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.
Also, because pregnancy is as dangerous as war, how about we turn around your mantra, NWO! If it’s women who are prodding men to go off and die in war for their bonbons and purses, it’s the men who are humping these poor women, demanding that they die for their sperm. They’re sitting around on the couch while women die in agony having their children!!!! What do you think about that, NWO?
NWOSlave: I don’t know when life begins. Sentience begins at the 24th week, when the fetus becomes capable of feeling pain; I assign no moral weight to the lives of creatures who are incapable of feeling pain.
NWO, several of us answered your question. The fact that we didn’t give the same answer just means that, despite your paranoid imaginings, there is no feminist hive-mind.
For example, I need to type on this computer and hit “post comment” to communicate to Joanna that I think her estimate of when a fetus gets “too big to abort” may be quite a few weeks off. Heck, the embryo doesn’t even become a fetus until the eighth week. Our minds are not one, so she doesn’t already know that I’m thinking that.
Well I see plenty of mockery of the old slave yet no one answered my question of when Big Daddy has declared “life.” And whether it varies State to State and Nation to Nation.”
You declared when Big Daddy declared life. I care not what some barbaric gang of thugs says about personhood and when it begins. I care not what some other gang of thugs says on the matter. You on the other hand, say that your Big Daddy State starts life at conception. You say that Big Daddy can kill women who don’t agree with you. You say that you can jail people who don’t think Big Daddy should say that and won’t give him money to enforce it.
{C’mon, throw the old slave a bone. You’ll get to show how smart ya’ll are. The Question is simple, when does Big Daddy declare “life” has begun?”
BIG DADDY DOESN’T. BIG DADDY DECLARES NOTHING. BIG DADDY DOESN’T EXIST cause we fired his kyriarchal illogical barbaric old ass! People own their own bodies. Some people are pro life, and work peacefully to ensure women choose not to abort. The State and force have nothing to do with it. Women can band together without fear of losing state funding or coming up against licensing laws and create health clinics for women. Women can band together and create adoption agencies for women. Hell, at some point in the future we can develop artificial womb technology that may make “giving a fetus up for adoption” a real possibility that makes both sides happy – Assuming it really ever was about the fetal life, and not about controlling the woman. So many things are possible, when you stop trying to control other people’s lives with force. Stop loving Big Daddy, NWO. Join us over here in Market Anarchy, where things are libertarian, and the future is bright and beautiful.
Cause right now you’re a STATIST.
@NWO: I am not a fan of abortion either. However, I don’t think we should outlaw it. Just like everything else in life, if you prohibit it, it just makes criminals very rich (e.g drug laws). Prohibiting anything doesn’t make it go away, it just prevents honest businesses from providing a safe product/service.
However, I see no problem with passing judgement on women that do get abortions. While they are free to live their life as they see fit without any interference from me, that doesn’t mean I have to blindly accept what they do. I only have to tolerate it. I can still disagree with it.
No, the asker is simple; the question makes no sense.
Ah, Brandon, taking his usual stance of “I’m relatively politically moderate, but I’m still working really hard on being an asshole.”
Ah well. I suppose that is your right.
“For example, I need to type on this computer and hit “post comment” to communicate to Joanna that I think her estimate of when a fetus gets “too big to abort” may be quite a few weeks off. Heck, the embryo doesn’t even become a fetus until the eighth week. Our minds are not one, so she doesn’t already know that I’m thinking that.”
Touche Seraph. My secondary school biology is a bit fuzzy it seems.
I’m really hoping the artificial womb technology happens soon, because this debate is really something that just needs to end.
Not this thread btw, but the ongoing abortion debate in the US and wherever else its happening.
“However, I see no problem with passing judgement on women that do get abortions. While they are free to live their life as they see fit without any interference from me, that doesn’t mean I have to blindly accept what they do. I only have to tolerate it. I can still disagree with it.”
That’s true. Seriously, go ahead. If you want.
So do you still think I have to pay taxes to a government in order to pay for a forced and stupid Baby Blood Taking Your Mom’s Probably A Whore test? Cause man, do I pass judgement on people with that idea in their heads.
@zhinxy
Please stop with your, “I’m anti-state” nonsense. You support killing, a right granted by the State. The State says you can kill. Rule #1, don’t kill. If you have to run to the State to cicumvent this rule, you’re an ally of the State. You demand the right to kill for any reason or no reason at all.
What a completely lame arguement you make to prove you’re not a sponser of the State. “Oh the State won’t let me kill after a certain week.” That has got to be the lamest arguement I’ve ever heard. I wanna kill on week 30 and the State won’t let me. Not killing innocent people is too much to ask. And feminists like yourself actually believe this is an infringement on your rights.
I like what Owly chooses to focus on. “Why hasn’t anyone answered my question about how all 192 of the earth’s states and their respective provinces define the beginning of life, if they even do?!?!?!”
Zhinxy, if you continue to conflate all government with his fascism, I am going to stop abiding by Ami’s request. I had, for some insane reason, thought it was supposed to be two way.
@Holly: No, it means that I am able to tolerate decisions that I personally find offensive and immoral (as long as those decisions don’t actually harm someone physically). I don’t have the right to order around people, but they also don’t have the right to order me around.
Sorry if I was unduly harsh in saying so; I didn’t mean for you to get caught up in my scorn of NWO.
The Question only arises because there are restrictions on abortion. If it was legal, we’d be talking about a journey of development, not a “moment” when life begins.
And apparently rule #1 (of what?) is don’t kill. Please turn off your immune system, Owly. Right this minute, it’s rule #1. Don’t even get me started on how it relates to Rule #34.
Brandon, I’ve asked NWO (who thinks abortion should be illegal) but he won’t answer, so I’ll ask you. What should my friend have done after her partial miscarriage which left (what would have become) the skull of the fetus in her tube?
@Bee
” No, the asker is simple; the question makes no sense.”
Big Daddy will clear your concience. He will tell you when “life” begins. Women did not murder, because Big Daddy has sanctioned when “life” began. Big Daddy is your deity.
No it doesn’t. If we lived in a stateless anarchy, abortion would be possible. The state’s only options are to use force to prevent abortion, or to back the hell off. (Or to help fund it, but that’ll be a cold day in hell…)
Which raises the question, does Rule #63 mean there’s a female version of NWOslave?
God NWO! You are the most whiny person I have ever come across. Have you paid attention to anything we’ve just said? Not wanting to raise a child in poverty, not wanting to die of unplanned pregnancy, not wanting to raise a child without a father etc. You asked when a fetus is considered “too human” to abort, and we answered. It is our right as human beings to decide what happens to our own body. A fetus does not have citizenship, ergo lack of human rights.
@zhinxy: While I think mandatory paternity testing will help everyone in the long run. I would be more than willing to move mandatory paternity testing to the family court system (i.e child support can not be established without a paternity test proving fatherhood).
Rutee – I am an Anarchist, and I am not ashamed of this. I’m not ashamed of this. I know that people of good will can disagree. When I speak of States as barbaric, I do believe this. I realize some statism is worse than others, and I am trying to needle NWO,
but I will say right now that as an anarchist, I believe that the State is an unnecessary evil. I believer that a monopoly upon the use of force is immmoral. I realize that most people do not agree. I realize that most feminsts do not agree. If you consider what I am doing here conflating “all government with his facism” – Then I cannot stop you from thinking as you do.
if you have serious moral issues with me, then I am not telling you to hold back.
If you are genuinely opposed to Anarchism, then I have no right to hold you back. Say what you’re thinking.
How is killing a right granted by the State? I would have thought you would need a State to STOP people from killing.