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Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

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Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#161

Post by bitL »

ar-jan wrote: post #103
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No-one's suggesting forcing women to marry someone. The "incel" community frequently calls for the state to provide partners to incels. They point to how in the Netherlands, the disabled have access to sex worker services, subsidized by the state. They claim that their inability to find sexual partners is comparable to a disability, and therefore the state should help. Then, some portion of those incels believe tha…

But this is an extreme and absurd postition from a small group. It's not reasonable that people attribute this to Peterson. I would agree that he could've seen this coming, and could have clarified what he means from the start, rather than after the controversy.

> small group

Dunno, seems like what we can label as "incels" (outside tiny violent group that pushed this term to mainstream) could now easily represent 50% of single male population. That's pretty bad for society. Look at Japan what is happening there. Or into China where planned male overpopulation is causing massive problems in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (stealing women) and they don't do the usual way of curbing excess males by the means of war, like practiced in the Middle East.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#162

Post by called_it »

lists wrote: post #83
jrs95 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of focus on how this relates to the happiness of men, but generally speaking hookups and pets aren’t an emotionally fulfilling alternative to a family for women, either. This is a worrying trend for everyone. Maybe a minority will be happier, but most are going to be lonelier and most likely more mentally ill. I suppose with legalization of marijuana we might not see a steady increase in alcoholism, but…

>Let’s just give them a UBI check and pretend everything is fine. That has nothing to do with anything being discussed here.

Not if you leave out the preceding sentences, or don't understand them.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#163

Post by irrational »

damagednoob wrote: post #11

> Did you know that teens are having substantially less sex than the previous few generations? It’s true! And generally interpreted as a good thing. But Ronson suggests that this is in large part because porn is replacing sex, and, in fact, making real sex with real woman seem alienating and difficult. Further down the author specifically mentions the correlation/causality fallacy but there are surely other explanati…

It seems like they could all be interrelated.

Let's say I love to play video games and watch Netflix. Now, I could take time away from these things to workout, bathe, dress nicely, travel to some location, spend money, hopefully hook up with someone, etc. Or... just bring up some porn and masturbate (perhaps using a sex toy like a vibrator or fleshlight) and then get back to playing games and watching Netflix.

Real life sex with another person might potentially be better, but it's takes so much effort and money and there might not be a payoff in the end (no one has to have sex with you) that it seems like porn is a good enough substitute.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#164

Post by donutte »

ovao wrote: post #74
Sharlin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything in moderation is fine basically by definition, including injecting sulfuric acid. Botulinum toxin, the most potent poison known to mankind and lethal at concentrations of a few ng/kg, is used by celebrities to smooth wrinkles. It's all about dosage.

Perhaps it’s not the best example. Replace it with something more specific if you wish, like “placing live fragmentation grenades in one’s mouth in moderation”.

I’m not sure that’s a counterexample either? The claim is “if X is in moderation, then X is fine”. If we let X be necessarily not in moderation, the claim holds of X by impossibility of the antecedent.

IOW “if X is in moderation, X is fine” is logically consistent with “some things cannot be in moderation”.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#165

Post by ar-jan »

sanderjd wrote: post #151
ar-jan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems plausible to me that the new problem (men without partners) is in part due to weakened social as well as legal norms around marriage, but via divorce rather than polygamy. In my opinion that doesn't mean we should go back to the old ways, but it's worth being aware of the connection.

> it's worth being aware of the connection Reading charitably, I think you mean "being aware of the possible connection". The connection with marriage still seems speculative.

Sure. That's why I said plausible.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#166

Post by smhost »

Reedx wrote: post #92
jrs95 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile 4chan & company has taken to calling him “Juden Peterstein”...so it seems his appeal is primarily limited to the kinda-sorta-far-right. Personally, seeing the guy talk makes me feel sleepy.

> so it seems his appeal is primarily limited to the kinda-sorta-far-right. That's actually not the case (just see what kind of questions he gets from his actual audiences to see for yourself). Though on a surface level some of the alt-right likes him because he pisses off SJWs. But they're mistaken to think he's any kind of ally. He's spent much of his career opposing their views and sees both the alt-right and extr…

It's only recently that Peterson has formally denounced the alt-right. Before, he was on JRE saying things like "as far as I can tell, Kekistan is a defense of comedy," when it was obvious to everyone else that it was blatant nazi propaganda. Only when the alt-right became emboldened enough to attend his lectures and start asking pretty direct questions about the Jewish question, globalist conspiracy, etc. that he finally saw what his audience was becoming and sorted himself out.

Most people on the left don't think that JBP is a nazi, or alt-right, or whatever is the inverse of the "postmodern neomarxist" boogeyman. People on the left are critical of JBP because of his blatant misreadings of Marx, Deleuze, Foucault, his confusion about Bill C-16, etc. His overly broad equivocation of postmodern critiques of power and Marxian class theory is the basis of his incredibly nasty attacks on these so-called "postmodern neomarxist feminists" yet he has published no real thesis.

He can't even be said to be critical of leftist ideologies because he never puts forward any real arguments, and all he does is signal that the left are evil.

And I'm saying all of this as a leftist who has supported Bret Weinstein from the beginning. I accept the postmodern feminist criticism of identity politics and agree that SJWs and their constant search for categories is harmful to the left. I would love for Peterson to put forward an actual, rigorous criticism of leftist ideology, but frankly he doesn't seem to have one.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#167

Post by dahdum »

jrs95 wrote: post #118
dahdum wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peterson is fervently pro free speech and against politically correct culture, so unsurprising 4chan is smitten. He’s not right wing himself though, he’s a classical liberal with libertarian leanings. I think of him more like Bill Maher without the comedy.

Interesting. I fit more the mold you’re describing myself, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss him.

You’ll disagree with him, I certainly do, but I wouldn’t dismiss him.

I think he’s too utilitarian on family and marriage, but his position is intellectually defensible. For example, he’s pro gay marriage but believes research saying children have better outcomes with exposure to both sides of the (traditionally gender-based) parental roles. He doesn’t claim to know a solution to the latter, or even that one needs to be be found. Only that it should be researched and discussed.

It’s not hard to take that kind of view and spin it to something abhorrent if you take away the nuance and context.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#168

Post by bitL »

mjfl wrote: post #88

I think pornography is going to be a significant selection pressure on the human race, much more than we realize. We're basically running a global-scale experiment right now. Who knows what's going to happen in 10-15 years, when the first generation with firehoses of firehoses of HD porn just a click away their entire lives, comes of age to marry and have children. I think it's going to effect both men and women pret…

Video games are now more interesting than Hollywood productions; most TV shows/movies are borefests comparing to what you can experience in some advanced videogame with almost photorealistic graphics. Soon we will be able to deploy more AI-based goodies like completely replacing NPCs with people we know by providing single photos, realistically synthesizing their voices etc. At some point we will be able to directly stimulate brain's pleasure centers which might kill off drugs, porn, art and as a side effect, civilization. Our present time is already looking like a badly directed reality show; I believe it is going to be a lot worse, Kafkaesque and artificial.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#169

Post by ar-jan »

bitL wrote: post #161
ar-jan wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is an extreme and absurd postition from a small group. It's not reasonable that people attribute this to Peterson. I would agree that he could've seen this coming, and could have clarified what he means from the start, rather than after the controversy.

> small group Dunno, seems like what we can label as "incels" (outside tiny violent group that pushed this term to mainstream) could now easily represent 50% of single male population. That's pretty bad for society. Look at Japan what is happening there. Or into China where planned male overpopulation is causing massive problems in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (stealing women) and they don't do the usual way of curbing…

I meant the group of those who claim some kind of right to a partner, that seems very rare to me.

Re: Pornography and the Butterfly Effect

#170

Post by da_chicken »

phaus wrote: post #100
da_chicken wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peterson seems to have a knack for not explaining himself well and expecting people to just understand where he's coming from. He's also really bad at phrasing. He constantly seems to get into hot water for what he says, and then if you try to figure out what he says he actually said it's never for what we're told he says. I think he'd do much better if he wrote more books and had a really good editor .

Peterson doesn't want a really good editor. His books are known for being intentionally vague and incomprehensible while sounding clever and insightful, but in a way where most people can never really prove that he intended to make a statement about anything.

"You're ambiguous therefore you're malicious"? Yeah, I don't buy that he's being intentionally vague primarily because he will explain what he means when people ask him to explain himself in more detail. It's just that everybody knee-jerks today.

Every time I've seen an article about Peterson -- which, to be fair, has been all of three times so I'm not particularly well read -- it's saying he's done something or said something horrible. When I dig up what he actually said to get the context -- something that no article has ever done -- I'm usually left with a different interpretation or still being unsure what he was trying to say. When I look for Peterson's own explanations, they make sense to me and they're still consistent with what he originally said. Now, I don't agree with, well, hardly any of his points, but they're typically consistent even though the media consistently says they're not.

It strikes me more along the lines of how once James Damore, the guy who wrote the Google memo, was labelled anti-left and anti-feminist, it was just accepted that everything he said was immediately wrong and his entire argument was assumed to be the least favorable position. Nobody tried to actually read his memo and address those arguments. It could be interpreted as anti-left and anti-feminist there for it must be anti-left and anti-feminist and that engineer must be ceaselessly attacked for not toeing the cultural line even if he had good points.

It's like someone just gets labelled as an enemy and then it's red vs blue, left vs right, up vs down, and everybody has to be hardline anti-center lest you be labelled with that scarlet letter R or D. It's so intellectually dishonest. It's exactly what we used to blame Fox News and the religious right for doing! As someone who has been liberal and left their whole life, this recent behavior of mistaking character assassination and vitriolic reprisal for criticism has been one of the most disappointing and frustrating changes I've seen.

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