Why women should rule the world

[SapphosRock]

Interesting article showing the positive response from female leaders to the Coronavirus pandemic. They are literally saving lives while the men (particularly Trump) are in denial and floundering:

[[https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/
www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/]]

For the Mars mission, three years in a tin can, the consensus is they will need different qualities: Indoorsey types who enjoy reading and knitting and other such quiet solitary pastimes.

Considering the number of AIBU and C-19 discussions about DHs sitting around the house, doing nothing, I'm sure they could find the right men for the job .

In all seriousness, there will be plenty for them to do on the way, long term microgravity experiments and being far away from Earth's radio noise.

Gronky, the fact most satellites in orbit are there for communication purposes and not physical devastation is proof your conception of space as an inherent battlefield is incorrect.

That's the product, not the development that led there, I didn't say it was an inherent battlefield, I said that the development of rockets as weapons of war got us there quickly. Look at the primary purpose of the rocket which launched Sputnik 1. As another example, there's more civilian reactors than plutonium producing reactors in the world but almost every reactor design employed on a commercial scale can trace its roots back to the plutonium piles of the 40s and 50s. It's possible that power-generating reactors would have been developed eventually but the intense drive to build a weapon of unimaginable power got us there in 1000 days.

The reason we don't have orbital weapons platforms is due to treaties signed because, even at the height of the Cold War, it was recognised that placing nuclear weapons in orbit led to unacceptable risk (difficulty identifying the aggressor and short reaction times causing itchy trigger fingers).

The old trope that the best scientific innovations are driven by desires for war and pornography is a myth to bolster masculinity directly related to the capitalist myth that communism can't work because competition is what drives human progress.

I don't believe these man-made myths, I believe cooperation drives human progress and collaboration is the special gift our species was given to succeed.

"This may arguably be because the former group have more to lose."

Which circles back around to men being shittier, greedier human beings who steal and cheat and sabotage and then declare themselves worthy winners.

I agree and disagree, insideandout3. A common enemy is an enormously powerful motivator and has been shown repeatedly to foster cooperation, especially in men.

Which circles back around to men being shittier, greedier human beings who steal and cheat and sabotage and then declare themselves worthy winners.

Or that most individuals care more about protecting/providing for their own loved ones than helping others outside of this sphere. I do think that most people have more allegiance to their immediate loved ones than to their biological sex - which may explain why some women act 'selfishly' once they attain power and are accused of not 'helping the cause'.

It's like how everybody claims they'd do xyz if they won the lottery. But would they really, or would they ensure they looked after themselves first?

That post makes no sense....

1. It's a myth that scientific innovations are driven by competitiveness and desire for war.

2. It is cooperation and collaboration that drives human progress.

3. Men are shitty, greedy human beings who cheat and steal.

The forerunner of the internet was developed by the US defence department (DARPA) by the way.

Human achievements can arise either from a sense of fierce competition as well as cooperation. We are a violent, yet intelligent species of ape and are capable of either method when it suits us.

Men have had many chances (most) to show they are competent leaders and fail most of the time.

What's your benchmark for success though?

I agree that many things could be better, but broadly speaking the human race has made amazing accomplishments under the rule of men. I often imagine going back a few hundred years and pointing at he moon and telling people we'll go there in the near future. Or telling people we'll have a device that can fly through the air faster than a bird with several hundred people onboard.

I think there are likely benefits to be brought by both sexes, but it worries me that some people just want female representation and nothing more. If I had to choose between having air travel or having had more female engineers in the last century, I'd have to think carefully as the former benefits everyone. Hopefully that's not a choice we have to make, just meant it as an example as many people moan about the gender imbalance in some fields whilst dismissing many of the innovations which they couldn't live without.

I'm not playing with our visitor from the manosphere, but about Mao for those who aren't aware - he killed a whole lot more than 1.5 million people. Estimated 45 million dead from starvation during the Great Leap Forward for a start, and that's before we get to the people who were killed on purpose. In terms of sheer numbers of people dead as a result of one person's decisions he's going to be hard to beat.

I don't believe these man-made myths, I believe cooperation drives human progress and collaboration is the special gift our species was given to succeed.

Military competitiveness did drive the race to space, and quite a number of other technologies as well, that's not really true or false based on some sort of ideological preference, it's a fact whether any of us like that kind of militarism or not. That's not to say they also weren't cooperative endeavours, they were, but that cooperation was driven by a kind of competition in those instances.

If I had to choose between having air travel or having had more female engineers in the last century

Maybe if we’d had more female engineers in the last century we’d have space travel

While we’re talking about hypotheticals

I often read on here a quote aimed at men that goes something like 'if you are privileged, equality might feel like discrimination.

Similarly, I believe that if you are sexist, an egalitarian might appear as the enemy, because they are equally supportive of 'the opposition'.

I am reminded of a favorite riddle.
Q, For what discovery did Watson and Crick receive the Nobel Prize.
A, Rosalind Franklin's notes.

Dale Spender wrote a book addressing the issue "Women of Ideas, and What Men Have Done to Them".

Traditionally men have viewed retaining power as a higher priority than human progress. The evidence is irrefutable.

Traditionally men have viewed retaining power as a higher priority than human progress. The evidence is irrefutable.

Have you any examples? I'm not sure which men you refer to.

To be fair, it's a difficult topic because both individuals and societies are understandably selfish. Many people aren't interested in progressing humanity if it doesn't include them or their children.

If it was proven (for the sake of argument) that the male brain was more conducive to scientific exploration, would women be happy to step back and let men dominate this field for the greater good of human progress?

Would America happily let China take the lead, at the cost of their own economy, if it was clear that they would foster better technological advancement?

Would the majority of UK parents honestly be happy for their children to live the rest their lives in relative poverty if it meant that children in every other country could live a fantastic and poverty free life?

Franklin would have won the Nobel prize had she lived, and to suggest Watson and Crick did nothing to deserve it is ignorant in the extreme.

I always roll my eyes when people bring up that myth. I'm half convinced that most people who use it know it to be untrue but still use it because others don't realise that- i.e. it makes them look like they have a point.

One claim was that during the race to uncover the structure of DNA, Jim Watson and Francis Crick either stole Rosalind Franklin’s data, or ‘forgot’ to credit her. Neither suggestion is true.

www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/23/sexism-in-science-did-watson-and-crick-really-steal-rosalind-franklins-data

The old trope that the best scientific innovations are driven by desires for war and pornography is a myth to bolster masculinity directly related to the capitalist myth that communism can't work because competition is what drives human progress.

It’s such a harmful trope as well because it convinces women that they’ll never have what it takes to really contribute to human progress.

Sure, things like the Cold War May have led to more funding for space science and therefore more leaps in discovery but that doesn’t speak to the innate scientific curiosity about how things work that society has managed to convince women they don’t have.

Look at how far girls have come in terms of education in the last few decades. We tell ourselves that this is down to girls’ hard work but that the capacity for real genius still remains with boys. We don’t often entertain the idea that girls are intelligent and curious and driven by ambition.

twitter.com/benjalvarez1/status/1250563198081740800?s=21

I mean look at this woman in charge. She has a science background, understands the issue, conveys it clearly and obviously cares about the people. Why don’t we ask what drives her ambition instead of thinking that the drive for success can only come from a competitive need for power over something else?

We tell ourselves that this is down to girls’ hard work but that the capacity for real genius still remains with boys. We don’t often entertain the idea that girls are intelligent and curious and driven by ambition.

I think primates both male and female are curious and driven by ambition. I don't know if there is truth in this but people often talk a lot a bell curve where there are both more stupid and genius men but with women more clustered in the middle.

Big yikes. This thread has been a full mask-off female supremacist sh*t show since page one. Close it down! :D

There's a bit in Robert webbs "how not to be a boy" where he talks about boys and girls doing well academically and how girls are "allowed" to get good grades as long as they say they aren't actually smart they just worked really hard. Conversely boys are allowed to get good grades if they say that they didn't put any effort in they're just naturally smart. Working hard as a boy, or being naturally smart as a girl, aren't allowed. I have to say this reflects my experience of male and female attitudes perfectly all through my academic life. It actually contributed hugely to my "imposter syndrome" at medical school, the idea that I wasn't actually good enough to be there, that I didn't have any actual talent and was just fooling every body by working hard and was going to get caught out any day. The trope that girls only get better grades because they work harder than boys is definitely part of undermining girls confidence, dampening down their achievements, and trying to hold the door open for men to still be the smarter ones really.

Absolutely bygrabthars

I don't know if there is truth in this but people often talk a lot a bell curve where there are both more stupid and genius men but with women more clustered in the middle.

It's called the male greater variability hypothesis.

Sure, things like the Cold War May have led to more funding for space science and therefore more leaps in discovery but that doesn’t speak to the innate scientific curiosity about how things work that society has managed to convince women they don’t have.

This is reductive though. Saying that competition has driven a lot of scientific innovation (I won't say progress because I think there are insupportable assumptions behind that word) does not mean that it has nothing to do with the scientific or human curiosity of individuals.

But that is absolutely not the only thing that has been involved in innovation. Military competition, and also to a really significant degree corporate competition have been huge drivers - Look even at the effects of copyright and patenting on all kinds of innovation in the sciences and engineering. This is a huge topic in terms of studies in the history and function of science and it's taken very seriously.

You can't simply overlook that element because you don't like the implications in terms of human character.