Rolling 'this is sexist' thread

capitalism may emphasize things like possessiveness and objectification, but I don't think it introduced those dynamics into human relations

also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_%28biology%29

i don't think the idea of people being in competition with each other all the time is "natural" and should just be taken for granted as an eternal fact of life

Well...there's no other way to put this: you are wrong. People are primates, and are in constant competition with others. The absence of "survival-level" challenges in most people's lives only makes the competition in other arenas that much more vicious, because you gotta find some way to prove you're better than that other fucker over there. All the big problems of human existence (sexism/patriarchy, racism, tribalism, violence related to any/all of the foregoing) are part of being animals.

Treeship I get where you're coming from but it's impossibly hard to generalize why individuals are drawn to this. There could be as many reasons as individuals! There could be good motives and bad. But the discourse as such we can generalize about much easier because its a codified system of behavior and not individual minds in all their variety. We can see what the discourse is doing, and so the discerning of "motives" for individuals using it is almost beside the point.

lol

this thread is going places!

haha here we go

I mean, does the fact that sun is hot make us defeatist about ever mitigating the effects of the rays of our closest star? Or uh something, that metaphor may be driven by the fact that it's suppose to be 100 degrees here today. One kind of approach to large terrible things is just to be like, okay, that exists. Let's minimize the harm to start with, and then see if there's any good that we can leverage. What's next? What's next? Etc. I am not an activist or a scholar or w/e, that just seems self-evident to me.

xposts, i don't have an answer about what human nature is and isn't but i think a lot of times people see historically produced forms of consciousness as expressions of something "natural" and that this has the effect of further reifiying them. maybe "competition" is an eternal impulse but the kinds of inequality this impulse gives rise to is determined by historical circumstances and the ideologies these give rise to.

It is hot in NYC

haha nice

p sure i've said this on other PUA threads we've had (lol, btw), but, what's crazy about that worldview is the recognition that there are two (2) kinds of people that seem to be able to just get (take?) what they want without much trouble: people who are genuinely talented, successful, attractive and sociable; and sociopaths. and the game shit is basically: "attention gentlemen: we have a program to turn you into a sociopath!"

― goole, Monday, March 7, 2011 2:59 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why are men angry?

two years ago huh

http://global3.memecdn.com/at-first-i-was-like-but-then-i-was-like_o_336323.gif

so glad we've come onto the evolutionary psychology portion of this discussion, because ins't THAT a great forensic tool to evaluate PUAs by

if only humanity cd find some way to challenge and mitigate the effects of our inescapable evolutionary programming

missed the lindy west rape culture meltdown. good christ, people are horrid things. except lindy west, of course. she's the cat's pyjamas. fwiw, i figure some degree of sexism was involved there, yes.

same goes for the pooas. like everyone else, i suppose they're victims of a world they never made, and many of them have probably suffered terribly for their social awkwardness -- but that in no way excuses shitty attitudes and behaviors. a pinch of compassion per pint of condemnation should be more than sufficient.

the (well, _a_) weird thing about PUA stuff is half of it is like 'you can unlock any woman you want' and the other half is like 'nah the secret is just keep asking ppl if they're dtf and eventually someone will say yes' and the same people seem to explain it both ways.

two years ago huh

Yeah, the more things, uh...stay the same, the more they...huh. Yeah.

only somewhat on topic but it's strange to me how often people draw a straight line from evolution to what can only be called a kind of biological structuralism. as if the theory of evolution merely uncovers an eternal "nature."

But isn't the evolutionary point the opposite? Isn't "nature" mutable? Even diffuse and elusive? so what do we really mean when we talk about "human nature" in this context other than something under constant revision?

xxp well, then you just have to program yourself to think that the woman you want is the one that is dtf and it's a syllogism

the one weird trick to having any woman you want

i don't like the opposition of our 'evolutionary nature' and being a moral person in contemporary life. i don't think we have some kind of base or bestial nature that needs to be tamed by civilization, however conceived. evolution comprises our whole being, cognition, the works. it's like gravity, it's always on, everywhere, all the time. which makes it meaningless as a guide to proper action. that isn't what it is.

otm

just yesterday i was musing about what a terrible thing evolutionary determinism is as i bashed my neighbour's skull in with a rock and ate his brain

our base and bestial nature is expressed by civilization!

i think i used to think i knew, definitively, what i thought on this issue but i'm not sure i do anymore. i think the idea "humans are inherently competitive and selfish", while it may have a relative degree of truth to it, is not the whole story. it is a popular idea, though, because it helps to justify existing power structures, built as they are on an ideology that stresses possessiveness, competition, and the justice of hierarchies as long as they are produced by "meritocracy. in my view, if people are naturally selfish and competitive, they are also naturally empathetic, and naturally cooperative, and also naturally inclined to be conflicted in our motives and not understand the root cause of our desires. our behavior is so thoroughly conditioned by social factors that it is impossible to say what kind of human being a non-oppressive society would produce.

so once i had this long commute every day and i was always tired on the rail and it was often boring. but one day (this was right around after the game came out and i still remember the scandal w/ the vv cover story vividly, which is why i was paying attention) there was someone who had been drinking, obviously, and he was wearing a very stupid looking hat and sat next to this woman and kept trying to talk her up, very loudly. i was sort of half asleep, and this bothered me a bunch. there were all sorts of things that made me think PUA, in particular how he'd ask her questions and be very interested than flip over and say mean things about her answers, and also the fact that he was wearing this insane hat with feathers and stuff and loved to talk about it.

and i just sat on the train, half asleep, and vaguely wondered if he had read the game or was just naturally that precise type of jackass, if i should go up and ask him about the game and see if he responded, if the woman wanted someone to go and help her deal with this guy or was doing just fine, etc. it was all sort of lynchian.

i might have a notebook somewhere i scrawled some of the conversation into, but i doubt i'll ever find it again.

I find that, if you want to talk shit about someone, it helps not to have on a stupid hat

the "peacocking" aspect of the game is the most hilarious part to me. you take people who are less socially adept than the average person, and tell them that they should adopt an insanely bold, glam personal aesthetic in order to draw attention to themselves.

that guy reminds me of someone i saw at the local record store on record store day. he had new york giants superbowl tattoos all over his face for some reason, and was standing in the corner making fun of the record obsessives/hipsters to his buddies, commenting on outfits he thought looked "ridiculous"; more ridiculous, i assume, than new york giants face tattoos.

i think i used to think i knew, definitively, what i thought on this issue but i'm not sure i do anymore. i think the idea "humans are inherently competitive and selfish", while it may have a relative degree of truth to it, is not the whole story.

i think it's safe to say that all that life is inherently competitive. that seems almost unarguably true, but it's the sort of truth that often leads people to bad conclusions. given the damage done by human competition in its various forms, i can see why some might want to de-emphasize its importance and/or stress other possibilities.

there's something to peacocking in that wearing something distinctive does create an opportunity for conversation, it's just that you can either do that by actually cultivating a style or just wearing something that looks really dumb on top of the same old shit

I actually was scared for a few weeks because I got new glasses and I wasn't sure if people were genuinely complimenting me or if I was inadvertently peacocking

xp - it also helps make you memorable, for better or worse (e.g., jackson galaxy)

that happened to me too, mh. i actually wrote about it less than an hour ago on 77.

IANAA(nthropologist) but I was under the impression that hunter/gatherer and subsistence populations cannot survive if they compete internally for resources, and that whatever is necessary for group survival seems just as natural to them as competition does to most of the rest of us.

everyone's doing various degrees of peacocking just by nature of carefully chosen fashion, but some dudes just resort to pink aluminum wrapped around their torso and actual antlers crowned atop their head.

new york giants superbowl tattoos all over his face

i actually winced on reading this, good god

stop posting about me xp

like if you just told me "face tattoos," i'd say "wow that's not my thing, but what did they look like?"

I don't think I'd heard of the peacocking aspect of PUA culture before. Adds another element of 'wtf am I thinking' to my escalating desire to buy a sequined jacket...

I don't automatically hate face tattoos (this may say something about me), but I do automatically hate NY Giants ones.

Suddenly remembered I was talking to a girl in a horrible nightclub when I was about 17 about my lack of social skills re chatting up girls and she basically advised me to peacock! She was telling me I should get a big bracelet or something, cos it would be a talking point. She was way ahead of The Game, this would've been 1993 or something. (this was not some lame attempt at pity-pulling, btw, although my friends thought I was trying to hit on her, it wasn't like that, honest guv'nor, although I'm sure it was still all kinds of pathetic)

History suggests that I will be like "Neck and hand tattoos? No problem!" so the odds are better than even.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAqSLx11ZfI‎

xp

on the other hand i think "do what a 17 y/o would do in a club in 1993 with a big bracelet on" is pretty good life advice

different personal styles work for different personal types. if i were to try to "peacock" i would look quite the moron, i feel. if someone likes you they will compliment your outfit regardless of what it is. i've gotten compliments on gray oxford shirts before.

*personality

everyone should try to peacock, the world needs more lols

basically I won't be satisfied until American society looks like the Capital in "The Hunger Games"

NB I did not buy a big bracelet. OTOH, I was single for a long time.