The Nehor

Maybe at first if people thought currency would survive somehow. Eventually though it turns into barter or (more likely) some kind of communal sharing amongst a specific group. Barter economies are historically rare and generally exist primarily in currency-holding societies who suffer currency collapse. Barter exists in all kinds of economies but a pure barter economy where barter is the primary economic method of exchange has (as far as we know) never existed.

The board she is on can’t fire her. The governor also can’t. It is an elected position and letting the board or the governor fire local officials would be susceptible to a lot of abuse. It looks like the state legislature has the power to impeach and that is being looked at. The state board of education can levy some punishments but my understanding is that this is limited to censure, removal from committees and things like that and does not include removal from office.

The writer of that comic said that sometime in the next 30 years he will release a wolf into a random front yard so that no one should feel embarrassed about this fear.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/08/us/natalie-cline-controversy-student-gender-social-media-posts/index.html This is going to get more and more common. She insinuates that a player is transgender. There were attempts by some of the more loathsome denizens of the internet to doxx the girl and she has been threatened. There are reports the student was assigned police protection but I can’t confirm that. Natalie Cline, the bully, offered a non-apology surrounded with musings about how she couldn’t tell for sure if the student was transgender and lamenting we live in a world where she has to wonder about these things. She doesn’t. She is just obsessed. She also did the standard bully whining about “free speech” as if that protects her from anything other than prosecution. She is also denying everything and hiding behind her weasel wording and that she didn’t actually outright say the child was transgender. While technically true she obviously and directly implied it. What a coward. The girl in this situation was cisgender. If she were transgender it wouldn’t make it any better. In lighter Mormon Corridor news an Idaho state legislator is proposing we need additional laws around cannibalism because she watched a prank show about someone tricking someone into thinking they were eating people. The legislator said about cannibalism: “This is going to be normalized at some point, the way our society’s going and the direction we’re going,” https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/feb/08/they-fed-it-to-them-idaho-lawmaker-worried-about-c/ Everything is so stupid.

So sorry both of you had to endure those kinds of experiences.

And you are using rape statistics to try to shoot down my sexual assault and sexual violence statistics. Those are two separate things. Not off to a great start here. Rates of sexual assault on men are way too high. Oh, and SURPRISE! Most of those assaults are committed by men. Often men targeting underaged boys. So there is little need for men to treat every woman they meet as a potential rapist. There are women who assault and rape men (and women) but they are pretty rare. If sexual assault by men was that low I would agree with you that women seeing all men as potential rapists would be paranoid. Sadly that is not the world we live in. In my wild days when I was dating other men I learned quickly that I had to factor in the potential for being attacked and/or raped. I even had guys try to assault me twice. I stopped them but women are at a big disadvantage compared to me in warding off that kind of attack. I was naive. I learned. Thankfully I learned before I really got hurt. Oh great, you are quoting Cathy Young. Fantastic. The well-known opponent of campus anti-rape activism. The woman who suggested that Gamergate was a kinda sort-of justified backlash against excessive feminism. Have this lovely tidbit from Cathy Young: "It’s an extremely circular argument, and it reminds me a little bit of arguments that were being made during the Salem Witch Hunts. The idea was that if you denied the existence of witchcraft, that inherently made you a suspect. Because, you know, why would anyone deny the existence of witchcraft unless they were with the witches and wanted to help them get away with it? So it is really a very similar argument. I know that we can all say that, well, rape really exists. And we know today that witches did not exist, but rape does. To which I would say yeah, absolutely, rape exists. But I don’t think “rape culture” in modern Western society is any more real than witchcraft was in Salem." That is false in how the Salem witch trials went and why did she use the comparison? Rape is real. Demonic witchcraft isn't. How are they comparable? She has an agenda to push. I don't trust her not to fiddle with statistics. I'm gonna believe the CDC over one activist writer. This whole thing though is way off the point. Oh, you are doing that thing you do where you make it difficult to respond by just throwing out one liners. Lovely. Stop inserting random racism as if you are making a valid point. You aren't. Couldn't you at least pick some ethnicity that is not a stereotype created by slaveholders to justify keeping people enslaved for the social good? Maybe talk about how Belgian men are all potential rapists instead of defaulting to and perpetuating the stereotype. Or was that an emotional appeal and not a logical one? Of course men can harbor ugly presuppositions about "all" women. Incels for example. Many of whom believe rape shouldn't be illegal. More generally the idea that women are inherently and primarily sexual in a way men are not which is a big part of why society in general is screwed up. You also ignore that treating everyone as a potential threat is not assuming that all men are a threat and conflate the two. It is not prejudice to factor in potential harm and treating all men as someone who could harm you until shown otherwise. You are not being violated in some way by women doing this. They aren't assuming you are inherently evil. They are factoring in the possibility that you might be. This seems deeply offensive to you for some reason and it is baffling to me why you take this so personally. The Fallacy of Relative Privation isn't about two linked situations. Also I don't see women being wary of men as a problem. It is a defensive tactic. A wise one. If you want that tactic to go away you need to solve the situation that is causing women to adopt that tactic out of necessity. That is an actual problem and not just a mental state you don't like because it makes you feel bad. I don't like women choosing to be wary around me until they get to know me either but when I learned why they did it I understood. You want to take away the wariness and leave women more vulnerable because you are worried about what women are thinking about you. That is selfish and weird. All men are a potential "physical and sexual threat". Note the difference. When feminists and queer people talk about destroying the patriarchy and things of that nature this is what they are talking about. It is also one of the many ways the patriarchy hurts men too. They want to deconstruct the false narratives that many men use to justify assault and rape, instill universal respect, get rid of toxic masculinity and its hypermasculine garbage, and a lot more. They want a society where women don't have to be on the defensive around men. That would be genuine progress. Your approach if it could be implemented will just have many women blissfully ignorant until reality shows up. Actually rebuilding our concepts of gender and fighting their toxic elements is hard though. Much easier to argue about statistics based on one article or tell women that being on their guard around men is actually very racist for some bonkers reason. Why is it that you clumsily throw around the words of social justice when you feel men are being mistreated but argue statistics to minimize what women go through? Then even when doing that minimizing you take a short break in the middle of your statistical musings whenever men being victimized comes up and break off and suggest that this is significant and even talk about how we need to talk more about men being victimized. Then back to minimizing. Do you even realize you are doing this? I am genuinely interested to know whether this is conscious or reflexive behavior.

I am on your daughter’s side. Note that it is not that they are all rapists. Just potential rapists. Depending on what source you use about half or just under half of women in the United States experience sexual assault or sexual violence at least once. This doesn’t mean all men are dangerous. They aren’t but enough are that you have to be on guard and factor in and try to figure out if the guy you are with is one. About a quarter of all men do too. You didn’t say at the end whether your daughter accepted your weird argument. I hope not. Being defensive and wary is so important. Interesting that you equate men being violent and predatory with women wanting a wealthy partner or enjoying sex. You do realize the vast divide in those problems and how threatening and predatory they are right? And does thinking women are “tramps” (UGH) mean men have to be on the defensive around them? Men worry that the women they date will laugh at or humiliate them. Women worry the men they date might rape or kill them. And to stop this is why feminism is desperately trying to get men to confront and deal with “rape culture”. It is interesting that you see this as a woman’s problem. You seem to argue women shouldn’t worry that men are potential rapists just because their odds of getting assaulted by men is pretty high. Instead of trying to police how women view men internally in general maybe we should make it so sexual assault is rare enough that women don’t have to think like that? You know, deal with the problem (women being assaulted) and not the secondary effect (men feeling bad and like they are unjustly judged because women don’t immediately trust them). Surely the first problem is MUCH more important but that is what you fixate on. You want women to assume that men are good when many are bad because it is hurtful to you that women have to worry that you are bad. This isn’t a new thing either. There is poetry about it in the Victorian Age. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44996/goblin-market Emotionally and psychologically exhausting? Yes, it definitely is. And no, it is not paranoia. Paranoia is, as you said “unjustified”. Yeah, it is a real thing. It is not an unhealthy mindset. It is pragmatic. Many women have been assaulted. Those who haven’t have friends who have been. What a delightfully loaded statement. They are otherwise normal and rational but suddenly they are all lunatics for being suspicious of the most common physical and sexual threat women face in their lives. All set up so that any woman who does feel that way is told she is unbalanced or unhealthy or deranged or hysterical or whatever. You want to know why no women will open up and talk with you about this problem? This attitude is why. I love how you lean into the stereotype of the innocent woman walking through a dimly lit neighborhood jumping at shadows with all the baggage usually loaded into that stereotype. Most sexual assaults occur near or in the victim’s home. The assailant is almost always known to them and is often a lover or family member or coworker. The sex pest coworker who invades personal space and goes for the grope is more likely than a man wielding a knife in an alley. The lover who decides “no” doesn’t mean “no” is more likely than a creep jumping you when you are passing through a park. Both are likely to be explained away by the assailant and often by other men. Even when they do believe it happened they often leap to find reasons the woman is partially responsible. Did she lead the guy on? Was she dressed provocatively? Did she resist how I personally think she should have? If she froze up in fear couldn’t that mean she was okay with it and if she didn’t push back maybe he thought it was okay? So of course women are on guard a lot. That is a bold and courageous stance. Or a typo.

Yep, this is why intense homophobia often comes from the closeted, why the quietly prideful often hate people who peacock, and why those who would be good but aren’t spew hatred at those who do choose it.

It is worth noting that historically in Europe women have been seen as sexually eager lustbunnies who can’t control themselves. These are social constructs. In many ways we still believe that: https://going-medieval.com/2022/06/10/on-conflating-drag-and-femininity-with-sexuality/#more-5090

You are talking about a specific subset of Islam and not Islam in general. There are Christian and Jewish subsets with similar practices.

Now ask ChatGPT if it is sure about its last answer.

A secular political document is sacred? That is kind of creepy.

You could have just said “Libertarianism will solve everything!” and saved readers some time.

On my first read through I was trying to figure out what tax and insurance advantages there are if you don’t have sex with your spouse.

I need to tell my ace friends that there is now a way to hack the system.

I am neither of those.

The God really screwed up by not making that a bigger theme in the holy books He gave us.

I like my pyramids to be squarish at the bottom and pointy at the top as God intended.

I just can’t get a clear answer on what the grading curve is.

Well, then he is really dedicated to this bit since he has been doing it for a long time without ever breaking character.

I prefer existential shocks.

How is this in any way a response to what you quoted?

Nah, that makes it better.

I meant large scale ones. Showing pics of rocks doesn’t convince me there is a city or a pyramid.