Links - 21st November 2018 (1)

Feminism may have won the vote, but it has lost its way - "Modern-day feminism is looking more and more like a group of “clever” women ganging up to pull the rug from under the feet of other women. Women who monetise their brains are denying other women the ability to monetise their bodies. It’s elitist, unfair and hypocritical... when giving a public lecture at a new research forum in London on the subject of society in the 1960s and how far we have come since, I chose to walk on stage and address the audience in a cutting edge piece of feminist fashion by the designer Jenna Young... the accompanying lecture delivered at the same event by a well-known and well-respected male colleague, who wore his usual suit, had been made available online. Mine had not. I was later told that a couple of attendees believed I was objectifying myself. They claimed to be feminists. My voice was, as a result, wiped from the face of history. This reflects the attitude of many present day feminists: that whatever an individual woman chooses to do is irrelevant. She is deemed not to know her own mind; not to know what is best for her... The other justification given for denying individual women the right to do what they want with their own lives – and their own bodies – is that their choice has negative consequences on the rest of the sisterhood... This notion of putting the “social good” ahead of the good of an individual is, of course, a natural tendency. It can also be a slippery slope. Take it to its extreme, and we should be forcing women to have children (by limiting access to abortions and birth control) in an effort to resolve the current demographic crisis, or restricting people’s ability to move abroad, so as to avoid the consequences of a brain-drain. We end up, as Friedman and Hayek knew too well, in an authoritarian state."

Emotional intelligence: fact or fad? - "Let's consider the claim that emotional intelligence is more important than IQ for predicting success. Differences between people's IQ scores can explain about 25 per cent of the differences between people's job performance. In contrast, differences in people's emotional intelligence can explain just over 3 per cent of differences in job performance. For jobs that require workers to express positive emotions (for example, service with a smile for customer service), differences in emotional intelligence explain around 7 per cent of differences in job performance. So the idea that emotional intelligence is more important than IQ is plainly not true... people with high emotional intelligence tend to use more effective coping strategies, and to feel more positive emotions and fewer negative emotions . In addition, my colleagues and I found that differences in people's emotional intelligence can explain 29 per cent of the differences in people's eudaimonic wellbeing (the aspect of wellbeing related to reaching one's potential)."

Jordan Burling: Women jailed after teen 'rotted to death' - "The mother and grandmother of an emaciated teenager who was likened to a World War Two concentration camp victim have been jailed for manslaughter. Jordan Burling, 18, went into cardiac arrest in Leeds in 2016 and died weighing less than six stone (37kg)."

Law student, 20, pours water mixed with BLEACH on to men's groins in Russia to stop 'manspreading' - "Calling herself a 'social activist', Miss Dovgalyuk has previously achieved worldwide attention by flashing her underwear to commuters to raise awareness for upskirting laws in Russia."
What feminism leads to

Why do people think this 'manspreading' video is a Kremlin hoax? - "An online news outlet in St Petersburg called Bumaga quoted a man who supposedly appeared in her video, admitting that he was paid to sit on the train and get squirted. Bumaga reproduced a post by the man on the Russian social network Vkontakte. (His account was deleted and the BBC could not immediately reach the man for comment). Additionally, in the video, Anna states that it was created "in assistance with friends who share my position." Speaking to the BBC, she denied that it was staged or that anyone was paid to get diluted bleach thrown on them. "This is some completely random guy," she says, "I don't know what kind of actor he considers himself to be... but there is no evidence, it's just somebody's claim."... no evidence has surfaced that Anna Dovgalyuk set out to make a viral propaganda video at the behest of the Kremlin"

At level of international law, there is no established human right to 'sexual orientation' - "there is no established human right to “sexual orientation” at international law — it is a contested proposition. There is no United Nations (UN) treaty which expressly underwrites discrimination on grounds of “sexual orientation”, itself an ambiguous term... to invoke “rightful equal status” begs the question. What should rightfully be equated with what? An issue cannot be resolved just by declaring something is equal/unequal. The criteria for whether X is equal to Y must come from an independent philosophy which supplies the basis for drawing distinctions. Are durians equal to mangosteens? Yes, if your criteria is “fruits” and no, if the criteria is “colour”. There are no uncontroversial philosophies regarding questions of public sexual morality. To invoke “equality” as a rhetorical slogan does little to elucidate the substantive issues. Third, there is no necessary relationship between a “common secular space” and repealing Section 377A. It begs the question of what “secular”, a protean term, means. There are many forms of secularism — agnostic or anti-religious. Some types of liberal, militant secularism seek to exclude all religiously influenced views from law and public policy debate. This is undemocratic and undermines viewpoint diversity. Viewpoints should be assessed not on their intellectual origins but their cogency and merits... Religious groups have the right under article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to articulate their views and instruct members of their faith community."
Murder is wrong according to most religions. Therefore we shouldn't make murder illegal, because that would be allowing religion into secular space

BBC accidentally quotes Donald Trump saying 'war will follow' - "Speaking about his decision to re-impose sanctions on Iran, who he accused of "slaughter in Syria and Yemen", he said "more will follow". It appears a BBC staffer misheard that, tweeting that Mr Trump said "war will follow". In a clarification the BBC said it was an "honest mistake" and the real words appeared to be "more will follow"."
If the media posts fake news, saying they are fake news is, presumably, an attack on the media

How An Anonymous Accusation Derailed My Life - "Being accused of sexual misconduct is extremely alienating. #MeToo was an expression of solidarity but there is no solidarity for the accused... Someone I know tweeted that it was ironic that supposedly liberal guys keep saying they believe women, but they don’t believe the women who accused them. I’ve wondered about the meaning of “believe women.“ I had assumed it was intended to encourage people to take accusations seriously. Certainly, sexual assault is enormously under-reported. But an anonymous accusation is problematic. What does “believe women“ mean when it isn’t even clear that an anonymous accuser is a woman?... it’s simply impossible to respond to an anonymous accusation. You find yourself confessing to every sin you’ve ever committed, real or imagined. Meanwhile, your accuser doesn’t even have a name. The truth is, all of us have wronged someone at some point... Someone told me I shouldn’t deny the accusations. They asked if I wanted to be on the wrong side of the issue. Someone else asked me if I believed in the #MeToo movement enough to take a bullet. Over the course of this year, I’ve come to believe that if a movement embraces anonymous lists and a presumption of guilt, it is already poisoned and not worth supporting... (U.S. numbers suggest that at least 5% of rape allegations are false or baseless, a higher rate than other major crimes such as murder). Of course, in some sense, Donegan didn’t have to worry, because no one is truly innocent. Even if you’re not guilty of the particular crime of which you stand accused, you’re likely to be guilty of something. It’s a Kafkaesque scenario. The accused can either refuse to engage, or try to maintain their specific innocence from a position of more general guilt. Either way, the trial is over before any defense can arrive"

Barry Floyd - "There are 326 million Americans... 63% of them them cannot afford a thousand dollar emergency... 76% Live paycheck to paycheck... 29 million have no healthcare whatsoever... 50% of all wage earners earn $30,000 a year or less as... Healthcare related emergencies are now the top leading cause of bankruptcy in the US... All of this in the RICHEST country planet earth has EVER SEEN!"

Science suffers as China’s internet censors plug holes in Great Firewall - ""Internet accessibility is a major obstacle for our research. It makes international collaboration difficult and damages the reputation and competitiveness of Chinese science institutes"... Sites now commonly used for research are also blocked. These include Google Scholar, important for scholarly searches; Google Docs and Dropbox, which allow scientists to share materials for organizing conferences and managing collaborations; and even, unfathomably, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory... Even before the crackdown, scientists had to cope with slow internet speeds. With an average connection speed of 7.6 megabits per second (Mbps), China ranks 74th globally, according to a recent study by Akamai Technologies of Cambridge, Massachusetts. That is less than a third as fast as South Korea, the world leader at 28.6 Mbps. An unusual proposal last March from Luo Fuhe, vice chairman of the China Association for Promoting Democracy, a minor political party, declared that slow internet speeds and restrictions on nonpolitical sites were having "an enormous impact on China's social and economic development, and on scientific research"... "The most damaging part," he says, "is the nontransparent and uncertain nature of the filtering.""

Ambrosine Chetrit - "This is the British Labour Party conference today under Jeremy Corbyn. The flags of Palestinians not one Union British flag in sight"
If patriotism is such a bad thing, why is supporting a foreign country such a good thing?

Fresh Blow For May’s Chequers Plan As Poll Shows Voters Prefer 'Canada-Style' Brexit Model - "16% would opt to Remain in the EU with curbs on trade deals with other countries, and only 11% supported a ‘Norway-style’ option that would allow unrestricted EU migration"

Melissa Chen - "I know most people tend to focus on 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' when discussing Tom Wolfe's literary legacy, but one of his lesser-known works that should be more visible and relevant to our current sociopolitical climate is "Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers." You would think that the term "social justice warrior" was a brand new way to capture the concept of a well-meaning political hipster who lacks moral clarity. It turns out that Tom Wolfe already described this phenomenon in the early 70s with his irreverent and snarky essay, "Radical Chic." The story recounts a fundraiser that Leonard Bernstein (then conductor of the NY Philharmonic) and his wife held at their Park Avenue apartment for the Black Panther Party... he was struck by the incongruity of the Bernsteins hosting a fundraiser for radical black socialist/communist militants in their two-story, thirteen-room penthouse duplex, and it’s this irony, this inherent satire, that gives “Radical Chic” a bite in its searing indictment of a certain segment of the white liberal establishment, long before the existence of Tumblr. It was an essay that, today, seems prescient and incisive in criticizing the general phenomena of white guilt and armchair agitation, especially among high society circles... various minorities groups in San Francisco would intimidate government programs into giving them money. He writes about how a combination of bureaucratic ineptitude and white guilt have conspired to disburse money to groups who might be pursuing agendas that are antagonistic to the goals of anti-poverty programs."

Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens - "Perhaps our current science over-estimates the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligence evolving. Or, perhaps evolved technical intelligence has some deep tendency to be self-limiting, even self-exterminating... I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games... Technology is fairly good at controlling external reality to promote real biological fitness, but it’s even better at delivering fake fitness—subjective cues of survival and reproduction without the real-world effects. Having real friends is so much more effort than watching Friends. Actually colonizing the galaxy would be so much harder than pretending to have done it when filming Star Wars or Serenity"

Cancer Establishment Admits We’re Getting Overtested and Overtreated - "Overtesting helps explain why health-care costs for Americans are much higher than in any other nation, whereas our health ranking is low, roughly equivalent to that of Cubans... screening often detects growths that represent no significant threat and yet are nonetheless often treated with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, all of which degrade health"

Is Science Hitting a Wall?, Part 1 - "In “Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?”, four economists claim that “a wide range of evidence from various industries, products, and firms show[s] that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply.”... Another sign that science is running out of gas is the sharp increase in average ages of winners of Nobel Prizes in science, and especially physics."

Liberal, Not Lefty - Posts - "Davies is a fantastic lawyer and role model of mine, I'm glad she took the case and is representing Minassian. No doubt she will face an onslaught of criticism for representing Minassian from illiterate 3rd wave feminists, despite there being NOTHING more "feminist" (to use their own self professed label) than knowing our best-in-world justice system must be upheld at all times, to ensure it functions & holds weight when an innocent person DOES take the stand. I say "no doubt" it will happen, because these same hypocrites criticized Marie Henein for representing Gian Ghomeshi, calling her a "traitor to her gender for defending a misogynist". She was even disinvited from campus events she was scheduled to speak at. (To no one's surprise, the feminists who called Henein a traitor were deafeningly silent when it came to brandishing "TRAITOR" on the female crown witnesses who PERJURED on the stand -- ruining the case, and tainting other potentially truthful testimony, for the women who followed them. If you want to talk about being a traitor to the female victims, lying on the stand seems to be more relevant than upholding a progressive justice system. ..But hey, maybe that's just me.) These people, who smeared Henein, who will likely do the same to Davies, and who often are the ones advocating for "innocent until proven guilty" NOT applying to rape cases... if the rule of law is not upheld for EVERY accused, there is no rule of law upheld for ANY accused... It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at black men falsely accused of rape by white supremacists in the Jim Crow era"