domain:science.org
ThisIsSin
Liberty has an anti-privilege bias
2d ago
Only insofar as 'conservative' hides 'what men want', and only then insofar as 'what men want' is more acceptable than it was 5-10 years ago.
Hieronymus
2d ago
Tucker Carlson may have worn out his welcome with those things, but the explanation of the firing I trust most is the one Rod Dreher gave: that his Heritage Foundation keynote weirded out Rupert Murdoch by sounding much too religious. It seems like a stretch, I know, but if you watch the keynote I think it's easier to see.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
In a completely non-racial way, Sydney Sweeney has great genes. In the same way that Saquon Barkley has great genes, that Barack Obama has great genes, that Fedor has great genes, that Lucy Liu has great genes. Great genetics aren't inherently a racial question.
But plenty of people will argue that, racial or not, it is a eugenic position, a Nazi position.
The main example that comes to my mind is a guy who used to comment over on Marginal Revolution under various handles (prior_approval, clockwork_prior, etc.). Any time Tyler Cowen would mention CRISPR or gene therapy, he'd show up to make snide comments calling Cowen a Nazi. He'd invoke his coming from Virginia — home of many of the first eugenics laws — and current residence in Germany — no need to elaborate — as to his personal authority on the matter of the inevitable horrors of any attempt at "genetic improvement", and frequently mention the Grundgesetz, and the guarantee of inviolable human dignity in its unalterable first Article, as to why "Nazis" like Cowen would be stopped, and eventually get what they deserve.
He'd only ever give fragments of an argument amidst the snide denunciations and grand invocations of the Grundgesetz, but if you read enough of his comments (as I did), his argument did come together. It mostly came down to a belief in "eugenics" being a singular entity which must be condemned or approved of as a whole, and there are no lines to be drawn within it (so you must either approve of "genetic improvement" — including the Holocaust — or reject it — including CRISPR-style gene therapies); and that whether or not someone is a "Nazi" comes down to their view on "the Nazi idea." Not a Nazi idea, the Nazi idea; the singular view from which all the other terrible elements follow.
And that idea? The very phrase used in the pun: "good genes." The Nazi idea is that of genetic superiority — that a person's genes can be "better" or "worse" than another's, which follows, logically, from the belief that a gene can be "good" or "bad." The inviolable human dignity guaranteed forever by the Grundgesetz requires the unwavering belief that everyone's genes are equal, and thus every gene is equal. No allele is ever "good" or "bad," ever "better" or "worse" than another.
And why would you ever go through the trouble and effort of modifying human genes, of replacing one allele with another, unless you think the new allele is somehow "better" than the old one? And if you believe that, you're a Nazi, and you'll be dealt with like every other Nazi.
Prior is my primary example because he's the one whose comments I read the most of, back when I read MR occasionally. But I've seen similar views (even less well-argued) from others whenever the topic of genetic modification — or genetic "quality" in general — comes up. Sydney Sweeney, Saquon Barkley, Barack Obama, Fedor, Lucy Liu; their genes are all no better than anyone else's — and anyone who disagrees is a Nazi eugenicist, who must be stopped before they inevitably cause another Holocaust.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
2d ago
I would not say that at all. Tiger Woods is black and Halle Berry is black, but not the other two. I don't doubt some people call them black, but people also call folks black who are as pale as the fallen snow. So that isn't much of a barometer.
The thing which horrifies me about ancient marriages was the power imbalance.
Yes, the conditions in the state of nature are indeed horrifying. I wonder if the past 200,000+ years of human evolution had anything to do with the incentives, motives, and options typically leveraged by its participants? Surely modern peoples are trained to understand those core motivations, and are honest about them, at all times, and not forming their basis of what is and is not good and proper based solely around purely instinctual self-interest. (Now if you'll excuse me, a pig just flew past my window.)
So I think we can get a better picture- both of what's fair, and by how men and women should act and be biologically wired to be attracted to- by imagining our initial conditions and going forward solely from there.
And in the state of nature case, for women, power is "you get to eat, have a roof over your head, and strike the best deal for resource sharing", and consent is "you enter into a relationship that provides the above provided you cook the meals, maintain the household, and open your legs as desired".
Informed consent is "if you don't, you'll die, or take a serious haircut on your lifetime earnings and potential standard of living". From a modern lens, that seems unbalanced, until you notice that men die if they don't work too. Sexual dimorphism means that men have to contend with the environment to eat, and women have to contend with men to eat- in both cases, of course, you're still working.
Now that we've described the contract- one that inherently includes sex work, it's worth noting- now we'll look at the incentives. For men, they want someone as young and attractive as possible (they heal faster from childbirth and it's easier for them to have kids, sex is better without having to turn the lights off) at as low a standard as possible (so they can get away with paying them next to nothing compared to themselves, to the point they could afford more than one). For women, they want someone as old and powerful as possible (more secure, more resources, more even-keeled) with as little competition as possible (so they're not outflanked by younger, prettier competitors with lower standards[1]).
The thing that sets the lower limit on the age of the women participating in this, especially when there's an oversupply of them[2], is sexual maturity. It may shock you to know that most men aren't sexually attracted to little girls[3]. They can't do the domestic stuff as easily, they aren't developed enough/don't have the v1.1 firmware update you get at puberty that makes them particularly interesting in bed, and they don't quite get how to provide the whole SaaS (that's sex-as-a-service) experience that is attractive to men (that thing they do where they act as a desirable sex object: women do this, girls only cosplay it)- in short, they're still growing.
Now, let's apply that:
"No, he is not some creep who wants to fuck 13yo's, he just recognized that mentally I am already 18 and our souls fell in love with each other. It is so romantic!"
So those are the words that come out of her mouth, but what is she actually saying? A steady union-backed job is absolutely an attractive, freeing prospect for a man, why wouldn't [something a woman instinctively sees as the same thing] be highly desirable for a woman? I can see an interview process going badly, or the job not turning out to be what was agreed to, to be damaging just as much as it would be for a man to suffer that- but in terms of "my prospective employer firing me or discontinuing my contract", which is what [at a fundamental level] this is, I see no need to protect women from this more than we protect men from the same. Residuals (i.e. pregnancy) are a different matter, of course.
Child molesters could easily manipulate kids into all kinds of behaviors which will be demonstrably harmful for their normal development.
Yes, that's the female interest motte (but, again, see [3]). The bailey is "men could easily manipulate women into all kinds of behaviors, and as a result the only women who will get men's resources are those more willing to do things that men want, and that's a problem for us women who don't want to do those things but still want those resources". (The fact that this slots women into the "kid" position is relevant- in an environment of equality, women have equal agency, so they're just as resistant to being manipulated as men are.)
As far as "well, we want a blanket law because we don't want to pay attention to circumstances"... I think the criticism writes itself, but other laws, properly enforced, should cover most to all of these cases. The thing that makes this abuse in the first place is specifically "submissive has no ability to disengage" [the motte of the term "consent"- where the bailey is any degree of "I'm not getting paid enough for those acts of submission"], which is the same thing women are trying to control with blunt instruments like this (and it is important they be blunt so that judgments default in their favor- an age of consent is intended as a bracket under which All Women Are Believed [to have been seduced], which is why places where either women or fathers have outsized levels of social power have higher ages of consent in modern times.)
[1] The female talking point around "protecting women" is equal to the male talking point around "protecting the borders/protecting jobs". In both cases, their direct competition are other men/women willing and ready to take their job- we use words like "exploitation", "minimum wage", "human trafficking/illegal immigration" (when those people are foreigners)- it's just that for women, the job is sex work and being attractive.
[2] Which is the reason polygamy exists, why limits on it benefit young men at the expense of everyone else, and why young men are alone in enforcing any prohibitions thereon- if sharing a husband will be a better contract for a wife than going with someone poorer, and if young men are drastically poorer than old men, then the rational choice for a women is to share.
[3] As I've described, it's in the interest of women to conflate "grown women just beyond the male evolved optimal sexual attraction age" and "sexually immature girls", so this needs to be restated even though it should be obvious. Actual pedophilia is a maladaptive anomaly, men wanting just-mature women is not.
I have this idea that power imbalances in sexual relationships which do not stem from a sufficiently informed consent are bad.
And I get this idea from the pornography romance media that women watch where it involves a complete lack of "sufficiently informed consent" (but lots and lots of the instinctual dynamics I described above), so I suspect women are lying about this being a negative in and of itself. I'm also not surprised they'd never admit that, because screaming "I don't want a consentual relationship" is obviously not in women's sociofinancial/sociobiological best interest.
I am sure that there are some adult women who wish that they had lost their virginity at age 14 to a 40yo driving a Porsche instead of a 15yo driving a scooter, but I am also convinced that they are a small minority.
I am not convinced: groupies are a thing for this specific reason and the 60s-80s were rife with them for that reason. (What, you thought women throwing their underwear at Elvis was somehow not sexual?)
I do not think that the motivation of fathers and feminists to be against minors dating adults is that they fear that they will ruin the sexual marketplace for women.
I do not think the motivation of (implied: traditionalist) fathers and feminists are the same. I've discussed why feminists do it, but for fathers it's much simpler: that daughter is his property, and he will manage and discharge it as he sees fit. Non-virgin daughters are worth less to men than virgin ones are, and it is in the father's interest that the daughter fetch a man of maximum price (i.e. a man that is maximally fit to protect her, and a rich man is obviously better-positioned to do this).
Note that the moral hazard here doesn't actually exist in the way feminists think it does (property can be managed incompetently, yes, but it's still ultimately in the interests of the property holder to manage that property appropriately), and most of that is an artifact of conditions changing faster than male instinct was equipped to deal with. Which is a great argument for "daughters shouldn't be property", just like it is for humans more generally.
TitaniumButterfly
2d ago
What's TDS?
odd_primes
2d ago
One time this topic came up in a group setting with men and women, and all the women (plus one gay guy) were shocked that the straight men did not find Zendaya that attractive. They were saying 9-10, while we were more like 6-7. She definitely has a unique look, but personally I found Rebecca Ferguson much more attractive in Dune, despite her being over a decade older.
odd_primes
2d ago
Markle is a bit of a stretch, her father is white and her mother has mixed ancestry. She's at the point where she could easily pass as Italian or Spanish.
iprayiam3
2d ago
You said you think they’re being deliberately provocative.
I can show countless examples of the fact that jeans makers make this pun on a regular basis. Your post suggests that making the pun, while also being white is deliberately provocative. Bullshit.
The picked a hot it girl, and made the same tired cliche wordplay every jeans manufacturer makes on repeat. The spotlight here is completely fabricated and it would have been removed with the same shrug this dumb line gets every other time
MonkeyWithAMachinegun
Dancing to Tom Paine's Bones
2d ago
Ahh, yeah I'm familiar with that graph. Thanks!
MonkeyWithAMachinegun
Dancing to Tom Paine's Bones
2d ago
Obliged
odd_primes
2d ago
The study most people reference is a 2018 study by Denmark's finance ministry:
It's in Danish, but there are plenty of secondary sources discussing it in English, eg. the linked article in The Economist.
Mantergeistmann
2d ago
(Still not quite as ridiculous a take as the 20-something who complained about "anti-Semitic microaggressions" in a Mel Brooks movie.)
Is that more or less ridiculous a take than the people who complained that Blazing Saddles was racist?
erwgv3g34
2d ago
erwgv3g34
2d ago
The mainstream. It's @covfefeAnon's catchphrase.
chooky
2d ago
Having read the article and looked at the pictures you linked about the "MAGA themed party", I completely disagree with your quoted description. It is very clear to me that this was a country-themed birthday party for her mom and that the supposedly MAGA comes from hats that read "Make Sixty Great Again". This is a play on pop culture, not a theme. If anything, MAGA-adjacent paraphenalia seems more likely to have been worn as a satire of rural rubes who genuinely support the idea.
Are the people who criticized her for it extremely ridiculous? Was Sweeney's tweeted, purposefully vague response absolutely delicious in its commitment to nonspecificity? Is the ridiculousness of the online reaction an exhibit for my theory that Sweeney is especially a target of women haters due to the prominence of her boobs? Yes, yes and probably.
Lewis2
2d ago
People thought they defeated Political Correctness in the 90s too. Just give it a generation.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
Please, feel free! I've received some very bad news while on vacation, and having more places to visit would take my mind off things. Thank you.
In exchange, please tell me something useful about places to visit in London today.
Why not visit some lesser known historic sites like St. Bartholomew’s Church and St. Etheldreda’s Church? They’re both close to St. Paul’s and get overshadowed by it (I assume you have already visited that, otherwise what tf are you doing on here asking for places to go). There are also some Roman ruins nearby. Just west of that there’s the St Mary Le Strand church, so they can all easily be visited together for a church-oriented outing.
If you get bored of all the religious sites and are interested in music at all there’s the George Handel House and Jimi Hendrix House, these musicians’ Georgian townhouses are adjoining. I’m a big armchair traveller; I could post a list of places to visit in and around London if you wanted (after I get off work). Let me know if you wanna take me up on that.
KingOfTheBailey
2d ago
https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/12/18/why-have-danes-turned-against-immigration (archive) might reference the study GP is talking about? Certainly, the graph of "Denmark, average net contribution to public finances, by age" (broken down by ethnicity) gets posted a fair bit on RW twitter.
Huh. I guess I'll put another marker toward that theory as a bi guy; Znedaya looks perfectly fine to me, where I'd expect Ferguson to be the one straight guys would put as 'only gay fashion dudes like'.
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