Tag: mailvox

Mailvox: the inexplicable antics of women

Drew is a bit discombobulated:

This is my first time writing to you, but I have followed your blog for about 6 months now. I was directed to your blog by a female friend after she quoted you on facebook. Many of your entries on politics and the economy are way over my head, but I do learn something from time to time. The articles that i find most applicable to me are the ones on women. Which is why I’m writing to you today.

One of my female friends has never seemed the least bit interested in me. Until two days ago, when I made it known that I will be moving out of state for a job. All of a sudden, she’s been all over me, totally out of character. I’ve talked to one of my friends, and he said he’s experienced the same thing when he was about to move away. What is it that makes women ignore guys until they no longer have a shot? Is it the “you always want what you can’t have” principle? Or is it something more sinister at work?

I don’t know if I would describe it as anything sinister, as it is probably the same reason women are so much more sexually accessible when they are traveling away from home than when in their home environment. I suspect she is sufficiently attracted enough to you to be interested in no-strings sex, but not enough to want an actual relationship. This is most likely because your status in the socio-sexual hierarchy is insufficient to impress her friends. Never forget that women are not pack animals by nature, they are herd animals until they emotionally bond with a man, at which point they abandon the herd in favor of a pairing that can form the nucleus of a new pack.

So, since you have already made it clear that you’re not going to be around in the future, she is free to pursue a dalliance with you without having her association with you judged by her herd and harming her status with it. This is why skilled male predators always make a point of cutting off a woman from the herd, because their chances of success with her always increase dramatically once she isn’t performing for her public.

But there is no reason you should take my word for it. This is a predictive model which we can test. I recommend that you perform a service to your fellow men and do the following experiment: Tell her that the plans for your job may be falling through and that because she is more important to you than any job could ever be, you are planning to turn down the job so that you can stay and be with her. If my interpretation is correct, she will be aghast at your response and attempt to convince you to take the job. Her unexpected attraction to you will also vanish as rapidly as it appeared.

If, on the other hand, I am incorrect and she reacts to the news with tears of joy before falling into your arms, well, you may want to actually reconsider taking the job and moving away. It’s always possible that she was just very shy and didn’t dare indicate how she felt until the last possible moment. Remember, it’s a lot harder to find a good woman who truly loves you than it is to find a job.

Mailvox: case in point

BlueSunday provides an apt illustration:

“I don’t expect most people to agree with me because I don’t expect them to be able to understand me.”

In other words, if only I were smarter, I would agree with you?!? Isn’t this the same sort of thing regularly served up to conservatives by smug lefties? Maybe you didn’t make the top 100 blogs because you’re so arrogant….

No, it’s not the same thing at all. You should perhaps recall that my statement was made in response to someone who asserted that it was anathema for any woman to disagree with the Great Moi. But, that is not true, as also happens to be the case with Blue Sunday’s restatement. Since most people don’t understand what I am saying in the first place, and those who agree with me are merely a subset of those who understand me, most people cannot possibly agree with me unless they somehow happen to reach the same conclusion via a different means. BlueSunday has forgotten that there are subsets within sets.

Now, the typical lefty position to which he refers is that if the conservative were more intelligent, the conservative would agree with the lefty. But that is an intrinsically absurd and not very intelligent position. Even flawless logic will reach different results given different input factors. Here is one example of the three usual possibilities:

Vox: The economy is in the process of severe debt-deflation.

1) Doesn’t understand: “Debt what? Whatever, [insert credentialed authority here] says the economy is fine because GDP grew 3.2 percent last quarter!”

2) Understands, doesn’t agree: “No, that’s wrong, because the Fed is monetizing the debt. That’s why we’re looking at hyperinflation, not deflation.”

3) Understands, agrees: “Yes, that’s right because even though the Fed is trying to monetize the debt, they can’t monetize it fast enough to keep it from collapsing.

Both (2) and (3) are intelligent and reasonable positions and both clearly understand what I am discussing. In the case of (1), on the other hand, I might as well be speaking Japanese for all they grasp the subject. And there is nothing any more arrogant about the simple observation that people don’t understand what you are saying in English than there is in observing that they don’t understand what you are saying in German or Italian. As for the blog list, the fact that Roissy, Karl, and PZ were listed among the best should suffice to prove that whatever the criteria might have been, arrogance was clearly not among the disqualifying factors.

But speaking of not understanding things, I’m a little at a loss as to why anyone would turn to an Award-Winning Cruelty Artist for personal advice. I suppose I can attempt to repress my instincts for a change in answer to Sillygirl’s question:

What advice can you give for a mid-twenties woman that has not ridden the carousel (do not want to go into details, but please trust me on this), who is above average in looks (though not the most stunning thing…7 at best), and who is generally shy, bookish. My reason for not being married yet is because of an old boyfriend I was with for three years, who I thought was the one, waited for and turned out he didn’t want it after all. Then, I had a second relationship which was the same exact thing! Except that he was Indian and decided that marrying within his culture was more preferable. Four years of my twenties…gone. Clearly, I am doing something wrong.

The first man was three years old than me, the second one ten years older than me. I am now 25. Out of college, and unsure of what to do. I rarely go to bars, and spend a lot of time at home playing the piano, reading or working with a charity group.

I have also made the firm decision to not date American men after seeing the lack of family values and high divorce rates. They are out of the question for me because the cultural differences are too many. Their women seemed to have poisoned them, and I do not want to raise my children here. Fortunately, all of my friends are “fresh off the boat”. I generally do not interact with locals in my age group.

Is this too unreasonable to think there is hope?

No, it is not unreasonable at all, especially in light of your uncharacteristic ability to conclude, from only two lessons, that your past problems with men are likely due to the specific choices you made. There is nothing more tiresome than listening to the romantic woes of a man who can’t figure out why he keeps ending up with predatory, high-maintenance women when he only goes out with strippers and junior executives or a woman who can’t figure out why she keeps getting pumped and dumped when she only deigns to accept dates with ambitious, arrogant alpha males.

Second, it is generally wise to focus yourself to dating within your race and culture because despite what the advertisements tell you, very few individuals are actually willing to marry someone outside it. 94.7% of white men marry white women and 95.6% of white women marry white men – ironic, considering that the media has been indefatigably actively pushing black man+white woman for the last five years – so very little interracial dating will ever lead to marriage. That being said, why did you immigrate to America if you don’t wish to actually integrate into American society? Hanging around with fellow immigrants is a very bad way to adapt to your new home; I’ve met expats in Italy who don’t speak 10 words of Italian after 15 years there.

But to return to the subject, most men who are married will admit they had a pretty good idea that they were going to marry their wife very early on in the relationship. It’s not always the case, but it is common enough to indicate that there is no point in being involved for more than a year without an engagement. So, don’t be misled by the airy “yeah, I’d like to get married someday” talk, that’s just a polite way of saying that he probably doesn’t want to marry you in particular. If a man isn’t unambiguously clear about his desire to have a wife and family, then don’t waste so much as another weekend on him.

If you do meet someone suitable but the year passes without any actual engagement, don’t issue any hints or suggestions, just politely break up with him without giving any reason. If he asks for one, (and he almost surely will), just tell him that you’re serious about getting married and having a family while he has demonstrated that he is not. Either he will propose within weeks or you’ll have saved several years of being strung along as well as your self-respect. Just be sure not to fall for vague promises offered in order to keep you around in lieu of an actual proposal complete with date.

The problem, of course, is that plenty of men who would like to have wives and families don’t dare risk marriage in light of the heavily biased divorce laws. However, if that’s the issue, expressing a ready willingness to either sign a pre-nup or make a covenant marriage in the states that offer them should go some way in allaying those perfectly reasonable fears. And not being a veteran rider of the carousel will certainly help your cause as well.

Mailvox: is there a doctrine in the house?

Mats laments a church in the downward spiral:

Another church service, another feminist promotion. Well, not hardcore feminism, but the notion of a service with ONLY women singers, ONLY women motiffs, and specially, a female “preacher” was enough for me to walk away before the sermon.

I really don’t mind it when I see a woman take the pulpit. That’s when I know that I no longer have to bother attending that church anymore, as it’s only a matter of time before they abandon every other principle of Christian doctrine. It might make for some interesting research to track when women are first permitted leadership positions in a church against the church’s congregation size and the abandonment of specific doctrinal positions.

Science champion wanted

I’ve gotten a few emails from people relating to science, so I think it would be beneficial to hash this out in public. I propose a Socratic dialogue to examine the following question: Is science self-correcting?

Whoever is nominated the Official Champion ofSpeaker for Science should at least be an enthusiastic believer in the scientific method, although an actual scientist would be preferred. Don’t forget to inform everyone of your credentials, as I’m told they’re very important! Now, this isn’t intended to be a debate per se, because I am not defending a position and I have nothing against the idea of science being self-correcting. If the matter is as obvious as my various emailers believe it to be, it should be no problem to successfully answer my simple and straightforward questions in a manner that will prove illuminating to everyone.

So, feel free to throw your name in the hat if you’re interested in educating me and everyone else can discuss who they believe would provide the strongest and most credible champion of science here.

UPDATE: We have several volunteers, two of whom stand out in particular. Matt is a Scienceblogger and PhD candidate for a degree in Physics, while 445supermag is a Senior Research Scientist with 15 published papers ranging from biophysics to quantum chemistry. Matt has suggested that the dialogue include both of them, seeing as they represent different disciplines within science, and I tend to agree with him. I think they will both make for excellent Speakers for Science, but feel free to share your opinon on the matter.

Mailvox: let me explain how this works

Modernguy objects to my kicking around a few angst-ridden atheist teenagers:

You’re treating them as arbiters of the best arguments for atheism so you’re doing battle with them. And acting like you just spiked the ball in their endzone is comical considering they’re probably just a bunch of teenagers. In any case they are philosophically unsophisticated, so I would think below your weight class as internet superintelligence.

First, if I only limited myself to those of my intellectual weight class, I’d have to ignore nearly everyone. Second, it has always been my philosophy to take on all comers and give everyone at least one shot. So, if an atheist Neo-Keynesian with Down’s Syndrome wants to take his best shot, he’s welcome to do it. It’s not like his chances are going to be significantly worse than anyone else’s. And third, who is spiking the ball? I’m not celebrating, being from the Emmitt Smith school of having been there before and expecting to be there again soon; it is an unusual defense that cannot be run over with ease. What I find annoying about Modernguy’s protest is that for every atheist who wonders why I am bothering to kick around the ineffectual opposition, there are 10 clueless atheists who genuinely believe the kickees are making really good points and doing rather well.

The underlying problem isn’t that the atheist teenagers of Reddit are philosophically unsophisticated – and since we’re talking about internet atheists, the chances are good that they are not actually teenagers, it’s just that their intellectual and social development makes them appear to be – it is that self-anointed atheist champions such as Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Myers are no more philosophically sophisticated than the teenagers and make pretty much the same arguments. Dennett and Onfray do somewhat better, but they’re still not in my class as their arguments are riddled with obvious errors big enough to drive fleets of trucks through. But don’t take my word for it, read TIA and make up your own mind. No one – and I mean absolutely no one despite tens of thousands of readers – has successfully argued that my critiques of the various arguments presented by these godless gentlemen are incorrect in any way. Few have even attempted to do so because the facts upon which I draw are so conclusive and easily confirmed. Whether it is the Courtier’s Reply or the Red State argument, the Extinction Equation, the Ultimate 747, One Less God, Extraordinary Claims, the Lancet Fluke, or the Epic Self-Evisceration of Christopher Hitchens, I have shown how their arguments to be both inept and invalid.

So, as I and various others have told Modernguy, if you think there is anything better out there, if you think there are any atheists arguments against religion, Christianity or God that are stronger or more valid, then by all means send it to me. I’ll post it here in its unedited entirety before picking it apart. And in the meantime, I’ll finish my post for later today explaining why a scientist who is apparently rather well-regarded in the field of evolutionary science simply does not know what he’s talking about when he prematurely proclaims a particular triumph of so-called science.

On the modern Ivy League education

In which Tom provides an eloquent summary of the present state of the elite American university education:

“Cicero’s The Republic and The Laws”? I admit I’m an Ivy leaguer, but I thought Plato wrote those?

If you, like me, are familiar with a sufficiently large number of Ivy Leaguers, this response no doubt strikes you as a highly unlikely one. One is forced to conclude that Tom is only pretending to possess a degree from an Ivy League university, not because he doesn’t know the works of Cicero, but because he isn’t anywhere nearly pretentious enough about the chance to correct someone else he assumes is insufficiently familiar with Plato. Any genuine Ivy Leaguer would surely have phrased his response thusly:

“The Republic and The Laws? Um, Plato, anyone?”

Ivy Leaguers are, almost to a man, moderately intelligent but uneducated individuals who nevertheless believe they are very well-educated and extraordinarily intelligent. MPAI applies to them with an ironic vengeance. They tend to be heavily inclined towards intellectual bluffing, presumably based upon the magical properties of their sheepskins, which is why you should always call them on their assertions and ask pointed questions on any occasion when you are not already certain that they are demonstrably incorrect.

For example, Tom is partly right. Plato did indeed write both The Republic and The Laws. The dialogues have been famous for centuries and anyone with a halfway-decent university degree will have heard of them, or at least The Republic. (On the other hand, very few of the degreed folk who are prone to happily citing the question “Who will watch the watchers?” at the drop of a hat has actually read either dialogue.) And even fewer happen to know that Cicero, who was a learned admirer of Ancient Greece, (albeit not to the extent of his great friend Atticus), also wrote a number of dialogues, among them De Re Publica and De Legibus.

While the more proper translation of these two dialogues would be “On the Republic” and “On the Laws”, they are more commonly known as “The Republic” and “The Laws”, which, as it happens, is exactly how the new Oxford translation to which I was referring has them.

Mailvox: No fear!

Big Chilly sends word of an incredibly courageous woman who puts us all to shame:

“SM has been studied for more than 20 years, and many papers have been published about her fear-related abnormalities. She has trouble recognizing fear in facial expressions, for example. In another experiment, published in 1995, she was blasted with a loud horn every time she saw a blue-colored square appear on a screen. Despite the repeated blasting horn, she never developed the fear an ordinary person would feel when seeing the blue square.“

Emphasis is mine. She not only does not, but can not fear seeing the blue square. Holy crap.

The glorious return of Uber Dawks

Speaking of social autism, Uber Dawks offers this timely reminder that atheists who believe in reason don’t actually tend to utilize it well:

I see that your and fellow idiot fundies at WND who are somehow trying spin the Florida School Board shooting story into an anti-atheist screed because the shooter listed his religion as “Humanist” and was obviously ultra-liberal. I am now anxiously awaiting the typical Vox Day commentary bereft of logic and reason, much like your belief in Jesus.

This is typical conservative bait and switch and it disgusts me. You and your WND comrades should be ashamed. The world would be a better place if you idiots would just realize that you are fighting a losing battle against progress, including atheism and social equality. You just don’t understand that the human society is evolving into a better social construct, much like humans themselves have evolved into creatures that transcend racial inequality and sexual biology. We are no longer driven by the need to herd and procreate but have progressed into a society where freethinking is encouraged and sexual preference has transcended basic biology.

I’ve said it before an I’ll say it again – YOU IDIOT FUNDIES ARE LOSING! Humanism is a philosophy that will take over because it is based on REASON – and no smear campaign against it like linking a crazed Florida shooter to humanism will change that. Learn to give up your myths and this season celebrate reason. You people infuriate me and I anxiously await the day that you have been pushed out by science reason and are gone from our society.

Ah, yet another atheist arguing that the actions of a humanist [and probable atheist] should not be cited as an argument against atheism even though he has cited the actions of religious individuals as an argument against religion in the past. No doubt he would similarly argue that mass murders committed by atheists cannot possibly be attributed to their atheism even as he “anxiously” awaits the day that “science reason” has pushed theists out of his society. No doubt that’s just a coincidence and has nothing to do with his own atheism, right?

And who but an atheist would ever think to take the example of a humanist committing suicide and attempt to spin it into evidence for the ultimate triumph of humanism. Remember, these people genuinely believe they are more intelligent than you are.

UPDATE: Uber Dawks adds the following: You are missing the point entirely. The man did not shoot at others and then kill himself BECAUSE he was a humanist or an atheist, which is the same mistake you make when you mention Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot. The conservative media is already pointing to his atheism/humanism in order to paint the same sort of idiotic argument you make when mentioning the atheism of Joseph Stalin, etc. Epic fail.

Interesting. And leads to the question, would Uber Dawk hate “IDIOT FUNDIES” and dream about “Science Reason” pushing them from his society if he were not an atheist? Isn’t it his atheism that is behind his hatred? Some people really need to stop deifying reason and start using it.

Mailvox: On the secrets of the state

An interested party asks for elucidation on my attitude towards the legitimacy of state secrets:

I have read your column for years, sometimes in agreement, and sometimes not, and am so not surprised at your position on the most recent Wikileaks affair. Given that position, I am curious as to whether you would agree with the statement that no state may morally conceal any of its actions, intentions, or internal communications. If not, how would you qualify the statement to render it acceptable to you? I am also interested in whether you would draw a distinction between the concealment just mentioned and the provision of intentionally false or misleading responses — lies — in answer to requests for information. Finally, I would ask whether you might see any basis for differentiation between individual or state concealment or lies.

The question requires some clarification before it can be answered. First, what sort of state is it? Second, from whom is the state concealing its actions, intentions, and international communications? In the case of a state that is ruled by a sovereign monarch, in which “l’etat, c’est moi”, then the state can morally conceal its actions, intentions, and communications from anyone it pleases. In the case of a state in which the people are sovereign, (which is to say that the people are the state), the state cannot morally conceal its actions, intentions, and international communications from the people, which is to say itself.

It is completely false and historically illiterate to argue, as some would have it, that it would be self-destructive for a state in which the people are sovereign to retain no secrets. Quite the opposite is true; because most great powers fall to internal corruption prior to their conquest by external parties, it is the ability of powerful elements within the state to conceal information from the rest of the state that leads to the subversion of the state and its eventual transformation and collapse.

The example of war, so often cited in support of state secrets, actually supports the contrary case even more strongly. While it might have been more difficult make the D-Day landings, the more significant point is that they never would have needed to be made had the American people not been led blindly into World War I, which allowed the stage to be set for the rise of Hitler, the National Socialists, and the conquest of France. In the same manner, the informants who are supposedly endangered by the Wikileaks releases would never have faced any danger if the American people had been in full possession of the facts with regards to Afghanistan and Iraq; those invasions would never have taken place.

Obviously, it is worse for the government to lie in request for information; sins of commission are generally considered worse than sins of omission. But in a supposedly free and democratic society, there is no place for either. And finally, the difference between a state lie and an individual lie is that in the case of the former, (assuming a nominally free and democratic state), the state is lying to itself whereas the individual is lying to someone else. Needless to say, whether one is a state or an individual, one who lies to himself is very unlikely to make optimal decisions. And that is precisely the practical problem that underlines not only the immorality, but the self-destructive foolishness of state secrets.

In a state where the people are sovereign, state secrets are maintained for one reason and one reason only: to permit certain elements of the state to operate freely without taking into account the will of the other elements of the state. This is why state secrets are intrinsically authoritarian and invariably lead to the loss of human liberty over time. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that mine is a “naive” position, as the self-styled geopolitical realists like to describe it. It is nothing of the kind, being an extremely cynical one instead.

Mailvox: the daughter of the Devil and other emails

SF presents a succinct case:

Two wrongs don’t make a right, you fool.

That may be true, but the more salient point is that one right does. Bill helpfully illustrates the importance of owning a dictionary, or at least a passing familiarity with the English language:

Back in the real world, this was known as treason and the perpetrator would tried and hung. That is the way that true Americans feel about the betrayal of their country. These are also the ones that have fought and served their country, something, more than likely unknown to the likes of you and your kind. Sad that people have died defending the rights of traitors!

It is sad that Julian Assange should have so treasonously betrayed all those Americans who died defending his rights when the British invaded Australia… or something. Important rights like the freedom of speech, which that traitor should have known better than to exercise! Seriously, what is it with these conservatives who can’t seem to figure out that you cannot commit treason against a country to which you owe no allegiance?

GL, on the other hand, quite liked the column:

I purposefully read Barbara Simpsons article before yours and my mind was going off like it was Chinese New Year. I wanted so much to e-mail her and either yell in her face to shut her stupid illogical lying mouth or conversely to quietly tell her how wrong she was on so many levels. Fortunately I read your article before I did and now my mind is perfectly at ease. You said what I would have wanted to say if only I had been articulate, smart and cruel enough to say it.

And then there was this masterpiece of reason from JT:

I usually disagree with just about everything you say and usually just toss off your doffus opinions as probable doobie influence, but this time I so vehemently disagree I have to comment. You sit behind your PC in, no doubt, your cushy chair in your very cushy home, just like that little weasel you think is a hero, and make comments that are so unreal I can smell the pot. Join the military, put yourself in danger—not just the danger of getting sores on your butt by sitting too long in one position behind your PC screen—real danger—people shooting at you, people lobbing grenades at you, people hiding behind women and children and firing at you and you may have some kind of credibility.

But since you have never done anything to put yourself in that kind of danger, as my son has done by serving on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan, you have no idea how disgusting your hero worship of this little piece of vermin is. You are as disgusting as the Wikileaks Weasel. I used to think that libertarians were just as dangerous as liberals. I’ve now had to change my mind. You’re even more dangerous.

To which I responded: “Julian Assange is not putting anyone in any danger that George W. Bush and Barack Obama did not already put them. The fact that the truth may be dangerous does not justify the lie. You talk about others being disgusting, but you are daughter to the Devil, the Father of Lies.”

I am dangerous, Ice…man.