Archive for May, 2009

Wasted Opportunity: Sex appeal and responsibility.

This person is a very attractive young lady, who for that reason and others has amassed nearly 1000 fans on the stumbleupon, the social networking site.

You’ll notice that while I speak of society and ideas she will speak of me personally, this is a theme that repeats itself.

Her blog is one of a very common type, well formatted and very appealing to look at, that has a variety of font sizes and colors, something that’s somewhat difficult to do on stumble without third party tools, or basic html skills. The point being she had to try, it is indicative of a willful act.

While I of course grant that everyone has the freedom to do as they wish so long as that action harms no one, I must express my distaste for those who have the power to help, but feel that aesthetically pleasing is sufficient.

My initial review.

As much as I love Klassy and feel physical pain in attacking someone she likes, I must speak out on yet another lifted art, poetry, lyrics, pretty girl with a thousand fans, blog.

It’s so cheap!

Man I wish doing something productive for your species was as popular as selling this idea that we’re justified in the pain and horror we cause, because some of us know how to smear dyes on canvas, string together meaningless emotional words, or sing.

I’m sorry, but I’ve just gotta say it. Artistic skill in a world where people still starve to death is decadent, wasteful, snobbish, and disgusting. As a writer I recognize that I am equally useless. But at least I realize it, and try to do something for the rest of my species. At least what I write at least tries to be helpful, in the here and now practical sense.

If I had a 15th the following these people have I could have solved the power problem by now and laid the foundation for a colony on mars.

This inability to prioritize is what’s going to kill us.

—–

Our resulting conversation, which starts now…

Did you even read what I write?

But your review is my favorite ever and I will immortalize it on my blog.

I read your first page, is it not a decent indication of the rest of your work? I see nothing of social value beyond half baked mysticism and an advertisement for a neat bookshelf.

Which you as a person have every right to showcase. But there is a degree of social responsibility one acquires when they have an audience bigger than some towns.

P.S. I’m glad you liked my review. And I have no doubt that when you’re done making fun of it, dozens of your fans will kiss your hind side ever more vigorously.

But seriously, which one of us has tried harder to save our collective life?

No, you really can’t tell me from my first page. I’m sure your review is worth the time you put into it.

But you’re right. As the object of male projection far and wide, half a dozen men such as yourself will orgasm as they write me consoling notes because they are so sure you’ve wounded me.

Hmmmm, your reply begins to make me question my review.

In this case, seriously link me to something of social merit that you broadcast to your 1000 minions, and I’ll remove/change it.

P.S. I understand that the “such as yourself” addition was meant to be insulting, but really, can you accuse me of being a would be prince charming when I just publicly blasted the princess?

P.P.S. Have I not wounded you? Is not being worthless to the species beyond physical attractiveness something you’d like to avoid? Or are you one of those deluded souls who thinks beauty has value in and of itself?

Too fucking late, your superficial summary stands as is. If you knew Klassy at all, you’d trust her judgment enough to look closely. I am not going to justify myself to you. Google is your friend if you give a damn. If not, I don’t. Yes, there is a desperate need for beauty because beauty is redemptive and sometimes it’s all we have.

Couldn’t find a link of value eh? Yea, must be frustrating for you. Perhaps you should try to create some, now that you’ve noticed the lack. There are plenty of things you can do to help your fellows. Ethically you’re required to do so, but hey everyone else ignores their responsibilities, why not the pretty girl everyone wants to own.

Klassy is a wonderful person but also tolerant to an extreme degree. I am not. She is also very into art and emotional expression which explains how she could like you even if you are socially inert. But, (unlike you apparently since you can’t find any examples) she balances it with a deep sense of social justice, and effort to correct injustices through political action and commentary.

You exhibit none of the latter, and you have a short temper. As far as justification goes, its not to me, its to society, my claim is that you’re wasting your chance to actually help the world, if I’m wrong, then so be it, if I’m right then you should recognize that you have a serious problem, or you’re oblivious and callous.

Either way, my opinion is irrelevant.

You’re right, beauty is all some people have. Because they refuse to cultivate anything else.

Will beauty feed a person? You’re a spoiled brat, in my (again irrelevant) opinion. Far too accustomed to having her buttocks kissed for having what the advertising world has told us for generations is an attractive shell.

P.S. My offer still stands, Demonstrate even the slightest concern for social welfare and I’ll alter my review accordingly.

P.P.S. Feel free to block my review to preserve the illusion of universal respect, I would expect no less of an ego as large and unsupported as yours.

The link to the blog post archiving this conversation will arrive shortly.

(sometime later)

(old link to this post)

Feel free to comment, I’d never censor anyone, unless they were cheating like spam, DOS attacks, or identity theft.

Dear Arrogant One,

I spent 10+ years of my life living below poverty line, with a university education and a child to support on my own, in order to work at a residential drug rehabilitation program in downtown Los Angeles. Is that enough?

Do you really feel you are in a position to pass judgment on what people do with their blogs? Or dictate what ethics are? Ethics, vs. morality, must be freely embraced.

Why do you feel that people have to justify their existence to you and that you are entitled to judge them based on one page of their blog?

I know you will post this personal communication to your blogspot account without my permission, but do try to include this line so that your many followers see just what you’re like.

Dear Pot,

You chose to live in poverty? Doubtful. You consider your child a burden? Doubtful. Did they pay you for this work? Probably. Would you have taken a better job had it come around? One would hope so.

Pretty low to use your offspring as a bargaining chip in an Internet debate. Gotta love the ever played kid card. I just love how people treat children as property and act like they’re justified, no wonder the bulk of us turn out to be such monstrous adults. I guess the implication is the usual, right? That I have to agree with you, who are wonderful for having children, and if not I must therefor hate children?

That’s usually how people want it to work when they play the kid card. Just trying to illustrate the absurdity of your claim.

And, no it’s not enough, not by a long shot. Hard times and doing what you have to do to survive is not a charitable act. Caring for your own children is something you’re supposed to do by default, and in fact are extremely lucky to even have the opportunity to do so. Ask anyone who’s lost a child. Grow some perspective.

I find it very interesting that you have this attitude of ‘I do good because I failed to do evil’ given that you worked in drug rehabilitation, which regularly applauds and rewards people for beating addiction. While I agree that beating addiction is a hard and worthy thing, I’d like to ask, where is my reward for never having been addicted?

Worth is the presence of something not the absence of it.

As a human with a mind I may pass judgment on whatever I please, as you do. Intelligence is judgment. The difference between us is that I recognize this as a human right we both have, where as you wish it to be yours alone. What makes you think you are anymore worthy? I know the answer, growing up a pretty female in America. It spoiled you. And yes you’re still spoiled to me, because you have an aristocratic view of your own worth. I don’t care how hard your adult life turned out, clearly you didn’t learn anything from it.

In fact one could argue that you are doubly responsible to help the impoverished since you claim to have been one yourself. Or do you subscribe to the Horatio Alger tough-love myth of life in America, where the poor are so because they are lazy and deserve it, and therefor just beating poverty some how absolved you of the responsibilities I claim we all posses?

Morality is simply a system of dogmatically inspired ethics. The terms in this context are interchangeable as rules of benevolent conduct. Their inspiration is irrelevant.

I don’t feel that ‘people’ have to justify anything to me until they make a claim. But you alone are not people as a whole. I’m not judging your blog based on a single page, I gave you a chance (which still stands) to demonstrate my incorrectness and you chose to throw a tantrum instead shouting curses and questioning my sexuality as would be expected of a spoiled brat.

I’m judging you on your actions and ideas as you’ve expressed them. And yes I will post this communication without your permission because as a participant in the conversation my freedom so speech trumps your freedom of privacy. I have no need to modify your words, because to my mind they illustrate my points.

And as I said, the offer still stands, provide me some examples of you using your 1000 fans to help the world in a practical objective way, and you’ll find my response quite favorable and fair.

Sincerely, Kettle.

(sometime later)

I went over the links you posted in your review of me. (which will never be removed BTW)

And just for the record, my opinion stands. Wanting the world to be better and writing poetry do not constitute useful action.

I mean really, are free backgrounds going to change the world? Hell, even if they did, you didn’t make them.

Seriously, is a poem next to a painting, supposed to prove you aren’t using your looks to shamelessly self promote?

Ask yourself, are you angry because I’m insane or because I have a point. If I am insane, what does it matter everyone will know the truth right? I mean I’m obviously wrong aren’t I? Or can people be fooled? Will they begin to agree with me even if I am wrong.

Ultimately, does it even matter?

If what you say is true you should not be angry because we’re both trying our level best to help humanity, aren’t we?

Socially responsible like this mutual friend of yours? http://morgaine.stumbleupon.com/

So I guess I don’t understand why you object to my blog and not to hers.

Valid point on the surface, but I’m aware of her other projects and identities. She spends a great deal of time on the education of people regarding various issues of social importance. Or at least she did the last time I spoke to her with any regularity.

And once again for the record if that were the case with you a simple link would have been sufficient.

But really, even in the best case for you, would it matter?

Her actions don’t impact yours in this context.

I see you changed your avatar photo, and pulled your review. Trying to make my comments appear nonsensical, or are you actually thinking about what I said, or some third option I’m unaware of?

P.S. The first of your defenders cropped up almost immediately. Interestingly enough it’s a female with precisely the same sort of blog and fan count as you.

Frankly didn’t expect that. I expected princes not other princesses. :)

I changed my avatar for the day. Poet girl will be back. I am conducting a little poorly-framed experiment to see if the response is to the blog or the avatar. If it’s to the avatar, I won’t have to work so hard.

I pulled the review because a) it seemed silly to get upset about the review of someone I don’t know who only read one page of mine before writing it and b) arguing in public is unseemly.

Luce told me she wrote to you about the review but she misunderstood. She thought you were reviewing Klassy. Something bad happened to Klassy a few days ago and a scathing review would not be timely. She’s planning to leave SU anyway, but I am hoping it will pass.

I disagree with you about what my blog should be, but not with your values. I did consider it. I don’t believe that I would have the fan count that I have if I had the sort of blog you wish I had. But we have different views on art. There’s no separate word for “art” in most African languages, a functionality that I agree with.

The princes would rather talk to me than to you, I am sure.

I still think you just like to hit pretty girls to get their attention. I’m not going to change my blog, at least not much. But I was going to use this as a cat of the day but of course, now I can’t. After awhile, perhaps.

I’m deeply worried about Klassy. She’s possibly the most serene individual I’ve encountered. Whatever is hurting her must be atrociously bad. She’s far stronger than I, and I can take a lot. Frankly if I could harm whatever harms her I would, with conviction. But knowing her, she would not approve.

Your experiment seems to be somewhat flawed as I’m sure people will still know what you look like, but, the attempt is a good thing. At least you’re beginning to examine the impact your looks have on the reception of your work. Awareness all around was and is my goal.

Art without function is just noise, to me. Music is beautiful because it is an abstraction based on reality, and thus is a tool for pattern recognition, but logic is even more beautiful for the same reason, just like diagnostics and painting. Art gave birth to science, but to hold onto it now while dropping the rest is like burning books. We must move forward, no matter how much we loved the past.

I don’t believe that I would have the fan count that I have if I had the sort of blog you wish I had.

I’m inclined to agree. And that is deeply sad. But, if you were to use that fan base to get something of practical value, anything, out there something people need to hear but can’t get from conventional sources, something they wouldn’t normally see without knowing where to look, something you feel passionately about that affects ALL humans, the ends in this context would justify the means, perhaps.

I think you’ve come to understand what I’m about, or at least have found what I wanted to hear.

I still think you just like to hit pretty girls to get their attention.

Yes, so that they will get everyone else’s. You are the highest caste, and the most powerful organisms on the planet. You have have a profound responsibility as a result. But because of that unassailable position, you have the options of doing nothing and resting easy that you will only be harassed for your inaction by malcontents and outcasts such as myself.

My blog post and review will be pulled if you wish, as they have served their purpose. But I would very much like your permission to post the rest of it. In any case good luck on your experiment, I hope you learn something that you value.

P.S. I discovered that cat poster. I too hate the circus. Animals are not tools. I’d prefer to not require any external life to survive, but until the technology gets there we have no choice, which relates to my demand for purpose.

Taking PMs (private | personal messages) and posting them on the internet does violate a set of mores. I see you’ve added my name and avatar. I wish you wouldn’t do that. I didn’t give you permission to do that, and since I will not have a job in 10 weeks, I’d like to be able to get one without my name coming up in search engines in that matter.

I still strongly disgree with your posting personal messages, but what does having my name and avatar on your blogspot account do for you?

Your call, of course.

Well I removed overt identifiers, you’re words are now anonymous, which makes me think of the following. I still want to post the ideas. If I have to I’ll just remove your half of the conversation and make a huge gripe about the following link, and the absurdity of ‘owning’ data.

How far does this privacy of yours extend? I severely dislike this idea of you having rights over my memories.

anyway…

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20040319h.jpg

Cute picture, but it doesn’t really go with the aesthetics whore persona….

You can post what you want, of course.

You’re coming around. See? I knew you would.

Art is the emanation that most closely approximately the spirit (I forget where that comes from, but it sounds like Plato, no? I suppose everything does). You just make me want to post Joan Baez singing All My Trials with a big field of wildflowers. :)

No, you came around, you stopped being all insulting and started to actually answer my claim.

:)

Thanks for post permission. I’ll still leave your face and name out. If you grow proud of your words someday let me know, and I’ll restore your identity :)

—-

This one later went crazy.

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Prostitution, and Taco Bell

A friend of mine inspired an explanation that I’d like to make public.

I’m not ready to throw away romantic notions of a perfect companion.

Me either, I just know it can’t be human. Humans can not act selflessly. It’s like asking a wasp to be non-violent. It’s a genetic impossibility. Selfish gene, breeds a selfish organism.

I want a mate that wants me happy first and foremost. We all do, as is evidenced by all the absurd claims of selfless love made in romantic comedies, shows, dramas, and songs, but if that were really the case, why would monogamy exist?

Because its a lie meant to assuage insecurity. They want you to think they’re selfless for you, but if they really were they’d share you at your whim. From the male perspective an example is easy to find.

Picture this.

Couple in bed, guy wants sex, girl does not. Now normally the guy just has to jerk off or go without. I envision a world where the guy says, “Well, I’m going down to the love hotel, cool?” (I love the Japanese) and the girl is like, “Right on just be quiet when you come back I gotta get up early.”

In the future his option instead of the hotel will be his sex bot.

Now before you think that’s outlandish, here’s a similar situation with a different animal need.

Same couple in bed, guy wants food, girl doesn’t feel like cooking him a dish he does not have the skill to make for himself. Now the guy has to get food himself or go without. We live in a world where the guy’s like, “Well, I’m going down to the Taco Bell, cool?” (I love beef and potato burritos, no red sauce, grilled) and the girl is like, “Right on just be quiet when you come back I gotta get up early.”

Now don’t tell me monogamy is about avoiding contagion, because eating out is just the same. Regulate it if you must, make it safe, sure, but saying prostitution should be illegal because it spreads disease is the same as saying eating out should be illegal because of e-coli and salmonella.

Now I am sure there are female equivalents. I won’t speak to them because I’m not female.

But honestly, making it so you can only have sex with one person or you don’t ‘love’ them is as stupid as saying you can only eat one person’s cooking, and making a sandwich for yourself means you’re a loser.

Sex is hunger without the need for other life forms. Defending monogamy by saying you won’t die from lack of sex, is like saying “Well a person can live on rice water and vitamins, so lets make all other kinds of food illegal.”

It’s not about living, its about the enjoyment of life. It’s about the freedom to choose what love is, and how to seek it. It’s about Freedom. And no argument to my mind attacking freedom can stand in this context.

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Suffering and the De-facto Matriarchy in America

At a commenter’s request I have decided to first expand and defined the following point of this post.

(http://underlore.com/TBA/?p=375)

7. Men must suffer in order to acquire any sex.

By suffering I mean the dictionary definition… “feelings of mental or physical pain.”

Men as a rule must suffer to acquire a mate as a result of competition or the demands of their mate, which must be satisfied . This is so basic I am having trouble finding a way to explain it more simply. But I will try.

First you must grant that in the majority of cultures, and indeed mammalian species, acquiring a mate is a function of competition. In fact in recent years being a man has literally become synonymous with suffering to archive a goal.

(http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=man+up)

Second, you must grant that the exact revere is true for women. Though it is somewhat derogatory, the term “being a pussy” means being like a woman, or doing what feels best, or what is safest and most rational. I have particular loathing for this phrase because it illustrates the enslavement of men and the objectification of women simultaneously.

Look at the mating process. It can be summed up as men competing for the approval of women. Men must get a job, fight for power and money, condition themselves physically, and defeat other men in various ways. Before you even say that women compete too, understand that they choose to compete because they are trained to want President Brad Pitt with super powers and an Aston Martin collection. Men are forced to, if they want a mate of any kind. The only difference is the degree of suffering. There is no such thing as a zero maintenance mate. Even superman must suffer to please Louis Lane.

In fact suffering is the entire point, because even if a man had super human powers, a normal woman has the option of raising the bar at will. In short Louis recognized that superman could out compete any normal man without suffering and so she raised the bar until she found a way for him to suffer, she made the plight of the world his responsibility, or made him feel guilty about being super powerful in the first place, depending on the medium, comic, show, or movie.

This is best illustrated in the series, Smallville, where we have a extremely sensual girl (not Louis) judging superman in subjective ways on matters of morality and social correctness, areas where he had no super powers, and always her judgment was final. His competition was Lex, a super rich, handsome, super genius. Now, for her, this is a win/win situation. This is an extreme, but the concept fits almost everywhere, the only thing that changes is the matter of degree.

They as a group suffer to please her, individually they try to shift suffering to the other, and please her more than the other so they may have access to her. This is the case in at least 80% of movies shows and songs. Just look for it. Its right there. From Disney to Romero, from The Beatles to Slipknot, men are told over and over that they must suffer to obtain a female, or they will suffer infinitely more from loneliness.

Obviously those that compete must suffer and those that judge do not, or, being ultra conservative here, must suffer less. As with any competition, it is always harder on the competitors than the judges. Take a foot race for example. Who has it harder, the runners or the guy with the stopwatch?

I hope I’ve made my point, It really is difficult to explain something this fundamental.

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Masculism Now!

This is a position list meant to express why I feel that men are an underclass in contemporary American society. It is under construction, and open to debate. If you disagree with any of these choose one and comment your objections, I will answer.

Your comments will not be censored.

  1. Men die sooner.
  2. Men suffer a great statistical disadvantage when it comes to fighting for their children in court.
  3. Men are ridiculed for social expressions of emotion.
  4. Men are forced to compete with each other, or capitulate to a woman if they want a mate at all.
  5. Men must live up to their mates idea of what it is to be a man and a father.
  6. Men must work or risk destitution, homelessness, and social ostracism.
  7. Men must suffer in order to acquire any sex.
  8. Men are expected to maintain the home with no say in its appearance.
  9. Men are constantly required to tolerate inconsistency and irrationality, especially from a mate.
  10. Men who use their body to manipulate women are considered abusive and monstrous.
  11. Men have an extremely narrow range of options for potential dress and hair style.
  12. Men are constantly told by society that they are ugly and not successful enough.
  13. Men are constantly told by society that without a woman they are utterly worthless and pathetic.
  14. Men are constantly told that a father is replaceable.
  15. Men as a gender are given no assistance what so ever in job placement.
  16. Traditional man’s work is dangerous and difficult.
  17. Men lose jobs to women because of their gender alone.
  18. Men who express their genetic desire for sexual exploration and polygamy are perverts.
  19. Men have almost no organized assistance as a gender.

While simultaneously…

  1. Women live longer.
  2. Women get a disproportional advantage in court when fighting for parental rights.
  3. Women are encouraged to express themselves emotionally both publicly and privately.
  4. Women compete for better mates, but even when they settle they have the power.
  5. Women get to define what it is to be a man and a father by process of elimination.
  6. Women have the socially acceptable choice of not working.
  7. Women typically profit from the acquisition of at least moderately enjoyable sex.
  8. Women are typically allowed total control of the home’s decor.
  9. Women are socially allowed to issue conflicting and irrational edicts.
  10. Women who use their body to manipulate men are considered strong and clever.
  11. Women are allowed a much greater degree of freedom with regard to dress and hairstyle.
  12. Women are constantly told by society how beautiful they are.
  13. Women are constantly told that they are the sum total purpose of men’s existence.
  14. Women are constantly told that the most important thing a human can be is a mother.
  15. Women are given preferential selection in almost every job market.
  16. Traditional woman’s work is simple and safe by comparison.
  17. Women who work profit socially because of the women who choose not to work.
  18. Women who express their genetic desire for sexual exploration and polygamy are sexy.
  19. Women have hundreds of social groups to protect their rights and interests.

Masculism: a social theory or political movement supporting the equality of both sexes in all aspects of public and private life; specifically, a theory or movement that argues that legal and social restrictions on males must be removed in order to bring about such equality.

Obviously not every entry on this list will apply to every member. Generally it is written for people between the ages of 18-30. This is guide, an attempt to convey a general trend, not an exhaustive study of western gender interaction. So before you tell me about your Aunt Betty who died before your Uncle Bob Google the terms “representative sample” and “anecdotal evidence”.

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Paradise Engineering

This page is in response to…

http://www.hedweb.com/huxley/

Which is possibly imo the most articulate, pressing, relevant, and hope inspiring text ever constructed.

Ironically given some topics covered, I cannot express clearly the subjective value this work has.

I have only one primary complaint, and it is below.

Each paragraph is lifted from the original work located here.

<blockquote>Potentially, transhumans will be endowed with a greater capacity for love, empathy and emotional depth than anything neurochemically accessible today. Our selfish-gene-driven ancestors – in common with the cartoonish brave new worlders – will strike posterity as functional psychopaths by comparison; and posterity will be right.</blockquote>

Just as those like me are considered psychopathic by today’s standards. I’m not crazy, I just see different things and that perception for better or worse has fundamentally altered who I am.

<blockquote>Scare-mongering prophets of doom notwithstanding, a life of unremitting bliss isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.</blockquote>

Obvious but it needs to be reiterated over and over.

<blockquote>Thus mescaline, and certainly LSD and its congeners, are not fail-safe euphoriants. The possibility of nightmarish bad trips and total emotional Armageddon is latent in the way our brains are constructed under a regime of selfish-DNA.</blockquote>

There’s a lesson pertaining to the drug war in there.

<blockquote>In any case, our descendants are likely to automate menial drudgery out of existence; that’s what robots are for.</blockquote>

This will be the first visible step of humanity away from its infancy. And the first step towards my final solution. They will clean our homes, dig our gardens, and prepare our meals long before they love us and elevate us past suffering.

<blockquote>The impregnable well-being of our transhuman descendants is more likely to promote greater diversity, both personal and societal, not stagnation. This is because greater happiness, and in particular enhanced dopamine function, doesn’t merely extend the depth of one’s motivation to act: the hyper-dopaminergic sense of things to be done. It also broadens the range of stimuli an organism finds rewarding. By expanding the range of potential activities we enjoy, enhanced dopamine function will ensure we will be less likely to get stuck in a depressive rut. This rut leads to the kind of learned helplessness that says nothing will do any good, Nature will take its revenge, and utopias will always go wrong.</blockquote>

Like many of these quotes, this was just reproduced because I liked it.

<blockquote>Unfortunately, the true altruists among our (non-)ancestors got eaten or outbred. Their genes perished with them. </blockquote>

This trend and concept is why I constantly rail against mate selection issues. Not because I myself am generally excluded for whatever reasons, as painful as that is, but because, selection pressure is the fundamental force acting on our species. This is also why my final solution takes the form it does. It is designed expressly to shortcut the system for our collective and individual benefit.

<blockquote>Hopefully, the need for manifestos and ideological propaganda will pass.</blockquote>

And like the honest cancer researcher, I too hope to one day, hopefully in the next 12 hours, be completely out of a job.

<blockquote>The contrast between true and false happiness, however, is itself problematic. Even if the notion is both intelligible and potentially referential, it’s not clear that “natural”, selfish-DNA-sculpted minds offer a more authentic consciousness than precision-engineered euphoria. Highly selective and site-specific designer drugs [and, ultimately, genetic engineering] won’t make things seem weird or alien. On the contrary, they can deliver a greater sense of realism, verisimilitude and emotional depth to raw states of biochemical bliss than today’s parochial conception of Real Life.</blockquote>

Again, just a really valid point I liked.

<blockquote>Post-humans are not going to get drunk and stoned. Their well-being will infuse ideas, modes of introspection, varieties of selfhood, structures of mentalese, and whole new sense modalities that haven’t even been dreamt of today.</blockquote>

Again, just really cool.

<blockquote>Citizens must not fall in love, marry, or have their own kids. This would seduce their allegiance away from the community as a whole by providing a rival focus of affection.</blockquote>

Sadly, while this was meant to be an indictment of the brave new world fictional society, I see it as a reality here today in the real world. Sure we are allowed to love marry and have children but the process at every level is so unimaginably constrained that it might as well be disallowed. The Company tell us effectively in this context “You can have anything you want, so long as you want what we say you should want.”

<blockquote>And above all, when suffering becomes truly optional, we shouldn’t force our toxic legacy wetware on others.</blockquote>

As we do today on both a genetic and memetic level. Our effort to insure that our children are like us is the most cruel thing we can do to them.

<blockquote>Enhancing serotonin function – other things being equal – is likely to leave an individual less likely to submit to authority, not docile and emasculated.</blockquote>

And that is another reason why the pill must be given in food, not merely to pacify the patient, but the patient’s ever watchful but dimwitted jailer.

<blockquote>Animal suffering is just savage, empty and pointless. So we’ll probably scrap it when it becomes easy enough to do so.</blockquote>

In vitro meat. It funny how recently all the things I’ve spoken and written about are becoming realities, or at least far more widely discussed.

<blockquote>Down on the farm, tasty, genetically-engineered ambrosia will replace abused sentience. For paradise-engineering entails global veganism. Utopia cannot be built on top of an ecosystem of pain and fear.</blockquote>

Good point. As the Hero Norma Borlaug put it, “You can’t build a better world on empty stomachs and human misery.”

<blockquote>But as science progressively gives us the power to remould matter and energy to suit our desires – or whims – it would take an extraordinary degree of malice for us to sustain the painfulness of Darwinian life indefinitely. For as our power increases, so does our complicity in its persistence.</blockquote>

Power = Responsibility. If you can help at reasonable cost or below, you have an ethical responsibility to do so. This is related to sex, monogamy, and the term ‘slut’.

<blockquote>Even unregenerate humans don’t tend to be sustainably ill-natured. So when genetically-engineered vat-food tastes as good as dead meat, we may muster enough moral courage to bring the animal holocaust to an end.</blockquote>

Again. Simple win.

<blockquote>Selfishness, whether in the technical or overlapping popular sense, is a spectacularly awful principle on which to base any civilization. Sooner or later, simple means-ends-analysis, if nothing else, will dictate the use of genetic engineering to manufacture constitutionally happy mind/brains.</blockquote>

But that logic will not convince anyone unless they already were in a position to agree as a result of complex nature-nurture interaction and requisite ancestral genetic pressures. Again, the final solution.

<blockquote>But the attributes of power, status and money, for instance, however obviously nice they seem today, aren’t inherently pleasurable. They yield only a derivative kick that can be chemically edited out of existence. </blockquote>

Means to an end. People generally miss this whole idea. A fun game is asking people what they want with this in mind. Ultimately everyone wants to be happy, what they think they want are merely tools they think will get them there. In this context I find it amusing, thinking back on all the answers I’ve ever gotten which related to drugs. Since they were closest to a real answer.

<blockquote>Likewise, intense and unpleasant social anxiety was sometimes adaptive too. So was an involuntary capacity for the torments of sexual jealousy, fear, terror, hunger, thirst and disgust. Our notions of dominance and subordination are embedded within this stew of emotions. </blockquote>

That explains me nicely. I often wondered how someone like me got here, in a purely Darwinian sense.

<blockquote>Sado-masochistic images of domination-and-submission loom large in a lot of our fantasies too. The categories of experience they reflect were of potent significance on the African savannah, where they bore on the ability to get the “best” mates and leave most copies of one’s genes. But they won’t persist for ever.</blockquote>

God willing.

<blockquote>Allegedly “immutable” human nature will change as well when the genetic-rewrite gathers momentum and the reproductive revolution matures. The classical Darwinian Era is drawing to a close.</blockquote>

Again.

<blockquote>Unfortunately, its death agonies may be prolonged. Knee-jerk pessimism and outright cynicism abound among humanistic pundits in the press. They are common in literary academia. And of course any competent doom-monger can glibly extrapolate the trends of the past into the future.</blockquote>

Not if you trick them into thinking it was their idea or they can profit by some element of it. Slippery slope them. Make them think they’re getting away with something.

<blockquote>Yet perhaps asking whether we would appreciate ecstatic art of 500 or 5000 years hence is futile in the first place. We simply can’t know what we’re talking about. For we are unhappy pigs, and our own arts are mood-congruent perversions. </blockquote>

And that’s why I hate the vast majority of art, television, movies, and music because all I see is erotic capitol and antler bashing, and those who profit from it. Our art as it stands now is disgusting and shallow and worthless on the whole. Which is why to me arguments about how great we are based on our art fall on incredulous ears. I mean really, a can of soup, some naked girls, a guy with his eye in the wrong place, a melted clock? And that’s not even starting on the trillions of examples of ‘art’ that boil down to “I desperately want to fuck all hotties and kill all other males.” or “Compete for the privilege of fucking me.” Come on, we can SO do better.

<blockquote>One hopes, on rather limited evidence, that the birth-pangs of the new genetic order will be less traumatic.</blockquote>

If the right people hear and listen to me, it will actually be enjoyable.

<blockquote>Windfalls and spending-sprees do typically bring short-term highs. Yet they don’t subvert the hedonic treadmill of inhibitory feedback mechanisms in the brain. Each of us tends to have a hedonic set-point about which our “well”-being fluctuates.</blockquote>

Again.

<blockquote>The endless cycle of ups and downs – our own private re-enactment of the myth of Sisyphus – is an “adaptation” that helps selfish genes to leave more copies of themselves; in Nature, alas, the restless malcontents genetically out-compete happy lotus-eaters. It’s an adaptation that won’t go away just by messing around with our external environment.</blockquote>

And here is where science needs philosophy and the concept that inspired Einstein’s famous quote about science being lame.

<blockquote>A few centuries hence, we may rapidly take [im]material opulence for granted. And this virtual cornucopia won’t be the prerogative of a tiny elite. Information isn’t like that. Nor will it depend on masses of toiling workers. Information isn’t like that either. If we want it, nanotechnology promises old-fashioned abundance all round, both inside and outside synthetic VR.</blockquote>

Yup.

<blockquote>The experience of this-is-real – like all our waking- or dreaming consciousness – comprises a series of neurochemical events in the CNS like any other. It can be amped-up or toned-down. Reality does not admit of degrees; but our sense of it certainly does. </blockquote>

Yup.

<blockquote>Thus Huxley doesn’t offer a sympathetic exploration of the possibility that prudery and sexual guilt has soured more lives than sex. In a true utopia, the counterparts of John and Lenina will enjoy fantastic love-making, undying mutual admiration, and live together happily ever after.</blockquote>

Yup.

<blockquote>If suffering has been medically eradicated, does happiness have to be justified any more than the colour green or the taste of peppermint? Is there some deep metaphysical sense in which we ought to be weighed down by the momentous gravity of the human predicament? – Only if it will do anyone any good. The evidence is lacking.</blockquote>

Yup.

<blockquote>Moreover this transformation of the living world, and eventually of the whole cosmos, into a heavenly meaning-steeped nirvana will in no way be “unnatural”. It is simply a disguised consequence of the laws of physics playing themselves out. </blockquote>

And the point of the path is revealed.

<blockquote>Until now, selection pressure has ensured we’re cursed with a genome that leaves us mostly as callous brutes, albeit brutes with intermittently honourable intentions.</blockquote>

Again, why I’m always on monogamy’s ass. It’s not just me people.

<blockquote>This isn’t to deny that love is real. But its contemporary wellsprings have been poisoned from the outset. Only the sort of love that helps selfish DNA to leave more copies of itself – which enable it to “maximize its inclusive fitness” – can presently flourish. It is fleeting, inconstant, and shaped by cruelly arbitrary criteria of physical appearance which serve as badges of reproductive potential. If we value it, love should be rescued from the genes that have recruited and perverted the states which mediate its expression in blind pursuit of reproductive success.</blockquote>

Love through the lens of the meat.

<blockquote>When sexual guilt and jealousy – a pervasive disorder of serotonin function – are cured, then bed-hopping will no longer be as morally reckless as it is today.</blockquote>

Again with the term slut, and the profit The Company gets from us fighting each other for sex.

<blockquote>And just as during much of the Twentieth Century, any plea for greater social justice could be successfully damned as Communist, likewise today, any strategy to eradicate suffering is likely to be condemned in similar reactionary terms: either wirehead hedonism or revamped Brave New World. This response is not just facile and simplistic. If it gains currency, the result is morally catastrophic.</blockquote>

Again, final solution.

<blockquote>But one does one’s best. The ideological obstacles to genetically pre-programmed mental super-health are actually more daunting than the technical challenges. </blockquote>

Hence my life’s work.

Hence my approach, which may be self defeating as I’m about to explain it, but honor demands that i do so. I’ve always said that if you can’t trick a child into doing what you want you shouldn’t breed, this is an indictment of brutality and dominance through fear. The relevant point here is that humanity must be tricked into this, it must be delivered in candy as surly as one must hide medicine in the dogs food. We will never eat this as it is, as we are. The hedonic engineered populace may be swayed by logic and clarity but normal humans simply are not. They are too thoroughly owned by their dopamine addiction, and social masters.

It has been suggested quite astonishingly well that the solution is to edit the species in such a manner as to preserve our humanity and eliminate suffering as an option.

Some may see my solution and dismiss it out of hand as a result seeing the direct edit preferable. I am aware of this argument.

Which is more likely to be accepted by a given individual. A syringe of retrovirus which will forever make them happy and different? Or a delicious little slave thing that adores the very idea of their pleasure and makes its life goal the enhancement of it’s host’s enjoyment and general well being?

The end goals of genetic hedonism and my symbiotic slave species solution are one in the same. I’m simply suggesting a different more palatable way of getting there. Creation of this servant race of neo humans who actually enjoy helping will lead to interbreeding, and eventually the traits of suffering et all, will be quietly annihilated. Our species as it is will NEVER accept the hedonic genetic option no matter how technically feasible or desirable logically it may be. Only the most bold and fringe among us will attempt it, others will murder to the point of self annihilation.

One fact is always overlooked by the writers of these essays, a fact I’ve personally discovered again and again, and hopefully learned from. Logic does not dictate emotion. In order to affect change, one must use emotion creatively and responsibly.

So my final solution stands.

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Oppositional Defiant Disorder is a Crock

So I was watching Criminal Minds, pretty sweet show, and there was an off hand reference to Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and I noted it mentally as an error as I do with TV shows and media if I am aware of them, and as I am in the habit of checking up on the things I believe, I Wikied this ‘ODD’ expecting to find an elaboration on its false roots, when to my shock and amazement, I discovered that it’s real.

From the Wiki..,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder

Diagnostic Criteria

1. A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:

Note: Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level.
1. often loses temper
2. often argues with adults
3. often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules
4. often deliberately annoys people
5. often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
6. is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
7. is often angry and resentful
8. is often spiteful or vindictive

2. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.

3. The behaviors do not occur exclusively during the course of a Psychotic or Mood disorder.

4. Criteria are not met for Conduct Disorder, and, if the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial personality disorder.

So there is a mental illness, ironically called odd, that makes you defiant.

Let me just sum up how I feel about that real quick and then I’ll go into how I came to this conclusion.

This is absolutely odious. As in, worthy of hate and disgust. I have trouble articulating the seething rage I feel at the very idea of this “condition” existing.

Never has it been so clear that the psychological community is being turned to unethical purpose by those who wish above all else to remain in power.

First lets look at the definitions.

The first question one would have is “How is this a disease again?” I mean if opposing things, and defying things, makes one crazy… well then I’m pretty sure we all are.

Their solution?

Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level.

So, if they are defiant to a normal degree, then it isn’t ODD. Heh.

This is my first problem. The word normal means acceptable. Acceptable defiance is a contradiction in terms. If the behavior is accepted then it is not defiant. The whole point of defiance is doing the unacceptable.

They must be talking about false defiance, like the cliché goth kid image, hanging up Manson posters but still showing up to choir practice. Buying a pair of pants covered in safety pins from hot topic with your allowance, is not defiance, yet for the purposes of this diagnostic, it would be considered “normal” defiance. The type of behavior that is normally called a “phase.”

Since this type of thing strongly reminds of pseudoscience used to halt social evolution, I’m going to shape my analogy based on race. In honor of all those dimwit doctors who tried to tell us that blacks were measurably and objectively inferior.

I’m going to show how a typical black child growing up under civil oppression would have squarely qualified for this disorder.

Let’s begin.

I’m going to write in defense, and from the perspective of, this child. His name is Malcolm, for obvious reasons.

1. A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:

Yes I have a negative attitude, I’m tired of being told by word and deed that I am somehow a lesser organism by virtue of my birth. Yes I’m hostile, hostility towards oppression is not only natural but a hallowed aspect of our national identity. The English didn’t leave politely. Yes I’m defiant, I feel it is my ethical duty to reject social constraints that are clearly oppressive. These behaviors and attitudes will persist so long as the situation calls for them.

Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level.

Well the other kids have meekly accepted their secondary roles having folded under various forms of oppressive mechanisms ranging from shaming and despair to physical assault. But for some reason, I was born a fighter, and the fear of punishment and pain will not dissuade me.

1. often loses temper

I’m a child, not a sociologist or a psychologist or an economist, or an historian. I don’t have the context or the raw data needed to understand why I’m being treated like an animal. The historical and racial dynamics escape me for the time being, and when faced with the absurd and exploitive bigotry around me I as a result of my inability to understand am often frustrated past the point of quiet endurance.

I routinely end up yelling at bus drivers and police and store clerks and managers and anyone else in a position to enforce these bogus social restrictions, and who profit from the same.

2. often argues with adults

Well of course I argue with them, they say absurd and insulting things. They then use their position in lieu of evidence or debate, telling me to be quiet and sit down or this is not the time or place, and when I explain that this is unacceptable as a rebuttal, I am sanctioned.

3. often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules

The water fountain I am expected to use is neglected, and were it in perfect working order I would still refuse to use it on principal. Nor do I feel like walking all the way to the back of the bus when there are so many empty seats readily available near the front. I will not obey a rule that is pointlessly inefficient or unethical.

4. often deliberately annoys people

I won’t deny a certain amount of satisfaction in bringing some of the frustration I feel to those around me. I do not consider this any more pathological than a police officer taking pleasure in arresting a child abuser, and as a result preferring to work on cases where child abuse is at issue.

Seeking to annoy can be quite natural.

Sometimes annoying an enemy even provides a tactical advantage. By forcing them to show their true nature. An excellent example of this is sit-ins, work stoppages, and other forms of non violent protest.

5. often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior

Considering that my ‘mistakes’ and ‘misbehaviors’ include actions explained above, and as I said before I will continue these behaviors so long as the situations that call for them persist, I cannot help but blame others for creating or bolstering those situations and conditions.

For example, if I consistently am placed in detention by the principal for breaking his water fountain segregation rules, am I truly to blame?

6. is often touchy or easily annoyed by others

Slurs and racist implications have a profound effect on me, and it is very easy to work a slur into a sentence. Since the society around me takes it as a given that I should be content with my lot, I often appear touchy or easily offended. Why don’t I just go sit at the back of the bus? Because I shouldn’t have to.

7. is often angry and resentful

I do resent being treated like a second class citizen for no good reason, I am angry about that treatment and I think rightfully so.

8. is often spiteful or vindictive

Sometimes examples must be made. Sometimes a single person can typify a given behavior or position. Sometimes the unethical behavior pushes a person past the limits of equitable response, but in the end how does one determine what is equitable?

2. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.

My refusal to accept my socially imposed niche has gotten me suspended from school time and again and I expect it to interfere with employment or socializing being that all three demand acceptance of rules which I feel are unjust.

3. The behaviors do not occur exclusively during the course of a Psychotic or Mood disorder.

I don’t have fits, and while I may have good days and bad days, I’m upset about racism all day, because racism exists, all day.

4. Criteria are not met for Conduct Disorder, and, if the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial personality disorder.

No, I have a conscience. I don’t throw kittens into rivers or the like. In fact if they would just treat me like an equal citizen I’m sure I would be quite successful and well liked.

End of analogy.

You see my point?

This Bullshit “condition” can be used to drug or incarcerate budding civil rights leaders, and that’s its primary purpose. To weed out the free thinkers, ASAP.

Going against society is not a mental condition when society is wrong. And society never admits to being wrong until after it has been corrected.

I grow VERY weary of the ageist assumption that children are ALWAYS wrong. Or that they must wait until later to speak up, or demand rights.

Respect does not mean obedience.

Adults often ask unethical or outright stupid things of children.

This analogy can be extended to virtually any instance of a child responding quite naturally to an absurd setting. Imagine an atheist child in a religious home and private school, or vice versa. Debate and rebellion are required for a society to avoid death by stagnation.

Imagine how you would react if you were told that you needed to keep silent and do as you are told until you are ten years older. Imagine if the only reasoning given for this boiled down to or was explicitly, “because I’m ten years older.”

Imagine how the world would look if every 30 year old was required to obey every 50 year old on pain of medication and incarceration.

Society as a whole and our country in particular has evolved by leaps and bounds because of the rebelliousness of our children. Rebellion is the very soul of our country and to put a ceiling on it and to try and drug it or “cure” it is simply reprehensible.

Treating our children like property, pets, employees, and now psychotics, shames us all.

In short, maybe it’s not a disease, maybe the kid just has a point.

Reputable ethical psychologists would do well to voice their opinion on this subject, as should sociologists.

“The first principal of nonviolent action is that of noncooperation with everything humiliating.”

Cesar Chavez

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Why Cannabis will Remain Illegal

Stoners Volunteer to Save California by Being Taxed – LAist: Los Angeles News, Food, Arts & Events

It’s all about the direction wealth flows.

The drug war provides a handy excuse to raid and shoot potential threats to government, like those seen during the birth of the civil rights movements. The excuse of drugs has long been a tool to oppress.

The drug war generates billions of dollars for drug enforcement related endeavors.

It creates a criminal underclass that can be forced into serfdom thanks to drug related criminal records.

An underclass who by definition cannot defend itself against political attack.

By creating this group you have a ready made scapegoat for all sorts of failures that would otherwise be laid at the feet of elected officials.

Lousy education stats? Blame drug use. High teen pregnancy? Blame drug use. High crime rate? Blame drug use. Unemployment? Blame drug use. Homelessness? Blame drug use. Over taxed healthcare system? You guessed it. They even try to blame terrorism on drug use.

Legalized drugs would be a complete disaster for the government. They know better than to trade the golden goose for a tiny tax boost.

Like gun control, drug policy was never about protecting us.

But if it is ever truly legalized and taxed anywhere in the united states, that area will become a bastion of actual democratic activity, as in the governmental system not the political party.

Just imagine the political consequences of a legally armed urban populace who’s community is suddenly economically solvent and free of gangs and police warfare. All that under the first real American president we’ve had since Kennedy?

Mark my words, any state which embraces the abandonment of the drug war will cling ever more firmly to gun control, because which ever state loses both will quickly become what America was intended and that could lead to disruptive social innovation at best, and civil war at worst.

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It’s perfectly fine to enslave humans.

Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy? | Video on TED.com

Because they’ll just grow to love it anyway.

Right?

I’m sorry but maslow’s hierarchy kinda shatters this notion.

He’s basically talking about coping skills.

A modern version a “it builds character.”

In short, an excuse to be a royal dickhead and exploit your fellow man.

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No Worries

Humanity is self serving. That’s not cynical if you understand what that self is. Think of it like a samurai, or a handgun. Service depends on the leadership, the intent.

We all agree that survival and pleasure are good. There are a whole host of things we all agree on, stemming from that simple foundation. Further there are many actions one can take that are in service to the self directly and others (self indirectly).

But the key is as I said, understanding that self. I don’t mean understanding as in neurology, or psychology, or even sociology. I mean philosophically, fundamentally, ontologically, what the self does, what it’s goals are, and what it knows, think, feels, within it’s own context. We have to have a goal before we can implement it. “I just want to be happy” isn’t good enough. We have to know what happy IS, where it comes from, and we need to decided if survival and happiness are enough.

If once again you’ll permit the boldness, I understand this. So well that it’s crushed my life. The most significant fact is as follows.

Our goals as they stem from our consciousness (meme), and our immutable nature (genes), are in fundamental conflict.

The complete self is the result of the interaction between the two. Well duh you say, everyone is a body and a mind, yes, but no one carries that forward. We have glimpses of unity, and hints, like in religion and martial arts. (body and soul)

But I’m not talking about self help smoke and mirrors. I’m talking about solid reality.

From a historical standpoint the gene (our strain) was given a hard choice. Build a mechanism to house intelligence and loose it upon our enemies (starvation, predators, environment, etc), or face extinction. This was a deal with the devil from it’s perspective because intelligence is in fundamental opposition to the gene. That is, we see everything about life in terms of what it can do for us, or to us, the individual. The gene’s goals are precisely the opposite. They don’t care about the individual, at all. The gene is only selfish as a means to an end, and it is by definition unintelligent, intelligence is self interest. The gene often acts in self interest but this is a co incidence, through selection our set of genes has learned to mimic selfishness and thus intelligence, actual memetic intelligence was dangerous, because that goal become truly about the individual, rather than a smoke screen for species survival.

Intelligence for it’s own sake is absurdly capable. Just look around. The gene wants merely to breed and eat, rinse lather repeat, and anyone with an ounce of math skill can tell you where that’s going. For the gene, happiness IS survival. The gene has a brutal purity of purpose, the meme can sometimes lack because as of this moment the meme is a parasite or a symbiont with the gene, they can not be separated, yet.

The gene’s plan requires discipline from without else it leads only one place. The grave. We are not a staff infection, yet we act like one. Why? Because it was like having to allow demon possession to cure a nasty case of cancer. The whole of the human condition can be seen as a war, or dance, with these opposing elements. All our weaknesses, all of them, can be understood in this way, and what can be understood can usually be manipulated.

In order to win, we have to create harmony, and there are a number of possible ways to do this. But they all boil down to the following or equivalents. You will be able to see these factions at war.

1. The gene wins and intelligence is selected out of existence.
2. The meme wins and preserves the gene resulting in extinction.
3. The meme wins and the gene is selected out of existence.

The first option results in a planet bound society that grows dimmer and dimmer until humanity is once again well and truly a member of the animal kingdom, at which point we’ll probably be consumed by the insects or the fungi or the microbes, having eventually choked to death as a result of our own environmental manipulations intentional and otherwise.

The second option leads to total war. Just trust me on this for the moment, feel free to ask how. This is one of those mass assumption long term complexities I was talking about.

But the third leads to what can loosely be called every human word for happy ending. Take your pick because the reality of it is everything anyone has ever wanted for all time limited only by the laws of physics. Again, trust, but I can explain.

You have to know what to fight. The tyranny of the gene over our mind is the enemy and it is not an enemy we can chant or pray or meditate or medicate away. We have to physically edit it, we have to make it a function of the meme by converting it cleanly and completely into a willful intentioned construct, it does not care, it does not think, therefor we must think and care for it.

We must halt erosion, and replace it with sculpture.

Past that is where my spirituality rests. I personally believe the rules are here for us to learn how to edit them and make our own, but as humans in control of a single planet this is thoroughly and completely not possible. But that’s completely faith on my part.

The rest is not.

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Response to “How not to be that guy.”

http://www.kekkai.org/alanna/thatguy.html

—–

The entire “that guy” essay is in very poor taste. Women react to this as if its helpful, when if I wrote a similar guide on how not to trip the gold digging vapid tease/whore reaction, I’d be blasted as a male chauvinist.

Entitlement:

Let me open by saying…

You are not entitled to influence my behaviors in anyway in which I am not entitled to influence yours. You don’t get to invent rules for me OF ANY KIND outside the normal social contract established between ALL HUMANS. Your vag does not make you special. Equality is the name of the game and you’re attacking it, plain and simple.

The irony is thick here considering the implication that you feel you are entitled to the opposite of the behavior you describe.

If you approach me with the presumption, stated or implied, that I owe you anything — my time, my attention, my energy, my conversation, my acquiescence to your desires — that’s entitlement.

Translation: I’m a ‘girl’ and therefor only my opinion matters. No matter where I am, or how I got there, I am in charge. I may be standing in your home, drinking your booze, eating your pizza, sitting on your couch, watching your friends play your ps3, but I don’t even owe you conversation because I have a vagina.

Wrong. Yes you DO owe me recognition under certain circumstances. This even ground bullshit has got to go when the whole world gives you power just because you’re in position of a vag. Put simply, with power comes responsibility, and what you owe depends on what you take.

A vagina only means a unilateral absolute free ride if you’re a spoiled sexist princess, which clearly you wish all women to be, and try to shame men into accepting.

This whole section is like hanging a sign up out front that says “lemonade inside” and then bitching (pun intended) when people knock on your door because you wanted a specific person to come looking for that lemonade, in this case, Brad Pitt.

Cast a wide net and you’re going to get a lot of boots. Don’t blame the sea, or the boots. You’re the one throwing the net. Until our country spends less on makeup than it does on health care, you’re going to have to choose between keeping quiet or looking like a moron to anyone with an eye for simple logic. But then again those “tits” are showcased specifically to short cut logic aren’t they, because if the men were thinking logically they’d pay a hooker rather than put up with your parasitic shit.

I love the bit about rescuing the girl, this keeps the queue moving. “Hey men, I don’t want to have to work up the balls to tell this annoying asshole to go away, will you do it for me like everything else in my life?”

Fight your own battles broad. Odds are, merely to be in your presence, I had to put up with crazy bullshit ranging from evil bosses and bullshit schools, to fights and total submersion of who I really am.

I’m tired of wearing your uniform and living up to your idea of what a man is. I’m tired of every song telling me I’m worthless without one of you lampreys sucking at my fiscal belly. I’m tired of the constant sexual lies, and the endless sexual innuendo wrapped in romantic platitude.

Hell even a drawn heart is shaped like a girl bending over or cleavage. Quit making EVERYTHING YOU ARE about sex and then calling men pigs for thinking about it.

I ask you, what percentage of movie, song, and literature would be annihilated if I asked a genie to remove all trace of romantic subtext from all recorded media. Most movies would be half an hour long, fully 9/10ths of all music would vanish, if not more. Trillions of photographs, totally not including porn. Paintings, poems. Everything tells men to see women as godlike, which I have 0 problem with begin somewhat submissive sexually, and into D/s. What I do have a problem with is entitlement and deception.

Mostly because introducing sexual orientation into this would complicate it umpteen billion times over.

Right because when you’re being a total female chauvinist, equality really makes circular arguments transparent. We’d hate to remind the reader that this whole document is based on a sexist assumption.

One which encourages lying. One would think you’d not want to teach men how to avoid begin “that guy,” since now “that guy” can lie about it and get closer to you.

But thats the whole point isn’t it. Men are supposed to utterly suppress what they are these days to live up to absurd and unrealistic expectations.

Liars get laid, and men are not to blame, when women punish the honest. Now granted women are held to some pretty high unrealistic expectations as well, but they share more of the fault for this generally since it is women who control the paradigm and always will so long as men pursue and women choose.

I’m using the phrase “That Guy” here, because the people who display these behaviours are predominantly male; these behaviours come from a place of privilege, and right now, in our society, the men have the privilege.

Without getting to much into it. I’ll simply say prove it. Show me a single area of male superiority and I’ll show you you’re wrong. This challenge stands to all humanity, in the context of the American society (as of 2008).

I can logically demonstrate any conclusion presented here, and I will defend it. My contact information IS here. I am not afraid to attach my name to this work for all of the world to see. Because I’m in the right.

http://underlore.com/TBA/?p=32

Then say to the guy, once she’s gone: “Hey, I think you were making her feel really awkward. Back off a little next time, hey”

Right because god forbid she’d have to own up honestly to her discomfort. You should do all the work for her, after all its the man’s job to pursue and risk being totally humiliated and shot down, its the girls job to be pampered for having a vagina. Right? Wrong.

If you make me think that you think you can express a wish and I will fulfill that wish, that’s entitlement. (and related statements)

You’re blaming me for what you think!? I can “make” you think a certain way? Wow, how is that any different than blaming a girl for “making” me horny from across the room (even when not dressing like a French maid), and then calling her a tease?

Someone clearly has no understanding of human emotions. And why should you, its not like they matter when you’re a totally pampered sociopath. In the real world, emotions are uncontrollable, the only things that are controllable are our reactions to them.

Every emotion is equally valid, only our actions and statements are up for scrutiny.

It is so hard to explain how this is made manifest.

Thats because its completely subjective and at your whim. Plus you probably don’t want to admit your real motives. Fact is, all of these negative traits would suddenly be positive if coming from an obviously desirable mate. Arrogance would become confidence, vanity would become style, sexism would become chivalry, and so on.

And trust me, I can tell the difference between you looking at my tits (because yeah, they’re kind of hard to miss) and you looking at my tits and building elaborate fantasies about what they would feel like pressed up against you.

Aside from the fact that this behavior would be alluring if it came from a man you wanted. Limited Brands Inc stock price tripled from ’98 to the present. They own Victoria Secret. If you’ve ever worked in a mall or near one of these stores they are not packed with men. VS is kept afloat by women looking to draw attention, and judging by their fiscal profile and target demographic, thats a huge chunk of American women.

I can absolutely tell the minute you get the bright idea, spoken or unspoken, that you’re continuing our interaction for the sole or even the primary purpose of building the chance to feel those tits down the road.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” – Carl Sagan. Is it fun being a psychic? If you did possess this ability are you telling me that you’d not cultivate it if the target was a rich attractive prince? We both know better.

There are a lot of men out there who are looking for someone to service their emotional needs…

Again, if this came from Brad Pitt you’d say it was a tenderness and sensitivity, an honesty or openness. Your advice here is a trap, designed to keep nice guys way the hell away to make room for abusive pricks, which girls reward with children at a staggering rate in this country. Just look at our accidental and teen pregnancy, divorce, and domestic abuse rates. You as a gender regularly and generally pick lying abusive alpha assholes.

How many chess club kids are in jail for domestic assault? What percentage of chess club kids got laid last night? How many drunken loud mouth abusive frat boys with beamers?

These are the men who are poisoning the well and making it harder for us to believe you when you say that you want to help

Did you miss the part where this whole post is basically a course on how to lie? Men who behave the ways you complain about are not going to read this and see the light they are going to read it and play the game. Don’t complain about liars when you punish the honest.

If you catch yourself thinking that of course you’re not like those men, stop and take a good hard look at yourself…

This is as ethically disgusting as how the television makes young women feel about how they look. “If you catch yourself thinking you’re beautiful enough, stop and take a good hard look at your body…”

You clearly did offend someone, or else the dogpile wouldn’t have happened.

Good to know that being right has NOTHING to do with it in your world. People can be offended and in the wrong at the same time. Go explain to a KKK man about how racism tends to stem from insecurity.

You’ll offend some people, but you’ll also be right.

You need to explore moral absolutism and its logical pitfalls.

It is a very sad fact that nine times out of ten, people with privilege, who are exercising that privilege in a way that makes other people feel uncomfortable, will not hear the fact that they are making other people uncomfortable until it’s pointed out to them by someone with the same privilege. They literally will not process what people are saying. It happens all the time, and it is so subtle and pervasive that people don’t see it even when someone calls them on it.

L M A O, and the irony meter explodes leaving a crater the size of Cape Cod. Nosce te ipsum lady.

And no. You don’t get laid cookies for being an ally.

Exactly. Assholes get cookies. Ladder theory anyone?

He’s going to beg, and plead, and guilt-trip, and pressure, and try by any emotional blackmail possible to turn that “no” into a “yes”.

Because it works. Virtually every romantic movie is some man’s struggle to meet some women’s requirements. To overcome her hesitation, her no. Survey women in relationships over a year old and ask them why they are still in them. Guilt, fear, and other negative emotions are going to be common answers.

Maybe not the majority but significant, this suggests (but admittedly does not prove) that emotional blackmail is effective. The responsibility for that effectiveness rests with women, especially in an age where an EPO is a phone call away, and every city in the union has a battered women’s shelter.

I won’t even get into gun ownership. In my state you only have to FEEL threated to respond with deadly force legally. Don’t blame men for exploiting your bad judgment.

This can be really blatant — trying to use physical intimidation to gain reluctant consent, for instance, like constantly trying to touch her or loom over her or get in her space — or more subtle. The more subtle form can be anything from constantly dropping conversational references to the question or proposition, to the very very subtle “puppy dog eyes”.

Again, all of which would be rewarded if coming from the right “kind” of guy. I’ll refrain from further speculation on just what that kind of guy is.

Because the society we live in, the society women move through, is one of pressure. Constant pressure. (etc)

Pressure imposed by their own decisions. Monogamy forces competition and women dictate monogamy. Men only wish for security. And since the majority of pregnancies are accidental children don’t come into this. I’ve written almost a whole book on monogamy and its horrific impact on human culture. Women perpetuate monogamy to raise the value of erotic capitol. Sociology 101.

You want men to stay sexually tense so you can keep one of them all to yourself as a fucking pet, and trade sex which you have an infinite supply of for fiscal and social gain.

We live in a world of the the male gaze, and it’s reflected in the notion that women’s bodies are communal resources.

Thats simple biology. Testosterone is the sex hormone for both genders, men have more, men want to have sex more, that means in a culture where rape is prohibited and lethal competition between mates is prohibited men are going to be pursuers and women are going to be choosers.

Since women dictate sexual terms, and enforce monogamy, it becomes in their interest to be as sexy as possible to attract the largest number of mates to filter for a ‘good’ single one. Quit choosing mates in such a way as to perpetuate this system. Learn to share like a grown up.

…and I don’t want to argue with another fucking horny jackass who’s just doing this to try to get into my pants…”

“…for free, when what I really need is a guy who measures up to my ludicrous standards to lie to me convincingly and make appropriate gestures both fiscal and emotive, to get into my pants.”

Lack of judgment on your part does not constitute failure on my part. You assume all men are would be rapists. Asking us to cater to your insecurity is unfair, when you’re the ones who cultivate the mind destroying levels of sexual tension for profit in the first place.

Persistence is not a virtue. Don’t be That Guy. And if you see or overhear another man countering a “no” with “well, but –”, you should repeat, very firmly and loudly, “Dude, she said no.” Whether it has to do with sex or not.

Right, so that she can reward the new guy with a sweet look and pass both of you up for the monstrous rich cute asshole at the other end of the room who will eventually make her feel like a totally worthless skin flap, after having fucked her (and secretly her friends) all through the best years of her life.

But to a woman’s ears, that sounds a whole lot like “Let me come along and tell this woman (who cannot possibly be as smart as a man) about all the things that she thinks she knows. Because she can’t possibly know them.

So if I had a vagina that would some how change the logic of my position towards the correct side. Who gives a shit what it sounds like, here I was thinking what it IS would matter a touch more.

Whether or not that’s what you mean, that is what women hear.

And thats MY fault!? Spoiled much?

If you are ever, ever in a conversation about anything relating to gender expression, sexism, male/female relations, etc, and you catch yourself thinking, “She doesn’t understand, and I need to explain this to her,” stop. Walk away from the discussion (if it’s online) or shut your mouth (if it’s in person), and ask yourself: is it really that “she doesn’t understand?” Or is it that she’s coming from a place so different than yours that you feel like she doesn’t understand your position? Do you think she doesn’t understand your position because she doesn’t agree with your position?

Why is this my responsibility again? Why is it not equally applicable to the woman? Are you not doing the exact same sort of “explaining?”

Let me guess, it’s different because you’re a woman, right?

No, really. Women know how their world works. For us, it works kinda shitty at times, thanks.

If we’re going to be generalists then the latest research would suggest a healthy “Not really.”

The world is too big to know concretely on a personal level, which is what the female brain excels at. Thus to know it one must know it as an abstraction, and this is what the male brain is built for apparently.

I certainly have a gift for large scale systems abstraction and to say that the reason most great global leaders were male is the subject of sexism its simplistic and defeatist.

A big factor is women simply don’t want that kind of power because they don’t need it to reproduce successfully like men do. Thanks Genghis Khan for proving that beyond a shadow of a doubt. A smaller but equally significant factor is they probably just suck at it. I quote.

“This male advantage in seeing patterns and abstract relationships – what could be called general strategic rather than detailed tactical thinking – perhaps explains the male dominance of chess, even in a country like the U.S.S.R, where the game is a national sport played by both sexes. An alternative explanation, more acceptable to those who would deny the biological basis of sex differences, is that women have become so conditioned to the fact of male chess playing superiority that they subconsciously assign themselves lower expectations; but this is a rather wilful rejection of scientific evidence for the sake of maintaining a prejudice. ” – Anne Moir, Ph.D

It’s true for her, and she doesn’t need you telling her how things ‘really’ are.

So if a girl tells me that the planet has 2 billion people on it, its true for her? No.

The fail happens when you take what people are saying to you and start coming up with arguments to counter and invalidate those experiences.

So I’m not allowed to think critically at all now? I can see where you’d demand that given the quality of your logic thus far.

But if you’ve said or done something to call down the dogpile, please stomp on the initial impulse to come out swinging, no matter how in-the-right you think you are — because a basic fact of possessing privilege is that you have to be really careful to avoid anything that looks like you’re trying to silence the people without that privilege. And just about any defense at this point is going to come across like you’re trying to use your privilege to silence people.

Clever false choice. Third option; “that guy” actually IS provably, logically, and demonstrably, right, and is being wrongfully, spitefully, and childishly, attacked. At which point “swinging” is ethically demanded to inform onlookers of the perhaps otherwise invisible issue.

The dog pile is the mob. Being in the majority does not make you right, being right makes you right. Plus I find it funny that you think of men as dogs, since clearly this pile is supposed to be men primarily given your requests for men to police other men.

There are things you don’t know. There are things you can never know. You can be told about them, and you can, as you start to open your eyes and observe and listen, start to see and hear them, but you can never experience them firsthand.

The smoldering remains of the irony meter actually twitch at the bottom of it’s glassed crater. How is this not true for both genders?

You can start to understand, but it will never be your world the way it is for a woman.

Right because being born with a vagina gives one an intimate first had understanding of what its like to be stoned to death for being raped, just like being part German gives me the visceral understanding of what its like to be broken on the wheel.

Face it, if you’re white, speak English, and have bread money, you probably don’t know what real horror is. The difference between us is that I own up to this ignorance.

And then stop and listen to what is being said to you, and imagine, as hard as you can, that the world being described to you is your world, and work from there.

Again, why is this my problem? How does this not apply to women?

Work from the perspective of: this is not my experience, but it clearly is her experience, and her experience is just as valid for her as mine is for me.

Unless she’s a liar. And yet all the responsibility is apparently mine, and all the power is apparently yours. Fuck that. If you want true equality you’ll submit your position to the rule of evidence, the only thing that isn’t biased. Oh but then I’m not respecting your emotional boundaries. Sorry, the physical constants don’t give a shit about how you wish gravity would work. Otherwise its all favorite color bullshit.

She didn’t misunderstand. She’s not imagining things. It is possible. You just don’t see it, because you have the privilege of ignoring it if you want to.

Again clever use of the false dilemma fallacy. Third option; She actually is wrong, and he can prove it.

And women don’t owe you an education.

Actually all who understand owe education to all who are willing to learn, thats the legacy of communication, tribalism, and intelligence. It’s part of the social contract and basic human ethics. Woman argued very successfully that all humans have a right to knowledge and an obligation to provide it, which is why women are allowed in college now. Despite the fact that in a he number of cases they use that opportunity to husband hunt.

“Because that’s when you start realizing that things should change. ”

You REALLY want change? Share your boyfriend. Scrap ‘relationships’ entirely, which are nothing more than sexual contracts. Don’t agree? Ask yourself, whats the difference between a best friend and a boyfriend? What can you do with a best friend that you can’t do with a boyfriend? Sex is the only difference.

Quit asking for “commitment”. Live and let live as a human being surrounded by other human beings of differing type, intention, intelligence, and compassion. Select each action based on each situation with an eye towards making yourself and those around you happier and healthier.

THAT would change things. Work for a living instead of husband hunting. Dress comfortably instead of sexily. Throw away your make up. Ask yourself how much of what it is to be a woman you got out of a magazine or off the television. Define for yourself what your life should be about. IGNORE gender. Live as a human instead of a woman.

Stop using words like slut and whore to describe people who share sex. Stop confusing sex with love and beautiful with erotic.

Yea, thought not.

The absolute last words you should ever say in a discussion of sexual assault are “men can be raped too”.

Fact: The majority of victims in instances of rape are men. And before you toss out that prisoners deserve it, consider the majority of prisoners are there for non violent or drug charges. You think selling an ounce of crack should be punishable by rape? Before you answer remind yourself of the phrase “she was asking for it.”

Or, well, pretty much anything that attempts to shift the focus of the conversation, subtly or not-so-subtly, away from women’s problems and onto men’s problems.

Wow, how unabashedly self serving and callous. Right, because men’s problems don’t count (much like those prisoners). Man up. Be a man. Right?

Lady, we’re both human, and have rights. You don’t get to tell me what mine aren’t. Thats how the social contract works. I don’t kill you, you don’t kill me, and on down the line. You wanna scrap that? Be my guest, just own up to it. I can respect a hard core anarchist.

“because men are the group with the privilege ”

Again, prove it. I can prove the opposite (in western or American culture) under any objective measure. Try me.

it does not matter what your intention is.

Yes, actually it does, to ethical thinking humans, anyway. Intention turns vehicular homicide into an accident.

Does this make you angry? Does it make you feel upset? Do you feel like your right to speak, like your right to be heard, has been silenced? That’s the space many women live in all the time.

I can say the same. The difference between us is I don’t see my oppression as granting me any special rights that women are not granted. I actually want equality. You merely want revenge. And isn’t this whole article about telling a man he has no right to be heard on a bevy of topics?

After-the-fact:

Not good enough, I don’t have to have been raped to know rape is HORROR. And there are many kinds of rape. If I had to pick between the rufie date rape and the prison broom stick rape, I’d pick the mickey any day of the week.

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