May it please the court milord, Thommo began this particular theme on the numbers of people holding ideas with this post (see Exhibit 1)

Thommo wrote:Well done, you've found three people who hold a silly view.
I can do that too:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/pseud ... t8539.html

The inference is that previous poster, tmb, whose view on a published book by two authors, plus a single review of said book. However, given the lack of substance in Thommos post this is the only aspect that can be inferred. The jump to another unrelated post might go to the state of mind of the accused at the time, however its relevance to the previous post (tmb) as well as the seeming importance of the ‘three people’ is still being researched by forensics.
Looking at exhibit 2 milord, also posted by Thommo

Thommo wrote:That's neither what I said or implied. The problem isn't that "not enough people" hold stupid ideas. It's the absolute reverse. There are billions of people holding stupid ideas. Finding three or ten or a million is neither here nor there.

Thommo appears here to be wiping his intellectual fingerprints off the smirking gun, implying that the more people guilty of holding ideas, in effect, weakens the proposed idea (just when you thought it was safe to go back into the logic). Once again the accused alibi is not corroborated by any witnesses. The final sentence of Exhibit 2 however re-contradicts as it says the numbers do not matter at all. May it please the court that the accused might consider recusing himself on the grounds of illogicality.

Milord what are we to make of the initial sentence (no legal pun intended) introduced by Thommo on the ‘rule of three’ (see Exhibit 1) especially as the initial plea of ‘not guilty’ appears to have been switched to ‘guilty, but not relevant' and finally a new plea of ‘innocent’ has been introduced into legal terminology and furthermore, the plaintiff (tmb) is now being charged by Thommo with supporting some variance of the ‘rule of three’. In the meantime any consideration and evidence of the original charges have been tampered with and lost in the filing system. Once again we see a group of homo sapiens so desperate to be sapient at all, place themselves in a website with a name to the effect of rational sceptics.

Since Thommo is also guilty of dancing the tangent by introducing creationism, however ironically his post might actually provide support for intelligent design, since when one looks at the structure of the logic put forward it scarcely seems possible that this is a result of evolution, but can only have been brought into being by an unintelligent designer.

Milord may I respectfully request a recess while Thommo goes and invents another witless witness, may I suggest Sendraks as assisting counsel who will always find someone important who can speak with authority on anything however inapplicable to the situation (no returns or warranties implied or otherwise).

TMB wrote:

Evolving wrote:

TMB wrote:...no one, not even men, really bother or are vocal about scenarios where men are at a disadvantage. Very different for women.

That's not really true, in my observation. I was listening to a contribution to Woman's Hour recently, a daily radio programme on the BBC dealing with the sort of thing that the BBC thinks ought to interest women (that perception has changed a lot since it was first broadcast, before most of us were born).

This particular item was about a woman who had been convicted of murdering her husband after a long period of physically abusing him. One of the aspects discussed was why the husband, who was an educated and articulate man (he was a solicitor), evidently felt unable to approach anybody about his situation and seek help. Another aspect that was raised was, predictably, how rare such cases are this way round.

Anyway: it's not ignored.

So what action has arisen due to this scenario? Do you think there will be moves afoot with both men and women supporting men to assess if they are indeed needy victims, and set up shelters and a ministerial office so they can get the help they need?

By this you categorise female victims of the same crime as 'needy victims', which is disparaging a group on the basis of their gender - there's a word for that - and also denigrating to victims of domestic violence generally (notwithstanding that this is the context of the comment your are responding to).

TMB wrote:...
Some countries had laws in place that drafted men only into the military, like the US did until 1973. I say men but in reality many were just boys, and the pressure to be brave in some cases meant that under 18's lied about their age so they could also have a chance of getting killed, A form of the draft still exists in the US with fines etc if men between 18-25 do not register in the contingency of being needed to fight a war. Arent these 18 year old men victims? Or is it because neither men nor women really see men as victims?

That depends if you think that conscription into the armed forces, or service therein, is an abuse, or abusive per se, such that members of the armed services are victimised by their participation.

But I'm not sure of your point here: is it that in countries where only men serve in the armed forces men generally are disproportionately placed under more threat than women? If so then that seems a little ill-formed because members of the armed service are all under more threat than the general population - both male and female. Is your point that where men and women serve in the armed forces then male personnel are proportionately under more threat than fellow female personnel? If so, this still doesn't make men victims unless you see service in the armed forces as a victimisation, in which case it applies to the female members of the services also. Perhaps you can clarify this?

TMB wrote:...
Your example appears to be offered to show that men are victims, but in fact it looks like you are using to show that the reality is that men are more likely to physically abuse their female partners, and this is true, however your use of this to try and carry another argument is disingenuous. I have no issue if you want to compare men and women as victims of physical violence but prefer if you are a more transparent about it.

Your point, that no-one is really bothered or are vocal about situations where men are at a disadvantage, has been countered. Not everyone is bothered I'll grant, but some people are bothered. Evolving's point was transparent enough. Your point would be better served by explaining a little more about the those situations where men are apparently disadvantaged by their gender and why they often suffer in silence - the reasons for which I think cannot be laid solely at the door of women, as you have previously implied, but are placed before the door of society at large.

TMB wrote:May it please the court milord, Thommo began this particular theme on the numbers of people holding ideas with this post (see Exhibit 1)

Thommo wrote:Well done, you've found three people who hold a silly view.
I can do that too:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/pseud ... t8539.html

The inference is that previous poster, tmb, whose view on a published book by two authors, plus a single review of said book.

That's not even a semantically correct sentence, so it most certainly is not an inference.

As I already said, the comment relates to how easy it is to find three (or more) people who hold a silly view. I then linked to a thread on this very site in which far more than three people spent hundreds of hours of their lives arguing for a far sillier view, to illustrate just how easy and pointless such a feat is.

TMB wrote:Looking at exhibit 2 milord, also posted by Thommo

Thommo wrote:That's neither what I said or implied. The problem isn't that "not enough people" hold stupid ideas. It's the absolute reverse. There are billions of people holding stupid ideas. Finding three or ten or a million is neither here nor there.

Thommo appears here to be wiping his intellectual fingerprints off the smirking gun, implying that the more people guilty of holding ideas, in effect, weakens the proposed idea (just when you thought it was safe to go back into the logic).

That isn't logic and that isn't the implication

TMB wrote:Once again the accused alibi is not corroborated by any witnesses. The final sentence of Exhibit 2 however re-contradicts as it says the numbers do not matter at all.

Hey, if you can't even read what's been written in this little fantasy of yours, who am I to explain what I said in the first place?

TMB wrote:Since Thommo is also guilty of dancing the tangent by introducing creationism, however ironically his post might actually provide support for intelligent design, since when one looks at the structure of the logic put forward it scarcely seems possible that this is a result of evolution, but can only have been brought into being by an unintelligent designer.

Holy shit, have you really misunderstood a few short sentences this badly?

You expressed the view that the author of the book being a university professor meant that the opinion was, in some unspecified way, of great concern. I pointed out that there were more intellectually offensive views that were remarkably widely held (albeit, following a similar pattern of often being held by professors with academic credentials in different or less rigorous disciplines) among professors. Again, this is just a reiteration of the original point that finding three people who hold a silly view doesn't actually constitute either a point or an achievement worthy of note.

My point was that people disagree about stuff, people believe stupid shit and people argue in stupid ways. You've elected to argue against this by arguing in a profoundly stupid and pretentious way. To me, that rather undercuts your credibility as a go between on the front of exposing people who argue in stupid ways.

Thommo wrote:

TMB wrote:May it please the court milord, Thommo began this particular theme on the numbers of people holding ideas with this post (see Exhibit 1)

Thommo wrote:Well done, you've found three people who hold a silly view.
I can do that too:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/pseud ... t8539.html

The inference is that previous poster, tmb, whose view on a published book by two authors, plus a single review of said book.

That's not even a semantically correct sentence, so it most certainly is not an inference.

As I already said, the comment relates to how easy it is to find three (or more) people who hold a silly view. I then linked to a thread on this very site in which far more than three people spent hundreds of hours of their lives arguing for a far sillier view, to illustrate just how easy and pointless such a feat is.

TMB wrote:Looking at exhibit 2 milord, also posted by Thommo

Thommo wrote:That's neither what I said or implied. The problem isn't that "not enough people" hold stupid ideas. It's the absolute reverse. There are billions of people holding stupid ideas. Finding three or ten or a million is neither here nor there.

Thommo appears here to be wiping his intellectual fingerprints off the smirking gun, implying that the more people guilty of holding ideas, in effect, weakens the proposed idea (just when you thought it was safe to go back into the logic).

That isn't logic and that isn't the implication

TMB wrote:Once again the accused alibi is not corroborated by any witnesses. The final sentence of Exhibit 2 however re-contradicts as it says the numbers do not matter at all.

Hey, if you can't even read what's been written in this little fantasy of yours, who am I to explain what I said in the first place?

TMB wrote:Since Thommo is also guilty of dancing the tangent by introducing creationism, however ironically his post might actually provide support for intelligent design, since when one looks at the structure of the logic put forward it scarcely seems possible that this is a result of evolution, but can only have been brought into being by an unintelligent designer.

Holy shit, have you really misunderstood a few short sentences this badly?

You expressed the view that the author of the book being a university professor meant that the opinion was, in some unspecified way, of great concern. I pointed out that there were more intellectually offensive views that were remarkably widely held (albeit, following a similar pattern of often being held by professors with academic credentials in different or less rigorous disciplines) among professors. Again, this is just a reiteration of the original point that finding three people who hold a silly view doesn't actually constitute either a point or an achievement worthy of note.

My point was that people disagree about stuff, people believe stupid shit and people argue in stupid ways. You've elected to argue against this by arguing in a profoundly stupid and pretentious way. To me, that rather undercuts your credibility as a go between on the front of exposing people who argue in stupid ways.

Are you suggesting and/or implying with this that the law is an ass and that your 'rule of three' is not applicable here? I am going to add some emoticons just to counter the ones you use to add substance, I really do believe that a picture is worth more than three words, perhaps even a thousand - I think this must be the 'rule of one thousand'?

I do think it wonderful that none other than powerful patriarch of Picard can be used to make up for the lack of substance in words. I am going to practice using emoticons and find some jolly clever quotes from important people, let them do the heavy lifting in these exchanges.

I assume that holy shit is that faecal matter that has been designed rather than the naturally selected shit that you used in this post? As profoundly stupid and pretentious as you think my post is, it certainly amused my undoubtedly designed mind.

TMB wrote:Are you suggesting and/or implying with this that the law is an ass and that your 'rule of three' is not applicable here?

No. What the hell are you on about?

THWOTH wrote:By this you categorise female victims of the same crime as 'needy victims', which is disparaging a group on the basis of their gender - there's a word for that - and also denigrating to victims of domestic violence generally (notwithstanding that this is the context of the comment your are responding to).

Needy = have a need. If you have an issue with this, I suggest you stop reading between the lines and putting words in my mouth. My point is that men don’t get classed as often as victims in the way that women do and addressed accordingly, and if they are classified as victims its usually as the victims of an external factor, whereas women are usually seen as victims of sexism or patriarchy or men. Some of this was covered earlier in the thread, would prefer if you played the ball in play and not introduce red herrings.

THWOTH wrote:That depends if you think that conscription into the armed forces, or service therein, is an abuse, or abusive per se, such that members of the armed services are victimised by their participation.

I think that people in the armed forces who face a serious risk of injury and/or death using pretence, especially when targeting teenagers. However I also think that young girls are victims that are abused through their mindless participation of fashion that also causes plenty of physical and mental damage to young minds and bodies. But I do not see them as victims of direct sexism or men because of this, the social mechanisms are complex, men and women are equally responsible and this is more of a group dynamic as well as competition between men, and competition between women.

THWOTH wrote:But I'm not sure of your point here: is it that in countries where only men serve in the armed forces men generally are disproportionately placed under more threat than women? If so then that seems a little ill-formed because members of the armed service are all under more threat than the general population - both male and female.

This is a general point about the fact that the statistics of death in the past and present armies at war (at least where these figures are captured show that military men die in greater numbers than military women. US army stats for recent conflict show that veteran suicides are 97% male, at double the rate of civilian suicide. Combat deaths in Iraq between 2003-8 were 97% male for around 4000 deaths. You find these numbers are consistent even in modern warfare. Although male conscriptions only exists in the US as a contingency measure, the informal social pressure will probably ensure that males are most often selected to serve and die than women.

THWOTH wrote:[ Is your point that where men and women serve in the armed forces then male personnel are proportionately under more threat than fellow female personnel? If so, this still doesn't make men victims unless you see service in the armed forces as a victimisation, in which case it applies to the female members of the services also. Perhaps you can clarify this?

At least in western armed forces, the proportion of women in direct combat roles is insignificant, in the US women are unable to pass the physical tests for some of the units, and if they, do not do so in any significant numbers. Just in the weight of sheer numbers men are at far greater risk than women in military deaths. This is news to you?

THWOTH wrote:Your point, that no-one is really bothered or are vocal about situations where men are at a disadvantage, has been countered. Not everyone is bothered I'll grant, but some people are bothered.

Let me elaborate. Noone is really bothered enough that it makes a significant difference either in remediation or logical acknowledgement to bring it any where in line with the attention paid to womens perceived needs an injustices. Can you imagine the issues that would have arisen if there were laws until the 1970s that conscripted women to military duty and if they had died in their countless millions in the 20th century? This happened to men, and while we glorify the heroism and call them victims of war there is an underlying sense that male casualties are acceptable in any theatre.

THWOTH wrote:Evolving's point was transparent enough. Your point would be better served by explaining a little more about the those situations where men are apparently disadvantaged by their gender and why they often suffer in silence - the reasons for which I think cannot be laid solely at the door of women, as you have previously implied, but are placed before the door of society at large.

Society is just the collective will of men and women, not some mysterious unrelated force. Death or injury in war is one scenario where men are disadvantaged, incarceration is another, victims of physical violence, male suicide rates are three-four times that of women in most countries, earlier death for multiple causes, stress related like heart attack etc. I have even seen someone raise concern that the mortality gap was closing between women and men, and this was raised as a problem for women and perhaps something should be done?! By implication this advocate was suggesting that if men might start to live as long as women, something should be done to help women get better longevity.
As society is about the dynamics of men with women, men with men, women with women, groups with groups, groups with individuals – there is no single mechanism that explains how this works and what is required to obtain equity between the genders. Rather its agreement on what are the things all humans really value, if relevant which gender, race, age group is getting short shrift. In addition its looking at who is responsible for what (good and bad), and who is contributing and who is not.

This debate began because female surfers feel they are getting short changed because male surfers make more money than they do, they expanded to the view that all women sportpeople/athletes should be rewarded equally to men. The single most lacking aspect (the real elephant in the room) is that no one is prepared to address headon the fact that women perform all these to a lower standard, yet society at large still pays lip service to equal pay for equal work. The women advocating for equal reward would not dare to address the less merit argument, and it appears the men in official positions are afraid to because they will get trampled on. Novak Djokovic took a shot earlier this year and Indiana Wells tourney and very quickly backed off, but still no one was able to take an objective look at the facts. Serena Williams response was that it was the same as Novak telling his daughter she was not as good as his son, just because she was a woman. In fact what it amounted to was Novak might say is that if both his son and daughter became the best singles players of their gender, the son would be a better tennis player than the daughter.

Still it’s a political debate and not a rational one…….

Thommo wrote:

TMB wrote:Are you suggesting and/or implying with this that the law is an ass and that your 'rule of three' is not applicable here?

No. What the hell are you on about?

Quo Vadis?

TMB wrote:

Sendraks wrote:Tone policing and handwaving.

I really don't see what is in it for me to participate in your game of pigeon chess.

What makes you think you are participating? Surely for this to happen you would have to have a logical proposition that has at least inductive logic in it, and then some evidence to finish it off, or if you dismantle the argument of another, deconstruct the principles and counter to show where it falls down. On this basis, at least on a forum for rational sceptics, you don't even qualify for pigeon chess. And your first success is recognising this - well done.

Projection at it's finest.

TMB wrote:

Sendraks wrote:Tone policing and handwaving.

I really don't see what is in it for me to participate in your game of pigeon chess.

What makes you think you are participating? Surely for this to happen you would have to have a logical proposition that has at least inductive logic in it, and then some evidence to finish it off, or if you dismantle the argument of another, deconstruct the principles and counter to show where it falls down. On this basis, at least on a forum for rational sceptics, you don't even qualify for pigeon chess. And your first success is recognising this - well done.

TMB<--------------------------------------------------------------Many Miles --------------------------------------------------------> The point

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

TMB wrote:

Sendraks wrote:Tone policing and handwaving.

I really don't see what is in it for me to participate in your game of pigeon chess.

What makes you think you are participating? Surely for this to happen you would have to have a logical proposition that has at least inductive logic in it, and then some evidence to finish it off, or if you dismantle the argument of another, deconstruct the principles and counter to show where it falls down. On this basis, at least on a forum for rational sceptics, you don't even qualify for pigeon chess. And your first success is recognising this - well done.

Projection at it's finest.

You are being too hard on yourself

TMB wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

TMB wrote:

Sendraks wrote:Tone policing and handwaving.

I really don't see what is in it for me to participate in your game of pigeon chess.

What makes you think you are participating? Surely for this to happen you would have to have a logical proposition that has at least inductive logic in it, and then some evidence to finish it off, or if you dismantle the argument of another, deconstruct the principles and counter to show where it falls down. On this basis, at least on a forum for rational sceptics, you don't even qualify for pigeon chess. And your first success is recognising this - well done.

Projection at it's finest.

You are being too hard on yourself

Yes. Yes you are.

It's like this, TMB. Tiresome, hubristic rubbish has a novelty factor of sorts when first encountered. It's like dangling a shiny thing in front of a cat. It's some sort of fun while it lasts, however if you dangle the same shiny thing for long enough, the cat will lose interest and wander off. That's what's happening here. Those of us who were here for TMB 1st Gen. have been through all the arguments with you at great length and have come to a point of understanding long ago that your interest in logical, honest debate is zero. That doesn't mean we have to keep our mouths shut each time the next bullshit thread on the same old shit comes around. That you find such interjections lacking in substance is a situation entirely of your own making, no matter how much you try to make out that it is of ours. If you had shown that you were here to engage openly and honestly, your interlocutors would have more than the easy but accurate pot shots being taken at you to offer. There is no value for me whatsoever in going through each of your claims and refuting them, because this has happened many, many times before and you simply ignore it. It's an entirely wasted effort. Why would anyone bother expending their valuable time and energy on something which is in every way fruitless? Why would anyone extend you the courtesy when you have shown time and again that all you do is spit it back in their faces? Glib one-liners are all your contributions deserve.

You've hooked a few different people this time, but they're learning the same thing we all did on the previous occasions where your own hubris and shoddy reasoning led you to narrow your options down to having to run away when asked questions you could't answer and when being presented with evidence you couldn't counter. You'll attempt to brush this off as a claim without evidence and put the onus on me to back it up. I'm not going to. We know it's true. Feel free to whine and complain about how my post contains nothing of substance and rides on the coat tails of others' contributions. I'm confident that most people here recognise that this is what you do whether a post contains substance or not, if you feel your precious beliefs are under threat.

Cue tiresomely predictable response from TMB about Fallible and others being hysterical or illogical or irrational as an attempt to handwave away comments.

TMB so desperately wants to have a worthwhile discussion but isn't willing to actually engage in a discussion with anyone that could be considered to be worthwhile.

TMB is reaping what he has sown.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:I didn't say that sports "just happen" to fit male attributes better than female attributes, either. I said that I wouldn't put it as strongly as you did initially. That doesn't mean taking on this much weaker claim that sports in general just happen to favour male attributes. And it's not clear to me how either the weaker claim you're pushing or the more ambiguous one I'm leaning toward should evacuate the moral content here.

Then what exactly are you saying?

I'm losing my interest in this, so I don't know how much longer I'll continue.
"Designed "for" men to do better? I don't know if I'd put it in that way. The worry is that various sports privilege male attributes and thus disadvantage or outright exclude women competitors. You say that men are "faster, stronger" etc, but you won't seem to countenance the view that this may have had an influence, perhaps even a secondary one, on how sports have developed and how an athlete's merits are judged within them."
I'd like to highlight the whole quote, but if this helps then hopefully you'll keep the rest in mind.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:[I quite like Precambrian Rabbi's way of talking to your point here. But, aside from that, you're relying on this "lower standard" that's heavy with your own conception of merit again. And that continues to be precisely what's in dispute here. As long as you keep asking these questions, I'll keep pointing to the dispute.

My conception of lower merit? Merit in tennis and most sports are clear and quantitative, and if you take the rules that are applied in a womans competition between the women to find who is the ‘best’ player (eg Serena Williams for tennis) and apply them between men and women, men have higher merit. This is not a hard concept to grasp.

I grasp it. And its use is what's in dispute. Do you recall how I came into this conversation? I suggested to another poster that removing the division between men and women may not remove the sexism in the sport, because if the sport (or sports in general) implicitly give a higher regard to "male" attributes then removing such a division may just be removing a protection. The controversy is precisely over how merit is judged in these sports. So, appealing to that in order to resolve this dispute pretty much begs the question.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:[Shorter version: you're blurring a distinction between running and running as a sport because it helps your argument. You're kicking up the dust and then claiming you can't see. But the normativity at work behind the scenes is controversial, anyway.

OK lets look at running in more detailed as well as other sports that might apply. There are multiple forms of running, from sprint to marathon, track to x country, hurdles et al. In each case men are better and running is a common natural behaviour. Swimming is also something where men excel and it seems like a useful skill to have and to be faster, better endurance, and as it happens women do unusually well at endurance swimming. Surf lifesaving events consists of a number of disciplines of swimming, running and board paddling specifically trained to make people good lifeguards. Jumping, javelin, are all testing human ability around strength, flexibility, fine and gross motor skills, hand/eye coordination, speed etc etc.

And since you think pretty much all the sports we can think if privilege male attributes then give me some suggestion of sports that privilege female attributes. Then women can set up these new institutions and get more privilege than men. I think you will find that men dominate sport precisely because they do have better attributes than women do to perform them and they have invested a lot of time and resource to get them to the elevsl they currently are at. Once again I have no issue that women can take advantage of what men have set up and participate, but I see no reason why we should compromise the principle of merit just because they are women. In exactly the same way there are other things that privilege female attributes like beauty contests and modelling, that men do not expect to get equal reward for showing lesser attributes.

You seem to have given up on your point about sports extending naturally out of behaviours for now, so there's nothing in particular I'm interested in addressing here. Merit pops up again, but I've explained that further above.

TMB wrote:I cannot read your mind with you saying the normativity is controversial, however I suggest the best approach is to be constative to start with, and once the factual aspects of reality is better understood and agreed then you can look at the normative side. Doing it the other way about is a sure recipe for disaster. If we begin with things the way think they ought to be the odds of agreement are very low since by definition they are subjective and relative, how will we then clearly see the facts if we have already taken a moral view on something that is sure to try and bend the facts to fit. However its interesting to note that this is the usual approach taken by most people.

Your use of normativity looks problematic because of the approach I see you taking. You want to give certain ways of judging merit in sports a sort of legitimacy, so that your arguments can get off the ground about pay and so forth, yes? And to do this you try to draw the normative resources from natural or evolutionary stories about how the behaviours that appear in these sports have added some benefit to our survival or reproduction, and that they thus (or somehow relatedly) constitute almost categorical excellences. But there's a gap: the sport is more than the action or behaviour. It's what happens in this gap that looks problematic.

TMB wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:This is so run together that I can't see what your answer is. What's noticeable is how you're at pains to keep sex out of it.

You asked why we showcase physical excellence, and I said it has arisen through natural selection. You then added I have been at pains to keep sex out of it? You make assertions with nothing to back them up or even explain what you are talking about. How have I kept sex out of it? Sexual reproduction exists because it worked better for some species than asexual reproduction simply because it did a better job shuffling the DNA at replication time than did asexual reproduction. You appear to have a question and you seem to think I should be able to read your mind and work out what it is without you appearing to know yourself.

Sex. Not sexual reproduction. We've been having a conversation about sexism and related topics and that's what led into the question. I thought that if I could get you to consider the "why" of these exhibitions that you might consider how male attributes could influence or play a part in their institution or design.

TMB wrote:

THWOTH wrote:By this you categorise female victims of the same crime as 'needy victims', which is disparaging a group on the basis of their gender - there's a word for that - and also denigrating to victims of domestic violence generally (notwithstanding that this is the context of the comment your are responding to).

Needy = have a need. If you have an issue with this, I suggest you stop reading between the lines and putting words in my mouth.

Then I suggest that you take responsibility for what you post and choose your words more carefully, because 'needy' clearly also means over-emotional, insecure, and/or unduly demanding.

TMB wrote:...
My point is that men don’t get classed as often as victims in the way that women do and addressed accordingly, and if they are classified as victims its usually as the victims of an external factor, whereas women are usually seen as victims of sexism or patriarchy or men. Some of this was covered earlier in the thread, would prefer if you played the ball in play and not introduce red herrings.

Do you consider a truly equal society to be one in which men and women receive equal amounts of abuse from each other?

TMB wrote:

THWOTH wrote:That depends if you think that conscription into the armed forces, or service therein, is an abuse, or abusive per se, such that members of the armed services are victimised by their participation.

I think that people in the armed forces who face a serious risk of injury and/or death using pretence, especially when targeting teenagers. However I also think that young girls are victims that are abused through their mindless participation of fashion that also causes plenty of physical and mental damage to young minds and bodies. But I do not see them as victims of direct sexism or men because of this, the social mechanisms are complex, men and women are equally responsible and this is more of a group dynamic as well as competition between men, and competition between women.

THWOTH wrote:But I'm not sure of your point here: is it that in countries where only men serve in the armed forces men generally are disproportionately placed under more threat than women? If so then that seems a little ill-formed because members of the armed service are all under more threat than the general population - both male and female.

This is a general point about the fact that the statistics of death in the past and present armies at war (at least where these figures are captured show that military men die in greater numbers than military women. US army stats for recent conflict show that veteran suicides are 97% male, at double the rate of civilian suicide. Combat deaths in Iraq between 2003-8 were 97% male for around 4000 deaths. You find these numbers are consistent even in modern warfare. Although male conscriptions only exists in the US as a contingency measure, the informal social pressure will probably ensure that males are most often selected to serve and die than women.

It seems to me that you are citing the undeniable fact that more men than women have been and are killed during combat to demonstrate a discrimination against men generally on the basis of their gender. Is that so?

TMB wrote:

THWOTH wrote:Is your point that where men and women serve in the armed forces then male personnel are proportionately under more threat than fellow female personnel? If so, this still doesn't make men victims unless you see service in the armed forces as a victimisation, in which case it applies to the female members of the services also. Perhaps you can clarify this?

At least in western armed forces, the proportion of women in direct combat roles is insignificant, in the US women are unable to pass the physical tests for some of the units, and if they, do not do so in any significant numbers. Just in the weight of sheer numbers men are at far greater risk than women in military deaths. This is news to you?

OK, perhaps you didn't understand the subtlety of the distinction on first reading, so keeping the context of abuse and victimisation to the fore, and accepting that historically male participation in the armed forces has, and continues, to significantly outweigh female participation: do you think the amount of harm male military personnel are placed under is of a significantly different order to the harm female military personnel are placed under, and do you think this is a discrimination against men based on men's general physical capabilities when compared directly to women?

This appears to be what your saying to me - that men are not only proportionately under more harm than women in the military, but that the type of harm they are under is of a higher order in terms of danger or threat, and that this is and has been an undue imposition on men generally, whether in the military or not.

TMB wrote:

THWOTH wrote:Your point, that no-one is really bothered or are vocal about situations where men are at a disadvantage, has been countered. Not everyone is bothered I'll grant, but some people are bothered.

Let me elaborate. Noone is really bothered enough that it makes a significant difference either in remediation or logical acknowledgement to bring it any where in line with the attention paid to womens perceived needs an injustices.

Now who's playing 'the victim card' eh?

TMB wrote:...
Can you imagine the issues that would have arisen if there were laws until the 1970s that conscripted women to military duty and if they had died in their countless millions in the 20th century? This happened to men, and while we glorify the heroism and call them victims of war there is an underlying sense that male casualties are acceptable in any theatre.

I have no problem granting that social mores have excluded women from military service until relatively recent times, nor in accepting that unfathomable numbers of individuals have been pointlessly slaughtered in the name of the political ideals of their rulers, and in many cases oppressors. But this isn't a slight against men in general (let alone a situation for which women in general are responsible) but a failure of a predominately male-dominated political environment, an environment in which the perceived sensibilities of women have been deemed insufficiently robust, and their intellectual, emotional, and moral capacities have been considered inadequately developed, for the apparent duty and privilege of deciding things on any man's, or indeed any individual's, behalf.

Historically it's clear that both men and women have considered women ill-equipped for combat roles in the military. Fighting, societies have often declared, is 'man's work'. In societies where participation in the armed forces is voluntary this can be countered by accepting women into those roles. Fighting is after all a skill, and skills are dependent on teaching and practice, something my former Karate instructor (a woman) was always eager to emphasise - in combat superior skill will ultimately overcome superior force where superior skill it matched by superiority of thought. Women's capacity to acquire skills and think is not limited by their gender.

In societies where participation in the military is voluntary and open to both sexes one cannot assert that men are disproportionately discriminated against or victimised by society or military institutions. If that kind of discrimination or victimisation exists it exists only as a function of the fact that more men than women volunteer for military service. However, if qualification for voluntary military service relies on conditions that place men's general physical capacities at a higher premium that women's general physical capacities then inevitably more men will be accepted and more women will be excluded. This, it seems to me, is discriminatory because as my Karate teacher noted her ability to defeat an opponent is not limited by their height, weight, or muscle-mass but by their skills and ability to think when called on.

Sure, men are generally larger than women and concomitantly have the capacity to put on more muscle-mass, but this only suggests to me that in general men have the potential to outperform women in terms of strength activities. This bears some relevance to the topic at hand.

TMB wrote:

THWOTH wrote:Evolving's point was transparent enough. Your point would be better served by explaining a little more about the those situations where men are apparently disadvantaged by their gender and why they often suffer in silence - the reasons for which I think cannot be laid solely at the door of women, as you have previously implied, but are placed before the door of society at large.

Society is just the collective will of men and women, not some mysterious unrelated force.

Who said anything otherwise?

TMB wrote:
Death or injury in war is one scenario where men are disadvantaged, incarceration is another, victims of physical violence, male suicide rates are three-four times that of women in most countries, earlier death for multiple causes, stress related like heart attack etc. I have even seen someone raise concern that the mortality gap was closing between women and men, and this was raised as a problem for women and perhaps something should be done?! By implication this advocate was suggesting that if men might start to live as long as women, something should be done to help women get better longevity.

Let's be clear here, the death rate for men and women is absolutely equal at an unequivocal 100%. More men are incarcerated not because they are disadvantage but because they commit the majority of crimes of any and all types. Male suicide rates are troubling, as are the rates of stress related heart attacks, but again this cannot be laid solely at the door of women but at the door of society - the collective will of men and women (but until relatively recently mostly the will of men alone). Women's longevity compared to men is not a privilege which is afford them according to the gender but due to a combination of physiological and social factors, and if you think that men and women should be biologically equal then take it up with evolution not with me.

TMB wrote:
As society is about the dynamics of men with women, men with men, women with women, groups with groups, groups with individuals – there is no single mechanism that explains how this works and what is required to obtain equity between the genders. Rather its agreement on what are the things all humans really value, if relevant which gender, race, age group is getting short shrift. In addition its looking at who is responsible for what (good and bad), and who is contributing and who is not.

Gender equality is about ensuring a parity of opportunity and regard. It is no more about making men and women the same than it is about making all men or all women the same. The problem arises when those with the power to influence and decide things like social values and responsibilities also set the conditions by which a valid, valued, or responsible contribution is measured. Historically this has been the preserve of men. For example...

TMB wrote:
This debate began because female surfers feel they are getting short changed because male surfers make more money than they do, they expanded to the view that all women sportpeople/athletes should be rewarded equally to men. The single most lacking aspect (the real elephant in the room) is that no one is prepared to address headon the fact that women perform all these to a lower standard, yet society at large still pays lip service to equal pay for equal work.

See what I mean? You have determined that so-called 'woman's work', as well as women's work in general, is automatically of a lower order, value, or merit to men's. This is a presumption, not a fact of life or a force of nature.

TMB wrote:...
The women advocating for equal reward would not dare to address the less merit argument, and it appears the men in official positions are afraid to because they will get trampled on. Novak Djokovic took a shot earlier this year and Indiana Wells tourney and very quickly backed off, but still no one was able to take an objective look at the facts. Serena Williams response was that it was the same as Novak telling his daughter she was not as good as his son, just because she was a woman. In fact what it amounted to was Novak might say is that if both his son and daughter became the best singles players of their gender, the son would be a better tennis player than the daughter.

Again, you determine the value or merit of a sports performance on the basis of a comparison to the performance of men as being the gold standard. In other words you see it as a contest of strength in which the stronger participant is morally deserving of the higher reward. The question therefore is why are you measuring things only from a male perspective to a bar set according to the physical capacities of elite male athletes, while saying that women must, literally, measure up to this standard or accept their place as less valued, and less remunerated, participants?

TMB wrote:
Still it’s a political debate and not a rational one…….

All political arguments are moral arguments and thus the application of rationality cannot be, nor should be imo, so glibly excluded from debates like this.

Spinozasgalt, I think the position you're putting is very interesting, and has certainly given me some good stuff to think about in terms of the unstated assumptions about how sports are constructed. I'm sure some of your position could be argued against (I'm not personally inclined to), as some factors, like speed in running, seem somewhat quintessential to the the sport, as well as a source of sex-based advantage, but why it seems so is fertile ground for thought. It does seem that TMB is hampering his own attempts to argue against your position by failing to understand it, so I can see why you're not inclined to continue discussing it with him.

TMB wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

TMB wrote:

Sendraks wrote:Tone policing and handwaving.

I really don't see what is in it for me to participate in your game of pigeon chess.

What makes you think you are participating? Surely for this to happen you would have to have a logical proposition that has at least inductive logic in it, and then some evidence to finish it off, or if you dismantle the argument of another, deconstruct the principles and counter to show where it falls down. On this basis, at least on a forum for rational sceptics, you don't even qualify for pigeon chess. And your first success is recognising this - well done.

Projection at it's finest.

You are being too hard on yourself

You do realise this peurile ´No you!´ will not help your case in the slightest? Quite the opposite in fact.

THWOTH wrote:Do you consider a truly equal society to be one in which men and women receive equal amounts of abuse from each other?

This might be your starting point to begin a comparison, buts its not mine and I do not see that positioning it the way you have in terms that are so negative helps a rational discussion. Basic equality is not difficult to define when comparing specific things, when various things aggregate, and people have differing needs it gets complicated. Restate your point by going back to first principles dropping in what is essentially a logical fallacy, or else just respond to my question directly instead of dodging it

THWOTH wrote:[It seems to me that you are citing the undeniable fact that more men than women have been and are killed during combat to demonstrate a discrimination against men generally on the basis of their gender. Is that so?

Now you are repeating back part of my point like someone who has been to a sales technique course and told that you need to reflect you have understood the point correctly. Don’t try to sell to me, just answer the point directly. The background to this point is obvious even without regard to my point stating. I would prefer if you progressed the point more rather than by taking a substantive stand yourself and exposing your own ideas to scrutiny. Think productivity, not activity.

THWOTH wrote:OK, perhaps you didn't understand the subtlety of the distinction on first reading, so keeping the context of abuse and victimisation to the fore, and accepting that historically male participation in the armed forces has, and continues, to significantly outweigh female participation: do you think the amount of harm male military personnel are placed under is of a significantly different order to the harm female military personnel are placed under, and do you think this is a discrimination against men based on men's general physical capabilities when compared directly to women?

Yes

THWOTH wrote:This appears to be what your saying to me - that men are not only proportionately under more harm than women in the military, but that the type of harm they are under is of a higher order in terms of danger or threat, and that this is and has been an undue imposition on men generally, whether in the military or not.

Bingo – and your response is?

THWOTH wrote:Now who's playing 'the victim card' eh?

Following two non answers, and now you drop in a one liner, however it does not apply because men are not positioned or benefited as victims in the same way women are.

THWOTH wrote:I have no problem granting that social mores have excluded women from military service until relatively recent times, nor in accepting that unfathomable numbers of individuals have been pointlessly slaughtered in the name of the political ideals of their rulers, and in many cases oppressors. But this isn't a slight against men in general (let alone a situation for which women in general are responsible) but a failure of a predominately male-dominated political environment, an environment in which the perceived sensibilities of women have been deemed insufficiently robust, and their intellectual, emotional, and moral capacities have been considered inadequately developed, for the apparent duty and privilege of deciding things on any man's, or indeed any individual's, behalf.

You have said that the disproportionate numbers is not a general slight against men. Is it perhaps a benefit or advantage then? It does not matter how you slice this, the group that dies in greater number than the other group is not onto a good thing – or don’t you think so?
The fact that males make up a greater proportion of formal positions of responsibility is not the same as men dominating or being in a position of power, unless it can be shown that they get the benefits. Being killed in war as an 18 year old man is not a benefit. It means that what we are seeing is a struggle for benefit between social strata that is mostly executed by men upon men, but in all these groups there are women who are not being called upon to die as are the men. Male casualties in war is just a single example, but illustrates that being responsible is not just about power its also about suffering the consequences of your actions. This is done by looking at who gets the benefits, and that is where the real power lies. What are the benefits? In this case its getting to live.

THWOTH wrote:Historically it's clear that both men and women have considered women ill-equipped for combat roles in the military. Fighting, societies have often declared, is 'man's work'.

I would say that these positions have been arrived at by a different mechanism. In a competitive world where individuals and groups are seeking to maximise selfish benefit, and there is dirty work that is done to achieve this, men will step forward more often than women to take risks. Women have very little to gain by taking such risks and a lot to lose, whereas men have status to gain and the risk often affects them only – ie. A woman with a child going out and dying is a potentially greater loss to the family than if the man dies. As a result ‘society’ prescribes norms that means women should be protected and men less so. The resulting outcome reflect a dynamic between men and women combined, not something you can ascribe to one or the other.

THWOTH wrote: In societies where participation in the armed forces is voluntary this can be countered by accepting women into those roles. Fighting is after all a skill, and skills are dependent on teaching and practice, something my former Karate instructor (a woman) was always eager to emphasise - in combat superior skill will ultimately overcome superior force where superior skill it matched by superiority of thought. Women's capacity to acquire skills and think is not limited by their gender.

I would say that karate like most martial arts is a skill, but I would say that fighting is more than just hard skills. Some people come in from the street into the dojo who are born to fight and with very little training or skill become very good fighters, others come in and after many years perform kata and form very well but don’t have the natural bent for fighting. What is very obvious in many styles that some black belts are to be feared in a fight and others were not, either because they are just not good fighters. No question that training and skills hone someone who is naturally attuned to fight, and the same training and skills will improve the lethality of the person with very little stomach for fighting but you still get an x factor in the scary fighters. Having said that, plenty of women are scary in the dojo. As an ex karate instructor and student and ju jitsu student, I got hurt more by women students and instructors because they did not think it was necessary to take it easy on male opponents. There seemed to be a sense that men were difficult to hurt and women needed to be ‘tougher’ in order to compete. The men by contrast were more careful when fighting women because they did not want to cause unnecessary injury. The joints of both genders and the male groin are very easy to hurt and injure so women going all out caused a lot of men some pain.

Also note that the Darwins awards mostly go to men because they a greater risk takers, same applies to fighting. The difference in men and women fighters is affected by social conditioning, but men have been selected to take risks, fight and take the direct approach, whereas women have not. We can make changes in social conditioning, but then it’s a opinion call on which indoctrination is better. I have watched a lot of MMA fights, and while there is a small sector of female fighters, they are not in the same league for sheer aggression or a rather mindless ability to carry on fighting even when they are getting smashed.

THWOTH wrote:In societies where participation in the military is voluntary and open to both sexes one cannot assert that men are disproportionately discriminated against or victimised by society or military institutions. If that kind of discrimination or victimisation exists it exists only as a function of the fact that more men than women volunteer for military service.

Innate attributes as well as social conditioning runs deep, there are social expectations that influence peoples behaviour, on what things they value and what we are innately good at. Just as men dominate the Darwin awards, probably a combination of being inherently more inclined to take physical risks, and in the event their action becomes a Mt Everest they can achieve high status. Voluntary military or allowing women into combat roles will not bring equal participation because many women will have other options that benefit them more, whereas many men will not. Since surfing got mentioned, big wave surfing has no formal restrictions on who does it, yet there are probably only two females mentioned as notable big wave surfers out of 32 in total. There are plenty of good women surfers, why do we get men dominating this dangerous aspect of surfing, when just like the voluntary military in theory we should get equal participation unless innate capability and/or social pressure dictates otherwise.

THWOTH wrote:However, if qualification for voluntary military service relies on conditions that place men's general physical capacities at a higher premium that women's general physical capacities then inevitably more men will be accepted and more women will be excluded. This, it seems to me, is discriminatory because as my Karate teacher noted her ability to defeat an opponent is not limited by their height, weight, or muscle-mass but by their skills and ability to think when called on.

It depends upon on how well the tests assess the capability for the job. In the military men do better than women on the tests, however if we assume that in war a best soldier might be the one that kills the enemy most effectively. Aligning the test with the job is never easy, but the bottom line is that the ability to defeat an opponent in karate is the person who is better, and in these disciplines this is composed of multiple factors. The question around surfing or tennis, is it just strength that gives men the edge or do they have better ball skills, balance etc

THWOTH wrote:Sure, men are generally larger than women and concomitantly have the capacity to put on more muscle-mass, but this only suggests to me that in general men have the potential to outperform women in terms of strength activities. This bears some relevance to the topic at hand.

Its not as simple as raw strength, if it was the best tennis player would be the strongest as well. This might be true for Serena, but Sam Stosur is not the best woman but is one of the strongest. The best men are also not the strongest ones, so there is a host of factors that produce the best in any of these disciplines. Even in things like weight lifting, strength is a major factor but so is the hand speed of getting the bar up for the snatch, clean and jerk, raw power needs to used effectively.

THWOTH wrote:Let's be clear here, the death rate for men and women is absolutely equal at an unequivocal 100%.

Men die younger than women at every age, from violence to other causes. Ultimately of course we all die, however your observation of this does not add value to the discussion.

THWOTH wrote:More men are incarcerated not because they are disadvantage but because they commit the majority of crimes of any and all types.

And crimes are committed disproportionately and jails occupied by various race groups, and specific age groups, does this mean they are to blame for this situation or is it a result of interactions with other groups? Also note that just as men are bigger risk takers than women, so to you find that many women get men to commit murder on their behalf, while the reverse hardly happens. I have watched multiple instances where women incite violence and men get drawn in to fights as a result. This is not to say that women are responsible for the crimes than men commit, just as women are not responsible for men taking risks. Just as men are not responsible being concerned about their looks, but all these behaviors are as a direct result of the dynamics between men and women.

Sendraks wrote:TMB<--------------------------------------------------------------Many Miles --------------------------------------------------------> The point

He sometimes gets to the point? Pics, or it didn't happen.

Not this puerile "men die younger so women are better off" bollocks again. There's never any thought to how the spouses, partners or relatives of those men feel when they go in this simplistic argument. No consideration that having to live on without your main support, main friend, main love might be pretty terrible and possibly a fate worse than death, because at least the dead no longer feel pain or grief whereas those left behind have to suffer for sometimes decades with only the prospect of their own death to bring any relief. Things aren't as simple as dead means bad, alive means good.