Worst. Pickup. Line. Ever. (Courtesy of Jordan Peterson)

@Slick Mick

You are. Just. So. BOOOOOOOOORING!

Makroth what am I supposed to be some sort of cocky funny male stereotype here to entertain you… seems like toxic masculinity to me…

Violet, I went to public school…

@London Pilgrim
So no response? Is it safe to assume that you feel it’s appropriate to make accusations and not back them up? You feel comfortable misrepresenting what others are saying?

@Richard Ford

You typed,

The Left cannot refute his arguments so they strawman him.
Really.
Critics need to do better.

Says the one that isn’t pointing out the straw man argument. You know that logical fallacies aren’t like magic spells right? You can’t just intone them and expect an effect.

You farther gesticulated upon your keyboard,

100 years ago we had enforced monogamy without a secret police force to enforce it or people even knowing it was enforced.

Secret police force?
And are you seriously suggesting that the force in the enforcement was invisible? It’s pretty clear to gay people when society tries to enforce heterosexual sex as a standard. I simply don’t believe that whatever you have in your head about enforcement of monogamy matches reality.

Monogamy was simply the way things were.

Nothing is “simply the way things are/were”. Society has patterns of interactions that encourage/discourage, enforce, and propagate social behavior. You read as ignorant on these issues.

So you see.. there is nothing sinister or authoritarian about it at all.

I can’t see shit because you haven’t demonstrated shit. Do you really expect the mere words you deposit on the screen to be evidence? I doubt that is the standard you hold for yourself.

We just need to get back to what works and most people will soon forget about being lesbian squirrels or transgender donkeys or whatever the latest gender fad is.

Who said it “worked”? Define “working”. What is the function and/or goal? People otherwise not hurting anyone who have a different preference with respect to presentation, attraction, or interaction with others would in all likelihood strongly disagree.

Also your need to replace peoples legitimate description of themselves with insulting caricatures is noted. I lose more respect for you with each post. People acting disrespectfully don’t deserve respect. I do not respect you.

They will not miss it at all.

Who is “they”? You are very shitty at being comprehensible.

@Mick
Debate me, piss for brains. You made a claim, “feminists are responsible for bachelor taxes”. You put forward no evidence, but insisted we look up the facts. I did, you festering gobshite, and the facts do not back you up. Now either admit that you were wrong, you fucking MGTOW loser, or present some actual evidence instead of whining about how much I’m insulting your pathetic ideology.

@Mr London,

I’m going to do you the respect of dealing with you directly and honestly, and will take your points at face value. I’ll try to be concise, but you’ve got a lot of wending threads in there that need de-tangling. I’ll be doing some synthesis to glean out the salient points. Please brace yourself. Like I said, I’m going to respect you with some direct and honest conversation here; I’m going to put the kid gloves on.

I’m going to break this up into two parts. The first part will put a hammer through the specific things you’ve brought up in your last post, pointing out in what ways you’re wrong. The second part will demonstrate that the MGTOW/Traditionalist philosophy you espouse not only is wrong, but cannot come to truth. The best it will be able to do is to be coincidentally true, like a pseudoscience.

I won’t bother you with citations, we aren’t at the point where they’re useful yet. If there’s one you’d like, I’ll produce it for you.

Part One: The Hammer

The best way to describe what I am talking about is to ask you to look at an old couple who have been together for 20 years or more. Notice that the man follows behind the woman, reduces his height in her presence with a sort of cringe and can sometimes come to look like her. There is a science behind this. Testosterone declines when a man is in a relationship. It is natures way of keeping him at home and making his hyper agreeable. In older couples this is maintained simply by the odd disapproving look. The previous generation believed that men and women were a team so no great control is ever applied. This is often a living and mutually beneficial relationship but we should be clear who is in charge. The man says ‘yes dear’ a lot.

You’re making a mistake here. I could be glib and spit out “anecdotes aren’t data” but I won’t do that. For your sake and for the sake of our audience, I’m going to peel the onion and show all of the rings.

I’ll start with a little dose of science, since I promised some. See, the behaviour you’re describing is called approach behaviour in the behavioural sciences. Approach behaviour is confidence and an interest in initiating social interaction. It’s part of approach-avoidance, which is associated with the general threat assessment systems associated with the amygdala and pons.

And hasn’t much to do with testosterone. It’s associated with serotonin – which is why many antidepressants inhibit serotonin reuptake, to make the neurotransmitter more available. Testosterone does seem to have some effect, but it’s small compared to other things going on.

This is all obvious, because women’s brains do the exact same thing as men’s with testosterone, and they usually have much less to work with. In other words, your premise is self-contradictory – if brains worked that way, women would be mewling, servile, submissive people, no matter how much a man’s testosterone might reduce as he ages – he’s still got much more than the average woman.

Counterpoint, sitting on the bus I see a whole lot of the opposite – quiet women sitting in isolation and agreeing with their husbands with “yes dear” on their lips. Or – most common of all – I see people interacting as individuals, each with their own quirks and attributes, some aggressive and others retiring, and most a mix in between. In other words, your feelings don’t mean much, because we can’t replicate that feeling. You confuse tribe-affiliation-signalling with actual evidence.

Now, the far more interesting question here is why do you see this as a reliable pattern in the world? It’s not – I can’t think of anything outside of fiction where this is a stable trope. But you see it. And I don’t deny that you see it. I’m sure you do see it, all over the place.

Have a cool glass of objectivity here – brains are liars. We see patterns in everything, and those patterns we see more often than not correspond to the way we believe the world to be. This isn’t due to a lack of willpower or some mental deficiency, it’s a natural outcome of how our brains work. The pattern-matchers in our head match patterns that they’ve seen before – even if those patterns are just feelings we might feel.

That’s what’s happening to you here. It’s called confirmation bias. Very normal, and hard to beat. I’ll get into that later.

Older people grew up in the expectation of a marriage that would be run by women- but with compassion. A man was under his mother, who loved him until handed over to a wife who also managed him. She determined what he ate and when, how the home is furnished and so on.

What about a woman who doesn’t want to run a marriage? What about a woman who wants to be a mathematician? Or what about a man who wants to tend the home? All the “you can arrange the doilies however you like dear” is bitter ash if you have to lay your dreams on the pyre. Your argument here is that we must sacrifice our dreams for the social order. You make this clear as you continue:

To a great extent this is unavoidable and part of human nature and can work out well. The problem comes with feminism. In traditional societies both parties believe they are running the show and both are correct in their way. The man runs the external show the woman the internal one. Unfortunately feminism convinces the w9man she is in fact being dominated by men through patriarchy. Everything therefore becomes a war that must be won. This may be done in good ways or bad but the whole thing becomes deadly serious. If a man shows independence, or has friends or any independent influence upon his life this will be viewed through this lens and must be crushed.

Your first sentence. By the numbers.

“this is unavoidable” – why is this unavoidable? Because the social order demands it?

“and part of human nature” – No it’s not. You want to claim it’s human nature, you give me some evidence for that. And you had best bring your sturdiest argument – I come armed with the full weight of scientific knowledge behind my hammer.

“and can work out well” – For who? You reveal your biases, my duck. Surely not well for the woman dreaming of enterprise. Surely not well for the girl who’s told that engineering’s not for her. It works out well for men, which seems to be your definition of “society”, but you underestimate how many women hate the thought of going back to those years. Far, far more than those who wear the label “feminist” these days.

More generally, the idea that women’s domain is the “internal” show, and man’s domain the “external” – tell me, how does that differ from “a woman’s place is in the kitchen”? You claim this is equal, but equality means freedom. Freedom for women to leave the kitchen if the choose, and men to enter it if they choose. It’s ironic really. In the one sentence, you define patriarchy very well – the inner and outer spheres and never the twain shall meet. Then in the next sentence you say that feminism “convinced” women that Patriarchy was oppressing them. Feminism told them they didn’t have to live in the box that society said they had to stay in, and that’s all.

You paint it very well. Good job.

If a man shows independence, or has friends or any independent influence upon his life this will be viewed through this lens and must be crushed.

I’m going to ask you to provide evidence on this one too. Be aware of your own confirmation bias as you do it, too. I’m not saying that because I think you’re particularly biased, mind you! But we’re all biased, and you demonstrated above that you’re vulnerable to it in this area especially. So do keep it in mind.

We need to define what i mean by enforced monogamy. It does not involve allocating virgins ISIS style but it does mean ownership of decisions. A family cannot be razed in a chaotic or violent home. Drama can be exciting, affairs, conflict conspiracy! All are exciting but none build a stable society.

People should be proud of good choices and regret bad ones. If you talk to people who’s lives are a mess you may discover they knew their actions would lead to the current situation! People actually know when they are making a mistake!

A sense of shame is all that we need to have people behave decently. The state has taken to policing language and opinions. Our sense of decency should do this for us!

I’m glad you’re against abduction of women, slavery and rape. No, seriously, that’s apparently a higher bar than it should be these days. You really need to work on what your actual definition is, though, ’cause I can’t make sense of it.

Are you saying that “enforced monogamy” is “a sense of shame”? So it’s just “don’t slut around, you slutty sluts.”

I’m disappointed in you. Moderately – I mean, I could see that beneath your posts from the beginning, but it’s sad to see the same old argument over and over. All feels, no reals.

Let me dig into this a bit deeper to show you your error. Spoilers: it’s the same one as above.

“A family cannot be razed in a chaotic or violent home.” – agreed! I’ll forgive your typos as you forgive mine. What does that have to do with anything? Chaotic, violent homes are typified by domestic abuse, and you wont’ find any supporters of that here. You can’t be saying that…

“Drama can be exciting, affairs, conflict conspiracy! All are exciting but none build a stable society.” – Ah, so that is what you’re saying. Women have a reputation as being drama-loving, hormonal, emotional, mendacious, and treacherous, and you’re saying this is the root of Feminism, and the root of societal problems today.

Did you know that these things have been studied, though? And that – when the fog of confirmation bias is blown away by the cool winds of cautious study, we find that they’re bullshit? Anthropologists and sociologists have found that, while it is perceived that women are more emotional, they actually prefer more stable, quiet, and non-dramatic outcomes, and work towards them. Men, on the other hand, favour dramatic altercations and passionate outbursts. I believe Dawkins himself discusses this in one of his books, about how this makes sense for an evolutionary perspective, given that women typically have a much greater child-rearing cost and will therefore favour stable, pragmatic partners.

Same with being shallow and vain – this shallowness and vanity that is so well popularized in our culture is more to do with male perception of women than actual behaviour. Did you know that when women take up around 1/4 of the time in a conversation, men in that conversation perceive it as dominating the conversation? And that the suggestions women bring are far less likely to be adopted or even acknowledged by male peers? And that those ideas, when introduced by a man, are far more likely to be accepted – without even recognizing that a woman introduced the idea earlier?

I invite others to chime in with their anecdotes, if they like. Heaven knows they’re out there.

What you’re experiencing here is more confirmation bias. You see women in the world being treacherous, drama-prone and conspiratorial because you hold the belief that it’s true. It’s not true, but your brain shapes your perceptions to a much higher degree than you seem to realize.

This seems to be the root of your error, my duck. Our beliefs entangle with our perceptions, and we’re largely unaware of it. This leads us to a skewed perception of the world. There are tricks to right ourselves, but they’re not common.

Let me show you one.

Part Two: The Anvil

This error of confirmation bias is one of many that humans are prone to. We all are, and I hope my fellow Mammotheers keep it in mind that they aren’t immune to it. We need to safeguard ourselves against it, and there really aren’t any tried and true ways to defeat it. In these situations, I often ask my MRA combatant – what do you do to confront your own confirmation bias. Answer is always the same – willpower, careful attention, “an objective viewpoint”.

All of these answers tell me, right away, that my opponent has no way to confront that bias in themselves and has never seriously considered how to do so. I won’t insult you by asking you the same question.

MGTOWs and the “Traditionalists” squirm quite a bit at this accusation that they’re biased – it strikes right to the heart of their identity. The Enlightenment – and Dark Enlightenment – view of science and rationality is one of Powerful Men, using their Reason to cut through the fog of ignorance. The idea that the objectivity they claim might be an illusion terrifies them, I suspect.

And yet, the mechanisms of real science and rationality – not the propaganda fairytale of Imperial Europe – those mechanisms are built in with methods for defeating these biases. But those mechanisms, for as much as the traditionalists and MRAs celebrate them, oppose the Great Man of Science myth that’s so important to them. Because they’re about collaboration, about working together, about the dissolution of the Great Leader. They expose the lie that science is the result of some brilliant individual, bravely battling against the darkness. Truth is illuminated by a thousand candles, not one torch.

This is why the various manosphere philosophies can’t ever really pursue truth – they deny the mechanisms that could destroy their biases; because their philosophies are constructed from those errors wholesale.

Here – the last few paragraphs have probably been bitter, and I imagine they didn’t penetrate. Here’s a reward – a mechanism for defeating confirmation bias. I use it frequently.

In science you’re likely familiar with the Principle of Parsimony – that which can be removed from a theory, should be. It’s often called Ockham’s Razor. Popular with the YouTube atheist crowd. But there’s an unsung partner to it called the Principle of Charity. It often isn’t cited directly and doesn’t have a catchy name, but it’s far more central to winnowing truth from the datastream.

The Principle of Charity instructs you to always take the strongest form of your opponents’ arguments. I’ve laboured to do this with you – I haven’t teased about typos, have invited you to point out your strongest points for me to engage, have pointed out places you’re correct. I’m not doing this to be nice. (Well, I am trying to be nice., but that’s not the point). I’m doing this because if I have a wrong idea, I want it to be destroyed. If bias has shaped my perceptions, I want that bias crushed as thoroughly and swiftly as possible.

This is the only means I’m aware of for combating confirmation bias – all of the methods I’ve had cited at me are weaknesses. Willpower is just going to make you stubbornly cling to your beliefs harder. Intelligence is just going to let you make more elaborate and clever arguments in defense of your ideas, and make it easier for you to imagine holes in the positions against you. Careful observation is just going to make those patterns of bias more detailed and clear. None of that works. The only solution is to sharpen your enemy’s blade to test against yourself. There’s no other answer I know of.

I welcome your response.

Boy, I hear a lot of insects whining. How many citronella oil lamps do you think we need?

Oh dear. I’ve just realised that misery guts here will read my contribution as acknowledgement that a “traditional” marriage (as he describes his unpleasant presumptions) is the way to go.

Unfortunately for that theory, mr m and I have always been feminists, hell-raising leftie union organisers, reliable members of community groups and generally not much in the traditions we were raised in apart from that last item. We’ve tended to scoff at our children describing us as “kindred spirits” – but we probably are.

@mildlymagnificent, you are so adorable <3 I wish you and your sweetheart all the very best.

Happy anniversary, mildlymagnificent!! Best wishes to both of you.

@Scildfreja – that was a magnificent and very humane response to London Pilgrim. As usual, you did not disappoint. I hope he sees it, and learns something positive from it.

@eoi,

I missed this bit!

(Also, now that I’m writing to you, I also wanted to say that what I wrote a few weeks ago about the phrase “stream of consciousness” sounded snotty, and I’m sorry. )

I’m afraid I don’t even recall it! I’m sure it was totally okay and you were probably right, whatever it was!

I hate to break this to you, but “conversate” isn’t a word.

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/i-think-its-converse.jpg