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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36427 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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MIRI Researcher Don’t be a Quokka Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE).

Katja Grace posts “date me” document. Asks everyone to share.

I originally posted a similar link in the small-scale-questions thread in response to Tyler Cowen linking to the doc on MarginalRevolution. What I didn’t know at the time is that Katja apparently wants this to be spread everywhere?!?!?

Object-level thoughts: I quite liked it. The document makes a compelling case that will appeal strongly to a certain demographic of men. It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect from “mid-30s Bay Area rationalist woman ready to settle down and have kids,” expanded out into a full dating profile. It certainly caught my attention.

Meta-level thoughts: OH NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You can send out something like this to your blog readers. They’ll know how to interpret it, and they’re the kind of people you’d be interested in anyways. You can’t toss it out into the black void that is Twitter and expect to come out unscathed. She even dropped her personal email address at the end. Guess who’s going to need a new Gmail account next week?

”If you don’t hear back in two weeks, feel free to try again, or try other means.”

Protip: If you are a woman, do not ever put something like this in your dating profile. This will be used as an excuse for some weirdo on the edge of sanity to stalk you.

I feel bad for her getting dragged in the quote tweets, but like, what did she expect? Why, in response to getting a negative reaction, is she intent on spreading it even further? That’s the opposite of what she should be doing. Everyone who would be compatible with her has already seen it.

Small-scale question was one thing, but this is getting ridiculous.

Two threads here. One on SSC. The MR comments, the Twitter mentions, I'm sure ACX has an open thread for it. All of them devolving, immediately, into referendums on her fuckability. I don't care, and you shouldn't either. At least not here, in the Culture War thread, made for talking about the Culture War.

I don't care, and you shouldn't either. At least not here, in the Culture War thread, made for talking about the Culture War.

This is unnecessarily antagonistic. Under the circumstances, the rule corralling human biodiversity (including sex differences) and sexual harassment into the CW thread makes this an appropriate place to raise the discussion, given OP's stated belief that

This will be used as an excuse for some weirdo on the edge of sanity to stalk you.

If a topic doesn't interest you, that is a good time to practice the virtue of silence. But contrary to your claims, you seem to actually in fact care about these discussions--at least enough to complain about them.

This is the culture war thread, so the potential for any given conversation to "devolve, immediately" is always quite high. That's why we have the engagement rules that we have. Please adhere to them.

I can’t really argue against sexual politics as CW. I maintain that referendums on fuckability are not.

There is a difference between discussing the subject, where this person is an example, and discussing this person, where the overall subject is a motte.

Unfortunately her level of fuckability is rather relevant in this particular context.

Many people here get really fucking cringe whenever the topic of sexuality comes up. This comment thread reminds me of that one about Aella from the other week. Just a palpable sense of barely disguised seething towards women from some commenters.

Many people here get really fucking cringe ... Just a palpable sense of barely disguised seething towards women from some commenters.

Unnecessarily antagonistic. If you have something constructive to add to the conversation, do! Calling other users "cringe" does not contribute, and violates our rules of engagement. In my experience, rarely does the word "cringe" even get deployed outside of naked signaling. Aim for substance instead.

I almost made a comment that the only thing missing was the usual suspects getting tsundere over Aella, but I didn't want to remind them.

I think some people here can have perfectly good conversation and analysis about sexuality and dating. Others are clearly incredibly biased against women and have a massive chip on their shoulder.

A culture which has convinced a woman to:

  • Reject the ideas of love in favor of "polyamory"

  • Believe that they should or even can realistically wait until their late 30s to have children

and the discussion of that culture is about as on the nose culture war as could possibly exist.

One on SSC. The MR comments, the Twitter mentions, I'm sure ACX has an open thread for it.

Do most people here go to all of these other places? I don't.

At least not here, in the Culture War thread, made for talking about the Culture

Which women are fuckable is culture war. There have been a strain of feminism that clutches the pearls mightily when they encounter "unrequested comments about appearance". We also have the body positive people. And the delusional body positive people (fat acceptance, pro ana) - all of those try to change or extend the fuckability.

Which women are fuckable is culture war.

I was thinking about this for another reason but I have noticed polite liberal society seems to have this view that people who receive dick should be more or less entitled to receive whatever dick they want, whenever they want it. This is obviously true in the instances you mentioned but it was also true for, e.g., monkeypox, where it was somehow considered morally out of bounds to suggest that gay men stop having anal sex for a hot second while this all clears out.

We also have dating site data suggests that men prefer women as young as they're legal combined with people referring to relationships with adult women as "grooming" or even "pedophilia" if the women look young. No matter what you make of that, it's a hell of a culture war topic, ripe with opportunity for clashes of perspective.

I don't care, and you shouldn't either.

Why though? I mean, superficially, it's true that I have absolutely no stake in the matter, but this is a pretty general observation that applies to a hell of a lot more than this conversation.

At least not here, in the Culture War thread, made for talking about the Culture War.

Dating markets seem like prime culture war material to me.

Frankly, I didn’t think her fuckability would be controversial. I was expecting more general discussion of dating norms, polyamory, and such.

I guess you want more politics? Don’t worry, there will be plenty of that soon enough. Why not enjoy the lull in the Culture War with a bit of lighthearted gossip?

That’s…fair. I’m sorry for jumping down your throat just because you made the thread.

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