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.
I’m starting to think NWO is senile. It would explain his failure at reading comprehension, his tendency to ignore the majority of questions asked to him, and how often he cycles through his buzzword of the week.
Honestly, man, I can’t tell if you’re fucked up in the head or if you’re just an asshole, but you seriously need to get a hobby.
“you seriously need to get a hobby”
As do we all, Lauralot. As do we all. 😉
Although a newborn requires lots of care, it is capable of existing without the specific support of the mother–it can be cared for by nearly anyone. A fetus, however, cannot exist without the use of the mother’s–and only the mother’s–body.
Oh, I have one. It’s knitting. 😉
…Well, that and mocking bad baby names, making costumes for comic conventions, writing, reading, posting about feminism on the Internet, cooking, hanging out on Regretsy…
Don’t kill what, milkslave? We kill lots of stuff all the time. We kill animals to eat and make shoes out of, and we kill animals that threaten animals that are of greater value to us. We kill organisms that threaten our health and even some that don’t threaten our health. We kill insects that intrude into our houses. We even kill people in war and in the criminal justice system, when it suits us. And we allow people to die because they’re not rich enough to buy the right health insurance; we let them die of totally curable diseases and don’t blink an eye. Don’t try to tell me that we value “life,” or even that we value human life. It just ain’t so.
Dude, if “mocking bad baby names” counts as a hobby, I am adding it to my list *right now*! 😛
@captainbathrobe
None of those applies to a newborn. Toss one in the woods and see. That newborn has no chance of self governing, existing, responding, reacting to it’s surroundings. You could come at that newborn with an axe or a bottle. Not gonna know the difference. Not controlled by it’s nervous system either. In fact, killing a newborn, according to your definition, is the same damn thing.
Is this what your offering as an excuse to kill? Don’t kill. For someone who value’s life, the concept of legal murder is abhorent. I don’t have an ideology which promotes murder as a right. Amazing how in just 40 years a society slips from valuing all life to legalized slaughter. America the vile.
@Molly Ren: There’s an entire forum dedicated to it: http://bigbadbabynames.net
Both of these statements are false. I did not exist at conception. There was a thing which eventually grew into me, that existed at and before conception (well, before it was technically two things).
That’s a nonsequitar. Also, again “I” as “me” did not exist at all at conception.
You could never exist as a being with hair unless you were always a being with hair…see, that argument is againly structually invalid.
A borne child exists outside of a uterus. While it is dependent, it is not dependent on the use of a specific other person’s body. This differs from a fetus, which does use a specific other person’s body. You can’t give the fetus use of another’s body without denying that person the right to their own body. You can, however, give an infant its needs without denying a person the right to their own body (namely, by having a system which allows them to reliquish phsyical care of the child to others, sometimes referred to as “surrendering custody” or “giving up for adoption”). The fetus cannot be transferred to another if the person refuses to support it, the infant can. The infant can exist without infringement on another’s rights over their own body, the fetus cannot.
You kill every time you swallow. You kill by living, and in order to live. You would also kill if you died. You kill, just by existing, organisms more complicated than a fertilized egg on a minute to minute basis. Even if you were a vegan, this would be the case. Killing is in no way as ethically simple as you present it. But, for the sake of argument, let’s discuss killing of moral persons (which the vast majority of aborted fetuses aren’t). Are you a pacifist, NWO? If not, you clearly think there are cases where it is acceptable to kill other persons. EVen if you are, there is probably some limit on what you think you must give up to protect the lives or wellbeing of others. Should we be allowed to force blood and organ donations that risk your death, that cause permanent physical changes, etc. without your consent if we believe it will save others? Do we have the right to use you for medical experimentation without your consent to save others? Can we force you to work the labor that we choose, against your will, if we think it will benefit another? How far do you think a person is ethically required to go in order to protect the life of another? How far do you think it is ethical to force them to go?
NWO, I want an answer too!
I have deeply held moral objections to mocking “bad” baby names! Every baby name is beautiful in its own way!
Although I do have a friend named Siera because her parents didn’t know how to spell “Sierra.” And I used to know a girl named “Chyrstal” for similar reasons. Chyrstal.
And this other girl (It’s usually girls. There’s a smaller range of boy names, but parents get “creative” with the girls) I worked with was named “Princess.” Legally Princess Smith or whatever. She was only 18 when I knew her, but she was very concerned about getting older–was she going to upgrade to “Queen” at some point, or was she going to be a 60-year-old Princess?
Worst baby name I’ve ever seen is “Enola Gay.” Though “Squirrely Jellybean” is a very close second.
I went to school with a guy whose legal first name was “Sir Michael”. He had a brother who had “Lord John” on his driver’s license, and their sisters were “Saint” and “Lady”.
@Bee
” Don’t try to tell me that we value “life,” or even that we value human life. It just ain’t so.”
Don’t include me in your, “we” of feminist ideology. You don’t value human life. Someone who has never committed an act of ill-will towards anyone, the unborn, so casually off-ed and dismissed. No rights, no defense, totally helpless. All hail Ceasar! What will Ceasar do? Thumbs up or thumbs down? Live or die?
Well, I tend not to mock baby names, but there are exceptions:http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/parents-adolf-hitler-lose-custody-newborn-020633900.html
NWO – what should my friend have done after her partial miscarriage?
So is “Ceasar” the new “Big Daddy”?
It’s Caesar, by the way.
NWOslave, what if the unborn child is female? She’ll grow up to be one of your oppressors, indoctrinated to think that you’re a rapist. And when she grows up, she’ll take another man’s job.
NWO, what are your thoughts on the death penalty? Just curious.
Then why the fuck were you yammering on about a fetus or a newborn being an autonomous being, mikslave? It seems like you could remain consistent for at least a period of three consecutive comments.
@Magpie
“NWO, I want an answer too!”
Everybody wants an answer. Me too.
What’s a good excuse to murder an unborn child who has never committed even the slightest offense to anyone?
Is the answer…..feminism?
Hey Slave, do you think abortion is a new thing? It’s been around for centuries.
Someone else could care for a newborn, slavey. No one else can carry a fetus to term.
In any event, you were the one who applied the term “autonomous” to describe fetuses, not me. A fetus is not autonomous, and neither, really, is a new born. So what? I don’t see a fetus as a full human being–and, even if it was, it’s extremely problematic to require a person to devote their internal organs to preserving the life of another.
HEY NWO WHAT IF THE FATHER WANTS THE WOMAN TO HAVE AN ABORTION?
You seem to be avoiding this one. What if it’s not a woman committing the “murder”–is it still murder then?
Do they think and make rational thoughts/decisions?
Depends upon what you mean by “think” and make “rational” decisions (I don’t see much rationality in what you post here, for example).
But, short answer, yes, babies are much more “conscious” than was thought for many years; they begin imitating behavior around them, and learning from very early on. They have an amazing capacity to learn:
Language Acquisition
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/learn.jsp
http://www.utdallas.edu/bbs/people/detail.php5?i=61
In the early 1960’s it would be fair to say that human infants were regarded as vegetables, requiring regular feeding and watering. The intervening years have shown that from birth human infants organize their world in very adult-like ways and, perhaps most importantly, begin to learn with incredible efficiency from the moment they are born.