By David Futrelle
So over on Tumblr, some people were having a nice little discussion of how amazing it is that our ancient ancestors were able to figure out some rather complicated sciencey things, like the circumference of the earth, without being able to just look them up on Google.
Someone mentioned mammoths, those oft-hunted beasts that not only co-existed with our hairier prehistoric predecessors but managed to survive, at least in some remote areas, for several thousand years after humans first became civilized.
Then someone called Brett Caton showed up. He began innocently enough.
“I find it utterly bizarre that humans saw these megafauna,” he wrote, before linking to a New York Times story about the last known population of mammoths that went extinct. According to one scientific paper quoted in the story, these mammoths, living on isolated Wrangel island in the arctic sea north of eastern Siberia, had “carried so many detrimental mutations [in their genome] that the population had suffered a ‘genomic meltdown.'”
Then Mr. Caton’s comment took a bit of a turn.
“That ‘genomic meltdown’ is one of the reasons feminism is so potentially lethal,” he wrote,
because they keep pushing for asexual reproduction, or trying to combine ovaries, when the most likely outcome is a population running about – unable to reproduce sexually since the whole “male genocide” bit – with incredibly damaged chromosomes.
Sex exists for a reason, and no, “because it’s fun” is not the answer, sorry. It works better than reproduction otherwise. Which is why every complex species uses it.
Intelligence requires a lot of things to be working correctly, and if you have an all female species that is over the tipping point of idiocy, then there won’t be enough people to maintain the technology to continue to reproduce. And humans will go the way of the Wrangel beasties.
Fortunately, feminists are horribly lazy bastards, so i doubt they’ll continue to get their way, but it does made for a decent plot for a dystopian fiction…
Mr. Caton’s comment raises a number of questions, including:
- Huh?
- What?
- What the hell?
- Does this dude think the Wrangel island mammoths were, like, the world’s first hairy legged feminists?
As it turns out, I’m not the only one with questions. Caton’s post has so far garnered 154,000 “notes” on Tumblr, and comes trailing a long and ever-expanding string of comments from other people as confused as I am. “Whaaaaaaaa???” wrote one. “W-what??” asked another.
Still another added:
I got to that point … and was like “wait What.” And then it just kept going and I was like “is this actually happening? Am I seriously reading this right now??”
It is. You are. Apparently we feminists extincted the mammoth to male genocide you.
@EJ,
Thought you knew! Otherwise I’d have mentioned it here – I tweeted it the night before, but I didn’t bother with here because I figured everyone was up on the story.
It was a little different to a lot of demos – a bit over dramatic (I do hate die ins for various reasons, mainly that a carpet of bodies is something I’m trained to prevent if at all possible! We retreated to a pub around then for a swift half.) and, I dunno, uncynical?
Not innocent, but … they really, honestly and deeply believe that it’ll make a difference.
That were quite refreshing.
I wonder why it was the Parkland shooting that triggered this political movement? Not the one before it, not the one after it, but that specific one? Just a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back sort of thing?
Would that the very first one had been the one to make enough people decide “enough is enough” to get serious about doing something …
@Surplus
This time the media actually republished what the kids were saying about it on social media. Plus just the right number of right-wingers went just too far enough in their victim blaming and “truther” conspiracy theories that it made people angry enough. That anger was amplified by the voices of teens who were not yet numb enough to it like the adults have become. Just my thoughts on it, anyway.
Smashing ovaries together sounds extremely painful. I’ve read that a blow to an ovary would be comparable in pain to a blow to a testicle. Good thing ovaries are internal.
About 10 years ago, I had one of my ovaries removed. The reason: Dermoid cysts. Once the morphine wore off, I was in serious pain. Time for a couple of Percocets.
I’m in awe of the young people demonstrating for gun control. It makes me hopeful for the future. Also, it makes me feel a little jealous, and inadequate. It would have never occurred to me, when I was young, to demonstrate for anything. Who would have cared, or even listened? I was way too diffident and unsure of myself. Plus, there’s power in numbers, and mine was a small generation.
There’s also a general climate of backlash against the right wing. It’s all of a sudden socially acceptable to be outspoken about social justice issues and I love it.
I’ve noticed that reflected in media aimed at young people too. My generation of young people weren’t that engaged politically and the cooler thing was to not care about it all. I’ve never been ostracized for my views because I live in a progressive city, but I always had to specifically seek out people I could about politics with because most people were not interested. On teen TV shows and movies only the nerds and weirdos were political. The cool kids never were. Except I suppose Jessie on Saved by the Bell. But even though she was still a popular kid, she was despite being political and her feminism was of the most obnoxious strawman variety possible. Opposing sexism was her silly quirk. But I think that’s changing. I’ve been watching Riverdale and that show covers a variety of political issues and all the characters are engaged with those issues. All the characters are clearly intended to be seen as cool. If it weren’t early I could probably think of more media aimed at teens that is like this.
tl;dr I’m so glad to see young people getting involved on a large scale like this. I don’t know if it’s down to a change in the media or if the media is responding to a change in kids but whatever is happening I like it.
Surplus and Kupo – Also, I think a big part was that these students were prepared by their school to take their message to mass media and social media to intelligently and articulately tell the world how they felt.
Plus, the right wing/NRA talking points that always get dragged out seemed to have lost their mojo all of a sudden. No one was buying “thoughts and prayers,” “don’t politicize tragedy,” and “it’s too sooooon!” anymore.
re: the right-wingers going just too far enough, I saw an article online about a pundit who said that if it weren’t for these outspoken students’ friends and classmates getting shot, no one would know who they are!
@WWTH: There most definitely has been a change in attitude. About teen-oriented pop culture: I was watching some clips from the ’80s movie “Revenge of the Nerds” a few days ago. This film couldn’t, and wouldn’t, be made today. The jocks and sorority sisters would be considered uncool today, and the nerds would be the cool ones.
Hambeast, yeah. Colion Noir.
He’s a piece of work.
Dormousing: and that’s not even getting into the really unfortunate implications with the rape-by-deception.
Just thought people might find this interesting.
(Personally, I can vouch for point 6)
Haha, that’s so sad!
Actually, when I worked in nursing way back a 100-year-old lady advised me on how to get as old as she was:
1. Don’t smoke
2. Don’t drink
3. Don’t marry
I only got 1 right.
@Alan Robertshaw: Heh. It’s far too late for me.
@Alan Robertshaw
I seem to remember a quote from the 1930s or ‘40s that referenced #6, so it may have stuck around as a catchphrase for a while.
From what I understand part of the momentum is that this time it was not an elementary school that got shot up so the people directly affected are the ones making the noise rather then their parents,
I could draw parallels to how autism is handled in the news as an issue that parents should address on their own when the victims of violence are young children (and parents not directly victimized themselves are likely to try to just move on with their lives then do any activism),
but now they have a bunch of politically active photogenic teens making lot of noise in the streets who are going to go away any time soon.
I’m also seeing more politicization of media directed at adults. Shows like Timeless seem to be leaning noticeably left instead of being “bland centrist neoliberal” like nearly all shows seemed to be until recently (leaving aside, obviously, the Murdoch-sponsored right wing propaganda found on Fox News and every educational cable channel the Murdochs could buy or steal).
It seems a tug of war for control of the Overton window might have developed.
I seem to have that down pat … unless having the occasional bag of wine gums violates #2.
#3 sounds like marital advice from Carl Sandburg. What is a Yard-Swiller?
What it sounds like. Cleans (swills) the yard (not a garden, as you may think, but a space, usually paved, between the house and the outbuildings – toilet, coal shed etc).
Bear with me:
So, here’s the situation with the Wrangle Island mammoths. They were isolated, they were comparatively few in number, and they wound up stuck in a out-of-the-way geographical corner of the earth with no exit strategy. The composite result was that their genetic errors multiplied without stint because there was no counterweight or genetic corrective to counteract them. The Wrangel Island mammoths had no way of re-merging with the greater (meaning larger) body of their species. {Feel free to insert elephant pun.} Which was a recipe for genetic disaster. Right?
Okay, so here’s the situation with the manospherians:
1. They’re isolated (by choice, most of them would argue…but still, they’re isolated).
2. They’re comparatively few in number. (Whenever they condescend to try to hold a rally this immediately becomes apparent.) It’s true that they’re incredibly noisy and that they get more publicity than they should. It’s also true that they’ve garnered more public influence than they deserve (value judgement, but what the heck). Nevertheless, their name is not legion. They don’t fill stadiums. They can’t fill public squares. (For this reason, Trump’s inauguration was their signature shindig — just as they claim — in more than one sense.)
3. They’re stuck (voluntarily, most of them would argue, but still, they’re stuck) up in their own treehouse and they can’t or won’t come down. They’ve got no exit strategy; whenever they’re proven wrong (which is often) their only result is to move further and further out into the Red Pill Boonies.
4. As a result, their errors (not genetic errors in this case, just errors) multiply without limit or stint. Memes coming from the outside may be seized upon and subverted, but for the most part they simply aren’t welcome. There is no corrective and no counterweight is wanted, asked for, or sought. What happens in the long run is that the same bone-dumb notions cycle around and around a vacant center, like clothes in a wash-machine or dryer or water corkscrewing down a drain.
5. Most of the inhabitants of the manosphere scorn Normies. It might be possible for them to rejoin the main body of their kind, but they have no intention of doing it. (That’s the official version, anyway.)
The situation of Wrangel Island mammoths is now acknowledged to have been a genetic disaster. How is the situation of men in the manosphere, self-sought or not, not a memetic disaster? Substitute “memes” in the second case for the “genes” of the first and you’ll come away with a very discouraging view of the future of the Men’s Rights movement as it now exists. (What a pity.)
I always like it when Mammoth gets into discussions about actual Mammoths.
@bekabot
I was completely with you until ” … you’ll come away with a very discouraging view of the future of the Men’s Rights movement …”
Discouraging isn’t the word I’d use. 😛
Side note: love your gravatar. Always makes me giggle.
“Side note: love your gravatar. Always makes me giggle.”
I’m glad you like it, but I should replace it for truth-in-advertising reasons: I look older than that now. (No less grumpy, though.)
Age cannot wither, nor custom stale, her infinte sideeye.
@bekabot
A problem with that reasoning is that lethal genetic errors tend to have a smaller minimum safe distance than lethal memetic errors (see: mass shootings, prejudice-based violence), so the latter has less selective pressure against it if the physically reachable population is memetically heterogenous.
“Age cannot wither, nor custom stale, her infinte sideeye.”
Aww.
“…lethal genetic errors tend to have a smaller minimum safe distance than lethal memetic errors…so the latter has less selective pressure against it if the physically reachable population is memetically heterogenous.”
jy3, are you saying that the manospherians are in worse shape than the mammoths were? (Because if you are, I sure don’t know enough to argue with you.)
@bekabot
Exactly the opposite. What I mean is that genetic errors tend to only affect the being with them, while memetic errors can affect beings that don’t, so there’s less comparative disadvantage to having memetic errors.