As we’ve seen again and again on this blog, misogynists love to talk about how much better men are than women when it comes to things like math, logic, and scientific thinking generally. Unfortunately, their posts and comments online – filled with breathtaking failures of logic, absurd unsourced assertions and magical thinking — do not seem to bear out this hypothesis. I would compare the scientific thinking of most manosphere misogynists with that of the creationists, but frankly that would be insulting to creationists.
A case in point: a graph – provenance unknown – posted in a recent MGTOWforums discussion of marriage. The standard line amongst the lady haters is that marriage is on the way out , because men are “waking up” to the evils of marriage in an allegedly feminist state and deciding to, well, go their own way. The reality: while the marriage rate has been falling fairly steadily for the last quarter-century or so, for a variety of reasons, most people do marry at some point in their lives; it would be silly to assume that a trend over the course of several decades heralds the death of a social institution that has lasted (and has had many previous ups and downs) for millennia.
Of course, that’s not the way the MGTOWers in question see it. Their proof that marriage is doomed – doomed, I say – lies in this little graph which charts with mathematical precision the exact date range within which marriage will vanish forever from this good earth:
Now, there are many problems with this little graph. For one thing, what happens AFTER the projected marriage rate goes to zero? Does the marriage rate bounce like a rubber ball back into the positive realm? Or does it go below zero, with unmarried couples divorcing one another – just in case?
Second, this chart is based on a tiny number of data points – a mere 25 year sliver of the millennia-long history of divorce. If you go back a mere century and a half – see the chart below, taken from a paper you can find here — you’ll see that the marriage rate doesn’t conform to any neat mathematical formula; it jumps up and down, affected not only by slow-moving cultural changes but by events in the real world – look at the gigantic spike in marriage after World War II.
But the main issue here is that there is simply no way you can come up with a neat equation to predict the future of marriage because THE WORLD DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. History isn’t math. It cannot be predicted in advance, and any attempt to do so — especially one based on a tiny sliver of data — is doomed to failure. (Well, certain aspects of reality can be predicted — like when Halley’s comet will next return (assuming it’s not eaten by a giant space monster we haven’t discovered yet). Orbits can be calculated with mathematical precision; social trends cannot.)
To illustrate the dangers of extrapolation, let’s consider the little chart below, prepared by a helpful assistant (who happens to have access to a scanner). The chart provides some interesting data on the age of a hypothetical cat named “Fluffy” and her projected life expectancy. As you can see, Fluffy was hypothetically born in 2001, making her ten years old today, with her age increasing by one every year. (Just pretend that the numbers line up properly; my assistant, despite her many other charms, is not big on precision, and may have been drunk when she prepared this chart.) Based on this data (which show Fluffy’s age increasing by one every year), we could project that by the time the next century rolls around our dear little cat will be 99 years old.
If projecting the future were as easy as drawing little lines on graphs, the world would be a much simpler, and much less interesting, place to live. Most of us realize this. MRAs and MGTOWers, not so much.
Thats 24 billion and change Holly, not trillion.
Tou forgot the all inclusive “Q” Molly.
@NWO:
No.
Also, could you describe your ideal world for us, including how abortion, LGBTQ, and other issues you’ve complained about would work? Otherwise, give back the bone you’ve been chewing, others want to play, and you’ll get indigestion later on if you go too far. (yes I own a dog)
@Holly,
I may be wrong, but I think the final number he got was around 24 billion. I’m wondering if all oil is taxed, what about oil going to the millitary to power all those trucks and cars and jets and so forth.
NWO – Yea.
The state (why capitalize it? there’s more than one, but here I refer to the US government as that’s the one I’m a citizen of) has the right to demand its citizens be nonviolent and more-or-less orderly, so that commerce and daily life can proceed with minimal disturbance. It also has the right to make such “dictations” as are necessary to protect social rights–i.e., the right to contraception and abortion, the right to choose one’s lovers, etc.
Grammar nazi you’re slipping.
I said, “Know your place woman.”
Not, “Know your place…pause…woman.”
Sheesh dude, you suck. Or in french, “fuh que.”
(Also, mea culpa, my bad math getting billion mixed with trillion.)
I think LGBT is still counted as legit, if a little old-fashioned.
NWO – Oh come on surely you are more familiar with how commas work than that NWO.
I know we’re here to argue about feminism so this is mostly just a silly side note but when you’re beaten on grammar it’s traditional to say “grammar doesn’t matter listen to my content” not to continue to argue an incorrect point.
So where *are* we going with this point about the State, Slavey?
My guess, Molly? Us asking questions, him not answering, him asking rhetorical bull, us answering, him flouncing eventually.
More like, as of 2008, $37,901,692. Source
Back in 2000, $1.5 billion was used to maintain roads in general. At $30 a ton and anywhere from 10 to 22 million tons used a year (sources vary), salt use either is just under or almost double the amount collected annually from fuel taxes in the United States.
Again, it barely pays for the salt to clear the roads from the annual snow falls. What makes you think that it covers the annual cost of the entire road system?
Molly Ren – I prefer “queer” as an inclusive term rather than acronymifying, although I realize some people don’t like it. At any rate, acronyms for “non-standard gender/sexuality people” can certainly get cumbersome, but they aren’t silly just because of that. Inclusiveness toward, say, asexual or genderqueer people matters more than “but now our word has too many letters!”
“At any rate, acronyms for “non-standard gender/sexuality people” can certainly get cumbersome, but they aren’t silly just because of that.”
*bows* Point taken. I’m more just lazy than someone who thinks the extra letters are silly! 🙂
Well now I do want to beat the grammar to death since you brought it up.
Say, “Know your place, woman.”
Say, “Know your place woman.”
In the first ont the accent is on the word “place” the second is on “woman.”
Or do I need to start typing an accent?
So the Queer Nazi, then. *puts on leather butch hat, skirt, and binder* Rawr! 😉
Personally, I kinda wish being poly was on the spectrum. It’s still very much something that’s widely misunderstood, has no legal recognition, and is risky-to-dangerous to disclose in general company. It also tends to lead to the particularly painful “missing person” problem, where in order to avoid talking about my scandalous sexuality, I have to avoid talking about an entire person who’s an important part of my life, or pretend that she’s “a friend.”
While I wouldn’t ask people who have their hands full with sexuality issues already to take up poly as a cause, I wish poly activists were more visible and legitimate under the “queer” tent.
NWO – The correct grammar is “I know my place, woman.”
Seriously, there’s a little pause there. Or should be. It’s a separate clause. Otherwise I could ask you “but I don’t know my place woman! What’s a place woman?”
Are you so helpless posterliz that you’ll just wait for Big Daddy to save you?
I’m not surprised in the least that everyone of you is in favor of more State intervention. When the personal becomes the political ya always get communism.
Ya do know there are over 60 million legal statutes governing your actions.
How can another “law” give me freedom, I had that before the “law.”
Beautiful shot by Marchant! :OO
@Holly I just use queer, but I know ppl (and clubs) that use the long form acronym… it’s kinda like “womyn”… there are reasons why ppl use it and that it’s not just an affectation, but a lot of anti- ppl like to use it as fodder >_>;;
Also I think he needs to elaborate on what “social issues” means… like assault/rape/murder/other harm to human beings? Or like policing what ppl can do w/ their own bodies or w/ consenting adults? o_O or something else?
YAY LUCIC SCORES!!! wow 2 goals FAST
that was not a pretty goal tho xD
I count one No and one Yes. That’s 50% of a sample space of 2 xD Hardly “everyone of you “
Alright, so laws are out then in your perfect world, NWO. So describe your ideal world for us, including how abortion, LGBTQ, and other issues you’ve complained about would work. So far it seems like you just don’t want anybody telling you what to do (hey, I remember that logic, from 3rd grade). But what about laws that afford you protection from theft or assault? Laws that have people rushing to your house the second it catches fire to put it out, and to pay for damages incurred during said fire? Are you going to throw out all the good with the bad, or is your ideal world simply you living in a cave?
I’m going to be up all night wondering how you get from the cost of salt to “I’m waiting for Big Daddy to save me!”
I suppose a sovereign citizen salts his own road… with salt he gets from his own salt mine… and if he doesn’t have a salt mine maybe he spins out and crashes or maybe he gets stranded for weeks… but death is sometimes the price of freedom.
Right NWOaf-rescue me from what?
Five foot high snow drifts? yeah-I find it hard to shove that much snow off of roads by myself. That is why I pay taxes to hire someone to do it who has the ability I lack. That is the point behind taxation. That and driving you insane.
But mostly the former. The latter is just a bonus.
Is it weird that I’m actually less annoyed by Slavey’s stupid worldview than by his insistence that vocative commas are incorrect?
Don’t eat Mom!
I hate to show off my ignorance again, but I still dunno what the role the State has in our lives has to do with the divorce rate, Slavey. Is that what you’re getting at? If we don’t get married, the government will collapse?