The last 24 hours has brought a rush of new traffic to HUS thanks to a nice new link in the Atlantic. 
Alexis Madrigal, Senior Editor in charge of Technology, has challenged the legitimacy of one of the Atlantic’s own articles. In the most recent print edition, Dan Slater’s A Million First Dates claims that online dating is the death knell for monogamy, primarily due to the overwhelming supply of opportunities on offer. He shores up his argument with numerous interviews with executives in the online dating industry, and with the profile of a prize named Jacob.
Madrigal takes apart Slater’s argument in his new article There’s No Evidence Online Dating Is Threatening Commitment or Marriage.
First the ad hom fun part:
One guy’s commitment issues don’t mean the end of monogamy for the country.
…Narratively, the story focuses on Jacob, an overgrown manchild jackass who can’t figure out what it takes to have a real relationship. The problem, however, is not him, and his desire for a “low-maintenance” woman who is hot, young, interested in him, and doesn’t mind that he is callow and doesn’t care very much about her. No, the problem is online dating, which has shown Jacob that he can have a steady stream of mediocre dates, some of whom will have sex with him.
Jacob, a self-described average looking guy in his early 30s, confessed that he figured being in a relationship was better than being single and having to meet new women. According to Madrigal, ”Past girlfriends had complained about his lifestyle, which emphasized watching sports and going to concerts and bars. He’d been called lazy, aimless, and irresponsible with money.”
His most recent relationship with a 22 year-old ended when she moved out, but it was a blessing in disguise: as the lazy son of doctors he was uncomfortable with her blue-collar military background. He turned to online dating and is now happy as a
Now on to the logical debate. Madrigal cites Slater’s premise:
The argument is that online dating expands the romantic choices that people have available, somewhat like moving to a city. And more choices mean less satisfaction.
Does online dating increase or decrease commitment or its related states, like marriage?
Madrigal correctly points out that the online dating executives opining on the subject have a huge conflict of interest.
As Slater notes, “the profit models of many online-dating sites are at cross-purposes with clients who are trying to develop long-term commitments.” Which is exactly why they are happy to be quoted talking about how well their sites work for getting laid and moving on.
Here are some quotes from industry players:
“The future will see better relationships but more divorce. The older you get as a man, the more experienced you get. You know what to do with women, how to treat them and talk to them.”
SW: That’s what Booth Jonathan said!
Dan Winchester, the founder of a free dating site based in the U.K.
“Historically, relationships have been billed as ‘hard’ because, historically, commitment has been the goal. You could say online dating is simply changing people’s ideas about whether commitment itself is a life value.”
Greg Blatt, the CEO of Match
“I think divorce rates will increase as life in general becomes more real-time…It’s exhilarating to connect with new people…People always said that the need for stability would keep commitment alive. But that thinking was based on a world in which you didn’t meet that many people.”
Niccolò Formai, the head of social-media marketing at Badoo
“Societal values always lose out…As we become more secure and confident in our ability to find someone else, usually someone better, monogamy and the old thinking about commitment will be challenged very harshly.”
Noel Biderman, the founder of Ashley Madison
As always, follow the money trail. There was a time when Match was eager to promote the number of marriages it could take credit for. Apparently, they’ve shifted to a strategy of promising poon instead in the hopes of creating more repeat business. Ladies, beware, that’s going to mean more Jacobs putting up profiles.
Justin Parfitt, a dating entrepreneur based in San Francisco, puts the matter bluntly: “They’re thinking, Let’s keep this fucker coming back to the site as often as we can.”
Madrigal proceeds to look at the data (that’s where we come in):
First off, the heaviest users of technology–educated, wealthier people–have been using online dating and networking sites to find each other for years. And yet, divorce rates among this exact group have been declining for 30 years. Take a look at these statistics. If technology were the problem, you’d expect that people who can afford to use the technology, and who have been using the technology, would be seeing the impacts of this new lack of commitment. But that’s just not the case.
Madrigal cites other sources which support the role of the internet in promoting the formation of relationships and marriage. ”The possibility that the relationship “market” is changing in a bunch of ways, rather than just by the introduction of date-matching technology, is the most compelling to me. [A] 2008 paper found that the biggest change in marriage could be increasingly “co-ed” workplaces.” Other influences potentially include changing gender norms (the “end of men,” hookup culture), the economy, the rising marriage age, geography (77% of Millennials say they want to live in big cities), and the role of religion in America (declining church attendance but increasing evangelical fervor).
Maybe Jacob doesn’t want to get married. Maybe he wants to get drunk, have sex, watch basketball, and never deal with the depths of a real relationship. OK, Jacob, good luck! But that doesn’t make online dating an ineluctable force crushing the romantic landscape. It’s just the means to Jacob’s ends and his convenient scapegoat for behavior that might otherwise lead to self-loathing.
Madrigal says his piece is the first in a series. I look forward to future installments (with or without links) as he explores the changing nature of dating and relationships in America.
Update: Stuart Schneiderman just alerted me to Amanda Hess’ hilarious takedown of the Slater piece at Slate:
Online Dating is a Horrific Den of Humanity
Enjoy.
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@Susan
Well, I actually disagree that you aren’t speaking to the Jacobs of the world. I imagine a few are reading here. But I digress.
So, I don’t have a problem in pointing out that Jacob isn’t a good LTR candidate. But why not also point out that the women who are choosing him are being foolish? Is it because you think that directly doing that won’t be as effective as denigrating Jacob and his ilk? I do realize that in other posts you do point out things like you need to avoid cads and slackers and whatever if you want an LTR-provider type.
Do you feel that the most effective way to get women to stop choosing poorly is to point out the consequences of choosing poorly? As opposed to a more direct confrontation of the fact that many female attraction triggers are easily “tricked” in today’s environment, leading many women who ostensibly want LTRs to try and find those with the charismatic cads and players who are least likely to enter or stay in LTRs?
@Susan:
“I’m not sure why love of guns correlates so strongly to evangelism.”
That’s because you’ve reversed the causation. If you’ll keep an open mind for a moment, it runs more like this: Greater New England and Left Coast: minimal-to-rare gun ownership in urban and suburban areas, low-average gun ownership in rural areas. Everywhere else: SIGNIFICANT gun ownership crossing all demographic lines (ethnic, SES, urban/suburban/rural). Prevalence of Evangelicals? They tend to be living in “everywhere-else-land” and thus tending to follow their own cultures regarding gun ownership.
Are many, and arguendo the majority, of evangelicals, bigots? Quite possibly. But on the same hand, one could argue that 100% of the Redstockings membership was also, and a good 70% of Jezebel’s dedicated readership is now. Bigotry and provincialism are *everywhere,* and singling out any given group is, in my opinion, sloppy thinking.
As a cradle catholic in Texas, among my peers (overwhelmingly non-evangelical and in most cases leaning heavily-RC), for instance, I would be considered ENTIRELY unremarkable in owning two rifles and four handguns between the wife and I.
Culturally and politically speaking, every place you’ve lived except LA is part of Greater New England/Yankeedom, and parts of the LA area are distinguished only insofar as they’re much further to the left (whereas a patriotic bumper sticker in Boston will only get you sneered at, it’s very likely to get you tagged, keyed, or windowed in Santa Monica).
Iggles,
1 bottle of beer (12 oz or 1 1/2 cups)
4 1/2 cups of Bisquick
3/4 cup sugar
Blend all ingredients in a bowl (wow – no mixer necessary – I love it).
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Fill greased muffin pans with enough mixture to fill 2/3 of each muffin container.
Bake 20 to 30 minutes or till the top is slightly brown.
(heheheheheheh)
*******************************************************************
pvw,
I missed doing military diensplig by a year. The guys a year older than me, were the last group to do this.
So I never had to go and fight in Angola, or go into that hell that was the politicized townships of the time.
As for Dave Matthews, the name sounds familiar, but I can’t say that I know a lot about him.
Ever heard of Sixto Rodriguez ?
He was (in the US) an unknown musician, but for some obscure reason made it big on the SA music charts.
I love that song by the way.
As for SA history, the nineteenth century is more interesting. See if you can read Mhudi by Sol Plaatje.
(It’s a novel written by one of the founders of the ANC)
I generally find religious fundamentalist/evangelist types to be less obnoxious than the political/environmental type. The religious fundamentalist may be quite sure that you’re going to hell if you don’t change your ways; but there’s (usually) no malice in it; he WANTS you to change your ways and go (as he sees it) to heaven.
Whereas the environmental fundamentalist in many cases really does want you to suffer: some of the gleeful comments during power outages by people carrying the “environmentalist” banner are truly malevolent and appalling.
@Damien:
“I already know that you’re not one of those guys who think that Europe is a nation, but a bit more of explanations from you about that statement would be welcomed.”
I actually hadn’t intended it to be fiery, but I have a marked tendency to wax strident on some issues.
As you’ve said and I wholeheartedly co-sign, “Europe” isn’t a single place. The Jantelagen, for instance, is unthinkable in Italy, and I tend to find East-Central Europe most sympathetic. But I have, across Europe (and *especially* in Western Europe), found us/other thinking wherever a different nationality was concerned, and a tendency to immediately describe people from foreign countries inside Europe in a collective, tribal way which defaults to stereotyping. The Lombards disdain the Apulians, who scorn the Sicilians, all of whom are described as something like vermin by the Swiss, who tolerate Hungarian emigres but won’t even speak to a Bulgarian. The Greeks are financially irresponsible (not mentioning, of course, that the entire ECB issue which threatens to tear the Euro apart is designed not to prop up *Greece,* but to bail out French and German banks who foolishly lended into an environment when they shouldn’t have), and the southern Europeans feckless and lazy. I have been in Frankfurt transferring on flights and more than once heard muttering about “dirty Albanians” when there was absolutely no difference in behavior. And, to put it bluntly, I would far rather be black in Tennessee than Paris, where I have heard anti-black and anti-arab bigotry causally spoken on the street that would embarrass an east-Texas Klansman.
Good point.
Susan: These purple voters, who I suppose are the independents, are growing in number, it seems to me. I feel no sense of alliance with either party, and I’ve never voted along party lines. Perhaps there will be a shakeup where purple voters congregate.
Me: That would be ideal, but in the meantime, I feel like I’m sitting in the middle of two camps, and I saw it the most during the holidays.
To the right of me, the conservative on social issues and fiscal matters “cradle Roman Catholic” corporate lawyer living in a nice doorman building across the street from the fancy park–they need to make it official, move to Texas and register Republican as part of the small minority of people of color who are so registered. To the left of me, the “cradle Roman Catholics” who are conservative on social issues but very liberal on fiscal matters, the social issues don’t matter as much to them, so they will consistently vote Democrat that is where they are registered.
And finally, me and Mr. PVW: him, libertarian; me, independent, unaffiliated and moderate, as described earlier…So you can well imagine how that went!
Russ in Texas: Greater New England and Left Coast: minimal-to-rare gun ownership in urban and suburban areas, low-average gun ownership in rural areas.
Me: I think that it is on the gun range where one might be likely to find the more conservative New Englanders who vote Republican. Evangelical? I would guess they would be more likely to be Roman Catholic or at least have nominal Roman Catholic roots. I’m thinking, these are the types who have traditionally been blue collar, even though they might not be now–the old Reagan Democrat types. Mainline Protestants in New England tend to be overwhelmingly liberal, and are likely to see themselves as evangelical but in a liberal social justice sense.
@pvw:
Agreed. The degree to which “social issues” are actually class issues in disguise is remarkable.
Sue: “in the last group of students I had, the little informal survey had *males* rating female ambitiousness and financial independence as extremely important.”
Sometimes what people say is not what they do.
In my younger days I would have said this, toeing the feminist party line. Both my parents worked full time. I would have preferred my wife work full-time, DINK for a good 10 years to build up some assets, buy lots of useless shit in a huge house, have kids starting around 30-32, and put them in day care when she went back to work. I viewed SAHM status as a temporary thing, until they hit kindergarten.
She had other ideas. She wanted to have kids immediately, work part/flex time, stay home when needed. It took a few years to conceive our first and I was early 30′s when the LAST was born. As a result, we learned to live on one income in a rather expensive area, and our only debt is the house. We simply could not afford child care for three unless she was making six figures, and even then… It would be such a waste.
Things are *much* better this way.
@Russ: The degree to which “social issues” are actually class issues in disguise is remarkable.
Me: Yes, affecting: the extent to which one is willing to support funding for social issues (fiscal conservatives on the upper end of the income scale); the extent to which liberal social behavior influences positive or negative outcomes (upper middle class types and above, especially if the SWPL types v. more impoverished types of whatever racial background); and the extent to which one pursues conservative social behavior in order to avoid the outcomes of liberal social behavior (social conservatives of whatever ethnic/racial background, but especially effective if among the middle class or striving working class, hoping to enter the middle class).
@David Foster
Interesting article @421
@David Foster
Moving towards a bonobo masturbation society.
But that is simply the natural result of a prosperous society where male provider/protecter roles are not needed. Then women have genetic incentive to search for the best genes. However, many of the things that signaled good genes in prehistoric times are no longer good indicators and are easy to fake–like being a badboy because now you can act like a badass and won’t be kicked out of the tribe and don’t really have to prove that you are whereas in the tribal days only very capable males could get away with being badasses.
@BB
This is a perceptive comment. I’ve witnessed what girls do for pics – it’s like those holiday parties in food magazines when you know everyone is laughing on cue. One of them gets up to snap a photo and suddenly they’re all laughing and having the most wonderful time – entirely faked. Then the pic goes up on facebook and you immediately experience FOMO. (fear of missing out)
JP,
Hmmmm, smells like you’re gonna try Bantustans as well.
*********************************************************************
Russ,
Why is Spanish radio, TV & whatnot then making lots of inroads into major urban US centers ?
@Marellus#463:
It’s not?? I suppose it might depend on how many Spanish speakers you’ve got, but we’ve got it available on tap all over huge sections of the S/SW, flyover country, and California. (TeleMundo actually tends to do pretty good political reporting, btw)
Re: lower class immigrant culture. I mingled with a lot of them since I went to public elementary and middle schools. Most of them never went to college and work service industry jobs. The ones with more traditional immigrant mindsets end up in the middle class as clerks, police officers, nurses, etc. and married with kids.
On gun ownership: it’s actually quite expensive and not something the low SES folks have access to if they’re law-abiding. In most of the country (outside large cities) it is largely the middle class that owns guns. The Democratic party has plenty of gun owners, and the elite liberals risk alienating them to appease the minority.
Philosophically, gun ownership is a more “masculine” mindset, that of arming the good guys (sheepdog) to keep the bad guys (wolves) at bay. I believe it was Robert Heinlein who wrote, “An armed society is a polite society.”
But women do not want to have to protect themselves, as this runs counter to primal psychological programming. Only very recently in history has a woman and man gained (nearly) equal ability to kill via weaponry. Now, a woman armed with a gun is as able to be as deadly as a man, but very few women would want to be trained in it.
I guess I have some rather masculine wiring, because I want to be a good shot.
BB, I am really enjoying all your posts and observations here. I’ve watched this in person, the whole cyborg thing. A young hair stylist was showing us cat pictures on her phone one day, and she scrolled through thousands – thousands – of self-portraits on her iPhone, with various poses, to find it.
Sue, I am independent and have voted in primaries. In MA if you are unenrolled you can vote for either. It’s only when you enroll are you locked out.
Oh. Misunderstood the question.
It’s all over the place for the same reason that the world’s first Lithuanian-language newspaper wasn’t printed in Lithuania. Lots of immigrants, especially 1st-gen ones, who do okay with the language but want their native language if they can get it for comfort reasons — they don’t want to “have to brain” just to get an idea what’s going on.
Are there people who play that angle as demogogues? Absolutely. But I live in a solidly lower-middle/striving-working-class neighborhood, ranch houses not far from the freeway that no SWPL could bear to look at without a sneer, and politically speaking, you absolutely *cannot* say “that guy’s Mexican, so obviously he votes Democrat.” By and large, these dudes exemplify middle-america in their mores and values, with all the variations to suit.
Q: How can you tell if there are Mexicans in your neighborhood?
A: Because their lawns are fucking perfect.
Now, you CAN usually say “Mexi=Dem” in California. But that’s because, pace some fine folks I know out there, California is synonymous for “paradise lost.” I’ve had Mexican guys in SWPL-Cali look at me in SHOCK because I bumped into them and actually apologized, without looking afraid because I’d accidentally touched a Mexican. I’ve heard similar sentiments from guys I’ve picked up on the road and given lifts.
“Hmmmm, smells like you’re gonna try Bantustans as well.”
http://en.es-static.us/upl/2012/12/US_city_lights_night.jpg
No, what I’m saying is that the poorly lit part of the country in that link west of the Mississippi is quite detachable because nobody really lives there because it really doesn’t support people.
Leaving the west coast to China/Mexico, so to speak.
The question will be to see what happens as the global power of the U.S. declines.
@Damien
I’m used to that – even with my closest friends I generally avoid discussing politics, so I probably shouldn’t do it here. I don’t get easily offended but I find that my friends do. My brother (a socialist who lives in Italy) and I have no trouble debating world politics, and it’s amazing how much common ground we find.
Even on foreign policy, though, I’m not easy to pigeonhole. I’m more pro-Israel than any of my Jewish friends, but I’m also in favor of extremely liberal immigration to the U.S. I am profoundly opposed to mea culpas for “American Imperialism,” and would have happily deported those lefties who claimed that America deserved 9/11 during its aftermath.
But I certainly wouldn’t expect a European to share my view.
at Hope 365:
Philosophically, gun ownership is a more “masculine” mindset, that of arming the good guys (sheepdog) to keep the bad guys (wolves) at bay. I believe it was Robert Heinlein who wrote, “An armed society is a polite society.”
Me: This is exactly what the gun safety instructor spoke of yesterday afternoon! Arming the good people (again, very middle class appearing group, especially among the older ones). He explained the common reasons for getting a gun: self-defense, a job, recreation.
Hope: But women do not want to have to protect themselves, as this runs counter to primal psychological programming. Only very recently in history has a woman and man gained (nearly) equal ability to kill via weaponry. Now, a woman armed with a gun is as able to be as deadly as a man, but very few women would want to be trained in it.
Me: So interesting, but true. I saw an interesting essay on this, a woman of color writing about her interest in guns and she addressed that very issue, of traditional wiring (at least in some subcultures), but not all. In addition, marketers are seeing an increasing trend of women wanting to develop expertise in using firearms.
As I said, it is about subcultures. It is fascinating, I know of two stories about young women, one an 18 year old widow and another a 12 year old child, each using guns to fend off intruders. The intruder was breaking into her house; she used her 12 gauge to shoot him dead. She put her 3 month old baby boy in another room, gave him a bottle to keep him quiet, barricaded the front door and waited. The child barricaded herself in a bathroom and shot through the door as the intruder tried to break the door down. No surprise, they were each from a more gun friendly state–Oklahoma.
Hope: I guess I have some rather masculine wiring, because I want to be a good shot.
Me: I feel the same way, I must be some type of high t woman! From the moment the brother in law asked me whether I wanted to try shooting, I said, absolutely, whatever types of firearms they had…It amuses Mr. PVW to no end; he is excited this is something we can try together, and especially since it draws on his own expertise in firearms.
JP,
True.
@Han
I’m happy to, I just don’t have any information about them. As I said earlier, who has sex on the first date when the first date is usually coffee in the afternoon? I mean, it sounds like we’re talking profound sluttitude here. I have so few readers like that I tend to be more dismissive than anything. If I thought those women were keeping a real prize out of the relationship market, I guess I’d be tempted to advise non-slutty women how to compete for Jacob. As it is, I’m happy to have the sluts and slackers get together.
As I’ve said repeatedly, I’m not particularly interested in Jacob, as I don’t find him a credible representative of the majority. I honestly did not expect him to get so much attention in the thread.
I don’t think high MMV women are choosing Jacob. I think lower quality women are choosing guys like him. There may be no shortage of them, but it has never really been my aim to convert women who like Jacobs to my way of thinking. Online dating makes it easier for a woman to get duped, like the paralegal did, because she has no sense of a guy’s history or reputation. He may appear to be a solid citizen for a while before his true lifestyle and character is revealed. To that end, I do try to warn women about red flags and knowing when to drive on. The 22 year old who lived with Jacob for 2 years may have loads of time, but the woman older than him who spent 5 years in that relationship is not well positioned in the SMP.
“I think you are missing the entire North-South cultural conflict here.
No way are the Southern conservative whites going to joing with the liberal Northern whites.”
I don’t see a great divide. People are more or less the same across the US. Same language, same food, same basic civilization and culture, same TV shows, same Wal-mart, voting for the same two redundant political parties who both serve the same corporations, etc.
I do see a divide between fundamentalist Christians and everyone else though. Those types of Christians are a small minority and don’t influence mainstream America.
The KKK was not religious-based. That is, to the extent that it was anti-Catholic, it was out of ethnic and not theological concerns.
Esco, what about their anti-Semitism? Racial or religious? Or both?
BTW, you can cook for me any time.
@david foster
Interesting link. I can;t say I agreed with all the particulars, but I found the main idea to be rather persuasive.
@Iggles
Congratulations! Is marriage on the table?
@OTC
I can sympathize with your desire to work less and pursue your interests more. I wish DH and I could find a way for each of us to work part-time and play and pursue interests the rest of the time. Not an option for us at this point in time.
@DV
However, sometimes it looks like you guys again press on some kind of personal itching button out of the blue and immediately turn into the “toutes des salopes”(They’ve hurt me, and therefore they’re all bitches who will have to pay for it) mode again.
Huh? So, I guess you DON’T need a vagina to notice that trend.
Russ,
hahahaha.
On race and the New England/South divide: you’ll see more interracial couples in the rural and semi-rural areas of the South than you will in suburban New England. Its a fact.
she scrolled through thousands – thousands – of self-portraits on her iPhone, with various poses, to find it.
EEeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww.
Well, this is hard to assume in certain places, like Portland. Portland in a short time has become a pretty expensive place to have a family and now has a fairly entrenched dogmatic culture. These two things can soon be over run with (male) blowhards (i.e. overly ironic, religiously eco-tastic, etc.). If Jacob is a nice looking guy with an easy going attitude and no creepy vibes, many a good girl may take a shot with him before figuring out that he much, much prefers to sit back and hang. For many, it is only then that they figure out that he is not a good piece of clay to be molded bu rather a man who has succeeded in living a very relaxed life and is not that interested in changing it.
My whole point is, if he is a nice guy, with nice looks and a nice attitude in a “bad” environment, many relatively high MMV chicks will take a shot. (San Fran is another place where this, I understand, common).
@ david foster
Well, personally, I prefer the environmental type, though only by a small margin. The environmental type might have outright hatred for me, but he doesn’t question my humanity. Whereas the fundamentalist might have good intentions for me, but as long as I don’t convert, he’ll look down on me as inferior to him. I personally prefer respectful antagonism to patronization. Yes, the latter might be more well-meaning, but it takes away my self-respect.
@OTC
Re your challenge about how many of my ESL students I socialize with, I wonder why you ask. INTJ’s claim was that I know nothing of immigrant culture. My reply demonstrated that I do in fact know a bit about a great many cultures. Is there some reason why I cannot learn in a conversational class? Why is it necessary for me to invite students to dinner? You were clearly getting at something, but I’m not sure what or why.
@ pvw
Yup despite my atheism, my political stances agree quite closely with those of Roman Catholics. I’m morally conservative except on the issue of gay rights (personally I think allowing gays to marry is pro-marriage and pro-morality). On the other hand, I’m rather left-wing on economic issues, as is the Catholic church.
@ Susan
You may be able to learn quite a bit in a conversational class, so I wouldn’t dispute your knowledge of immigrants. However, you seem to be a clear example of how upper SES whites compartmentalize their lives and limit their interactions with other groups to certain organized activities. They don’t live next to them, eat dinner with them, have their kids play with each other, or any of the other activities that create much closer and more natural cultural exchange and social understanding.
But then again, to some extent, upper class whites even compartmentalize their interactions with each other. Everything becomes organized and there is very little “real” social interaction that isn’t scripted to some extent.
Fair enough, but surely they are not in the third who has first date sex. Jacob has already stated he will not wait for sex, even for a potential gf. As always, delaying sex is the best filter for identifying cads.
@INTJ: despite my atheism, my political stances agree quite closely with those of Roman Catholics. I’m morally conservative…
Me: my own personal morality is indicative of my Roman Catholic upbringing, but I couldn’t adhere to their conservatism in all respects, so I ran off with the Protestants, but not those of the type you described:
“Whereas the fundamentalist might have good intentions for me, but as long as I don’t convert, he’ll look down on me as inferior to him. I personally prefer respectful antagonism to patronization. Yes, the latter might be more well-meaning, but it takes away my self-respect.”
Because at the same time numbers of them dislike Catholics, they really despise a fair number of their Protestant co-religionists, and they have the same attitude towards you as they have towards us! I might read their texts once in a while because I want to know what is going on in the world of Christian thought, but I will not have anything to do with them.
@INTJ
Again, you shoot from the hip in ignorance. May I ask how you know what my interactions are? Socially or otherwise? Until yesterday, you didn’t know I have been teaching ESL for 10 years as a volunteer. You don’t know what my church is like, my neighborhood (2 projects within two blocks of my home), my locals schools (78 languages spoken at the high school), my friends, family, kids friends’, or future DIL.
Your superior and smug attitude is offensive. Who are you to judge me? You think that because you have brown skin your pride in your caste goes unnoticed here? What hypocrisy. Do not make assumptions about me or judge me again, or you will not be welcome here.
@ Susan
It would seem to me that aside from your stances on gun control and feminism, you’re pretty much politically the exact opposite of me.
@ Susan
Heh, it sounds like what you are saying is that casual sex aint all that bad, except for the, you know, actual sex.
I get what you’re saying. Believe me, I do, because I’ve also had some casual encounters, and indeed, it’s hard to say I regret them too much. It’s also incorrect to say that I liked them. It’s more correct to say that I nothing-ed them.
Oh, and some were definitely interesting, in the sense that they make good stories. Not necessarily good for me, though.
I also get what you’re saying about the thrill of the seductive dance, especially in a wedding scenario. Did I ever tell you about the first time I went to a wedding with my current SO, btw? I caught the garter. Actually, I stepped about 10 feet back from the crowd because I DIDN’T want the damn garter, but the stupid groom overshot everyone and it landed at my feet. So while they were looking around trying to find it, I just reached over and picked it up.
I was pretttttttttty drunk, so I decided to grab my SO and sneak her into one of the service-worker hallways to make out with her. That was fun
I think that even though the consequences of our actions haven’t “caught up with us,” so to speak, that we should still be paying attention to the relative cost-benefit and the sort of signal we’re sending to other people. We don’t lose anything by encouraging a culture where intimacy is encouraged only for LTRs: our casual experiences were pretty much lame, right?
It sure might help mitigate some of the consequences of early sex, though, and make things a lot simpler. There were “some” consequences, I guess, you can say, even if I didn’t personally feel them, and neither did you: we’re changing culture marginally, and big cultural changes happen one person at a time.
So I do feel some “consequence” for my actions, I guess you could say. And hell, I probably would have been happier volunteering at a soup kitchen as opposed to having some casual “sex” anyways.
@INTJ#483,
Respectfully, this is a poor litmus test; having also been a teacher, I can tell you point-blank that in a number of cases, that kind of personal interaction outside of the classroom would have gotten me fired.
Common sense no longer dominates in much of the academy, even its junior branches (which is why I’m no longer there). While I don’t know Susan’s particulars (and don’t really need to), what you’re positing is much, MUCH more rare than it used to be before professors/teachers were presumed guilty any time a student squawked.
@Russ:
The Lombards disdain the Apulians, who scorn the Sicilians, all of whom are described as something like vermin by the Swiss
I would far rather be black in Tennessee than Paris, where I have heard anti-black and anti-arab bigotry casually spoken on the street that would embarrass an east-Texas Klansman.
….And the German-speaking Swiss dismiss the French-speaking ones as smelly and lazy, the later who in turn despise the French for being even lazier, the Belgians not being Belgians but either Flemish or Wallons, and so on. That merry-go-round has never had any “brakes” to pull on.
As for Paris, well, I guess you noticed the ultra right (le front national) percentage of votes in the latest presidential election… However, ask any open minded “Estelle” what she thinks of young Arabs when she’s roaming the streets. Long, multi folded problem. But in all those aspects, I’ve found the Americans very much as tribal as over here on the whole.
As for central eastern Europe, I hope you haven’t failed to notice the adoration of the Slovaks for the Hungarians, the Bohemians for the Moravians, or all of them for the gypsies……
@J:
Huh? So, I guess you DON’T need a vagina to notice that trend.
Obviously not, maybe just a different perspective, and I’m certainly not a unicorn in that regard.
@ Susan
OTC asked you a question. You claimed that the question was irrelevant. I explained why it was relevant. Namely, you seemed to be a typical upper class white liberal. There would have been no need for this had you simply responded to OTC’s question by giving information about your church, neighborhood, local schools, etc.
As for making assumptions about you, that’s a matter of the teapot calling the kettle black, given the kinds of statements you make about most manosphere people.
I have observed that your examples and anecdotes nearly always involve high SES, highly educated people. I guessed incorrectly that this was due to limited exposure with other groups. Clearly, I was wrong about the cause, but I still stand by my observation that your anecdotes or HUS articles rarely if ever deal with people outside of your societal group.
And you accuse me of shooting from the hip. I most certainly don’t have any pride in my caste, because I don’t have a caste to be proud of.
“And the German-speaking Swiss dismiss the French-speaking ones as smelly and lazy,”
Well, they certainly don’t keep their houses up as well, so as an outside observer there certainly does seem to be something profound lacking in the French-speaking Swiss that is present in the German-speaking Swiss.
So, there may be an objective superiority to the German-speaking Swiss to the French-speaking Swiss that is summed up in being “smelly and lazy”.
What we really need is an objective “culture scale” so that we can objectively rate cultures on an absolute scale with respect to their quality so that people can know what other cultures they should emulate.
However, we have to get into ontological debates to get there, such as the purpose of mankind, the purpose of culture and such.
Damien,
Absolutely. The Hungarians have made themselves NO friends, historically.
And those Slovaks? A bunch of Tots. :p
I’ve seen lots and lots of racism in America — most of the tribalism I see tends to be based on political bigotry (southerners trash-talking New Yorkers, Yankees trash-talking, well, everybody, that Kansas-Texas rivalry that apparently only the Kansans have actually heard about….) What are the examples you saw? As an outsider, you’ve a definite advantage of “eye.”
@JPSo, there may be an objective superiority to the German-speaking Swiss to the French-speaking Swiss that is summed up in being “smelly and lazy”.(…) However, we have to get into ontological debates to get there, such as the purpose of mankind, the purpose of culture and such.
Puzzled smile here. Sounds like a facetious provocation of yours again, and your last sentence sounds even more like one coming from a new England scholar, or am I mistaken?.
All I can say about this is that I always tend to look for the best, or, rather, what is most different yet compatible to my own sensitivities and upbringing in order to live in a foreign culture. There are cultures in which I would be willing to make many compromises in order to live in there, whereas there are some others where, even though they would have many interesting aspects on offer, in which I could never live. By all this I am also of course making an analogy with women.
pvw, thanks for the interesting stories. Now that I am a mother, stories like that resonate more with me, because I’d want to be able to protect our baby. If it’s just me, I wouldn’t care as much.
david foster, ” I generally find religious fundamentalist/evangelist types to be less obnoxious than the political/environmental type. The religious fundamentalist may be quite sure that you’re going to hell if you don’t change your ways; but there’s (usually) no malice in it; he WANTS you to change your ways and go (as he sees it) to heaven.
Whereas the environmental fundamentalist in many cases really does want you to suffer: some of the gleeful comments during power outages by people carrying the “environmentalist” banner are truly malevolent and appalling. ”
I’ve come in contact with more than my fair share of religious fundies who do not respect my religious freedom of choice and try to force their own particular religion on me, but where are all these “environmental fundamentalists” who want me to suffer?
@Hope: pvw, thanks for the interesting stories. Now that I am a mother, stories like that resonate more with me, because I’d want to be able to protect our baby. If it’s just me, I wouldn’t care as much.
Me: You’re welcome; the stories caught at my heart for those very reasons as well.
“I am profoundly opposed to mea culpas for “American Imperialism,” and would have happily deported those lefties who claimed that America deserved 9/11 during its aftermath. ”
Yeah but this is not a leftie view, no? Lefties are supposedly all about big Government where as rightists would indeed mea culpa over US government expansion so vast that it expands even to far reaching parts of the globe.
”
“What we really need is an objective “culture scale” so that we can objectively rate cultures on an absolute scale with respect to their quality so that people can know what other cultures they should emulate.”
Good idea. But within one culture there a million sub-cultures and people within a larger culture are often an amalgamation of several sub-cultures so it would be an enormous endeavor.
“However, we have to get into ontological debates to get there, such as the purpose of mankind, the purpose of culture and such.”
And everyone has their own ideas about those purposes.
The way men are using online dating to get to certain fruit means the tree is coming back
http://gadelali.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/girls-are-like-apples-on-trees.jpg
Obviously not, maybe just a different perspective, and I’m certainly not a unicorn in that regard.
In these parts, you are.
Sassy and J – Thanks
We’re not there yet but we do see a future together (i.e., old folks sitting on our front porch with lemonade in hand while he yells “hey kids, get off our lawn!”. I shrug and offer them $5 each to clear the fallen leaves. They respond, “That barely covers the weekly insurance rate for our hover boards!”
)
LOL. Cute!
I am profoundly opposed to mea culpas for “American Imperialism,” and would have happily deported those lefties who claimed that America deserved 9/11 during its aftermath.
But I certainly wouldn’t expect a European to share my view.
By that you mean the likes of Noam Chomsky?
I won’t get into a debate on US foreign politics, since discussing politics and getting into over heated debates about it is one of the most tiring national sport in France. However, I can only say and hope that most open minded Americans realize how pretty much the rest of the world views the US nowdays more as a potential threat than the “freedom of opportunity” land it once was for many.
As an aside, I wouldn’t expect Obama, even after Newport, to shed any tears for his drones victims either.
This “get out of the way, we’re America” foreign policy has never helped making the world a better place, nor Madeleine Albrights’ conviction of “I still think that we can teach democracy and bring a lot of our freedom to the world”, and later on saying that the 500 thousand or so children killed by US embargo in Iraq in the 90′s was, in her own words “a price worse paying.”, in the name of western superior democracy, of course.
All this reminds me VERY much about the least savory aspects of my very own country, given its colonial past…………..
All this could also be applied to the man/woman “rooster fight” as well, and you know what I mean.
@ADBG
Yes, I take responsibility for that.
To be honest, I forget the point. We were talking about crossing cultural lines. One can do that by being a “tourist”, or one can actually have friends in that culture. Heck, I lived in Germany for a while, and did all things German for months on end… but I still know very little about it, say, compared one of my college friends who married a national. I think to understand a culture, one has to experience it, daily, for a long, long time, or be close friends with someone who is. Otherwise we see it from the outside, not the inside.
@INTJ
OTC has no right to ask me if I have any black friends, and neither do you. That question is out of bounds and not material to the discussion. You stated that I knew nothing about immigrant cultures. I disproved that. I owe neither of you any justification for my choices, my social life, or my relationships. Your comments are essentially racist.
I make statements about behavior I have observed first-hand. There is a plethora of information available to anyone who cares to read it. Manospherians are not shy about sharing their views. Assumptions are unnecessary.
Duh! I have never hidden any information about myself or how I have come to write this blog. I routinely need to remind Ted and others that I am writing first and foremost about college culture. It is what I know, and since that gives me half the population to work with, I don’t feel qualified or inclined to go outside that group. If I did, I can assure you that the quality of debate here would plummet, as would the number of comments, as few uneducated people search out blogs and debate.
You’re doing what the PC left wingnuts have done to Lena Dunham. She can’t write what she knows, she must have token friends of color to reflect the distribution of the Brooklyn population. What bullshit.
Apologies if I was incorrect – I seem to recall you bonding with fellow Brahmin Say Whaat, but perhaps that was someone else.
In that case, what is the source of your smug superiority?
In that case, INTJs criticism that I am deficient in my understanding of immigrant cultures was especially unreasonable.
“In that case, what is the source of your smug superiority?”
Some people just know that they are the natural aristocracy.
For instance, I know that I am not God, but you always have to ask yourself:
“Is the world and all that is in it mine to do with as I please?”
“Is the natural place of all others beneath me?”
“Should I weigh others in my scales and decide whether I find them wanting?”"
“What should I do with the fact that the world is inhabited by others?”
I believe they are called narcissistic sociopaths.
I don’t think Susan is attempting to present herself as any sort of expert on other cultures. There are bits and pieces that can be gleaned simply by spending time with people from other cultures and that is what Susan gleaned from her ESL classes. She’s not claiming to be an expert on the cultures of any of those immigrant students, nor saying she has extensive experience with them. But she has picked up on some things, probably some combination of good and bad, and she has an opinion. That’s allowed.
I have gay friends and I believe they should be able to get married with all the legal benefits.
I believe that contraception should be easily accessible to all.
I do not believe that sex should only be performed within marriage and only for the purpose of procreation.
I do not believe that women should inherently defer to men.
I think blue laws are ridiculous.
Those beliefs (and others) put me at odds with evangelicals. So it is.
Am not!
“Some people just know that they are the natural aristocracy.”
“I believe they are called narcissistic sociopaths.”
I wonder if narcissistic sociopaths are generally racist.
If they believe that all people are their playthings, do they differentiate by race?
Hmmm.
That was something I never thought about before.
So, I did a Google search:
“Are narcissitic sociopaths racist?”
The second and fourth hits gave me Mary Matalin calling Obama a “political narcisstic sociopath.”
While that didn’t answer my question, it does kind of point to the nature of current American political discourse.
Fascinating.
“I have gay friends and I believe they should be able to get married with all the legal benefits.
I believe that contraception should be easily accessible to all.
I do not believe that sex should only be performed within marriage and only for the purpose of procreation.
I do not believe that women should inherently defer to men.
I think blue laws are ridiculous.
Those beliefs (and others) put me at odds with evangelicals. So it is.”
I don’t think that the evangelicals believe that sex should only be performed for the purposes of procreation.
The contraception thing sounds catholic, not evangelical.
@Susan:
“Some people just know that they are the natural aristocracy.”
I believe they are called narcissistic sociopaths.
ROFL! Great, you nailed it.
Now all of a sudden, you have me chanting “God bless America”. I’ll send that comment to some of those upper class people in France.
@Russ
What are the examples you saw? As an outsider, you’ve a definite advantage of “eye.”
Hah, that would take a long time
But I guess too much based on my own anecdotal experience. I had never heard of that Kansas/Texas rivalry before, sounds hilarious and a good starting point for a film script.
“I think blue laws are ridiculous. ”
What are they?
I wish American men were more like European and Asian men.
Those men aren’t as fat and uncultured and anti-romance as American men. Those men really know how to sweep a woman off her feet. They are really sweet and take pleasure in romancing a woman.
Susan, future DIL? Is your son engaged or close to it? If so congrats!
Iggles, happy anniversary!
“What are they?”
The last remnants of the moral order that stand between American civil society and total evil and depravity.
The last desperate attempt to prevent the judgment of God from wiping away humanity as the United States, the last true hope for the world, aches under the sheer weight of sin that now runs riot across the lands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law
“A blue law is a type of law designed to enforce religious standards, particularly the observance of a day of worship or rest. In the US, most blue laws have been repealed, declared unconstitutional, or are simply unenforced; though prohibitions on the sale of alcoholic beverages or prohibitions of almost all commerce on Sundays are still enforced in many areas. Blue laws often prohibit an activity only during certain hours and there are usually exceptions to the prohibition of commerce, like grocery and drug stores. In some places, blue laws may be enforced due to religious principles, but others are retained as a matter of tradition or out of convenience.”
Doesn’t sound so bad. I’m a believer in the 4 hour work week.
More time off the better.
Rebound has clearly never tried to date a Korean man.
“Rebound has clearly never tried to date a Korean man.”
Um, and you know that …. how?
Rebound Girl…”I’ve come in contact with more than my fair share of religious fundies who do not respect my religious freedom of choice and try to force their own particular religion on me, but where are all these “environmental fundamentalists” who want me to suffer?”
1)Please clarify what you mean by “force” their own religion on you. Do you mean they want government (or good squads) to throw you in jail or beat you up if you don’t accept their religious view??–or do you simply mean that they verbally (possibly *very* verbally) try to convince you that their view is the right one?
2)”environmental fundamentalists” who want you to suffer…as an example, during the NYC blackout of 2003, several callers to an NPR station made comments like:
“I’m glad when these things happen, it teaches us a lesson”
and
“We deserve this, because we’re so wasteful”
I’ve seen similar comments from “progressives” re the more recent power outages.
They were saying, “it teaches US a good lesson” and “WE deserve this” so that indicates they had experienced the outages themselves. If that’s the way they interpret their own experience, so be it.
I’m up for some voluntary, regulated, temporary shortages for the sake of our economy ourselves. That doesn’t mean I want anyone to “suffer”.
I’ve participated in religious events, even cultural events, where Fundie Christians turned up to protest and cause trouble, shouting violent slogans etc. They have zero concept of religious freedom. I am vehemently against missionaries also. They use means of subversion to “spread the good news”. I’ve more than a few conversations with them where they refused to accept that “I’m just not that into him”. Meaning Jesus.
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” Bishop Desmond Tutu
@Rebound
““Rebound has clearly never tried to date a Korean man.”
Um, and you know that …. how?”
Koreans having the longest working hours on the planet.
Note. Whoever feels like piping up about their uncle Bob who works 12 hour days, not worth explaining.
Ahhh ok. That was in response to my 4 hour work week comment, not the romantic foreigner one. OK. I’ll concede that. But Koreans over here don’t work that long
I shall take this moment to say that I am doing my part to become more cultured and have taken up reading Pride and Prejudice.
I am also pleased to announce that I have found the female counterpart to Jacob!
It is every single woman in 19th century England.
@SW
Upbringing. If I believed everything my mother told me, I’d still be living in her basement.
I guess the roles are reversed these days. Fair enough. Play on!
“Koreans having the longest working hours on the planet.”
They also have one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet.
It nearly dropped below 1.0 a few years ago.
“I shall take this moment to say that I am doing my part to become more cultured and have taken up reading Pride and Prejudice.”
I prefer Vanity Fair (becasue it’s on the bookshelf with the other books from the turn of the century), but to each his own.
“I’ve participated in religious events, even cultural events, where Fundie Christians turned up to protest and cause trouble, shouting violent slogans etc. They have zero concept of religious freedom.”
Why would they want religious freedom?
Their goal is universal Puritania, to witness to all humans, and thus usher in the Rapture, where everyone but them is killed by the glorious army of Christ. Or something. My memory is fuzzy here, since I’m 20 years out of high school.
It’s kind of funny that what was once the bright center of the United States theocratic expansionary impulse is now where Susan Walsh lives.
I just wanted to remind everyone who dreams of becoming a French citizen, that the French Foreign Legion remains available as a pathway to French citizenship.
http://www.legion-recrute.com/en/
“Their goal is universal Puritania, to witness to all humans, and thus usher in the Rapture, where everyone but them is killed by the glorious army of Christ.”
And deti thinks these are the “manly men so many women say they want”?!?!
OK, here’s the Rapture info. I honestly can’t remember who’s in the glorious army or who’s doing the killing or what is happening.
Read Revelation for details.
“Some dispensationalist premillennialists (including many Evangelicals) hold the return of Christ to be two distinct events, or one second coming in two stages. 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 is seen to be a description of a preliminary event to the return described in Matthew 24:29–31. Although both describe a return of Jesus, these are seen to be separated in time by more than a brief period. The first event may or may not be seen (which is not a primary issue), and is called the rapture, when the saved are to be ‘caught up,’ whence the term “rapture” is taken. The “second coming” is a public event, wherein Christ’s presence is prophesied to be clearly seen by all, as he returns to end a battle staged at Armageddon, though possibly fought at the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The majority of dispensationalists hold that the first event precedes the period of tribulation, even if not immediately (see chart for additional dispensationalist timing views);”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture
I just wanted to remind everyone who dreams of becoming a French citizen, that the French Foreign Legion remains available as a pathway to French citizenship.
Yeah, but from the comfortable chair on which you’re sitting on. Have you ever met any of those people signing up for the said French foreign legion?…. I have dealt with the French army, and made sure that they would not want me to deal with either. A funny story. But anyway, what is less funny is that I’ve met some of those destitute young kids signing up there. I guess you know about Faust.
I deal with enough 100% service connected disabled from Vietnam (just a few years ago), Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Nothing quite like reading through several hundred pages of VA medical records.
@JP:
But that’s quite something else than serving/experiencing the army in the first place. You definitely sound like a New England guy. Lol. Try to get out of your bubble some day…
Time to log off anyway.
@ Susan
Fair enough. But don’t get all pissed off at me for pointing out why the answer to that question might interest OTC. Also, my comments might be racist, but you can remove all references to race and the point still stands. It’s primarily an issue of class.
You go beyond that. You make inferences about Manospherian’s personal traits based on the views they have shared. You have cast aspersions before towards the psychological health of some manosphere bloggers.
I rest my case… Actually, you’ve made my case for me.
I’d say that Lena Dunham knows very little about the non-white population in Brooklyn. If she got all pissed off at me for that and went on to tell me how she teaches English classes to a bunch of immigrants and knows all about them, I’d get kinda confused though.
I’m only quarter Brahmin, and I don’t know if SayWhaat is a Brahmin or not. We’re both of Marathi ethnicity though, which was why we bonded. We can speak the same language and all…
http://intjcentral.com/the-compleat-idiots-guide-to-the-intj/2/
“We are self-confident.
No type is more self-confident than the INTJ. We have a very keen awareness of our own knowledge and abilities, and – more importantly – of the limits of our knowledge and abilities. Consequently we can come across as arrogant sometimes. This is your problem to deal with, not ours, since it is a problem of erroneous perception (yours).”
Re: Religious Discussion (Deti, Susan, et al)
“I’m happy to clarify re what I have witnessed from so-called Christians online, particularly at these blogs. The most vicious, abusive, misogynist and derogatory language I’ve ever seen anywhere. Wishing people ill, vague threats of harm, mocking and ridiculing those with differing views.”
====
I wonder how much of this predicates if their faith is based on fear or love for God. I think the meanest ones *must* come from backgrounds based on fear, tales of hellfire, demons and eternal torment.
That combined with being told that “God loves you!” would create *immense* cognitive dissonance and dysfunction, I’d imagine. Have you seen the documentary “HELLHOUSE” on Netflix instant? It’s pretty fascinating! I think living like that would be absolutely crazy-making, though. Maybe that’s why they’re so mean.
Anyway, I think Susan has hit the nail on the head as to why so many people have such visceral loathing and disgust for “ostentatious Christians.”
How often do we see people wielding religion as a tool of their ego; so called “Christians” overflowing with arrogance, condescension and false superiority? Or using their faith to cloak their evil deeds? Or a tool to control via fear? Or to justify hatred based on race or sexual orientation?
There’s a reason why the “corrupt preacher fleecing the sheep” is such a strong trope.
Instead of getting defensive, I think this is a call to accountability for those who follow Jesus. Namely, how do our actions show Christ to others? I think it boils down to two things:
1) Letting others know they have worth, that they are valued and loved beyond comprehension as a creation of God.
2) Standing with those society would demonize, the “least of these.” Poor people, the people mocked for their appearance (“the 1s and 2s”), the powerless, the ignored and the abused. The people we cross the street to avoid are the very ones that Christ loved the most.
(I am trying to imagine how hardcore it must have been to embrace lepers at a time with so many Hebraic restrictions over stuff like shellfish, pork and mixed fibers!)
This world treats us as very disposable and we are encouraged cut people down rather than build them up. To mock others’ faults in order to keep people from noticing our own. Society teaches us to play life as a zero-sum game, where kindness is seen as a weakness instead of a strength.
I believe we are called to be courageous and go against this grain. Even one ounce of kindness or one drop of love can let in the Christ. And like the loaves and the fishes, it will be multiplied beyond measure, bringing more goodness than we could ever believe possible.
That overview doesn’t explain certain negative intellectual qualities that Susan’s rightly pointed out. But it does explain the V-card and lack of GF experience. Perhaps it’s all interrelated…
re: Bastiat at 354:
“Re: 40-hour workweek. Well, Jacob is not alone on this—I run into it with my students all the time now. Running on parallel tracks to the PUA movement is the popular Tim Ferriss school of “lifestyle design” which believes that working like a dog for years (especially for someone else) and then having a retirement at the end when your physicality has sharply declined is a generally bad move from the standpoints of both real-time happiness and end-of-life regrets. It’s seen as a sucker’s game, perhaps even a kind of slavery.”
The low-footprint lifehacker world traveling Roosh lifestyle works out perfectly well until shit happens, and this being life, shit WILL happen utterly beyond your control no matter how careful you are.. along the lines of “I got mugged in an alley and now I’ve got several broken bones with no savings, no wallet, and no insurance” kind of shit. Granted, that’s kind of an extreme example. But the Jacobs of this world are playing with fire by not building a strong foundation in their freewheeling youth for the rest of their life. Not all of them are going to make it. And I’d put money down that a lot of the older homeless were Jacobs in their youth.
Not that I’m saying living the SWPL livestyle, living beyond your means constantly, and working in a corporate 9 to 5 mired in debt until your 70s so you can finally retire is a great life either, mind you.
It’s all about striking a balance. I decided my goal would be to work hard, get a good job, and live far below my means to the point where I can buy a house with cash – no mortgage – by my mid 30s would be a solid goal to strive for.
@Russ
Lengyel, Magyar – két jó barát, együtt harcol, s issza borát
And @Damien and central european craziness… Well everyone knows that in Poland, only we Poznaniaks are good for something. If we could only rule this country, Poland would be next HongKong. And the fully successful Polish uprisings were made by Poznaniaks, while all those losers from Warsaw could do was repeatedly pattern of lose, weep, claim the moral superiority
(But in fact I am only 1/2 Poznaniak, the second half is from the Kresy
)
@Russ in Texas 452: Greater New England and Left Coast: minimal-to-rare gun ownership in urban and suburban areas, low-average gun ownership in rural areas. Everywhere else: SIGNIFICANT gun ownership crossing all demographic lines (ethnic, SES, urban/suburban/rural).
Me: My mind ran on your comment as I read a recent follow-up story about that Westchester newspaper that publicized the names and addresses of people in the community who have gun permits, just because they felt they should, in the wake of Newtown. It is a public record, so publicize it, they thought, rather than think about whether it was really necessary to target law-abiding people in such a fashion. Big uproar, and lots of it coming not just from the local community but mostly from across the community. The ultimate irony is that the newspaper has now hired armed guards; where are the armed guards, I wonder, for the people being targeted and harassed for owning guns, as though they were criminals. The worst part as I read further, is not only that these are law abiding citizens minding their business; numbers of them are police officers and corrections people who are now being targeted by convicts.
excuse me, across the country, ie., in states where there is a lot more gun ownership and serious resentment of those types of attitudes.
“But that’s quite something else than serving/experiencing the army in the first place.”
I have plenty of second-hand experience being that I grew up in the suburb of the Army War college.
I’m always impressed when one of my sisters friends freaks out about having to divorce her husband because his arm got blown off and he can no longer stay in the Army.
I went to a high school that sent more students to West Point than the Ivy League.
@JP#533,
Still is, it’s just the religion’s changed. Huge chunks of the “manosphere” exist precisely because they can’t abide Boston Feminism.
Okay, Szopen got me. It’s true, the Poles and Hungarians are friends. But that’s mostly becuase their neighbors suck so badly.
@Bully#534,
I thought Ferriss was pretty impressive for about five minutes, until I found out he won his karate title by blatantly gaming the rules; these guys sound neat, and I suppose it’s an interesting lifestyle, if you’re not actually interested in achieving anything.
Since my measure of manhood involves having contributed something to the human race, I tend to equate the Ferriss lifestyle with “loser.”
@pvw: Yes, I heard about that. What was instructive to me, as I observed the various debates, was that the people owning firearms are treated as class-enemies; the anti-gun folks do not appear to *care* whether or not these people get hurt.
One can debate with somebody who think of you as a person, or even an opponent. One cannot have a debate with someone who defines you as an enemy.
“What are they?”
JP’s snark aside (heh), it means I can’t buy beer or wine on Sunday because apparently I’m supposed to be in church instead. Oddly enough, it also means all car dealerships are closed on Sunday, although I have no idea why selling cars would offend any deity.
“One can debate with somebody who think of you as a person, or even an opponent. One cannot have a debate with someone who defines you as an enemy.”
Also applicable to religious fundamentalists of all stripe.
@Hope
They have set up house, and I believe it’s only a matter of time. They speak openly about marriage, their future kids, etc. Anything is possible, but I would be extremely surprised if they do not get engaged within a year or so.
Rebound…”They were saying, “it teaches US a good lesson” and “WE deserve this” so that indicates they had experienced the outages themselves. If that’s the way they interpret their own experience, so be it.”
During this blackout, people were trapped in subway cars underground when the power when out. Others were trapped in elevators. Some in hospitals lost air conditioning in stifling rooms (this outage was in summer), and when generators failed (which emergency generators often do), they lost lights and medical equipment as well. Many small businesses, close to the margin of survival, lost desperately needed revenue.
All these things were widely reported, and should have been known by these NPR listeners. So, yeah, I think the “teach us a lesson” comment reflects malice and/or complete lack of empathy toward their fellow citizens.
@INTJ
OTC is oddly preoccupied with my social status. *Shrugs.* If I had a dollar for every time he’s used the word “elitist” on this blog…
From the HUS Rules of Engagement:
Do not include sweeping generalizations about any group of people based on sex, religion, race, age, profession, income, or education level.
Based on the views they’ve shared, diagnosis is appropriate. Many of them meet the primary criteria for personality disorders, based on their commentary alone.
In which case I fail to see why it was necessary for you to state the obvious in an accusing tone. Where’s the insight in stating that Susan Walsh writes for an intelligent audience about college culture? In fact, you said more than that – you found it appropriate to suggest that having good character means having a social life that includes people not only of various races, but various income levels. As if it is noble to boast having a friend or two below the poverty line.
I can deal with arrogance based on real knowledge and abilities, even if it’s not my favorite flavor. You, on the other hand are insufficiently aware of your own knowledge limits, certainly, and perhaps the limits of your abilities as well. I agree that it is my problem to deal with, and my method will be asking you to depart if it continues.
I have no more to say on the matter.
@Tomato#552,
It’s everywhere. Not just on the left, not just on the right. It’s a highly-communicable psychological disease.
(Nota bene, Susan: your own sweeping generalization regarding evangelical types is part of what started that whole tangent.)
I would definitely not be pleased if my spouse wanted to bartend as a hobby. But that’s just me.
I thnk bartenders fall into two categories: those who flirt with the customers and get involved in the patron’s shenanigans and those who watch with amusement from the sidelines. DH used to tend bar as did several of my father’s friends. The later position is the safest position if you want to keep your job.
They have set up house, and I believe it’s only a matter of time. They speak openly about marriage, their future kids, etc. Anything is possible, but I would be extremely surprised if they do not get engaged within a year or so.
Wow. Congratulations. Things seem to be moving right along.
@Russ
This is what I meant earlier when I said that the discussion really hinges on values. A key value that we wished to impart to our children was being productive members of society. If one leaves no legacy or contribution, why exist?
I was thinking about the debate over whether men like Jacob are losers or SMP winners, as Escoffier suggested. Again, this hinges on values. The SMP comprises the entirety of sexual activity in the “marketplace” – ONSs, LTRs, marriage, flings, etc. We might say that Jacob is a winner in the ONS Online Dating Division. Certainly, men who aspire to that “achievement” will look up to Jacob as having excelled, as will women who often choose such men for ONSs.
Similarly, there is an SMP winner in the Sexy Marriage Division and one in the Great College Boyfriend Division.
We can argue forever about who’s a winner and who’s a loser, but it’s always relative.
“It’s everywhere. Not just on the left, not just on the right. It’s a highly-communicable psychological disease.”
That’s because we all know that we are in direct competition for ultimate victory and eternal triumph with the other 7 billion people on this planet.
There can be only one winner.
Eventually, we will have to defeat everyone else and make sure that they never arise to challenge us again.
Winning!
WADR, it was Damien who made the statement. I just added a LOL that his description sounded a whole lot like the guys who identify themselves as making up the manosphere.
I have three kinds of experience with evangelicals:
1. I grew up and went to high school in a community in LA where they were very prevalent.
2. I have read a lot of “Christian” blogs.
3. I have observed the political statements and positions of evangelical leaders, both in and out of public office.
All three experiences have left me with a very negative impression. I have found these groups to be extremely judgmental, exclusive, and ill-informed (Creationism, anyone? Legitimate rape, anyone?). New Englanders and other coastal types may be guilty of the first two, but are far less likely to be ignorant.
In my experience.
Others can judge for themselves.
@Susan#559
Agreed. Everybody is a waste of time for SOMEbody.
@JP#560
…want…to…respond…mustn’t….walk…into…TRAP…..
“(Nota bene, Susan: your own sweeping generalization regarding evangelical types is part of what started that whole tangent.)”
I don’t think that’s driving the current INTJ dust up.
I just want him here long enough to talk about string theory, so I’m on the “let INTJ stay for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with this blog” team.
Susan, most people cannot leave a legacy beyond children, and if those children end up in the same “dead-end” jobs and lives of middle class conformity, then what kind of legacy is that?
The above might be termed the heroic-artistic-poetic objection to the way life is lived by the masses. A more philosophic way to look at it is, first, to accept the baseline truth–most people cannot leave a legacy beyond children whose only legacy will be more children like them. But then, rather than looking down on those people, see the good in them even if that good is devoid of heroism, profundity, poetry, depth or great achievement. Plus. the good in society.
Anyway, to repeat, an individual Jacob is indifferent to society. He doens’t hurt it or help it. A generation of Jacobs is definitely bad for society.
But it’s unfair or at least inconsistent of you to come down so hard on Jacob but have little or nothing to say about the females who play along. In addtion, sexually or relationship-wise, he has done nothing that you could countenance as wrong, that you have not specifically either defended or refused to condemn elsewhere, especially when done by girls.
In retrospect, JP, I suspect you’re right.
But having known evangelicals who are every bit as poisonous as Susan describes, but ALSO having known some who are among the best human beings I’ve ever met, the broad brushes bother me quite a bit.
@ Susan:
“Hardly. I’ve spent less than half my life here, and am very much an outsider still. ”
OK. The fact remains that as Esco summarized, you approach life from a cultural and political view that differs much from the midwestern view I’ve discussed. You’ve spent your entire life living on one coast or the other. Whether intended or not, you were immersed and marinated in moderate to liberal cultures, cadences and rhythms of life, and politics. Your upbringing, education, work background, work life, social and sexual experiences, and where you live bespeak and inform a more liberal approach to life than some who comment here.
You’ve often taken a critical eye to my experiences and background in your efforts to vivisect my comments here and elsewhere, and to challenge my viewpoints. I’m simply doing the same. It explains where you’re coming from; which in turn explains much of the content you post here.
This isn’t “bad” per se; it simply explains much about the bases of your views.
“It’s everywhere. Not just on the left, not just on the right. It’s a highly-communicable psychological disease.”
Absolutely. It applies to the manosphere and radfem as well.
“But having known evangelicals who are every bit as poisonous as Susan describes, but ALSO having known some who are among the best human beings I’ve ever met, the broad brushes bother me quite a bit.”
That’s because conservative religion of the fundamentalist evangelical-type tends to make bad people worse and good people better.
“But having known evangelicals who are every bit as poisonous as Susan describes,”
Evangelicals (or Susan’s intentionally pejorative and derisive “gun-toting evangelicals”) can be toxic, sure.
For every rabid “gun-toting evangelical”, I can identify 10 toxic liberals, atheists, gun control advocates, environmentalist wackjobs, and leftist nutcases.
“For every rabid “gun-toting evangelical”, I can identify 10 toxic liberals, atheists, gun control advocates, environmentalist wackjobs, and leftist nutcases.”
The difference is that those are not religions, and therefore not self-perpetuating.
I’m not arguing that you can’t identify them as you state, simply pointing out that there is a distinct difference.
liberals, atheists, gun control advocates, environmentalist wackjobs, and leftist nutcases.
JP: “The difference is that those are not religions, and therefore not self-perpetuating.”
I’m just going to say this one thing and then let it drop, because it’s a continued derailment.
Oh, but liberalism, atheism, gun control, environmentalism, and leftism ARE religions. Their adherents believe in them, have faith in them and proselytize them with a fervor rivaling any cheap tent-revival evangelohuckster.
We’re all more sensitive to the poison when a person from a different viewpoint carries it: that’s why groupthink tends to perpetuate extreme positions. I disagree with JP here: *all* religions, moral or civic, are self-perpetuating, or attempt to be.
Didn’t mean to get so embroiled or start a fight here. My only point was not to knock you, just that observing culture, isn’t living one. A man who coaches a black football team isn’t really an expert in black culture, IMO. It’s a weak tangential point, nothing really that adds to any argument. Though, I live near Worcester, and our school parent night is a multicultural festival of piercings, tattoos, and single parenthood… almost everyone I hang out with is SWPL types. As for your personal status, it’s only a coincidence because I went to BU (on my employer’s dime, can’t afford it) and know how amazing that area is.
IDK, OTC. I am every bit as SWPL, culturally, as Susan (except way further to the right politically) but she has way more CONTACT than me with (say) recent immigrants. Contact may not make for “expertise” but its at least a basis for knowledge.
Simililary, a coach of a black team will presumably get to know the players and to some extent their families and I would expect him to know a hell of a lot more about black culture than I do.
“Oh, but liberalism, atheism, gun control, environmentalism, and leftism ARE religions. Their adherents believe in them, have faith in them and proselytize them with a fervor rivaling any cheap tent-revival evangelohuckster.”
They are much more ephemeral than you think.
It probably depends on your timeframe as to how you think about them.
“It’s everywhere. Not just on the left, not just on the right. It’s a highly-communicable psychological disease.”
“Absolutely. It applies to the manosphere and radfem as well.”
I co sign that as well. I also briefly checked those radfem sites and one of them was run by a Linda something, can’t remember her name. She described herself without joking as “a fucking loud mouth feminist yelling machine”
I hate to backtrack, but I have a real issue with a comment of INTJ’s regarding whether or not Susan aspends time socially with her ESL students. Underlying INTJ’s comment is the notion that, if one doesn’t take a good deal to the next level, that good deed is somehow negated or hypocritical.
I too do some community work as well as teaching Sunday School. I also have recruited others into articipating in various projects. I really hate to see people who are doing good maligned for not doing ENOUGH good. I think most of us realize that friendships exist primarily among similar people. We may have little in common with the people we are called to help and never become close to them, but that doesn’t unteach theEnglish we taught them or empty their bellies of the food we might provide to a food drive. They still benefit from our efforts. Likewise, I don’t feel obligated to have my Sunday School kid over for cocoa even though most live near me; their parents don’t feel obligated to invite me to dinner. You can’t force friendships on the basis of giving or receiving charity or service. That doesn’t negate the good you’ve done for others or your goodness in doing it.
Wow, touched a raw nerve here. I never said it wasn’t good, or hypocritical. My post asking if having immigrants as friends wasn’t a criticism of you not doing so (that’s in your mind), but more of a question in the sense of “do you know them as well you think?”. It was an observation that, in my own opinion, culture is very difficult to understand, until you live it. Mere contact or proximity isn’t enough to me.
Like I said, my point was fairly weak and tangential, and not really worth the bits spilled.
Esc, good points, I agree completely.
Man, watching Ted over on AG is painful. It seems like I’m with him every step along the way, into the gamma corner.
Tangent day!
Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color.
@Russ in Texas:
@pvw: Yes, I heard about that. What was instructive to me, as I observed the various debates, was that the people owning firearms are treated as class-enemies; the anti-gun folks do not appear to *care* whether or not these people get hurt.
One can debate with somebody who think of you as a person, or even an opponent. One cannot have a debate with someone who defines you as an enemy.
Me: Yes, they see them as class enemies because they are people who merely have different values and beliefs. And of course, the anti-gun crowd sees them all as crazies who are planning on killing everyone, that is why they have guns in the first place. The irony, of course, is that they don’t care that some of them are law enforcement people who are actually charged with protecting them in their nice SWPL lives.
@Susan
I sent a (girl) friend of mine the link to Slater’s article. She’s 25, successful, living in NYC, and gorgeous. She gets hit on every 5 minutes at bars, but has spent the last 1.5 years dating almost exclusively online. Here was her take:
“but really
how many of the ppl you’ve met have actually been compatible enough to date
just bc you can meet more ppl
doesnt mean they’re all good fits
i think if anything, online dating has made me value my real connections even more
and makes me regret how picky i was about some past
but it could be because im on the other end of it haha”
It dovetails pretty well with what the writer at Slate said.
In my experience, having done a good amount of both online and in-person dating, I think it largely replicates the effect of living in a big city. In NYC, there are tons and tons of options offline, and these certainly affect one’s pickyness in choosing a potential LTR partner. When you can get 2+ dates a week almost every week, it’s harder to view any of the girls as particularly special right off the bat. Hell my phone is full of numbers of girls I never even called. However, these problems exist independent of online dating. For those guys who can access the offline girls with some effectiveness (ie those who have decent game, $$, looks, etc), it’s only an increase at the margin. And, in backing up what my friend said above, I think the connections made in online dating don’t match up to those made in person. I’ve slept with a fair number of women (26 at last count), and not a single one of them was a girl I’d met online, even though I’d say my dates are probably 70/30 offline/online split. There just doesn’t seem to be the same sort of spark. Not that I haven’t had the opportunity to sleep with some of the online girls, but for some reason or another I just never am that into it. Now I do have a very successful (Cravath lawyer), good-looking, tall friend who goes on 2-3 dates a week on OkCupid looking just for sex, and he’s gotten laid quite a bit doing it. However, he also does pretty well offline. He’s just too lazy/busy to spend time hitting on/picking up women at bars.
In following those anecdotes, I would posit that online dating has the largest effect in smaller cities/suburbs, where the dating pool can be much thinner. I think that in those places it may allow “natural” players (ie guys who don’t want to commit) to have more access to women than they would in person. In large cities, where the options in-person are already enormous, I don’t think it makes much of an impact at all. I think the impact there is made entirely by the options the city provides in and of itself, independent of online dating.
J #557, I agree completely.
Along those lines, I really loved my ESL teachers. Somehow they could teach us kids who had zero English skills, even though the teachers themselves did not speak Vietnamese/Chinese/Spanish/Greek/Russian/whatever. Thanks to them I was able to catch up to regular classes in three years.
Man, watching Ted over on AG is painful. It seems like I’m with him every step along the way, into the gamma corner.
Yikes, is he there again?
Ted’s working it out over at AlphaGame.
Better to do it there than here.
“Yikes, is he there again?”
Mhmm. I can’t quite bring myself to follow.
The guys over there want to label his as a gamma in denial – and when you read the description – the unwanted, the often bitter and resentful – I worry that it paints me into the same corner. (Well, thb, it certianly does)
But, then when I read all the BS from the guys “in the know” about female sexuality, I realize: aren’t they the ones that are resentful? (albiet laid) The manosphere is doused in misogyny. They talk down about gammas/deltas as if what they don’t have is enough acumilated-hate.
I guess I’m having a blue morning. (With a red speck staring back at me, from my plates)
“Better to do it there than here.”
You may be right.
INTJ – Post 380 – I had to read it twice, and to be honest my head is still spinning. I think you may have hit the nail on the head, mostly because when I read it (both times) I felt like I got a firm shot to the gut. Of course “nice guys” don’t use physical attraction. We were told practically from birth to NEVER objectify a woman, especially in a sexual manner. Growing up there were few sins greater short of murder or rape than treating a woman like a sexual object.
I’m gonna have to chew on this awhile, but the gears in my head are turning so hard I can hear the squeaking…
Susan – “It’s not a value judgment. It’s simply a matter of fact that work ethic is extremely important to women, as is occupational status.”
In that case if I ever hit the lottery, I’ll be divorced in short order. Because I promise you that if I woke up tomorrow independently wealthy, it would be the last day of my life that I would ever work, let along put in a 40 hour week. To me, work is nothing more than a means to an end, and that end is being able to feed, cloth, and shelter my family. If those needs were met without “work” effort on my part, I would have zero desire to “work” at all. I’d spend the rest of my life being a lazy ass, and perhaps a bit of a philanthropist, but only if I could do so by tinkering with things I’m naturally interested in. I have a great work ethic, but only because I must feed my kids.
DV – “It is funny to note that you, along with Mike C and Ted D sometimes fit that bill yet are obviously intelligent commentators who, at times, contribute in a more than interesting way on the said debate.”
I’m beginning to think that Deti and I were cut from the same cloth. We certainly have different views on some things, and we seem to have different “hot button” issues, but overall I’d say we share at least a large chunk of common views. For my part, I’ll admit that I occasionally trip and end up somewhat close to being a rabid ‘spherian, but normally I get ahold of myself in short order and shore it up. I think Deti pretty much nailed my personal demons down recently on another blog, and I’ve got to figure out exactly what I should do about them at this point. I am indeed bitter and angry, but not at women for being women. I’m angry because I can see things more clearly now than ever before in my life, and I’m finding that what I see is troubling at best, and downright scary at worst. It isn’t so much that I was “lied” to most of my life (by this I mean led astray by woman ON the subject of women…) as much as finding out the world in general is a much darker and dismal place than I truly ever imagined.
Cooper – “Man, watching Ted over on AG is painful. It seems like I’m with him every step along the way, into the gamma corner.”
Yep, Deti pretty much knocked my dick in the dirt, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. Time to say fuck the world and do what I need to for myself and my family. In the end it will be much easier to simply not give a shit than to keep caring and being beat over the head for it.
“The manosphere is doused in misogyny. They talk down about gammas/deltas as if what they don’t have is enough acumilated-hate.”
Yes, there’s nothing quite as productive and helpful as radiating hatred into the world.
@Russ in Texas, further thoughts: a lot of solipsism and emotional thinking which makes it very difficult for them to think rationally and logically, and so they can’t even think of the dangerous consequences that might follow…VoxDay has had some great posts on this.
Atheists also don’t get sweet tax breaks for our club property to party and schmooze at.
Cooper, I see very little commonality in personality between you and Ted.
Cooper – “The guys over there want to label his as a gamma in denial – and when you read the description – the unwanted, the often bitter and resentful – I worry that it paints me into the same corner. (Well, thb, it certianly does) ”
LOL man, I don’t give a single fuck what Vox or anyone wants to label me. Gamma is just as good as any other.
The denail part isn’t so much that I will not believe the truth, but that I find much of the truth so absolutely repulsive that accepting it becomes a herculean task for me. Basically now that I’m seeing things from a different persepctive, I’m realizing that my distaste for the Modern West is deeper than I ever imagined.
At an individual level, I’m making changes and doing what I must. But when I look at the macro level of all this, I can’t help but want to somehow “fix” it, not because I don’t want to put in that individual effort, but because much of that effort is for objectively stupid reasons perpetuated by all of us that just accept it as “the way it has to be” when in fact it can be any way we want. We collectively live in the environment we help create. So, if so many of us are unhappy with the current environment, why not simply change it?
“Cooper, I see very little commonality in personality between you and Ted.”
That meant to be good..???
OTC – “Cooper, I see very little commonality in personality between you and Ted.”
Well, put Cooper in a crappy marriage for 12 years and throw a divorce on the end, and we would probably look pretty similar. :p
Actually, I think what Cooper has going for him is his age. At least he isn’t growing up in the “heyday” of feminist idealogy. He isn’t nearly as brainwashed as I was at his age.
Megaman – Thanks much for the INTJ link! The first page seems pretty spot on, but I’ll check out the rest after work.
Ted, two things, one may give you some hope, the other certainly will not.
1) Just because the truth about one thing, or some subset of things, no matter how important, may be ugly, that does not mean that the whole truth, the truth about the whole, is ugly. Connected to this is the intrinsic non-ugliness of understanding itself:
“We cannot exert our understanding without from time to time understanding something of importance; and this act of understanding may be accompanied by the awareness of our understanding, by the understanding of understanding, by noesis noeseos, and this is so high, so pure, so noble and experience that Aristotle could attribute it to his God. This experience is entirely independent of whether what we understand primarily is pleasing or displeasing, fair or ugly. It leads us to realize that all evils are in a sense necessary if there is to be understanding. It enables us to accept all evils which befall us and which may well break our hearts in the spirit of good citizens of the city of God. By becoming aware of the dignity of the mind, we realize the true ground of the dignity of man and therewith the goodness of the world, whether we understand it as created or as uncreated, which the home of man because it is the home of the human mind.”
2) There is, sadly, nothing that you (we) dissidents can do to stop the tide. All “mixed bodies”—which is to say, human institutions: states, religions, sects, movements, civilizations—have a life cycle. Ample evidence suggest that the ones you are most concerned about are entering the late stages of that cycle, or at best the beginning of the last stage. This is sad but inevitable. The best we could have done, had we been wiser, was prolong things in health a lot longer. Too late for that now. In any event, the end had to come sooner or later. Modern man’s confident belief in his own power and in permanent “progress” is false.
@Escoffier
I think we define legacy differently. I’ve read that in Buddhism, it may be that your entire life’s purpose is moving a flower in a vase from one surface to another. I hope for a bit more than that, but I believe that man should marshall his abilities in service of his fellow man in some way. Whether that be inventing the cure for cancer, developing software, or serving a meal at a shelter is not the point. The point is action beyond one’s personal needs. Having children can accomplish that, unless you’re simply attempting to reproduce yourself, additional beings who are net “takers.”
If a lot of Jacobs are bad for society, then one Jacob has a negative impact on society, even if small.
We know nothing about them. I have often criticized promiscuous women – do you recall my chart where female promiscuity leads to economic stagnation?
However, sexual jackals, or gluttons as I like to think of them, are almost entirely male. A male focusing exclusively on getting his dick wet is not a productive member of society. End of story.
My problem with solipsism/emotionalism as presented over at AG is that it’s firmly-embedded in the site’s context. While I tend to agree with Vox that women have, among their strengths, a tendency towards emotional thinking which often self-contradicts without realizing it, I don’t quite think it’s as universal as what I’ve read there puts it (freely admitting I’ve probably not read more than twenty posts or so, so I would be considered a compleat noob on AG), and it would need to be generalized for other discussions.
@deti
I have no problem with this. I stated in one of my very first comments that I had never heard a woman describe wanting a man like that, perhaps because I live in Boston.
Of course I am the product of my environment to some degree.
As for my putting your comments into context, I believe I have only commented on the experiences you have shared openly online. I know little of your background. In fact, I’ve asked you before about your religiosity, and you expressly stated here that you are not religious (Vox Day’s poll) but write commentary that is quite religious elsewhere. I generally find the distinction very telling.
Escoffier – Yeah point 2 is pretty much my concern, but as you pointed out it is probably inevitable.
I’m reading the site MM posted about INTJ’s while I eat my sandwhich, and this made me laugh loudly at a client location:
“Q: My INTJ just told me I’m retarded. Should I take offense?
A: You probably are retarded, by our standards. But don’t take offense. Our standards are so high that even we don’t meet them. We judge ourselves more harshly than we judge others.”
So. Very. True.
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