text:
Young, male, and single
The Babylonian Marriage Market, by Edwin Long (1829-1891). There are too many young men on the mate market, particularly in the White American community.
It sucks being young, male, and single. Don't think so? Go to the Interactive Singles Map of the United States and see how it looks for the 20 to 39 age group. Almost everywhere single men outnumber single women.
And the real picture is worse. For one thing, the imbalance is greater among singles without children. This is not a trivial factor, since single mothers are "single" only in the sense of being available for sexual relations. They are still raising offspring from a previous relationship and many are not interested in having more children.
Then there's polygamy—or "polyamory," to use the preferred term—where a minority of men controls sexual access to a larger number of women. If we compare the 1940-1949 and 1970-1979 cohorts of American adults, we find an increase in the number of median lifetime partners from 2.6 to 5.3 among women and from 6.7 to 8.8 among men (Liu et al., 2015). Because this figure is more variable for men than for women, young women are more likely to be sexually active than young men. This is crudely seen in infection rates for chlamydia—the most common sexually transmitted disease. Hispanic Americans still show the traditional pattern of greater sexual activity among men than among women, the rates being 7.24% of men and 4.42% of women. White Americans display the reverse: 1.38% of men and 2.52% of women (Miller et al., 2004).
Finally, there's a racial angle. This sex ratio is more skewed among White Americans than among African Americans, mainly because the latter have a lower sex ratio at birth and a higher death rate among young men.
It's hard to avoid concluding that a lot of young white men are shut out of the marriage market ... or any kind of heterosexual relationship. This wife shortage was once thought to be temporary, being due to baby-boomer men getting divorced and marrying younger women from the smaller "baby bust" cohort. With time, they would get too old to compete with young men, and the problem should resolve itself.
Today, the crest of the baby boom is entering the seventh decade of life, yet the update to the Interactive Singles Map shows no change to the gender imbalance. So what gives? It appears that demographers have focused too much on the baby-boomer effect and not enough on other factors that matter just as much and, more importantly, show no signs of going away. These factors can be summarized as follows.
Re-entry of older men into the mate market
We have a mate market where 20 to 50 year old men are competing for 20 to 40 year old women. That in itself is nothing new. But something else is.
The baby boom eclipsed an equally important but longer-term trend: more and more men are living past the age of 40. With or without the baby boom, we'll still see large numbers of older men getting divorced and marrying younger women. The cause isn't just liberal divorce laws. It's also the fact we have far more older guys out there as a proportion of the population.
Sure, we will also see younger men pairing up with "cougars" but there are limits to that option, as noted in a New Zealand study:
The male partner may want to partner up with someone younger or have children, which may not be possible with an older woman (for physical reasons or because she chooses not to have (more) children). The younger male partner may not want to become a step-father to existing children. Research has shown that childbearing can be the ultimate deal breaker in this kind of relationship. (Lawton and Callister, 2010)
Persistence of the imbalanced sex ratio at birth
About 105 males are born for every 100 females among people of European origin. This sex ratio used to decline to parity during childhood because of higher infantile mortality among boys. It then declined even farther in early adulthood because of war, industrial accidents, and other hazards. This isn't the distant past. If you talk with women who came of age in the postwar era, they will tell you about their fears of remaining single past the age of thirty. At that age, very few single men were left to go around.
Well, things have changed. The skewed sex ratio at birth is now persisting well into adulthood, thanks to modern medicine and the relative peace that has prevailed since 1945. Women begin to outnumber men only in the 35-39 age group in the United States and in the 40-44 age group in the United Kingdom.
Equalization of male and female same-sex preference
Historically, same-sex preference was more common among men than among women. This gender gap appears to be closing, according to a recent study:
The percent distributions were quite similar for men and women; however, a higher percentage of men identified as gay (1.8%) compared with women who identified as gay/lesbian (1.4%), and a higher percentage of women identified as bisexual (0.9%) compared with men (0.4%). (CDCP, 2014, p. 5)
Disparities in outmarriage
At present, there are more White American women outmarrying than White American men, particularly in younger age groups. This disparity is mainly in marriages with African American men, there being no gender difference in marriages with Hispanic Americans and the reverse gender difference in marriages with Asian Americans (Jacobs and Labov, 2002; Passel et al., 2010). Overall, this factor further skews the ratio of young single men to young single women in the White American community.
This disparity isn't new. What is new is its extent, for both legal and common-law marriages. An idea may be gleaned from statistics on children born to White American women, specifically the proportion fathered by a non-White partner. For the U.S. as a whole the proportion in 2013 was between 11% and 20% (the uncertainty is due to 190,000 births for which the father's race was not stated). By comparison, the proportion in 1990 was between 5% and 13% (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013; see also Silviosilver, 2015).
Whenever this issue comes up for discussion, there are often reassurances that the disparity will disappear in a post-racial world that has been cleansed of "White privilege." I'm not so sure. The European female phenotype seems to be very popular, and this was so even when white folks were geopolitical weaklings. Today, the term "white slavery" is merely a synonym for prostitution, but it originally meant the enslavement of fair-skinned women for sale to clients in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. At the height of this trade, between 1500 and 1650, over 10,000 Eastern Europeans were enslaved each year for export (Kolodziejczyk, 2006; Skirda, 2010). The overwhelming majority were young women and pre-pubertal boys who were valued for their physical appearance. And yet they were powerless.
No, I don't think this kind of preference will disappear as whites lose "privilege."
So more and more young men are being left on the shelf, particularly in White America. How do they cope? Mostly by turning to porn from Internet websites, videocassettes, or magazines. Love dolls are another option and may grow in popularity as they become more human-like, not only physically but also in their ability to talk and interact.
Another option is outmarriage. In the past, this trend largely concerned older men marrying East Asian or Hispanic women, but we're now seeing plenty of young men outmarrying via Internet dating sites. Despite the local supply of single women in the African American community, there is a much stronger tendency to look abroad, generally to women in Eastern Europe, South America, or East Asia.
Then there's gender reassignment, which means either entering the other side of the mate market or tapping into the lesbian market. It's a viable strategy, all the more so because many white boys can be turned into hot trans women. I'm not saying that some young men actually think along those lines, but gender reassignment is functioning that way.
Finally, there's "game." My attitude toward game is like my attitude toward gender reassignment. Both are attempts to push the envelope of phenotypic plasticity beyond its usual limits, and neither can fully achieve the desired result. A lot of boys aren't wired for game, and there are good reasons why, just as there are good reasons why some people are born male. Male shyness isn't a pathology. It's an adaptation to a social environment that values monogamy and high paternal investment while stigmatizing sexual adventurism. Our war on male shyness reflects our perverse desire to create a society of Don Juans and single mothers.
But if game works, why not? Whatever floats your boat.
Ideally, this gender imbalance should be dealt with at the societal level, but I see little chance of that happening in the near future. If anything, public policy decisions will probably worsen the current imbalance. Changes to public policy generally result from a long process that begins when people speak up and articulate their concerns, yet it's unlikely that even this first step will be taken any time soon. Young single men prefer to remain silent and invent nonexistent girlfriends. They also tend to be marginal in the main areas of discourse creation, like print and online journalism, TV, film, and radio production, book writing, etc. Leaf through any magazine, and you'll probably see more stuff about the problems of single women.
So this imbalance will likely continue to be addressed at the individual level through individual strategies.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). Sexual Orientation in the 2013 National Health Interview Survey: A Quality Assessment, Vital and Health Statistics, 2(169), December
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_02/sr02_169.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013). Vital Statistics Online
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/Vitalstatsonline.htm (for discussion, see Silviosilver, 2015 http://www.unz.com/pfrost/the-last-push-back-against-liberalism/#comment-896920)
Jacobs, J.A. and T.B. Labov. (2002). Gender differentials in intermarriage among sixteen race and ethnic groups, Sociological Forum, 17, 621-646.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1021029507937
Kolodziejczyk, D. (2006). Slave hunting and slave redemption as a business enterprise: The northern Black Sea region in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, Oriente Moderno, 86, 1, The Ottomans and Trade, pp. 149-159.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25818051?sid=21105312761261&uid=3737720&uid=3739448&uid=2&uid=4
Lawton, Z. and P. Callister. (2010). Older Women-Younger Men Relationships: the Social Phenomenon of 'Cougars'. A Research Note, Institute of Policy Studies Working Paper 10/02
http://ips.ac.nz/publications/files/be0acfcb7d0.pdf
Liu, G., S. Hariri, H. Bradley, S.L. Gottlieb, J.S. Leichliter, and L.E. Markowitz. (2015). Trends and patterns of sexual behaviors among adolescents and adults aged 14 to 59 years, United States, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 42, 20-26.
http://journals.lww.com/stdjournal/Abstract/2015/01000/Trends_and_Patterns_of_Sexual_Behaviors_Among.6.aspx
Miller, W.C., C.A. Ford, M. Morris, M.S. Handcock, J.L. Schmitz, M.M. Hobbs, M.S. Cohen, K.M. Harris, and J.R. Udry. (2004). Prevalence of chlamydial and gonococcal infections among young adults in the United States, JAMA, 291, 2229-2236.
Passel, J.S., W. Wang, and P. Taylor. (2010). One-in-seven new U.S. marriages is interracial or interethnic, Pew Research Center, Social & Demographic Trends,
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/06/04/ii-overview-2/
Skirda, A. (2010). La traite des Slaves. L'esclavage des Blancs du VIIIe au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Les Éditions de Paris Max Chaleil.
Soma, J. (2013). Interactive Singles Map
http://jonathansoma.com/singles/
Posted by Peter Frost at 11:44 AM 16 comments:
Labels: gender reassignment, mate choice, polygyny, pornography, sex ratio at birth, single men, single women, white slavery
Gender reassignment of children. Does it really help?
"Flower boy" (on the right) - In 70-80% of cases, gender confusion will clear up on its own (Wikicommons: Recoplado).
I remember feeling some attraction to girls in Grade 2, but it really wasn't until Grade 8 that everything fell into place. I'm talking about puberty. Before high school, I was a boy and not a young man.
I didn't consider myself abnormal. Yes, many boys in Grade 8 had deeper voices, as well as signs of facial hair, but just as many did not, and a few would not have been "sexually functional." As for the earlier grades, certainly before Grade 7, most of us could have passed for little girls—just change the clothing, the hairstyle, and voilà!
Today, puberty is starting earlier. Ontario schools will begin explaining it in ... Grade 4. This falling age is largely due to the changing ethnic and racial origins of the student population, as well as things like overeating (in the case of girls) and perhaps our more sexualized culture.
Nonetheless, a lot of boys remain pre-pubertal throughout most of primary school, and some may have trouble coming to terms with their male identity. They experience what is called "gender confusion." This is hardly surprising. Testosterone levels are low before puberty, and some boys, especially the ones who have been less androgenized in the womb, may genuinely feel like a girl. I also suspect that modern culture makes things worse by creating expectations that even adult males have trouble meeting. Go to any fitness center and you'll see plenty of young men trying to bring their bodies into line with the "rippled look."
Gender confusion, known medically as gender identity disorder, affects children of both sexes but boys much more so, at least in North America. One clinic reported a ratio of 6.6 boys for each girl, the sex imbalance being attributed partly to greater intolerance of feminine behavior in boys (Zucker et al., 1997). This disorder seems to be partly heritable, although we face a similar problem of perspective here as with the referral statistics (Heylens et al., 2012). To what degree does the heritable component reside in how these children objectively behave, and not in one behavior that may or may not alarm another person, usually a parent? In practice, it's the latter. It's whatever behavior that makes a parent bring the child to a clinician's office.
Gender reassignment
We now come to the issue of medical treatment, specifically "gender reassignment." This treatment has recently been condemned by Dr. Paul McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital:
Then there is the subgroup of very young, often prepubescent children who notice distinct sex roles in the culture and, exploring how they fit in, begin imitating the opposite sex. Misguided doctors at medical centers including Boston's Children's Hospital have begun trying to treat this behavior by administering puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex-change surgeries less onerous—even though the drugs stunt the children's growth and risk causing sterility. (McHugh, 2015)
Is treatment really necessary? McHugh points out: "When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London's Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings."
McHugh has been accused by the transgender community of misrepresenting the facts:
McHugh also mischaracterizes the treatment of gender nonconforming children. As McHugh states, most gender nonconforming children do not identify as transgender in adulthood. However, those who receive puberty blocking drugs do not do so until puberty, when trans identity is likely to persist. These drugs allow adolescents and their parents to work with doctors to achieve the best outcome. This approach was demonstrated to be successful in research in the Netherlands before being adopted widely in the U.S. (WPATH, 2015)
The above text is disingenuous in two ways. First, puberty-blocking drugs are not administered until puberty for an obvious reason: they would be ineffective earlier. The decision to use them, however, is made at an earlier time and often much earlier. Second, these drugs keep hormonal levels from rising, thus maintaining the boy or girl in the same hormonal state and possibly in the same state of gender confusion. Logically, one should wait a few years to see what effect puberty might have.
Is the use of these drugs legitimate? We're talking about a radical intervention in the normal process of maturation, and this intervention begins before the age of consent, i.e., 16 years of age in most Western countries. Moreover, the eventual gender reassignment will never be complete. Although it's possible to turn a male into a semblance of a female, such a "female" can never bear children. This isn't a minor point, given that many male transsexuals wish to maintain a male heterosexual orientation, even to the point of marrying and becoming fathers.
For all these reasons, use of these drugs should be delayed until adulthood, when consent becomes morally defendable, when the risks of sterility are lower, and when the gender confusion may prove to be transitory.
A boy is not a little man
The transgender community likes to talk a good talk about "gender fluidity." Ironically, such fluidity is reduced by gender reassignment, which imposes a relatively unchanging adult dichotomy on pre-pubertal individuals who are going through rapid physical and psychological change. This brings us to a second irony. The transgender community complains about how it was once medically pathologized. Yet here it is pathologizing cases of gender confusion that are not unusual among young children and that are consistent with normal child development.
We should remember that both sexes begin with a body plan that is more female than male. This plan is modified at two points of the life cycle: first, in the womb, when the body's tissues are primed by a surge of androgens or estrogens; and then at puberty, when boys and girls diverge in the levels of their circulating sex hormones, which in turn trigger profound changes in growth and development.
This truth was known to our ancestors. As late as the early 20th century, people accepted that little boys are more akin to little girls than to grown men. This was why both sexes would be dressed in female clothing until school age, and a mother would often boast that her little boy was as pretty as a girl.
[…] infants and small children had for hundreds of years been dressed alike, in frocks, so that family portraits from previous centuries made it difficult to tell the young boys from the girls. "Breeching," as a rite of passage, was a sartorial definition of maleness and incipient adulthood, as, in later periods, was the all-important move from short pants to long. Gender differentiation grew increasingly desirable to parents as time went on. By the closing years of the twentieth century the sight of little boys in frilly dresses has become unusual and somewhat risible; a childhood photograph of macho author Ernest Hemingway, aged almost two, in a white dress and large hat festooned with flowers, was itself the focus of much amused critical commentary when reproduced in a best-selling biography—especially when it was disclosed that Hemingway's mother had labelled the photograph of her son "summer girl." (Garber, 1997, pp. 1-2)
Hemingway hated those baby pictures, as well as the stories about how his mother would call him "Ernestine" and tell strangers that he and his sister were twin girls. During her declining years, he threatened to cut off his financial support if she ever gave an interview about his childhood (Onion, 2013; Winer, 2008). He saw her as the typical Victorian mother who sought to momify and symbolically castrate her male offspring. With other writers of his time, particularly psychologists and advice columnists, he helped bring about a reform of sexual conventions that, among other things, would sweep away the custom of cross-dressing little boys.
(see here for an early childhood photo of Hemingway and here for similar photos of H.P. Lovecraft
I remember how I felt seeing such photos when doing research on my family tree. What the?? Today, I feel differently: this cross-dressing strikes me as being healthy, even beautiful in its own way. It avoids the problem of imposing male identity too early in life and thereby forcing slower-developing boys to choose between the identity imposed by society and the one generated by their own mental state—which may still be insufficiently male. It is this situation, and the resulting gender confusion, that is now putting many boys at risk of gender reassignment. Yet there's nothing wrong with most of them. They just need more time to grow up.
As an extreme example, let's take the case of "pseudohermaphrodites"—males who look female at birth because their penis resembles a clitoris and because their testes remain inside the body. They are typically raised as girls until puberty, at which time the penis grows in size, the testes descend into the scrotum, and they become like men physically and psychologically. When 18 pseudohermaphrodites were studied in the Dominican Republic, it was found that 16 of them had made the transition from girlhood to manhood with no evidence of psychosexual maladjustment (Imperato-Mcginley et al., 1979). A similar situation often arose among Canada's Inuit whenever a newborn received the name of a deceased relative. If the child was a boy and the relative a woman, it would be raised as a girl until puberty and as a man thereafter. Such individuals became not only husbands and fathers but also respected shamans (Saladin d'Anglure, 2005).
In short, gender confusion in childhood poses no threat to normal child development. Indeed, whether we acknowledge it or not, all boys start off being more like little girls than the men they will become. This "early girlhood" may actually play a key role in their psychosexual development, and our ancestors might have had good reasons to believe that boyhood begins later. But that raises a troubling question: by trying to masculinize this early phase of life, have we opened the door to unknown consequences?
So if you have a young boy who's confused about his gender identity, the chances are very good that he'll successfully transition to manhood ... as long as he's not given puberty-blocking drugs. This is not a medical condition that needs treatment.
Garber, M.B. (1997). Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety, Psychology Press.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=eeASHasS0oUC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Heylens, G., G. De Cuypere, K.J. Zucker, C. Schelfaut, E.Elaut, H. Vanden Bossche, E. De Baere, and G. T'Sjoen. (2012). Gender identity disorder in twins: A review of the case report literature, The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 9, 751-757.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02567.x/abstract
Imperato-Mcginley, J., R.E. Petersen, T. Gautier, and E. Sturia. (1979). Male pseudohermaphroditism secondary to 5a-reductase deficiency—A model for the role of androgens in both the development of the male phenotype and the evolution of a male gender identity, Journal of Steroid Biochemistry, 11, 637-645.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022473179900931
McHugh, P. (2015). Transgender surgery isn't the solution, The Wall Street Journal, June 12
http://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120
Onion, R. (2013). Pages from Hemingway's baby books, Slate, July 23
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/07/23/hemingway_scrapbooks_grace_hemingway_s_records_of_son_ernest_hemingway_s.html
Saladin d'Anglure, B. (2005). The 'Third Gender' of the Inuit, Diogenes, 52, 134-144.
http://dio.sagepub.com/content/52/4/134.short
Winer, A. (2008). Why Hemingway used to wear women's clothing, Mental_floss, December 18
http://mentalfloss.com/article/20396/why-hemingway-used-wear-womens-clothing
WPATH (2015). Wall Street Journal Editorial Critiques Transgender Health July 2, 2014
http://www.wpath.org/site_page.cfm?pk_association_webpage_menu=1635&pk_association_webpage=4905
Zucker, K.J., S.J. Bradley, and M. Sanikhani. (1997). Sex differences in referral rates of children with gender identity disorder: some hypotheses, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 25, 217-227.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1025748032640#page-1
Posted by Peter Frost at 10:13 AM 5 comments:
Labels: gender confusion, gender identity disorder, gender reassignment, prenatal hormones, pubertal timing, sexual identity, transsexuals
Feeling the other's pain
In the Reign of Terror, by Jessie Macgregor (1891). We don't respond equally to signs of emotional distress in other people (Wikicommons)
We like to think that all people feel empathy to the same degree. In reality, it varies a lot from one person to the next, like most mental traits. We are half-aware of this when we distinguish between "normal people" and "psychopaths," the latter having an abnormally low capacity for empathy. The distinction is arbitrary, like the one between "tall" and "short." As with stature, empathy varies continuously among the individuals of a population, with psychopaths being the ones we find beyond an arbitrary cut-off point and who probably have many other things wrong with them. By focusing on the normal/abnormal dichotomy, we lose sight of the variation that occurs among so-called normal individuals. We probably meet people every day who have a low capacity for empathy and who nonetheless look and act normal. Because they seem normal, we assume they are as empathetic as we are. They aren't.
Like most mental traits, empathy is heritable, its heritability being estimated at 68% (Chakrabarti and Baron-Cohen, 2013). It has two distinct components: cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Some researchers identify a third component, pro-social behavior, but its relationship to the other two seems tangential.
Cognitive empathy appears to be the evolutionarily older component of the two. It is the capacity to understand how another person is feeling and then predict how different actions will affect that person's emotional state. But this capacity can be used for selfish purposes. Examples are legion: the con artist; many telemarketers; the rapist who knows how to charm his victims ...
Affective empathy is the younger component, having developed out of cognitive empathy. It is the capacity not just to understand another person's emotional state but also to identify with it. A person with high affective empathy will try to help someone in distress not because such help is personally advantageous or legally required, but because he or she is actually feeling the same distress.
Affective empathy may have initially evolved as a means to facilitate relations between a mother and her children. Later, and to varying degrees, it became extended to other human relationships. This evolutionary trajectory is perceptible in young children:
Children do not display empathic concern toward all people equally. Instead, they show bias toward individuals and members of groups with which they identify. For instance, young children of 2 years of age display more concern-related behaviors toward their mother than toward unfamiliar people. Moreover, children (aged 3-9 years) view social categories as marking patterns of interpersonal obligations. They view people as responsible only to their own group members, and consider within-group harm as wrong regardless of explicit rules, but they view the wrongness of between-group harm as contingent on the presence of such rules. (Decety and Cowell, 2014)
Similarly, MRI studies show that adults are much more likely to experience emotional distress when they see loved ones in pain than when they see strangers in pain. A stranger in distress will evoke a response only to the degree that the observer has a high capacity for affective empathy. The higher the capacity the more it will encompass not only loved ones but also less related individuals, including total strangers and nonhumans:
Humans can feel empathic concern for a wide range of 'others', including for nonhuman animals, such as pets (in the Western culture) or tamagotchi (in Japan). This is especially the case when signs of vulnerability and need are noticeable. In support of this, neural regions involved in perceiving the distress of other humans, such as the anterior cingulate cortex and insula, are similarly activated when witnessing the distress of domesticated animals (Decety and Cowell, 2014)
While we associate affective empathy with morality, the two are not the same, and there are situations where the two come into conflict. In most societies, kinship is the main organizing principle of social relations, and morality affirms this principle by spelling out the duties to one's parents, one's kin, and one's ethny. The importance of kinship may be seen in the Ten Commandments, which we wrongfully assume to be universal in application. We are told we must not kill, steal, lie, or commit adultery if the victims are "thy neighbor," which is explained as meaning "the children of thy people" (Leviticus 19:18). High-empathy individuals may thus subvert morality if they view all human distress as being equal in value. At best, they will neglect loved ones in order to help an indefinitely large number of needy strangers. At worst, strangers may develop strategies to exploit high-empathy individuals, i.e., to milk them for all they are worth.
Mapping empathy in the human brain
Empathy appears to arise from specific mechanisms in the brain, and not from a more general property, like general intelligence. It is produced by a sequence of mental events, beginning with "mirror neurons" that fire in tandem with the observed behavior of another person, thereby generating a mental model of this behavior. Copies of the model are sent elsewhere in the brain to decode the nature and purpose of the behavior and to predict the sensory consequences for the observed person. Affective empathy goes further by feeding these predicted consequences into the observer's emotional state (Carr et al., 2003).
Recent MRI research has confirmed that empathy is associated with increased development of certain regions within the brain. Individuals who score high on cognitive empathy have denser gray matter in the midcingulate cortex and the adjacent dorsomedial prefontal cortex, whereas individuals who score high on affective empathy have denser gray matter in the insula cortex (Eres et al.,2015). A high capacity for affective empathy is also associated with a larger amygdala, which seems to control the way we respond to facial expressions of fear and other signs of emotional distress (Marsh et al., 2014).
Can these brain regions be used to measure our capacity for affective empathy? Two studies, one American and one English, have found that "conservatives" tend to have a larger right amygdala (Kanai et al.,2011; Schreiber et al., 2013). This has been spun, perhaps predictably, as proof that the political right is fear-driven (Hibbing et al., 2014). A likelier explanation is that "conservatives" are disproportionately drawn from populations that have, on average, a higher capacity for affective empathy.
Do human populations vary in their capacity for affective empathy?
Is it possible, then, that this capacity varies among human populations, just as it varies among individuals? I have argued that affective empathy is more adaptive in larger, more complex societies where kinship obligations can no longer restrain behavior that seriously interferes with the ability of individuals to live together peacefully and constructively (Frost, 2015). Whereas affective empathy was originally expressed mainly between a mother and her children, it has become progressively extended in some populations to a wider range of interactions. This evolutionary change may be compared to the capacity to digest milk sugar: initially, this capacity was limited to early childhood, but in dairy cattle cultures it has become extended into adulthood.
I have also argued that this evolutionary change has gone the farthest in Europeans north and west of the Hajnal Line (Frost, 2014a). In these populations, kinship has been a weaker force in organizing social relations, at least since the early Middle Ages and perhaps since prehistoric times. There has thus been selection for mechanisms, like affective empathy, that can regulate social interaction between unrelated individuals. This selection may have intensified during two time periods:
- An initial period corresponding to the emergence of complex hunter/fisher/gatherers during the Mesolithic along the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic. Unlike other hunter-gatherers, who were typically small bands of individuals, these people were able to form large coastal communities by exploiting abundant marine resources. Such communities were beset, however, by the problem of enforcing rule compliance on unrelated people, the result being strong selection for rule-compliant individuals who share certain predispositions, namely affective empathy, proneness to guilt, and willingness to obey moral rules and to expel anyone who does not (Frost, 2013a; Frost, 2013b).
- A second period corresponding to the spread of Christianity among Northwest Europeans, particularly with the outbreeding, population growth, and increase in manorialism that followed the Dark Ages (hbd chick, 2014). The result was a "fruitful encounter" between the two: on the one hand, Christianity, with its emphasis on internalized morality, struck a responsive chord in these populations; on the other hand, the latter modified Christianity, increasing its emphasis on faith, compassion, and original sin (Frost, 2014b).
Recent research has brought much insight into the nature of empathy, which should no longer be viewed as being simply a noble precept. We now understand it as the outcome of a sequence of events in specific regions of the brain. We have also learned that individuals vary in their capacity for empathy and that most of this variability is heritable, as is the case with most mental traits. Moreover, empathy has two components—cognitive and affective—and the strength of one in relation to the other likewise varies. Although we often consider affective empathy to be desirable, it can have perverse and even pathological effects in some contexts.
Carr, L., M. Iacoboni, M-C. Dubeau, J.C. Mazziotta, and G.L. Lenzi. (2003). Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 100, 5497-5502.
http://www.ucp.pt/site/resources/documents/ICS/GNC/ArtigosGNC/AlexandreCastroCaldas/7_CaIaDuMaLe03.pdf
Chakrabarti, B. and S. Baron-Cohen. (2013). Understanding the genetics of empathy and the autistic spectrum, in S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, M. Lombardo. (eds). Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Developmental Social Neuroscience, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
http://books.google.ca/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=eTdLAAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA326&ots=fHpygaxaMQ&sig=_sJsVgdoe0hc-fFbzaW3GMEslZU#v=onepage&q&f=false
Decety, J. and J. Cowell. (2014). The complex relation between morality and empathy, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 337-339
http://spihub.org/site/resource_files/publications/spi_wp_135_decety.pdf
Eres, R., J. Decety, W.R. Louis, and P. Molenberghs. (2015). Individual differences in local gray matter density are associated with differences in affective and cognitive empathy, NeuroImage, 117, 305-310.
Frost, P. (2013a). The origins of Northwest European guilt culture, Evo and Proud, December 7
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-origins-of-northwest-european-guilt.html
Frost, P. (2013b). Origins of Northwest European guilt culture, Part II, Evo and Proud, December 14
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2013/12/origins-of-northwest-european-guilt.html
Frost, P. (2014a). Compliance with Moral Norms: a Partly Heritable Trait? Evo and Proud, April 12
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2014/04/compliance-with-moral-norms-partly.html
Frost, P. (2014b). A fruitful encounter, Evo and Proud, September 26
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2014/09/a-fruitful-encounter.html
Frost, P. (2015). Two paths, The Unz Review, January 24
http://www.unz.com/pfrost/two-paths/
hbd chick (2014). Medieval manorialism's selection pressures, hbd chick, November 19
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/medieval-manorialisms-selection-pressures/
Hibbing, J.R., K.B. Smith, and J.R. Alford. (2014). Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37, 297-350
http://www.geoffreywetherell.com/Hibbing%20et%20al%20paper%20and%20commentaries%20(1).pdf
Kanai, R., T. Feilden, C. Firth, and G. Rees. (2011). Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults, Current Biology, 21, 677 - 680.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(11)00289-2
Keysers, C. and V. Gazzola. (2014). Dissociating the ability and propensity for empathy, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 163-166.
http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/pdf/S1364-6613(13)00296-9.pdf
Marsh, A.A., S.A. Stoycos, K.M. Brethel-Haurwitz, P. Robinson, J.W. VanMeter, and E.M. Cardinale. (2014). Neural and cognitive characteristics of extraordinary altruists, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 15036-15041.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/42/15036.short
Schreiber, D., Fonzo, G., Simmons, A.N., Dawes, C.T., Flagan, T., et al. (2013). Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans. PLoS ONE 8(2): e52970.
Labels: affective empathy, amygdala, cognitive empathy, mirror neurons, morality, Northwest Europe
Imagining the future, imagining death
On Star Trek, African Americans were underrepresented among guest actors, who were just as likely to be part-Asian actresses like France Nuyen (Wikicommons)
Only six years separate the production of Logan's Run (1976) from that of Blade Runner (1982), yet those intervening years form a watershed in how science fiction imagined the future. The first movie depicts the year 2274. The setting is futuristic, and the people so beautiful that one significant detail may go unnoticed. Eventually, the penny drops—everyone is white! The future looks very different in the second movie. We're only in the year 2019, and whites are already a minority in Los Angeles; indeed, if we exclude the replicants, there don't seem to be many left.
This change in our imagined future is especially noticeable if we compare pre-1980 movies with post-1980 remakes. In The Time Machine (1960), the future is inhabited by two races: the Eloi and the Morlocks. Both are descended from present-day humans, but only the Eloi still look human. Not only that, they have fair skin and blonde hair. It's the year 802701, and those folks are still around! The Eloi look a lot different in the 2002 remake: they are now a dark-skinned people of mixed Afro-Asian descent, in contrast to the pale Morlocks. This physical difference is absent from the original film and the book itself, which repeatedly describes the Eloi as fair-skinned: "[I was] surrounded by an eddying mass of bright, soft-colored robes and shining white limbs" (Wells, 1898, p. 24); "I would watch for [Weena's] tiny figure of white and gold" (Wells, 1898, p.41); "I looked at little Weena sleeping beside me, her face white and starlike under the stars" (Wells, 1898, p. 57). In the remake, the only people who look approximately white are the Über-Morlocks ... and they feed on human flesh. A fair-skinned viewer would be torn between two conflicting responses: a desire to identify with the Über-Morlocks as People Who Look Like Me and a desire to hate them as morally worthless. This situation is almost the reverse of the original story line: the Time Traveller is misled by the familiar appearance of the Eloi and develops affection for them, even love, only to realize that they are as different from him as the hideous Morlocks.
Even before 1980, we see some awareness in sci-fi that whites would, one day, no longer have societies of their own. Star Trek (1966-1969) led the way in this direction; nonetheless, the ship's crew looks overwhelmingly white, partly because the American population was still overwhelmingly white during those years and partly because of the small pool of African American actors. Very few of the latter appear in guest roles, which were just as often filled by part-Asian actresses like France Nuyen, born of a Vietnamese father and a Roma mother (Elaan of Troyius), or Barbara Luna, of mixed Filipino and European descent (Mirror, Mirror). This was the 1960s, when antiracism was still taking shape and partly driven, apparently, by a desire to see exotic-looking women.
All the same, those years saw a general tendency to raise the visibility of African Americans on both the big screen and the little screen. Sci-fi was no exception, particularly by the 1980s. In the Alien series (1979, 1986, 1992), the casts are multiracial, although whites still predominate. Just as significantly, the taboo against a non-white killing a white is broken, albeit in a seemingly acceptable way:
In Alien itself the representative of the company is an android named Ash (something white) - he is a white man who is not human. This is revealed when an African-American crew member pulls off Ash's head: the black man reveals the nothingness of the white man and destroys him by depriving him of his brain, the site of his spirit. The crew bring this severed head back to temporary electronic life to find out how the alien can be destroyed. He tells them that it is indestructible and one of the crew realizes that he admires it. 'I admire its purity', he says, adding in a cut to an extreme, intensifying close-up, 'unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality.' Purity and absence of affect, the essence of the aspiration of whiteness, said in a state of half-life by a white man who has never really been alive anyway. (Dyer, 2000)
It is really only with Blade Runner (1982) that popular culture began to acknowledge the imminence of white demise. We think of the 1980s as the Reagan Era, a time when White America pushed back after a long retreat during the previous two decades. In reality, the retreat picked up speed. The endgame was already apparent to anyone who gave it much thought, like Blade Runner's scriptwriters. Thus, in the year 2019, we see whites inhabiting a world that is no longer theirs, with some like Sebastian living alone within the decaying shell of their past—the grand but neglected building where most of the action takes place. The least pathetic white is Rachael, a replicant. She also seems the least WASP-looking with her dark hair and her family photos, which suggest a southern European, Armenian, or Jewish origin. The photos themselves are a lie—like the loner Deckard she has no real collective identity, but she does have an imagined one.
We now come to a common theme of love stories: how a fallen man is redeemed by the love of a woman. Here, the fallen man is Deckard—a remnant of a White America in terminal decline. The woman is Rachael, who wants to give him a future of love, marriage, and family, even though this prospect is no more viable than her own imaginary past.
Rachael offers the possibility of developing true emotions [...] The two dark 'whites' [Rachael and Gaff] offer something definite, real, physical to the nothingness of the indifferently fair white man. In the first version, Deckard and Rachael escape, the film ending with a lyrical (if naff) flight away from Los Angeles and perhaps Earth: the dark woman's discovery of true feeling (she weeps) redeems the fair - truly white - man's emptiness. This ending is absent from the 'director's cut'; the dark woman cannot redeem the fair man (Dyer, 2000)
Blade Runner is a film noir with no happy ending in the traditional sense. Even if the two of them did escape to build a life together, it's hard to see how this new life could evolve into anything more than two deracinated individuals with no past and no clear future. Can Rachael have children? Doubtful. It's also doubtful whether Deckard would want to settle down and become a family man. What would he do to support a family? Go back to hunting replicants?
The film does not address these questions. Nor should it. Whether you are for or against, white demise is something to be addressed collectively, and not at the level of individuals. This point is made in the writings of Richard Dyer and other postmodernists who welcome a future of collective death and feel that whites should come to terms with it:
Whites often seem to have a special relation with death, to yearn for it but also to bring it to others. [...] I have been wary of dwelling on the fearfulness - sometimes horrible, sometimes bleak - of the white association with death. To do so risks making whites look tragic and sad and thus comes perilously close to a 'me-too', 'we're oppressed', 'poor us' position that seems to equalise suffering, to ignore that active role of whites in promulgating inequality and suffering. It could easily be taken as giving us a let-out from acknowledging the privilege and effortless power of even the most lowly of those designated as white. Yet, if the white association with death is the logical outcome of the way in which whites have had power, then perhaps recognition of our deathliness may be the one thing that will make us relinquish it.
This sounds ominous. It strangely resembles what some people wrote in the 19th century about the disappearing American Indian and the disappearing Australian Aborigines. It was all for the best, some argued. As "savages" declined in numbers and disappeared, their lands would be resettled and better societies created. Today, whites are being seen in this light. Their departure from existence will purportedly bring an end to inequality and suffering, thus making the world a better place.
So goes the narrative, and few seem to be challenging it, no matter how outrageous it becomes.
Imagined reality often foretells the real thing—not because the imaginers have a special knack for prediction, but because they end up playing an active role in shaping the future. The death of White America was already being imagined over three decades ago by people who, ultimately, had become reconciled to that fate and even looked forward to it. Moreover, this endgame seems to have struck a responsive chord among the public. As Dyer (2000) argues, "the death of whiteness is, as far as white identity goes, the cultural dominant of our times, that we really do feel we're played out."
King, C.R. and D.J. Leonard. (2004). Is neo white? Reading race, watching the trilogy, in M. Kapell and W.G. Doty (eds). Jacking in to the Matrix Franchise: cultural reception and interpretation, (pp. 32-46), A&C Black.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=ETf0her6UDgC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Dyer, R. (2000). Whites are nothing: Whiteness, representation and death, in I. Santaolalla (ed.) "New" Exoticisms: Changing Patterns in the Construction of Otherness, (pp. 135-155), Rodopi
https://books.google.ca/books?id=ew0q5AxMfkEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Wells, H.G. (1898). The Time Machine, online edition
http://www.literaturepage.com/read/thetimemachine.html
Posted by Peter Frost at 2:14 PM 4 comments:
Labels: Blade Runner, Logan's Run, Richard Dyer, Star Trek, White Americans


The content of the proposed educational activity must relate to technical services—cataloging, serials, acquisitions, preservation, processing, or management of technical services. While this award may be used for short-term continuing education, it will not be awarded to pay for training required of an applicant by an employer. Typically funded activities can include costs for workshops, conferences, coursework, professional meetings, or research towards the publication of an article or report. Examples of organizations that provide professional development that may apply include: Academic Library Association of Ohio (ALAO), NOTSL, NORASIST, Ohio Library Council, OHIONET, Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians (OVGTSL), OCLC, OhioLINK and the regional library associations (e.g., NORWELD, NEO-RLS).
NOTSL has historically awarded many scholarships to students to defray the costs of tuition for university courses, and will continue to do so. However, in recognition of the current financial situation of many libraries that has resulted in reduced continuing education budgets, at least one 2011 NOTSL Scholarship will be awarded to a technical services practitioner who is seeking funding for an activity that is not a higher education library science course. Applicants should also indicate if their activity may be submitted toward the requirements for their Ohio Public Librarian Certification. The greater the involvement in technical services librarianship, whether through work or school, the greater the preference that will be given to an applicant. Preference will also be given to applicants from Northern Ohio.
The 2011 Scholarships apply to activities during the 2011 calendar year only. The deadline for the 2011 award is Monday, December 6, 2010 and recipients will receive the scholarship award notification by Monday, January 17, 2011.


Envision a building strengthened by the tall timbers of 24 tree species, each with a story to tell. A dynamic theater and interactive exhibits that tell the story of the USFS and its partners, engaging you from the moment you step inside.
From the Missoula Children's Theatre International Tour project to local activities for kids and adults in Missoula, MCT programs are all designed to develop the personal and professional skills and goals of the participants.


msg (str) – commit message in case commit=True . A default message, containing the list of files that were added, is created by default.
This command is only available in a v6 git-annex repository.
Either the setting is returned, or an empty string if there is none.
Keys are special remore UUIDs, values are dicts with arguments for git-annex enableremote . This includes at least the 'type' and 'name' of a special remote. Each type of special remote may require addition arguments that will be available in the respective dictionary.
Note: The term 'managed branch' is used to make clear it's meant to be more general than the v6 'adjusted branch'.


There are 5 quotes by Kyle Gallner at 95quotes.com. Find your favorite quotations and top quotes by Kyle Gallner from this hand-picked collection . Feel free to share these quotes and sayings on Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr & Twitter or any of your favorite social networking sites.
I do not have a fear of heights at all. I was the kid who would see how high I could get in the trees. I was always climbing something. But I wasn't allowed to look down; I had to step off completely blind and backwards.
Birthplace: West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.


Mexican beer Corona is the most valuable brand in Latin America, overtaking Brazil's Skol, which has held the title for the past two years, according to the sixth-annual BrandZ™ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands announced today by WPP with data prepared by Kantar.
Corona took the top spot in the ranking after seeing an 8% brand value growth to $8.3 billion, edging out Skol, which grew by just 1%. The brand is sold in more than 180 countries and its success and global growth have been helped by Corona's ability to generate an affiliation with the "fun-loving" attributes associated with Mexican and Latin culture.
The 2017 BrandZ LatAm ranking reflected the difficult time faced by many brands in the region with a 22% decline in total brand value. In the 2018 ranking, total brand value increased by 18% to $130.8 billion, boosted by an impressive performance from the strongest and healthiest brands, those that believed in their purpose and stayed relevant to the consumers.
Chilean retail giant Falabella, for example, has grown its brand value by 26% to $5.4 billion, by, among other initiatives, being the first in the category to develop an online platform with full range of products, as well as offering a valuable experience that is continuously reviewed and combined with a clear purpose of knowing and satisfying increasingly demanding consumers.
While the economy has undoubtedly contributed to this year's more positive ranking – GDP growth of 1.3% across the continent -- it is only part of the story. Latin American brands have also benefited from a strong affinity and pride among local consumers for brands from the region, as they believe they better understand their emotional needs.
This bodes well for the growth of own-label in a region where it has struggled. Currently just 1% of FMCG goods sold in LatAm are retailer own-brands compared to 30% in Europe. However, with 70% of modern trade channels owned by local Latin American retailers rather than global names, modern chains such as Falabella, as well as the rapidly growing discounter sector, should push this figure higher.
The rise of local giants with strong brands that are capable of challenging global competitors is a trend that's also been observed in other BrandZ rankings from China to Indonesia.
This year's BrandZ Latin American ranking, for example, shows a strong performance for local financial institutions (up 46%) and the four beer brands in the Top 10 – Corona, Skol, Brahma and Aguila – all controlled by global giant AB InBev, have maintained and invested in their local characteristics enabling them to boost brand value.
"Latin American brands have an in-depth understanding of their local consumers; the speed at which they can tap into local consumers' needs with good products and strong marketing campaigns has made many of them more successful and relevant in the region than their global counterparts. As a result, Latin Americans have great respect and pride in these brands," said Kantar's Eduardo Tomiya.
There were eight new entries in the Top 50 this year: Globo (no. 8), Ypé (no. 33), Azteca (no. 37), Embratel (no. 40), Lojas Americanas (no. 46), Net (no. 48) and Porto Seguro (no. 50). All are from Brazil, except Azteca which is based in Mexico. Communications provider Tigo Une was formed from the merger of Tigo and Une in Colombia, which were previously listed separately, and is now No 27.
Mexico dominates but Brazil is catching up: For the fifth year the ranking was dominated by Mexico, which contributed 35% of the total brand value of the ranking. Brazil however was close behind at 34%, with strong performances by its retail and financial players. Chile was in third position at 16%, followed by Colombia at 7%.
FinTechs threaten established financial players: In Brazil, Nubank started this revolution and became the first billion-dollar startup in the country, followed by Banco Original and Banco Neon. Well-positioned brands such as the Brazilian banks Bradesco and Itaú and the Chilean bank Banco de Chile are still strong brands in the consumers' minds and are using these attributes aligned with local needs to fight back by launching their own digital platforms.
E-commerce is a real threat to established retail: Rising internet usage and mobile access in many markets, up 14% every year across the region since 2010, represents a real threat to bricks and mortar stores. While the Retail category saw growth of 2% in this year's ranking, the transition to a mixed retail economy is still in progress.
"Disruption has already spawned a new wave of brands across Latin America and while they have not yet displaced some of the more established names, rising internet access and mobile uptake is giving them greater market access. The power of a strong brand combined with its own digital platform will be required to future proof many of today's big players," said Kantar's Gabriel Castellanos.
To download a copy of The BrandZ™ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands 2018 report, charts and photography, visit: www.brandz.com. The mobile app can be downloaded via www.brandz.com/mobile.


text:
You Don't Know The First Thing About Love
By Anonymous, March 8th 2013
You're that I'm-not-looking-for-a-relationship type. You're the fine-on-my-own-and-I-do-what-I-want type. The type that feels like sex is liberating, especially when it's casual and selfish. You make it clear you're not interested in "anything serious" and you draw the line in the sand. When the other person starts to inevitably develop feelings, you push back and push him away.
Until.
Someone new catches you off guard with a witty comment or a hidden talent. And suddenly you're intrigued, and you're bored with the last one because he still wants to date and you keep repeating yourself, so you might as well explore something else. And you actually give this new person the time of day, because he's smart, and you can tell.
You agree to see him, because why not? And suddenly you're both awkward and eager, and you realize you have more in common than you ever expected. You wonder where he's been hiding, and what's taken him so long. And why your heart jumps out of your chest when he looks at you with that strong, steady gaze. And why your knees buckle when his hand brushes yours.
He says, "I love you" too soon. You don't know how to respond. You're nervous, you're overwhelmed, but somehow, it feels right. You say it back.
He says he wants to spend his life with you. He says he's lucky, that he'll buy you a ring if he could, and he's so glad he found you. He holds you like he's never letting go.
You look through his eyes and into his soul, and you know it's the truth. You know he believes it, that he's never felt so powerfully connected to another human being. You're impossibly happy.
And then you're not. Because life gets in the way, as it tends to do, and all your passion and affection is based on that one time in that one restaurant when he said, "I love you," and you thought you should love him too.
You decided on him: he gave you everything, and you said, "It's enough." You forgot to be the fine-on-my-own type and morphed into the he's-responsible-for-my-happiness type. Looking back, you're not surprised it fell apart.
He gave you everything, and it wasn't enough. You blamed him for that. You drove him away. And when he went, you felt like dying. Like the earth could swallow you up and maybe then you'd be at peace.
You forgot how to stand on your own two feet. And when the rug was ripped out from underneath, you and your illusions came crashing right down.
Did you love him? How could you, when your relationship was so clouded by an insatiable desire to be the best and most important thing in his life. When your self-worth was built upon his worship.
That's not love.
That's codependence, insecurity, obsession, and attachment. It's not love and it never will be, not until you understand that love is about giving and not receiving, that it doesn't matter if he walks away because neither of you were happy to begin with.
You go back to being the fine-on-my-own-and-I-do-what-I-want type. You sleep with someone random, just because you can. Then somebody interesting comes along, and history repeats itself.
Bad Relationships Love & Sex
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
An Afghan Coding Bootcamp Becomes a Lifeline Under Taliban Rule
ByIshu Mishra	 January 8, 2022
Four months after the Afghan government fell to the Taliban, 22-year-old Asad Asadullah settled into a new routine.
A former computer science student from his hometown in Afghanistan's northern Samangan province began and finished sticking to his laptop screen every day.
Since the end of October, Asadullah has been participating in the Virtual Coding Bootcamp organized by Codeweekend, a volunteer-run community of Afghan tech enthusiasts, with materials donated by the Norwegian company Scrimba, which offers online programming workshops.
In a few days, Asadullah took a screen break for the game of pickup soccer, but usually he didn't see his friends that much anymore. He explains that under the Taliban regime, "old friends are getting very frustrated," and that was all he could handle. Instead, he tells me, "My life is on my computer."
Asadullah is one of millions of young Afghans whose plans for life and future were turned upside down last August when the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan. Asadullah had two semesters of college left when the capital fell and he was thinking about his post-graduation plans. He wasn't picky about his first job; Anything that lets him save some money will do. But he had big plans: Asadullah wanted to start his own software company and share his love for computer science by teaching university and high school students. "When I start coding, I forget everything," he says.
Today, those plans are on hold – and no one knows for how long. The country's economy is in free collapse, the United Nations warns of a drought, and in the meantime, Afghanistan's new rulers have offered its citizens little to solve.
In such dire circumstances, coding seems to be a short-term remnant of techno-optimism in bootcamp-Afghanistan. But for its participants, it offers hope for a better future – although it remains to be seen whether such a future is still possible in Afghanistan.
When the Taliban came to power in August, it was unclear what their rule would mean for the Internet in Afghanistan. Will they cut off internet access? Use social media posts અથવા or government databases ઓળખ to identify and target their former enemies? Continue to run their own increasingly effective public affairs campaign?
As it turned out, the Taliban have not cut off access to the Internet – at least not yet. Instead, online education has become one of the primary sources of education for Afghan students who can afford the Internet at home ખાસ especially women and girls whose regimes have officially banned secondary and higher education.
Some of these are streamlined with encrypted virtual classrooms by international supporters, while some are completely self-directed – learning through YouTube videos, maybe, or TED conversation playlists. And often it falls somewhere in between using a free or discounted online learning platform.
Afghan women attend the 2018 event. Photo courtesy Codeweekend.
Codeweekend's virtual bootcamp falls into this next category. The 75 participants were accepted into the group and are working their way through Scrimba's frontend developer career path, a series of 13 interactive video learning modules that handle everything from HTML and CSS basics to handling job interview questions about JavaScript or GitHub. Is.
Participants can complete the module on their own time and at their own home, with weekly checkups to answer Codeweekend volunteer guiding questions, make sure they stay on track and help with logistics as needed – including internet to keep participants online. Includes providing top-up. . According to the organizers, about 50 members of the original group are active.
Ensuring internet connectivity is one of the logistical and financial challenges of running a bootcamp in Afghanistan, even virtually. Another is struggling with power outages, which occur more frequently each winter. In an effort to address both of these issues, Codeweekend is trying to crowdfund the cost of 3G credit and backup electricity through generator and battery storage units.
But there is another issue that worries organizers: "What do the Taliban think," says Jamshid Hashimi, a software engineer who started Codeweekend with friends seven years ago. Group does not want to search. "So far, we have avoided communicating with them," he says.
In a way, the bootcamp's virtual, asynchronous format helps Codeweekend stay under the radar. It makes it easier for women whose freedom of movement has been severely curtailed under the Taliban's extreme interpretation of Islam to participate without leaving their homes અથવા or even to communicate with male participants, which also provokes Taliban anger.
Zarifa Sherzoi, 19, is one of the female participants in the boot camp. A recent high school graduate, she hoped to take the college entrance exam this semester and start university classes, but instead, she and her seven siblings spend most of their days at home. Between household chores, power outages, and her limited access to the Internet, she spends just an hour or two coding at bootcamp. But even so, it has given its days a new structure and meaning. "After the Taliban came," she recalls, "I was very tired at home every day thinking about how to end this." But since the coding bootcamp began in late October, she says, while her problems have not disappeared, "my days are good."
The virtual format has another added benefit: it allows coders outside the Afghan capital, such as Asad Asadullah, to participate.
Codeweekend bootcamp
Jamshid Hashimi in the 2015 event. Photo courtesy Codeweekend.
When Jamshid Hashimi, a 23-year-old software architect at Afghan tech company Netlinks, launched Codeweekend in June 2014 to bring Afghan programmers together, he was inspired by the techno-optimism that pervaded Kabul.
A fast company profile on the country's growing startup scene, published in 2012, describes widespread optimism as follows: In their land. "
And it wasn't just tech companies that were optimistic. CodeWeekend was part of a series of initiatives aimed at promoting youth innovation, entrepreneurship and, ultimately, engagement and leadership in building a more prosperous Afghanistan કેટલાક some funded by international donors with this clear purpose.
Other examples include the TEDxKabul program, which first arrived in Kabul in 2012 with its "spreadable ideas" (TEDx tagline), as well as other entrepreneur-centric global franchises such as the founding organization Kabul, which ran from 2014 to 2017. (Hashimi played a role in both of these programs, as I did at different times.) By 2016, Google had also come to town, and launched Google, an ambitious community for startup founders, a startup grind of entrepreneurs.
But even after some members of his own leadership team, including Hashimi, left Afghanistan, Codeweekend surpassed all these initiatives. In the seven years since its inception, the volunteer-organized group has held nearly 100 individual meetings in the offices of universities, incubators and leading Afghan technology companies. During the epidemic, like most of the world, it lasted. Virtual
Participants met to learn everything from the basics of WordPress design and JavaScript languages to data collection tools for the field. (Afghanistan's aid-driven economy had a great appetite for surveys and employed a large number of ICT workers.) They heard from local startups and engineering teams who came to present their new applications. They discussed popular books in the global tech community, such as The Passionate Programmer (Presented by Hashimi). And once, in an all-night event, open-source enthusiasts came together to stream Laracon Online, the global conference for the open-source Laravel Web Development Framework.
Then, in 2019, after years of these mostly weekend events, Codweekend decided to get bigger: the group started coding bootcamp individually. The first group ran with a pilot program of 15 developers, 12 of whom graduated from the four-month program. According to Hashimi, some got jobs as a result of their participation.
Elias Afghan, 24, hopes to become one of them after completing bootcamp. His two older brothers are also in the field-a Hashemite company working for Rapid Iteration-and partly because of their influence, he says, he never wanted to work with computers. More specifically, he hopes to find a job at a global tech company.
After a successful pilot, Codweekend organizers planned for another group, but the coronavirus slowed their efforts. Then, in late August last year, the Afghan government collapsed પરંતુ but instead of ending its plans, it gave them momentum.
"A lot of dreams were shattered when the government fell," recalls Hashimi, who by then had relocated to Vancouver, Canada. Like many Afghans in the diaspora, they had a deep "desire to do something." And what he settled on, he says, continued to help in a way he knew well: to support the Afghan coders. "People need hope," he said અને and since previous events have focused on tech or innovation, he hoped the coding boot camp would do the same.
Hashimi's goal for the bootcamp is to "provide a more sustainable way for Afghan youth to learn new and market-oriented skills," he wrote in our initial email correspondence, and with those skills to "start earning a living for himself and his family." "
For many bootcamp participants, all of whom share these goals, the prospect of online work may be their only option. In the 19-year-old Sherzoy's family, only her father currently works-and what she makes is barely enough to support her and her six siblings. After the bootcamp, she says, she hopes to "help my family and do something for my future." She adds, "I don't want to be illiterate [uneducated],
CodeWeekend participant works on the application at an event in 2018. Photo courtesy CodeWeekend.
However, most of the revenue opportunities are coming through Hashimi's other endeavors: in addition to Codeweekend, he also runs a software development company that works or contracts with more than 20 Afghan programmers, most of whom are still in Afghanistan. As well as an online freelancing platform for Afghan freelancers, Yagan Kar (Dari means "some work").
It is an adjustment to its original, pre-Taliban plans. Even after Hashimi left Afghanistan in 2016 for a master's degree in innovation management in the UK, he spent three or four months in his hometown each year supporting the growing tech community. "My dream," he says, "was the largest software house in Afghanistan."
In a way, it is still his goal. "I want to bring 1,000 jobs by 2023," he says, which will "help many freelancers and young people and developers and the economy as well."
He says "all Afghans want to leave," but the reality is that most of them are unfit for resettlement and relocation efforts. They will stay in Afghanistan and they will need a new source of income. Hashimi sees the international tech community as a potential provider of that revenue, through both remote and freelance work.
But all this will take time, and the country will face more urgent challenges.
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In many ways, it is difficult to imagine a world of about 8 billion people and $ 85 trillion in annual goods and services without this water engineering. Cairo, Phoenix and other large desert cities never developed to their present size. California's Sunny Central Valley would not have become such an abundant producer of vegetables,…
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Discussion GOP 'groomer' smears are sparking a new wave of anti-LGBT+ violence: 'This is going to lead to tragedy' | The Independent
posted by GCRadFem ⚢ in GenderCritical
[–] GCRadFem [OP] ⚢ 14 points
I'm so proud of myself! I figured out how to do an archive of the article. I'm 71 and from the age of mimeographing and carbon paper for copies😊.
Mastery!
https://archive.ph/6mhq3
I'm so proud of myself! I figured out how to do an archive of the article. I'm 71 and from the age of mimeographing and carbon paper for copies😊. Mastery! https://archive.ph/6mhq3
[–] Hera 39 points
While I'm a little frightened that homosexuals like myself are going to get swept up in these accusations because politicians refuse to separate the T from the LGB, all I have to say to the T is, if you don't want to be called groomers, STOP SUPPORTING AND PLATFORMING OBVIOUS GROOMERS!!!!!
[–] GeneralLesbian 7 points
They are making false claims that the uptick of violence is connected directly to Conservatives though. The backlash was well on its way.
Thank YOU! They are making false claims that the uptick of violence is connected directly to Conservatives though. The backlash was well on its way.
My belief is that the LGB community, by allowing the inclusion of the T's, has ensured that we are included in this backlash.
Even though many conservatives remained staunchly against homosexuality, (barely) they tolerated it after the US Supreme Court decision on June 26, 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges) that the US Constitution granted same-sex couples the right to marry. It was a landmark win.
I believe that even if conservatives hated homosexuality, they tolerated us. We fit in with society at large and made no demands on heterosexual people that they could not bear (except bakers and marriage license clerks).
The T's have upended everything. As we know and discuss on a daily basis, the TRAS have made intolerable demands of the greater society. The fallout of this is that conservatives lump lesbians, gays and bisexuals along with the T"s. They make it easy for conservatives to give full voice to their anger and lingering anger at the 2015 right-to-marry decision.
Those of that allowed the T's into our LGB circle (I very sadly include myself in this) have made our lives exponentially more difficult.
My belief is that the LGB community, by allowing the inclusion of the T's, has ensured that we are included in this backlash. Even though many conservatives remained staunchly against homosexuality, (barely) they tolerated it after the US Supreme Court decision on June 26, 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges) that the US Constitution granted same-sex couples the right to marry. It was a landmark win. I believe that even if conservatives hated homosexuality, they tolerated us. We fit in with society at large and made no demands on heterosexual people that they could not bear (except bakers and marriage license clerks). The T's have upended everything. As we know and discuss on a daily basis, the TRAS have made intolerable demands of the greater society. The fallout of this is that conservatives lump lesbians, gays and bisexuals along with the T"s. They make it easy for conservatives to give full voice to their anger and lingering anger at the 2015 right-to-marry decision. Those of that allowed the T's into our LGB circle (I very sadly include myself in this) have made our lives exponentially more difficult.
[–] OwnLyingEyes 17 points
I feel sick for all of the lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men who are getting dragged into this blamelessly. I simultaneously think the current iteration of LGBTQWERTY organizations are directly culpable for enabling and platforming so many open groomers (and who have also been victimizing LGBs by forcing trans ideology on them). I'm done with Ts publicly bragging about 'hatching eggs' while people who've intentionally made public cause with them look the other way. I'm done watching measure after measure put in place to circumvent children's parents and legal guardians in pursuit of transing them. I'm done watching people cry bigotry and whine about being subjected to the same background checks anyone working with children is expected to go through when it comes to shit like Drag Queen Story Hour, especially after multiple sex offenders have been exposed within the program (and I'm tired of people pushing Drag Queen Story Hour like it should be a thing at all, pushing it into schools, pushing this sexualized misogynistic shit on kids).
LGBTQWERTY orgs? Maybe actually serve the people you claim to represent and STOP TARGETING CHILDREN WITH INAPPROPRIATE SHIT. Just fucking stop. Enact real safeguarding, clean house, boot the creeps and predators out. Stop championing fetishists, pedophiles, rapists, murderers. Stop steamrolling concerned parents. Stop seeding pornographic content into school libraries. Because whining about being called groomers when you get caught grooming kids is a bad look. This is direct backlash to your shitty, unacceptable actions, and it's fucked that innocent people are getting targeted, but the people who have been actively doing and/or enabling these things are NOT innocent and need to take (or catch) some goddamn accountability.
I feel sick for all of the lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men who are getting dragged into this blamelessly. I simultaneously think the current iteration of LGBTQWERTY organizations are directly culpable for enabling and platforming so many open groomers (and who have also been victimizing LGBs by forcing trans ideology on them). I'm done with Ts publicly bragging about 'hatching eggs' while people who've intentionally made public cause with them look the other way. I'm done watching measure after measure put in place to circumvent children's parents and legal guardians in pursuit of transing them. I'm done watching people cry bigotry and whine about being subjected to the same background checks anyone working with children is expected to go through when it comes to shit like Drag Queen Story Hour, especially after multiple sex offenders have been exposed within the program (and I'm tired of people pushing Drag Queen Story Hour like it should be a thing at all, pushing it into schools, pushing this sexualized misogynistic shit on kids). LGBTQWERTY orgs? Maybe actually serve the people you claim to represent and STOP TARGETING CHILDREN WITH INAPPROPRIATE SHIT. Just fucking stop. Enact real safeguarding, clean house, boot the creeps and predators out. Stop championing fetishists, pedophiles, rapists, murderers. Stop steamrolling concerned parents. Stop seeding pornographic content into school libraries. Because whining about being called groomers when you get caught grooming kids is a bad look. This is direct backlash to your shitty, unacceptable actions, and it's fucked that innocent people are getting targeted, but the people who have been actively doing and/or enabling these things are NOT innocent and need to take (or catch) some goddamn accountability.
[–] GCRadFem [OP] ⚢ 7 points
A thousand times yes for your comment. So very well said and every word is the truth.
Two years ago I lived in a very conservative city. One day at a red light, I looked to my left and a church on the corner had a big sign advertising drag queen story hour.
Now, I live in a woke city with blue-hairs and 6-foot tall TIMS downtown sticking out like sore thumbs.
A thousand times yes for your comment. So very well said and every word is the truth. Two years ago I lived in a very conservative city. One day at a red light, I looked to my left and a church on the corner had a big sign advertising drag queen story hour. Now, I live in a woke city with blue-hairs and 6-foot tall TIMS downtown sticking out like sore thumbs.
[–] OwnLyingEyes 4 points
This topic got me riled, haha. I lived in a small town in a red area where this whole "trying to indoctrinate kids and then denying it when parents got mad" thing played out in a microcosm years ago. Don't have much patience for this particular brand of BS left after watching that one go down.
[–] DarkLordOfTheCis 13 points
The false equivalency between stuff like "some kids have two mommies or two daddies and that's okay" and "some kids are born in the wrong body, so they need to put on experimental hormone treatments and needless cosmetic surgeries or they'll kill themselves" makes me so angry. I'm sure most homophobes are too dumb to make the distinction but either way we need to drop the TQ+.
[–] mathlover 18 points Edited
LGB Flee the T. The T is a malignancy the LGB invited in and continues to tolerate even though it is killing us.
Gay men can be inviting their erstwhile "transed" brothers to detrans and be healthy proud gay men who belong in the LGB.
Lesbians who had joined the TCult are now starting to leave in increasing numbers. We need to support them as they support other lesbians getting out of the transborg. They belong in the LGB.
The het women deceived into thinking they might garner respect and equality with men who will never want them need, along with lesbians, feminism. Real, radical analysis feminism that seeks to liberate all women from male oppression. They are not part of the LGB but need to escape the slow death of the T.
The heterosexual men who larp as women, and as "lesbians", are the cancer cells killing off the LGB, where they have never belonged, and will never belong.
So, yeah. LGB Flee the T. Loudly. Publicly. Unequivocally.
LGB Flee the T. The T is a malignancy the LGB invited in and continues to tolerate even though it is killing us. Gay men can be inviting their erstwhile "transed" brothers to detrans and be healthy proud gay men who belong in the LGB. Lesbians who had joined the TCult are now starting to leave in increasing numbers. We need to support them as they support other lesbians getting out of the transborg. They belong in the LGB. The het women deceived into thinking they might garner respect and equality with men who will never want them need, along with lesbians, feminism. Real, radical analysis feminism that seeks to liberate all women from male oppression. They are not part of the LGB but need to escape the slow death of the T. The heterosexual men who larp as women, and as "lesbians", are the cancer cells killing off the LGB, where they have never belonged, and will never belong. So, yeah. LGB Flee the T. Loudly. Publicly. Unequivocally.
[–] sylviasmushrooms 6 points
"Flee the T" should catch on if it has not already!
[–] ALesbian 7 points
Thank you. I really wish people wouldn't lump us together with the T.
[–] hellamomzilla 10 points Edited
It never fails to amuse me the outrage about the language of an opponent when that is exactly the tool the complainers used.
Oh, how dare anyone use a politically loaded term to describe people they disagree with? Tell you what -- when you stop calling people who understand human biology and child development and social contagion transphobic murderous bigoted TERFs, I'll take your view into consideration.
OK, groomers?
It never fails to amuse me the outrage about the language of an opponent when that is exactly the tool the complainers used. Oh, how dare anyone use a politically loaded term to describe people they disagree with? Tell you what -- when you stop calling people who understand human biology and child development and social contagion transphobic murderous bigoted TERFs, I'll take your view into consideration. OK, groomers?
[–] Lee-Side_ 12 points
What did people seriously expect with insisting on telling kindergarten kids that they could change their sex? Did the wokesters think that the parents wouldn't notice? It was a sneaky play, done without consultation, and without community communication. Of course it will backfire hard. You don't mess with people's kids.
EXCEPT that Disney has been messing with people's kids for years. They are the among the worst for relentlessly reinforcing sexual stereotypes to kids. Ugh, the Disney princess ideal makes me want to puke. I guess that's why they jump hard on the gender bandwagon, so they don't have to alter their product lines too much.
What did people seriously expect with insisting on telling kindergarten kids that they could change their sex? Did the wokesters think that the parents wouldn't notice? It was a sneaky play, done without consultation, and without community communication. Of course it will backfire hard. You don't mess with people's kids. EXCEPT that Disney has been messing with people's kids for years. They are the among the worst for relentlessly reinforcing sexual stereotypes to kids. Ugh, the Disney princess ideal makes me want to puke. I guess that's why they jump hard on the gender bandwagon, so they don't have to alter their product lines too much.
[–] IrishTheFrenchie 18 points
Trans activists, along with D politicians, are the ones who FALSELY connected the LGB to the blatant sexualized grooming of young schoolchildren by calling FL Parental Rights Bill "Don't Say Gay".
If anyone is putting gays and lesbians at risk, it's the TRAs/D's.
Trans activists, along with D politicians, are the ones who FALSELY connected the LGB to the blatant sexualized grooming of young schoolchildren by calling FL Parental Rights Bill "Don't Say Gay". If anyone is putting gays and lesbians at risk, it's the TRAs/D's.
[–] SakuraBlossoms 15 points Edited
They don't care about the LGB. They are more than happy to use us as a shield to pass men's rights legislation. If I had a dollar for every time they called cheating men in women's sports "LGBT rights"... why would L and B women not want fair and safe sports?!?!? It is hurting us so badly to act like LGB people are the ones who want this insanity, and they don't care at all.
They not only don't care, they truly hate us. They only used us to hitch a ride on our coattails. We were convenient to gain recognition, and then, they played leapfrog over us, kicking us in the face as they sailed over our heads.
The average person is so confused that they think that the T's are a mash-up of lesbians, gays and bisexuals.
The true tragedy and honest truth is right now, at this minute in time, they have much more power than we do.
Someone else commented here (sorry, don't recall who) said TRAS are really MRAS. Transgender TIMS (TIFS are really inconsequential to TIMS-they only trot them out if they need them for something) have much more power than LGB people do.
The proof is in the pudding as my mom would say. If they perceive any opposition? Canceled. Consequences are grave right now.
They not only don't care, they truly hate us. They only used us to hitch a ride on our coattails. We were convenient to gain recognition, and then, they played leapfrog over us, kicking us in the face as they sailed over our heads. The average person is so confused that they think that the T's are a mash-up of lesbians, gays and bisexuals. The true tragedy and honest truth is right now, at this minute in time, they have much more power than we do. Someone else commented here (sorry, don't recall who) said TRAS are really MRAS. Transgender TIMS (TIFS are really inconsequential to TIMS-they only trot them out if they need them for something) have much more power than LGB people do. The proof is in the pudding as my mom would say. If they perceive any opposition? Canceled. Consequences are grave right now.
[–] BeachLover 6 points
There is a trans identified male on youtube whose video I can't find now. Creepy AF, and tells kids hat if their parents won't give them hormones to come to "her" apartment and "she" will give you all the juicy hormones you want. My mouth hung open as I watched that. Kids are being groomed every day. After they erase sex, they will come for age. This is just the beginning.
The TQs when given OVERWHELMING evidence that they have a saturation of predatory individuals and predators, they continue trying to obfuscate, hide or deny they exist.
It's like they are a division of the Marine Corp: Leave no man behind.
I refuse to take responsibility TRAs, Allies and the Handmaidens. I warned my family members over 3 years ago TQs. Now they understand due to the forms they are handling with Gender BS. Most of them are in government services. Quite a few are cops.
The TQs when given OVERWHELMING evidence that they have a saturation of predatory individuals and predators, they continue trying to obfuscate, hide or deny they exist. It's like they are a division of the Marine Corp: Leave no man behind. I refuse to take responsibility TRAs, Allies and the Handmaidens. I warned my family members over 3 years ago TQs. Now they understand due to the forms they are handling with Gender BS. Most of them are in government services. Quite a few are cops.
I still remember what happened when Jonathan Yaniv started getting noticed; Morgane Oger was initially telling him to tone down his public period-fetishizing and pedo crap, trying to spoon-feed him what to say, the standard 'transition is a confusing time and I said some things that could be misinterpreted' weasel words. Yaniv didn't listen, and it was only when everything started blowing up around him that Oger decided to make a big show of 'denouncing' him.
JY was used as bait on Twitter, to try to get a bunch of GC and Radfems react to his Pedophilic musings. It worked. Even Megan Murphy lost her shit over what this Pedophile was saying. That's how she got her permanent band.
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