I’ve moved almost completely to Fedora — which is not really a Linux geek I would recommend to those who are not used to hacking.. If you are a geek, you need their FAQ. I recommend that those people who are not interested in what’s under the hood. use xubuntu — which makes sorting out things like movies fairly painfree. Given that both KDE and Gnome are changing, and Ubuntu proper is going its own way, I recommend staying with a stable window manager.
I have spend quite a bit of time looking at neuroanatomy, where the Brainbow technique is starting to make great inroads — from a technique first described in 2007 is now being used for microdissection.
There have been a series of useful essays this week. Dalrock comments about women in combat roles and front line emergency roles — where carrying 40 — 60 kilos of gear is part of the job.
The problem feminists have is a powerful case of diminishing marginal returns. The first barriers women broke down had lots of opportunity and were often things women were very well suited for. Over the decades, as they were more and more successful, they have had to shift their efforts to the much smaller opportunities where women are less and less suited for. So they had to fudge a bit, and then a lot, to keep opening doors for women. In a way I kind of feel bad for them. No amount of make believe will open these last doors. They may be able to dictate the change, but they won’t be kidding anyone.
So why do they do it? Why all of the knashing of teeth in an obviously futile effort, for a minuscule opportunity the vast majority of women would pray to never have to do? Feminists can’t help themselves. It comes down to who they are, and what makes them tick.
Feminists lay awake at night consumed with the knowledge that somewhere out there there are men who are proud to be men, and there is no woman there to tell them she is just as good as they are.
One of the sadder posts of the week was from Mormon Man, whose marraige has just failed. He is far more reflective that I ever was at this point… but for many years I felt responsible for my ex wife’s behaviour — even when she was aware that I disagreed with what she was doing. The only person you can change is yourself. The other person then has to choose to change and work with you… or allow the relationship to be destroyed… left.
The other thing about men being natural problem solvers is that we’re also natural owners. This can be both good and bad. I owned every single negative aspect of my marriage. I didn’t excuse my wife’s bad behavior, but I believed that changing mine would inspire her to changer hers. It didn’t. If I could be more masculine and more of a leader, she would love and respect me more. She didn’t. If I could respond better to her fitness tests and flirt with her she’d want me more. She didn’t.
Nothing I did changed my wife. I think that bears repeating – Nothing you do can change another person. My actions could create an environment in which it would be easier for her to love, want and respect me, but they couldn’t make her change.
The comments on that article are well worth reading. Keoni Galt posted on this issue as well.
Are you afraid to come home and deal honestly with your wife? Are you fearful of what you think will be her anger and disapproval if you tell what you’re doing, feeling or thinking? If this is how you feel, you are not living in a real home.
Remember the old saying, “Home is Where the Heart is?” That only applies if you relish being in your home in the first place. And that ‘aint gonna happen if you live every waking moment in your home, fearful of upsetting your wife. Lying to her to try and avoid upsetting her only makes it worse, because even if you don’t consciously realize it, you will hate yourself for living a lie.
Home is supposed to be your sanctuary. Your place to rest, relax, and recharge, so that you can get ready to go out and face the world another day…knowing you can come home and let your guard down and just enjoy the company of your family upon your return.
How can you do that when you’re afraid of doing or saying something, and than having to deal with an upset tyrant of a spouse?
That is because you are not supposed to be under the dominion of her emotional state in the first place.This is precisely why so many men work all that overtime when they really don’t have to. Or why they always go to bars or clubs or buddy’s houses to drink and try and forget the conflict, anger and disapproval they know they are in for when they walk through the door of their home. I know, because I’ve lived it.
Grerp is a woman whose opinions I respect, even when I disagree with her. Unlike her, I have cable. But I find that we are watching less and less television beyond son’s 2 social studies homework of ‘watch the evening news’. She says.
It’s been so long since we’ve had TV that I am frankly astounded by what they allow on TV when I see it at other people’s houses. We are nearly to the gladiatorial games level as a society here, and it’s frightening how easily we’ve embraced this.
It could be that this is another area of diminishing returns. As people turn off mass media, the makers of mass media have to YELL to get attention. The shows coming out of the US are not far below lowest common denominator. There is some good TV — but even then it gets edgy. The stuff I want to watch now I series record. And I have, like Grerp’s husband, stopped watching the political shows, because it encourages my tendency towards wrath.
If you keep on yelling, people push back. The Captain’s text below is nice piece of fisking:
- One, the now never ending common refrain that women now earn the majority of degrees. For the 348th-freaking time it’s because you major in easier/worthless subjects. THat’s why you earn the majority of degrees, but still make only 76% of what men do.
- She highlights women’s advances in education as proof they are “more mature.” Which is the largest erroneous premise of the article. Women are not more mature than men. Just because men play video games and drink and fart and belch, does not mean we are less mature. Maybe by the “female” definition we are, but if we’d follow that we’d all be a bunch of betas no girl would want to date. Being mature is supporting ourselves – not rushing out to propose to a girl and start making babies. Just because we can support ourselves on less money than you can, does not make us more mature. Matter of fact, it makes us MORE mature because we are being fiscally responsible living in dumps we can afford instead of insisting on living in Uptown and buying fancy clothes and cars we can’t afford.
The Huffington Post has had an article that has been cited many times by Tracey McMillan, who is script writer for “Mad Men”. In the comments there is this gem:
How about this theory, instead: I’m unmarried because just as I demand more from myself, I also demand more from whom I date. Being alone at 30 doesn’t scare me because I’m in love with my career, condo and friends. What I only have a minor crush on, is my bank account. Sure, marriage would enable me to have sex with someone on my kitchen table, (minus the guilt,) or help financially support a dual budget. The point is: If I have to act like Kim Kardashian to land me a husband, (of my very own!) then I’m going to purposely do it wrong over and over again.
I may be male. I may be burnt. I may be a failed romantic. But that discourse is completely missing what being wed is about. It is not about me, your you. It is about us. It is daily, constantly considering the feelings and honour of your partner, your children. I know plenty of unmarried couples who do this — they cleave to each other and become one.
For a Christian, being wed is a sacrament, and like all sacraments its aim is to make one more like oneself, more for the good, with less unworthiness — to be closer to the model of Christ. I cannot see anything like that in this comment. If this is the attitude of american women, marriage is doomed.
While I am thinking of diminishing returns, this comment at Ferdinand’s place about the unions protesting cuts seems to be appropriate.
What fascinates me about the situation in Wisconsin is that the unions are marching on the taxpayers. In the old days, the unions rallied against “greedy” capitalist mill or mine owners, but today they are rallying to demand their “right” to the taxpayers’ money. And nobody in the media challenges the basic premise that these union members have a right to taxpayer dollars, or notes that they are thieves stealing from the public, and using coercion and threats of violence to do so.
Matthew Flannagan has added another essay on logical fallacies — this time on Straw Man arguments. His example (from NZ) of both the left and right using such arguments on the issue of banning smacking and how they obscured intelligent debate is sobering.
Now, onto the straw argument of the day.
Of course, it’s not surprising that liberals are so attracted to psychology. It’s a discipline where you can literally make p nonsense and present it as serious research. And as we all know, liberals are incredibly talented at making up serious-sounding nonsense.
All kidding aside, when one looks at the political affiliation of various professions, the more intellectually or physically strenuous the job is (like being a fire fighter or mathematician, for example), the more conservative one likely is. This suggests, then, that liberals are lazier than conservatives. (Given the general ideological differences between the two groups, this conclusion should make sense.) As such, it should be no surprise that liberals dominate the pseudo-science of psychology.
And yes, psychology is a pseudo-science. The closest it ever gets to real science is when it delves into neurology, which is an entirely different discipline altogether. That aside, one can easily tell that psychology isn’t a real science because its analytics are tautological in nature and it is not falsifiable. There is simply no way to prove psychological hypotheses wrong because there is nothing to measure or quantify.
The blog posting begins with a very good analysis of sampling bias and then speculates on why liberal people are attracted to psychology. In this speculation, there is a straw man agurment. Some psychological theories (eg. Psychoanalysis) are a pseudo-sciences because they are not falsifiable: however there are schools of psychology that are based on empiric data. And even within those schools, when you start moving beyond your experimental data, you are speculating. The grey swan is unfortunately, made the same error that occurs in the weaker psychology papers.
