Policy options
Many people are disputing Robin Hanson. He repeats the same weird nonsense.
Barring disability, how do incels have less access to sex than anyone else?
— Laura's a bit much (@lemon_lymann) April 28, 2018
The same way poor people have less access to yachts and private jets.
— Robin Hanson (@robinhanson) April 28, 2018
Questioner: Barring disability, how do incels have less access to sex than anyone else?
Hanson: The same way poor people have less access to yachts and private jets.
Er, no. Sex with others is not the same kind of thing as yachts and private jets. Sex with others is with others; it requires a willing (or willing-if-paid) human being. “Access” to it isn’t like access to the local gym or access to banking services or access to the third floor. Talking of “access” to sex is a deliberately crude way to characterize an interaction between people. It’s like a bad joke from The Big Bang Theory – some friend of Sheldon’s on a first date requesting “access to sex” in exchange for dinner.
"Redistribution" means "change the distribution". A great many who have commented can't imagine any policy options to change the distribution of sex access other than rape and slavery, and so accuse me of advocating such things. But a great many other policy options exist.
— Robin Hanson (@robinhanson) April 28, 2018
“Redistribution” means “change the distribution”. A great many who have commented can’t imagine any policy options to change the distribution of sex access other than rape and slavery, and so accuse me of advocating such things. But a great many other policy options exist.
Well, no doubt it’s possible to generate a great many words that look like policy options, but the reality is that unless we’re talking about extreme authoritarianism, it’s not possible to have “policy options” to change the “distribution” of sex. It’s not possible because it’s so undesirable.
Hanson continues to demonstrate that he’s among the dullest utensils in the moldy libertarian/MRA drawer.
I must admit that I’m curious what the “great many other policy options” are. Tax credits for hot people that can prove they had pity sex with ugly people? Legalized prostitution and subsidies for those who need to use it because nobody will sleep with them for free?
Is there any option that doesn’t descend to self-parody?
I don’t think the access to yachts example is as bad as you make it out to be. Sex is more personal, of course, but access to yachts involves people as well. Someone could argue that it’s not fair that people won’t accept the money they have in exchange for a yacht, it’s not fair that people won’t give them the kind of job that would get them enough money to buy a yacht, etc. “Look at those Kardashians — they don’t do anything, and they can buy yachts, and here I am making a clear difference by teaching in an inner-city school, and I can barely afford a beater car!”
I do in a way feel sorry for do-called incels. I’m sure their pain at being unwanted sexually is real. But my sympathy evaporates quickly when they start proposing solutions and/or revenge, and then I also start to wonder if most of their problem isn’t that they’re psychos that terrify other people.
“Redistribution” implies a resource. Aka treating women as chattel, to be (re)distributed by fiat (or whim). And, by the way, plenty of women get rejected in the sexual bazaar, too.
Sure Hanson’s proposed sexual redistribution is a form of rape, but it’ll probably just be “gentle, silent rape,” which Hanson has “explained” is not as bad a cuckoldry.
Is there anything that somebody, somewhere, doesn’t think they’re entitled to?
Screechy – good god, what a twerp he is.
Athena @#1: Agreed. But the other possibilities are that he is speaking from personal experience: of one, the other, both, and/or perhaps both simultaneously.
(I will have to leave off here as my mind is starting to boggle.)
;-)
Omar, I think Hanson has a fundamental problem with consent and women as humans rather than furniture, as highlighted by both the “redistribution” and “gentle rape” posts.
I don’t. Listening to these guys, they appear to be obnoxious to women, treat women like objects, and generally act like immature delinquents anytime a woman is around. Yes, maybe they have few social skills; maybe they had no one to teach them proper behavior. So what? I was in the same boat. I had to learn my social skills as I went along, because my mother had negative 20 on the social skill set, and my siblings were as impaired as she was. I had few friends (because I had no social skills) and I had to figure out how to deal with all this on my own. I am still lacking a great deal in that category, but I do know enough (and always have) not to treat people like objects and not to be a total jerk and asshole around people I want to like me. I may not have the skill set to get them to like me, but I do usually manage to escape without them hating me.
These guys are not involuntary incels – they are quite voluntary in the behaviors that make women avoid them, and they encourage other men to indulge in these self-destructive behaviors, as well.
AA @#8:
“Gentle rape” is a breakthrough concept, IMHO. It’s a bit like ‘gentle murder’ or ‘gentle assault’. To the uninitiated, it would appear to be something of a contradiction in terms, but no doubt a high-enough-priced lawyer could do plenty with it.
‘Your Honour, and members of the jury: my client the accused, while admitting to this crime, did his honest and level best to be as gentle with his admitted victim as is humanly possible. He tried to leave her blissfully unaware of the said crime as he robbed/raped/ bludgeoned/ murdered her (strike out whichever is inappropriate) and, let me repeat, tried his utmost to be as gentle as possible, as aforesaid. All he asks now is to be treated with sympathy and understanding by this Court, which for the reasons I have just cited, should return a verdict of…. Not Guilty.’
NOTE: A horrible realisation has just dawned on me that I may have missed my vocation.
How does a group of people, including Hanson, who would not countenance a redistribution of cash or of resources, actual physical things you can count or measure out, plan this redistribution of sex? And then how does he plan to persuade a whole set of entitled twerps that, no, they are not entitled to a five-star woman but first have to learn the art of actually doing it?
To the extent that ‘incels’ have any legitimate plaint, they are locked out of the business of transactional sex. They don’t have yachts, and they aren’t ‘stars’ who will be permitted to ‘do it.’
But, rather than oppose the game, they redouble their resentment and blame women. As if women were the drivers of patriarchy.
Hanson and co. cannot perceive sex as an activity, rather than a commodity.
“Talking of “access” to sex is a deliberately crude way to characterize an interaction between people.” You could say the same on talking about access to jobs.
Policies that promote monogamy have in fact influenced the distribution of sex, and sex inequality, so it is clearly possible for policy to have an influence.
You could say the same of talking about access to jobs but it wouldn’t be a very good analogy. The differences between access to sex and access to jobs are large enough to make the comparison mostly irrelevant…jobs in “sex work” apart, of course. I just read an interesting conversation on Facebook about the implications of the legalization of “sex work” combined with policies on welfare that compel recipients to accept available jobs.
The promotion of monogamy part makes a lot more sense. It’s the subject of god only knows how many novels and movies. It’s a good deal less robust now though.
Unless they’re independently wealthy, people need to work whether they want to or not. And most jobs actually do accomplish something or other.
People should have sex only when they’re willing, and only with willing partners. If someone can’t find someone who wants to fuck them, that’s too bad. But society does not owe them fucks.
(And it should go without saying, but apparently doesn’t, that women are not fuck dispensers for men. Many men view them that way, but those men are wrong. Those men can fuck themselves.)
Monogamy is actually a good deal for men, as incels and MRAs well know. With monogamy most males at least get a chance at a partner. And they can be sure of paternity (theoretically at least.)
With polygamy, where women are less free to choose, the most powerful men will hog all the wives. And where women are free, well, you’ve got people (of both sexes, but we’re talking about men here) who have limited partner choice, or can’t get any partner at all. That’s basically what we have now.
We don’t need “policy options” to “redistribute” sex. Men need to learn that they are not entitled to women’s bodies or women’s care or women’s attention.
The real problem I see is that when you talk about access to jobs, you aren’t talking about one group of people having to allow other people access to their body. The “access to sex” equation is really much more one-sided.
Access to jobs is an issue for both men and women where equality could be reasonably achieved, given equality of opportunities, interest and ability, and other aspects of the economic and social scene.
Access to sex refers to men having access to women’s bodies. I do not usually hear this the other way around – oh, redistribute the men so the poor celibate wallflower girl can have her sexual needs met, or can have babies if she wants. No, this conversation revolves around men having access to women’s bodies.
Not like the redistribution of wealth or jobs or power – those things can all be redistributed equitably without one sex having to give while the other takes.
You guys are being so hard on Robin Hanson. I’ll have you know that George Mason University only hires the finest economists that the Koch Brothers approve of….