The director of the first Human Centipede film – the one about a psychopathic doctor who sews three unwilling and unwitting captives together mouth-to-anus to make a sort of “centipede” — proudly declared that his film was “100% medically accurate.” That is, he found a doctor who was willing to say that if one were indeed to create such a centipede, the second and third segments (i.e., people) would be able to survive, provided that you supplemented their rather dismal diet with IV drips to give them the nutrition they were lacking.
This dubious claim to 100% accuracy came to mind today as I perused a post by the blogger who calls himself Dalrock, a manospherian nitwit with a penchant for pseudoscientific defenses of old-fashioned misogyny. In a post with the whimsical title “We are trapped on Slut Island and Traditional Conservatives are our Gilligan,” Dalrock argues that the best “solution” to out-of-wedlock births is some good old-fashioned slut shaming.
Here’s how he breaks down the (imaginary) numbers in a post that is “100% mathematically accurate” – which is to say, not accurate at all:
Assume we are starting off with 100 sluts and 30 alphas/players. The sluts are happily riding on the alpha carousel. Now we introduce slut shaming. It isn’t fully effective of course, but it manages to convince 15 of the would be sluts not to be sluts after all. This means an additional 15 women are again potentially suitable for marriage. This directly translates into fewer fatherless children. This also makes the next round of slut shaming easier. Instead of having 99 peers eagerly cheering her on her ride, each slut now has 15 happily married women shaming her and only 84 other sluts encouraging her. After the next round this becomes 30 happily married women shaming the sluts, and only 69 other sluts cheering them on, and so on. This process continues until all but the most die hard sluts are off the carousel. You will never discourage them all, but you can do a world better than we are doing today.
Why not shame the fathers as well, while we’re at it? Dalrock explains that this just doesn’t make good mathematical sense:
Start with the same base assumption of 100 sluts and 30 players. Now apply shame to the players. Unfortunately shame is less effective on players than it is on sluts, so instead of discouraging 15% of them (4.5) in the first round, it only discourages three of them. No problem!, says the Gilligan [the social conservative], at least there are now three fewer sluts now that three of the evil alphas have been shamed away, and all without creating any unhappy sluts! But unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. The remaining 27 players are more than happy to service the extra sluts. They are quite maddeningly actually delighted with the new situation. Even worse, the next round of player shaming is even less effective than the first. This time only 2 players are discouraged, and one of the other 3 realizes that his player peers are picking up the slack anyway and reopens for business. This means in net there are still 26 players, more than enough to handle all of the sluts you can throw at them.
Well, there’s no arguing with that!
Seriously, there’s no arguing with that, because it is an imaginary construct with only the most tenuous connection with how things work in the real world. “But … MATH!” doesn’t really work as an argument here, since human beings don’t actually behave according to simplistic mathematical formulas.
Film critic note: While the first Human Centipede film offered little more than a workmanlike treatment of a fantastical idea, the recently released sequel, which details the attempts of a deranged Human Centipede superfan to take human-centipeding to the next level, is actually sort of brilliant. If you like that sort of thing.
^
What Holly said.
@Ami: A giant GEISHA robot! That will serve him perfectly in all things! It’s like a really horrible manga!
Or a really awesome one.
Oh my god, he’s like a demented parrot. He learns a new word or phrase and won’t let go.
So… pretty much like every parrot, then.
Pterygotus, pretty much, only real parrots don’t have evil intent. NWO, on the other hand…
Also, NWOslave, before you start in on your idea that abortions are all the result of State indoctrination, abortions were illegal until the 70s in the United States. Abortions still happened, at pretty much the same rate. The only thing that changed from legalisation was making the procedure safer for the women involved.
By making abortion illegal, you’re not saving any “babies,” but you are ensuring that more women die – living, breathing women; with actual lives, with memories, with families and loved ones; women who can feel joy and pain; women who have far more value than a literally brainless lump of cells.
Yes, what Holly–and hellkell–said. I notice the loudest pro-lifers NEVER want to help a child AFTER it’s out of the womb. And–surprise!–not everyone has what it takes to be a good parent. I know I sure don’t!!! I’ve never liked kids, even when I WAS a kid. So, I do the best I can in family planning, and my husband and I have agreed that there will be NO TWO-FOOTED CRITTERS. Ain’t gonna happen. My body–my choice. Besides–my species eats its’ young….;)
I’m personally pro-abortion, actually. I would, without exaggeration, rather die than be pregnant.
How the hell are you going to enforce me not having an abortion, NWO?
I’m pro-apendectomy. Everyone should have one, and it should be enforced by law.
10G – Speaking of eating its young… you ever keep hamsters?
Some species of animal can actually reabsorb fetuses into the womb if the mother is underfed or under stress. Others will just straight-up kill and eat the babies.
I’m not saying humans should do that, just pointing out that “natural” is a very funny standard for morality.
You know when I think it is okay for you to kill someone, NWO? When they are residing inside of your uterus or other bodily organs. Well, I actually believe that you have the right to remove them even if it kills them, which is a distinction that rarely makes a difference, as a practical matter.
There are other, extremely limited circumstances when I think it is okay to kill, but defense against imminent threat of death, serious injury, or serious violation of bodily autonomy counts in there. If someone is trying to sedate you in order to steal your kidney, a lobe of your liver, and/or several pints of blood (all of which, fyi, puts you at less risk statistically than a pregnancy of death or serious injury), and you must kill them to stop it, I think that is morally acceptable.
Again though, most aborted fetuses are not seriously disputable as being anything but non-persons, so they don’t warrant that level of consideration to begin with.
@zhinxy
“I would not. Here’s the thing, I don’t like abortion. But I must respect the bodily autonomy of others, and there is no way for me to police their actions.”
If you respect bodily autonomy than you must respect the autonomy of the unborn. A borne child is autonomus yet it is fully dependent. So is an unborn child, they are autonomous and fully dependent. Don’t kill, it’s as simple as that. You’ve people have been brought up indoctrinated to devalue life. The word, “right” has been shoved down your throats since you were born. You were born because you were alive at conception. If you weren’t alive at conception you could never have been born. You’re an adult today because you were a fully autonomous being at conception. You could never exist as an autonomous being unless you were always an autonomous being.
“Others will just straight-up kill and eat the babies.”
Really? Shows how much I know about biology… up until now I thought only the males in a species ate babies, ‘cuz they only wanted their genes to be passed on.
You don’t really know what “autonomous” means, do you slavey?
Well, that’s silly, because what about before I was conceived? Was my ethereal spirit a living, autonomous being 500 years ago?
Molly Ren – Nope, it’s not just the males; hamster mommies (and probably lots of other species too) will eat their babies if they’re malnourished or overstressed.
Holly P–yeah, but they never reproduced….guess I got lucky and missed that fun aspect of hamster ownership! 😉 And holy buckets, I never knew about the re-absorbing of fetuses….the killing and eating of the young I did know. Makes me wanna keep Venus Flytraps from now on…;)
Fetuses are by no means autonomous. Autonomy requires the being to be able to think and make rational decisions. They, however, do not yet have brains capable of independent thought.
Hey… I bet you guys all a kajillion Space Dollars that NWO is pro-death-penalty.
@Holly Pervocracy
“Well, that’s silly, because what about before I was conceived? Was my ethereal spirit a living, autonomous being 500 years ago?”
That’s a pretty stupid thing to say. You didn’t exist before conception. Nobody existed before they were concieved.
NWO, if abortion was illegal, what do you suggest my dear friend should have done after she miscarried most of a fetus, but still had (what would have become) the skull trapped in her tube?
@Spearhafoc
“Fetuses are by no means autonomous. Autonomy requires the being to be able to think and make rational decisions. They, however, do not yet have brains capable of independent thought.”
How about a newborn? Do they think and make rational thoughts/decisions?
But you just said someone has to have always existed to exist now…
*head a splode.*
Definition of AUTONOMOUS
1
: of, relating to, or marked by autonomy
2
a : having the right or power of self-government
b : undertaken or carried on without outside control : self-contained
3
a : existing or capable of existing independently
b : responding, reacting, or developing independently of the whole
4
: controlled by the autonomic nervous system
— au·ton·o·mous·ly adverb
I’m wondering which of these definitions applies to a human embryo in utero.
@Holly Pervocracy
I didn’t say that, you know it as well as I do. Don’t kill, it’s that simple.
But what do I do with the baby AFTERWARDS, NWOslave?
Can I kill a hamster? A hamster is a lot larger, more self-aware, more able to perceive pain and fear, and more able to live without feeding on my own blood and body than an early-term fetus.
Also, can I kill a fetus if the father wants me to?
(Can I kill a hamster if a man wants me to? This question is purely for symmetry purposes..)
The sperm and egg existed. Life is a continuum. It doesn’t “start” at any one point.
In terms of defining the beginning of personhood, I think putting it at the point when an organism is capable of independent thought makes far more sense than placing it at fertilisation or implantation.
The idea that a single cell can be a person requires one to believe in ensoulment. A soul is a purely religious idea and has no place in deciding laws in a secular government.