Mala, you are indeed very bad. Bad and, well making up numbers to suit your own means, whatever the hell they may be. Please tell me which war in the modern era actually decimated the male population? Please explain in which population female to male births are actually 50/50. Please explain the world survival rate of infants by sex. Please explain why anyone would assume that the population is distributed evenly by age. Please explain how women surviving childbirth reduces the number of women that can be impregnated by one man.
And please explain what the fuck you are talking about before I start bandying around the word “retarded” in relation to you.
It wouldn’t suprise me if Blue John’s never seen a real woman’s breast. With out paying for it, at least.
Guin: I think this may be another candidate for Fenris’s marching band thingy (or whatever it’s called!). I’ve just got a feeling that every post from our man-of-the-world Blue John will have a common theme. Call it a hunch.
Recipe for Blue Macho soup:
1 cucumber, sliced
2 small pecan nuts, crushed
1 baby banana, mashed
2 plum tomatoes, unsqueezed
A dash of jerk sauce
2 oz extra virgin olive oil
generous portions of ham
1 limp noodle
1 handful ordinary mushrooms.
Cover limp noodle with virgin olive oil and jerk sauce.
Slice cucumber, mash banana, and crush pecan nuts.
Mix in generous portions of ham and unsqueezed tomatoes.
Scrape bullshit from mushrooms onto sauce, throw away mushrooms.
Heat slightly. When lukewarm and half-baked, serve.
I know. That was my point. See, it just takes one bull to do that.
The kind of high birthrate one would need to populate the Earth with people in the case of a post-World War III-type-event? Where, say, 5/6 of the fighting forces of the world were killed? Now, compose your fighting force of men. How do we do, as a species? Now compose that same fighting force of women. Not quite so good, eh? See, we protect our women against that day. Biologically speaking, of course.
Not making up numbers, except insofar as I bandy some about by way of illustration, making it clear that that is all I am doing. I have no objection whatever to some more accurate and reasonable figures being presented, and if these turn out to make a complete nonsense of my position, I’ll be slightly surprised and also faintly admiring.
My means? I thought that was clear, but I’ll get to it shortly.
Well, none. Not in the U S of A, at any rate (I have an uneasy feeling about the population hit Britain took in WW1, and I believe Poland got off much, much worse in WW2). That was rather by way of being one of the points I was making. I was after illustrating that even postulating a war in which we took a horrible hiding, we would be well able to make good the population dent even if the losses were taken evenly from females as well as males.
Erm, the one we live in is close enough to that for all practical purposes. There may be a few more male births than female, but not enough to invalidate my whole argument. It would be another matter if, say, there were three boys born for every girl; but there aren’t.
I don’t intend to, for that’s not the point I was making. I was making a point about western European and American society, in which we expect the survival rate to be far over 90%, and the rate isn’t hugely different by sex.
Feh… “to simplify the math when the exact figures aren’t germane to the argument” would be a good enough reason, I should think. As you have so clearly discerned already, the ten percent figure was arbitrarily picked out of the air in the first place, for reasons I just explained. If you want to go to work on some proper demographics and estimate the actual losses in a real war, that’s fine by me. If you can come up with some figures that purport to show that the thrust of my argument is fundamentally flawed, go right ahead. This is a debating forum after all.
WTF? First explain what I said that could be reasonably construed as anything of the sort!
The point about women surviving childbirth is that, taken with improved infant survivability, it’s now feasible for the population to be maintained without needing the vast majority of women of breeding age to be grunting out all the babies they possibly can.
The point about the number of women that can be impregnated by one man is that, in practice, when the male population takes a big hit in wartime, we don’t see a massive upsurge in men begetting children in polyamorous relationships. I don’t say that no such thing is possible, but it doesn’t happen in our society.
Anyway, those two points are quite distinct, and I don’t really understand how you came to confuse them.
Glad to oblige. I’m talking the fuck about refuting the ridiculous argument that we must look upon women as too valuable to risk their precious lives on the battlefield because we need them for breeding. Our 21st-century solution to the question of keeping our numbers up revolves around ensuring that as many mothers and babies survive as possible - rather than have everyone who can breeding like crazy and hoping to outpace infant and puerperal mortality. We have plenty of slack in the birthrate which wasn’t there, and we couldn’t afford, two or three centuries ago. I hope this is nice and clear. If it isn’t, I’ll explain it again.
As to the word “retarded” - you may never be good enough :rolleyes: .
Well, bully for you, d_redguy, for having a little basic understanding of the rudiments of animal husbandry. However, I hope the Dopers reading this thread will understand the irony behind the fact that, having to defend myself a few paragraphs ago from someone saying “Fuckwit! 10% is a ridiculous overestimate!”, I now have to defend myself from someone saying “Fuckwit! 10% is a ridiculous underestimate!”. Still, I’ll have a stab at at.
d_redguy, if we ever do see a day in which we manage to kill off 5/6 of the fighting and breeding population, we’re going to be in serious trouble - more serious than we’ll be able to fix just with some survivalist dream-world in which every able-bodied man is head of a nice big harem of permanently fat-bellied women.
A catastrophe like that would surely involve enough collateral damage to knock out so much infrastructure that civilization would collapse. If you disagree, you’re welcome to say how and why you see such an immense bloodbath occurring, while civilization remains intact. I don’t see it, myself.
In that event, the last thing on our minds would be breeding back to 2003 population levels. We would be fully occupied with trying to feed the few mouths we had left, and I strongly suspect we in the West would get seriously out-survived by those who’ve had a fuck of a lot more practice at getting by on less than we consider basic emergency necessities.
But, if it did get as bad as that, I think we’d be better provided for with a sex-balanced population. Men, historically, have never been simply warriors and sperm-donors. We could start up a whole new discussion thread on this topic, and I don’t see why it need be in the Pit unless people really can’t mind their manners.
That you aren’t; not while you’re seeing sex roles in modern society solely in terms of planning for post-WW3 survival, and post-WW3 survival solely in terms of how much of the population can physically be pregnant at one time. Or at any rate, whatever road it is you’re far ahead of me on, it’s a lot further on the way to Fantasy Island than I plan on going. (A road to an island? Hmm, either my metaphors are getting hopelessly mixed, or else there’s a ferry .)
Still, with the aid of a map, a compass, and a native guide, you may find your way back to Reality City, Az., some time. May your journey be a pleasant one - and next time you want to engage in a battle of wits, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.
Mal, I think you and I are essentially on the same page, but we are coming at it from 2 different angles. I fully comprehend the social ramifications, I just wasn’t addressing them with Blue John. (I didn’t think he could handle it.) I was speaking about a purely biological standpoint.
I don’t disagree with you in the least.
But again, I was addressing the issue from a purely biological standpoint, and why women are just as important as men. Because the species would be better equipped to survive with less men than women. Do you understand what I am driving at? My point is that men can service more women to keep a species going than vice-versa. (Note: Though a harem sounds like a grand idea to me on that same biological level, I understand what you are saying from a social standpoint. I think my wife helps me with that understanding ;)) Again, I was not addressing the social ramifications of such a setup.
Again, we find ourselves agreeing. Would you also agree that women, historically, have never been simply breeding cows? I just want to see if we are on the same page. I don’t think we have a fight, Mal.
PS -
I am sure you can do better than that tired old saw!
Arguing the validity of a point of view that says, well it’s hard to say what you’re arguing. But you folks are basing it on fantasies of catastrophe. You know, what happens if 5/6 of the men are killed, and how many udders are left to drink from. And who is thinking of the grandmothers?
To amend my soup recipe:
when half baked, throw into BBQ pit. Add layers of bat feces and let fester. Serves no one.
Tired old saw? Aargh, what a tool I must look! Anyway, I do agree, in the light of your reply, that we’re not disagreeing about as much as seemed immediately obvious. That women and men are equally essential to the species I wouldn’t attempt to deny. Personally, I think that “equally essential” and “equal” aren’t identical concepts - and “equality” is just a word for the necessary fiction we have to perpetrate to protect each other from the fact that we’re fundamentally bad
I also think that BJ came up with a few points that could have stood a little more intellectual critique than simply slamming him with the unproven assertions that he’s ugly, can’t get laid, was deprived of maternal love, etc… but a certain kind of intelligence finds it much easier to smear than address arguments. (That’s not a disguised swipe at you, d_redguy. I think I’ve demonstrated that I’m quite happy to hand out undisguised ones. )
Mind you, BJ’s “leeches on society” line wasn’t calculated to win much sympathy. But all I was actually agreeing with him on was the observation that, in modern society and for the reasons I’ve stated above, women are just as “expendable” as men are… if we must actually think of human beings as “expendable” in the first place.
The rest of what BJ says just strikes enough of a responsive chord with that part of my psyche where the nasty misogynistic thoughts live that I crinkle up for a second when I read it (btw, how many times do we see the word “misandric” spouted? Is it because women never practice man-hating, or some other reason?) - but I wouldn’t dream of swallowing the whole lot without criticism.
He’s got some point about the pussification of modern society, mind you. It isn’t necessarily about who holds the office of Head of State but of whose butt they have to kiss to stay there (that’s democracy for you), and in consideration of that, you really have to go “…Huh?” at some of the things you see. It’s only this morning that I read that the defence of “provocation” in cases of domestic homicide is set to disappear… except if the killer is female, that is, in which case we’re to look at more lenient treatment of women who claim “years of abuse”. And we can thank Miss Harriet Harman for that.
And I was mildly outraged by an ad for the ambulance service which posted a picture of a man with a bleeding head and a downtrodden woman in the background, with the caption “He’s just attacked his wife and he has a serious head injury. Who do you treat first?” (Eh? Did he just get a visit from the Serious Head Injury Fairy or what? Shouldn’t we treat the injuries according to the normal principles of triage, and worry about assigning blame afterwards?)…
And a letter yesterday in the agony column of a national daily from a young man telling of getting a thump in the face from his (unreasonably) jealous girlfriend, followed by a visit from the ecilop asking if she wants him arrested :rolleyes: and Auntie helpfully tells him he needs to understand that she needs reassurance, and the two of them should work through this together, and if she’s threatening violence again he should just run away… ahh, l’egalite! Anyway, back to our muttons:
Of course I understand that men could keep multiple women pregnant, if circumstances demanded; but I also understand that it probably wouldn’t do us any good in any set of circumstances in which such an expedient would actually have to be resorted to. Besides, genetic diversity would go down the tubes. Again, this probably belongs on another thread. I think I’ll start one.
Best wishes - and I’ll put a little more work into the quick wit and repartee next time!
Hmmm…indeed. I wanna see this one.
Don’t get me wrong, I see the absurdity in the examples you brought forth. I just can’t see why you seem to be aligning yourself with this guy, Mal. I mean, take a look at this. With the exception of the post regarding soccer (or what the rest of the world calls “football”;)) he’s just an OTP with a chip on his shoulder a mile wide and a mile high. With regards to him having some point, if you can defend your statements on the “pussification” of society, I will concede that a stopped analog clock is indeed correct twice a day. At any rate, I’m done with him.
BlueJohn… you seem to have a large chunk of shit lodged somewhere near your (sic) brain. May I recommend taking a large calibre shotgun and clearing it away? If that doesn’t do the trick… I’ve heard that shutting the fuck up does wonders.
Ohhh… let’s not and say we did. I need a good run at it to get the necessary momentum behind the chip on my own shoulder, and I need to be seriously peeved to convince myself that the aggravation is worth it. I’d sooner let this thread die a natural death.
smile quietly, and stand by what I just said about letting this thread die a natural death, and leave you to carry on impressing whomever you think you’re impressing.
I’ll just indulge myself with a quiet chuckle over your implication that I might be a misogynist, though. I don’t suppose you’d be convinced differently even if I produced signed testimonies from the assorted women who’ve turned to me for comfort, sympathy, a friendly, listening ear and the odd word of good advice over the past couple of decades? I thought not.
A word in your shell-like ear: Getting me to rise to a bait I don’t choose to rise to is about as easy as getting me to shut up when I’ve decided I’m going to have my say. Now scuttle off back to Maturity 101, and don’t be late handing in your homework.
