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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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So do you think we would be better with a complete break between the idea of relationships and the idea of what it really comes down to - the feminist critique of marriage being "exchanging sex for meat"?

I believe that relationships do not «really» come down to that, and haven't in a long while, at least two generations or so: the feminist critique is delusional, exploitative and made in bad faith. Mind you, I come from a society where «patriarchy» has been dead for four generations at least, but I think the principle holds.

More importantly I argue that women have trouble with good faith in general, and we (defined as «people who are good-faith, self-aware actors discussing this issue») need to acknowledge that the main problem is the impossibility of convincing (at any politically relevant scale) women in modern societies that the ball is in their court, and fixing those lesser intersexual problems – TFR, sexlessness, relationships, marriages, divorces, whatever – necessitates either a rollback of feminism, or directly burdening women with specific responsibilities they currently do not bear. Maybe men too, but women – absolutely.

This root problem expresses itself in the form of literally all remedies that make it to mainstream discussion being premised on women rationally reacting to circumstances imposed on them, and men being ignorant and/or actively making things worse. One side receives maximum charity, the other is given, frankly, a very imaginative treatment. Women, we are told, are worried about costs of living and stagnant wages, career opportunities and iniquities; men give up on marriage, selfishly play vidya, voluntarily join alpha male incel organizations. As a consequence, all proposed remedies amount to convincing men to stop being such horrible manchildren, and redistributing some more resources and political prestige to women; there are edge cases like extending paternity leave, but they address practically irrelevant scenarios. This is a paradigm which follows from the impenetrable female assumption of innocent victimhood and – ironically – delusion of being an object acted upon by external [male] forces, not a subject possessing power and burdened with responsibility for the status quo. Democracy only makes sense among subjects who are and acknowledge being this way.

Women have their own thing, they enjoy working and status that way.

Antidepressant prescription statistics and palpable increase in mental illness among millennial women point in the direction of them not really enjoying the status quo, but okay.

if men want sex they don't bother with dates or relationships, they patronise sex workers where the transaction is overt and there is no confusion about who does what or pays for what

I suppose that happens. We can leave aside for now the question of the sort of relationships practiced by women who are sex workers (i.e. OnlyFans models). What do you think happens when men want committed relationships, not «fuck dolls», but cannot get it because they're deemed not good enough by the «sexual market»? They are too lazy/stupid/infantile to dress up and shave and get a job, right. And also, too entitled to aim lower and go for the fat/old/homely/crazy chick, if I remember your previous posts correctly. There is someone for everyone; opting out of the deal is on men, the infamously choosy and needy sex (cue «attractiveness rating distributions» meme). That is, they make the unreasonable choice and sabotage themselves (and the whole of society while they're at it), while women merely act according to the situation.

Thanks for the illustration of the principle.


You know, the discussion here, including your responses, has inspired me to write a... powerologist post, one could say. But it's a third-rate idea, so here goes the sketch:

Ability to publicly make unreasonable demands is the measure of social power

«Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely» – they say. What does absolute power look like, and the absolute corruption? The common trope is a petty, deluded tyrant who demands implausible efforts from his underlings – and punishes them for understandable failures, casually taking out his irritation. Someone too egocentric to conceive of limits to servitude other than obedience; someone who has either dispensed with empathy, caution and rationality necessary at the stage of gaining loyal followers and acquiring power, or has been born into it. A cartoonish psychopath; a pampered brat from a rich family, abusing terrified servants; a third-rate dictator sending waves of human flesh into the high-tech grinder and lashing out at his peons when this doesn't produce the desired victory. Or the Emperor's demanding consort in a Chinese drama.

I think this is the natural state of mature power that has hit its apparent ceiling, the greedy exploitative mode – that thing which the intelligent will-to-power we know in ambitious politicians, warlords and startup CEOs decays into. And in a world where all women are queens by political fiat, all women are born into power, thus – all will be absolutely corrupted and not amenable to persuasion.


Then again, as @2rafa points out, all this may be just irrelevant in the world of short timelines, or relevant but not enough to be worth spending my time or my weirdness credit on.

And in a world where all women are queens by political fiat, all women are born into power, thus – all will be absolutely corrupted and not amenable to persuasion.

Queens of what? Ourselves? The question of whether we are going to gestate an entire baby with all the physical and mental changes that implies?

Well, if you think that you should have control over that, then I think it's pretty clear which of us is the one with unreasonable dictatorial aspirations.

  • -14

I have a pretty major dog in this fight, but I think you're being somewhat uncharitable here. I observe the dynamics @DaseinudstriesLtd describes IRL. They are obviously not universal to women, there being exceptions and the whole thing being on a gradient rather than binary as always, but it's certainly an existing and very noticeable trend in which women come to believe that they naturally deserve better than they manage to work or negotiate for, in ways that would make any man seem ridiculous.

I think there are many, many people in the world who think they deserve more than they have, certainly. It's fair to say that those people's self-evaluation is frequently questionable. I don't think this tendency is confined to women, though, nor do I think it is more out of control in women than in men. There are some areas where it is more tolerated in men (especially if those men are already high status), and others where it is more tolerated in women (especially if those women are already high status).

Agree that a sense of entitlement is pretty universal, and I assume is socially mediated rather than caused by one's sex. That said I think it's an easy case to make, however, that this is split along gendered lines. (I will try to pull only from my understanding of the literature surrounding psychological differences between the sexes without leaning on any evopsych mumbo jumbo)

Men resent and will misrepresent, to themselves and others, in no particular order and by no means exhaustive, their immaturity/narrow shoulders/weak chin/small stature/small penis/wispy facial hair/flabby body or physical weakness/getting outskilled in sport.

Similarly, but sitting on the other end of the binary, women resent and misrepresent their current or historical romantic partner(s)/or lack thereof/social status/getting old/looking shabby/compensating with make-up/small breasts/thick waist/narrow hips.

All of these things are in common as they're all measures used (often unconsciously) to judge reproductive and general fitness (I'm certain the specific features in question vary from one culture to another, and I don't think there's a good reason to obsess over at least the immutable ones) in a sexual dimorphism-specific context. An introspective or anxious person paying close attention might notice themselves automatically running this sort of checklist against themselves (or their friends/enemies) from time to time, without ever appearing in your "cone of consciousness". Any perceived attack along any one of these vectors is almost guaranteed to provoke an angry or upset response, and rightly so. It's taken, whether knowingly or not, as a direct challenge to one's own viability as a lifeform. If the charges are legitimate then one is offended multiply, if only because it rings in your own ear as the truth and should be taken to mean that you are, in fact, less fit along some dimension than your peers.

Here's the heart of the matter: women actually have some evidence that they are worth more than they can get. We're talking about dating here, correct? Not about salary, workplace respect, etc.: sex and dating. Women aren't campaigning for equality in this realm of life, are they? No.

The evidence being her individual popularity on dating sites. An unlimited supply of men who express interest in her sexually. You would instantly understand how this would affect the self-evaluation of a man if it were happening to him, if there were an endless queue of women waiting for their chance with him.

The problem: this doesn't actually indicate a woman's SMV. A possible solution to this would be to indicate a woman's percentile rank to her on the app (I think OnlyFans does this?). Though this might be so damaging to the female psyche that no woman woman with an average rank would subject herself to it. Maybe not, if they're really looking for love.

I think OnlyFans does this?

Yes, OF and other sites in the space will tell you what percentage you're in. I've heard that it's trivial to get into the top 1% of all creators on OF or Fansly, but it's going beyond that into the decimals that makes you truly special.

I suppose this is to say that maybe it's not worth bothering with, then.

That seems counter intuitive that it's trivial to be top one-percent.

The trick is that a huge percentage of the site's creators are likely inactive. If 90% of the accounts are inactive and 8% are active but and either just getting the ball rolling or declining after finding the juice wasn't worth the squeeze but still have a sub or two who haven't cancelled the top half of active creators are in the top 1% of all creators that month.

Yup - this is why all the weird "all attractive women are becoming OF models" never struck with me. According to the first article I found, as of August 2022, they had 2.1 million creators. Now, if you do some fairly quick math - there's about 750 million between the EU & the US, the two main places where you can easily be an OF model.

So, if you divide the age categories evenly (which isn't true, but it's close enough), you get about 56 million women between the ages of 18-29 overall. So, oh no, almost 5% of women are now on OnlyFans, and more importantly, it's likely to be a big chunk of the appx. women near the top.

But then, like you said, it seems amazingly easy to get into the top 1%, and almost all models say they're top 5%. Which tell me when it comes to active accounts that are posting regularly, we're closing to probably 250k 'active' accounts, and all of the sudden, how many non-US/EU accounts there are have to actually be looked into, before the overreaction to the rise of OF is worried about.

I think it's based on earnings, so it's like "economic 1%." That said, as I mentioned, it's apparently pretty easy to get into the top 1% so long as you have a fanbase/customer base towards the triple-digits. The long tail of digital sex work is very long and very flat, I guess you could say.

Queens of what?

Narcissism and entitlement. A person who believes themselves royalty without a fiefdom is insufferable.

Queens of what?

That's the question, isn't it, much more general than just the fertility topic. Every young woman is relentlessly reminded that she is a Qween who Slaaaaayyys, and anything countering that narrative is absolutely haram. But where is her dominion? What does she slay?

Consider this pop hit. #13 on Billboard, on the chart for half a year. If the men do all the work of enthroning the women, then the women will do their part by consuming luxuries and dancing. This is what passes for "female empowerment".

Gosh, people are writing pop songs that are power fantasies! Sometimes they even write them about women. What is the world coming to?

Come on, there's no substance here.

Every man implicitly knows that to obtain the power fantasy he has to get on the sigma grindset. Think of rap songs, they might potray the power fantasy of endless 'money,bitches and clout' to a young black man, but he knows that he would have to 'hustle' his way there. No man is under the impression that they can be James Bond just by being male.

Whilst female power fantasies are targeted at the modal female, and there is no pretense that the power has to be acquired or that not everyone can have it. It's just girl power, because girl.

I've been shilling TLP a lot lately, but once again he is on the mark. https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/01/no_self-respecting_woman_would.html

Power fantasies are not good for the soul, male or female. They poison the mind.

Come on, there's no substance here.

That's exactly the point. The power fantasy leaves "vapid" in the dust to dwell firmly in the realm of "hilariously fucking stupid", and there's no counter-balancing, reality-checking criticism because Women Are Wonderful, and any such efforts code as mean. This seems to result in a situation where middle school power fantasies are normalized and "respectable" for women in a way that they aren't for men. In the real world, we mock mall ninjas and weaboos, and some of them manage to get the message and grow up a little. Imagine if every pop song, social media outlet, movie and TV show was hammering young men with the message that they were Sons of Heaven and they should just Dragonball Z scream to unleash their warrior spirits at the school marms who oppress their divinely-blessed existence. Somehow, I don't think that would help them become sane, pro-social, reality-based members of society, I think it would foster mental illness, delusion and severely arrested development.

Male power fantasies in fiction are still very common, I think you'll find. There's an entire section of literary criticism in which the ur-narrative is The Hero's Journey. Being the Son of Heaven or some other kind of Chosen One comes standard.

Reality is, ultimately, its own check on these things, I think. Most women know they aren't actually queen of very much. Time comes for us all, and most of us grow. Some of us still like to imagine being Batman now and then while we're at it, and that's okay.

I think it might actually be harder to mock women for not being powerful just because, unlike men, we're not failing in our gender role by lacking power. Which isn't fair to men, that they should be mocked for not aligning with a gender role, but I think some of the difference that you are seeing actually comes from there.

The Hero's Journey

That is generally considered good writing because it involves character growth. The hero's journey is easily contrasted with the more common female iteration being the Mary Sue, who has no journey, just an endless parade of successes.

Male power fantasies in fiction are still very common, I think you'll find. There's an entire section of literary criticism in which the ur-narrative is The Hero's Journey. Being the Son of Heaven or some other kind of Chosen One comes standard.

This is actually the initial inspiration for this insight, the difference in how defensive people get about male power fantasy fiction versus female power fantasy fiction. The women tend to get far more upset about their Mary Sues being criticized than the men do when their comparable fiction is criticized. And this ties into the gender roles you mentioned. When men get mocked for identifying too much with Goku or Captain America, most of them seem to eventually learn to sheepishly roll with it, and maybe if they're lucky and earnest they take some enduring inspiration about the value of hard training and hard virtue. Men enact their gender role by doing, and all but the most obstinate or gifted will eventually figure out that they're not the Main Character because their actions provide tangible feedback that they're not cracking home runs every at-bat, or clearly the strongest fighter at the gym. At a certain point they accept that they shouldn't expect to stumble into a fortuitous encounter that radically changes their destiny.

This is also a more developed genre, with stronger conventions about how to justify the fantasy, and a longer track record of subverting it. Even in the 80's, Eddings was mocking his own Chosen One for being a meathead who needs to shut the fuck up and just do what The Prophecy tells him. The breakout from the 90's, Wheel of Time, is about how being the Chosen One is an insane nightmare of relentless suffering. I'm unaware of any of the women's stuff subverting itself even now. AIUI, it's still blank-slate-but-sassy 17 year old world famous assassins immediately captivating the billionaire were-faerie Prince, played totally straight, and the fans of that genre get extremely upset when someone notices that this stuff is on the level of the schlockiest old comic books.

Conversely, women's gender role is more along the lines of being recognized for enduring general value/importance. This allows much less in the way of feedback, because having low-grade people/competitors fail to recognize that value before someone much higher status comes along to see it is a mainstay element of the fantasy. And so I observe women in their 30's getting more defensive than middle school boys when their power fantasy schlock is criticized for being schlock.

End result is that I think by 30, there are many more women who still think they might get swept off their feet by a handsome millionaire if they just have the right Maid in Manhattan encounter, compared to the men who still think they're going to be a rockstar who does MMA and invents new tech on the side.

The power fantasy of being a "king" is about having agency. If a man fails at it, that sucks for him. Maybe he can recapture a bit of the spark doing home repairs, splitting wood, or building some cabinets.

The power fantasy of being a "queen" is about having a king, who's kingdom you've hijacked to fulfill your hedonism. If the woman fails at it... it usually still sucks for the man she's settled for. She recaptures a bit of the spark by relentless riding her poor man for more gibs.

But I'm sure you have a different interpretation. Women experience themselves a lot different than how others experience them.

Everyone experiences themselves differently than how others experience them. I've yet to notice any difference in the amount of self-delusion or self-rationalizing between men and women honestly. We're excellent at both as a species (arguably an adaptive trait, which might explain why its so common in everyone).

But that not withstanding, your point logically applies flipped. Women will experience men much differently than men experience themselves.

Queens of what?

Beats me. Maybe queens of slay. Like all such popular slogans expressing the feminist ideal of limitless empowerment, I find it ridiculous, a facet of a promise that is unwarrantable at scale, and inevitably leads to disillusionment and personal failure.

Well, if you think that you should have control over that

I love the indignation here. Indeed, who am I to dare think... think what? It's very quickly traced from the underdefined abstract claim («women should accept responsibility for the reproduction of the group») to the specific attack on personal agency, indeed an assault: that @gemmaem should be forced to bear a baby. (Probably my baby? Some incel's baby? Yuck!) @FarNearEverywhere, to whom I was responding, offers another charming strawman:

it's so unfair! women have all the power! they should lose all their rights and be forced back to the days of exchanging sex for meat so that men can have a fuckdoll of their own at home for their own exclusive use!

What to do! When one side has a game-breaking move «act as if you are afraid of rape», burned into the brainstem and summoned frivolously – no discourse is possible.

My intuitive ideal is maximum agency and optionality for every individual that the society can sustain, in terms of actual material opportunities and not bickering over spoils in a zero-sum squabble. Honestly, if it were possible, I'd have relieved you, and everyone else, of the necessity to gestate an entire baby (or part of a baby, I guess). But surprisingly, women aren't too enthusiastic about artificial womb research either, despite attempts to frame it as an empowering development. Imagine if I suggested that, say, @2rafa's list, admittedly uncomfortably hardcore even for me, is augmented as follows: childless people who are otherwise subject to those career-damaging sanctions and prohibitive taxes can instead 1) postpone their reproduction, 2) pay directly to the «national ectogenesis fund» and 3) commit to have a child once the technology is ready. Men and women alike.

Do you think this would've been politically feasible?

And thanks for another illustration.

Beats me. Maybe queens of slay.

I love your writing, man. But do me a favour and finally get off that arse of yours and write a novel. Pains me to see this generation's Dostojewski wasted on internet bullshit, even though it's highly entertaining.

I mean, would it even be a novel, or just an autobiography with some Magical Realism injected into it? Dase certainly has the classical cynicism of the greats of the past, combined with the profound-yet-puerile attitude found in Russian moderns, IMO.

Imagine if I suggested that, say, @2rafa's list, admittedly uncomfortably hardcore even for me, is augmented as follows: childless people who are otherwise subject to those career-damaging sanctions and prohibitive taxes can instead 1) postpone their reproduction, 2) pay directly to the «national ectogenesis fund» and 3) commit to have a child once the technology is ready. Men and women alike.

This list isn't even all that terrible. If someone wants to live a barebones 33rd percentile Western life they can still do so pretty easily childless under this regime. And this list doesn't force @gemmaem or anyone else to have children, all it does is impose a requirement that if people want to enjoy the upper echelons of the fruits of modern society, they do their part in contributing to its continuation.

Well, since you can't even explain what power it is that women have that you're complaining about, I suppose there is no substance here for me to argue with. You've made one vague gesture towards @2rafa's list of admirably gender-neutral constraints while simultaneously declaring it, understandably, "too hardcore."

You can't even really articulate the premise on which your misogyny rests, let alone substantiate it.

  • -12

I think I explain it well enough. I can try to explain again from first principles. Power is asymmetry of control between agents. Power of women specifically is the power to tank any political project they don't like (say, one increasing men's rights) and shut down a discussion they don't favor (say, one casting women in unflattering light) with a gratuitous refusal to compromise or engage in good faith; the essence of this is captured in twitter catchphrases like «this makes me feel unsafe», or in your behavior toward me here. It is power because it reliably, irrespective of merits of each case, extracts sympathy out of women and out of men, producing a predictable asymmetry and skewing outcomes. This power is an active application of the well-known "women are wonderful" effect, which is in turn explained by evolutionary dynamics created by parental investment inequality, which you have already alluded to (but which, in modern society, doesn't necessarily hold outside of the context of gestation).

The premise of my «misogyny», or actually my argument about there being no realistic solution to undesirable societal effects of feminism, is that women (except members of retrograde religious societies), with you being an apt example, feel entitled to behave this way toward interlocutors, for good reason, namely that «the society» simultaneously encourages this self-serving mean-girl behavior and pretends it's compatible with the authority of an adult.

I will opt out of substantiating the link between feminism and adverse effects discussed (disproportionate, growing inability of young men to form relationships, high divorce rate, low TFR, etc.) because, again, I think the effortpost by @gorge, linked above, suffices as an introduction.

If I were to propose anything like a plan to «impose responsibility» on women in the intended sense, it'd be not so much about me being in control of your womb, «sex for meat» and other blatantly hostile potshots you ladies have come up with, as about nationalism and extended families, in following with the only example of a large, prosperous secular society without those issues that I know. Naturally I also know this cannot be engineered. 2rafa's plan, on top of being hardcore, is also unworkable, at least not in a democratic society.

You may have already encountered it, but if not I think you will enjoy this article by Richard Hanania: https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-marketplace

Power of women specifically is the power to tank any political project they don't like (say, one increasing men's rights) and shut down a discussion they don't favor (say, one casting women in unflattering light) with a gratuitous refusal to compromise or engage in good faith;

Still a bit light on the details. Are you too afraid of my mean-girl power to explain which men's rights women are taking away, or would you be willing to elaborate?

As for "casting women in an unflattering light," well, your premise that women are too mean and irrational to be allowed to participate in politics certainly does that! And I suppose you will claim that any counterargument that I make is merely an appeal to "women are wonderful." But I think my conduct speaks for itself, to any reasonable observer. Your accusation of habitual bad-faith argumentation on my part is unfounded.

This is a topic I really, really don't want to talk about or even think about, because it's one of the abysses that gazes back and keeps me up at night and also it's radioactive. But I'm already thinking about it and I just went through the entire thread of this top-level post hoping in vain that someone had already said it, so I guess it falls to me to explain the HBD-MRA model of patriarchy and its downfall.

Assumed: HBD, or at least the points of which that men are physically stronger than women, and that women are better at social - in particular covert manipulation - than men. For the latter part, also that women care more about safety than men.

The outcome of this in prehistory and most of history is explicit patriarchy that is somewhat more equal than it looks. Explicit female domination or excessive implicit female domination doesn't work because in extremis men would defeat women physically and rape and/or murder them (and in prehistory, of course, mass abduction and rape of other tribes' women was reasonably-commonplace), but women do better than it looks like they do because of course they do, that's what happens when you're better at covert manipulation and the primary drivers of culture. This was stable.

It went from stable to metastable at some point. Obvious potential contributors include the development of firearms, the immense increase in state power relative to personal power, and democracy + women's suffrage giving women an equal explicit share in that state power. I say metastable, rather than unstable, because there was still the social pressure toward not-being-a-feminist encoded within society and enforced by women at least as much as by men. This maintained the explicit patriarchy for some time, but only against relatively-small disruptions. When a large disruption came along, in the form of the 60s/70s counterculture, the social chaos allowed the "women are better at manipulation" effect to take over society entire. Thus, we get the current system, where there is some explicit pretence of equality but implicitly and even to some degree explicitly the deck is massively stacked in women's favour. This is also stable; rapist revolution on small or large scale is impossible because of state power, and now with both women's material incentives and individual social incentives pointing toward feminism, they aren't likely to steer the culture away from it.

The place where this model gets horrible and abyss-gazey is if you consider a patriarchal society better than a matriarchal one - most obviously to me, if you think that safetyism and its accompanying administrative bloat is strangling our ability to achieve anything, but also if you think that the matriarchal mode's oppression of men is worse than the patriarchal mode's oppression of women, or indeed if you think that matriarchy is incompatible with maintaining replacement fertility and thus with a society that isn't necessarily parasitic on others (I'm not convinced of the latter two, but obviously a bunch of people in this thread are convinced). Because then, according to the model, the only way to fix it is to undo some of the factors that made the matriarchy mode a stronger attractor than the patriarchy mode. And, well, I enumerated the options there, or at least the ones I can see, and the possible ones suck (particularly since - as even Dave Sim noted in his infamous essay - the sex differences in these things are statistical trends and not 100%-accurate stereotypes; revoking women's suffrage would very definitely be unfair).

Like I said, I try not to think about this; I would basically rather stick my head in the sand and hope for a miracle (space colonisation and genetic enhancement both seem vaguely like they might organically lead to solutions, although the latter has its own terrors). But you asked, and I ended up reading your post because of the mod-queue thing (this one wasn't there, but I always look at context), and I'd hate myself more for self-censorship than I would and do for spitting it out. So here you go.

The place where this model gets horrible and abyss-gazey is if you consider a patriarchal society better than a matriarchal one - most obviously to me, if you think that safetyism and its accompanying administrative bloat is strangling our ability to achieve anything

Strongly patriarchal societies tend to lack innovation. They are too conservative for it. Think about much of the Muslim world, for example.

It seems to me that the world's most innovative societies are not strongly patriarchal or strongly matriarchal, they are somewhere in between or somewhere outside of that dimension entirely.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am so grateful for your straightforward explanation.

In arguing against the idea that women’s ability to garner sympathy is dangerous in itself, I find that I am in a similar situation to the one that Yair Rosenberg outlines here:

Anti-Jewish bigotry is a self-sustaining circle. It’s a common misconception that anti-Semitism is simply a personal prejudice toward Jewish people. It’s not. It’s also a conspiracy theory about how the entire world works, blaming shadowy Jewish figures for countless societal problems. Kanye’s tweets aptly illustrate why this form of anti-Semitism is so difficult to uproot: It’s a self-affirming conspiracy theory. The anti-Semite claims that Jews control everything. Then, if they are penalized for their bigotry, they point to that as proof. Heads, they win; tails, Jews lose.

Similarly, if I point out the cruelty that might result from denying women a voice in the political process, someone who subscribes to the HBD-MRA viewpoint that you outline can simply respond that any traction I can get from such an argument is proof that people sympathise with women. Accordingly, women constitute a danger and need to be treated with less sympathy in order to neutralise this threat.

We need to prevent the possibility of a downward spiral in which any sign of sympathy for your opponents is proof of the danger that they pose. Basic human sympathy ought to apply to everyone. When the state has as much power as modern states almost always do, this means that the state needs to be able to have sympathy for everyone in it. This means that everyone needs to have some voice in the political process.

When women protest that they ought to have a voice in our debates over how society should be run, this is not in itself evidence that women are unreasonable and power-seeking. Nor does the fact that people sympathise with this argument constitute evidence of some kind of overwhelming persuasive power that women have. To claim either of these things is to participate, clearly, in a spiral of nonsympathy.

Thank you so much for your explanation. If your understanding of what I am trying to argue against illuminates any flaws in my response, then I welcome your insight. You can’t argue against what you don’t understand. I appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me.

Basic human sympathy ought to apply to everyone.

But it doesn't. When was the last time you saw an argument gain traction in popular discourse that a policy should be enacted because it benefits men qua men?

When the state has as much power as modern states almost always do, this means that the state needs to be able to have sympathy for everyone in it. This means that everyone needs to have some voice in the political process.

Or, alternatively, the total power of the state over every facet of our lives might be trimmed a little bit around the edges. There is an argument to be made that more state control in our gynocentric society does primarily result in the preferences of women being taken care of first and foremost. This is what the somewhat cringey "longhouse" discourse on the right alludes to.

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Created an account after lurking for a while just to add on to this comment. Another major consequence that @magic9mushroom missed in his current model is that at the end of the day society is built on men's strength. Pretty much every piece of critical infrastructure is created, installed and maintained by men. Their strength is the foundation on which society is built. The house you live in, the roads you travel on with your car, the internet cables, etc. As more and more check out of society for various reasons the more the foundation cracks and we revert back to the first model. Humanity has already exploited all the easy to reach minerals and energy in our current rise, a fall will be one that we most likely never a rise from again.

Still a bit light on the details. Are you too afraid of my mean-girl power to explain which men's rights women are taking away, or would you be willing to elaborate?

I mean, for a quick but non-exhaustive list from the top of my head:

  • Equal opportunity in the work place (through explicit and implicit quotas)

  • The right to a fair trial (family court)

  • The right to face one's accuser (Title IX kangaroo courts)

  • Equal enjoyment of society's resources men disproportionally provide through taxes (health care spending, or the aforementioned differences in effort to adress male and female homelessness)

I will not list a whole host of outcome disparities (suicides, homelessness, sentencing disparities, work place deaths etc.) because they are more complicated and frequently an outcome of men's choices. Not that outcome disparities disfavouring women aren't frequently used by feminists to demand more freebies.

EDIT: But of course the most important right that is denied to men because of how women abuse their social power to steer political discourse is what Rainer Forst calls the right to justification: to be subjected only to those binding rules that have been adequately justified. This is what Dasein's comments are mainly getting at.

Still a bit light on the details. Are you too afraid of my mean-girl power to explain

Well, as luck would have it, you provide details. E.g. this idea that you don't have to justify or spell out your own object-level ideas, instead moving from a sneer to another clever sneer, humorously nitpicking, questioning me and expecting some mealy-mouthed excuses to mock – this is, in itself, an attitude of a person used to wielding social power, to meting out rewards and threats. In fact you have started with accusatory questions and assumptions:

The question of whether we are going to gestate an entire baby with all the physical and mental changes that implies? Well, if you think that you should have control over that...

This is and remains sufficient, a catty snipe men do not receive well from each other, and in many other places a heavy, dangerous accusation.

As for men's rights, MRAs have their lists of complaints available on the web. If you are curious, you can find them. My point, however, is not men's rights, but the mode of engagement you presume permissible for yourself, because it is – for a woman, as I've been saying.

If I were to name one right I personally think is missing, that'd be general legal recognition of men-only spaces, i.e. not spaces which women aren't interested in entering because of their perceived low status, but ones they are not allowed into – precisely to avoid this kind of petty bullshit, and also to not ruin some nice hobbies and traditions. Boy Scouts, MTG, Compagnons, old clubs.

For some reason feminists are very hostile to the notion.

But yeah, let's go with me being too afraid. Rather, let's say I am exhausted. Women tend to think this such words make a good argument, so I assume you wouldn't think this an unfair move.

I do, in fact, generally respect exhaustion in my argumentative partners, you're not wrong about that. Unfortunately, in this case, you've made any number of statements that require answers. You accuse me of sneering, but you've been sneering at me this whole time, and suggesting taking away rights far more fundamental than a right to single-sex spaces. As for catty sniping, you're full of catty sniping! "I love the indignation here," you write. "And thanks for another illustration," you continue. It's true that I'm not spelling out my own object level ideas; I'm asking you to spell yours out because you keep leveling accusations at women that honestly seem far more true of you. Perhaps if you were better at engaging with women in good faith, you'd get more good faith in return.

Perhaps if you were better at engaging with women in good faith, you'd get more good faith in return.

Going to come in handy for the 2 women on the Motte, thanks for the insight.

Sarcasm aside, do you not realize that you making statements like that is exactly his point? That you can harness social shaming as a tool even in a place like a motte without raising too many eyebrows, and such statements are toxic to honest discourse to the nth degree. Be honest, you know you being a woman has nothing to do with how he is engaging in this conversation, if anything if you read @DaseindustriesLtd's other comments on other topics, he is holding back his punches. So why add in that little snide at all if not for shaming purposes? Do you seriously think "has women franchisement gone too far" is too spicy relative to the other things the motte discusses?

I hate to say it, but a lot of women are so used to using harnessing shame to win arguments that they don't even know when they are doing it (or that you can win arguments any other way) [1]. Your statement can roughly be translated to;

" Oh sweetie, no wonder you are having girl troubles, You don't even know how to talk to girls! just say your please and thank yous and you will get a girlfriend in no time" exact same thing as "Perhaps if you were better at engaging with women in good faith, you'd get more good faith in return." in the context of this conversation.

And there you did it. You poisoned the well, now unless one has the eye of Horus he will slightly doubt everything he (Daes) says because maybe you know what, he kinda might just suck with girls and is taking it all out on the internet. Maybe everything he is saying is just incel jibber jabber.

You are non-stop trying to shame him ala "can you guys believe this, he is being mean to girls!" over and over again. And if you can't realize that after being told explicitly, I don't know what to say. But do be careful of wielding weapons, lest they be wielded against you.


Here's some unsolicited advice. You can <argue for/against the point> instead of < arguing for the point as a woman>, the latter will automatically guarantee you hostility. Why? Because the latter is often a failsafe warning sign that shaming will be used if the discussion turns sideways and everyone who has their senses tuned after years of internet usage will pattern match regardless of the ground truth and get in a preemptive strike.

[1] FYI, even the most vilest of online incels or whatsoever woman-hating group you can conjure up not are really hostile to women when interacting with them. But they are hostile to "bitches", i.e women who are so used to arguing "as a woman" that they are gobsmacked by the notion that they might get hostility for reasons other than being a woman, i.e for being annoying/histrionic/naggy/whatever. Men get hostility all the fucking time from other men, but I suppose when you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

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and suggesting taking away rights far more fundamental than a right to single-sex spaces

This is a lie, as you know. I have not advocated disenfranchisement of women, yet you have already started gossiping to this effect; I believe that the change, as implemented, was a bad idea, but now this is a moot point (in the footnote, I add that there may be no workable political regime anyway). I have not proposed granting me control over pregnancies either, yet you feel free to insinuate this. Inasmuch as I have spoken of conscionable (but still unworkable) solutions, those were a) the artificial womb project, b) social engineering in the manner of Israelis. Perhaps some watered-down incentive structure along 2rafa's lines is also worth discussing, but my overall point is that it effectively entails big reductions in freedom of women, in the name of a natalist, clearly «patriarchal» objective, so it is politically unfeasible; its gender-neutrality is not that relevant. I concede that a substantial proportion of men will also oppose it out of self-interest.

"I love the indignation here," you write.

Yes. In response to what? But perhaps the gravity of your accusation is lost on you; as well as the cause for my sarcasm.

Sure, I'm not being exceedingly courteous to you here. But I think I'm being courteous enough.


EDIT @f3zinker has helpfully reminded me that in another conversation I have indeed written down some concrete proposals, though they, too, are not politically realistic (premised on having authoritarian power to begin with). You can debate them if you wish.

not spaces which women aren't interested in entering because of their perceived low status, but ones they are not allowed into

Eh, the freemasons are a society that women aren't allowed to enter, and they're doing just fine (well, apart from membership dwindling but that's not because of the power structures that be).

Your information is out of date, I'm afraid; the masons are accepting women nowadays.

Still a bit light on the details. Are you too afraid of my mean-girl power to explain which men's rights women are taking away, or would you be willing to elaborate?

Not ilforte and not a direct example, but even if no rights are directly being taken away you can still have a subset of the population being reduced to second class status, see Jim Crow laws in the US and "separate but equal" wherein black people were normally given access to inferior versions of the things white people got, even though on paper they both got access to the same things (e.g. the black waiting room at a train station was worse than the white one, even though on paper both blacks and whites got a waiting room at the train station). And while on its own having a worse train station waiting room is a very minor inconvenience, multiply this by 100x with variants of this happening all over society and you suddenly have a very real issue on your hands.

Same thing with men/women in modern society, it is currently structured in such a way that even though on paper everyone is equal, men by and large get the short end of the stick even for things that hurt them more (e.g. more targeted help for female homeless, even though there are far more male homeless than female homeless) where if the genders were inverted would be considered a huge issue needing national attention (see how at the moment in the US the college enrolment gender imbalance is more lopsided in female favour than it was in male favour when Title IX was introduced as a remedy to the issue). Now you can (and people do) always make arguments about why we shouldn't interfere in the current situation, but those arguments also mostly applied when women were getting the short end of the stick, and they weren't considered good enough excuses then, but by and large are considered so now (well, except in those STEM subjects which still have more men than women).

Well, I would certainly be in favour of also having homeless programs that target men. I agree that there is a fair bit of momentum behind addressing inequities faced by women, and less momentum behind addressing inequities faced by men, and I am definitely open to arguments about which such inequities are particularly important (successful suicide attempts would be another obvious urgent one).

So I agree that there are issues that need addressing, here, but I don't think denying women the vote is likely to be an important step towards that. And although some feminists are threatened by the notion that men might also face inequities, I think the broader public, including women, is generally not inclined to view such things with outrage or bad faith argumentation, so much as an unwarranted level of neglect which we can work to overcome.

I don't think your local interlocutors have advocated for stripping women of the right to vote (though maybe someone has elsewhere in the thread). I've read them more as hoping for a shift in power at the level of culture and norms, but basically disparaging that this is possible.

Personally, I'm somewhat optimistic that we will find a better balance in the long term, but believe the short term will be bumpy. We've only had gender equality in the west for maybe half a century, and that equality is not perfect because some aspects of patriarchy have inertia and most feminine privilege remains unexamined due to the nature of the feminist movement. I think feminism is mostly downstream of the industrial revolution, but cultural evolution can take awhile and I think we still have a ways to go before we have adjusted to the economic substraight of the information economy.

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Violations of the principle "My body, my choice" are only ever considered "unreasonable" and "dictatorial" when they come in form of protections of bodily autonomy for preborn children.

A suicide attempt leading to one being put in a mental institution, drug use to a prison sentence, unvaccination to house arrest, are considered reasonable uses of state power, despite each instance on its own killing much fewer unconsenting people.

Not even illegal drug use, the west doesn't accept "my body, my choice" as being a valid reason for me to use whichever antibiotic whenever I want.

Or if I want to speed up my muscle-gaining journey with Testosterone, many such cases. It's okay if a girl wants to become a boy though.

Atleast with antibiotics they can gesture towards you trying to create some sort of superbug intentionally or not, what can possibly go wrong with Testosterone? Its not like I cant kill myself with bleach.