For a certain subset of horrible men, there are few things more infuriating than the fact that women they find undesirable can turn down men for sex. For this upsets their primitive sense of justice: such women should be so grateful for any male attention, these men think, that turning down even the most boorish of men shouldn’t even be an option for them.
Consider the reactions of some of the regulars on date-rapey pickup guru Roosh V’s forum to the story of Josh and Mary on the dating site Plenty of Fish. One fine December evening, you see, Josh decided to try a little “direct game” on Mary.
That’s what the fellas on Roosh’s forum call it, anyway. The rest of us would call it sexual harassment.
Josh started off by asking Mary if she “wanted to be fuck buddies.” She said “nope,” and the conversation went downhill from there, with Josh sending a series of increasingly explicit comments to Mary, despite getting nothing but negative replies from her.
After eight messages from Josh, with the last one suggesting he would pay her $50 to “come over right now and swallow my load,” Mary turned the tables, noting that she’d been able to deduce his real identity from his PoF profile, and asking him if he wanted her to send screenshots of the chat to his mother and grandmother. He begged her not to.
As you may have already figured out, from the fact that we’re talking about this story in public, Mary did indeed pass along the screenshots, and posted them online.
Poetic justice? Not to the fellas on Roosh’s forum. Because, you see, Mary is … a fat chick.
While dismissing Josh as a “chode” with “atrocious game,” Scorpion saved most of his anger for the harassed woman:
Look how much she relishes not only shooting him down, but damaging his reputation with his own family. She’s positively intoxicated with her power. Simply spitting bad direct game is enough to unleash her vindictive fury.
“Bad direct game.” I’m pretty sure even Clarence Thomas would consider what Josh did sexual harassment.
At any point, she could have pressed a single button and blocked the man from communicating with her, but she didn’t. She didn’t because she enjoys the feeling of power she gets from receiving attention from guys like this and then brutally shooting them down. It makes her feel much hotter and more desirable than she actually is in real life. She’s not there to meet men; she’s there to virtually castrate them for her own amusement.
I’m guessing here, but I’m pretty sure that nowhere in Mary’s profile did she encourage the men of PoF to send her explicit sexual propositions out of the blue. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t hold a gun to Josh’s head and force him to send a half-dozen sexually explicit harassing messages to a woman he didn’t know.
Athlone McGinnis also relies heavily on euphemism when describing Josh’s appalling behavior:
I don’t think its primarily the revenge she’s after, its the validation. She is enjoying the power she has over this guy and wielding it brutally because it shows she can maintain standards despite her weight and the doubtless numerous confidence issues that stem from it. In blowing up this guy for being too direct in his evaluation of her sexuality, she affirms the value of her own sexuality.
Oh, so he was just being “direct in his evaluation of her sexuality.”
In short: “I am wanted, but I have standards and can choose. I have so much agency despite my weight that I can go as far as to punish those who approach me in a way I do not like rather than simply blocking them. I’m teaching them a lesson, because I’m valuable enough to provide such lessons.
So apparently in Mr. McGinnis’ world women who are fat aren’t supposed to have agency? They’re not supposed to be able to choose? They’re supposed to drop their panties to any guy who offers to be their fuck buddy or tells them to “suck my dick?”
Also, I’m a victim bravely standing up against online bullying/harassment-look at me!”
Yeah, actually, she is. Get used to it, guys, because you’re going to see a lot more of this in the future.
This isn’t just a laughing matter for her. She needs to be able to do this in order to feel worthwhile. She has to be able to show that even she is able to maintain standards and doesn’t have to settle for just any old guy asking for any old sexual favor simply because she resembles a beached manatee.
And it’s not a laughing matter for you either, is it? You’re actually angry that a woman said no to a sexual harasser — because you don’t find her attractive. And because Josh — from his picture, a conventionally attractive, non-fat fellow — did.
Mr. McGinnis, may a fat person sit on your dreams, and crush them.
But people belief it. Enough that he shut down discussion for causing psychological harm.
I can’t take credit for this one, but Yudcultsky *nods sagely*
“Causing psychological harm” instead of “being really, really stupid?”
How privileged do you have to be for the idea of a nonexistent AI being created and torturing you to be the thing that worries you?
Privileged enough to decide that dying of old age related causes is worse than genocide.
Or, as my doofus so wonderfully put it — heart disease is six holocausts EVERYDAY! (Yes I am serious)
You could make those guys dance by telling them “a rock could fall out of the sky RIGHT ABOVE THE SPOT WHERE YOU’RE STANDING!”
I know a guy who’s on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum: He thinks the singularity will happen, but he’s terrified of it because he equates it with the Mark of the Beast from Revelation. Much like the lesswrong guys, he also sounds a lot more intellectual than he really is.
At least the ones I’ve dealt with, can’t speak for the rest, do okay with rare but measurably so events — meteriors hit X often and kill Y people per Q time frame. This AI may be 0.00000000001% odds, or it could be what happens (and multiverse theory, which they seem to believe fully, says it will happen in some universe)
Pretty much they buy it because it fits their almost religious worldview, probably much like Mark of the Beast dude.
Nah, because Klaatu and Gort would have been here and said “You fuckwits are going NOWHERE. You really think we’d let you come and screw other planets the way you’ve screwed yours?”
That whole torture scenario is vivisectionists’ talk. “Let’s blind thousands of rabbits rather than suggest fucking humans have the wit to keep their eyes closed while shampooing their hair!”
RE: Argenti’s explanation of TDT and the basilisk
…the fuck?
*tries to read the article on the basilisk*
…THE FUCK.
No seriously, the hell is this shit? This is absurd. This is like, the most vicious version of hell I’ve ever seen, and it’s supposed to be fucking SECULAR. Even fucking DANTE, in the fucking MIDDLE AGES dealt with the idea of what happened to the good people who weren’t Christian, and gave them Limbo. This stupid basilisk thing would instead TORTURE EVERYONE. Starving child on a desert island who never saw a circuit in their life? TORTURE.
This is the biggest load of pretentious philosophical wankery I’ve ever seen.
Also, am I seriously the only person who isn’t afraid of dying, just dying POORLY?
LBT – that’s exactly the impression I’ve had just from Argenti’s summary. This Yudowhatsit creep has one seriously nasty imagination – empathy fail on a grand scale, by the sound of it.
On dying – I’m afraid of being trapped in my earthly body and unable to communicate or move. I’m afraid of being in a coma or a vegetative state. I’m afraid of getting dementia and not realising in time to get the fuck out. I’m sometimes nervous about the business of crossing, because of the what-if-I’m-wrong element (not that I’ll know if I am) but overall, no, death for me is … well, sort of like Lewis described it: end of term, start of holidays. Not that this life is toxic as school was, but I am still SO looking forward to being in my real home.
Anyone wanting to force me to stay here is just being a complete shit, and Y-thing can go fuck himself and his Basilisk sideways.
LBT — to answer your last question, no, you aren’t. As for starving children, well, see, they didn’t know they could prevent suffering by donating to Yudkowsky’s brain child, so they’re in the clear.
We’re screwed now though.
It’s not his basilisk, it’s one of his followers who dreamt up this sadist piece of work.
“I’m afraid of being trapped in my earthly body and unable to communicate or move”
Thank you for reminding me that I have a Living Will to get printed and finished.
RE: Argenti
We’re screwed now though.
The hell you say. I don’t got the money to support the damn robot anyway. I’m busy eating.
RE: Kittehserf
On dying – I’m afraid of being trapped in my earthly body and unable to communicate or move. I’m afraid of being in a coma or a vegetative state.
See, I don’t have to worry about that. I’m in the USA; the sheer expense required to keep us alive would mean we wouldn’t have to deal with it long. ESPECIALLY if our insurance doesn’t cover it! *thumbs up*
Also, I shared it on tumblr, and one of my friends immediately responded with, “I couldn’t finish that description without bursting into laughter and reading it to everyone in the room.’
I feel the way I felt when reading 50 Shades of Bears. It’s so stupid AND I KEEP READING BECAUSE I WANT TO MAKE IT MAKE SENSE AUUUUUGH GODDAMMIT ARGENTI
Argenti – oh, gotcha. Don’t suppose he disowned or criticised the idea, did he?
LBT – yeah, one area where having public health insurance doesn’t help. Palliative care, do not want. Life support, do not want.
One good thing: I just looked up getting a DNR and it’s not difficult. Don’t need a lawyer (thank goodness), just to consult with my doc to make sure it’s all clear and complete. And getting a substitute decision maker I can trust is fine: my sister knows my feelings and shares them on this.
Kitteh — well, sort of? It’s dangerous you see. Because it causes existential dread. And what Katz quoted —
“Eliezer Yudkowsky, founder of LessWrong, considers the basilisk would not work, but will not explain why because he does not consider open discussion of the notion of acausal trade with possible superintelligences to be provably safe.”
It’s the unspeakable horror of less wrong.
I’ve DEALT with existential dread. I EXISTED. And this wasn’t some hypothetical “in the distant future” thing either, this was the here and now and my understanding of reality unraveled like a cheap sock, only to be replaced by Mac and inexplicable entities of madness named Craig.
As you might note, I survived it, and came out much the better for it. Roko’s Basilisk doesn’t even COMPARE.
Open discussion of a matter isn’t provably safe?
LOLWUT
Closest I’ve come to existential dread was the idea that Louis doesn’t exist, though “grief” describes it better than “dread”, because if he wasn’t, I didn’t want to be either. It was never a matter of living as if that (ie. his nonexistence) was real, only that the possibility was horrible.
However since I’m currently getting a backrub from him, I’m reminded that those things are in the past! 🙂
Oh, and a touch of wondering how the hell one copes with eternity – something answered for me by the removal of ennui from the equation.
I have no mouth, but I must… hey, icecream!
LBT — please see above re: privilege.
kitteh — well if knowing about it does increase your odds of being brought back and tortured then talking about it dooms more people and seeing how his followers apparently get existential dread over it then even if it isn’t going to happen talking about it is bad because it upsets people.
Michael — whut?
Really I have to treat him and less wrong the way I do scientology…or LoTR. Deal with it in-universe, don’t try making actual sense out of it.
The stupid thing is, all they have to do to avoid Teh Monster AI is … not make the fucking thing. Which given what a pack of idiots they are, seems a likely outcome in any event.
(Am I the only one seeing “AI” and thinking it’s about a certain blog-herpes troll?)
Argenti, it just reminded me of “I have no mouth but I must scream”.
BlackBloc:
Don’t get me started on the ridiculous police ‘work’ that resulted in… well, in that. Sorry she’s in the same city as you.
Basilisk… what the… I don’t… what is this? Why did I read about it? Why do I have to know that this idea exists now? A simulation of me might be punished, but I might also be the simulation what?
Oh gods I’ve broken manboobz! Yudkowsky’s right! It causes psychological distress! (To try and twist your brain into making sense of it)
Kitteh — no it isn’t just you
Michael — ah ok
Tracy — time is a cube
This whole cult sounds worse than the usual – even less chance of whatever sort of redemption they’re offering. It also falls under the banner of “if this were true, it would be one’s duty to resist this tyrannical/psychopathic/sadistic god/AI”.