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User: ElectricTurtle

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  1. Re:Women... on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 1

    I really don't understand what you're trying to do. I'm saying that existing behaviors and social norms (for both genders) evolved for explainable reasons. You keep beating this drum that this is 'justification' and an 'excuse' and such bullshit. You seem to be motivated by assigning blame, and consequently you are determined to project your own motivations onto others about assigning blame. I'm not blaming men and exculpating women, but that's what you want to see so you see it, otherwise you wouldn't have something to attack.

    At this point I don't know why I'm bothering, you're only going to see what you want, but I'm going to try one. last. time. to explain this.

    I am saying that where violence is taken for its negative effects alone, looking at 'female violence' as a product of gender is no more useful than looking at 'masculine violence' as a product of gender. By doing this you are as guilty of the sort of bias you're accusing others of having.

    Violence exists. Both genders do it. Men are better at it because of natural selection. Women can generally only be as good at it if they learn from men. This is not fucking blame. This is not some kind of assignment of guilt. When you read it, that's what you see, which says more about you than me. I'm not saying that women aren't violent except that they learn it from men, I'm saying that women aren't effective/good/skillful/adept/etc. at violence generally except that they learn it from men. Violence is a tool, just a like a gun. It can be used for good or evil, and the way you seem to see only evil and the assignment of blame deserves the 'arm-chair psychiatry' I have served you with. You're messed up.

    (Also, you seem to keep harping on my use of 'patriarchy' for some reason, regardless of the fact that it was in context of social, not physical aggression in the context of developed behavior over generations. Do you deny that a patriarchy existed? What do you call a society where women cannot own property, cannot vote, cannot hold office or titles, are barred by scripture from religious leadership, etc? Is that not patriarchy? Do you think that just because those things have changed in the last century that the social effects have just evaporated?)

  2. Re:Women... on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 1

    It must have been obvious enough to be part of the common social discourse in Roman literature. Transparent enough for you? (Ad hominem indeed, Mr. Kettle.)

  3. Re:Women... on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 1

    It's reality (though I suspect you may be making a joke). Virtually every soldier before the modern era was male. Combat is a masculine expertise. There is no implied morality to that. Men have used their skills of combat to defend as well as attack, to stop violence as well as initiate it. Violence is not inherently immoral. Anybody who believes otherwise is a fool.

  4. Re:Women... on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 1

    Until recently? You know nothing of history. Go here and search for "the wool maid is done for" and read a few paragraphs. That's but an example.

  5. Re:Women... on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was talking about effective physical aggression. A woman who fights 'like a girl' stereotypically (slapping, hair-pulling, etc.) is not going to be as effective as the masculine approach of attacking with powerful blows, blocking, feigning, etc. There's a reason why women take self-defense courses to learn how to handle themselves in a fight, it does not come naturally to most of them. Don't misread that, I'm not saying that fighting doesn't come naturally, I'm saying that fighting effectively does not come naturally, and men are the gatekeepers of that experience.

  6. Re:Women... on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 1

    The primary reason that women have more latitude is because they are less effective. They lack the upper body strength, the hormonal response, the reflexes, and the combat cunning that a male possesses (being almost exclusively responsible for physical conflict in human society for thousands of years kind of helps to promote certain physiological conditions). The average man could beat the average woman literally senseless without too much effort. It is because of this that society has conditioned men to turn the other cheek, because responding in kind would escalate too quickly into a very unfair fight, as the history of the abuse of women demonstrates.

    None of this of course has much bearing on women fighting women, which isn't new by half. There are literary accounts of domestic violence between women from the Greco-Roman period at the very least (such that I've read personally, they may be even older accounts).

    You're deciding to read my opinions as excusing of female violence, which I said nothing of the kind. I said that it was learned from men because men are experts (would you expect a soldier to learn his trade from somebody exclusively a bookbinder? or vice versa?), no more. Perhaps you forgot the very source of this topic? Is all violence evil? Are all men evil? Ridiculous and absurd. It sounds like you have some sort complex, inclined to blame yourself while seeming to defend against the words of others.

  7. Re:the army is obselete on 'Robin Sage' Social Hoax Duped Military, Security Pros · · Score: 1

    Your excuse doesn't carry water. What you're trying to avoid admitting to yourself and everybody else is that because you thought term A and term B were contradictions, term AB must be stupid because you were too lazy to look up term AB, and you decided to just roll with your assumption and try to tell the person who used the term that it didn't work because you knew about term A and term B.

    It's not like the terms weren't right in front of you, you just couldn't see anything but your own assumptions (which are by themselves incomplete), and instead of looking up any variation of the terms together, you just assumed that must be incorrect, and if it wasn't, well maybe somebody would do your work for you anyway.

    You made a lazy assumption. You attempted, to a degree, to call somebody out using this lazy assumption. Now you're upset that somebody is telling you that you're lazy and you make assumptions. Time to grow up, live in reality, and take a little initiative for yourself. Then you won't look so dumb. (I am so not surprised you're a socialist. It's the politics of choice for those who would abdicate initiative and rely on others.)

  8. Re:Women... on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 1

    It depends on how one defines 'aggression'. Physically where women are effectively aggressive, there is no real difference. Primarily because as you allude it is a learned behavior from men. A lot of generations are going to pass before women have anything to teach men about physical aggression which has been the bread and butter province of men since prehistory.

    If you're talking about some kind of emotional or social aggression, you're simply looking at the momentum from a social adaptation that was natural for women in a patriarchal society. Almost universally disenfranchised from any kind of real power in politics, religion, or society at large, women had to become manipulative, even deceitful, by nature because it was only through exerting as much social influence over their husbands/sons/brothers/fathers etc. as possible that they could have any real control over their own destinies, let alone control over any segment of society.

    And it is just as I said before, ability is not the same as abuse, there is a spectrum of responses. Each woman is as ethical or unscrupulous as her background and experience has made her. There is nothing inherently good or bad about a gender.

  9. Re:the romans did this with prisoners / gladiators on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because Christianity castrated Western Civilization to the point where people are now afraid that losing might hurt somebody's self esteem. Used to be we could stomach where losing meant disembowelment (stomach! that's a pun!). There are gains to this attitude, such as the end of slavery and the enfranchisement of women, but the pendulum has swung so far we teach our kids to be afraid of their own shadows and every little pin-prick is treated like somebody just lost a limb.

  10. Re:Women... on Scientists' Mouse Fight Club · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Female aggression only happens when women are empowered. I guess we should disenfranchise them again. (That's a joke, son.)

    But more seriously, when people are given the latitude to be aggressive, you'll see a spectrum of responses. Some people can handle power responsibly, others get drunk with it and start thumping people with little provocation or cause. Systems are supposed to be designed such that abusers are culled, but it seems that just as frequently a given system of authority closes ranks and defends 'it's own' against outside accusations however well-founded.

    However there's no cause to single out genders/races/ages/etc. because such categories only go so far in explaining what are ultimately individual motivations. People may draw from various behavior archetypes, may respond to various experiences in ways that can be predicted or categorized, but there are always factors that introduce variances such that you can't view people as simple equations of A + B = C every time.

  11. Re:the army is obselete on 'Robin Sage' Social Hoax Duped Military, Security Pros · · Score: 1

    Hey, buddy, were you aware that you're on the internet and you could, you know, find the answers to your own questions?

  12. Re:Only link that matters on 'Robin Sage' Social Hoax Duped Military, Security Pros · · Score: 1

    You and the other 17 people who do that should start a group, except that you don't know each other. I have probably a hundred people who are friends of friends on my profile, and my wife has twice as many. Every profile I've ever seen is the same way.

  13. Re:duped some military.... on 'Robin Sage' Social Hoax Duped Military, Security Pros · · Score: 1

    What's even worse is that when you do a Google image search for "Robin Sage" (with the quotes) the whole page is nothing but pictures of Special Forces in training. If a Google search for the straight term doesn't clue you in you're freaking hopeless.

    I think the sad thing is that 'security professionals' at least at the Federal level rely too much on internal systems and don't go looking for anything themselves. 'Oh well they're not in our Super Awesome Database (SAD) so I guess there's no problem and we're done here.' It's lazy and ineffective.

  14. Re:And... on George Lucas C&Ds 'Lightsaber Laser' · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because he said ... *gasp!* penis! Such base, immoral language should not be allowed in a public forum! Soon people might throw around other medical terms like 'testicles' and 'mammaries' or even ... dare I say it ... 'vagina'! It's a slippery slope that leads to people eating babies.

  15. Re:Won't matter to the anti-radio/radiation nuts on Study Hints Ambient Radio Waves May Affect Plant Growth · · Score: 1

    And there are many people who don't get headaches from mobile phones (including me). That suggests it IS psychosomatic.

    Believe me, if you can prove that some people have real, physical, measurable adverse reactions to lower frequency EM radiation akin to allergies, you'll be richer and more famous than your average Nobel laureate. Too bad it's bullshit. Because it's your anecdotal experience, you want to tell yourself that you're too rational to exhibit a symptom that's not externally caused. The bad news is that everybody has a subconscious, and nobody can control or understand it, that's the nature of the subconscious. Yours is fucking with you. That's unfortunate, but it's not going to blow the lid off of any EM effects research.

  16. Re:Other countries should start policing Internet on US Pirate Movie Site DNS Seizure Fail · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just because Lincoln and his speeches are esteemed does not make them inherently right. Not to mention that he was responsible for overseeing the effective termination of the sovereignty of the individual states, so he would definitely see government as responsible only to the majority, and the minority should suffer any imposition the majority sees fit.

    Your concept is not hard, but you see simple does not automatically mean correct.

    A democracy is accountable only to the majority of its electorate within the bounds of its constitution. If you would like to demonstrate otherwise, you're going to have to do better than quoting political scripture.

  17. Re:Somewhat reasonable on US Pirate Movie Site DNS Seizure Fail · · Score: 0

    'Flaunting', though connotatively derogatory, is just another form of pride. It boils down to your perspective. There are people who think pride is wrong, both religious 'pride goeth before a fall' and secular 'be humble in victory' communities; however I maintain that it is humility that is wrong. The 'humble' are at best ignorant, at worst deceitful, about their capacity.

    As for the US being 'bullies' I suggest you read more history. There has never been a major civilization that did not abuse its power. The US is only exceptional in the relatively minor degree to which it has abused its power when compared to any other I can think of. If you think the US is bad in the Middle East, study what the French did during the Algerian War.

    People are people*, and I think the American attitude is deserved. We have done and continue to do more good and less harm for our scale of influence than most have, and for that I see nothing wrong with being proud.

    *(I'm reminded a bit a of a theme from the TV series 'The Shield'... yeah I know, pulp action drama, and I didn't really watch it but now and then, can't even remember the characters' names... but one of the motivating points was that one of the internal affairs investigators after the main corrupt cop character had an absolutist attitude that this sought character was just bad to the bone. Consequently he kept overestimating what the character was going to do and when and overplaying his hand. Another investigator was more moderate, believing rationally that the sought character was probably more good than bad, so his criminal behavior would be mitigated by his more normal behaviors. Like I said, I didn't really watch the show much, but I figure it was the more moderate investigator who had the most success. Meh, that's quite a tangent.)

  18. Re:Other countries should start policing Internet on US Pirate Movie Site DNS Seizure Fail · · Score: 1

    Funny, everybody seems to say that about their elections...

  19. Re:Other countries should start policing Internet on US Pirate Movie Site DNS Seizure Fail · · Score: 1

    You have of course given in to the obvious, government only represents the majority consensus, therefore the minority of 'individual voters' is blameless so long as they have participated. Though I doubt you'll retract your attack on all voters. In which case you admit that you take responsibility for the censorship of the internet in Australia, good on ya... at least you're not a hypocrite.

  20. Re:Somewhat reasonable on US Pirate Movie Site DNS Seizure Fail · · Score: 1

    There are, objectively, better and worse laws. For chrissake in Belgium you need a license to play golf. The 'arrogance' you speak of is the idea that until somebody demonstrates otherwise, the average American is inclined to believe that American law is superior because it is based on a) the presumption of innocence b) the right to a speedy and fair trial (which, while not *always* delivered upon, has created a far faster justice system than most) c) English common law and concept that anything not expressly denied is permitted.

    The US is, of course, deficient in some areas, but I don't think it's unreasonable for an American to believe deficiency or even equivalency until demonstrated. Most of the problems in the US, indeed everywhere, are cultural. The US has a problem with violence, and non-Americans point the finger at US laws they believe are lax, but Japan has a cultural problem with suicide, so do we point the finger at their laws? It's not like violent crime is more legal in the US anymore than suicide is more legal in Japan.

  21. Re:Other countries should start policing Internet on US Pirate Movie Site DNS Seizure Fail · · Score: 1

    OK, so you must like censorship, since you live in Australia and you voted in the fucks who are filtering your internet. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

  22. Re:Somewhat reasonable on US Pirate Movie Site DNS Seizure Fail · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This should be the first and last post of the discussion, but of course this will turn into a why-I-hate-the-evil-US-imperialists topic, nevermind the fact that most other countries in the first world are more strict with their internets than we are, and the developing world regulate it into tiny pieces if it could. So, yeah, let's internationalize the internet and suffer the same sort of bullshit filtering and bullshit libel laws that exist in most of the rest of the world. That will be awesome.

  23. Re:This won't stop the denialists on Climategate's Final Days · · Score: 1

    Pff. So let's recap, you yourself said that polar bear populations were directly related to ring seals, and I demonstrated that indigenous human populations considered ring seals a primary food source (and polar bears and everything the two ate as secondary food sources), and you don't think that impact is relevant, even though present day hunting is demonstrably declining? You've just painted yourself into a corner and you know it, so you resort to insubstantial ad hominem attacks.

  24. Re:The problem with that approach on Indian Government Threatens RIM, Skype With Ban · · Score: 1

    You may have forgotten, but those same 'large parts of Asia' were the third world too little more than a century ago (even if using a Cold War term to describe the 19th century is bald anachronism). Difference is that they built their own society instead of waiting for the great white heroes to do it for them, regardless of any local wars. You may not recall, but at the beginning of the 20th century China was a fractured mess of warlords, sects, and factions. They had the cultural wherewithal to push through that and build anyway (despite a crippling foreign invasion and a bloody civil war to cap everything off). So I don't think these excuses we make for Africa and other impoverished areas are worth anything.

  25. Re:Why so discriminating? on Google To Add Pay To Cover a Tax For Gays · · Score: 1

    Humans are not hyperadapted to the current biosphere. In case you hadn't noticed, we're not all that different from our ancestors in the late Pleistocene. Many extinctions have happened over the course of human and pre-human existence, and we have survived them all. We used to eat mammoths, but their extinction did not cause ours. Humans are more adaptable than any animal before us ever has been because we solve problems critically. Humans are dependent not a resource, or a handful of resources, like a specialized animal, but instead we can use damn near any resource in (relative to other animals) virtually unlimited ways. The only way to kill humans would be to attack the biological complexity of the organism itself, because shifting the resources we consume would just inconvenience us and make us use our secondary or tertiary choices for things we would normally do.

    Ease of extraction my ass. Ask a metallugist if it's easier to get aluminum from ore or from a discarded soda can. In the latter case all of the heavy lifting has been done, it costs far less to reprocess than to extract. Of course not all materials are so easy, but you see that's how thresholds work, as soon as it becomes more difficult to extract from the ground than from discarded materials, instantly you will see an industry form around recovering the discarded materials. 'Uselessness' is entirely relative to demand, and as reprocessing of each material is developed, the technologies required are refined and cheapened, ultimately driving the efficiency up and the cost down for recovered materials. The problem solves itself.

    I expected the usual Malthusian morality of 'population causes poverty'. What unmitigated shit. Try to wrap your head around this: the population of the world had more impoverished people per capita at 1 billion than it does now at over 6 billion. This is a pure and simple fact. In absolute terms there may be more poverty, but the ratio of the impoverished to those above poverty is incontrovertibly better today than at levels of lower population. So, you would have people sacrifice their freedom and their happiness to retrogress the whole humanity to a state where a greater portion is impoverished, just so long as the absolute number is lower? Pathetic.