John The Other debates John The Other on MRA misogyny, loses

@tedthefed:

You’re probably closest with the lack of empathy.

But I think it’s also mainly a case of attitude stagnation. In order to think sexism is a problem, you have to acknowledge it exists in the first place. If they don’t acknowledge that it’s even a thing, there’s a much more hidden cognitive dissonance, no real impetus to change their opinion because they know that they have the right one.

So if someone says “You hate men!” it’s not a statement of subjective truth, but some callous little lie – because it’s how they perceive the world, and how they would normally act in the same situation (“You just hate men!”)

It’s like the argument people make when they go “No one ever *really* does anything for a selfness reason, there’s always some ulterior motive”. It’s how they operate, generally, and how they see the world at that time, so of course everyone else does too.

This is a good example, from earlier

In public, well-adjusted people may mouth the PC platitudes that feminists and doughboys relentlessly cudgel into squishy groupthink minds, but in private the cool people generally shun the orc hordes and leave them to mingle with their own emotionally and often physically disfigured kind.

“I feel that way! So I know everyone does too! And if you don’t, you’re obvious lying, because I know I’m right! Also you’re ugly!”

So… Universalizing experience + lack of empathy + arrogance = That.

Eh, my bad. Sorry.

But I think it’s also mainly a case of attitude stagnation. In order to think sexism is a problem, you have to acknowledge it exists in the first place. If they don’t acknowledge that it’s even a thing, there’s a much more hidden cognitive dissonance, no real impetus to change their opinion because they know that they have the right one.

A lot of them are of the opinion that sexism no longer exists as long as women can vote. Whatever country someone is in, just find out when women got the vote and that’s when sexism ended there. So when feminists talk about sexism, they’re like “What sexism? That’s fixed in your country, so don’t whine” or they say that sexism exists, but only against men, never against women.

katz, if you loathe psychological altruism and want to see an impressive (and very, very heavy) philosophical argument for the existence of altruism, I highly recommend The Possibility of Altruism by Thomas Nagel. If you’re a philosophy fan like me, you won’t regret it.

wooooooow, my heart died a bit after that video.

and QUESTION everybody, do that man have a girlfriend? And does the founder of AVfm have one, I’m just corious, ok thnx bye.

Though, is plan-b offered? Can we maybe do that?

Offering it is standard in the UK. I wouldn’t be massively surprised to learn that it isn’t in Texas, though.

First, a link. http://www.newser.com/article/da746gco2/texas-house-republicans-pass-new-abortion-restrictions-democrats-seek-delay-of-senate-vote.html

Second, the money quote —

“In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out,” she said, comparing the procedure to an abortion. “The woman had five months to make that decision, at this point we are looking at a baby that is very far along in its development.”

The ignorance, it burns.

Oh no! I didn’t mean to make you cry 🙁

Replacement?

Ugh, I fuckin’ hate psychological egoism. And, for that matter, all theories that presuppose that you know what’s going on in other people’s minds better than they do.

Fun challenge: Try to come up with a definition of “egoism” according to which universal egoism becomes a simultaneously plausible and interesting thesis.

Failed attempt one: Define egoism as striving for more money/sex/fame/things etc. With such a narrow definition, universal egoism is pretty obviously false. Even if you grant that people’s striving for more money/sex/fame/things etc is sometimes subconscious rather than conscious, it’s not plausible. People sometimes (heck, often) have other goals.

Failed attempt two: Define egoism as serving your own interests – and then define “interests” in such a wide way that universal peace counts as “my interest” if I’m all for universal peace, and dying for a cause is “my interest” if I choose to die for a cause and so on. With such a wide definition, yeah, obviously universal egoism is true, but by depriving the word “egoism” of basically all content you’ve made the thesis trivial.

Failed attempt three: Define egoism as striving for happiness. Next step in the argument: Claim that if I’m all for universal peace and manage to make peace on Earth, I’m gonna be happy. Third step in the argument: That proves that happiness rather than peace was my goal all along.
First problem with this line of argument: The fact that I become happy after achieving peace on Earth does no more prove that happiness was my actual goal than the fact that I become sweaty through exercise prove that sweat (rather than, say, health and strength) prove that sweat was my actual exercising goal.
The second problem with this attempt is that unless I was seriously interested in peace for its own sake, I wouldn’t have become happy by making peace.
A person who’s only interest was to become happy, but didn’t care for anything else, couldn’t ever become happy. Or possibly zie could become happy by doing something that directly affects brain chemicals, like taking certain drugs. But zie wouldn’t become happy by performing various activities unless zie had a previous interest in these activities for their own sake. The person described under “failed attempt one” could become happy by acquiring money/sex/fame/things etc if zie was previously greedy/ambitious/horny etc, and the person described under “failed attempt two” could become happy by making peace if zie was previously altruistic, but nobody whose sole interest was zir own happiness could ever become happy, except possibly by doing some kind of happiness drugs.

So, yeah. Fun challenge for the believer in universal egoism!

Dvärghundspossen: that challenge is beautiful. My pops should read it — he and my stepmom are big into a New Agey “The Secret”/law-of-attraction mindset wherein they believe “selfishness” as a virtue and broadly define “selfishness” as “acting in one’s own self-interest to achieve one’s goals and not doing things that would detract from or act against one’s own self-interest.” And they believe that, basically, everyone wants simply to be happy, so all of our hobbies and passions are simply in service to that goal.

But he also believes that any attempts to converse about or debate these principles are proof of “negativity” encroaching, since apparently we’ve all been trained (by whatever their equivalent is to the Devil, since this is after all a religion to its devotees) to thwart ourselves through “bad thoughts” and must open our psychic channels/cleanse our chi to overcome this tendency.

Suffice to say he comes from a very different financial class than I do (in part because he paid child support maybe twice in eighteen years and spent the withheld money exclusively on his own self-interests, which did not include “raising his child”; he considers himself to be “flamingly liberal”, but the MRA would love him). And suffice to say this is one of the many, many reasons I am extremely hesitant to let him into my life.

And suffice to say this is one of the many, many reasons I am extremely hesitant to let him into my life.

Let him into your life, but constantly do annoying/mean things like intentionally stepping on his feet, and then say “It was in my self-interest.”

(Disclaimer: Don’t actually do this.)

My mom and my older siblings did ayahuasca once. Apparently my sister was taken to hell during her trip and then shown what her body looks like without her soul. My mom was crying constantly. And my brother was told that he’s pretty much flawless.

They also threw up profusely and had loose stool.

I’m still kind of tempted to try it, but then I think about the physical side effects.