Re: Prisoners of Gender

Another really thought-provoking post. I feel that the two sides here are somewhat arguing past each other and that perhaps this is because they start from fundamentally different premises. I feel that there are some very fundamental philosophical differences about the nature of humanity, and that until these are brought to light and properly aired each side will just state its position with neither side being able to persuade the other. I can't state precisely what these differing philosophical premises are at this moment, but I intend to think about the issues and post something here when (or if) I achieve some sort of clarity on the issue in my own mind ! What I feel is that economics certainly does change male and female roles, but the changes are not necessarily those that are functional to human happiness or human excellence. (This is just an observation of my own prejudices, not something I yet have a proper argument for.) I'm really quite a reactionary! Just for the moment, I shall make two observations – one siding with Zembla and one siding with your good self. The first point, where I side with Zembla, is that you seem to keep judging propositions by how they might impact the “movement”. I think personally I'm not as concerned with whether a given proposition is politically expedient. Really, all I want is to know the truth. And even if the truth is unpalatable, it doesn't make it valueless. Firstly, because knowledge is itself valuable, and secondly because even the most “dispiriting” truth is bound to be useful in causing us to focus our energies where they can most productively be deployed, even if this is just in our personal lives. The second point – and here I agree with you and must record my very fundamental disagreement with Zembla – concerns Zembla's hopes for the rejuvenating effects of war: “As the world inches toward global conflict masculine ideals become necessary again. Should the world survive what is coming, I predict a sea change generated by war-radicalized men who are sick of 40 years of tyrannical feminism.” On the contrary, I believe that unless mankind finds a way of completely abolishing war within the next 100 years, the human race is doomed. And then there won't be any pederasty, because there won't be any people. Zembla refers to the Ukraine conflict in a subsequent post - a conflict which still has the potential to plunge the human race into the nightmare of a global nuclear holocaust. But more generally, we cannot keep up this game of brinkmanship forever. If we do, then nuclear war becomes inevitable. And let us not forget that AI is a game-changer here as well. Soon the human race will have AI developed weapons of incredible power. Either we shall find some way to overcome warfare and the Hobbesian division of the world into territorial states, or we will all die. So I just don't believe that there is any route to tolerance of pederasty through large bodies of men becoming “war-radicalised”. It may, of course, be that nuclear war will not be as destructive as some scientists have feared. I've recently discovered that there are scientists who believe that the science behind nuclear winter is actually not as empirically grounded as was hitherto thought. But even if we survive a nuclear war, do we really want to live in a post-nuclear hell ? And what Zembla refers to as men being “war-radicalised” has another name – being war “brutalised”. Yes, societies will have other things on their mind in a post-nuclear war world than punishing sexual heretics, but that is no automatic protection. In such a world there will be little interest in behaving decently. It is, I think, quite probable that anyone even suspected of “paedophilia” will be shot.