Like the one on Better Call Saul?
Turbula
joined 2 years ago
sudo apt install gnome
Why do we always consider cultures as inherently better than cults? Are there no exceptions to this?
The more popular something is, the less effective it is to criticize it harshly. For example, I think eating meat regularly is, by the amount of suffering it causes, worse than murdering one human. But if I went around calling everyone who ate meat "murderers" and refused to befriend or do business with them, it would just make people think I was crazy and not want to listen to me, because eating meat is seen as normal. On the other hand, when something is seen as abnormal, like being openly racist, shunning people who do it makes others less likely to do it too.
Well, men are also most of the victims of serious crime and do most of all dangerous jobs. These are all consequences of taking more risks.
That's true. I don't see what it has to do with my argument, though. I'm pretty sure that testosterone increases risk-tolerance, and that's part of why it correlates with aggression. Are you suggesting that men have elevated risk-tolerance for reasons other than testosterone, and that risk-tolerance is responsible for aggression instead of testosterone? Or are you saying that risk-taking is important so it's worth keeping men the way they are even if it causes most serious crime?
No one? YES, there are many people thinking about this.
Most people see violent crime as a problem, but few see it as a problem with men. When people discuss crime, I never hear them frame the problem as "there's something causing men to commit 10 times as much rape and murder as women: what is it and how do we stop it?" Even feminists who talk about male violence generally don't frame it that way.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that, it takes a fool, because it’s not necessarily true.
No empirical data can lead us to accept something as "necessarily true," but it stretches credulity to think that castration would reduce aggression in pretty much every kind of male mammal we try it on except humans and further that the most aggressive humans coincidentally have elevated testosterone levels. I don't think that you actually believe that, since you said:
It may make them less aggressive, but what else would happen?
I specifically listed the other effects I could think of. If you think something else bad might happen, just say what it is. If your objection is that we should be cautious because there might be unexpected effects... well sure, that's true, but it's also a general-purpose objection to any suggestion to change anything ever. You can't really have any interesting opinions if you accept that reasoning.
What about we make society less toxic first, for example?
I'm in favor of that. But I think there's a limit to how much you can improve society via culture alone. You could probably design a culture where people would be a lot less selfish than they are today, for example. But I don't think you could get people to never be selfish at all, because some amount of selfishness is part of human nature. I think the same is true for aggression, and that the minimum amount of aggression you could get from people is in large part of function of testosterone levels.
Furthermore, "make society less toxic" is a goal, not a policy. A policy to reduce violence by making society less toxic could be something like teaching children to play cooperative games instead of competitive ones. That would probably have a small effect in a few decades. But I think chemically castrating men would have a bigger effect in a shorter amount of time than just about any other policy you could think of, and those effects would be in addition to anything else you did.
I don't think we should castrate men against their will, although I would if I weren't an anarchist. As it is, I think it would be a good social norm for men to take testosterone blockers.
I'm not sure what "men are inherently violent" means. I think that testosterone makes people more aggressive. Adult men with typical levels of testosterone are more likely to be violent than people with lower testosterone levels. Men with very low testosterone levels are not particularly likely to be aggressive. Aggression is not inherent to being a man, but it is caused by a chemical that's found in larger amounts in men than in women.
I do think we should discourage toxic masculinity, and I do think it's responsible for some of the difference in aggression in men and women. However, I think that testosterone also plays a major role.
Most human males should be castrated.
Men commit almost all rape and murder, but no one seems to think this is a problem we need to do anything about. If any other group committed 90% of serious crimes – let's say immigrants – people would be calling for them to be rounded up and exiled. But when it's men, that's just the way things are, nothing to be done about it.
But we know exactly what to do about it when we're talking about other species. We castrate male cattle because bulls are dangerous and steer aren't. Violent criminals typically have elevated testosterone levels. It doesn't take a genius to realize that putting men on testosterone-blockers is going to make them less dangerous.
What will be the other effects?
- Men will be be weaker—Meh, physical strength is less useful now than it was in the past.
- They'll have less hair on their bodies and more on their heads—Awesome.
- They'll won't be able to get hard—That's what viagra is for.
- They'll lose fertility—They can go off blockers while they're trying to have a child. Or you could just have a small number of uncastrated sperm donors.
I'm an anarchist, so I don't want to force this on anyone. But if I believed in prisons or police, I would also believe in mandatory castration.
The best app is whatever you use to consume media in the target language.
The only way to acquire a language is to expose yourself to it in a natural context. You can't acquire a language just by studying with flashcards or grammar exercises or whatever – any app that offers enhanced versions of those will at best be a minor supplement to actually using the language.