Top Diaries

Economists urged to use fertility to predict recessions -- Financial Times

Is that why #MeToo rather than short skirts?

As long ago as the 1920s, it was suggested that the length of women's skirts tracked stock market performance -- rising and falling in tandem.

by das monde on Mon Feb 26th, 2018 at 06:43:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

As the graph in the wapo article shows, the births in the below 30 segment was still decreasing in 2016, so rather no end to the Great Recession for the many.

by fjallstrom on Wed Feb 28th, 2018 at 12:54:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Given the economic prospects of 80% of the US population the suprise is that there have been the number of conceptions since 2007 that we did. It has been grim for the bottom 80% for decades.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Mar 4th, 2018 at 06:58:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

'that we HAD'

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Mar 4th, 2018 at 06:58:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

These landlords asked me for sex instead of rent -- BBC 3

Bluntly speaking, 80% of males having poor socio-economic and procreation prospects is about the norm for a primate species...

Would you be keen on checking this trend:

by das monde on Mon Mar 5th, 2018 at 09:39:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

That was irrelevant to those who grew up in a society that did much better. Perhaps had Playboy ran articles about the likely prospects for the bottom 80% if libertarian principles were adopted by government the young males of those times might have been more concerned about the direction public opinion was being driven. Instead, Hugh Hefner equated libertarian with libertine between his centerfold and his Playboy Philosophy while never noting that it usually took money to be a successful libertine.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Mar 6th, 2018 at 04:17:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Or Hefner would have enhanced more dreams of enjoying perks of the (generously) 20% ...

by das monde on Tue Mar 6th, 2018 at 05:13:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Had to go check for other primates.

The most common for humanity (in documented history, and with all variations existing) is monogamous pairs.

Sexual dimorphism in body size
[...] The closer a groups is to being monogamous, the less differences there are between the sexes.
Canine size
The more intense sexual selection is, the larger male canines become compared to females'.
Testes size
[...] Based upon their testes size, humans seem to be tending towards monogamy but they are a little heavier than strictly monogamous species, showing that we're lightly polygynous. This is backed up by data from traditional cultures.

So what is true for gorillas is not true for bonobos, chimps and humans.

by fjallstrom on Wed Mar 7th, 2018 at 11:58:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Hush now, it's important to be able to justify being a fucking creep by reference to species we diverged from a long time ago in a lot of ways.

Next you'll be calling the paleo diet into doubt.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Mar 7th, 2018 at 12:00:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Recession alert by fertility (4.00 / 4)

Slightly more seriously, I suspect that humans have a spectrum of strategies available as preferences, with the one(s) selected subject to local economic and social circumstances. So monogamy, poly-* etc, with homosexuality and transgender stuff being an expression and/or a feature of that flexibility.

Problem is, of course, that the choices forced due to one set of economic and social circumstances still hang around when circumstances today. Turns out that the social compact that applied to bronze age herders and farmers doesn't make sense to modern desk jockeys. Who could have predicted.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Mar 7th, 2018 at 12:20:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Hypergamy (in a broad sense) is not probed academically at all, unless in hushed ways perhaps. It appears to be sensibly effective in regularly occurring evolutionary and socio-economic conditions.

If you wish to know more, you ought to go through too much information from those certain practitioners:

by das monde on Wed Mar 7th, 2018 at 02:57:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I see twenty references to books or articles on the wikipedia page for hypergamy. I guess they are all hushed up.

Hypergamy

Hypergamy (colloquially referred to as "marrying up") is a term used in social science for the act or practice of a person marrying another of higher caste or social status than themselves.

Hypergamy appears to have very little to do with claims of 80% of primate males not procreating. A very simple way of having men in heterosexual relationships in an predominantly monogamous culture on average have more income and education then the woman, is to have an age gap. Then the man can have achieved higher education and have higher income, while essentially everybody still can end up married during their lifespan.

So what is going on with hypergamy then?

Today most people marry their approximate social equals, and in much of the world hypergamy is in slow decline: for example, it is becoming less common for women to marry older men.

Which should solve the temporary problems of mismatches in societies that are becoming more equal on gender but still have older customs about age and status gaps in marriages.

I didn't watch the whole video. After the introduction I thought that it was unlikely that he would reveal any startling new discoveries into demographical data.

by fjallstrom on Thu Mar 8th, 2018 at 01:38:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

After the introduction I thought that it was unlikely that he would reveal any startling new discoveries into demographical data.

I really must get around to implementing an emoji ratings system.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Mar 8th, 2018 at 02:50:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

If only the sociological "marrying up" meaning is considered, then there is a lot of space for hushing up. Focused though obscured selection for higher status or social value has everything to do with 80%. Those who need to know may sweat for those 80 min.

by das monde on Thu Mar 8th, 2018 at 03:18:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

You mean that academics use the academic term according to its academic definition (which is apparently more then a hundred years old) instead of using the definition of the man in the video? If so, there are much that is hushed up because there are a lot of terms that is used differently on youtube than in academic papers.

I am sure you can sum up what in this video that supports your idea that "80% of males having poor socio-economic and procreation prospects is about the norm for a primate species". If he shows huge his fangs and small balls and grows to the size of a male gorilla it might be worth watching.

I suspect that you again confuse pick-up artist ideas with demographics. If pick-up artist ideas about demographics doesn't match the records, I suggest you look into if there is actually any foundation for the pick-up artist ideas about demographics.

Maybe pick-up artist ideas in general even turns out to be ye old-fashioned secret to success snake oil, where the true secret to success lies selling bullshit rather then buying bullshit?

by fjallstrom on Fri Mar 9th, 2018 at 04:18:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Other term could be used for what he describes, if you want pure terminology. The "mechanism" is deliberated in the academy, though not enthusiastically, one may say. Perhaps it should be this way. As the topic activity involves specifically deceptive behaviors (such as paternity confusion), just unfocused observation of marriage rates or kindness of bonobos does not falsify or elucidate much.

Experience of coaching PUAs amounts to statistically significant evidence, if science would care to assess. Should progressives pay attention? I may formulate a version of Pascal's Wager: the issue is damn important (and pretty plausible besides) if you care about intelligent vs "deplorable" population genetics in the long term.

by das monde on Fri Mar 9th, 2018 at 05:55:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

If "the mechanism" affects births, then that should be measurable by looking at demographics. If it doesn't, then it doesn't.

So, what is your claim here exactly? 80% of kids are born to 20% of males? Don't you think that would have effects that should be visible outside of pickup artists seminars?

by fjallstrom on Mon Mar 12th, 2018 at 01:52:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Culture can be a massive counterweight to this kind of mechanism, evidently. As Robert Anton Wilson said:

It is sometimes mistakenly stated that there are no universal sexual taboos. This is not true. There is one omni-purpose taboo which exists in every tribe. That taboo stipulates that sexuality shall not be unregulated by the tribe.

Perhaps some suppression of sexuality is not that preposterous, after all. Here is a PUA-ish quote:

In the past, many people lived in a brutal patriarchal society where women were forced to be the sexual commodities of rich, powerful, or famous men.
In the present, many people live in a progressive feminist society where women volunteer to be the sexual commodities of rich, powerful, or famous men.

What will be real consequences of the massive feminine empowerment? Rational PUAs basically predict that Pareto picture (if you would really test). Unknowledgeable liberal males would be at real disadvantage then.

Besides, times are getting tougher, as the nanny post-WWII years are gone. That could plausibly be not so much the effect of unfortunate political turns, but a bio-social anticipation that the human tribe is hitting global limitations. Either way, consider this:

(1) Women now handle more resources than ever (perhaps). But resourceful women are not particularly attractive to the men they wish to be attracted to, according to the estrus model.

(2) Liberal males are generally not particularly resourceful, and things are getting worse. Silently they might be sidelined on a massive scale.

Compared to these rational considerations, your assumptions could be mostly wishful thinking.

by das monde on Mon Mar 12th, 2018 at 05:34:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

But resourceful women are not particularly attractive to the men they wish to be attracted to, according to the estrus model.

Do you have any actual evidence - not anecdotal - for this? I find it doubtful that men who actually WANT to be married and have children would not be attracted to a resourceful woman. Most of my female in-laws are pretty resourceful and capable women. Overgrown, superannuated male children repel such women, and why should the woman have any confidence that such man-children will be around to help raise any children? You are assuming that married males are all pick-up artists at heart. Some are. But they usually don't stay married and are not particularly attractive even to distressed divorcees. Once burned twice shy.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Mon Mar 12th, 2018 at 07:21:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

As far as I can tell, all this nonsense is about justifying being an asshole to women. That's all: immature, sad little men justifying exploiting and abusing the damage society does to women for their own pathetic attempts at sexual gratification.

I'm very inclined to treat it as Jérôme did astrology, and just ban the bullshit from the site.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Mar 12th, 2018 at 09:30:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

PUAs are like "fake news": There is much outrage against, but they give the audience what it actively wants. For better or worse.

"Gaming" maturity is their secret. At least, they know what they are doing, in contrast to intellectual creeps.

by das monde on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 at 03:42:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

China's Sheng-nu phenomenon is a vast example. The West does not put social pressure, but the same tendency is observable: the more educated and accomplished a woman is, the smaller pool of men may suit her. Self-asserted women would rather freeze their eggs than settle for a real guy from around.

Which views rely more on anecdotical evidence: that families with women as principal breadwinners are totally fine, or not at all? It is yet easier to settle maturely for a marriage than make a childbearing compromise. Divorce rates are "scarily" growing, and women initiate a great majority of them. They seem to enjoy indignation towards "subpar" husbands rather ruthlessly.

The whole demographical transition to lower birthrates has a more detailed explanation in the theory that more educated women are much more choosy and (at least) less enthusiastic with bearing children with men of about equal status. UN data says that we just reached peak baby, with significant exception in Africa only, where prospects for improving status, the living standard or marrying up are still well believable.

For the rational PUA frame on this, you may check the 25:55-33:00 part in this video. (If you continue to listen, you may learn about his marriage.)

by das monde on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 at 03:06:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

China's 'one child' policy, combined with the cultural prejudice in favor of male children, has, as predicted, produced a demographic problem with too few women in the age cohort. Naturally the resulting problems become more exacerbated the higher one goes on any metric, intelligence, socially desirable appearance, education, wealth...

I certainly will not criticize any Chinese woman for her choices regarding reproduction. That is her choice and horny males can go fuck themselves if she is not interested in them.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 at 05:45:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"demographic problem" ? (none / 0)

for who? My child spent the summer of '16 with a Beijing family. The mother had five siblings.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 at 06:11:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"I would rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle."

Thus "men who actually WANT to be married and have children" are too horny. Eurotrash is not particularly attractive either.

by das monde on Wed Mar 14th, 2018 at 05:41:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"Breeding" (none / 0)

Hippocrates, On Airs, Waters, and Places, Pt.14

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 at 06:26:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The whole demographical transition to lower birthrates has a more detailed explanation in the theory that more educated women are much more choosy and (at least) less enthusiastic with bearing children with men of about equal status. UN data says that we just reached peak baby, with significant exception in Africa only, where prospects for improving status, the living standard or marrying up are still well believable.

So instead of children per woman decreasing evenly, you would have one group of women continuing having many children and another ot having any? Right?

Sounds totally off base to me, but it is a testable statement. Now go see if you can find data that supports your statement.

by fjallstrom on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 at 10:37:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Why would you assume that "children per woman" would decrease somewhat evenly?

Comparing sizes of rich patriarchal families with families of highly successful women would be interesting -- but I have choices on whom to work for. Is there any update on conservative versus liberal families?

In nature, females of hierarchical species typically do not reproduce evenly at all. What happens in the next 5 minutes in this video should not be surprising.

by das monde on Wed Mar 14th, 2018 at 05:21:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Evolution, Societal Sexism, and Universal Average Sex Differences in Cognition and Behavior

The new Oxford Handbook of Evolution, Biology, and Society is highly recommendable.

Evolution and Human Reproduction
Section "Social Status, Wealth, and Reproduction" is what we are talking about.

contrary to most scientists' expectations, these so-called universal sex differences have been shown to be more pronounced in Western industrial societies than in most non-Western developing societies

by das monde on Sat Mar 17th, 2018 at 04:33:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Reference (none / 0)

Population genomic analysis of elongated skulls reveals extensive female-biased ["]immigration["] in Early Medieval Bavaria

Artificial Cranial Deformation (AC): This phenotypical modification is found worldwide but not commonly associated with eurocentric, "Aryan" lineage, because. Mating "selection" is explicitly and implicitly expressed in the inferences, denoting "exogamy" in search of "status".

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 at 06:22:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"global limitations" (none / 0)

because territorial border enforcement.

With that relatively modern constraint on human "natural selection" in mind, you may be interested in reading or re-reading Totem and Taboo.

Freud's theories of repressed sexuality and suppressed incest aversion among Victorian individuals, drawn from the patronizing ethnographic monographs of the day, appears to me very much alive in eurocentric fixations with "legitimate" offspring, over-population, proprietary claims to female reproductive capability, M/F genital "mutilations", so-called sexual revolution.

"Meme" to think of the next time one "consumes" fertility statistics.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 at 08:47:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains.

How shall I put this: I'm not spending one second of my increasingly precious time watching some git with questionable fashion sense on a video entitled "The Rational Male" for any reason.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Mar 8th, 2018 at 02:49:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Recession alert by fertility (4.00 / 2)

Topics in this subthread are discussed in detail in Sarah Hrdy's book Mother Nature, A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection. Subject matter references to historical (read: written) polemical proscriptions and comparative evolutionary theories of mating selection (read: discrimination, voluntary and involuntary), from early 18th cen to early 21st cen, are mostly eurocentric, judeo-christian. However the author persuasively demonstrates (i) mating (any species) has never been mostly monogamous and (ii) selection parameters (discrimination, strategy) on both sexes are mostly exogenous, eg. location, infanticide, "hypergamy" --in other words, calculated probability of survival, self and progeny. Not so romantic.

The wikipedia article is facile. The claim "Today most people marry their approximate social equals, and in much of the world hypergamy is in slow decline: for example, it is becoming less common for women to marry older men" is preposterous, given contemporary, eurocentric pretext for "marriage" still reduce to exchange of property -- accumulated "wealth" assigned to each "partner"-- whether or not they procreate!

As for pre-historic information contributing to evolutionary theories of selection, polemicists are decidedly "anti-science." Even my daughter's noticed this. Genomic data exploration is full of ... interesting suppositions derived from "genetic flow" calculations said to describe mating selection criteria, to concentrate OR diversify risk of survival.

We conclude that the parents of this Neandertal individual were either half-siblings who had a mother in common, double first cousins, an uncle and a niece, an aunt and a nephew, a grandfather and a granddaughter, or a grandmother and a grandson

as was the custom. Good luck with that and the cannibalism thing.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Fri Mar 9th, 2018 at 08:09:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"If we ruled against you, would it fuck over unions?"
"Yes."
"Well, I think I've heard all I need to hear, then." pic.twitter.com/4dFLZP6ZaM
— Current Affairs (@curaffairs) 27. Februar 2018

by generic on Tue Feb 27th, 2018 at 03:29:46 PM EST

Politics - Ian Dunt - N.Ireland isn't being 'annexed' - Brexit chickens are coming home to roost

Today will be full of hysterical gibberish from prominent Brexit supporters. They will insist that Brussels is trying to annex Northern Ireland, that a foreign power is now on the attack against the UK - intent on carving it up as some form of punishment for its decision to leave the EU.
It's rubbish. What we have seen today is the chickens coming home to roost for Brexiters. They have been warned over and over again during the last 18 months that it is not possible to leave the single market and customs union and still maintain an open border in Ireland. There is no solution to this problem. It is no more solveable than someone demanding you make a sports car with square wheels. It simply cannot be done.
Today, the bleak legal reality of that impossibility was made clear. The European Commission's draft text of the withdrawal treaty - basically the legal version of the political agreement signed in December - was published. It puts in clear, precise language what was previously fudged in the Irish section.

Last weekend Matthew Parris published an amusing essay (behind Times paywall) where he speculated that, eventually, having tried every possible stupid option for brexit, the Tories will finally just drop the whole stupid idea and quietly withdraw their resignation from the EU.

But we're not there yet, even as Boris spouts ever madder ideas for the Ulster border question. Even the press are beginning to notice he's nuts. Once, a lot of people thought he was interesting, good for quotes, a command of Latin. Everybody laughed with Boris. What a card !! What japes !! Such fun.

But eventually only his fan club in the right wing press thought he was good copy. But lately he's lost even them.

People now either laugh at him or, worse, they don't laugh at all. I think Boris is not enjoying himself any more, nobody talks about him as a future leader of the Tory party or PM. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg is a more likely candidate and he's a bona fide idiot.

Brexit is going down, not (just) because it's a bad idea, but mostly because the people tasked with making it happen are chancers, idiots and fools.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Feb 28th, 2018 at 04:26:04 PM EST

Re: Open Thread Feb - 4 Mar (4.00 / 2)

Infamous Google memo author shot down by federal labor board

Former Google engineer James Damore has attempted to take civil and legal action against his former employer after being fired in August, but on [February 15], a federal memo revealed that one of Damore's filings has been unequivocally denied.
[...] NLRB member Jayme Sophir points to two specific parts of the controversial memo circulated by Damore in August: Damore's claim that women are "more prone to 'neuroticism,' resulting in women experiencing higher anxiety and exhibiting lower tolerance for stress" and that "men demonstrate greater variance in IQ than women."
Sophir describes how these gender-specific claims resemble other cases decided by the NLRB that revolved around racist, sexist, and homophobic language in the workplace. She says that specific Damore statements were "discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment, notwithstanding [his] effort to cloak [his] comments with 'scientific' references and analysis, and notwithstanding [his] 'not all women' disclaimers. Moreover, those statements were likely to cause serious dissension and disruption in the workplace."

So, discussing biology could be sexual harassment?

What about this talk, though?

Boys Do Cry (and Shoot)

Scientists and sociologists have known for decades that boys are fairer than girls, and by far. As with the science supporting climate change, confirmation of masculine weakness is capable of inspiring stubborn cases of denial. The stereotypical softness we've historically imagined is the birthright of being born a girl? Well, in reality these misattributed frailties are the quantifiable traits of boyhood.
Boys are less hearty in vitro, suffering higher miscarriage rates, along with higher mortality into infancy and on through to old age (save for a year or two around age ten, when U.S. mortality rates break about evenly). In the 1750s on, U.S. records show, baby boys died at a rate 10 percent higher than girls. Come the 1970s, the gap opened to more than 30 percent. Today it stands around 20 percent. Boys are more sensitive than girls. Boys do cry more, are more anxious, have a harder time regulating emotion, care less about objects in their environment, are more likely to suffer developmental disorders and genetic defects, and are more susceptible to malnutrition and disease. For boys, parental unavailability and insensitivity have a greater effect on attachment to a caregiver [...]
All in all, boys are less developed than girls - physically, emotionally, intellectually - until late adolescence. By then, the turns and twists of our painstaking mammalian maturation have often made masculine developmental deficiencies lifelong traits. Still, this doesn't mean that the deficiencies must necessarily translate into detriments - this transmutation had been the handiwork of patriarchal culture.

by das monde on Thu Mar 1st, 2018 at 07:58:19 PM EST

Damore's principal crime was making Google look bad. Anybody who goes public like that criticizing any policy of their company is asking, no, they're begging, to get fired.

Other people better informed than I have written takedowns of what he actually wrote, citing genuine biologists with specialisms in gender divergence, who trashed the pseudoscience Damore used. So he wasn't discussing science, he was simply babbling prejudice.

Which is why the NLRB had already got established policies in place saying that this BS will not legally stand.

But he got fired for publishing it. He got fired for making his company look bad. It happens to anybody who makes an ass of themselves like that. Shit, it doesn't even matter if what he said was 100% true, that wasn't company policy. And when you work for the company, you publicly agree with the policies, keep your mouth shut or expect to get found out and have your ass kicked out.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Thu Mar 1st, 2018 at 08:46:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Google Sued by Ex-Recruiter Alleging Anti-White, Asian Bias

The NLRB report basically says that objective merits of Damore's comparative claims do not matter. That is a slippery position... Will we see how the better informed arguments look in a courtroom?

Meanwhile, Google diversity policies are under another legal attack:

The critics of Google's effort to promote workforce diversity now include one of its own former recruiters, who claims in a lawsuit he was fired because he didn't toe the line on rejecting white and Asian male job candidates.
The Alphabet Inc. unit had "irrefutable policies, memorialized in writing and consistently implemented in practice, of systematically discriminating in favor job applicants who are Hispanic, African American, or female, and against Caucasian and Asian men," according to the complaint filed in state court in Redwood City, California.
Arne Wilberg, who worked at Google and its YouTube unit for about nine years both as a contractor and an employee, claims he was terminated in retaliation for complaining to human resources about the company's hiring practices. Wilberg also alleged that late last year, management deleted emails and other digital records of diversity requirements.

by das monde on Sat Mar 3rd, 2018 at 01:53:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Yeah, well, not many boys get period pains, but many suffer from symptoms of testosterone poisoning.

i.e. it is well-documented that men and women are biologically different... Whether that is a legitimate basis for workplace discrimination (which was what Damore was advocating) is generally considered a settled matter, in law, if not in practice.

Mostly he was just exhibiting the tropism of male Google employees towards right-wing libertarianism (which might be analysed as a symptom of the male weakness and instability documented in your second link).

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Fri Mar 2nd, 2018 at 05:49:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The Honor System -- The Rational Male

As ever, it is highly socially acceptable to talk trash about all men or particular (public or personally close) men, regardless of productivity or even consequences to own family. There would be no toxicity in that? Eventually, many (if not most) men are evolutionarily supposed to be discarded by Nature and women - are they not?

If you fancy it this weekend, here are some samples from a libertarian-masculine rabbit hole. (You don't have to click through.)

One of the primary way's Honor is used against men is in the feminized perpetuation of traditionally masculine expectations when it's convenient, while simultaneously expecting egalitarian gender parity when it's convenient.
For the past 60 years feminization has built in the perfect Catch 22 social convention for anything masculine; The expectation to assume the responsibilities of being a man (Man Up) while at the same time denigrating asserting masculinity as a positive (Shut Up). What ever aspect of maleness that serves the feminine purpose is a man's masculine responsibility, yet any aspect that disagrees with feminine primacy is labeled Patriarchy and Misogyny.

What Makes a Man? -- The Rational Male

The idea that boys are these sensitive delicate souls who, through the evils of their Patriarchal (typically male) upbringing, are conditioned to become 'macho' violent men is a popular trope [...] If only boys we're taught more like girls to get in touch with their emotions and were vulnerable in expressing them we could avoid these male-created tragedies.
That's the pretense we're supposed to believe [...] But the truth is boys have been systematically feminized for the past 3-4 generations. Boys are taught like defective girls. Since the 1970s it is increasingly women who have dominated academia from kindergarten to doctorate degrees [...] School and teaching became `for girls' and the educational landscape shifted to teaching styles that girls were most benefited in.
In that shift the idea that boys might be disadvantaged had little bearing, but overtime the conditions of teaching 'to girls' defined the teaching style as the correct style. In fact, teaching in a way that girls learn best, and disciplining boys for not learning this way, is no longer a style - it is just the way children are taught. Boys and men today are the product of female teachers who actively advantage girls at the expense of boys. So normalized is this teaching that boys disrupting the advantaging of girls in class is something we've decided needs to be medicinally curbed. Boys being boys is diagnosed as an illness and drugs are prescribed so as to sedate them long enough for the girls to learn.

This point has been made more academically, if you scratch the surface.

by das monde on Sat Mar 3rd, 2018 at 02:31:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

re: FIFTH WAVE, honor system, real men, civilization, "totems"

Nine appear in court following looting of Dublin supermarkets
"The court heard that John Kelly, who was arrested 9.25pm on Friday night at Ardmore Avenue, was a widower, whose wife died in December of cancer, and who looks after a number of children. He was released on bail. ... John Doyle, a father of four with a baby who is being christened next week, was described as a settled family man. Davie Bernie, who is currently unemployed but minds his baby with his partner, said to the judge: "CCTV will vindicate us."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sat Mar 3rd, 2018 at 06:09:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Perhaps they had watched 'Going in Style'.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Mar 4th, 2018 at 06:44:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"We're not stigmatising men, but predators"

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Mar 5th, 2018 at 08:38:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I've seen this and other posters of the same series during my train commute. Very timely.

by Bernard (bernard) on Tue Mar 6th, 2018 at 09:21:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Casual sexploitation? Read the story.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Mar 5th, 2018 at 08:44:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Guardian - Nick Cohen - The irresponsible know-nothing Right that treats everything as a joke

The Victoria Hull Story (2018), "re-imagined"
https:/www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/03/03/weinstein-accusers-ashley-judd-salma-hayek-and -annabella-sciorra-present-oscars/392876002

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Mar 5th, 2018 at 09:02:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Open Thread Feb - 4 Mar (4.00 / 2)

When he actually attacks the real enemy, Nick cohen is pretty good. This is worth reading in full.

Culture wars are endless because their participants enjoy them so. It's fun, if you are on the right, to mock liberal double standards and break liberal taboos. So much fun, it becomes instinctive: a way of lashing out rather than a way of thinking.
If the left is dominated by puritan preachers who denounce the faults of everyone but themselves, the right is dominated by a satirical "contrarian culture", which is now so predictable there's nothing contrary about it. Liberals and leftists are humourless hypocrites, the party line runs. At Oxfam or in Hollywood, they satisfy the brute desires they deplore in others. In the privacy of their Tuscan and Hampstead homes they show every indication of wanting to hoard rather than share their wealth. Worst of all they are elitists, who look down their dainty noses at the masses who voted for Brexit and Trump, and damn them as racist fools. The satirical right dominates the conservative web and newspapers because it delivers the occasional truth about liberal hypocrisy, which you do not have to be a conservative to appreciate. Satire worked as a counter-culture protest because from the 1990s until 2016 the "establishment" was politically correct, and most of us enjoy seeing the pomposity of the powerful punctured. As the contrarians head to power, however, outsiders can see the teeth behind the smirk. The label that has stuck to the demagogues who dominate British and American politics is "the alt-right". But, as Brexit is proving, it is as much a "bullshit right".
I am not being vulgar but am drawing on the work of Harry G Frankfurt. Unlike liars, who at least know the truth when they deceive, the philosopher explained, bullshitters have no concern for truth. They don't care if they are lying or not. They just say whatever it takes to win. "By virtue of this," Frankfurt ruled, "bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Mar 4th, 2018 at 03:10:08 PM EST

First Senate numbers out in Italy, 5*MV vote at 33%, Renzi at 18%, Berlusconi at 15%, Lega at 17%.
It's going to be an all-nighter, will update.
It's an earthquake!
Pundits enjoyably hornswoggled. :)

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sun Mar 4th, 2018 at 11:07:00 PM EST