than it does to acquire foundational skills.

  246. James, there are four rules that , if you follow them religiously, will allow you to carry as safely as any trained expert pistolero:

    All guns are always loaded!
    Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy!
    Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target!
    Always be sure of your target!

    Every firearms accident results from a violation of one or more of these rules.

    From there, firearms safety is just a matter of internalizing these rules and knowing what to do to apply them. (For example: someone hands you a pistol. Under rule 1, it’s loaded, even if you’ve watched him unload it, so you check that it’s unloaded yourself.)

    Learning to shoot acceptably for defensive purposes isn’t hard. As Eric says, you can learn the basics in a few hours. If you’re coming to Penguicon, make time for Geeks with Guns. That’s one of that event’s primary purposes.

    The legalities? Those will keep you up at night. The concealed handgun carry classes I’m aware of are all about 8 hours in the classroom – and nearly all of it is about the law. The reality of carrying a handgun for defense is that using it is the last thing you want to do, and if you have to use it, your life will never, ever be the same, legally, financially, or psychologically. Every hand will be turned against you. That means that the only time to use it is if the alternative is worse: death of severe bodily injury to you or a loved one.

    Scary? It had damned well better be. It’s a serious responsibility, one you should assume only if you are prepared for it.

    1. >(For example: someone hands you a pistol. Under rule 1, it’s loaded, even if you’ve watched him unload it, so you check that it’s unloaded yourself.)

      It is worth noting that elite military units teach a different set of rules under which you are allowed to consider a weapon safe if you have just seen it cleared. I learned them from an instructor who was ex-SOCOM. See my next blog post for the story.

      (Yes, Jay, it’s who you think it was. At his request I don’t mention his name and SOCOM at the same time.)

  247. >Never underestimate the transcendent power of Not Giving A Shit – not being attached to a “good” outcome in any one instance leads to good outcomes in aggregate because it looks like … confidence.

    Just came across this, and felt I needed to repeat it. I may even steal it to use elsewhere, if that’s OK.

    There’s a reason the girls who find you most attractive are the ones you aren’t really attracted to. Because to those girls, you *are* more attractive. You’ve all heard the common advice “just be yourself”? Well the silent ending to that phrase is “and don’t give a shit”.

    It will serve you well *everywhere*, from dating, to job interviews (you’ll be more relaxed so will be able to better focus and display your technical skills, and you’ll come across as having a better personality and being more desirable to actually *work with*, which is an important differentiator) and everywhere else.

  248. @Duncan: had it ever occurred to you that the slightly concealed sexism in posts like Jessica’s might have anything to do with attitudes you perceive in Roger’s statements?

    @Jessica: There seems to be method in it your misunderstanding people. I did not claim “girls should be forced int STEMS” I claimed girls *are* forced in while boys *are* forced out. And what is the difference between forcing people into the traditional role model and forcing them into the feminist role model – except for the different ideology of course?
    And, Roger already asked it but you simply ignored the question and repeated:

    > However, when a girl is going into a group almost entirely composed of boys it is the
    > boys’ fear of girls that dominates the interaction, simply because she is greatly outnumbered”

    So where is the logic in *boys* having *fear* because the *girl* is outnumbered? Isn’t this just a provocation which targets the classical male role model by suggesting boys to have fear? I think the behavior you refer to here is much better described as a desire to impose on the boys side. And, yes, I’ve been active in a female dominated area and that was one of the experiences which significantly changed my perspective on the female part of society. Women and girls are no less sexist than men, if anything a little more subtly sexist.

    @TomA:
    > If our species is to survive, we need the sexes to continue to be attracted to each other.

    Only from a male point of view, women just need a sperm donor, for men it’s more difficult.

  249. @TomA
    > If our species is to survive, we need the sexes to continue to be attracted to each other.

    I agree with that Tom. And I assure you those whiny “it’s not fair”, “the girls are being mean to us” MRA guys are extremely NOT attractive. It reminds me of the archetype of these guys Raymond Barone from “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Living a life that someone else — his wife or mother — created for him. Except when he guiltily sneaks out to play golf or watch the game with his buddies, only to return with his tail between his legs to the wrath of the women in his life. Begging his wife for sex like a pathetic puppy… I hate that shit. I mean grow a set of balls.

    The thing I think is funny is how much the extreme MRA guys resemble the extreme rad fem gals. So strident, so earnest, so assured that they are so right and have been so wronged. So very “if you don’t agree with me you aren’t just wrong, you are evil.” That isn’t to say that I don’t think that the men’s movement doesn’t have some legitimate issues, just as i think the feminist movement has some legitimate points. But the advocates are so ugly that I just am not all that interested to hear about it. To me both groups exhibit that classic symptoms of the religious cult.

    BTW, responding to your comment, let me make it clear that I am not thinking about you in that regard Tom. You seem like a pretty solid, ballsy guy to me, though I will say I am still waiting for that bison you promised me. ;-)

  250. @Manfred
    > And what is the difference between forcing people into the traditional role model and forcing them into the feminist role model

    I’m not advocating, nor have I ever advocated forcing people into anything. I think people should choose, and as I said, it is the responsibility of the education system to allow them good choices, and an effective means of learning the things they want to learn.

    > And, Roger already asked it but you simply ignored the question and repeated:

    Not sure what you are referring to. To be honest I tend to glaze over with Roger’s stuff. I find him extremely difficult to follow, and he is so hostile, grumpy and rude that it robs the joy of commenting here. But if you have a specific point I didn’t answer, please let me know.

    > So where is the logic in *boys* having *fear* because the *girl* is outnumbered?

    Both boys and girls have a fear of each other, fear of the unknown, fear of their own inadequacy, fear of failure to couple effectively. That fear manifests in some dysfunctional behavior toward the opposite sex. That dysfunction multiplied is the thing that makes it difficult for girls.

    > Only from a male point of view, women just need a sperm donor, for men it’s more difficult.

    Good point Manfred. Women can get by with the sperm from less that 0.1% of the current male population. Out little battery operated friends are vastly more orgasmogenic than any guy, and our girlfriends always remember to send us flowers on our birthday. Oh and since you let Rosy the Riveter build the Victory Ships, we girls can handle that stuff too.

    What are you guys bringing to the table?

    [For the humor impaired, hair trigger sensitivity MRAs out there – this last part is meant to be funny.]

  251. @Jessica
    “What are you guys bringing to the table?”

    I have no answer to that.

    I did ask women why they insisted on dating men when they seemed to expect fully female feelings and behavior. I did not get an answer. I did understood from many women that they would prefer gays, if they were available.

    I am unable to make sense of all this.

    1. >I am unable to make sense of all this.

      It makes perfect sense once you’ve grasped the basic insights of the PUAs. Womens’ optimal strategy is to present to potential husbands as though they want nurturing and kindness and will reciprocate with sexual fidelity, while in fact being willing to fuck random alphas at the drop of a hat. If they execute this successfully, they both corner providership and spread their bets by capturing genetic diversity for their offspring.

      The problem with this strategy is that it requires women to lie systematically to men who have every incentive to detect cheating. The resulting arms race has made women intrinsically two-faced, biologically programmed to deceive even themselves about what they want in mating partners in order to be able to deceive potential partners more effectively.

      (The PUAs have taught themselves how to exploit for their own sexual gain the disconnect between womens’ actual mating responses and what women incorrectly believe about themselves. Google for “rationalization hamster”.)

      Now drop a very bright, analytical neocortex on top of that, one that values honesty and doesn’t want to believe that the rest of its mind is a self-deception and mate-deception machine. What you get looks a lot like Jessica, and her contradictions. It’s not her fault that she’s like that; it’s built into wiring that is very difficult for her to be even aware of.

  252. @ Jessica

    Does not back down from a fight. Gives as good as she gets. Sees the whole battlefield. As fierce in love as war.

    Damn, I’m there.

  253. @esr
    Sounds all nice and logical. Still, the women in question are often alone and/or unhappy. So, the qiestion remains why intelligent women cannot align their strategies with their desires.

    It is as if young males would risk life and limp to impress some chick.

    Oh…. Ok.

  254. @esr
    > The resulting arms race has made women intrinsically two-faced, biologically programmed to deceive even themselves about what they want in mating partners in order to be able to deceive potential partners more effectively.

    I think that is disturbingly true, but it is also true the other way around. There are many guys who do the whole nice nurturing thing and actually believe that is what they want, when in truth all they want is to get laid. Self deception and dishonestly in relationships is far from a female only thing.

    But in answer to Winter’s original question, about being unable to make sense about it, really I think it is pretty simple — regardless of what they say women are attracted to manly men. It might not be fair, but it isn’t at all complicated.

    > What you get looks a lot like Jessica, and her contradictions.

    You’ll have to expand on that.

    1. >You’ll have to expand on that.

      I will, going forward. Sorry, I don’t have enough spare time to excavate your old comments.

    2. >Self deception and dishonestly in relationships is far from a female only thing.

      Indeed. However, the situation is not symmetrical because men and women have differences in what their most efficient forms of deception are. That is, how they make themselves most attractive in terms of the other sex’s metrics of good mating material, with the least risk of being shown up.

      For a man, the most efficient deception is to self-pretend to higher status than he actually possesses. Thus the arrogant asshole.

      For a woman, the most efficient deception is to self-pretend to be more fidelitous than she actually is. Thus, the rationalizing slut.

      Transposing these games wouldn’t work well.

  255. @esr @Jessica
    You get most of that already from studying nesting birds. That is not very surprising.

    But the original question was “What are you guys bringing to the table?”

    From all you arguments I assume it is only the smell of metabolized testosterone?

    Because all the rest can be better obtained from girl/gay friends and battery powered appliances. Even the nurturing can better be done by a girl-friend.

    1. >But the original question was “What are you guys bringing to the table?”

      For starters, masculine-male mates are a good hedge against civilized systems of protection going to shit. Doesn’t even take a collapse of civil order to show this; a power outage or extreme bad weather will do. Recently, in New York City, there’s been a streak of women getting murdered for their handbags. Some of the victims’ friends are asking “Why aren’t our men protecting us?” They might not like my actual answer if I gave it, but it’s a reasonable question for them to ask.

      As for nurturing, don’t be so sure men are dispensable. Lots of research shows that the single most effective predictor of criminal behavior in boys is fatherlessness. There is less strong but suggestive evidence that a healthy relationship with a father is predictive of a girl’s ability to form stable relationships with men as a woman. Thus, most of the “alternate family structures” beloved of social liberals do not in fact work if the goal is to get children properly raised and launched. Stable polymarriages with both male and female members might be an exception, though the sample is small.

  256. @esr, well yes of course, male and female strategies are going to be different given the way their bodies are, they have different roles in the process of genetic propagation.
    The point I was trying to make was that the implication of your earlier comment was that women were especially mendacious, especially self deceived, but I don’t think that is true. I think that is a people thing, not a woman thing.

    1. >The point I was trying to make was that the implication of your earlier comment was that women were especially mendacious, especially self deceived, but I don’t think that is true.

      The implication was intended. The structure of the game requires less other-deception and self-deception from men. Not none, but less. The psychology of both sexes has evolved to match their game-theoretic incentives.

      Here’s an index of the difference: men who promise more commitment than they will actually deliver usually know they’re lying. Women who promise more fidelity than they will deliver usually don’t. The entire structure of traditional sexual mores is built around this difference.

  257. @esr
    “Lots of research shows that the single most effective predictor of criminal behavior in boys is fatherlessness.”

    Over here, there are a number of gay/lesbian pairs that get children together (four parents). Are their boys less likely to become criminal than boys raised by two lesbians “alone”?

    Or is it simply the stress and poverty of single mothers that makes their sons more likely to stay from the correct path?

    1. >Are their boys less likely to become criminal than boys raised by two lesbians “alone”?

      Research in the U.S., and I think Great Britain as well, so indicates. It’s tricky, through, because you have to do principal-factor analysis on multiple variables including SES. The conclusion is no longer controversial among criminologists, though it remains so in sociology (which is more politically compromised).

  258. @esr
    I wonder about the number of “subjects” where they match boys growing up with 0-2 mothers and 0-2 fathers (9 combinations if you include full orphans).

    Given the low crime rates around here, there will be few criminal boys anyway. And most of the crime is in neighborhoods where gay/lesbian couple are not welcome.

    Sigh, I will have to read the original research.

  259. Defeating deception, on both sides of the fence, is both an imperative and worthwhile challenge. One of the casualties of the feminist movement is that the art of the chase has been corrupted by political correctness and meme perversion. Anything worth having is worth fighting for.

  260. @Jessica: How did I knew you were going to provide some sound feministic blurb in response to my question instead of a true answer? I did not ask you to write a poem about fear. I asked you to provide evidence of any logic in your sentence. And since you were not able to do so, I must conclude, you admit there is none.

    But it was a pleasure to see, that finally I got you to show your true face (towards the end of your post). For me this is the point to leave, Go when it’s best, a valuable saying goes, and I have some true friends waiting who really appreciate my attention – and deserve it – so go one whining about boys oppressing you and your like as well as about some imaginary kind of men, you apparently can’t stop phantasizing about. It was however inspiring to see that this whining seemingly is part of your mating behavior (and actually able to attract some men). Congratulations, have fun, I’m off.

  261. @esr
    > Here’s an index of the difference: men who promise more commitment than they will actually deliver usually know they’re lying.

    Hmmh, obivously men lie a lot about sex and relationships. But perhaps it is true that men lie about sex more, but do so less self deceptively, and women lie less about sex but do so more self deceptively. Or to put it another way, men lie to women more than women lie to men, but men lie to themselves less than women lie to themselves.

    However, I’m not sure how to really measure any of that beyond a general sense based on experience. So “less” and “more” are really rather subjective here.

  262. @Manfred Wassmann
    > I have some true friends waiting who really appreciate my attention – and deserve it

    OK, thanks for your thoughts on these matters. Enjoy your friends.

  263. @ Manfred Wassman – “Congratulations, have fun, I’m off.”

    Manfred, this is the second time in three days that you have signed off at A&D, and both times using the same smarmy send off at that. Not to put too fine a point on it, but picking on our fair Jessica on the way out the door is not exactly an example of German gentlemanly honor.

  264. @esr
    >>> “That is advice intended to keep slaves submissive to their masters. I reject it.”
    >> “Guns are intended to keep slaves submissive to their masters. I reject them.”
    > False analogy. Slavery becomes more difficult in a world of gunpowder weapons, not less.

    What I was driving at was that people can find use for both guns and those words of Jesus (or Dawkins, or Buddha, or what have you -I’m an atheist-). Maybe I could have phrased it better. Your dismissal seemed a bit facile. I find that the particular behavior pointed in “offer the other cheek” is sometimes much better than mockery.

    1. >I find that the particular behavior pointed in “offer the other cheek” is sometimes much better than mockery.

      I don’t. It gives a license to aggressors to continue their aggression.

      In the particular case that started this thread, I believe that if we do not push back against “social-justice” bullies who want to politicize every personal decision, we will soon find we have no privacy or liberty left.

      Nothing tempts me to love racists and sexists like the “anti-racists” and “anti-sexists”.

  265. @esr
    > I don’t. It gives a license to aggressors to continue their aggression.
    I never took “offer the other cheek” to mean “love thy neighbor”. I was thinking more of “subvert thy neighbor’s expectations and enlighten him”. Maybe it doesn’t always work. Maybe it’s difficult to pull off. Still, I don’t see many results with mockery either, so…

    > Nothing tempts me to love racists and sexists like the “anti-racists” and “anti-sexists”.
    I understand. When I find myself appalled by the Left I come to this blog, where I am constantly reminded that people on the Right and elsewhere aren’t that hot either. My opinion, of course.

  266. @esr

    Nothing tempts me to love racists and sexists like the “anti-racists” and “anti-sexists”.

    All “egalitarian” ideologies are hypocritical. Nobody wants “equality” (except maybe a handful of stupid people). The whole point of a civilization with rules is to penalize certain kinds of people and reward others. What is *always* being pushed by egalitarians is a new program of discrimination that benefits the person pushing it (often indirectly). The is no principle, except the principle of appropriating whatever principle is convenient at any given instant. That is why people have to talk incoherent gibberish about “equality” – because it sounds principled and agreeable to all while have a very slippery meaning.

  267. Jessica Boxer –

    Erbo brought up some valid concerns, regarding women at social gatherings, Cons in particular, over-reacting to social stimuli, and causing a great deal of trouble for innocent men.

    You casually brushed aside his concerns with a large amount of ‘That doesn’t happen’ hand-waving.

    To which I say two words.
    “Adria Richards”

    She was brought up before, but only in passing. A woman who, by any external yardstick blew up two mens lives for what looks like ‘personal amusement’. That, or ‘fucking crazy’.

    And please, don’t insult my intelligence by saying she didn’t know what was going to happen.

    Now, here’s the part you don’t see. Richards isn’t an outlier. She’s the norm. Any male in an office environment that has to regularly interact with females has to watch everything they say, everywhere they look, everything they do.

    I used to work as a security guard. I lost my job because I ‘sexually harassed’ a woman. My crime? I said ‘good morning’ and made eye contact. That’s it. Her claim? I was staring at her tits. The kicker? I’m male, and -gay-… Let that sink in for a second.

    Said good morning, made eye contact, got fired for sexual harassment. Sexual harassment of a woman…by a gay man.

    So yes, Erbo’s concerns about getting jacked up at a con are pretty justified. Being rousted because some Entitlement Princess feels that we’re breathing -her- air the wrong way is not only a reasonable concern, it -happens-.

    For added irony points, you mock him, and tell him to ‘man up’.. I mean, he really had it coming, dressed like that, coming around here, right?

  268. @M. House
    You give an example of some terrible injustice, and my reaction is — that sucks, how terrible. Then you assert that this is not just common but typical, and my reaction is that you offer no evidence in support of that at all. I work in an office and have many male friends who would not agree with you at all.

    I could also point out that I know many women who actually are sexually harassed, and, for one reason or another, feel powerless to fix the problem. They either put up with it, or leave and get another job.

    But if you want to make some generalized statement about average behavior you need to offer some serious statistical evidence, as would I, rather than a couple of hand waving examples.

    > is not only a reasonable concern, it -happens-.

    It certainly does happen. The world is full of bad things happening. But to say it happens is very different than saying it is a common, statistically significant problem. I have been in the workforce for a while now and I work in an environment where I mainly work with men, but there are lots of young beautiful women in the office too. In an environment like that that you would think rife with such dreadful things, I have never, not even one single time, seen someone dismissed for sexual harassment (though I have known of several cases of actual harassment.) My conclusion is that it probably isn’t all that common, but I am open to seeing serious data to dissuade me of that position.

    > For added irony points, you mock him, and tell him to ‘man up’.. I mean, he really had it coming, dressed like that, coming around here, right?

    No, I was giving him serious advice on how to improve his life. I was telling him to put phantom concerns behind him and take responsibility for his life and results. In truth, I was offering a counterpoint, an antidote, to the misleading meme you are trying to propagate here.

    I suggest you find a way to heal the hurt that evidently has been dealt to you in the case you mention, and find a way to take my advice too. Life is short. You only get one shot. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero, as the old dudes used to say, or YOLO as the kids say now.

    1. >t certainly does happen. The world is full of bad things happening. But to say it happens is very different than saying it is a common, statistically significant problem.

      When men say things like this, feminists call it “denial”.

      I expected better from you, Jessica.

  269. When the feministas champion the causes of men wrongly hurt by sexual harassment, then I’ll take them seriously. Not before. The difference is between demanding others’ privilege being replaced by their own, and demanding that people truly are treated fairly.

  270. @esr
    > I expected better from you, Jessica.

    You know there is a pretty common phenomenon I have observed. It occurs with 24/7 news channels that spend sixteen weeks covering Caylee Anthony, or OJ SImpson or whoever. Where the most shocking, terrible things are broadcast non stop and discussed endlessly at the water cooler.

    This situation causes people to mistake the outrageous outlier for the commonplace event. It is why we have the TSA and why people aren’t outraged at the NSA snooping on your phone. And it is why people who actually care about what is happening demand statistics, per capita rates, actual measurable frequency, rather than reality TV.

    If you have quality data to share I’d love to see it. Per capita, what is the likelihood of the average male getting fired for an entirely unjustified sexual harassment claim? Or even a contested one? And on the flip side, how many young women actually are subject to pretty serious sexual harassment?

    Let 10 guilty men go free lest 1 innocent suffer punishment. But what about 100 guilty, or 10,000? At some point you have to recognize that the criminal justice system is a blunt instrument and you either don’t prosecute anyone for crimes, guaranteeing no innocents will be punished, or you have to recognize you will get a few unfortunate false positives. And that is even more so when we are talking about employment tribunals where someone’s liberty is not at risk.

    It sucks when someone looses their job due to some flaky person, and in response to Jay, I will absolutely defend such a man, but it also sucks when some young girl is pressured into sex by some old creeper who has an inordinate amount of power over her, or when she loses her job when she says no.

    You might say that doesn’t happen, but it does. I personally know of several cases where it did, and, as I said, I know of no cases personally where guys have been dismissed for harassment — never mind unjustly dismissed. But my anecdotal data is no more useful for extrapolation than Ms. Richards’

    In the particular case of that psycho bitch, in truth the most horrifying player is the guy’s employer. Why they didn’t have the balls to stand up to the psycho bitch is beyond me. They had absolutely no liability risk there at all. However, the whole dependency model of employment is an ugly one to start with. No- one owes you a job. It is a trade of labor for money with free right to exit bilaterally. All the other crap that is laid on top of employment is nonsense. What happened to the guy isn’t fair, but life isn’t fair.

    And if you doubt this, if you have that soft “my employer owes me” view of life, you need to review this:

    http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/

    1. >Why they didn’t have the balls to stand up to the psycho bitch is beyond me. They had absolutely no liability risk there at all.

      I can’t believe you’re that naive. There’s an entire grievance industry that specializes in suing companies on (often trumped-up) EEOC complaints. It’s a form of legalized blackmail; employers have a strong incentive to settle, handing money to the plaintiffs and their lawyers, because they know that even winning can be disastrous – the legal expenses and the bad PR can sink you.

      Employers know this. They often don’t dare “stand up” to the psycho bitch, or the incompetent affirmative-action hire, because they know that if they do they’re likely to wind up crucified. The fear is especially severe at small businesses. They know that anti-discrimination law has been constructed to make defense very difficult and correspondingly expensive. That psycho bitch has a figurative large-caliber weapon jammed against the firm’s forehead.

      Large firms scarcely have it better. They have more money for lawyers, but they’re also more tempting targets for a shakedown – cue the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton showing up on your doorstep with a rent-a-mob, and the national media salivating right behind them.

  271. One other thing on this matter. As you probably know the response the Aria Richards’ action was a mass of hate mail to her. Threatening rape, murder or demanding she kill her self. Not nice at all. What she did is horrible, but hardly worthy of punishment by rape and murder.

    I would never dare extrapolate the dreadful behavior of the people who made those threats or sent that mail to say that that is anything but an outlier of the crazy loons in the MRA, or that that somehow diminishes the MRA’s legitimate complaints. Tu quoque, for sure.

    So let’s give the other side the same treatment, and not think that Ms. Richards’ behavior is anything but a crazy outlier.

    One of the other things I think is odd about this whole situation is that only one of the guys was let go by his employer. I have not heard anyone explain why, here is what CBS News said about it…

    The company did not release the name of the fired employee, but said a second man in the photo “is still with the company and a valued employee.

    Me? I think that is odd. AFAIK, both guys were discussing their dongles :-)

    (And FWIW, I think I’d have liked to hear the conversation, it sounds kind of fun, being as I am a fan of inserting dongles into USB ports, assuming both hardware and software compatibility….)

  272. @M. House:

    It sucks that you were let go for that. While I don’t know the details of your particular situation, I will say that (a) security guards are typically viewed as reasonably fungible, and (b) at least around here, most security guards are not directly hired by the company they are working for, but are hired by a security company, which is itself viewed by the hiring company as a fungible resource, and which therefore will do just about anything to keep its contracts. You put those two things together, and, at least in a right-to-work state, the employment of a capable, conscientious security guard is a much more fragile thing than the employment of a capable, conscientious software developer, which is why Jessica’s (and my) experiences are completely different than yours.

    @Jessica:

    I agree with pretty much all of what you say here.

    @esr:

    Naturally, there’s a certain amount of hysteresis in the legal system, and in the average person’s reaction to the legal system, but I have to say that in my experience, things are much better than they were a couple of decades ago. Courts are better about reasoning about harassment, defense lawyers know how to say the right things to juries now, plaintiff lawyers no longer see an automatic jackpot, so they are more selective about the cases they take, companies are better about sanely quantifying and responding to risks, and at least in the workplaces where I have been recently (M. House’s experiences notwithstanding), employees are no longer scared of even fairly risque banter. I haven’t personally been to any sort of “harassment training” in a decade and a half.

    It’s the same sort of inoculation effect we see in all sorts of other areas: hijackers won’t easily be able to fly jetliners into big structures; Sharpton won’t be able to easily make hay out of the next Tawana Brawley; and companies now use GPLed applications without fear from taking Stallman seriously about how that’s going to give all their other software cooties.

  273. @ Jessica –

    You seem to be an extremely intelligent human. I honestly believe you’re making a mistake here. Hear me out for a moment, and assume (purely for the sake of the discussion) that I’m telling the complete, unvarnished truth.

    Woman have the upper hand at this point in American history. They control the Home, in that they can have a man removed, arrested, prosecuted, and jailed, purely on the strength of their word. No actual evidence is required. No, this is not the ‘outlier’. Go down to family court, and spend a day. Watch how many males get jacked up without hard evidence.

    Women control the workspace. They get preferential treatment in hiring, promotion, extra benefits and services. They can have a man fired, and his career ruined, simply on the strength of their word. No actual evidence, witnesses, or anything other than ‘he hurt my feelings’. There are entire governmental agencies and corporate departments devoted to enforcing this.

    Women also control the social space. At conventions, woman can have a man ejected, barred, arrested… just on the strength of an accusation. The reverse is -not- true. If I claimed that the really hideous creeper female over there touched my genitals and refused to leave me alone. I would not be taken seriously. At -best- I’m going to get laughed at. No action will be taken against the woman, without photographic evidence or witnesses. And even then, actual expulsion will be unlikely.

    Women -do- have this power. Nor is there any question as to whether or not they abuse it Any group of humans with access to this kind of power will have people who abuse it.

    So we have two groups. The star-bellied sneeches can have the regular sneeches jacked up purely on their accusation, no proof required. the SBS have ‘Star-belly only places’ and ‘star belly safety zones’ and the plain-bellied sneechs are required to go to re-education programs to understand how hateful and horrible they are.

    Just as a thought experiment? go through this argument, and replace ‘woman’ with ‘white person’, and ‘man’ with ‘black person’. Or simply swap the genders. Doesn’t looks so good, does it?

    It’s never fun to listen when people tell you ugly things about your ‘tribe’. I sympathize. The urge to deny, downplay, diffuse, is very strong. Nobody wants to be the bad guy, or ‘one of the bad guys’. I get that.

    But ponder this. If there’s nothing wrong with the system, and nothing wrong with American women’s current behavior as a group, where the -hell- did all these PUA/MRA/’Manosphere/’Red Pill’ people come from? There seems to be an awful lot of them, and large scale reactions like that are well, -reactions-. As in reacting to some outside stimulus. What caused them to happen?

    For me, there is a very real problem here. On the one hand I’d like to keep the gains we’ve achieved as a culture in regards to gender equality. On the other hand, I think unchecked power to ruin another human’s life merely on an accusation without proof, with -zero- consequences for lying/abuse of power is a Really Bad Thing, and will have a Bad Ending. Yes, with capital letters, because it will be extremely bad. Pendulum swings and all of that.

    The question is, -how do we fix it?-.

    and before you say ‘there isn’t a problem’… let me suggest two things to you.

    1. There isn’t a problem -that you can see-.

    2. If a large number of people within your social space are saying “You are wrong.” It’s time to stop and seriously consider their input.

    Anyhow, I hope you’re having a good morning.

  274. Patrick Maupin on 2014-02-12 at 11:37:35 said:

    @M. House:

    It sucks that you were let go for that. While I don’t know the details of your particular situation, I will say that (a) security guards are typically viewed as reasonably fungible, and (b) at least around here, most security guards are not directly hired by the company they are working for, but are hired by a security company, which is itself viewed by the hiring company as a fungible resource, and which therefore will do just about anything to keep its contracts. You put those two things together, and, at least in a right-to-work state, the employment of a capable, conscientious security guard is a much more fragile thing than the employment of a capable, conscientious software developer, which is why Jessica’s (and my) experiences are completely different than yours.

    ———————————————————————————————

    It’s ok, because I’m not as important as you and Jessica.

    That’s actually a true statement. As a rent-a-goon, I’m not as important. And IT professionals enjoy a much larger shield from the normal ‘HR/EEOC/Corporate Bullshit’ than most people. You get special treatment. Largely because you’re rare, and talented. No, I’m not being nasty, or sarcastic. Scarcity rules apply. Good security guards are plentiful. Good programmers are not. Also, ‘everybody knows’ that IT people are weird, and socially akward, so exceptions are made.

    But -outside- the IT bubble is a very different world. If you have an easily replaceable specialty, you had -best- watch your behavior.

  275. We’re missing the forest because of the trees.

    Yes, there are numerous examples of injustice in life (not going away anytime soon BTW). And a great many are due to cultural rot and broken social/political/legal mechanisms. Whether its runaway feminism or runaway unionism (as referenced by Jay Maynard in another post), lots of trends are taking us in the wrong direction and dividing us into warring parties. When that happens, we all lose.

    In the above example, House lost a job and income, the company lost a needed employee, and (presuming wrongfulness by the harassment victim) the women-in-question is likely doomed to lonely life at war with men. At the root of it is sinister memetic conditioning in which group imperative triumphs over individual initiative. I hate to break it to you, but we are losing these battles all over the social spectrum.

    Most of the folks here are strong, intelligent individualists. We may well be the last bastion. Let us not eat our own.

  276. @M. House:

    > It’s ok, because I’m not as important as you and Jessica.

    If you add the qualifier “to an employer” then I could view that as a valid interpretation of what I wrote.

  277. @Patrick Maupin

    If you add the qualifier “to an employer” then I could view that as a valid interpretation of what I wrote.
    ——————————————————————————-

    “to an employer” is implied. My apologies, I should have specified.

  278. “Most of the folks here are strong, intelligent individualists.”

    I’m not!

    (sorry, this opportunity was to good to let go ;-) l

  279. @esr
    > I can’t believe you’re that naive.

    Extreme naivete is always possibility for me, being as I try to be Pollyanna on happy pills. However, I think it is your cynicism that is excessive here.

    > There’s an entire grievance industry that specializes in suing companies

    There is, for sure, however, this is hardly an ideal target, It isn’t even obvious who would sue who. Maybe the conference might be concerned about a hostile environment, but this lady had absolutely no relationship to these guys, so she has no standing. Now of course you can threaten to sue someone with absolutely no basis, I can sue you for being mean to me on this blog, for example. It’d suck for you, and maybe you’d be better to give me $10,000 to go away. But there is nothing special about that with regards to EEOC complaints. People sue Burger King for finding fingers they planted in their chilli too, or serving their coffee too hot,

    There are bad actors in the world. We have to just deal with them, and sometimes people get caught in the cross fire. This isn’t a discussion about that., It is a discussion about an imagined great conspiracy of women taking men to the cleaners. Of course it happens. Men do mean things to women too. But that doesn’t change the fact it is a gross outlier, and it certainly doesn’t change the fact that aside form the common courtesy everyone owes everyone, that men should change their behavior, or be excessively worried about psycho bitches.

    Every time you get in your car you put yourself at risk of death. But that small risk should not mean you don’t drive anyway. Life is always a trade off. Bad actors happen on the road. People get drunk and drive the wrong way down the highway. It sucks, but it happens, and it is a lot better to take the risk than to require everyone to have a red flag guy walk in front of him, or to put 10mph speed limiters on all engines. And I can quantify that. 30,000 road traffic deaths a year. Carnage. But the trade off is worth it.

    Good god, apparently Erbo has given up on a basic biological need — to find a girl and date her — based on this outrageously unlikely possibility. People on this blog who are bouying up that fear are doing him no favor by doing so.

    And I’d ask the obvious question — why did they cut one guy and not both? Both would be equally toxic (which is to say not very toxic at all) in any suit.

    Which is to say, I think there is more to this story than meets the eye.

  280. @Jessica

    It’s not ‘unlikely’. And it’s not ‘rare’. It’s also not a ‘conspiracy’.

    But you’re going to ignore anything that challenges your world view, so there’s no point in attempting to engage you further.

    May Fortune smile upon you in your future endeavours.

  281. @Jessica:

    And I’d ask the obvious question — why did they cut one guy and not both? Both would be equally toxic (which is to say not very toxic at all) in any suit.

    We’ve all seen conversations where one guy is doing most of the talking, and the other guy is… well, maybe not discouraging him enough. From what I read back when it happened, it sounded like perhaps a combination of this and and being warned previously about inappropriate behavior.

    Which probably made him fair game, even if the dongle jokes were perfectly harmless. Once you’ve been put on notice that the reason your employer walks perfectly upright is because of the two foot stick shoved straight up his ass, if you don’t like being fired, it’s on you to either conform or get out.

    Which is to say, I think there is more to this story than meets the eye

    as usual.

  282. Intense week. Still catching up on my daily A&D.

    @Erbo, I don’t know if you are still reading this, but I hope you are. I want to clarify what was behind my comments to you.

    You said “But I did take myself off the local con’s mailing list and unlike their Facebook page. So I did take that part of your advice” and that is what prompted me to respond. I think somewhere you said that you were not going to the con also, but I’m not sure.

    It shivs me to read that you’re choosing to limit your life, that you’re not expanding yourself, denying yourself sweet, harmless pleasure (and worse missing out on all the coolness and possible new horizons an SF group can bring you, and they are missing out on what you might bring) because you fear the consequences of the stupidity of the world around you. My comments weren’t about “getting chicks.”

    The world has always been and probably always will be that way, and what you describe is just a modern incarnation of the religious societal control tactics of old. Perhaps today people are not losing their lives to the medieval catholic church or their protestant successors but the societal control memes at the core are alive and well in the Cult of Political Correctness. Regardless of personal opinion, keep silent, and be seen at mass every Sunday. Or today, keep silent, and be seen wearing a “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt or a parade or spew one of today’s many versions of “god be praised” after every sentence.

    Regardless, Mr. Raymond’s comments are spot on, you largely don’t need to fear that nonsense at a con like that. But as a general rule, live the life you want to live, the way you want to live it. The fools and idiot attentionmongers be damned. I like the Wiccan outlook – An’ ye harm none, do as ye will.

  283. Continued @Erbo:

    I think it was TomA that said it, but not sure. I know Eric had said this also. And it is sage advice for living your life.

    Never underestimate the transcendent power of Not Giving A Shit – not being attached to a “good” outcome in any one instance leads to good outcomes in aggregate because it looks like … confidence.”

    Greg said ” You’ve all heard the common advice “just be yourself”? Well the silent ending to that phrase is “and don’t give a shit”. And this is so. To illustrate the outcome of the above thinking:

    One of the most powerful tools in the PCmonger alliances is making far too many people give it a shit about how they perceive you. Don’t. That’s not to say that you pop off at the mouth and be angry, hateful, or obnoxious. For myself I tend to just look at people in silence until they go away. It’s assholeish yes, but in my life, all the places I’ve been, all the things I’ve done and seen (because I refuse any absurd limitation imposed upon me and for various other reasons), I just don’t owe anyone but my daughter any time or anything (in general). And you can start to think this way too. But sometimes I allow myself the perverse indulgence of intelligently, softly mocking them, prodding them along with sarcasm-guised-as-seriousness, forcing them into more and more logical fallacies and ridiculous statements until they realize what is happening. Never debate rationally because this is not possible. You seem like a reasonably intelligent fella, you might even enjoy this once you break out of your shell.

    WRT your fears on sexual harassment. This is pounded into your face in the larger organization of my previous career. My area didn’t experience much of it, but it did happen to me one time. A woman made a comment to me indicating I was sexually harassing her. My response was to raise an eyebrow, give her a faint smile, and I said something like “oh my, we are full of ourselves today, aren’t we?” I ended up with her number. But the key here my friend is my response indicated several things: (1) This is my world – what are you doing here? (2) Not only am I not putting up with your BS or giving you any control here, but I find you to be rather silly. (3) Changed her entire attitude because I did not fit her expected response criteria. But the key was, no fear, and no angry, vitriolic, or apologetic response. This comes from confidence. Control, dignity, and by god at the end of the day (from Road to Perdition) – it’s all so fucking hysterical.”

    WRT picking up women: I have a number of disadvantages. On a blog I can be quite verbose, but I am actually a fairly quiet person. I am very fit, but I am very short – 5’4. I am in my early thirties but have a baby face, look about 18. I also have a nice collection of scars, several on my face (though one can argue that this is not a disadvantage). But the short jokes and kid jokes are quite frequent as you might imagine. Given my activities the last 10 years (woman, you have no idea, et al), I could let these things sting, but why? So I get the inevitable joke when I make contact, and a simple laugh and “oh, never mind, I didn’t realize you were that sort” often changes the dynamic completely. Confidence.

    You don’t need to actively acquire confidence. If you try, you will spend all your time wondering unconfidently if you are confident now. This is the power of being outcome independent. But don’t overcompensate, because that leads to foolishness.

  284. @Jessica; RE:…well all of it I guess…

    So, now I work for a huge defense corporation, hired out to the military. Work on a base. This is where I now get to do my dev full time. The politics are…difficult to adapt to…

    I have been referred today to sensitivity training because I told one of my constantly whining teammates to leave his purse at home tomorrow. Immediately reported by the lady at the coffee mess. In retrospect, yes it was a stupid, chauvinistic thing to insinuate. And yes, losing my temper like that is uncommon for me and foolish. It was a reflex statement from me as it was constantly being said to address complaining, not putting out, half-assing, etc in my previous life.

    But I wonder at this 3 hour training I now have on… how to be sensitive? It’s like some kind of Orwellian/Huxleyish Reconditioning or something. I mean, I’m an adult here. Tell me to stop being an ass and don’t do that shit anymore. Not appropriate for this zone. Roger that, wilco. That’s all it takes.

    The amount of corporate, and then “military office environment” orientation time that was spent on…what is it? EOE? EEOC? Whatever, the political stuff was almost half of the two-day INDOC. So that comes from somewhere, and there HAS to be a reason they spent so much time drilling it into my head. I suspect the frivolous lawsuits are more than a “you only hear about the bad stuff” issue.

  285. @M. House, RE: “But you’re going to ignore anything that challenges your world view, so there’s no point in attempting to engage you further.”

    I don’t think this is fair to level at Jessica Boxer. I imagine we all do this some of the time. Maybe especially those of us who overthink everything (we think we’ve invested the time to have a “righter” view than most, eh?) And she is fighting this one pretty hard. But she remains engaged, and I’ve not seen her avoid a challenge to her world view in many another post on A&D.

    I suspect Eric’s analysis of the argument in his comment regarding the gender natures is probably nearest the thing of it.

  286. @Jessica:

    I don’t think you’re going to get any of the hard numbers you asked for. You’ll probably get plenty of numbers for sensitivity lawsuits and/or settlements, but that doesn’t tell you whether or not they were justified. For the reasons already pointed out above, I think.

    Correlation is not causation, but correlation can be extremely important in identifying things. If we look at say, my INDOC example above, we can begin the derivation process.

    But here’s an ugly thing for you to start investigating – the current crop of DNA rape (among other crimes) exonerations, If you’re interested in pursuing this raging debate:

    By no means conclusive, but a start. The issue is serious (both false and true occurrences) and ought to be addressed.

  287. @WCC: the rates of false accusation are indeed huge, but they are rates of a very small number when compared with the overall population. This means that, if you are accused of rape, there is a definite possibility that your accuser is lying. It also means that any one person is vanishingly unlikely to be accused of rape, falsely or otherwise.

    Personally, I wouldn’t let such a small risk alter my approach to life.

  288. @Duncan;

    Oh yeah, for sure. I wasn’t trying to paint a national endemic here, just some things to consider within the framework of this post’s commentary.

  289. @Duncan;

    But somewhere there is a vested interest in making society THINK this is a national threat. The numbers per pop are small, but how many citizens haven’t been force fed “awareness”, “sensitivity”, “everyone’s responsibility” and on and on via work, tell-a-vision, and school?

    In before all the screams on “oh so we shouldn’t address it.” Save it. Ain’t sayin’ that. Big fan of minimizing threat and risk. But intelligently and reasonably. I’m not trading safety for “soft slavery.” You go to mass at the altar of lemmings, I’m going shooting.

  290. Back in New Zealand, my wife worked in a pretty dangerous part of town; there had been a few abductions and so forth in the news.

    My response was to buy her this:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/87395101@N00/111219926/in/photolist-aQ2NW

    … only because I couldn’t realistically buy her a handgun (NZ is a ‘non-permissive’ environment, to put it mildly).

    The way to address stranger rape is to arm the prospective victims, and harshly punish the perpetrators (although, noting the rates of false accusations, you’d need to harshly punish those as well).

    Anything else is denial of reality.

  291. @Duncan;

    Agreed absolutely. I am in alignment with Eric’s stance on that, written many-a-post-ago.

    Arm the women. Train them – there is a huge mental component to handling and being prepared to use a firearm on a person if needs be – and it gets sadly overlooked in most training – it’s a huge part of my personal instruction classes though). Absolutely. Firearms are the great equalizer.

    You can be as big and bd as you wanna be. You don’t want to tangle with my daughter. She’s small and thin, but until she can carry legally she might just be able to kill you with her hands. But I always stress to her, whe you are of age, why take the risk? Carry.

    It kills me that all the guns she has are pink though. I have to buy and own them until she is of age, but everytime I buy one, here come the jokes. She has a plinking a rifle, a .38 revolver, and 9mm automatic. All in shades of tough-guy pink.

    The one pistol she will shoot and does want, though it doesn’t, and will never, come in pink is my Sig P226. But You don’t want to carry that out in the world – it is meant for one purpose and one purpose only. It’s big, scary, heavy, and it’s only safety is to de-cock. It’s also ready to fire as soon as you load the magazine. But it does its job and does extremely well.

    Good compensator for your wife, by the way. A loving husband arms his wife or so i’ve heard it said.

  292. @M. House
    > Hear me out for a moment,

    Always happy to hear a different point of view, especially when presented in such a polite way. But just because it is polite doesn’t mean I agree with it.

    > They control the Home, in that they can have a man removed, arrested, prosecuted, and jailed, purely on the strength of their word.

    Really? You are willing to surrender your home so easily? Of course having a nuclear weapon gives one side a big advantage, but that doesn’t mean the non nuclear side is entirely without power. And frankly women are much more needy of relationships that men. So you have an advantage too. Play the cards you are dealt. Women only have control of the home insofar as men allow them to.

    > Women control the workspace. They get preferential treatment in hiring, promotion, extra benefits and services.

    In some cases they get preferential treatment, in some cases being female is a disadvantage. Don’t believe me? Well here is actual data from the hall of political correctness, academia, showing a significant preference for male over female candidates of equal qualification.

    http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf

    Here is the money quote:

    “To our knowledge, this is the first study to determine the impact of
    the gender of the job applicant or tenure candidate on potential search
    committee member’s and outside reviewer’s decisions to hire or tenure. In
    the present study, both male and female academicians were significantly
    more likely to hire a potential male colleague than an equally qualified
    potential female colleague.”

    Believe it or don’t least it is an attempt at a serious scientific study of the matter rather than extrapolation from a few specific examples.

    > The reverse is -not- true.

    Yes, for the same reason that restaurants do have signs saying “no dogs allowed” and do not have signs saying “no bison allowed” as I mentioned above.

    > Women -do- have this power. Nor is there any question as to whether or not they abuse it

    Women certainly have some power, and I agree that the legal system offers them some advantage over men, but men have a different power over women too. I’m not saying that abuses don’t happen, but I think it is entirely reasonable for all people to be treated respectfully by their co-workers. Now don’t get me wrong, feel free to tell me about your dongle if you like, some women are too sensitive. But given the hyper sensitivity of some of the men I am hearing here, like I say the resemblance to your enemy is rather striking.

    Any group of humans with access to this kind of power will have people who abuse it.

    > It’s never fun to listen when people tell you ugly things about your ‘tribe’.

    You don’t know me very well if you think I have some need to fit in with the crowd. I have little crowd allegiance. I snuggle up with logic and truth.

    > where the -hell- did all these PUA/MRA/’Manosphere/’Red Pill’

    Those are very different groups. I kind of like some of the PUA guys. Some are ridiculous, but some are fun. All you single guys should totally study it. I read a bunch of it out of curiosity. I found it profoundly interesting.

    Where though did the MRA/Manosphere/Red Pill folks come from though? I could ask you exactly the same. If all sex isn’t rape, if all men really aren’t predators, and if you really don’t owe me the majority of your paycheck the moment you leave your semen in my vagina, exactly where did the all those radical feminists come from? surely, their very existence indicates that the problem they advocate against also exists?

    Of course it doesn’t any more than the existence of crazy men’s groups proves there is a problem. The world is full of crazy extremists.

    And again, I say this while fully acknowledging that the MRA do indeed have some legitimate beefs.

    > On the other hand, I think unchecked power to ruin another human’s life merely on an accusation without proof, with -zero- consequences for lying/abuse of power is a Really Bad Thing,

    Me too. But you continually telling me that it is commonplace doesn’t comport with my experience in the workplace at all as I mentioned above (that is to say I have never seen a man dismissed or even disciplined for sexual harassment, though I am familiar with a number of cases where women were harassed fairly seriously.) And you have offered no more evidence that it is commonplace than a few anecdotes. It happens, just as sexual harassment happens, but that doesn’t mean it is commonplace, and more importantly it doesn’t mean you should tell other men to not talk to women for fear of some very unlikely eventuality.

    > Anyhow, I hope you’re having a good morning.

    I didn’t. I was in boring meetings all day. But I appreciate your good wishes nonetheless.

  293. @John,

    Aye, meant to reply to your email in the FOAD post. Sorry about that, still playing catch up. Waiting for confirmation that I can actually go this year.

  294. @Duncan Bayne
    @WCC: the rates of false accusation are indeed huge, but they are rates of a very small number when compared with the overall population…. Personally, I wouldn’t let such a small risk alter my approach to life.

    Duncan, how come you can say in two paragraphs so concisely what I blabbed on an on about for a million words? This is entirely my point, and your last sentence is absolutely the most important point of all.

  295. @WCC
    > She has a plinking a rifle, a .38 revolver, and 9mm automatic. All in shades of tough-guy pink.

    I totally want to go shooting with her….

  296. @Jessica;

    Any time you like, circumstances being favorable. You still owe me beer.

    I can forget that its a holiday, but I never forget promised beer. Readers’ tolerance being favorable, I’ll tell you a funny story about that…

  297. @Jessica: Long practice boiling down complicated software issues for non-programmers to grok :) I think it’s a myth that programmers have poor communication skills; many find they have to consciously develop theirs in order to be productive in groups containing non-technical folks.

    Re. using weapons … I encourage people who think that women aren’t aggressive to do some training with a woman. The Hideaway Knife came with several trainers and an instructional DVD; we worked through the theory, drilled access and deployment, then did some FoF training with me in a motorcycle helmet. I was *sore* the next day; bruised, battered and hoarse from a knife-edge (hand) across the throat.

    Incidentally, I can’t praise the HAK enough. You can’t disarm someone once they’ve drawn it, it’s trivial to draw, and integrates really well with instinctive strikes and blocks. The bra sheath is fantastic too; even if I pinned both my wife’s arms above the elbows in a bear-hug from behind, she could quickly draw the weapon and cut my femoral arteries.

  298. > A loving husband arms his wife or so i’ve heard it said.

    Indeed. And, IMO at least, there are few things as beautiful as an armed woman. Actually, an armed pregnant woman perhaps :)

  299. @Duncan:

    “And, IMO at least, there are few things as beautiful as an armed woman”

    An armed woman in a lab coat with a PhD.

  300. @Jessica –

    Thank you for replying. I don’t agree with what you’ve written, but thank you for replying.

  301. @WCC
    > Any time you like, circumstances being favorable. You still owe me beer.

    I don’t remember anything about owing you a beer. However, I will say this, I would pay cold hard cash to see you going to a sensitivity training class. Now that is one for youtube.

    > Readers’ tolerance being favorable, I’ll tell you a funny story about that…

    I suspect the reader’s tolerance is pretty favorable….

  302. @Jessica Boxer:

    However, I will say this, I would pay cold hard cash to see you going to a sensitivity training class.

    I think I may have mentioned this on this blog a few years ago, but back in the mid-90s I was writing Windows drivers for display cards. At one meeting (no females present) we were talking about verifying the gamma settings and color output, so I volunteered that I had a lot of downloaded images that would be suitable because “skin tones are the hardest thing to get right.”

    My boss jokingly admonished that I should be careful or he might need to send me to “Valuing Diversity.” Of course I replied “Oh, but I DO value diversity — if everybody looked the same, I wouldn’t need anywhere near as many pictures!”

    > I suspect the reader’s tolerance is pretty favorable….

    agreed.

  303. @esr:

    >> An armed woman in a lab coat with a PhD.

    > I’m in love.

    So now you know what to look for in quality porn.

  304. @Jessica;

    Well I couldn’t find the comment way back when that I was looking for, just this one , which doesn’t really count.

    Sorry, I have a really weird memory. I can tell you the lyrics to a song I heard once a few years ago or something someone said once around what time and what the circumstances were. Typically I remember everything I read, see, write or hear (if it’s structured like a song or poetry). But I am terrible with names. Yet I never forget a face. Yet if its not related to something I’m dealing with in private life, I can’t remember to make a phone call or be at something minor…(thank the stars for smartphones) And I don’t have a “photographic” memory. It’s weird.

  305. @Jessica

    Yeah, I dunno about this man. I think I’m going to get fired. I have a VERY low BS toler-o-meter…sigh…self discipline engaged I guess…

  306. @Jessica:, RE: The Story

    Those of you who appreciate quality alcohol will get a laugh out of this…keep in mind these types like heavier beer like Sam Adams Boston Lager at a minimum…

    This was my first set at sniper course. First time behind the Barrett and McMillan .50’s. On a wall at 50 feet, cold, rainy, windy day. We each get three shots apart to familiarize. Shooting at targets at varying distance. Instructor is a grizzled oldtimer. Rail thin, walked with a shuffle from too many bad jumps, thousand yard stare, hated everybody. For some reason we hit it off though and are good friends to this day. Tough bastard, over 60, still takes contracts for the alphabet-soup boys.

    Note to all you shooters – when this guy shoots it’s like poetry in action. He never misses and when he’s on pistols he fires, reloads, fires again, and hits the targets so fast and smooth you’d swear he’s full auto with a rifle. Guy is amazing,

    Anyway, I shuffle up, lay down, take my bullets, get set up. He adjusts my rifle for windage, etc. I fire, hit 100 yards, 5×5 plate dead center. He adjusts scope, I fire at 200 yards. Dead center. Adjusts scope, I fire at 300 yards, dead center. He says to me “no fucking way -”
    Now, this is not my extraordinary skill, okay. Later I did become squad sniper for awhile, but this was my first time shooting anything bigger than a Rem 7, 308 WinMag, or Win 300. The pro made the adjustments and the gun basically aimed itself.

    So he say’s to me “I’m gonna give you one more shot, you take it dead center at 430 yards and I’ll buy the class a case of beer. You miss, you’re dropping for 200 in that puddle.”

    So I nod like a chucklehead “Roger that Instructor -” Then he says “and you adjust that bastard yourself” and spits a shot of dip at my feet.

    I adjust my sights, take aim, and pray to the gods of war that I make the shot. Bang, dead center. My squadmates cheer. Instructor looks me and mutters “motherfucker. Give me the 200 anyway.”

    Guy never pays up. 6 months later I show up for advanced course, he says “hey -, you’re buying beer for the cadre tonight.” I say “what, you still owe us the 430 beer!” (I can say things like this now, I had graduated from maggot to turd). He says “You remember that? That’s pretty fucked up. Alright I’ll get you girls your beer.”

    Bastard shows up later with a case of fucking keystone light, makes me drink it all, and run a couple of miles.

  307. @WCC
    > Alright I’ll get you girls your beer.”

    I am SO offended. That guy totally needs sensitivity training….

    Good story. OK, if we run into each other I’ll buy you a beer… As a matter of fact I make it a habit to buy a beer for any vets I meet anyway — so don’t get all uppity and think you are special or anything….

    And if you let me shoot that rifle, then I might just buy you some really good beer.

    1. >As a matter of fact I make it a habit to buy a beer for any vets I meet anyway

      So do I. And I don’t drink.

  308. Well, I suppose I’ll let you buy me a beer. You’re welcome.

    Yeah sure you can shoot that gun. But you have to wear a lab coat when you do…

    But joking aside, it’s big, and loud, and the shockwave will rattle your teeth. But the recoil is surprisingly not bad, the Rem 7 is worse. I had to help a stupid reporter shoot the thing once and she did okay – I rather believe you’ll manage well and will probably even enjoy it.

  309. haha Jessica, I’m gonna tell him you said that. No wait, no I’m not, I’ll probably get beat for passing along the message…

  310. @Jessica, RE: guys like me in sensitivity training;

    There’s a guy I would have loved to see go through that. I’ve know him a long time. Vietnam vet – was a SEAL support team guy – swift boats (not a SEAL – the boat guys though – and they too are tough as nails – the forerunners to today’s SWCC teams). He was always a bit odd and has ZERO filter. I saw him give the CEO of the company he works for a dressing down. The CEO let it go cause he was a retired admiral and had respect for my friend as an “old guy” but it was funny.

    The guy is super geeky too, became a programmer full time after the military (he did a lot when stateside so it was a natural progression). In fact he made one of the PC Star Trek games, but I don’t know which one.

    THAT’S the guy you wanna see in sensitivity classes. I have a filter for my mouth and it even works sometimes, he doesn’t.

  311. @WCC, @Jessica –

    re: promises of beer, etc. Try here. In fact, try the whole thread.

    I’m still waiting for both of you to attend Geeks with Guns and Geeks with Groove. Just sayin’…. :-D

  312. @TomA: Fair she can appear only to the true romantic or feminist eye. Even if she carefully tries to hide it in swells of meaningless words a sneaky feminism leaks from her posts, which barely can conceal its men-hatred – and does so probably only because even as a feminist you can lead an easier life, if some gentlemen (aka. useful idiot) rushes to your help as soon as you start whining.

    And @Jessica WRT that Cornell study:

    a) what do you expect as a result when you ask the pope to carry out a study on abortion? (Well that’s a rhetoric question, there is no need for another spill of words)

    b) Right on the very first page of that report there is a remark which leverages the whole thing “In contrast, when men and women examined the highly competitive curriculum vitae of the real-life scientist who had gotten early tenure, they were equally likely to tenure the male and female tenure candidates and there was no difference in their ratings of their teaching, research, and service”. So obviously no general discrimination against women.

  313. @Manfred Wassmann, RE: “Fair she can appear only to the true romantic or feminist eye. Even if she carefully tries to hide it in swells of meaningless words a sneaky feminism leaks from her posts, which barely can conceal its men-hatred – and does so probably only because even as a feminist you can lead an easier life, if some gentlemen (aka. useful idiot) rushes to your help as soon as you start whining.”

    I think this is going a little far. I’m no romantic, and I certainly have unreasonable levels of disgust for the modern feminist movement. I’m also quick to call BS where I see it and wfrom hat I can read WRT to Jessica Boxer’s posts, she seems intelligent enough to do what you claim, but purposefully, sneakily doing so doesn’t appear to fit the pattern. I don’t get a sense of man-hatred from her either.

    Rather what I see here is the undercurrent of thought programmed by the last 40 years of conditioning from American schools, the media/tell-a-vision, and the workforce showing through.

    For 99.9% of these people there is absolutely no point in arguing with them or trying to change their minds. I don’t think Ms. Boxer falls into that category.

  314. @John,

    Ah, that’s the one. Thank you sir. Yes, I really want to get to the con and the Guns. I don’t think you’re going to see me at the Groove though. No amount of imbibed alchohol will ever get me on the dance floor.

    When I can confirm my attendance this year, to those interested I’m going to put out a list of weapons I can bring. Need a private, efficient way to do this though. Folks can check it out and mark what they want to shoot, and I’ll bring it. Need the list to know what the loadout params will be though.

    Also, is there a place I can go to find out what the range requirements/limitations are?

  315. @WCC –

    When I can confirm my attendance this year, to those interested I’m going to put out a list of weapons I can bring. Need a private, efficient way to do this though. Folks can check it out and mark what they want to shoot, and I’ll bring it. Need the list to know what the loadout params will be though.

    Also, is there a place I can go to find out what the range requirements/limitations are?

    I’m running a survey via email from the GwG account – which is why I need your email address. Won’t publish it, etc. Even if you are a “maybe”, contact me and we can work out the details.

  316. Manfred, I thought you left us!

    Please forgive me for being blunt, but you seriously need to get laid. I thought that was legal in Germany and cost about 50 Euro.

  317. @Manfred Wassmann
    > Even if she carefully tries to hide it in swells of meaningless words a sneaky feminism leaks from her posts

    Nothing sneaky about it. I am a feminist in the original sense, that is to say someone who advocates for the equal treatment of men and women (and come to that, gays, straight, black, white, Irish, German, Mexican and Moroccan) under the law, and an advocate for cooperatively changing the various memes in society that were oppressive to women (and similarly oppressive to gays, straights, blacks. whites etc. etc.)

    I might be many things, but sneaky I am not. I wear my heart on my sleeve, even under an avalanche of disagreement here. And that is OK, because most of the people here are lovely, and just because we disagree, we don’t do it disagreeably. For example, Tom DeGisi, he and I had a really heated argument about religion recently. But, even though no minds were changed, he is a guy I admire and whose opinion I respect.

    And FWIW, I have publicly changed my mind about several things here, in public, on this forum in the past. I have found both Eric, Jeff Read and Winter particularly able to change my mind about things. So if you think I am some close minded ideologue, I’m afraid the evidence is exactly the opposite. I like to say I am very open minded, but not so much that my brain falls out.

    >, which barely can conceal its men-hatred

    That I don’t accept. I really like men. In fact, as a general rule, I prefer them to women. I challenge you to offer one thing I said that shows a hatred of men. Of course there are some things that men do (or come to that, women, or gays or straights, or blacks, or whites or Irish etc.) that I don’t like, maybe even hate. But men-hatred? No, I don’t think so. On the contrary, you apparently have a huge chip on your shoulder about women.

    > rushes to your help as soon as you start whining.

    I never whine, and I don’t like it when people rush to my help. Much though I appreciate some of the nice people who have my back, I really think I am pretty capable of defending myself pretty effectively. I do pretty well with words. I do pretty good in person too. One time a guy attacked me in an alleyway with a knife. He did not get the better end of the deal. Which was particularly remarkable given that I was wearing heels at the time.

    > a) what do you expect as a result when you ask the pope to carry out a study on abortion?

    I don’t claim it is perfect, however, it is a serious piece of peer reviewed work, subject to critical examination, unlike a couple of hand wavy, imprecise examples from which you expect to draw huge and impact conclusions. The former is called “science” the latter “rhetoric.”

    > b) Right on the very first page of that report there is a remark

    Indeed, if you cherry pick the text you can certainly prove your point.

    Anyway, I thought you were dismissively “off” to hang with the friends who appreciated your attention. That is the problem with online fourms. They draw one, like a suicidal moth to the flame.

  318. Done, I have no problem with blunt replies. And thanks for your advice, but you’d probably better stop projecting your fantasies into other people.

  319. @WCC:

    > I don’t get a sense of man-hatred from her either.

    So how about a statement like:

    > Clearly not satire, because obviously Ada is the feminist programming language. Not only is it
    > named after one of the vagina carriers, it is also clear that that penis carrier Babbage tried to
    > take all the glory: she actually got the job done, all he ever did was screw around in the garage
    > with his tools. Typical man, never finishes ANYTHING.
    >
    > And of course, Ada is very focused on multitasking, something that women clearly do much
    > better that you single core men, with your penis oriented thinking.

    For me that’s plain hatred. There isn’t even a clue in it as it is not multitasking if the IO simply bypasses the CPU.

    1. >For me that’s plain hatred. There isn’t even a clue in it as it is not multitasking if the IO simply bypasses the CPU.

      You don’t have our experience of Jessica’s sense of humor. That’s what she sounds like when she’s being satirical.

  320. @Jessica: Missed your post, but my reply to WCC may have answered one of your questions. But another point is your closing statement. I was off, had my time with my friends, did some work, came back to look in here. Nothing particular about that, I’ll go again when I want to. But what do you make up of that?

  321. … and, Jessica, these hits below the belt are the reason why I don’t buy into your equality talk. I think its just a disguise and that’s why I calld your feminism sneaky.

  322. @Manfred, Yes Eric is right that was me deliberately imitating a rad feminism for a laugh. I believe none of these things and was simply being utterly absurd to mock radical feminism, not advocate for it.

    You can be forgiven for missing that, since I guess you are not a native English speaker. Little glitches in your grammar and your name makes me think you are German, or Germanic at least. No criticism implied, your English is excellent and plainly understandable, I just has a little German accent to it.

    It is a kind of frightening thing though, perhaps an illustration of Eric’s OP about absurdity believing absurdity, that such a ridiculous screed about a programming language being feminist could actually be believable.

    BTW Manfred, if you think my imitation of a radical feminist is good, you should totally hear my imitation of a rampant socialist. It is truly terrifying.

    1. >BTW Manfred, if you think my imitation of a radical feminist is good, you should totally hear my imitation of a rampant socialist. It is truly terrifying.

      Oh, shit, yeah. It is. *shudder*

  323. OK, I apologize for being somewhat crass with my last post. Let me make up for it with something perhaps a little more intelligent.

    Here is the US we have more than our fair share of belligerent feminists who leverage political clout and media adoration into a perpetual battle for more of everything. As bad as that reality is, it is nothing compared to the side-effect carnage of relationship dysfunction that now limits us to either emotionless hookups or fearful isolation. Now-a-days, it takes balls to tell a women she is beautiful, and that is usually preceded by a risk/reward analysis. Nobody is winning a war that should not be.

    A true dyed-in-the-wool belligerent feminist wouldn’t last 3 posts at this blog, and we are fortunate to have someone like Jessica to act the foil in this debate. Her main point, that there are assholes on both side of the sexual divide, should not come as a surprise to anyone. In addition, unless you are planning on celibacy, we need to bridge this gap if we ever wish to locate the elusive armed Ph.D in a lab coat.

  324. Firearms are the great equalizer. Yes, more training can make you more lethal with them, but the effectiveness per hours invested curve is much shallower. Full-time warriors can no longer count on being able to near-effortlessly dominate civilians and irregulars on the battlefield. Slaves become the near-equals of their masters in killing power.

    The introduction of the crossbow in Europe was literally religiously opposed specifically on the grounds that it gave an untrained peasant a realistic chance of killing a mounted knight. Wonder if there’s any connection between its introduction and subsequent social changes; the timing of the Black Death probably prevents any convincing arguments.

    >Personally, I wouldn’t let such a small risk alter my approach to life.

    Duncan, how come you can say in two paragraphs so concisely what I blabbed on an on about for a million words? This is entirely my point, and your last sentence is absolutely the most important point of all.

    The expected value of an event is the value of the event if it occurs times the probability of its occurring. Neglecting the lack of evidence of frequency, not to mention whatever costs can be imposed by threats that aren’t carried out, you overlook the catastrophic effect of such an outcome when it does take place.

  325. Christopher Smith on 2014-02-14 at 11:41:12 said:
    > you overlook the catastrophic effect of such an outcome when it does take place.

    But you overlook the cost of not doing something. In this specific case one guy is so terrified of the threat of a harassment lawsuit that he does not approach women. Loneliness, lack of sexual access, the significant imposition of social costs from being single, and the inability to propagate one’s DNA is a gigantic cost to trade off against the minuscule risk of a serious, but recoverable disaster.

    So I would say to you all — stop feeding his unrealistic fear and encourage him to go out into the risky big bad world and grab what he wants, and what will make him happy. All of your arguments are doing a grave disservice to this guy.

  326. But you overlook the cost of not doing something.

    I never said I did, and I’m not taking a women-should-shut-up-and-take-a-compliment position. I am, however, noting that most policies in this area tend to fail catastrophically, irreversibly, and without mitigation when there’s a false positive.

    As a firsthand example, the competent and effective assistant principal of my junior high was accused by a mother of sexually harassing her when she came to pick up her child from school, and the accusation was specific and detailed. The local paper printed front-page headlines, he was suspended, and The Process started. Funny thing happened, though: Somebody bothered to check the date that the mother had given, and it turns out it was a school holiday. Her story fell apart shortly after. Nevertheless, his contract was not renewed for the next school year, and the coverage of the aftermath was buried in the middle of the Local section.

    Given the existence of such events, even if they’re rare, can you honestly claim that men (in particular, in this case) don’t have a reasonable concern that they’ll be mistakenly or maliciously targeted through no fault of their own?

  327. @Christopher Smith
    > can you honestly claim that men don’t have a reasonable concern

    Yes, they do. Everyone has a reasonable concern about a whole bunch of bad things happening. For example, I have a reasonable concern that I might be shot from a private citizen carrying a gun. But I don’t stay in my house, or wear a kevlar vest, even though the consequences of such an event could well be much more traumatic that this unjustly treated school official.

    I commented on this matter in some detail above:

    http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5220#comment-423900

    It doesn’t change the fact that an excessive emphasis on this extremely unlikely event can lead many, especially socially weaker men, to make very poor choices in terms of risk/reward balance.

    Life is risky. The only safety is to be found in the grave.

  328. @Eric:
    > You don’t have our experience of Jessica’s sense of humor. That’s what she sounds like when she’s being satirical.

    OK, while it may be true Jessica tried to have it look satirical in that particular posting, I can’t really buy that either. I see her feminist attitude shining through every applicable post, but I’m not going to pick at that any more.
    Just one thing, Jessica, the only statement I readily accept is that you are a feminist in the original sense, that is someone fighting for female supremacy ;-)

    @TomA: As I said, I have no problem with that, I actually prefer a frank discussion.

    … and of course I’m not native English, but I regard it luck that I came to know the internet when it was mostly English. I actually think it’s a missed chance the way, internationalization on the software level has been accomplished. Instead of translating every piece of text into dozens of languages one could have given people the tools (and the opportunity) to at least understand a common language. Maybe that’s something to consider when it comes to replace texinfo – but now I’m completely OT.

  329. I read your comments before posting. I’m not advocating a policy of cowering from women, but I will adamantly defend the claim that if it’s reasonable for women to consider every unknown man a potential rapist, it’s conversely reasonable for men to consider unknown women potential false accusers. More generally, my concern is with policymaking: harassment policies are likely needed and definitely well-intentioned but need to be developed with an acknowledgment of the possibility of false positives and at least general guidelines for resolving them.

  330. I know what true sexual assault means, but WRT sexual harassment I think it has gone overboard. Just a little thought experiment. Consider you are a boy in some sports team and have performed very well. Your trainer comes up to you and taps your back as a reward, what do you feel? But now imagine your trainer might be gay (and you are not). Doesn’t that change your feelings? So how can a person be guilty of sexual harassment or not depending on what another person thinks of him?

  331. @Manfred Wassmann
    > I know what true sexual assault means, but WRT sexual harassment I think it has gone overboard.

    You know I was just going to let this slide, but really it is such utter crap that I have to comment. you take the most minor types of any inappropriate touching and use that to dismiss the whole subject as a hysterical over reaction by women hyped up on estrogen.

    So let me offer you this scenario. Let’s say you have been working at a company and been doing an awesome job building your career, and are on track to making a huge success of yourself. A new guy is hired to be your boss. He is a leader in the industry, connected with everyone that matters, and he calls you in your office. You think he is going to say “I read your file — keep up the good work and you are going places.”

    You go in his office, and it turns out he is gay, and has taken a liking to you, and he is totally drunk on power. He tells you he has gone through your file and made a very carefully documented file of all your missteps, and put them together in a letter terminating your employment.

    He tells you that if you don’t let him fuck you in the ass whenever he wants then he will ruin your career, and, since he is so well connected in the industry, will make sure you never work again. “Now” he says, “drop to your knees and suck my cock, or go back to your desk and pack your things.”

    What are you going to do? You think sexual harassment is about a misinterpreted pat on the back?

  332. @Jessica:

    > What are you going to do?

    Head-butt him and start yelling like crazy. Why?

  333. Jessica says “or wear a kevlar vest”

    Would be kinda cool if you did…

    Maybe they make them in pink to match guns…

  334. And again @Jessica…

    Due to my newfound sensitivity (Hail HR, praise unto their most holy name, worthy is their training, blessed is the holy PowerPoint of Awareness) I did want to assure you, that I was by no means rushing to your defense. Doubt you thought I was but I wanted to assure your independentness that I respect your…wait I forgot what I was supposed to say here…

    Yeh, you can hold your own. I don’t do the white knight thing (this is a term I have discovered while pursuing many interesting avenues from Eric’s Dark Enlightenment post) .

  335. @Jessica: So what? I’d call the picture you are painting sexual assault from the definition I can find on Wikipedia: “Sexual assault is any involuntary sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced, or forced to engage against their will, or any sexual touching of a person who has not consented.”

    And I’ve had more experiences than I can count of the kind I mentioned with my experiment (with women and men as well as clearly gay advances) but none of the kind you mentioned. Of course you will claim that’s because I’m not a women, but that just distracts from the problem I pointed out. I handled all theses cases by myself and a woman can do the same – without calling the police or using a gun.

  336. @Patrick Maupin
    > Head-butt him and start yelling like crazy. Why?

    I always thought you had a hard head PM. Though I do think that would be my course of action too.

    @WCC
    >wait I forgot what I was supposed to say here…

    That is hysterical. FWIW, I hate all the BS as much as you do.

  337. @Manfred the reality is that real cases of harassment fall somewhere between the two extremes. You are entirely wrong to dismiss them as insignificant or something that women (or for that matter men) can deal with on there own, except in trivial cases. There are real power relationships that are consequential to people’s long term life prospects that make it impossible to deal with on one’s own sometimes.

    And this is the real problem. In your zeal to complain about the very real cases where some guy gets falsely accused and suffers some terrible fate, you are in danger of throwing out the legitimate complaints that absolutely do deserve serious action.

    It seems to be a problem that is suffered primarily by young attractive women, who are often the least able to deal with it themselves both because they have not reached a point in an organization where they have much power, and also because women are trained by society to be deferential to men and be unassertive. This latter thing is changing which is good, but it is still a strong influence on young women, and makes standing up for themselves in these difficult situations even more of a challenge.

    As to which is more common, substantial harassment or false accusation of harassment, evidence to the contrary I go with my own experience, and I tell you, substantial harassment that is unaddressed happens not infrequently, I am personally familiar with about a half dozen cases in the past five years, and unfair proceedings are rare, in fact zero in my personal experience. But that is just my experience, I’d be interested if you have anything substantial to show that that is an incorrect assessment.

  338. @Jessica: So don’t you understand or do you actively take me wrong? The real cases aren’t the problem, the problem are the majority of minor cases which fall into the category I described and where the crime only lies in the eye of the beholder.

  339. and Jessica, did you notice that you again started whining? (While you love to accuse other people of doing it) These poor little girls who are so weak and taught to be deferential and unassertive. What century are you living in?

  340. Disclaimer. If I was smart, I’d leave this alone. That being said…

    @Jessica –

    I find it troubling that you repeatedly sweep everything that counters you position under the rug with a blanket ‘that doesn’t happen’. That really bothers me.

    when I comment that “women control the Home, and can have a man removed, and imprisoned on the strength of an accusation, without proof”, you reply with :

    “Really? You are willing to surrender your home so easily? Of course having a nuclear weapon gives one side a big advantage, but that doesn’t mean the non nuclear side is entirely without power. And frankly women are much more needy of relationships that men. So you have an advantage too. Play the cards you are dealt. Women only have control of the home insofar as men allow them to.

    You don’t seem to grasp certain realities.

    When a woman calls in a domestic disturbance to the police, the cops -will- come. They -will- arrest the male, regardless of the situation, and in most jurisdictions are -legally required to do so-.

    The restraining order -will- be granted, and the male -will- be ejected from the home. Period. That’s how it works.

    It is both police policy, -and- the law, in most jurisdictions.

    Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone who has the capacity to stand off an -entire police department-.

    Short story, back in 1993, in Junction City, Kansas. My first wife used to beat the shit out of me, because I was conditioned never to hit a woman as a child, so I let her. That, and I knew my ass would be in jail is there was so much as a scratch on her. One night, I told her we couldn’t afford something she wanted. she broke my nose with a saucepan, and decided I hadn’t have enough. She called the cops. I’m outside, one eye swollen completely shut, bleeding freely from an obviously broken nose, and my mouth, and guess who goes to jail?

    that’s right. I went to jail. My wife, who didn’t have a mark on her, got to stay home. The cop told me it was ‘department policy.’

    This isn’t rare. Or unusual.

    Funny thing… when a man calls in the domestic dispute? they… wait for it… remove the man from the home. Per Policy. No, I’m not kidding. I know this, because when I called the cops after my wife started beating me again, they arrested me for calling them.

    Insult to injury? When I reached out for help, I was told there were no resources for battered husbands.

    No hot lines. No shelters. No advocates. Nothing.

    Even worse, when false allegations are made? Nothing happens.

    When a woman makes a knowingly false accusation about regular assault, sexual assault, harassment, child molestation, or anything of that type, nothing happens to them. There’s no downside. No risk to using that ‘nuclear option’. sure, maybe 1-5% actually get some sort of consequence. The rest of the time? pfft, who cares, Man Up you big baby.

  341. @Jessica:

    > I always thought you had a hard head PM.

    LOL — too true. Even so, I’m sure I’d have a big bruise and a headache after it was all over.

    @Manfred Wassmann:

    > again started whining?

    Looks like projection from here.

    > What century are you living in?

    This one, from what I have seen.

    She doesn’t say she’s experienced problems. She says she’s seen problems. I take that at face value, partly based on my daughters’ experiences.

    She also makes a distinction between the kinds of things you seem to be calling harassment, and real, honest-to-goodness terrorization that won’t stop even when it’s called out.

    At most companies (such as, apparently, the place where wcc works), half the things we say at my workplace would get us in trouble.

    That’s one of the reasons I’ve been there for awhile — 7 1/2 years, which just may be my all-time record. I’ve had to talk to HR before at other companies for one reason or another, and it usually wasn’t really all that pleasant. I think every workplace, like every family, is dysfunctional, but the ones that are accepting of a bit of dysfunction have a lot less of it swept under the carpet where it festers and putrefies. There is no terrorization where I work, although there are sometimes some very heated discussions.

    A lot of companies wouldn’t put up with the banter at my workplace, but even most of those companies will give you at least one warning, whether or not they perceive any value from you. (They are afraid of being sued for wrongful termination as well as harassment, and like to have lots of documentation.)

  342. HR is easily misunderstood by idiots, though.

    At one company where I finally had enough of my manager and left, the division VP (who just knew that all cylinders were firing and wanted to keep it that way) tried to mediate between me and my manager after I turned in my notice.

    Against my better judgement, I agreed (only because I loved the job and all my co-workers). Spent a whole day with the division VP and the manager. One of the things the manager told me during this meeting was that, at one point, after an email flame-up, he had to “intervene” with HR to keep them from firing me. So during a break, I went down to see the (very good, veteran) HR lady, and asked her about how it went down from her perspective.

    She told me that whenever a manager brought her an issue about an employee, before even discussing the severity of the issue, her very first question was “Is this an employee we want to keep?”

  343. @Matthew House:

    Wow, that sucks.

    Probabilistically, always locking the man up makes sense that if they design the procedures so that no thinking is required (though not by as big a margin as some feminists would have you believe).

    OTOH, we pay enough for the people implementing the system that we ought to be able to get ones who can think.

    @Jessica:

    Yeah, that was my first thought too. Doesn’t really matter though — lots of people stay with violent spouses for all sorts of reasons that make sense (or at least seem to) at the time. Children are just the biggest one.

    That’s one of those things, like addiction or depression, that is extremely difficult for most of us to comprehend.

  344. And I spent the next twenty years getting ground into the dirt financially. If you’re low income to begin with, and get jammed into the child support system, you’re pretty well fucked.

    And yes, I spent twenty years paying for a pair of children I never got to watch grow up. She spent twenty years making damn sure I never saw my kids, while making damn sure to tell my kids that I ‘hated them’ and ‘never cared about them’. I -wish- I was joking.

    Complaining about lack of visitation to the Department of human services (HA!) resulted in my driver’s liscence being pulled without notice, my bank accounts emptied, and my support payments doubled. I took the hint the 4th time, and shut up and paid.

    My story isn’t unusual. Hell, compared to some people, I got off light. I didn’t go to prison, I didn’t get stabbed to death in my sleep, and I didn’t commit suicide.

    Others have not been so lucky.

    but hey, you’re super smart, and you’re absolutely certain that I’m just mistaken and paranoid. Silly me. I’ll just go play with my kids.

    Oh.. wait… I -can’t-.

  345. @Patrick –

    regarding ‘always locking up the man’ Sure, it might ‘make sense’, but my -point- is that it’s a power exclusively reserved for women.

    something Jessica seems to be unable to grasp.

  346. Matthew, we all sympathize with your plight and wish you the best in redeeming your life and hopefully regaining a relationship with your kids. None of the foregoing discussion in this post is meant to disparage anyone personally or belittle their life experience. You have every reason to be bitter toward irrational women, but please don’t take it out on Jessica. My guess is that if you had found someone like her 20 years ago, your life would have been very different.

    1. >please don’t take it out on Jessica.

      I think taking it out on Jessica is actually somewhat justified. Not because she has individually done him wrong, but because she’s exemplifying a kind of denial about the extent to which the system is tilted against men which I find all too common among women these days.

      No, Jessica is not the emasculating feminazi of Manfred Wasserman’s dreams, and I was quick to point that out. She might be less troubling if she were, because who takes those creatures seriously anymore? (Outside of politically poisoned environments like universities, the halls of government, and Tumblr, anyway.)

      Instead she is all too typical of a large class of modern women who are (and I borrow this SJ term with intentional irony) privileged and pretty willfully blind about it. I like and respect her, in general, but she has said some stupid things in this thread and I think she deserves the reality check she is getting from Matthew.

  347. @Tom –

    I’m sure that your statement “None of the foregoing discussion in this post is meant to disparage anyone personally or belittle their life experience.” is absolutely true. Metaphorically speaking, that you ( the hypothetical you, not you in particular) didn’t ‘mean’ to step on my toes does not change the fact that your heel is firmly planted on top of my toes.

    What has me upset is that Jessica discounts or denies the following.

    Men can be arrested, tried, convicted and jailed, simply on a woman’s accusation -without proof-.

    False accusations are (almost) never prosecuted. As such, woman have no disincentive to make false allegations.

    If one were to be particularly pedantic, one would say that while Jessica admits that such events have occured, they are in such small numbers that they are statistically non-existant. I’m paraphrasing heavily here.

    She would have us believe that woman don’t have any social advantage at all, that woman -never- lie about workplace harassment, and that only men are social or sexual agressors.

    Which is really, -really- untrue.

    And while I may be mis-reading it, I’m not the first person (hi there Erbo) to have noticed a rather condescending and indifferent tone to Jessica’s missives.

    Imagine, for a moment… a young woman going into a bosses office to report a sexual harassment incident. After she explains her entire situation, the boss looks at her and says. “Gee, you’ve got a really over-active imagination there, sugartits… now, how bout you get me a fresh coffee before you get back to work.”

    While it is entirely likely Jessica is unaware of it, that is how she comes across, at least to me.

    So, yeah, that’s pretty much the bee in my bonnet right now.

  348. “Men can be arrested, tried, convicted and jailed, simply on a woman’s accusation -without proof-.”

    So, what is the problem? Women being protected against violence and abuse under the law or a completely dysfunctional legal system?

    Those 2 million men locked up in US jails are not all the victims of female injustice. And I seriously doubt whether USA males are six times as criminal as UK males.

    From all the argumentation here, I strongly suspect that the US legal system simply does not work.

  349. There are four different disconects here.

    One is the disconnect between statistics and anecdote. It is all well and good to say that hardly ever happens, but that‘s no comfort to those who have experienced it.

    The second disconnect is between the domestic and public spheres. I don’t think experiences in one are all that relevant to the other, except as a cautionary tale about police and the courts. Familiarity really is a determinative factor in most contempt that rises to the level of violence.

    The third disconnect is that while most of us intuit that any of us could easily be inconvenienced by others, we can’t really grasp exactly how big the lever that the government affords our opponents can be.

    The fourth disconnect is in the use of phrases like “Man up!” These are often not delivered or received very well, but one common implication is the target is in difficulty. My advice to anyone told that is to ignore the words, the delivery, and the context, and to internally translate it into “act in a way that is deservng of respect, and then respect yourself.”

  350. To one of Matthew’s earlier points:


    Some studies have shown that women who assaulted their male partners were more likely to avoid arrest even when the male victim contacts police. Another study examined the differences in how male and female batterers were treated by the criminal justice system. The study concluded that female intimate violence perpetrators are frequently viewed by law enforcement and the criminal justice system as victims rather than the actual offenders of violence against men.

    Now, to stir things up a bit:

    Jessica mentioned that most women are raised to not be assertive, which prompted a few howls from the peanut gallery. But when Matthew posted:

    My first wife used to beat the shit out of me, because I was conditioned never to hit a woman as a child, so I let her.

    Silence.

    It’s sometimes really, really hard to overcome the meekness associated with Christian upbringing. Many times, when people try, they overcompensate. The extreme feminists and MRA are good examples of this.

    But when society, rather than individuals, overcompensates, the results can be horrifying. The laws tilted in favor of women are good examples of this. I think some researchers are even starting to find evidence that some of the recent gains of women in higher education are due to overcompensation.

  351. It’s getting harder to say anything of unique significance on this topic, but I will try.

    First, on a personal level, all of these incidents are tragic, and regrettable, and far more common than they need to be.

    Second, the pendulum swings, and today the male gender is disproportionately getting hammered by current social and legal injustices. In my view, this is a manifestation of cultural rot, not some new memetic mutation in the female half of the species.

    Third, don’t forget that it takes a lot of male complicity to implement this dysfunction. In the case of the falsely accused Duke lacrosse players, it was a maniacal and self-serving male District Attorney that elevated this tragedy to epic proportions.

    Fourth, regardless of the shit hole that this represents, we still need and want strong competent women to mate with, not meek and useless submissives.

    Fifth and last, I think most women want the same damn thing as above.

  352. TomA says one of the most important things in this whole thread for those who are fighting in this arena: “Third, don’t forget that it takes a lot of male complicity to implement this dysfunction. “

    Salient. And following some of the info outlined in the DE post sources some very interesting reasons these…uh…champions… are willfully complicit.

  353. Been unresponsive since I have been interacting with the 3 dimensional people, so I’ll get back to this later. But one comment:

    @esr
    > but she has said some stupid things in this thread

    To me this is the second time you have said something like this on this thread. Firstly that I was full of contradictions, and now that I have said stupid things on this thread. Now, don’t get me wrong, my messy head is indeed full of contradictions, and I frequently say stupid things, however, saying those things without specifics isn’t useful at all. If I don’t know what you are speaking about specifically I can neither refute your claim nor, in the no unlikely case that I am confused and stupid, learn from your wisdom.

    You certainly owe no no explanation, after all this is your blog, and I am a guest in your place. However, I did want to point out that, while these sorts of statements are rhetorically very effective, they are substantively without value. If it were anyone else but you I would just let it slide. But of all people here I value your opinion and this is the second time. I feel communication demands that I point out that these sorts of claims are just plain null statements that contribute nothing, or to put it another way, they are a cheap shot.

    1. >saying those things without specifics isn’t useful at all.

      Responding to Matthew House’s tale of having been systematically abused by talking about sexual harassment of women was deeply stupid. You are more than bright enough to get that wrongs done by ascriptive group A to ascriptive group B are not addressed, or redressed, when members of group B do similar wrongs to members of group A. It is therefore especially disappointing to see you respond with what looks like protective tribalism.

  354. @esr
    > You are more than bright enough to get that wrongs done by ascriptive group A to ascriptive group B

    Dropping a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima killed many innocent civilians, but in doing so saved the need for a very destructive invasion of Japan — Discuss.

    What you say is true if the two groups are independent. But, as I pointed out at great length, they are not. The goal of prosecuting the guilty accused and protecting the innocent accused is a matter of where to tweak the slider. The two goals are contradictory.

    And I will point out I have not yet had time to respond time Matthew’s specific description of the abuse he suffered at his ex-wife’s hands.

  355. @Winter –

    “So, what is the problem? Women being protected against violence and abuse under the law or a completely dysfunctional legal system?”

    Don’t be intentionally obtuse, please.

    While the system functions most of the time, The part of the system that’s supposed to prevent women from abusing the system for personal gain/revenge/amusement/crazy is either missing or broken.

    The scary part is there’s a growing class of women who are aware of this, and make use of it with wild abandon.

    1. >The scary part is there’s a growing class of women who are aware of this, and make use of it with wild abandon.

      Yes. And this, Jessica, is why I’m being tough with you. Because, the political context being what it is, it’s going to take women like you to step up and say “enough is enough!”.

  356. Something I want to clarify.

    My experiences aren’t that bad. Yes, read that again. My experiences, compared to others in my situation, are pretty mild.

    I didn’t go to jail. I didn’t wind up with any crippling injuries. I still have about 25-30 years left of my life to go create something. I didn’t get a criminal record. I didn’t lose my second amendment rights. (Google Lautenberg Amendment. loose your right to Arms over an accusation, without due process, for life! but only if you’re a man….). to see some real horror, google Thomas Ball. Dude finally lit himself on fire on the courthouse steps…

    And we’re getting a bit far afield, here.

    My original contention is that women have a huge amount of social power, which they can abuse without consequence. Because there are no consequences to abusing that power, they frequently do.

    Take a wander over to youtube, and search for women hitting men. Women -expect- to be able to walk up to a man, punch him in the face, and get away with it. Because Women! And any man that reacts in any way other than trying to cover his vitals and run away will have a really bad outcome.

    On a completely unrelated note.

    @Jessica – My apologies for my attitude. My anger, bitterness, and frustration on this subject are hard to contain, and it’s entirely too easy to lash out. On this topic, it’s hard -not- to lash out. I need to remember you Have A Life, and don’t have full time to devote to responding to what I’ve written.

  357. @Patrick:
    > > What century are you living in?
    >
    > This one, from what I have seen.

    Then you probably should look again. It’s not only my personal observation, I already found reports on that matter a couple of years ago. Even an article on a feminist website stated that modern girls behave the same way it was formerly seen with boys. Thus girls being “taught to be deferential and unassertive” apparently isn’t an issue in the 21st century anymore.

    @Eric: Your comment was really enlightening WRT your personal views, but when you aren’t a lot more certain of your targets when using firearms, you’d better lock them away very well and throw away the key.

    @Matthew: I think it’s really brave to come out on the net with such a story. You have my greatest respect.

    @Jessica: I don’t believe you to be a radical feminist, I think you are a pretty standard one, but in the past decade I have learned what feminism really means (the hard way) and that’s why I don’t keep my mouth shut when I see feminists showing the same behavior they always have accused men of.

  358. “Don’t be intentionally obtuse, please.”

    From the outside,the US legal system does look obtuse and dysfunctional. It locks up far more people than any other country. And this whole thread is a long list of legal abuses that cry for a reform.

    The courts should not “most of the time”, but “almost all of the time”.

  359. Wow, lots of activity here. Sorry I have been incognito, but it is the most romantic weekend of the year, so much though I love you guys, I wanted to spend it with the three dimensional folks.

    So here are my thoughts on the above. First of all, the story that Matthew tells is terrible, obviously it is a story of a legal system that went very wrong. I feel particularly bad for the children involved who, it seems, have been robbed of their father, and subject to abusive treatment by their mother, and I feel terrible also for Matthew whose story is one of great injustice.

    Nonetheless, one swallow doth not a summer make. Let us consider the data actually presented in this thread. We have two anecdotes about two entirely different things. On the one hand Ms. Richards who put out some nasty communication, that ultimately got both her and one of the targets of her abuse fired. That situation is just insanity. And Matthew’s story of injustice and abuse.

    How are we to take this data and conclude that there is some systematic takeover of the world by the Feminazis? That is a pretty huge step. All i have called for here, repeatedly, is significant systematic data to demonstrate this systematic claim, and all I have heard is the chirp of crickets.

    Matthew tells us that it is department policy both in his jurisdiction and in many others to simply arrest and jail a man on the say so of his co-habitating female. If that is a case, can I see a copy of this policy? Can I see a press release where the Chief of Police proclaims this new found genius to address the shrill demands of Germaine Greer? If it is so widespread, can I see the page that Red Pill has put together linking to all 100 of these press releases?

    If, as I am told here, men are not just held in the cooler overnight for such imagined crimes, but are actually prosecuted and jailed for such crimes, crimes where the guy is beat to a pulp and the girl has nary a scratch, can you provide some evidence that this happens systematically in our court system?

    The criminal justice system is rife with misjudgements for sure, but they are due to the general incompetence of governments, Where is the evidence that they are in fact an orchestrated conspiracy of the feminazis to emasculate their males to mere garbage taker-outers and sperm providers? Can you show some sort or numbers of incarceration that would support such a case? Can you demonstrate that our criminal justice system is SO broken that it actually incarcerates people based on no evidence at all?

    Surely, with all the MRA resources at your finger tips there is some data, some sort of study supporting this claim. Something substantial that will stand up to critical examination?

    Eric, if you, as you claim, want me to champion this cause then you and your friends actually need to make the case, actually need to address my objections, actually need to move from rhetoric to science.

    Let me draw a parallel for you. The radical African American political advocacy groups in the USA make remarkably similar claims to the ones made here. Namely that the whites are oppressing them. That “driving while black” is a crime, allegedly, in New Jersey. Just being black in a bad situation is enough to get you jailed. That the criminal justice system is so biased against them that a mere accusation by whitey will end a decent black man in the pokey. And they have data. Even though black men consist of about 12-15% of the population, they consist of over half of the inmate population.

    So what are we to make of these claims? Should we just take them of face value or should we demand systematic evidence? Should we call them to task and ask them to provide data not sermons? No doubt there are VERY real cases where black men are targeted by the police because they are black. Should we take that fact as convincing evidence that ALL their claims are true?

    Honestly, what I hear when I read all this talk is something that resembles that which you all hate so much. You sound like your enemies. Instead of complaining of a patriarchal oppressive social system you are complaining of a matriarchal, or perhaps gynearchal, oppressive social system. Instead of claiming all sex is rape, you are claiming all divorce is rape. Instead of accusing all men of being potential rapists, you are accusing all women of being potential abusers of a different kind.

    In short, notwithstanding a few pretty serious cases of abuse which I roundly condemn, it is time to move from emotional, insubstantial rhetoric, to evidence based science.

  360. @Jessica:
    > Nonetheless, one swallow doth not a summer make. Let us consider the data actually presented in this thread. We
    > have two anecdotes about two entirely different things

    Sorry, but you overlooked the Thomas Ball case as well as the Team lacrosse case and the Lautenberg Amendment. While the former are nothing more (and nothing less) but two more examples, the Lautenberg Amendment in fact *is “significant systematic” evidence that you can have as a printed copy.

    But as you again bring the topic of science onto the table, there is something in one of your older posts I’d like to comment on. It’s your reply to my comment on the Cornell study:

    > I don’t claim it is perfect, however, it is a serious piece of peer reviewed work, subject to critical
    > examination, unlike a couple of hand wavy, imprecise examples from which you expect to draw huge and impact
    > conclusions. The former is called “science” the latter “rhetoric.”
    >
    > > b) Right on the very first page of that report there is a remark
    >
    > Indeed, if you cherry pick the text you can certainly prove your point.

    My claim (the quotation of which you cropped before the important part) was that it is not valid to draw the conclusion from this report there was a general discrimination against women. The report clearly states that there was *no discrimination* visible with the tenure candidates while with the job applicants were *all* participants, that is men *and* women, likewise preferred the male candidates.

    1) Consider you have a report stating that apples have a spherical body with two concave poles while pears have a spherical body with a protrusion at the upper pole. It is obviously not valid based on this report to claim that *all* pomaceous fruit has a spherical body with a protrusion at the upper pole.
    Likewise a claim based on the Cornell study there was a general discrimination against women, is not valid even if you accept it as perfect valid science.

    2) There is an obvious discrepancy in the study. There is *no difference whatsoever* with the tenure candidates, but the male job applicants were preferred by female participants in the study as well.
    Of course I expect you to claim it was the common discrimination against women that had the participants prefer male job applicants, but that is just circular logic. When your proof relies on the theory to be true you want to prove, it has no value at all.
    So couldn’t it be that there was a *factual* reason for preferring male job applicants that was not taken into account by the researchers?

    That is not rhetoric, that is simple application of logic. Though I admit, it may not be so simple as the human brain sure is capable of performing logic thinking, but it isn’t really designed for that task.

    Yet, finally, I’m sorry I forgot to thank you for your compliment about my English, so let me catch up on that. Though I know, I understand English much better than I write or even speak, I’m pleased that it gave you the impression of being excellent. Thank you very much.

  361. @Jessica –

    Seriously? What, you want I should write you a report? give you a bunch of links? Are you sure? I mean, Websites arent really hard evidence either.

    Would you demand such a level of proof if what I claimed agreed with what you believed?

  362. @Jessica: I just happened to stumble over a very interesting fact that really should give you something to chew. You asked for statistics, so here there are. Look at the *victimization* statistics (Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2008 – Statistical Tables):
    If you look at these numbers, in most categories in fact [b]significantly more white men become victim of a crime than white women[/b]. Surprised? It is in fact [b]more safe to be a white woman than a white man[/b] in the US and not only there.

  363. @Manfred Wassmann
    >you overlooked the Thomas Ball case

    I didn’t overlook it, I have never heard of it. I see from a search that Matthew mentioned it in passing, but I didn’t look into it.

    > as well as the Team lacrosse case

    This is actually an interesting case. Obviously it was horrible what happened to these young men, and the seriously messed up chick who was the tool used to oppress them should have suffered some consequences, and frankly I am surprised she didn’t then way things went down. Perhaps if she had she wouldn’t have gone on to murder someone.

    However Mike Nifong, the DA who was the worst player in the whole drama certainly didn’t get away scot free. He was fired from his job, disbarred, fined, sent to jail for a short time, stripped of his sovereign immunity, lost his right to be defended on the government’s dime, and was sued by the players forcing him into bankruptcy, and financial ruin, and their civil suit is, AFAIK still ongoing.

    I’m not saying he was adequately punished, personally I think hang, drawn and quartered might be appropriate given the torment these young men suffered utterly unjustly, however, he did have extremely severe sanctions against him, and I am sure any other DA will think twice, or three times before following his example.

    I also recognize that the replacement DA made it very clear that, when the charges were dismissed it was not that they were found not guilty, but that they were absolutely innocent. Something that rarely happens indeed.

    So although this is a terrible example of abuse, it is redeemed to some extent by the fact that it wasn’t just swept under the rug,

    > and the Lautenberg Amendment.

    Now this is an interesting one. I tend to agree with you on any gun control regulation — it is generally considered bad, and there are lots of things that I don’t like about this law. But I don’t see how it is relevant to the matter at hand. Domestic violence is a thing that happens both ways, and as far as I know the law is not written in a biased way, both men and women are subject to it. So it isn’t evidence at all of bias in the law against men.

    You might say it disproportionately affects men, but that isn’t relevant at all, unless you think that the modern drug laws are racist. After all black people are far more affected by drug laws than white people.

    So I am opposed both to gun control laws and drug laws, but not because I think they are sexist or racist, but because they are stupid and ineffective.

    > on the Cornell study:

    So I am reluctant to reopen that can of worms because the floor is already crawling with worms. However, I’d say this. I originally quoted it in reply to your claim that men are being seriously and systematically discriminated against in employment. Even were we to take your interpretation of the data, that men and women are equally likely to be hired, then it still serves the purpose of refuting such a claim.

    I am reluctant on that whole thing, and I think I was deliberately hedging on it because I am not a fan of that whole — go read this massive study that proves my case, and I win if you don’t and don’t disprove it. I am not a fan of that kind of thing, and I would have done a better job on the Cornell thing had I thought it was all that important.

    > Yet, finally, I’m sorry I forgot to thank you for your compliment about my English,

    No problem, being able to conduct a cogent argument in your non mother tongue is quite a talent. Kudos.

  364. @Manfred Wassmann
    >If you look at these numbers, in most categories in fact [b]significantly more white men become victim of a crime than white women[/b]. Surprised?

    No, not surprised, I already knew this. It is also true that per capita black people are significantly more victimized than white people. Does that mean that Jesse Jackson’s delusions of a great oppression of black people by whitey is in fact accurate?

    Or rather should we recognize that these demographic groups, for reasons of either their maleness, their blackness, or the male culture of black culture, put them in a position where they are more likely to be victimized, and it is nothing to do with a systemic bias in the legal system?

  365. I originally raised the Duke lacrosse case as a way of pointing out that there is a lot of culpability grey area in this debate. But as Jessica further describes, it also serves as an example that sometimes shit happens and the system (eventually) works.

    Even though there are a lot of very smart people on this blog, I doubt that we can solve this problem at the societal level. However, on a personal level, we are something like a family here, and I hope that Erdo can use some of the wisdom presented here to resume the chase and find a soul mate, and that Matthew can put the past behind, do away with the bitterness, and find a fresh start in a better mating pool.

    As for me, I’m not so much interested in minimizing the feminists as maximizing the real keepers.

  366. @Jessica:

    again a lot of words to distract the attention, quite some useful tactics ;-)

    > I originally quoted it in reply to your claim that men are being seriously and systematically discriminated against in employment.

    Sorry, but that wasn’t me as your qoutation in that post shows.

    > No, not surprised, I already knew this.

    So even worse – and you still stick to the delusions of a great oppression of women? (No wait, rhetorical question (… and I’m damn sure I’ll get it answered)) ;-)

    … but again thanks for the compliment (you probably shouldn’t hear me talking), alas I’m not good at returning them.

  367. @Manfred Wassmann
    > Sorry, but that wasn’t me as your qoutation in that post shows.

    Ah, sorry for the mis-attribution.

    > and you still stick to the delusions of a great oppression of women?

    I have never made a claim of great oppression of women because I think the feminist goals have largely been achieved. Only people making a claim of great oppression are you MRAs.

    @Matthew House
    > the phrase ‘no true scotsman’ keeps coming to mind.

    Cheap shot. Give an example.

  368. And I’ll give an example… which you will discount, and demand -another- example… which you will -also- discount, until one or the other of us gives up.

    I don’t think you have any intention of debating in good faith. I discussed the ‘women control the home’ aspect in detail, and you handwaved the lot.

    You handwaved, ignored, cherry-picked and rationalized so hard, the bloody site owner came down and slapped your hands not once, but -twice-. And you kept at it.

    Frankly, I’m fairly certain that if I went and blew 3 another hours pulling up stats and writing a response, you’d simply ignore it. So, no real motivation to give you (another) example.

    1. >You handwaved, ignored, cherry-picked and rationalized so hard, the bloody site owner came down and slapped your hands not once, but -twice-.

      This is more salient than you know, being a relative newcomer here. Before the last week, I think an impartial observer would have said Jessica was one of the regulars I was least likely to dispute with. Not that I always thought she was right, mind you, but I thought she was fair. Now…not so much. And that makes me sad.

  369. @esr
    > not so much. And that makes me sad.

    I find that comment fascinating Eric. Obviously on this particular topic you and I disagree, but you of all people I would have expected to actually engage logically rather than descending to this sort of meta comment. “Fair”? WTF does that even mean?

    I have put forward many arguments that have entirely gone unanswered, and that is perfectly fine, but for you and Matthew to accuse me of not responding to your case in light of the thousands of words written about is beyond my understanding.

    The fact is that you guys are making an extraordinary claim — that despite a thousand years of society oppressing women violently, that somehow it has turned around and now it is the women who are aggressors and the men who are the victims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all I have asked for is substantial, critical evidence to support this claim, and have got nothing but opinion, and a few anecdotes. You, Eric, would not accept that standard of argument in any other area except this one.

    If you can’t put a number on it, you don’t know anything about it. So put a number on it.

    However, this has ceased to be fun, and is about tenth in the blog history, so perhaps it is indeed time for me to shut up about it.

    1. >Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all I have asked for is substantial, critical evidence to support this claim, and have got nothing but opinion, and a few anecdotes.

      This is not true. To cite just one instance to the contrary: it is a hard fact that in many jurisdictions any report of domestic violence, even by a husband, will result in the arrest and removal of the husband from his house before any investigation of the claim is made.

      Matthew House has presented you with other such facts, including not only his own experience as a battered husband but the fact that in most jurisdictions there is no recourse for battered husbands – no shelters, no support services, not even the presumption of innocence. You have handwaved all these away.

      Now I have another fact for you: According to a 2006 study at the University of Florida, women are more likely than men to stalk, attack and psychologically abuse their partners.

      “We’re seeing women in relationships acting differently nowadays than we have in the past,” said Angela Gover, a UF criminologist who led the research. That is, more commonly than not “it has turned around and now it is the women who are aggressors and the men who are the victims” to quote your own words.

      Can you tell me how we should expect it to be otherwise, when abusive women are coddled by the law and their victims are blamed and told to “man up”? Even you compound the wrongs done to Matthew House, and men like him, with your dismissive attitude. I expected better of you.

  370. @ Jessice – “a thousand years of society oppressing women violently,”

    It’s still happening in Islamic culture to tens of millions; present tense, massive tangible impact. Kinda puts things in perspective.

    1. >It’s still happening in Islamic culture to tens of millions; present tense, massive tangible impact. Kinda puts things in perspective.

      Quite true. Doesn’t make what happened to Matthew House in this country more excusable, though.

      In fact, it makes the behavior of “feminists” look even worse. The same ones who are most likely to ignore or minimize the legal abuse of men in this country are those most likely to define massive abuse of women in other countries as “not our problem”.

      The conclusion that sexual equality and justice are irrelevant to their actual goals seems inescapable.

  371. @esr
    > it is a hard fact that in many jurisdictions any report of domestic violence

    And you want me to just accept that such injustice is commonplace as a given without one scrap of systematic data to back it up? Where is the press release announcing this? Where is the written policy? Your assertion that it is a hard fact doesn’t convince me. And in particular it doesn’t allow for an examination of the specifics which are crucially important in these types of thing. As is the case in the study you cite.

    Of course you have no obligation to convince me one way or the other. But it is unreasonable for you or anyone to expect me to just accept such a radical assertion without anything to back it up.

    I can, on the flip side tell you of several cases I am personally familiar with where the police are called to a domestic violence incident where the woman is bleeding and black eyed, and the police leave them to “work it out.”

    > You have handwaved all these away.

    I did no such thing. I did not pick every one of these assertions apart, but I did write a million words on other topics. In fact someone kept complaining that I wrote too much.

    One of the primary functions of these shelters (and again I am speaking from experience with people I personally know) is to provide for some situations that are mostly specific to women. For example men who assure women that “if you leave me I will track you down and kill you”, or situations where women have young children in tow. These are situations that rarely apply to men. In terms of just a place to flop, there are many shelters available in most large cities. So if Michael had no where to go after the situation with his wife he could certainly have found a functional flop house with many other people who are homeless for one reason or another. Are they ideal? Are there beds always available? Far from it, but DV shelters suck too. Obviously in both cases it is better to find a supportive friend. But the bottom of the barrel situation is available.

    And from another point of view, it is my opinion that these things should not be provided by the government anyway, but rather by private charities. So if you and Michael really think that male domestic violence shelters are necessary then pony up some cash and start one. Let me know if you do, I might even send you some money.

    > According to a 2006 study at the University of Florida,

    And here is the rub, and this is why data needs to be given rather than broad statements of conclusion. This study has lots of flaws based on the summary you linked to. Obviously a few thousand college students is not in any way representative of the population as a whole. The idea that self reporting on this makes for accurate data is similarly flawed, and especially so here..

    Lots of women will admit that they really liked a guy and “stalked” him, but that is a very soft type of stalking. It is not “if I see you with another guy I’ll kill you” type of stalking, it is not “I’m going to climb in your bedroom window and take you any way” kind of stalking, which women frequently suffer. Because of social norms and memetics for a girl to say she “stalked a guy” is kind of cute and adorable, but for a guy to do so is creepy and scary. Whether that is fair or not is irrelevant — what is relevant is it is extremely likely to skew this data, and in particular tweak the point at which the self reporters judge their behavior to be “unrequited interest” verses “stalking.”

    Along these lines the two types of behavior are not at all equivalent. By no means am I dismissing female on male violence. It sounds like Michael took a pretty serious beating, but if you are talking about averages they are dramatically different, a fact not reflected at all in the survey.

    Do you want to look at some statistics on non custodial rape, or rape within marriages? Are these numbers going to be supportive of the great feminazi take over of America?

    > The same ones who are most likely to ignore or minimize the legal abuse of men in this country are those most likely to define massive abuse of women in other countries as “not our problem”.

    Really? Have you ever heard me minimize the suffering of women in these countries? On the contrary, I think it is horrible. But it is no different than the fact that people in America contribute to animal shelters to help lost kitties and puppies instead of sending money to charities which buy mosquito nets and vaccinations in Africa to save a child’s life. Which is to say concern is and should be a function of charitable worthiness, proximity and ability to effect change.

    And just to be clear, it is the MRAs that are demanding change here, not me.

    1. >Really? Have you ever heard me minimize the suffering of women in these countries?

      No, I don’t think you’re guilty of that. I don’t think of you as the kind of nasty Dalyoid/Dworkinoid bitch that infests political feminism, and that comment was not aimed at you.

      In your exchange with Matthew House you do, unfortunately, show signs of having internalized some parts of the anti-male worldview that the nasty bitches peddle. This hardly makes you exceptional; our political institutions, media, and universities are so saturated with it these days that even some men buy it. You manifest it by moving the goalposts any time a fact about the ill-treatment of men comes near making you uncomfortable.

      >And just to be clear, it is the MRAs that are demanding change here, not me.

      As well they should be. And you should be demanding many of the changes they want, too, if you are serious about equality and not just employing it as a pretext.

      The sad fact that many MRAs are dysfunctional whiners doesn’t abolish the justice of much of their case. Not all of it; I think, for example, it’s silly to object to men being treated as “disposable” in the context of war and dangerous jobs when that sort of risk is what men are designed for just as surely as women are designed for child-bearing and child-rearing.

      But damn…in the U.S., in 2014, men still carry most or all of the traditional burdens of maleness, and on top of that we’re expected to tolerate discrimination against us in law (the divorce courts are a special hellhole), medicine (go compare the funding levels of breast vs. prostate cancer research, for example), and public life (you try being constantly treated as a prospective rapist and child-molester – do you know that many airlines will not seat men next to children?).

      Boys are medicated for the disorder of being…boys. Young men have their lives laid waste by false rape accusations – yes, I know someone this happened to, I’m not theorizing. Fathers are treated as buffoons in the media. Men eat shit and get no respect. I’ve been watching all this get worse and worse and worse since my teens in the 1970s; though I’ve been relatively little injured myself, I find it astonishing that the men’s rights movement isn’t an order of magnitude larger and louder.

  372. @ ESR – “Doesn’t make what happened to Matthew House in this country more excusable, though.”

    Agreed. That is why your blog is a tangible good in the grand scheme of things. At the personal level, both Erdo and Matthew have a forum to both vent and seek help from the community of resources here. And I would argue that both have benefited from the feedback provided here.

    One way to get beyond the pain of past injustice is to recognize that you are still very fortunate to have been born a male in the US. I’ll take a frying pan upside the head any day over a clitoridectomy.

  373. @Jessica:
    > > and you still stick to the delusions of a great oppression of women?
    >
    > I have never made a claim of great oppression of women […]

    What did I say? OK, I admit posting the question the way I did wasn’t fair either. As you stated, there are plenty of worms on the floor already and I’m not going to open another can (at least I’ll try).
    Looking at this thread from a more relaxed perspective now, I have to state that while you got plenty of support here, you still are singleton in your role as a female participant in this discussion. Furthermore you appear to belong to the set of participants for whom this topic touches some very sensitive points in their biography (and for myself, I too count me to that number).

    I think this has jammed this discussion and though there are a couple of questions I’d like to ask and some things I’d like to point out, I doubt it would be of any use now.

  374. @esr
    > show signs of having internalized some parts of the anti-male worldview

    Unlikely, but you are entitled to your view of me. Frankly I see a lot of signs of an ugly misogyny in some of the posts here, but I’m not going to argue the case, because it isn’t possible to make any accurate determination of people’s real motives from online posting.

    > And you should be demanding many of the changes they want, too,

    I agree that there are certainly some changes that need to be made. Perhaps especially in the matter of child custody, but I don’t want to open that can of worms.

    > The sad fact that many MRAs are dysfunctional whiners doesn’t abolish the justice of much of their case.

    You know the problem is that the real points they have are drowned out in all the “whining like a little girl” bullshit. Michael obviously got a very raw deal and has every right to complain. But I can’t take all the pathetic “girls are scary, girls are mean to me” bullshit.

    I have said several times above that I thing MRAs have some legitimate beefs. But where this started is someone who is too scared to talk to a woman because he thinks the threat of a lawsuit from saying “hi you look pretty” is real.

    That whiny thing raises my hackles, whether the whiner has a penis or not. And sorry to be old fashioned, but I particularly dislike it in men because it is so damned unmanly. Just for the record, would any of your rad feminists say that? I think not.

    The irony is that many MRAs look so amazingly like the thing that they apparently hate so much. The only difference is that the feminazis are willing to actually fight for what they believe in.

  375. Ah yes. the misogyny card. And the Man Up card. The barely veiled contempt.

    For someone who claims not to be one of ‘those feminists’, you sure are running down their checklist of talking points.

    Also, my name is Matthew. I find no small amount of irony in that not only do you completely discount me, you can’t even get my name right.

    Let me put it in simple terms.

    You. Are. Wrong.

    Not only are you wrong, but you’re really -really- wrong, and to make it even worse, to all external perception, you’re -intentionally- wrong.

    In short, on some level, you know damn well the deck is stacked, and you’re perfectly happy with said stacked deck.

    You don’t want equality. You want superiority. Feminism is still in it’s ascendance. The problem is getting worse, and continuing to get worse. Dr. Helen’s ‘Men on Strike’ is a good book (not that you’ll read it. Or you’ll claim it’s not relevant. )

    There is a non-zero, non-trivial risk with interacting with a woman, on any level in modern America. You persist that it’s not, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. Which can only mean that you’re aware of the real situation, and perfectly comfortable with it, or you’re frighteningly oblivious to the world around you.

    Given the shameless abuse of logical fallacies you’ve undertaken in this conversation, one can only assume the former. In short, you are one of ‘those feminists’. Congratulations.

    in closing… please explain to me how wishing that women would no longer be able to beat me up and steal* my stuff and get away with it is ‘misogyny’.

    *take resources that I have gathered, using the force of law, without due process, and/or with due process, but in blatant violation of contractual terms.

  376. “The irony is that many MRAs look so amazingly like the thing that they apparently hate so much. The only difference is that the feminazis are willing to actually fight for what they believe in.”

    If you changed out “willing” for “legally and socially allowed”, I’d completely agree with you.

  377. @Matthew House
    @Ah yes. the misogyny card. And the Man Up card. The barely veiled contempt.

    You know Matthew, I was going to fisk the whole of your comment, because I disagree with it very strongly. But it strikes me that, in retrospect, you have been through the wringer in life, so perhaps I should just leave you be.

    I am, as I said, sorry for the pain you have gone through, and I wish you the best of good fortune in the future. May you find a way to heal any residual hurt, and, if you so desire, find a way to advocate for your MRA beliefs in a positive and productive way.

  378. @Matthew: While I fully agree with your points, you probably will admit that it’s hard to play fair when you see yourself cornered and outnumbered. So even while from my POV she wasn’t fair from the beginning, I think she should be given a timeout.

  379. @Manfred Wassmann
    > probably will admit that it’s hard to play fair when you see yourself cornered and outnumbered.

    Just for the record, I felt neither cornered nor outnumbered. If you want to you can attribute your inability to convince me to my flakiness or stupidity or misandry or my unwillingness to “play fair” whatever that means, but there is another rather simpler possibility: that you just weren’t very convincing, that your arguments just weren’t very good.

  380. > a thousand years of society oppressing women violently

    FWIW, historically many societies oppressed both men and women quite violently. Arguably, women as a whole had it worse, but the least well-off men often had it much worse than the least well-off women.

    The recent research on how many men get to reproduce vs. how many women get to reproduce is fascinating.

  381. @Jessica –

    “You know Matthew, I was going to fisk the whole of your comment, because I disagree with it very strongly. But it strikes me that, in retrospect, you have been through the wringer in life, so perhaps I should just leave you be.”

    Thanks for getting my name right.

    And as far as fisking goes, go right ahead. There’s nothing you can do to me, or say to me that will actually -hurt- me. Annoy me, sure. But hurt me? not so much.

  382. @The fluffy girl who sees herself i a mans world:
    > […] but there is another rather simpler possibility: that you just weren’t very convincing, that your arguments just weren’t very good.

    That in fact is a compliment I readily can return … and let me add, I think you’d also better *take* a timeout (yet I’m sure you will interpret that not as good advice but as another offence).

  383. I have no idea why this thread has become so personal and ad hominem. Disagreement isn’t a vice and facts have largely been non existent in this debate, so no “winner” can claim victory.

    Matthew, your bitterness runs deep and if don’t let it go, you’re going to have a hell of a time finding another mate. Jessica did not hit you with the frying pan. And she’s not likely to change her view of the problem either; in part because she’s not male and in part because no substantial body of evidence has been presented to prove the case.

    I also agree with Eric that we have been sliding down this shit slope for several decades now, but its not the biggest problem that we face as a society and there are no easy solutions. If you must have a world without feminists, I hear you can find that in Saudi Arabia.

  384. Jessica, one request you’ve made a few times now is that you’d like to see some sort of formal policy statement from police departments that they will always remove the male in the case where a domestic assault is reported, regardless of who was assaulted. The problem is that no police department will admit this on the record, as it makes them look bad. It’s no less real for all that, just as there’s no way you’ll get a police department to admit to using some form of quotas for speed limit enforcement – but it happens anyway.

  385. @Jay –

    According to the american bar association, a fairly reputable source.

    http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/domviol/docs/Domestic_Violence_Arrest_Policies_by_State_11_07.authcheckdam.pdf

    twenty one states have ‘must arrest’ laws. A further 9 are ‘pro arrest’ and the rest are at ‘officer discretion’

    However, may places have ‘unofficial policies’ requiring mandatory arrest.

    And again, the burden of proof is nothing more than picking up the phone and saying ‘he made me cry’. No evidence required.

  386. That link leaves out one critical detail: what’s “mandatory arrest”? Arrest the man, regardless, or arrest the one who did the assault? I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but it needs to be spelled out explicitly.

  387. as I understand it, it’s ‘arrest the person who -didn’t- call 911’

    which would be the man, in the vast majority of cases.

  388. @Matthew:
    > as I understand it, it’s ‘arrest the person who -didn’t- call 911?
    >
    > which would be the man, in the vast majority of cases.

    Or probably ‘officer discretion’ – find the difference ;-)

    @TomA:
    > I have no idea why this thread has become so personal
    > […]
    > Jessica did not hit you with the frying pan.
    > […]
    > in part because no substantial body of evidence has been presented to
    > prove the case
    > […]
    > If you must have a world without feminists, I hear you can find that
    > in Saudi Arabia.

    Yes, in fact! You get here, write really biased comments, drive ad
    homienem attacks, and suddenly – nobody knows how come – THAT THING GETS
    PERSONAL! How can that be? Mysterious!

    Reminder:
    a) Until now, the frying pan was only mentioned by yourself in the context:

    > I’ll take a frying pan upside the head any day over a clitoridectomy

    b) There has been much evidence provided, but it always has been swept
    away with a blunt “not an issue” or alike. OTOH the feminists themselves
    failed to provide the evidence they demand, except one obviously biased
    study from a university department devoted to the study of – guess what –
    yes feminism Wow!

    c) No one here demanded a world without feminists. For myself, I only
    demand to take them serious and recognize what they really want: female
    supremacy.

  389. >as I understand it, it’s ‘arrest the person who -didn’t- call 911?

    Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? If they had an “arrest the person who called 911” policy, -that- I’d find extraordinary.

  390. A note for the record.

    I don’t often go Ad Hom…But when I do, it’s fucking epic.

    If I went ad hom, I’d pull out all the stops. the word ‘fuck’ would be used a lot. There would be real, direct, impossible to mistake insults. I’d even preface it with something like “You Asshole.” Now, since I’ve not done any of that… I’m not going Ad Hom.

  391. @Matthew House
    > According to the american bar association, a fairly reputable source.
    > twenty one states have ‘must arrest’ laws. A further 9 are ‘pro arrest’

    Oh gawd, I thought we had declared detente and decided to move on. But seriously Matthew? I mean how do you think I am going to respond to this summary page you posted? If you were in my shoes, what would you say in response to it?

    Where does it say “must arrest the man”? Now a couple of you have speculated as to the reason why, but I didn’t, I actually looked at what the law said. Here, for example is the “must arrest” statute from Arizona:

    “In cases of domestic violence involving the infliction of physical injury or involving the discharge, use or threatening exhibition of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, the peace officer shall arrest a person who is at least fifteen years of age, with or without a warrant, if the officer has probable cause to believe that the offense has been committed and the officer has probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed the offense… unless the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the circumstances at the time are such that the victim will be protected from further injury. ”

    http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/13/03601.htm (Emphasis mine.)

    No mention of a man being the preferred target, just a person. Perhaps you think that that is sweeping under the rug, Perhaps you consider me a deluded idiot for not reading between the lines to see what it really means. Me? I think it is reading what the law plainly says. Actually, to me, the law here seems pretty reasonable. If the police officer has probable cause that both the attacker threatened or did serious injury and that that threat it ongoing, then the attacker should be arrested.

    So it seems that, in Arizona at least, your wife should have been arrested. Why she wasn’t I don’t know, I don’t know where you live. However, it is quite lovely in Scottsdale at this time of year. Perhaps you should try it.

  392. @Jessica –

    I wasn’t communicating with you. You might have noticed the ‘@Jay’ at the very beginning? Yeah, not addressed to you. Meant for Jay.

    It’s clear you don’t have anything relevant to add to the conversation. Other people are having this conversation. You’re not involved.

  393. @Jessica:

    Yes, sounds reasonable. I think, the answer to your question “… your wife should have been arrested. Why she wasn’t I don’t know, I don’t know” probably can be found in one sentence from your quotation: “if the officer has probable cause to believe that the offense has been committed and the officer has probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed the offense” that pretty much leaves it to the officers discretion. What that means shouldn’t be hard to guess, but it’s of course no written policy. OTOH most of the claims of discrimination against women since the late twentieth century also are not backed by a written policy. Where for example is the written policy that has people prefer male job applicants?

  394. @Matthew House
    > You might have noticed the ‘@Jay’ at the very beginning?
    > Other people are having this conversation. You’re not involved.

    Oh, yes sorry, I missed the @Jay thing. No problem Matthew, I’ll stay out of your treehouse,

    @Manfred Wassmann
    > the officer has probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed the offense”

    Unlikely, probable cause is a pretty well defined term in criminal law, and I think it would be hard to find probable cause that the guy broken and bleeding is the attacker and the unharmed woman the defender, or that she continued to be in danger.

    Now here is a question: why is it that whenever I try to type “probable” it always comes out “probably”?

    > Where for example is the written policy that has people prefer male job applicants?

    I think this is actually an excellent point Manfred. Nonetheless, the fact that there may be a paucity of such written evidence doesn’t obviate the MRAs from the requirement that they show the feminazis have taken over the world in a way that stands up to some critical examination.

    For women this wasn’t all that hard. Women didn’t legally have the right to vote at one time. There really were no female law partners in law firms despite the fact that there were women who could clearly demonstrate more billing hours, and a higher success rate than the men promoted above them. There really were no women in various roles in the military (and in that case there was often specific written policies about that.)

    So if what you say is true, then it doesn’t obviate the need to demonstrate your case, it just makes it harder for you. Jay for example tells me that they don’t write that down because it would be embarrassing to them, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happens. The former might be true, but how exactly do you know the latter is true?

  395. @Patrick Maupin –

    That’s some heavy shit right there. A fair amount of solid data, with references. I do note, however, it bypasses an entire class of Domestic Violence. Violence-by-Proxy.

  396. @Patrick Maupin
    > is probably at least as political as climate science.

    And we who object to the unfettered conclusions of the global warming advocates say what? “Show us your data.” “Prove you conclusions.” “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” “We shouldn’t make radical changes to society until you make a strong case for your thesis”

    And the AGW advocates respond how? Michael Mann tells us he won’t show us his data because we might be mean to it. There is huge and embarrassing controversy when their secret discussions become public. Nobody is allowed access to the data to try to reproduce their experiments. The data is too hard to show we are told, it is private and they can’t share.

    So, PM, tell me, who is the “show me your data” person on this thread? And who is the “we can’t show you our data” people on this thread?

    I dare to critically examine Matthew’s data and he yells at me to get out of his treehouse? That sure sounds an awful lot like Michael Mann to me.

  397. So, let me get this right. I cite a source with a link and…

    -gasp-

    It’s not good enough! This is my suprised face. In short, Jessica did exactly what I predicted. Grabbed those goal posts and ran with em. Again, shocked, I say.

    Amusing note..

    “Oh gawd, I thought we had declared detente and decided to move on.”

    Um no. -You- unilaterally ‘declared peace’. Because it was convenient. For you. Unless you’ve got a mouse in your pocket, there is no ‘we’ in this declaration business.

    ” But seriously Matthew? I mean how do you think I am going to respond to this summary page you posted? If you were in my shoes, what would you say in response to it?”

    You specifically asked for the data in question. Sorry, but complaining that I -gave you what you asked for- is well… lame.

    What amuses me even more, is after I more or less say “I really don’t want to talk to you, please leave me alone” she immediately directs to me again, twice, in less than 15 minutes.

    Funny thing? Dudes get thrown out of conventions for that kind of behavior.

  398. Jessica’s objections to Matthew’s table are on point. We who decry the excesses of feminist pravda must be careful to back up our objections with hard data.

    Jessica, go read that study Patrick linked to, then come back.

    And for a discussion of how empty and meaningless the concept of “social justice” is, Power Line has a new post on that very subject.

  399. I also note that comment moderation, which didn’t appear to be active before, is active now. At least, for me it is.

    I can see the little “Your comment is awaiting moderation. ” note.

    Which tells me that this conversation (and possibly my behavior, athough I can’t be certain) is reaching the limits of the Host’s patience.

    Therefore, I shall retire the field, rather than make ESR work overtime sorting this crapfest.

    This is me, attempting to have some manners.

  400. @Matthew
    Don’t worry about the comment moderation, it hits us all. Especially if you comment a lot or with long comments. It is just the WordPress filters are a little crappy. Eric will release it soon enough.

    Eric has a few faults for sure, but a suppressor of open dialog is not one of them.

  401. @Jessica:

    > So, PM, tell me, who is the “show me your data” person on this thread?

    Everybody.

    > And who is the “we can’t show you our data” people on this thread?

    Everybody has anecdotes. I don’t recall seeing much, if any hard data.

    > I dare to critically examine Matthew’s data and he yells at me to get out of his treehouse?

    If you’re discussing what I remember, there wasn’t much data there — it was more a collection of anecdotes, that resonated with Matthew because they matched his reality.

    > That sure sounds an awful lot like Michael Mann to me.

    Whether you believe in AGW or not, there’s a huge difference. Mann’s data is his own, while Matthew is not, AFAIK, a self-declared domestic violence researcher.

    If you want data, there are a ton of references in the paper I just linked to, including several studies the author strenuously disagrees with, and others where he endorses the data but disagrees with the conclusion.

  402. @Matthew:

    > Violence-by-Proxy.

    Yeah, but that’s usually man-on-man. It just proves that men are violent :-)

  403. @Jessica –

    I rescind all previous requests for you to leave me alone. Since you’re not going to stop talking to/about me, I might as well get used to the idea. Thanks for respecting my boundaries.

    Now, on to the meat of my post. –

    “So, PM, tell me, who is the “show me your data” person on this thread? And who is the “we can’t show you our data” people on this thread?”

    To clarify something… I never said I ‘cant’ show you the data. I said there was no -point- to showing you the data. I said no matter what the source, you’d refuse to accept the validity of the data. And so far, I’ve been right. You blew off the American Bar Association. You blew off my mention of Dr. Helen’s ‘Men on Strike’. There is not one single link here that contradicts your position that you’ve admitted as valid. 100% rejection. It’s a given that you’ll blow off Patrick’s links too.

    Assuming there was a ‘God’ (which I doubt, but assume one as condition of anecdote), He could hand you the facts etched on stone tablets with a ‘finger of fire’, and you wouldn’t believe it.

    Much like much like the Nye/Ham debate. There was literally -zero- point to that debate, and I don’t see much of one in this debate. I see my continued poking of this mess as a character flaw on my part. If I had any brains, I’d just walk away.

  404. Matthew, Jessica’s right about the moderation. If you were actually trying Eric’s patience, he would not be shy about coming out and saying so in so many words.

    Jessica, go read the Puffington Host article Matthew linked to, and don’t just dismiss it…explain why it’s not worth the electrons it took to send to your screen. If you’re going to talk about Matthew, at least have the decency to engage him when he does bring up sources.

  405. @Matthew House
    > I rescind all previous requests for you to leave me alone.

    This isn’t high school dude. It is an open discussion forum. Talk or don’t talk.

    > You blew off the American Bar Association.

    No I didn’t, I examined your point and demonstrated that it was utterly lacking in merit. As I have said pretty much every time, what is required is not just any old evidence, but evidence that can stand up to critical examination. That is, after all, what science is all about.

    > You blew off my mention of Dr. Helen’s ‘Men on Strike’

    I never noticed your comment. Generally speaking if you want to cite something it is really only polite to explain the salient points of the link you are posting and explain why it is valid. After all, I can use google to search for things that agree with me and post the first ten links, then say — there you go disprove me. It is an invalid tactic. You, the person claiming validity have to make some attempt to demonstrate the validity.

    In terms of this specific thing, I read the link you mentioned below, and what is her contention? For various reasons men are dissuaded from getting married. It seems to almost go without saying that it is just an opinion piece with no actual metrics to back it up.

    As it happens I agree with some of her points. However, what she fails to say is that women generally speaking are the losers from this situation since women, for solid reasons of sexual diamorphism, prefer stable relationships more strongly than men.

    So, in a sense, her argument is exactly the opposite of yours, namely that women have lost control of the game.

    Perhaps you can argue that this is a case of women, hoist on their own petard, and you might be right. However, what she doesn’t say from what I remember, is that fundamentally the reason men are less inclined to get married is due to the sexual revolution of the sixties, when, as the wise old dame’s aphorism goes, why are they going to buy the cow when they can get the milk for free?

    To be clear, I am not offering an endorsement for this aphorism, the sexual revolution, or much to do with marriage in general. I am more talking about the views in the broad sweep of society as I see them. I don’t have metrics either, but I am just as entitled to my unsupported opinion piece as Dr. Helen.

    >. There is not one single link here that contradicts your position

    Zero times one million is still zero. You have to actually produce data that stands up to critical examination.

    > It’s a given that you’ll blow off Patrick’s links too.

    No, that looks more substantial. I’d rather he had posted a summary rather than demanding everyone else read it, but it looks juicy, and I’ll get around to reading it when I have some time.

    > Assuming there was a ‘God’

    Well I’d certainly be happy to consider his data, though it too would have to stand up to critical examination. The last batch on tablets of stone had some pretty serious flaws from what I remember. Something about graven images and not coveting your wife’s ass or something like that.

    > Much like much like the Nye/Ham debate

    I didn’t see the debate, but I disagree. I think there is a great value is confronting the unscientific and the pseudo scientific with a demand that the glorious principles of the scientific method and more broadly scientific methodologies are applied. Ham has lots of papers, thousands of links, but they are all bullshit. They deserve the evisceration that Nye no doubt gave them.

  406. @Jay Maynard
    > If you’re going to talk about Matthew, at least have the decency to engage him when he does bring up sources.

    Just to be clear Jay, this one is not from Matthew, it is from Patrick,, someone I very much respect. I will read the paper, but it looks like a lot of reading and a lot of work, so you’ll have to allow me some time to read and digest it. I appreciate him digging it up.

  407. There are a lot of very smart people that frequent this blog, which is why most of us are here. And I suppose that there is some mental exercise value in debating this subject on a global level. Personally, I thought that we had hit the high point of usefulness 100 posts ago when Erdo and Matthew got to vent and avail themselves of some good feedback. Since then it has mostly been a pissing match and escalating aggravation.

    It’s not natural for the sexes to be at war with each other, regardless of the dysfunction of individual members on both sides. Since we don’t have a lot of hard data to analyze, Matthew and Manfred please tell us what you see is the solution to this problem.

  408. @Jessica:

    > I’d rather he had posted a summary rather than demanding everyone else read it…

    There appears to be enough meat there that it would be hard to do it justice with any short summary I could write. I thought I left some tantalizing tl;dr info, but belatedly realized after your reply that you may have thought I was referring to the current discussion rather than to the contents of the article itself when I wrote “Domestic violence — research, policing, courts — is probably at least as political as climate science.”

    But, really, that _was_ my lame summary of the article :-)

  409. @TomA –

    I don’t have a solution. I’ll freely admit that. But from my POV, I’m 43, and I’m not a genius. But I can certainly see that something is seriously broken with regards to modern american gender interaction.

    But I think an -excellent- place to start is :

    1. I believe that there’s a large and growing cultural rift between women and men, being directly caused by the ‘victim grievance industry’.

    2. I believe that woman can, -and do- use the law as a bludgeon, making spurious claims of abuse and harassment for the purposes of revenge, and/or ‘getting a check’. Or simply to punish an undesirable male for attempting to ‘court above his station’. I believe this, because I have seen it happen. Anywhere from watching women pull the most amazing shit in bars ( I used to bounce bar for a living, it was…educational. I don’t drink anymore), to the time my stepmother tried to put my dad in prison on a false accusation of molesting my half brother, so she could go fuck his best friend. best friend -was- a best friend, and wanted none of it.

    3 This is horrible, because it really screws over the victims with real, significant claims. Every time a woman makes a false accusation and gets away with it, it widens that rift. It makes it harder for real victims to be taken seriously, and get justice. I have a -huge- problem with that.

    However, the contention by Jessica is that I’m full of crap. My wording, not hers.

    Let’s assume for the moment, that she’s absolutely right. Every single claim I’ve made( not including personal experiences) is untrue.There’s no risk of associating with women at cons, or in the workplace. No woman ever makes a claim that their husband hit them, or molested the children, so they can clean up in their ‘frivorce’. False accusations, for the sake of this thought experiment, are totally bogus.

    If that’s true… then where is all this shit -coming- from? Seriously, even the most casual google search for ‘mens right’ reveals pages and pages of anecdotes, claims, and studies. Some of worth, some of total crap. I have no idea how to sift the two, I’m not a researcher, I’m a metalworker. I don’t have the skillset to evaluate the data with any kind of speed or provable accuracy.

  410. Jessica, I was referring to the Puffington Host link Matthew posted to Dr. Helen’s work on why men are giving up on marriage.

    1. >Jessica, I was referring to the Puffington Host link Matthew posted to Dr. Helen’s work on why men are giving up on marriage.

      I think Helen Smith is missing one major cause: hypergamic mismatch. As women become more educated and independent, two things happen:

      1. The number of eligible hypergamic targets for women at or near the top of the marriage market decreases (“All the good men are taken!”)

      2. The number of men near the bottom of the marriage market who are not eligible hypergamic targets for any woman increases.

      If you game out the consequences you find that a major effect of the ideology of sexual equality is to give relatively high-status men increasing license to screw around because the market power of women to get them to commit has decreased. This remains true whether sexual mores are formally restrictive or not; it’s a straight consequence of supply and female demand for hypergamic targets.

      No, I don’t have a solution to advocate. I’m just pointing out the problem.

  411. @Jay Maynard
    > I was referring to the Puffington Host link

    I missed it the first time around, the SNR in this thread is pretty low. However, I responded to it above. If anything, I think it is more supportive of my point of view.

    In regards to Eric’s comments, although I disagree in some respects, primarily because men and women measure value in a partner in significantly different ways, I do agree with the broader conclusion that that sexual revolution of the sixties has served to decrease women’s power in relationships. And that, if anything, is the cause of decreasing marriage rates. In excessively simplistic terms: why don’t men get married at the same rates they used to? Because they don’t have to.

    If you think that is advantageous to women, I’d challenge you to consider the social gestalt of the words “bachelor” and “spinster.”

    1. >I disagree in some respects, primarily because men and women measure value in a partner in significantly different ways

      Of course that’s true – and it’s actually a major driver of the problem. If men and women valued the same things (or, to put it more formally, if the statistical distributions of differing individual utility functions were near the same in both sexes) then the mismatch problem would disappear; the only thing preventing either men or women from marrying a partner matched to them would be search costs.

      Most people think that’s how it works now. Sadly, they’re wrong. We’re in a bad, bad bind. The worthy desire for sexual equality is colliding, hard, with the actual biology of actual human beings. I grow increasingly doubtful that it will survive the collision.

  412. Patrick Maupin on 2014-02-18 at 21:17:48 said:
    > http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V71-Straus_Thirty-Years-Denying-Evidence-PV_10.pdf

    OK PM, I did take the time to read this paper. It was pretty interesting, but my reaction is kind of “so what?” The conclusion seems reasonable, but really the take away from it is twofold:

    1. Domestic partner violence is approximately equally likely to be initiated by both sexes.
    2. There is a lot of funky cover up in the scientific realm of social sciences.

    Let us stipulate that both conclusions are correct. I’m not sure how it advances the cause of “the faminazis are taking over the world.” Or that men are being systematically emasculated by women, or that guys shouldn’t even smile at women lest the full force of the law descend on their testosterone riddled bodies. All it says is that trailer trash is sexually bilateral.

    On the second point, who exactly would be surprised that social “science” is soft and full of crazy extremists and massive scientific dishonesty? I would not deny for one second that there are some seriously whacked out feminists out there. But that is no justification for taking a seriously whacked out extremist MRA position.

    So although this paper is interesting, I really don’t see how it advances the argument you are making. But perhaps I am missing something.

  413. @ ESR – “If you game out the consequences”

    The models track this phenomena to prolonged abundance (modern day affluence).

    When resources are scarce, mating habits must be more efficiently in order to survive. For a female, an adequate match that keeps you alive is better than stalling for a hypergamic match.

    When resources are abundant, hypergamy is viable, advantageous, and dominant.

    Eric is right, we have been affluent for nearly 3 generations now. Males still want to screw (nothing new there), but females are becoming increasing fierce in their competition for superior males. See women’s fashion and weight consciousness as an example. Feminism allows them to dump the rejects and move on to better options. Not a pretty picture. However, in the long run, males will react by evolving greater intelligence, strength, and robustness.

  414. @Matthew House
    > However, the contention by Jessica is that I’m full of crap…. Every single claim I’ve made( not including personal experiences) is untrue.There’s no risk of associating with women at cons, or in the workplace. No woman ever makes a claim that their husband hit them, or molested the children, so they can clean up in their ‘frivorce’.

    I have never held any of those opinions. I don’t think you are full of crap, and I don’t think that none of these bad thngs happen. What I do think is that your excessive exposure to them through one channel or another has caused you to serious over estimate the risk and frequency of these dreadful events.

    > If that’s true… then where is all this shit -coming- from?

    The “where there is smoke there is fire” argument just doesn’t hold up. We are talking about the Web here. Every whacked out position people have ever thought of is supported in abundance on the web. Have you any idea, for example, how much support there is on the web for the idea that NASA faked the moon landings, or that George Bush blew up the World Trade Center towers?

    You, yourself raised a perfect example. Have you any idea how much stuff there is out there on the web about creationism, and how many “scientific” papers people like Ken Hamm have published explaining how, for example, Noah’s flood created the Grand Canyon? Or how the second law of thermodynamics excludes the theory of evolution? But it is all bullshit. It doesn’t stand up to critical examination. People tie themselves in knots about this stuff because believing it is really important to sustain their religious worldview.

    And no doubt there are lots of anecdotes about terrible things women have done to men, and when these things happen the web offers people a fabulous outlet for that. It ends up in these echo chambers which just magnify the small into the gigantic. And when people like me come along and challenge the conventional wisdom in the echo chamber, everybody goes nuts, hence the heat in this thread.

    Go tell the NASA hoax believers that we can bounce lasers off the reflectors left on the moon, and you will get an equally hot reaction.

    And to be clear, I am not saying that the MRA case is like these whacky theories. I think there is some merit to it. I just think that you are serious over estimating its prevalence and seriousness.

  415. @TomA –

    ” However, in the long run, males will react by evolving greater intelligence, strength, and robustness.”

    While men might evolve a little, I think what you’re going to see is Cultures that put up with and/or encourage hypergamy will die out, and cultures that ‘dont put up with that crap’ will take over.

    Anyone care to guess what the fastest growing cultural group on the planet is?

  416. Arg, hit ‘post’ too fast.

    Also, you’re not going to see evolution for ‘smarter’.

    You’re going to see evolution for ruthless. The men who reproduce will be the ‘Alphas’ and the PUA people. Men willing to lie, cheat, coerce, intimidate. And before you gainsay the PUA argument… Why is it so popular with a certain class of men? -because it works-. It’s morally repugnant, intentionally ‘gaming’ women’s psyche to get laid, but it works.

    Sure, there’s an entire subset of women who are too clever to fall for that crap, -but they’re not having any kids-. They’ll die out.

  417. @Matthew House
    “You’re going to see evolution for ruthless. The men who reproduce will be the ‘Alphas’ and the PUA people. Men willing to lie, cheat, coerce, intimidate.”

    Abortion terminates that option.

  418. @TomA:
    > Matthew and Manfred please tell us what you see is the solution to this problem

    I think, my following reply to Jessica’s comment should also answer your
    questions.

    @Jessica:

    > > the officer has probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed the offense”
    >
    > Unlikely, probable cause is a pretty well defined term in criminal law

    I’m not going to ask you for a substantial evidence for your claim (simply because that has nothing to do with the point I made in the posting your answer refers to – and which I probably didn’t state clearly enough as I was a bit in a hurry).

    But this way it’s nothing more than your personal opinion and I’ll get back to that point later.

    > > Where for example is the written policy that has people prefer male job applicants?
    >
    > I think this is actually an excellent point Manfred. Nonetheless, the fact that there may be a paucity of such
    > written evidence doesn’t obviate the MRAs from the requirement that they show the feminazis have taken over the
    > world in a way that stands up to some critical examination.

    The point you are trying to make here again is way off what I had in mind with my question. Of course you can’t read my mind, so I’m going to explain.

    I) The fact of paucity of written evidence isn’t the problem. What I was trying to point at is:

    a) if you discount Matthew’s arguments because of lacking written evidence, you also have to discount feminist arguments which are not backed by written evidence (and that would probably suggest, we all must be living in a happy world without any discrimination (at least in that parts we are living in))

    b) if you take those feminist claims into account without written evidence, you have to do the same with arguments like those presented by Matthew (who in fact presented you with quite some evidence to back POV, you simply don’t regard conving enough).

    In other words: You can either have the cake or eat it.

    II) AFAIK no one here claimed, feminists had taken over the world, especially not me. If you think so, you severly misunderstood my comments. The point is, it takes time for a big ship to change the course. E.g. the policies that govern child education (and these in fact *are* written) have an effect on people who hit the job market 10 or 20 years from now. So IMHO when modeling such policies you should not only base them on the current situation, but also take those developments into account which are already evident.

    My claim here: If you don’t slow down or change your course early enough, you’re likely to end up like Edward Smith.

    III) You (and some other as well, but not with such a prevalence) repeatedly demand evidence from a group of people, whom I don’t see represented in this thread in any active participant, the whining MRA’s. (I don’t think you refer to Eric, since I never saw him whining, but as you can see from this post, he really is a Man’s Rites Activist. SCNR)

    Thus I’d suggest (you and everyone else) to focus on the people who and the opinions which are actually represented by active participants in this discussion, at least when you place demands. It is very cheap to demand from people, who are absent, and than blame them for not answering to your demands.

    @esr:

    > The worthy desire for sexual equality is colliding, hard, with the actual biology of actual human beings. I grow increasingly doubtful that it will survive the collision.

    Not a big problem. I think mankind has mostly completed it’s task. It has relieved the evolution from the chains of the biological life forms. Even if you take into account the possibility of passing knowledge through writing and books, all the skills someone has acquired throughout the lifetime gets lost at the latest with death. This is not true with machines where memory and knowledge effectively can be cloned.

    From my POV the situation we are in already is more like a symbiosis between men and machines than a human world where machines are simply there to assist humans.

  419. Evolution modeling is still in its infancy, and is not useful as a tool of future prediction. This is especially true due to advent of memetic evolution in our species over the past several thousand years, which now overlaps and complicates physical evolution processes. We are in uncharted waters with this new paradigm.

    However, increasing intelligence, strength and robustness are the main trends coming out of the models today. Strength is the oddball there, because technology is minimizing that imperative. It may just be that not enough time has passed in order to confirm this correlation. Analyzing trends in psychological traits is iffy at best.

    But back on topic; it appears as though strong women make men stronger and weak women make men weaker, over very long time spans.

  420. @TomA
    Indeed, you cannot predict the future, but you can see a train coming.

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/muslim-fertility-rates-dropping-faster-than-western-fertility-rates/

    Fertility is declining everywhere in the world. Parallel to this, the contribution of women to family income is increasing. Development in the poor quarters like China and Bangladesh is build on working women.

    Exagerating, we can sat that Men are becoming an “accessory” in some circles.

  421. Mathew House says “You’re going to see evolution for ruthless. The men who reproduce will be the ‘Alphas’ and the PUA people. Men willing to lie, cheat, coerce, intimidate”

    I think you’re making a distinction between alphas and PUAs where you say “Men willing to lie, cheat, coerce, intimidate” but I’m not sure so I’ll throw this out there – “alpha” doesn’t necessarily mean that one lies, cheats, coerces, intimidates – I know plenty of “alphas” for whom this is not their modus operandi.

    But I think the term “alphas” is relatively meaningless. At least in the context of this thread where it seems that it’s being used in the evolutionary context of “alpha.”

    Today I wonder if that is not a completely contextual term. Cultures and communities and their subs each have their alphas. Members are generally part of these groups due to some attraction or another. One person’s “beta” may be another’s “alpha”. A matter of perception.

    Though, I do get that evolutionary hindbrain is still very much at play here and the term in that context retains some applicability. Generalizing here, but – it’s interesting that the easier our life in society as a whole gets, the more indulgent we seem to be in our hindbrain motives (pleasure/distraction seeking, etc). Consequence of seriously mitigated consequences I reckon. But where does it lead?

  422. @Matthew House – My apologies, I misspelled your name in my last comment.

    Where you say “Also, you’re not going to see evolution for ‘smarter’.”

    I would tend to agree with this. I wonder if somewhere it’s demonstrable. I was reading something by a geneticist recently along these lines – I’ll see if I can find it again.

    Something else I was reading had to do with the advent of smartphones, Google, and such contributing.

    IIRC the crux was we know more, but understand less. Something too about the neural pathways forming and evolving through the learning and skills development processes seeing a negative shift.

    I wonder though, that in the coming man/machine interface world, does it really matter? Is it really a bad thing? Don’t know. Of course, solar flares and weaponized EMPs so probably…

  423. @Manfred Wassmann
    > In other words: You can either have the cake or eat it.

    Please reread my earlier comment. I already addressed this question.

  424. @Matthew House
    > PUA … -because it works-. It’s morally repugnant, intentionally ‘gaming’ women’s psyche to get laid, but it works.

    This is not correct. PUA, which as I have said before, I have studied, is not all morally repugnant at all, and it I find the “it works” part particularly curious. I think there is an underlying tone in what you are saying that if the PUA guy gets the girl in the sack that somehow he is the winner and she is the loser. But that isn’t necessarily true at all. In fact it comes from a deep misunderstanding of male female interaction in our society.

    In fact, what I hear often from women is how frustrating it is that men are so “wussy” to use a PUA term. It is very frustrating that they can’t find men worthwhile getting together with. What PUA offers, in some respects anyway, is a way for men to get rid of that wussy thing, and it is something very beneficial to women as well.

    Of course, there are some parts of it that are rather sad and pathetic. I have experienced it many times, and if you are aware of what is going on, it is rather pathetically hysterical to watch some guy jumping around like a performing monkey to get your attention. Who the heck is in control there?

    It seems that there are a lot of guys that think they can read “The Game” and all of a sudden all their dancing and prancing makes them an alpha. I totally know what WCC means here. Alpha is an inside confidence that is very attractive. A true alpha would never dance like a performing bear to get some woman’s attention. He’d rather go home alone than do that sort of thing. These sorts of men are a rare find, and they rarely go home alone, unless they want to.

    Insofar as PUA helps guys to develop their sense of comfort, confidence, and the ability to read and understand what is going on with a woman, I think it is a very good thing for men and women alike. As long as it is about DHV and IOI and not negging and goofing like a fool, it is all good.

  425. A random something that fell out of my brain..

    does anyone here remember when some poor bastard got his dick chopped off and run through a garbage disposal by his wife?

    And they talked about it on ‘The View’? And oh, how they laughed. And laughed.

    And nobody got in trouble. Sure Sharon Osborne ‘apologized’, but nobody really got in trouble.

  426. @Jessica –

    RE: PUA.

    PUA, as I understand it, is the science of using various social and evolutionary ‘vulnerabilities’ to ‘hack’ a woman’s consent. Spoofing a woman’s reproductive instincts and learned social behavior to get laid.

    In short, not really treating them like a human being, but treating the person as a puzzle, or a lock to be unlocked to be able to get laid. Using ‘tricks’ to fuck someone is not a video game achievment.

    I think it’s pretty morally reprehensible. I think people should treat each other like people.

    Then again, I’m fortunate. I don’t have to resort to tricks to get laid.

  427. @Matthew House
    > PUA, as I understand it, is the science of using various social and evolutionary ‘vulnerabilities’ to ‘hack’ a woman’s consent.

    Ah then, you don’t understand it. Perhaps you also might consider that men and women are constantly using hacks of various kinds to get in each other pants. It is just that the PUA guys are a bit more organized about it. For example, is it ok to try to make yourself more attractive to the partner of your preferred sex? Welcome to hacksville. Were this not true, no woman over the age of 25 would have long hair.

    Reminds me of speed cameras. Silly speed limits are ok if you are only caught capriciously, but if you are caught systematically they are somehow much worse.

    1. >Ah then, you don’t understand [PUA].

      You haven’t actually refuted Matthew. Yes, men and women use folk knowledge about each others’ evolutionary vulnerabilities; what makes the PUAs different is that they do in fact try to make a science of it, with an underlying generative theory and testable predictions rather than a set of haphazardly-acquired loose heuristics flying in rough formation. This is impressive even though their their motives are often crass and the theory somewhat flawed.

      Actually I think his characterization (“the science of using various social and evolutionary ‘vulnerabilities’ to ‘hack’ a woman’s consent.”) is both correct and concise.

  428. @esr
    > what makes the PUAs different is that they do in fact try to make a science of it,

    So you are saying doing it badly is OK, but doing it well is bad? Hence my analogy with speed limit cameras.

    1. >So you are saying doing it badly is OK, but doing it well is bad? Hence my analogy with speed limit cameras.

      You misunderstand; I neither made nor implied a value judgment, I simply highlighted the difference between haphazard use of folk knowledge and an attempt to do mating tactics scientifically. That’s why I think Matthew’s summary of PUA is correct and you were mistaken to object to it.

      In fact, I don’t think PUA techniques are ‘bad’ at all. They’re just tools. I don’t see them as being different in essence than women wearing lipstick and push-up bras. In both cases, the ethical/moral issue is what you do with the attractive power your technologies give you.

  429. @esr
    > I don’t see them as being different in essence than women wearing lipstick and push-up bras.

    Indeed.

  430. There’s a difference to me in making -real- self inprovement, and really working hard to catch a -specific- mate.

    But sending false signals just to get a piece of ass is wrong.

  431. Jessica, I forwarded your comment about women over 25 and long hair to a friend who’s in her late 40s with hair down to her ass. She was…rather emphatic in her rejection of the idea that her hair was for anyone but herself.

    Quite emphatic.

  432. It occurs to me, I’m not making it clear what I consider a ‘false signal’

    False signals are (but not limited to)

    Lying about what you do, or who you are. false fronting. fake names. burner phones.

    PUAs seriously talk about that kinda shit. “felon game.”…”special forces game”…”lawyer game”…

    Thats what I mean by ‘using false signals to hack women’s consent”

  433. We are programmed by evolution to pick up subtle indicators and cues in potential mating encounters. Appeal is not arbitrary. At the subconscious level, you are noting your offspring’s traits.

    When our ancestors lived in small groups, mating selection was simpler because the options were relatively few. Now we live in large cities, with an explosion of options and complexity.

    Practicing for casual sex can ultimately develop into a habit that makes long term relationships impossible.

  434. @Jay Maynard
    >She was…rather emphatic in her rejection of the idea that her hair
    > was for anyone but herself.

    I think you were taking me just a LITTLE too literally. It is true that women mostly work to make themselves attractive firstly for their own feelings of self affection, and secondly in a kind of light competitive way with other women and to maintain the standards necessary to participate in their peer group. But to some extent the first, and more strongly the second is ultimately about competing to find the best mate. But as you surely know Jay the reasons why we do most of what we do is far deeper in our psych than our frontal cortex.

  435. @Matthew House
    > Lying about what you do, or who you are. false fronting. fake names. burner phones.

    Men have been doing that from time immemorial, Women too lie about different things. These aren’t PUA things, in fact they are all kind of pathetic, and PUA is ultimately about the establishment of alpha status, which is the opposite of being pathetic. So, just as you are doing with the whole MRA thing, you are projecting the behavior of the very worst onto the group as a whole.

  436. @esr
    > In fact, I don’t think PUA techniques are ‘bad’ at all.

    I have found your responses on this thread extremely interesting. This is a perfect example. In your sheepdog zeal to jump to Matthew’s defense you give some extremely mixed messages. Matthew’s primary point was that PUA was deeply immoral, a position you evidently disagree with and I entirely agree with you on this point. Your summary that it is a “tool” for use of good or evil is exactly right. But even though you entirely agree with me you still find some reason to scold me.

    It is almost as if you are looking for a reason to disagree with me. Of course, it doesn’t matter. I can take the bumps and bruises as well as any of you rough tough guys. So I don’t care one way or the other, but you are an interesting study, and it definitely makes me curious as to where you are coming from. As ever, I am not asking you to explain yourself, on the contrary, it is more fun to speculate, LOL.

    1. >It is almost as if you are looking for a reason to disagree with me.

      No, in fact I’m more likely to look for reasons to agree with you. But you have disappointed me seriously on one large issue, and there is now a category of questions on which I no longer think your judgment is to be trusted.

  437. I’ve not had much, if any, exposure to anyone who is a self-educated and practicing PUA. My guess is that they frequent the bar scene, not my style.

    However, of the guys I know who work hard at the casual pickup, one night stand, sex-as-exercise encounter; not a single one has grown into a successful long term relationship. Not saying it can’t happen. Just haven’t seen it.

    My point is that if PUA becomes an addiction, the trade-off may be severe. This applies to both sides.

  438. I’ll admit, I don’t get out much.

    I don’t know a whole lot about the whole PUA phenomenon. But from what I’ve read over the last couple of days, they seem to fall into two camps. the ‘Makers’ and the ‘Fakers’.

    ‘Makers” are dudes who go out and -make- themselves more attractive by getting a better job, working out, learning to dance, whatever form of self improvement you care to name. I’m totally cool with these guys, wish there was more of em. And I suspect most people feel the same way.

    Then we have the ‘Fakers’. They discuss various means of manipulating low self esteem women for the sake of merely fucking them. They’re blatant in their contempt for the women they want to fuck. From external observation they appear to believe that women’s sole function in the world is to provide life support for a vagina. They talk about how to break down a girl’s self esteem so they can fuck her. the phrase ‘pump-and-dump’ is frequently mentioned as if this was somehow meritorious behavior. They make no attempt at self improvement, other than to give the -appearance- of self improvement. Everything they offer a ‘target’ is counterfeit.

    From my admittedly brief perusal of the whole PUA scene online, there’s a fuckload more ‘fakers’ than ‘makers’.

    Offering counterfeit goods is never a good thing.

  439. @TomA
    “However, of the guys I know who work hard at the casual pickup, one night stand, sex-as-exercise encounter; not a single one has grown into a successful long term relationship.”

    That is telling. Not all people are able to live in a stable relationship.

  440. @esr
    > No, in fact I’m more likely to look for reasons to agree with you.

    Yet on this specific issue you didn’t say “Jessica is right, PUA is morally neutral”? Instead you decided to pick at some other minor issue of disagreement?

    > But you have disappointed me seriously on one large issue,

    This is the third time in this thread you have done that. If you have a specific complaint, articulate it. If I need to learn and improve in some area, how does this statement communicate any information to me?

    > category of questions on which I no longer think your judgment is to be trusted.

    So? I never expect anyone to “trust my judgement” on an issue, not online anyway. I’d ask them to examine and critique the logic and rationality I offer on its face. You know, logic and evidence as I have constantly demanded on the participants in this thread.

    You’ve never met me, why on earth would you trust my judgement?

  441. I’m waiting on parts, and I don’t have anything better to do, so….

    “So? I never expect anyone to “trust my judgement” on an issue, not online anyway. I’d ask them to examine and critique the logic and rationality I offer on its face. You know, logic and evidence as I have constantly demanded on the participants in this thread.”

    …Tosses the ‘bullshit’ flag on the play.

    You know, it’s funny, when I -first- threw in on this conversation, I politely suggested you -might- be mistaken and perhaps you should go do some research, ask some questions, find out some things. Sort of a ‘dont take my word for it, see for yourself’ thing.

    You demanded that any data that might prove that the imaginary world in your head was ‘wrong’ be gift wrapped and hand delivered to you. When people broke down and obeyed your demands you tossed the delivered data, demanding ‘better’ data. I.E. data that supported your preconceptions.

    At that point I made a series of predictions about your behavior. All of them have turned out to be true.

    You’ve denied, ignored, misinterpreted, and generally behaved in an appalling rude and entitled manner.

    If you’re attempting to argue that ‘not all women are like that’, you’ve certainly managed to show, via a preponderance of the evidence, that -you- are certainly ‘like that’.

    Look back over the thread. -One- person defended your behavior. Multiple people protested your behavior. The host has repeatedly chastised you for your attitude and your actions.

    Congratulations, you have, in a small way, become that which you deny the existance of.

  442. I was busy and not able to come back here again until yesterday, but
    then I didn’t get through. Now a lot has happened in the meantime. I’ll
    try to catch up.

    WRT my latest comment there was … silence.

    OK, one cherry has been found that could be picked to make up a reproach
    which stays clear from virtually every point I made in my
    comment. That’s actually some kind of art. But back to my point,
    compared to the usual chatter, that really is

    . . . s . i . l . e . n . c . e . . .

    Well, Jessica I’m sorry I had to neuter your nuclear weapon, but it was
    the perfect moment to do so. Regarding your reply:

    > Please reread my earlier comment. I already addressed this question

    in fact, that is something *I* could have replied to almost any of your
    replies to my comments, so in case you should think of answering one of
    my comments in the future, _I_hereby_give_you_my_reply_in_advance_:

    “Please reread my earlier comment. I already addressed this question”

    This also is another answer to your statement, TomA. If all replies to
    your comments in a discussion made by some active participant simply
    avoid really touching any point you make and refute your arguments by
    simply deviating with a large amount of chatter, IMHO the only thing left to
    form some meaningful discussion is that particular participants style of
    discussion. That is *personal* (unless of course you claim it was
    political, because the participant involved happens to be female and
    thus it’s misogyny and women-hatred).

    @TomA:

    To conclude my answer to your question, I think the first step towards a
    solution is to acknowledge things have changed a great deal, especially
    in the latter half of the past century, and it is time to stop focusing
    on a (perceived) general discrimination against women, which forms the
    base of the current official policies and public opinion as well. The
    latter becomes evident when you read e.g. articles in well established
    newspapers and whenever there is a report about some woman having
    difficulties achieving her goals, the discrimination card is played
    instantly. While there certainly are some spots where female members of
    society are disadvantaged, that increasingly is true for males. So a
    second step to a solution would be to start trying to keep the balance.

    @Matthew:

    > PUA, as I understand it, is the science of using various social and
    > evolutionary ‘vulnerabilities’ to ‘hack’ a woman’s consent.

    Only in a very colloquial sense of science. Even if some may try to have
    it look like science, I think it is better described with the word, the
    A in PUA refers to: art. If you focus on practicing something, in general
    you get better and better and you have an advantage over people who
    don’t. From my POV there is nothing more about PUA than that and BTW
    that also is Erbo’s problem, he doesn’t have any practice.

    @Jay:

    > Jessica, I forwarded your comment about women over 25 and long hair to
    > a friend who’s in her late 40s with hair down to her ass. She was
    > rather emphatic in her rejection of the idea that her hair was for
    > anyone but herself.

    That exactly matches what I was thinking when I read Jessica’s comment:
    If some man had said the very same thing, she instantly had slapped him
    the MRA and misogynist badges in his face.

  443. @Matthew
    Repeatedly saying the same thing doesn’t make it any more true. You have not produced any evidence in support of your case. The paucity of evidence you have presented either does nothing to advance your case (for example the interesting PDF that Patrick contributed), or actually contradicts your case, as in the case of the “shall arrest” sheet which a moments research indicated that the law said it was the party who committed the violence that should be arrested, not always the man as you and others claimed.

    I can produce masses of “evidence” to prove that the moon landings were all a hoax. However, that doesn’t mean the moon landings were a hoax, it just means the evidence doesn’t stand up to serious examination.

    You are making a claim deeply contrarian to the commonly held view of society. I am no stranger to contrarian points of view, but when you hold them and advocate them in a public forum you are required to actually give more than your opinion and personal anecdotes to make the case. Of course you can say what you like, but so can I, and I will challenge claims like that which are insufficiently backed by evidence. It is certainly not my obligation to “do my own research”, Do your own research!

    As to the number of people who disagree, or the hosts continual chastisement, it matters not one whit to me. This is a big echo chamber for your views since the people here mostly agree with you, so I’d expect nothing less. It doesn’t change the fact that I am a passionate advocate of the scientific method, so terms of discussion with me are ALWAYS reason and evidence, never consensus view. In fact, outside of this tiny demographically skewed microcosm, the consensus is entirely in line with my thinking. Which is weird, because I rarely agree with the consensus.

    As to rudeness, and ad hominem, I actually re-read all my comments above a couple of days ago, and except in a couple of cases where people were being ridiculous (for example somebody dismissing sexual harassment as mostly an accidental hand on the back) I have been neither rude nor ad hominem. In case you are unclear “ad hominem” means dismissing an argument specifically because of some claimed flaw in the other’s character unrelated to the matter, it does not mean saying mean things, which, FWIW I mostly haven’t either. I’m afraid you have mistaken the scorching heat of this thread for a general disingenuousness on all parties.

    I, on the other hand have been called by various persons a cow, anti-man, full of contradictions, stupid and various other lovely terms. But it matters not at all to me, because as I say the terms of discussion with me are always evidence and reason, and all that peripheral decoration doesn’t matter much to me at all.

    However, I especially dislike these meta discussions, so I’ll leave it at that.

  444. @Manfred Wassmann
    > . . . s . i . l . e . n . c . e . . .

    You are confusing brevity with silence. The point you made was specifically addressed in the very comment you were “fisking”. Just because your point of view is hard to demonstrate, doesn’t mean we should assume it is true.

  445. BTW, my mistake, I said this is a “public” forum. It is not. It belongs to Eric. He is at liberty to boot out me, or anybody, anytime he likes, and as a respecter of private property I’d comply with his wishes. I think I haven’t pissed him off enough for that, after all you have to really piss him off to get booted. But I did want to point out that this is not a public forum and nobody except Eric has rights here.

    It is, however, an very open forum, and I appreciate the opportunity to come here and exercise my mental faculties, learn and stretch my mind.

  446. @ Manfred – “I think the first step towards a solution is to acknowledge things”

    That’s something you do in the first person, so your universe for this solution is limited to yourself. I’m guessing you meant to say persuade others to acknowledge things. As has been pointed out repeatedly, this is most commonly done with solid evidence and sound argument.

    “So a second step to a solution would be to start trying to keep the balance.”

    Again, you’re either advocating a personal behavior (of limited impact) or, more likely, that political activism is needed to swing the pendulum back toward the middle. Pushing a political agenda here will have limited impact, but you are free to run for government office in Germany.

    Jessica is both intelligent and open-minded. If you make a good case, you’ll win a convert. If you find that you haven’t succeeded, then maybe your powers of persuasion aren’t working very well.

  447. @Jessica:

    > You are confusing brevity with silence […]

    again you you prove that I was right with my comment

    > […] I appreciate the opportunity to come here and exercise my mental faculties, learn and stretch my mind.

    and IMHO that is the problem. You apparently see this forum *only* as a place for excercising your personal skills.

  448. @TomA:

    > Again, you’re either advocating a personal behavior (of limited impact) or, more likely, that political activism is needed to swing the pendulum back toward the middle.

    Neither the one nor the other. I advocate going *forward* and not sticking to retarded worldviews.

  449. A quick clarification after reading above comments.

    Jessica, the ad hominem was mine, but it was not directed at you. Although I agree with most the comments here regarding a harmful trend in ultra-feminism over the past several decades, I am sympathetic that you are standing alone at the Alamo in this debate. Contrary to Matthew’s comment above, I think that kind of strength is exactly the archetype we need in modern women.

  450. @TomA
    > I am sympathetic that you are standing alone at the Alamo in this debate.

    I appreciate your kindness Tom, but no sympathy necessary. Unlike the real Alamo nobody is shooting at me. If you knew much about my personal history you’d see that a little name calling and hostility isn’t a big deal.

    However, I would say to you, since you are obviously a smart open minded guy, why do you agree with the point of view absent evidence? Don’t get me wrong we all have a general impression of something being true even in the absence of evidence, after all we have to make it through life and we can’t pick every little thing apart. But viewpoints like that, ones based on experience and anecdote, while necessary, need to be held very lightly. If pressed on the matter, we have to be willing to drop those viewpoints if the evidence doesn’t support them.

    That is what I don’t understand here at all. This place is full of super smart, rationalists, but none of them seem to share my concern with a lack of evidence on this subject. And there are enough people here who are sufficiently angry and committed to prove themselves right that you would think they would have been able to scare up something. I find this whole thread very strange.

  451. @Matthew: I’d like to point you to some information which you may regard as some light at the horizon. When you look at the UK victimization numbers, there is a 17% increase in the number of reported sexual offences. This is credited to a yewtree effect[1]. The interesting part is “The number of rapes and sexual assaults involving a male child under the age of 13 increased by 72% compared with the previous year, to 2,678 offences.”

    I think it’s evident the number hasn’t actually increased that much, but simply more of these cases where males are at the receiving end come to light.

    [1] http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/period-ending-september-2013/stb-crime-in-england-and-wales–year-ending-sept-2013.html

  452. @TomA:

    > Jessica is both intelligent and open-minded. If you make a good case, you’ll win a convert.

    If you provide my with substantial evidence of your claim, like a written and certified policy, I’ll proceed.

  453. @ Jessica – “why do you agree with the point of view absent evidence?”

    I’ve not done any serious research or reading on this subject; largely because life is short, I have other interests and priorities, and I don’t regard this issue as a major problem. As Jay Maynerd pointed out in another post, ultra-unionism is also a problem for society, and there are many other similar examples. There simply isn’t enough time to become an expert in everything.

    Consequently, we all digest our life experience and supplement it with other input from trusted family, friends, colleagues, and media. From this we form working impressions of the world in order to guide our opinions and decisions. I could be entirely wrong that feminism has gone too far and wrought unnecessary harm, but in my life time I have seen changes that sadden me greatly.

    I know many women who compete well and hard with men in the workplace, but then cannot turn off the competitive habit in their personal relationships. We are products of evolution, and in intimacy, a man needs to feel protective of his mate (the thing that he values above all else). Some habitually competitive women shun this role and unknowingly sabotage the core attribute of any long term relationship. In relationships, it’s not about being equally good at all things, but about each having a unique role and contribution; and the synergy that arises from that union.

  454. @Manfred Wassmann
    > If you provide my with substantial evidence of your claim, like a written and certified policy, I’ll proceed.

    Now, that, Manfred, is pretty damn funny. You definitely deserve an LOL for that line.

  455. While my life circumstances prohibit me from legally carrying an effective weapon in public (NJ law), I am a follower and participant in discussions of firearms usage for defense. One piece of “conventional wisdom” (alluded to upthread with a mention of the social, legal, and financial penalties associated with a “successful” self-defense by use of force) is that “the person who calls 911 first has the advantage in the subsequent legal events.”

    This being the case, Erbo’s scenario (where an accusation of “harassment” is a danger to him) is still a danger even without the War between the Sexes. He has no claim on being able to “call 911 first,” and is thus vulnerable to an unsubstantial claim of “harassment.”

    However, as also mentioned up-thread, the actual predators have the ability to “call 911 first” by suing the con, as appears to have happened in a specific instance. Their behavior can be outrageous without being illegal.

    I don’t have a good answer for this, other than to say, quit pretending anyone other than the individual can make any singular point in space and time safe. You can make it asymptotically safer, but there’s a famous line attributed to Ben Franklin about that… And, for that matter, the best way to make a point in spacetime safe for the individual is to leave it, most of the time.

    The old saw about tyrants who make the land safe for naked virgins with bags of gold in either hand to walk is a crock, because they can’t prevent memetic Honey Badgers. The individual can, if prepared.

    (I may have spent too much time reading fortune cookies)

  456. Hi. I’m twistpeach. I wrote the blog that was used an an example on this thread. To those characterizing my actions as a hysteric victimizing a defenseless man, I challenge you to look at the actual circumstances of my account (an account that remains uncontested with several male witnesses if you really want to get that Sharia about it) and tell me what on EARTH else could have happened to legitimize outting this guy and letting him face consequences.

    I DID tell him that I didn’t want him touching me. I didn’t seek him out. He LEANED OVER MY SICK BOYFRIEND to deliberately continue touching me after being directly told not to. When, oh dear denizens of freedom, do I start to be more important than this guy’s unmitigated comfort? When does my account start to get legit? When he rapes me? When there’s others? How many? 3? 26? When do my four witnesses start to count? When they’re ALL male? When they swear on a bible? When exactly do you stop inviting this guy to a party, because that’s literally all that’s happened to him. He’s been disinvited to a volunteer-run event because he was found in clear violation of their policies. Some of his friends don’t like him any more. Oh woe. Did anybody ask if *I* had any ill effects from dealing with this presumptuous shit from men all my life? Or does that not matter?

    You don’t know me, but I am indeed a human being, just like this guy, who can also lie, get hysterical and who you have no reason to trust. I know people would love to dismiss me instead of him, but you are belied by the facts of the case. You are calling me a liar without the right to retaliate when someone hunts me down and demonstrates that I don’t get to say who touches my body. This was not ambiguous. And if you want to mischaracterize either the situation or my account like it was, have the courage to do it on my livejournal post and face me.

  457. @twistpeach

    I wasn’t following this thread at the time that it was posted, but a brief skim through doesn’t show anyone (for the first few pages or so after the link was posted, anyway – I haven’t scrolled through the whole thing yet) saying anything negative about you (and naturally since the link to your blog wasn’t in the article but rather was in a comment, not everyone has been talking about you at all). Can you specify what comments in particular you are referring to?

  458. @twistpeach

    Okay, that’s one, at least. I admit, I simply didn’t see his post on my first read-through, and by the time people were responding to him (mostly to disagree, note) I assumed they were talking about the subject in general rather than your situation specifically.

    I suppose that weakens my point, but I still say that as far as I can tell, in general the response to your situation, to the extent that people have responded to it, has overall been that the guy was in the wrong and what happened was a reasonable way to deal with him.

    While technically your post was addressed specifically “To those characterizing my actions as…”, combined with the rest of your post (e.g. the “Sharia” accusations) that seemed more like a rhetorical device to tar everyone with that brush rather than a specific narrowing of who you were talking to. I apologize if I was mistaken about that.

    Particularly since this article is two years old, they probably won’t see it (posting new comments to old articles does show up on an RSS feed, which is how I happened to see it, but they expire fast).

  459. I suspect that “free-bleeding” is the Sokal Hoax of feminism. Check it out only if you are not easily nauseated!

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