It's easier to attack than defend.

I play table top wargames. One tactic that always works, no matter the game, is to put your opponent on the defensive. People on the defensive are flustered, they make more mistakes. This is a prime debate strategy as well. It's a strategy for any contest between people. An arguing couple knows this, a child who doesn't want to clean his room knows this. Sun Tzu knew this. It's a tactic that goes way back.

All people make mistakes. They will inevitably contradict themselves at some point, because no issue beyond "2 plus 2 equals 4" is simple enough. (And there are mathematicans who will even argue such a simple arithmetic problem)

Take the case of Matt Binder, who seeks out such things that people have said in the past to mock and ridicule them, while making such blunders of his own.
No, Matt Binder probably doesn't think that consensual sex is rape. But he replied poorly to an intentionally provocative tweet, and so has made a contradictory statement.

Another tactic is to block the need to defend. Make your own position vague and fluid, and it will be more difficult for you opponent to find your inevitable mistakes.

On to satire and hyperbole. The problem with satire is that someone will inevitably take your position seriously. This happens often on social media, where people are intentionally attempting to find anything to use against an opponent. Such as what recently happend on twitter where a critic actually attempted to use a line from a movie to smear Adam Baldwin with racism.

Whether Adam Baldwin is racist or not (and I do not think he is) is irrelevant to the issue that using a line of dialogue from a movie to represent the actor's personal views is ludicrous.

Which brings me to Femitheist Divine AKA Krysta. A woman who put up some very disturbing videos on youtube once upon a time. She seems to have recanted and called those videos "satire". The problem is we have no way of knowing Krysta's mind, like Adam Baldwin. She could be recanting or dissociating from those ideas, or been sincere. I would like to point out that anyone can backpeddal and call their more hyperbolic statements "satire". People will jump through hoops to justify previous statements, and we're all vulnerable to the temptation to preserve our own Ego. MRAs, MGTOWs, Feminists, and people who think they're above such labels by eschewing them.

"How did you overcome your kwisatz haderach?" Irulan asked.
"A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of
his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation,"
Scytale said.
"I do not understand," Edric ventured.
"He killed himself," the Reverend Mother growled.
-Dune Messiah

People become attached to their labels. They make them a part of their own identity. A Christian is not only someone who believes in Jesus Christ, they are someone who defines their very existence by their belief in Jesus Christ. To criticise christianity is a personal attack for such a person. To convince them that their belief is false (whether it is false or true is irrelevant. Their belief is the issue) can have a serious impact on their psyche.

So a person who identifies with a concept as part of their identity will react with strong emotions to criticism of that concept, as a personal attack. This is what leads to so much acrimony over labels instead of issues.

Is abandoning such labels a measure of prevention against attachment to the label? Is it an attempt to block criticism by denying a label and the connotations that it brings? Don't think that by refusing a label that you somehow transcend your vulnerabilities. Also, do not think that your label is your identity. Or that your lack of labels protects you from your falliability.

Space Moses, part 2.

Follow up thoughts on Geordie Tait.

https://twitter.com/Geordie_Tait

The guys has some serious issues. But I think this thought process is on a kind of spectrum. The cold, logical conclusions of feminist ideas like Patriarchy Theory, is that men are women's superiors, and that women will never, ever be safe from men. Thus you run a spectrum of solutions based on the morals and principles of an individual feminist.

Someone like CH Sommers stops very early, at the gynocentric break. Men are useful to women, and cannot perform if they are not treated sufficently well.
Most coffee shop feminists stop just past rape culture and the wage gap. Men are predatory and oppressive, but they can be taught, like animals I suppose.
Further off the deep end are feminists like Jessica Valenti, who use feminism to justify their misandry, and call it 'ironic;. "Often a true word is spoken in jest"
Next stop on the crazy train is Geordie Tait, and the idea that anyone against feminism deserves to be gassed to death. He's not willing to push the button himself, but would be perfectly fine if someone else did.
Last stop is Valerie Solanis, who thought that radical feminism didn't go far enough.

So the ideology leads to a conclusion that men should be killed, and the morals and principles (or lack thereof) of an individual feminist shows where they get off the crazy train.

Space Moses

I listened to King of Pol's chat with Geordie Tait today while at work. A few things stuck out for me. I mean aside from the NAZI IDEOLOGY.

Tait mentioned how men are superior to women. Even comparing men to the fictional character of Superman. I'm sure he wouldn't use the term "Superior to women", but the idea that men are so powerful as to be compared to Superman, and that they have oppressed women for 10,000 years is so blatantly an idea that men are their superiors that it's hard to miss. Of course, a man can be excused for having such godlike power if he uses his superior masculinity in the service of women.
Otherwise, he'd be one of the Bad Men. It came out clearly when Oliver confonted Tait with the idea that his speils were making women feel afraid. That's against his Prime Directive, and so caused him cognitive dissonance. Even after vehemently asserting that he's fine with the idea of women being gassed if they support #GamerGate, being faced with the idea of threatening #GamerGate women tripped him up.

And his constant accusations that #GamerGate supporters are misogynists, etc. I couldn't help but think of how the Nazis portrayed the Jews as dangerous.

Responsibility.

I've been thinking of the video clip of Caitlin Moran shown at the beginning of this video, Singing the Masculinity Blues.



It's telling that Caitlin mentions how she thinks men should step down and give women power for a while. The sheer misunderstanding of how power, authority and responsibility work.

If women want power and authority, they need to take the responsibility that comes with it. It's like feminists have a fairy tale idea of men being all powerful and seeing only the riches and power that powerful men had, and ignoring all the men underneath, toiling and sweating for little thanks or recognition.

Let me put this as clear as I can. If women want power, they first must seek the responsibility to prove that they have the qualifications to wield that power. Most men have to earn their positions of authority, they are not given them. Sometimes a golden boy gets a fast track to unearned success, but that is rare and often disastrous.

But even more than that, I think that it comes from father worship. To admit that men could be vulnerable, that men might not be all-powerful is to admit that men might not have the power to protect and provide for them, that their father figure might have feet of clay, and be made of blood and sinew instead of steel.

Note the reaction of many women in 3rd world countries if their husband is raped. These men are tossed aside as valueless. It opens up a vein of fear in women.

So these radfems are trapped in a place where they envy their fairy tale vision of male power, but to take it from men is to admit that men could be powerless, and thus shatter their father worship fantasy.

Orestes

You wild goddesses who dart across the skies
seeking vengeance for murder, we beg you to free
Agamemnon's son from his raging fury....
We grieve for this boy. Happiness is brief among mortals.
Sorrow and anguish sweep down on it
like a swift gust of wind on a sail boat,
and it sinks under the tossing seas.

The Exodus

On a popular table top rpg site I visit, I saw another person question the progressive social justice movement. In this case, the issue was over #GamerGate. The user was given a lengthy ban for daring to question the SJW narrative that they spin about #GamerGate.

These people usually seek out alternative places to speak their minds. KotakuInAction, 8Chan, the MRM, MGTOW boards. They still want to talk about the issues, and the tendency for SJWs to ban and silence just makes them more eager to speak.

Weaponized Threats

Brianna Wu recieves death threats over internet.

Some of those who have been following gamergate see the pattern. A woman gets threats over the internet, inevitably gets a plug for their product or video, and uses the threat as a shield against criticism.
Hell, Davis Aurini and Jordan Owen are attempting to get a documentary made on this subject, aptly named, The Sarkeesian Effect.

http://www.patreon.com/thesarkeesianeffect

Digging deeper shows that there is more going on under the hood of these threats.
Brianna Wu was not above making troll accounts to attack gamergate supporters.

https://archive.today/ApOy0

We may never be able to confirm where these threats come from, or if they are intentional fabrications or trolls trying to play both sides, but they do happen, and they're the strongest weapon the SJWs have in their arsenal, since they play on emotions instead of logic.

Framing the debate.

"If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments"
-Children of Dune

I started looking into framing these past few days, in response to the #gamergate issue in specific, but in the general topics of feminism, social justice, etc.




I started with this video, by a progressive, on using framing as a tool in debate with conservatives, and how conservatives use framing.

I then did a little reading on how framing is affected by the amygdala, inspired by this blog.

http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/touching-the-raw-amygdala-part-i-foundational-understandings/

I then did some watching of Robert Sapolsky videos, especially this one on the limbic system.




I'm still digging, but my opinion so far is that while facts and stats are good, they don't necessarily win debates or influence people. Emotions are the motivations to accept or reject those facts.

There's some debate on the value of engaging with social justice warriors and feminists at all. I think that engaging with them is inevitable. Either that, or they will continue to co-opt various areas of interest and twist them to their agenda. Atheism, video games, comics, etc.



Alison Tieman recently did a great video on how feminists frame the issue of sufferage.




I think this illustrates the value of framing and reframing well.

Limerance and Elliot Roger

My road to Men's Rights started with dealing with my own oneitus.
(oneitus is PUA terminology for limerance...)

Once upon a time, I pinned all my romantic hopes on one woman. This lasted for literally about a decade and a half, where I "lost" her, "found" her and despite all my efforts, finally lost her again.
After first losing track of this woman, I reconnected and found that she had gone through a dysfunctional, abusive relationship. In a moment of despair, I finally asked myself the correct question, that led me slowly out of the oneitus trap.

"Why did she choose to be with an abusive partner?"

Up until that point, I had been pretty blue pill,  believing that if I did the "right" thing, she would fall in love with me. Buy her crap, treat her right, etc. But I then went through a rather unhealthy (but necessary) period where I determined that if an abusive partner could "control" her, then I could too, for her own good and for my romantic gratification. I then looked into pick up artist techniques, and divorce councelling. The two combined gave me a pretty good picture of human dysfunction and contrariness in relationships. I learned to let go of limerance and instead focus on my own health and happiness first. It wasn't instantaneous, and took a lot of introspection and work, but I finally let go.

Thunderfoot recently posted a video criticizing Stephan Molyneau.



I'm going to focus on Thunderfoot's comparison of Stephan Molyneau to Elliot Roger. Being critical of a person, a demographic or a gender is not, repeat not, indicative of hatred. Hell, we could go down that road and say that Thunderfoot's criticism of Anita Sarkeesian is misogyny if we accept that tactic.

For those asking my @xoxo talk should be online soon. In it I discuss how defamation, libel and slander are often deployed to harass women.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 1, 2014

They key to dealing with my limerance was being critical. Of women and men and relationships. The difference between Stephan Molyneau and Elliot Roger was, of course, that Elliot Roger shot people. If we fall into the trap of considering anger to inexorably lead to violence, then I suspect all people are just like Elliot Roger. The guy in the bar bitching about his wife. The woman bitching to her girlfriends that all men are assholes because the guy she slept with won't return her calls, etc, etc.

Threats.

I've been thinking about online threats, and their value. I think the two problems with this is-
1. There will always be a troll or jackass or, in extreme cases, false flags. No matter how squeaky clean a community is, it only takes a few moments for a troll to create a new user account, and go threaten somebody. Bonus points if they do the research and use a real phone number or address.
2. Accsuing someone of faking a threat opens the accuser up to refutation if they aren't dead goddamn certain of their facts.

Trolling for threats is easy enough as well. Feminists and social justice warriors have been attacking various groups for a long time. Eventually someone will lose their cool and post something embarrassing.

And I've been clued in to the phenomenon of search engine optimization revenue tactics.


I'm pretty sure this is what was behind the Emma Watson nude picture threats. Another source of real and false threats that cannot be prevented by self-policing.

But also the value in threats is that it plays on people's sympathy. The focus is shifted from the arguments to the threats. This is how Anita Sarkeesian operates, and in a lesser fashion, Zoe Quinn.

#gamergate is chasing it's own tail.

If you haven't been following #gamergate, well google it. There's far too much to go over.

But I saw a twitter log that confirms what I've been worrying about.

The participants of #gamergate are going after small potatoes, making up silly accusations against indie devs instead of chasing real corruption. I can only hypothesize that the accusations of "misogyny" worked, and they've gotten cold feet over challenging feminists and social justice warriors, which was where the corruption originally came from.

Ah well. Baby steps.

Somebody is going to do something stupid.

With all the hostility and confrontation and frustration... Someone is going to be goaded into stepping over the line. Danielle D'Etremont. Zoe Quinn. Anita Sarkeesian. Threat narratives get people scared, and scared people do things...




Well, maybe not as dramatically as V for Vendetta, but still.

Anita Sarkeesian, level 50 Troll.

Feminist Frequency's latest video. Be aware that clicking on the link gives them ad revenue.




Problems with the video abound, in her feminist interpretation of violence against women in video games. In almost all cases, the violence is portrayed as BAD, because it's an easy button to push in men's psyches. We have an innate desire to protect women, and when we see them harmed, it motivates us. It's a cheap and simple way to propel a protagonist into action.

But my main problem is with her conclusions. That this violence is "problematic" and indicative of "systemic misogyny"... blah, blah, blah. I'm reminded of the hysteria over video game violence in the 80's except now the hyseria gets a coat of lipstick.

I do think that media influences us. But I also think it's important for artists to be able to portray what they want, within legal guidelines, of course. (No kidde porn for art's sake, please)
Anita doesn't go for the legal route of controlling art, she uses the feminist tools of manipulation and guilt to portray ALL video games, and ALL video gamers as having the mentality of a 14 year old pervert who grows up to rape and abuse women. You don't hate women, do you? Then you better do what Auntie Anita tells you to.

And the cherry on the shit sundae is that after insulting gamers, and portraying them as monsters, they sling insults back at her. She gathers up these insults and parades them around as "evidence" of that misogyny. It's getting a bit old and predictable at this point. But GG Anita, you got more people to donate to you out of pity instead of having a compelling, logical, well thought out presentation. You cuntrag. (You can quote me on that.)

Zoe Quinn

Women against feminism.

Why the hell not? Eveyone else is talking about it. As I see it, there are 3 important categories of WAF. I'm sure there's some overlap, and a few that don't neatly fit into a category, but I'll deliniate them anyway.

 #1. Tradcon women who are fine with getting back to the kitchen, as long as there's a man to bust his ass to provide for her. These I dislike the most, because I'm sure there's lots of guys who will take them up on that offer without doing a cost/benefit analysis.

 #2. Me-too's. Women who see an opportunity to post a selfie and get some attention. Mostly harmless.

 #3. Honey Badgers. My favorite. Women who know terms like 'gynocentric', 'hypergamy', 'misandry' who have done their homework on feminism and have read stuff like The Myth of Male Power, and The Manipulated Man. I fear this category is not nearly large enough.

 Watch WAF with caution.

Building the future.

I hate having to preface a post with disclaimers like "This is my opinion", etc, so I'm going to do it this once, and hopefully I won't have to do it again.

Typhon Blue made a most excellent statement in one of the Honey Badger podcasts. drrandomercam then put it to video, and I'm going to link to that.


And I pretty much agree.  Women, in the vast majority, control the raising of children. That means legions of white knights in training, identifying with their single mothers, vulnerable to anti-male propoganda. Compared to that, the men's movement is a trickle.

So, that's what women can do. What can men do? We're mostly doing it. By creating an alternate space where people can speak without being censured by social forces. The creation of those spaces, and participation in them, is a place where a man can say "That cunt was one fucked up bitch!" and not immediatley be dismissed as a "misogynist", or speaking about the usual issues like genital mutilation or divorce courts and not have someone femsplain to us why women's issues are more important.

What's amusing is when one looks at how the progressive types turn on each other without an enemy present. I've seen it in the online communities that I have participated in. Often it turns into an outrage contest, and they turn on those who don't express the proper amount. Mundane Matt covered it pretty well.



Make those alternate spaces. Participate in them.The goal is not to infiltrate the mainstream, or to convert them, but to create an alternate space, and people will judge that alternative by their participation in it. And if the "misogyny" offends them, too fucking bad. They can always go to Jezebel or Good Men Project.

Just Say No.

http://www.parkrdnews.com/women/feminists-time-ask-men-help/

It's an issue of boundaries. Feminists and women abuse the male mentality of providing and protecting. Their problems, their issues, they will never end. You can see it in the ever expanding definition of rape. You can see it in the imaginary problems they invent. 

Just say No. You don't owe some random woman out there on the interwebs one bit of consideration. That consideration is earned and quite frankly, it's time for women to stop thinking just of themselves, and take some responsibility.

Gotcha!

I'm reluctant to even address these types of "arguments". It's one Gotcha! after another, where they dredge up anything and everything in an attept to point the politically correct finger and justify their claims that men's rights is homophobic, transphobic, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

But.

I'll dissect the latest from Futrelle, since it's topical, and this Gotcha! mentality tends to irritate me to no end.

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/06/19/why-is-a-voice-for-men-giving-a-platform-to-one-of-canadas-leading-opponents-of-gay-and-lesbian-rights/

Which rights? Right from the article,

Gay marriage isn’t a men’s right, according to AVFM conference speaker Anne Cools

I recognized this as a Gotcha! gambit from the start, and so did a little googling.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_marb51.htm 

Of note:

Honorable senators, as I said before, I wish to register my strenuous opposition to Bill C-38. I believe that the issues have been falsely framed as Charter rights issues and equality issues. Marriage is not now, and never has been, a right. It has always been a grand privilege, with its origins as a sacrament of the church, governed by the canon law, received from the civil law into the common law. No sacrament of the church is now, or has ever been, a right.  

 Here, Anne Cools points out that Marriage of any kind is not a Right, but a privilege granted to religious unions.

This is a Gotcha! move, in an attempt to paint Anne Cools as a homophobe. A Post Hoc rationalization of their prejudices.

I may disagree with Anne Cools on some points. Personally, I think that the definition of marriage should be children. In a nutshell, I think that hetero and homosexual couples should be able to join in a civil union, and that union "graduates" to a marriage when children are born or adopted. A marriage should come with a complete set of obligations to those children.

But just because Anne Cools has a certain opinion, and also has a technical reason to object to gay marriage, doesn't mean she's against gay rights, and certainly not the homophobe that these Gotcha! arguments imply.

But there is no room with these people for debate or dissent. Agree or be cast down as the heretic.

I was raped of my Big Mac when they forgot it in the drive through.

The latest nuttery from Huffpo Women.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-krischer/the-maleficent-rape-scene_b_5445974.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Now, I am a fan of fairy tales. It is true that the original tales dealt with so-called Adult issues, since they were tales for everyone. It's only in modern times that fairy tales got relegated to the children's section of the library.

But this attempt to politicise  a modern interpretation of a fairy tale into an alegory specifically about certain rape and alleged rape cases to further the feminist agenda is pretty damn crass. Though one might say that that's been feminism's whole tactic all along. Call everything rape, because rape is the topic they can throw into a man's face to make him feel like shit for his gender, for being male. Ignore female rapists and male victims, ignore that rape incidence is dropping and has been dropping for decades,  rape is a tool for feminists to shame and control men.

It's too soon for men to be free.

As a group.

Leonardo DaVinci created many ingenieous designs for a flying machine... and none of them worked.
Not for lack of imagination, but for lack of the technology that allows a modern helicopter or airplane to fly. He didn't have the kinds of engines or materials to make his designs work in the real world.

Men are enslaved to their instincts to provide for and protect women. Moreso, they identify too strongly with women, base their identities and self worth on their service to women. For men to be able to free themselves from this, they need to be able to free themselves from it. A tautology. The technology does not exist. A few eccentrics, MGTOWs, will dream of the male emotional emancipation equivalent of DaVinci's flying machines,  but the mass of men, even MGTOW men, are simply waiting for the pendulum of female social acceptance to swing back to give them some measure of relief from women's constant attacks.