So apparently I just had a debate with Vox Day?
A couple of days ago, you see, a Twitterer calling himself RedPillPhil suggested I was a bit of a coward for taking on an “easy target” like A Voice for Men rather than taking on the leading intellectual lights of the so-called “Dark Enlightenment” like … Heartiste, and Vox Day … who I actually write about all the time.
My laughter must have carried all the way to, well, wherever Vox Day lives, because Mr. Day soon appeared on Twitter and challenged me to a debate — on women’s right to vote. The very notion of two dudes earnestly debating female suffrage – in 2014, no less – struck me as beyond absurd, so I sent back what I thought was an appropriately dismissive Tweet:
@voxday @RedPillPhil @heartiste Yes, women should have voting rights, because they, like men, are human. I win the debate! The end.Thanks!
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) July 25, 2014
Apparently Mr. Day saw this tweet as my opening gambit in a debate that was now on, and replied with an attempted gotcha. Against my better judgment, I replied:
@voxday @RedPillPhil @heartiste No. I vote where I live, in the US.. So are you contending that no women live in the countries they vote in?
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) July 25, 2014
He replied, and I sunk deeper into the quicksand of this ridiculous “debate.”
@voxday @RedPillPhil @heartiste There are a few basic requirements for having the right to vote besides being human but being male isn't one
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) July 26, 2014
At this point I realized I needed to shut this thing down as quickly as possible. So I posted a couple of quick tweets:
And then, quite literally, I went and took a nap.
Later I discovered that Mr. Day’s possibly imaginary wife, known only as Space Bunny, had weighed in with her own attempted “gotcha.”
I thought that was that. So imagine my surprise to see that Mr. Day had retreated to his blog Alpha Game to boast about his great success in “exposing a Gamma.” That gamma being me.
In his typically pompous prose, Mr. Day explained that his Twitter encounter with me
should help illustrate why the critics of Game are so hesitant to directly challenge any of the leading Game bloggers; despite their pretensions they know very well that they are overmatched.
Oh, plus I’m a fat loser who can’t get laid:
Critics such as Futrelle and Scalzi are of low socio-sexual rank, which means that they have the usual gamma male’s distaste for conflict that has a clear winner. The reason is that as long as they can avoid losing, they can still claim victory in their delusional gamma style.
“Delusional Gamma Style” was Psy’s little known followup to Gangnam Style.
Notice how Futrelle tries to immediately declare himself the winner. This is normal. It’s all about the spin with gammas; substance is to be avoided to the greatest extent possible because the more of it there is, the harder it becomes to spin the selected narrative. They are undefeated in their own minds, victors in a long series of imaginary encounters.
At this point Mr. Day – apparently oblivious to irony– declares himself the winner:
But even in a short, character-limited exchange such as this, I was able to show Futrelle’s reasoning to be incorrect twice, so it is little wonder he does not dare risk a more in-depth encounter with me or one of the other men. The longer it went on, the more inconsistencies I would have been able to expose. Once he realized this, he promptly repeated his initial position and retreated.
Yeah, I’m sure you would have done a bang-up job showing me that since it’s ok to restrict people to voting only in the places in which they actually live, it is also ok to deny votes to women.
This is why we are winning. This is why we will win. Our critics and our enemies have to run away from us every single time we enter a new arena. All we have to do to continue convincing men of the truth of our perspective is to avoid getting lazy, to keep developing and presenting refined ideas, and to remember that rhetoric is no substitute for dialectic. And every time there is a minor encounter of this sort, more people will see that there is no rational foundation for the feminized dogma our opponents are so ineptly defending.
You just keep telling yourself that.
EDITED TO ADD: Just noticed this amazing comment on Vox’s site, from someone called Doom. (What’s with misogynists and their supervillain names?)
Actually, when women see these debates, they choose the strong side. I don’t think they always understand, or agree, but they instinctively know strong from weak, and generally choose strong. But then fall back into confusion without a steady stream of strength, which most men haven’t been presenting them. Game is changing that, from what I am seeing. There is as much hope as there is time. Then again, as things are setting up, a break will be for the good.
Game isn’t just a sexual struggle, it opens up much else in life. Men who begin to master game aren’t willing to be helpless in other parts of their lives. That bites into the need, and want, of bigger government. Zoom!
Ladies love mansplaining assholes! Soon the governments of the world will crumble before us!
—
1) Citation needed
2) Why is this worse than men who vote for the candidate they’d most like to have a beer with, or white people who vote for the white candidate?
3) “Undesirable” to whom? Even if women only voted for Obama because he was the better-looking candidate, I’d argue that he was still the better choice in the last two elections.
4) You’re a misogynist. So, you know, fuck you.
What’s Beale’s beef with “socio-sexual rank”?
Anyway, as I understand the concept, “high socio-sexual rank” means “visibly successful professionally” and “visibly successful sexually”. John Scalzi is both. He’s a popular writer, married with a kid. Looks pretty damn successful to me.
Joe Allen,
Bullshit and fuck you.
I’m interested to see your numbers on this. The only info I could find about women’s voting records were in mainstream publications and polling websites, and they tell a different story about the Dewey v. Truman race at the very least (TIME’s infographic had Truman win with women by a 6% margin). Gallup also had Nixon win with women in two out of his three presidential bids – he even carried women when he was up against JFK. If you have scholarly articles from peer-reviewed journals that show the majority of women to be fluffy sweeties swooning for looks over substance, I’m very interested in reading them.
Here are my links, if anyone’s interested:
How Have You Voted (TIME)
U.S. Presidential Election Center (Gallup)
Oh good, it wasn’t just me. I thought of that too. 😀
It can be right across the street from the feminist dive bar. As well as fancy dresses for all wearers, they can also stock fancy collars for interested Furinatti overlords.
Er, but children SHOULD be allowed to vote once they are able to vote. If they are capable of understanding the forms (as with adults, the ability to read should not be a requirement – accommodations should be made to read the forms out loud), recognizing the candidates, and indicating which they would prefer, they should be allowed to do so. I can think of no argument against this point that also doesn’t suggest the disenfranchisement of millions of adults, except for simply asserting that children shouldn’t be allowed to vote becasue age, which really is no different than asserting that women shouldn’t vote becasue gender, or Black people shouldn’t vote becasue darker skin. Children are uninformed, children would just vote how other people (e.g. their parents) tell them without making their own decisions, children don’t understand the complexities of our socio-political systems, etc.: all of these can be said about millions of adults who vote every year (and are, not at all coincidentally, the same arguments that were/are deployed by people who want(ed) to deny women, non-Whites, immigrants, etc. the vote; they’re untrue, or at least not universally true, in all cases), so if we want to assert those as standards, a lot of adults also shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Hopefully we all know enough about the history of apartheid systems to recognize why this is a really bad idea. Denying people the vote based on age is unjustifiable discrimination. The ONLY requirements should be that you live in the jurisdiction of the candidate and are able to indicate your voting preferences – the first condition validates the relevance of your vote and the second is a logistical necessity, as we cannot read minds.
Pointing to other social inequities to justify the one in question is a pretty bad gotcha tactic.
(Note: for the record, I also think denying convicted felons the vote is unjustifiable. Democratic governments accept the changing of laws as a basic tenet – if the law was to remain static, there would be no need for legislators, only executives enforcing an unchanging set of rules. Yet, in many states we deny the people who are most directly and harmfully impacted by our present laws the ability to try to elect people who might change those laws. Additionally, the restrictions on felon voting are functionally racist, as non-Whites are far more likely to be convicted of a felony. All restrictions on voting rights serve the sole purpose of maintaining a status quo of privilege for an empowered group, and that is as true for denying felons the vote as it is for denying children the vote.)
Even if your uncited statement were true, which Flying Mouse casts doubt on what was the methodology of whatever research you’re basing this statement on?
How was attractiveness measured?
Do they account for both gender of the candidate and sexual orientation of the voter?
Did they check to see if men also tend to vote for the more attractive candidate?
Did they control for political positions and party affiliation of both the candidates and the voters? For example, I find Barrack Obama to be quite attractive. Definitely more so than McCain and Romney. However, it would be foolish to say that’s why I voted for him. I voted for him because I’m a liberal who has never once voted Republican and I don’t bother voting for more liberal third parties in the presidential elections because it does no good under the current system. Paul Ryan is handsome (although who he is as a person makes him ugly to me) but I would never in a million years vote for him.
It also doesn’t tell you much to just look at American presidential elections. What about other countries? What about elections for other offices? Voting is a whole lot more than just presidential elections.
Well that’s a fine bit of misogynist assfacts.
Since when do we deny people the vote because they might vote in a way we disapprove of? Oh yeah, we kinda do. But that doesn’t mean it’s right or justified to do so.
Gallup also had Nixon win with women in two out of his three presidential bids – he even carried women when he was up against JFK.
They must’ve seen his college photo: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/180074/thumbs/s-NIXON-IN-COLLEGE-large.jpg
Hey Shaenon, pecunium informed us about your happy news! Congratulations!
“Children are human too. Should they vote from birth?”
The correct answer should be: Yes. But only if they’re boys! If they are girls they should not vote EVER. Actually, if they are girls they should not be able to voice their opinion Period. In fact, @Space Bunny you don’t have a Y chromosome so you should not even have a twitter account. You’re only supposed to use the internet to search for cooking recipes and how to remove wine stains from cloth.
In the future, only feline voting rights there will be. Voting is obviously too complicated for puny humans.
BTW, has the random ballot been tried in actual election?
That’s always the heart of the matter: Group X shouldn’t vote because they’ll vote for the wrong person.
Every dictator in the world heartily agrees, and adds that nobody should be allowed to vote, because anyone could make a mistake.
Comments closed in 3, 2, 1…
Hey Shaenon! How’re y’all doing? I’ve been grooving on the guest comics.
Shaenon, congrats!
Also that young Dick Nixon is surprisingly not bad looking.
About women voting for more attractive candidates: I wonder if there might actually be a rough statistical thing here having to do with women voting more Democratic and Republicans fielding more old dudes.
“And every time there is a minor encounter of this sort, more people will see that there is no rational foundation for the feminized dogma our opponents are so ineptly defending.”
That’s such an amazing piece of cognitive dissonance, it hard to decide if it rivals the attempt to prove the historical verisimilitude of Orcs.
You’re lucky he defeated you so quickly, because his second move involves hysterical stomping and shrieking about the horrors of lady bits.
No dogma here, we have catma. Or catsma in my case. 🙂
Wow that’s a lot of cognitive dissonance. On your side, I should clarify. You could hardly be more cowardly and dishonest.
@Joe
Explain why white male voters were so enthralled by Franklin Pierce’s hair that he became arguably the best-looking terrible president in US history.
“While a successful presidency eluded Franklin Pierce, the superior quality of his hair cannot be disputed. It is hair redolent with integrity, patriotism, judgment and, most importantly, small-town values.” – See more at: http://www.mindspring.com/~dbholzel/pierce/pierce.html#sthash.Nt07ZZT0.dpuf
Y’know, I’ve been reading this blog for a couple of years now, and I’ve never seen David close a comment section. I’ve seen derailing topics banned because they caused endless arguments and people moderated or kicked out for being unrepentant jerks. But other than that, we’re pretty much allowed to discuss and debate ad infinitum.
And post animal videos. Of course.
Re: Feminist dress shop
Erm…Why not fancy collars for all wearers?
Wut? You aspire to the collar of the Furrinati?
DOWN HUMAN WRETCH
Sure, but special dispensation from the animal Overlords will be required.
Hong hu shi
Care to elucidate. ‘cos this supposed cognitive dissonance, cowardice and dishonesty by Mammothers – not seeing it.
Hong Hu Shi, what you seem to be missing is that David wasn’t actually engaging in the debate. Just because one person issues a challenge doesn’t mean the other person has to engage.
Some people who are in jail at the time of the election can vote in Australia’s federal elections. http://www.aec.gov.au/about_aec/Publications/Fact_Sheets/prisoner_voting.htm
Once you’re released, even if you were serving a sentence longer than three years, you take up registering and voting just as they would have done if they’d not gone to jail at all.
Ice cream is good for electronics. Spoon it right in!
Anyone who disagrees with me is exhibiting cognitive dissonance, and is unbelievably cowardly and dishonest. It are fact.
(When did “coward” come to mean “I don’t like you”?)
“Really? I say this because I’m surprised, in 47 years of being a Catholic (of various level of observance), I’ve never met anyone who was actually excommunacate (it’s possible I have, in the past few weeks, since Francis declared being a member of any of the various groups which are collectively known as, “The Mafia” are Anathema; but that’s a blanket proscription, not an individual reading out: Hrmn… I guess it’s possible I knew a someone who was a mason before JP II lifted the anathema on that, but that [as with the mafiosi] sort of requires the offender to self-declare).”
Hi Pecunium,
well, I’m not a Mafioso. 🙂
Nor does it take an individual bell book and candle job, as you probably know, to render someone external to the communion of the church, which is where I am.
My uncle was a devout RC – and a freemason, but he had a dispensation from his bishop as without joining it would have been impossible for him to advance in his profession. I don’t know whether he kept his fingers crossed during Masonic meetings or what.
I came here, because of the cats. I then went to Alpha Game, because of this piece. whoa. what a bunch of confused, woman hating losers. This Vox person seems to alternate between misogyny to lunacy to racism. And of course he hates liberals. It seems like a site which could breed a lot of woman beaters, rapists, and murderers, tbh. I’m not sure if the men there even like women “in that way”. I really think they should pair up and leave the rest of us alone.
How dare she.
Joe Allen: I honestly think that women voters produce undesirable outcomes. Exit polls show they have consistently voted for the most physically attractive candidate in every single American presidential election since being granted suffrage..They even preferred Dewey to Truman.
Really?
Let’s take this apart, and look at the individual claims.
I honestly think that women voters produce undesirable outcomes.
In what way? Primus: Can you show that, absent the vote of women the results of the (very small) class of elections you have referenced would have been different were they not voting?*
Secundus: Can you show a reasonable counterfactual for the idea that the other candidates would have been more beneficial to the nation had they been elected.
Exit polls show they have consistently voted for the most physically attractive candidate in every single American presidential election since being granted suffrage
Ignoring the fact that this is, prima facie, bullshit (as relates to Exit Polling), it’s also dubious on its other merits.
Who is defining “attractive”? WHich of these candidates is “most attractive”?
What about the Election of 1936 Was FDR “better looking” than Alf Landon? Would Landon have been a better president (if so, why?)
How are you comeing to this conclusion? Are you basing it on what you think is attractive? Are you basing it on the nominal standards of the day? Are you basing it on the “classical” models used for renaisance art?
Perhaps you are basing it on the tautology that women voted for them, ergo they were more attractive?
They even preferred Dewey to Truman. And… which is the undesirable outcome you claim they caused? That Truman won? That Dewey only lost by two million votes?
What, BTW was the percentage of women you allege cast their votes for Dewey? He got a “whopping” 16 percent of the vote. Fifty percent of the vote went to Truman. Dewey pulled in 45 percent (and five percent went to third parties). Are you alleging that practically no men voted for Dewey?
On every fucntional metric, your objective claims are factually wrong, and your subjective claims unprovable.
*This isn’t. BTW, a useful line of argument on the question of, “should ‘x’ group be possesed of suffrage. As stated above this is a moral question. If a group is subject to the laws of the land, they ought to have the same opportunity as everyone else to take part in the process.
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Joe Allen: I honestly think that women voters produce undesirable outcomes. Exit polls show they have consistently voted for the most physically attractive candidate in every single American presidential election since being granted suffrage..They even preferred Dewey to Truman.
Really?
Let’s take this apart, and look at the individual claims.
I honestly think that women voters produce undesirable outcomes.
In what way? Primus: Can you show that, absent the vote of women the results of the (very small) class of elections you have referenced would have been different were they not voting?*
Secundus: Can you show a reasonable counterfactual for the idea that the other candidates would have been more beneficial to the nation had they been elected.
Exit polls show they have consistently voted for the most physically attractive candidate in every single American presidential election since being granted suffrage
Ignoring the fact that this is, prima facie, bullshit (as relates to Exit Polling), it’s also dubious on its other merits.
Who is defining “attractive”? WHich of these candidates is “most attractive”?
What about the Election of 1936 Was FDR “better looking” than Alf Landon? Would Landon have been a better president (if so, why?)
How are you comeing to this conclusion? Are you basing it on what you think is attractive? Are you basing it on the nominal standards of the day? Are you basing it on the “classical” models used for renaisance art?
Perhaps you are basing it on the tautology that women voted for them, ergo they were more attractive?
They even preferred Dewey to Truman. And… which is the undesirable outcome you claim they caused? That Truman won? That Dewey only lost by two million votes?
What, BTW was the percentage of women you allege cast their votes for Dewey? He got a “whopping” 16 percent of the vote. Fifty percent of the vote went to Truman. Dewey pulled in 45 percent (and five percent went to third parties). Are you alleging that practically no men voted for Dewey?
On every functional metric, your objective claims are factually wrong, and your subjective claims unprovable.
*This isn’t. BTW, a useful line of argument on the question of, “should ‘x’ group be possesed of suffrage. As stated above this is a moral question. If a group is subject to the laws of the land, they ought to have the same opportunity as everyone else to take part in the process.
John H: Er, but children SHOULD be allowed to vote once they are able to vote. If they are capable of understanding the forms (as with adults, the ability to read should not be a requirement – accommodations should be made to read the forms out loud), recognizing the candidates, and indicating which they would prefer, they should be allowed to do so. I can think of no argument against this point that also doesn’t suggest the disenfranchisement of millions of adults, except for simply asserting that children shouldn’t be allowed to vote becasue age,
Age is important.
I could have passed your “test” at about the age of eight. What I couldn’t do was make anything approaching an informed decision. I wasn’t able to understand the issues at hand. My parents would have let me make up my own mind*, but when all was said and done my vote wouldn’t have been more than a question of, “which one makes me feel better”.§
At some point around 16 I would say I was capable of reasonably exercising the franchise (perhaps a bit earlier), but by then I was writing a weekly newspaper column on politics, and reading 2-3 newspapers a day, as well as a few of the weekly news magazines.
The ability to look to long range consequences, correlate cause and effect, and separate facts from merely emotive content are things whch develop after the ability to understand mere words †
In some ways this is a parallel to the issue of Age of Consent. The only way to make it function, at a practical level (i.e. to prevent systemic abuse) is to make it a bright line. Age is pretty much the only bright line which can’t be gamed, so age it is.
*though the nature of political conversations in the house would have affected me; esp. in the 1970s, when alternative sources of news were harder to come by.
§ I say this, even though I was always interested in current events/news. My mother says she could tell whether my of us been the first to awaken on a Saturday. My sibling preferred to watch cartoons, and I would watch the news. It’s not that I didn’t like the cartoons (Superfriends was good, and it’s hard to beat Warner Brothers/Looney Tunes), but I really liked the news. Whichever one of us got up first got to choose the programs.
† And some people never develop them completely, or choose to not apply them to categories of things which have become internalised parts of their worldview.
bluecatbabe: Nor does it take an individual bell book and candle job, as you probably know, to render someone external to the communion of the church, which is where I am.
I am confused as to what you mean. Do you mean able to partake in the sacrament of the Eucharist? Then no, one need not be an excommunciant (my mother, father, and stepfather are all in this category), but to be an actual excommunicant requires a formal action on the part of the Roman Catholic Church (with the exception of those acts which are declared anathema, e.g. belonging to a branch of organised crime).
I’ll quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia on the subject:
Catholics… cannot be excommunicated unless for some personal, grievously offensive act. Here, therefore, it is necessary to state with precision the conditions under which this penalty is incurred. Just as exile presupposes a crime, excommunication presupposes a grievous external fault. Not only would it be wrong for a Christian to be punished without having committed a punishable act, but justice demands a proportion between the offence and the penalty; hence the most serious of spiritual chastisements, i.e. forfeiture of all the privileges common to Christians, is inconceivable unless for a grave fault. Moreover, in order to fall within the jurisdiction of the forum externum, which alone can inflict excommunication, this fault must be external. Internal failings, e.g. doubts entertained against the Catholic Faith, cannot incur excommunication.
It used to be the interdiction on Eucharistic communion (and other sacraments) was referred to as, “minor excommunication” but that distinction was removed in 1848; though habits of use and language (as well as the homophonic nature of ex communication and Holy Communion) remain.
Also “ability to understand” is itself open to exploitation as an excuse to disenfranchise adults.
katz: Yep. That’s what, “literacy” tests were, ostensibly, about.
It’s hard to think of any sort of qualifying test for voters that wouldn’t be subject to abuse. It would always come down to “people who don’t look like me and/or don’t think like me shouldn’t be voting.”
Nice use of a red herring by Vox there
I’ve never understood the whole Alpha/Beta/Gamma MRA delusion. It comes from wolf packs, and the alpha PAIR is the primary mated pair. The Alphas are monogamous, and are the pack’s leaders. The Gammas are the exiles who aren’t allowed near women, and who only mate by force or trickery. How is it that PUAs don’t realize that in this schema, they’re the Gammas?
The lead of the Gammas is still a Gamma. Come join the rest of the world, little wolfie.