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Tech, including porn, social media, gaming, deluge of escapism video on demand, is just another kind of drug, conditioning everyone to get dopamine hits by pres

Tech, including porn, social media, gaming, deluge of escapism video on demand, is just another kind of drug, conditioning everyone to get dopamine hits by pressing buttons rather than bonding with other human beings. I am not saying quit cold turkey, just know that there is a difference between junk food and a meal that is good for you long term. One contributing problem is stigmatizing normal male sexuality to the point men have to completely repress themselves to fit in. One can be a gentleman and still want and pursue physical relationships.

vkou 4y ago
Normal, healthy views on it aren't what's stigmatized. Creepy, unrequited, harassing behaviour sometimes is, in some contexts, and its practitioners love to fall back to the 'Just being nice/don't you like the attention/just boys being boys' defenses when called out on it. The people responsible for it, of course, see themselves as victims, and cry to anyone who will listen about how unfair the world is to them.
- cat_plus_plus 4y ago
  Nature inclines women to require quite a bit of effort and persistence to be won over, since they make so much investment and require so much help to birth and raise children. There is an intricate set of social norms, developed over centuries, that protects women from over-aggressive suitors while still allowing appropriate courtship to happen. Such courtship necessarily takes place where men and women naturally congregate together, including school and work and includes playful compliments and asking someone out a few times. Young women are naturally attracted to older successful men as good providers, just like as young men often initially go out with older women who are either past childbearing years or have their own practical and emotional resources rather than placing a big burden on their partners. There are reasons to prefer equal/same age relationships, but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary. You can't just throw away hundreds of years of tradition and expect good results from counterfactual expectations on gender that you dreamed up from thin air. Just look at what happened with 20th century efforts to rewrite human nature by decree. Personally I am not in the market and not talking for myself, just feel sorry for the future of humanity. Especially progressive environmentalists got to realize that childless old people grow conservative and don't give a hoot about climate change after they are gone.
  - vkou 4y ago
    And my nature as a man inclines me to burn pop-evolutionary-psychology takes, because it is natural for me to like fire, because fire was integral to my evolutionary survival, and burning garbage feeds the fire, and is therefore perfectly natural. You're parading a collection of nonsense just-so-stories dressed up in a lab coat, and the beauty of them is that you can cherry-pick whatever narrative fits your pre-conceptions. That is, of course, also why they are utter rubbish, and not worth the paper they are printed on. Are you saying something that isn't built on a quicksand of naturalistic fallacies? What exactly is it? > but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary Right, because quid-pro-quo relationships, or even the appearance of quid-pro-quo relationships are fantastic for the workplace! Isn't it great for everyone else to see Sally get a raise after she starts fucking the boss? There's no conflict of interest, potential for abuse of power, or problem for anyone else involved! Are there any other naturalistic practices we should normalize again in the workplace? Maybe kickbacks and bribes? Do we need a few just-so-stories to justify these practices, or can we forego that exercise in creative writing, and skip straight to the conclusions I want?
    - cat_plus_plus 4y ago
      That's another weird thing about today's progressives, literally putting workplace before family - aren't you guys supposed to be socialists? The alternative is for Sally, her boss and their coworkers to accept that romance can be impractical, inconvenient and embarrassing. But, if there is any chance at all that two people can find lasting happiness, a slim chance that I would have gotten that raise instead is a distant secondary priority. I will just insist on what I think I deserve and not obsess about others. Or if someone grants sexual favors for actual or perceived career benefit, it's on them to measure their self worth in this way. Or if the boss is willing to forego a sweetheart to avoid some office gossip and jealousy...
      - vkou 4y ago
        Unless we're living in a Star Trek post-scarcity utopia, everyone needs to work for a living. Including all the people affected by this. You want to have a sexual relationship with your report? There's a very simple, professional, solution for you, which is to do as you advise - 'prioritize family over work', and have one of you move jobs so that you aren't ruining it for everyone else. There are more people in society than the two of you, and they are negatively affected by quid-pro-quo behaviour, or the appearance of quid-pro-quo behaviour.
staticman2 4y ago
"One contributing problem is stigmatizing normal male sexuality to the point men have to completely repress themselves to fit in." I bet you didn't know 70% of marriages in japan used to be arranged marriages. Now much less than 10% are. Really demonstrates how "normal male sexuality" is culturally bound, not whatever you are picturing.
- cat_plus_plus 4y ago
  Yes, in societies invested in arranged marriage disrupting that system rapidly is going to have a huge detrimental effect. Just like dismantling long standing etiquette of courting and flirting in Western society has a huge detrimental effect. None of this implies that anyone should be forced into anything by suitors or parents or that Westerners can't have arranged marriages / Japanese can't flirt. But cultures and institutions don't just spring up overnight so we have to protect ones that have been working.

vkou 4y ago

Normal, healthy views on it aren't what's stigmatized. Creepy, unrequited, harassing behaviour sometimes is, in some contexts, and its practitioners love to fall back to the 'Just being nice/don't you like the attention/just boys being boys' defenses when called out on it. The people responsible for it, of course, see themselves as victims, and cry to anyone who will listen about how unfair the world is to them.

cat_plus_plus 4y ago
Nature inclines women to require quite a bit of effort and persistence to be won over, since they make so much investment and require so much help to birth and raise children. There is an intricate set of social norms, developed over centuries, that protects women from over-aggressive suitors while still allowing appropriate courtship to happen. Such courtship necessarily takes place where men and women naturally congregate together, including school and work and includes playful compliments and asking someone out a few times. Young women are naturally attracted to older successful men as good providers, just like as young men often initially go out with older women who are either past childbearing years or have their own practical and emotional resources rather than placing a big burden on their partners. There are reasons to prefer equal/same age relationships, but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary. You can't just throw away hundreds of years of tradition and expect good results from counterfactual expectations on gender that you dreamed up from thin air. Just look at what happened with 20th century efforts to rewrite human nature by decree. Personally I am not in the market and not talking for myself, just feel sorry for the future of humanity. Especially progressive environmentalists got to realize that childless old people grow conservative and don't give a hoot about climate change after they are gone.
- vkou 4y ago
  And my nature as a man inclines me to burn pop-evolutionary-psychology takes, because it is natural for me to like fire, because fire was integral to my evolutionary survival, and burning garbage feeds the fire, and is therefore perfectly natural. You're parading a collection of nonsense just-so-stories dressed up in a lab coat, and the beauty of them is that you can cherry-pick whatever narrative fits your pre-conceptions. That is, of course, also why they are utter rubbish, and not worth the paper they are printed on. Are you saying something that isn't built on a quicksand of naturalistic fallacies? What exactly is it? > but we shouldn't clutch our pearls when a boss dates a secretary Right, because quid-pro-quo relationships, or even the appearance of quid-pro-quo relationships are fantastic for the workplace! Isn't it great for everyone else to see Sally get a raise after she starts fucking the boss? There's no conflict of interest, potential for abuse of power, or problem for anyone else involved! Are there any other naturalistic practices we should normalize again in the workplace? Maybe kickbacks and bribes? Do we need a few just-so-stories to justify these practices, or can we forego that exercise in creative writing, and skip straight to the conclusions I want?
  - cat_plus_plus 4y ago
    That's another weird thing about today's progressives, literally putting workplace before family - aren't you guys supposed to be socialists? The alternative is for Sally, her boss and their coworkers to accept that romance can be impractical, inconvenient and embarrassing. But, if there is any chance at all that two people can find lasting happiness, a slim chance that I would have gotten that raise instead is a distant secondary priority. I will just insist on what I think I deserve and not obsess about others. Or if someone grants sexual favors for actual or perceived career benefit, it's on them to measure their self worth in this way. Or if the boss is willing to forego a sweetheart to avoid some office gossip and jealousy...
    - vkou 4y ago
      Unless we're living in a Star Trek post-scarcity utopia, everyone needs to work for a living. Including all the people affected by this. You want to have a sexual relationship with your report? There's a very simple, professional, solution for you, which is to do as you advise - 'prioritize family over work', and have one of you move jobs so that you aren't ruining it for everyone else. There are more people in society than the two of you, and they are negatively affected by quid-pro-quo behaviour, or the appearance of quid-pro-quo behaviour.

staticman2 4y ago

"One contributing problem is stigmatizing normal male sexuality to the point men have to completely repress themselves to fit in." I bet you didn't know 70% of marriages in japan used to be arranged marriages. Now much less than 10% are. Really demonstrates how "normal male sexuality" is culturally bound, not whatever you are picturing.

cat_plus_plus 4y ago
Yes, in societies invested in arranged marriage disrupting that system rapidly is going to have a huge detrimental effect. Just like dismantling long standing etiquette of courting and flirting in Western society has a huge detrimental effect. None of this implies that anyone should be forced into anything by suitors or parents or that Westerners can't have arranged marriages / Japanese can't flirt. But cultures and institutions don't just spring up overnight so we have to protect ones that have been working.