4 ms·

> People make decisions based on social, cultural, and physical expectations of them, and there's not anything wrong with that. I couldn't disagree more. If th

by gizmo 11y ago

> People make decisions based on social, cultural, and physical expectations of them, and there's not anything wrong with that. I couldn't disagree more. If the culture is plain chauvinism ("women belong in the kitchen not the boardroom") then there's everything wrong with that. All oppression throughout history is essentially "just culture", but that justifies nothing. Your biological reductionism is completely at odds with our best scientific understanding of contemporary gender roles, as a few minutes on wikipedia will tell you.

cookiecaper 11y ago
I didn't say "just culture"; I said the confluence of social, cultural, and physical factors. Why does "culture" develop? Because people are naturally evil and black-hearted? These things don't happen in a vacuum, they develop organically because they are the best way to support human and tribal propagation and prosperity. Perhaps some things can and should change, but things that are constant across nearly all successful human societies should be considered fairly well tested. We should note that it takes a long time to see the full effects of changes to social structures and institutions, generally at least 3-4 generations. If a society is "testing" something and the society itself expires or its success is greatly diminished within 6-8 generations of implementation, the test should probably not be seen as successful. The West will find that traditional principles that assign gender roles based on that gender's inherent advantages and disadvantages are much more useful than currently acknowledged. Forcing people to do things that they a) don't even want to do and b) aren't well-suited for is a losing proposition, no matter how much outrage you try to manufacture to justify it.
- srtjstjsj 11y ago
  Before you take your theory too far, you need to explain why it's OK that your theory implies that black people in America were best suited to be slaves, up until the day they weren't.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    Black slavery proves my point. Seen in the context of an experimental social institution, it was a massive failure that barely made it 8 generations before it completely imploded on itself (and took the lives of 650k Americans with it). There's no doubt that it seriously harmed everyone associated with its practice (including in ways you don't usually hear people mention, like decreased ambition and work ethic for everyone, slaves and masters, in slave economies), even mostly-innocent parties who were "guilty by association" like the free states. We're lucky that the US survived black slavery. Slavery has been tried many times but the gross inequity it inflicts means that no one can operate a stable economy or social system that depends on it.

by gizmo 11y ago

cookiecaper 11y ago

I didn't say "just culture"; I said the confluence of social, cultural, and physical factors. Why does "culture" develop? Because people are naturally evil and black-hearted? These things don't happen in a vacuum, they develop organically because they are the best way to support human and tribal propagation and prosperity. Perhaps some things can and should change, but things that are constant across nearly all successful human societies should be considered fairly well tested. We should note that it takes a long time to see the full effects of changes to social structures and institutions, generally at least 3-4 generations. If a society is "testing" something and the society itself expires or its success is greatly diminished within 6-8 generations of implementation, the test should probably not be seen as successful. The West will find that traditional principles that assign gender roles based on that gender's inherent advantages and disadvantages are much more useful than currently acknowledged. Forcing people to do things that they a) don't even want to do and b) aren't well-suited for is a losing proposition, no matter how much outrage you try to manufacture to justify it.

srtjstjsj 11y ago
Before you take your theory too far, you need to explain why it's OK that your theory implies that black people in America were best suited to be slaves, up until the day they weren't.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  Black slavery proves my point. Seen in the context of an experimental social institution, it was a massive failure that barely made it 8 generations before it completely imploded on itself (and took the lives of 650k Americans with it). There's no doubt that it seriously harmed everyone associated with its practice (including in ways you don't usually hear people mention, like decreased ambition and work ethic for everyone, slaves and masters, in slave economies), even mostly-innocent parties who were "guilty by association" like the free states. We're lucky that the US survived black slavery. Slavery has been tried many times but the gross inequity it inflicts means that no one can operate a stable economy or social system that depends on it.