Monthly Archives: June 2013

Intelligence and Attraction

SSM asks if women are attracted to intelligence?

My answer is probably, to a degree. Women are likely to be attracted to someone as smart or moderately smarter (about 15 IQ points or less) than themselves, as smarts are an indicator of superiority, triggering hypergamic impulses.

She also asks if so, why do STEM guys have such problems? The reason is that as the male’s superiority grows beyond a difference of about 15 (or so) IQ points, greater increases in the gap are counter-productive.

High intelligence differences make it hard for people to connect. At 30 IQ points difference it becomes very difficult for true communication to occur. The intelligent person of 130 IQ is as far removed intellectually from the average person as the average person is from the mentally handicapped. If you’ve talked with the mentally impaired, you know a true relationship is difficult, because you have to constantly dumb down your speaking; the same goes for the exceptionally intelligent and the average person.

The problem for STEM nerds arises in the differing distribution of intelligence between the sexes. While average intelligence is more or less similar, men are more variable than women: women tend to cluster around the mean of 100, while men are more likely to deviate from the mean and be exceptionally smart or exceptionally stupid. I discussed this a bit before here.

STEM people, with an average incoming IQ of about 110 are significantly more likely to be among the exceptionally intelligent.

So what happens is that your 145-point wunderkind can not communicate effectively with anyone below  115 (ie. the vast majority of woman), and would probably be most comfortable with a women with 130+. But, for every woman above 130, there are, say, 2 men above 130 because men are more highly represented at the extremes. So, not only is he completely cut off from the vast majority of women, he’s also competing against another man for a woman who he would be able to comfortably communicate with, and only one of them can get her.

From this, we can conclude that the ideal for a man on the dating market is to be in the 115-130 range. Bright, but not awkwardly so. A man in that range would be intelligent enough that most women would look up to him and respect him, but not so intelligent that he would be incapable of communicating with the majority of women. He would still likely be ‘awkward’ with many women below the average.

Once a passes beyond the 130 threshold he’s effectively cut off from half the female population and will be noticeably ‘awkward’ with the majority who are left.

After 115 IQ, increased intelligence begins to have diminishing returns. Somewhere within the 115-145 range there’s a point where intelligence actively detracts from your attractiveness with women as the increasing ‘awkwardness’ of being highly intelligent becomes more detrimental than the hypergamous benefits intelligence.

Conclusion: Intelligence is attractive to women, but past a certain point it becomes detrimental.

If you go to Roissy’s test, you will notice that he gives the range of 110-130 as being +1, 130-145 as being a 0, and 145+ as being a -1.

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I would theorize from this that game is primarily the attempts of 120+ IQ men who are either in or approaching the ‘awkward’ range of intelligence and find themselves incapable of or impaired in communicating effectively with many, if not most women. By learning to mimic the relational habits of those with average intelligence, they can become successful with the average intelligence women who they would ordinarily be ‘awkward’ with. But, in the long run, they would find the average women they are now successful with to be dull, as she is either below or on the edges of his range of people he can effectively communicate with.

Repost: An Economic Analysis of Divorce

I don’t have time this week, so this is a repost of an early post of mine that didn’t get much play. I did a little editing. It’s part of the Sexonomics series and is on divorce, so it fits what has been discussed here recently.

The Cost of the Risk of Material Loss in Divorce

Marriage is often discouraged in the Manopshere, and a single male, choosing whether I want to marry or stay an eternal bachelor is something important. Now, there’re a lot of reasons provided for why to avoid marriage, but the risk and consequences of divorce are easily the most convincing argument. So, I’m going to create a series on the economics of marriage.

This first post will be the economic cost of the risk of divorce for the average bachelor considering marriage.

At another time, I will attempt an economic analysis of the immaterial losses of divorce and the benefits of marriage. Then I will combine it all together in a cost benefit analysis.

What are the odds of divorce?

The “50% of marriages end in divorce” statistic is thrown out a lot, but this number includes those with multiple marriages and divorces, which skews the number higher than for people considering their first marriage, among other problems.

So, according to the US Census Bureau, for men, only about 60% of men reach their 25th anniversary for their first marriage (p. 11), which means about 40% of men did not.

Now, the data is by age cohort, and those married earlier had a greater chance of reaching any particular marriage anniversary milestone. For example, those married in 1975-79 had a 54.4% chance of reaching 25th anniversary, while those in the married in 1960-65 had a 66.9% of reaching this milestone. But, those married in 1975-79 had the worst chances of attaining any particular marriage milestone; they were peak divorce you might say. Since then, younger marriage cohorts have been more likely to reach milestones.

Meanwhile, in Canada, Statistics Canada has it that about 40% of first marriages will end in divorce.

So, we will estimate there is a 40% chance that a male entering their first marriage will divorce.

(Remember, the chances of marriage ending in divorce can vary depending on a wide range of variables, which I am not going to calculate at this time, but I might go into them in-depth in the future.)

How much does the divorce process cost?

The cost of the actual divorce process varies considerably, depending on a wide range of variables. A simple divorce will run about $1000, while a contested divorce can run from about $8,000-$133,000.

According to this, the median cost for mediation is $5,000, while the average contested divorce costs about $20,000.

So, we’ll say your divorce process will be about $20,000.

(Here’s a calculator if you’d like to play around).

What about Spousal/Child Support?

Your chances of paying spousal support depend on the amount of child support already paid and your income. There’s a ton of laws on this, so I’ll just use this calculator to calculate this.

The average Canadian household income is: $74,700
Two-earners without children: $79,700
Two-earners with children: $85,600
One-earner without children: $58,100
One-earner with children: $60,900

The average length of marriage is 14.5 years, with the average age of divorce for men being 44 and for women, 41.

So, putting the average divorce and income in the calculator we can get the average cost of support (both child and spousal) payments come divorce (in Ontario), assuming children live with spouse:

Two-earners without children (Equal): $0
Two-earner without children (Primary – 2/3): $327/month for 7-14 years (10.5)
Two-earners with children (Equal): $0 + $619/month child support
Two-earners with children (2 – Primary – 2/3): No spousal support, $758/month
One-earner without children: $1,186/month for 7-14 years (10.5)
One-earner with children: $838/month for 7-14 years (10.5) + $905/month child support (10.5)

For your own income and planned family situation input the number in the calculator.

So, the average male will have to pay about $149,436 in support if sole provider, $73,458 in support if primary provider, and $0 in support if equal provider. (The cost of child support is there for illustrative purposes, but that would be the cost of having a child, not marriage and divorce and is not calculated here.)

One interesting thing to notice: if you’re the sole breadwinner, your likely monthly payments can actually decrease as mandated child support payments replace spousal support payments. I would not bank too much on this, as it’s likely just a quirk in Canadian law or the calculator and may not apply broadly.

US law does not seem radically different overall from Canadian law.

What about a Settlement?

In Canada, “the spouse with the higher net family property is required by law to pay his” spouse “half of the difference between the two spouses’ net family properties.” Net family properties being current assets minus both liabilities and assets at marriage.

In the US, there are two systems, community property and equitable distribution, depending on the state with variations in how they are distributed. The former divides assets gained during the marriage equally, but leaves property attained before marriage alone. Equitable distribution distributes property equitably (not necessarily equally).

In general, we can say that the property you acquired during the marriage will be split more or less in half. If the wife was the primary housekeeper, while the husband was the primary breadwinner, then the difference will be the wife’s payments for continued support of the house. If they both shared provider status roughly equally, then an equal distribution of marital resources should occur.

There does not seem to be much economic cost to the average husband at the point of settlement in Canada, unless he sunk significant sums into the marital home prior to marriage and the wife did not match these sums after entering the marriage.

In the US, one could economically lose if the equitable distribution was not necessarily equal, or by quirks of local law, but for the average divorce, these would not present much of a cost. There might be extreme cases in both systems where quirks or abuses of the law could lead to unequal distribution either way, but

Other Cost Considerations

This is not to say that this will not increase economic hardship. Having to pay the expenses for two dwellings will, by itself, greatly increase economic hardship on both ex-spouses. For the ex-husband specifically though, the extra cost of two dwellings would be accounted for in the spousal/child support payments taken from his income.

It is possible a divorce could affect a male’s job performance, and thus his earnings, creating additional economic cost, but this would be outside my ability to remotely calculate.

The Total Material Cost of Divorce Risk for the Man Considering Marriage

Our formula:
Costs of Divorce Risk = Risk of Divorce * (Cost of divorce process + cost of support)

Average Male Single Earner
40%*(20,000 + 149,436 ) = $67774.40

Average Male Primary Provider
40%*(20,000 + 73,458) = $37383.2

Equal Male and Female Provision
40%*(20,000 ) = $8,000

For the average male who’s considering marriage and planning to be the sole breadwinner of the family, the material cost of the risk of divorce would be just over a full year’s worth of pay. For the average male who plans to be the primary but not sole breadwinner, it would be somewhat less than a full year’s pay. For the average male who plans a marriage where both partners earn equally, it would be a few months’ worth of pay.

So, if you plan on marrying and being the sole or primary breadwinner, you would have to ask yourself if you would pay roughly a year’s salary to be married.

* This analysis will be done for Canada. Canada’s divorce laws are generally nationally coherent, with federal laws and. The US’ divorce laws differ widely between states, so I can’t really calculate for the US. On the other hand, for the majority of men, the analysis shouldn’t vary too significantly; this should be roughly applicable to most and sufficient for analytical purposes. Check your own jurisdiction’s laws for personal information.

Lightning Round – 2013/06/26

The evolution of pride: No blog is more inspiring than Victor’s.

“If a man wants a certain type of woman he needs to dress as though he’s her type of mate.”

Be one of the good guys.

The incipient orthodoxy of the androsphere.

The scepter.

Even among “red-pill” women, add 10. Also, the number of supposedly ‘red-pill’ women advocating lying is disgusting.  I’m especially disappointed with Sis, assuming it’s this Sis. I thought better of her.

The pinkshirts (I like that) will attack you even for your silence.

Is the Red Pill approaching a turning point?
Related: Momentum.

WK with some questions for a prospective Christian wife. I think he’s a bit heavy on the science and politics; I don’t overly care if she’s scientifically illiterate or politically apathetic, but his point about attitude mattering most is the important thing.

A collection of “I need feminism because…” pics. A good laugh.

WRE: Women marking their territory in the military.
Related: Criminalizing male sexuality in the military.
Related: Taranto responds to his critics.

Why men don’t marry.

Chocolate and gold: a story of player burnout.

Mistakes women make leading to divorce.

SSM attracts some trolls. The intellectual snobbery of those only capable of hollow snark is amusing.

This is why I love Moldbug.

“BTW, why is it, on NPR (the smart people’s radio station), they say stuff like, “Zimmerman says he acted in self defense, while prosecutors say he racially profiled Trayvon Martin”? As if 1)they both couldn’t possibly be true; and 2)they have anything at all to do with each other? I mean, if this is how they talk to the “smart” people, then what on earth are they telling the dumb ones?!?!!”
Related: The NYT admits it has been reporting lies on the Zimmerman case.

The unimportance of policy.
Related: What is to be done?

CH with an economic solution.

Rule by the illiterates.

Technology and civilization: post-scarcity won’t save us.
Related: Prelude to the separation of nations.

You cannot reason with a liberal for he is not reasonable.
Related: Liberalism is emotion, conservatism, passion and honor, and libertarianism, intellect.

Stock trading, risk, and sex.

You cannot remove the desire for ritual and belonging from man.

Evolutionary psychology and the Catholic meme.

“The first generation of women who will stop saying to each other “the day of your wedding is the most important day of your life” and will start saying “the day you get tenure / publish a book / start your own business / become a CEO / make a million bucks is the most important day of your life”, will be the generation with the same number of male and female Full Professors.” Probably correct, so never.

White Pride in my classroom.

The Hagia Sophia may be converted to a mosque.

Don Draper and the rape double-standard.

A rush of Slate:
Anti-freedom advocates using facts? Perish the thought.
Is the game concept of dread being supported by Slate?
Are feminists never satisfied?
Rebuild the mound.
Why women’s magazines aren’t serious.
The feminists have won on FB, now they’re going for Kickstarter.

What everyone already knew: interviews are worthless.

GOP member aces the SNAP challenge.

Syria: the rebels are Islamic extremists. Surprise!

Obesity is now a disease. Partial agree; it’s the product of a diseased and sinful soul.

NSA whistleblowers back Snowden.

Do I ever feel lucky?

(H/T: Nick Steves, the Captain, SDA, Foseti, GLP, TIWMGTOW, Instapundit)

On ‘Geek Girls’

Here are two articles from one Alyssa Rosenberg in Slate. The first is about how there is no such thing as “fake geek girls”. The second advocates feminists in science fiction push their ideology on the SFWA and push out and censoring established male SF writers.

Of course, Alyssa sees no contradiction between these two asserations; in fact, linking to the former article in the latter.

As someone who enjoys SF, among a variety of other nerdy hobbies, I would like to comment on this.

I have no problem with women writing SF, reading SF, or participating in any other nerdy activities. I also have no problem with women who participate in some nerdy activities and not others, for whatever reasons. There’s nothing wrong with a girl (or a guy) who likes Dr. Who, but doesn’t like D&D.

My problem is not women who engage in whatever nerdy activities they enjoy to whatever extent they like and avoid what they don’t. My problem, is that some women, turn what should be some enjoyable hobby into a crusade to destroy what others enjoy.

That is where the ‘fake geek girl’ meme comes from. It has little to do with women who enjoy or not enjoy certain nerdy activities and everything to do with women acting like they enjoy geeky activities while actively try to destroy those same geeky activities.

The ‘fake geek girl’ is not the girl who likes Dr. Who but doesn’t care for BSG; it’s the girl who watches Dr. Who then demands the next Dr. Who should be a woman. (Dr. Who was just an example I saw recently, I don’t watch the show and don’t really care). It’s the girl who actively tries to destroy a nerdy activity so whatever BS political crusade they happen to be on at the time who is the ‘fake geek girl’.

Why do some women, who claim to love whatever nerdy activity they are talking about, insist on changing the very nature of what they profess to love? If the geeky activity a women claims to love is only acceptable to her if it is entirely changed, then she is definitionally a ‘fake geek girl’.

Why can’t you just enjoy something for what it is? If you don’t enjoy it, then simply avoid it rather than trying to change it.

The question is not, “whose participation in genre fiction is more valid?”

The true question is, “why the hell won’t you leave us alone?”

If ‘women like SF’, but are put off by cheesecake in SF or other sf tropes, then why don’t women write their own SF without cheesecake, then leave those who enjoy cheesecake SF alone?

If ‘women like comics’, but don’t like heroines with skintight costumes, then why don’t they write their own comics with heroines portrayed however they want, and leave Powergirl alone?

If ‘women like video games’, but don’t like damsels in distress, then why don’t they create and sell their own video games with ‘strong, independent women’ and leave Princess Peach alone?

But the feminists, in their usual entitled, narcissistic uselessness can not leave alone. Instead of creating their own characters, their own games, their own stories, they have to attack everyone elses’. They demand the entire industry of nerdy entertainment cater to them and their preferences because in their narcissism, only the feminists’ desires matter; fuck those loser male nerds who built the entire industry.

Goddess forbid that males should be allowed to enjoy what they enjoy without some hateful harpy hectoring them for it.

Are they so thoroughly incompetent they can not make nerdy entertainment that fits their preferences and others would enjoy, but must rather content themselves with destroying what everyone else enjoys?

Are they such emotionally fragile and pathetic people, that they can not live and let live, but must muster up umbrage every time someone enjoys something they don’t like?

Mario would not be Mario if he wasn’t rescuing Princess Peach. If you don’t like it, don’t try to change Mario to ruin him for everyone else, go make your own game where Maria rescues Prince Apple. If the idea is good, people will buy it, if not, they won’t.

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Sidenote: Vox has had some fun with the SFWA on this issue. I’ll link the series here, as it is an enjoyable read, as most of Vox’ rabbit-poking is.
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/women-ruin-everything-sfwa-edition.html
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/the-dangerous-vision-of-sfwa.html
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/sfwa-burns-witch.html
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/seriously-fascist-womens-association.html
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/stampeding-herd.html
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/a-black-female-fantasist.html
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/sfwa-forum-moderated-posts.html
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/sf-vs-science.html
http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2013/06/rejecting-lie.html

Sexonomics: Odds of Divorce

I was accused of understating the risk of divorce, to which I gave an off-the-cuff calculation that by controlling a few factors in your spousal selection you could probably lower the statistical probability of divorce to less than 10%, but I said I’d look into it more, to give a more accurate response. So, here I’m going to find a bunch of statistics concerning factors of divorce, so you can learn how to lessen your odds of divorce.

Here’s the characteristics of a woman and the odds of her ending up divorced:

Age of first sexual experience (p.10):

>18: ~32-38%
17-18: 47%
15-16: 59%
13-14: 72%
<12: 82%

Number of prior sexual partners (p.18):

0: 20%
1: 46%
2-4: 56-60%
5-15: ~70%
16+: ~80%

Age of First Marriage:

<18: 48%
18-19: 40%
20-24: 29%
25+: 24%

Time of first birth (p. 16):

Before marriage: 67%
0-7 months after: 59%
8 months after: 32%

Education (IQ correlate) (p. 16):

Bachelor’s: 22%
Some College: 51%
High School: 59%
< High School: 61%

Race/Ethnicity (p. 16):

Asian: 31%
White: 46%
Hispanic: 47%
Black: 63%

Parents (p. 16):

Two parents: 42%
Non-intact family: 62%

Religion Raised (p. 16):

Catholic: 47%
Protestant: 50%
Other: 35%
None: 57%

Religion (GSS):

All Christians:41%

Active Evangelicals: 34%
Non-active Evangelicals: 54%

Active Mainline Protestants: 32%
Non-active Mainline Protestants:42%

Active Catholics: 23%
Non-active Catholics: 41%

All non-Christians:48%
No religious beliefs: 51%

All non-Christian religions:42%
Non-active other religions: 48%
Active other religions: 38%
Jewish: 39%

Cohabitation (p. 18):

Did not cohabitate: 43%
Cohabitated with husband before marriage: ~55%

Effects of Wife’s share of total income on divorce risk (p. 9):

0-20%: 1x
20-40%: 1.39x
40-60%: 1.62x
60-80%: 2.12x
80-100%: 2.19x

Income Quartile (p. 10):

Lowest: 1x
2nd: 0.87x
3rd: 0.86x
Highest: 0.92x

Looking at all this, it’s easy to see the two best determinates of her divorcing you are her education and whether she has had sex prior to marriage.

A bachelor’s degree is a 40-point decrease in the odds of divorce over a high school graduate.

A women having sex with one other partner is an instant 25-point increase in the odds of divorce, with another 10-point drop for a second partner, and another for a fifth. Related to this, her having sex before age 18 is another major risk factor. Marrying her before she’s 20 is also a risk factor, but not as great a one as her having had sex with someone else; if the choice is between a virgin under 20 and older non-virgin, the young virgin is less risky. Do not marry a slut.

Religion is important, but the most important part is less what religion, but rather how devout she is. An actively religious couple is generally a 20-point decrease in the chance of divorce than a non-active couple.

Marrying an Asian is a 15-point decrease in the odds of divorce. Marrying a black was the opposite.

If she had an intact family, that’s a 20-point decrease in the risk of divorce.

If you marry a virgin bride who’s over the age of 20, has an intact family, a college degree, and is a devout Christian, the chances of divorce are very low. If she’s also Asian, they’re even lower.

Also, make sure you earn a lot more than her, don’t be poor, don’t cohabitate before marriage, and don’t knock her up until marriage.

I can’t calculate the exact numbers by calculating all these odds together because a lot of these positive qualities overlap, but I consider myself justified in estimating, that the type of women I plan on marrying would have a statistical likelihood of divorcing me around 10%.

A 10% chance of divorce, even a 20% chance, while still higher than I’d like, is a risk I am willing to take.

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Note: most of these probabilities are for not being divorced at the 20-year mark, some for the 10-year mark. So, some of the numbers may be higher over a lifetime, but I would estimate not overly much; likely not more than 5 points or so.

****

Here’s a divorce probability calculator to look at if you’re interested. According to the calculator, here’s the score on the test the kind of woman I want to marry, -56, and for myself, -76. Both had the same explanation:

Very Low Probability
Congratulations. You’re amongst a demographic of people that have the highest long term marriage success rate. What that means is that based on the factors that you indicated, and if there are no major changes in your lifestyle and that of your spouse, the chances that you will ever get divorced are far less than average. Does that mean you don’t need Divorce Insurance because you’ll NEVER, EVER get divorced? No, it simply means that based on the 20 factors we know have a significant impact on the outcome of marriage, you scored very well. However, people change over time and life has a way of creating unexpected turns in your path so insurance against the unexpected is always a wise choice if it’s in your budget. In any event, we wish you the best of luck!

That seems to be an acceptable risk.

Also, you can get divorce insurance? Might be something to look into for those considering marriage, but worried about divorce.

Lightning Round – 2013/06/19

A Father’s Day call for repentance.
Related: Patriarchy 2.0.
Related: Fatherhood changes men.

Women’s place in society.

The neutering of man.

Game is stopping sucking.

Take up space.
Related: Use body language.
Related: On hiding emotions.

Perceived value.

Women want to be ravished.

Willpower is a muscle.

Living it up on a budget.

A good discussion on porn.
Related: A column on porn.

How leftists “think”.
Related: Rules for trolling.

When women play the virgin card.

Forney on self-shooters.

Horses and the red pill.

A parable.
Related: Danny with a cautionary tale.

Psychologists: Dread works.
Related: Hyper-hypergamy.

Life history and mate value.

WRE, even the mancave.

Are feminists and leftists less than human?
Related: Agency as privilege.

Arguments for ending women’s suffrage. Another.

Civilian gun owners safer than police.
Related: Terror is the state of being of the anti-freedom types.
Related: Make the Whitehouse a gun-free zone.

Remember who the state believes is most dangerous.

Bulbasaur on Moldbug’s castes.

Google unpersons Mangan.

The first and last Vikings. Part 2.

Detroit: a mystery of decline.
Related: Detroit is the future of America.

Cleveland prosecutes cold case rapes;  Slate’s close to committing a hatefact?
Related: What a stupid law.

White majority gone by 2043.
Related: Open borders is a selfish position to help the rich get richer.
Related: War in Syria and 800k new Democratic voters, I mean, Muslim immigrants.

Menopause caused by men.

8 out of 10 women believe men never grow up.

Single mothers earning $29k gross more than people earning $69k.

Feminist says feminists have lost.
Related: Feminist opposite day.

It seems to be vaguely hypocritical for a feminist to complain about men involving themselves in girly activities.

This made me laugh. Read first for background.
Related: Vox has a little more fun.

Women should have it all, whether she wants it or not, paid for by the taxpayer of course.

A female SEAL by 2016. The double-speak is strong here.

RL Rosie the Riveter quit after two weeks.

Paternity and personal genomics.
Related: NYT: Is forced fatherhood fair?

A psychologist tears apart Schwyzer.

Every time I think I’ve seen the limits of the depths of depravity in progressivism, someone raises the bar. Of course, it could be a fake, hopefully.

The magical thinking of the Keynesian.

The Cathedral: family relations between the media and administration.

Is the Cathedral going to try to stifle free speech on the interwebs.

Parents fight school over Father’s and Mother’s Day.

Democrat thinks Obamacare is not fair when applied to congress.

Repeat after me: Voter fraud doesn’t exist.

(H/T: SDA, Observer, GLP, Instapundit)

The Effects of the Red Pill

I don’t listen to the radio anymore, the only TV I have is Netflix, and I don’t read newspapers anymore except when linked to from some blog, so I’m fairly disconnected from the standard news. This weekend I was on a cart trip with some friends and we were listening to the CBC (the state-run broadcaster) and I realized exactly how deep the red pill has sunk into my thinking. Three particular items stood out.

The first was some news story about the protests in Turkey. The CBC was very much in favour of the protestors. The story was all about how oppressed the environmentalists, gays, and democrats protesting the regime were and how controlling the regime was for oppressing the greens and gays. They never got the side of the government or the majority of Turks who supported the government. Rather than supporting the protestors, I remarked how one-sided and biased the story was to my friends and found myself supporting the regime, simply based on how biased the CBC was on the issue. A few years ago I would hardly have noticed.

A little later a “debate” occurred concerning women’s declining fertility with age and when women should get married. One guest was against women marrying young so they could experience the world and be happy, the other was for women marrying young so they could find somebody and be happy. My friend remarked, ‘see, they cover both sides’. Then, red pill knowledge firmly in place, I told him how it didn’t both were the same liberal side concerned with happiness being the sole goal of marriage. Not a person addressed duty to family, God, or the nation, no one even mentioned are below-replacement reproductive rates, no one mentioned the health of the family or the country, no one mentioned the religious or societal foundations of marriage. Both women had the exact same argument: women should marry to be happy and no one should judge them for that, the only difference was at what age marriage would be the happiest. My friend then told me, they were never going to have that kind of debate on the radio; I told him that was exactly my point about the one-sidedness of it all.

Finally, a story about Nelson Mandela’s failing health came on. I was amazed by the almost painful cognitive dissonance of it. The whole story was about two things: 1) Nelson Mandela has been a foundational symbol of post-apartheid South Africa and his loss will greatly hurt the country, and 2) South Africa is in horrible shape, corruption is out of control, and it has been continually getting worse with people agitating to undo land reforms, etc., which is why the nation needs the symbolism of Mandela to hold itself together. The fact that this continual decline was a result of the regime Mandela helped put into place was enver even remarked on, even thought the entire story screamed this fact between the lines.

A few years ago, I wouldn’t have noticed any of this. The red pill is a strong drug.

MGTOW, MRA, and the Long March

I’ve written on the long march before and how the progressivists goal is to have us dependent on the state, how the alt-right, manosphere, and their issues are all related and at war with progressive unreality, and how we can fight the progressivists, or at least protect a remnant to rebuild when state-backed unreality is no longer sustainable.

The goal of the long march is to get us dependent on the state. The most effective way to do this is by destroying the community ties that bind us and create civil society. These voluntary, local ties to the individuals around us allow us to live free and independent from the state.

The strongest of these social ties are marriage and the nuclear family, so these are the ones attacked the most by the anti-civilization forces.

One tool in destroying the family is destroying male-female relationships, so that they never join together to become families in the first place. So, you end up with men writing things like this. Through feminism making modern marriage inhospitable to modern man, man stops caring about and for women and preemptively removes himself from the family.

But feminism is not the end goal of the state-worshippers, it is but one step in the process. The next step is the adoption of Men’s Rights and/or MGTOW. As No Ma’am outlines:

So, what’s next? What were the original goals of this Cultural Marxist plan? Well, in regard to the ladies, it was to achieve “true equality” by putting women back into the public work force, thereby destroying the entire concept of the family. In order to do this, women must be relieved of their biology as mothers, which is why V.I. Lenin instituted such things as no-fault divorce, easy abortion, community kitchens, sewing centers, housekeeping services, and state-run daycares. The goal of this, however, was not to “empower” women. That’s just what was said. Quite frankly, if you want to argue that Lenin was altruistically helping women be all they could be, you would be sorely mistaken. The goal was to take children away from their parents and bring them under the control of the state, instead of parents. Families, say Marx, Engels, Lenin and Feminists, are the founding cornerstone of Capitalism, and therefore all discrimination and oppression ultimately stems from the family.

But, no matter how much women hate men today, and no matter how much money they make shuffling papers around mindlessly in their cubicles, do you think that women would ever willingly give up their own children?

I think not!

The way to remove children from their mothers, via Marxist techniques, would be to abandon the cause of women and take up the cause of men. It can easily be pointed out now that it is men who are not treated equally, and dialectically speaking, it is quite easy to see how disenfranchised fathers could be manipulated into thinking shared-parenting (or, marriage 3.0) is in everyone’s best interests, and thereby empower the government to take custody of children away from mothers and place them in the custody of the State –  who will then decide a baby-sitting schedule for the sperm and egg donors. It is also not a stretch for oversight committees to be erected to ensure the “ongoing best interests of the child.” Heck, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s thesis compared children in the family to the corruption Indians experienced on the reserve. That wingnut Marxist believes that the government should create a new bureaucracy to represent children separately from their parents. In other words, each child ought to have a legal-aid lawyer representing them, so that their parents don’t abuse their power over them.
…
The idea of government taking custody of children today, however, is much greater than in the past. As the Bull Market in Anti-Feminism develops, more and more fathers are going to demand the government grants shared-parenting, which is quite obviously the foundation for government taking custody of children. Is it such a stretch of the imagination to see courts appointing government representatives – an unelected bureaucracy – instead of parents, who will decide what is “in the best interests of the child?”

Just because a backlash is developing against feminism does not mean it is a good thing, nor that it can only benefit men and society. Many of the things the MRM are requesting is in line with feminism – DV shelters for men is one example, and would only serve to increase government power in the home, not decrease it.

I can’t bear the thought of men being manipulated into becoming Useful Idiots who further feminist and Marxist goals.

Can you?

We have no great love for MRA’s here. While we do agree with some of their goals, fighting progressivism with greater progressivism (excepting in the case of well-executed black-knighting) is a fruitless endeavour. It will simply further drive another nail into the coffin of Western civilization.

MRA’s are not the solution, they are a distraction.

As well, going your own way is not the solution. With MGTOW, the family is even further destroyed. By removing himself from society, the MGTOW only further helps lessen the importance of family.

Same with PUA’s who are only the other side of the self-destructive hook-up culture.

As a man, you are meant for more than burning yourself out on the hedonic treadmill to feed the tyranny of the state.

****

Now, I am not encouraging you to ‘man up and marry that slut’. In fact, do not marry a slut or a women with baby rabies; a destructive marriage ending in divorce is worse for society than no marriage at all.

Find a good wife if you can.

In fact, I’m not telling you not to be a PUA, an MRA, or a MGTOW. You are free man, do what you want. Besides, there are probably not enough good wives out there for every man, so many will have to find an alternative.

All I want, is for you to think about it. To know that by fighting progressivism with more progressivism or by simply stopping caring, you are not helping the problem and are probably hurting yourself in the long run.

If you decide trying to fight the system is too much of a pain and want to be a MGTOW, I won’t condemn you, in fact I sympathize. If you decide that fucking sluts is too much fun, that is your perogative, but will you think the same a decade from now when every pussy feels the same and the mechanical sex is little better than emotionlessly masturbating into a very realistic sex doll?

Make an informed choice that is all.

Then again, maybe the system is doomed, and the PUA’s, MRA’s and MGTOW’s are simply hastening its inevitable collapse and hopeful rebirth. In which case, maybe they are doing civilization a service.

Lightning Round – 2013/05/12

Hello to all my Russian friends. I have no idea what the page that linked to me says, but welcome here.

Steve Ermis, Sergeant Minnicks: Spread their names.

13 reasons you should start an online business. I gotta start working on mine again.
He also rereleased his Spartan’s guide to online businesses; hope you didn’t miss it.
Related: Advice for the intelligent slacker.

Statement-statement-question. Some good advice here.
Related: JB responds. Roissy with the tactics; JB with the strategy.

Cane with a gooder on sex.
Related: More Christian advice on sex.

Disclaimers for Christian men seeking marriage.

Most married couples are satisfied.
Related: JB responds.

Women like dick and that is a righteous thing.
Related: How to save your daughters from a shitty life.

Is WRE really PRE?
Related: The woman is not always the problem.

GIA explained: a great concept.

Hamsters and shrews.

Women like the strong horse: WW2 edition.

Deti’s advice on new girls.

The effort of game. Hardly seems worth it for a simple lay.

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

EW analyses a poll.

Private Man is now offering one-on-one dating advice.

Ian drops his new book.

GBFM’s dating profile. Hilarious.

How game could have benefitted Jason Richwine. Advise for heretics.

Fear and apathy.

The price of taking the red pill. As to #4, I rarely self-censor.

The MRM is no place for men.
Related: Seems there’s been some controversy among the MRA’s due to a female MRA.

What MGTOW is.
Related: 10 Commandments of MGTOW.

The end of the feminist nomenklatura.
Related: The totalitarian trap of the long march through the family.
Related: Jezebel’s vigilante squad.
Related: Facebook censorship begins in record time.

Please Stop Hooking Up With My [Future] Husband. Oh, schadenfreude; aging single women are amusing.

M3 on the hypocrisy of fat acceptance.

What should reactionaries do? Create clubs.

Forney still does amazing book reviews; even if it’s a book I never heard of and don’t care the slightest about.

Why are people surprised by the IRS scandal? This is what governments do.
Related: The destruction of accountable government.

NSA collecting phone records of Verizon customers.
US government monitoring information on 9 major internet companies.
Related: The US government is completely lawless.
Related: Edward Snowden is a hero.

Against NFP.

The importance of fatherhood.

Sports: boys vs. girls.

More Christian man-up rants.

Reaction as a return to natural order.

The trust premium of civilization.

An open letter to the nation’s seniors.

Elite does not equal conservative.

The next credit crash in the making.

Letting criminals immigrate so the state can expand.

Who’s dehumanizing them more: those who pimped them out, or those who deny the existence of their volition?
Related: “Moral responsibility is the essence of humanity.”

Mental illness and progressivism.

The Atlantic: Weak, seeker-oriented religion drives young people away.

Female sexual predators.

Men are more pro-life and pro-marriage.

Female doctors cause doctor shortage.

Non-profit giving free guns to the poor.

We should ban public schooling to prevent these kinds of tragedies.
Related: Single mothers should be held accountable.

I think we should extend this: given that more children are killed because of public school than guns, we should prosecute every parent that sends their children to public school.

Also, Justin Peters (Slate) is a lying intellectual whore, like most liberals:
“Of course, the most effective way to eliminate accidental shooting deaths would be to eliminate guns. But that’s never going to happen, and, frankly, I don’t think it should happen—contrary to what some might think, I’m not flogging this issue as some sneaky method of advocating the abolition of gun rights.”
The next day: “This thing is legal now, but let’s hope it isn’t for long.”

Never back down to the savages. WRE in the school.

Homeschooling is growing.
Related: How to handle teachers unions.
Homeschool or die.

College is still a scam.

A mock commencement speech. Hehe.

Breaking news: responsible people more likely to have responsible opinions.

Youth unemployment surges in Europe.

(H/T: MSEG, MF, Foseti, Instapundit, CM, Roissy, HUS)

The Bookshelf: Men on Strike

I pre-ordered Men on Strike by Helen Smith months ago, and it arrived a couple of weeks back. This week I took a break from the Trivium to read it for review here. Reviewing this book is somewhat difficult, because its greatest weaknesses are also it greatest strengths.

So, first off, I did not care overly much for the book and, had I not already accepted her premise as true, I would have found her argument unconvincing. It was an easy read, being light, breezy, and short, in the way pop-academic books are. If you have spent a decent amount of time in the manosphere, there is not a thing in this book that will be new to you; I learned nothing from the book.

But that is exactly what makes this book important and good.

This book was not aimed at me, a hard-hearted INTJ and a denizen of the manosphere. According to the prologue, it is aimed at men who think something may be wrong, but can’t put their finger on what, but I think this is only a part of the target audience. This book was perfectly made for the average, decent-hearted female who generally likes men, but has some cultural unthinking sympathy towards modern feminism.

With that audience in mind, the book is likely a slam-dunk. The same things with the book that disappointed me are perfect for this audience.

My first critique was the anecdotal nature of the book. While each section usually beings with a few statistics showing the nature of the problem, the book is not one of in-depth analysis and convincing arguments. It is primarily a work of rhetoric made up mostly of anecdotes. Most of the book is of the nature of ‘such-and-such man I met at the gym said this’ and ‘male commenter on a website said that’. Helen herself wrote it is a call to action not a research study.

But the anecdotal nature, while unconvincing to me, is also its greatest strength. If you’ve ever spent time debating with others, you find that most women (and a goodly number of men as well) are rarely convinced by logical arguments backed up with facts and statistics. You are not going to convince the kind of person who likes to read Jezebel or Gawker with logic and facts. On the other hand, they are often moved by personal stories and anecdotal evidence. So, for your average person who is more feeling than thinking, this book would likely be convincing.

The second weakness/strength is that nothing is new here; everything in this book has been said a million times in the manosphere. I learned nothing, but I’m not most people; most people haven’t been to the manosphere, let alone written a manosphere blog. The red pill is foreign to the vast majority of people, and this book provides an easily digestible, mainstream-friendly summary of some basic red pill knowledge.

The third weakness/strength is the nature of the writing. The book was very light and breezy in the vein of most works of pop-academia, but even more so than usual, to the point where I found it too light and too breezy. I found the tone was lighter than even Malcolm Gladwell. The writing actually reminded me of reading Jezebel, except not evil and not as filled with repellent, hollow snark. That being said, there was still a small amount of feminine snark, which I found occasionally off-putting, but it was minor and didn’t negatively effect the book overly much. Also, Men on Strike was also short at about 200 (smallish) pages in a somewhat larger than normal font size; again, a light read.

A fourth weakness/strength I found is that in it’s breeziness, the book occasionally feels somewhat disjointed. Sometimes, within a greater topic, there will be rapid changes between sub-topics; occasionally there were paragraphs that didn’t really seem to follow from the previous paragraphs or one idea was picked up, then quickly abandoned for another. At times it felt to be written almost as a stream-of-consciousness, or at least a stream of consciousness that was edited to be more readable. Given the short-attention span of many in today’s phone-junky culture, this might not necessarily be a bad thing for many.

A major strength of the book is that it was written by a woman. There can be no trite dismissals of Men on Strike by retarded ideologues because it was written by ‘bitter’, ‘resentful’, ‘angry’ men (who are virgins with small dicks). While I still expect accusations of ‘sexism’ and ‘misogyny’ from the particularly ideologically dense, the fact that a woman wrote this will head off many of these accusations and will make the stupidity of the accusers plain to most reasonable people.

One disappointment of the book is, when discussing college, she talks as if it is an good which men are being unjustly driven from rather than the scam it is. Given that Helen’s husband literally wrote the book on this topic, you’d think she would have at least mentioned it.

In conclusion, I think Men on Strike is important and should prove to be very useful in the war for the masculine. She’s not reactionary or pro-patriarchy, but she is a libertarian who supports freedom and masculinity, and that’s sufficient. Her ideas are solid and this book is not one of those concern-trolling books that pretends to be pro-men, but is just arguing for a more comfortable slavery. I regret saying the negative things I’m saying, because what Helen produced here is great for its purpose and is a useful tool for the masculine reaction. The book is not bad, but is not really my style. I don’t regret reading it as it was a minimal investment and easy to read, but can’t recommend it to the kinds of people who would be reading my blog.

I would highly recommend this book as a gateway to the red pill for squishy scalzified-liberal-types who aren’t entirely emasculated or for potentially sympathetic women. Of course, these kinds of people are probably not reading this review and would probably be insulted by it if they did, so that recommendation is kind of pointless, but if you know these kinds of people and want a “nice”, easy-to-swallow purple pill to give them, get them a copy of this book. It will be a very low investment of time/effort on their part and won’t have the same immediately off-putting effect that places filled with “angry” men like Dalrock and Roissy have.

If you’re new to the manosphere and are honestly wondering what all these “angry, bitter men” are ranting about, read this book, it may prove enlightening.

The things about the book I found I disliked are probably its greatest assets, hence, the odd, contradictory nature of this review.

Also, I would like to note that Helen used the phrase “Uncle Tim” a number of times in the book, which made me smile. Is this phrase going to become more mainstream? We can hope.

Recommendation:

If you are a somewhat regular reader of this blog and/or occasionally go through my Lightning Rounds, reading Men on Strike will be a pointless waste of time and money for you; I can not recommend it.

On the other hand, it you’re new to the red pill and wondering why all the anger, this book is a good a place to start. If you are red pill and know someone, particularly a potentially sympathetic women, to whom you want to give a kindly introduction to the red pill, but worry that Roissy, Rollo, or Dalrock might be a bit too harsh, this is the perfect book for them. If you find yourself discussing the red pill and people are curious or interested in knowing more, point them towards Men on Strike.