Schrödinger's Rapist, a rebuttal: Or why nice guys don't bother to talk to women

Recently, blogger Pheadra Starling published Schrödinger's Rapist: a guy's guide to approaching strange women without being maced In it, she purported to explain to "nice guys" how to avoid offending women they attempted to chat up in public.

I should perhaps preface my comments by noting that my ex-wife was a domestic-abuse survivor of, not merely one incident of assault, but a very extended series of sexual, psychological, & physical assaults and batteries, by four different husbands, spanning years. So this is not a topic that I take lightly, or regard flippantly.

Nonetheless, by the rules and conventions used in the article, I too am a "victim of sexual assault" because I have, in my past, repeatedly had my butt non-voluntarily squeezed by a (very nice) gay guy whom I worked with. I would assert that any definition of "sexual assault" that is so broad as to include both incidents, is so broad as to be useless in any discussion, because it exists primarily to confuse, create fear, and pump up numbers of "recorded" incidents - not to inform intellectually.

I find Starling's article insulting - but a good example of why an entire class of very safe men refuse to approach women at all in public.

Certain statements within the article are even more insulting coming from a female private investigator (a profession adept at checking out people) who practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu (a martial art specializing in very aggressive on-the-ground grappling techniques). To suggest that any private investigator who practices martial arts lives in constant fear of murder ("so the cops can find my body") at the hands of people she dates, suggests clinical paranoia, not common sense.

The article veers into the territory of explicitly insulting when it explicitly acknowledges that it is speaking to "a good sort of [male] person," seeking "a mutually respectful and loving sexual relationship with a woman" - and then presumes to imagine that it needs to advise me not to "rape, assault, grope, constrain, brandish?, expose myself, or threaten with physical or sexual violence."

Yes, Phaedra Starling, this should have gone without saying: No, actually I don't need to be reminded of this, and no, this is not the world you live in – where apparently "all men are potential rapists" -- even the ones that you explicitly acknowledge are not.

But let's deal with the statistics that Starling uses:

• Excepting war zones, women must deal with a much higher level of violent assault or murder than men: Simply wrong.

• 83.3% of American women will never be sexually assaulted in their lifetime: If 1-of-6 are, that means 5-of-6 are not.

• Except that there are 154 million women in the US and according to the US DOJ, less than 1,000 rapes and attempted rapes, including verbal threats, per year

• "Sexual assault" includes a wide variety of things, including assault (legally defined as unwanted touching) attempted assault, rape, attempted rape, incest, indecent exposure (in this context broad enough to include seeing someone's penis in a dating situation that you didn't want to see), forced sexual contact, attempted forced sexual contact, sexual harassment, and acquaintance and/or date rape with the concept of "consent" being conditioned on the caveat that "only partners with equal power can freely consent," and equal power being conditioned on differences in economic status, among other things.

• The chance of encountering a violent rapist or murderer in a public conversation is vastly smaller than encountering someone who violates some level of withdrawn consent in a dating situation.

• Risk is not evenly spread across ages and populations: Risk falls sharply once one is past the age of 19, with 20 year olds-and-over being exposed to four times less risk (according to statistics) than 16-19 year olds - again 16-19 year old's risk being primarily in dating/relationship situations that cross lines of willing consent, rather than in violent encounters.

• Yet actual reported rapes per year on the average college campus number 1-3 in private campuses and perhaps 2-6 on public campuses, and a large number of those coeds who feminist statisticians insist were raped, not only insist that they weren't, but later voluntarily date and have sex with the alleged perpetrators. See The Campus Rape Myth.

• Starling's "1-in-60 men is a sexual assaulter" (with her "rapists commit 10 rapes each" simply being made up out of whole cloth) equates to 1.6% of the male population, including all of the non-violent but not-fully-consensual actions listed above.

• In terms of violent crimes -- forcible rape, assault, murder, this is more properly below 1% of the male population - which oddly enough is the exact same percentage of criminals willing to physically assault, batter. bludgeon, maim and kill approximately twice as many male members of the population per year as females.

• However, it is not socially excusable that men "need" to be paranoid about every social interaction, nor regard every person who talks to them as a potential assailant.

"I set my own risk tolerance. "

Yes one does. And in a free society, if you want to believe even that you are in eminent danger of being kidnapped by alien scientists from the planet Zorb, that's just fine - as long as you don't bother others. However all ideas are not equally true in terms of objective reality, and it is not polite to attempt to impose empirically-unsupported ideas on others.


"you must be aware of what signals you are sending by your appearance and the environment. "

It is true that "you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Then again, Mother also said "Never judge a book by it's cover."

I'd have to assume, however, that the lovely fellow with gang symbols tattooed on his face is again not the sort of male likely to be reading this article. So again, this is insulting.


"Women are communicating all the time. Learn to understand and respect women's communication to you."

Predominantly, most nice guys learn by observation by their early 20's that women prefer to date pushy, aggressive, "dangerous seeming" men who walk up to them and aggressively chat them up, while ignoring, shunning, and belittling safe nice ones. Perhaps women need to adjust their communication too.


And lastly, the title, Schrödinger's Rapist, completely improperly implies that each and every communication opportunity of men with women has a 50% possibility of "going either way" toward rape -- a concept completely unsupported even by Starling's own rhetoric.

How to Learn to Sell on the Internet

Recently, someone asked me:

i am sorry to be a nuisance and i apologize if i am being rude but i have looked at copy writing before and selling ebooks or subjects written by me. Can you suggest where to learn how to copywrite from genuine people who are not just after your money and run, that will learn me?
Best wishes


It is easiest to learn to write ad copy about physical objects. One very simple way - that also allows you to make money in the process - is to start selling stuff on ebay, specifically for the purpose of practicing over and over how to write something that sells something.

You can't learn to write copy from reading: You have to actually do it. Over and over. eBay is the fastest place to do that - and people wouldn't be there is they didn't already want to buy something.

Take stuff from your house that you don't want. Find, borrow, or buy a cheap digital camera. Look at eBay listings for the same thing and think about which ones make you want to buy the things, and which ones are just "there".

Think about how you could provide information that you'd want to see, that other people haven't provided. Write listings and sell stuff. Try different things. Yes, it's work, but at least you'll be making money at the same time.

Go to the local Dollar store (or a good closeout store), wander around, and see if you can spot stuff that you honestly think is worth far more than it is being sold for. A recent actual example: My local "99 Cents Only" store has genuine Bell Caller ID Units - they originally had about 200 of them.

Not everyone lives near the same types of stores. Caller ID units are worth far more than a dollar. Buy 10-15 of something like that, and sell them on eBay for $10-$15 dollars each. Try for high, with fixed price listings: You're not trying to compete on lowest price, you're trying to practice sales skills with minimal investment.

See if you can write listings that provide so much information and pictures that people will buy from you instead of people with the same item who are selling it cheaper. It can be done. People will pay $12 for something that they could get from another seller for $4 - if they think that you're a more worthwhile, persuasive, safer, or honorable person to buy from. (However, if there are 55 people selling something for $2, nobody is going to buy it for $10.)

Watch your listing view counter. How many people looked at your listing before someone bought something? 200 is bad. 100 is okay. 20-30 is super! If you have multiple items you can list them in a single listings and the average the total sales over the total views.

After you sell the items (remember, your initial investment was $10-$15) take the $100-$150 (or whatever you made) and buy more stuff to sell. Eventually, you'll be playing with hundreds of dollars if you just keep reinvesting.

Not everything will work. That's okay, because you initial investment was small.

Read books on sales and advertising. Buy used ones on Amazon if they're cheaper.

Read websites like the one you were captivated by - but don't buy from them, learn from them. Take a mental step back: What are they doing that makes you want to take out your wallet? How are they doing that? What makes you want to trust them? What makes them seem sincere? What can you borrow and adapt to something you want to sell?

Do they offer free information? Read it! Then, Google the same topic, and learn everything you can about it free. Do the same with other biz-op websites. You can learn an enormous amount of stuff by simply letting such websites direct your research, rather than emptying your pocketbook. See if there's a real physical book on the subject. Buy the book (preferably used). Read it. Master it.

Try the book Ca$hvertising by Drew Eric Whitman. ISBN: 978-1-60163-032-2. It's very concentrated and succinct.

Dex

eBay's new push for "FREE" Shipping

Recently, eBay has begun attempting to condition buyers to expect "free" shipping on eBay listings. They are doing this by appearing to bribe sellers into offering free shipping by doing thing like promising that listings with "free" shipping will be placed higher in search results, highlighting listings offering "free" shipping, and by "giving away" the $.50-valued listing subtitle at no cost.

What, we might ask, is eBay's motivation for doing this? Higher revenues for eBay, of course. "Damn the sellers, full speed ahead!"

eBay has already raised their fees to ridiculous levels (though at least they've loaded them on the back end of the actual sale, rather than their previous un-thought-out policy of "rape, rape, rape the seller" regardless of whether a sale is made.)

The push for free shipping is new and subtle, and probably missed by most sellers. Let's say that I join the "free shipping" herd, and accept the $.50-valued subtitle. What could be my downside? Well, my final value fees may increase more than the $.50 that I allegedly saved!

One of the thorns in eBay's side has always been that they did not charge a final value percentage on the shipping and handling charges for listings - only on the sale price. Thus, sellers were not faced with the absurdity of paying ebay an additional percentage on the money that they were already spending on packing materials and postage. After all, with a 15% final value fee added to postage alone, $10 in USPS Priority Mail charges would become $11.50 in postage costs! Who in their right minds would agree to pay ebay a premium on what they spent at the post office??

Ah, but offer a $.50 bribe on an inconsequential thing like a subtitle as a "reward" for offering "free shipping" and suddenly you can accomplish by misdirection what sane people would never do intentially. Now eBay can get people to voluntarially elect to be fleeced out of paying an added 15% to ebay on the actual costs that they spend on boxes, packing materials, labels, ink, computer supplies, and postage!

Caveat Emptor. Let the Seller beware!

mygunpurses.com

Found a great new site for women CCW'ers who carry their concealed weapons in their purses. www.mygunpurses.com is run by a female concealed carry weapon permit holder, who got so tired of trying to figure out the important details of off body carry options that she decided to start selling them herself - so that she could actually explain what features that they had, and show detailed pictures. 

This is worth checking out!

mygunpurses.com

Aikido Videos

Aikido - the way of harmony (IOW, hitting people with the Earth instead of your fist)

Aikido is like libertarianism - it does not believe in initiating violence, but believes in dealing with it promptly and effectively when it occurs. Probably the most "moral" of the martial arts, Aikido allows one to have more decisions about whether or not to injure an attacker than do most martial arts.

Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 1 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 2 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 3 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 4 of 5
Morihei Ueshiba - The Founder of Aikido (complete) 5 of 5

Morihei Ueshiba - Divine Techniques (complete) 1 of 4
Morihei Ueshiba - Divine Techniques (complete) 2 of 4
Morihei Ueshiba - Divine Techniques (complete) 3 of 4
Morihei Ueshiba - Divine Techniques (complete) 4 of 4

Darwin adapted for sociology in 19th Century America: William Graham Sumner and Lester Frank Ward

Lester Frank Ward and William Graham Sumner (and Herbert Spencer) had radically different conceptions of sociology and economics, all of which were at least superficially justified by Darwin’s theories about natural selection. This essay will examine the contrast between Ward’s and Sumner’s viewpoints, as Sumner’s and Spencer’s were based on the same interpretations, and of the two Sumner’s is the more elegant.

Darwin’s Origin of Species, at root, deals with a simple issue: All living things must act to survive. Living things find themselves within the natural environment, and the natural environment in various locations, climates, and other natural variables “favors” some biological traits over other biological traits. Some plants are well-suited for damp climates, for example: In a damp climate such plants will flourish over plants that are ill-suited for damp climates or less well-suited for damp climates – eventually causing certain species to prosper in some areas, and some to fail.[1]

In the same way, though animals are somewhat more versatile, not only are some species more well-suited than others to survive and flourish in certain areas, but the natural variations that exist within species may cause certain members of that species to be “favored” over other members. Perhaps, in one location, thin beaks on birds may be more efficient at gathering seeds from small crevices. Perhaps, in another location, there are large nuts available which require a large sturdy beak in order to crack them. In each of these environs, the animals most likely to die will be the ones least suited to survive in that environ, and the animals that flourish will be the ones most well-suited to survive there. Through the process of time and such selections as progressively occur, living things change within species to adapt to the conditions that they are presented with.[2]

There is, of course, no “justice” or “injustice” to this process: It is completely amoral, as the process itself affects no conscious choices. While we call the process “natural selection,” nature never makes a selection: The world simply is what it is: Some traits work out better for the animals that possess them, and some trait do not.

Mankind also survives in the world, but unlike other animals, his principle tool for survival is not claws, or beaks, or wings, or any other purely physical characteristic, but his mind, and the adaptability that it allows him to have. Nonetheless, mankind still lives in the physical world, and must perceive that world as it exists correctly in order to have the maximal chance of survival. In some environments, it may be more useful to build a boat than a cart – in others more useful to do the reverse. In all cases, if one’s life depends on making the most-correct decisions based on the extant condition at hand, those who make decisions most closely in conformity with reality will survive better than those who do not.

However, as philosophers from Plato to Locke have noted, mankind like other animals, has the ability to survive by appropriating the efforts of others. This can be accomplished many means – force, guile, sympathy, misdirection – but mankind alone has an additional way: By using government to force such assistance, and to legally disarm and outlaw resistance to such appropriation. Man also has a second unique quality of action: He can deliberately choose maladaptive strategies and ignore the results. Natural Law theories, and John Locke’s in particular, address the particular problem of appropriation of the efforts of individuals to favor chosen recipients (such as, for instance, nobles and royalty.) Locke’s prescription for government in society, upon which in large part America was founded, was designed primarily to attempt to prevent what Locke perceived as a never-ending-cycle of government enlargement and degradation, leading inevitably to eventual revolt, and the start of the cycle anew. This was to be accomplished by acknowledging that individuals had legally inalienable rights to live their lives as they chose, which government was unable to breach – even if it seemed like a good idea at the time. [3] In this way, though Locke preceded Darwin, Locke also argues in Darwinian fashion that governments have a propensity toward mal-adaptation, which will lead to their eventual destruction if not curbed.

It is against this critically important backdrop that Sumner and Ward battled, respectively, for laissez-faire government non-intervention, and active socialistic or communitarian government management of the lives of individuals in society. Though Sumner is a sociologist, his argument is principally constructed as an economist would argue – seeking to identify not only the visible consequences of positive actions, but also the hidden consequences of the “what-would-have-been” that are prevented by the visible action – the more subtle results that cannot be observed because they have been foreclosed by other actions. In this style of analysis, Sumner is much in the style of Frederic Bastiat, though he terms his object of examination “the forgotten man.”[4]

Sumner argues that before “A and B decide what C shall do for D,”[5] they first ought to have a moral justification for doing so – not just for desiring to provide for “D” but for appropriating from “C” in the first place to do so – especially since “D” is typically not particularly deserving or well-defined, and “C” is not the rich target from which “A” and “B” intend to take the money, but is in fact “D’s” hardworking, employed, but relatively poor neighbor. As Ayn Rand would have termed it, the question of “Provided by whom?”, never goes away merely because one wishes to do good deeds for others. Sumner argues, in the same vein as Adam Smith, that the aggregate results of individual actions and decisions will be better for the whole of society if individual’s attempts to cope with life and reality are not meddled with and altered by government.

Ward, on the other hand, sees great possibilities in social engineering as a means of achieving success for society. “Man cannot finally consider himself superior to other animals until he supplants genetic with telic [teleological, or “purpose based”] progress by applying his intellect to his own improvement.”[6] He called for “the improvement of society by cold calculation”[7] – socially organized and guided reform[8], run by an elite who would prescribe how society should be run. Interestingly, this not only begs the question of how this “elite” – who have not actually achieved any particular success in life aside from writing books or teaching classes – “knows” in any positive sense that its ideas are better than those already in operation, but also postulates that all individuals in society should accept as immutable factors with which they must cope not only reality and the circumstances they find themselves in, but also the whims of political reformers and politicians.

Ward appears to completely miss the idea that Darwin never advanced the concept that human progress was purely “genetic” and random, rather than intelligence and purpose-based. Darwin would have merely attributed the intelligence and purpose-based action to individuals, not to society as a whole except in the aggregate. Ward, in seeking to engineer society teleologically, merely advances the notion that millions of people should do as he thinks is best, rather than as they individually think is best – Ward moves Darwinian evolution to the level of society as a unit, such that if society’s leaders misperceive reality and choose the wrong goals, everyone will sink together, comfortably shackled in the bonds of brotherhood.

---

[1] Various lectures in biology over several decades, as well as varied independent readings.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Twenty-five years study of philosophy, and an undergrad degree in same.

[4] William Graham Sumner. What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other. (1883) http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0317#LF-BK0317front02

[5] Ibid.

[6] Richard Hofstadter. Social Darwinism in American Thought. p 75.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

Commentary on FDR’s “Economic Bill of Rights”

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

Here FDR cleverly forgets “property", as in “life, liberty, and property.” The ability to perform actions in the world and to retain the results of those actions is the concept of property, and maintaining life and liberty are subsequent rights needing property as a pre-existing condition, FDR attempts to allege that the government can continue to protect life and liberty while destroying their foundation.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

Fallacy of disambiguation: Certainly it is not true that anyone has been deprived of equality of attempting to pursue happiness – well, notwithstanding those affected by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (which raised prices of imports in a depression and depressed trade,) the Fed’s contraction of the money supply by 1/3, (raising prices for consumers) the imposition of myriad regulations on business, (raising prices for consumers) and price stabilization and farm agricultural limits (raising prices for consumers,) the government’s role in creating the great depression itself, and the death toll of WWII. It is not really very nice to create a massive problem yourself, and then claim a mandate to fix it by destroying capitalism. What FDR means here is that people have not been achieving happiness equally, not that they do not possess equality in its pursuit..

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” [Vernon v Bethell, 2 Eden 113 (1762) English court case ] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

A dictatorship of the proletariat, with FDR at the head.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Self-evident for whom? Provided by whom?

Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

Provided by whom? The right to something that cannot be found lying around on the ground necessarily implies that someone else will have to provide it – someone who apparently does not possess the same rights as everyone else.

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

Provided by whom? What is “adequate”? They apparently did not possess these rights while FDR was imposing tariffs, price stability, and paying farmers not to grow crops, as artificially raising the price of goods in the marketplace is the antithesis of the ability to buy adequate consumer goods. After 12 years of raping end consumers with his social policies, now he thinks they are “entitled” to them?

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

Aristotle observed that a thing cannot be itself and something else at the same time. FDR apparently needs to read more Aristotle, as he is promising high-priced scarce goods to farmers, and low-priced plentiful goods to consumers.

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The purpose of economics is to supply end-consumers with goods. If a natural monopoly is good at this, there is no harm in having one. “Unfair” to whom? Freedom from what “domination”? Every businessman, no matter how inefficient, has the right to trade free from nasty competition that might put him out of business by supplying low-priced goods to consumers?

The right of every family to a decent home;

Provided by whom? The right of every homebuilder to be enslaved to provide labor to build the homes every family has a right to, and every lumber-yard owner and lumberjack the right to supply these materials?

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

Provided by whom? If I have a right to medical care – a highly-trained profession – then doctors must have a commensurate “right” to work for free to provide it for me.

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

To be provided by enacting a giant Ponzi scheme that now consumes more taxes than federal income taxes, and insures that no one can actually use the time-value of money to provide an adequate retirement.

All of these rights spell security.

Provided from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.