Intentionality and FCM Or who intends and how much.

Intentionality and FCM

Or who intends and how much.

By Michael Price

So GirlWritesWhat made a video** about "On Intentionality. Or, What Is It For = What Does It Do?" by FCM* comparing it to how pyschotics infer intentionality where it doesn't belong. While this is a valid and valuable point regarding how FCM regarded "patriarchy" there are at least three points that are far more important.

Firstly as GWW has pointed out time and time again what feminists call "patriarchy" resulted in men being the one's to do all the most dangerous, dirty, stressful, and in general unpleasant jobs. Even the jobs that feminists point to as evidence of male power often, frankly, suck. Congratulations on becoming King of Scotland, I hope you'll last until... I mean I hope I see you at your birthday next week. So if we're judging by the results then isn't that an argument that "patriarchy" was created by women to avoid those jobs? After all "patriarchy" is primarily supported by social norms, many of them formed in childhood, and women in "patriarchy" are in charge of childcare. The more "patriarchal" the society the less men have to do with forming the beliefs of the children.

Secondly there is the point that "patriarchy" has a lot of effects. FCM basically assumed that the ones she didn't like were the intended effects, but the effects she does like or doesn't care about she assumes aren't intended. It's classic paranoid narcissism, although expressed in a group rather than an individual context.. It also assumes a level of power amoung men that make anti-semitic tracts about the Rockefellers seem tame. She claims "it cannot be denied that they were intentionally creating brain damaged fembots to clean house and be compliant semen receptacles for men. if they didnt like or want that outcome, they would've stopped doing it.". But this only follows if there is another way to achieve the ostensible goals without creating said fembots. If the patient has a habit of waving knives around while screaming about demons you don't have to be a fembot-fan to say reach for the icepick. All that can be said is that they preferred fembots to maniacs, or possibly to not getting paid. If FCM's logic was true then the fact that environmentalists blocking nuclear power resulted in more coal plants would prove that they wanted the resultant mercury-contaminated fish. Also (and this is an example she specifically used) having PIV sex proves you want a baby. About a million abortions a year cast doubt on this.

Thirdly the claim that patriarchy is designed is simply asserted, without any evidence whatsoever. Systems can evolve without intention, as shown by the example of the respiratory system FCM gives. Social system also evolve, often against the interests of the people making the changes. For instance the current system of laying fibre optic cable is very much against the interest of the main data transmission companies. No sooner do they complete a highly expensive cable lay across hundreds or thousands of miles than some other company starts laying another cable with newer technologies that will transmit more data cheaper per bit. So the first company has to lay another cable that's even more expensive but cheaper per bit.The net result is that massive investments are made that are rapidly made obsolete while prices get lower and lower. The naval arms race prior to World War One was not desired by ANY of the great powers that indulged in it. I don't often say this but FCM should read some Karl Marx regarding how systems can force results on people or institutions that they never wanted. Yes, you heard right, called FCM more ignorant than Karl Marx.

FCM is incredibly hypocritical because she calls women who don't believe it was designed "cult members" whose beliefs "flies in the face of the actual, real evidence", which she does not produce. I suppose that she might consider the fact that women don't like the present "patriarchal" system very much as evidence that they had no power to create the social system. But that assumes that women wanted the same things when the "patriarchy" was created as they do now, despite thousands of years of social, technological, climatic, evolutionary and economic change. Basically she believes because she wouldn't want a system where daddy has all the responsibility no other woman would. Again, classic narcissism.

Of course the question of intentionality leads to the question "Whose intentionality?". There were many people alive at the formation of what she calls "patriarchy" all of whom were unique individuals with their own goals, desires, levels of knowledge, and circumstances. We can't assume that everyone who helped form "patriarchy" had the same set of goals. Milton Friedman's "baptists and bootleggers" theory of how legal restrictions on trade come to be is a classic example of mixed intentions. The "baptists" want the restriction for the "common good" the "bootleggers" so they can make money. People who wanted to free the Iraqi people from Saddam, people who wanted the price of oil to go up, people who wanted to sell more ammo to the Pentagon all supported the Iraq war and others. Whose intentions were responsible then?

She simply assumes there was a coherent, unified agreement among all men to institute those social, economic and political features that she calls "patriarchy". This despite the fact that many men are disadvantages by said features. For instance men who are better a getting women to do what they want by persuasion are automatically disadvantaged by compulsion being allowed, even encouraged, in intimate relations. They simply can't use their best asset. Similarly those men who are not particularly strong yet are expected to defend their women get the short end of the stick. On the other hand women who are good at looking pretty got a free ride. She ignores all the for a simple, unnuanced theory that has all the qualifiers a political theory needs, it fits at least two facts. We can't expect more from her, but we should expect more from anyone we actually listen to.

* http://factcheckme.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/on-intentionality-or-what-is-it-for-what-does-it-do/#comment-13872

** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSWJ74zbQc0&list=UUcmnLu5cGUGeLy744WS-fsg&index=2&feature=plcp

Xenoautometonism

Xenoatomatonism is a word I coined to describe the beleif that other people are basically automatons that will respond in predictable, linear ways that can easily be calculated and factored into, and thus they can be easily ruled or controlled. It is a kind of delusion. It is related to the "Gorbachev delusion"*, the idea that government has power and control that it clearly cannot have (especially due to the people's ability to evade it's restrictions).

While many people have described the errors and foibles of the Bush Administration, they have not described the core malfunction, the root the Thoreau would have us strike at. I believe that xenoatomatonism is it. Take for instance the overoptimistic estimation that oil revenue from Iraq would pay for the war. Try this test, stop someone in the street and ask them "If a large number of arabs were mad at the US, what are the top 5 things they'd try to do to hurt it?". I guarantee most people would have "stop the US getting oil" in the list. Yet the Bushrangers thought that they could protect infrastructure that is by nature vulnerable. Oil pipelines are large, hard to armour and due to their geometry need the largest perimetre to defend of any single strategic target. They really thought that despite their enemies having access to thousands of tonnes of explosive prior to the invasion and the experts to use it efficently the pipelines wouldn't be blown up. If the average person had this as part of their plan you'd think they were just stupid, but these were smart people**. To have not seen such a glaring inconsistency it must have been obscured by a belief that could not be shoved aside. The assumption that the Iraqis were simple chess pieces that would make the moves the administration's rules stipulated fits the bill precisely.


* Named this delusion after Mikhail Gobachev tried to limit alcohol consumption by limiting State production, without realising that people could make their own. This dispite being the son of Russian peasants and therefore quite well aware of the possibility of private illegal production.

** Yes I know, Bush is allegedly an idiot and Libby certainly is, but Rove isn't and neither is Cheney or Rumsfeld.

When women have to defend themselves against lying feminists.

So the professional misser of the point Erin KLG has defended her article “When Women Don’t Want Daughters”. This seems to be at least in part in reply to girlwriteswhat completely disembowling said article. Erin claims that "the world was harder for women. ". Let's take a look at her justifications and see if they hold water or more hot air.

 Number one men have almost all the positions of power. Therefore there lives are all easier. Here Erin fails to make the basic logic distinction between "All of X are Y" and "All of Y are X". The fact that I share a type of chromosome with almost all world and national leaders doesn't actually help me. It's not like I can say "Hey I'd like special treatment from you Mr. Powerful on account of how we both have dicks.". Well I could but unless he's really into dicks that's not likely to help. Having a vagina, which most powerful men are into (not all but a large majority) generally helps a lot more. Maybe that's why, as GWW pointed out, more money is spent, anything from 8 to 100 times more on female than male problems.

 For the second point Kan't Learn Gentleness (I'm going to try and give her as many deserved acronums as I can) complained "We" haven't had a female president. By this she means just the USA, presumably. But a female US president would be a massive advantage to the men's right's movement because she would not have to prove her feminist credentials and could look at men's disadvantage without being massacred in the press. I don't think it WOULD happen but it could. In any case I haven't lead a country either and I don't whine about it.

 For sheer assininity (real men don't just use words they CREATE them) the third point can't be beat. Women get portrayed badly in the media. She gives a number of examples of the horrible, horrible ways they get portrayed. Of these some didn't mention women at all, some didn't imply any judgements on women and NONE showed unambiguous violence against women. There was one ad that showed a woman in a sexual situation with several men, but whether it was consensual or not wasn't clear. Another showed a woman dead, but it she didn't appear to have died by violence. Being the distractable guy I am I then clicked some links from these pages and got to one allegedly showing the 10 funniest TV ads. One of these showed a man who looked like a Pinata with a broken arm and bandage on his head, the joke being that he had been beaten with a stick to get skittles. Not on the violence against men specifically mentioned, and the results clearly visible but it was played for laughs. So possible violence against women, (admittedly sexual which is touchier) ad gets banned. Definite violence against a men, ad gets laughed at. Note that I didn't look for an ad like this. I didn't need to. A few minutes clicking links about advertising and I get to one. Count the number of ads where the woman is stupid, insensitive, insane or evil, then count the number of ads the man is, it's not a contest.

 Nor is the actual entertainment any better in this regard. Aside from the occasional show like "Modern Family" or "Married with Children" (both with the brilliant Ed O'Neill) which treat the male and female characters about equally, most TV shows show men to be incompetent, inconsiderate, insensitive fools. Sometimes like in Tim Allen's "Home Improvement" that's most of the joke of the series.

Her fourth point is that 85-90% of the people in the USA with eating disorders are women. My fourth point is that 80% of the people who suicide are men. Her point is "Not unrelated" to media portrayals, at a guess I'd say mine is too. But if you had to choose, gun to your head so to speak, would you rather be the person who splattered chunder all over the floor or brains all over the wall?

 Then she brings up the most horrible thing in the world. The wage gap still exists. So does the huge amount of differences between male and female labor that create it, including but not limited to, the willingness of males to work stupid hours*, to work outside often in terrible weather, to do dangerous work, to remain in a job without taking time off for a child etc. anyone who doesn't know that the work men and women do is very different is startlingly ignorant.

 Erin Knowledge-Less Girl tries to claim that justifying the wages gap on the grounds of, "lifestyle choices" (which are also choices about work) is condemning women because they can give birth. This is poppycock and if she actually watched to GWW's video she's know this. I suspect she does unless she's totally ignorant of how men and women run their lives. It's not giving birth reduces a woman's value to the employer. No doubt taking time off to deal with the physical aspects of pregnancy and childbirth is a factor but it's a minor one. If it were not then women would be back in the workforce 2 months after giving birth. Instead many women drop paid employment for years, even decades, after becoming a mother, and/or radically reduce their hours of paid work. They could choose not to do this and have their husband do the stay at home thing (this is not unknown, in fact Stefan Molyneux the biggest philosopher on the web did exactly that). The choice is a lifestyle choice and it's one that negatively impacts their value to their employer.

Then she's gets on to men graduating with the degrees that pay the most. Yeah I'm guessing that women's studies and social work degrees don't pay that well. How is this a case the world being harder on women? The women made the choice, presumably they had their reasons to believe that it would make them happy. Men also had their reasons to believe that the higher paying degrees would make them happy. I don't see why the fact that one choice leads to more money neccesarily implies it leads to more happiness. What Erin Knotted Logic, Gordian is saying here is that women unfortunately are too stupid to make the right, money-making course choices and so end up miserable because they lack the power money brings. But do they lack the power money brings? Money is not powerful in the earning but the spending. As David Thomas pointed out in "Not guilty the case in defence of men" women make or influence much even most of the major spending decisions. In fact he lists 10 areas of financials services and all but 2 or 3 the woman clearly wears the pants regarding them. So how does the fact that women don't even have to earn the money they spend men it's tougher for them?

Then she talks about how 2/3s of the world's illiterates are female. This is a bit of a switcheroo because up until this point she was talking about the experience of women and men in the USA. All the facts related to the USA and similar western cultures, there was no indication that the world she considered stretched to Kabul or Karachi or indeed beyond Rio Grande. Her original article also didn't seem to address anything but the Western experience. In the 3rd world certainly it's rough being a chick. In fact it's so rough that some feminists have said women were the primary victims of, for instance, the war in Afghanistan. Why? Because it often left them without husbands or sons. But none of this has anything to do with the original article, unless Erin is totally ignorant of why people in other cultures prefer sons. The original article was all about her own culture, nothing about others. Don't worry she'll turn back to being totally US-centric when she compares rates of violent victimisation, because she certainly won't be making the case on that with figures from down south of the border.

 Now we come to a bad word "slut". Well some people use it as a bad word, others use it as a fun word, even a compliment, but she's got a point, calling people slut is not nice. Neither is calling someone "coward". The difference is that nobody ever fought a useless war to stop someone calling them a slut. If the worst you have to worry about is being called a slut you've got a pretty good life. From slut we transition straight to honour killings and "purity balls" as though giving a girl a celebration (albeit a weird one with unfortunate connations) for a choice you approve of and killing her for one you do not are the same class of phenomena. Some people think that "saving yourself for marriage" is a good idea. Plenty of those people think the males should do it too. How this makes the world tougher for females (other than that some people Erin doesn't like anyway won't like them) is beyond me. Honour killings are of course horrific, but is there a country in the world where they outnumber infanticides? Let alone killing of men for absurd reasons? Note that her case was that the world is tougher for women than men, not that it is tough for women.

 She then goes on to the discrepancy between male and female criminal vicitimisation rates. Well she pretends to. She presents a graph that appears to show the discrepancy is being radically reduced. The thing is that violent crime is often underreported, particularly if the victim feels they are unlikely to get justice or may suffer retaliation. Male vicitims of domestic violence, who are just as common as female victims, are one such group. Females have been reporting domestic violence more often, males, not so much. Male victims of prison rape* are another. Assaults on females are taken much more seriously and everyone knows this (and most would be upset if it weren't so) so naturally males are less likely to believe it's worth making a complaint. One way to eliminate reporting errors is to look at homicide, which is not greatly underreported for obvious reasons. Luckily the page she sent us to is part of a site that has such information. Find a year where men weren't murdered at twice the rate women were. Go ahead, find it. Now look at that realise this is actually pretty good for men. In the Mexican border areas (where feminists worried that there was an epidemic of woman murder) the ratio is more like 10-1. If anyone knows of a country that has more females murdered than males please tell me. Well maybe India with the infanticides, which are of course almost never carried out by males.

Speaking of perpetrators she then mentions that 90% of perpetrators are male. Of course this depends on official statistics which almost certainly underreport assaults by females, particularly domestic abuse. But let's a ssume she's right. How does that show that women have it tougher? Does she assume that the life of a violent offender is a happy one? A stress-free one? Sure these guys have to take responsibility for their actions, but somewhere there is a woman who's job it was to raise them to be healthy and happy, he is pretty clearly not. The question isn't, why is a woman not afraid or raising a female victimizer, but why isn't she more afraid of raising a male victim than a female one, given that they probably outnumber them 3-2 at least?

 The answer is because like Erin they don't really love any male. They think it's fine to ignore their pain, denigrate and insult them openly, clearly state, to their faces that they are by nature stupid, uncultured, insensitive, cruel and violent and arrange everything in society to someone else's benefit with their money. Then the cruelest trick in the female arsenal, telling them that this is love. Telling them that the warped twisted relationship where the male can be barely tolerated in return for being useful is the wonder, joyous, mutual, respectful, kind and enlightening thing we call love. Then they wonder why we like hookers and porn.

 She claims that men being called "girls" or "pussies" proves that women are considered the lesser sex. Hmm.. let's see, what would you rather have, your gender being used as an insult or spending on the health of your gender being several times lower? Having your genitals being a term of abuse or losing your children in custody battles pretty much every time? Dying on the job or being whistled at in public? Where is this woman's self-respect? What happened to her that she can advance such baloney without drinking herself into a stupor to cope with what she does for a living? I don't know and I don't care, I'm just glad I'm not her.

Why I think Marxists aren't stupid.

Stefan Molyneux claimed that many people who back Marxism are stupid, that they simply don't realise the logical fallacies and other problems in Marxist "thought".  I believe that this is not the best explanation for Marx's popularity.  I think that practically all supporters of Marxist thought are capable of understanding the gross flaws in it but choose not to do so.  These two hypothesis predict significantly different results in the real world, so they are not simply academic or arbitrary differences, but distinct and testable.

If people were really accepting Marxism from stupidity then when an idea that was too stupid to accept came along, they would not accept it.  If on the other hand they were not, they would accept it, if doing so achieved the same goals as accepting Marxism.   I have found such a stupid idea, the 12:1 law.  This law said that a company could not pay anyone more than 12 times what it paid it's lowest paid employee.  I'm still not clear on whether that meant per year, per hour, per week, or what.  It doesn't matter. 

To show that this law was not supported out of stupidity think really quickly; what are the first two consequences of this law to come to mind.  Unless your mind works really oddly it will be "some people will get pay raises and some people will get pay cuts.".  Now ask yourself, did these people do anything to deserve either?  No.

It's blatantly obvious that some workers will get no pay raise since the company either does, or will pay it's CEO less than 12 times their income.  Others on exactly the same pay will get a raise, despite doing the same work under the same conditions, just for another company.  That is clearly unfair.  If someone had wanted to benefit workers they could simply have lobbied for more union power, a higher minimum wage, lower taxes on the "poor" and more on the rich etc.  But they didn't.  They choose to back this idea.  It is impossible to believe that those who voted for the law didn't figure out, and had no friends that figured out, that the effect would to hugely unfair to some workers.  Even people who are extremely stupid must at some point mention their stupidity to smart people, who will correct them.  But apparently for a significant proportion of the Swiss population that didn't happen.  Which suggests that it's not stupidity, but deliberate avoidance of the facts.  Rand said the only evil thought was the refusal to think, and this is a prime example.

A reply to "MEN’S RIGHTS GROUP INVADES CALGARY COMICS AND ENTERTAINMENT EXPO (UPDATED)" by Brett Schenker

"Nerds, geeks, and gamers can roam free… unless you’re a woman with an opinion, differing experiences and interests, or different viewpoint from the Badgers. Pot meet kettle."
When exactly have the Badgers stopped anyone from roaming freely?  When have they stoppped anyone from saying the shit they say?  You really don't care whether you anything you say is even remotely related to the truth do you?
"The Honey Badger Brigade booth ... is attending panels that feature feminists and women just to disrupt them."
Where is the evidence of that?  If there are panels featuring feminists the of course people who dispute the feminist orthodoxy are going to attend them and attempt to challenge that orthodoxy.  That's not disruption, that's debate.  

"The “hate group” has spurred an outcry from attendees and others towards the Calgary Expo team "
What evidence do you have that the "Honey Badgers" are a hate group or that "A Voice for Men" is a hate group?  Oh that's right nothing.   There is no evidence in your post, and the evidence that you give in a later comment is that they were listed as one- by the _Southern Poverty Law Center_, the least credible source on the entire planet outside of North Korea. There is literally not one scrap of evidence you even MIGHT be telling the truth.

"Panelist Brittney Le Blanc recounting what happened:

We were about fifteen minutes into the panel when a woman in the second row stood up and identified herself as a Men’s Rights Activist. "

And why did she do that?  Because someone asked a question about what MRAs think and why they think it.  One of the Honey Badgers then offered to address that question and that offer was was accepted.  They did not derail anything.  A question was asked and they answered it, that's the opposite of derailing.

"I truly believe in freedom of speech, but coming to a panel with the entire purpose of derailing it and shooting down the voices on the panel isn’t constructive."
It is if the panel is espousing bullshit.  If someone is saying things that aren't true or that aren't supported by the evidence then yes it's amazingly constructive to shoot down their views.  If the panel isn't talking bullshit then having their views challenged allows them to be shown to be true.  

"It appears that was their plan for the expo, to come and to loudly take over the spaces of other people –"
Then where were they loud?  When did they take over anything?  You don't even say that the panelists were yelled over, so you're not even claiming this HAPPENED but you're saying was their plan?

" it’s disrespectful, disappointing and offers a prime example of why these panels need to exist in the first place."
You don't deserve respect just because you're on a panel, and if think you do then that offers a prime example of why these panels need to be stopped in the first place.

"It’s disappointing that they weren’t there to have a conversation or to listen to what we, and members of the audience, were saying. They wanted to stand up and have their say, but not to listen or try to understand the points of view other people in the room had."
Where is the evidence of this?  They didn't shout over people, they didn't take more time than they were entitled to and if the panel didn't want to talk about these issues (that a panelist brought up) they could have simply talked about something else.

Note that you don't even try to find a single example of them violating Calgary's policies.  And you're scum for allowing the implication that there was a safety concern to stand.