A reader alerted me to this post on a very interesting blog I haven’t written about before. Regular readers of Man Boobz may find some of these, er, arguments to be a bit familiar:
Our culture is absolutely fucked up. Girls and women hold all control of sex. … [F]rom the first interest in girls, we’re expected to pursue them, and they’re expected to reject us. …
I’m a perfectly healthy man. I’m stronger than a lot of other men, more intelligent, more competent, I think I’m reasonably good looking, and I’m very well endowed. None of that matters though. Somehow, women go for men that fail on a comparison on multiple accounts. …
There are things like rejecting a woman, or pretending to be uninterested that make her even more interested. … Women subconsciously measure a man’s performance in bed by his dancing and posturing. If only they knew how fucking stupid and wrong they are.
I don’t know what happened with me. I’ve always had a strong sex drive, but I got fucked over socially. I wasn’t even “in” in the reject crowd. All girls rejected me, and most rejects rejected me. People made fun of me, laughed at me, picked on me, and all the girls that I lusted after were either repulsed by me, or didn’t know who I was. Even the girls that were “friends” with me, wouldn’t have sex with me. Meanwhile, they went around whoring themselves out to whatever man played this fucking dumb-ass social flirting game. They [crude sexual remarks redacted —DF] like the dirty little whores they are. I’ve been available my whole life, but the only person that ever chose me as a mate were paid prostitutes, and my wife, who is emotionally and mentally fucked up beyond comprehension.
On the surface, this reads like almost every “nice guy” lament I’ve ever seen on the internet. Oh, it’s a bit more bitter than most, but this “nice guy” hits all the right notes: like the Holocuast-trivializing “nice guy” we looked at last Sunday, he complains that women get to actually choose whom to have sex with; like the “nice guy” Redditor we looked at Monday, he still holds a grudge against former crushes who chose to go out with (and have sex with) guys who weren’t him.
The difference? For one thing, this new guy is a bit more self-aware than most “nice guys,” in that he doesn’t actually describe himself as “nice.” For another, he is (or at least claims to be) a sociopath. As might have been immediately apparent had I quoted these comments, which immediately follow what I quoted from him above:
This is the reason I don’t care about people. Why the fuck should I? Everybody [wears] a mask. I want to rape and murder people, and I pretend I’m “normal.” Normal people wear a mask where they pretend they’re friendly and honest; whereas, they’re really deceptive, insecure, and emotionally hostile.
This posting comes from Sociopathworld, a fascinating blog written by a sociopath who is basically trying to explain to non-sociopaths how people like him or her think, to clear up misconceptions about them, and to help sociopaths themselves deal better with their disorder. (The author of the blog didn’t write the comments above; they were sent in by a reader.)
For those not intimately familiar with abnormal psych, “sociopathy” (often used synonymously with the term “psychopathy”) is a term commonly used to describe what is known clinically as Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The blogger at SociopathWorld quotes a journal article that gives this useful capsule description of psychopaths as people
characterised by an absence of empathy and poor impulse control, with a total lack of conscience. … They tend to be egocentric, callous, manipulative, deceptive, superficial, irresponsible and parasitic, even predatory.
So are “nice guys” a bunch of sociopaths? Well, no. They may be egocentric – like the “nice guy” on Tumblr who compared his lack of dates to the Holocaust. They may lack empathy – like the “nice guy” Redditor who couldn’t feel sympathy for a female “friend” who had been raped. They may be manipulative – hoping that by being excessively “nice” and doing favors for women they will earn themselves some sex.
But they lack, among other things, the impulsiveness and routine deceitfulness that tend to characterize real sociopaths. Sociopaths can be deceptively charming, but very few people would ever describe them as nice. (Indeed, if anything, it’s pickup artists that act the most like real sociopaths; indeed, I’ve heard “game” described before, I think accurately, as an attempt to get guys to think and act more like charming, conscienceless sociopaths.)
So why do “nice guy” laments make them sound so much like sociopaths? I think their egocentricity and their almost total lack of empathy are key. “Nice guys” get crushes on a lot of girls and women, but these crushes often seem to have nothing to do with the objects of these intense feelings: the “nice guys” have whipped up a romantic and sexual drama in their own head, and simply projected it onto some convenient romantic object . The “nice guy” Redditor was once obsessed with his female “friend” – but when she was raped he did not react as a true friend would, with sympathy and sadness. He responded with a callous “she had it coming.”
Combine this lack of empathy with a sense of wounded entitlement – I DESERVE a cute girlfriend! – and you have a recipe for a pretty noxious stew.
“Nice guys” may not literally be sociopaths. But sometimes they think and act in some pretty sociopathic ways.
“Anthony Zarat” isn’t his real name. It’s what he calls his “war name.” Yep, he’s at war against us.
He posted a couple of times here as AntZ, and the email address was under a different name. I Googled it and came up with basically nothing.
So unless he wasn’t to reveal his super seekret identity, I guess we’ll just have to take his word for it that he’s a scientific genius. Or not.
“To be fair, Anthony has promised the ladies coin-operated boys of their own.”
Pfft. Of course we’re stuck with the inferior coin-operated technology 😛
According to Antz, blind men don’t wank 🙂
Yeah, one of the odder bits of his bizarre fantasy/hallucination/prediction is that it only involves sight. He hasn’t even
Well, if microscopic particles start adhering to me in a warlike way I’ll know who to blame.
talked about incorporating touch, which I might suggest is of some slight importance to erotic encounters. His 100% soon-to-be-real technology wouldn’t even make good sci-fi.
(commenting fail)
Do you think his wife and kids might be like his scientific qualifications?
Or sound… which is hella important for a relationship…
So basically in the war of attrition between women and men, women will win cuz men need sexbots and women just need imaginary men? xD
Actually wait a second…
*peers at all the men on MBZ*
okay how many of you are real? >_>
All I can really muster up in response to this is the thought, “Go your own way, already! Please!”
Maybe they can design a virtual paradise and go live there all alone, without all of us hideous mortals to muck up their one-man psychodramas. One where they are kings and other “people” are their sock puppets who exist to reinforce how wonderful they are 24/7.
Antz, please, get on this. Maybe that guy who creates machines from scratch could help.
Well, there was a story on the last Radiolab about a dude who fell in love with a bot. I don’t think you can call it a relationship, though, unless the other party has the power to act completely without regard for you.
I mean, even though my dogs can’t talk, I think they feel the doggy equivalent of love for me (because I walk them, feed them, play with them, and care for them); they do sometimes annoy the hell out of me, especially now that Gus has started howling every time my nextdoor neighbour opens his back door. But most of the time they don’t do things that I’ve taught them not to do, and I don’t do things that they dislike unless it’s necessary (baths, nail clippings, ear cleanings etc), and not out of fear or compulsion, but because (I think) they love me and want to please me. Just like my husband has the power to play the accordion at 3 AM* but chooses not to, because he values my happiness and comfort, or I choose not to watch “Leverage” loudly in the next room when he’s composing, because I value his work and his time. That choice to respect and consider the other’s needs is part of what makes it a real relationship. A bot doesn’t have that choice, because you’ll have programmed the accordion playing/howling/Leverage watching out of them and the situation will never arise.
But Antz would probably advise me to replace Ben with HusbandBot and the dogs with HoundBots 1&2 who never howl inappropriately or pee on the floor or steal entire loaves of bread only rip them up and hide them under the sofa cushions.
* the first fight we got into when we started living together was because he started playing the accordion while I was napping. True story.
I can, on the other hand, totally get behind the idea of hooking up with a robot with free will. There’s a reason Data got a lot of “romantic mail”.
Again, it is really sad that these guys have managed to ruin robot sex.
Anthony’s a rat = Anthony Zarat
Not me Hym ah Jager!
“Not me Hym ah Jager!”
Iz better dan hyooman. Do I wouldn’t say det in front of meez Agatha heef I vere you.
“Iz better dan hyooman. Do I wouldn’t say det in front of meez Agatha heef I vere you.”
Hyu are probably right about dat.
Say, how mhenny Jägers are on dis blog hennyvay?
Long time lurker, first time poster. This is the kind of the future (already happening in Japan) Anthony Zarat is talking about, and it’s nothing to be afraid of.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-2DLove-t.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/3283463/Japanese-launch-campaign-to-marry-comic-book-characters.html
http://kotaku.com/5409877/the-one-about-the-guy-who-married-a-video-game?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kotaku%2Ffull+%28Kotaku%29
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98910-Korean-Otaku-Marries-Anime-Body-Pillow
“This is the kind of the future (already happening in Japan) Anthony Zarat is talking about, and it’s nothing to be afraid of.”
No one is afraid of it, exactly (at least, from what I can tell by the comments). We’re just…baffled at how much AntZ is personally hoping and pushing for that type of future while being married. Plus, this type of pipe dream isn’t new. David K. Meller rants about it constantly, with no apology.
Plus, if such a thing happens…fine. At least the people who jump in aren’t hurting anyone, and if they don’t want to deal with real women, then that makes the dating scene more open for people like me who DO want to be with real women. Win win! 😀
Anime body pillows are all well and good but I’m in a long-term relationship with the stuffed lamb toy I’ve had since age 6 months. Nice try, Korean dude, but no one commits to an inanimate object like I do!
@Anthony Zarat
I’m starting to suspect that you are actually an anti-MRA and that you are coming out with this idiotic nonsense to discredit further (if this was posssible) the MRM?
You love your wife and your children but you are scared that your wife will have you locked up, thrown out of your home, take your money and stop you seeing your children. OK…
Well, why don’t you start to open your eyes and live in the real world? This narrative works in MRA blogs but doesn’t have any credability in the real world. Show me the *law* that says a woman (only a woman) can have a man (and only a man) locked up, thrown out of his home and prevented from seeing his (and only his) children. This law doesn’t exist. What exists are laws to prevent and punish crime. Domestic abusers are habitual offenders who cost the taxpayer a lot of money. Society has had enough of these lowlives (overwhelmingly men, but some women too) and laws have been enacted.
Unless things are radically different in the USA (and they might be) then this is inane MRA propaganda. MRAs in the UK come out with this bullsh!t too. Unfortunately, it’s very, very well documentated that the UK courts are very lenient on any first offender and not many people end up in jail, let alone domestic abusers. Similarly, the family court is pedantic to an extreme about including both parents, no matter what (including convictions of domestic abuse, in front of the children).
Zarat, you’re weak and live in a dreamworld. Good on you – you give me a laugh.
” Or has he let slip that he’s a domestic violence perpetrator?”
Ding, ding!
Given the way these whiny asshats post, they persistant delusions of persecution, their total lack of empathy (except for other whiny asshats), their dreams of apocalyptic genocide – how can we honestly think they are anything BUT abusers?
Of course they are, that’s why they’re always so terrified of being taken to court and losing everything.
In the same way that rape-apologists can be safely assumed to be worried about the sexual assault skeletons in their closets, in the same way that someone who says, “i’m not a racist but” will shortly thereafter prove themselves to be racists – we can assume that someone irrationally afraid of losing everything to the mythical feminist-controlled court system isn’t *irrationally* afraid at all – because he knows he’s guilty.
EIther that, or he’s got some serious mental issues that cause these delusions.
Either way, this doesn’t bode well for him or any of the rest of them.
Yet another scary example of a NiceGuy-ness:
http://grouphug.us/confessions/174618126
@Denia: Wow. Holy balls.
My two cents: I think that Nice Guys are LIKE sociopaths, but not ACTUAL sociopaths. For one, (as far as I know) we haven’t found a cure for sociopathy. As a previous commenter proved, it is possible for MRAs (or at least one MRA) to eventually become ex-MRAs.
Nice Guys are like sociopaths in that they share a distinguishing trait; lack of empathy for others. Like sociopaths, the lack of empathy often makes it hard for them to see women as people, equals, or individuals. That’s why they are so creepy to many women. But sociopaths feel no empathy for anyone, and Nice guys only feel empathy for other men.
And we already have a word for a people who lack all empathy for another group of people, specifically the opposite sex; sexists. Nice Guys are like sociopaths, but they are definitively sexists.
I would also like to say about Antz’s claims, since the research he mentions is also part of my major; he says that he designs drugs, but then goes on to describe a cell-seeding method for a tissue scaffold. The two fields are related, but they are most certainly not the same. Tissue scaffolds are *much* more complex than most pharmaceutical drugs. If he has any experience with tissue scaffolds, he would know that we are still a long way from designing a working artificial organ. We can barely make a scaffold with one tissue (most of which are designed to be placed in the human body and quickly integrate with or be replaced/seeded by the body), much less several layers of tissue (none that I know of that have passed clinical trials, at least).
He also does not mention the mostly likely way an artificial womb could be made; a womb from a cadaver or patient kept alive via a life-support system. We can do this with other organs (like the heart) for a few hours, it is much easier to improve on this technology than try to build a womb via tissue engineering.