Of bears and men

 So obviously men are problem. So much so, that 99.9% women who responded to the question rather have a chance encounter with a bear in a forest than with an unknown man. (Maybe they misunderstood and like hairy, thick, homosexual men?)

Which goes to show two things, really. People, who responded, are stupid. I mean really, fucking stupid. The education system completely failed. Second: it is incredible how polarized our world has become, where facts matter not, feelings trump everything. And if you are a man, and have an opinion, obviously you are dismissing women and their experiences, and should just shut up. Obviously. (Even though it kinda is about you, too. And really, real world evidence and "muh experience" are kind of different things.)

So the first thing.

Bear attacks are rare. True. But why are they rare you may ask. Well, let's see. Bears are rare, so encounters are rare, despite of people hiking and generally living where bears live. About 1% of chance encounters end up in an attack; which is not a lot, admittedly. (There is no actual statistics; I found a couple of estimates and used the lowest one.) But then again: how many men does a woman encounter on a regular basis and how many bears? If you really think you are safer with a bear than with a random man, even just looking at the numbers, you are -as we established already- fucking stupid. Not many people meet a 100 bears in their lifetime, so the chances of getting attacked by one is astronomically low. But if you regularly met hundreds of bears... well, the situation would change. Drastically. Women meet hundreds and thousands of men regularly, and if 1% of those meetings end up in an attack, well, we have an ongoing bloodbath; Khrone would be proud. Let me put this this way: cows kill hundreds of people every year, whereas lions hardly any. Does it mean cows are more dangerous than lions? Seriously? Well, do try to keep the same number of lions as we have cows, and we would see. Statistics without understanding the context means exactly jackshit.

So that's one issue out of the way.

The other thing is we ignored the fact that most violent acts are committed by a fraction of the population. Mostly men, yes, but women are violent, too, which is left out of the discussion interestingly. Also: men are significantly more likely to be victims of random violence than women. The level of fear and the actual threat may not be in balance here, but then again, it never usually is, considering how much people fear serial killers vs how much they fear cigarettes or ultraprocessed food. We are morons when it comes to things we fear. (Further example: fear of commercial flights vs fear of automobiles.) The issue here is more complex than these idiots would like to believe.

Another also important forgotten issue: if we focus on sexual attacks only, well, those are mostly committed by people close to the victim, so again, no cigar there. A random man will be a safer choice than your uncle, for example, just going by the statistics alone. I am sure your uncle is a nice person who would not rape anyone, but statistically he is more likely to rape you than that dude on the tram. Another interesting sidenote: many women would prefer to be dismembered by a bear than to be raped? Really? That is just... wow. I mean you can't be more stupid that this; which just shows how sheltered and privileged these people are. I guess there is nothing for me but to wish them their bear encounter they crave so much. After all, it is all fun and games until the grizzly starts eating you while you are still alive.

And then the second point I want to make.

The amount of glee, bitterness, outright hatred that stems from this victim menality s incredible. Women do seem to have adopted this hostile attitude against one half of humanity as not just something valid, but something to be embraced. Meanwhile, supposedly, they not all are angry lesbians (who, by the way, have the highest incidence of domestic violence) and have day-to-day encounters with their fathers, husbands, sons. I guess they do not count?  And let's not forget. These women are living the cosy, safe, sheltered life of the Western world, not the oppressive Patriarcy of Saudi Arabia, for example. Anyone spouting this idiocy, and stirring up hatred deserves her 1% chance meeting a bear. Young men already face challenges they get absolutely no support for, so this is not helping. The largest cause of death in men under 40 is suicide. They are more dangerous to themselves than to anyone, especially to those angry and misshapen women who dwell in their imaginary victimhood.

This idiocy perfectly shows the problem with victim mentality. Since you are the victim, you are justified to have absolutely no empathy -and outright hostility- towards the evil oppressors, and you are justified in your hatred. It also helps to foster an incredible level of narcisism. You can see this in all the comment sections whenever men's issues come up - women are so incredibly hostile, ready to belittle, to dismiss, it is incredible. You'd wonder how people who are claiming that empathy is important in uderstanding the struggle of others can so easily dismiss others' struggles.  That is until you realize that strong in-group empathy leads to the lack of it against anyone who is in the out-group. This is exactly how racists operate by the way.

And as a closing, I will present you an alternative version of this tik-tok question, which is much more supported by statistics than the fucking bear is. (Mind you this is for demonstrating the idiocy; I do not actually pushing for this.)

Would you be more willing to be alone in a forest with a white man or a black man? As we know, in the US, blacks are overwhelmingly responsible for violent crime, so this is a valid question, no? And if you do not think it is -based on some weird moral qualms about racism being bad and all-, why the fuck do you think the original question is acceptable, which is not even supported by statistics? Sexism is fine when it comes to men?

Bradley Cooper and his nose

 Every single time there is a gender or race swap of a white male character (fictional or not), there are several responses.

1. It is just a fictional character, race/sex should not matter, shut up racist. (I am not sure they would like a white Spawn or Blade but that is a different matter.)

2. OK, it is a historical character but back then they had no concept of race as we do, so shut up racist. (I guess Egyptians, Romans, Europeans in the Middle Ages, etc. did not recognize people from Sub-Saharan Africa or from South East Asia as somehow different. Maybe their eyesight was impacted somehow. I wonder what the first person who recognized African features thought. He must have believed he was going insane.)

3. We picked the best person for the role, regardless of gender or race. (Which is in itself interesting -I would like to ask how they think a black woman is the best person to play a white man's role -I am looking at you, Lucien- , but whatever.), so shut up racist.

4. We need to have more representation of historically oppressed minorities, so shut up racist.

And then, we have The opposing idiocy -coming from the same people- who suddenly find it problematic when a non-Jewish person plays a Jewish person on screen, a somewhat overweight person playing a morbidly obese person, or when a straight person plays a gay person on screen. The latest example: Bradley Cooper's fake nose. Maybe he was the best person for the role, who knows? And are we seriously going to argue that Jews are underrepresented in Hollywood? I mean if you take this line of thought to the logical conclusion, only the given person could play the given person on screen, and we do not possess enough knowledge in necromancy to do something about it when it comes to dead people. Plus the whole thing goes directly against the above detailed arguments for race and gender swaps.

This post has one purpose: to highlight the contradiction, and ask for a line of reasoning from anyone and everyone that can explain it away. I am very open to a logical argument.

Star Wars and racism

Well, look at the reactions to an obviously not white guy cosplaying Luke Skywalker.

Why it is important is two-fold.

1. You do not need exact representation for people to see themselves in a character. It is not to say that you should only have white men playing every single role from babies to grannies, but the current forced diversity is patently idiotic and stupid. (Not to mention divisive and counterproductive, but whatever.)

2. Star Wars fans, by large, are NOT racist or sexist. The criticism Rey, Reeva, Rose, and the rest of the newer characters get is not due to racism or sexism. That is not to say a little vocal minority does not have issues -they are shit people, and there are shit people everywhere. Ewan McGregor's rant in a car got that right -although the problem with these virtue signaling messages is that they address a truly small group of people, giving them more prominence than they actually deserve. Oooor -they are used to deflect any and all blame from a shit show and a shit character with accusing anyone who dares to criticize them as racist and sexist trolls. This is part of a well-known strategy you could see in the all-female Ghostbusters, Rings of Power, Star Wars, etc. called fan baiting. 

So, are Star Wars fans, by large, racist and sexist? 

Dunno, let's take a look.

Was Yar Yar Binks was reviled (and poor Ahmed West hated) because the actor was black or because Yar Yar was a terrible character? He did get personal attacks by those already mentioned assholes which are unacceptable -but the fandom also stood behind him and was happy for him in his return role en masse. Did people dislike Reeva's character because she was a black woman, or because it was a shit character?  How were other actors of color treated? Did Pedro Pascal, Billy Dee Williams, Samuel L. Jackson, Forest Whitaker, Carl Weathers, Ming-Na Wen, Temuera Morrison, Gina Carano, Titus Welliver, Michael Lang, Rosario Dawson, John Boyega, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Giancarlo Esposito, etc. etc. needed special treatment from Disney warning them of those horrible, racist, toxic fans like Moses did? 

I guess not. Do they get massive hate on social media by those toxic fans? I guess not.

By the way, why wasn't the criticism of the Book of Boba Fett met with accusations of anti-Maori and anti-Asian racism and sexism? It does not work as well as with black actors, eh? Or maybe it was so bad even they could not bring themselves to do it... Oh, and maybe it is not the fans who are racist, but Disney itself... (Weird turn of events, ain't it?)

So what is it, dear Disney? You know, to keep a franchise alive, it is not enough to bring a crowd into the movie theater. "Casuals" will watch your show, then forget about it, and get to the next Avatar or whatever that comes after. You actually need fans. Fans that you are actively pissing off and alienating in order to please a non-existent mass of potential fans who express their opinions on Twitter quite loudly, but who are actually a minority (just like those racist assholes you use to taint the whole of fandom). They will not bring in revenue for you. They will not buy your Rose action figures, your spinoff books, your computer games, they will not subscribe to your streaming service for your shows. They will wreck this franchise and move onto the next one to destroy.

And one more thing: Star Wars was always inclusive. In fact Star Wars was always the refuge of the outcasts, who were not cool enough for the cool kids, so any and all were invited. Now you are alienating the people who buy your merchandise, your books, your DVD special editions, and the rest -and this will kill your franchise.  

No, Madonna, not everything is sexism and ageism

 So, apparently, when Madonna showed up looking like a nightmare from a horror movie, the criticism and mockery is obviously sexism and ageism.

It did not occur to her (well...) that maybe it is only directed at her, her person, and the choices she made about her face. No, obviously not. It was directed at all women by a Patriarchal system hell-bent on oppressing her. Of course.

I guess all the criticism of Leo's questionable choice of dating partners is also sexism and ageism, right? Right?

Let's be real: Madonna is trying to deflect any criticism by claiming it to be sexism. Apparently any and all criticism of a woman is sexism, any and all criticism of a person of color is racism -there cannot be other explanation. (Funnily it does not work the other way around...) 

It is the same as labelling all critics of certain movies racists and sexist pigs instead of, you know, accepting that the result is shit. (It is part of the fan baiting strategy by the way, and Disney, Marvel and Amazon Studios are very keen on it.) It may seem work to some extent, but only as long as the "high culture" (journalists, opinion makers, etc.) accepts it as fact. The problem is that it is increasingly clear for everyone else, who has no vested interest in taking part in this collective delusion,  that the emperor has no clothes. All it does is causing further divide between the "elite" and the "masses" - something an unscrupulous individual, like Trump, took advantage of. It does not work. You only lose credibility if you do it. 

Poor neurobiologists... they can't catch a break

 So these poor souls can't do right by anyone. 

If they claim there are gender-based differences in the brain, they are called sexists and worse. Heck, there is even a name for them: NEUROSEXISM! Don't believe me? Read Nature's glowing review of the Genderd Brain, a book, that shatters old, sexist, outdated stereotypes! All hail this final blow to the Patriarchy! (Except... well, maybe the science does not actually say that, and it is quite worrysome that Nature gets into the social activism game ignoring the papers it (and other papers) regularly publish in the topic... but that is a different conversation.)

So now saying that there may be gendered differences in the human brain will unleash the Social Justice Warriors, who will do their best to get you silenced or even get you fired.

OK, so you accept that our brains are uniform- there are no gendered differences. At the present the leading feminist standpoint is that women are the same as men, and all differences between women and men are the products of our society (you know: da patriarchy). This means it is true in neuroscience, too, as we have seen. As a researcher you really, really do not want to lose your position at your research institute, you do not wish to be the target of a Twitter mob, and you do want to get funded, so you obligingly stand in the line, and work from this angle, or just do your best to avoid this issue altogether, and ignore the topics that would shed light on the basics of these differences which do seem to exist between men and women. (Long story- read the link above.) A question: is it good for science (and humanity) when there are forbidden areas where scientific inquiry dares not to go?

And then comes the other side of Social Justice. Activists who claim you deliberately ignore the differences in the brain because you hate women, and you are a sexist pig serving the Patriarchy, and who will, eventually, again, unleash the very same Social Justice Warriors to write outraged articles about you. There really is no good choice here. It is the Schrödinger's Patriarchy. It oppresses women by claiming they are different from men and simultaneously oppresses women by claiming they are the same as men.

Obviously, for humanity's sake, you should accept what science tells you, and factor this into your medical treatments, policymaking, etc. However when simply saying that women are, well, different, and not just "menstruating people" will earn you death threats, when simply saying that women are different from men will literally unleash hell on you and your family, well, it is a difficult choice, isn't it? The pressure to ignore the differences is not exactly conductive in helping shedding the old habits of only using male animals and men in your studies. Perhaps Dr Liisa Galea should direct her attention to those pesky feminists, too, because I suspect they are the ones needing to be convinced -perhaps starting with Dr Hyde and Dr Halpern. (Who at least argue that there are differences, however negligible -without actually supporting this hypothesis.) 

 The fact remains: there are contradicting demands on science: on one hand it should not acknowledge the statistical differences between male and female brains, on the other it definitely should take them into consideration and include them in the design of preclinical and clinical experiments. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But what do I know. Facts are not objective, as we know. Identity politics over everything.

Fuck, just reading this makes me wonder where we put our collective common sense. The saying about the truth being a revolutionary act in dictatorships seems to work in our age of wokeness, too.