Event horizons

The event horizon , the boundary of the region of space-time from which it is not possible to escape, acts rather like a one-way membrane around the black hole... One could well say of the event horizon what the poet Dante said of the entrance to Hell: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Anything or anyone who falls through the event horizon will soon reach the region of infinite density and the end of time.

Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

D is catholic. Not particularly devout, only attending mass when there's a baptism, wedding or a funeral in the family but still cheering for the catholic team especially on political issues. She has a hard time understanding why would someone raised in a catholic family not be catholic. Presented with arguments she quickly stops listening because "the devil is a clever aruger" and therefore if I sound convincing, it must be "Satan whispering in my ear" and there is no point arguing with the devil.

K is active in the social justice community. She seems to buy into every meme originating in this camp indiscriminately. "Institutoinal opression of blacks today is just as bad as during slavery", "Sex differences don't exist". One of our discussions culminated with her saying something along the lines of:

K: I don't want to hear about your science! I read about what science has to say about [some issue] in uni and it was different from what I have experienced so now I know not to listen to science because it's wrong.

B is an anarcho-libertarian. He spends his days going to libertarian meetups or preaching libertarianism to anyone who would listen and his nights watching libertarian vloggers. By far his favorite is Stefan Molyneux, B trusts him implicitly. I would sometimes challenge B on some of his more extreme views (like euqating parents with slave owners and taxes with theft or insisting on btinging quantum mechanics into discussions of personal responsibility). One of these conversations went like this:
me: I think you would change your mind about this if you just read some actual science on the topic, not just Stefan Molyneux. I have some book recommendations if you're interested.
B: Nah, I'm a very slow reader, that's not going to work.
me: Not a problem, I mostly listen to audiobooks anyway. You should try it, it's very convenient. I can hook you with some good ones.
B: Nope, can't do that either. You see - Stefan Molyneux has all these podcasts and I can't waste time listening to anything else until I have read everything he has ever written and heard everything he has ever said. And he keeps putting out new stuff so...
me: That's terrifying. You have to read more than just one guy or you'll never have an informed opinion. If you don't believe me, go email Stefan Molyneux himself, I'm sure he'll agree.
B: Oh, I don't doubt it. He says that we should learn from many sources all the time. But this is the one thing I have to disagree with him about.

How not to disagree

Someone said about women in scientific labs:

Three things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.

people got offended and the meme #distractinglysexy was born. I can think of multiple reasonable responses to this quote:

•  It's a lie. Female scientists don't cry, not more than their male colleagues anyway. (evidence goes here)

Having met multiple females in my lifetime, I seriously doubt this is true, but if it was, it would be a pretty solid reply. Someone says something untrue - you point it out and explain why it is not so. This is how rational people argue.

• Maybe women do cry a bit more than men but it is such a rare occurrence either way that it doesn't have any noticeable effect in the workplace. The unhealthy atmosphere created by talking about it is far more damaging to the lab morale than this one-in-a-thousand female scientist who gets emotional once in a blue moon. So, correct or not, please don't talk about it! 

I don't think turning your back on facts is ever a good policy, but some discussions would definitely benefit from turning down the volume. For example terrorism is an unquestionably real threat but overreaction to terrorism has already done orders of magnitude more damage than terrorists ever could. Calls for silence on the subject may be a reasonable response. Notice that this is the opposite of what actually happened.

• Yes, we cry sometimes, but only because we are conditioned to do so by the society. Instead of complaining about women, change your own attitudes and expectations and the problem will solve itself.

I don't think that's the whole story, but at least it makes sense.

• Yes, we cry sometimes and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact - you should try it, it helps to reduce stress. Why should anyone apologize for a natural human reaction that doesn't hurt anyone else? Some women cry, some men cry, some people crack their joints and some get sneezy in the spring. Get over it.

I would personally go with this one.

There may be female scientists who think exactly along these lines, but this is not the message that ended up all over social media. Instead we got the utter non sequitur #distractinglysexy and public shaming of the author of the quote. This action doesn't prove or disprove anything, doesn't educate, it doesn't even try to convince anyone. All it does is show that there are things you should never say because we don't like them.

The message these women are sending is: if you say something that we construe as negative, we won't address the criticism in any meaningful way, we will get get emotional instead and try to shame you into apologizing. Which is pretty much exactly the original point.

A tale of two friends

I have heard something peculiar on tv today. Some wise sounding british historian or politician said something to this effect (quoting from memory):

"Just because Putin is a terrible undemocratic ruler shouldn't diminish the appreciation of the sacrifice the heroic russian nation suffered to save us from Hitler."

Heroic russian nation saved us from Hitler. That's a funny way putting it. But apparently this is how an average westerner views WWII. To them I dedicate an alternative view:

The two world's most murderous regimes - one, an old-timer with a proven record of destruction and genocide, the other up-and-comer with great promise, both bent on world domination started to realize their ambitions at about the same time. Our protagonists secretely divided europe between themselves and each promised not to get into the other's way as they conquered their respective share of the world. The two giants began to swallow one nation after another largely unopposed until something happened. Predictably, each country's dictator, behind a cordial facade, was actually plotting to take down the other. The up-and-comer moved first and managed to bring terrible devastation to his rival, but was eventually defeated. His legacy was utterly destroyed, his ideas condemned even by his own nation, up-and-comer's empire was never to rise again. Old timer on the other hand though crippled by the wartime losses, got to keep the conquered territories and enjoyed gratitude of those who narrowly avoided ending up under up-and-comer's rule. Old timer's empire was to survive another half a century and be responsible for further millions of killings and destroyed lives.

Old timer never quite gave up on his dream of world domination but remembering the lesson of the great war, he started to avoid direct conflict opting instead to inspire and fund others to further his agenda leading to still new wars and genocides.

But wait - the soviet empire might have been evil, but russian soldiers (many of whom btw were conscripts of other ethnicities) were still heroic. Sure. Same as german soldiers. One big reason brits talk about heroic russians and not about heroic germans is simply that history is written by the victors. Another is that due to an accident of geography brits haven't had the pleasure of fighting russians in WWII. Had British Isles been magically transported a couple of timezones due east in the 1930s, they might have found themselves being liberated by Stalin just like the rest of Baltic countries.

Does it all still matter today? I don't know. Either way, thinking clearly about things is its own reward.

Did russians soldiers save us Hitler? They did. Much like contracting ebola will save you from dying of cancer.

Were they not heroic? They were.

Should we celebrate this fact? Sure, why not.

But in the spirit of rewarding people for honest effort I propose to also commemorate the heroic german soldiers who fought bravely but in the end failed to save us from Stalin.

I hate democracy

With every election there comes a wave of celebrities, journalists and pundits whining about low voter turnout and passive aggressively trying to shame you into voting. They're basically saying that by not voting you're supporting Hitler. And by giving up your right to representation you'll lose at life. Do you know who doesn't have the right to representation in congress of the US? The entire fucking Washington D.C. (and they're fine).  Usually it is quite clear which party given celebrity supports so it is reasonable to assume that what they really want is for you to vote on their guy - not vote in general. Thus the apparently nonpartisan talk about how 'democracy needs you' is just their way to win votes for their favorite party while maintaining appearances of neutrality. This is particularly obvious when they use a line like 'don't vote, unless you care about gay rights, abortion rights*'. In this sentence Dustin Hoffman doesn't directly tell you who to vote for - so he's not engaging in politics, he's just concerned about the issues - but he might as well have said 'don't vote, unless you're a democrat' and the meaning would be the same.
I had this in mind when I saw a group of my friends (all of them humanists and - and this is important - none of them stupid) repeating the same slogans. So I asked if they would still be badgering me to vote so much if they knew I was going to vote for the wrong party. And this is the fun part. Turns out - according to them - it doesn't matter who I vote for as long as I vote at all. Some of them even went as far as to say, they're casting an invalid vote (by drawing a dick on the ballot) because no candidate is good enough. And I should do it too because democracy needs me. Let me say it again: voting is important but it doesn't matter who you vote for.   

What a mind-boggling thing to say... Is it supposed to be some kind of election Zen?

Does a dick being drawn in a voting booth make a difference if there's no one around to give a shit?

What could possibly be the purpose of voting if not to vote the right guys in? The reply I got is that 'casting a blank/dick vote is both an act of afirmation of democracy and a protest against its current condition' and thus is not at all equivalent to just not voting.

Affirmation of democracy, really? That's the purpose of voting? But that's not even a real thing! It's make-believe! That's like saying 'let's throw some virgins into the volcano to keep the fire gods peaceful'. Ok. What if I don't want to vote but I tell democracy twice a day that she's a sexy, sexy lady, will that be enough of an affirmation to keep her happy? Or do I have to do it in public and on election day for the ritual to work?

Why are we so in love with democracy anyway? It's true that the European democracies are relatively better off than for example authoritarian African countries. But the same was true even before the European countries became democratic. Maybe democracy is not the reason, maybe it's just a byproduct of progress? Would it be such a disaster if a democratic country like UK adopted a constitutional monarchy instead?
Think about these examples of democracy at work:

• EU citizens do not always agree with their overlords in Brussels on important matters - like union's constitution. This is why the EU introduced a policy to either repeat a referendum in each member state until they get the correct answer or to forego the referendum entirely if the citizens can't be trusted to get it right at all
• everywhere (e.g. presidential primaries  in the US): among a dozen candidates there's usually the sane one, the boring one,  the fanatic, the sleazy one, etc Who's going to win the election? The one with most money for ads, of course.
• Congo: used to be that the biggest tribe ruled them all. Fortunately the white men came and brought democracy. Each illiterate tribesman would make a cross on a ballot next to the picture representing their tribe so that the biggest tribe can rule -voilà- instant progress!

What am I trying to prove? That democracy is an awful, idiotic system? No. That was obvious from the outset. What I'm saying is: it's not the mere act of voting that makes democracy - well - democratic. The mindless worship of the democratic procedure is preventing us from recovering the democratic spirit.

Back to my discussion with humanists. What would be legitimate reasons to promote voting? I can think of a few:

• if you promote voting among people of similar background to yours, there's good chance they're going to vote the same as you - and you obviously believe it's the correct choice

This tactic is kinda sneaky but it makes perfect sense and I wouldn't make a fuss about it. It's just that every voting advocate everywhere says this is not why they do it. 

• high voter turnout inspires politicians to try harder

Yeah, I don't believe it either.

• substantial amount of protest votes indicates public discontent which will nudge political powers to change their ways

Maaaaybe. But isn't this what opinion polls are for?

• people who didn't want to vote but were encouraged to do so vote smarter than the rest

These people are likely to be less invested in politics which makes them less biased. On the other hand it also makes them prone to make superficial judgments (based on biased opinions of media and others). I think this one requires more research. 

• people who didn't want to vote but were encouraged to do so become better citizens as a result - they start to recycle, work in charities, stop speeding and jaywalking etc

Doesn't seem very likely plus there surely exist less convoluted ways to make people do these things. Still, it's better than nothing.

These reasons are fairly unspectacular but at least they pertain to the real world. They can (maybe) make a difference in the real world and their efficacy can be tested in the real world. Can't say the same about the 'affirmation of democracy'. What did my humanist friends (smart, well educated people) have to say to that? More of the same:

• voting is good because Saramago says so and he has a Nobel Prize (in literature)
• your vote is worthless from statistical viewpoint, voting is an act of faith - faith in democracy (I swear, I'm not making this up)

And the eternal:

• Everyone should vote, and that's that! If you don't, you have no right to complain. 

Again, no one even tried to address the issues in the physical world, opting instead to stay in the realm of abstract concepts like 'faith in democracy'. They were genuinely surprised at my objections. I have a theory as to how humanists become this way:

After you've overanalysed one too many poems, you start to lose track of what constitutes a real life causal relationship. You see, there's no cause and effect in literature. There's only symbols and metaphors floating around and you get credit for noticing as many as possible (or more). When you start approaching problems outside lit. class with the same frame of mind, you make associations like**:

                           voter turnout  => democracy => profit

where each '=>' represents a fancy word like 'affirmation', 'democracy' represents some ill-defined form of government that involves voting and 'profit' represents nothing at all. But you don't notice any holes in this logic because this is how you were programmed to reason and trying to back your claims by evidence is for nerds.

At this point I should sum up and tell you to give up voting, sit at home and do nothing because nothing you do will make a difference. Except this is not true. There IS a way to get things done in a democracy. And you don't even have to be a media tycoon, ruling party leader or a billionaire. Look at the American temperance movement. Despite being a minority they managed to get alcohol banned first in most of the states, then on federal level by an amendment to the constitution. How did they do it? They didn't just vote and wait for the democracy fairy to grant them their wishes. They didn't cast blank votes or draw genitalia on anything, as far as we know. They didn't vote for a moron they disliked the least (like most of us) just because 'voting is important'. They didn't put forth their own candidates either, if that's what your thinking. They organised. They lobbied. They gathered allies in unusual places (both among black activists and KKK). They let the politicians know their agenda. They promised every governor that if he opposes prohibition, he won't get reelected. And they delivered. All it took was 10%-20% loyal voters - because that's more than the difference between the top candidates. It's an empowering story about how a well organised minority used democracy to change the constitution and screw over the rest of America. This is how you change the world. So when you drop the ballot into the box every couple of years to clear your conscience, I'm sorry to inform you, you ain't changing but two things: Jack and shit. And Jack left town.


I hate democracy.


*If you want to write a comment about abortion - don't. Just don't. I don't give a shit about abortion, I mentioned it only as an illustration.
**SP fans might recognize this scheme as
Phase 1. voter turnout
Phase 2. ?
Phase 3. profit

I hate art

I listened to a radio show about art, modern art, their definitions and their public perceptions. It started with experts in studio ostracizing some journalist who earlier that week admitted to not understanding modern art. Then they went on to wagging their figurative finger at the general public who stubbornly appreciates the wrong kind of art. The message of the show was the following:
People wrongly assume that

•  for something to be called art, it must involve a great deal of skill or effort
• art has something to do with beauty and creating things that you would want to look at, listen to, watch, etc.

when in fact

• the purpose of art is to 'ask important questions'
• pandering to human emotions is only art if it is used to convey complex hidden 'meanings'
• art that pursues beauty, tries to be pleasing, not ugly is not art, it's kitsch

It follows that

• you have to be educated to understand art (especially the modern variety)
• if you don't, you should be ashamed of yourself
• modern art should be taught at schools 

This whole fiasco of a talk show perfectly illustrates the three things I love the most about humanists:

1. Their belief in the magical power of words

There was a famous performance in a Warsaw art gallery a couple of years ago consisting of a lady peeling potatoes. Countless discussions ensued about whether or not it was art or even 'real art'. Not once have I heard an expert saying: 'Listen guys, it's just a word. Words have meanings that we assign to them. These meanings change in time. We can call it art or kitsch or potArtoe or any other word you can think of because it won't change anything. Why don't we instead discuss whether it's great or shitty, interesting or boring and do we want more of it in our galleries? After all, if it's a worthless piece of shit it will stay this way no matter which word we choose to describe it'. This is such an obvious observation I'm a little embarrassed to write it (hence the third person). Yet somehow artists and critics manage to miss this point completely. As long as something fits the nebulous definition of 'art' (which they themselves invented), it automatically gets thrown into a box labeled 'awesome stuff that everyone should try to understand and admire and if you don't, there must be something wrong with you'.

2. Chutzpah
Guys have cojones; gotta give them that. I can understand art community's reluctance to call video games or designer clothes art. But do you know what else wouldn't qualify as art (according to the criteria mentioned earlier)? The works of Shakespeare, da Vinci and any music ever written. Stunning. To claim that  feces in a can  is more of an artwork than Sistine Chapel (because it 'asks important questions') - this is a whole new level of hubris.

Not pictured: humility.

3. Their utter inability to question dogma 

The other thing that I literally never heard anyone say is: 'Why do we care about this 'art' thing anyway? What is so great about it? In what ways exactly, watching a woman peel potatoes makes you a better (wiser?) person? I know that some of us love it, but is this enough of a reason to shove it down everyone else's throats? After all, there are people, who enjoy shooting hogs from a helicopter and I don't see it becoming the mark of a cultured person.' You can despise fishing or cooking or jogging and nobody will think less of you for it. You can even get away with hating sports or video games. We have discussions about merits of abortion, religion, even pedophilia, but questioning the value of art - it simply doesn't happen. Don't get me wrong - art certainly has entertainment value (so does hog hunting). Maybe there's even more to it than that. It's entirely possible that art

• fights dementia (like solving crosswords)
• helps develop empathy (like taking care of a pet)
• helps children develop cognitive skills (like video games)
• raises IQ scores (like solving IQ tests)
• or maybe it doesn't really help any of the above - maybe appreciation of art is CAUSED by high IQ, empathy and so on (in which case promoting art would be quite pointless)

Any of these would be a valid point in art's defense (if proven true) but none of them would justify the quasi-religious reverence the art has in society. None of them gets mentioned by humanists, anyway. Firstly - they feel no more need to base their beliefs in evidence than young-Earth creationists. Secondly - they know that using objective criteria to evaluate art would spell a disaster for modern art - for even if a trip to Louvre makes you smarter, it's highly doubtful the same applies to watching the potato-lady. Lacking in entertainment value, the only thing the modern art has going for it is snobbism and critics approval. If you take that away, only a can of feces remains.

So, what gives art (or even just the word 'art') so much power over our imaginations? It's simple. Throughout human history there were people, who made paintings, sculptures, plays, books, and other things for the rest of society to watch, look at, enjoy and admire. Some of them were so skillful, their works are still remembered thousands of years later. It is because of them that societies came to associate 'art' with greatness and universal beauty. More recently, modern 'artists' came. They didn't have the skill and the guts to compete with the giants before them, but still wanted the fame and respect that comes with the job. So they hijacked the word 'art' and gave it a new bizarre meaning that fits them even though it doesn't include the things that made art great in the first place. They hoped no one would catch up to them, but we did. God, I hate art.

Humanists - my manifesto (and a disclaimer)

When I was a kid, I hated humanities with a passion. I used to get into arguments with all the artsy types, the philosophy geeks, the Woody Allen wannabes - all the Tolstoy-quoting, jazz-listening, cardigan-wearing, coffee-drinking smug bastards in my school*. But it wasn't just about a bunch of snobby kids at school. We live in a culture where not enjoying Shakespeare makes you a social pariah but "I hate math too" is a cherished icebreaker, where quoting scientific data gets you "lies, damned lies and statistics" but quoting Latin wins the discussion, where suddenly everyone with a tv is a psychologist but it's ok to not know the freaking conservation of energy. And don't even get me started on science vs humanities depictions in Hollywood. These things used to bother me to no end. But a couple of years have passed and I thought I have forgotten my juvenile pet peeve. Maybe I have matured or maybe the society did (I think you can see, where this is going). Turns out - neither. I simply wasn't getting enough exposure to the irritant**. All it took was for me to add some old friends on facebook, start listening to radio and it all came back like a Vietnam flashback in a Chuck Norris movie.

In the next couple of entries I'm going to rant about humanities and their acolytes whom I shall - for lack of a better word - call 'humanists'***. The term 'humanities graduates' might be more familiar but it is too long and it would suggest that these people are somehow less obnoxious prior to graduation (they're not).

Disclaimer

Some of you are inevitably going to get offended because 'I'm a/an humanist/artist and I'm not like that at all'. I know. I know, that not all of you are like that. Probably not even majority of you. The problem is - the ones that are like that - they are the loudest, they get the most mainstream attention and they give you all a bad name.

*yeah, I know there's a name for all that, but this was a time when hipster wasn't a thing yet, not where I live. Lacking the clinical description of the condition we had to learn to recognize and despise them on a case by case basis.
**for the same reasons, I wasn't getting enough exposure to sunlight - Lineage II, anime and physics
***clash of notation with the British atheist movement entirely unintended

Women in science or chix cant math

Recently, I came across an interesting article by Philip Greenspun regarding the real reason behind the deficit of women in science. The long and short of it is: smart women are smart enough to get better jobs elsewhere, while smart men stay in shitty academic positions out of misguided ambition. I agree with it for the most part, but I wouldn't be true to my principles if I didn't take this opportunity to alienate half my readers by putting my two cents in.


Let's get one thing out of the way first. Everyone knows it, nobody is allowed to say it in public. Harvard president was fired for implying it and Greenspun skillfully avoids it in his text.


Women are inferior at math and all-around less intelligent.


There, I said it. Feel free to get offended and tear me a new one in the comments. In fact, anticipating the outrage I prepared a preemptive FAQ:


Q: Actually, according to statistics girls all around the world get the same or even slightly better grades in math exams and aptitude tests then boys their age.
A: Let's be honest with ourselves: statistical human being is a (functionally) illiterate moron. You can train a monkey to pass those tests. The only thing the statistics tell us is that female monkeys are a little tamer which makes training easier.


Q: If it's not tests and grades, what else evidence do you have?
A: You want pure talent? Go to the hall of fame of the International Mathematical Olympiad. Or any mathematical Olympiad for that matter. Or any programming competition. See how many female first names you can find there. You're saying that girls aren't encouraged enough to participate in these? Ok. You must be trying really hard not to see this. Try counting females among:

• the makers of the wittiest webcomics
• the cleverest bloggers
• your favorite writers
• the most acute movie critics

If you counted more than 20%, you're cheating. 


Q: This is bullshit. I'm a woman, and I'm 100 times more intelligent than you! Asshole.
A: That's terrific. You know what you can write that would better prove your point than an angry comment? A research paper. Or a novel.


Q: But Emmy Noether and Marie Curie were women and...
A: I didn't say that every man ever born was more talented than every woman ever born. But the fact that you have to resort to examples born in 18 hundreds is saying something.


Q: You can bring up some anecdotal evidence, but you can't really prove that men are smarter!
A: True. This statement is only meaningful because I can't prove it. If I were to confine myself to facts I can prove, all I would be able to say is: men have more Y chromosomes. 


Q: I bet you're a sad, pathetic loser, forever alone in your parents' basement. You're bitter because no woman would ever come near you and your inflated ego.
A: :( 


That being said, this is not what stops women from pursuing academic careers. You see, contrary to popular belief, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make a... well, a rocket scientist. Don't get me wrong - science is hard - it is just not that hard. Take quantum mechanics for instance. Sure - it's abstract and counterintuitive. But anyone who learned it knows that it isn't nearly as big a deal as popculture makes it out to be. If you have enough free time and mental capacity to learn a foreign language, you could easily learn QM instead (and that is including the time spent on preliminaries like algebra and classical mechanics). My point is: if a woman can be a successful doctor or lawyer (and there's no shortage of those) then with the same amount of effort she would become a decent scientist. Why doesn't she? This one's simple: doctors and lawyers get better money, better hours, more respect and they can really make a difference. The question you should be asking is this: what makes males choose science despite all of that? According to Greenspun it's their unrealistic expectations, ambition, testosterone-driven competitiveness and lack of foresight. Maybe it works like this in Ivy League universities, where you can't throw a rock without hitting a nobelist. But in the world's scientific outskirts like Poland, grad students are all painfully aware that there's neither prestige nor money to be had in academia. And it doesn't stop them (the males) from trying. This brings me to the most interesting and relevant observation in the Greenspun's article:


A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of landing a $35,000/year post-doc job?


This is exactly it! The key difference between sexes that makes males dominate the following groups:
- scientists
- suicide bombers
- Klingon speakers
- 4chan users
- cult leaders
- stamp collectors
- political assassins
- conspiracy theorists
is this: men are fucking crazy!
Not convinced? Try to guess the sex of each of these people:

• spent 15 years and over 4*10^6 matchsticks building a 20ft long replica of an oil platform  [a real person]
• got his/her arm chopped off and transplanted to his/her twin (who has now 3) [google it]
• made up a new moral system in which the ultimate goal of all human endeavours should be to increase the total intelligence and knowledge in the universe. Doesn't care if it's human, artificial or alien intelligence.  Makes life decisions accordingly - got a PhD in theoretical physics, then turned to neurobiology. Wants to artificially modify human sense of morality so that everyone shares the same goal. [a person I know]
• found a proof that Einstein was wrong, and now spends every waking hour harassing scientists hopelessly trying to get this message across  [a lot of real people, actually]

How many of these, do you think are women? You guessed correctly. None*. There's nothing more manly than devoting one's life to a comic_book_villain_insane idea this side of a lumberjack wrestling a grizzly on a volcano**.


This is not to say that women can't be as passionate or as irrational. There's plenty of them dedicated to various charities - which is admirable but not crazy - and there's the whole phenomenon of fashion - which is retarded but understandable. After all it's just women seeking approval of other women and gay men. The thing that is male-specific is the devotion to something both impractical and completely unprofitable. It's the sweet combination of hardheadedness and crazy for the sake of crazy. 


We've established that it's not their subpar cognitive abilities but rather their down-to-earth attitude that is responsible for the underrepresentation of women in science. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that all the cases of male intellectual superiority that I pointed out in the FAQ, are like that. I.e. they can be traced back not to differences in intellectual potential but differences in motivation and priorities that influence how does one act upon that potential. That may very well be, but I don't see how this is any less offensive to women than telling them that they're downright stupid. After all, it is exactly this Darwin-defying element of selfless impracticality that sets us apart from animals. All the greatest works of art, literature and science*** humanity is so proud of, we owe to stubborn men pursuing their chimerical dreams in the time they could have spent making money, socializing or watching Grey's Anatomy. Is it any consolation for you women, that you're making us sandwiches while we're solving equations not because you wouldn't understand equations but because you have no aspirations beyond sandwiches?




*And don't tell me it's the social pressure that prevents females from acting like this. Because nutty basement crusaders are all about conforming to social norms.
**with a beer in his hand and a bacon-cigar in his mouth. Riding a shark.
***as well as all the religions, ideologies and political systems