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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35340 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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The triumph of the blank slate

an article in the Atlantic recently made the case that separating sport by sex doesn’t make sense, because it ‘reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive setting — a notion that’s been challenged by scientists for years.’

On a similar theme, a few weeks back the New York Times ran a piece arguing that ‘maternal instinct is a myth that men created’. In the essay, published in the world’s most influential newspaper, it was stated that ‘The notion that the selflessness and tenderness babies require is uniquely ingrained in the biology of women, ready to go at the flip of a switch, is a relatively modern — and pernicious — one. It was constructed over decades by men selling an image of what a mother should be, diverting our attention from what she actually is and calling it science.’

Just recently, Scientific American stated that ‘Before the late 18th century, Western science recognized only one sex — the male — and considered the female body an inferior version of it. The shift historians call the “two-sex model” served mainly to reinforce gender and racial divisions by tying social status to the body.’

Yet what is strange is that such ideas are triumphant, even as the scientific evidence against them mounts up, with the expanding understanding of genetics and the role of inheritance. The tabula rasa should by all rights be dead, indeed it should have been killed twenty years ago with the publication of one of the most important books of the century so far, Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate.

Rather than blank slate-led ideas falling to mockery and obscurity, the opposite has happened — they’ve proliferated and spread. Pinker was obviously right, yet seems to have lost.

i recently was in a seminar discussing fixed versus growth mindsets, and it was argued that believing in any innate/genetic component of intelligence was connected to a 'fixed' mindset. we were discouraged from using the idea of 'talent' as it implied that some people were just naturally better at some things than others. it seems like a core part of the 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' mantra that is finding its way everywhere - the idea of innate difference is anathema to the principle behind caring about equity versus equality.

Some tests are meant to distinguish object-level ability. Take for instance, becoming a fireman or infantryman. It would be sexist to deny a qualified woman these positions because she's a woman. Furthermore, mumbling something about oppression or double standards is stupid, because you want your positions staffed by qualified applicants.

Whether or not something should be test or a competition can be contentious. For example, those college orientations where they say, "look to your left and to your right. One/two of you won't pass." Those always angered me because I figured a certification should be a test and not a competition.

Competitions are a little different than tests because it's not really about object-level ability. If it was, you would never have weight classes in boxing. After all, being heavy is simply part of the ability in boxing. And I think this is the primary argument for sex-segregating sports. But it's unclear what to do about a female (XX) who happens to somehow be naturally stronger. Why reward her, because she was born stronger than her peers? (I'm trying to sidestep any trans issues, that's a different issue).

As far as I can tell, the entire idea of rewarding winners in a competition has to do with spiritual merit, like determination, or how hard someone practiced.

Or something else I had issue with is how a lot of online games use "time played" as a kind of bonus, and let players grind up more powerful equipment to offset differences in mechanical ability.

Do people construct competitions that they'd be good at in a bid to win status for being good at them? Does TheMotte try to push "effortposting" as a spirtual virtue so that society rewards us?

As far as I can tell, the entire idea of rewarding winners in a competition has to do with spiritual merit, like determination, or how hard someone practiced

No, spectators want to see someone being excellent, beat world records, and show the peak of human performance. Because we like to watch greatness. Yes, effort factors into it, determination etc, but nobody gives a damn if all that hard effort didn't result in actually being excellent. All that sort of stuff would just be niceties, participation trophy, consolation prize.

This would predict more spectators for e.g. male sports than female sports which as far as I know checks out.

Who's greater, heavyweight fighters or mediumweight fighters? My instinct says "heavy" because the number is bigger but I might be wrong.

The conclusion I've been under for awhile has always been that these competitions are segregated like this out of a sense of fun (to participate or to watch); it's boring to watch men beat Serena Williams or watch a heavy guy sit on a toothpick.

Heavyweight champions are certainly seen as more important and impressive than featherweight ones. The featherweight champion could any day participate in heavyweight matches but would get his ass whooped. Meanwhile the heavyweight champion is banned from featherweight matches because everyone know he'd massacre those guys.

But yes, weight classes are a good comparison to sex segregation. Another example is age segregation, eg U19, U20, U21... tournaments in football. But also there the main one is the unlimited one and few people follow the U20 World Cup.

I always thought that was a great response to the women's soccer pay thing in the US. They're not playing the same sport, any more than the U15s are. The hard question would be "should the U15s be paid the same as the men?"

(Yes, I know that in the end they were actually getting paid more, AND they chose that model after rejecting the same contract as the men. Such a shit show of lies.)

The difference is that a 15 year old will be 25 in 10 years, but a woman doesn't become a man (in general...). And they'd say the reason that people don't watch women's football is sexism.

It's also interesting how the popularity gap is different in different sports. At least in Hungary, women's handball and water polo are not much less popular than men's. Same with swimming. But for football/soccer the gap is enormous, approx zero care about women's football and men's is hugely popular.

Regarding not the same sport: I wonder if someone would argue that all athletes should earn the same, regardless of sport. So a volleyball player should earn the same as a football player, because they both train equally hard, and the only cause of difference in earnings is some form of bias.

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