David Sloan Wilson amuses me outrageously. He accuses me of not thinking scientifically in an astonishing glurge of pettifogging pedantry. You see, he’s peeved that I have said that the deleterious effects of patriarchal religion on women are obvious and that arguing that religion is beneficial to women is ridiculous, so he’s going to set me straight on how to think like a real scientist…that is, apparently, like someone who is divorced from pragmatism and reality.
Myers the ideologue thinks that he can demonstrate the harmful effects of religion on human welfare with a single word — WOMEN. Here’s how a scientist would set about studying women in relation to men. The first step would be to ask what evolutionary theory predicts about male-female relationships and how the predictions are borne out in nonhuman species. [I…what? The first thing a scientist should do is look up the theory that will tell him about the relations of men and women? I would have thought that the first thing we should do is measure the relative status of men and women.] That inquiry would show that sexual conflict is common in the animal world and that the kind of sexual equality that has become a virtue in contemporary western society evolves by genetic evolution only under special circumstances.[OK, I understand that comparative ethology can be useful…but it doesn’t answer the question of the actual status of men and women. That sexual conflict occurs does not mean we should not oppose it] Among the great apes, gibbons are monogamous, bonobos form female coalitions that resist domination by males, and males boss females around in all of the other species (and most other primate species). [I notice we still aren’t talking about humans] None of this variation can be explained by religion. [Yes. Because humans have religion and those other apes don’t. “Religion” is the variable in question, and we’re pondering how it affects human society; you can use data from other primates to show that religion isn’t the only factor that affects sexual relationships, but that’s not the question.]
The second step would be to see if variation in male-female relations within the human species can be explained by the same evolutionary dynamics that explain cross-species variation. [Nice of him to consider our species finally] For example, it is likely that in both cases, the ability of males to control resources needed by females will result in sexual inequality. This is one reason why agricultural societies are more patriarchal than hunter-gatherer societies — regardless of their religions. [That there are many factors that affect the relationship of the sexes in a species is not a point under contention. The question is whether religion does harm, or is a moderating factor to limit the damage caused by biological predispositions]
To measure the effect of a given religion on sexual inequality, that religion should be compared to the other cultural forms (religious and otherwise) that existed at the same time and place, such as early Christianity vs. Roman pagan society, early Islam vs. the many Arabic cultures of the region, or Christianity vs. scientific views about sexual equality in Britain during the Victorian era. I won’t try to second-guess the result of such an inquiry, but I do know this — it isn’t self-evident. [Or, rather than trying to calculate from theory the effects of a welter of complex phenomena, we could cut to the chase: are women oppressed by their society? Does religion act to oppose that oppression, or justify it?]
Myers and other new atheists seem to think that their action-oriented agenda doesn’t leave room for such scholarly footwork, but the reverse is true. Scholars who remain in the Ivory Tower can make mistakes without hurting anyone. [This was my very favorite part!] Those who leave the Ivory Tower to make a difference in the real world need to be extra careful, lest they hurt people on the basis of faulty theory and information. Humility is called for, which is the very opposite of ideological braggadocio.
I love that last bit. It’s an admission that David Sloan Wilson sneers at that dirty complicated real world; we’re supposed to sit in our ivory tower and calculate whether religion has a deleterious effect on women.
Rather than condescendingly telling us about evolutionary dynamics, I’d like Wilson to get specific.
How does depriving girls of an education benefit women?
How does raising girls with the expectation that their purpose in life is to bear children benefit women?
How does throwing acid in their faces when they demand independence from men benefit women?
How do honor killings benefit women?
How does stoning rape victims benefit women?
How does female genital mutilation benefit women?
How does letting women die rather than giving them an abortion benefit women?
I’m just asking about women here, but I could also say that the attitudes fostered by religion-based misogyny also do harm to the well-being of men — these are deep, wide-spread, endemic problems that poison whole cultures, including our own.
I would also not argue that these problems are solely caused by religion: atheists can be misogynists, too, and history and culture shape individuals in many ways. But these are cases where religion validates and reinforces the oppression of women; secularization and liberalization (more liberal religions are less damaging than conservative, dogmatic ones) reduces the harm done. The question is not whether religion is the only force that does harm, or even the force that does the most harm, but whether religion does more harm than good. I suggest that Wilson open his eyes to the tangible, measurable harm done to women in the name of god, rather than closing them to the real-world data that makes his theories superfluous.
You know, while he sits in his ivory tower trying to ponderously calculate whether women are being hurt, women are actually being hurt.
The stubbornness, stupidity, and avoidance of real evidence appears as the pattern, along with extreme bigotry and “society is out to hold me down”. PZ can check the IP address when he gets back and rested.
from the same link:
jesus, i fucked that one up:
from here and here:
women and families are homeless longer.
and they make up more and more of the homeless population
as for the rest:
most homeless people are in actually oppressed classes such as ethnic minorities and disabled people. intersectionality, fucking learn what it is and stop using actually oppressed people’s suffering as a weapon against women.
that would be rather more believable if you hadn’t already said this:
alrighty then. as long as women all become separatist lesbians and/or celibates and thus never marry or have children, we don’t ever need to worry about women’s incomes ever again.
fucking idiot.
Not that I should need to defend myself against these charges, but there’s no need to check IP and all the rest of it, as I’m not here to stay anyway. I should have “stuck my flounce”. It’s just a waste of time, really.
You know what you remind me of? Notice that the lyrics start off quite innocuous: “The sun on the meadow is summery warm/ The stag in the forest runs free.” Good stuff! Luvely-jubley! I can certainly get behind that. But then, alas, the stridency comes through, and everyone goes ape-shit.
Shorter, illithid:
Thank you Jadehawk for posting the information regarding families and homelessness. I was going to get all ranty up in here about that the homeless are all men cuz womenz take all the cushy jobs crap.
It might also be important to state what definition of homelessness you use. Illwit is probably going off the “only homeless if sleeping on the streets” definition, which is not the definition used in most studies, or by people who know about homelessness at all.
Er. I think it’s important to point out just because a homeless person uses drugs doesn’t mean they are homeless because of it. It’s often because being homeless fucking sucks and a way to cope. It’s often used to cope by those mentally ill as well.
It bugs me that these two issues are whats brought up when talking about the homeless. I think the never ending cycle of poverty should be included with these two. I think it’s the main reason families are the rising proportion of homelessness currently. I will try to find my links for this information though.
I may just be sensitive due to the negative way people have reacted and treated me as a homeless person of course.
It’s especially funny in my cases, since I’m motherfucking homeless single mother and he spouts this shit.
Atlanta, GA:
black 54.0%; 5.2% Hispanic; 3.1% Asian;
Memphis, TN:
Black 62.6%; Hispanic 5.0%; Asian: 1.7%
New York, NY:
Black 25.1%; Hispanic 27.5%; Asian 11.8%
Sacramento, CA:
Black 16.6%; Hispanic 26.9%; Asian 17.8%;
Miami, FL:
Black 19.2%; Hispanic 70.0%; Asian 1.0%
Los Angeles, CA:
Black 9.6%; Hispanics 48.5%; Asians 11.3%
Phoenix, AZ:
Black 6.5%; Hispanic 40.8%; Asian 3.0%
Only San Diego and the Research Triangle of Raleigh-Durham had majority non-hispanic white populations, and I couldn’t find a decent breakdown of the Charlotte Metropolitan area (Charlotte itself is 45% non-hispanic white) and the Richmond Metropolitan area (RichmonD itself is 39.5% non-hispanic white)
I’m sure it’ll come as a shock to anyone who’s been paying attention that cities with minority majorities dominate this list, considering the massive criminalization of minority men by the US legal system. once again, the mind failer is using a real axis of oppression to pretend his made-up one exists, and using this as a weapon against women.
Hey, illithid!
You’re right – you should have stuck the flounce. But since you didn’t, and I’m guessing you won’t be able to stick the one, either…
So now you’re back to denying the pay gap, after you first denied its existence, acknowledged its existence and tried to justify it, and continued to wax poetic about the plight of blue-collar workers while other people (presumably women) get to sit in a warm office all day.
What kind of job were you trying to get, again? Wasn’t it one of those warm office jobs?
And as long as we’re resurrecting issues from this thread – you never got back to me on my proposed time-travel venture. You remember the one – I assumed you had time-travel ability because of the way you sent tkreacher’s comment into the past so that you could inflate the price of flat-screen TVs and X-boxes to suit your narrative. I’m still willing to go in on this with you….unless you were being intellectually dishonest and refused to concede any points and continue to erect strawmen and move goal-posts and generally make an ass of yourself while trying to prove that everything you think is wrong in your life is the fault of women being valued too highly.
On second thought, please stick the flounce.
What made you think you had a point against people who really know the evidence and how to find it? Your factoids were irrelevant to the discussion. Your misogyny and hatred of women and the educated came through with shining colors. Nothing but stupidity and stubbornness kept you posting, typical of bigots, RWAs, and liberturds.
I’ve read backwards to comment 410. Yep, definitely Hyperon. Overestimation of the importance of industry, weird assumptions about The Lady Monolith… dude, really, your mum was one woman, she wasn’t the woman, and some of the shit she pulled were completely patriarchal stereotypes that had poisoned her brain.
In places where boys are under the impression that sitting around and thinking is for girls, yes.
That falls under patriarchy hurts men, too.
And indeed… assuming this page is up and running again… the gender gap in math is disappearing, it has already completely gone in some countries; the greater gender equality is in a country, the better scores do girls and boys get in math; and the paper explained on that page goes on to disprove the “males have greater variance” hypothesis.
illithid:
The comments in some other threads go very much against the core values of the Temperance Movement.
Do you have a point?
cm:
Not reaily. Xe was mostly just trying to point out that xis’ strawman of our ideology goes against xis’ strawman of another ideology that xe thinks we should represent.
It’s strawman on strawman action! That’s hot.
In that case it’s odd that anyone actually bothers to turn on the heating. It’s so expensive, and why bother if to be comfortable you only have to pull on a jumper?
uh, that’s the way it works here in Hobbitton, actually.
very, very few people here have central heating, or even use a heater.
and that’s not because it doesn’t get cold.
we do, in fact, just toss on a jumper.
It took some time to get used to, given that every house I ever lived in for 45 years in the states all had central air.
It’s strawman on strawman action! That’s hot.
lol
It’s also firing up my hayfever. Good job I have my beclomethasone dipropionate, made (and tested, and marketed, and financed, and, indeed, sold) by all those terrible no-jumper lab and office and shop people!
You know what you remind me of?
holy fuck, you’re an insensitive, clueless git.
here, highest rated comment for your vid, which you should have noted:
There’s a lesson there for you, but you’re likely too dim to see it.
@Ichthyic, I don’t see that quotation in these comments.
Wrong thread?
cm
The quoted comment is from the comments to the linked video.
illithid #6, this page.
thanks chig.
I just want to get back to this again:
In that case it’s odd that anyone actually bothers to turn on the heating. It’s so expensive, and why bother if to be comfortable you only have to pull on a jumper?
because it too, represents unexamined privilege.
It took me moving here to NZ to realize that in the States, I are so used to houses with central heating and/or air conditioning, that it came as quite a shock to learn that yes, one can live without these things quite nicely.
imagine how much energy would be saved, and the associated benefits, if all Americans tossed on a jumper when it got a bit nippy instead of cranking up the heater.
Now, I’m not talking about turning off your heater in NJ in January FFS, but hells, when the temp is anything significantly above zero but below warm, it’s not hard to just toss on a jumper and long pants and some wool socks.
someday I’m going to look and see just how much difference there is, say, between the energy usage of an average Kiwi living in say, Wellington, vs. an average American living in say, Los Angeles or Seattle.
I’d bet it’s pretty significant.
yeabut sweaters/jumpers are a socialist conspiracy. Also: Jimmy Carter, therefore NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!111!
Oh. @chigau and @Ichthyic, thanks.
Imagine how much energy would be saved if *cough cough cough* didn’t insist on living in air-conditioned apartments in the middle of a desert. Strangely, I’m not actually talking about Las Vegas.
http://www.economist.com/node/21551484
Strangely, I’m not actually talking about Las Vegas.
yes, I know.
note:
not living there!
:)
yeabut sweaters/jumpers are a socialist conspiracy.
true, but then I approve of socialism.
:)
OTOH, socialism in agriculture can lead to horrible things like..
RUNNNNN!!!!
Strangely, I’m not actually talking about Las Vegas.
oh, I took this as a poke at where I used to live.
which indeed was a stronghold of air-conditioned everything, and around 200 golf courses as well.
*sigh*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw
I have no words, except. Sheep!
That’s a poke at where you live now. ;)
Off topic: I see Ichthyic has learned the language, too. Jumpers! I am wearing a New Zealand possum fur/merino blend jumper right now, and it is awesome – so warm. I do actually have central heating, but a) I live in Canberra and b) I have respiratory issues and c) even I don’t expect to wear T-shirts around the house in midwinter. Ugg boots, people, they exist for a reason and it’s not for fashion.
(On topic: boring misogynist cupcake is boring and misogynist.)
That’s a poke at where you live now. ;)
??
I live here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petone
not much in the way of deserts around these parts.
…I’m sure I just need more coffee, because I must be missing something.
possum fur/merino blend
ever been to Possum World in Napier?
?
the video cm refers to features no deserts (but plenty of sheep)
the video cm refers to features no deserts (but plenty of sheep)
confusion reigns.
the poke I was referring to was up in 23:
Imagine how much energy would be saved if *cough cough cough* didn’t insist on living in air-conditioned apartments in the middle of a desert.
…because that’s exactly where I used to live, in an overdeveloped section of the hottest place on earth.
I see his second poke was directed at where I live now.
yes, all clear now.
moar coffee needed.
Baaaaaaa! Those sheepies sure can motor, can’t they?
Curiously, I’ve never been to UnZud. One day I will… although I doubt that Opossum World will be high on my agenda. I get my possum products here: http://www.nznature.co.nz/
It’s interesting that this “We don’t need heat” philosophy only comes into play when somebody draws attention to the injustice of having one class work outside exposed to the elements, with no compensation whatsoever, and having one class reside in warm rooms.
Instead of asking the pampered middle class office workers to make the sacrifice by turning off the heating, you use your idea as a gag to try to shut up those uppity MRAs who don’t think it’s fair that blue collar men should be left to work in the cold.
Talk about unexamined privilege, you industrial-feudalism-promoting fucking cockroach.
I said I’d stick the flounce, but there are really some things that go too far. I can’t allow someone to go unchallenged making the kind of rationalizations for oppressing the working classes that haven’t been heard since the 18th century.
Yes, it’s that you’re not real leftists. You don’t care about the economics, just about the “sensitivity”. In other words, just about making yourself look nice and sensitive. About the economic conditions of workers, you really couldn’t give two shits. We’ve seen that most of you are quite happy to align yourselves with bankers and telemarketers and other professional con-men. I’m glad you admit as much.
Why are you worried about economics and thinks it trumps social justice? Oh, that’s right, you aren’t getting anywhere because your personality turns people off. Guess what? It turns us off too. Learn some people skills.
Actually yes, most of us aren’t anti-union or back union busting tactics. But people have to expect the jobs that are available, and quite seeing some sort of utopia in the past.
Gee, I agree with you on telemarketers, but bankers? Most are honest people, unlike you. If you want to change the world, this isn’t where you are going to start. That should have been obvious to you after about three posts. All you can do is whine and mewl and blame others for you not making yourself marketable, including learning people skills. Fuck off.
illithid:
IOW, you failed to follow-trough on your declaration no less than is your puny justification.
(Your weakness is duly noted)
Oh, and fuckwit, learning people skills starts when you stop deliberately lying to them. Look at your flounce. Showing your word is worthless. Might be good if you become a used car salesman, but you are not a person to trust to keep intellectual property secret. This lesson is for free.
Fuck, ill, even a kazoo can play more than one note.
Ah. How cute. Xe thinks that social justice and economic justice are mutually exclusive.
If any worker is being oppressed, all workers are being oppressed!
Christ on a pogostick, this guy’s dense.
Illithid,noone here, absolutely noone, was using any “we don’t need heat idea” to gag anyone, you numbskull. See I initially made the remark of “If you’re cold, you can borrow my jumper” to ridicule the fact that a)you’ve been repeating the ‘OMG the evil parasitic Pretty Birds are inside by the cozy fireplace, why we poor Manly Men are stuck outside in the cold’ theme like a gazillion times. (Honestly, not only has it been adressed a couple of times already, but also, if that argument didn’t work the first gazillion times, it’s not going to now) b)Ridicule the fact that you present the entire issue in a childishly simplistic manner: “Men do hard work in the cold and womenzes are inside polishing their nails, therefore the men are disadvantaged.” Which is just so fucking stupid I can hardly believe you’re being for real.
The following discussion on central heating and how it could save a shitload of energy if people would just put on some warm clothes instead of immediately turning to their central heating every time they felt a chill wasn’t meant to gag or silence anyone, and you know it. You’re just being a dishonest little fuck.
And as for the ‘no true leftist’ thing you tried to pull earlier, I can only say this: Leftist, I do not think it means what you think it means.
FIFY
Most male blue-collar workers in the USA and other rich countries, despite three decades of clawback by the rich, remain pretty well-off in global terms, or even relative to those without full-time work or those, mostly women, working as cleaners and carers in those same rich countries. If it’s time for the Oppression Olymics, male blue-collars in rich countries won’t get past the heats.
@illithid #38
Your failure to stick two flounces is noted. Nice follow-through, though. Finish with a smile and the judges will love you for it.
“It’s interesting that this “We don’t need heat” philosophy only comes into play when somebody draws attention to the injustice of having one class work outside exposed to the elements, WITH NO COMPENSATION WHATSOEVER, and having one class reside in warm rooms.”
(Emphasis mine)
Have we moved onto a new topic? Are we discussing slavery now (which still exists, by the way, and is a serious problem)? These hard-labor workers not only don’t get paid as much as warm-office workers, but now they don’t get paid AT ALL?
Also, this: “…align yourselves with bankers and telemarketers and other professional con-men.”
I can see conflating bankers and professional con-men, but telemarketers? I’m confused as to where they fit into this global conspiracy to keep corporate boots on the necks of the downtrodden. Explanations and citations would be helpful.
I’m curious – do you consider logic and reasoning to be soft skills, too? It would explain a lot.
Merely saying something is stupid doesn’t make it stupid. You saw yourself the list of male-dominated versus female-dominated occupations. It’s quite true to say that men are much more likely to have to work in the cold than women. This does seem to be a highly undesirable aspect of the job…and all the more so if you’re living in a persistently cold and rainy country like mine.
Unless, of course, you’re actually giving credence to this “You only have to put on a jumper” argument. If anyone believes this argument, the way to apply it is to recommend that the heating be turned off inside buildings, including offices. The way it’s been applied in this thread is to accuse me of “unexamined privilege” because I drew attention to an asymmetry in working conditions. I’m quite happy to entertain the proposal that we should use less heating…but not if it’s only going to be used as weapon against the part of the workforce that isn’t fortunate enough to work inside a well-heated building.
Oh, cleaners and carers have it the worst. But not, say, janitors and binmen, who receive the same pay, which is minimum wage.
Hyperon, what happened to physics? Didn’t pan out for you?
Never going to be famous now, hmm?
Never going to get the world to listen to your Real Scientist insights on how women are ruining the left?
You’ve shown yourselves to be frauds who don’t care a jot about “marginized people”. They’re just a tool that you use to impress the people around you and integrate yourselves better into your social circles.
The one or two of you who might be serious about improving conditions for marginalized groups will realize that the Occupy movement is on the side of good. Industrial feudalism will have to be eroded, or there will always be groups oppressed by those with unaccountable private power.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, the jumper thing was a joke. See, Illithid, you were complaining about people in warm offices as though you were jealous of them. I humorously offered my jumper so that you didn’t need to be jealous anymore. See, a joke. A way of mocking you. NOT AN ACTUAL ARGUMENT, ASSCLOWN.
And as for the whole ‘you’re against the Occupy movement’ bullshit. NO. I reckon most people here aren’t. Certainly not in the way you’re portraying us to be. If you think we are, you must not have been reading our comments, or you’re just stupid (which, judging by your writings, might well be the most plausible scenario).
Splitters!
But why are only “real leftists” (the terms remain undefined, I note) worthwhile people? Are all other points of view inherently evil?
Anyway:
…
…
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/04/delong-understanding-marx-lecture-for-april-20-2009.html
That last sentence reminds me of someone. Hmmm, who could it be?
Yes, there are groups oppressed by those with unaccountable private power. The private power people are nearly all men. The groups oppressed have a larger proportion of women.
Some men do get the short end of the stick. Nobody is denying that. But you’re a hell of a lot more likely to get the short end of the stick if you are a woman. Some places its better than others. Some places are a lot worse than the USA and the UK. Others are better. Those places where men and women are treated closer to being equals are better for both.
Did you mean marginalized by the way? Got to watch those typos if you want to program. An inside job I note.
Seriously though. You really do have to work on people skills. I’m an introvert and sometimes have difficulty in large groups, so I’m working on that. Because they are not easy skills to get for some of us, but they can be learned. If you want to learn. And if you don’t want to learn, then why should anyone want to take you on when you don’t know what being a team player is, in an industry where the lone programmer is long gone, if they ever truly existed?
@illithid #51
You know, ill, YOU could be doing something serious about improving conditions for marginalized groups. You could get an education, and probably major in something like non-profit organization and management. You could found some kind of group that promotes these issues and calls for action/legislation/support. You could hold fundraisers and meet potential donors, and liaise with other foundations to coordinate your efforts and do more good than your foundation would have on its own. You can network and oversee the people who will be helping you to run the foundation. You can become the catalyst for change on a huge scale.
Oh, wait – all of that includes “soft skills”, which are totally useless and never help anyone do anything ever. Good thing you don’t have them.
Or, you can whine dishonestly about things on someone else’s blog. You could even start your own blog and whine about them there.
Nobody here has claimed otherwise.
But you always did stand for apple pie, and against puppy-kicking, didn’t you, Hyperon?
http://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/occupyresources
http://occupyfeminism.tumblr.com/
http://thefeministwire.com/2011/11/occupy-rape-culture/
http://www.occupypatriarchy.org/2011/11/04/manifestoing-feminism-occupy-patriarchy/
http://radicalhub.com/2011/10/22/feminist-call-to-action-occupy-dudeville/
I see fuckwit still thinks all those to the left of its RWA/Rupert Murdoch fuckwittery is communists. All right fuckwit, what’s the real difference between a Maoist, a Stalinist, a communist, a socialist, a progressive, and a moderate? Just like the fuckwitted right, there are nuances to those to the left of the fuckwits.
I think he already majored in physics, has either graduated or will soon, and is now trying to work in computer programming. Which is all fine, and will still allow him the opportunity to do everything else you mentioned:
That stuff doesn’t require any particular major in college. Certain majors can make it easier, but I don’t want to discourage him; anybody can do it if they’re dedicated.
You’re working from the wrong script, Nerd.
The fuckwit illithid is a socialist and a Labour voter. Just a bit of a racist, sexist one.
The racist and sexist bits make it sound like a right winger. Its socialism doesn’t ring through to my ears. I was around socialists back in my college days with the radicalization of campuses.
Where the fuck does the ‘Occupy Movement’ figure into this?
The occupy movement was on the side of good. Which is why I find it repulsive that you’re trying to highjack it to support your own privileged rantings. You’re doing what privileged white dudes always do. Co-opting. Trying to make it all about you.
You are no friend to the Occupy Movement.
@life is like a pitbull with lipstick #58
Of course you’re right – it would still take all of those disgusting and stupid “soft skills” to get anywhere, but it can absolutely be done by anyone who has real drive and desire for change.
I’ll just start holding my breath for illithid to do that…
Remember Hyperon(sp?)? He claimed to be a leftist, he loved the working class white man. At least his form of the idealized working class white man™.
illithid seems to have it all worked out. The only oppression that matters is class oppression (hint: of course class oppression fucking matters – to all of us, you dolt – but it’s not the only axis of oppression that matters). He is a poor misunderstood displaced 1950s working class hero, who dreams of a steady income (hint: white men aren’t the only people who would love to have a steady income, pal) and might even generously dole a bit of it out to his smiling happy grateful little wifey (Fictional – procured from Stepford; 100% plastic) for her to do the shopping with (for sammich ingredients).
.
Misogynist fuckwits like you are a problem for the left. And I can’t fucking believe that with all your HUGE critical thinking abilities you haven’t even mentioned that benefit fraud is a drop in the bucket compared with tax evasion. You just find “welfare queens” so much easier to hate and despise than tax-evading millionaires with sharp clothes and sharper lawyers who for some strange reason don’t get hauled over the coals in the media very much.
(2010 quote from Richard Murphy, UK political economist and tax expert)
Sure, the 3.1 billion in fraud and mistakes combined is worth looking at. Forgive me if I think the 70 fucking billion in tax evasion is more significant. And lets not forget that the people involved in benefit fraud are – for the most part, you nitpicker – poor and have very few options; the fuckers involved in tax evasion are – for the most part – rich bastards who have more options than most of us could ever dream of.
Can’t comment on this Hyperon chap, but this is the most shameful misrepresentation of anything that I have written. Earlier in the thread I argued that African-Americans were one of the communities with the very highest work ethic. During the turn away from industry in the 70s, many of these communities were utterly laid to waste as working class men, accustomed to rolling up their sleeves and having to do honest toil for a living, increasingly found themselves with no idea what to do with their lives. The blue collar white community in Liverpool, Glasgow, and much of northern England, met with a similar fate at the hands of the abandonment of industrial jobs.
Then, I have repeatedly praised the superior character of East Asians. There’s nothing from me that singles out “the white man” — a phrase which provokes in me as much visceral annoyance as any of you.
Ha! I think you’re funny, illithid, talking about shameful misrepresentation.
No, not really. That’s why I said that nothing should be done and if anything welfare should be increased. I find myself constantly reminding people I talk to and work with that their ire should be directed at the tax-avoiding millionaires, executives and bureaucrats taking care of their own, etc., as opposed to the minority of welfare claimants milking the system.
“Welfare queens” certainly do exist. I have a few in my extended family and I grew up in an area which had several in every street. Their parents weren’t regularly working, yet they had better clothes than me, as well as N64s, Playstations and the like, which my parents (both working full-time) couldn’t afford until they were yesterday’s newspaper. We never went on holidays, yet they did. So I know perfectly well that welfare queens do exist. You’re fighting a losing battle if you want to deny this piece of common knowledge. That being said, I don’t believe that anything should be done about “welfare queens” until various more important political questions are dealt with.
Mmmm, pitbull: “I think he already majored in physics, has either graduated or will soon”, see “I’m fast approaching 30”.
(And when I go to the Sb dungeon, I get “File not found”. *argh*)
Your anecdotal evidence is meaningless given your bigotry. If it was a true problem, it would be all over the academic literature. And not one citation from you to back up your claim. And you wonder why we don’t believe a word you say??? PUT UP OR SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR EVERY CLAIM YOU MAKE.
@illithid, in general
Then what, precisely, is your fucking point? You have meandered all over this thread. I admit that you’ve unintentionally provided me (and maybe a few others) with LOLs, but after 569 comments I still have no idea what your beef is. The pitch is fucking miles wide with you moving goalposts all over the place, and I can hardly breathe with all of the strawmen you’ve constructed crowding the place. Is it too much to ask that you put together some kind of coherent argument?
In that case, bang goes all the half-dozen or so outpourings of “You fucking fuckedy-fuck-fuck, don’t know it’s like to be a single-motherfucking-mother!”
Psst, Ichthyic, re “air-conditioned apartments in the middle of a desert.”
Click the link. It’s actually a bit scary. In 25 years, Saudi Arabia could be using all the oil they can lift and more for fuel, aircon, and desalination.
(Oh, look, illithid’s back. Game on.)
How uncharitable of you, mythbri, asking the troll to do something it simply lacks the capacity to do, both intellectually and ethically. I mean, if you take away the strawmanning and the goalpost drift, why, it wouldn’t be able to post anything at all!
You may as well be asking a cat to quack.
Who cares if welfare queens “exist”? What matters is if the existence of welfare queens are a problem, if the size of that problem is large enough that one should bother to invest the resources to fix it, and whether or not any proposed fixes will actually solve the problem on a way that costs less (in all axes of measurement) than the problem itself, and will not produce even worse problems in their implementation.
And to demonstrate any of these requires numbers, citations, and peer reviewed evidence.
@Amphiox #73
You piqued my curiosity, Amphiox, and a quick search of YouTube reveals several – nay, quite a few cats that can quack. I’m not sure what this means for illithid. Let’s go with asking an octopus to quack.
You’re forgetting the part where the evidence and facts doesn’t support you, but does support us single mothers bashing you. Hence why it’s fucking different. I can talk about my experiences and show the facts to back up my assertions . You claim welfare queens exist because you knew one growing up and clearly took issue with them living better than you. I don’t buy your fucking story for a second. You can talk about your experiences all you want, you just don’t get to claim them as true generalities in society because evidence from reality shows you to be a bullshitter.
—-
Also, am I missing where other single mother’s came out to chew on this troll? It sounds like huge over reaction to the only one I know of (me) telling him to shove it. If I have over looked any other, my apologies! I’ve been in and out of this thread to try and keep my sanity.
No, not I knew one. I knew plenty<. A good chunk of my friends growing up in primary school were children of single mothers who weren’t working. For the most part they had better shit than me. That’s because it’s so easy for single mothers to claim welfare that they are not legally entitled to. They merely have to say No to the question of whether they have a partner living with them. That’s all they have to do. In a country of bullshitters where mostly everyone lies on their CV, a mother would have to be unusually honest to not bend the truth a little to get her children a better Christmas present.
No need to rely on anecdote. The objective evidence centres around the fact that short of being reported for benefit fraud by someone with a grievance, all a single mother has to do to get away with welfare fraud is lie about whether she has a partner. If she does, it’s almost certain (sex relations being what they are) that she will receive some supplementary income. So no, the case of single mothers, in a society in which abortion is legal, does not provide you with a good example of sexual discrimination against women. Try again.
@illithid #77
You do realize, of course, that some women are mothers BEFORE their circumstances crumble and they need to seek out government assistance? What I mean by that is – and please read this slowly so that you will understand it – the children in question are already born, and are citizens with rights and such.
Also, I’m pretty sure that when you said “sex relations being what they are”, what you really meant is that women (in this case, single mothers receiving government assistance) have sex for money or other kinds of tangible benefits. This is of course related to your previous assertion, way back yonder in the thread, that women are easily able gain apartments through the magic of sex.
Just in case I haven’t made myself abundantly clear: your “arguments” aside, you are a real piece of work. Stop re-living your childhood jealousies and start living in the real world. For fuck’s sake. (Major eyeroll)
Fuck, but Illithid is a disgusting little git.
They’re on fucking WELFARE, Illithid. But that’s not enough for you, is it?
This is just the latest post where you whine and cry about people on welfare having nicer shit than you as a kid. You just can’t stand the thought of someone ‘below your class’ having nice things, can you? You are repulsive. Absolutely repulsive.
Every time you say the words ‘Occupy Movement’, you’re taking a big liquid shit on everything the movement ever stood for.
But like I said, this is what selfish, whiney, privileged white dudes like you always do. Co opting social movements and trying to make them all about yourselves and your own little concerns.
It’s not a single mother on welfare’s fault that you fail at life.
More anecdotes from a proven liar and bullshitter, hence *POOF* dismissed as fuckwittery. Why do you refuse to document your claims? Oh, yes, they are your prejudices, and not reality.
Well, it’s true. They are and they do. They’ve been doing it for generations. If an attractive girl said “Can I move in with you so we can have sex on a regular basis?”, I’d say yes. I’m hardly unique in this.
But quite apart from that, there’s the question of single parents having first priority on social housing. I’m 100% in favour of this — but let’s not ignore reality, shall we? Women don’t have it tough compared with men.
Provided she was someone who I didn’t know at all, who just came up to me out of the blue and made such an offer, I’d turn it down. Not just because it’s suspicious, but because I generally avoid having sex with people I just met.
Shit, and if an attractive girl I actually knew, and was friends with, was desperate enough to make me such an offer, the ‘decent human being’ thing to do would be to say ‘forget about it, no need to pay me with sex just for a place to stay.’ Of course, that’s assuming I actually had an apartment.
Do you really think of women this way? Really?
Disgusting.
@illithid #81
OMG, ill responded to me!!! *Puts hand to forehead, wobbles slightly before straightening*
Again, just because you say it, and it appears on the computer screen in a nice Times New Roman font looking all official and whatnot, does not make it true.
I think it’s sad that you think that a woman would want to have sex with you, move in with you, purely so that she could have a roof over her head. And the reason I think it’s sad is not because of the motivation you’ve ascribed to the woman, but that it looks as though you’ve completely discarded any notion of a meaningful relationship, in which the people involved actually care about and want to spend time with each other. I’m going to repeat what has already been suggested to you multiple times: work on your personality issues. It will make you a happier person.
Well then, you’re unusual. Most men would consent to having sex with an attractive girl even if it’s a perfect stranger. Exactly that experiment was done by Clark and Hatfield. Not that anyone but a batshit insane, feminist fundamentalist fruitcake would have seriously found it hard to believe.
Why don’t you READ my fucking posts? I never said I think anything should be done. I said that if anything welfare should be increased. Small inequality within a social class does not concern me. I only gave “welfare queens” as an EXAMPLE of the phenomenon of women being better treated.
Still nothing but OPINION from a proven liar, bullshitter, and social misfit. Work on your people skills, and start by losing the irrational attitude you have about women.
well said, Mythbri. However…
Your compassion is misplaced, IMO. He just basically admitted that he’d have no problem taking advantage of a desperate and near-homeless woman in order to get himself a li’l hanky-spanky.
I hope he continues to advertise to the world (and especially any women who might mistake him for a decent human being) exactly what kind of a selfish and misogynist piece of human feces he really is.
Missing, of course, is any evidence that any of these families were on public assistance, whether or not any of this “shit” was purchased with money from public assistance, or any reason to believe that selling their possessions for pennies on the dollar would have made any real difference.
Yes, you are relying on anecdotes. Anecdotes lacking even the information required to tell if they support the point you’re trying to make. Along with your “everybody knows” claims, also asserted without evidence, they carry about as much weight as internal revelations from god.
And you worry too much about what other people have.
Holy fucking shit I can’t believe you said this. Also, do you know fucking why that men say yes to sex from strange women and women do not?
I can’t believe you would take advantage of a woman who needs to use sex to stay off the streets.
Which, we have fucking shown you with links of evidence how this phenomenon is purely in the minds of people who think women have all the power because they control sex.
It is complete fucking bullshit.
You are fucking tedious to deal with and have been spouting the same shit for almost 600 comments now. Godfuckingdamn I hope when PZ comes back he deals with you.
@Laughing Coyote #86
Thanks, and I do see what you mean. I saw that, too. As repulsive as I think HIS motivation would be to have a woman move in with him, the fact that he thinks HER motivation would only ever be survival and not because she actually liked him at all, says a lot about the way I think he thinks of himself. And that’s the part that’s sad.
You know, I was almost tempted to think “well at least he recognises that tax evasion is a more significant issue than benefit fraud” – except of course for the fact that when you brought up the whole defrauding-the-exchequer theme in the first place you didn’t even bother to mention it, despite your readiness to bring up Occupy – and then you go and revert to your initial shite: women have it easy, because hey they can always fuck a man for money (that’s probably “let a man fuck them” in your world). Just don’t forget to be young and pretty, eh? Because everyone knows that women who don’t fit your parameters either don’t exist or don’t matter.
.
You know how you were making such a fuss about how most men aren’t CEOs or rock stars? (And totally missing the point that that’s not what privilege means ?) Well amazingly enough the majority of women don’t fit the “young and pretty” parameters. Better hurry up and fuck yourself a meal ticket, “girls”, it’s a time-limited offer and only open to some. illithid, the way you think of women you really make me sick.
.
You’re so full of it I wonder you haven’t choked on your own bile.
Welfare queens as an example of women being treated better???
Now that REALLY requires some numbers, showing not only that people abuse welfare, but that MORE of them are women, AND that the system treats these women more leniently when caught, or looks the other way more with women than men.
Otherwise, the term ITSELF is an example of misogyny, ascribing a feminine description to a negative gender-neutral activity.
“Take advantage”. The WHOLE FUCKING POINT is that it’s perceived to be my advantage. That I’d have a motive for providing “free housing”, which was the original point of contention.
Obviously, it’s not true that I’d “say yes” under all circumstances (for instance, if she admitted to being a werewolf that gets a craving for human flesh on the full moon). I deliberately adopted an extreme to illustrate a general theme. It’s called “not being a simplistic dipshit”, you might want to try it sometime.
@illithid #92
Wait, you mean that you WOULDN’T take just ANY pretty woman’s offer to sex you up and move in with you? What are you, some kind of batshit insane, feminist fundamentalist fruitcake?
Still sad. Still disgusting.
But you did admit that you’d most likely ‘say yes’ if an ‘attractive’ woman, as you put it, offered you sex in return for a place to stay. Especially since werewolves don’t exist.
A woman who would offer to fuck someone just for a place to stay is, more likely than not, a woman who’s found herself in a desperate place. And being willing to take advantage of a woman’s desperation in order to get your peepee wet is fucking predatory.
Extreme cases are not representative of general themes. By definition.
Even when they aren’t made up shit.
The only “general theme” illithid has managed illustrate is the fact the he and the kind of people who are won’t to espouse the kinds of opinions he does have a tendency to be complete and utter slimewads.
No, not unusual at all, as I for one completely agree with Mythbri, and so would a lot of other men here. We aren’t that exceptional, you know. Stop projecting your own sick fantasies onto the rest of humanity.
Oh my!
illithid:
Here’s the thing cupcake (and remember, I’m your hiring manager so if you want the job you claim to want you have to win me over):
I have a couple of teen single mothers in my extended family who are on Child Benefit, and in social housing, and, and …
… and I’m A-FUCKING-OK with that because my taxes are keeping them off the streets and their children in education, because I think it’s morally repugnant to want to punish them for economically-ill-advised decisions made in their youth.
And when the kids are in school, I’ll support and fund programmes that help them get back into work, and hopefully they’ll get jobs that will help them move out of that situation and things will all be a bit better.
You though? You’re not helping.
And you claim the moral high ground, and whine we’re oppressing you.
Pathetic.
Pentatomid, if a female friend of mine was desperate enough to offer me sex for a place to stay… I would literally feel like a rapist if I took her up on her offer. The only people I want to have sex with, are people who want to have sex with me, because they’re sexually attracted to me. Full stop.
I’d tell her she could do the dishes or help me clean the place (and any hypothetical apartment of mine would need a LOT of that) or something if she really wanted to feel like she was ‘paying her way’.
But that requires compassion and empathy, something Illithid doesn’t comprehend.
Thanks, but with respect, I think I’ve sufficiently extricated myself from the trappings of medieval, superstition-rooted shitbaggery, for me to take seriously your idea that I could be a “predator” by engaging in an activity which is mutually consensual.
But nah. This “Reason” lark isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. In a previous life, I was Jack the Ripper.
Hey, by “predator”, do you mean the predator that grappled with Arnie? Doesn’t trying to kill a Republican governor gain me some left-wing street-cred around here? Oh wait, I forgot: you’re not real lefties.
In Illithid’s world, going along with something because she feels like she has no other option is the exact same thing as ‘consent’.
Yes, you are fucking predatory. Taking advantage of prey in a moment of weakness is what predators fucking do, by definition.
@illithid #101 (I can’t believe this has gotten this far, actually.)
Sex is not mutually consensual without enthusiastic consent. If a woman is desperate enough to offer sex to someone she wouldn’t otherwise fuck, she’s not giving enthusiastic consent.
It is not superstition to say that men who would fuck a woman without her enthusiastic consent is predatory – indeed, there are men who actively seek out desperate women and coerce them into having sex.
If you think that enthusiastic consent is just you getting off into someone, then I feel simultaneous pity and disgust for you (as previously noted, but I thought it bears repeating).
The circumstances you’ve outlined are clearly indicative of a power imbalance between prospective partners; where you have a large power imbalance, the (in this case) woman’s ability to say “no” is seriously compromised.
When the ability to say no is so badly compromised, the act is not really mutually consensual. Not in any meaningful way.
Is this really so hard to understand?
Gratitude
Does a purty tune help, Ill? T.L.C. nailed it. Read 100 repeatedly until you get it. Thanks cupcake.
Oh, right. Let’s change the laws of rape while we’re at it, so in addition to consenting, a woman has to be enthusiasically consenting. That Julian Assange, he won’t know what’s hit him!
And prostitutes? We’ll have to tape record them.
(mythbri, it’s actually 601 …)
illithid:
That’s quite possibly the stupidest thing you’ve said, and it’s entirely in keeping with the rest of your comments.
Please define “real lefties”. Preferably by reference to a sci-fi film.
Boy, you even suck at humor. But then, no wonder you are unemployed. You can’t think, can’t interact, can’t document, and have a bad attitude that the world is out to screw you personally. Well, with that attitude, it is. You are going to have to change your attitude if you want employment.
Wow!
Is that hole ever deep!
illithid,
And how about Black people in Britain?
Ever do it with someone who’s enthusiastically consenting? Let me tell you… it’s quite the experience.
And the Jews are such nice people….
@illithid #607 (or #107)
Nothing in my comment was intended to “change the laws of rape”. I was talking about enthusiastic consent. “Yes means yes.” My comment was reflective of the need to understand, as feralboy12 pointed out in #605, that there is a POWER imbalance between the two positions here. It was also meant to show you how disgustingly unethical it is to exploit someone in a position of weakness just so that you can get off. If you don’t know what the difference is between a woman in desperate circumstances trying to find a place to live, and a woman who freely and enthusiastically does sex work for a living, then you have some major problems.
Let me ask you this: what is so fucking distasteful to you about the idea of ONLY having sex with people who WANT to have sex with you?
Easy. Roddy Piper out of “They Live”. He’s a construction worker!
Because that means ‘nobody’, I’m assuming.
TLC
bwahahahahaah
/snort
My internet crush on you is growing. XD
It’s not disgustingly unethical unless you think women are entitled to free housing. Or sex is too sacred to be part of a quid pro quo understanding. But if you must know, I wasn’t even thinking in terms of quid pro quo. Now this is starting to get boring — let this be the end of it, says the patriarch. (“Patriarch” — I can’t call myself while keeping a straight face.)
Because raising children is not work.
@illithid #118
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!
You’re flouncing again? Somehow, I doubt it. It IS disgustingly unethical because you are taking advantage of someone else’s vulnerability. What if one of your male buddies was desperate enough to ask you for shelter? Would you get sex from him, too? If not, why is HE entitled to free housing?
By the way, I’m guessing that this is only “boring” for you because you’ve discovered some more things you don’t like about yourself. It is possible to change those things, you know. It just takes a lot of hard work.
Said Judge John Walford about a single parent father on welfare, who he called “the embodiment of welfare culture”, and was approvingly quoted by Britain’s second biggest-selling and first most fanatically bigoted newspaper (which incidentally has the highest female readership).
@illithid #621
*Shakes head* Terrible. 1/10, at most. See you in four years, if you qualify.
You, just now.
Hmmm:
Not quite the definition I was looking for, but possibly revealing.
Anyway, to clarify, I do think that looking after children is hard work. The problem is that it’s not a lifestyle that’s available to men. Stay-at-home men are given no respect and have even been called “the embodiment of welfare-dependent culture”.
Call this “patriarchy” if you want, but the indisputable fact of the situation is that women have the advantage in this regard. Calling it “patrarchy” doesn’t change the fact that staying at home to look after the children is currently only a realistic option for women and not men.
Nope, nothing but your inane and fuckwitted OPINION, not a cited fact, so *POOF* dismissed as fuckwittery, just like all your claims. You are one dismissed fucwit, as you have nothing standing, as all your straw has been blown away….
Jeez. Tell that to the stay-at-home-dad who lives across the road from me.
Anecdatum, I know, but still.
So your words don’t reflect your thoughts?
Like the respect you show to women raising children when you say things like “children of single mothers who weren’t working”?
You’re funny.
I meant paid work, which was clearly the relevant comparison. I’m not going to weigh everyone of my words when talking to adults on a blog of someone best known for his tactics of ridicule. Grow a thicker skin.
Now I’m starting to get tired.
Let’s just admit that I’ve won the debate.
@illithid #630
It’s hilarious that you think you’ve won a debate (which is wildly off-topic from the OP, by the way) without presenting coherent arguments and solid evidence of ANYTHING that you’ve asserted.
I think you’re tired because you’ve never gotten over your childhood envy of other people’s possessions, your current pushing-30 disillusionment of your life so far, and the unpleasant realities you’ve been confronted with. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your problems can be blamed on half the population, but wishing doesn’t make it so. If wishes were fishes we’d all have sushi.
I thought Ithilids were supposed to be smart
Not only have I gotten over it, I believe it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. With instant gratification, who knows how I’d have ended up. Maybe someone who struggles to think for ten sustained seconds and believes that working under horrible conditions with no opportunities for lateral movement means you’re specially privileged.
@illithid #633
Right. Now all you have to do is get over your massive entitlement issues, disdain for the aforementioned half of the population, and try developing some interpersonal skills. Then you’re golden.
There was no debate, unless you are willing to acknowledge you lost it due to lack of citations, and the pure unevidenced fuckdwittery you presented. At a science blog, citations are the key to winning a debate, and you provided essentially zilch to back up your claims. You statement is an attempt at humor, but a real life problem for you. It is out of place and inappropriate. Learn some people skills before you return, in five years or so…
Couldn’t be much worse than now. You lack people skills, are a bigot, and can’t get a job due to not getting along with people. Which when we hire, is really what we are looking for. The technical ability can be seen with resumes and phone interviews.
TLC:
Boom! :D
ill:
How is “sex for housing” not quid pro quo?
WORDS! WHAT DO THEY MEEEEEEEEEAN?
So… you’re taking back the awful things that you said about “welfare queens”?
Didn’t think so.
OH HA HAHAHAHAHAHA HA HA HA!
*snort!*
Oh you poor, deluded fool. Do you ever stop lying to yourself? That can’t possibly be healthy.
Because they’re acting like women.
you’re a slimy, predatory, creepy, disgusting rape-apologist, Illithid. While the others are busy trying to explain to you how to be a better person, I’m just gonna suggest that you go fuck a garbage disposal… I’m sure it’ll consent.
How exactly does this:
Jive with this:
Dude, it’s kind of pointless to lie to us when we can just scroll up to see what you said. Pointless and kind of pathetic. :(
The fact that policies that favor single parents benefit more women than men is solely because FAR MORE WOMEN THAN MEN END UP STUCK AS CUSTODIAL SINGLE PARENTS.
This is an example of a MASSIVE INEQUALITY against women.
To try and twist this into something that favors women is either utter stupidity or rank intellectual dishonest of the most despicable kind.
Illithid, you truly are a miserable specimen of a human being.
(Also, you’re a pretty shitty “leftist”, considering you’re so concerned with possessions and consumption.)
And Illithid? A little newsflash for you: consent is the BARE MINIMUM to be LEGAL. It is the LOWEST rung on the ladder below which you DO NOT QUALIFY as a free citizen and should be LOCKED UP.
“Decent human being” requires MORE than the bare minimum.
If a desperate woman offers sex in exchange for shelter, the transaction occurring between consenting adults makes the man not a criminal. It DOESN’T make him not a CREEP.
A decent human being in presented with that proposition offers help (whatever he can afford) and DECLINES the sex.
@ illithid;
This ground has already been covered by other commenters, but I think it bears repeating – consent is only a meaningful concept where it is free, informed and enthusiastic.
Consent is not merely an empty form of words, an ‘abracadabra’ that allows one to disengage one’s brain and stifle one’s conscience. The words mean nothing if they are acquired through coercion of any type. This is (or at least should be) obvious in cases where a woman was forced to consent out of fear of violence or the threat of violence, or where she is manipulated into consenting when her rational faculties have already been compromised by alcohol or other intoxicants.
However – and this is the part you seem to be missing – a power inbalance can also create a stituation where coercion effectively negates consent. If a woman feels that she has no other option, or no other acceptable option, than to consent, then that consent is worthless.
If “no” is not viable, then “yes” becomes meaningless.
If a man exploits that situation in order to maneuver a woman into sex she doesn’t really want but does not feel that she is in a position to refuse because peforming that act is required to procure something else she desperately needs, like shelter, then that man has ignored her lack of meaningful consent, and sex without consent is always rape, even in cases where it may be hard to prove in a court of law.
You argue that there is nothing wrong in exploiting a fundamental imbalance in power in a relationship in order to procure sex. This can credibly be viewed as rape apologia.
You have employed extreme examples, so I will too. Imagine a scenario where a peacekeeeper in a warzone exploits the local populace, or an aidworker in a disaster area decides to avail himself of the opportunities afforded by a desperate population in a disaster area, accepting sex from women in return for food, shelter or protection* – according to your argument, this should not be problematic if exploiting a power imblance in a relationship is OK.
I assume that you would not condone such behaviour in such circumstances, so why do you claim that a man exploiting a homeless woman’s desperation should be considered acceptable?
The very phrase quid pro quo implies a largely equal exchange – a transaction with a fair degree of parity between the parties involved. This is clearly not the case in the hypothetical situation of a homeless woman seeking shelter from a man who is prepared to offer it to her on condition that she have sex with him.
You are right; that is not a quid pro quo as the phrase is usually understood. That is treating a human being as a consumable commodity. It is sexual exploitation, pure and simple.
—————————————————————-
* It might be worth bearing in mind that neither one of these hypotheticals is exactly beyond the realm of possibility – there are numerous documented examples of both types occuring all over the world.
Before I forget, oaksterdam at 106 or 606, whichever it is: Thank you for the song. It really said exactly what was wrong with Illithid’s bullshit and seems more appropriate as the shithead keeps posting.
By exactly the same logic, prostitutes would be a no-go.
You’re free on Pharyngula to come up with your own “island morality”. The problem is that you have become the moral-philosophical version of the Dodo. A hilariously slow, bumbling, defenseless target.
the anti-logic in 145 breakz my mind
The truth is that I had a different sceario in mind where the girl was “game”, and I would never exploit a “fundamental power imbalance”. I’m always nice to women simply because they’re women. And so are most men. This does not fit the definition of having it tough.
By exactly the same logic, prostitutes would be a no-go.
no, I believe the implication there is that one would not NEED to prostitute onesself.
big difference.
You’re free on Pharyngula to come up with your own “island morality”.
today’s island is tomorrow’s continent.
all depends on which way the plates move.
Prostitution and sex work have their own set of problems and issues in today’s climate.
Suffice it to say, some women honestly don’t mind selling sex. So fucking what? A woman who actually makes her living via sex work is supporting herself, and not even in the same universe as a desperate poor woman fucking a guy for a place to stay.
Know what else? I’ve known women who’ve been in situations like that. Some of them were my friends. You shit on every last one of them by comparing them to your ‘welfare queen’ stereotype.
Seriously, when I think about the kind of shit some of them told me they went through, I’m really glad we’re not in the same room.
No you’re not
I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of your fuckwitted and perverted idea of “nice”. You can’t be nice.
the anti-logic in 145 breakz my mind
yes, it’s hard to be patient when teh stupid burns so warmly.
I’m trying.
I believe illboy actually is not attempting to troll, but is just ignorant and confused about the fact that there are a lot of people who don’t think like he does.
I could be wrong though.
And decent human beings in general frown upon men who use prostitutes, even while accepting that such is a legal practice that should not be disallowed.
Thank you for proving my point.
Really? You might be overselling that point.
You THINK you’re always nice to women.
But are you? ALWAYS?
And when you THINK you are being nice, is the MANNER in which you choose to TRY to be nice, REALLY nice? Always?
This is what unrecognized privilege means.
@illithid #145
Here’s something that you may not know, because it appears that you’ve never had good or meaningful sex (or at least cannot differentiate it from dead-eyed “quid pro quo”): women like sex, just like men do. They like it on THEIR own terms, just like men do. Some women freely and enthusiastically choose to have sex for a living – with clients that THEY choose, with limits that THEY negotiate. Some men do this also. When sex work is freely and enthusiastically chosen, and not coerced in any way, it has nothing to do with what you’re describing.
The only way that freely chosen sex-positive work is comparable to a woman going to someone in desperation for shelter or some means of survival is if YOUR attitude toward sex (at least for women) is negative. You speak as if enthusiastic sex is just as degrading to women coerced sex (and another name for that is…). You speak as if you believe that all women are “whores”. In fact, I’m frankly surprised you haven’t already come out and said it in those terms. You speak as if it is not possible for men and women to be equal sexual partners, because you’ve already indicated that you don’t consider men and women to be equal.
This is not “island morality”. This is being-a-decent-human-being reality.
It’s interesting that this “We don’t need heat” philosophy only comes into play when somebody draws attention to the injustice of having one class work outside exposed to the elements, with no compensation whatsoever, and having one class reside in warm rooms
I just noticed this.
wow, what a monstrously huge strawman!
I don’t think I have big enough buttons for the eyes on that one; might have to substitute a dinner plate.
OK, patience worn through.
I’m in the “not appropriate for honest discussion” mode now.
and this guy wouldn’t even be fun in the zombie pit.
That has been the case in my experience, given that the situations where prostitution would generally be considered fine (no power differential, no coercion, no desperation of poverty, free informed choice on the prostitute’s part, and so forth) currently exist in only a small minority of all cases.
Of course, my experience could quite easily turn out to be simply naive.
Haha!
Round one. FIGHT!
Round one. FIGHT!
yup, I’ve completely abandoned the idea this clown is honest about anything it says.
recommendation:
banhammer.
That was it.
….
…
AMPHIOX WINS…BANALITY
T.L.C.-
Aw, shucks. I’m just thrilled that I didn’t screw up a link for once.
Ill-
You are in a big, ugly hole. Stop digging. Please. You have moved from comical to frightening at a breakneck pace. If your output on this thread is any indication, your definition of “nice” is fucking scary.
Yawn, still showing us why you are unemployed fuckwit. Try learning to shut you yap before you embarrass yourself into the circular file…
@Ichthyic #660
Really, I think illithid only lasted this long due to PZ’s travel schedule. I’m ready for an illithid hammer-pancake as well.
@illithid #659
You might be surprised about this, too, but when two parties engage each other honestly in good faith, it’s possible to have a meaningful discussion in which the participants and observers learn things.
This is not the same thing as you chasing your tail in illogical circles.
Yes Mythbri, for instance, I initially disagreed with Amphiox a bit but he brought up some valid points. *tips beer mug*
I still think that ethical sex work is possible, but there are quite a few things society needs to get over first.
@Amphiox
Ready for round two? *pours tea*
To elaborate, not the least of which is the whole stigma surrounding sex workers which allows Illithid to make his snotty little assumptions and judgements.
A revealing statement, isn’t this?
Illithid, it appears, like most other trolls of its ilk, approaches discussion and debate as if it were a battle for dominance. The only goal is to make the other side submit to your higher testosterone titer.
It has no conception of the fact that honest discussion, including points of disagreement, is a cooperative venture that allows everyone to learn things and expand their own horizons of experience.
Really, I think illithid only lasted this long due to PZ’s travel schedule.
yeah, don’t know why I was being charitable. Now that my memory is returning (post coffee imbibing), I now recall him being horribly intellectually dishonest in every thread he’s posted in.
I guess I kept wondering whether it was actually intentional or not.
pretty clear it’s intentional now.
What kind of tea?
I’d throw a round for a good cup of chamomile.
But if it is Earl Grey, then you’re going down!
Though I must admit that I have never had the pleasure of having the opportunity to sample any truly high quality Earl Grey.
There are actually lots of things in this universe that I am rather naive about.
@ illithid;
Your entire scenario rests of the idea that the woman requires shelter and that the man in question will only provide it in return for sex – this seems like a fundamental power imbalance to me.
As for being ‘game’, the ambiguity of that phrase is troublesome. What amounts to being ‘game’? What behaviours indicate such ‘gameness’? Can a woman in distress, for instance when she is homeless, ever be considered to be ‘game’? This is treacherous ground at best, and can easily replicate the toxicity of the various tropes surrounding the idea of the woman who is just ‘asking for it’ by the way she dresses or acts.
Your repeated references to ‘welfare queens’ and your apparent belief that society is run as some kind of matriarchal shell-game rigged against men (despite all the evidence provided to the contrary) seems to stand at odds with this claim.
Perhaps you would be better served by respecting women, and all human beings, and concerning yourself with their welfare because they are people. Why should gender even be a factor, except in so far that our society’s attitude toward the respective genders may mean that men, women, and intersex and transexual individuals may face different types and levels of challenge in their day to day lives?
Notions of ‘niceness’ do not equate to respect or equal treatment. Infantalising women through the idea that they are shrinking violets too feeble to live in the real world and that must be protected from everything including their own autonomy may be intended to be ‘nice’, but is every bit as discriminatory as the attitude that all women are secretly untrustworthy, grasping, misandrist feminazis.
The existence of gendered ‘glass ceilings’ in most professions is uncontrovercial.
Wage and education inequality is commonplace across much of the world.
The ongoing political and cultural assault on female bodily autonomy – on the very idea of the full personhood of women (as opposed to treating them merely as living, ambulatory incubators) – is self evident to anyone who cares to open their eyes and look at the legislative agenda of any Red State in the US, and increasingly we hear similar rumblings amongst conservatives even in the UK.
The religious demonisation of ‘fallen’, ‘corrupting’ womanhood – of Eves and Liliths and Delialahs – is so ubiquitous among the vast majority of religions that it is a fixture of piety across the globe, and is used as a cudgel to beat women wherever its poison takes root.
The sexual commodification of women – from sex-slavery to forced marriage – is a blight that afflicts every culture and society to some degree.
In what way can any of this be considered to be women ‘having it easy’?
Fuck you. Game is the rabbits and bullfrogs I chase in the fields and swamps. Game is the deer killed last fall.
You are a predator. It takes one to recognize one, asshole. Difference is, I don’t prey on human beings.
I take this part back actually… everyone else seems to recognize you for what you are just fine.
You’re still an asshole though.
@Gregory Greenwood #172
“The religious demonisation of ‘fallen’, ‘corrupting’ womanhood – of Eves and Liliths and Delialahs – is so ubiquitous among the vast majority of religions that it is a fixture of piety across the globe, and is used as a cudgel to beat women wherever its poison takes root.”
YAYYYYY! Thank you, Gregory – now we’re back on-topic, a little. ;)
As your first statement indicates that you wouldn’t even recognize a “fundamental power imbalance” if it blew up in your face, your second statement is essentially irrelevant.
One droplet of respect is better than an ocean of niceness.
mythbri @ 175;
I would like to pretend that it was all part of my master plan to subtly nudge the conversation back on topic, but that would be a lie.
Still, one can’t really talk about the multitudinous ways in which society mistreats women without getting back to religion sooner or later, which seems to fatally hole David Sloan Wilson’s contention of the beneficial character of religion in its attitude toward women below the waterline…
I’m always nice to women simply because they’re women.
you know, this, by itself, epitomizes Ill’s unexamined privilege.
he thinks in terms of gallantry and false chivalry; these are the memes patriarchies are raised with to rationalize different treatment of women.
in his mind, these are only good things; not to be examined and analyzed as to whence they came, but accepted as proper behavior for a “gentleman”.
this is the quintessential nature of unexamined privilege.
maybe, someday, something someone said here will sink into his addled brain, and he WILL begin to think about what he really means when he says he is “always nice to women”.
or, more likely, someone reading this, right now, that hasn’t commented at all is now thinking about it.
@ Amphiox;
QFT.
*grumble* Drat it! These young ‘uns today… saying what I tried to say in one neat, well written sentence… *mutter*
This is what one inevitably ends up with when the founders and leaders of so many religions are so often sexually repressed men.
But it does get back to a idea I raised waaaay back at the beginning of this thread – is religion responsible for producing the patriarchy, or is it the patriarchy that produced religion?
One supports the other, but who initiated whom?
It is quite possible to respect someone, and be mean to them, disagree with them, insult them, yell at them, and so forth, but this too, is infinitely preferable to being “nice” to them all the time, setting them up on a pedestal (invariably locked in a guilded cage) and fawning over them like some kind of prized possession.
THIS IS WHY WE ARE UNABLE TO POSSES THINGS OF FINE QUALITY!
*smashes tea pot and runs away crying*
YOU MONSTER!
One supports the other, but who initiated whom?
I suspect the covariance is too tight to disentangle.
*smashes tea pot and runs away crying*
*sigh*
typical female, always getting overemotional over the littlest thing…
;)
this, from the idiot who things the Guardian is “far-left”
FIFM
TLC,
Agreed completely.
The Laughing Coyote,
Yeah, one of them’s pretty much absolute precariousness (being at the mercy of a single person in a very immediate fashion.) The presence of money’s not a negligible step up.
I notice that illithid‘s been presented with prostitution as a dangerous job very early in the thread. So, after having just pathetically handwaved it away he’s using sex work as a punchline?
Real unpleasant, jackass
Amphiox
It certainly seems plausible that they could have developed together, they are so intertwined … though superstitions and rituals might pre-date the increasingly rigid gender roles and family-as-possessions that are associated with the move from hunter-gathering to agriculture???? [disclaimer: no expertise in this area; hoping for input from those who know more about it]. Whatever the case may be, they are all over (and in) each other like white on rice now. Maybe if human civilisation survives another thousand years or so we will succeed in getting past this shit.
Assclam. You are supposed to be nice (as in the actual meaning of the word as opposed to your distorted vision of it) because they are PEOPLE. Fellow fucking humans!!
Q Amphiox FFT:
@ Amphiox;
I agree with Ichthyic and opposablethumbs – religion and patriarchy are now so closely linked to one another, so interdependent, that any discussion of one inevitably results in referencing the other.
It may be that creation mythologies and associated mystical beliefs developed first (given how ancient the earliest examples of such belief systems appear to be), but you can bet that some form of patriachy was hard on its heels.
A culture of absolute obedience to unearned authority* is fertile ground indeed for a system of patriarchy.
—————————————————————-
* Such as that fostered by a religion that identifies a cult of men as being somehow able to converse with an invisible, and otherwise undetectable, deity that conveniently says whatever they want it to…
No, it’s an idiom in the English language:
“Want a grab a coffee?”
“Sure, I’m game.”
Yes, and a torrent of invective on a personal level in response to any opinions which significantly depart from the consensus are not about dominance or testosterone titers.
Or they only exist as a sum over histories.
Or maybe you can actually pay attention to the arguments for why in first world countries patriarchy, however you define it, is on its last throes.
Pretending otherwise is a convenient tactic for making friends and influencing people, I have to admit. Kind of like religion used to be.
illithid:
Your rationalisation is not surprising, and neither is that you imagine invective somehow detracts from people’s arguments.
—
PS yes, game is an idiom, but the way you put scare quotes around it indicates you were not using it in its true sense, and given the drift of your example pretty clearly you were using it in a salacious sense; again, you’ve notably ignored the substantive arguments put to you why your viewpoint is odious to others to dispute a triviality (and you’ve done it poorly, unsurprisingly).
No fuckwit, they are about your lack of citations to back up your claims that go against reality. You are the one with the testosterone problem. You can’t put up, and you can’t stand being brought up short because of your failing to provide solid evidence. So you try to intimidate via repetition and irrational goalpost shifting instead of rational evidenced argument where the possibility you could be wrong exists. If you can’t be wrong, you are preaching.
I have a question that you should be asking yourself. What was your original goal posting here, and how are you doing in reaching that goal? If you meant to have your say, you have done so and can leave at any time. If you meant to convince us, lead with evidence, not your OPINION, as you are failing to convince us on any of your bogus claims.
Yeeees of course it is dear. That’s why women make up very roughly half of all leading first world political and economic figures, media owners etc. That’s why there’s no such thing as rape culture in the first world any more, and that’s why if someone says “she was asking for it, dressed like that” they get reviled and laughed out of court (hint: they should but they don’t). That’s why men routinely take paternity leave and enjoy taking equal responsibility for their own kids’ everyday needs and for the housework in their own homes. Oh, except on average they don’t, do they?
In short, what a load of bollocks.
You don’t see it because you’re in it up to your eyeballs you tosser.
And before you get all whiny again, remember we were the ones to point out that patriarchy hurts men too.
Idiot.
It is taking a very long time to die.
As Grandpappy Ing used to say ” a headless rattlesnake can stiil bite”
The patriarchy is not dying a natural death. If it is on its “last” legs, it is only because decent people who care about women have been dedicatedly pitch forking it continuously. If we take our foot off it’s throat now, it will recover to full strength. And it is people like you, Illithid, with your blindness to privilege, who represent the “last” gasps that must be relentlessly stamped out if this monster is to be finally, permanently, eliminated.
Which could be changed practically overnight if women were to stop rewarding men with admiration and sexual attention for gaining power and wealth.
Hah. I smell Nice Guy(tm) frustration.
o.O
O.o
What planet do you live on?
Whaaaaaaa!!!! It’s all the nassssty womenz fault for making the menz behave badly!!!! They made us do it!!!!! We just can’t help ourselves!
Now if only all those serfs/slaves/indentured labourers throughout history had stopped rewarding landowners with labour and produce for gaining power and wealth … why, they could have done away with class oppression practically overnight! Damn labourers, they made the landowners do it! (what do you mean the labourers would be made to suffer for getting out of line if they didn’t knuckle under? Don’t be silly, the people who actually wield power can’t possibly be to blame in any way! And of course they never actually enforce the status quo!)
JAL,
I bet he has PUA literature on his nightstand.
@illithid #800 (#200)
Dude, are you back again? If you want to re-hash arguments that you’ve already lost (and will continue to lose, because you’re wrong and you don’t provide evidence or citations to support your assertions), how about you go ahead and answer my question from comment #620/#120:
“What if one of your male buddies was desperate enough to ask you for shelter? Would you get sex from him, too? If not, why is HE entitled to free housing?”
Well, how about it, ill? One of your mates needs a place to crash. Do you get sex from him or not? If not, why the double standard about people being entitled free housing?
And if you were NOT thinking of a “quid pro quo” scenario (which Gregory Greenwood already explained in detail that this wouldn’t be the case anyway), you did a piss-poor job of communicating that.
@ illithid;
I do not think that women weild the kind of power that you think they do. It is society – social norms replicated and enforced by both men and women – that reward the accrual of wealth and power over ethical behaviour. The system is broken, and it will not be fixed by trying to shunt all the blame onto one of the groups that form the principle victims of that system’s iniquity.
To people like him, women possess teh secks, and teh secks = teh power.
You know, as a woman, I keep a stack of fuck stashed away in my closet and all men who want a piece of it need to do my bidding, mwahaha! *ebbil laught*
And why exactly do you think women reward men with admiration and sexual attention when they gain power and wealth? Because the patriarchy has conditioned them from earliest childhood to believe this is what they should do. Because the patriarchy sets up the situation in which someimes this is what they must do in order to survive or advance themselves or their children.
The way to change this situation “overnight” is to remove the patriarchy. It is the ONLY way this situation can be changed.
And why shouldn’t women who wish to be allowed to reward men who gain power and wealth with admiration and sexual attention?
Who are you, Illithid, to tell women who they should admire and who they should give sexual attention to? Who are you, to seek to restrict women’s FREEDOM in this manner? Who are you to suggest that women’s very THOUGHTS should be controlled in this manner?
Once again you are blaming women, and suggesting as a solution a LIMITATION of women’s freedom.
And you claim you are “nice” to women. What a hypocrite you reveal yourself to be.
(And anthropological studies make it quite clear that the PRIMARY motivation for men to seek power and wealth is to exert dominance over OTHER MEN. Admiration and sexual attention from women is only a secondary consideration. You can remove that entirely and the problem will not go away.)
You have to admit the extra-credit level douchosity in blaming women. Patriarchy forced women to have precious few ways of making a living, and now it’s women’s fault that alpha males get laid? We weren’t allowed to own property, inherit from our parents, vote, get an education, etc etc and its our fault even now there are women looking for a wealthy mate?
And even now that we’re not tied to the kitchen sink continuously pregnant, we still get paid less for the same work, get charged more for health care (and basically everything else outside of auto insurance), suffer the penalties for having kids, and then, of course, do the vast majority of child care and its’ still OUR fault?
Can’t win for losing, can we.
Of course they’re fucking allowed to. The whole point is that if they’re going to reward men for being rich and powerful, then they’re providing every incentive for men to get rich and powerful. Patriarchy must be what women desire, or otherwise they would not encourage men to be more powerful than them.
If women are serious about getting rid of patriarchy, the first step to take would be to not make income one of the main criteria for a sutable mate on dating websites. Which is provably what women do.
What a fuckwitted idjit. Most women marry men who aren’t rich and powerful. They marry someone who likes them, appears to treat them well, and who they feel they can rely on if they have kids. Which does mean the man should be able to either earn a living, or stay home with the kids. Only a few women are golddiggers who will only marry someone rich and powerful. And yes, women do prefer men who make comparable to what they do, a real problem in latino and black communities her in the US. Your complaints are *POOF*, dismissed for the self-serving fuckwittery they are, inconsistent with reality.
@illithid #211
That was laughably stupid, even for you. Why not claim that women who are abused by their partners are secretly masochists, and enjoy being abused? Why not claim that victims of rape actually enjoyed themselves, and therefore were not actually raped? Why not claim that women enjoy housework and childcare and therefore don’t need or deserve equal opportunities?
You are the equivalent (and I’m paraphrasing from another blogger here, can’t remember who) of a guy who walks into a graduate philosophy course at the end of the academic year, when the final grades are being handed out, says “Hey guys! Did you ever think that the color blue YOU see isn’t the same color blue I see?” Then you sit there with a smug-ass grin on your face like you’ve just blown everybody’s mind, and expect to pass the class with flying colors. This shit that you’re saying has already been said, and has been studied and refuted by people much smarter than you.
Still waiting for an answer to my question.
@ keenacat;
Leaving aside the obvious ‘it takes two to tango’ reference, the idea that sex = power has never made any sense. Throughout history, and continuing until today all over the world, women (and their sexuality) have been viewed as commodities to be possessed, controlled and traded by men.
In such a toxic environment, claiming that women control sex and thus have the power in society is like saying that cows control the milk, and thus cows have power over farmers – it just doesn’t follow.
That anyone would try to invert that obvious, dehumanising inequality to use as a figurative cudgel to beat women with defies belief.
Is the stash labeled “Emergency sex supply – in case of extended dry spell, break glass”?
And now I have an image in my mind of a bond-villain-esque secret volcano base (guarded by elite, kung-fu feminazis, naturally) where Goldfinger’s sister, having contaminated most of the world’s sex with feminist cooties, has hoarded the world’s entire remaining supply of sex so that she can extort the planet’s governments to the tune of *Dr Evil voice* one million dollars! */Dr Evil voice*…
What mythbri wrote:
What illithid read:
I’m speculating, of course, but it’s the only explanation I can come up with for their behavior.
“if women are serious about getting rid of patriarchy”
That just about says it all about Illithid. Yet another demonstration of his unrecognized privilege and his continued refusal to even TRY to recognize it. It’s not his problem. Just the women’s. He, or any other man, has no responsibility at all. None whatsoever. It’s all on the gals to change their behaviors, while he remains free to live and waste his wholly unexpired life. Truly pathetic.
The patriarchy is an enemy of ALL decent and fair minded people. Aside from the fact that we men have mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, and lovers who are women, PATRIACHY HURTS MEN TOO.
Because that would be illogical. They’re not seeking out rapists, they are seeking out men who are more wealthy and powerful than them.
Yes, because the Department of Women’s Studies is renowned for the formidable profundity of its theories and the supreme technical virtuosity of its methods.
Learn to think for yourself for a change instead of relying on tribal elders.
“unexpired” should be “unexamined”
So let’s make a start by getting women on dating websites and elsewhere to restrict themselves to innocuous characteristics like intelligence, personality and physical attractiveness, instead of income and status.
Amphiox
Illithid, you idiot, you haven’t even bothered to read have you?
You just want to make it all women’s sole responsibility – of course the poor poor menz have nothing to do with this …
“those who are in
ideologypatriarchy believe themselves by definition outsideideologypatriarchy” – the fish is not aware of the water in which it swims.Mind you, this fish wouldn’t see the water in front of its fins if you hit it upside the gills with a wet halibut.
I thought initially that you were just wildly wrong; now I see that you are wildly wrong, malicious, splenetic, envious and STUPID.
Why? They are asked to give what they would like, not what they would settle for (usually not what they ask for). Who gives a shit what they post, as most marriages will come from your circle of mutual friends? Really, you missed the point. Why do I keep getting the feeling you are looking for sugarmommie.
illithid,
And how about Black people in Britain?
Right. The first step to eliminating the patriarchy is to regulate the behavior of women. Only then will they truly be free.</snark
Ill waaaaay back at 193:
If patriarchy is in it’s last throes, why in the hell are we still fighting for abortion rights and contraception?? Shouldn’t we expect to have more access, not less?
You say this like it’s an established principle of science. Even though I can instantly think of a hundred possible confounding factors which would such a demonstration very, very difficult. What evidence do you have, experimental and theoretical, for being so confident that this hypothesis is true?
Why don’t you back up your own assertions before demanding evidence from others you utter lackwit.
@illithid #217
Oh, so now only Women’s Studies study anything about women? Has the entire field of anthropology become MANthropology (yes, I know – that was awful. No more puns for me :P)? When sociologists do studies, they study only men? How about psychologists?
I’m still waiting for an answer to my question. I’ll repeat here, just in case the third time’s the charm:
“What if one of your male buddies was desperate enough to ask you for shelter? Would you get sex from him, too? If not, why is HE entitled to free housing?”
You first on evidence. Each and every fuckwitted allegation….Or shut the fuck up….
Backing up my assertions is what I’ve been doing the entire fucking thread, you unthinking numbskull. For every empirical claim I was challenged on I provided links and other evidence. The fact that you think the “default hypothesis” is the one favourable to the consensus on this blog shows that you don’t have the first clue about what it means to be a free-thinker…as opposed to someone who relies on being spoon-fed opinions by the ringleaders of whatever community he happens to wander into.
No
@illithid #230
*Falls over laughing*
If I recall, you provided one or two links to the Guardian. That’s rigorous documentation right there.
Still waiting.
Backing up my assertions is what I’ve been doing the entire fucking thread
is that what you call what you’ve been doing?
huh.
For every empirical claim
you really don’t understand what the word empirical means, even when paired with the qualifier “claim”.
suggest you drop the words entirely to make your statement accurate.
you’re a dishonest, thoughtless, ignorant, git, who wouldn’t know anything about real world data if it was written on the back of your fucking hand.
So let’s make a start by getting women on dating websites and elsewhere to restrict themselves to innocuous characteristics like intelligence, personality and physical attractiveness, instead of income and status.
translation:
“The women online all intimidate me”
The scene from Cabaret was especially convincing.
Gregory,
OMG that is like, the perfect symbolism! I heart you so much right now. I might even share some of the fuck stack.
You owe me a new keyboard and a new glass of decent white wine, because mine met through procurance of my nose.
.
Says the fuckwit ruminating MRA talking point. Riiiiight that is so totally not hypocritical at all.
It’s not even worth dignifying with an acknowledgement, but here goes. The woman in question in my scenario was a perfect stranger, not a friend. Unless you think women have a free pass to receiving the exact same treatment from people they’ve never met that would normally be bestowed on friends, then your question makes no sense.
I don’t know what planet you’re living on, but on this one only a minority would, under ordinary circumstnaces, open their apartments to people they’ve never met. Maybe I would, but it’s absurd for you to act like taking in a stranger is the bare minimum required for common decency.
I wasn’t even imagining someone who’s desperate for shelter, anyway. I was just saying that my first instinct wouldn’t be to say No to an attractive girl if she asks to move in. If you genuinely doubt that the majority of single men would react the same way, then you don’t know anything.
Because it’s only been a few times that anyone has requested evidence of this or that statistic. The data I allude to can usually be obtained from a simple Google search.
There was nothing wrong with linking to the Guardian, when you just had to click another link to take yourself to the original source. If you were serious, that’s what you’d do; if you were full of shit, you’d pick nits.
@illithid #237
Thanks for the response. When you clarified that the attractive woman you mentioned in your scenario was a stranger originally, and The Laughing Coyote told you this:
“Provided she was someone who I didn’t know at all, who just came up to me out of the blue and made such an offer, I’d turn it down.”
You responded with this:
“Well then, you’re unusual. Most men would consent to having sex with an attractive girl even if it’s a perfect stranger. Exactly that experiment was done by Clark and Hatfield. Not that anyone but a batshit insane, feminist fundamentalist fruitcake would have seriously found it hard to believe.”
Then you said this:
“I don’t know what planet you’re living on, but on this one only a minority would, under ordinary circumstnaces, open their apartments to people they’ve never met. Maybe I would, but it’s absurd for you to act like taking in a stranger is the bare minimum required for common decency.”
What you conveniently skipped over (and was the crux of my question) was the little matter of requiring sex as payment for providing shelter. What I meant was that all things being equal, whether the people in question are friends with you or perfect strangers, would you require sex from a woman in return for providing her with shelter? If you took in a man, would you require sex from him in return with providing him with shelter?
You asked why women would think that they’re “entitled to free housing”. I assumed you meant that was a “quid pro quo” relationship. Now I’m asking YOU: in this fictional scenario of yours, why are men entitled to free housing?
illithid,
And how about Black people in Britain?
@illithid #238
Ah, I see. So if YOU’RE skeptical of someone else’s assertion, they need to provide evidence. If someone else is skeptical of YOUR assertion, they just need to Google it.
Thanks for the clarification. One person here is full of shit.
I don’t know what planet you’re living on
have you ever even, for a second, considered that maybe you’re the one standing on the very tiny planet?
of course not.
you live the perfect unexamined life.
you’ll never be able to figure out why intelligent women intimidate you, why you have trouble socializing or getting dates, or even jobs.
you’ll always blame it on the lefties, or the liberals, or the feminists, or the government…
anybody but yourself.
sad.
ॐ
I get the feeling that illithid is not reading your comments.
Let them eat cake! Is that the answer that you want to hear?
Seriously, though, why would you expect me to list all communities that were affected by the loss of industralism? I mentioned African-Americans only because they’re familiar to American commenters. I then gave some other examples to show that the phenomenon has impacted communities of both races. Of course black people in Britain were affected.
You dishonest fuck. Ive read this entire thread and Nerd of Redhead (among others) has challenged you to provide evidence for nearly every single claim you’ve made(and you have made a lot of fuckwitted ass claims) and yet you said that there was only a few instances where someone requested evidence. Oh, and don’t tell us to go google it ourselves because YOU were the one who made the claim so the burden on proof is on you. If everyone here googled to search for evidence for every stupid ass claim made from creationist/MRA/PUA/Anti-vaccine/homeopath or whatever other stupid shit, then everyone would have wasted a lot of time finding shit that might not actually exist.
The responsibility to provide citations/evidence is YOURS. To echo what Nerd has said repeatedly on here “put up or shut the fuck up”.
Let them eat cake! Is that the answer that you want to hear?
no, because it’s entirely irrelevant, fuckwit.
useless troll is useless.
repeating vote for banhammer.
He always does that, even when the request is out of context because the argument I’m making is analytical, not empirical. The truth is that I don’t pay any attention to any of his posts. He’s just background noise which I’ve stopped noticing.
But let’s not muddy the water. If there’s some empirical claims you’d like me to back up, what are they?
illithid,
Perhaps you missed the context of my question. I’ll try again.
And how about Black people in Britain, what do you judge the level of their work ethic to be, “one of the very highest”, or otherwise?
I don’t think almost any community in the West any longer has a very impressive work ethic — using a comparison which could be either global or historical. The decline of industry killed work ethic. But sure, they used to be grafters, like all of the working classes.
@illithid
You know, you remind me of one of those horrible drivers. The ones who veer too close to the sides of the lanes, who don’t look before making turns, who obliviously pull out in front of other people.
You know, the kind that decides that there just happens to be car horns honking wherever they go, and doesn’t believe it has anything to do with them.
Illuminating. As Nerd is as “regular” as the regulars get around these parts, could you please tell me what the fuck you’re trying to accomplish here?
ALL arguments are empirical, you fool. When you make an ” analytical” argument, you must provide empirical citations of the numbers, values, and starting assumptions you are using in your “analytical” argument, to demonstrated that you haven’t just constructed an elaborate castle on quicksand. Without that foundation, your “analytical argument” is nothing more than fanfiction and is no more relevant to anything worth discussing.
@ keenacat;
Now, what response should I give in order to fit with the ludicrous MRA trope that men who embrace feminism are simply being mindlessly obedient in order to get teh secks from teh femi-chicks?
Ah, I have it…
It was love at first sight, I take it…?
:-P
No, not really. If I give an argument based on assumptions that nobody disputes, then it makes sense to call it an analytical argument. Asking for “citations” is meaningless unless you dispute the initial assumption that nobody would contest — which is usually not what Nerd is doing. Rather, he’s asking for citations to affirm the derived truth. Which is out of context.
Again, if there’s any empirical claims that you’d like me to substantiate, what are they?
Indeed. Oh, wait… Can I see your payroll first?
@illithid
Well, since you’re asking:
-The number of people who defraud government assistance systems, broken down by race and gender (and sexual orientation – why not?)
-The number of women claim to sleep with men just to have a place to live
-The number of women who require a certain amount of income for potential romantic partners, with the income amounts broken down into subcategories
-The number of women claim to reward rich and/or powerful men with sex
-The number of men who cite sexual rewards as their primary motivation for becoming rich and/or powerful
-A complete list of every skill you consider to be “soft”, with accompanying evidence demonstrating how each one is useless in its own way
That’s all I can think of right now – there are more, I’m sure. But this should give you enough to start with.
@ keenacat;
On a first date? I’m not that kind of guy!
And this is how we know you’re a troll who is not engaging in discussion honestly.
The nature of Nerd’s posts are quite deliberate. People who are willing to engage in honest discussion will see past the tone and recognize the substance, and respond accordingly when he asks for evidence.
Dishonest trolls, like you, will harp about tone and evade his questions.
And when someone ASKS you for a citation regarding your assumptions, then that, DE FACTO, means your argument is NOT based on assumptions that nobody disputes, BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS JUST DISPUTED IT.
And if you do not answer the disputation of the assumption, then you HAVE NO ARGUMENT.
Is there flagrant de facto occurring in this thread?
;-)
Louis
No, you fool, that is EXACTLY what Nerd is doing.
The act of asking for a citation is an IMPLICIT demand to demonstrate your assumptions. When someone asks for a citation, IT MEANS THEY ARE DISPUTING YOUR INITIAL ASSUMPTION.
And you have not many any assumptions of any significance that “nobody would contest”. You have not uttered a single sentence here that numerous people are contesting.
And you have not supported ANY of your assumptions with any evidence to suggest you even know what you are talking about, let alone to suggest that we should take anything you say seriously in any way at all.
I didn’t mention anything about race or sexual orientation. Otherwise, my argument only rested on how easy it is for single mothers to lie about whether they receive an income from a partner.
I didn’t say that there do. I said they have the ability. Quite a different claim.
If you seriously dispute that women on dating websites care about income, see “What Makes You Click: An Empirical Analysis of Online Dating” (Hitsch et al, 2005), published by researchers from MIT and University of Chicago.
See above. One finding was that a man in the bottom 10% of looks suddenly becomes preferable to a man in the top 10% if he’s earning over a certain amount. Men were indifferent about income. It would seem that the majority of women are rewarding rich and powerful men.
It’s surely some part of the motivation — the negation of this is tantamount to denying that men want sex. As for it being the primary motivation: I have no idea, and I’d like to see the evidence.
No. I’ve already gone over this.
I can’t believe how much time I’ve wasted here.
Then leave? Pretty please?
The REAL problem with the patriarchy, is that no one wants to do the Bonobo Dance with poor widdle Illithid.
I can think of several things that will consent to you sticking your penis in them: The aforementioned garbage disposal, a food processor, a light socket, the fan belt in a car engine…
I can’t believe how much time I’ve wasted here.
the only accurate thing you’ve said since your arrival.
Is there flagrant de facto occurring in this thread?
or is it a de fecto?
You motherfucking moron. Everyone has been fucking disputing every goddamn thing you have said! That’s the whole point of all these comments.
Just because the other dood bros you hand out with agree with your sexist shit doesn’t mean everyone accepts it. Welcome to the Internet, you are fucking wrong!
Men ALSO have that ability. YOUR implicit claim is that this is somehow an unfair advantage to WOMEN, which requires QUITE A BIT MORE than just “having the ability”.
One of your two statements is a blatant lie. Which is it?
Again, this is EXACTLY what you implied earlier. It was the PRIMARY THRUST of your argument. So either your last argument was poorly thought out, lazy crap on your part, or you are, here, lying again.
Which is it?
YET ANOTHER demand to restrict women’s options, limit their freedoms, and dictate to them how they should think, feel, and act.
And Illithid still claims to be “nice” to women.
Pitiful.
And the fact that the REASON for this is due to the patriarchy indoctrinating women to think and act this way, and deliberately creating social circumstances in which women are encouraged to act this way, and punished if they are not, continues to fly completely over Illithid’s privileged head.
Supposing that you’re serious…there might be a few men that manage to use their sexual capital to gain financial security. It’s nowhere near as ubiquitous a phenomenon as the one I mentioned. You can see the paper I referred to which confirms that in sexual relations money is a factor which influences men far less than women.
Neither. All it would mean is that I went too far with one particular sentence, about ending patriarchy “overnight”. I should have said “This will go a long way toward this goal.” The desire for men to attract women is surely quite strong, even if it doesn’t amount to their primary motivation for seeking power (and so far I see no reason whatsoever to believe that any of your unsubstantiated claims in this capacity).
illithid,
1) What do you judge what do you judge black people in Britain’s level of work ethic to have been prior to that?
2) In comparison relative to white people in Britain today, what do you judge black people in Britain’s level of work ethic to be now? Higher? Lower? About how much?
@illithid #273
“It’s nowhere near as ubiquitous a phenomenon as the one I mentioned.”
This would be the citation that I ASKED you for. You state that women abusing government assistance by lying about having partners that support them financially (in exchange for sex, as you keep saying) is “ubiquitous” (and also a phenomenon, which seems to be contradictory).
If, as you say, women abuse the system ubiquitously, YOU NEED TO PROVIDE A CITATION TO BACK UP YOUR CLAIM. CITATION FUCKING NEEDED. This doesn’t mean you saying “My childhood friends’ moms were totes single and on the dole and they had super nice stuff, while I didn’t.”
This means you provide numbers from reputable sources. In case this isn’t clear to you, you just made an assertion that I am challenging. You must provide evidence to prove that what you say is true. This is what EVERYONE has been asking you for.
Ah little turtle, I’m so hurt that you never answered any of my questions or arguments from earlier on. You never provided the statistics showing that men’s jobs are dangerous, that the number of men in dangerous jobs is significant compared to women in dangerous jobs, that men are more often impoverished, that there is no real wage gap, that men are more heavily hit by homelessness, rape, and unemployment than women. You haven’t listed all the terrible things that happen to men because they are men as opposed to because they are human beings. You haven’t proven that single mothers are eligible for benefits besides those that support children or, alternatively, that your species lays eggs and that welfare payments for children are wasteful. You haven’t explained the contradictions in your arguments that I raised in 270 and 309. You haven’t explained why it’s impossible for men to learn the soft skills that employers want. Etc.
I even provided you with statistics. Real ones, not Guardian articles.
No love?
I am gratified though to see that you’ve decided to take my advice and change tactics from “wimmenz are getting all the monies!” to “women have teh sex and won’t give it to me!”. That first bit was an obvious loser and I suppose you’ve figured that out by now.
Which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with my point that was quoted.
So either you cannot read for understanding worth beans, Illithid, or you are lying, yet again.
Which is it?
In other words, your last argument was poorly thought out, lazy crap on your part, and you’ve just been caught lying, yet again.
Actually, I did provide some of those statistics, such as on homelessness and how women in their twenties are higher paid than men in the same age group.
The others can be found immediately from the most cursory Google search, so I can only judge that you aren’t serious. For instance, here’s a list of the most dangerous jobs in America by fatal work injury rate. Fisherman, logging workers, airline pilots and flight engineers, farmers and ranchers, mining machine operators, roofers, sanitation workers, truck drivers and delivery workers, industrial machine workers, police officers. Almost all of them highly male-dominated professions, as you can see by referring to the data I gave earlier about gender representation in professions.
The fact that the you would ask me for evidence to support the common piece of knowledge that men have faced higher rates of unemployment throughout the recession only proves that you haven’t been paying attention to this “economy” thing. A mere trifle compared with the horror, the unspeakable horror, of Rebecca Watson being invited for a cup of coffee in an elavator.
So instead of merely being mistaken, I’m lying. This is pretty much the smoking gun proof that you have no interest in engaging in honest debate.
And you do? Where’s your evidence for the bullshit you keep spewing? If you were interested in honest debate, then you’d be debating honestly, instead of pulling shit out of your rectum and shifting the goalposts every time your bullshit is shown to be pure bovine excrement.
Back on this strawman again? The real statistics were linked to WITHIN the Guardian articles. I only provided a link to the Guardian to establish context, which I quite innocently thought was better than linking directly to tables of statistics. Anyone who was serious about seeing the original source could have spent a second by clicking on the link provided by the Guardian.
Cheap debating tactics like these really go to show that you have no interest, ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST, in hearing the relevant arguments. You show yourself to be about as discerning a critical thinker as Kent Hovind. Which means no discernment whatsoever. You show yourself to be someone who relies on being spoonfed opinions by a community like the rest of the human race. Genuine free-thinkers have always been individuals — never part of a “critical thinking community”.
@illithid
Your assertion that women are ubiquitously abusing the welfare system by lying about having partners that furnish them with money in exchange for sex is STILL CHALLENGED. By me. Judging by how long it took you to answer my last question, I’ll expect your response about fifty comments from now. Or sooner, if you have the numbers.
And when you make assertions that turn out to be false and don’t own up to your mistakes, then what else can people think but that you were lying and hoping not to be caught out?
illithid, your sloppiness shows.
When responding to “You never provided the statistics showing that [1] men’s jobs are dangerous, [2] that the number of men in dangerous jobs is significant compared to women in dangerous jobs, [3] that men are more often impoverished, that there is no real wage gap, [4] that men are more heavily hit by homelessness, [5] rape, and [6] unemployment than women.”, you cite a supporting citation for some function of 1 and 2 and implications to 6.
Apparently for the others you cannot adduce evidence, and cite a reason that’s simply refuted via the concept of participation rate.
I note that your link does at least contain citations, and the relevant data is here.
(Under what category are sex workers classified?)
Well that’s heartening. Out of all the assertions I’ve made, the one that’s still challenged is the one which is completely immaterial to every major concern I’ve raised in this thread.
There are no reliable statistics on welfare scammers. Simply put, if they could all be identified then they would be caught, and they wouldn’t be welfare scammers any longer.
What we can say is that women — by means of the principle that’s previously been established with respect to women attaching greater weight to the financial aspect in their choice of sexual partners — disproportionately receive an income from their partners. For this income to supplement their welfare payments, all they have to do is to declare No to the question of whether they have a partner permanently living at their address. There’s thus a big sex asymmetry in how easy it is to cheat on welfare. That’s the point I was making.
Nope, your OPINION backs up nothing. Try evidence from Google Scholar, or shut the fuck up. Besides, all unevidenced assertions, which are all of them, are *POOF* dismissed as fuckwitted OPINION from a bigot, loser, nonthinker, and a misogynist fascist.
illithid:
We can say that? Through which principle?
One does not necessarily follow from the other. Nor does your implication that females scam welfare more than men seem substantiated. It really just seems to be your own biases at play here, without any substantial research backing you up.
Also, it’s really good to see all those women on welfare hooking up with all those rich guys.
Irrelevant factoids, which is why we want the primary data, not your interpretation there of. Funny how liberturds and creationists love quote-mining and other forms of lying about what a source says. Then we hang them with their own source by actually reading not only what it says, but the general tenor and theme. Put up or shut the fuck up. You are nothing but a liar and bullshitter until you do so….
Work ethic is an anti-capitalist scam to convince workers to give in more effort than they are compensated for.
illithid:
Also, too, you kids get off my lawn! I shake my fist at you!
@illithid #285
The only reason I pinned you down to that particular assertion is because you re-iterated it shortly after your assertion that you’ve been citing sources for every claim you’ve made in this thread. Since this has been clearly demonstrated to be a false claim, and I doubt it’s due to an innocent mistake on your part, I must consider it a lie. And it seems that the only way to get you to provide citations for specific assertions you make (among the many) is to needle at you until you get enough to either provide one, or admit that you cannot.
For the record, you’ve just admitted that you cannot. Therefore, I will take a HEAPING HELPING of salt with your assertion that this abuse of welfare is ubiquitous but unsubstantiated because we wouldn’t know about it unless they were caught doing it. I can just as easily assert that there is a cabal of ninjas following you about your day. There’s no way for you to disprove that – if they were seen, they wouldn’t be ninjas.
Your previous citation was a study of ONLINE DATING. Not relationships of those in poverty who seek government assistance. You are making a false extrapolation based on your assumption that because SOME women place a high importance on the amount of income their potential partners have, then ALL women in ALL demographics must do the same. I require you to substantiate this claim, or it will be dismissed along with all the other claims you’ve made.
As Amphiox already made clear to you, the loophole that you pointed out as a means of exploiting the welfare system is one that can be utilized by ANYONE, not women specifically. There is no reason not to believe that if single dads on welfare were as numerous as single moms on welfare that they would not exploit it at the same rate. Do you not think that there are men with low incomes that are in relationships with women with high incomes? It’s just as possible as the reverse, which you keep asserting.
The only reason that there IS an asymmetry in POTENTIAL exploitation of the welfare system is because women general have custody of their children after a separation or divorce. The fact that there are MORE women who might need to take government assistance is NOT an example of privilege. I would think that it indicates the opposite.
Ah the good old days when people worked themselves to death to pay off their debt to the company with no chance of upward mobility.
Im imagining Illithid dressed as a Pinkerton now.
Shocking how you can still be so dumb with a +4 racial bonus…but he got the Lawful Evil part right.
Ing:
That’s pretty easy to pull off with to Vorpal Blade of Misogyny, though.
“The Vorpal Blade,” not “to Vorpal Blade.”
Obviously.
Ing,
You mean a capitalist scam? Alternately, an anti-worker scam?
+++++
Hey illithid,
1) What do you judge what do you judge black people in Britain’s level of work ethic to have been prior to that?
2) In comparison relative to white people in Britain today, what do you judge black people in Britain’s level of work ethic to be now? Higher? Lower? About how much?
@Nigel
Fortunately I have my own Artifact of Legend to counter it. The Strapon Chainsaw Dildo of Feminism: +5 damage to sexist assholes.
Technically, yes. I was doing a “this is asking something for nothing therefore it is socialism” snark. It’s basically the secular “slaves obey your masters”
Ing:
*snerf*
That pretty much ends me for tonight. I need a new keyboard. This’n ain’t gonna last much longer with the porter I just sprayed.
Also, too, I look forward to seeing your artifact in action. Again. I really really do. It’s such a joy to behold.
Also, as far as this “work ethic” thing goes, I’d rather have one intelligent lazy person than a dozen diligent people of common intelligence. I’ve spent half my time this week cleaning up after one very hard-working, not-so-bright (though not stupid) cow-orker.
I could’ve had my own projects completed if I weren’t doing someone else’s job.
And I’m a lazy fuck.
Oh I believe in hard work of course and giving it my best effort. But if you’re good at something you don’t do it for free and you get what you pay for. After being fucking abused by current job and being the chew toy despite working myself into sickenss and driving into work on weekends, holidays, and HURRICANES THAT OCCUR ON WEEKEND HOLIDAYS…only to still get shat on for not being “loyal” enough: I learned my lesson.
Which comedian did the joke that if you want to find a better way to do something give the job to a lazy guy?
Ill:
Do you actually know any women? Or, hell, rich and powerful men? Or are you just whining ‘cos woman aren’t sexing you like you think they should be?
Fuck those “single moms”, right? It’s not like they’re the most impoverished group or anything.
How do we know this? How do you know that women are gaming the system?
Because they are women!
Ing:
Well, duh. Are there any citations to back up women’s greedy, greedy nature, though?
Ing @300 :
That’s a lesson I’ve learned too.
Those who don’t tend to pay a stiff price.
If you always say yes, they’ll fuck you up on the single day you have to say no.
If you let them use you they’ll do it until you break, dump you, and get a shiny new one.
I am now clear on my “work ethic” : don’t work a single minute for free, and always go to the highest bidder.
Loyalty is a two-sided game, and most employers nowadays have none.
We should be Nada? Again?
“Sell your soul, but only for top dollar”~Paraphrased Harlan Ellison
Did my comment get cut off? The turtle only responded to a small part of it.
Re the bits you did respond to, apparently the significance thing goes over your head. Yes, logging is very dangerous, but the number of people working in logging is miniscule. Is the number of men working in “dangerous jobs” significant at all compared to the job force at large. Are there more men in traditionally male dangerous jobs than there are women in traditionally female dangerous jobs?
And yes, I’m going to ask you for statistics, because your common knowledge is, frankly, shit. Also, it’s not my job to make your argument for you.
The fact that you must rely on data embedded in journalistic spin is sad, but it’s even more sad that you think this makes you a great free-thinker.
I love the fact that I’ve been talking about things like rape and murder and poverty and you’ve decided that I’m talking about an inappropriate proposition on an elevator. Protip, jerkwad: I wish the worst thing that’s ever happened to me just because I’m a women was being propositioned in an elevator and I wish that it was the worst thing that’s ever happened to Rebecca Watson just because she’s a woman, but it’s not. Feminism is so much bigger than that, but I guess you can’t stop your pity party to realize it.