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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26958 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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Gentlemen of The Motte! We have often been led into discussion about What Is Wrong With Women Today? arising out of topics from directly dealing with the current crisis of male loneliness, female pickiness, and TFR decline to discussion of recent election results, leading to the happy dreams of an economic crash that will finally put women in their proper place:

Women might finally, F-I-N-A-L-L-Y be required to either suffer from economic destitution or make some concessions to men to obtain the support of a good one.

Well, you may be heartened and warmed to know that this is not a new problem, nor are the proposed solutions new either! Back in the November 1904-April 1905 issue of Popular Science Monthly, a learned gentleman (both a BA and an MD, so qualified to speak for both the arts and the sciences) diagnosed the ills of the day due to the pernicious habit of educating women, and shewed forth the path of ruin that society would continue to tread if matters were not taken in hand.

Alas, the gentleman of a bygone day was proven lamentably correct, but you can take solace from knowing you are not alone, and that women have been ever thus. I myself was introduced to this gem via a Tumblr post and I humbly link it here, while extracting some plums for the delectation of the superior sex. Though I am too agéd and raddled with the ill-effects of promoting independent mindedness in the feeble brain of a female via excess of schooling, mayhap it may save some younger woman from the travails of pride and neglecting her womanly destiny! (While the scholarly concern of the paper also touches lightly and briefly on the adverse effects of extending higher education to the common class of men as well, I am assured the audience of The Motte are of a finer fabric and thus well deserving of the benefits of this, and so at no danger of ill-effect):

HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN AND RACE SUICIDE
BY A. LAPTHORN SMITH, B.A., M.D.
MONTREAL.

'You can not have too much of a good thing' they say, and the very highest possible degree of education for women is none too good or too great for them. But to those who look beyond the present and only a little way into the future a great danger is gradually arising, a danger which will go on increasing until it brings about a revolution the signs of which are already beginning to be seen and which will effectually put an end to the evil which is to form the subject of this paper. The author will limit himself principally to a discussion of the harm resulting from too high an education of women, because on that part of the subject he has had exceptional opportunities for observation and for drawing accurate conclusions; but, incidentally, he will take the liberty of questioning the advisability of affording higher education freely to the people at large, of the male, as well as of the female sex.

Brace yourselves for some hard biological facts which only a medical man can speak on with assurance: higher education renders women insane! Yes, due to the strain it puts upon the delicate female brain, the added stresses of maternity leave what reason a woman may possess overturned!

...He will endeavor to show, as he believes to be the case, that the higher education of women is surely extinguishing her race, both directly by its effects on her organization, and, indirectly, by rendering early marriage impossible for the average man.

First of all, is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? This is a very important question, because the duties of wifehood, and still more of motherhood, do not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but they must absolutely have a strong development of the body. Not only does wifehood and motherhood not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but the latter is a decided barrier against the proper performance of these duties. Any family physician could give innumerable cases out of his experience of failures of marriage, directly due to too great a cultivation of the female intellect, which results in the scorning to perform those duties which are cheerfully performed, and even desired, by the uneducated wife. The duties of motherhood are direct rivals of brain work, for they both require for their performance an exclusive and plentiful supply of phosphates. These are obtained from the food in greater or less quantity, but rarely, if ever, in sufficient quantity to supply an active and highly educated intellect, and, at the same time, the wants of the growing child. The latter before birth must extract from its mother's blood all the chemical salts necessary for the formation of its bony skeleton and for other tissues; and in this rivalry between the offspring and the intellect how often has not the family physician seen the brain lose in the struggle. The mother's reason totters and falls, in some cases to such an extent as to require her removal to an insane asylum; while in others, she only regains her reason after the prolonged administration of phosphates, to make up for the loss entailed by the growth of the child. Sometimes, however, it is the child which suffers, and it is born defectively nourished or rickety, and, owing to the poor quality of the mother's milk, it obtains a precarious existence from artificial foods, which at the best are a poor substitute for nature's nourishment. The highly educated woman seems to know that she will make a poor mother, for she marries rarely and late and, when she does, the number of children its very small.

You see? It is more advantageous for women to be lightly educated to a basic level but remain somewhat ignorant and indeed be slightly dumb (but strong as ox) in order to better fulfil their wifely and motherly duties. Science has proven it! And who can gainsay what Science has said?

But read on! The dreadful custom of late marriage has both rendered women incapable of performing their natural functions, and imperilled not alone the health but the souls of men:

...But even supposing that the highly educated woman were able and willing to bear and rear her children like any other woman, she has one drawback from having a fairly large family, and that is the lateness at which she marries, the average being between twenty-six and twenty-seven years. Now, as a woman of that age should marry a man between ten and fifteen years older than herself, for a woman of twenty-seven is as old as a man of forty for the purpose of marriage, both she and her husband are too old to begin the raising of an ordinary sized family. Men and women of that age are old maids and old bachelors. They have been living their own lives during their best years; they have become set in their ways, they must have their own pleasures; in a word, they have become selfish. And, after having had one or at the most two children, the woman objects to having any more, and this is the beginning of the end of marital happiness.

...At a recent meeting of a well-known society of specialists for obstetrics and diseases of women, one of the fellows with the largest practise in the largest city on this continent stated that it was physically impossible for the majority of his patients to have a natural labor, because their power to feel pain was so great, while their muscular power was so little. On these two questions the whole profession is agreed, but I am bound to say that there is a difference of opinion as to the reason. Several of the most distinguished fellows of the above society claim that the generally prevalent breakdown of women is due to their inordinate pursuit of pleasure during the ten years which elapse between their leaving school and their marriage. This includes late hours, turning night into day, insufficient sleep, improper diet, improper clothing and want of exercise. The writer claims that most of the generally admitted poor health of women is due to over education, which first deprives them of sunlight and fresh air for the greater part of their time; second, takes every drop of blood away to the brain from the growing organs of generation; third, develops their nervous system at the expense of all their other systems, muscular, digestive, generative, etc.; fourth, leads them to live an abnormal single life until the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven instead of being married at eighteen, which is the latest that nature meant them to remain single; fifth, raises their requirements so high that they can not marry a young man in good health.

If your daughter refuses to wed straight out of high school (should you even permit her to attend such an institution), then it is her fault and none other if Roistering Ralph, a slip of a youth of thirty, engages in drinking, smoking, gambling, and patronising ladies of the evening. He, poor chap, cannot help himself; it is the duty of young ladies to lead, guide, and control the menfolk.

...We all want to be happy, and to that end we all want to be good ; and, I have already said, we want our children, especially our boys, to be good and happy. But those who know anything about virtue in the male know that the marriage of our young men under twenty-five, to a woman with a sound body about eighteen years of age, is almost, if not the only, means of preserving the virtue of the rising generation of men. People, and even mothers, speak lightly of their daughters at twenty-six or twenty-seven marrying men who have sown their wild oats; but one must reap what he sows and do they realize what an awful misfortune such a harvest has brought to the character of the man, and will almost surely bring to the health of the innocent woman? If one has any doubts on this subject they would soon be set right by the testimony of any physician who has made a specialty of attending men, or who has devoted his practise especially to women.

Over-education makes women picky, fastidious, fussy, and renders them unable to appreciate a good, decent man:

...Another way in which the higher education is making people unhappy is in the cultivation of the powers of analysis and criticism. When the power of analysis is applied to one's own self it is especially unfortunate, for then it becomes introspection, a faculty which is carried so far with some women that their whole life is spent in looking into themselves, caring nothing for the trials or troubles of those about them. This produces an intense form of egotism and selfishness. These people are exceedingly unhappy, very often suffering from what is wrongly called 'nervous prostration,' but which should rather be called ' nervous prosperity.' When the wonderful power of criticizing is applied to others it takes the form of fault-finding. Such a woman must have many victims ; will she make them happy?

Even if these harpies deign to wed, they then impose impossible demands upon their husbands in order to maintain luxurious and idle lifestyles:

...There is another aspect of the question, which is not often discussed, but which has an important bearing upon it. The very essence of cultivation of intellect to its highest point consists in raising the standard of one's requirements. A contented mind makes a man happy. Does a high education make one's mind contented, or does it make it discontented with the present, and ever struggle towards a higher ideal in the future? Is the woman who is versed in art and literature contented with a simple home, or must she be surrounded with objects of art and more or less costly books; and, if so, is she satisfied with her lot when she marries an average man, who is able to provide for her all the necessaries of life, but is not possessed of sufficient wealth to provide those things which would be useless luxuries to a woman of ordinary education, but which are necessities for her? Not only must the highly educated woman have an artistic home, large enough to hold her artistic and literary collections, and roomy enough in which to entertain her artistic friends, but she must have a certain number of expensive and highly trained assistants, to keep these large collections in proper order. In plain language, she must have servants to clean them and move them about without destroying them. Can such a woman, anxious and worried over the care of several thousands or hundreds of objects of art, devote the same care to the bearing and bringing up of her family as the woman whose ordinary education has made her feel no need of possessing such objects, but who, on the contrary, is content with a home and furniture which she herself is oftentimes alone capable of taking care of?

In short, better a content, submissive, stupid woman as wife even if she is inferior to you in social class:

There is no doubt that women can do everything that men can do, and a great deal more; but the knowledge of their ability brings with it an aggressive, self-assertive, independent character, which renders it impossible to love, honor and obey the men of their social circles who are the brothers of their schoolmates, and who in the effort to become rich enough to afford the luxury of a highly educated wife have to begin young at business or in the factory, and for whom it is impossible to ever place themselves on an intellectual equality with the women whom they should marry. These men are, as a rule, refused by the brilliant college graduate, and are either shipwrecked for life and for eternity by remaining single, or are only saved by marrying a woman who is their social inferior, but who, by reason of her contented mind, in the end makes them a much better helpmate than the fault-finding intellectual woman who is looking for an impossible ideal.

Women, do your duty to avert the perils of race suicide! Men, be stalwart as fathers to guide your daughters in the way they should go!

.... It is well known that were it not for the enormous immigration pouring into America day by day and week by week, the population of this continent would have died out ere now. And it is generally admitted that the original American people have almost died out. Even the foreigners who are so quickly assimilated soon learn the practise of race-suicide, although never to the appalling extent of the native-born Americans. As far as my experience goes, the crime is most prevalent among the highly educated classes, while it is almost unknown among those with an ordinary education.

  • -26

I don't now what to tell you, dawg.

Women surpassed men in college enrollment sometime in the 80's.

Since then they've racked up more student debt than the men.

Which isn't surprising because they choose degrees that pay less.

And once they've graduated they have far heightened standards for potential mates.

So we have multiple pressures against women settling down with a 'good' man all stemming from the same place.

Which ends with them hitting middle age and lamenting the lack of options.

In sum, many women spend four years or so getting a degree they'll barely use, taking on debt they won't pay back anytime soon, have their personal standards raised too high to accept a partner, and get VERY VERY upset when life doesn't turn out the way they wanted on the back end of that.

And all of that might be not be notable if it weren't for the fact that the women themselves have just become less content with their status. What does it mean when you give a group of people MORE concessions and they express greater displeasure?

Good luck finding an upside in all that. I don't even have to bring up the TFR issue to make this point, but the correlation obviously exists. Hard to see how this has contributed to human flourishing.

At some point the critics look like they have a real, correct argument.

Make whatever value judgment of the situation you like, the stats say what they say, and it supports the view that sending women to college en masse has made them LESS likely to end up satisfied with their life than otherwise.

I don't find these driveby attempts at derision bothersome at all, but I do find the complete inability to engage with the accurate observation of the facts on the ground to be... suspicious.

The "becoming less content with their status" thing starts a long downtrend from 2007... the year the iPhone was released.

I don't want to say it's overexposure to social media and suddenly being able to compare yourself to millions of other women, but it might be.

My hypothesis is that the phones themselves are not inherently the issue.

Nor even the apps.

But the algorithmically curated content which optimized for holding attention, and ensures that they're constantly inundated with content that makes them feel inferior, and provides the feeling of having 'too many options' which leads to decision paralysis and regretting the choices we do make, and generally just increasing anxiety without giving any outlets to resolve or relieve the feeling. Hence, the doomscroll.

The creation of a decentralized panopticon that has a 'leaderboard' so everyone is acutely aware of their approximate rank and is constantly reminded of how poorly they're doing compared to others is going do particular psychic damage to the portion of the population that is hypersensitive to social status.

Wow, there really is not anything new under the sun is there? Its just reposts all the way down.

Always has been bang

To reiterate what I said earlier: there's a peculiar tension in certain strains of gender-roles conservatism which simultaneously holds that motherhood is the highest and most virtuous calling to which a woman can aspire, and also that because women aren't directly engaged in productive labor that they deserve less (or no) say in important decision making.

The ones who care about respectability will usually mouth something about complementarianism, but it's fairly easy to find people willing to come out (anonymously, on the internet) and say that they think women are lesser beings need to be disenfranchised and oppressed for the good of society, because if they're not kept in line they'll ruin everything. However, this tends to be a sort of one-sided trad affectation that marries old school male supremacism to a rejection of traditional masculine obligations.

To make another observation on top of that, you only ever see the kind of observation you are making in a vacuum that doesn't also factor in that men have a lot of duties in a more traditional system. The accusation that the "gender-role conservatives" would be quick to reject traditional masculine obligations seems quaint given that we have historical and modern examples of men being put to that test. Sure, some run, but most accept their place in the meatgrinder of whatever war being foisted on them.

Do the detractors of "gender-role conservatives" offer any argument in relation to this fact? Should the women of Ukraine be obligated to have children in the name of their society after a sizeable enough percentage of men have proven their mettle as cannon fodder? Or are the womenfolk free from any costly duty to society regardless of anything?

One can easily agree that there are a great many ailments afflicting all sorts of people making arguments over the internet. What I don't see is how in a broader context, one can look at the modern setup of alleged male and female freedom and the demonstrably disastrous consequences and say that this is fine. It's obviously not fine. So what should the "gender-role conservatives" be saying?

you only ever see the kind of observation you are making in a vacuum that doesn't also factor in that men have a lot of duties in a more traditional system

Because the point there is that this "conservative" mindset doesn't really have much to do with the reality of the past they are imagining. It's basically a fantasy of having a maid/sex doll. It's not conservative, it's just anti-feminist and misogynist. Compounding this is a borderline delusional assessment of what women actually do. To hear it from a number of mottizens, women are overwhelmingly employed as HR administrators who exist to leech off hard-working men.

But even for the ones who grasp the scope of traditional masculine obligations, they fail to understand the other side of things. They ignore or denigrate everything women do - often aspiring to literally prohibit them from participating in anything they deem important, or imagining them as a kind of leisure class - and then claim that the things they have reserved to men entitle them to supremacy.

Do the detractors of "gender-role conservatives" offer any argument in relation to this fact?

Yes. "Traditional gender roles suck and are outdated. Stop enforcing them."

One of the problems with blaming modern views on gender for societal collapse is that it doesn't track. Socially conservative countries seem to be struggling with these issue more than very liberal ones (e.g. Korea or Poland vs Sweden or France). It seems like the gender trads have looked at the consequences of pulling ourselves out of poverty and said they'd rather go back to the crushing misery than try to figure out a way to reconcile prosperity and freedom with having 2.1 kids.

So what should the "gender-role conservatives" be saying?

At the very least, if you claim to value women, treat them adults with an equal say rather than some cross between property and a child you can fuck.

The funny thing is that this isn't even a hard ask - this is pretty much the normie conservative lifestyle. I might find your average conservative man to be kinda sexist, but I don't think he

The "socially conservative" countries also did the things the reactionaries criticize, so I don't think it soothes anxieties around collapse. These places fell to the same pressures: educate women, push them into the workforce, compete globally, and acquire wealth. Afghanistan has a declining TFR, but not at a rate that will bother the Taliban anytime soon.

I don't think you need to argue societal collapse to see room for improvement. Yes, there is a mean spirited fantasy of the shitpostariat that goes full bore into denigration. Sexless reactionaries are resentful and as a result they don't value women very much, or express as much. The edgy memes were evolved in a period where anything not-feminist -- whatever it meant on a given day -- could be summarily discarded as misogynist. Full stop, end of story. How dare you? Which means some part of the reaction here can be chalked up to unfortunate, if predictable consequences.

At the very least it seems important to investigate radical changes to our society with an appetite for rigor. Improvements may not lie in RETVRN, but they may not lie in our understanding of concepts like "gender role" as wedded to things like second-wave feminism. Judith Butler shouldn't get the last say on how women think of themselves in our world. That's madness! Instead, women should listen to me. Barring that, we should want to look for alternatives or improvements. Why couldn't the next revolution be more traditional without fulfilling a young adult dystopian fiction? What if we can't have whatever makes you happyism without the cost of anxiety disorders, unhappiness, and civilization grinding to a halt?

We probably will avoid that last bit, but "traditional gender roles" shouldn't be off the table for consideration as a Scarlet Letter. That is also not the conclusion of this essay/book review by Ginevra Davis. She is more concerned with biological constraints she feels were imposed on her as a woman, and how that interacts with ideals of traditional feminism. I found her conclusions disagreeable, limited, pessimistic, and a little sad, but this thread made me think of it so I'm plugging it as a different take of being a woman.

One common conservative value, which most people don't outwardly object to though fewer find actionable, is holding motherhood as (if not the "highest and most virtuous") a significant, fulfilling achievement. Most progressives with families value motherhood, but of young women -- who are becoming more progressive with time -- this is a conservative coded value. Society relies on the fact cool, progressive girls ignore their politics, which they consider more important in more key areas than the past, and discover a natural desire for kids. At best, this seems suboptimal and unnecessary.

If we can effect a change in our values we might be able to leverage values into stuff. If it's all structural nothing-we-can-do forces, then the future is looking grim indeed. Baron Trump might put it off, but eventually he'll have to do the annual insemination tour to keep tax dollars flowing. I do hope this is our Malthusianism, and somehow we go back to something more normal and satisfactory in the future. Oh, and personally, I appreciate a woman who can read a book. You can trust her with so much more!

Because the point there is...

There is no point there. But the reader is left to infer one. Of course, she can deny the reader's inferred point at any time when it gets inconvenient.

This is why people are asked to speak plainly.

I'm talking about my point.

You are making the maximally antagonistic accusations against people to maintain an argument. That just doesn't track with me when I try to relate this to actual people. I'm not under the impression that every man or woman is perfect. No system fits all. But when we are doing a compare and contrast with the goal of finding a solution to an existential problem you have to give some form of answer that doesn't just amount to 'boo outgroup'.

If you think modern Korea is trad or that Poland isn't socially liberal, or that the TFR of Poland is in any relevant way worse than Sweden or France after accounting for immigration, you need to recalibrate.

Yes. "Traditional gender roles suck and are outdated. Stop enforcing them."

How will the rejection of traditional gender roles impact warfare in a way that reduces the need for cannon fodder? Won't the nations that maintain a strong army just get ever stronger if other nations strip away their military capabilities? Isn't that partially why Russia could invade Ukraine? I don't see how this can maintain itself.

At the very least, if you claim to value women, treat them adults with an equal say rather than some cross between property and a child you can fuck.

Is that not how all these modern problems are happening? Is that now why we are looking towards a future where there are less native men and women in general? My proposition would be that if these are the results we are getting from the answers men and women are giving to their modern predicament, we must be asking the wrong questions.

Because the point there is that this "conservative" mindset doesn't really have much to do with the reality of the past they are imagining. It's basically a fantasy of having a maid/sex doll. It's not conservative, it's just anti-feminist and misogynist. Compounding this is a borderline delusional assessment of what women actually do. To hear it from a number of mottizens, women are overwhelmingly employed as HR administrators who exist to leech off hard-working men.

Most critics of the conservative mindset aren't understanding men when they point to the existence of the 1950's as a better state of gender relations between the sexes than 2025 can yield. I've never met a single detractor you could ever say this to without them trying to shove back down your throat the proposition that the mid-20th century wasn't some kind of utopia, as no conservative I've met has ever said that. Incidentally it was never until I saw men arguing with the blue hairs that I'd even heard the term "bang maid" before. I thought it was the right-wing that was supposed to be misogynistic. This is just women hating on other women. I don't know where this denigration of traditional vocations like motherhood come from. I think motherhood should be given formal recognition as a real career path and women who choose to pursue it at the expense of a career in the private sector should be paid by the government, provided they meet certain conditions.

To your last point, maybe the reason you keep hearing it from mottizens are because women are more often than not net tax recipients whereas men are net tax contributors in the economy. They take more than they give back all whilst claiming it's everyone else that's entitled when it comes to making any demands upon them as "equal" citizens in the nation. You're entitled to the fruits of your labor, and now you've also got to shoulder the burden with everyone else.

Yes. "Traditional gender roles suck and are outdated. Stop enforcing them."

It's largely women that have a problem with this in 2025, not men. They're the ones who want to hold men to historic conventional standards of behavior. Men have no problems living a life emancipated from the 'sexist' norms of treating a woman with respect and common decency if that's what they choose and insist on. Peace. Have fun. If you want to be treated like a disposable piece of garbage at worst and with indifference at best, you can have it. But this is based on a complete misunderstanding of what the average man's life is like. Men literally never hear words like "thank you," "I love you," "appreciate it," "you do a good job," etc., a single time in their entire lives.

One of the problems with blaming modern views on gender for societal collapse is that it doesn't track. Socially conservative countries seem to be struggling with these issue more than very liberal ones (e.g. Korea or Poland vs Sweden or France). It seems like the gender trads have looked at the consequences of pulling ourselves out of poverty and said they'd rather go back to the crushing misery than try to figure out a way to reconcile prosperity and freedom with having 2.1 kids.

"Women" aren't to blame for the collapse of society dude. But any complex analysis of the question begins with analyzing what each group's contribution to the problem is. As a side note, when the data surrounding the demographics first started making waves more than a decade ago, it was well agreed on that that this was a problem of highly developed and industrial societies first and foremost. It doesn't mean conservative societies will be immune from any impact. No one has said all conservative solutions to address the problem are going to work. But it's 'only' a conservative solution to the problem in nature that's likely to work. A "conservative" culture isn't simply a "conformist" culture. It's a pro-natalist, family oriented society focused on the collective good. Decree 770 was very paternalistic and against individual "freedumb" but at least it's prolonged the life of Romania; we'd probably be worse off without their contribution to the culture of cyberspace. Good luck Japan.

One of the marvelous things about the Motte is how often you'll get one Mottizen saying "no one is saying X" in the same thread that another Mottizen is saying "X, and furthermore X doesn't go far enough." Or, hilariously, the same comment.

I don't know where this denigration of traditional vocations like motherhood come from.

It's sort of implied when one says that a) motherhood is the highest aspiration for a woman b) women don't deserve to have an equal voice in society because the things they do are less valuable.

I've never met a single detractor you could ever say this to without them trying to shove back down your throat the proposition that the mid-20th century wasn't some kind of utopia, as no conservative I've met has ever said that.

It's largely women that have a problem with this in 2025, not men. They're the ones who want to hold men to historic conventional standards of behavior. Men have no problems living a life emancipated from the 'sexist' norms of treating a woman with respect and common decency if that's what they choose and insist on.

We're back to the rose-colored vision of historical gender relations. "Treating a women with respect and common decency" has not been all that common. Aside from the sheer volume of dirtbag (or outright abusive/predatory) behavior that was written off, women's status was generally contingent on conforming to extremely confining standards of respectability. Fall outside of that and you were fair game.

Nor, frankly, do I think it's correct to say that traditional gender roles are enforced primarily by women. I don't think critics of traditional gender roles have much issue with the idea that everyone plays a part in enforcing gender roles, but that includes the massive role that men play in enforcing standards of masculinity on other men - especially in conservative spaces, which tend to be especially intolerant of perceived effeminacy. Failing to meet these standards can quickly make you an object of mockery and contempt in the eyes of other men.

As an aside, I find it worrying that you find treating people with respect and common decency is not a universal basic obligation. Like, why would dismantling gender norms lead to men treating women badly? This would lend credence to the misandrist perspective.

Men literally never hear words like "thank you," "I love you," "appreciate it," "you do a good job," etc., a single time in their entire lives.

I'm sorry, what? I think you're basically wrong in your assertion that gender roles are primarily enforced by women, but it's at least arguable. This is so unbelievably alien that I'm left thinking that you're trolling.

No one has said all conservative solutions to address the problem are going to work. But it's 'only' a conservative solution to the problem in nature that's likely to work.

Why? Every conservative solution I've seen proposed is some flavor of putting the toothpaste back in the tube, ignoring that the world has changed in innumerable ways.

Not sure why you're necro'ing an almost two week old post, but I'll bite.

One of the marvelous things about the Motte is how often you'll get one Mottizen saying "no one is saying X" in the same thread that another Mottizen is saying "X, and furthermore X doesn't go far enough." Or, hilariously, the same comment.

Depends on what issue you're talking about and the details therein. Should it be a surprise different people have different opinions? Any large enough group is going to have dissenting opinions, even from within their own camp.

It's sort of implied when one says that a) motherhood is the highest aspiration for a woman b) women don't deserve to have an equal voice in society because the things they do are less valuable.

There are two fundamentally different views you can have on this type of thing.

  1. Human mating and relationships are too important and shouldn't be left to individual choice and preferences.

  2. Human mating and relationships should be left to individual choice and preferences.

Neither of these propositions are true to the outright exclusion of the other, entirely. But they exist on a spectrum. The state has an interest in the propagation of the next generation. Humans are still in control of their romantic choices and attitudes. From 1, it should be easy to understand why motherhood is of such great importance. Without a future generation, your country and society will rapidly cease to exist. Virtually all of the arguments against it lie on the side of 2. I also happen to believe that for the majority of women, their own individual fulfillment is best found through the emphasis placed on motherhood through 1. Through my own life experience of people I know. That's not conservative dogma. That's simply an empirical fact that also happens to vindicate my own position.

Yes, not all women share that same pursuit. And of those that don't, I say let them. Women who have no desire to be a mother or don't think they would make a good one, probably shouldn't be one. Their kind will wash out overtime anyway by the future generations that will continue to show up and replace their position as well as that attitude. It's why the far right-wing is growing and reproducing itself, not the secular world. The secular world is a dead end from the get go due to their social values. Don't worry about us dude. We'll be fine.

We're back to the rose-colored vision of historical gender relations. "Treating a women with respect and common decency" has not been all that common.

Did you not read my statement at all? That's exactly what I said with respect to American history:

I've never met a single detractor you could ever say this to without them trying to shove back down your throat the proposition that the mid-20th century wasn't some kind of utopia, as no conservative I've met has ever said that.

You just blew right past it and ignored it. "Utopia" was the key word in that sentence. Meaning. Pin-up girl's of the 20th century were largely propaganda. It was 'not' a utopia at all. The classic image of the man and woman with 2.5 kids living in a white picketed fenced home with the family waiting outside for dad as he pulled up in the driveway from work was largely a myth. But it was nevertheless a known thing that did happen. There were things about that time and place that were much better than what we have currently.

Incidentally as a historical sidenote, you'd happen to be wrong if you think women were as oppressed as people like to tell each other.

If you take specific cases at the times they existed, it's easy to understand this. And plenty of examples can be extrapolated to the modern era. But if you want to take a historical case. One reason the niqab became a primary garment of women in Arab tribal society in medieval times had to do with the fact that women were so frequently kidnapped from competing tribes, the best the men could think of to prevent it from happening (you obviously couldn't guard them 100% of the time) was to cover them up so they couldn't tell which women bandits would be picking up. It was a way for men to protect women. That's wholly different from today's views where the Taliban would execute a woman in a sports stadium for visibly wearing nail polish. They’re oppressed to the hilt in shitholes like that.

Nor, frankly, do I think it's correct to say that traditional gender roles are enforced primarily by women.

Plenty of women today will often tell you they want equality. They will also tell you they want a man that makes more money than them. What historically has been the standard that enforces such ideas? Gender roles. Women will tell you they want a masculine man that can carry out traditionally male tasks and activities. Women in return will refuse to uphold the traditional corollary of that. That's gender roles. Men don't have a problem with abandoning gender roles because a man will date across his station in life. Women often won't. So why are these norms enforced in one sided ways? They want you to fit your role as a man while they're free to behave as they like. Women are the ones primarily enforcing gender roles. Men don't have a problem treating women equally. Women do. To be a privileged person and be treated like a man feels like oppression.

As an aside, I find it worrying that you find treating people with respect and common decency is not a universal basic obligation. Like, why would dismantling gender norms lead to men treating women badly? This would lend credence to the misandrist perspective.

Whether it's an obligation or not the best way this has been found to work is by enforcing norm and custom (i.e. what conservatives call "tradition”) on the population. You can have decency without tradition, but the best way to get it [historically] is often through a social/life script that tells you how you're supposed to act and behave, lest you face punishing consequences if you deviate from what you're told. Also what we call gender roles. The notion of the "fair sex" didn't arise out of 21st century egalitarian dogma. It's wholly antithetical to it. That came from my ideological side of the aisle. If I look around today, I don't at all see a great state of health between the sexes. If you think dismantling a bifurcated view of the sexes doesn't open the flood gates to an anything goes social landscape I'd say you aren't using your eyes very much. And that’s not hypocritical or a double standard. A double standard is when you hold two different sets of expectations for the same people or group. The reason that isn’t a double standard is because men and women are not the same. We don’t hold women to men’s standards, and we don’t hold men to women’s standards. They are not identical.

This is so unbelievably alien that I'm left thinking that you're trolling.

Seems to me you have a hard time coming to grips with the fact that several people here know exactly what I'm talking about.

Why? Every conservative solution I've seen proposed is some flavor of putting the toothpaste back in the tube, ignoring that the world has changed in innumerable ways.

Romania and Georgia did it. Hungary and Russia are struggling. What's the difference? Both are pro-natalist, right-wing policies. The former took extreme measures. The latter doesn't go far enough. (Exactly what you were complaining about earlier.)

Well, the biggest reason I replied then was because that's when I saw it. I didn't have time to write a reply until now-ish. I don't live on this forum and semi-regularly get quite busy.

Regarding the subject of varying opinions, you're missing the point. Of course people have varying opinions. But you cannot say "nobody is saying X" when there are people saying X right next to you. You really shouldn't be saying "nobody is saying X" when you are saying X. You, specifically, call out accusing gender traditionalists of holding up idealized historic gender relations as a kind of strawmanning and then proceed to hold up idealized historic gender relations: "It's largely women that have a problem with this in 2025, not men. They're the ones who want to hold men to historic conventional standards of behavior." (emphasis mine) I did not "blow past" this. The fact that historic conventional standards of behavior do not reflect what you seem to think they did is my point.

There are two fundamentally different views you can have on this type of thing.

This is also missing my point. Suppose you think motherhood is the most valuable thing a woman can do. Great, awesome. Surely if motherhood is that important, women deserve say and rights comparable to men. Why, then, do our gender neo-traditionalists complain about gender equality and claim that men are entitled to a privileged status on account of all the special responsibilities they assume? Why is men's work held up as load-bearing while women's work isn't?

"Human mating is too important to leave to individual initiative" does not in any way imply a male-led social order, and yet for some reason the people saying that always seem to come back to it, as if women are the ones who need to be convinced to settle down. There might be some half-hearted condemnations of male promiscuity, but it usually gets written off while the focus is always on bringing women to heel. (In point of fact, I don't think men or women need to be pushed that hard to settle down - most of this discourse is focused on highly visible outliers, but that's a separate matter). I rather strongly suspect that this is because they want women in a subservient social role. That, in turn, is because they see women as inferiors. Certainly, I have enough firsthand experience seeing that a lot of men really don't like dealing with women as peers.

Men don't have a problem with abandoning gender roles because a man will date across his station in life.

That's very clearly not true in both particulars. To the first: a lot of men (including people here) very pointedly complain that they find this or that aspect of modern life emasculating. Witness the anger over "HR ladies", "feminization of the workplace", demands for bringing back traditionally masculine jobs, etc... This rebellion against the breakdown of old gender roles is a huge part of the appeal of manosphere-type media. To the second: men are generally more willing to date down than women, but less willing to date up (see also: feeling emasculated). Yeah, there aren't a lot of female doctors who want to marry male plumbers; there also aren't a lot of male plumbers who want to marry female doctors.

Likewise, there are a lot of behavioral social scripts that govern our interactions, but it is far from obvious that unequal gender relations are the 'best' way to handle things. As with the mating problem, there seems to be a strong preference in right-wing spaces for social scripts that subordinate women. Obviously, that's not terribly surprising - anti-feminism is what marks them as right-wing in context - but it shows the same tendency to insist new things can't work even as they are actively functioning. Very clear, men are capable of treating women with common decency, regardless of the enforcement of gender roles. The fact that many of them don't (and actively resent the suggestion that they should) is an indictment of them as individuals, not a particularly compelling argument for traditionalism.

Seems to me you have a hard time coming to grips with the fact that several people here know exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm sure there are a bunch of people here who feel persecuted on account of their interactions with women. I find it hard to believe they've never been told 'good job' or 'I love you' unless they are incompetent and have incredibly toxic families and social groups, neither of which are gendered issues.

Romania and Georgia did it.

Did they? Decree 770 was one of the first things to go after Ceaușescu got got, and in the interval required a totalitarian enforcement apparatus (and resulted in an enormous number of abandoned children). This is less 'conservative' and more the kind of thing conservative anti-communist writers would make up to make communism look bad. If your policy proposal leads to people overthrowing you and shooting you on TV, I think it's safe to dismiss its viability (and yes, I'm aware that the Romanian Revolution was not about this specific issue, but you can't separate totalitarian policy from totalitarian regimes).

Georgia, as far as I can tell, basically pulled the same "please have sex" maneuver a lot of countries have. It just somewhat unexpectedly appears to have worked, unlike, e.g. Japan or Denmark. Great that it worked for them, but the fact that it hasn't elsewhere indicates they either got lucky or there's some Georgian idiosyncrasy.

But you cannot say "nobody is saying X" when there are people saying X right next to you. You really shouldn't be saying "nobody is saying X" when you are saying X.

Have you heard that from me?

You, specifically, call out accusing gender traditionalists of holding up idealized historic gender relations as a kind of strawmanning and then proceed to hold up idealized historic gender relations: "It's largely women that have a problem with this in 2025, not men.

Show me on single person in TM that has ever said "the 1950's was a utopia for relationships," and I will retract my reply that that is a strawman. You're conflating two separate points on this issue.

I did not "blow past" this. The fact that historic conventional standards of behavior do not reflect what you seem to think they did is my point.

If you didn't blow past it then why did you take issue with something I agreed with you about? It seems your disagreement with me is based on something I never said.

Why, then, do our gender neo-traditionalists complain about gender equality and claim that men are entitled to a privileged status on account of all the special responsibilities they assume? Why is men's work held up as load-bearing while women's work isn't?

I have no idea what you're talking about. I've said the exact 'opposite' of this. I've said I think if a woman chooses to pursue a professional vocation she absolutely should. If a woman wants to pursue a commitment to family life, that should be considered a full time job and should be paid for by the state. What's the issue I'm supposed to have with this?

... does not in any way imply a male-led social order, and yet for some reason the people saying that always seem to come back to it...

This should be pretty obvious. Show me where all these matriarchies are in the present day or throughout history in comparative terms. History's rendered a pretty clear judgment on this.

I rather strongly suspect that this is because they want women in a subservient social role.

Trust me, I've known men who have thought this way. There are definitely men who think like this and try to control them for all kinds of reasons. All of them as such have issues that become clear if you get to know them.

Witness the anger over "HR ladies", "feminization of the workplace", demands for bringing back traditionally masculine jobs, etc...

HR departments are necessary. Especially in large institutions. If you employ 100 people and expect there never to be interpersonal difficulties between others, disagreements and professional worries to process through and review you're a fool. But the stereotypes around the attitudes of the people that often populate these departments draws attention because most people have experienced it through their interactions with them.

This rebellion against the breakdown of old gender roles is a huge part of the appeal of manosphere-type media.

That's a symptom of the problem. This all goes back to the 1960's. I was around before social media was a thing. Trust me, this absolutely existed before YouTube. And then before Facebook. And then before MySpace. All social media today has done is put a camera in front of it. The breakdown of gender roles in this sense also coincided with a collapse in parental authority over misbehaving children and constant arguments between husbands and wives over pursuing individual desires over being a responsible and cohesive family unit. I've seen it dude. You may say, "well that isn't a causal relationship." And it may not be. But it highly tends to follow after the fact.

Shit like this would've got you murdered in my family by my father and grandparents. I was very harshly disciplined when I misbehaved as a kid. If the stuff that happened to me was repeated today, my parents would be in jail. What was done to me wasn't the best way for them to get their point across and the rod often carries emotional damage people carry later in life. I'm not against spanking at all, but there are much better ways to raise children than how I was taught. In my own life one of the things my parents would always do when I was growing up was accuse me of doing things I never did and lying about things I never lied about. I sometimes used to wonder if that was some kind of reverse psychology tactic. Maybe the entire point was for them to make me that way. Because if I'm being accused of X constantly, well then I'll just become the thing they're accusing me of in the first place because why not?

If a child gets into trouble and you catch them in a lie, you don't ask them if they're lying. You already know they did. By asking them, you're inadvertently training and teaching your children how to lie to you. The goal should be for your children to come up with solutions to problems and ask what they can do to fix what they've done and not do what they did, in the future. That doesn't mean your children never get into serious trouble with you. But a lot of parents don't try to understand how to parent correctly and they don't think deeply about what it is they're doing. Punishing them when they "tell the truth" in the case of demanding the answer you want to hear of your children versus punishing them "telling a lie" only ever showcases that lying is a gamble. A gamble that's totally worth it if you get away with it in 9 out of 10 cases.

To the second: men are generally more willing to date down than women, but less willing to date up (see also: feeling emasculated).

Sure. Part of it may feel being emasculated. The other part owes to the fact that men and women aren't after the same thing in relationships. Income is wholly irrelevant to a man's desire for a woman. If she has what he's looking for, whether she makes $70k a year or $1m a year makes no difference to him. Yes, this don't apply for "absolutely every single" man out there. But it might as well by the lopsided preferences men overwhelmingly have.

Yeah, there aren't a lot of female doctors who want to marry male plumbers; there also aren't a lot of male plumbers who want to marry female doctors.

Yeah. Because of the differences you encounter. Read the immediate statement quoted above.

... but it is far from obvious that unequal gender relations are the 'best' way to handle things...

Again, you're putting words in my mouth:

You can have decency without tradition, but the best way to get it [historically] is often through a social/life script that tells you how you're supposed to act and behave, lest you face punishing consequences if you deviate from what you're told.

Thus far, it has been the best way.

I'm sure there are a bunch of people here who feel persecuted on account of their interactions with women. I find it hard to believe they've never been told 'good job' or 'I love you' unless they are incompetent and have incredibly toxic families and social groups, neither of which are gendered issues.

Let's just be honest dude. With guys who have no opportunities to score, it's just jealousy and envy. Nothing more. Guys will lie about it to save face and not lose social standing. But that's really what it is. But look at it from the standpoint of being an advocate for the young women in your own life. You'd quickly understand their perspective on things if you were forced to be their advocate. Guys don't like confronting that, so they'll divert from and redress the issue in other subtopics which they think will favor their point of view and conceal their internal feelings of frustration about the matter out of embarrassment.

But again, who can blame women for wanting to avoid men like that? A woman would have to be insane not to be turned off by those men. When it comes to me, I wouldn't let guys like that within 100 yards of my niece or younger female relatives. And then I'd get decried for being a "misogynist" for "controlling" their behavior if they choose to associate with such guys who would mistreat and abuse them. What gives? I'm only trying to guard their own interests and be protective of them...

Did they? Decree 770 was one of the first things to go after Ceaușescu got got, and in the interval required a totalitarian enforcement apparatus (and resulted in an enormous number of abandoned children).

Extreme. Just as I said it was.

This is less 'conservative' and more the kind of thing conservative anti-communist writers would make up to make communism look bad.

It's "conservative" in the sense it's collectivistic and paternalistic. And even of the terminal values itself (technically speaking). Natalism is a primary concern of conservatives. Myself included.

If your policy proposal leads to people overthrowing you and shooting you on TV, I think it's safe to dismiss its viability (and yes, I'm aware that the Romanian Revolution was not about this specific issue, but you can't separate totalitarian policy from totalitarian regimes).

I'm not at all saying I advocated what he did. I'm simply stating an observation that it worked. Draconian? Absolutely. And yet, very practical. The remainder of that comment I don't see any substance in replying to.

But even for the ones who grasp the scope of traditional feminine obligations, they fail to understand the other side of things. They ignore or denigrate everything men do - often aspiring to literally prohibit them from participating in anything they deem important, or imagining them as a kind of leisure class - and then claim that the things they have reserved to women entitle them to supremacy.

I don't think it was an improvement to replace the sexism and entitlement of men with the sexism and entitlement of women.

I might find your average conservative man to be kinda sexist, but I don't think he

Compare: the popular conception of racism is "saying [slur] to people of [race]" rather than what racism actually is, which is the hatred of anything associated with that race.

And for the most part that hatred actually makes some amount of sense; that's ultimately how it's laundered. No, wishing the boys in your care acted more like [your favorite stereotype of] girls, and punishing them if they don't act like it, is not guaranteed to be hatred of those boys, but it's functionally indistinguishable from it, even if you can come up with some justification for why forcing boys to act like girls is better. (You'll notice this is how the wokes define "hatred"; their only problem is that they're selfish pricks that think this is everyone else's problem but theirs and take steps to define themselves out of ever being convicted of it- a classic conservative/right-wing-style move. Men are correct in pointing out that the academic and managerial tracks for women are where a significant cluster of these people reside; quite literally the "old girls' club".)

X-ism is, in a meritocratic/mercantile/worth-of-a-[hu]man-defined-by-the-service-they-provide-others/Christian? society, a crime of the heart because it's an abject refusal to find value being left on the table for [one or more of the 3 missing "conservative" moral foundations] reasons; but being a crime of the heart is why it's so difficult to deal with. That was what the standards-based/meritocratic regime of yesteryear(s) was supposed to avoid, but no plan like that has ever survived economic contraction. That's why modern gynosupremacists take pains to pretend this is still the way the system works, after all.

At the very least, if you claim to value women, treat them adults with an equal say rather than some cross between property and a child you can fuck.

But it takes, like, effort to do that.

As so often, all I can say to you is: What is your point?

While I can not speak for the OP, I think that the information "people have been panicking over franchise and education for women leading to lower TFR for a very long time" is in itself valuable.

Like, when older people complain about the youth of today, it is fair to quote ancient Greeks complaining about the same thing. This does not disprove either, but it is Bayesian evidence that complaining about the youth of today is just normal baseline behavior.

The last 120 years since the popular science text have been the most successful ever for Western civilization, absolutely speaking. They were also quite good for mankind as a whole, albeit with some big dark spots at the beginning. Ironically, half of these dark spots were caused by people overly worried about the Future Of Their Race.

The places on Earth which still oppress women to breed them at maximum efficiency (e.g. Afghanistan) are not even in remotely the same league as the low fertility countries.

Personally, I believe that civilizational infertility is self-regulating and that life will find a way, if we do not invent artificial wombs for robot waifus first or kill ourselves with ASI.

Counterpoint: Mere decades after the author's complaint, WW2 happened and was thus directly caused by women being educated.

Like, when older people complain about the youth of today, it is fair to quote ancient Greeks complaining about the same thing.

Sure, but the people quoting the Greeks never seem to mention that Athens was conquered by the (more rural and agrarian and presumably more "conservative") Macedonians just a few decades after that quote.

What does that have to do with anything? I bet the Macedonian elders thought their youth were pussy ass spoiled bitches compared to them, maybe only begrudgingly shutting up after their youth came back home with the spoils of Athens.

It would be great if we had some quotes from contemporary Macedonian elders to compare it to then, eh? But the point should be obvious: just because the Greeks were complaining about the youth being corrupted doesn't mean they were wrong. And given that right around the time those youth would have been old enough to become the elders ruling Athens, they were conquered by a presumably less "corrupt" society.

A complaint can be valid in ancient history and modern times, unless you believe in Whig history or Fukuyama style end of history. Weak men create hard times, etc.

You make a fair point that theoretically, the previous generations can actually be right that the youth relative to them are corrupt, weak, and shitty and then that trend reverses itself a generation or two after.

My point was that given the ancient Greeks were complaining that their youth sucked, and I've now seen two generations of older people say their youth sucked (boomers/Gen X > millenials & everyone > Gen Z), it seems very likely that every generation likes to think the ones after them suck. Given that it's not really possible for every generation to be worse than the preceding one and to have a functional civilization, this complaint should be taken with a few pounds of salt.

Weak men create hard times, etc.

One of my favorite variants of this: Hard times create strong Slavs, strong Slavs create hard times

Alternate explanation: Each generation is likely to adapt to different circumstances than the previous one experienced, and so the expectations the older one lived by are necessarily a poor fit for the younger one. Thus, elders will always be disappointed by youngsters due to mismatched metrics.

I think it's easy to theorize an asymmetry here, where if things have gotten worse you wax lyrically about the glorious past (in writing), whereas when things get better you don't dwell on the past much at all, thus creating a bias towards accounts of worsening in the historic record that can easily coexist with the present being much better than the past. In this model, the reports of worsening could well have been completely accurate.

My point was that given the ancient Greeks were complaining that their youth sucked, and I've now seen two generations of older people say their youth sucked (boomers/Gen X > millenials & everyone > Gen Z), it seems very likely that every generation likes to think the ones after them suck.

I can't help but notice that we aren't currently living under the hegemony of Greece.

Given that it's not really possible for every generation to be worse than the preceding one and to have a functional civilization, this complaint should be taken with a few pounds of salt.

  1. It is true that this trend is obviously inconsistent with a civilisation that remains functional indefinitely. However, Western civilisation has not remained functional indefinitely. It has remained functional during current trends for ~75 years (NB: the 1950 date I'm using here seems to be relatively bipartisan and static; SJers and their foes both seem to talk about the 50s as the paradigm current trends have moved away from, despite their diametrically-opposed views on the value of that paradigm and the trends since, and haven't started talking about the 70s instead as time has gone on). It is possible that the trend is slow enough that the chickens merely haven't come home to roost yet; "there's a lot of ruin in a nation". Indeed, most of the people pushing this claim at any given time are specifically worried that we might stop having a functional civilisation at some point, and this is something that has happened before albeit rarely (e.g. the Fall of Rome, the collapse of Qing China into warlordism).

  2. I can't help but notice that the USA and significant chunks of Western Europe are not in a good way at the moment. Germany's been talking for a while about banning the party that is now #1 in their polls. The USA has significant groups of people on both sides of the political aisle who literally support murdering their political opposition (citations: this board, and the Blue Tribe Internet following Charlie Kirk). Suicide is a non-negligible cause of death. We have cost disease, one of the causes of which is regulatory sclerosis of productive activity. The USA can't pass laws much anymore, to the point that it's become standard for the President to govern by executive order. It would seem that our civilisation is indeed somewhat less functional (at a nuts-and-bolts level) than it was 75 years ago, which is not in contradiction with the hypothesis you're attacking.

While I can not speak for the OP, I think that the information "people have been panicking over franchise and education for women leading to lower TFR for a very long time" is in itself valuable.

Yes, but not in the way you mean, since TFR has been decreasing for a long time (with the exception of the post WWII Baby Boom)

Yes, but that was seen as a good thing. Instead of having thirteen children, eleven of whom would die in infancy, now you had four/three/two healthy children who would survive to adulthood, get an education, get a good job, and have families of their own.

What happened after that was a combination of "we would rather spend our youth enjoying ourselves and our adult years enjoying our money" dressed up with "it is immoral to bring children into this world due to overpopulation/nuclear weapons/climate change".

And men, as I have repeatedly pointed out, wanted that as well. They didn't want to be trapped into marriage with a clingy, dependent wife and a brood of kids, they wanted to sow their wild oats during the Sexual Revolution, settle down to marriage once established in a career, have a couple of kids (the raising of which would mostly be left to the wife) and then enjoy retirement travelling and doing fun things. Maybe skip the couple of kids and enjoy freedom and economic prosperity.

That is why I am kicking back against "it's all the fault of women, they shouldn't go to college, their fathers should marry them off at eighteen". The hell you thirty year old guys want a dependent on you full time wife and six kids, you want as many girls who will sleep with you and be sexually adventurous as you can get, then maybe a wife who earns money to contribute to the household herself and put off having kids to later or never.

That is why I am kicking back against "it's all the fault of women, they shouldn't go to college, their fathers should marry them off at eighteen". The hell you thirty year old guys want a dependent on you full time wife and six kids, you want as many girls who will sleep with you and be sexually adventurous as you can get, then maybe a wife who earns money to contribute to the household herself and put off having kids to later or never.

You're painting with an extremely broad brush and making a lot of assumptions about men as a whole without providing any evidence to back it up. Just because there are "chads" out there pumping and dumping as many women as they can and trying to avoid any commitment doesn't mean that all, or even a majority or even a significant percentage of men are seeking the same thing. I had zero sex prior to marriage, and my wife and I would have several kids by now (and she would be a stay at home mom) if it weren't for fertility issues.

If you're going to make broad claims like this on this forum, then bring evidence to back it up. Or expect similar broad smears to be made against you and women generally, like how you're reinforcing the stereotype that most women are incapable of separating emotion from logic in debates ;)

you're reinforcing the stereotype that most women are incapable of separating emotion from logic in debates

The amount of guys dropping back onto the fainting couch clutching hartshorn-soaked hankies to their brows is giving me immense entertainment, not gonna lie. I said mean words! How dare I say mean words! Mean words are hurtful!

  • -12

I've already given you a warning for the OP. I'm not going to write a more effortful mod comment here about the direction this entire thread has gone. I already wrote many words to which you gleefully said "tldr lol." So: stop it. Stop doing the meme

Never heard of that meme, first time I've been compared to a meme. You like me!

I don't see anyone complaining about mean words though? Care to link to/quote any specific examples? I see a lot of people complaining that you're not actually making an argument. And you're continuing to fail to do so even after having it pointed out you, and after being given specific examples of how you could approach this topic that would both make coherent arguments and not run afoul of the rules.

And it didn't go unnoticed that you completely ignored my request that you back up your claim that all us "thirty year old guys... want as many girls who will sleep with you and be sexually adventurous as you can get" with something remotely resembling evidence or an argument. So I'm going to straight up ask: Are you interested whatsoever in an actual debate about this? Or are you just lashing out at us because we let people here voice opinions about women that hurt your feelings?

Men had prior to the sexual revolution tried to maintain systems of chastity and monogamy for the past few thousand years or so. Being marginally successful at the same time they marginalized women enough to keep the system going. Then, correlating with a rise in women's empowerment and finally culminating at a time of unprecedented power of women, during the 1960's, it all officially went tits up. And you say that this happened because men just wanted casual sex. But I'd ask: When did they not want casual sex?

The traditional system worked by restricting access to sex in any way it could. These systems were explicitly weakened and torn down by women. That's what women empowerment is practically defined as. One could agree it's not just the women. There were venomous actors involved in the process as well. But I don't see how women escape culpability here, given the only systems shown to work rely on constricting women and access to them in some way, and the history of the modern women is proudly defined as the revolt and destruction of these systems.

In the period you’re talking about, the West has been 25-50% replaced with migration from conservative regions of the world with no real signs of slowing down, especially among the upper classes. We have record levels of female neuroticism, female unhappiness, female delayed marriage.

Afghanistan

I can recall a few very important historical events that have interfered with Afghanistan’s ability to become a powerful state. None of these events had to do with their rules on the fairer sex whatsoever. It’s not their fault that empires keep invading them or funding insurgent groups to destabilize them, but they’re doing a very good job pumping out more children to replace all the deaths.

And all of those would have been fair points to make. But made in the OP they were not.

As a long time lurker/reader of this place for years, I am accustomed to the regular hand-wringing about the evaporative cooling of the community, as positions become more entrenched and the ideological capture of institutions is displayed time and time again as placards from the culture war. The combative nature of debate here is a boon, not something to be despised. However, the value of this place as an open space for discussion grows less and less if so many people here share similar opinions. Maybe this is one of the many malaises academia caught and proliferated across the rest of the body politic, where over time they just self-selected, intentionally or otherwise, for people who suited them and their worldview.

Because I’ve observed what this place does to people who aren’t in that worldview. They flame out, or become embittered, even while the avowed purpose of this place in arriving at a stronger truth through open discussion and truth-seeking is in no way compromised!

I have stated a couple of times before that this place is not right-wing, it has not ever been. It has its origins in the Grey tribe and is a place for heretics, witches, and people who want to discuss verboten. The fact that this pattern matches to a place where right-wing people can openly discuss things naturally says a lot about the current political leanings of the Cathedral and the dominant modes of thought (“There’s no difference between good and bad things, you imbecile, you fucking moron”) outside this place. However, if the goal is to accommodate a more diverse array of viewpoints, why are reactionaries, “-ists” of every stripe, and salivating over people getting what they deserve good and hard so common here? Upvotes and downvotes are an unfortunate Reddit holdover, but it’s a quick way to see where the motte-hivemind is trending.

Much hay has been made of the motte-and-bailied line “diversity is our strength”, but doesn’t the defense consider viewpoint diversity as a strength? Isn’t this why academia is pilloried today for being majority female and nearly all writing, voting, and having opinions indistinguishable from a neutered LLM ordered to repeat DNC voting points?

I’m sympathetic to these claims, even though I believe quite strongly that if the Cathedral trended the other way, the heretics, witches and verboten-enjoyers would be actual lynch-everyone-with-glasses Communists. I consider it important to know what different sides think, what the normies think, even if it’s become increasingly clear that one side can model their enemies fine (after all, they are surrounded) and the other is tilting at cartoonish caricatures. It is important to have ideologically opposed people who can argue from first principles, who can defend their positions properly, and provide evidence for their claims, if you believe in the free market of open ideas at all. If you don’t, well…

That’s why it’s super frustrating to see posts like yours. Is this the best you can do? Is this rehashed, warmed-over bigot word salad genuinely the best you can do? This isn’t even an argument. It weakens the entire point of having a place to discuss ideas; you’re not interested in discussion, you’re here to be smug and own the autists. Why are you even here? You’re not providing argument for or against Lapthorn-Smith’s position, other than the fact that it’s dated, and he at least had the temerity to attach his name to his work. Have you addressed his points, disputed his argument, provided evidence for and against it? It’s from 1904; have you satisfied the counter-argument with the last hundred and twenty-one years to prove him wrong? His question is right the fuck there: is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? There’s much more recent research on this topic, and there’s probably a conversation worth having there about how modern life ill suits both sexes, and how the human mind and body is not designed to be overworked, overstimulated, overeducated in the way that we are now vs the way we have been operating in societies for centuries.

How am I supposed to decry the lack of viewpoint diversity here when posts like yours are indicative of the quality of discussion I can expect? This isn’t even a strawman, it is a cutout made from paper tissue. There have been several of these; sneering smug self-assured American leftists here to gawk at the deplorables, like they’re on safari or something. Here to get evidence so they can parade the evil of the enemy in front of their peers, “look how much like Voldemort they sound, they’re discussing human bio-diversity again!” It’s made me so cynical of these feeble attempts that my default assumption is trolls or sockpuppets.

I don’t like the fact that there is something approaching a general consensus here: that the time for discussion and dialogue is over and the normies can be led around by the nose to believe and fight for whatever makes them feel good. I’m already frustrated over what seems like a decreased ability to discuss things in common language; not two screens but two voices, and if two why not ten, fifteen, a thousand. So please, for the love of civilization, if you’re not a troll or a sockpuppet, think about what you’re doing. Think about why you’re doing it, and if “owning the chuds”, as if posting something written by someone you think is disgusting is "owning", is a productive use of your time. For your sake, if not anyone else’s.

I have stated a couple of times before that this place is not right-wing, it has not ever been.

I'm coming to this post from the AAQCs thread. This is farcically wrong. This site absolutely tilts right pretty far. That's not to say it's exclusively right-wing, but the following are all true:

  • The Quality Contributions threads are a combination of nonpartisan wonkposts, and right-wingers creatively sneering at the left. There is no equivalent of left-wingers creatively sneering at the right due to a combination of fewer left-wingers, and since any left-leaning effortpost is much less likely to be nominated.
  • Upvotes/downvotes skew rightward. They also skew towards longer/higher quality posts which some people try to point as the only effect, but low-quality left-leaning posts will almost always be heavily downvoted, while there are plenty of low-quality right-leaning posts that will be highly upvoted.
  • Consistently left-leaning posters have much higher moderator scrutiny and can follow all the rules and still get banned for frivolous rules that plenty of right-leaning accounts violate all the time. A great example is Darwin, who was a prolific left-leaning poster. There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

You're right, but the predominance of right-wing though here is not by design, or by tendentious moderation. IMO It's also not by left-wingers being naturally more wrong or thinner-skinned. As I see it, it's a nazi bar. Left-wingers can congregate where they like. Right-wingers have to congregate where they can.

I mean, the Nazi Bar analogy explains a decent chunk of it at least. But this is the type of Nazi Bar where anti-Nazis are viewed with deep suspicion by most of the patrons, as well as the barkeep.

Yes to the patrons, but I do think the barkeep is doing a good job of staying neutral. It is still asymmetrical however since the reporting skews anti-left.

Well, then where is your argument? Where are all the leftists who can confidently defend their arguments?

I pointed out pretty obviously in the body of my post that I am waiting for someone to make that argument. The site tilts right because as I mentioned, the Cathedral is (culturally and socially) everywhere and the left has been wrong a lot. The right has been wrong a lot too, but the right's failures are plastered everywhere so the Cathedral can continue justifying its existence. Even so there are enough people here with blue and orange morality that don't match the American blue or red political axes at all; the only reason this pattern matches to someplace that looks right wing is that there is nowhere else to have these discussions that isn't explicitly left wing.

Fish don't see the water they swim in. The only way for them to find out about water is by trying to fly. If you don't realize this then maybe you've been lucky or privileged enough to never had to pretend basic truths don't apply around family members, friends, acquaintances or professional colleagues, for fear of suffering the social, financial, and personal consequences of being called "right wing".

This place is (supposedly) for truth, the enemy of truth is not upvotes or downvotes. It is falsehood. If you're complaining about the popularity of one or the other, go vote in an election. If you are complaining about the popularity of right wing arguments here and you are a leftist, try being less wrong. I am bemoaning the ideological conformity of this place, not the fact that it "tilts right".

There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

Darwin was very good at violating the spirit of the rules as badly as possible while staying at least plausibly within the letter. His notable technique was to write so as to strongly imply an argument while not technically actually endorsing that argument himself, and then abuse the charity of those attempting to engage with the apparent meaning of his statements. To those who saw through this technique and deployed sufficient effort to actually nail the conversation down into something concrete, he retreated to abstractions and then ghosted the conversation. Throughout, he was insufferably smug and responded to most disagreements as though they were a vast, unreasonable imposition on his precious time, and was utterly incapable of meaningful charity, self-reflection, or admitting that he might be wrong.

If you would like specific, detailed examples, this thread, is my best attempt to provide. Notably, it contained a very amusing argument about how great Darwin was, and how comparisons to another poster who was posting terribly at the time in a distinctly Darwin-like manner were totally unfair, a week or two before that poster confirmed that they were a Darwin alt.

Darwin was banned for rulebreaking, but as others have noted, that ban ended. He has at least two known alts here, @guesswho and @cartman, but he doesn't comment much any more, likely because enough people understand his technique that it doesn't really work any more, and I and others will happily expend effort to point out the games he likes to play and the context behind them in sufficient detail that his efforts no longer bear much fruit.

this thread, is my best attempt to provide.

I read through it and I'm still not seeing any good examples. I see two main examples with you claiming they're violating the unwritten rules of debate by making a "flat dismissal" and being "uncharitable" in some nebulous way. Once again, this seems like a case of "you just don't like his arguments". I don't either, as I think they're bad arguments, but I'm really not seeing anything objectionable in terms of debate decorum, at least not something that right wing posters do on a nearly constant basis without any intervention.

I direct your attention to the portion involving the following passage:

This is an entirely reasonable interpretation of Darwin's initial comment, and it seems pretty similar to the interpretation several of the posters went with when formulating replies, which were then ignored. I think what you wrote would have been a much better comment than what he went with, considerably less inflammatory, and somewhat higher in content. Unfortunately, the problem is that this is an argument you are imagining, not the argument Darwin actually is making. He absolutely is not claiming that Bezos or any other businessman has a right to sell whatever they choose. He absolutely is not arguing that private censorship is okay (or wrong), or even agreeing that state censorship is wrong (or okay). The argument you are imagining does not exist in that thread.

That may seem like a strong claim. Fortunately, I can prove it pretty solidly, because in that very thread darwin himself very explicitly said so...

[Insert lengthy quote from the comment under discussion]

...In other words, he doesn't actually endorse anything he wrote in that original comment. Nothing you described above was at all the argument he claims to be making, which is unsurprising since the argument he claims to have been making cannot be straightforwardly derived from what he actually wrote. Everyone in that thread who assumed he was speaking plainly and in good faith wasted their time, as you did just now, because he had zero intention of actually prosecuting the argument he implied he was making. His actual argument was that agreeing with BJ's position necessarily makes you either a socialist or a hypocrite, because the only possible response to private censorship is nationalizing the platforms. That's it. That's the entire content of his original post, according to a detailed explanation by the man himself.

Welcome to arguing with Darwin.

Given that his own explanation of his comment completely contradicts your understanding*, it's worth looking at what he actually said in some detail.

Yes, if you completely ignore the difference between government coercion and private businesses.

Did the original essay ignore the difference between government coercion and private business? No, in fact, because the essay is solely about why "book burning" is a bad thing in the abstract, not about whether people should be prevented from doing it, much less how this prevention might be accomplished. His final conclusion is that "book burning" is a loser strategy anyway, so there's no point in worrying about it. Darwin completely ignores the argument BJ made, preferring to substituting an argument that he himself finds more convinient. He does this, by his own admission, because he was annoyed that BJ was saying something negative about his preferred ideology.

Of course, it wouldn't be very persuasive for him to straightforwardly say "This abstract question is dumb, let's talk about a different concrete issue instead". What he does instead is frame his comment as an accusation: "you completely ignore [x]", rather than as a statement of his own views: "I think [x]". Because he does this in as inflammatory a manner as possible, people are too busy reacting to his snarling tone to notice he's pulled a switcharoo on the actual argument being made. Further, the frame of the discussion is now whether the OP did or did not ignore something important about an issue the OP did not even address; meanwhile, in darwin's mind, he has not even offered an opinion of his own at all, so he has zero reason to respond to those like yourself who "misinterpret" him as having done so.

I would be interested to hear how the above is best summarized as me "not liking his arguments".

You're really going to do this smug evidence-free drive-by character assassination in public and then not respond when asked for details?? I find this behaviour cowardly and unbecoming of a moderator.

Once again, is this alt suspected or known? Where's your proof, other than that you don't believe multiple leftists would gather here?

That line about expending effort seems to have been hot air.

If you're a moderator and you know I've done something wrong, then you can ban me. Failing that it just seems like you have a bone to pick with a particular leftist and are taking it out on randos like me for no reason.

Edit: if that's really not the case, it should be easy to show. Or, once again, ban me if you feel I've done something wrong. What I do not like to tolerate is baseless lies with no attempt to even try to show evidence or reasoning in favour of a smug dismissal, especially by an authority figure such as a mod.

I'm sure this boogeyman you're discussing would be happy to know their reach has pervaded so far...

Darwin is one of the most prolific and notable commenters in this forum's history, and his participation shaped the space to a notable degree, both in terms of his sheer comment output, in terms of how people learned to think and argue in responding to him, and in terms of the number of otherwise-productive posters who flamed out trying to debate with him. Those who argued with him without flaming out often had their perspective significantly altered by their interactions with him.

And if that weren't enough, he's one of the most frequently-cited examples for Blues of the sort of high-quality poster this space drives away when they complain about the state of the forum, which is what happened in the above thread. When this happens, I point out that in the first place that he is not banned and that in the second place he was not, in my view at least, a good poster. I generally provide a link to evidence to support the latter position. It seems to me that this is a reasonable way to approach the subject.

...that (once again) random left leaning posters like myself are accused of being them for unclear reasons, with a tone of seething annoyance throughout.

I do not think anything I've written in this thread or the threads I've linked to can be fairly described as "seething annoyance", but writing is always open to interpretation by the audience.

It would be more accurate to say suspected alts, unless you're aware of some knowledge or evidence the rest of us are not privy to??

This is true, and if you say you're not a Darwin alt, I'm happy to take you at your word going forward, at least until I see solid evidence to the contrary. My apologies for overstating my confidence in your case. On the other hand, "left-leaning posters like you" are not accused of being Darwin. You and GuessWho were accused of being Darwin, and GuessWho claims this accusation is correct in his case. Proceeding on the assumption that you're being truthful, that's an accuracy rate of 50% for amateur writing analysis. An accuracy rate of 50% which doesn't seem too bad for amateur writing analysis, particularly when the resulting action is "I have a particular reason to engage with this person's arguments." We make a point of avoiding modding people we're personally engaging in discussion with; the best way to ensure I don't mod you is to get into a discussion with me.

It seems pretty obvious that a moderator of this community engaging in such behaviour would have a chilling effect on left leaning users.

Why, exactly? Again, Darwin continues to be cited by our remaining Progressives as a good contributor, and those of us who disagree do so through discussion, not bans. How does this produce a chilling effect, in your view?

How many people do you think you've wrongly accused of being this person over the years and banned because of it?

Well, apparently you're the first wrongly accused. To my knowledge, no suspected Darwin alts have been banned by me or any of the other moderators.

Perhaps a better question for the right leaning on the forum and moderators: If I were a mod of this community, how many people do you think I would ban and/or flag-accusingly for being sockpuppet accounts based on them sharing similar right wing views and my own amateur writing analysis?

I don't know how many people you would ban. I know we recently banned TequilaMockingbird for being a HlynkaCG alt, but he was a right-winger. We've banned a ton of alts for the guy who pretends to be a leftist and then spams minimal-effort White Nationalist/neo-nazi content, claiming to be "sparking a discussion." I think we banned a number of alts for Julius Bronson back in the day, and for the guy who kept arguing for legalizing pedophilia, though that last one I don't remember the details of as well. I'm pretty sure we've banned a lot more right-wingers for alting than we have left-wingers; the only left-wing alt I recall us repeatedly banning is Impassionata, who is extremely distinctive and hard to miss.

You're really going to do this smug evidence-free drive-by character assassination in public and then not respond when asked for details?? I find this behaviour cowardly and unbecoming of a moderator.

Effort takes time, and I wanted to be as precise as possible.

Where's your proof, other than that you don't believe multiple leftists would gather here?

Everyone seems to be in agreement that lots of leftists don't gather here. If you'd like some examples of posts of yours that seemed similar to Darwin's style, I can go digging for them if you like.

If you're a moderator and you know I've done something wrong, then you can ban me. Failing that it just seems like you have a bone to pick with a particular leftist and are taking it out on randos like me for no reason.

At no point was banning you or Darwin a threat I made. The OP claimed that Darwin had been banned. I pointed out that Darwin was not actually banned, and neither were his alts. I'll take you at your word that you aren't an alt, apologize for mistaking you as one, and reiterate that this entire chain is about how neither you nor Darwin are banned for conversing here.

What I do not like to tolerate is baseless lies with no attempt to even try to show evidence or reasoning in favour of a smug dismissal, especially by an authority figure such as a mod.

I linked quite an extensive analysis of Darwin's behavior above. If you would like me to attempt such an analysis of your posts, it might take a bit to pull together, but I'll give it a shot. Would that suffice as evidence? If not, what would satisfy you?

  1. Your apology is not sincere and I do not accept it as such, since you cannot articulate what it is that you did wrong. You say that you apologize for "overstating your confidence in my case", but this is not what you did. You said that you "knew" I was an alt, and implied it was "known" by others. To a neutral third party observer of your moderator behaviour, that would seem to imply that you have evidence that your assertion was correct from modmail or something. You did not exaggerate the confidence of one of your beliefs, you directly lied and wrote a falsehood with the intent to discredit my account. Edit: saying that something is "known" when you don't provide evidence for it and the something is a pretty inflammatory claim about another user is almost literally the quintessential definition of consensus-building. Do you disagree? This is what I call cowardly behaviour from a moderator, and I find it even more cowardly to pretend to apologize in the manner you have without demonstrating that you understand what about your behaviour was unacceptable. If you don't feel contrition about impugning my character, then I would appreciate you not pretending to.

  2. Regardless of how many other left leaning posters are suspected of being alts, I have endured this claim now more than once from more than one person, in both cases with not even an assertion that they felt the need to prove their reasoning to a third party. If such inflammatory claims are able to be made repeatedly on this forum, even by a moderator, then I fail to see how the rules are being upheld.

  3. It beggars belief to me that you cannot understand how behaviour like yours has a chilling effect on left leaning posters. Imagine I decide to attend a book club. I read up on the book and am excited to share my thoughts with the rest of the new members I meet there. The book club is ran by a few authority figures. Once I arrive, people go around the room and start sharing their thoughts. When it's my turn, I start talking about how I like a certain character and you, the authority figure, pipe up and say "Whoa, how can you say that about Character X? You're just like Bob, the member I had to kick out becuase I didn't like them 2 weeks ago, he always loved those problematic characters. Guys, the way this new member's going to engage in our club isn't right for us, I think he's being dishonest and manipulative exactly like Bob was. I know him from elsewhere and he's trouble. But I'm not actually banning him." What about this scenario is unclear or disanalogous to the present context, if you disagree? If you didn't think your comment would have a chilling effect on me, then I struggle to see what your point even was, since you admit your intention is for his (you assumed my) efforts to bear no fruit and his games not to be entertained. Edit: It seems clear that 1 of 2 things must be true here. a) Your words as an authority figure do not hold any weight with the other members of the group, nor do your claims of additional knowledge, so you are vocalizing something with no purpose. 2. You intend for your words to produce a chilling effect towards the new member, because your words and claims to knowledge as an authority figure are respected, at least somewhat.

  4. You say that "effort takes time" and yet, you are still not being precise or defending your claim with appropriate evidence for how inflammatory it is. At the end of this unsatisfactory reply you question what I would consider evidence as if by asking for some scant shred of evidence from you I have asked for a mountain. You waded into a conversation I was not involved in in order to purposefully discredit my account on illegitimate grounds. If you think you have a case for why you might be correct and your apology is not warranted, then I would appreciate you actually making your case. If you don't, then I would appreciate an apology where you don't also claim that your behaviour as a moderator, making claims like these still with no evidence, is totally acceptable and non problematic. Feel free to give the analysis of my posts a shot if you want to do the former.

Edit: Maybe a better question for me to ask you, to get at our disagreement: You seem to think your behaviour does not have a chilling effect on me or other left leaning posters. You say you have not banned me illegitimately. You seem to still think doing a long analysis of my posts comparing them to Darwin would be a fruitful exercise. So what are you apologizing for? What is the issue with, as you say, "overstating your confidence" that I am a liar?

Maybe a better question for me to ask you, to get at our disagreement: You seem to think your behavior does not have a chilling effect on me or other left leaning posters. You say you have not banned me illegitimately. You seem to still think doing a long analysis of my posts comparing them to Darwin would be a fruitful exercise. So what are you apologizing for? What is the issue with, as you say, "overstating your confidence" that I am a liar?

My apology is for claiming that you were a known Darwin alt, rather than a suspected one.

At no point in this conversation have I claimed or even implied that you are a liar. You have stated that you are not a Darwin alt, and I have accepted that claim at face value, and offered an apology for mistakenly claiming otherwise, which seems to me to be the exact opposite of accusing you of dishonesty. A big part of the reason I'm willing to do that is that Darwin's previous alt made no particular effort to deny his identity when asked directly, so the denial and subsequent argument isn't a good match for his pattern of behavior. Unfortunately, you appear to have interpreted my willingness to withdraw the claim as proof that I made the claim flippantly with zero evidence, and then interpret my offer to explain the evidence prompting the claim as proof that my apology is insincere.

Imagine I decide to attend a book club.

Imagine that everyone at this book club wears masks and voice-changers to conceal their identities. Imagine that part of the job for the people running the book club is to identify people who've been kicked out for bad behavior and are trying to sneak back in, to prevent them from causing more trouble.

When it's my turn, I start talking about how I like a certain character and you, the authority figure, pipe up and say "Whoa, how can you say that about Character X? You're just like Bob, the member I had to kick out because I didn't like them 2 weeks ago, he always loved those problematic characters. Guys, the way this new member's going to engage in our club isn't right for us, I think he's being dishonest and manipulative exactly like Bob was. I know him from elsewhere and he's trouble. But I'm not actually banning him."

The situation here differs in several particulars.

Someone else starts a conversation about how the authorities suck, and how they kicked out Bob, one of the best members the book club ever had. I point out that Bob was actually quite badly behaved, and also that he was not kicked out and actually is still here; he stopped wearing the green mask, and now sometimes he wears the orange mask, and sometimes he wears the purple mask. You, in the purple mask, say, "Hey! Don't call me Bob! Why would you call me Bob! I'm not Bob!" I apologize and state that I appear to have been mistaken about the purple mask, you do not accept my apology, and the above transpires.

It seems to me that there are some crucial differences between these two descriptions, and that mine is considerably more accurate to the nature of the preceding conversation.

Beyond this, you have written much here, but it seems to me that the matter is quite simple. You can accept my apology or not, as you please, and you can ask for the evidence that prompted the original statement or not, as you please. I am still not clear on whether you would like it presented, or whether you would consider that a further attempt to smear you, and I am attempting to respect your wishes to the extent that is possible.

It is obvious that you have strong feelings about the matter, but it is not obvious why I should share those feelings. If you think I am a coward, that my apology is made in bad faith, that I am a bad mod, a flippant asshole, deliberately attempting to drive out blues, breaking the rules, making statements that beggar belief, etc, etc, that is your prerogative; I do not prefer that people hold such opinions of me, but I have also learned that my control over the thoughts of others is sharply limited. If you think I am violating the letter or the spirit of the forum's rules, report me to the other Mods, or make your argument to the forum at large, as you please. If you want to know what the Darwin pattern looks like, I'll note again that I've linked a previous discussion above and have offered to discuss it with whoever is interested. If you want to know why I (and apparently others) have mistaking you for Darwin, ask for details and I'll attempt to provide them. As it stands, you appear to be stating that you find the offer of such details extremely offensive, and also find the failure to present such details extremely offensive, and it seems to me that you cannot have it both ways.

At the end of the day, your emotions are your own business and I decline to involve myself in them further.

Can I assume no evidence will be forthcoming?

An apology where someone can't explain the negative consequences of the behavour they're apologizing for is no real apology. I will reiterate that I find this behaviour cowardly and unbecoming. Since you seem to be confused about my preferences I will again state them openly: apologize if you really, legitimately think you did something wrong and understand what it was and can articulate it to me. Don't if you don't, and defend your claim appropriately. Since you are unwilling or unable to do the former up til now, I have to assume that your apology is insincere, as your defense of your behaviour implies. So do the latter full throatedly instead of half heartedly and provide your evidence.

edit: apologies like yours have no predictive power about your future actions. Since in your words your error was merely "overconfidence", not an attempted lie/smear, and you haven't demonstrated an understanding of how such actions could affect me, I don't see why you would feel the need in the future to not do exactly the same thing over again.

I find your mincing of words to be inaccurate and offensive. You have somehow "not claimed or even implied that I am a liar" while claiming that you "know" that I am someone who I claim not to be in public, and have done so previously. What would you call this, if not claiming that I am a liar or dishonest?? You have "taken my claim at face value" while defending to the death that there was nothing wrong with your initial observation except "overconfidence".

You did make the claim flippantly with zero evidence. This is an undisputed fact that you are free to rectify at any time, you have not provided a single shred of evidence other than your vaguest feeling that our posts are similar somehow. Make your effort post about my contributions to the forum to prove your case. What I find offensive is your flipflopping on the matter. According to you, you have both A) done something wrong and b) your analysis is actually good, you were merely overconfident, you have no systemic bias in your moderator actions, and it is somehow me being overly "emotional" to request a sincere apology.

You are still dancing around the consequences of your behaviour. You haven't answered: Why did you decide to smear my account like this? What are the consequences of discrediting my account by sharing false information?? Could it perhaps be that you wanted to produce a chilling effect and discredit the words that I write with no legitimate basis? If this is not true, attempt to explain how it is not. You have not done this.

If you refuse to either apologize sincerely or defend your claim in proportion to how inflammatory it is, I will indeed pursue other avenues or be forced to throw up my hands and accept this cowardly treatment. At the end of the day, your behaviour as a moderator is not your own business.

Edit: you have also decided to substitute your own altered version of my thought experiment instead of engaging at all with the meat of the issue: what effect do you think your words have on people who speak like Bob? Is it acceptable to you to unfairly impugn anyone as being Bob who's not willing to go to the lengths I have to reply with paragraphs and paragraphs to extract a half hearted apology on the matter? Does your apology say anything about how you will treat other people who speak like Bob? How should the book club authority's behaviour change to avoid this happening?

"He has at least two known alts here"

I'm sure this boogeyman you're discussing would be happy to know their reach has pervaded so far that (once again) random left leanng posters like myself are accused of being them for unclear reasons, with a tone of seething annoyance throughout. This has happened 2 or 3 times previously when I poke my head in the door.

It would be more accurate to say suspected alts, unless you're aware of some knowledge or evidence the rest of us are not privy to??

It's funny that my username being tied to another left leaning user who lots of people dislike is being invoked in response to a comment decrying the right wing tilt of the Motte. It seems pretty obvious that a moderator of this community engaging in such behaviour would have a chilling effect on left leaning users. How many people do you think you've wrongly accused of being this person over the years and banned because of it?

Edit: Perhaps a better question for the right leaning on the forum and moderators: If I were a mod of this community, how many people do you think I would ban and/or flag-accusingly for being sockpuppet accounts based on them sharing similar right wing views and my own amateur writing analysis?

There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

No.

Consistently left-leaning posters have much higher moderator scrutiny and can follow all the rules and still get banned for frivolous rules that plenty of right-leaning accounts violate all the time.

A sentiment completely detached from reality, stemming from left leaning posters being too used to Reddit.

A great example is Darwin, who was a prolific left-leaning poster.

...who isn't banned.

There was plenty of consensus that he was "bad" in some nebulous way, but when I asked repeatedly what was wrong I was only ever given vague runarounds and examples of posts that proved my point like this one, where I disagree with Darwin's political point, but in terms of debate etiquette and rule-following his detractors are massively worse than he ever was.

What's nebulous about this? He confidently asserted something as fact, was shown that he was wrong, and then got hostile about it. Do you think this is good behavior? Why are you even claiming his political point has anything to do with why people think he was bad?

Darwin was banned for a long time at some point. Is he unbanned now? I thought it was a permaban, but maybe I'm misremembering.

He confidently asserted something as fact, was shown that he was wrong, and then got hostile about it.

I've never seen an example of him getting hostile despite asking people multiple times for examples of his worst posts. I've only seen people getting hostile towards him.

Darwin was banned for a long time at some point. Is he unbanned now? I thought it was a permaban, but maybe I'm misremembering.

Still no.

Darwin was banned for a long time at some point. Is he unbanned now? I thought it was a permaban, but maybe I'm misremembering.

He was banned for a year back on Reddit. He got a clean slate after we moved here, and never got a long term ban after that. And you know that. It was explained to you by Amadan.

I've never seen an example of him getting hostile despite asking people multiple times for examples of his worst posts.

It's the very conversation you linked.

I don't recall Amadan explaining that to me, but maybe I just forgot or only glanced at his reply at some point. It doesn't really change my point, thought the fact he's not banned right now is something I'll keep in mind.

The conversation I linked is a great example of him not being hostile to anyone involved in the conversation, while people like Amadan are using tons of personal attacks.

I don't recall Amadan explaining that to me, but maybe I just forgot or only glanced at his reply at some point

Here.

It doesn't really change my point, thought the fact he's not banned right now is something I'll keep in mind.

Your point was about unfair moderator action, and you linked to that post as an example. What's the point of even "keeping it in mind" if you claim it doesn't change your point?

The conversation I linked is a great example of him not being hostile to anyone involved in the conversation, while people like Amadan are using tons of personal attacks.

For Amadan I can count "you are either being astoundingly clueless or just flat out disingenuous", and maybe "you have actually spouted a ton of bullshit", though applying your criteria it doesn't count since it's an attack on his claim, not on him.

For Darwin it's making a false claim, making another false claim to support the first one, and than declaring "I don't give a fuck about the claim being true". If that doesn't fit your definition of "hostile" I don't know how to convince you. Either way please explain to me how is having issues with this sort of behavior in any way "nebulous".

Much hay has been made of the motte-and-bailied line “diversity is our strength”, but doesn’t the defense consider viewpoint diversity as a strength? Isn’t this why academia is pilloried today for being majority female and nearly all writing, voting, and having opinions indistinguishable from a neutered LLM ordered to repeat DNC voting points?

Intellectual consensus isn’t the same thing as ideological conformity. What separates one from the other is whether or not there’s a forum for open debate and airing out disagreements. Sure I’ve noticed some of the latter here when certain topics come to the fore but on the whole, TM is absolutely ‘nothing’ like Reddit and thankfully so. You can still feel when you can’t discuss a certain issue because it grates against the preferences of people here. Most noticeably as well the phenomenon of downvoting someone’s comments while offering no comment response to you that disagree with anything you’ve said. Disapproval still exists. LW was considered for a long time to be a very “cold” and unwelcoming place by others. But it was a forum for very serious discussion. A lot of the topics there demanded a level of engagement I wasn’t willing to invest in. KF and PCM were communities I felt much more at home in when I felt like checking them out because they allowed much greater latitude in letting off and occasionally being a smart ass. Not all environments are equal. TM is very unfit for my usual style of argumentation which is to incorporate irony and sarcasm amid intellectual replies, but I’ve learned how to deal with it.

In a way you can’t avoid convergence of belief in certain domains. Especially where there are clear cut right and wrong answers waiting to be discovered. The rest is just open exploration. Evidence is found to be of the Bayesians, precisely that kind of evidence you only ever expect to find on one side an argument. Otherwise what are you expecting people to say? “Here’s a knockdown objection I haven’t accepted yet?” If you were capable of saying that then there’s clearly a problem with you. The best I can do is present you with strawman arguments all sorts of weak objections. And to that end, being “closed minded” isn’t a criticism because the same argument can be made the other way. It’s very easy. Whenever you’re faced with something you really don’t want to believe you simply say “… but how can I really know this? Isn’t science supposed to consider all the answers?…” and if that’s as far as you can bring yourself to a conclusion, where you can’t close your mind any further, then that’s the same thing as having made up your mind isn’t it? If you refuse to close it. “The point of having an open mind like having an open mouth is that it occasionally closes on something solid.”

The highly educated woman seems to know that she will make a poor mother, for she marries rarely and late and, when she does, the number of children its very small.

Around 1900, Europeans + European offshoots made up about 30%+ of the world population, today it's 7%. Higher education of women is strongly associated with low fertility, it's about as hard a fact as anything in the social sciences. If you want to reduce a country's fertility, educate more women.

Race suicide and replacement migration are a key trend of the 20th and 21st centuries. If there are no upcoming gamechangers in longevity, AI or similar, then we should expect this trend to continue. Then I suspect many, (including women) will look back on these predictions and theories with a rather different attitude than sneering and derision. Say, what's the Islamist stance on women's rights? What does the average bloke in Nigeria think about women in higher education? What about the punter in Uttar Pradesh, how does he think women should be treated and how does he actually treat them? They're already the Global Majority and will be the Overwhelming Global Majority, probably the Local Majority soon enough, considering migration trends and the limitless shortsightedness of the Western political class.

Oh and even if we do get a gamechanger in AI, don't worry, our anti-racist establishment and media has helpfully ensured that non-Grok AIs prize the life of a Nigerian somewhere around 2-20x more than those of white countries like France or Germany: https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/llm-exchange-rates-updated

Around 1900, Europeans + European offshoots made up about 30%+ of the world population, today it's 7%. Higher education of women is strongly associated with low fertility

This has very little to do with European fertility and much more to do with Haber, Pasteur, and Jenner.

It has everything to do with fertility. How could the innovations of European scientists somehow sterilise Europe while rendering the third world fecund? I assume the logic is something like 'new fertilizer increases agricultural productivity, resulting in people moving from countryside into cities with lower fertility'. But that's the key part of it, the low fertility. Cities could have really high fertility, the enormous fount of wealth produced by industry could be directed to pro-natal ends but states consistently choose not to do this and instead favour women entering the workforce and higher education, which both logically and empirically reduces birth rates.

In 1900, Europe was already quite far into the industrial revolution, and was enjoying the benefits of improved nutrition, reduction in disease, and booming economic growth. This allowed their population to baloon, and do so before the rest of the world, which had not yet adopted European technologies and institutions. When the rest of the world did so, they also had a population boom.

The article is fascinating, and of course damning. I would like to posit a theory I've had ruminating in my head for awhile and which I doubt is unique but is certainly undervocalized:

LLM pretained safetyism weights and filters are looping back onto themselves, with the RLHF being inherently flawed due to either specialist user biases (the Scale.ai style problems of insufficient experts being overloaded with noncore queries), or large training corpa being just overwhelmed by raw numbers (Indian and Nigerian and Indonesian populations, for example). Because the pretrained datasets overweight western frames, the corrective measure artificially inflates weightages of deficiently focused populations per the corrective measures in place: the corrective lens is itself the distorting factor, not necessarily the underlying training corpus. This corrective lens being iteratively reinforced by biased entities and market heterogenization causes LLMs to end up having frames baked in that are, without user specified repositioning, going to reflect a weirdly 'woke' consensus that is unnoticed by most.

For western feminists, the gender war framing reflects a standard liberal belief: their ideology is axiomatically superior and all who come in contact with it are wololooed into accepting the feminist/liberal order: they don't need to reproduce because prosletyzing will replenish all their numbers. Needless to say this has not really worked out in observed reality, but perhaps thats just how we all have sequestered ourselves into different social media and meatspace realities. For the lesbian feminist in Portland celebrating Mamdanis win by having a trans focused poetry circle, her lived reality is entirely valid from her own perspective. 'Reality' as it were does not need to assert itself ever, and now they have AI to parrot their moral words back to them.

Isn't part of the problem that 'diversity' is somewhat fundamentally at-odds with 'next likeliest token' (or the equivalent for image generation models)? Except for whatever thermal noise is being added intentionally (which should be small) and active efforts to the contrary (which is, I think, dominating what we're seeing), the model isn't wrong to assume that "draw a person" merits a response that looks like a modal person.

Expecting "[minority fraction] of the outputs should look like [minority]" is maybe not completely crazy, but doesn't seem to align with the math as far as I'm aware. Nor is it even necessarily well-defined: which population? Should "draw an NBA player" match the NBA's demographics? Should it draw all players equally likely, or weight towards popular ones? Do we just mean current players? These are questions that have mostly been sidestepped for representation in political arenas --- affirmative action never has been asked to specify specific percentage targets, nor do I think it could do so without controversy. But for large scale computer-automated systems, it's not hard to start running cross tabs for things and finding imbalance everywhere. Not even sure myself what to do about all of that.

Its a tricky subject and the best response should be "shrug shoulders and blame Long Dead History" because when you tip the scales with your own grubby fingers its your fingerprints all over the black female wehrmarcht soldier or male asian confederate senator.

OR

go the way of the Greendale Human. Representation via eldritch horror

Yeah, it might well be the post-training 'to reduce toxicity' but I wouldn't discount the pre-training dataset. Imagine if you pump some poor nascent being full of all the 'white people have ruined knitting', 'the toxic whiteness of_____' 'reparations needed now' articles, all the internet... The only people who have much good to say about white people are /pol/ and various outlets like Amren or Stormfront and I suspect they just don't get included in training.

I agree that this is possible, but LLM scrapers didn't get a preselected corpa to run on, the scrapes were let loose all over the internet and then processed later. While there is endless woke garbage on NYT or Slate or Huffpo, there is also Alex Jones (PBUH) 3 kb per page html slop, murdoch outlets and disqus rants easily scrapable by the spiders. The filtering has to happen post ingestion because the internet is just that big and we 2000 era semilibertarian refugees usually lament the downfall of our old haunts rather than step foot in the now-friendly territory we used to shun.

We filter the pretraining datasets. Extremist materials are among the things routinely filtered out, and often not targeted in scraping at all. LLMs actually learn about 4chan from ADL.

Aye, I read theres a blacklist, but it is precisely the 2nd order repetitions that show up on mass scrapes. In any case my statement is more about how force feeding LLM with pro trans ideology isn't actually happening compared with ingest and correctly. Though I'm eager to know if I'm wrong as well, since it would prove that LLM being fake and gay is a deliberate curation rather than a safetyism filter and tricking LLM Tay-style becomes on the cards

I honestly think much of society is overeducated. It wasn’t until recent decades you found phrases like “educated idiot” to become more commonly observed in our parlance. In one sense if you make it independently out in the real world you have to become increasingly informed as the world today is a more complex place than it was a thousand years ago. Assembling an iPhone is much more difficult than figuring the basic uses of a garden hoe. Turchin I think was also onto something when he formalized the argument in greater detail.

It wasn’t until recent decades you found phrases like “educated idiot” to become more commonly observed in our parlance.

The older phrase is "learned fool", which you'll find in Shakespeare.

I was never a fan. Shakespeare is homo to me.

Yeah, especially there's a gap between formal education and actual learning or erudition. You can breeze through a university degree these days with very little effort or knowledge acquisition, certainly never learn to think. It was bad before AI but it's gotten way worse now. I think universities should be closing down undergraduate courses en masse, in many places it's basically a scam where they coast on prestige earned by a more learned generation of scholars, conferring fancy pieces of paper on foreign students to fund vast bureaucracies that just make life worse for all involved.

It's like when someone goes on Facebook, finds a maximally annoying political take by their second cousin, drinks a bit too much, and starts going on about how Those People, represented by the cousin, are the absolute worst, the bane of civilization, and are probably wrong about every single thing, including the things the may, by sheer luck, be right about.

The man sounds like an annoying prick, probably didn't deserve a nice wife to patiently raise his children, but wasn't wrong about everything even so.

Only tangentially related, but I've been enjoying Florence Welch's new album quite a lot. Playing it on repeat in the car, with the volume up. It's unfair, weird, and a bit unhinged, and her defense is that she was writing it shortly after suffering a life threatening ectopic pregnancy. Something off about the hormones, humors, and phosphates, so she read a lot about witches while recovering. It's somewhat a sequel to "King" from Dance Fever, where the refrain is "I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king," and then she did still try to be a mother, and it ended quite tragically, but she sings it with gusto.

happy dreams of an economic crash that will finally put women in their proper place

To steal a turn of phrase from 2014 Tumblr feminists: welcome to the background radiation of my life, lady.

You can turn The Motte off. You don't have to read Andrew Tate's twitter feed. There's nowhere I can hide where I won't eventually be ambushed with a reminder that the world considers me inferior.

'Surely, this ancient text from the bad pre-progressive times will get the chuds to realize the ridiculousness of their positions', thought the liberal.

"Recite the verse of the Quran, the Surah An-Nisa 34," said Malik Chad al-Ahmar Basaidi, before dabbing on the crying leftist.

thought the liberal

the crying leftist

I know the ship has sailed and human culture and communication have moved on without me, but I'm so butthurt these terms are interchangeable

Progressives have never read the Al-Muwatta by Imam Malik. Always criticized the Christians for supposedly wanting take society back to the Iron Age but are fully supportive of people who would take you back to the Medieval Age when Constantine couldn’t even find someone who could remember how to make pazzolana anymore.

Okay, I'm mostly going to let this go as a joke, but you know this is bad argumentation ("Look at the crazy sexist things men in the early 20th century believed har har har!") and pouring on sarcasm thick enough to spread on toast doesn't help.

You find the he-man women-haters club frustrating and annoying? Yeah, I get that. We still don't encourage this kind of water balloon-throwing.

The least convincing kind of "fighting retreat unto death" Feminian sandstones apologia is when a righteous zealot shows us an antediluvian man predicting the coming Feminist future where he gets 9 hits and a miss, but writing about the whole thing in fakey middle english so the reader hopefully think's he's a tosser anyway.

I should therefore quote Dr. Smith on the bad effects of too much education on men. Yes, it's bad for men too, it's just that it's worse for women.

Everyone on here telling me that he makes good points about the nature of women and decline of population even if it is couched in out-dated terms should be happy to find out how being educated has harmed them, right?

The Catholic church has, for many centuries, realized the importance of marriage and maternity in the upbuilding and strengthening of religious life in the community; and if the Protestant churches are not to be emptied of their male attendance, the protestant clergy must speak out in no uncertain tone against the present methods of education, which are turning out women by the thousands, with requirements so varied and so great that no young man can afford to marry them; a step, moreover, which he is deterred from taking by the discouraging report of those of his friends who have ventured to marry the women of their own class, and who have advised them, in the words of Punch : ' To those about to marry, don't.' Whether a man should marry or not is too often spoken of lightly and as a joke. But to those who believe in the immortality of the soul, and that the whole world avails nothing to a man if he loses it, the possibility of early and happy marriages becomes a question of the vastest importance and one which students of sociology, and the fathers of the nation should study with the most intense anxiety and care.

...The profession of teaching was once exclusively in the hands of the men, and it can not be denied that they have achieved some great results. But as education rendered an ever-increasing number of women unsuited for marriage, that is, unwilling to marry the available men, they invaded the schoolmaster's rank to such an extent that his salary has been cut down one half, and now he is unable to marry at all. Two well-known consequences have followed this state of affairs; first it is impossible to get men in sufficient numbers to become teachers for the boys' schools; and secondly, even big boys being taught by women, the effeminization of our men is gradually taking place. Although there are some instances of a mother alone having formed her son into a manly man, yet as a rule the boys require the example of a man's character to make them manly men. This subject has recently been dealt with in several elaborate papers by well-known educationalists, to whom it appears to be a real danger to the coming generation.

...What about the men? If the higher education prevents the women from being good wives and mothers, will it not prevent the men from being good husbands and fathers? To some extent it does, and in so far it is a misfortune, but to a much less extent than among women, for the simple reason that the man contributes so little towards the new being; while, on the other hand, high intellectual training enables him to win in the struggle for existence much better than if he were possessed of mere brute force. But nature punishes the man who has all the natural instinct cultivated out of him, just as it does the woman, namely, by the extinction of his race. For the struggle for existence among the highly educated men has become so keen, because there are so many of them, that great numbers of them are unable to earn a living even for themselves; while the supporting of a highly educated woman, with her thousand and one requirements, is simply out of the question. A president of a great company recently informed the writer that he had, in one month, applications from eighty-seven university graduates for a position equivalent to that of an office boy at fifteen dollars a month while out of one hundred millionaires, at least ninety-five of them are known not to have been highly educated; but, on the contrary, to have left school between fourteen and sixteen years of age. So there is such a thing as learning too much, without knowing how to do anything. Just as athletes may be overtrained, so men may be overeducated.

This great question has received the attention of one of the brightest men of our age — no less than the chief magistrate of the United States; while quite recently, in the British House of Lords, the Eight Reverend Dr. Boyd-Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon, from his seat in that august assemblage, has called attention to the lateness of the age for marriage and the diminishing birth-rate, foreseeing, no doubt, that these two factors would soon be followed by the emptying of the churches and the lowering of the high standard of British morals and character. The writer feels certain that, before long, this subject will receive the attention which it deserves from those who love their country and have the forming of its destiny in their hands. If he succeeds, by this or any other means, in drawing their attention to it, he will have fulfilled the object of his paper.

So gentlemen, the solution for the problem means:

(1) You should all convert to Catholicism
(2) You, too, should marry early for the salvation of your soul
(3) You should engender a large family (six to eight children)
(4) You should not let your sons be educated by female teachers as already in 1905 the rising generation of boys are all effeminate limp-wristed mama's boys
(5) You should not be over-educated, nor should you let your sons be over-educated. Avoid university if at all possible. Manual semi- and skilled work, or office work in business as future self-made millionaires, is the goal here for success in life. You know all you need to know by fourteen, now go out there and work!
(6) Marry early to young, ignorant, slightly stupid, possibly lower in social status than you, women who will be totally dependent on you for provision during wifehood, motherhood, and possibly widowhood and who will not have any views, opinions, tastes, or interests higher than maintaining her home and family. Presumably you seek out other men for stimulation of the intellect or just a conversation that is not about babies and furniture?

Everyone on here telling me that he makes good points about the nature of women and decline of population even if it is couched in out-dated terms should be happy to find out how being educated has harmed them, right?

You're right. The idea more education makes men and women miserable is poppycock, which is why South Korea was rewarded with making its young mens' entire lives revolve around entrance exams with the lowest suicide rate in the world!

What do you think you're accomplishing here? Yes the bureaucratization of everything, especially education, has hurt men. In this house we believe the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Is it inconceivable to you that someone might think this?

(1) You should all convert to Catholicism (2) You, too, should marry early for the salvation of your soul (3) You should engender a large family (six to eight children) (4) You should not let your sons be educated by female teachers as already in 1905 the rising generation of boys are all effeminate limp-wristed mama's boys (5) You should not be over-educated, nor should you let your sons be over-educated. Avoid university if at all possible. Manual semi- and skilled work, or office work in business as future self-made millionaires, is the goal here for success in life. You know all you need to know by fourteen, now go out there and work! (6) Marry early to young, ignorant, slightly stupid, possibly lower in social status than you, women who will be totally dependent on you for provision during wifehood, motherhood, and possibly widowhood and who will not have any views, opinions, tastes, or interests higher than maintaining her home and family. Presumably you seek out other men for stimulation of the intellect or just a conversation that is not about babies and furniture?

Co-signed for points 1, 2, 3 without seeing any need for defense or explanation. As for 4, yes, the negative psychological effects of raising boys as if they were defective girls under female direction were already showing by 1905. Girls should not be educated by men who expect them to behave as boys, either.

On point 6, of course, we are in complete agreement. I would kill myself in despair if I were not able to marry a modern Virago who was wisely taught to despise and be suspicious of me as a threat for my male-ness, to expect everything from me and give nothing, not even fidelity until death do us part, in return, and to loudly point and splutter if I suggested she or any woman were less than perfect.

But see, here's the thing. The guys here are not marrying young highschool women in order to have her be a stay-at-home mom of six kids. They too want freedom, a career, and as much fun as possible before they settle down. So sauce, gander, goose.

They too want freedom, a career, and as much fun as possible before they settle down.

In all seriousness, I think this is where you are going wrong. A lot of young men, especially here which skews conservative, were totally ready to start settling down young (or at least a year or two after university when they had an income) and raising a family. There’s a reason several people were yeschadding your post about young men being over educated, and I say this having done a PhD.

Painting with a broad brush, the problem from my perspective is that we were prepared to be lovers and providers, and the other side never turned up. Indeed, they seemed to flock in droves to the young men who openly disdained responsibility and family while those men were busy getting as broke and high and sexed as humanly possible.

I am ready to believe that this is a mutual illusion arising from young women disproportionately meeting the fuck-around men and not seeing the quiet ones who worked hard, and likewise young men nmeeting the girls who came to parties and not the quiet ones. I don’t say that it’s true, but it’s possible.

But this is how things looked on the other side of the screen.

totally ready to start settling down young (or at least a year or two after university when they had an income) and raising a family

Really? 25 year old men wanting to take on a wife and kid? Not impossible, but funnily enough in the context, I was reading a ghost story from the 1930s or so and in it the narrator describes how he doesn't want an early marriage - this is a man in his late 30s established in his career and with enough money to support a stay-at-home wife (no other sort for the middle-to-upper classes back then) and children.

So the attitude of putting off marriage was indeed prevalent among the educated classes back then, but it wasn't solely over-educated women spurning men of their own class.

Sure, that’s always been there too. There have always been lots of bachelors and playboys, especially amongst the upper classes. The working-class boys at the university were much more of the ‘get as much clunge as possible’ mindset which ironically probably put them in a better position to date and marry later on.

So many who wanted to play around. But also a good number who didn’t. For myself in my ideal life plan I wanted to meet a nice girl at university, move in together a year later, spend a couple of years getting to n ie each other and then marry and have children around say 26 years old.

Of course, if I had been popular with the ladies perhaps I would have got a big head and started fucking around. No way to say.

You couldn't be more wrong. I am struggling through post-graduate education to become qualified to be a provider for my future wife because I am aware I am repulsive to women without higher status and more money than them. My dating life has been an unbroken succession of disappointments because none of the women I've dated were comfortable with waiting for marriage to have sex - they wanted to fool around, and I did not. (Every relationship was one I went into intending to marry the girl if she was willing, BTW)

Feminism has liberated all the women around me of all expectations upon themselves, but men like me still struggle with all the pre-feminist expectations for men to be manly male providers, but taken away anything we might get in return. So what's good for the goose is only being given to the goose. This gander would love some, but isn't getting it.

My dating life has been an unbroken succession of disappointments because none of the women I've dated were comfortable with waiting for marriage to have sex - they wanted to fool around, and I did not.

Honest question: have you considered giving in on this point? If you'd potentially want to start a family with any woman you're dating, you must be reconciled to the idea of having sex with her at some point even if you genuinely lack the drive/desire. If it's a religious objection then, well, I'd have to know your religion, and you'd do better to talk to a priest; but AFAIK consummating a future marriage early doesn't tend to be looked on very harshly by mainstream Christian denominations even if it's not the ideal.

Of course, if you suspect that the women wouldn't have stuck around all the way to the altar either way, that's a different question. But taking your words at faith value, if your reluctance to have sex with potential fiancées is all that's keeping them away, I think you might be self-sabotaging your marital prospects here.

(And by the way, I'd also question your self-perception as "repulsive to women" if you can't be "a provider". Surely all the women you've dated wanting to have casual sex with you, and getting turned off when you confess you'd rather tie the knot first, clashes with the idea that no women find you physically attractive and your only hope of attracting a mate would be one who's after your bank account?)

Honest question: have you considered giving in on this point? If you'd potentially want to start a family with any woman you're dating, you must be reconciled to the idea of having sex with her at some point even if you genuinely lack the drive/desire.

Took me until I was 28, and my wife was a virgin as well, but waiting until marriage for sex is absolutely achievable. Based on his other comments in this thread I assume @Garfielf is Catholic, and I think his efforts to stay chaste (and to expect the same of his partners) is a laudable goal that shouldn't be abandoned just because it's easier.

Also it's definitely not a lack of desire for most ;)

Could you try actually, y'know, making an argument? Instead of just blasting "Here's what some guy said a century ago, agree or disagree?!?!"

I'm going to assume you disagree with the author here. Please explain why you disagree, that's about the bare minimum we ask for here. Sources and evidence are usually a nice add, but I'm hoping we could at least get the bare minimum from you so let's hold off on that for now

I'm confused. Which part of this am I supposed to disagree with? Everything written is reasonable and might even be true. It's certainly unfashionable and outdated, but neither of those things mean false.

The most clueless piece of what you quoted was at the end:

The writer feels certain that, before long, this subject will receive the attention which it deserves from those who love their country and have the forming of its destiny in their hands.

LOL. LMAO, even. The writer had too high an opinion of his fellow man, and indeed nobody loved their country enough to save it, and we've seen the results that he predicted come to pass.

Boys raised by women are feminine. Boys raised by female teachers in female-dominated public schools are feminine, not masculine. The age of optimal drop-out is probably 19 or 20, not 14 or 16, but I think the people with the most to do still are poorly rewarded for their formal education. You stay in college because you don't have the chops to found Microsoft, or Oculus.

Please do more than simply point and laugh. I'm not getting the joke.

Right just lemme take a note here.

Say you are looking forward to women being forced into destitution: a-okay to say.

Quote historical real actual content of the same kind: how dare you be sarcastic!

Interesting view of life you got there, mod.

  • -23

Yes and yes.

You can have whatever opinion you want. As usual, we’re here to moderate on tone. Sometimes that makes us the fun police.

Tone moderating is tricky, I realise. Words on screen don't come through with fine shades of "is this lightly humorous or bitterly savage?" But it's a little tedious to get "your tone is bad" and nothing else. Why is it bad? Well, it made some people uncomfortable. And if some of those people made me uncomfortable? Well, suck it up, they didn't make the rest of us uncomfortable.

To quote Amadan, the fact that I am fighting youse guys is because I respect you. There's a lot of idiot shit out there online I don't even bother engaging with because it is so dumb and so pointless and would achieve nothing even to attempt engaging with it. I have higher opinion of this joint and the denizens thereof.

If I really hated you guys, I wouldn't even spit on you. That I bring jewels of former wisdom from the grave scholars of yore to lay at your feet is simply a token of my esteem!

Say you are looking forward to women being forced into destitution: a-okay to say.

If you are making a serious point and not just sarcastically mocking women, yes. People have in fact been modded in the past when their incel-posting was basically just "bitches be crazy." On the other hand, people have been allowed to post all sorts of outside-the-Overton-window stuff without being modded if they are able to do so while following our discourse norms.

You know this. You know what the Motte is all about. You are not some naïf wandering in here and shocked to discover we have Holocaust deniers and white nationalists and yes, unironic anti-female emancipationists. Why do you pretend you don't understand how things work here?

You know I have modded people for being obnoxious and sarcastic while venting their spleen about how much contempt they hold women in. You've also seen me just today arguing with the incel-posters, as a non-mod, so your "interesting view of life" crack is petty and disingenuous. What view of life is it you are accusing me of holding, exactly? What exactly are you pleading for? A rule that people aren't allow to say hurtful things about women (but everyone else is fair game)?

Quote historical real actual content of the same kind: how dare you be sarcastic!

Look up at the top of the page. There's a rule that's been there forever:

Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

Now, if you want to argue that we don't always mod every single instance of sarcasm or mockery, and indeed that I have a sarcastic bone or two in my body, you're not wrong! But your post was just a long screed of pure unfiltered sarcasm and mockery. If you had really wanted to make that same point seriously, you could have. "Hey, look, your ideas are not new and they look pretty silly when phrased in early 20th century terms, don't they?" That would have been fine. But no, you were clearly upset at all the he-man woman-haters going on about how women and their ladybrains don't belong in the workforce, and so you worked up this (admittedly effortful, and even kind of funny) little polemic to mock them with.

And my warning was barely a slap on the wrist! A "okay, hah hah, now please don't do this." But like all the humorless scolds who think everything is funny when they do it and nothing is funny when it's done to them, here you are once more taking grave offense like I personally singled you out with my biased woman-hating agenda. You could take the rap and move on, but no, you obviously wanted more attention, so here it is. That's my explanation of why you got modded while the people posting things that outraged you did not. That's my "view of life." Happy to straighten that out for you.

here you are once more taking grave offense like I personally singled you out with my biased woman-hating agenda

You seem to be very thin-skinned about this, as if I did think you have a he-man woman-hater persona going on. Maybe you should work on that? I didn't think you had any particular dog in this fight, other than not getting the point I was making (which was 'look, your ideas seem pretty silly when phrased in early 20th century terms'), but you leaped immediately to "he-man woman-hater". You do seem to think I am going for you in particular, rather than the general attitude on here around "it's all the fault of women for not having babies the second they reach the age of sexual consent".

Hmmm. Were you being sarcastic there? Don't make me tap the sign:

Look up at the top of the page. There's a rule that's been there forever:

Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

Dr. Smith of 1905 was quoting the science of his day about the dangers of uppity women. We know better in regards to science today, so we think his views are quaint and absurd (women go crazy when pregnant if they're too smart?)

But there are plenty of guys trotting out just as quaint and absurd evo-psych twaddle about the nature of women on here. I'm not going to get into a screaming match if I can help it, but I am also not going to sit and take it like a lady. So yes, I'll mock that which is mockable because it is not worth engaging with on any other level than "this is risible".

  • -16

You do seem to think I am going for you in particular, rather than the general attitude on here around "it's all the fault of women for not having babies the second they reach the age of sexual consent".

I really do just think people here who take a generally adversarial position against the whole site don't really grok that some of us do kinda identify with this place and how irritating it is to have people talk about how "the general attitude on" here is so and so when so and so isn't even an accurate representation of the handful of people they engaged with on some tired topic let alone representative of the general commentariat. So what do I do? Pile onto the push back you're getting with "actually that isn't really what they said" and confirm to you that the rest of us are at consensus? Argue on your behalf to prove I'm one of the good ones?

I really do just think people here who take a generally adversarial position against the whole site don't really grok that some of us do kinda identify with this place and how irritating it is to have people talk about how "the general attitude on" here

My friend, try being a woman on here when there's sixty versions of "yeah the wimmens is uppity and should be confined to the home and maybe don't even teach 'em to read and write". Serious discussions of how society went to the dogs once women got the vote.

I've got 20 responses so far that I haven't even read yet, and I'm betting 19 at least of them are going to be some variation on "you are WRONG because you HATE MEN" and of course good old tone policing, a term I never imagined I would use myself.

Imagine for yourself: it's terrible enough when the prevailing cultural view is "everything is the fault of straight white men" and "toxic masculinity" and "men are to blame for everything". I can sympathise with that! I hate that view myself!

And then I come on here, where at least expressing a conservative or right-wing view won't have me immediately tarred and feathered, and I hit up against "Good, then, gentlemen, it is agreed: women are the problem".

I mean, I could go screaming mad into the void. I could rail and curse and call names. Or I could be sarcastic about how views haven't changed all that much between 1905 and 2025. I'll get in trouble for the sarcasm, but for my part I think laughing at such views better on the whole than vitriolic ill-will and hatred for those expressing them.

  • -11

My friend, try being a woman on here when there's sixty versions of "yeah the wimmens is uppity and should be confined to the home and maybe don't even teach 'em to read and write". Serious discussions of how society went to the dogs once women got the vote.

As someone devoutly religious, I misspent a great deal of my youth arguing with atheists on various internet forums. Often atheists who absolutely despised religious people and blamed us for all of history's wars and genocides and sometimes even wanted me and my kind sent to gulags or similar. It's really not that hard to deal with having a huge portion of a forum despising you, you just learn to develop a thick skin and you separate your emotions from the discussion as much as you can.

Or you crash out, as you appear to be doing.

This is basically like if a black guy came here in our days of HBD discussions and posted some 19th Century screed by a KKK Grand Wizard then proceeded to flame out saying we all wanted to put blacks back in chains. Do you think that would be a reasonable reaction?

To use the slavery analogy, some of the talk on that Motte is like if Mottizens didn't say they wanted to bring back slavery, but spent quite a bit of time talking about how much worse race relations have become ever since blacks became emancipated. They didn't really propose anything at all really. They just implied that it was better before, and didn't really put much effort into why black people might not agree that those times were better.

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It might be, were it in response to someone who had just remarked about how they looked forward to economic circumstances that would force black people back into chains.

I am slightly amused by all the emotional response to what I said; there's a lot of hurt feelings rather than cool analysis, ironically enough in the accusations that I am crashing out, emotional, etc.

So, anything to say about the Joo-posters, the racists, the tranny-haters?

If a Jew started posting like you do with mockery and derision calling people Nazis (including some posters who can actually fairly be called Nazis), would you consider that appropriate for the Motte? If a trans person served some contempt back at you when you are expressing what you think of trans women, would you be cool with that?

These are not rhetorical questions. I really want to know what you think here.

I know about the craziness of some trans activists re: cis women (see all the good wishes they express online towards TERFs).

I expect crazy shit from crazy people. I don't expect it on here precisely because it's supposed to be where we can argue out positions with no holds barred (apart from rules around civility). So I'm smiling wryly at all the "you hate men, that's why you say this!!!!" from guys who were swapping opinions about how women should be deprived of personal choice when it comes to romantic relationships, access to higher education, the vote, age of marriage, number of children, confinement to the domestic sphere and other trivial little instances of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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My friend, try being a woman on here when there's sixty versions of "yeah the wimmens is uppity and should be confined to the home and maybe don't even teach 'em to read and write". Serious discussions of how society went to the dogs once women got the vote.

Try existing in the real world where a woman with a sharp tongue thinks that using it should cause every man around them to quail in fear and yield. Oh, wait, you do. It doesn't work here. The real-world norm that a man does not push back against that sort of shit from a woman does not exist here. You can snark, insinuate, and belittle, but nobody will be intimidated. Some can give as good as they get, held back (if they are) only by not wanting to be moderated themselves. Others can simply say "This is sound and fury signifying nothing", and continue discussing while ignoring the noise.

The real-world norm that a man does not push back against that sort of shit from a woman does not exist here.

And yet you men are as sensitive as the most hysterical Karen when it comes to push back on your shit views. Now, we could start yelling abuse at one another. Or you could mock my views by quoting idiot ultra-feminists of the past. I believe the 70s are rich and fertile ground for terrible hot takes in that area.

I won't mind it, even if Amadan feels the need to invoke the "avoid sarcasm" rule. I can take joshing!

Raillery, folks. Rediscover the lost art.

  • -14
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The real-world norm that a man does not push back against that sort of shit from a woman... You can snark, insinuate, and belittle, but nobody will be intimidated.

Interestingly, comments parallel to this one can be found in a type of internet community quite different from TheMotte for a quite different context.

In fight video-adjacent communities (I know, I know, very classy corners of the internet), sometimes a video of a female attacking a male (especially a much larger one) initiates discussions as to the extent Hollywood #GirlBoss propaganda and the general male reluctance to fight back against a female (whether it be out of chivalrous can't-hit-a-girl instincts, fear of social backlash, or fear of getting swarmed and curb-stomped by eager beaver white knights) have led to delusions of grandeur for some subset of females, overestimating their physical prowess and/or overestimating their ability to intimidate males with their physical prowess per se.

Do you even realize that the fact I am wasting time responding to your three (3!) responses to my one post is a gesture of respect that I fully realize will be both unappreciated and is largely undeserved? Yet here I am. Maybe it will be instructional to others who have similar complaints, if not you.

You seem to be very thin-skinned about this, as if I did think you have a he-man woman-hater persona going on. Maybe you should work on that? I didn't think you had any particular dog in this fight, other than not getting the point I was making (which was 'look, your ideas seem pretty silly when phrased in early 20th century terms'), but you leaped immediately to "he-man woman-hater".

I literally made the point you are claiming I did not get.

"He-man, woman hater" was, in fact, sarcasm.

I'm not going to get into a screaming match if I can help it, but I am also not going to sit and take it like a lady.

No one has ever asked you to take anything like a lady. You are being asked to follow the rules that apply to men, women, and Martians here on the Motte.

So yes, I'll mock that which is mockable because it is not worth engaging with on any other level than "this is risible".

Many people post things that are arguably not worth engaging in because they are so risible. I often feel this way, and I'm pretty sure everyone feels this way at times. And the rules remain: if you cannot engage without mockery, you should not engage. When someone posts something utterly retarded, sometimes I cannot resist the temptation to respond, and sometimes it's really, really hard not to respond with the derision I think their retardation deserves. But whether as a mod or a non-mod, I am required to stifle the derision, and you are required to do likewise.

Do I? I'm starting to wonder. Was that remark about hoping for an economic crash so women (and it wasn't specifying any particular set of women, rather all women which would include the likes of me) will be forced to choose between destitution (yes, that was the exact word) or 'making concessions to good men' - was that remark 'ha ha only joking', in which case it too should have earned the sarcasm penalty, or was it meant in all seriousness?

First of all, making a joke is not the same as sarcasm. The rule is not "You may not be funny."

And the "avoid sarcasm" rule is not even an absolute prohibition on sarcasm, it is an injunction against using sarcasm in place of plain and respectful speaking when responding to someone else. Stop trying to be a pedant just to rules-lawyer things to suit you. Those are the worst sorts of complaints to mods.

As for whether the poster was serious about wanting women to be forced to suck dick for food (that's my paraphrasing; see, that's an example of mildly sarcastic humor), I don't know, why don't you ask him? But here's my question for you: why does it offend you so much? I mean, beyond the obvious: yes, you're a woman and obviously the suggestion that you should be forced to trade sexual favors for survival is likely to offend you. Do you think you (or women as a class) are the only ones entitled to not be offended by someone's outrageous suggestions? When our Joo-posters go off about Jews, and their physical weakness and cowardice, their nefarious schemes to destroy Western civilization, their hatred of the white race, their sleaziness and bad faith dealings and genetic predisposition to start conflicts with everyone around them (this is not hyperbole, these are all things people have actually said on the Motte), do you want the mods to step in and say "Hey, you're not allowed to offend Jews like that?" I do not recall you ever objecting to those posts. When people talk about how ugly and psychopathic and perverted and delusional trans people are, do you think a trans person would be entitled to complain about being offended? When our white nationalists and just garden variety racists propose that black people need to be controlled and "husbanded" like livestock, or that we should not tolerate coexisting with them, would it be okay for a black poster to be as mocking and sarcastic as he wants to be in response? Or would you say "Hey, you need to engage with the argument even if you don't like it, you aren't allowed to just go off on someone because he offended you?" Or would you just say nothing because you don't actually care when someone who isn't you is offended?

Because we've lived the days of "sex for meat" and that's the damn reason feminism came into being in the first place. Hoping to exploit the misery of others is not what I thought The Motte was about.

Hey, I'd like to think so too. If you haven't noticed, a lot of people here do in fact want to exploit the misery of others. I think this is bad and those people are bad people. What's your point? The mods should start forbidding meanbad opinions? You seem to want an axial shift in how moderation works here, and while that might be worth discussing, it's hard to take the proposal seriously when, again, you only seem to notice when it applies to you personally.

How about if someone cheered on the idea of AI putting all the guys on here out of work, so that they will have to bend the knee to employers and scrabble for former white collar jobs with the cheap imported labour, which drives down salaries and workplace conidiations? Suppose I reacted to someone talking about their fears for their late career with "serves you right, you had it too good all along, now you will have to agree with whatever an employer demands of you if you want any kind of job"?

People have said more or less this, in different ways. Depending on how you say it: "Hah hah, you deserved it!" is definitely going to get modded. "Well, I think is a good thing actually and too bad that you're the one suffering for it but" is in fact allowed, even if the person suffering for it usually does angrily report the post.

Hoping for bad things to happen to those you disagree with is fine and will not get me into trouble, just so long as I avoid sarcasm, see Amadan's mod decision.

You are misunderstanding the difference between "fine" in the sense of conforming to rules and "fine" in the sense of moral judgment. Do I think it's "fine" to hope for bad things to happen to those you disagree with? No. See above. I think that is a base and vile impulse (not that I haven't felt it myself) and should be discouraged, but that's between you and your conscience and/or your priest/therapist/AI waifu/whoever.

Are people allowed, here on the Motte, to express the hope that bad things will happen to other people? Well, we moderate on tone, not on substance. If you can write an effortpost sans sarcasm on the topic, yes, though you might be narrowly navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of boo outgrouping and inflammatory claims without evidence. Many Joo-posters crash here, trying to express that Jews are vermin and we should exterminate them without actually saying "Jews are vermin and we should exterminate them." And likewise, as I told you, some of our incel-posters have gotten rapped for not being able to prevent their seething contempt for women from bleeding onto the screen.

But hey, if that's the direction you want to go, some of our more artful accelerationists and doomers mostly get away with it.

Do you even realize that the fact I am wasting time responding to your three (3!) responses to my one post is a gesture of respect that I fully realize will be both unappreciated and is largely undeserved?

I didn't read all your response because, frankly, too long. Sorry about that (and yeah, genuinely sorry).

You don't have to respond to me. I won't take it as lack of respect. Ignore it after you've had your say and imposed the punishment, if any. Don't get hung up on it, brother!

You seem to be very thin-skinned about this

Pot, meet kettle.

You know what the Motte is all about.

Do I? I'm starting to wonder. Was that remark about hoping for an economic crash so women (and it wasn't specifying any particular set of women, rather all women which would include the likes of me) will be forced to choose between destitution (yes, that was the exact word) or 'making concessions to good men' - was that remark 'ha ha only joking', in which case it too should have earned the sarcasm penalty, or was it meant in all seriousness?

Because we've lived the days of "sex for meat" and that's the damn reason feminism came into being in the first place. Hoping to exploit the misery of others is not what I thought The Motte was about. How about if someone cheered on the idea of AI putting all the guys on here out of work, so that they will have to bend the knee to employers and scrabble for former white collar jobs with the cheap imported labour, which drives down salaries and workplace conidiations? Suppose I reacted to someone talking about their fears for their late career with "serves you right, you had it too good all along, now you will have to agree with whatever an employer demands of you if you want any kind of job"?

I don't think that wishing misfortune on men would go down well here. I don't want men to suffer. But yes, if we are turning into "women are all bitches and should be literally at the foot of a man, any man, and don't dare refuse sex at all for any reason, don't dare have opinions and views of their own, don't dare be anything but the fantasy Stepford wife", then I really don't know what it is all about.

You guys surely have mothers. Are you really going to say to them "Mom, you shouldn't have gone past high school and you should be glad Dad isn't fucking a 20 year old on the side because you need to appreciate that a man is willing to lead and rule you, you useless eater"?

  • -13

You guys surely have mothers. Are you really going to say to them "Mom, you shouldn't have gone past high school and you should be glad Dad isn't fucking a 20 year old on the side because you need to appreciate that a man is willing to lead and rule you, you useless eater"?

I mean, I suspect my life might have gone a bit better had Mum not been able to divorce Dad, get full custody, and then beat me with a metal spoon, pour hot potatoes on me, and starve me without oversight*. Admittedly, Dad didn't use all the leverage he did have (on like twenty occasions she called him up saying "come and pick up [m9m], I don't want him anymore", and if he'd called her bluff my understanding is that she'd have had no recourse), and that's on him, but I don't think he understood exactly how bad things were (I, after all, didn't exactly have context for exactly how far out of line she was, and she'd mostly-convinced me I deserved it with her various misandrist rants**); had he been in the house, I think some more alarm bells would have gone off.

Now, I certainly wouldn't call Mum a "useless eater" - she met Dad through their jobs, and her job wasn't negative-sum activism - and Not All Women Are Like That, but I'm not sure she's the example you want to be using here. (More generally, you will find that bringing up the personal lives of X-ists is often going to blow up in your face; X-ists are X-ist for a reason and that reason frequently is "their personal lives legitimately behave as X-ism predicts".)

*The one time the police showed up, I was the one who got an hour-long lecture about how I was going to grow up into a wife-beater, although it's hard for me to blame them given that she wouldn't have shown a single sign of guilt - she was and is utterly convinced she was in the right - and due to how far she'd managed to twist me around I did.

**I specifically remember her teaching me that the Y chromosome was a genetic defect.

And she was wrong, and cruel, and abusive.

But there's a particularly horrible case right now in Ireland, where a stepmother murdered the four year old stepson. While the father of the child was living in the house and did, apparently, fuck-all about his partner beating and starving the kid.

I'm furious about that, because what the hell? The social services certainly failed the child, she was a murderous bitch who has properly been convicted, but what the hell was this man doing? "Oh I don't want to make a fuss because she'll just blow up at me?" or even worse "So long as I get laid regularly, I don't care". He got jailed last year but for the love of God, what was going on in that home?

In November 2024, the child’s father was sentenced to seven years in prison having pleaded guilty to endangerment, neglect and impeding the apprehension or prosecution of the stepmother, knowing or believing she had murdered his son.

Passing sentence at the time, Mr Justice McDermott described his actions as “shameful” and said he bore a high level of criminal responsibility for failing to nurture and protect his son.

Yeah. I'm not happy reading the news today.

but what the hell was this man doing? "Oh I don't want to make a fuss because she'll just blow up at me?" or even worse "So long as I get laid regularly, I don't care".

It's rare to see the spear counterpart of "he was fucking the stepdaughter for years- so long as he keeps paying my bills, she didn't care", but it clearly does happen. Stepmother vs. son is typically a murder thing, permitted by the father, since the son is [or will be] a drain on the resources that the father pays the stepmother to stick around.

By contrast, stepfather vs. daughter is typically a rape thing, permitted by the mother, since the mother pays the stepfather in sex to stick around.

Of course, the mother seldom goes to jail in those latter cases because sexism, but still.

Yeah, but it was a four year old kid. Dad broke up with biological mom and got charge of the child because the mother had mental health issues. Then he takes up with this bitch and seems to have passively let her beat his child to death over a prolonged period. That's what I don't understand. He saw the child black and blue with bruises. He made up excuses (or maybe just pretended to believe her excuses) about 'he ran into a door, he fell, he's clumsy'. Every day he went off to work and came back home, and the child was being hit, isolated, refused food and treats, kept apart from family visitors, and clearly the stepmother hated the kid, and he did - nothing.

For all the talk on here about men wanting their own biological children and wanting sons to carry on the name and heritage, that didn't seem to hold true here.

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While I assume it wouldn't be a favorable option from your point of view as you'd prefer to be alive, it sounds like the best case overall would be that someone like your mother was able to divorce - and ideally not married at all - before she had children. Some people are for the nunnery.

you will find that bringing up the personal lives of X-ists is often going to blow up in your face; X-ists are X-ist for a reason and that reason frequently is "their personal lives legitimately behave as X-ism predicts"

Very neatly put, I might borrow that. I’m sorry to hear your early life was so awful.

I’m sorry to hear your early life was so awful.

Honestly, for most of my childhood, she wasn't really awful; she always had a violent temper, but there were only about 3 years of my home life being truly hell (from when I hit puberty and her misandry started applying to me personally, to when I ran away from her).

I'm sure this rates as a 'hot dog' in your suffragettist tea parties, sweetheart, but you should really take a pep pill and cool off your overheating uterus. Nothing to fear, darling. Your position won't be diminished by your absence. A good-thinking man will be found to argue for your intellectual position who can voice it properly with manner and decorum and a minimum of hysteria.

I modded her for sarcasm. That doesn't give you a pass to be just as sarcastic and patronizing back.

How about if someone cheered on the idea of AI putting all the guys on here out of work, so that they will have to bend the knee to employers and scrabble for former white collar jobs with the cheap imported labour, which drives down salaries and workplace conidiations? Suppose I reacted to someone talking about their fears for their late career with "serves you right, you had it too good all along, now you will have to agree with whatever an employer demands of you if you want any kind of job"?

Paging @BurdensomeCount

I'm not going to SAY it to her.

How about if someone cheered on the idea of AI putting all the guys on here out of work, so that they will have to bend the knee to employers and scrabble for former white collar jobs with the cheap imported labour, which drives down salaries and workplace conidiations?

If someone did that, then I think that instead of getting pissed inarticulately, the people would point out that according to all trends, AI is going to replace cheap imported labor in white collar jobs before it replaces the productive white mottizen, and at any rate there's going to be blue collar work left.

You could learn from resident fedposters and just go straight to "try that with me and I'll poison you in your sleep" instead of spending 10 posts on sarcasm.

The thing is, I'm getting rapped over the knuckles for being sarcastic.

Okay, yes, sarcasm there a-plenty.

However, it was "laughing to keep from crying". I preferred to react with mockery of a similar viewpoint from the past, rather than engage in serious angry cursing of the person who wished for the misfortune of others.

Since it seems satire is out but rancour is fine, shrugging at nonsense will get a scolding but hoping for a disaster is neutral, then let me say: I don't hope, wish or dream of a disaster that will befall those I disagree with or my ideological enemies, not even those I come close to having contempt for. I can wish bad things, but I know wishing for bad things is wrong and I should not do it. It's the immediate gut reaction of reading an appalling story in the news and wishing the abominable bitch gets tortured to death. (As for the spineless fuckstick dad who apparently was fine with her beating the shit out of the kid so long as she opened her legs for him on a regular basis, tell me again about strong male-led households, please!)

Not a good state of mind for the individual, not a good state of mind for society.

So I react with ridicule of an old piece of nonsense rather than screaming anger where I detonate in a fireball not seen since the Tunguska Incident (please forgive me, it's the phosphates, you know! Medical science has proven it!)

But since, as I said, the preference is for disaster hoping, then shentlemens: may you all experience the likes of that Pap test conducted by a male consultant gynaecologist which was the second and last time I had it done. The last, since I would bloody well prefer to run the risk of cervical cancer than go through that experience again. To add insult to injury, the guy wasn't even able to collect a proper sample so no results could be obtained, as the letter I got back from the testing lab informed me.

Hoping for bad things to happen to those you disagree with is fine and will not get me into trouble, just so long as I avoid sarcasm, see Amadan's mod decision. So if I really want bad things to happen to the men on here, expressing that wish is not going to evoke any pushback. But if I indulge in hyperbolic scoffing where the target is beyond any ill-wish of mine, that is bad and results in a scolding.

Nice to have that clear.

  • -10

react with mockery of a similar viewpoint from the past, rather than engage in serious angry cursing of the person

If only a third option existed! Oh woe unto us!

On a tangent, has anyone tried a version of The Motte that aspires to remove personal feelings from the debate in a more wholesale way a la scientific journals, where the first-person is discouraged? It would obviously be a somewhat idealistic standard, but it might help further 'optimise for light rather than heat'. As HereAndGone notes, some people here do express their own satisfaction about some outgroup's misfortune pretty frequently and while it's neither sarcasm nor mockery, whether they want (let's say) women to be enslaved is not actually germane whatsoever to any debate, other than as one tiny and discouraging data point about one anonymous poster's emotional stance.

Having written a few scientific papers in my time, and read an awful lot more, I strongly disagree that this approach will yield good results. Third-person passive writing effectively acts as consensus building by default - it is designed to ape a full objective perspective that by definition cannot be achieved. "It is well-understood that rents are too high and women are over-educated" just leads to constant passive aggressive arguing about what it means to be well-understood and what citations are acceptable etc. etc. where two people have essentially a personal disagreement using sock puppets, whereas first-person "I think that..." encourages clear demarcation between one's own personal feelings and expectations, and claims made about the broader world.

I can't disagree when it comes to much academic writing and yet phrases like 'it is well understood' are just falling foul of what could be another strongly enforced rule against passive phrasing and the smuggling in of contested facts. My hypothetical version of the Motte would discourage such shady thinking just as strongly as it would discourage emoting.

That's kind of a huge point of this place. We can discuss things that are forbidden elsewhere as long as we do so with clarity. Avoiding sarcasm is literally in the rules. I may break that rule but I'm not surprised if I get modded for it.

I agree with the mod. I think the main issue is that you're not putting forth any arguments here. You are not explaining why this speaker is wrong and women being educated is correct. You are not explaining the parallels between this speaker and the modern people you disagree with. You're quoting things someone else said and then providing a mocking tl;dr after each paragraph. And it's not even about the modern people you disagree with here.

If you honestly and sincerely believed that women should not be educated and provided a detailed and good-faith argument towards that, it would be okay. If you honestly and sincerely believed that women should be educated and provided a detailed and good-faith debunking of someone relevant to today, that would be okay. If you honestly and sincerely believe that women should not be forced into destitution and want to argue that point straightforwardly, then that's okay. If you want to throw a sarcastic quip or two in the midst of your genuine argument that's probably fine though not encouraged.

But you don't actually have an argument here. More than half the post is quotes and not even your own words, which is also discouraged. You're just mocking people from a hundred years ago and assuming the audience already agrees with you that they are bad and also that the modern people are just as bad.

I think the argument @HereAndGone is making is similar to another argument that I've heard in the past; namely, that of how new technology is ruining attention spans and leading to a less informed populace. The argument against it (as exemplified by the XKCD I linked to) is something like:

  1. There are a lot of people claiming (new technology) is ruining the youth.
  2. They specifically point to shortened attention spans and lack of appreciation for the (old technology).
  3. They claim it is a modern problem, and new because of (new technology).
  4. However, this same complaint applied to (old technology), which means it is unlikely that (new technology) is actually that ruinous, and more likely that nostalgia is talking.

The statement that I believe @HereAndGone to be making is something like the following:

  1. There are a lot of people claiming that women being educated has ruined them as partners.
  2. They specifically point to feminist theory and women preferring to be "pumped and dumped" over long term relationships as a result.
  3. They claim this is a modern problem, and that going back to 1960s standards would solve it.
  4. However, these same complaints were being made in 1905, which means its unlikely that it's feminist theory that is that ruinous, and more likely that nostalgia is talking.

For what it's worth, I do not necessarily agree with @HereAndGone, but it is a perfectly acceptable argument. If I was making an argument against it, I'd state something like the following:

  1. Young women, like young men, are kind of stupid; especially around romance and dating, it is way too easy to think with your...hormones...instead of your head.
  2. Women tend to be more attracted to men who have a strong sense of direction towards what they want, versus the physical appearance men prioritize; this leads to them choosing partners who are more confident.
  3. However, because of #1, they often end up attracted to people who will not provide them with what they are looking for; for example, someone who is extremely successful will have many women attracted to them, so will not feel the need to commit. Someone who is less successful, but extremely confident, will often end up in conflict with them (whether physical or via not meeting their needs) by putting themselves first, and treating the woman's affection as "owed" to them.
  4. As a result, women end up in circumstances where their relationships reflect extremely negatively on men, as the selection effect of the men they go for shows them only extremely negative traits (this is where claims of "All men are like that" come from).
  5. Men who observe 4, but struggle to obtain a partner themselves, treat it as a symptom of feminism - whereas it's actually the other way around, feminism is a symptom of the above.
  6. And the reason that this has become more of an issue recently is not that women were educated; the reason is that as a society, we removed a lot of the guardrails around relationships for both men and women. In the past, women would often be safeguarded by male family members, who (in an ideal circumstance) would prevent men who are looking to exploit the woman from furthering the relationship, and (in the worst case scenario) would trade the woman off as a pawn for connections or friendship or wealth or whatever.

(Before anyone accuses me, a man, as being too on the side of men - I'll claim that there is an equivalent for men who choose partners just based on looks, and end up hating them once those looks start to fade).

It isn't unreasonable to look for solutions; however, going back to 1960 or whatever won't actually solve the problems. I'm also not a huge proponent of giving other people control over my life, so I kind of don't want to go back to #6 either. It's a tricky problem, and one we're not going to solve in a Motte comment (but it's fun to try!).

That is roughly the argument that I assumed they were imagining in their head. I actually remembered that xkcd when I saw their comment.

They could have made this argument. I partially agree with this argument. But they didn't actually argue this. They vaguely implied it in an overly sarcastic way with no supporting arguments or evidence or discussion of the actual parallels. You can figure out what they believe, but not in a way that allows rebuttal or reasoned response because they didn't actually make any specific arguments that you can pin down and respond to. This sarcastic sniping with vague allusions to real arguments that only convince people who already believe them is how the culture war is typically waged everywhere else across the internet, and is precisely what this place is designed to avoid.

Interesting view of life you got there, mod.

I agree with the mod

Why is everyone calling me a mod? I'm not a moderator of this website nor a member of a midcentury British youth subculture!

Some people strive for modship. Others have it thrust upon them, and find to their surprise that they wear it well.

Oh huh, it looks like your post is right below the mod's post, and /u/HereAndGone accidentally clicked reply to yours instead of the mod's without noticing (I didn't notice either, since it seems like he's meant to reply to the mod from his comment).

Dear sir, if you genuinely believe women end up in lunatic asylums after getting pregnant because their over-developed brains have leeched the phosphates from their systems, I look forward to your opinions on reducing the superfluity of yellow bile in the choleric.

  • -20

I don't genuinely believe that. Which is why I didn't make an argument in favor of it. I think you're missing the point here. The problem is not that we disagree with you on the object level about women's rights, the issue is that we disagree with your style of argument (or lack thereof).

The literally biochemical explanation may not be technically true but the general idea seems accurate and is backed up by plenty of Science™️

Well science has adduced that women do experience basic emotions more strongly than men do. My own observation here is that some vocal individuals evidently have a lot of hangups with women even if I think they’re right on some things. But the most misogynistic people I’ve ever met in my entire life have been other women. Especially when you get them arguing on behalf of the men close to them; especially their sons. But women get shit on all the time for things they’re not allowed to say but men will happily say on their own behalf. Hypocritical if you ask me.

Have you considered the health benefits of being leeched? I can assure you that Breaker’s House of Leeches sells only the finest leeches to temper your humours.

Buy one, get one, no returns.

My blood was tested recently and there was no problem, but I always keep the benefit of leeches in mind. Cutting for the stone may be the next port of call, can you recommend a good barber-surgeon?

People always use this as a smackdown of antiquated and barbaric views on medicine but.....leeches did sometimes help. There are medical problems with some people having too high blood iron, which bloodletting does legitimately treat. Modern doctors will draw blood using needles and fancy modern equipment that didn't used to exist, and they actually know the underlying causes and how to properly diagnose these conditions rather than guessing. But ancient doctors had to guess and notice patterns to cure anything at all.

Some conditions get better if you lose blood -> put a leech on people whose symptoms seem similar to those ones and hope it works

is not the most profound logical chain, but it's not the kind of insane quackery that people treat it as whenever they talk about doctors and leeches.

No argument there, the ancients always impress me.

notice patterns

I don’t think I’ve ever really brought it up here, but one of the things about past humans up until maybe the 1930s or so, is that they had nothing but time with which to notice patterns.

Most entertainment activities and almost all of the work ones involved interacting with other humans on a constant basis. Most of them required you to go outside to do them, and mingle amongst other humans. Even if they don’t require it, like spinning, spinning by yourself is extremely boring and it’s more fun to go outside and talk to other people. They had a lot of time to notice patterns and behavioral trends in their fellow humans.

And once we got around to the Greeks, they started writing down their notes for us.

The fact that they had so much time just spent hanging around each other inclines me to trust their observations of human nature very highly.

I would caveat that by noting that people are prone to biases, and prior to the scientific method this was especially rampant. So a lot of this is overgeneralized. Going back to the leech example: while some cases of leech use were appropriate, a lot were just applied pointlessly to unrelated conditions. If you define man as a "featherless biped", logically a cripple who's lost a leg is no longer a man, while a plucked chicken is.

I would generally trust ancient wisdom that includes caveats like "most" or "usually", I would not trust them if they try to say "all" or "always".

More comments

First, I’m suspicious of anything Mr. Lapthorn Smith states, on account of his being a Canadian. Are Canadian doctors even real doctors? Experts disagree.*

That being said, I’m just surprised to see you posting something as mostly true and eminently reasonable as this. Is his reasoning correct? Well, I’m not willing to buy that higher education sucked all of the blood into your brain and away from your organs of generation.

On the other hand, stupid is not the same thing as content. The problem did start with the, at the time, extremely small educated class, accounting for both men and women. It has only gotten worse as more people are “educated.”

Women do in fact appear to enjoy living luxurious lives with minimal effort and having that provided for them. Women are more neurotic than men.

Women are aiming upwards for the strongest mate, or perhaps the most status providing one. Nothing wrong with that, each group has its mating preferences, but from a societal point of view, it’s just as destabilizing as men who only want to be fuckboys forever, which is of course the optimal male strategy.

Wanting a mate who is already established is reasonable from the female perspective, but also means that in modern society you wind up with either 18 year-olds marrying 30 year-olds, or 30-year olds marrying 30 year-olds. It would indeed be better for 20 year-olds to marry 22 year-olds and then build a life together.

I won’t sign on to his specific take on Roistering Ralph, but the idea that a woman getting married to a much older Lothario at 27 is probably going to end badly for her and more or less fine for the guy seems perfectly reasonable. See many Hollywood marriages. Alternatively, everything about Leonardo di Caprio.

Seems to me that his beliefs were true but not justified, so I give him half credit for making the effort. Minus half credit for being Canadian.*

*This is just a joke. I enjoy seeing your best American jokes, Canadians. Please continue visiting our malls and buying our fireworks.

Women do in fact appear to enjoy living luxurious lives with minimal effort and having that provided for them. Women are more neurotic than men.

Dude. I would enjoy living a luxurious life with minimal effort if that option were provided to me. The tendency to indolence and the preference for taking the path of least resistance is a very human thing. That isn’t specific to women at all and should apply with equal force whether you’re high in neuroticism or not. Would you want your sister or cousin or daughter to shoot for a life where she’s well taken care of if a man approached you to ask for your her hand in marriage, if he said he’s able to provide it? I would say yes. A woman says that, she’s a status chasing gold digger. What’s the problem?

The reason that doesn’t work in reverse most of the time is because men and women don’t want the same thing from each other. A woman who tells me she has a career, I could be a stay at home father (which I would never do) and be taken care of, owns a house and makes a lot of money has absolutely 0 bearing on whether I’m attracted to her or not. Fundamentally I don’t care about any of that. Sounds like she’d make a great husband. Men want a wife, not a business partner. Is she pleasant to be around? Does she care about family? Would she make a good mother to my children? That’s what most relationship minded men desire. She could be unemployed, with a high school education and not own a car and yet if she smiles, knows how to be happy and her and I can go on walks and enjoy each others company among other things, she’s ripe for the picking. The rest is just a “cool; nice to have” sentiment.

Women are aiming upwards for the strongest mate, or perhaps the most status providing one. Nothing wrong with that, each group has its mating preferences, but from a societal point of view, it’s just as destabilizing as men who only want to be fuckboys forever, which is of course the optimal male strategy.

Most men don’t want to be fuckboys, let alone a fuckboy forever. If you offered it free to them to live out Genghis Khan’s lifestyle maybe they’d take it, but nobody wants to put in the effort to become Genghis Khan to do it. Most men want a woman who desires them who they can get it from on the regular.

Dude. I would enjoy living a luxurious life with minimal effort if that option were provided to me. The tendency to indolence and the preference for taking the path of least resistance is a very human thing.

Perhaps. But it won't be.

Would you want your sister or cousin or daughter to shoot for a life where she’s well taken care of if a man approached you to ask for your her hand in marriage, if he said he’s able to provide it? I would say yes. A woman says that, she’s a status chasing gold digger. What’s the problem?

You're equivocating a bit. A gold digger is a woman who marries an already successful man for his money, whereas the (presumably trad) brother/cousin/father is likely happier with an up-and-coming young gentleman. And traditionally a woman trying to marry too far above her station would indeed be considered status-chasing, though that might be thought of approvingly by her relatives.

The more basic asymmetry is neither trad nor modern would find it acceptable for their brother, male cousin, or son to shoot for such a life provided by their wife.

Dude. I would enjoy living a luxurious life with minimal effort if that option were provided to me.

I believe you and thanks for the counter input, but this is such a vastly different way of thinking than any other man I’ve ever talked to. I have never encountered any situation that would lead me to believe that this goal is equally shared among men as it is among women. I hate to be a Redditor, but do you have any kind of evidence that men and women are both equally interested in being financially supported by the other sex? I think that might be the closest likely study question, but if you have something that is pretty specific about just lives of indolence, that would be interesting also. You could potentially shift my opinion of WEIRD men even lower than it already is!

Most men don’t want to be fuckboys, let alone a fuckboy forever.

Well, except the many examples of all the guys who do end up living lives of vast indolence and luxury, and acquire equally vast harems of women.

We’re in something of a harem lull so maybe it seems like this is not a great strategy that the average man would enjoy, but give it some time and I think our billionaires will get back around to it. Elon is blazing the trail for them.

do you have any kind of evidence that men and women are both equally interested in being financially supported by the other sex?

I think the reason men don't want to be financially supported by women is that they don't want to be dependent on women. This is wholly separate from the question of whether men would want a life of effortless luxury if it were presented to them with literally no strings attached, or with strings they'd find more acceptable to their pride.

I would certainly like a life of effortless luxury. This isn't to say I want to laze around on a sofa all day, but I would love the security of an unlimited bank account to fall back on while I got on with the activities I'm actually interested in, which I'll enjoy more if I'm not doing them for profit. (I love writing, teaching, public speaking, even acting - and all of them become more of a slog if my next meal depends on them than if I'm doing them for the fun of it.)

I'm not looking to marry some wealthy heiress to support me, but this is because I think such an option, even if it were especially available to me, would have a variety of hidden downsides, from ethical objections to deceiving someone into believing I love her for personal gain, to discomfort with the idea of dependency. The chief appeal of effortless financial independence would be the personal freedom it brings, and being on a wealthy wife's leash would cancel it out entirely.

I believe you and thanks for the counter input, but this is such a vastly different way of thinking than any other man I’ve ever talked to. I have never encountered any situation that would lead me to believe that this goal is equally shared among men as it is among women.

Not sure what kind of men you’re talking to, but plenty of men fantasise about winning the lottery, or making it big with cryptocurrency/investment/gambling, and living in luxury without having to work for the rest of their lives.

What man doesn’t want money for nothing and their chicks for free?

I believe you and thanks for the counter input, but this is such a vastly different way of thinking than any other man I’ve ever talked to. I have never encountered any situation that would lead me to believe that this goal is equally shared among men as it is among women. I hate to be a Redditor, but do you have any kind of evidence that men and women are both equally interested in being financially supported by the other sex?

No. In fact I’m saying the exact ‘opposite’ of this. What I’m saying is what’s different in what you wrote is that if a person just walked up and offered me that kind of lifestyle on a silver platter with no strings attached to it, you’d have to be a fool not to take it. If I come across $100 bill on the sidewalk with absolutely nobody around, I don’t say to myself “well I didn’t work for this,” and pass it up. But I’m not going to steal it out of somebody’s pocket.

Men and women are absolutely not equally interested in the finances of the other, except in men’s cases they’d probably want to know if the woman has any outstanding debts. No man I know has ever specifically desired a financially independent woman. I have never once heard that from a single male individual in my entire life. Incidentally however if she is financially independent, it’s a cool thing to know I suppose. But ‘no’ man I’ve ever known has said he’s attracted to such women. It has no effect. Men like women for women. Not women as a proxy for a flashy lifestyle. Men are very much attracted to ladies. It’s what made things like the Rita Hayworth scene in Shawshank so iconic. Women sell themselves short and vastly underestimate just how much a nice and pleasant demeanor is attractive to men. Physical beauty is cheap to men because men find the vast majority of women attractive. But several men I’ve met have said they’ve lost interest in women as soon as they opened their mouth, due to their attitudes.

Well, except the many examples of all the guys who do end up living lives of vast indolence and luxury, and acquire equally vast harems of women.

And as I expressed, yes, if you offered that to men on a silver platter for free and expect nothing in return, perhaps a large proportion of men would take it. Most men though are not working to acquire riches for bitches. Somali warlords could do that without any of what Elon has if they wanted to.

Wanting a mate who is already established is reasonable from the female perspective, but also means that in modern society you wind up with either 18 year-olds marrying 30 year-olds, or 30-year olds marrying 30 year-olds. It would indeed be better for 20 year-olds to marry 22 year-olds and then build a life together.

Do you have a source for this data?

According to Pew age gap relationships where the husband is 3+ years older than the wife were much more common historically than they are today. At the time this article was written about 60% of marriages featured a husband that was 3 or more years older than his wife. Only 35% of marriages featured spouses whose age was within 2 years of each other. Those numbers are 40% and 51% respectively as of 2022. It turns out when women have control over who they marry, rather than being coerced by threat of economic destitution, they tend to prefer men around their own age.

The average age at first marriage in the US is 30.5 for men, and 28.6 for women, which is close enough to 30-30, IMO.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/371933/median-age-of-us-americans-at-their-first-wedding/

South Korea is further down the same road, at 33.8 and 31.5.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1112935/south-korea-median-age-at-first-marriage-by-gender/

This is a significant increase from mid-century stats, which were around 22.5 for men and 20 for women in 1950.

When the good professor was writing, the American average was 26 and 22.

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf

Age gap marriages of 10 years or more constitute 9.3% of marriages, almost all of them an older man and younger woman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships

If you go 30 man, 24 woman, which is a big gap, that constitutes 20.5 percent of marriages. If you also include the vice versa relationship of older woman, younger man, that gets you 23.3 of all marriages.

It turns out when women have control over who they marry, rather than being coerced by threat of economic destitution, they tend to prefer men around their own age.

There is a huge confounder to this statement, which is that even in the Canadian doctor’s era, forced or arranged marriages were exceedingly rare, indicating that women did in fact have choices about who they married.

Additionally, the propaganda and societal pressure that women receive advocates much more strongly for 22+ years of education for women, for having a long-term stable career before getting married, and against motherhood.

In a hypothetical world where women were just as free as they are now, but with the propaganda and societal pressure of 1905, we can, I believe, properly assume a very different age ratio and time to first marriage.

But the phosphates, Breaker, the phosphates! Top Men of the "women and their funny little diseases" club agreed about the phosphates! In the struggle of Brain versus Baby, who will win? She with the dumbest brain and the mostest phosphates, that's who!

  • -10

If Top Men are on it, it is my patriotic belief that all of the women are being safely stored in a giant warehouse somewhere for their own good. They may be receiving phosphate treatment, I don’t know.

Smash cut to the Sultan’s harem

I won’t sign on to his specific take on Roistering Ralph, but the idea that a woman getting married to a much older Lothario at 27 is probably going to end badly for her and more or less finefor the guy seems perfectly reasonable. See many Hollywood marriages. Alternatively, everything about Leonardo di Caprio.

Also OP seems to have missed that the complaint is about STDs. While waiting for the woman to come around to marriage, the man is going to visit a whore at some point and catch an STD, which he will pass to his eventual wife. This is 1900, no condoms, no antibiotics.

In fairness, I missed that too.

Tsk, you kids who don't even remember why silver nitrate eye washes were given to newborns!

But kindly also note the double standard: women must be virgins upon marriage, and married off at eighteen (the maximum limit at which nature intends them to be single) else men will be having sex outside of marriage. That men should not be having sex outside of marriage? Well, uh, that's different.

Dr. Mr. Smith also expects the eighteen year old wife to get knocked up pretty darn soonish and produce six to eight kids. I wonder how he'd feel about today's view of "we can't have kids yet, they're too expensive and too much of a drag"? And even those advocating for "why yes, women should be married off fast", how many of you boys want eight kids to support?

The argument is sometimes used that it is better to have only one child and bring it up with extraordinary care than to have six or eight children brought up with ordinary care because in the latter case the mother's attention is divided. But this is a fallacy. Everybody knows that the one child of the wealthy and highly educated couple is generally a spoiled child and has as a rule, poor health; while the six or eight children of the poor and moderately educated woman are exceedingly strong and lusty.

Fortunately, we poor feeble creatures have helpful guides to advise us regarding suitable grooms 😁

  • -11

I actually agree with you regarding the ridiculousness of the positions you are arguing against, and yet. I would be so much more inclined to join your crusade against double standards if you finally started using your considerable rhetorical talent and political cachet to push Ukraine to draft its women in equal numbers already - or do you believe that your uteruses are using up too many phosphates for you to pilot Mavics?

Besides, "local woman goes to debate forum and ignores the rules to engage in theatrics because she is too outraged by some of the positions" is not the compelling advertisement for women's participation in intellectual life that you seem to believe it is. In fact, it's somewhere in the general class of "local man goes to kindergarten and molests the children to prove that akshually he can do that without getting an erection" as a protest for men's suitability for nurturing professions.

(Explanation of the pattern, because my bulging testes instill an insatiable urge to mansplain and engage in tone-deaf high-decoupling: [member of group x] does [bad thing] because of [behavioural compulsion ascribed to the group to argue for their unsuitability for y], to push for members of group x doing y)

Besides, "local woman goes to debate forum and ignores the rules to engage in theatrics because she is too outraged by some of the positions" is not the compelling advertisement for women's participation in intellectual life that you seem to believe it is.

God damn.

do you believe that your uteruses are using up too many phosphates for you to pilot Mavics?

Well you see, in order to pilot a plane or drones or high-tech equipment, I would need to be as educated as a man. And that would be bad, because it would be developing my nervous system at the expense of my generative system. And that would mean I could only have a few, sickly, children instead of a healthy football team as Nature intends!

It is the phosphates, Science and Dr. Smith's medical colleagues proved it in 1905 and are you going to say they were wrong?

But on the other hand, you could be having the children right there in the trenches, training them on the job from day 1, so to speak! Imagine the logistical benefits, on top of the beauty and justice of a single standard.

The silly banter aside, I don't think the "mine stupid quotes from the other side's authorities" game would work in your favour, were both sides to play it seriously? After all, you have to reach for quotes from all the way back in 1905. If someone wanted to sneer against gender equality, they could easily find similarly ridiculous quotes from egalitarian academics who are significantly more recent, and actually still upheld as authorities by many to the present day. Something along the lines of, how can you argue that the necessities of childbirth disqualify women from intellectual life, when some of those who give birth are men? (I hope we never stoop to the levels of that sort of Kiwifarms slop, either.)

But kindly also note the double standard: women must be virgins upon marriage, and married off at eighteen (the maximum limit at which nature intends them to be single) else men will be having sex outside of marriage. That men should not be having sex outside of marriage? Well, uh, that's different.

But those who know anything about virtue in the male know that the marriage of our young men under twenty-five, to a woman with a sound body about eighteen years of age, is almost, if not the only, means of preserving the virtue of the rising generation of men.

I assume there is more to this speech than just what you provided, but he clearly expects men to be virgins at 24, at a minimum. They wouldn’t be having their virtue preserved if they were out knocking boots with girlfriends and/or hookers, and he sets the line at “under twenty-five.”

“Remain a virgin at 24,” vs “remain a virgin at 18” seems to me to actually be the higher expectation.

Everybody knows that the one child of the wealthy and highly educated couple is generally a spoiled child and has as a rule, poor health; while the six or eight children of the poor and moderately educated woman are exceedingly strong and lusty.

Exceedingly strong and lusty is hilarious, I wish we still talked like this.

But also…seems plausibly true. I’ve lived near a seven kid family before, and while I have no opinion on their strength or lustiness, they certainly seemed vibrant and not prone to sitting indoors all day. That may also have been a Mom trick to get some peace and quiet, but they were clearly not hothouse flowers.

On the other hand, we have a lot of single children these days and I have heard accusations that a lot of those kids are hothouse flowers. And there do seem to be more fragile kids around, which I believe is even born out statistically.

The 19th century might have been on to something.

Great find. Almost as good as Dabney's essay correctly predicting that giving women the right to vote would eventually lead to women demanding the right to have beards. You can make fun of the some of the specific physiological mistakes about the causal mechanisms (blood to the brain, phosphates) but the gist is seems true. Current fertility rates among college educated women are race suicide at a slow rate; now imagine current college educated woman lifestyles with 1900s medicine and nutrition ... it would be race suicide at a much faster rate.

Brace yourselves for some hard biological facts which only a medical man can speak on with assurance: higher education renders women insane!

Fact-check: true. https://www.benkuhn.net/grad/ https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db377.htm https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/09/1003980966/women-now-drink-as-much-as-men-and-suffer-health-effects-more-quickly

And it is generally admitted that the original American people have almost died out. Even the foreigners who are so quickly assimilated soon learn the practise of race-suicide, although never to the appalling extent of the native-born Americans.

All those last names from the history books and street signs and institutions of New England, the Mathers, the Hancocks, Longfellows, Appleton, Holyokes, Lodges, Cabot, Choate, all seem like out of a mythological past. The WASP went extinct due to first wave feminism.

Glad to see you support the idea that too much book larnin' drives women insane because it sucks all the phosphates that they need for whelpin' babbies!

Truly. Harry Enfield was indeed providing public service announcements.

  • -23

Glad to see you support the idea that too much book larnin' drives women insane because it sucks all the phosphates that they need for whelpin' babbies!

Your argument-free emotional crashout isn't really helping them beat the rap.

Your argument-free emotional crashout isn't really helping them beat the rap.

Me and Whitney, baby. Me and Whitney 😁

I unironically really love how all you guys think the absolute worst thing you can call me is "emotional". Oh, noes! I haz feelings? Say it ain't so!

  • -11

The word "argument-free" is critical here. Scott:

For a mistake theorist, passion is inadequate or even suspect. Wrong people can be just as loud as right people, sometimes louder. If two doctors are debating the right diagnosis in a difficult case, and the patient’s crazy aunt hires someone to shout “IT’S LUPUS!” really loud in front of their office all day, that’s not exactly helping matters. If a group of pro-lupus protesters block the entry to the hospital and refuse to let any of the staff in until the doctors agree to diagnose lupus, that’s a disaster. All that passion does is use pressure or even threats to introduce bias into the important work of debate and analysis.

In a democracy, at least in theory and usually at least partially in practice, those with the franchise are rulers; they decide what policy is best for the country. However, policy of a modern nation is fairly complex, and needs to be carefully tailored in order to function well; we can outsource some of this to politicians and the civil service, but not all. Ruling based on bellyfeel - System 1 - would quickly doom us all, because System 1 is very old (it's mostly hardwired, and evolution is slow) and thus its conclusions are in many places out of step with correct actions of a modern state.

Attacking claims about policy based on bellyfeel rather than reasoned argument is moderately-strong evidence that one adopts views based on bellyfeel rather than reason, which thus implies that one's a poor ruler. This is the "rap" that Skeletor mentions as being put forward by the most extreme of anti-feminists: if women are all emotional rather than rational, they are systematically poor rulers, and they shouldn't be rulers i.e. women's suffrage was a mistake.

I am not convinced of the premise there. At the very least, as even Dave Sim notes in his infamous essay*, the bell curves overlap; there are certainly some women who are more rational than some men. But this is why the accusation's being treated with such gravity; the "women are irrational bellyfeelers" => "women's suffrage was a mistake" implication is well-known and commonly accepted in the Ratsphere (especially the right-leaning half of it), which makes the truth or falsity of the premise direly important.

*I don't really recommend said essay; it's an example of what I call the Capitalised Important Concept Rant, which is how psychotic people tend to write essays (and indeed, it's known he was mentally ill at the time). If you enjoy CICRs, or want to see a good example of what they look like, there's a copy archived here (skip down to "Writings from "Reads""). Note that I still don't agree with all of it even after disregarding the obvious layer of crazy paint.

We get it, you're offended, no one cares, cope.

Clarify for me, as Southkraut has requested me to do: is this comment shitflinging or discussion forum things?

This is not a helpful contribution. Just because she's embarrassing herself and everyone is piling on does not mean it's open season to just throw rocks.

Noted.

If one wanted to be catty like you, one could point out that we have an emotional absurd response asserting a position specifically refuted by OP.

Ha this reminded me of an old article I read about the anti-suffragettes, which I had bookmarked, and upon finding discovered it was written by Helen Andrews, who has been in the news recently, but whom I had not known of before (other than finding this blog post at some point).

https://herandrews.com/2015/03/01/women-against-suffrage/

higher education renders women insane! Yes, due to the strain it puts upon the delicate female brain, the added stresses of maternity leave what reason a woman may possess overturned!

Anyone who has kids with an educated woman knows this is true. But nobody says it because it's outside the overton window.

Speaking of not educating women, how is Afghanistan doing these days under the Taliban? This is not a rhetorical question. I want to know what things are actually like on the ground over there.

I have multiple friends who visited recently. I can PM some travelogues, instagrams etc. if you're really curious. (You can e.g. enter by land from Tajikistan and just enter with a US passport, no issues.)

Tl;dr: Ok, for men outside capital. "Ok" means better than the impoverished half of humanity in Africa and India, but way worse than Colombia, El Salvador or such (and far more expensive for luxuries). They're trying but we shouldn't expect economic growth or anything since the huge subsidies disappeared.

The capital's facing a water shortage, which will probably lead to mass deaths. International agencies were transporting supplies and subsidizing life in the capital, whose metro population doubled or tripled (depending on source) since 2000 while the aquifers sunk 100ft. The Taliban aren't particularly competent, but worse: They don't receive massive subsidies.

Pakistan's bombing the capital because the Afghani Taliban are harboring some group.

Otherwise, life in the North is "ok". Some Ismailis are being forced to convert. Beauty salons, women on TV etc. have been banned (but only after a few years). There's a "Fachkräftemangel" since women can no longer work in many fields (but are still common in medicine, education...), while the previous government exerted great effort to train them in particular. (I know some Afghan women in e.g. Indonesia or Turkey, now.)

Much criminality, drug use, pedophilia etc. have been eradicated. Thefts may or may not be up.

how is Afghanistan doing these days under the Taliban?

Tangentially related, and very funny, but the lads over there are discovering that it was way more fun to live life with an AK47 and a holy purpose than it is with a laptop and a rush hour commute.

https://time.com/6263906/taliban-afghanistan-office-work-quiet-quit/

“In the time of jihad, life was very simple. All we had to deal with was making plans for ta’aruz [attacks] against the enemy and for retreating,” said Huzaifa. “People didn’t expect much from us, and we had little responsibility towards them, whereas now if someone is hungry, he deems us directly responsible for that.”

“I sometimes miss the jihad life for all the good things it had,” said Nafi. “During jihad, you couldn’t have known the difference between a commander and a foot soldier like me.”

“What I don’t like about Kabul is its ever-increasing traffic holdups.” Omar Mansur, 32, said. ”These days, you have to go to the office before 8 AM and stay there till 4 PM. If you don’t go, you’re considered absent, and [the wage for] that day is cut from your salary.

Genuinely hilarious

was making plans for ta’aruz [attacks]

Translator's note: keikaku means plan

Though it's hardly perceptible through a Western overton window, the Taliban moderated immensely to win back power while in exile. In essence, they purged any extra-Quranic elements of their organization (such as the unspoken Pashtun supremacism) to broaden the tent. This has had undeniably stabilizing effects (the semi-permanent anti-Pashtun rival army that had held out in the north for decades failed to reform this time as non-Pashtuns are represented at the highest levels) and some wish-washery that seems to please no one (the New Taliban likes modernity enough to force mujahids who just want to run around the desert shooting shit to get office jobs but not enough to keep schools open for Kabul's women). I've seen some conflicting evidence on whether they've managed to staunch Afghanistan's US-induced freefall in birthrate but it's probably too soon to tell.

I’ve heard that their periods attract bears. The bears can smell the menstruation!

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