When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right • Hacker News Board

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#91

Post by repolfx » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:15 AM UTC

phil248 wrote: post #42

Maximus9000 wrote: post #7

> "And if it was just flat-earthers, I’d say fine, it’s harmless. But you’ve got anti-vaxxers and Men’s Rights Advocates and anti-global warming folks and TERFs and incels out there, all fueled by one central pivot point of humanity – namely, that it’s lonely being wrong." It seems quite odd that he lumps "Mens rights advocates" in there. Are they crazy?

Are you familiar with the men's rights movement? The term or concept of "men's rights" could certainly be discussed in a neutral, non-crazy way. But the actual movement as it exists today and the logic that commonly defines it is absolutely as detached from reality as any of those other cult-like ideologies.

No it isn't. Men's Rights Advocates are concerned with several very serious and very real topics:

• Unequal treatment under law, especially in family and divorce law.

• False accusations, especially of rape and the general unwillingness of the state to punish women who make false accusations, or even reveal their names. This is a much larger problem than anti-MRAs (feminists) are willing to admit.

• The excesses of feminism and the general prevalence of man-hating, e.g. the fact that Sarah Jeong got a high placed job at the New York Times despite having tweeted a lot about how much she hates white men, the way men are being excluded from jobs because of their gender.

• "Intactivism", i.e. being against circumcision

And a bunch of other topics.

This author was making some possibly insightful observations about the flat earth movement. But when he claimed people who care about men's rights are the same as people who believe the Earth is flat he lost all credibility immediately. He wouldn't say that about those who care about women's rights, would he now? That's just a totally hate-based and unhinged position.

How can I trust his evaluation of flat-earthers (who I know nothing about) when he appears to genuinely believe that people who want equal treatment under law for men and women are delusional?

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#92

Post by repolfx » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:19 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #64

slowhadoken wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don’t like how the term “men’s rights advocate” is thrown around. Maybe some groups that use that term are crazy or something but men deserve rights and advocates for those rights. Men are often treated as second class citizens. People laughing at that is senseless.

Men are politically, economically, and socially dominant in pretty much every society on Earth, though there are a few where that has been reduced so that women are near parity. Advocating for “Men’s rights” pretty much anywhere on Earth is like advocating for “White rights” or “Christisn rights” in the USA (and, in fact, there's substantial overlap between those groups.)

If that were true, the law would still privilege men. It doesn't - in most western countries it now radically privileges women, on the basis of gender.

Men may be "dominant" numerically but the author of this blog post was a man. Numerical dominance doesn't help if a large subset of men want women to have more rights than men out of some misguided identity politics.

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#93

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #92

dragonwriter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men are politically, economically, and socially dominant in pretty much every society on Earth, though there are a few where that has been reduced so that women are near parity. Advocating for “Men’s rights” pretty much anywhere on Earth is like advocating for “White rights” or “Christisn rights” in the USA (and, in fact, there's substantial overlap between those groups.)

If that were true, the law would still privilege men. It doesn't - in most western countries it now radically privileges women, on the basis of gender. Men may be "dominant" numerically but the author of this blog post was a man. Numerical dominance doesn't help if a large subset of men want women to have more rights than men out of some misguided identity politics.

> Men may be "dominant" numerically

No, they are dominant in power despite not being dominant numerically. (Women outnumber men.)

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#94

Post by epiphanitus » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:40 AM UTC

RickS wrote: post #29

I lost my dad to this. So far, nothing helps. I have no idea what the solution is. It only works when THEY want out. But why would they? We're brutally, brutally mean to people like this. Every time somebody dunks on a flat earther or their ilk, puts somebody down to defend the superiority of their own worldview, they've added a brick to the wall that keeps these people from feeling like they can rejoin society. The…

+1. I would add that most humans are not stupid. They think the way they do for a reason. That reason could be emotional or cultural but really those are just other forms of information that can be truthful or be made to lie, just like misuse of logic or statistics.

There's guarantee that you will sympathize with someone, or that they will sympathize with you for that matter. But how are you going to find out how they think if you never have a conversation?

(I'm not a flat earther, I'm just tired of reading hot takes on the internet)

Edit: clarity

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#95

Post by leereeves » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 11:08 AM UTC

poloniculmov wrote: post #87

leereeves wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any specific examples of what you mean? Because being angry that Cardi B is still welcome among the Hollywood and Washington elite after admitting to drugging and robbing people (men, specifically) doesn't seem crazy at all. Nor does concern for child grooms (boys forced into marriage at 12 years old). Or a divorced father upset that his children are being taken away by the mother in violation of the cust…

You can see that they're always bashing women and feminism as the cause for these problems, instead of actually trying to fix the issues. The main difference between feminists and MRAs, is that feminists actually are trying to solve their issues and MRAs bitch on the internet that women are bad. They're doing absolutely nothing to solve the real issues that men are suffering from.

The second top post on r/feminism right now says:

"I was just going off on my mom about how all men are horrible"

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#96

Post by brighter2morrow » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 12:09 PM UTC

phil248 wrote: post #44

RickS wrote: post #29

I lost my dad to this. So far, nothing helps. I have no idea what the solution is. It only works when THEY want out. But why would they? We're brutally, brutally mean to people like this. Every time somebody dunks on a flat earther or their ilk, puts somebody down to defend the superiority of their own worldview, they've added a brick to the wall that keeps these people from feeling like they can rejoin society. The…

It can't always just be about being nice, unfortunately. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children could get us all killed. It's a serious threat. If being nice turns out to be the best strategy for curbing this movement, then I am all for it. If screaming in their faces about it turns out to be more effective, then we have to do that. I would love for everyone to be able to "rejoin society" but at a certain…

>It can't always just be about being nice, unfortunately. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children could get us all killed. It's a serious threat.

It's not your job to enforce your views on people. Let the government handle it, no one elected you. At least in the US, the government has proven the best institution to protect the public while also giving due consideration to people's rights.

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#97

Post by brighter2morrow » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 12:13 PM UTC

jdoliner wrote: post #31

This article gets close to the heart of flat-earthism, bad sadly doesn't quite take the plunge over the edge. The origin of flat-eartherism is people like this author, and his wife's need to convince others that they are wrong in their beliefs and get them in line with the correct beliefs. It's hard to remember at this point, but think back to about 15 years ago, the idea of a flat-earth was held up as the shining ex…

I wonder if there is a name for this effect.

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#98

Post by brighter2morrow » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 12:20 PM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #86

DoreenMichele wrote: post #62

It's not merely "lonely being wrong." It's lonely and you face a wall of open hatred and abuse for merely disagreeing or even wondering out loud if maybe the dominant view isn't 100% right and might have some holes in it. That's completely unnecessary and also often openly breaks a lot of social rules, but people will justify their terrible behavior, the majority will have their back and tell the target of the abuse…

But anti-belief is scientific if the belief for something requires a complete overturning of scientific principles. It's not just an absence of evidence for something. It isn't "open minded" to say "could be..." to Bigfoot, Nessie, or the like -- it's closed minded because to even consider the idea seriously is to think that ecologists and population geneticists have no idea what the minimum habitat of a large animal…

>But anti-belief is scientific if the belief for something requires a complete overturning of scientific principles. It's not just an absence of evidence for something. It isn't "open minded" to say "could be..." to Bigfoot, Nessie, or the like -- it's closed minded because to even consider the idea seriously is to think that ecologists and population geneticists have no idea what the minimum habitat of a large animal is or of the minimum viable population size is.

That doesn't make sense. What you're saying is that "It's closed minded not to have blind faith in a faceless group of people who get to dictate what you can and cannot say."

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#99

Post by belorn » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

brandonfro wrote: post #51

arkh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> considering men have dominated every aspect of society Some men. And a minority of them.

I’d say quite a lot when you consider local municipalities, churches (at least in the south), and small businesses. Historically, high positions in those places have been held by predominantly men. This isn’t news and it’s irrefutable. Why does it feel like people are combatant to historical facts?

If we go by history then both high positions and low positions are held predominantly by men.

Bottom 1%, majority of those that are homeless, almost all men.

Wast majority of people conscripted to die in war, almost all men.

Prison populations, predominantly men.

If you go by reproductive success or age, again men has it much worse on the average then women. The data is irrefutable that when it comes to the people that has it the worst outcomes, men is the predominant group.

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#100

Post by ken » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

gdhbcc wrote: post #90

phil248 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't always just be about being nice, unfortunately. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children could get us all killed. It's a serious threat. If being nice turns out to be the best strategy for curbing this movement, then I am all for it. If screaming in their faces about it turns out to be more effective, then we have to do that. I would love for everyone to be able to "rejoin society" but at a certain…

Humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years with no vaccines. Let's not be needlessly fearmongering when it comes to their necessity. In this day and age, given the quality of medical treatment available to most of the population, any outbreak of diseases can be handled in a much better way, and with less comparative casualties than ever before, regardless of the use o vaccines. Vaccines are useful, there…

We also have unprecedented population density. 10,000 years ago I wouldn’t have walked within sneezing distance of 1,000 people before lunchtime.

Just because something wasn’t needed before doesn’t mean it isn’t needed now that circumstances have changed. We also existed for hundreds of thousands of years without seatbelts.