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I don't think people's private lives are the business of anyone else. It's not the government, or academia's job to force or convince men to do more housework

I don't think people's private lives are the business of anyone else. It's not the government, or academia's job to force or convince men to do more housework (or women do less). The argument that they would give is that actions of individual in their private lives have effects on others, in particular contributing to a common culture, and so as a society we should try to shape this culture in positive ways. My argument against this is that our culture should reflect the beliefs and values of the people as a whole, and not the elites. The only legitimate role of the government in shaping culture is to remove the excesses that prevent people from exercising their legal rights. E.g. cultural views that certain kinds of violence are acceptable, need to be curbed because they make punishing the perpetrators of these acts extremely difficult.

rquantz 13y ago
What planet are you on? No one is suggesting the government force anyone to do anything with regard to housework. The antigovernment herds come out whenever anyone suggests that our government should do something. That's par for the course on HN. But I have to say, seeing someone just start ranting against government intrusion in a topic that has nothing to do with it is... unusual.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  >What planet are you on? >The antigovernment herds... Your tone is quite disrespectful. Is this really necessary? To answer your question, the article makes constant reference to academic work, and while this work is nominally descriptive, it is clear from the nature of the studies that they are part of a program to influence people's actions. I mention government as well because there is no sharp distinction between government policy and academic research, and I wanted to address a broader point in my comment. Both academia and government policy serve a similar high level purpose of furthering certain social goals. If I claim that certain goals are outside of what the government should be interested in, then this applies equally to academic research and government policy.
  - rquantz 13y ago
    Your tone is quite disrespectful. Is this really necessary? Maybe not, but what you're saying still doesn't make sense. There are lots of things trying to influence our actions, and the academe is one of the least of them. What's more, it is necessary to have robust inquiry into anything and everything. It can be argued what should and should not be the purview of government, but you're trying to say that anything government shouldn't be involved with, also should be left alone by academia? That's ridiculous. Oops, sorry to be disrespectful there. But what you're saying is some kind of weird paranoid lunacy.

rquantz 13y ago

What planet are you on? No one is suggesting the government force anyone to do anything with regard to housework. The antigovernment herds come out whenever anyone suggests that our government should do something. That's par for the course on HN. But I have to say, seeing someone just start ranting against government intrusion in a topic that has nothing to do with it is... unusual.

yetanotherphd 13y ago
>What planet are you on? >The antigovernment herds... Your tone is quite disrespectful. Is this really necessary? To answer your question, the article makes constant reference to academic work, and while this work is nominally descriptive, it is clear from the nature of the studies that they are part of a program to influence people's actions. I mention government as well because there is no sharp distinction between government policy and academic research, and I wanted to address a broader point in my comment. Both academia and government policy serve a similar high level purpose of furthering certain social goals. If I claim that certain goals are outside of what the government should be interested in, then this applies equally to academic research and government policy.
- rquantz 13y ago
  Your tone is quite disrespectful. Is this really necessary? Maybe not, but what you're saying still doesn't make sense. There are lots of things trying to influence our actions, and the academe is one of the least of them. What's more, it is necessary to have robust inquiry into anything and everything. It can be argued what should and should not be the purview of government, but you're trying to say that anything government shouldn't be involved with, also should be left alone by academia? That's ridiculous. Oops, sorry to be disrespectful there. But what you're saying is some kind of weird paranoid lunacy.