Are there dangerous ideas?

[jakelafort]

Reg, i would characterize that as a corollary of the dangerous seminal idea that truth is subjective, amorphous or WHAT TRUMP SAYS IT IS. There is an inherent danger in giving a person with power deference or free reign to prevaricate, BS and speak authoritatively on topics beyond the speaker’s ken. If you substitute any half-wit, i mean ANY, that person would impanel experts and take a consensus of their opinions to form a national policy.

Politicizing an issue of health? It is fucking insanity.

[Unseen]

Simon Paynton wrote:

How can it be dangerous? Stephen Hawking said that a theory is a good one when it generates more knowledge.

Good theories make better weapons.

[Belle Rose]

Sorry your niece is facing that Reg that’s horrible. I hope I’m wrong about my election prediction this time around….

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

@ Jakelafort. I hope you are recovering and feeling better. Whenever Donald Trump’s speaks about cures for COVID-19, as if he holds any scientific or medical authority, I always think he is the epitome of the word “ultracrepidarian“.

@Ivy – thanks. COVID cases will surge within the Education system. That includes here in Ireland. In Georgia the Freshman accommodation is provided by 3rd parties rather than by the University itself.  This desire for profit is what drove the political rush to re-open. Little or no attention was paid to the advice of medical experts. However all her courses are online anyway and she is very self motivated so it will not be a problem for her (GPA 4.35 as I am happy to tell everyone!)

What nobody seems to grasp is the potential long term damage COVID seems to be doing to many healthy young people, even to those that are asymptomatic or who only had an apparently mild illness. There are reports of athletic people that get out of breath after a short walk 4 months after “recovering”.

[jakelafort]

I am recovering, thanks Reg.

First i heard about the after effects of the virus. It is scary. Wish that info were disseminated cuz it might discourage young’ns from being cavalier about protection.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

More info here from the Mayo Clinic and from the BBC. It seems it can damage any of our organs and being asymptomatic is no defense. It also appears to be able to infect people a second time. Not a resurgence of the first infection but a second independent one with a possible slightly modified genetic strain. This is not yet fully proven but it would seem to be the case in Belgium and the Netherlands.

[Simon Paynton]

I’ve been having a discussion on Facebook with, apparently, a woke feminist.  I self-identify as a feminist, and I agree in principle with most “woke” ideas.  But I often disagree with the way they carry them out.  This person is so woke she doesn’t know what day it is, although I didn’t say that, out of politeness: it’s not a good tactic to be rude to someone you’re having a discussion with, in my opinion.

Apparently, the idea that patriarchy is evolved, is not allowed to be countenanced, because it “justifies” and “excuses” it.  The alternative explanation given is that people do everything (?) for economic reasons.  This is partly valid.

Also, apparently, evolutionary psychology cannot be true, becuase some people misuse it (?) or something.  I personally disagree with censoring free thought on political grounds, because knowledge and science should be unbounded, as an article of faith.

I have a theory that patriarchy and sexual norms (all of a piece) are a continuation, through social norms, of primate mate-guarding and protecting the pair-bond.  (Chimpanzees and bonobos don’t pair-bond, but most primates do.)  Here is a feminist article from 1994, saying the same thing, only better than me.  The author, Barbara Smuts, notes that we have the behavioral flexibility to overcome undesirable traits.

[Simon Paynton]

I should add, she mentioned that she has students, whom she explains this stuff to, so I imagine she’s a university lecturer or a teacher.

[Unseen]

In a kind of gender-oriented Fermi paradox, somewhere in Camille Paglia’s corpus she asks if a matriarchal society is as superior as the mainstream feminists imply, if it gives its citizens advantages over patriarchies, then where are the successful matriarchies? Successful societies, to the extent they are archies at all, are always patriarchies. If you apply the analysis of evolution to societies, it would seem that patriarchies more successfully adapt.

At least so far.

[Simon Paynton]

I don’t know, there has to be a reason why there are mainly patriarchies and almost no matriarchies, and it’s not necessarily to do with “success”.  Endicott (1981) says that males take advantage of power structures in society to impose their dominance over females.  How this happens I’m not sure.  In egalitarian societies, the gender relations are also markedly egalitarian.

I’ve read that males get more jealous than females when the pair-bond is threatened.  Females can be sure of their maternity of their infants, while males cannot be sure of their paternity.  Females have to invest a lot in being a parent, while males can potentially invest almost nothing.

I think there must be a left-over primate desire for primate males to control females, maybe based on the above facts.

This does not excuse or justify sexism.  It can explain it.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Our law of peace
Which understands
A husband leads
A wife commands

Nevermind

[Unseen]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I don’t know, there has to be a reason why there are mainly patriarchies and almost no matriarchies, and it’s not necessarily to do with “success”. Endicott (1981) says that males take advantage of power structures in society to impose their dominance over females. How this happens I’m not sure. In egalitarian societies, the gender relations are also markedly egalitarian. I’ve read that males get more jealous than females when the pair-bond is threatened. Females can be sure of their maternity of their infants, while males cannot be sure of their paternity. Females have to invest a lot in being a parent, while males can potentially invest almost nothing. I think there must be a left-over primate desire for primate males to control females, maybe based on the above facts. This does not excuse or justify sexism. It can explain it.

Many feminists don’t want to accept that males and females are as fundamentally different as they are pretending that the only differences we find are due to socialization. As if testosterone and estrogen have no effect at all.

 

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Unseen.

[Simon Paynton]

I think there are big differences due to socialisation, and relatively small fundamental differences.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Our brains are the same. The Venus vs Mars idea is Woo.

[Davis]

Those differences are heavily culturally enforced unseen. As women’s rights increase, women insist on making their own choices, challenging gender norms, living as they see fit and fighting the biases that keep gender differences so ingrained in our culture…miraculously we find all of those “fundamental” differences slowly disappearing. It would be absurd to say there are no fundamental differences, but as Reg hinted at the extent of those differences are so EXTREMELY exaggerated, partly to justify maintaining the status quo and slow down, stop or even reverse the progress made. The Mars vs. Venus trope is a huge stinking pile of bullshit. Erode away those enforced gender roles, biases and 10,000 years of cultural conditioning and you’ll find there is no reason for women and men to be so fundamentally different. It almost seems every two decades “differences” that seemed impossible to overcome…have been overcome (at least in countries where it is permitted). Go to Iran and listen to men explain inherant gender differences and it may enlighten you to your own biases.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Davis.

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