User talk:Landmartian/Archive 1

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Welcome to RationalWiki, Landmartian!

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Pull up a goat! Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 22:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Autopatrolled

You get autopatrolled status. That means that I won't personally watch every single move you make, but Big Brother will do it instead. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 22:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Make a userpage

We don't like reds around these parts. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 17:40, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

~~Don't make a userpage~~

~~Red is colour of glorious proletarian revolution! Sophie^Wilder 17:47, 22 December 2014 (UTC)~~

~~===Do=== Sorry about that, the lieing commie scum propaganda is gone now. Now heel to the capitalist overlords and make a userpage. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 21:19, 22 December 2014 (UTC)~~

Nyet!

The people have risen and overthrown their bourgeois slavemasters. Fly the red userpage proudly, comrade worker! Sophie^Wilder 21:23, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Electrons

Waste those darn so and sos - David Gerard (talk) 20:41, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Explain

just how Verbal/written Bullying isn't bullying. Please. Enlighten as to how just because I'm not being punched in the face but i am called a fag (which has happened), I'm not being bullied. --Miekal 21:33, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you're right; maybe it's bullying. But I think we should distinguish between differing severities of bullying. After all, which would you rather have happen: being punched in the face, or called a fag? Are they the same to you? Landmartian (talk) 21:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Neither? Being punched in the face for liking guys and being called a fag for liking guys both damage me, and both can lead to me committing suicide over it. Why are we trying to distinguish which one is "worse" than the other?--Miekal 21:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Because if you get punched in the face enough, it might ruin your looks to the point that even when you finally are done with school, it still doesn't get better, because now instead of the problem of being called bad names, you have to deal with the problem of guys not being as attracted to you as they would've been if your face had remained intact. Some people can shrug off insults, but it's hard to shrug off a broken nose, black eye, etc. Distinguishing grades of severity helps in prioritizing which offenses to devote the most resources to stopping, figuring out how severely to punish those offenses, etc. Landmartian (talk) 22:38, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Trust me, it's easier to shrug off being punched in the face than the names. Don't give me that "sticks and stones" crap. You can shrug off bruises in a week or so. The names corrode your soul forever. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 23:25, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

It depends on the person. I think the names have the worst effects if you come to believe what they're saying, and you let it discourage you or wreck your self-esteem. One thing the gay community has had going for it for a long time is that they were attacked so much for so long that they developed solidarity and became battle-hardened. Perhaps it also helps to remember that a lot of the most ardent gay-haters are often insecure about their own sexualities. It can be dangerous to suggest that possibility to them, though. Landmartian (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

You strike me as the type who hasn't had to worry About this if v that is your only responce--Miekal 23:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think there's any guy, gay or straight, who emerges from high school without having been called a faggot. Also, a feeling of not fitting in or not being good enough is pretty much universal in those environments. It's a tough pecking order, and even those at the top have a lot of worries. I think everyone in high school ends up feeling constricted from being themselves because someone will laugh at them. You pretty much can't display any unorthodox interests, preferences, or characteristics, or they will mercilessly ridicule. Landmartian (talk) 00:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

No. Again, you obviously don't actually understand what it's like for people being verbally/written form abused for anything if you think it's just shruggable. --Miekal 02:44, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm definitely no virgin to being verbally and physically bullied. But some people are more resilient than others to certain kinds of abuse. Landmartian (talk) 20:38, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

"I'm better at being bullied therefor we shouldn't consider online things bullying" Awesome good For you. thank god you aren't deciding policy. --Miekal 20:41, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

My argument would be this. Everyone who gets punched hard enough in the nose gets a broken nose. It's easy to trace the effect to the cause. But not everyone who gets verbally bullied is affected all that much. If someone commits suicide, how do we know whether it was the bullying from peers that caused it, or academic failure, or abuse from parents, or a genetic predisposition to depression, or some other cause?

Also, verbal bullying is a form of communication of information. As we all know, information wants to be free. When a bully says, "You're a fag" he's communicating the information, "I disapprove of your homosexuality." If he repeats that message the next day, this can be regarded as an update to inform the bullied person, "I still have the same opinions and feelings regarding your homosexuality that I had yesterday." Some bullies provide a continual stream of such updates, thus ensuring the information is always current.

More information is usually better, since it allows people to make better-informed decisions. However, it's understandable that there can after awhile be information overload as we get barraged with so many incoming messages that distract. Hence spam filters. Ideally, there would be technology to allow bullied people to filter out unwanted messages from bullies. Or there could be an option to unsubscribe from further bullying. When bullying occurs online, such options exist, so there's less need for cyberbullying legislation than there is for legislation against offline bullying. Landmartian (talk) 21:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it's wrong to distinguish between bullying that inflicts physical pain/damage and bullying that inflicts mental pain/suffering, though I don't think either one is inherently worse than the other. I also don't think it's wrong to distinguish between different severities, though whether the pain is mentally or physically inflicted is probably not very relevant in regards to the severity. For example; being called a fag once is not as bad as almost being beaten to death for being a fag, also, being punched in the face once for perceived fagginess isn't as bad as enduring years of public humiliation for being a fag. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 00:19, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Both are bullying. Physical bullying is more hurtful to some; verbal bullying to others. To claim that verbal bullying is somehow less bullying-ish ignores the numerous suicides that have resulted from peer attacks, such as Megan Meier or quite a few others. Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 01:52, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

There's also a tension between the freedom to speak freely and the freedom not to be forcibly subjected to offensive speech. That tension doesn't exist with regard to touching, since it's not necessary to touch a person in order to communicate an idea. Consider the example of cops; you can flip them off, talk shit to them, etc. and you haven't committed a crime, but getting physically aggressive with them is an entirely different matter.

In a situation like public school in which there's little freedom of gays and homophobes to dissociate from each other, there's not really any way to resolve that tension to the satisfaction of both. In other situations, they would simply part company; for example, homophobes would refrain from hanging out at gay bars, and gays would refrain from attending Westboro Baptist Church if they didn't want to hear doctrine they find noxious. Then their disagreement wouldn't be an issue.

Currently, gays and homophobes are often forced to hang out together in a school environment. Even if the rules say not to bully, everyone knows it can be pretty hard to enforce those rules. There are usually a lot of bystanders who see bullying happening but don't want to say anything. But suppose public opinion about homosexuality finally gets to the point that observers will intervene rather than tolerating bullying of gays. There will still be other outcasts who are vulnerable to persecution because public opinion hasn't yet embraced the idea of tolerating them. So the struggle continues; it just shifts to other victims.

One ray of hope is schools set up as refuges who misfits. Landmartian (talk) 02:30, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

A bit of Rationalwiki history.

There used to be a user named Tisane. He's not allowed here any more. There are some people who ask questions that other people get super uncomfortable with, and eventually nobody wants to hear them talk anymore. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 04:26, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

What's the alternative to asking those questions? I guess we could ask, "What would the world be like if no one asked questions that other people get super uncomfortable with?" Maybe it would look a lot like the world we live in, because there really aren't a lot of people left asking those kinds of questions.

Or, we could ask, "What would the world be like if a lot more people asked questions that other people get super uncomfortable with?" Maybe there would be a lot more conflict, and it would be a less pleasant place. Would the benefits, of fully exploring issues, be worth it? I saw this video in which it was mentioned that in some cultures, courtesy and so on are maintained through the avoidance of confrontation. People in those countries would usually prefer to migrate to western countries, which have higher per capita GDPs and also happen to have more confrontational cultures. Maybe it's just a coincidence that the two go together. Or is it?

RationalWiki avoids a lot of conflict by shutting debates down; is that optimal? Maybe what it is, is that when an organization or economy is weak, they can't really afford confrontation. If your country depends on tourism from wealthy westerners, maybe you can't really afford to be confrontational about their bad behavior. If your wiki depends on the contributions of a lot of users who are easily offended, maybe you can't afford to have free and open debate. Landmartian (talk) 00:34, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh please, you should have just told him to fuck off. AH is set on wikifeuding with you. May the biggest autist win. --Someon (talk) 01:54, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not really the way of autists to tell people to fuck off, unless it's part of some sort of social experiment. Landmartian (talk) 03:56, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Query

Examining your contributions, you seem to be JAQing off on the topics of:

Child sexual abuse
Why marital rape isn't as bad as forcible rape
Argumentation that the NSDAP were really Commies/socialists and not fascists
Various topics involving rape and misogyny.

Would you care to explain why you appear to be almost-but-not-quite in favor of these viewpoints? --Castaigne (talk) 22:36, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

JAQing off is very intellectually self-stimulating. Anyway, often when society tries to fix a problem, they introduce new problems. People often don't want to look at those new problems, because they think "Oh no, even admitting these issues exist will undermine support for our solution." But it can be very interesting to go into those seldom-explored forbidden zones. At least, I find it interesting.

In the case of marriage, there were some problems with the way it had been set up, so feminists' solution was basically to enact a lot of reforms that defeated its point. Feminists have generally tended to use power as a blunt instrument for getting their way, without regard for unintended consequences.

An example would be restraining orders. The way the law is set up now, you can accuse your spouse of harassment, or some other kind of abuse, and if the judge finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the order is needed, he can kick your spouse out of his own home, give him custody of the kids, etc. The way the system is set up, you can blindside him by getting a temporary order at a hearing at which he has no opportunity to participate, and then he has to live out of a hotel room while he's trying to fight the case, since he's been expelled from the marital home.

If there was cohabitation between the parties, then they count as intimate partners, and the person the order was issued against also loses his gun rights. There's a lot of political pressure on judges to err on the side of believing people who ask for these orders and granting them. Sounds like a great way to protect women, but it ignores the fact that there are quite a few women who, even if they aren't calculating manipulators, are simply delusional and make a lot of false accusations in an emotional way that can be very convincing. See "distortion campaign". Feminists don't really want to talk about that; when they delve into the topic of psychology, it's usually to examine the cognitive distortions of abusive men rather than of insecure women. They don't want to look at the whole picture, since it would provide ammunition to their opponents.

Feminists also have successfully made it easier to obtain divorces, and have eliminated a lot of the privileges of spouses, such as the right to sex from a spouse. At the same time, the restrictions imposed by marriage, such as needing to stay faithful to a spouse, being potentially liable for alimony if the marriage ends, etc. remain. It seems rational that men would respond to this state of affairs by viewing marriage as an institution that has a lot of costs and risks and few benefits. What makes it even worse is the increasingly entitled, selfish attitude of American women in these relationships.

I can see, then, why more and more guys would want to look into the PUA movement and focus on short mini-relationships rather than wanting to settle down with any one woman. Is this what feminists wanted? Maybe. Perhaps they find it liberating, too, to not have any stable, long-term, monogamous relationships with a guy, but just have a bunch of short-term flings, or maybe a variety of relatively shallow relationships. There's a certain amount of crossover between the poly and feminist communities. The problem is, when there's no long-term investment, people will tend to behave accordingly. It's the principle of, who puts oil in a rental car?

If women were hoping that guys were just going to acquiesce to whatever parameters of relationship rights and obligations would suit them, and that they could impose through their political power, they'll probably be disappointed. Even criminalizing marital rape was mostly a symbolic victory, because in most cases there isn't enough evidence to convict. However, those types of accusations work great in, say, restraining order proceedings, where the standard of evidence is not as high.

Since feminists want to institute reforms that would essentially make relationships between men and women unworkable or, from the man's standpoint, undesirable, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that feminists' efforts are ultimately directed at human extinction. But more likely, they would simply have men become drones whose only purpose is to fertilize eggs. The dystopian future they would have us embrace would be similar to George Orwell's 1984, in which sexual relations are eventually to be replaced with artificial insemination (although that too is problematic, since the production of the semen sample would likely require masturbation, which in turn would likely involve sexual fantasy, which if heterosexual would be quasi-pornographic and therefore degrading to women). Thus, probably feminists would prefer that in the future, some technological solution be found by which male heterosexuality could be eliminated entirely, and all future offspring produced by sperm samples produced by homosexual men. Landmartian (talk) 08:49, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

That first paragraph was perfectly reasonable. But why did you add that whole bunch of anti-feminist rabble-rousing underneath it? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 10:07, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I thought it would be cool (i.e. fun and awesome). Landmartian (talk) 10:36, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Talking about 'feminists' the way islamophobes talk about 'muslims' isn't what I'd regard as 'cool'. If you wanna play devil's advocate, that's prefectly fine, but you'll get more sincere discussion on these issues out of people if you don't act the part this convincingly. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 10:52, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Both Islamophobes and feminist-phobes (what would the correct term be?) have a point. These are poisonous religions and ideologies that lack any redeeming value that I know of. I'm struggling to think of anything positive they contribute to the world. And usually I try to look for shades of gray rather than viewing stuff as black or white.

Well, I guess that like any other poison, they can relieve suffering by destroying human life. The problem is, they do is agonizingly slowly, except I guess in the case of beheadings, airplane crashes into buildings, etc. Feminists don't execute their victims; they just incarcerate them, but I guess in some cases maybe it's a net positive, if they happen to accidentally isolate from society someone who, as it turns out, would have done more harm than good to society if allowed to be free. These positive effects here and there don't make up for the overall damage feminism causes, though. Landmartian (talk) 11:39, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

You really think there's any point to such horrific amalgams of ignorance, us-vs-them mentality and imbecilic and reality-blind generalizations? Then we'll have to agree to disagree. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 12:10, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Please don't move debate pages into your userspace

And don't move comments on your position to the talkpage while leaving only your position on the main page. The point of a debate is not to show one viewpoint, with objections on the talkpage, but to actually have a debate. oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 21:10, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Please Clarify

What is your connection to Abd, Tisane/Leucosticte, and Landmark University/Erhard Seminars Training?
Are you Tisane/Leucosticte posting under a new name? --Castaigne (talk) 21:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Further: Why have you declined to answer these questions? --Castaigne (talk) 07:46, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Personality disorder

RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Personality disorder. FuzzyCatTomato (talk/stalk) 22:43, 3 May 2015 (UTC)