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betty wrote:Do we want a race that is made up of people procreating solely because of physical attraction? It's a big part of it, but there are a lot of stupid pretty people out there.

woah nellie! is that in any way sprung from my "biological imperative" comment? there was a bit of joke in that, sorry i didn't use the wink emoticon if it wasn't clear.

i didn't mean to suggest that people only procreate out of biological attraction, or even that such a thing would be anywhere near ideal. though honestly, i would hazard a guess that it's the most likely reason babies come to be. cause people wanna screw. sometimes drunk people. i would, with no potential for evidence of any type to support it, make the claim that the majority of babies are indeed produced via the innate, hormonal urge to screw. actually, i think i might be able to count myself as evidence of this supposition. i really doubt that my dad was all "heck yeah, i want another kid!" so much as he was drunk and horny.

and that second line of yours that i quoted there, that's really scary stuff. are you suggesting that stupid pretty people aren't entitled to make babies out of their urge to screw? that people should only make babies out of some immense love for each other and their shared desire to bring a life into this world and nurture it? cause if so, *that's* way more creepy than a guy checking out boobs. that's getting into the business of controlling others' free will. then there's the whole implication that stupid pretty people aren't as good as, say, smart pretty people, or smart people in general. smart doesn't necessarily equal good, and i often wonder if smart doesn't generally equal bad. i have yet to see an animal invent a GPS-guided nuclear warhead.

i'm gonna call this an example of how bradley was probably being sarcastic with the "voice of reason" comment.

Toomanyhelicopters,
I was also trying to be "funny" and to take to the extreme your "funny" comment "...without guys being physically attracted to the ladies, the human race would wither and die. that's why mother nature makes us like to look at naked ladies. so we don't all die. who wants us to all die? nobody!"...in saying "Do we want a race that is made up of people procreating solely because of physical attraction? It's a big part of it, but there are a lot of stupid pretty people out there."
No, I don't think that only smart, pretty people or smart people should make babies. I do think that we should all try to be careful (pretty and smart or whatever) to put some thought into whether or not we want babies and then make the appropriate birth-control decisions.

betty wrote:I do think that we should all try to be careful (pretty and smart or whatever) to put some thought into whether or not we want babies and then make the appropriate birth-control decisions.

That's why I spank it into a trashcan

betty wrote:Don't worry, Bradley R. Weissenberger, we won't be dear friends.

Don't count on it.

This world is very small.

then there's the whole implication that stupid pretty people aren't as good as, say, smart pretty people, or smart people in general. smart doesn't necessarily equal good, and i often wonder if smart doesn't generally equal bad.

Smart doesn't equal good or bad. Smart equals smart.

Without smart people you wouldn't have that Ibanez with the three sets of humbuckers.

A problem with smart people is that it only takes a small group of asshole smart people to create some really awful shit, often based on ideas developed by good-natured smart people who had a lot of respect for humanity.

i have yet to see an animal invent a GPS-guided nuclear warhead.

Yeah, some of them stick to it the old fashioned way--like eating their young. Oh, wait, that might belong on the abortion thread...

I've met some beautiful simple-pretty people and some beautiful simple-unpretty people. Let's not be ridiculous here about who deserves to reproduce. It's starting to scare me. Remember when the Nazis measured peoples' heads? Oh, wait, that comment belongs on the Nazi thread. Jesus Christ... whoops, that one belongs on the religion thread. Or the Bible thread. Ugh.

i once knew a guy who was a real, heavy-duty nerd. not the only nerd i've ever known, but an extreme example of nerd. truly, he was a nerd--he knew little of sex, less of love, and not much about many other things that rely to some extent on social grace. once, he got set up on a blind date. they went to an italian restaurant--i heard this all through the grapevine, and it was easy to believe knowing this guy--and she ordered fettucini alfredo. she walked out when he said 'that looks like something i'd like to put into you later.'

she had it worse than you did, whoever she was, and she did the only thing she could have done. and this guy didn't say this thing b/c he was malicious or cruel. he said it b/c he was a fucking nerd.

'dirty charades' sounds like some nerds' idea of a 'good time.' and i don't mean nerds like cool nerds. i mean maladjusted, truly nerdy nerds.

i think you are making yourself a victim here, and i think you are thinking about it entirely too much. sure, it's easy for me to say as a MAN, but my wife would say the same thing, and i know at least a half dozen other women who would say the same thing, so whatever. i just think you should concentrate on the fact that you were hanging out with nerds and try to do something to rectify that situation, rather than wringing your hands over some kind of broad, generalized gender conflict.

steve wrote:Short of cat-hurting, then yes, I think that your presence (or absence) in a group is the strongest stand you should make.

This is obviously a matter of scale. If civil rights activists, feminists, etc all shipped off to Shangri La the ‘moral-majority’ would have the States even further by the balls.

Where does a social circle end and society begin?

If you feel like an object, you should strive to change your own thinking, so that others cannot make you feel this way.

Unless I misunderstand you, this is a very naïve statement. And, with all due respect, it reminds of me of the lack of historical insight in statements such as ‘if me and my pals were black 19th century slaves/Rheinland Jews/Treaty indians we would have risen up a and there would have been revolution.’ Horseshit.

[Edit:I can only hope that in twenty five years average Americans will look back at ‘the Bush years’ and say ‘Fuck, if I knew everything they knew about that war/administration/roll-back of civil liberties, etc’ I would not have stood for it!’]

I will admit to being distracted by breasts in my life, although not often. I don't think society is to blame. I am a little ashamed of it, but only because my understanding of etiquette tells me I should be. You can thank society for that. Left to my own devices, I would stare and stare.

The biology/culture or nature/nurture debate, while old and tired, is not half as cut and dry as people entrenched on either side of the debate might think.

In a society less steeped in puritanical Christian hypocrisy and mind/body dualism this wouldn’t be the case.


Just what hypothetical society is this, you counter? Well, dig up stats comparing rates of plastic surgery, female depression, eating disorders, not to mention political representation etc, in the States to those in certain European nations and you’ll find some pronounced differences. Every culture has its pluses and minuses (tell Italian women they've got it better than Americans, or Swiss women who got the vote in 1971!)-- and in the end political economy (global capitalism) is a great leveler (for good and ill) -- but the ‘it’s all good, stop whining bitch, just walk away’ program is not one that I believe is progressive.

Of course I DO AGREE whole-heartedly that finding people to be around whom you admire and respect is a better solution than adopting a programmatic, self-righteous attitude among assheads.

In general, spending time with assholes is counter-productive and disappointing.

LAD wrote:This is obviously a matter of scale. If civil rights activists, feminists, etc all shipped off to Shangri La the ‘moral-majority’ would have the States even further by the balls.

Where does a social circle end and society begin?

Although the Moral Majority as an organization, if extant, is marginalized at the moment, it proves my point. They (like minded deluded obsessives) pulled out of situations they disagreed with, banded together and so gained influence. If the Left stopped trying to manipulate the behavior and thought of of society as a whole and concentrated on weilding the power it would have as a coherent group, it would also change things with direct influence -- voting power, candidate selection and addressing issues rather than carping about how others do.

This is obviously a ridiculous simplification, but I think it is an adequate expression of the idea.

If you feel like an object, you should strive to change your own thinking, so that others cannot make you feel this way.

Unless I misunderstand you, this is a very naïve statement. And, with all due respect, it reminds of me of the lack of historical insight in statements such as ‘if me and my pals were black 19th century slaves/Rheinland Jews/Treaty indians we would have risen up a and there would have been revolution.’ Horseshit.

The mis-quotation above is mis-applied. The revolution comment I made was a comment on my own lack of a forgiving nature. In a discussion about the emancipation of slaves, I said I was amazed that the newly-freed slaves didn't run amok murdering their former subjugators, because I think I would have wanted to, in their position.

but the ‘it’s all good, stop whining bitch, just walk away’ program is not one that I believe is progressive.

If I had said, meant or thought anything like this, then you would be right to ridicule me. I didn't, didn't, and haven't, so kiss my ass. That you would characterize it this way indicates that you didn't grasp the genuine meaning of the conversation, and so prefer to reduce it to a patently-ridiculous sports fan utterance.

Clearly it isn't all good. Nobody is whining. Nobody is a bitch.

Saying "no" and walking away has gotten more direct results than standing on a chair in a hostile environment and trying to direct traffic in every social interaction. It immediately removes the pressure one might feel in that situation, gives everyone cause to think about why it happened, and may very well embolden others to say "no" themselves. The Montgomery Alabama bus boycott was an example of a successful use of the word "no." People changed the way the world worked by not riding the bus.

The things I have declined to do in my life have given me more control over every aspect of it than those things I went along with, and I have gotten into very few confrontations as a result. Some situations (the mainstream music business, parties, prayer, ska) just aren't for me, and by not participating in them, I don't let them affect me. I have found many compatriots who also eschew things, and between us, concentrating on those things we do want to get into, we get a lot done.

LAD wrote:...all shipped off to Shangri La...

hurry up and get over here! we need somebody with well-developed plans like yours to come whip the states into shape!

in the interest of clarity, if you would, please take a moment to outline what you think the proper course of action for betty would be in this case. how *exactly* should she go about transforming this group of people (and by extension, society-at-large) to mold them so they fit into your bright vision of the future? maybe she could convert the charades game into some sort of class, to educate these people, so they might better conform to your will and become functional members in your kickass society?

Quote:

If you feel like an object, you should strive to change your own thinking, so that others cannot make you feel this way.



Unless I misunderstand you, this is a very naïve statement.

i can't say for sure, but i think you do misunderstand. the qualifier at the beginning of the sentence clears it up for me, "If you feel like an object...". the point i get from the statement is this : if you allow others projections onto you to affect the way you view yourself, you need to stop that in its tracks. and from what she's said, it seems like she *doesn't* feel like an object. she doesn't seem to lose sight of the fact that she is MORE than that. so i don't see that the statement applies specifically to her, though as a generalization i think it's spot-on.

and your subsequent "lack of historical insight" rant seems a case of you attempting to project your own bullshit onto someone else more than anything else. oddly enough, your response seems to indicate that you are one of the very folks you decry throughout your message. and i'll betcha dollars to donuts that it doesn't even slightly affect the way steve views himself. so i guess the generalization (which i may just be reading into his statement) would seem fully applicable here. if your projection of your bullshit onto him in any way changed the way he views himself, then he *should* change the way he's thinking. does that clear it up for you at all?

and man, this?

LAD wrote:...stop whining bitch...

did anybody use the word bitch here but you?

toomanyhelicopters wrote:i can't say for sure...

LOL. well if i had typed faster, i would've been right in saying i couldn't say for sure.

i like how much less intelligent and meaner my response is, though. i guess i just wanna choke LAD more than Steve does.