F. Roger Devlin again

Mr Devlin had written a very cogent article about Men, Women, Relationships and Sexual Utopia a while ago for The Occidental Quarterly.

Recently I got a MassMail from him with an article he wrote that was rejected from publication even by those chaps. Too controversial apparently.

All the same, for those among the the readers of this should-be-updated-more blog who enjoyed the his Sexual Utopia article, Ive got a link to his new one (File Name 'Shalit').

This time he reviews books of a female author, Wendy Shalit, who wants to turn back the clock on feminism - and amusingly enough, even among women like her who would like to get rid of todays depraved 'culture' - they have some amazingly large blind spots when it comes to their own behaviour, and their assumptions of mens behaviour and what the ultimate cure would be. The books reviewed are called Girls Gone Mild and A Return to Modesty.

A few excerpts...

A Return to Modesty was greeted with outrage from predictable quarters, such as pornographers and feminists. Baby-boomer reviewers accused her of “trying to turn back the clock,” the New York Observer printed a front-page caricature of her dressed as an SS officer, and she received death threats (p. 5)....

...The most interesting personal experience she relates involved an invitation, following on the success of her first book, to appear on a PBS program called “If Women Ruled the World.” While preparing to interview her, “the producer began to explain what he wanted me to say: that a certain second wave feminist had saved womankind and that I, as a young woman, was grateful to her.” When she expressed reservations about the woman’s ideas, “the producer began to get impatient: ‘What you’re saying,’ he sputtered, ‘isn’t in the script!’” (p. 19). In the end, she was not interviewed.

And...

Here is my conjecture. It is an old observation that sexual morality is most strict among people of moderate means; looser behavior occurs among the very rich (because they can afford it) and the very poor (because they do not calculate the consequences). The worst possible situation arises when the poor become artificially “rich,” by their own standards, through welfare payments. Now, the elite white brats who pioneered the sexual revolution on campuses in the sixties were able to draw upon the capital laboriously built up by parents toughened in depression and war. Low-intelligence underclass blacks, at the opposite extreme, get their babies subsidized by taxpayers; they are actually rewarded for not having a male breadwinner. You will find even less sexual fidelity among them than among white college kids or the Hollywood glitterati. Shalit, however, did not plumb the social depths of the housing projects...

And the negative...

It is remarkable that a woman with such traditional ideas about marriage, modesty, and feminine decorum never condemns feminism per se. Instead, Shalit claims to have perceived a “fourth wave” of the movement characterized by the rejection of pornography and casual sex. This reviewer is not sanguine about the possibility of an eventual Nth feminist wave coming along to solve all the problems created by waves 1 through (N – 1). Shalit does better when she acknowledges that feminism has “become a sort of Rohrschach test: the word itself has become almost meaningless—and can refer to diametrically opposed ideas” (p. 208). The young self-described feminists she quotes do sound extremely confused. They say things like “I don’t think the first feminists wanted us to be more like men” (p. 218) and “feminism has always been about valuing home life” (p. 222). Some are simply using “feminist” to mean feminine (p. 121).

and...

During their nubile years, many women are at least as concerned with turning male desire off (i.e., telling the 99% to drop dead) as with turning it on (getting Mr. Alpha to commit): they get more offers of attention than they have time to process. Cunning feminists, many of them lesbians, have exploited this circumstance to the hilt, convincing naive young women they are being “harassed.” Quietly observing the furor over so-called harassment during the past two decades, I wondered how these women could fail to realize that the men of whom they were complaining constituted their pool of potential husbands and that they could not afford to alienate all of them. Clearly, I overestimated their intelligence. And Wendy Shalit does not distinguish herself in this respect either; she uses the term “harassment” as freely and uncritically as any man-hating feminist could wish.

Once again, big article, but well worth the read.


UPDATE: All three articles are up. Probably best to read them in order of publication.
1)Sexual Utopia in Power

2)RotatingPolyandry - and its Enforcers
and...

3) The Feminine Sexual Counter-Revolution and its Limitations (filename: Shalit.doc)

Cool Map!

The United States GDP as compared to other countries. Interesting post and commentary here.

Answer to the BrainTeaser (and a cool thought experiment).

Well,
A week has passed. I guess its time to post the answer.

Dissidentman got it right.

The Answer is: The heavier the object, the faster the fall

Question of course is why?

When I was younger in physics class, I, and all other pupils besides, found it extremely puzzling why two objects would fall at the same rate once air resistance was discounted. The classic experiment being sucking the air out of two identical jars, and dropping a metal ball and a feather in them and observing the same speed and acceleration.

But heavier things are harder to lift. It just seemed so counterintuitive. School being school, we never got a good answer as to why.

Lets use Reductio Ad Absurdum to answer the puzzle. And to why the standard answer is wrong.
Acceleration due to gravity of earth is taken as 9.8 meters per second. Lets approximate this to 10. So a rock of mass/weight 1kg accelerates towards the earth at 10 meters per second. Following textbook logic - a rock of weight 5kg also accelerates at 10 meters per second.

How about a rock of a million kilograms? Still 10 meters per second?
10 million kilograms?
50 million?

Still the same?

Okay. How about a rock the same mass/weight/size/shape etc etc of the Earth itself? Here we arrive at the reductio that helps us solve the puzzle.

Obviously Earth attracts things towards itself at an acceleration of 10 meters per second. But the "Clone Earth" falling towards Earth will also attract the Earth towards itself at an acceleration of 10 meters per second. So the total acceleration will be 20 meters per second.

But this blasts out of the water the theory that all objects drop towards the earth at the same rate!

If my reading of history is correct Johannes Kepler was the first person to define gravity as the mutual attraction of two objects towards each other.

So how does that apply to the 10 pound and 20 pound objects? Simple.

We need to take into account the weight of the earth as well as the weight of the object. Say for illustration the earth weighed 10 thousand pounds.

The first object weighing 10 pounds falls as a function of the weight of itself and the earth, aka 10,010 (ten thousand and ten) pounds. While the second object falls as a function of a weight of 10,020 (ten thousand and twenty) pounds or about 0.1% faster.

In reality though the earth doesnt weigh 10,000 pounds - but trillions of pounds. So the slightly faster fractional speed that the heavier object falls at is so small as to be unmeasurable.

Still. Its a pretty cool thought experiment.

Weekend Brain Teaser.

Two objects are falling to Earth.

One weighs 10 pounds, the other 20.

Which one falls faster? (disregard air resistance)

Ill post the answer after a while, if anyone tries of course.

GENES FOR ECONOMICS

GENES FOR ECONOMICS

Science Daily (1 x) - An international team of researchers including an MIT graduate student demonstrated for the first time that genes exert influence on people's behavior in a common experimental economic game. Traditionally, social scientists had been quite hesitant to acknowledge a role for genes in explaining economic behavior. But a study by David Cesarini, a Ph.D. student in MIT's Department of Economics, and by colleagues in Sweden indicated that there was a genetic component to people's perception of what is fair and what is unfair.

The study looked at the ultimatum game, in which a proposer makes an offer to a responder on how to divide a sum of money. This offer is an ultimatum; if the responder rejects it, both parties receive nothing. Because rejections in the game entail a zero payoff for both parties, theories of narrow self-interest predict that any positive amount will be accepted by a responder. The intriguing finding in the laboratory is that responders routinely reject free money, presumably in order to punish proposers for offers perceived as unfair.

To study genetic influence in the game, Cesarini and colleagues took the unusual step of recruiting twins from the Swedish Twin Registry, and had them play the game under controlled circumstances. Because identical twins share the same genes but fraternal twins do not, the researchers were able to detect genetic influences by comparing the similarity with which identical and fraternal twins played the game.

The researchers' findings suggested that genetic influences account for as much as 40 percent of the variation in how people respond to unfair offers. In other words, identical twins were more likely to play with the same strategy than fraternal twins.

"Compared to common environmental influences such as upbringing, genetic influences appear to be a much more important source of variation in how people play the game," Cesarini said. "This raises the intriguing possibility that many of our preferences and personal economic choices are subject to substantial genetic influence," said lead author Bjorn Wallace of the Stockholm School of Economics, who conceived the study.

Hattip: Chris Brand's Blog

Nice lil 'Magic-Eye"

Does she move Clockwise or Anti-Clockwise for you? Clockwise for me.



Supposedly, if its clockwise, you are more right brained, and anti-clockwise, left brained. Click the link for a short list of what is associated with each.

Nice little brain tweaker from The Herald Sun

Golden Oldie.

Here's an old video I came across from when "The Bell Curve" first came out.



Kudos to Murray to being brave enough to talk about such a taboo subject, but at the same time, sadly, I feel he was not completely candid. Race or no race.

Next-Gen FPS / RTS

An Idea popped into my head after reading Charles Murray's latest piece, Randall Parker's comments on it and watching a run of the mill Sci-Fi Movie on TV (Red Planet).

So much talk about overhauling the education system - yet so little actually happening. Ive semi-come to a conclusion that when a system as broken as the education system is entrenched, there is a period of massive waste of resources before any change is affected. AKA the old system keeps creaking on, while a smaller one pops up and offers a better real deal but one that is not recognized as such so is a realpolitik bad deal. In other words, getting the skills is worthless unless it is under the old bad system - but pioneers get the skills the new way and pay a price.


So on to the idea:-

Why not incorporate basic physics, engineering and math skills into an FPS/RTS game?

I have a friend who was in active duty in WWII (hes old now), and he stated that he learned more in 6 months in military technical training than he did in years of school. They would put the recruits in a room with fiendishly disabled radio equipment for example - that looked in perfect working order but had a transistor overloaded here or a fuse gone there and let them figure out how to get it working.

Games have all sorts of situations that require knowledge and mental skills like above. For example having to get a defensive perimeter set up, or get the lights back on within a time constraint.

If getting the lights back on, why not really have the player get the lights back on instead of him just going somewhere and pressing a button?

Say everytime the enemy disabled a tank, random computer generated problems arose - and an engineer-player had to figure out whats wrong and fix it.

Stroyent.
In the fictional Quake Universe, the alien Strogg invaders have a nutrient solution called Stroyent that doubles as ammunition or Health.

It is a fungible resource and implies a trade-off. Why not apply this in games more fundamentally? Say a Vehicle was disabled - you can either repair it, or waste a fungible resource to have it Insta-repaired. If you repair it yourself you can use the saved resource to upgrade weapons or get a faster engine, or better communications etc.


Basic Calculus.
Setting up supply lines requires basic calculus. Why not use it? The amount of resource or time it takes to get to its destination can vary depending on the route set up. Going through a mountain would be safer from enemy attack, but slower and more expensive resource consumption.

The game would have a smaller market because one would really need to learn some skills to play it. But it would be a niche market. Furthermore, all engineering needed skills could be switched off (and for multiplayer) server-side if wanted. Furthermore - because it is a niche market, its graphics do not have to be top notch for it to get a following - no need for millions and millions of dollars - just tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

After making a Single Player Version, can you imagine how multi-player would take off? Especially a Mod Community?

Ron Paul

Goddamn, this guy is good.

I really wonder how the Internet and real connectivity will affect politics. People are still dumb and easily misled, but that hasnt changed. Its the substantial minority that was voiceless and fragmented before that now feels it has a fighting chance.

Mebbe I can even dream of the repeal of the idiotic One Man- One Vote (and wonder what will replace it)...

Compassionate Bias

Charles Murray has a new article up.

Essentially he argues for the elimination of the SAT because the same information can be extracted from other sources.

He gives plenty of positive reasons - the death of the coaching industry for one.

But more importantly one should concentrate on the *REAL* reason he wants it gone. The ranking of people, even within the cognitive elite.

Removing this should have quite a few social effects. Compassionate social effects. Simply put, someone who isnt high up on the cognitive scale will not have to consider himself dumber than someone who is. The boundaries, even among the smart, get fuzzy.

Ive vacillated on the issue on Steve's Website. There really is no way to answer the question.

Presupposed is this is a good thing. But really, is it?

Lets take a look at it from the new more compassionate viewpoint. Who is the new underdog? People still judge other people - by attractiveness, wealth, age etc.
So take a poor guy who is really smart. Now hes considered, as just poor. Is that better? At least before he could say "you may be richer, but Im smarter" at least to himself. Just because psychic comfort isnt measured - doesnt mean it isnt there.

Freedom equals Freedom, NOT Freedom + Compassion.

So how judge the death of a SAT as a good thing? Compassionate Bias, thats how. Its an instinct.

Though simply because it is an instinct, it does not mean we have an alternative to it. But it does mean we are limited in a very very basic way.

~Sigh~

Crash Course in Monetary Economics

I posted this a few weeks ago in response to a question of how inflation works in Zimbabwe. Its generally accurate of how inflation works in general.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1)Money is not a resource. It is simply a form of communication that allows resources to be exchanged. Ergo, the value of money depends on the underlying resources.

2)Government, by and large, does not create resources.

3)But government can ‘steal’ resources from the private sector/ individual citizens because the government and private sector use the same money/currency.

Simply put - if the entire economy just created a resource of “One kilogram of Oranges”. Then, no matter how much currency there was, it would buy only 1kg of oranges. If all the currency there was was $100, then $100 would buy 1 kg of oranges. If all the currency was $1,000, then $1,000 would buy 1 kg of Oranges.

Ergo if the government prints more money, it doesnt increase the resources but only causes inflation ($100 turns into $1,000).

The benefit to the government is it steals a claim to resources from its citizens - before citizens owned (say) $80, and the government owned $20 (when there was $100 in circulation). So it was split 80/20. Now (after inflation) citizens STILL own $80, but the government owns $920 - so NOW the split is 8/92. The government now has claim to over 4 times as much of the resource.
(End of earlier Post)
-----------------------------------------------------------

Additional Points.
From above, it is obvious that changes in the value of money arise from a shift in the resource to currency ratio in an economy.

This of course works both ways. If the money supply does not increase, but the resources go down - more money will be in a bidding war for fewer goods- inflation again. Thinking of the economy as a Big Bloated E-bay wouldnt be far off. Both trends are currently taking place in Zimbabwe right now for a current example.

More in an upcoming post.

Times are changing.

This voter routing of the Senate kinda reminds me of a dog that rediscovers a taste for raw meat. The voters have been powerless for so long, between an unresponsive government, an extremely biased media and last but not least a dickhead majority in the Supreme Court.


Now, having tasted blood - maybe we will begin to see all sorts of things... a repeal of Griggs Vs. Duke Power et al even?