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The Sexodus, Part 2: Dishonest Feminist Panics Leave Male Sexuality In Crisis
The Sexodus, Part 2: Dishonest Feminist Panics Leave Male Sexuality In Crisis
Sexual dysfunction is not unique to the twenty-first century—nor, certainly, to the West. Japan's "herbivores"—men who shun sex and prefer saving money and going on long walks to riding motorcycles and flirting with girls—have been well documented and are regarded by social scientists as the best example of male sexuality turning in on itself.
But although the sexodus, a new retreat into solitude by Western males, has a different flavour to it and dramatically different aetiology from previously observed social crises, many characteristics are identical. And what's troubling about men throwing in the towel in both East and West is the rapidity with which the malaise is spreading across entire generations, fuelled not just by sexual dissatisfaction but also the economic and educational pressures felt by so many young boys.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. It's little wonder that in the disorientating modern world, men should seek out extreme measures to help them relate to, and get what they want from, the opposite sex. That probably explains the rise of Julien Blanc, who claims his seminars can transform the way women will respond to you. Blanc is at the extreme end of a movement known as "pick-up artists" or PUAs.
But other voices in the PUA or "red pill" movements, including Daryush Valizadeh, who goes by the pen name Roosh V, says there are structural reasons why society is evolving away from inter-gender contentment. Part of the problem is unrealistic female expectations, says Valizadeh. "Getting laid with attractive women has become extremely hard for average men. Women today of average or even below average quality desire an elite man with above-average looks, muscles, intelligence, and confidence.
"If an average girl works hard enough, she will be able to have a one-night stand with a 'hot' guy every now and then because he happened to be horny and wanted an easy lay. The girl then thinks that she actually can get such a man to commit to her for the long term, and so doesn't give the average guys a chance, holding out for the type of stud that she had a brief sexual encounter with in the past."
Valizadeh has some controversial views on the state of modern womanhood, too. He says: "It's also damaging that the attractiveness of women is rapidly declining, mainly due to the obesity epidemic. No matter what members of the 'fat acceptance' movement say, men have an innate need for fit women. What happens is the few attractive girls left get unimaginable amounts of attention."
According to Valizadeh, today's sexual marketplace represents a Pareto distribution in which "20 percent of the top guys have access to 80 percent of the best women," which has the effect of leaving women holding out for the perfect man, a man who of course never comes.
Valizadeh agrees with masculinity author Jack Donovan that men have been feminised by a culture that rejects and ridicules male characteristics and habits. "Good luck naming one male role model that men have today that actually helps them become men," he remarks. These thoughts are echoed on occasionally rude but compelling male-oriented blogs, such as the phenomenally popular Chateau Heartiste.
They are also supported by the current state of the sex wars, which are constituted bizarrely. One of the remarkable things about recent high-profile skirmishes with feminists is how few mainstream heterosexual men have been involved. In the GamerGate video games controversy, opposition to "social justice warriors" and their attempts at censorship on Twitter has come from older gay men in public life and younger geeks, gamers and drop-outs; in the case of Matt Taylor, it was geeks and other women.
Straight young men simply don't want to know any more. They're not getting involved. Some women, too, horrified by what lesbianised third-wave feminism claims to do in their name, opt out of the argument. The absurd result is that geeks, queers and dykes are dominating the discussion about how men and women should interact. Jack Donovan, for example, is gay, as is your present correspondent. It's as if gays are the only men left prepared to fight masculinity's corner.
Men want normal relationships that include sex, says Valizadeh. Some of them will read pick-up artist books or go to seminars by people such as Roosh V if they don't get it or need to be trained out of "white knight" behaviours instilled in them by a female-dominated culture. (Men have been taught that being a nice guy gets you laid. It doesn't.)
What strikes a lot of women as strange is how rational and systematic so much of this decision-making is by men. Many young men literally perform a cost-benefit analysis and decide that women aren't worth the hassle. It's girls who lose out in this scenario: men don't need the sustained emotional intimacy that comes with a fulfilling sexual relationship and can retreat into masturbatory pursuits, prostitution and one-night stands much more comfortably.
But that's exactly what it is, from a male point of view: a rational opting out from education, work and marriage by men who have had enough, as a remarkable book by Dr Helen Smith called Men on Strike warned in July last year. (The consensus on this stuff is growing rapidly.)
Men, driven, as many of them like to say, by fact and not emotion, can see that society is not fair to them and more dangerous for them. They point to the fact that they are more likely to be murder victims and more likely to commit suicide. Women do not choose to serve in the Armed Forces and they experience fewer deaths and injuries in the line of work generally.
Women get shorter custodial sentences for the same crimes. There are more scholarships available to them in college. They receive better and cheaper healthcare, and can pick from favourable insurance packages available only to girls. When it comes to children, women are presumed to be the primary caregiver and given preferential treatment by the courts. They have more, better contraceptive options.
Women are less likely to be homeless, unemployed or to abuse drugs than men. They are less likely to be depressed or to suffer from mental illness. There is less pressure on them to achieve financial success. They are less likely to live in poverty. They are given priority by emergency and medical services.
Some might call these statistical trends "female privilege." Yet everywhere and at all times, say men's rights advocates, the "lived experiences" and perceived oppression of women is given a hundred per cent of the airtime, in defiance of the reality that women haven't just achieved parity with men but have overtaken them in almost every conceivable respect. What inequalities remain are the result of women's choices, say respectable feminist academics such as Christina Hoff Sommers, not structural biases.
And yet men are constantly beaten up over bizarre invented concepts such as rape culture and patriarchal privilege. The bizarre but inevitable conclusion of all this is that women are fuelling their own unhappiness by driving men to consider them as sex objects and nothing more, because the thought of engaging in a relationship with a woman is horrifying, or too exhausting to contemplate. And the sexodus will affect women disproportionately harshly because research data show that when women "act like men" by having lots of casual sex, they become unhappy, are more likely to suffer from depression and destroy their chances of securing a meaningful long-term relationship.
*
It's not just video games and casual sex that young men are retreating into. They are also immersing themselves in fetishes that to their grandparents' generation would resemble grounds for incarceration, and which drive them further away from the formerly fairer sex. Consider, for example, the example of furry culture and anthropomorphic animal sex fetishism, both of which are experiencing explosive growth, fuelled by the internet.
Jack Rivlin's student newspaper The Tab, which we encountered in part one, has noticed the trend spreading on UK campuses. (It's already rife throughout the US.) Other alternative sexual behaviours, including homosexuality and transgenderism, are more prevalent on campus now too.
"It's eminently plausible that there are a greater number of people who identify as homosexual, bisexual or other sexualities who are happy to be labelled as such these days," agrees Cambridge Union president Tim Squirrell, from whom we heard in part one, speaking about the students he sees passing through his Union. "I think we're becoming more open and accepting of people who live different kinds of lifestyles and have different kinds of identities."
Gay emancipation, of course, may not have been a uniformly good thing for women. Depending on whose figures you believe—and you're wise not to take the claims of gay advocacy groups or gay magazines too seriously, for obvious reasons—somewhere between 1 per cent and 10 per cent of the adult male population is gay. (It's probably a lot closer to 1 per cent.)
Just a few decades ago, many of those men—at the risk of stereotyping, the most sensitive, artistic, attractive and highest-earning men; that is, perfect husband material—would have got married, had a few kids and led a double life to pursue their forbidden urges. They wouldn't have bothered their wives for sex and they would have made great fathers.
But now they're settling down with men, in many cases not having children at all. In other words, a healthy chunk of the most desirable men—men who no doubt would have cooed along approvingly to feminist exhortations—are now off the market, leaving even fewer eligible men in the dating pool.
(As a side note, here's an argument you won't read elsewhere: gay men test significantly higher, on average, for IQ, and we know that IQ is at least partially genetically determined. Gays don't reproduce as much now they don't have to keep up the pretence of straight relationships. In fact, surveys say they barely reproduce at all.
Is it too much of a stretch to ask whether society's newfound tolerance of homosexuals has made society... well, a bit more stupid? Granted, it sounds far-fetched. But while there's no doubt that liberating gay men from the shame of their secret double lives has been a moral imperative, driven by compassion, no rapid social change comes without trade-offs.)
All this comes before we even discuss the rapid growth of sadomasochistic sex among the young and the "new civil rights frontier" of transgenderism, a psychiatric disorder currently in the process of being repackaged by the Left as an alternative sexual lifestyle.
*
The response to part one of this series was colossal. To date, over 300,000 readers have shared it on Facebook. 16,500 readers left comments. Over 500 men wrote to me privately to express their gratitude and support, from every continent and in all age groups. The younger men spoke especially movingly. (Predictably, hundreds of angry feminists on Twitter scorned it as "entitled whinging from white male manbabies," rather proving the point of the story's premise for me.) Here are the most representative quotes from my conversations, reprinted with permission.
Mark, 24: "Everyone I know feels the same. Your article spoke directly to us. We're not all losers and nerds, we're just normal guys who are either scared of being accused of terrible stuff by harpies or simply can't be bothered any more. I can't believe I'm saying this but I just can't deal with hassle of women any more."
Mickey: "I say no to the whole thing, even though I am very heterosexual and would like the intimacy of a relationship based on mutual respect. Well, I thought I did, but it’s been so long and the standard of behavior for women remains so low, along with my tolerance for dating bullshit, that it does not look like a realistic desire anymore."
Francis, 28: "I'm an athlete. My parents have a lot of money. I have plenty of friends and a good social life. I don't hang out with women any more. Occasionally I'll have one night stands, but mostly I fill my time with other things. I got accused of molesting a girl at college and since then I've just thought, whatever. I play sports instead."
Tilo, 20: "I don't know for sure but your article sounds like me and a lot of my friends. I do furry stuff online in secret. I'd be horrified if my parents found out but it's all that gets me off. Girls are a nightmare. I have a brother who's ten years older and he feels the same. We've given up."
Hector, 26: "I did stick to that social belief for a brief time thinking that the need for a serious relationship would come with the age, but it never happened and slowly I gave up. Today, a few hours before reading your article, I was having lunch with my mother and she kept talking about girlfriends and how I needed to get married, meanwhile I kept thinking 'why would I waste my life with this shit?', and it wasn't until I read your article a few hours later, that I realised. And I don't think it's just my generation that is affected by this."
We can be quite sure now that the sexodus is not some fringe, isolated internet movement as "Men Going Their Own Way" has sometimes been characterised. A combination of disastrous social engineering, special privileges for women, the relentless mockery of white men on the basis of their sex and skin colour and the economic and educational abandonment for boys has created one, if not two, lost generations already.
Men created most of what is good about the world. The excesses of masculinity are also, to be sure, responsible for much of what is bad. But if we are to avoid sliding into decline, mediocrity and a world in which men are actively discriminated against, we must arrest the decline in social attitudes towards them before so many victims are claimed that all hope of reconciliation between the sexes is lost. If that happens, it will be women who will suffer.
Sexual dysfunction is not unique to the twenty-first century—nor, certainly, to the West. Japan's "herbivores"—men who shun sex and prefer saving money and going on long walks to riding motorcycles and flirting with girls—have been well documented and are regarded by social scientists as the best example of male sexuality turning in on itself.
But although the sexodus, a new retreat into solitude by Western males, has a different flavour to it and dramatically different aetiology from previously observed social crises, many characteristics are identical. And what's troubling about men throwing in the towel in both East and West is the rapidity with which the malaise is spreading across entire generations, fuelled not just by sexual dissatisfaction but also the economic and educational pressures felt by so many young boys.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. It's little wonder that in the disorientating modern world, men should seek out extreme measures to help them relate to, and get what they want from, the opposite sex. That probably explains the rise of Julien Blanc, who claims his seminars can transform the way women will respond to you. Blanc is at the extreme end of a movement known as "pick-up artists" or PUAs.
But other voices in the PUA or "red pill" movements, including Daryush Valizadeh, who goes by the pen name Roosh V, says there are structural reasons why society is evolving away from inter-gender contentment. Part of the problem is unrealistic female expectations, says Valizadeh. "Getting laid with attractive women has become extremely hard for average men. Women today of average or even below average quality desire an elite man with above-average looks, muscles, intelligence, and confidence.
"If an average girl works hard enough, she will be able to have a one-night stand with a 'hot' guy every now and then because he happened to be horny and wanted an easy lay. The girl then thinks that she actually can get such a man to commit to her for the long term, and so doesn't give the average guys a chance, holding out for the type of stud that she had a brief sexual encounter with in the past."
Valizadeh has some controversial views on the state of modern womanhood, too. He says: "It's also damaging that the attractiveness of women is rapidly declining, mainly due to the obesity epidemic. No matter what members of the 'fat acceptance' movement say, men have an innate need for fit women. What happens is the few attractive girls left get unimaginable amounts of attention."
According to Valizadeh, today's sexual marketplace represents a Pareto distribution in which "20 percent of the top guys have access to 80 percent of the best women," which has the effect of leaving women holding out for the perfect man, a man who of course never comes.
Valizadeh agrees with masculinity author Jack Donovan that men have been feminised by a culture that rejects and ridicules male characteristics and habits. "Good luck naming one male role model that men have today that actually helps them become men," he remarks. These thoughts are echoed on occasionally rude but compelling male-oriented blogs, such as the phenomenally popular Chateau Heartiste.
They are also supported by the current state of the sex wars, which are constituted bizarrely. One of the remarkable things about recent high-profile skirmishes with feminists is how few mainstream heterosexual men have been involved. In the GamerGate video games controversy, opposition to "social justice warriors" and their attempts at censorship on Twitter has come from older gay men in public life and younger geeks, gamers and drop-outs; in the case of Matt Taylor, it was geeks and other women.
Straight young men simply don't want to know any more. They're not getting involved. Some women, too, horrified by what lesbianised third-wave feminism claims to do in their name, opt out of the argument. The absurd result is that geeks, queers and dykes are dominating the discussion about how men and women should interact. Jack Donovan, for example, is gay, as is your present correspondent. It's as if gays are the only men left prepared to fight masculinity's corner.
Men want normal relationships that include sex, says Valizadeh. Some of them will read pick-up artist books or go to seminars by people such as Roosh V if they don't get it or need to be trained out of "white knight" behaviours instilled in them by a female-dominated culture. (Men have been taught that being a nice guy gets you laid. It doesn't.)
What strikes a lot of women as strange is how rational and systematic so much of this decision-making is by men. Many young men literally perform a cost-benefit analysis and decide that women aren't worth the hassle. It's girls who lose out in this scenario: men don't need the sustained emotional intimacy that comes with a fulfilling sexual relationship and can retreat into masturbatory pursuits, prostitution and one-night stands much more comfortably.
But that's exactly what it is, from a male point of view: a rational opting out from education, work and marriage by men who have had enough, as a remarkable book by Dr Helen Smith called Men on Strike warned in July last year. (The consensus on this stuff is growing rapidly.)
Men, driven, as many of them like to say, by fact and not emotion, can see that society is not fair to them and more dangerous for them. They point to the fact that they are more likely to be murder victims and more likely to commit suicide. Women do not choose to serve in the Armed Forces and they experience fewer deaths and injuries in the line of work generally.
Women get shorter custodial sentences for the same crimes. There are more scholarships available to them in college. They receive better and cheaper healthcare, and can pick from favourable insurance packages available only to girls. When it comes to children, women are presumed to be the primary caregiver and given preferential treatment by the courts. They have more, better contraceptive options.
Women are less likely to be homeless, unemployed or to abuse drugs than men. They are less likely to be depressed or to suffer from mental illness. There is less pressure on them to achieve financial success. They are less likely to live in poverty. They are given priority by emergency and medical services.
Some might call these statistical trends "female privilege." Yet everywhere and at all times, say men's rights advocates, the "lived experiences" and perceived oppression of women is given a hundred per cent of the airtime, in defiance of the reality that women haven't just achieved parity with men but have overtaken them in almost every conceivable respect. What inequalities remain are the result of women's choices, say respectable feminist academics such as Christina Hoff Sommers, not structural biases.
And yet men are constantly beaten up over bizarre invented concepts such as rape culture and patriarchal privilege. The bizarre but inevitable conclusion of all this is that women are fuelling their own unhappiness by driving men to consider them as sex objects and nothing more, because the thought of engaging in a relationship with a woman is horrifying, or too exhausting to contemplate. And the sexodus will affect women disproportionately harshly because research data show that when women "act like men" by having lots of casual sex, they become unhappy, are more likely to suffer from depression and destroy their chances of securing a meaningful long-term relationship.
*
It's not just video games and casual sex that young men are retreating into. They are also immersing themselves in fetishes that to their grandparents' generation would resemble grounds for incarceration, and which drive them further away from the formerly fairer sex. Consider, for example, the example of furry culture and anthropomorphic animal sex fetishism, both of which are experiencing explosive growth, fuelled by the internet.
Jack Rivlin's student newspaper The Tab, which we encountered in part one, has noticed the trend spreading on UK campuses. (It's already rife throughout the US.) Other alternative sexual behaviours, including homosexuality and transgenderism, are more prevalent on campus now too.
"It's eminently plausible that there are a greater number of people who identify as homosexual, bisexual or other sexualities who are happy to be labelled as such these days," agrees Cambridge Union president Tim Squirrell, from whom we heard in part one, speaking about the students he sees passing through his Union. "I think we're becoming more open and accepting of people who live different kinds of lifestyles and have different kinds of identities."
Gay emancipation, of course, may not have been a uniformly good thing for women. Depending on whose figures you believe—and you're wise not to take the claims of gay advocacy groups or gay magazines too seriously, for obvious reasons—somewhere between 1 per cent and 10 per cent of the adult male population is gay. (It's probably a lot closer to 1 per cent.)
Just a few decades ago, many of those men—at the risk of stereotyping, the most sensitive, artistic, attractive and highest-earning men; that is, perfect husband material—would have got married, had a few kids and led a double life to pursue their forbidden urges. They wouldn't have bothered their wives for sex and they would have made great fathers.
But now they're settling down with men, in many cases not having children at all. In other words, a healthy chunk of the most desirable men—men who no doubt would have cooed along approvingly to feminist exhortations—are now off the market, leaving even fewer eligible men in the dating pool.
(As a side note, here's an argument you won't read elsewhere: gay men test significantly higher, on average, for IQ, and we know that IQ is at least partially genetically determined. Gays don't reproduce as much now they don't have to keep up the pretence of straight relationships. In fact, surveys say they barely reproduce at all.
Is it too much of a stretch to ask whether society's newfound tolerance of homosexuals has made society... well, a bit more stupid? Granted, it sounds far-fetched. But while there's no doubt that liberating gay men from the shame of their secret double lives has been a moral imperative, driven by compassion, no rapid social change comes without trade-offs.)
All this comes before we even discuss the rapid growth of sadomasochistic sex among the young and the "new civil rights frontier" of transgenderism, a psychiatric disorder currently in the process of being repackaged by the Left as an alternative sexual lifestyle.
*
The response to part one of this series was colossal. To date, over 300,000 readers have shared it on Facebook. 16,500 readers left comments. Over 500 men wrote to me privately to express their gratitude and support, from every continent and in all age groups. The younger men spoke especially movingly. (Predictably, hundreds of angry feminists on Twitter scorned it as "entitled whinging from white male manbabies," rather proving the point of the story's premise for me.) Here are the most representative quotes from my conversations, reprinted with permission.
Mark, 24: "Everyone I know feels the same. Your article spoke directly to us. We're not all losers and nerds, we're just normal guys who are either scared of being accused of terrible stuff by harpies or simply can't be bothered any more. I can't believe I'm saying this but I just can't deal with hassle of women any more."
Mickey: "I say no to the whole thing, even though I am very heterosexual and would like the intimacy of a relationship based on mutual respect. Well, I thought I did, but it’s been so long and the standard of behavior for women remains so low, along with my tolerance for dating bullshit, that it does not look like a realistic desire anymore."
Francis, 28: "I'm an athlete. My parents have a lot of money. I have plenty of friends and a good social life. I don't hang out with women any more. Occasionally I'll have one night stands, but mostly I fill my time with other things. I got accused of molesting a girl at college and since then I've just thought, whatever. I play sports instead."
Tilo, 20: "I don't know for sure but your article sounds like me and a lot of my friends. I do furry stuff online in secret. I'd be horrified if my parents found out but it's all that gets me off. Girls are a nightmare. I have a brother who's ten years older and he feels the same. We've given up."
Hector, 26: "I did stick to that social belief for a brief time thinking that the need for a serious relationship would come with the age, but it never happened and slowly I gave up. Today, a few hours before reading your article, I was having lunch with my mother and she kept talking about girlfriends and how I needed to get married, meanwhile I kept thinking 'why would I waste my life with this shit?', and it wasn't until I read your article a few hours later, that I realised. And I don't think it's just my generation that is affected by this."
We can be quite sure now that the sexodus is not some fringe, isolated internet movement as "Men Going Their Own Way" has sometimes been characterised. A combination of disastrous social engineering, special privileges for women, the relentless mockery of white men on the basis of their sex and skin colour and the economic and educational abandonment for boys has created one, if not two, lost generations already.
Men created most of what is good about the world. The excesses of masculinity are also, to be sure, responsible for much of what is bad. But if we are to avoid sliding into decline, mediocrity and a world in which men are actively discriminated against, we must arrest the decline in social attitudes towards them before so many victims are claimed that all hope of reconciliation between the sexes is lost. If that happens, it will be women who will suffer.
20141221
The Sexodus, Part 1: The Men Giving Up On Women And Checking Out Of Society
The Sexodus, Part 1: The Men Giving Up On Women And Checking Out Of Society
"My generation of boys is f**ked," says Rupert, a young German video game enthusiast I've been getting to know over the past few months. "Marriage is dead. Divorce means you're screwed for life. Women have given up on monogamy, which makes them uninteresting to us for any serious relationship or raising a family. That's just the way it is. Even if we take the risk, chances are the kids won't be ours. In France, we even have to pay for the kids a wife has through adulterous affairs.
"In school, boys are screwed over time and again. Schools are engineered for women. In the US, they force-feed boys Ritalin like Skittles to shut them up. And while girls are favoured to fulfil quotas, men are slipping into distant second place.
"Nobody in my generation believes they're going to get a meaningful retirement. We have a third or a quarter of the wealth previous generations had, and everyone's fleeing to higher education to stave off unemployment and poverty because there are no jobs.
"All that wouldn't be so bad if we could at least dull the pain with girls. But we're treated like paedophiles and potential rapists just for showing interest. My generation are the beautiful ones," he sighs, referring to a 1960s experiment on mice that supposedly predicted a grim future for the human race.
After overpopulation ran out of control, the female mice in John Calhoun's "mouse universe" experiment stopped breeding, and the male mice withdrew from the company of others entirely, eating, sleeping, feeding and grooming themselves but doing little else. They had shiny coats, but empty lives.
"The parallels are astounding," says Rupert.
*
Never before in history have relations between the sexes been so fraught with anxiety, animosity and misunderstanding. To radical feminists, who have been the driving force behind many tectonic societal shifts in recent decades, that's a sign of success: they want to tear down the institutions and power structures that underpin society, never mind the fall-out. Nihilistic destruction is part of their road map.
But, for the rest of us, the sight of society breaking down, and ordinary men and women being driven into separate but equal misery, thanks to a small but highly organised group of agitators, is distressing. Particularly because, as increasing numbers of social observers are noticing, an entire generation of young people—mostly men—are being left behind in the wreckage of this social engineering project.
Social commentators, journalists, academics, scientists and young men themselves have all spotted the trend: among men of about 15 to 30 years old, ever-increasing numbers are checking out of society altogether, giving up on women, sex and relationships and retreating into pornography, sexual fetishes, chemical addictions, video games and, in some cases, boorish lad culture, all of which insulate them from a hostile, debilitating social environment created, some argue, by the modern feminist movement.
You can hardly blame them. Cruelly derided as man-children and crybabies for objecting to absurdly unfair conditions in college, bars, clubs and beyond, men are damned if they do and damned if they don't: ridiculed as basement-dwellers for avoiding aggressive, demanding women with unrealistic expectations, or called rapists and misogynists merely for expressing sexual interest.
Jack Rivlin is editor-in-chief of student tabloid media start-up The Tab, a runaway success whose current strap-line reads: "We'll stop writing it when you stop reading it." As the guiding intelligence behind over 30 student newspapers, Rivlin is perhaps the best-placed person in the country to observe this trend in action. And he agrees that the current generation of young men find it particularly difficult to engage with women.
"Teenage boys always have been useless with girls, but there's definitely a fear that now being well-intentioned isn't enough, and you can get into trouble just for being clumsy," he says. "For example, leaning in for a kiss might see you branded a creep, rather than just inept."
The new rules men are expected to live by are never clearly explained, says Rivlin, leaving boys clueless and neurotic about interacting with girls. "That might sound like a good thing because it encourages men to take the unromantic but practical approach of asking women how they should behave, but it causes a lot of them to just opt out of the game and retreat to the sanctuary of their groups of lads, where being rude to women gets you approval, and you can pretty much entirely avoid one-on-one socialising with the opposite sex."
"There are also a lot of blokes who ignore women because they are scared and don't know how to act. It goes without saying that boys who never spend any time alone with women are not very good at relationships."
Rivlin has noticed the increased dependence on substances, normally alcohol, that boys are using to calm their nerves. "I've heard a lot of male students boast about never having experienced sober sex," he says. "They're obviously scared, which is natural, but they would be a lot less scared and dysfunctional if they understood 'the rules.'"
The result? "A lot of nice but awkward young men are opting out of approaching women because there is no opportunity for them to make mistakes without suffering worse embarrassment than ever."
Most troublingly, this effect is felt more acutely among poorer and less well educated communities, where the package of support resources available to young men is slight. At my alma mater, the University of Cambridge, the phenomenon barely registers on the radar, according to Union society president Tim Squirrell.
"I don't think I've really noticed a change recently," he says. "This year has seen the introduction of mandatory consent workshops for freshers, which I believe is probably a good thing, and there's been a big effort by the Women's Campaign in particular to try and combat lad culture on campus.
The atmosphere here is the same as it was a year ago - mostly nerdy guys who are too afraid to approach anyone in the first place, and then a smaller percentage who are confident enough to make a move. Obviously women have agency too, and they approach men in about the same numbers as they do elsewhere. There certainly haven't been any stories in [campus newspaper] The Tab about a sex drought on campus."
"I think that people are probably having as much sex as ever," he adds. At Cambridge, of course, that may not mean much, and for a variety of socioeconomic and class-based reasons the tribes at Oxford and Cambridge are somewhat insulated from the male drop-out effect.
But even at such a prestigious university with a largely middle- and upper-class population, those patronising, mandatory "consent" classes are still being implemented. Squirrell, who admits to being a feminist with left-of-centre politics, thinks they're a good idea. But academics such as Camille Paglia have been warning for years that "rape drives" on campus put women at greater risk, if anything.
Women today are schooled in victimhood, taught to be aggressively vulnerable and convinced that the slightest of perceived infractions, approaches or clumsy misunderstandings represents "assault," "abuse" or "harassment." That may work in the safe confines of campus, where men can have their academic careers destroyed on the mere say-so of a female student.
But, according to Paglia, when that women goes out into the real world without the safety net of college rape committees, she is left totally unprepared for the sometimes violent reality of male sexuality. And the panics and fear-mongering are serving men even more poorly. All in all, education is becoming a miserable experience for boys.
*
In schools today across Britain and America, boys are relentlessly pathologised, as academics were warning as long ago as 2001. Boyishness and boisterousness have come to be seen as "problematic," with girls' behaviour a gold standard against which these defective boys are measured. When they are found wanting, the solution is often drugs.
One in seven American boys will be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at some point in their school career. Millions will be prescribed a powerful mood stabiliser, such as Ritalin, for the crime of being born male. The side effects of these drugs can be hideous and include sudden death.
Meanwhile, boys are falling behind girls academically, perhaps because relentless and well-funded focus has been placed on girls' achievement in the past few decades and little to none on the boys who are now achieving lower grades, fewer honors, fewer degrees and less marketable information economy skills. Boys' literacy, in particular, is in crisis throughout the West. We've been obsessing so much over girls, we haven't noticed that boys have slipped into serious academic trouble.
So what happened to those boys who, in 2001, were falling behind girls at school, were less likely to go to college, were being given drugs they did not need and whose self-esteem and confidence issues haven't just been ignored, but have been actively ridiculed by the feminist Establishment that has such a stranglehold on teaching unions and Left-leaning political parties?
In short: they grew up, dysfunctional, under-served by society, deeply miserable and, in many cases, entirely unable to relate to the opposite sex. It is the boys who were being betrayed by the education system and by culture at large in such vast numbers between 1990 and 2010 who represent the first generation of what I call the sexodus, a large-scale exit from mainstream society by males who have decided they simply can't face, or be bothered with, forming healthy relationships and participating fully in their local communities, national democracies and other real-world social structures.
A second sexodus generation is gestating today, potentially with even greater damage being done to them by the onset of absurd, unworkable, prudish and downright misandrist laws such as California's "Yes Means Yes" legislation—and by third-wave feminism, which dominates newspapers like the Guardian and new media companies like Vox and Gawker, but which is currently enjoying a hysterical last gasp before women themselves reject it by an even greater margin than the present 4 out of 5 women who say they want nothing to do with the dreaded f-word.
*
The sexodus didn't arrive out of nowhere, and the same pressures that have forced so many millennials out of society exert pressure on their parent's generation, too. One professional researcher in his late thirties, about whom I have been conversing on this topic for some months, puts it spicily: "For the past, at least, 25 years, I've been told to do more and more to keep a woman. But nobody's told me what they're doing to keep me.
"I can tell you as a heterosexual married male in management, who didn’t drop out of society, the message from the chicks is: 'It's not just preferable that you should fuck off, but imperative. You must pay for everything and make everything work; but you yourself and your preferences and needs can fuck off and die.'"
Women have been sending men mixed messages for the last few decades, leaving boys utterly confused about what they are supposed to represent to women, which perhaps explains the strong language some of them use when describing their situation. As the role of breadwinner has been taken away from them by women who earn more and do better in school, men are left to intuit what to do, trying to find a virtuous mean between what women say they want and what they actually pursue, which can be very different things.
Men say the gap between what women say and what they do has never been wider. Men are constantly told they should be delicate, sensitive fellow travellers on the feminist path. But the same women who say they want a nice, unthreatening boyfriend go home and swoon over simple-minded, giant-chested, testosterone-saturated hunks in Game of Thrones. Men know this, and, for some, this giant inconsistency makes the whole game look too much like hard work. Why bother trying to work out what a woman wants, when you can play sports, masturbate or just play video games from the comfort of your bedroom?
Jack Donovan, a writer based in Portland who has written several books on men and masculinity, each of which has become a cult hit, says the phenomenon is already endemic among the adult population. "I do see a lot of young men who would otherwise be dating and marrying giving up on women," he explains, "Or giving up on the idea of having a wife and family. This includes both the kind of men who would traditionally be a little awkward with women, and the kind of men who aren't awkward with women at all.
"They've done a cost-benefit analysis and realised it is a bad deal. They know that if they invest in a marriage and children, a woman can take all of that away from them on a whim. So they use apps like Tinder and OK Cupid to find women to have protected sex with and resign themselves to being 'players,' or when they get tired of that, 'boyfriends.'"
He goes on: "Almost all young men have attended mandatory sexual harassment and anti-rape seminars, and they know that they can be fired, expelled or arrested based more or less on the word of any woman. They know they are basically guilty until proven innocent in most situations."
Donovan lays much of the blame for the way men feel at the door of the modern feminist movement and what he sees as its disingenuousness. "The young men who are struggling the most are conflicted because they are operating under the assumption that feminists are arguing in good faith," he says, "When in fact they are engaged in a zero-sum struggle for sexual, social, political and economic status—and they're winning.
"The media now allows radical feminists to frame all debates, in part because sensationalism attracts more clicks than any sort of fair or balanced discourse. Women can basically say anything about men, no matter how denigrating, to a mix of cheers and jeers."
That has certainly been the experience of several loose coalitions of men in the media recently, whether scientists outraged by feminist denunciations of Dr Matt Taylor, or video gamers campaigning under the banner of press ethics who saw their movement smeared as a misogynistic hate group by mendacious, warring feminists and so-called "social justice warriors".
Donovan has views on why it has been so easy for feminists to triumph in media battles. "Because men instinctively want to protect women and play the hero, if a man writes even a tentative criticism of women or feminism, he's denounced by men and women alike as some kind of extremist scoundrel. The majority of "men's studies" and "men's rights" books and blogs that aren't explicitly pro-feminist are littered with apologies to women.
"Books like The Myth of Male Power and sites like A Voice for Men are favourite boogeymen of feminists, but only because they call out feminists' one-sided hypocrisy when it comes to pursing 'equality.'"
Unlike modern feminists, who are driving a wedge between the sexes, Men's Rights Activists "actually seem to want sexual equality," he says. But men's studies authors and male academics are constantly tip-toeing around and making sure they don't appear too radical. Their feminine counterparts have no such forbearance, of course, with what he calls "hipster feminists," such as the Guardian's Jessica Valenti parading around in t-shirts that read: "I BATHE IN MALE TEARS."
"I'm a critic of feminism," says Donovan. "But I would never walk around wearing a shirt that says, "I MAKE WOMEN CRY." I'd just look like a jerk and a bully."
It's the contention of academics, sociologists and writers like Jack Donovan that an atmosphere of relentless, jeering hostility to men from entitled middle-class media figures, plus a few confused male collaborators in the feminist project, has been at least partly responsible for a generation of boys who simply don't want to know.
In Part 2, we'll meet some of the men who have "checked out," given up on sex and relationships and sunk into solitary pursuits or alcohol-fuelled lad culture. And we'll discover that the real victims of modern feminism are, of course, women themselves, who have been left lonelier and less satisfied than they have ever been.
Some names have been changed.
"My generation of boys is f**ked," says Rupert, a young German video game enthusiast I've been getting to know over the past few months. "Marriage is dead. Divorce means you're screwed for life. Women have given up on monogamy, which makes them uninteresting to us for any serious relationship or raising a family. That's just the way it is. Even if we take the risk, chances are the kids won't be ours. In France, we even have to pay for the kids a wife has through adulterous affairs.
"In school, boys are screwed over time and again. Schools are engineered for women. In the US, they force-feed boys Ritalin like Skittles to shut them up. And while girls are favoured to fulfil quotas, men are slipping into distant second place.
"Nobody in my generation believes they're going to get a meaningful retirement. We have a third or a quarter of the wealth previous generations had, and everyone's fleeing to higher education to stave off unemployment and poverty because there are no jobs.
"All that wouldn't be so bad if we could at least dull the pain with girls. But we're treated like paedophiles and potential rapists just for showing interest. My generation are the beautiful ones," he sighs, referring to a 1960s experiment on mice that supposedly predicted a grim future for the human race.
After overpopulation ran out of control, the female mice in John Calhoun's "mouse universe" experiment stopped breeding, and the male mice withdrew from the company of others entirely, eating, sleeping, feeding and grooming themselves but doing little else. They had shiny coats, but empty lives.
"The parallels are astounding," says Rupert.
*
Never before in history have relations between the sexes been so fraught with anxiety, animosity and misunderstanding. To radical feminists, who have been the driving force behind many tectonic societal shifts in recent decades, that's a sign of success: they want to tear down the institutions and power structures that underpin society, never mind the fall-out. Nihilistic destruction is part of their road map.
But, for the rest of us, the sight of society breaking down, and ordinary men and women being driven into separate but equal misery, thanks to a small but highly organised group of agitators, is distressing. Particularly because, as increasing numbers of social observers are noticing, an entire generation of young people—mostly men—are being left behind in the wreckage of this social engineering project.
Social commentators, journalists, academics, scientists and young men themselves have all spotted the trend: among men of about 15 to 30 years old, ever-increasing numbers are checking out of society altogether, giving up on women, sex and relationships and retreating into pornography, sexual fetishes, chemical addictions, video games and, in some cases, boorish lad culture, all of which insulate them from a hostile, debilitating social environment created, some argue, by the modern feminist movement.
You can hardly blame them. Cruelly derided as man-children and crybabies for objecting to absurdly unfair conditions in college, bars, clubs and beyond, men are damned if they do and damned if they don't: ridiculed as basement-dwellers for avoiding aggressive, demanding women with unrealistic expectations, or called rapists and misogynists merely for expressing sexual interest.
Jack Rivlin is editor-in-chief of student tabloid media start-up The Tab, a runaway success whose current strap-line reads: "We'll stop writing it when you stop reading it." As the guiding intelligence behind over 30 student newspapers, Rivlin is perhaps the best-placed person in the country to observe this trend in action. And he agrees that the current generation of young men find it particularly difficult to engage with women.
"Teenage boys always have been useless with girls, but there's definitely a fear that now being well-intentioned isn't enough, and you can get into trouble just for being clumsy," he says. "For example, leaning in for a kiss might see you branded a creep, rather than just inept."
The new rules men are expected to live by are never clearly explained, says Rivlin, leaving boys clueless and neurotic about interacting with girls. "That might sound like a good thing because it encourages men to take the unromantic but practical approach of asking women how they should behave, but it causes a lot of them to just opt out of the game and retreat to the sanctuary of their groups of lads, where being rude to women gets you approval, and you can pretty much entirely avoid one-on-one socialising with the opposite sex."
"There are also a lot of blokes who ignore women because they are scared and don't know how to act. It goes without saying that boys who never spend any time alone with women are not very good at relationships."
Rivlin has noticed the increased dependence on substances, normally alcohol, that boys are using to calm their nerves. "I've heard a lot of male students boast about never having experienced sober sex," he says. "They're obviously scared, which is natural, but they would be a lot less scared and dysfunctional if they understood 'the rules.'"
The result? "A lot of nice but awkward young men are opting out of approaching women because there is no opportunity for them to make mistakes without suffering worse embarrassment than ever."
Most troublingly, this effect is felt more acutely among poorer and less well educated communities, where the package of support resources available to young men is slight. At my alma mater, the University of Cambridge, the phenomenon barely registers on the radar, according to Union society president Tim Squirrell.
"I don't think I've really noticed a change recently," he says. "This year has seen the introduction of mandatory consent workshops for freshers, which I believe is probably a good thing, and there's been a big effort by the Women's Campaign in particular to try and combat lad culture on campus.
The atmosphere here is the same as it was a year ago - mostly nerdy guys who are too afraid to approach anyone in the first place, and then a smaller percentage who are confident enough to make a move. Obviously women have agency too, and they approach men in about the same numbers as they do elsewhere. There certainly haven't been any stories in [campus newspaper] The Tab about a sex drought on campus."
"I think that people are probably having as much sex as ever," he adds. At Cambridge, of course, that may not mean much, and for a variety of socioeconomic and class-based reasons the tribes at Oxford and Cambridge are somewhat insulated from the male drop-out effect.
But even at such a prestigious university with a largely middle- and upper-class population, those patronising, mandatory "consent" classes are still being implemented. Squirrell, who admits to being a feminist with left-of-centre politics, thinks they're a good idea. But academics such as Camille Paglia have been warning for years that "rape drives" on campus put women at greater risk, if anything.
Women today are schooled in victimhood, taught to be aggressively vulnerable and convinced that the slightest of perceived infractions, approaches or clumsy misunderstandings represents "assault," "abuse" or "harassment." That may work in the safe confines of campus, where men can have their academic careers destroyed on the mere say-so of a female student.
But, according to Paglia, when that women goes out into the real world without the safety net of college rape committees, she is left totally unprepared for the sometimes violent reality of male sexuality. And the panics and fear-mongering are serving men even more poorly. All in all, education is becoming a miserable experience for boys.
*
In schools today across Britain and America, boys are relentlessly pathologised, as academics were warning as long ago as 2001. Boyishness and boisterousness have come to be seen as "problematic," with girls' behaviour a gold standard against which these defective boys are measured. When they are found wanting, the solution is often drugs.
One in seven American boys will be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at some point in their school career. Millions will be prescribed a powerful mood stabiliser, such as Ritalin, for the crime of being born male. The side effects of these drugs can be hideous and include sudden death.
Meanwhile, boys are falling behind girls academically, perhaps because relentless and well-funded focus has been placed on girls' achievement in the past few decades and little to none on the boys who are now achieving lower grades, fewer honors, fewer degrees and less marketable information economy skills. Boys' literacy, in particular, is in crisis throughout the West. We've been obsessing so much over girls, we haven't noticed that boys have slipped into serious academic trouble.
So what happened to those boys who, in 2001, were falling behind girls at school, were less likely to go to college, were being given drugs they did not need and whose self-esteem and confidence issues haven't just been ignored, but have been actively ridiculed by the feminist Establishment that has such a stranglehold on teaching unions and Left-leaning political parties?
In short: they grew up, dysfunctional, under-served by society, deeply miserable and, in many cases, entirely unable to relate to the opposite sex. It is the boys who were being betrayed by the education system and by culture at large in such vast numbers between 1990 and 2010 who represent the first generation of what I call the sexodus, a large-scale exit from mainstream society by males who have decided they simply can't face, or be bothered with, forming healthy relationships and participating fully in their local communities, national democracies and other real-world social structures.
A second sexodus generation is gestating today, potentially with even greater damage being done to them by the onset of absurd, unworkable, prudish and downright misandrist laws such as California's "Yes Means Yes" legislation—and by third-wave feminism, which dominates newspapers like the Guardian and new media companies like Vox and Gawker, but which is currently enjoying a hysterical last gasp before women themselves reject it by an even greater margin than the present 4 out of 5 women who say they want nothing to do with the dreaded f-word.
*
The sexodus didn't arrive out of nowhere, and the same pressures that have forced so many millennials out of society exert pressure on their parent's generation, too. One professional researcher in his late thirties, about whom I have been conversing on this topic for some months, puts it spicily: "For the past, at least, 25 years, I've been told to do more and more to keep a woman. But nobody's told me what they're doing to keep me.
"I can tell you as a heterosexual married male in management, who didn’t drop out of society, the message from the chicks is: 'It's not just preferable that you should fuck off, but imperative. You must pay for everything and make everything work; but you yourself and your preferences and needs can fuck off and die.'"
Women have been sending men mixed messages for the last few decades, leaving boys utterly confused about what they are supposed to represent to women, which perhaps explains the strong language some of them use when describing their situation. As the role of breadwinner has been taken away from them by women who earn more and do better in school, men are left to intuit what to do, trying to find a virtuous mean between what women say they want and what they actually pursue, which can be very different things.
Men say the gap between what women say and what they do has never been wider. Men are constantly told they should be delicate, sensitive fellow travellers on the feminist path. But the same women who say they want a nice, unthreatening boyfriend go home and swoon over simple-minded, giant-chested, testosterone-saturated hunks in Game of Thrones. Men know this, and, for some, this giant inconsistency makes the whole game look too much like hard work. Why bother trying to work out what a woman wants, when you can play sports, masturbate or just play video games from the comfort of your bedroom?
Jack Donovan, a writer based in Portland who has written several books on men and masculinity, each of which has become a cult hit, says the phenomenon is already endemic among the adult population. "I do see a lot of young men who would otherwise be dating and marrying giving up on women," he explains, "Or giving up on the idea of having a wife and family. This includes both the kind of men who would traditionally be a little awkward with women, and the kind of men who aren't awkward with women at all.
"They've done a cost-benefit analysis and realised it is a bad deal. They know that if they invest in a marriage and children, a woman can take all of that away from them on a whim. So they use apps like Tinder and OK Cupid to find women to have protected sex with and resign themselves to being 'players,' or when they get tired of that, 'boyfriends.'"
He goes on: "Almost all young men have attended mandatory sexual harassment and anti-rape seminars, and they know that they can be fired, expelled or arrested based more or less on the word of any woman. They know they are basically guilty until proven innocent in most situations."
Donovan lays much of the blame for the way men feel at the door of the modern feminist movement and what he sees as its disingenuousness. "The young men who are struggling the most are conflicted because they are operating under the assumption that feminists are arguing in good faith," he says, "When in fact they are engaged in a zero-sum struggle for sexual, social, political and economic status—and they're winning.
"The media now allows radical feminists to frame all debates, in part because sensationalism attracts more clicks than any sort of fair or balanced discourse. Women can basically say anything about men, no matter how denigrating, to a mix of cheers and jeers."
That has certainly been the experience of several loose coalitions of men in the media recently, whether scientists outraged by feminist denunciations of Dr Matt Taylor, or video gamers campaigning under the banner of press ethics who saw their movement smeared as a misogynistic hate group by mendacious, warring feminists and so-called "social justice warriors".
Donovan has views on why it has been so easy for feminists to triumph in media battles. "Because men instinctively want to protect women and play the hero, if a man writes even a tentative criticism of women or feminism, he's denounced by men and women alike as some kind of extremist scoundrel. The majority of "men's studies" and "men's rights" books and blogs that aren't explicitly pro-feminist are littered with apologies to women.
"Books like The Myth of Male Power and sites like A Voice for Men are favourite boogeymen of feminists, but only because they call out feminists' one-sided hypocrisy when it comes to pursing 'equality.'"
Unlike modern feminists, who are driving a wedge between the sexes, Men's Rights Activists "actually seem to want sexual equality," he says. But men's studies authors and male academics are constantly tip-toeing around and making sure they don't appear too radical. Their feminine counterparts have no such forbearance, of course, with what he calls "hipster feminists," such as the Guardian's Jessica Valenti parading around in t-shirts that read: "I BATHE IN MALE TEARS."
"I'm a critic of feminism," says Donovan. "But I would never walk around wearing a shirt that says, "I MAKE WOMEN CRY." I'd just look like a jerk and a bully."
It's the contention of academics, sociologists and writers like Jack Donovan that an atmosphere of relentless, jeering hostility to men from entitled middle-class media figures, plus a few confused male collaborators in the feminist project, has been at least partly responsible for a generation of boys who simply don't want to know.
In Part 2, we'll meet some of the men who have "checked out," given up on sex and relationships and sunk into solitary pursuits or alcohol-fuelled lad culture. And we'll discover that the real victims of modern feminism are, of course, women themselves, who have been left lonelier and less satisfied than they have ever been.
Some names have been changed.
20141219
20141217
Suicide surpassed war as the military's leading cause of death
Suicide surpassed war as the military's leading cause of death
War was the leading cause of death in the military nearly every year between 2004 and 2011 until suicides became the top means of dying for troops in 2012 and 2013, according to a bar chart published this week in a monthly Pentagon medical statistical analysis journal.
For those last two years, suicide outranked war, cancer, heart disease, homicide, transportation accidents and other causes as the leading killer, accounting for about three in 10 military deaths each of those two years.
Transportation accidents, by a small margin, was the leading cause of military deaths in 2008, slightly more than combat.
The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan accounted for anywhere from one out of three deaths in the military — in 2005 and 2010 — to more than 46 percent of deaths in 2007, during the height of the Iraq surge, according to the chart.
More than 6,800 troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 and more than 3,000 additional service members have taken their lives in that same time, according to Pentagon data.
War was the leading cause of death in the military nearly every year between 2004 and 2011 until suicides became the top means of dying for troops in 2012 and 2013, according to a bar chart published this week in a monthly Pentagon medical statistical analysis journal.
For those last two years, suicide outranked war, cancer, heart disease, homicide, transportation accidents and other causes as the leading killer, accounting for about three in 10 military deaths each of those two years.
Transportation accidents, by a small margin, was the leading cause of military deaths in 2008, slightly more than combat.
The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan accounted for anywhere from one out of three deaths in the military — in 2005 and 2010 — to more than 46 percent of deaths in 2007, during the height of the Iraq surge, according to the chart.
More than 6,800 troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 and more than 3,000 additional service members have taken their lives in that same time, according to Pentagon data.
20141215
20141211
20141209
20141207
List of Average IQ By Country and American States
List of Average IQ By Country and American States
1. Massachusetts: 104.3
2. New Hampshire: 104.2
3. North Dakota: 103.8
4. Vermont: 103.8
5. Minnesota: 103.7
6. Maine: 103.4
7. Montana: 103.4
8. Iowa: 103.2
9. Connecticut: 103.1
10. Wisconsin: 102.9
11. Kansas: 102.8
12. New Jersey: 102.8
13. South Dakota: 102.8
14. Wyoming: 102.4
15. Nebraska: 102.3
16. Virginia: 101.9
17. Washington: 101.9
18. Ohio: 101.8
19. Indiana: 101.7
20. Colorado: 101.6
21. Pennsylvania: 101.5
22. Idaho: 101.4
23. Oregon: 101.2
24. Utah: 101.1
25. Missouri: 101
26. New York: 100.7
27. Michigan: 100.5
28. Delaware: 100.4
29. N. Carolina: 100.2
30. Texas: 100
31. Illinois: 99.9
32. Maryland: 99.7
33. Rhode Island: 99.5
34. Kentucky: 99.4
35. Oklahoma: 99.3
36. Alaska: 99
37. W. Virginia: 98.7
38. Florida: 98.4
39. S. Carolina: 98.4
40. Georgia: 98
41. Tennessee: 97.7
42. Arkansas: 97.5
43. Arizona: 97.4
44. Nevada: 96.5
45. Alabama: 95.7
46. New Mexico: 95.7
47. Hawaii: 95.6
48. California: 95.5
49. Louisiana: 95.3
50. Mississippi: 94.2
1. Massachusetts: 104.3
2. New Hampshire: 104.2
3. North Dakota: 103.8
4. Vermont: 103.8
5. Minnesota: 103.7
6. Maine: 103.4
7. Montana: 103.4
8. Iowa: 103.2
9. Connecticut: 103.1
10. Wisconsin: 102.9
11. Kansas: 102.8
12. New Jersey: 102.8
13. South Dakota: 102.8
14. Wyoming: 102.4
15. Nebraska: 102.3
16. Virginia: 101.9
17. Washington: 101.9
18. Ohio: 101.8
19. Indiana: 101.7
20. Colorado: 101.6
21. Pennsylvania: 101.5
22. Idaho: 101.4
23. Oregon: 101.2
24. Utah: 101.1
25. Missouri: 101
26. New York: 100.7
27. Michigan: 100.5
28. Delaware: 100.4
29. N. Carolina: 100.2
30. Texas: 100
31. Illinois: 99.9
32. Maryland: 99.7
33. Rhode Island: 99.5
34. Kentucky: 99.4
35. Oklahoma: 99.3
36. Alaska: 99
37. W. Virginia: 98.7
38. Florida: 98.4
39. S. Carolina: 98.4
40. Georgia: 98
41. Tennessee: 97.7
42. Arkansas: 97.5
43. Arizona: 97.4
44. Nevada: 96.5
45. Alabama: 95.7
46. New Mexico: 95.7
47. Hawaii: 95.6
48. California: 95.5
49. Louisiana: 95.3
50. Mississippi: 94.2
20141205
20141203
20141201
20141123
20141121
US government planes collecting phone data, report claims
US government planes collecting phone data, report claims
Devices that gather data from millions of mobile phones are being flown over the US by the government, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The "dirtbox" devices mimic mobile phone tower transmissions, and handsets transmit back their location and unique identity data, the report claims.
While they are used to track specific suspects, all mobile devices in the area will respond to the signal.
The US Justice Department refused to confirm or deny the report.
The Wall Street Journal said it had spoken to "sources familiar with the programme" who said Cessna aircraft fitted with dirtboxes were flying from at least five US airports.
The department said that it operated within federal law.
Off the shelf
A dirtbox mimics the signals transmitted by mobile phone providers which handsets look to latch on to. When they do, they send their individual registration information and location.
While they are intended to be used to track an individual or small group, all phones within the area where they are operating will also be swept up in the surveillance.
They operate in the same way as Stingray, a more commonly known mobile phone surveillance tool, security expert Prof Alan Woodward told the BBC.
"The governments have access to Stingray which is available off the shelf to spy on mobile phones but governments aren't the only ones. For £2,000 you can build your own," he said.
Tools like Stingray and Dirtbox are known as IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) catchers because they collect the unique identification data sent by each individual device to its network.
"In essence, you spoof networks by pretending to be a cell tower. You turn off encryption, and then you can extract all sorts of info such as calls made, where, when etc etc.
"'I'm not surprised to hear that it is going on," Prof Woodward added.
"It's easily done. Doing it from the air is the obvious place to do it, but the question is under what legislation they are doing it and what are they doing with the data."
20141119
WARNING Bank Deposits Will Soon No Longer Be Considered Money But Paper Investments
WARNING Bank Deposits Will Soon No Longer Be Considered Money But Paper Investments
This weekend the G20 nations will convene in Brisbane, Australia to conclude a week of Asian festivities that began in Beijing for the developed countries and major economies. And on Sunday, the biggest deal of the week will be made as the G20 will formally announce new banking rules that are expected to send shock waves to anyone holding a checking, savings, or money market account in a financial institution.
On Nov. 16, the G20 will implement a new policy that makes bank deposits on par with paper investments, subjecting account holders to declines that one might experience from holding a stock or other security when the next financial banking crisis occurs. Additionally, all member nations of the G20 will immediately submit and pass legislation that will fulfill this program, creating a new paradigm where banks no longer recognize your deposits as money, but as liabilities and securitized capital owned and controlled by the bank or institution.
In essence, the Cyprus template of 2011 will be fully implemented in every major economy, and place bank depositors as the primary instrument of the next bailouts when the next crisis occurs...
For most Americans with savings or checking accounts in federally insured banks, normal FDIC rules on deposit insurance are still in play, but anyone with over $250,000 in any one account, or held offshore, will have their money automatically subject to bankruptcy dispursements from the courts based on a much lower rank of priority, and a much lower percentage of return.
This also includes business accounts, money market accounts, and any depository investments such as a certificate of deposit (CD)...
after Sunday at the G20 meeting, the risks of holding any cash in a bank or financial institution will have to be weighed as heavily and with as much determination of risk as if you were holding a stock or municipal bond, which could decline in an instant should the financial environment bring a crisis even remotely similar to that of 2008.
From a technical perspective, this is moving in line with Murray Rothbard's perspective on "bank deposit insurance," which he saw as a scam:
[F]ractional reserve banking proved shaky, and so the New Deal, in 1933, added the lie of "bank deposit insurance," using the benign word "insurance" to mask an arrant hoax. When the savings and loan system went down the tubes in the late 1980s, the "deposit insurance" of the federal FSLIC [Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation] was unmasked as sheer fraud. The "insurance" was simply the smoke-and-mirrors term for the unbacked name of the federal government. The poor taxpayers finally bailed out the S&Ls, but now we are left with the formerly sainted FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], for commercial banks, which is now increasingly seen to be shaky, since the FDIC itself has less than one percent of the huge number of deposits it "insures."
The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one insure an institution (fractional reserve banking) that is inherently insolvent, and which will fall apart whenever the public finally understands the swindle? Suppose that, tomorrow, the American public suddenly became aware of the banking swindle, and went to the banks tomorrow morning, and, in unison, demanded cash. What would happen? The banks would be instantly insolvent, since they could only muster 10 percent of the cash they owe their befuddled customers. Neither would the enormous tax increase needed to bail everyone out be at all palatable. No: the only thing the Fed could do, and this would be in their power, would be to print enough money to pay off all the bank depositors. Unfortunately, in the present state of the banking system, the result would be an immediate plunge into the horrors of hyperinflation.
Thus, the removal of protection for large depositors is eliminating the scam at this tier. It is, in other words, cutting down on moral hazard.
However, I do not suspect that the world's governments have suddenly found Jesus/Rothbard. I suspect what is going on here is that the government is fully aware that this change will create a separation between bank deposits and government securities. Government securities, especially short-term paper, will become a safer investment than large banks deposits. This will drive funds away from banks and private sector lending and push funds into the direction of government sponsored debt (where there will be continued back up for such debt of the money printing presses).
HT to William Bergman who emails:
About 15 years ago I got the "Best Manuscript" award at an academic accounting conference for a paper titled "Accounting for Money." I made the argument that fair value accounting principles were being introduced inconsistently, in that cash and cash equivalents were escaping unscathed.
This weekend the G20 nations will convene in Brisbane, Australia to conclude a week of Asian festivities that began in Beijing for the developed countries and major economies. And on Sunday, the biggest deal of the week will be made as the G20 will formally announce new banking rules that are expected to send shock waves to anyone holding a checking, savings, or money market account in a financial institution.
On Nov. 16, the G20 will implement a new policy that makes bank deposits on par with paper investments, subjecting account holders to declines that one might experience from holding a stock or other security when the next financial banking crisis occurs. Additionally, all member nations of the G20 will immediately submit and pass legislation that will fulfill this program, creating a new paradigm where banks no longer recognize your deposits as money, but as liabilities and securitized capital owned and controlled by the bank or institution.
In essence, the Cyprus template of 2011 will be fully implemented in every major economy, and place bank depositors as the primary instrument of the next bailouts when the next crisis occurs...
For most Americans with savings or checking accounts in federally insured banks, normal FDIC rules on deposit insurance are still in play, but anyone with over $250,000 in any one account, or held offshore, will have their money automatically subject to bankruptcy dispursements from the courts based on a much lower rank of priority, and a much lower percentage of return.
This also includes business accounts, money market accounts, and any depository investments such as a certificate of deposit (CD)...
after Sunday at the G20 meeting, the risks of holding any cash in a bank or financial institution will have to be weighed as heavily and with as much determination of risk as if you were holding a stock or municipal bond, which could decline in an instant should the financial environment bring a crisis even remotely similar to that of 2008.
From a technical perspective, this is moving in line with Murray Rothbard's perspective on "bank deposit insurance," which he saw as a scam:
[F]ractional reserve banking proved shaky, and so the New Deal, in 1933, added the lie of "bank deposit insurance," using the benign word "insurance" to mask an arrant hoax. When the savings and loan system went down the tubes in the late 1980s, the "deposit insurance" of the federal FSLIC [Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation] was unmasked as sheer fraud. The "insurance" was simply the smoke-and-mirrors term for the unbacked name of the federal government. The poor taxpayers finally bailed out the S&Ls, but now we are left with the formerly sainted FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], for commercial banks, which is now increasingly seen to be shaky, since the FDIC itself has less than one percent of the huge number of deposits it "insures."
The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one insure an institution (fractional reserve banking) that is inherently insolvent, and which will fall apart whenever the public finally understands the swindle? Suppose that, tomorrow, the American public suddenly became aware of the banking swindle, and went to the banks tomorrow morning, and, in unison, demanded cash. What would happen? The banks would be instantly insolvent, since they could only muster 10 percent of the cash they owe their befuddled customers. Neither would the enormous tax increase needed to bail everyone out be at all palatable. No: the only thing the Fed could do, and this would be in their power, would be to print enough money to pay off all the bank depositors. Unfortunately, in the present state of the banking system, the result would be an immediate plunge into the horrors of hyperinflation.
Thus, the removal of protection for large depositors is eliminating the scam at this tier. It is, in other words, cutting down on moral hazard.
However, I do not suspect that the world's governments have suddenly found Jesus/Rothbard. I suspect what is going on here is that the government is fully aware that this change will create a separation between bank deposits and government securities. Government securities, especially short-term paper, will become a safer investment than large banks deposits. This will drive funds away from banks and private sector lending and push funds into the direction of government sponsored debt (where there will be continued back up for such debt of the money printing presses).
HT to William Bergman who emails:
About 15 years ago I got the "Best Manuscript" award at an academic accounting conference for a paper titled "Accounting for Money." I made the argument that fair value accounting principles were being introduced inconsistently, in that cash and cash equivalents were escaping unscathed.
20141115
20141111
Guy Goes To Mexico To Kill Himself, Spends Week Doing Coke And Banging Hookers, Decides To Keep Living
"I decide life wasn’t so bad after all"..
Guy Goes To Mexico To Kill Himself, Spends Week Doing Coke And Banging Hookers, Decides To Keep Living
Went to Mexico to buy barbiturates for a humane and peaceful death.
Decided that if I was gonna die anyway I might as well fuck a prostitute before it was all over. After that a cab driver offered to sell me cocaine. One thing lead to another, and I got a room above a whore house equipped with a heart shaped bed, a stripper pole, and a hot tub.
Spent a full week snorting coke off tits, popping pain meds, drinking tequila, eating handfuls of Viagra to fight the whiskey/coke dick, and had three FFM threesomes.
Somewhere in the midst of my coke-fueled orgy I decide life wasn’t so bad after all.
Guy Goes To Mexico To Kill Himself, Spends Week Doing Coke And Banging Hookers, Decides To Keep Living
Went to Mexico to buy barbiturates for a humane and peaceful death.
Decided that if I was gonna die anyway I might as well fuck a prostitute before it was all over. After that a cab driver offered to sell me cocaine. One thing lead to another, and I got a room above a whore house equipped with a heart shaped bed, a stripper pole, and a hot tub.
Spent a full week snorting coke off tits, popping pain meds, drinking tequila, eating handfuls of Viagra to fight the whiskey/coke dick, and had three FFM threesomes.
Somewhere in the midst of my coke-fueled orgy I decide life wasn’t so bad after all.
20141109
Government Has "Trampled On Us Too Much"; Over 1 Million Catalans Vote In Symbolic Referendum For Independence
Government Has "Trampled On Us Too Much"; Over 1 Million Catalans Vote In Symbolic Referendum For Independence
With well over 1 million Catalonians already voted by the middle of the day, Catalonia's 'illegal-in-the-eyes-of-the-Spanish-government' vote for secession appears to have garnered more relative public support than Americans who voted for real this week. As threats from Rajoy and the Spanish government grow louder, the Catalan president Artur Mas rather sarcastically noted "we're running a high-quality democracy here," adding that "it has been difficult to get to this point... which is incredible in a democracy." The government has decried the use of public buildings for the vote, but Mas exclaims, "if they want to know who’s responsible for opening up the schools, they should look at me. I’m responsible. My government and me." Results are not due until Monday morning but opinion polls show at least 80% support an official vote and 50% in favor of full independence for the region that represents over 20% of Spain's GDP. As yet no signs of any military presence, other than vehicles moved into the region last week.
As AP reports,
Catalonia's government said more than a million voters participated Sunday in an informal vote on whether the wealthy northeastern region should secede from the rest of Spain.Catalan President Artur Mas spoke to reporters, as Bloomberg notes, after he cast his vote...
The regional Catalan government pushed forward with the vote despite Spain's Constitutional Court ordering its suspension on Tuesday after it agreed to hear the Spanish government's challenge that the poll is unconstitutional.
The Catalan government said that over 1.1 million of the 5.4 million eligible voters had voted by 1300 local time at polling stations manned with more than 40,000 volunteers. Results are expected Monday morning.
"Despite the enormous impediments, we have been able to get out the ballot boxes and vote," regional president Artur Mas said after depositing his ballot at a school in Barcelona.
The ballot asks voters two questions: should Catalonia be a state, and if so, should it be independent.
Polls show that the majority of Catalonia's 7.5 million inhabitants want an official vote on independence, while around half support breaking centuries-old ties with Spain.
“If they want to know who’s responsible for opening up the schools, they should look at me. I’m responsible. My government and me”But as Reuters reports, this vote says a lot more about the roiling tensions in Europe than anything else...
“We are running a high-quality democracy”
“The next step will be to try to convince Madrid that we need a real referendum with all the political consequences. If they don’t listen, then we will go ahead”
“It has been very difficult to get to this point. That’s incredible in a democracy”
A long-standing breakaway movement in Catalonia, which accounts for one-fifth of Spain's economic output and has its own distinct culture and language, grew in strength during the recent years of deep recession.* * *
Opinion polls show that as many as 80 percent of Catalans back voting on the issue of Catalonia's status, with about 50 percent in favor of full independence.
...
"If they don't understand us, they should respect us and each of us go on their separate way," said Angels Costa, a 52-year-old shopkeeper who voted in Barcelona.
"We would have liked to have been a federal state but that is no longer possible. They've trampled on us too much."
"It's clear that this consultation ... does not give us the democratic mandate we would have in an election, but what's important is that it is a fresh demonstration of the fact people want to vote, that they are keen to voice their opinion."
Some images of the turnout for the 'mock' independence vote...
Photo of the Year 2014 - Catalonia's independence vote. pic.twitter.com/bzagXVQTLO
— Otto Ozols (@OttoOzols) November 9, 2014
Here's what needs to happen for Catalonia to legally split from Spain http://t.co/drEQtrjei7 pic.twitter.com/UsUrkudxXt
— GlobalPost (@GlobalPost) November 9, 2014
La culpa de q no haya nadie votando es de la previsión del tiempo de tomas molina! pic.twitter.com/OibhKVidAP
— Maxwell (@Agentsecret086) November 9, 2014
#CataloniaVotes #indyref RIA Novosti's correspondent reports from polls in #Catalonia pic.twitter.com/DVMJLtW6Az
— RIA Novosti (@ria_novosti) November 9, 2014
* * *It would appear the Catalonians care more about a vote that, theoretically changes nothing, than Americans who turned out in un-droves to vote for real this week.
20141105
Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”
Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”
Note from Arthur Obermayer, friend of the author:
In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures. The company received a contract with the acronym GLIPAR (Guide Line Identification Program for Antimissile Research) from the Advanced Research Projects Agency to elicit the most creative approaches possible for a ballistic missile defense system. The government recognized that no matter how much was spent on improving and expanding current technology, it would remain inadequate. They wanted us and a few other contractors to think “out of the box.”
When I first became involved in the project, I suggested that Isaac Asimov, who was a good friend of mine, would be an appropriate person to participate. He expressed his willingness and came to a few meetings. He eventually decided not to continue, because he did not want to have access to any secret classified information; it would limit his freedom of expression. Before he left, however, he wrote this essay on creativity as his single formal input. This essay was never published or used beyond our small group. When I recently rediscovered it while cleaning out some old files, I recognized that its contents are as broadly relevant today as when he wrote it. It describes not only the creative process and the nature of creative people but also the kind of environment that promotes creativity.
ON CREATIVITY
How do people get new ideas?
Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. We are most interested in the “creation” of a new scientific principle or a new application of an old one, but we can be general here.
One way of investigating the problem is to consider the great ideas of the past and see just how they were generated. Unfortunately, the method of generation is never clear even to the “generators” themselves.
But what if the same earth-shaking idea occurred to two men, simultaneously and independently? Perhaps, the common factors involved would be illuminating. Consider the theory of evolution by natural selection, independently created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.
There is a great deal in common there. Both traveled to far places, observing strange species of plants and animals and the manner in which they varied from place to place. Both were keenly interested in finding an explanation for this, and both failed until each happened to read Malthus’s “Essay on Population.”
Both then saw how the notion of overpopulation and weeding out (which Malthus had applied to human beings) would fit into the doctrine of evolution by natural selection (if applied to species generally).
Obviously, then, what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.
Undoubtedly in the first half of the 19th century, a great many naturalists had studied the manner in which species were differentiated among themselves. A great many people had read Malthus. Perhaps some both studied species and read Malthus. But what you needed was someone who studied species, read Malthus, and had the ability to make a cross-connection.
That is the crucial point that is the rare characteristic that must be found. Once the cross-connection is made, it becomes obvious. Thomas H. Huxley is supposed to have exclaimed after reading On the Origin of Species, “How stupid of me not to have thought of this.”
But why didn’t he think of it? The history of human thought would make it seem that there is difficulty in thinking of an idea even when all the facts are on the table. Making the cross-connection requires a certain daring. It must, for any cross-connection that does not require daring is performed at once by many and develops not as a “new idea,” but as a mere “corollary of an old idea.”
It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable. It seems the height of unreason to suppose the earth was round instead of flat, or that it moved instead of the sun, or that objects required a force to stop them when in motion, instead of a force to keep them moving, and so on.
A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others.
Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)
Once you have the people you want, the next question is: Do you want to bring them together so that they may discuss the problem mutually, or should you inform each of the problem and allow them to work in isolation?
My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. (The famous example of Kekule working out the structure of benzene in his sleep is well-known.)
The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.
Nevertheless, a meeting of such people may be desirable for reasons other than the act of creation itself.
No two people exactly duplicate each other’s mental stores of items. One person may know A and not B, another may know B and not A, and either knowing A and B, both may get the idea—though not necessarily at once or even soon.
Furthermore, the information may not only be of individual items A and B, but even of combinations such as A-B, which in themselves are not significant. However, if one person mentions the unusual combination of A-B and another unusual combination A-C, it may well be that the combination A-B-C, which neither has thought of separately, may yield an answer.
It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions is not to think up new ideas but to educate the participants in facts and fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts.
But how to persuade creative people to do so? First and foremost, there must be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. The individuals must, therefore, have the feeling that the others won’t object.
If a single individual present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that would be bound to go on at such a session, the others would freeze. The unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of information, but the harm he does will more than compensate for that. It seems necessary to me, then, that all people at a session be willing to sound foolish and listen to others sound foolish.
If a single individual present has a much greater reputation than the others, or is more articulate, or has a distinctly more commanding personality, he may well take over the conference and reduce the rest to little more than passive obedience. The individual may himself be extremely useful, but he might as well be put to work solo, for he is neutralizing the rest.
The optimum number of the group would probably not be very high. I should guess that no more than five would be wanted. A larger group might have a larger total supply of information, but there would be the tension of waiting to speak, which can be very frustrating. It would probably be better to have a number of sessions at which the people attending would vary, rather than one session including them all. (This would involve a certain repetition, but even repetition is not in itself undesirable. It is not what people say at these conferences, but what they inspire in each other later on.)
For best purposes, there should be a feeling of informality. Joviality, the use of first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I think, of the essence—not in themselves, but because they encourage a willingness to be involved in the folly of creativeness. For this purpose I think a meeting in someone’s home or over a dinner table at some restaurant is perhaps more useful than one in a conference room.
Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of responsibility. The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren’t paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues.
To feel guilty because one has not earned one’s salary because one has not had a great idea is the surest way, it seems to me, of making it certain that no great idea will come in the next time either.
Yet your company is conducting this cerebration program on government money. To think of congressmen or the general public hearing about scientists fooling around, boondoggling, telling dirty jokes, perhaps, at government expense, is to break into a cold sweat. In fact, the average scientist has enough public conscience not to want to feel he is doing this even if no one finds out.
I would suggest that members at a cerebration session be given sinecure tasks to do—short reports to write, or summaries of their conclusions, or brief answers to suggested problems—and be paid for that; the payment being the fee that would ordinarily be paid for the cerebration session. The cerebration session would then be officially unpaid-for and that, too, would allow considerable relaxation.
I do not think that cerebration sessions can be left unguided. There must be someone in charge who plays a role equivalent to that of a psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst, as I understand it, by asking the right questions (and except for that interfering as little as possible), gets the patient himself to discuss his past life in such a way as to elicit new understanding of it in his own eyes.
In the same way, a session-arbiter will have to sit there, stirring up the animals, asking the shrewd question, making the necessary comment, bringing them gently back to the point. Since the arbiter will not know which question is shrewd, which comment necessary, and what the point is, his will not be an easy job.
As for “gadgets” designed to elicit creativity, I think these should arise out of the bull sessions themselves. If thoroughly relaxed, free of responsibility, discussing something of interest, and being by nature unconventional, the participants themselves will create devices to stimulate discussion.
Published with permission of Asimov Holdings.
In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures. The company received a contract with the acronym GLIPAR (Guide Line Identification Program for Antimissile Research) from the Advanced Research Projects Agency to elicit the most creative approaches possible for a ballistic missile defense system. The government recognized that no matter how much was spent on improving and expanding current technology, it would remain inadequate. They wanted us and a few other contractors to think “out of the box.”
When I first became involved in the project, I suggested that Isaac Asimov, who was a good friend of mine, would be an appropriate person to participate. He expressed his willingness and came to a few meetings. He eventually decided not to continue, because he did not want to have access to any secret classified information; it would limit his freedom of expression. Before he left, however, he wrote this essay on creativity as his single formal input. This essay was never published or used beyond our small group. When I recently rediscovered it while cleaning out some old files, I recognized that its contents are as broadly relevant today as when he wrote it. It describes not only the creative process and the nature of creative people but also the kind of environment that promotes creativity.
ON CREATIVITY
How do people get new ideas?
Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. We are most interested in the “creation” of a new scientific principle or a new application of an old one, but we can be general here.
One way of investigating the problem is to consider the great ideas of the past and see just how they were generated. Unfortunately, the method of generation is never clear even to the “generators” themselves.
But what if the same earth-shaking idea occurred to two men, simultaneously and independently? Perhaps, the common factors involved would be illuminating. Consider the theory of evolution by natural selection, independently created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.
There is a great deal in common there. Both traveled to far places, observing strange species of plants and animals and the manner in which they varied from place to place. Both were keenly interested in finding an explanation for this, and both failed until each happened to read Malthus’s “Essay on Population.”
Both then saw how the notion of overpopulation and weeding out (which Malthus had applied to human beings) would fit into the doctrine of evolution by natural selection (if applied to species generally).
Obviously, then, what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.
Undoubtedly in the first half of the 19th century, a great many naturalists had studied the manner in which species were differentiated among themselves. A great many people had read Malthus. Perhaps some both studied species and read Malthus. But what you needed was someone who studied species, read Malthus, and had the ability to make a cross-connection.
That is the crucial point that is the rare characteristic that must be found. Once the cross-connection is made, it becomes obvious. Thomas H. Huxley is supposed to have exclaimed after reading On the Origin of Species, “How stupid of me not to have thought of this.”
But why didn’t he think of it? The history of human thought would make it seem that there is difficulty in thinking of an idea even when all the facts are on the table. Making the cross-connection requires a certain daring. It must, for any cross-connection that does not require daring is performed at once by many and develops not as a “new idea,” but as a mere “corollary of an old idea.”
It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable. It seems the height of unreason to suppose the earth was round instead of flat, or that it moved instead of the sun, or that objects required a force to stop them when in motion, instead of a force to keep them moving, and so on.
A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others.
Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)
Once you have the people you want, the next question is: Do you want to bring them together so that they may discuss the problem mutually, or should you inform each of the problem and allow them to work in isolation?
My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. (The famous example of Kekule working out the structure of benzene in his sleep is well-known.)
The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.
Nevertheless, a meeting of such people may be desirable for reasons other than the act of creation itself.
No two people exactly duplicate each other’s mental stores of items. One person may know A and not B, another may know B and not A, and either knowing A and B, both may get the idea—though not necessarily at once or even soon.
Furthermore, the information may not only be of individual items A and B, but even of combinations such as A-B, which in themselves are not significant. However, if one person mentions the unusual combination of A-B and another unusual combination A-C, it may well be that the combination A-B-C, which neither has thought of separately, may yield an answer.
It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions is not to think up new ideas but to educate the participants in facts and fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts.
But how to persuade creative people to do so? First and foremost, there must be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. The individuals must, therefore, have the feeling that the others won’t object.
If a single individual present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that would be bound to go on at such a session, the others would freeze. The unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of information, but the harm he does will more than compensate for that. It seems necessary to me, then, that all people at a session be willing to sound foolish and listen to others sound foolish.
If a single individual present has a much greater reputation than the others, or is more articulate, or has a distinctly more commanding personality, he may well take over the conference and reduce the rest to little more than passive obedience. The individual may himself be extremely useful, but he might as well be put to work solo, for he is neutralizing the rest.
The optimum number of the group would probably not be very high. I should guess that no more than five would be wanted. A larger group might have a larger total supply of information, but there would be the tension of waiting to speak, which can be very frustrating. It would probably be better to have a number of sessions at which the people attending would vary, rather than one session including them all. (This would involve a certain repetition, but even repetition is not in itself undesirable. It is not what people say at these conferences, but what they inspire in each other later on.)
For best purposes, there should be a feeling of informality. Joviality, the use of first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I think, of the essence—not in themselves, but because they encourage a willingness to be involved in the folly of creativeness. For this purpose I think a meeting in someone’s home or over a dinner table at some restaurant is perhaps more useful than one in a conference room.
Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of responsibility. The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren’t paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues.
To feel guilty because one has not earned one’s salary because one has not had a great idea is the surest way, it seems to me, of making it certain that no great idea will come in the next time either.
Yet your company is conducting this cerebration program on government money. To think of congressmen or the general public hearing about scientists fooling around, boondoggling, telling dirty jokes, perhaps, at government expense, is to break into a cold sweat. In fact, the average scientist has enough public conscience not to want to feel he is doing this even if no one finds out.
I would suggest that members at a cerebration session be given sinecure tasks to do—short reports to write, or summaries of their conclusions, or brief answers to suggested problems—and be paid for that; the payment being the fee that would ordinarily be paid for the cerebration session. The cerebration session would then be officially unpaid-for and that, too, would allow considerable relaxation.
I do not think that cerebration sessions can be left unguided. There must be someone in charge who plays a role equivalent to that of a psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst, as I understand it, by asking the right questions (and except for that interfering as little as possible), gets the patient himself to discuss his past life in such a way as to elicit new understanding of it in his own eyes.
In the same way, a session-arbiter will have to sit there, stirring up the animals, asking the shrewd question, making the necessary comment, bringing them gently back to the point. Since the arbiter will not know which question is shrewd, which comment necessary, and what the point is, his will not be an easy job.
As for “gadgets” designed to elicit creativity, I think these should arise out of the bull sessions themselves. If thoroughly relaxed, free of responsibility, discussing something of interest, and being by nature unconventional, the participants themselves will create devices to stimulate discussion.
Published with permission of Asimov Holdings.
20141101
20141030
20141028
20141026
20141024
20141022
20141020
Antidepressant Use in Persons Aged 12 and Over: United States, 2005–2008
Products - Data Briefs - Number 76 - October 2011
Antidepressant Use in Persons Aged 12 and Over: United States, 2005–2008
Key findings
Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 2005–2008
Eleven percent of Americans aged 12 years and over take antidepressant medication.
Females are more likely to take antidepressants than are males, and non-Hispanic white persons are more likely to take antidepressants than are non-Hispanic black and Mexican-American persons.
About one-third of persons with severe depressive symptoms take antidepressant medication.
More than 60% of Americans taking antidepressant medication have taken it for 2 years or longer, with 14% having taken the medication for 10 years or more.
Less than one-third of Americans taking one antidepressant medication and less than one-half of those taking multiple antidepressants have seen a mental health professional in the past year.
Antidepressants were the third most common prescription drug taken by Americans of all ages in 2005–2008 and the most frequently used by persons aged 18–44 years (1). From 1988–1994 through 2005–2008, the rate of antidepressant use in the United States among all ages increased nearly 400% (1).
20141018
How to Swear Like a Spaniard
How to Swear Like a Spaniard
DAMN, this wind SUCKS!
One of my favorite things about living in Spain was speaking Spanish. Blinding flash of the obvious, speaking Spanish in Spain, but I loved every minute of it. I loved ordering breakfast at the cafe around the corning of my apartment. I loved chatting with the bus driver. I loved talking to my little 3 year old students in baby Spanish. I loved having park bench conversations with old Spanish men on Sundays. I even love making mistakes! I loved everything about it, how you had to work and work at it, to have the soft “j”s and double “r” roll off your tongue.
Spanish is such a beautiful language for me, and so very different from English. I love that you literally say “give me a coffee with milk” and “kisses” instead of hugs. Spanish is like Italian, it’s so colorful and vibrant. It’s so alive! You speak with more than just your lips and tongue, you talk with your whole face, your hands, your arms. It’s so elaborate and dramatic! I love it! In Spain there are so many accents and so many regional sayings, you are always hearing something new! There are so many beautiful expressions, so many interesting and descriptive ways to say things in Spanish, I never get tired of learning and practicing. And one of the things Spain does the best: swearing.
There are so many different ways to swear in Spain, it’s hard to remember them all! Cursing is an integral part of the language, so it has become less taboo that in English. You hear it much more often and much more frequently peppering up sentences than we do in the US or England. No one can ever say that Spanish isn’t a colorful language.
And let’s be honest here, what’s one of the first things you do when you start studying a new language? You look up the bad words (palabrotas)! So here, I have done the hard work for you and compiled a list of some of the most common and hilarious curse words used in Spain! Feel free to chime in with a few of your own!
1. Me cago en tu puta madre
This one takes the cake for one of the most hilarious and frightfully offensive swear words I have heard in Spain. Literally, “I shit on your bitch of a mother,” one should use this phrase selectively and with caution. Remember, madres are sacred in Spain. In fact, the “me cago en…” is one of the most common curse phrases you’ll hear in Spain. Whether you hear me cago en Dios “I shit on God”-that’s one is really bad -or me cago en la leche, literally “I shit in the milk” but used more like “holy shit!” there is no shortage of possibilities to be had with this one, like me cago en todos los santos or me cago en la Virgen del Pilar. Just remember if you want to insult anyone or anything in Spain, bring in the moms or anything related to the Catholic church and you’re good to go!
The “fuck you” of the English can never compare with the me cago en tu puta madre of the Spanish
2. Joder
Joder is about as common in Spanish as ok is to English. You hear it all the time. Loosely translated as “fuck,” it is nowhere near as strong. To soften it, many of my younger students would say jooo-er and not say the “d” or the little ones say jolines. That of course doesn’t stop the adults. I used to work with a teacher who loved to say (scream) “Joooooder, por qué no te calles?” (Fuck, why don’t you just shut up?) at the students in class. It was hilarious. And a little bit frightening, but that’s the Spanish public education system for you.
3. Gilipollas
Personally, I like to think gilipollas means “dumbass.” Normally I equate the phrase no seas gilipollas to “don’t be a dumbass.” My middle school students used to love to insult each other with this one. Sometimes I translate it in my head as “blithering idiot” to keep things interesting.
Pretty much the definition of gilipollas
4. La hostia
This one was bigger in southern Spain than when I lived in the north. La hostia means “the host,” you know, like in communion. Spain being a thoroughly Catholic country, one of the worst and most common ways to curse is to somehow incorporate the holy mother church.
Hostia or hostias can mean many different things, like “shit” or “holy shit” usually an exclamation all on it’s own, like something you can’t believe. Eres la hostia means “you’re the shit,” in a good way or hostia puta “holy fuck.” Don’t forget you can always say, me cago en la hostia, “I shit on the host.” Yikes, that’s blasphemous!
5. Que te folle un pez
This one is one of my favorites and one I have personally never said because I am terrified of using it wrong, and I think it sounds just plain ridiculous as a native English speaker. Que te folle un pez basically means “I hope you get fucked by a fish.” See what I mean when I say Spanish is colorful? How do you even come close to insulting like that in English?! How do you even begin to compare “screw you” or “fuck you” to that?
6. Cojones
In spanish they say “cojones sirve para todo,” and it’s true. Cojones is without a doubt the most versatile of all the Spanish curse words on this list; you can use it for just about anything. Normally, it means “balls,” you know, in the masculine sense. “You’ve got balls (as in courage or well, the other kind too)”- tienes cojones. “That bothers me” – me toca los cojones and my personal favorite, estoy hasta los cojones – “I can’t take it anymore, I’m up to my (eye) balls.” Here is a hilarious video in Spanish that explains it all!
7. Cabrón
For me cabrón has always meant “bastard,” “dick” or “total asshat.” Literally meaning “male goat,” I most frequently hear it as qué cabrón or qué cabrones in plural. People who suck, people who are assholes and deserve a good punch in the heard. According to Urban Dictionary, “A good definition that would apply to all Spanish speaking countries would be asshole-fucker-bitch.” Can’t top that even if I tried.
8. Que te den (por culo)
This one is kinda like “up yours.” Seriously, does anyone even say that anymore? I learned this the hard way after getting in a big screaming fight with one of my roommates 2 years ago about how washing dishes means less cockroaches. Ick. Anyways, culo means “ass” so I think you can probably figure out what the rest of it means on your own. I am too much of a lady to write that out completely, plus, who knows what kind of traffic I would be inviting on here if I did. You can say just que te den or que te den por culo, both meaning “fuck you.”
9. Coño
Coño means, c….., cu…, crap. I just can’t bring myself to say it or write it. Let’s just say it’s very naughty and starts with a “cu” and ends with a “nt.” I don’t think I have ever said the “c” word in my life. I think I would have been expelled from my fancy women’s college if I ever did. Normally it’s used like “fuck” or “shit” and not as strong as the “c” word in English.
“¡Coño! I wish I had though twice about playing in the bubble machine! My pants are soaked!”
10. Pollas en vinagre
I’m going to end with my all-time favorite curse word in Spanish. Readers, I present to you pollas en vinagre “dicks in vinegar !” Use it how you best see fit, its exact meaning still eludes me!
What’s the most interesting swear word you have encountered on your travels?
Nail photo here San FermÃn photo here Cat photo here
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20141008
Stamford Hill posters telling women what side of the road to walk on are removed
Stamford Hill posters telling women what side of the road to walk on are removed
Hackney Council have removed posters in Stamford Hill telling women what side of the road they should walk on after a backlash from residents.
The notices were taken down after multiple complaints to the council about the posters which read “women should please walk along this side of the road only” in English and Yiddish.
Jewish group Shomrim who support policing in the borough said the posters had been put up by an orthodox Jewish group for a religious parade this week.
Chaim Hochhauser of Stamford Hill Shomrim said: “Shomrim didn’t know much about these posters until it was brought to our attention later on, however, the logo on the side (in Hebrew) is from a Torah Parade which took place, and the request was intended for the people from the Orthodox Jewish community that were attending the street event.
“Traditionally at these Torah Parades in the Orthodox Jewish community which is usually attended by a large number of people, men and women are in separate groups, as people dance and make physical contact with fellow dancers, which is avoided between the opposite gender in Orthodox Judaism.”
He continued: “Shomrim have since contacted the event organisers, and explained that these posters lacked explanation in the English text, and therefore could have offended people who don’t understand the Hebrew wording and the logo.”
Stamford Hill is home to more than 20,000 Haredi Jews - the third largest group in the world.
Hackney Council spokesperson said: “As soon as the signs were brought to the Council’s attention they were removed.”
Hackney Council have removed posters in Stamford Hill telling women what side of the road they should walk on after a backlash from residents.
The notices were taken down after multiple complaints to the council about the posters which read “women should please walk along this side of the road only” in English and Yiddish.
Jewish group Shomrim who support policing in the borough said the posters had been put up by an orthodox Jewish group for a religious parade this week.
Chaim Hochhauser of Stamford Hill Shomrim said: “Shomrim didn’t know much about these posters until it was brought to our attention later on, however, the logo on the side (in Hebrew) is from a Torah Parade which took place, and the request was intended for the people from the Orthodox Jewish community that were attending the street event.
“Traditionally at these Torah Parades in the Orthodox Jewish community which is usually attended by a large number of people, men and women are in separate groups, as people dance and make physical contact with fellow dancers, which is avoided between the opposite gender in Orthodox Judaism.”
He continued: “Shomrim have since contacted the event organisers, and explained that these posters lacked explanation in the English text, and therefore could have offended people who don’t understand the Hebrew wording and the logo.”
Stamford Hill is home to more than 20,000 Haredi Jews - the third largest group in the world.
Hackney Council spokesperson said: “As soon as the signs were brought to the Council’s attention they were removed.”
20141006
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20140930
Google's modular smartphone will let you swap hardware without rebooting
Google's modular smartphone will let you swap hardware without rebooting
Project Ara is a platform that lets you customize a phone by choosing the components you want… and you can upgrade or change modules at any time. Think you might want a higher-resolution screen, a faster processor, or an infrared camera? The solution might be a module away.
Project lead Paul Eremenko says the phones will run a custom version of Google Android L software which will support hot-swapping. That means you’ll be able to replace most modules without even turning off your phone.
You’ll still need to reboot your device to replace a CPU or display… but that’s hardly surprising. Hot-swapping could let you do some nifty things like changing camera lenses or sensors on the fly, or connecting an extra battery when you need longer run time.
20140924
20140922
Edinburgh business advertises 5,460 hours of unpaid work
Edinburgh business advertises 5,460 hours of unpaid work
Casa Morada seeks six unpaid, full-time, six-month interns; insults applicant and university graduates in provocative emails
An Edinburgh-based interior design business has been heavily criticised this week after advertising six unpaid, six-month-long ‘work experience internships’ on the job posting website Gumtree.
Casa Morada, which is based on Causewayside in Newington, Edinburgh, posted six jobs to the website in late August.
The Student reported the job advertisements to Intern Aware – the United Kingdom national campaign for fair internships – who acknowledged their potential illegality.
Each job required approximately 35 hours work per week, and lasted for six months, meaning the business was essentially advertising 5460 hours of unpaid work.
If these jobs were paid at the national minimum wage of £6.31 for over 21-year-olds, the work would be worth more than £34,000.
The roles advertised included that of a CAD Technician, an Office Admin Assistant, and a Graphic Designer.
Eugene MacDonald, an Edinburgh-based artist, wrote to Casa Morada last week, and asked why the business expected people to work for nothing.
He received a reply from Eva Serrano, the founder of Casa Morada, which stated: “I fully expect you to proof [sic] to me that you can actually be an asset to my business before I invest seriously in you with a full time contract.”
Serrano added: “I deliberately place UNPAID intern positions precisely to sort out the mediocre (you) who will never apply, from the formidable. You will never go far with your present mindset. Rest assured of that. 150 CVs now in, from as far as London, and counting.”
In an interview with The Student, MacDonald said that although he was initially displeased at seeing Casa Morada’s adverts, he was hugely offended by the email response he received, which he called “eye wateringly rude.”
Under UK employment law, people who work set hours, do set tasks and contribute value to an organisation are ‘workers’ and are entitled to the minimum wage.
Several of the jobs posted by Casa Morada included set working hours, and all of them included set jobs, outlining tasks that the ‘work experience intern’ would be expected to fulfil.
Speaking to The Student, Jo Swinson MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Employment said: “Far too many young people have been exploited on long-term unpaid internships. Anyone who is a worker is entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage, including if they are an intern.”
Chris Hares, the Campaigner Manager at Intern Aware, echoed Swinson’s comments, saying: “What is being asked for here is simply unpaid work and it could possibly be illegal – where an intern is doing real work they’re entitled to at least the minimum wage.
“Smart employers know that unpaid internships aren’t just wrong and illegal, they’re also bad for business. Paying interns allows employers to attract the best people – and not simply the small minority who can afford to work without pay.”
In an email to The Student, Serrano defended her employment practices and rejected the suggestion that they were illegal and immoral. She said, “We don’t believe that working 35 hours per week does in any form disadvantage students from poorer backgrounds because we all have universal access to 168 hours in every week of the year.
“The question here is how badly do you want to get into the highly competitive creative industry. Some will be prepared to make the personal sacrifice of holding two jobs, one paid, one unpaid, during six months to obtain valuable and priceless experience, increasing their chances of future employability, while others simply won’t bother.”
Serrano added: “A university degree is meaningless nowadays. Any average person with moderate IQ out there can get one.
“A recent graduate on an internship is an “intern” i.e. someone with limited capacity to make a serious and immediate contribution from the start and [is] largely “clueless” as to the challenges of surviving in a competitive environment.”
Casa Morada seeks six unpaid, full-time, six-month interns; insults applicant and university graduates in provocative emails
An Edinburgh-based interior design business has been heavily criticised this week after advertising six unpaid, six-month-long ‘work experience internships’ on the job posting website Gumtree.
Casa Morada, which is based on Causewayside in Newington, Edinburgh, posted six jobs to the website in late August.
The Student reported the job advertisements to Intern Aware – the United Kingdom national campaign for fair internships – who acknowledged their potential illegality.
Each job required approximately 35 hours work per week, and lasted for six months, meaning the business was essentially advertising 5460 hours of unpaid work.
If these jobs were paid at the national minimum wage of £6.31 for over 21-year-olds, the work would be worth more than £34,000.
The roles advertised included that of a CAD Technician, an Office Admin Assistant, and a Graphic Designer.
Eugene MacDonald, an Edinburgh-based artist, wrote to Casa Morada last week, and asked why the business expected people to work for nothing.
He received a reply from Eva Serrano, the founder of Casa Morada, which stated: “I fully expect you to proof [sic] to me that you can actually be an asset to my business before I invest seriously in you with a full time contract.”
Serrano added: “I deliberately place UNPAID intern positions precisely to sort out the mediocre (you) who will never apply, from the formidable. You will never go far with your present mindset. Rest assured of that. 150 CVs now in, from as far as London, and counting.”
In an interview with The Student, MacDonald said that although he was initially displeased at seeing Casa Morada’s adverts, he was hugely offended by the email response he received, which he called “eye wateringly rude.”
Under UK employment law, people who work set hours, do set tasks and contribute value to an organisation are ‘workers’ and are entitled to the minimum wage.
Several of the jobs posted by Casa Morada included set working hours, and all of them included set jobs, outlining tasks that the ‘work experience intern’ would be expected to fulfil.
Speaking to The Student, Jo Swinson MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Employment said: “Far too many young people have been exploited on long-term unpaid internships. Anyone who is a worker is entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage, including if they are an intern.”
Chris Hares, the Campaigner Manager at Intern Aware, echoed Swinson’s comments, saying: “What is being asked for here is simply unpaid work and it could possibly be illegal – where an intern is doing real work they’re entitled to at least the minimum wage.
“Smart employers know that unpaid internships aren’t just wrong and illegal, they’re also bad for business. Paying interns allows employers to attract the best people – and not simply the small minority who can afford to work without pay.”
In an email to The Student, Serrano defended her employment practices and rejected the suggestion that they were illegal and immoral. She said, “We don’t believe that working 35 hours per week does in any form disadvantage students from poorer backgrounds because we all have universal access to 168 hours in every week of the year.
“The question here is how badly do you want to get into the highly competitive creative industry. Some will be prepared to make the personal sacrifice of holding two jobs, one paid, one unpaid, during six months to obtain valuable and priceless experience, increasing their chances of future employability, while others simply won’t bother.”
Serrano added: “A university degree is meaningless nowadays. Any average person with moderate IQ out there can get one.
“A recent graduate on an internship is an “intern” i.e. someone with limited capacity to make a serious and immediate contribution from the start and [is] largely “clueless” as to the challenges of surviving in a competitive environment.”
20140921
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20140919
BBC News - Europeans drawn from three ancient 'tribes'
BBC News - Europeans drawn from three ancient 'tribes'
The modern European gene pool was formed when three ancient populations mixed within the last 7,000 years, Nature journal reports.
Blue-eyed, swarthy hunters mingled with brown-eyed, pale skinned farmers as the latter swept into Europe from the Near East.
But another, mysterious population with Siberian affinities also contributed to the genetic landscape of the continent.
The findings are based on analysis of genomes from nine ancient Europeans.
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