Markdoc

This makes no sense. If you can only compare things that are exactly the same, then you can't actually compare anything - because of course if they are exactly the same, there's nothing to compare, and if they are different, then you're saying they can't be compared. So you can't compare, say, Utah to Nevada? Or Utah in 2014 to Utah in 2013? Eeeh. I don't buy it. Europe and the US are different yes, but not so different that no meaningful comparisons can be made. It's not like we're comparing Utah and Anbar province. 
As for the point about statistics, I don't think that word means what you think it means: it's not a synonym for data or numbers. Saying "9 per year is a lot more than 1 per year" is not statistics. It's just good old-fashioned common sense. Statistical analyses, in contrast, look at variation - for example if the average is 10 per decade, is that 1 a year, or none for 9 years and 10 in one year? The average is the same, but statisically those two counts are different. But that's way off the discussion here.
 
We could *do* a statistical comparison if you want - but really, there's no point. We can see without it, that these numbers are very, very different. US cops shoot and kill more citizens than the cops of any other developed country. Heck, at these levels, they are shooting and killing more citizens than criminals do in many other developed countries. So you have to ask why. Saying "Ah, it's just different" doesn't help. We already *know* it's different. But why?
 
If you can't (or won't) answer that question, then you probably can't solve the problem. To me, at least, it looks like a problem that needs solving.
 
Cheers, Mark

Actually, sometimes you do. A core concept of the English justice system - on which the US system is built - is that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The justice system does not exist in isolation from the citizenry, and the prosecutor had the discretion to send this case to trial, if only to ensure justice was seen to be done. He should have done so, I think. After all his job - and the job of the system - is to maintain public order, and it does not look like that is what happened.
 
Our systems give prosecutors a lot of discretion, but the flip side is that we expect them to use it wisely.
 
Regards, Mark

This makes no sense. If you can only compare things that are exactly the same, then you can't actually compare anything - because of course if they are exactly the same, there's nothing to compare, and if they are different, then you're saying they can't be compared. So you can't compare, say, Utah to Nevada? Or Utah in 2014 to Utah in 2013? Eeeh. I don't buy it. Europe and the US are different yes, but not so different that no meaningful comparisons can be made. It's not like we're comparing Utah and Anbar province. 
As for the point about statistics, I don't think that word means what you think it means: it's not a synonym for data or numbers. Saying "9 per year is a lot more than 1 per year" is not statistics. It's just good old-fashioned common sense. Statistical analyses, in contrast, look at variation - for example if the average is 10 per decade, is that 1 a year, or none for 9 years and 10 in one year? The average is the same, but statisically those two counts are different. But that's way off the discussion here.
 
We could *do* a statistical comparison if you want - but really, there's no point. We can see without it, that these numbers are very, very different. US cops shoot and kill more citizens than the cops of any other developed country. Heck, at these levels, they are shooting and killing more citizens than criminals do in many other developed countries. So you have to ask why. Saying "Ah, it's just different" doesn't help. We already *know* it's different. But why?
 
If you can't (or won't) answer that question, then you probably can't solve the problem. To me, at least, it looks like a problem that needs solving.
 
Cheers, Mark

Actually, sometimes you do. A core concept of the English justice system - on which the US system is built - is that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The justice system does not exist in isolation from the citizenry, and the prosecutor had the discretion to send this case to trial, if only to ensure justice was seen to be done. He should have done so, I think. After all his job - and the job of the system - is to maintain public order, and it does not look like that is what happened.
 
Our systems give prosecutors a lot of discretion, but the flip side is that we expect them to use it wisely.
 
Regards, Mark

Actually, sometimes you do. A core concept of the English justice system - on which the US system is built - is that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The justice system does not exist in isolation from the citizenry, and the prosecutor had the discretion to send this case to trial, if only to ensure justice was seen to be done. He should have done so, I think. After all his job - and the job of the system - is to maintain public order, and it does not look like that is what happened.
 
Our systems give prosecutors a lot of discretion, but the flip side is that we expect them to use it wisely.
 
Regards, Mark

Actually, sometimes you do. A core concept of the English justice system - on which the US system is built - is that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The justice system does not exist in isolation from the citizenry, and the prosecutor had the discretion to send this case to trial, if only to ensure justice was seen to be done. He should have done so, I think. After all his job - and the job of the system - is to maintain public order, and it does not look like that is what happened.
 
Our systems give prosecutors a lot of discretion, but the flip side is that we expect them to use it wisely.
 
Regards, Mark

But isn't that an argument for going to trial? In a trial, the evidence would have been given a thorough airing. You could argue that not only would it have given closure to the victims family, but would also have protected the officer in question. As it stands, he didn't go to trial - but he also had to quit his job amd apparently leave the area.
 
Cheers, Mark

This not about statistics, though. In Utah, with a population of about half that of Denmark, the cops shoot and kill 9-10 civilians a year. In Denmark, twice as many people, the cops shoot and kill about 0-1 people per year. No matter how you slice it, those two things are fundamentally different. And Utah is not even one of the worst states. Now sure - different rules, different cultures. For a start, criminals here rarely have guns, which fundamentally changes the situation. But still, you are looking at a real difference, and one of huge magnitude. It cannot be explained as different methods of assessing data, or similar. Dead is dead. So it's a real difference. The question is, what can or should be done about it? 
And that depends on you guys. I can guarantee, that here, if we had 18-25 police killings a year (a level equivalent to US states), the police commissioners responsible and the minister of justice would all be looking for new jobs, if not facing charges - unless there were some truly extraordinary extenuating circumstances
 
Cheers, Mark

So ... Supporting the criminals, eh?

We do have a genderless pronoun - it/that. That should solve the problem neatly.
 
cheers, Mark

The Straw Elephants In The Room
 
Pretty much all the arguments Ms Sommers makes in the first video are rebuttals to arguments that the anti-GamerGate side isn't making or to very distorted versions of arguments made.  In other words, they are all straw men arguments.
 
* Violent video games have never been scientifically shown to cause real life violence in there players. Umm, I haven't heard Anita Sarkeesian or any one else in the anti-GamerGate camp say that they did.  So this is a rebuttal seeking an argument.
 
* I find some acts shown in video games like GTA very disturbing, but as a matter of free speech the makers have a right to make such games and the players a right to play them. I've yet to hear any anti-GamerGate person call for the banning of such games, and just because a person has a right to freedom of speech does not shield that speech from criticism if the speech is objectionable. 
 
* Anita Sarkeesian's arguments are all based on the Objectifying Gaze hypothesis which has been much criticized in the 4 decades since it was originally proposed.  Ms Sarkeesian has talked the visual objectification of women in video games, so this would be an actual non-straw man argument if Ms Sommers didn't characterize it as the whole of Ms Sarkeesian's position.  However, Ms Sarkeesian has talked about visual objectification and hyper-sexualization of women as one part of a larger argument that she is making, an argument that can stand even in the absence of the visual objectification component.  Also, a more robust attack on the notion of the objectifying gaze as it relates to video games would have been appreciated from an intellectual standpoint.  There is a bit of a difference between the deliberate decision by a game developer to frame a scene from a vantage point looking through a women spread legs or down her cleavage compared to a man taking a moment out to admire a woman's ass as he passes her on the street.  It would have been been nice if Ms Sommers took the time to argue that the criticisms of Objectifying Gaze hypothesis are valid even when presentation is completely deliberate and directed by men.
 
 
In the second video, Ms Sommers provides some numbers about the sex of gamers, and while I don't think that anyone would classify her as a gamer based on playing PacMan  a few times in the Eighties, I do appreciate the numbers.  Numbers can be very helpful in "keeping it real".  Keeping it real in this case goes a long way towards explaining why AAA games are the way they are but it's not really much of a shield against criticism.  It may explain why game developers create so many games point of view of heterosexual white males, but that is no reason women, gays, and racial minorities not to clamor for representation also.  It is no reason for them to "stand down" as Ms Sommers puts it.
 
Also, you can ding games on individual acts of misogyny, without proving that the games cause their players to become misogynous.  Even if the games are promoting misogyny in their players it is going to be almost impossible to prove scientifically because nothing happens in a bubble, and it is irrelevant.  If someone uses the N word, it is not necessary to prove that they turned all the people who heard it into racist in order state that the usage was in itself crass, rude, and racist.  Just so video games criticized for individual bits of misogyny that appear in the games, and if these instances are so numerous as to be wide spread and pervasive then the industry as a whole can be criticized.

Actually, that's an easy one to answer: by looking at ancient pathogens (and comparing them with their modern descendants), you can determine the rate of evolutionary change. That's scientifically interesting, but also allows us to refine our understanding of how pathogens change and how fast, which is very, very relevant knowledge when dealing with new or unknown pathogens.
 
By looking at *which* genes change (and how they changed) over time, you can determine which ones are under selective pressure. That tells you a lot about host defences and immunology. Again, scientifically interesting, but also practically useful in things like pharmaceutical development and plant breeding.
 
I can think of a few other reasons as well, but you get the idea: basically you can learn a lot by looking at ancient organisms.
 
Cheers, Mark

The whole point about hate movements is about being part of a hate movement. They're not trying to accomplish anything: the hating *is* the point. The whole deal is about being encouraged by the rest of the pack to be hateful to someone. 
 
After all, what does a bully achieve when he beats up a kid much smaller than himself and forces him to eat dirt? The same thing: the thrill of abuse sanctioned by his pack.
 
cheers, Mark

The whole point about hate movements is about being part of a hate movement. They're not trying to accomplish anything: the hating *is* the point. The whole deal is about being encouraged by the rest of the pack to be hateful to someone. 
 
After all, what does a bully achieve when he beats up a kid much smaller than himself and forces him to eat dirt? The same thing: the thrill of abuse sanctioned by his pack.
 
cheers, Mark

Actually, that's an easy one to answer: by looking at ancient pathogens (and comparing them with their modern descendants), you can determine the rate of evolutionary change. That's scientifically interesting, but also allows us to refine our understanding of how pathogens change and how fast, which is very, very relevant knowledge when dealing with new or unknown pathogens.
 
By looking at *which* genes change (and how they changed) over time, you can determine which ones are under selective pressure. That tells you a lot about host defences and immunology. Again, scientifically interesting, but also practically useful in things like pharmaceutical development and plant breeding.
 
I can think of a few other reasons as well, but you get the idea: basically you can learn a lot by looking at ancient organisms.
 
Cheers, Mark

Actually, that's an easy one to answer: by looking at ancient pathogens (and comparing them with their modern descendants), you can determine the rate of evolutionary change. That's scientifically interesting, but also allows us to refine our understanding of how pathogens change and how fast, which is very, very relevant knowledge when dealing with new or unknown pathogens.
 
By looking at *which* genes change (and how they changed) over time, you can determine which ones are under selective pressure. That tells you a lot about host defences and immunology. Again, scientifically interesting, but also practically useful in things like pharmaceutical development and plant breeding.
 
I can think of a few other reasons as well, but you get the idea: basically you can learn a lot by looking at ancient organisms.
 
Cheers, Mark

Actually, that's an easy one to answer: by looking at ancient pathogens (and comparing them with their modern descendants), you can determine the rate of evolutionary change. That's scientifically interesting, but also allows us to refine our understanding of how pathogens change and how fast, which is very, very relevant knowledge when dealing with new or unknown pathogens.
 
By looking at *which* genes change (and how they changed) over time, you can determine which ones are under selective pressure. That tells you a lot about host defences and immunology. Again, scientifically interesting, but also practically useful in things like pharmaceutical development and plant breeding.
 
I can think of a few other reasons as well, but you get the idea: basically you can learn a lot by looking at ancient organisms.
 
Cheers, Mark

I have to admit that I've been paying only peripheral attention to this whole saga, but the argument that sending people hate mail (often of a pretty vile sort) was motivated by concern over ethics is so laughably stupid and self-serving that I cannot believe that anyone even considered taking it seriously.
 
cheers, Mark

I have to admit that I've been paying only peripheral attention to this whole saga, but the argument that sending people hate mail (often of a pretty vile sort) was motivated by concern over ethics is so laughably stupid and self-serving that I cannot believe that anyone even considered taking it seriously.
 
cheers, Mark

I have to admit that I've been paying only peripheral attention to this whole saga, but the argument that sending people hate mail (often of a pretty vile sort) was motivated by concern over ethics is so laughably stupid and self-serving that I cannot believe that anyone even considered taking it seriously.
 
cheers, Mark

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities
 

 
Sigh. That's what I get for making an off-the-cuff comment. OK, in more depth:
 
Sloppiness in one area - in this case biology - is often an indicator of sloppiness overall. At the very least, it should be regarded as a warning sign. And phrases like "The truth is that men may be doomed, not because of their genes but because of their brains. Or to be more precise, the innate biology of males may be at odds with the modern world that they inhabit" are not only garbage biology (where do men's brains come from if not their genes? If this effect is "innate" then by definition it's genetic. If it's not genetic, then it can't be innate) but are, by definition, not US-specific. If these tendencies are innate, they apply to all men, everywhere.
 
Conversely, if they don't apply to all men everywhere - and as I pointed out, they don't - then they are not innate. Like I said, sloppy. And essentially meaningless. My comment about the conclusions of the book not applying generally was inspired by that sort of fluff.
 
Now if the sloppy, meaningless fluff was only restricted to biology, then maybe there'd be more meat here. Alas ... one of the over-riding themes is that this is a pan-cultural (in the US anyway, though the actual discussion is not very nuanced) phenomenon. Statements about how this decline "cuts across all ages, races and socio-economic groups" abound. The discussion is about how women are outpacing men - educationally, at work, in pay, etc.
 
So how do the real numbers stack up? Well, here they are. And they don't match the rhetoric very well. Far from a decline cutting across all racial and socio-economic groups, the ratio of high school graduation rates between genders among whites has been unchanged since they started recording data on the topic. Indeed, the only groups where high school graduation rates have changed are among pacific islanders and Asians (where boys now do better than girls, a reversal from 40 years ago and the exact opposite of what The Decline of Men is trying to say) and Hispanics, who show the opposite trend (more girls graduate high school than boys - also a reversal from 40 years ago). If you look at college graduates, a higher percentage of men graduate than women among whites and Asians, while the reverse is true among Hispanics and blacks.
 
A more detailed breakdown of the 2010 data shows that boys are slightly more likely to drop out of high school than girls, but at college, men are as likely to graduate with a bachelors degree and slightly more likely to get an advanced degree. When it comes to educational achievement, ethnicity, and regional differences prove to be far more important than gender. You can get more data on education in the US than most people will ever want here.
 
So much for "cuts across all ages, races and socio-economic groups". Like I said, sloppy.
 
So what about pay, and employment? Well, now that women are in the workforce in numbers comparable to men, it turns out the same economic forces that have ravaged mens' incomes are now ravaging womens' . So how do things stack up financially? In the end it's all about the benjamins, after all. And here's the numbers Far from "outstripping men" over the last 20 years women have gone from earning 1/2 as much as men, to 2/3rds as much. Yay. Sarcasm aside, I guess that's still progress. You can see why that is: women (regardless of race) dominate the very lowest rungs of the income ladder and men (especially white men) dominate the upper rungs. The breakdown by age suggests that this disparity is age-linked, so things might improve in the future.
 
If you look at the actual numbers, suddenly men don't seem to be in decline at all.
 
But I don't think the book is entirely worthless, because even if it's sloppily researched and most of its claims are dubious, if not spurious, it does reflect the current zeitgeist. The data might say that men - especially white men - are doing pretty damn well. And as a whole, they are. But if you dig deeper into the figures, the terms "as a whole" hides the fact that some men are doing very well, and others not so well at all. Charles Murray, of all people, makes this case (in fact, I became aware the book we are discussing now as part of the huge debate over Murray's book Coming Apart) though he probably didn't mean to. In the US, the working class and lower-middle class male is doing poorly - regardless of ethnicity. So is the working class female, if you look at the numbers, but the difference between those two has been squeezed, so that it's smaller than it used to be. To a guy under pressure economically, the fact that "some people, somewhere" are making out like bandits, may add to his general sense of grievance, but it's also pretty abstract. But when people he can directly compare his situation with - say, the lady next door - are doing better than they used to, even if it's still not as good as him ... well, I can see how that might look threatening. And that group - working class and lower middle class - makes up a substantial chunk of the population. You can see their unease and growing fear in today's politics.
 
So The Decline of Men might be sloppily-researched polemic, but it's an interesting look into the kinds of things that are worrying a lot of men.
 
cheers, Mark

Re: Valdorian Characters