The OldDoughouse

(Doug) #1

How alone we all are, thinking our thoughts, wearing them as our daily skin.

(Doug) #2

No argument there. :smile: As I’ve said before, the wickedest fight I ever saw as a kid was between two girls, 13 or 14 years old. Scratching, eye-gouging, etc… This was live or die . And I hear you on Margaret Thatcher - yes, once in a while there will be an aggressive woman, even in politics.

Yet we are talking about people in general, and not in anecdotal or just the “right circumstances.” Men have an evolutionary history and genetics that make us different from women, and we have testosterone, and very often social training that amplifies all the above.

Look at violent crime statistics - men are the ones, women are hardly there.

(Running from stupidity) #3

This better be an accountability-type thread or I’m gonna get all mad :slight_smile:

(Doug) #4

I can’t really face that, Mic. I’m primarily answerable to being excessive and nutty as far as diet, even when I should be strict keto. Not one to make “Oh god I did this today…” posts, but rest assured that I truly suck at some things. Meanwhile, I’m always coming up with rationalizations like the one about not being able to teach an old dog new tricks; some half-assed excuse for me not sticking with the program where I know I should.

I think a good definition of maturity is being able to sacrifice current desires for long-term well-being and established goals.

(Running from stupidity) #5

:frowning:

I was hoping for regular Doug postings :frowning:

#6

Men are conditioned towards violence, they’re not naturally inclined towards it. They’re taught as boys to suppress their “feminine” emotions in order to be “real men,” they’re taught that they are owed the world, they’re forced to be competitive against each other, they’re taught to devalue women and “beta” men. Of course they’re going to turn into he-man, woman-hating, no-homo dudebros.

Raise a boy in a gender-neutral environment? Might get a different story. Alternatively girls are raised to never fight with their fists, they are taught not to raise their voices, they’re taught that they are not entitled to their anger, that they should put men’s feelings first, to be the “peacemakers” for the sake of the family. Raise a girl to be a warrior tho, and she’ll be as bloodthirsty as a man.

It’s nurture, not nature. It belittles men and women alike to be like “men can’t help it because testosterone.”

(Tammy) #7

On the whole nature versus nurture debate I came down heavy on the side of nurture, until I had a son.

Now my son is not aggressive and is the sweetest most caring person I know. But he gravitated towards boy stuff from the very beginning. I know he was affected by “our” culture. But, he was raised without tv, secular homeschooled, as gender neutral as I could. I would say crunchy granola, but I don’t believe in granola any more :wink: . All I can say, take any little boy to a park and the first they will do is find a stick and pretend that it is a weapon, whether it be a sword or gun.

Not that I don’t think nurture isn’t extremely important, but I have a bit more respect for nature now.

Just because it is in your nature doesn’t mean you don’t have control over it. It is in my nature to eat every carb in sight, but I don’t (at least not any more).

(Doug) #8

Oh yes - for sure - the ones who’ve stayed are comfortable, both in their own opinion and in relation to the rest of the world, very much so. The aspect of a ‘safety net’ is much smaller in the Nordic countries - much more homogenous populace and workforce, and a significantly higher work ethic - most people really ‘with the program,’ so to speak, and this helps with the sustainability of the system, and lower amounts of suffering (and would regardless of the economic system at hand).

The U.S. has quite a safety-network, if you will. Social Security for retirement, Medicare and Medicaid for health care, Social Security Disability Insurance program and Supplemental Security Income for disability, Unemployment insurance, Earned Income Tax Credit (pay no tax but still get money from the gov’t), Child Tax Credit, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Housing Assistance, Home Energy Assistance Plan, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, WIC - food for Women, Infants and Children, Lifeline - support for phones for low-income people, Child Care for low-income families, Job Training, Head Start (for pre-school kids), Child Nutrition - food for kids from low-income households…

We also have progressive taxation where below a point, one pays no income tax, and above that point the taxation rates are the lowest for an interval of income, then rising, and the process repeats.

I agree here. I think that system works better, from the countries I’ve visited where that’s the way it is.

Well, it’s ~26% more, but the effective gain is less, since at the higher figure one/one’s family won’t qualify for as much free stuff or assistance with other things, and will be paying more of one’s income in taxes and also a higher percentage of one’s income in taxes. Maybe $5000 or $6000 net real difference? Hey - no question that it can be important, on an individual level.

(“Living wage” - it’s not always so simple that just raising wages makes things better. Minimum wages for large employers went to either $16 or $15 per hour this year in Seattle, Washington, USA, and for 50 forty-hour weeks, that means $32,000 or $30,000 per year. This puts the earner above the Poverty standard and makes them ineligible for a good bit of stuff from the gov’t. Many are opting for less hours in order to make less money and try and stay eligible.)

And we are talking about a scale that goes from essentially zero to billionaires (one of these years the world will have it’s first trillionaire). In the grand scheme of things that $6650 per year ain’t much.

They’re not irrelevant - my point is that being “poor” in the U.S. frequently means having a standard of living far above most people in the world. Yeah - that being in the top 1% does not directly mean one has it better than 99% of people in the world, because of that cost structure you mention. The fact remains that it’s still better than a vast majority of people on earth.

#9

I’m just reminded of this:

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(John) #10

I listened to an interesting segment on the radio a number of years ago, where the interviewee was a transgender man (born female, transitioned to male) and who was taking exogenous testosterone went into some great depth about the change to his behavior and thoughts under the influence of this very powerful hormone, and how he now understood the turmoil that birth males had to go through during puberty learning to deal with and control it.

I don’t remember the full context but he said that he started doing things like giving women the “rape stare” and thinking constantly about sex, which he found very difficult to deal with at first having formerly been female and not having to deal with those thoughts and behaviors at that level.

Makes you wonder just how much it is the hormones.

(Doug) #11

:smile: I wondered if you would find a couple Bastilles to storm, KC. :slightly_smiling_face:

Point taken, but it illustrates the relative wealth among the U.S. poor, compared to the world as a whole.

Anecdotal story - in the local area of my employer, a woman’s interview gained some at least transient fame as she complained about only having one TV, while being on welfare. This naturally made many an eye roll. There is a component of truth to the notion that being poor is supposed to suck, and to suck pretty badly - what else will motivate people to try and better themselves?

#12

Alternative question: why do rich people deserve to have a repulsive amount of wealth when they steal wages from their workers and don’t provide them a living wage?

(John) #13

Apparently it is a standard clause in the contract they sign with Satan in exchange for their souls.

#14

T does many things to a trans man’s body and will affect his libido as well as other physiological components, especially since their bodies aren’t used to it. What it will NOT do, however, is turn him into a rapist. If he made rape-stares at women, then he had those issues before he transitioned.

(Doug) #15

I don’t say they do. I don’t think they do. There are definitely some inequalities at work that I think are bad. The rapidly increasing multiple of what CEOs get paid, versus their workers, over the past few decades is part of that, for me.

Yet as always - nobody says that capitalism is perfect or that it will displease nobody. The point remains that while income distribution will in no way necessarily be equal, and in practice that it will always be unequal, the total wealth pool will be much larger under capitalism versus socialism, and that this gives us the “poor” in the U.S., for example, who live better than most people on earth.

Meanwhile, the question remains about incentivization for people to get off welfare - how bad does it have to be, how much pain is necessary? For huge numbers of people in the U.S., it’s not to that point yet - they are content to ride the system and to work it as best they can. Yes, that is taking a fairly hard line, there. This is all occurring while the U.S. economic system is on a clearly unsustainable course.

The U.S. is the “richest” country in the world? For sure, it’s the largest debtor nation, owing more than anybody else, owing about as much as #2, #3, and #4 put together. Whatever else we talk about, and whatever exact economic system and policies are in effect at the time, this does not end well. Relying on the gov’t will have exceedingly hard consequences for people, in the end.

(John) #16

I may have used the term incorrectly. It has been 7 or so years since I heard the interview. He was describing the urge to turn around and stare openly at pretty women when they walked by him. Perhaps “openly ogling” is a better term?

The type of behavior that adult men usually have in check (unless they are the stereotypical macho assholes).

(Doug) #17

I think this goes too far, KC. Yes, there is conditioning, but that does not mean that there isn’t also natural inclination. Tostesterone really does make a difference. There really is “little boy” behavior, as some have witnessed. My brother, observing his young son taking a piece of metal and hacking at tree branches, weeds, etc., thought that was an inborn thing, and I think he’s right. 21 nieces and nephews here.

I’d say you often would. But not so different so as to completely negate the inborn differences we’re talking about. Moreover, when we come to male aggression and propensity to engage in violence, war, etc. - all the “Ifs” don’t matter - once again, we have people as they are, not as they might be under some of our theories. It’s not belittling or “sexist,” etc., to observe behavior and correctly note it, regardless of all the exact causes and possible “what ifs” to the contrary, were it a different world.

(Doug) #18

Surely, our influences come from both, no? Beyond sexual differences, an individual’s genetic makeup can have a huge impact as well.

There is usually some degree of conscious control, yeah. Are men controlling their aggression very well? :wink: Maybe they are - then if they weren’t the violent crime statistics would be even more lopsided.

#19

I’m gonna be real, I couldn’t care less about alleged widespread welfare fraud or whatever keeps Fox News awake at night. Poor people being driven into the ground in soul-crushing, poor paying jobs and being told they should be grateful that at least they’re not a Poor in India. Fox News might like me to turn the blame on alleged “welfare queens” or whatever, but I know who the real enemies are.

#20

Except things you’re describing as “little boy” behaviors have been seen in girls as well. You guys attribute “aggression” to “boy,” and treat that as norm while ignoring evidence when girls exhibit the same behavior or when other little boys don’t. Ergo it cannot be said to be an innate behavior of boys.