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DeVliegendeHollander comments on Towards a theory of nerds... who suffer. - Less Wrong
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Comments (115)
I predict this post will attract a lot of negative comments, but I want to give it the most charitable reading I can. That, of course, is the Straussian reading.
What DeVliegendeHollander is really saying is that nerds are right to hate themselves, and that they deserve to suffer, because they are not truly men. By turning away from the traditional masculine skills and values of leadership, rhetoric, and prowess in combat they (and by extension, Western society) are unworthy of respect. Note in particular the distinction the OP draws between the Western sport of boxing, and the Eastern sport of karate - this distinction between the masculine, self-reliant West and the feminized, exotic East is an ancient trope. But here this trope is inverted, with "nerdiness" being seen as a disease of the West. A further problem is people looking inwards rather than outwards for validation; "gaining validation from respectable looking people choosing to discuss the weather" is presented as a better step. But of course, what the OP really implies is that martial prowess (the obsession of the post) must be turned outwards too. We need a purifying war.
In short, the author is not calling for a New Athens, but a New Sparta, where young boys pass through a series of initiation rituals to take their place in a homosocial, hyper-masculine warrior society. "Nerds" and other unfit individuals must be weeded out, leading to "the bravest, bolderst, cruelest, most aggressive fighters being on top." How this ideal society would treat women is only hinted at obliquely in the post, but I believe that some variant of "Kinde, Kuche, Kirche" is most likely.
I understand why DeVliegendeHollander should feel that such a message could only be delivered esoterically.
I sincerely hope I am seeing an excellent parody of extremely irrational SJW attitudes here.
For what it worths, or if it is not the case, the central idea here is self-help for people who suffer. This is certainly missing from this reply. If this is a seriously meant as an SJW response, then I would translate it to that lingo as being hurt by patriarchy, and learning to undo this hurt by adapting to it.
A social, political response, New Athens or New Sparta is NOT a major point here, because for some people like me adapting to society is more important to changing it because we have one life, thrown into society (Heidegger).
But actually what little I wrote about a social-political response was less patriarchy, less toxic mascuilinity and less bullying, so it seems to be a misresponse at that. I think I am being pretty progressive here as a far social change is covered except that I simply don't care as much about social change helping future gens rather than self-help, adaptation for people who suffer NOW.
I think I am in a community of people who don't have very high fertility rates. I actually have a daughter and I have this impression - parenting hardly ever discussed on LW - that most of the community has no children.
From this it seems logical to me that social change is way way less important than self-help. We are not making many people to live in a future society where everything is right. People with 4 kids may sacrifice their happiness for their sakes. For no-children and few-children people and I think it is the case for us, adapting to society must be more valuable than changing it.
The East vs. West aspect sounds valid but only superficially so - relevant only to the letter, not the intent. Obviously it is about Westernized karate - and obviously to everybody who knows these stuff Muay Thay works just as well. One could raise the same parallel with Greek wrestling not training self-confidence (courage) enough and MT yes.
Let me give you an alternate explanation. Being a parent is very time-consuming. It also tends to draw one's interest to different topics than are typically discussed here. In consequence, LW readers aren't a random sample of nerds or even of people in the general social orbit of the LW crowd. I would not draw any adverse inferences from the fact that a non-parenting-related internet forum tend to be depleted of parents.
This isn't adverse. I don't really care much what is the actual reasons of other people's reproductive choices, my point is simply that after having made them, and it is like 0 or 1 kids, it makes more sense to adapt to society than to change it.
(BTW not actually that time consuming. Only if you believe fashionable bullshit that throwing gigantic amounts of attention to kids is necessary for them to turn into succesful and well-adjusted adults. In reality if every second evening is like "shut up and read a book and leave dad in peace to write one", that is not actually harmful in any way. 50% of the outcome is genes and 50% is outside-the-family environment.)
Re the no kids thing: as of the latest survey, LW is 81% childless but with a median age of 27.67. It's possible that a lot of the people on here today will be parents in 10 years.