Category: Musings

Q’s Brain Toilet

Introduction

Welcome to the inaugural installment of Q’s Brain Toilet; a collection of vignettes designed to demonstrate the random thoughts that flutter in and out of the Hell that is my cranium. My aim is to amuse, inform and, primarily, to inflict upon you the excrement produced by my cerebrum; because misery loves company. If people like it, and it pleases the Overlords, maybe this can become a semi-regular feature? Maybe? In any case, on with the show!

Political Nihilism: Legitimate Philosophy or Cop-out?

We Glibs comprise a loose association of philosophically similar individuals who are by no means ideologically homogeneous. Some call themselves yokeltarians, others an-caps, still others Objectivists; it runs the gamut. While I have evolved over time from a more traditional Republican in my younger days to a card carrying LP member and then to a decidedly small-l libertarian, more recently I find myself landing on what I call Political Nihilism. In many ways, I’m still a run-of-the-mill libertarian; I zealously believe in the NAP as a guiding principle of political ethics, I consider the government to be an embodiment of violence and put primary focus on individual rights and liberty. I also love ass-sex (only with ladies, sorry guys). However, I’ve come around to the thought that no matter how many limitations you place on government it will, like water in a mountain stream, find ways around them. It might take a while, but it will happen. The Founders in the US did a pretty bang up job trying to decentralize power, limit government authority and emphasize individual freedom. We see how in just 240 years it’s been chipped down into a shadow of its former self and all indications are that it will be reduced to rubble in the short to medium term. I’ve said that the right amount of government is like the right amount of cancer, so wouldn’t it stand to reason that anarcho-capitalism would be the solution? Unfortunately, I think an-cap is just as utopian as communism. I think it quickly devolves into might-makes-right with no respect for individual liberty. Where does that leave us? Well, nothing works long term. But I suppose that’s expected; like Fight Club says, given a long enough timeline, everyone’s life expectancy goes to zero. It was fun while it lasted.

Female Ejaculation vs. Squirting

Any connoisseur of the finer erotic streaming sites (as I know you all are) has surely come across videos of women ecstatically expelling large amounts of fluid during orgasm. This is often termed “female ejaculation”. I’m here to relieve and correct you of your wrongitude. Female ejaculation is a milky white secretion emitted during orgasm from the Skene’s glands, sometimes (stupidly) called the female prostate. The amount is similar to male ejaculation (1 – 5 mL) and has a similar composition to semen (with no sperm, obviously). Squirting or gushing is what is typically portrayed in porn movies and is actually a type of orgasmic incontinence. A study performed bladder ultrasounds on women who regularly squirt. Their bladders were confirmed empty prior to masturbation, then reexamined at a level of high sexual excitement to find the bladder had rapidly filled up. After climax (and attendant Old Faithfulness), the bladder was confirmed empty again. Analysis of the fluid revealed a composition similar to highly dilute urine, but with a curiously higher fructose content. For those who haven’t accomplished/experienced this kind of fun before, here is a how-to guide (seriously, majorly, utterly NSFW; not kidding, do not click).

Womb Envy?

I’ve written pretty extensively (ad nauseum in fact) on what I see as the intrinsic differences between men and women (shameless self promotion). That long-winded piece does a pretty good job, I think, of summing up why more men are failing to launch, falling behind in school, professionally and generally in life. Misandry from feminist policy making aside, men don’t have to excel anymore to get laid. The supply of pussy went up and the price came down. It also outlines that women are generally dissatisfied with the dating landscape due to giving up their leverage on the sexual marketplace. However, what accounts for monotonically declining female happiness in a more general, existential sense? This again, I believe, is an unintended consequence of the Sexual Revolution. In spite of propaganda to the contrary, women have always been part of the workforce, it’s just that in bygone days that work was primarily done in the home. Try telling any mother that raising children, cleaning, preparing meals and generally keeping life from falling apart isn’t work and you’re likely to get an open palm across the face. Additionally, women may not have entered the workforce outside the home en masse until post-Sexual Revolution, but there were still a fair number who did work before. My great-grandmother for example, graduated from college in the ’20s and worked for Union County, New Mexico as a “domestic assistant”. Essentially this meant she traveled to country folk and taught them the basics of canning food, haberdashery, general domestic skills and basic personal finance. This profession is something that contemporary feminists would deride contemptuously, but I’d like to see them do any of those things. At any rate, it’s not the work itself that has made women unhappy, I fully support people (and that includes women) pursuing whatever goals they want. What has made them unhappy is that work, as defined by feminism, has not complemented domestic life, but supplanted it. For a man, if he’s lucky, he has a job he can tolerate. For a significant portion, it’s pointless and soul-sucking drudgery; only a tiny minority really love and feel passionate about work. What makes it worthwhile for a man is the fact that the drudgery is in service of a much greater project; the support and sustenance of hearth and home. That’s what makes him get up each morning and do things he’d rather not do. You see, men’s work has never been a substitute for domestic life, it’s an integral part of it. Creating and raising children is just about the only thing in existence that lies at the intersection of our biological, sexual, intellectual and spiritual natures. It is the primary purpose of our silly little lives at the most basic level. Feminists, thinking that male work was an end to itself, sold the idea to women that entering the workforce “like a man” would lead to more life satisfaction. They grievously misunderstood that working for a man has a higher purpose to the home and that work, in and of itself, is often not very satisfying. Women largely relegated domestic life to the back burner, if not chucking it altogether, thinking that career, money and professional power would provide happiness by itself. Unfortunately, this approach has largely failed. This is not to discourage women from working or encourage men to become Mr. Mom. There are a zillion different ways to skin a domestic cat. It’s a critique that, for the vast majority of humanity, child-rearing and family must take the central role in life for maximum happiness for both men and women, whatever else may have peripheral roles.

TTFN

Well, that’s it for this pilot installment of Q’s Brain Toilet. If you want more, say so in the comments. Likewise, if you hate it and want me to crawl back under the rock from whence I came, say that. Or don’t read it and skip down to the comments. Whatever.

February 25, 2019
Glib is a social construct

Hello and welcome back to “Pie ponders”, in which Pie – that is me, for those who are well… slow – raises questions on various topics of great importance. Today, we talk about social constructs and their role in the world. The usual disclaimers apply, this is not an academic opinion (for whatever those are worth) cause the internet is full of them. It is just some random musing.

First things first… What do you mean, social constructs? Well a social construct means, conveniently, whatever you need it to mean to suit your argument. I will analyze but a minor aspect of this vast topic, in my typical way of doing such things. But let’s start by giving The Grandfather of All Knowledge, Wikipedia, and a quick quote

A social construct or construction concerns the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society, and adopted by the inhabitants of that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event.^{[citation needed]} In that respect, a social construct as an idea would be widely accepted as natural by the society.

A major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived social reality. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are developed, institutionalized, known, and made into tradition by humans.

Social constructs seem, in my experience, to have a more prominent role in the discourse of the more progressive part of the political mess. This is part of a fairly straight forward strategy: declare things they do not like as being social constructs imposed by some sort of oppressive structure and decide those things can be changed at will, to suit whatever social justice goals. I want to try to have a quick look at this claim and all the activism it underlies.

There are two ways, in my view off course, to address social construct. The wrong way, which comes from the frankly ridiculous purely social constructionist / blank slate view of humanity, and the correct way, by looking at human history and how social contracts appeared and evolved.

In past posts I have briefly mentioned the nature vs nurture debate of the individual human – with my view that it is combination of both and the boundary is blurry at this time (time is a social construct). Nature can have two components human nature, which was built by millions of years of evolution, and non-human environment which shapes the underlying human material. As a side note, I have always found the blank slate view on the left curious, given those people mock the religious for not believing in evolution, but somehow think that evolution created a total blank slate human. It is awful silly.

Now… to address the concept of social constructs. To a point, and depending on definitions, everything is a social construct in human interaction. Humans are, after all, social being and they have enough intelligence and self-awareness to go beyond pure nature and instinct, this is what makes humans human.

A good number of social constructs have their origin in some biological / environmental factor or other and have evolved slowly over the years. They are old and similar in many civilizations, some of which evolved independently throughout history. So how did they come to be? Chance? The social construct fairy? For others, the “social” element is stronger, especially when the origin is let us say murky. I would give, as an example of this, various rituals and superstitions and taboos born out of the general human fear of the unknown and of the supernatural. They can take a wide variety of forms from the same deep roots.

Many social changes came after technological changes, which took humans further from nature and, as such, less constrained by pure biology. Social constructs of the hunter gatherer pack may have existed for many years until the first village came to be. Those villages had their social constructs until the town, the city, the kingdom, the empire made their way. Social constructs, for the most part, did not change suddenly and randomly. And while they were shaped by various humans – especially ones in position of influence – to suit their wishes, this was a slow process and, for most cases, not in any way designed or planned in advance.

Off course, there being a lot of variables, there were differences between various cultures. Some of this influenced by environment, some by small random divergences which accumulated over many years. But you can also find plenty in common.

The more technology and economy evolved, the more population grew – all interlinked things – the more humans moved away from the pure natural world. Humans began to shape the world as the world shaped them. Societies and forms of organization became more complex, and social constructs kept pace, to the point that some have very little purely biological origin, or better said very little that can be easily discerned.

There is no underlying patriarchy permeating human society and molding social constructs to oppress women by imposing purely social gender roles, as your friendly neighborhood feminist may tell you. There are, however, patriarchal organizations of human society, that being a different thing. It is not like men secretly got together in 11345 BC and held a council in which they decided to start oppressing the wymminz and formulated a plan to that effect. Off course, no one with half a brain actually suggests this, but the interwebz are vast and much derp exists. Most of the gender roles had some of their roots in biology and were slowly shaped – for better or worse – over the years.

It is, off course, absolutely true that social organizations throughout human history had oppressive elements, sometimes fewer, sometimes more, depending. But while this is true, it is, in isolation, meaningless. There are oppressive elements, so what? If you do not understand them properly, you will not be able to fix them. And ignoring biology and environment stops that understanding in its tracks.

One can say religion in general has roots in human biology, while acknowledging that the different forms of many religions have less of a direct root in nature. But many of those religions started as basic animism and were molded by a developing humanity over many thousands of years to reach the current state where any random Sci-Fi writer can start his own cult.

The fact that something may be a social construct does not mean it is necessarily bad or that needs be changed or that it does not have a serious reason for existing, this is something that needs proving. It does not mean it does not have strong roots in nature and environment. It does not mean it can be changed at will and, if it can be change, maybe not to whatever idealistic view some have. There may be many ramifications and secondary effects. A lot of social constructs are well established, old, powerful and difficult to alter. On the other side of things, this does not necessarily mean one should give up on change, just that one needs be very careful with it. Change what to what how and can we have a metric of a successful change?

Many things exist for a reason and you cannot just tear them down and replace them with nothing. You can rebuild some from the ground up, but not all at once. A revolutionary approach to social change rarely works. To use a meaningless analogy – if the pillars to a building need repair, you do not knock them down all at once.

And in the end, if what you are trying to build strays too much from human nature as constrained by the current environment, you will fail. Fortunately, in such cases, you need never admit failure because it was not the concept that failed, but just that the wrong people were involved, there was a vast conspiracy against them, and yes some eggs may have been broken but that does not mean you give up, you try again even harder.

I was going to write more about it but I decided to keep it short. Brevity is the soul of Pie. To leave one last though to illustrate the point, we can agree big boobs – broadly speaking, thicc-ness in general – and large penises are pure social constructs, while on the other hand, the NBA being better than MLB is simply objective reality. Discuss.

February 25, 2019
STEVE SMITH WRITE TENDER LOVE POEM!

STEVE SMITH GIVE READING FROM BOOK. BOOK OF STEVE SMITH POEM.

STEVE SMITH IN REFLECTIVE MOOD TONIGHT. HIM MISS NESSIE. HIM DECIDE SHARE POEM WITH FUNNY GLIBERTARIAN PEOPLE:

NESSIE BELLE LEE

IT WAS MANY AND MANY AN EON AGO,
IN A MISTY LAND-LOCKED SEA,
THAT A MONSTER THERE LIVED WHOM YOU MAY KNOW
BY THE NAME OF NESSIE BELLE LEE;
AND THIS MONSTER SHE LIVED WITH NO OTHER THOUGHT
THAN TO LOVE STEVE SMITH AND BE LOVED BY ME.

STEVE SMITH WAS A MONSTER AND SHE WAS A MONSTER,
IN A MISTY LAND-LOCKED SEA,
BUT WE LOVED WITH A LOVE THAT WAS MORE THAN LOVE—
STEVE SMITH AND MY NESSIE BELLE LEE—
WITH A LOVE THAT THE WINGÈD SERAPHS OF HEAVEN
WERE HORRIFIED TO SEE.

AND THIS WAS THE REASON THAT, LONG AGO,
IN A MISTY LAND-LOCKED SEA,
REPTILICUS BLEW OUT OF A CLOUD, CUCKING
MY BEAUTIFUL NESSIE BELLE LEE;
SO THAT HER ABYSSAL KINSMEN CAME
AND BORE HER AWAY FROM ME,
TO SHUT HER UP IN A BIRTHING CRÈCHE
IN THEIR KINGDOM UNDER THE SEA.

THE HIKERS, NOT HALF SO RAPED IN HEAVEN,
WENT ENVYING HER AND ME—
YES!—THAT WAS THE REASON (AS ALL MEN KNOW,
IN THIS MISTY LAND-LOCKED SEA,)
THAT REPTILICUS CAME OUT OF THE CLOUD BY NIGHT,
CUCKING AND FUCKING MY NESSIE BELLE LEE.

BUT OUR LOVE IT WAS STRONGER BY FAR THAN THE LOVE
OF THOSE WHO WERE OLDER THAN WE—
OF MANY FAR TERRIFYING THAN WE—
AND NEITHER THE HIKERS IN HEAVEN ABOVE
NOR HER KINSMEN DOWN UNDER THE SEA
CAN EVER DISSEVER MY PENIS FROM THE CLOACA
OF THE BEAUTIFUL NESSIE BELLE LEE;

FOR THE MOON NEVER BEAMS, WITHOUT BRINGING ME DREAMS
OF THE BEAUTIFUL NESSIE BELLE LEE;
AND THE STARS NEVER RISE, BUT I FEEL THE BEADY EYES
OF THE BEAUTIFUL NESSIE BELLE LEE;
AND SO, ALL THE NIGHT-TIDE, I LIE DOWN WITH THE HIDE
OF MY LOST DARLING—MY MONSTER—MY SEA SERPENT AND MY BRIDE,
IN HER PRISON IN THE DEEPEST SEA—
IN HER LOVE NEST IN THE SQUIRMING SEA.

STEVE SMITH, HIM SAD.

FREE CASCADIA.

February 15, 2019
Political Daydreams Part II: The Great Divorce

Let’s assume that nothing in Part I worked, and we have one group of people bound and determined to rule another one. In order to prevent a shooting war, we agree to split the population apart in such a way that prevents authority from being exerted across some new boundaries. How do we do this? Here are some ideas. Again, like the previous this is mostly to inspire creative ideas or at least entertaining arguments among the Glibertariat.

Ideas 1-4: the various sorts of “-exit” scenarios that have been floated before, which you don’t need me to reiterate here. Free Cascadia!

Idea 5: Matched Cal- and Texit. California and Texas are simultaneously split off into their own countries, The Democratic People’s Red Star Commonwealth and the Second Lone Star Republic. If we wanted to be complete dicks about this, we would draw the boundaries starting at the state line, but retaining adjacent counties that wished to remain part of the Untied States. A set period of time, say 20-50 years would then elapse, at the end of which time either of the two new countries could apply to rejoin the union or other states in the US could apply to TNCOTB.

Idea 6: The rise of the City-States. When a municipality reaches a certain population, it can build a wall along its boundaries and be granted self-rule. At that point, the residents of that city-state cease to have voting rights in state and federal elections. The HoR seats would also be re-apportioned. The City-State status could also be imposed by a plebiscite of the non-city state residents with some sort of overwhelming majority (2/3 at least) being required for passage. I actually kind of like that idea, since the Great Divide here seems to be less geographic, and more urban/rural. I also like the idea of Escape from New York and Escape from LA being things that would actually happen. But mainly I like the idea of the population centers having to deal with the agricultural people as equals rather than simply imposing their desires on them from mere dint of numbers.

You may now begin to tell me what an idiot I am.

January 22, 2019
On changing one’s mind

A long time ago, humans invented language. This may or may not have been a good idea, but it is here now, the damage is done, there is no going back. So what do we do with it? Talk nonsense and get very worked up about it. This is sometimes called a debate, other times a shouting match. Whenever a debate is on, let’s say for the sake of this article about politics, there can be more than one purpose in theory, but that is rarely the case in practice.

In theory most people debate to win, to either change the mind of the opponent or persuade the audience of something. In practice, many people debate because it is in their nature to do so, with little expectation of achieving anything.

If applied properly, a debate can be useful beyond changing other people’s opinions. It can help one with their own doubts or uncertainties, be a good way to go through some issues, clarify some things and even reach a conclusion. When I am unsure of something, a conversation in which people take multiple sides can help. This only works when people debate in good faith, and this can occasionally happen for example on glibertarians, where people are generally overall agreeable to each other, even though they may differ on some issues.

Across the aisle, it is different. Most conversations between side A and side B are rarely in good faith. Both sides convince themselves the other side are stupid and evil, and are quite satisfied with this results, because that was what they wanted to get out of the debate anyway. Scream a little and go away thinking the other is an idiot. Can this be changed though? Honestly, I doubt it. One of the main issues is that people differ in fundamental values, and this is unlikely to change. Most of these values, usually of the moral kind, are not based on reason or argument, and as such will not be changed by those means. Furthermore, people get very angry when their base values are questioned.

People seem set in their ways, and opinions are not different. In controversial conversations, I rarely see people listen carefully to the entire argument made by the opposite side and then try to give a appropriate answer. It is not that they are not convinced, they don’t really try to listen and process it. You can see their eyes glaze over and then they give a standard counter response, as if reciting from rote learning. Why this is the case, I do not know.

This got me thinking, after a few debates with friends on the left and right. Is it possible to change my mind at this point, and if so how much? Can I have minor changes on my views on one issue or other or can I even fully reconsider libertarianism in favor of social democracy? For good or bad, I think the answer is yes to the former and a clear no to the latter. Some say: well you must be open to change your mind… well I am open, I just do not see that happening. I am, after all, people.

For one thing, among my fundamental values you will find individualism and individual liberty. You cannot have an argument to make me turn collectivist – especially since I find it quite objectively true that humans are unique individuals not an eusocial group. For another, I did not reach my opinions lightly, I have spent a long time reading, writing and thinking about it, and if that process led me here, I cannot see what could lead me in another direction. I have not heard, for what must be years now, a new and different argument, from either left or right. So if old arguments did not convince me, and no new arguments appear, can there be a way to change minds?

Of course others may say those exact same things, but with the vast majority of people I met I easily come ahead on knowledge of the issues, of history, economics, political philosophy and the like. Most people I ask know very little which they did not learn on the big TV network programs. Most people cannot tell me of a topic they spent multiple hours thinking about. Most have not tried to write 10 coherent pages on why they believe what they believe to see if it makes sense. Most say things that can be proven wrong by a 30 second google search. For whatever all this is worth, I feel I can be more assured of my views.

Changing is even harder for a proponent of deontology. Consequentialists may sometimes be swayed by proving that their desired outcome can be better achieved in another way. A deontological socialist or an-cap will not be swayed in any such argument. Fiat iustitia pereat mundus, if you will. I am not quite like that – I have made the case for a certain small dose of pragmatism and I think this goes for most people, which have a preferred outcome. So there will maybe be some wiggle room in a debate, but overall not that much. In the end, most are not 100% utilitarian or 100% deontological, but each has core values – which I cannot see as being anything other than deontological – which are hard if not impossible to change.

I, off course, believe that my fundamental values come from a place of reason. Do others believe the same? I would say most – with the exception of people who get everything from religion – strongly claim they do, although in the end many seem to me to appeal to emotion a little too often. I believe my conclusions, beyond fundamental values, also have reality and logic behind them. So do many others.

There are plenty of people on the internet who write about “how to win debates”, but I saw little evidence this actually works. Yes, some politicians convince people to vote for them, but I am not sure that it is more than being disliked less than the other side and little to do with changing fundamental opinions of people. Opinions do change, off course, but it is usually due to multiple years of personal experiences eroding one belief and replacing it with another, not after a two hour talk. In the end, in many a democracy, you have a majority of people voting sort of the same and a small central group which swings both ways. So the debate issue boils down to: how to get the undecided to vote for you this one time.

If you are not running for office or making a living as a pundit, I really am trying to see the point of it all. In my experience, people cannot even start from a basic foundation of fact, as people do not agree to the facts. If we have a pencil on the table, A sees a cup and B sees a glass, what can be debated?

This is another one of my thought pieces which, in the end, has not much of a conclusion. It is one of the things that I classify in the category: if it were possible, the world would be different right now. But I still find the question interesting: to what point, fellow glibs, do you think a series of arguments would change your mind? Can you learn to stop worrying and embrace Ocasio-Cortez? Discuss.

January 14, 2019