02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Logic as Magical Thinking
These battles over definition are not taking place in the same universe as the one in which men throw around these terms online. But for the Logic Guys, the purpose of using these words — the sacred, magic words like “logic,” “objectivity,” “reason,” “rationality,” “fact” — is not to invoke the actual concepts themselves. It’s more a kind of incantation, whereby declaring your argument the single “logical” and “rational” one magically makes it so — and by extension, makes you both smart and c... 1 
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notes30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
The Informational Stakes of Dominance
The commodity that is immediately at stake in contests of dominance is information, and that feature differentiates dominance from predation in several ways. One is that while contests of dominance can escalate into lethal clashes, especially when the contestants are closely matched and intoxicated with positive illusions, most of the time (in humans and animals alike) they are settled with displays. The antagonists flaunt their strength, brandish their weapons, and play games of brinkmanship... 1 notes
notes18 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
How Gender Bias Impacts Men
Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.
Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s.
I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49 years of age; eclipsing road accidents, canc...
1 18 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Sexual Selection in the Wodaabe Tribe
Perhaps human aesthetics emerged through runaway sexual selection, with aesthetic tastes evolving as part of female mate choice. In this view, some female hominids just happened to have certain tastes concerning male ornaments. The artists best able to fulfill these tastes inseminated more aesthetic groupies and sired more offspring, who inherited both their artistic talent and their mothers' aesthetic tastes.
Something like this still happens among the Wodaabe people
(also known as the Boro... 1 notes
notesAs a result of their mating rituals, the men have diverged phenotypically from those of neighboring tribes.
11 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Reading is a Shortcut to Wisdom
The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s
experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a
better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of
incompetence are so final for young men.
[...]
Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face NOTHING new under the sun.
For all the “4th Generation of War” intellectuals running around today saying that the na... 1 notes
notesWithout reading, all we have is experience to give us wisdom, but that experience in war comes at too high a price. Through reading we can gain the wisdom without having to sacrifice the soldiers.
23 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Cultural Impacts of Easy Access to Pornography on the Int...
The Internet is awash with sex. In a few hours, an innocent can see more of the pleasures and perversions of sex, in a greater number of close-up couplings, than a eighteenth century roué could experience in a lifetime devoted to illicit encounters. The Internet is the greatest sex education machine — or the greatest pornographer — that has ever existed. Having spent time teaching at a Muslim university, where the torrent of Internet sex was a hot topic, I would not underestimate its impact o... 1 notes
notesWhat are the cultural and emotional impacts of the flood of pornography to people accessing the Internet?
08 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
The Samurai Reject Elaborately Ornate Religious Displays
The leading principle of the Utopian religion is the repudiation of the doctrine of original sin; the Utopians hold that man, on the whole, is good. That is their cardinal belief. Man has pride and conscience, they hold, that you may refine by training as you refine his eye and ear; he has remorse and sorrow in his being, coming on the heels of all inconsequent enjoyments. How can one think of him as bad? He is religious; religion is as natural to him as lust and anger, less intense, indeed, ...Folksonomies: centrism voluntary nobility
Folksonomies: centrism voluntary nobility
1 Like over-eating or alcoholism, the Samurai view ornate religion as a form of gluttony, as they also see religion accepted with an uncritical eye.
