SSCReader
23hr ago
One mans stochastic terrorist is another man's stochastic freedom fighter?
SSCReader
23hr ago
I was reluctant to call you out by name specifically because I didn't want to make any untoward implications, so to the extent I may have done so, I apologize.
Oh no offense taken, I'm somewhat tickled if anything that you think my serial monogamist self was like that. I'm going to tell my wife as soon as she gets home from work!
I married my first wife at 19, and stayed with her till she passed from cancer when I was in my 40's. Then raised my kids to adults then moved to America and started online dating in my 50's. Met my now-wife and don't intend going anywhere else.
I think maybe the disconnect is that while you would hope that indeed by being on Tinder or Hinge or whatever is a strong signal you are both looking to actively date, this does not in fact seem to be the case. So you do have to sort the wheat from the chaff (and the wheat and chaff is different for men and women), lack of messaging interest is in my experience highly correlated with lack of interest in actually dating. There are also many reasons as you point out the woman may not be putting a lot of effort into replying, but fundamentally, to the guy on the other end, he can't tell the difference. So either you must hang on to them all, spreading your attention thin, or move on. You might get lucky of course, but that's not really a strategy.
Like fishing, it might be the fish will start to bite after lunch, or there might be a pike under your boat and they aren't going to bite all day. Given you can't know which, moving on to try and find somewhere the fish are biting is a good option. Unless you are just fishing to drink beer and fall asleep in the sun which is the equivalent of people just swiping for fun with no intention of actually dating I suppose.
SSCReader
23hr ago
Renting out a uterus is effectively renting out the entire person, and renting people is objectifying them. From a moral standpoint I don't see how it can be seen as any different than slavery.
But we rent out our entire bodies all the time don't we? When I go to work my whole body is at work, when a coal miner risks his life and health it's not generally considered slavery (as long as he is getting paid and voluntarily took the job of course). The difference isn't the objectification it's that a surrogate is freely choosing to be a surrogate. If they are being forced into it in some Handmaids Tale scenario then I would also agree that is slavery. But that doesn't appear to be the case for most surrogates. So it's very different to slavery.
Is being a soldier or a firefighter being a slave? A bodybuilder where your body is the main thing being put on the line? Prostitution in general? Being a hand model? I kind of agree it could be considered objectifying in that many of these jobs are very reliant on what your body can do/looks like. But I don't really see that as a problem. As you point out we are embodied. Any job that requires the use of your physical body (i.e. most of them) is commodifying our bodies in return for money.
So? There are immoral ways of creating a child.
True! But it still creates a child who is (in most belief systems I think) considered to be innocent of the immoral act that created them. The question isn't whether how they were created is immoral it's whether them being created is better than not when weighed against the costs inflicted. If voluntary surrogacy is (for example) mildly immoral but adding a human who can experience great joy in their lives is very moral, then you're still coming out ahead.
it starts from the assumption that a child has a right to a mother and father.
Ahh maybe I see the issue. I don't think that makes sense. Rights only make sense if they can be enforced and babies don't stop being born to a widowed bride or as a result of a one night stand where the father is never seen again. Should we abort babies who are about to be born where the father has died? What is the corrective factor that can be done? You can't conjure their father from the dead or wherever.
So I think it must be true that babies do not in fact have a right to have a mother and father (unless you just mean from a biological perspective, but that would also be fulfilled by surrogacy in any case).
SSCReader
1d ago
Both can be true can't they? You can think even Nazis don't deserve to be murdered. Indeed I'd wager thats the median view. After WW2 we didn't execute every member of the Nazi party. We even employed some of them!
SSCReader
1d ago
Actually my wife is Type A girl. My "rules" only really work for online dating and are there to short circuit the sheer volume of matches and interest women get, to ensure you are able to keep interest romantically not platonically. No sexting involved just sexually charged flirting. Those are very different things. If you were aiming just to hook up you wouldn't need those rules at all.
Its only useful for a Type A man trying to keep the interest of a Type A woman who is getting potentially hundreds of matches and messages.
I was dating to find a wife not to hook up and indeed succeeded. I aggressively filtered out women who were not seriously looking for a long term relationships (Type B's in your parlance I guess).
I would give very different advice for non online dating. Its a high volume platform by nature, so you have to adapt. Someone who is not messaging you much when interest and mystique should be at there highest right at the start is sending you a signal.
All i can tell you is that almost all my dates were with what you call Type A women. Witty sexually suggestive flirting works pretty well.
SSCReader
1d ago
All men must die as they say. Lines of reasoning do not need to be strictly followed when the outcome is poor, just as all lines of reasoning do not need to be followed when the outcome is good. I am comfortable enough that I don't think surrogacy is going to lead to killing people at 18 for organs.
That the argument works for this purpose is good enough.
SSCReader
1d ago
it's intentionally causing a child distress to satisfy the desires of adults, in a way that is not beneficial to the child.
The child would not exist otherwise, so as long as we consider their life to be net positive, even if that is true it is still more beneficial to be be born.
SSCReader
2d ago
Emperor's own words, "Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station"
The only person who left that room alive was a despicable Jedi dragging a body, and we already know they were traitors to humanity. My cousin told me he saw Jedi gambling for slaves so the whole order was a corrupt organ of the Deep Galactic State. Clearly we can't take his word for it.
There is no evidence our beloved Emperor ever said those words. And if he did he was probably being ironic. When he somehow returns he will have a great explanation I am sure.
SSCReader
2d ago
This news is being widely celebrated by the Free Palpatine lot
The Emperor did nothing wrong! Him being a fascist Sith Lord is just propaganda by the invidious terrorists of the Rebellion. The so called "Death Star" is just a mining platform!
SSCReader
2d ago
I don't hide mine at all. Indeed i have got into multiple very long debates about my belief set here! Its true I tend to be a high decoupler and I do like to poke at peoples logic.
In this specific case I think surrogacy can be pragmatically complex but is morally acceptable, given the logic I laid out before. A surrogate of a donated egg and sperm is not the mother in a biological sense. And even if she were parents do unilaterally have the right to give up their children and have others raise them as in adoption.
The child would not exist but for the surrogacy arrangement. The choice is not this child staying with the "mother" vs going to another family. The choice is the non-existence of the child entirely vs going to the family.
It is true the child does not get a say, but they don't get a say in adoption or their parents giving them to grandparents to be raised, or being moved to a new country, or being circumcised or hundreds of other common things. Including whether to exist in the first place. Condemning surrogacy on that basis is condemning parenting children at all.
SSCReader
2d ago
Conversations about morality only make sense when they're comparative.
I agree! Which is why if you note I pointed out there are people who think it is in fact not morally insane as they actually do it. That's what I wanted you to compare to. If you don't want to do that, that is fine.
But if you aren't going to justify your position then you can't call things people do morally insane. That's an inflammatory claim here, where you should want those people who disagree with you to engage. If you want to make it then justify it. If you don't want to justify it, then don't make it in the first place.
To be clear I often disagree with you, but I do think you are usually very good at justifying the positions you hold. For comparison your posts on trans issues are significantly better than this one and you clearly scaffold your positions you presumably know might be seen as inflammatory. You don't just jump to calling trans people insane or whatever. I often find myself coming away from those posts with something to think about. Not so much here.
SSCReader
2d ago
Come on buddy, you're better than that. I said right below that you might even be right but you have to at least make the argument, instead of just calling people who disagree with you morally insane. Under which moral framework? Why?
Just calling something you disagree with morally insane on a discussion forum where people with all sorts of different values and frameworks are supposed to co-exist is just not very helpful. You might think it is morally insane but clearly there are people who do not. So at least state your case, otherwise you might as well have not replied at all. You might as well just downvote and move on at that point.
SSCReader
2d ago
The process of birth creates a bond between the mother and child, and the idea you can ignore that and act like it's possible to "rent space in the womb" is morally insane.
It is not.
What is asserted without argument may be dismissed without argument.
Under which moral framework? Why? You're just throwing boo words out without actually justifying your position.
You might be right! But you can't just claim your opponents are insane and expect people to nod.
And that is why I was using quotes for owner. The mother is not the actual owner, but whether we call it ownership or not parents have huge ability to decide what should happen to their children up to and including having other people raise them and abdicating their parental rights entirely. Every day parents give their kids up for adoption. It is clear whatever bond there may be is not inviolable.
So a man can indeed have a child with a woman with the idea that he alone will raise him and vice versa. That follows from a chain of logic. Parents can give up custody. They can give up custody before birth. They can give up custody after birth. They can abandon their family entirely.
If I want a child and find a woman who is willing to let me have sex with her on the proviso that I will take and raise the child and she wants nothing to do with it, that can happen right now with no money changing hands. She can sign away her parental rights, leaving me in sole custody. She has the right to do so. I have the right to do so.
So is it just the money that makes it morally insane? Can you at least detail your belief system a little more here?
SSCReader
2d ago
it was rejected because treating people as ownable and sellable was considered immoral. That argument applies to surrogacy 1:1.
Only if the mother is the only "owner" no? If the father donated sperm then it's not selling the baby from one owner to a new one, the father is already the (part) "owner". Where it's a donated egg and sperm even more so as the surrogate is not the owner at all. It's essentially just renting space in the womb.
So it's definitely not 1:1 as an argument.
SSCReader
3d ago
Yeah, i was about an hour from a large city and I did have to extend my range to include the city.
SSCReader
3d ago
If you are getting scant replies cut bait. Interest should start high on their part. If they are not communicating freely that an indicator of non interest. Take the indication and move on.
The sex part is about playfully and aggressively flirting so if you have them warmed up and they complain about entitlement they failed your test and unmatch. Be selective.
But look out for mild pushback that is designed to be overcome. Tell them you aren't saying they are easy, just you know you are hard to resist. Be playfully arrogant.
I bet you'll get fewer calls of entitlement than you imagine if you have properly escalated aggressive flirtation.
Remember shit yests are just tests of compatibility and you should have your own bars for women to overcome. If they do not, politely turn them down.
You are in control.
SSCReader
3d ago
So everything points to an issue with your text game between matching and the first date.
I've never had an online date ghost me and here are my 8 simple rules i always followed.
-
Don't over match, be picky.
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If they are not responding promptly, unmatch.
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Decide if you are interested after no more than 60 minutes of conversation.
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Ask on a date. Don't ask for input, you choose where.
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No more than 3-5 days delay for the date. If they hedge unmatch.
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Communicate every day up til the date. Flirt aggressively but wittily, You want them hot under the collar. You should have them thinking about you sexually before you meet. If they aren't receptive unmatch. You are dating not finding friends.
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Be assertive, on the day of the date, don't ask if they are still coming, tell them you're looking forward to seeing them later so you can see if they can keep up with you, like they have been saying over text.
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Promise them you won't have sex with them on the first date even if they beg.
After the date if it went well get their number if you haven't already and call them the next day to arrange a second date. Maintain pressure. This is a hunt, just like your ancestors, you must run your prey to ground. No later than date 3 have sex with them and decide if you want to continue, if so tell them you want exclusivity immediately. If they refuse ditch them.
Do not give a chance for other hunters to snare your prey. Do not give them a chance to get bored. Move quickly. Move with purpose. You are the hunter, and you are valuable. Do not hesitate to unmatch if you are not getting enthusiastic messaging. It won't get better. Cut bait (to mix our hunting metaphor with a fishing one).
Women have huge amounts of choice particularly in online dating so you must be swift and certain and aggressive. Be borderline blunt if necessary.
I was online dating for a year. 15 women, all converted to first dates 13 to 2nd, 10 to 3rd. In all cases I was the one who ended it if i wasn't feeling it. Of those 10 i ditched another 5 after the 4th date, 4 after a couple of months and the 5th is now my wife.
SSCReader
4d ago
What kind of unforgiveable heathen thinks turkey burgers can even come close?
Well my wife does make an amazing home made turkey burger, which is what fueled the debate.
There is a lot said on this site about how black Americans haven't assimilated but I think that's untrue. They just assimilated to a particular type of American culture which is descended from my own Ulster-Scots/Scots-Irish borderer culture, which is what was often around them, in the South. In many of my wife's family events the beats are very similar to being back home, even if the details are different. My wife was a hit with my rural working class uncles because she was raised in a similar environment culutrally even it it was thousands of miles apart. It's a rowdier, more overtly "masculine" culture than the WASPy American culture in the North East or even the more genteel Southern Cavalierish one in the South. Which is why comments here about how white people don't like noisy sports celebrations and rowdy behaviour always make me laugh. It's kind of totalizing the American experience to a very specific subset of American upper middle classish white people.
I would agree that white progressives can be much more performative (in my experience anyway), possibly driven by white guilt (and exacerbated if from the South). Having said that, when I first moved to the US I dated a scion of what used to be a pretty powerful Southern family (the type who still have debutant balls and the like) whose family did own plantations and slaves in the past, and that did appear to be something they truly were guilty about rather than a performance so its hard to tell sometimes. There is a particular kind of American who feels that America should have done better in holding up its founding ideals (all men created equal et al) and that this is a real and enduring fault.
Progressivism grew out of real issues and real problems which is how it was able to build a coalition so quickly, because there are a lot of true believers who had indeed witnessed/experienced actual injustices. My wife's grandmother was a locally prominent civil rights organizer and it's hard to judge a distrust for white people when reading her diaries. Having said that even she on her deathbed recanted her prohibition on my wife "dating out" so things can and do change.
SSCReader
5d ago
I'm a lower-middle straight-passing cis white guy that attended a mid-tier state school.
Me too. My grandfathers were a subsistence farmer and a cattle inspector respectively. I'm now teaching at a low tier school in the US. Though I did have a career in the Civil Service in between. It's fine. Progressives and liberals listen just fine to white guys. I chair several of our committees, Indeed, when I turn up to the Women's book club I get gushed over. "It's so brave, so nice to see a man taking an interest". Indeed I would say being a straight white male around liberals is extremely high status right now. We are in high demand!
Because ,spoiler alert, almost everyone is a "griller" on your side and the progressive side. Maybe not the elites, but there are not very many elites (though of course they have an outsize influence!). Most people just want to get on with their lives.
When I lived in a small Red town, I had my Blue academic colleagues over to mingle with my Red Tribe neighbors on a few occasions for BBQ's and there were no issues at all. Well an argument over whether turkey burgers could be as good as regular burgers notwithstanding. They even all agreed charcoal was superior to propane (Hank Hill would be unhappy!).
As an outsider in the US, things are simply not as divided as many people here seem to think, in my direct experience. And I am from Northern Ireland, so I know divided! My wife's family reunion was last week and I was the only white person out of 250 black Americans (and one Asian lady!) from all over the country, I had no problems at all. Their family shirt was even an American flag with a bald eagle superimposed over it and 50 out of 250 emblazoned on the back (It was their 50th family reunion and the 250th anniversary of America).
If people aren't persuaded by arguments it's not because you're a straight white man, it's because most people do not reason themselves into their positions and so can't be reasoned out of them I think, no matter who is doing the talking.
SSCReader
7d ago
The difference is moot to the person (or group, etc) under attack by different members of the coalition, and this argument sets a bar that makes addressing an enemy coalition impossible.
Not at all, it's treating it as a monolith that makes it unadressable. If you target the specific elements with specific arguments/actions that's a solid method of putting a fracture in the coalition.
A libertarian, a MAGA Rust belt Red Triber and a Blue Tribe Catholic conservative may all vote for Trump but the specific concerns they have are different and may in fact be at odds.
The libertarian might want no tariffs and low taxes, but the MAGA Rust belter wants tariffs and taxes to redistribute back to the Rust Belt that was harmed by laissez faire economics, the Catholic wants to target abortion but cares much less about 2A rights and so on and so forth. Which means who says what and spends political capital on what is extremely important information if you oppose them.
The coalition doesn't want anything at all, it's an emergent entity out of all the various groups and sub-groups. So if some progressives think Kirk was just a nobody Youtuber so it was no big deal, that is a very different action space than for progressives who think he was a huge dangerous threat to democracy. If you want to try and persuade people that maybe shooting Youtubers is wrong, that's a different argument than arguing Kirk was not a huge threat to democracy.
You're assuming your conclusion. Because they are a coalition with different opinions therefore there is no space to exist. But what if it is is "Because they are a coalition with different opinions therefore there is opportunity to put wedges in place so to create space to exist." We call this a culture war for a reason, if you want to create space for outsiders you have to make it so. That's what created the progressive project in the first place. And they did that by piecing together a coalition and peeling some of them away from prior coalitions.
Coalitions are not unassailable cosmic entities that exist beyond space and time. They shift and change and break. As we have in fact seen in recent memory.
That they are separate people SHOULD matter to you. If they are fundamentally a monolithic entity then that is much more of a problem.
SSCReader
8d ago
But each can be true to different people. To a person who thinks Youtube is new fangled nonsense he can be a random Youtuber for example.
Is it the same exact people saying both? If not you're just running into the fact that the outgroup is not homogeneous and some of them hold different opinions from each other.
If its the same people then your point may stand.
SSCReader
10d ago
It is a binary state though. It might be unknowable to us, but she was either consenting or not. She might rationalize it after one way or the other, thats all true. He might have had prior reason to assume her consent one way or another. Again all true.
But at the point of the act whether she consented or not is the difference between rape or not. And that is binary. In her mind she was either consenting or not.
She might go back and forth afterwards, absolutely. Humans are great at rationalizing all kinds of things.
Her post hoc rationalizations one way or the other cannot change the past.
SSCReader
10d ago
It can! But the statement wasn't about why he may have assumed he had consent or similar. Her statement was that lack of consent does not make rape. Not that the line was blurry, or that he may have assumed consent, or that it wasn't communicated well or anything of the sort.
The literal difference between rape and not rape is the lack of consent. The line might get blurry as to whether she did consent, I agree. But if she did not it is rape.
If she just meant the line is blurry then her choice of wording was poor indeed.
SSCReader
10d ago
For the cat example, you have technically been assaulted no (assuming we held cats to human standards at least for the analogy to hold)? Someone else who likes cats less could throw your cat across the room in self defense. The fact you don't take it seriously is your prerogative, but in a human to human scenario that would be assault (or battery or whatever). If a man walks up to you and scratches your stomach with sharp fingernails, I assume you are not going to be as sanguine (though, hey what do I know, maybe that would float your boat!)
For the wife example, however grudgingly you did indeed consent. So that's not the same as "lack of consent"
Lack of consent is the literal difference between rape and not rape. If she does indeed grudgingly consent to Platner then it is not rape I agree. If she doesn't consent at all then it doesn't matter what other actions she takes, it is rape.
After 5 years and with presumably no evidence it might not be prosecutable or provable beyond a reasonable doubt of course, either way.
Because slaves don't agree to rent out their bodies? That's kind of fundamental to the idea of slavery. It's ok to pay a worker to pick your cotton, but not to enslave them (though see below!) We do call people wage slaves, but we don't mean they are actual slaves.
You're conflating that all work is renting out your body with all renting out your body being the same. Renting my house to my brother and renting my house at gunpoint to a soldier are very different things. Renting out your body voluntarily is different than being a slave (which is not voluntary). I also don't want my wife to be a coalminer or a soldier for example. That all work is renting out your body does not mean that all work is the same.
If you're going to rape someone raping them when they don't know about it is probably more moral than otherwise sure. But some costs are still inflicted, a drugged woman will wake up and realize what happened, the woman in the coma will face significant health complications and so on and so forth.
But as rape and surrogacy are not the same the treatment does not need to be the same in any case. (Unless the woman is held captive and forcibly inseminated, which I don't think is a central example here). The costs inflicted are taken on by her voluntarily.
Yes! You don't have a right to live, nobody does! I think almost all of what people call rights are incoherent. You might want to live and struggle to live if someone is trying to kill you, but there is no being handing out rights such that it means anything more than "I don't want to die". Which is a perfectly reasonable position, I don't want to die either! But it isn't a right. A wolf doesn't have a right to live, it can fight to stay alive one more day, or it might get shot with no ability to do anything about it.
Having said that we can certainly redirect to what people want to enforce or provide, I understand lots of people do not agree with my idea about rights in any case. As an aside, I think slavery is usually not justifiable but there are times I think it would be. Indeed so too could rape or murder. If the human race was facing extinction and you had to enslave half the race to save the remains I think that's morally justifiable. Likewise if you had to force women to have children to save the human race I think that too would be justifiable.
But again those are not the situations we are faced with in our lives here today. A surrogate isn't a slave because she agrees to being a surrogate, a farm worker is not a slave because he agrees to accept money in exchange for back breaking labour.
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