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polymathwannabe comments on Ethics in a Feedback Loop: A Parable - Less Wrong
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BOTH ARE TRUE. Let me explain what intersectionalism looks from my end:
Patriarchy has given 90% of men and 100% of women a raw deal. Look at Dr. Robert Sapolski's work with baboon troops for an excellent model of this. The bullshit dominance hierarchy that is ingrained in our ancestry leaves all women and most men physically sick and emotionally damaged, all for the sake of putting a few violently aggressive jerks on top.
The women's movement made a fatal mistake, of identifying the enemy with 'maleness' instead of 'violent dominance'. It tore down structures that made men's lives bearable at the expense of women's, but instead of proposing and cultivating new, nurturing structures, the narrative seems to be "you're on your own, that's what you get for the thousands of years of oppressive dominance!"
And meanwhile millions of men in Western society, who are constantly bombarded with images telling them what is expected of them and texts telling them that they are horrible for following those expectations, and who aren't stupid, are desperately clamouring for some way to add meaning and emotional significance to their lives.
PUA is offering them a toxic way to reclaim a paltry sliver of the meaning that the old dominance structure gave them.
Feminism can't even offer them THAT. All feminism can do is blame them and shame them and villainise them when they look around and take the only deal that's being offered.
And that's TERRIBLE, because PUA is TERRIBLE. What's worse, a lot of PUA is going about things in a VERY methodical, scientific way - which means that it often actually WORKS, and it finds out true things about men and women. But because it was PUA culture that discovered those facts, they are tainted by association with horrifically unethical goals and values, and so the feminist culture turns away from facts that it could be using to improve itself.
I am so totally, completely on board with equality, and negotiation, and mutual respect.
I want to live in your world.
I want to negotiate a place in your world.
I am very, very lucky, in that I have a much higher than normal sense of self-awareness and drive for introspection, so that I can explain all this to you in this way. Because I feel the same need that young PUA acolytes do, very keenly. And so when these conversations come up, my urge is to get your side to understand, because your side is in a position to offer compassion and to provide a non-terrible alternative.
It appears we have the same goals. Just a few remarks to make:
It's always tricky to draw examples from the primate family. Chimpanzees are macho-ruled bullies; bonobos are female-ruled hippies. We are more malleable than we give ourselves credit for.
Feminism is not a single, monolithic block. There are several schools and subschools, and male-hating is the practice of just a few of them.
I'm not sure what you mean by "my side." For the record, I'm a guy.
Yes, but the specific example given was of a particular baboon tribe. Seriously, read about it or watch some videos about it. Many of the conclusions he draws are endocrine-based, so they're well preserved across the primate line. And his study showed some startling and promising things.
Also, this is the internet, where it doesn't matter whether you're a guy or not unless you say so or some asshole doxes you; barring edge cases, all that matters is the words you use.
And if the male-hating schools are doing the primary evangelizing, then who are people going to get exposed to? This is memetic warfare; what matters is who gets their message out, and what effect that message has. I'm by no means accusing you of the kind of depravity I've seen from some of the Social Justice movement, all I'm saying is that there's people out there who are carrying your flag and using your language and claiming to be part of your movement, and if they get to someone before you do, you're going to have a really difficult time distancing yourself from that depravity.