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| Spearhead readers: Not actually as cool as Fonzie. |
When sites enable users to upvote and downvote comments and posts, the rationale is generally that it improves discussion and filters out trolls. In practice, this is almost never the case; instead, the up and down arrows offer the majority a way to reward those who simply rehash the party line and punish those who dare suggest anything even remotely challenging. This punishment is accentuated on sites on which dissenters who are downvoted beyond a certain threshold see their comments literally vanish, unless readers click a special link to make them visible again.
We’ve seen in the past the sorts of things that get massively upvoted on The Spearhead. A comment suggesting that “a woman’s vagina/body is her one and only asset” got, at last count, 58 upvotes and only 4 downvotes. Comments suggesting that women are “parasites,” “dumb as bricks,” incapable of logic or empathy each got dozens of upvotes and only a handful of downvotes, as did comments suggesting that women should never have been given the right to vote. Heck, one recent comment suggesting that Daniel Hernandez was “a traitor to men” for helping to save Gabrielle Giffords’ life got twice as many upvotes as downvotes. (As I pointed out in a recent post, there were actually a number of comments in that vein; they all got more upvotes than downvotes)
So if these sorts of comments get upvoted, the question arises: what sort of horrible, beyond-the-pale nuttiness actually invites downvotes on the site? Well, in a recent guest posting there, someone calling himself Big Daddy From Cincinnati offered some (not really very good) internet dating advice for the misogynist masses. Along the way he opined that “women are amoral creatures, flakes, and they will reject you for anything, everything, nothing, the phase of the moon, or who knows what. They will lead you on and waste your time … . ”
While most commenters seemed to agree with this characterization of the ladies, one anonymous gal suggested instead that:
Yep, you can practically hear the Spearhead guys furiously downvoting that bit of heresy. What an outlandish opinion, clearly the work of an evil, misandrist troll! Probably a lesbian, too. I mean, what kind of crazy man-hating monster would she have to be not to be utterly smitten by the Spearhead men?
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>nicko81m: "There is a difference between having validated standards than there is to put a ridiculous price tag on your self."You seem to think women should be "priced" on the market based on the value you'd put on them, rather than on the value they put on themselves.Women aren't objects. They have self-determination. Apparently many men have come to terms with this and "meet their price" because they find something in these women that you don't.
>Lady Victoria-I think you did hit the nail on the head with that view of Nick's inexplicable hatred of a (in his view) plain Jane having standards as to who she will consent to go on a date with.
>"Women aren't objects. They have self-determination. Apparently many men have come to terms with this and "meet their price" because they find something in these women that you don't."I agree that women are not objects. On the other hand, the woman next door is not better than most of the male population.It's funny how feminists can't see that women are more valued than men in the dating market. Yet, feminists don’t want to know anything about this. It's only important when women are being treated as lesser human beings in some situation. Men are the second class citizens in the dating world. But feminists will deny that to the end as they are too bigoted to see past their own agenda
>Nick: "wah! I cannot get a date because some woman has a standard that is not me! wah!"I have a box of tissues and some ice cream, here ya go!
>nicko81m said… Men are the second class citizens in the dating world Not only in the Western dating world. Men are generally considered to be 2nd class citizens at any time and under any circumstances in all Western feminist countries – 2nd class as boys, as students, as singles, as married men, as men after divorce, as fathers, as being homeless, jobless, sick, in jail…always.