Aapje58
1yr ago
They didn't exactly learn from it if they died. However, I think that it is a bit silly to challenge a metaphor in detail. A metaphor clarifies something by finding something sufficiently similar, but that can be understood more easily, yet it is not equal. Challenging it for not being equal inherently rejects metaphors as a valid tool of discourse.
Aapje58
1yr ago
I just think that they’re too lazy of horrified to think through to the conclusions of the policies that they support.
Or dumb, or very biased (like having a strong bias for perfection, resulting in them rejecting any solutions where they can see the flaws, which naturally selects for solutions that they cannot understand, since perfection is impossible).
Or a combination of factors, of course.
Aapje58
1yr ago
but for Trump it was quiet until the FBI got publicly involved
And the FBI has lied to courts to get warrants against Trump's people. And the FBI has lied to Twitter to get them to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.
So I'm not just going to believe that the FBI acted impartially and professionally here.
Aapje58
1yr ago
I would urge Finland not to back down on the free speech issue. This puts some pressure on Turkey.
Or just wait out the elections. Erdogan has a habit of seeking conflict with other nations in the run-up to elections.
Aapje58
1yr ago
I wouldn't even call it "mind-killing", because of the impressive mental gymnastics required to avoid ever even considering the idea that there could be meaningful group differences. The bizarre hypotheses, type errors, or misdirections that my friends and colleagues come up with when I ask if there is even in principle a possible difference in group averages is constant source of surprising creativity in my life.
On the contrary, I would say that the extent of these gymnastics is strong evidence of mind-killing. After all, they already know what the cause is, they simply need to get there, whatever convoluted reasoning it takes.
The fact that the NYT article even mentions the possibility (to immediately dismiss it) already puts it in the top tier of clear thinking on the issue in my experience.
Yet the question is whether it is genuinely considered, or just 'our enemies would say it, so we have to address it.' Given the poor reasoning to dismiss it, I would argue the latter.
Aapje58
1yr ago
It seems likely to me that the slaves embedded the learnings into their culture that hard work and investment into education is rather pointless, while Jews adopted the survival strategy of high-value autonomous jobs like doctors and musicians. Basically, before modern licensing you could just pack up and leave when doing those jobs, if things got spicy. And the better a doctor/musician/etc you are, the better the chance you get spared. Even in the extermination camps, top-tier musicians were often spared and got better treatment.
None of this requires (epi)genetics, but can simply have become embedded in the culture (although culture can obviously impact mate selection, like the stereotype of Jewish parents demanding that their daughters come home with a doctor).
Aapje58
1yr ago
Amadan,
I think that you are a bit obsessed by the question of fairness to the individual, where each side has to suffer equally.
This ignores issues like how inconsistent standards of different women cause an environment where there are no consistent rules for men to obey and they as a result will unavoidably face abuse, unless they abstain from making advances completely.
I'm much more in favor of a society where men and women find a reasonable common ground that they adhere to, even if it is not to the liking of each individual, rather than the false promise that everyone can have their own standards be met and people being taught that abuse is warranted if men do not magically know which standards a specific woman demands of them (where that standard may not even be consistent for that specific woman and certainly not for women as a whole).
I even embrace the implied hypocrisy of saying that I don’t care if other people want to have bad things in their neighborhoods, it’s really up to them whether they accept or refuse those things.
That's not hypocritical at all. The hypocrisy exists only when you demand that other people accept things in their neighborhood, but not in your own.
Note that it's also not hypocritical to demand that certain things be kept away from all neighborhoods. For example, demanding that heavy industry or other things that cause serious nuisance be kept separate from housing is completely reasonable, if that separation is reasonably possible.
Aapje58
1yr ago
Second, I am not a fan of calling people "obsessed" because they argue a position for more than one post.
I wasn't responding to the frequency, but to the way you approach the issue.
For me, mate selection is a rather complex challenge where people with different demands, different (sub)cultures, different skills, etc have to match up. This provides all kinds of challenges and any solution is going to have downsides and upsides. Simply pointing to a thing that is not optimal in some ways, without even recognizing that the very same behavior that produces a disadvantage also brings advantages, is in my view merely a demand for Utopia, which I see as very harmful, as well as not being helpful at all.
It is very far from a holistic view where you actually try to build a workable system and weigh advantages and disadvantages, compared to the alternatives.
For example, when you said that: "I don't think [women] should just be expected to put up with creepy come-ons without protest," I see no recognition at all that a protest may in fact be the wrong solution (at least for certain types of alleged creepiness). Why?
-
The perception of what is creepy may be unreasonable. For example, some people seem to believe that this perception is heavily correlated with attractiveness, rather than just behavior, which if true, can be argued to be extremely discriminatory.
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The perception of creepiness may vary so much between people (and possible even for the same person, depending on their mood or such) that saying it to a man may not be a helpful lesson to that person. And if a generic complaint is made, like in the elevator story, yielding to it may just mean that other women don't get come-ons that they desire. Either form of complaint may simply divide men into those who respond in a Pavlovian way (ignore the complaints, because doing so work often enough) and those who simply stop approaching women altogether (as there is no way not to offend some women, unless one stops approaching women altogether). The net effect may be negative for women, especially if the more neurotic men are less likely to be harmful, which is likely. It may even empower bad actors when women have less choice due to men checking out and have to lower their standards.
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Accepting this may reinforce the current narcissistic and individualist culture where people demand that their own desires are met, which can be argued to have many downsides, including a lack of clarity of what both men and women should do and accept to make mate selection work out reasonably well.
Those are just a few examples of challenges that you could have addressed, but instead you merely state your opinion that you believe that a downside is unreasonable, without even arguing why you consider it unreasonable. As such, it is about as informative as 'I like fish.'
This is an obvious straw man, and equally obviously, not what I want either.
It is not at all obvious what you want, because your statements are so shallow. You argue that "it is pretty creepy to ask a woman you're alone in an elevator with late at night to "come back to your room for coffee" unless you have been given prior signals that she might be receptive to such a proposition." However, this is just your personal opinion on the matter. Do you believe that this should be the societal norm? Is it the societal norm? How do you even know to what extent the guy perceived prior signals?
There are scientific studies that argue that people are often very bad at both sending and perceiving subtle signals. Something you never address. You just assume. Perhaps she smiled at him and then put her hand through her hair, in the same way that some women do to signal. However, this time it was not intentional, but how could he know?
Do you want to standardize the signals or make them very explicit? If we do not, then shouldn't women accept that men will quite often misjudge?
What I see you do is merely empathizing with an individual woman, without seeing the larger picture, in so many different ways.
Aapje58
1yr ago
He discusses how unusual Americans are in assuming there is one “correct” English and a bunch of incorrect, slang-riddled bastards.
As a Dutch person, I don't see this as American at all. Regional slang/languages are generally regarded as such by anyone outside those regions (and seemingly, plenty within).
Aapje58
1yr ago
Karl was already subtly working an agenda with his historic pieces, that were often about convincing leftists that guns benefited black people. His view of history was often a bit dubious/one-sided as well.
Aapje58
1yr ago
Why would men try to sleep with a class of people they find so unattractive?
Men don't sleep with a class of people though, but with individual women.
And I don't see why you'd need to respect the intellect or such of a person to be able to engage in an activity that is fun regardless of how smart the other person is, whether that is tennis or sex. I also think that the entire argument is in bad faith, as plenty of women have complaints about their partner and talk about them in disrespectful ways. So why is this presented as something that men do?
It seems more like a feminist post-hoc justification than a fair argument. Men are upset at how women behave in dating -> can't actually be any truth to the complaint as then women wouldn't be wonderful -> if we claim that complaining is evidence of misogyny, then every complaint can be dismissed.
However, this argument completely falls apart when you notice that many women complain about men and male dating strategies. By the same logic, these women should then fail at dating and their arguments should be dismissed as evidence of them being man-hating.
Aapje58
1yr ago
Because the 10% exists at all means an 11% can exist, and therefore a 12%, and so on.
So because I can turn my neck and some people can turn their necks more than others, I could turn my neck 270 degrees like an owl and be fine?
Aapje58
1yr ago
Your definition just rationalizes away success, where if someone gets objectively better outcomes, but their expectations are higher, they somehow aren't doing better because the gap between expectations and outcomes is similar.
Aapje58
10mo ago
The problem is that when the models fail, they just shrug and continue on their way. Also, just like in a lot of 'scientific' fields, core premises that are assumed to be correct, have actually been disproved. Yet this is simply ignored.
You should read Debunking Economics by Steve Keen for a good criticism of neoclassical economics.
Aapje58
7mo ago
The FBI guy at Twitter specifically told them that the laptop was misinformation. You have to be pretty naive to think that he didn't ask the FBI.
Aapje58
6mo ago
Europeans and other supporters of protection of origin (like India) like to pretend this isn't true but it is
That's a pretty silly way to put it. People also use product names like 'googling stuff' for other search engines, yet the US still allows Google to trademark their name and then bans other companies from slapping Google on their search engines. That's not some sort of denial about how people use language. Legislators simply don't allow language use to dictate things like trademarks and in the EU, product names.
Aapje58
6mo ago
I was ignored, laughed off, or generally regarded as awkward, pathetic, or desperate. One man did assume that, since I approached him, obviously I was DTF on the first date. That was very uncomfortable and I walked away feeling bad about myself.
And yet men have bad experiences while approaching women all the time & have to learn how to not be perceived as awkward, pathetic, or desperate. Frankly, I think that the attitude that most women seem to have where they only want to do the things that are fairly easy and that feel good, at the expense of men who then have to pick up that slack, is exactly the kind of attitude that needs to change to fix things without having to curtail women.
Aapje58
6mo ago
I agree with you that there are women who would have a bad time, just like there are men for whom having to approach women means having a bad time. On the other hand, there is also the outside view, from which you can also judge how much nastiness happens to a person by standards that are independent of personal traits/feelings. For example, I think that it is reasonable to say that a WW I soldier in the trenches has a harder time than someone born into wealth and safety, like Richard Corey. Yet as the poem describes, the person of privilege can nevertheless be extremely unhappy. But that doesn't mean that they had to deal with tough circumstances.
It seems that the extent to which people are content depends heavily on what they expect of life or what people get who they consider to be peers. Yet when those expectations aren't met, it doesn't mean that they are truly hard done by. And the big issue that we are dealing with is that many people nowadays seem to have expectations that are unrealistic (in the sense of what behavior/effort on their part will have what result), with unmet expectations. And especially for women, some expectations get cut off due to age, due to infertility and a greater decline in attractiveness due to aging. And it seems that women often only seem to realize that their approach is bad once they get close to 'the cliff' and it is hard to salvage things this late in the game.
Anyway, I have noticed that women who complain about the result of approaching men pretty much always throw up red flags that suggest to me that they don't recognize that it is far harder to learn how to do this than how to wear makeup or dress up nice; and expect a level of success and a lack of bad experiences that is utterly unrealistic. Your story does indicate that you at least tried multiple times, but it is a red flag that you seem to attribute being "ignored, laughed off, or generally regarded as awkward, pathetic, or desperate" to being a woman who approaches men, rather than a lack of skill (and yes, the cold call is way harder than a warm call, so approaching people is way harder than reacting to an approach). It's another red flag that you even consider it worth mentioning as a bad outcome that one(!) man expected sex right away.
If a man would argue that approaching women doesn't work because he was "ignored, laughed off, or generally regarded as awkward, pathetic, or desperate," or would complain that he can't deal with having a single women get the wrong idea and want his baby right away, he would get raked over coals.
Now, an argument can be made that it's not realistic or fair to expect women to take on this task, for biological or cultural reasons. Perhaps women would even become less attractive to men if we increase their stoicism by the same methods that we use on men, so they can deal with even a fraction of the rejection rate that men commonly experience. It's quite likely that we can't even do that, as people appear to have an inbuilt biological drive to treat male children differently, since we apparently don't need a cultural mechanism for much of it. For example, research shows that parents ignore crying male babies much more, but I can't see a cultural mechanism that teaches parents this.
So perhaps only less liberalism would help, although the incredible stupidity of the people that currently are in a position to steer our culture doesn't exactly make it likely that they'll analyse the problem correctly, let alone come up with a working solution that is spread through the propaganda system.
Aapje58
6mo ago
Perhaps you should reread my comment with a more charitable mindset, because you seem to be missing the points I make by a mile. For example, I didn't at all say that it's a red flag that you didn't like an interaction with a man who assumed that you were open to have sex right away. What I did say that it is a red flag that you considered such a single incident, that to me seems a fairly minor inconvenience, to be a strong argument to not want to approach men as a woman. If it were to happen all the time, it would be different, but that was not what you claimed.
Note that I did agree with you that what the other person said was wrong and that there are women for whom approaching men will be very unpleasant (just like it is for some men). So I'm not sure why you are acting like I was saying any different. I have my own beliefs and don't feel obligated to accept the narrative of the other person you were arguing with or your narrative. I can disagree with both of you; and do.
What do you want me to say? “My God, I’ve been under-appreciating heroic men all this time, putting themselves out there! Now I see this is a real skill. I will never again complain that a clumsy attempt repulsed me!”
No, my claim is that you, and every women I've ever seen complain about their experience while approaching men, seem to expect a level of guaranteed ease and lack of bad experiences that seems very unrealistic. It's like having men complain that approaching women doesn't work because they fail when they put in as little effort as Brad Pitt or George Clooney presumably need to do. It's my belief that a man who would complain like you, would at best be kindly told that he's having completely unrealistic expectations and at worst would be called an entitled creep who deserves jail time.
I do believe that women are often under-appreciating men, for example, by being very unfair to men who have difficulty with the dating process, but this is not actually part of my argument, as it's beside the point (except for the effect it has on their own perception of how easy it is to be the one approaching). I believe that women have it way easier when approaching men. For example, women are considered creepy far less quickly and even if they are, they are far, far, far less likely to get beaten up over it or excommunicated due to it. I do get that men are often not used to getting approached and may thus react relatively poorly compared to situations where people have a pro-social script ready, as many people operate based on scripts and are not very good at freestyling. But everything I've seen, from my own personal experiences to video's with a hidden camera where women approach men with weird requests, tells me that men almost always act way nicer to women than how men act to men or women to men. So a woman approaching men seems to be playing the game on easy mode. Of course, you can still lose on easy.
In a cultural context where men overwhelmingly approach women, people tend to assume on some level that if a woman approaches a man, she must be 1) joking 2) desperate or 3) looking for something casual. I found those were difficult assumptions to overcome.
Men who approach women with the goal of a long term relationship actually also have to overcome an assumption that they may just want sex and/or are desperate. It's a hard challenge in general to shift the person you approach to a sexual mindset where they start to evaluate you as a potential partner, but without them getting upset because they feel forced into a sexual dance that they don't want, or having the wrong idea about what kind of relationship you are aiming for, or considering you the lesser person just for being the one who is making the offer.
An issue is also that women are actually already approaching men. These are often called 'groupies' and they do typically seem to want casual sex or at least, use sex to get a shot at seducing a top tier man. If anything, this willingness by women to approach a small subset of men, and the ease with which they have sex with these men, but very rarely approach those who are not very attractive, makes the problem worse.
I don't know what kind of men you were approaching, but I have heard a decent number of stories where introverted men found a relationship by being approached. It seems likely to me that the paucity of women who approach men who are not rock stars, also enables approaches that are much harder for men to use, like corny pick-up lines or extreme bluntless, like telling introverted men that you approach them because the introverted men that you are attracted to don't dare to approach women and that he better not get the wrong idea and that you still expect him to impress you to have a shot. By using such an approach, you shift the frame from you wanting something from him, to you being so kind to give him a chance. Of course, it needs to be sufficiently true for it to work and it shouldn't be too aggressive or not aggressive enough.
As always the approach needs to be tailored to those you want to seduce, though, and I don't know who you tried to seduce. If you try to approach men who are very successful by approaching women, it's probably a lot harder of a sell.
Anyway, my point was primarily that I'm unconvinced by your arguments for your claim that approaching men isn't viable for you. I think that getting upset over a single person getting the wrong idea strongly suggests that you expect a level of success that is unreasonably for the vast majority of men and women. Attributing being perceived as desperate or such to being a woman who approaches men, rather than even entertaining the possibility that it is the way you do go about it, is also very unconvincing to me.
Of course, it is possible that you cannot achieve a decent success rate (by male standards, which you may consider absurdly low), but I am simply unconvinced by the evidence you present.
Aapje58
6mo ago
That's a fine theory, but it goes against human nature to expect people to not detect patterns like: each time I investigate, it turns out to be a rat. So you then need a mechanism to prevent people from acting normally, which is a hard problem to solve.
Aapje58
6mo ago
When feminists say "porn is exploitative" and "all sex is rape", this dynamic is what they're getting at- the former because it means that women for whom having sex is a job [that pays a wage] now have to compete with free.
This doesn't ring true at all. Many of those feminists are against sex work too.
It seems more based on on the very conservative idea that women need friendship, support and other things from their partner, which require a lot of effort from the man, but that porn teaches men that they can get sex from women without providing these things. Not: "she had sex with me because I put a lot of effort into the relationship", but: "here's your pizza, sex?"
Arguably, people want slaves, but preferably without the problems of oppressing them and to a lesser extent, the moral downsides. Automation was a first step to having relatively dumb slaves, but AI can produce smart slaves.
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